The Family that is Israel

 

Friday was a special day as we had family come and visit us making the long trek from southern Israel almost to the northern border where the train tracks end and go no further. We had a slow lunch enjoying good company and pleasant conversation enabled by somewhat relaxed service as the place was crowded and the kitchen was probably a place of ordered confusion. But the leisurely service mostly passed notice as we were lost in conversation with my cousin playing the role of translator since she is fluent in a number of languages, or at least in Hebrew and English, which was all that was required. We also took a strolling paced walk to the shuk and they got some fruits and such for their Shabbat and then had to make the trip home so as to arrive before sunset. This visit made me all the more aware of family and the warmth and closeness one can feel when in their company. There is a serenity mixed with enthusiasm and excitement making for a cacophony of emotions which blend making even diametric opposite coexist in a smooth and yielding blend satisfying the soul. This completeness felt from the all too short, as such pleasantries are always too short, time we were enjoying being together also leaves a lingering warmth and joy that makes one aware of other such relations some of which opens one’s eyes to things which otherwise are missed or simply taken for granted.

 

The next Morning, Shabbat morning, I started my trip, a short walk for most but a strenuous traversal which requires a few rest stops at spots now memorized as suitable, to attend services at the synagogue where my Torah Shiur Rabbi presides and leads the Shabbat service after the initial prayers have been chanted and leading to and performing the reading of the Torah and Haftorah. As my wanderings take me past a few other synagogues and there are other worshippers whose paths cross, we often wish one another a polite, and oft friendly, “Shabbat Shalom” and almost always dotted with a warm smile and a brightened countenance from the exchange. But this was but my initial realization that my view may have changed and become brighter, more optimistic and hopeful. The realization and recognition of this transition came upon my arrival slightly before services were to start as I require that I leave some extra time just in case my strolling pace is less efficient than normal, not to imply my walking speed approaches normal. This cemented the realization that in Israel we really are a family just as Torah teaches.

 

The Synagogue I attend may be graced with a Rabbi who speaks both Hebrew and English but for the large part the congregation speaks only Hebrew. Still, despite our language differences the other congregants treat me with warmth and friendship which came home more today as I was sensitized to see and realize the acceptance which has greeted me honestly from the first service I did partake of a Shabbat morning services there. This got me to thinking and realizing the many people who have become like friends at the various stores where we shop. In every store there are those who have taken the initiative to befriend us and make our lives so much easier and, better yet, warmer. Without these friends our lives would be more difficult, not impossible, but more difficult and far more cold. The difficulty would be overcome with technology, cellphone translation software and the fact that money honestly makes people desire to understand you and for more so in a town with mostly smaller family run stores. But even technology has its limits and life would be far less enjoyable without these wonderful people. Yes, there have been exceptions but even some, if not most, of these more difficult people have come around with time and their realization that we have made Aliyah and truly are here to stay. These people have become our extended family. These people we meet in our weekly ritual of shopping are but one family but there are others.

 

There have been developed groups within the Anglo communities which provide social, religious and study groups which add much to enrich the lives of us from the Anglosphere who have made Aliyah to our little corner of Israel. There are Torah study groups, social events around the Jewish holidays, expeditions to the near countless historic and religious sites which exist throughout Israel and other events which are simply for entertainment such as game nights. Much of this is possible as there are a fair number of Anglos who are retired or work via telecommuting thus giving them the time to shift work around events. But the reality is that despite many of us coming from many completely different backgrounds, completely disparate locations both within the separate nations as well as around the globe as the tentacles of the British Empire reaches into the farthest corners of the planet. The camaraderie is unlike anything I have ever experienced even in other Jewish communities. Probably the closest to the trust, cooperation, acceptance and mutual respect I have found in Israel was the camaraderie in my infantry platoon in the military and even there it was not as universal nor was it as close as the feelings and friendships I have found here. The mutual relations amongst our Anglo community are, as one might expect, made all the more obvious by the brightening of each other’s faces when we run into one another in unexpected meetings during our daily travels. The same bright eyed and extra bounce in their step is evident with those who have befriended my wife and I in the locations where we stop and despite the claim that most Israelis do not know how to treat people, customers, the many people we have met have gone to great extents to provide any and all assistance we have ever needed. But it goes further as even when we run into a problem in a store while shopping and there is no one we know to assist, often out of the blue a customer steps up, often a stranger and other times somebody we barely know, such as somebody we have interacted with during other completely unconnected matters, will step forward and take as long as required to make sure that every and anything required has been done to take care of whatever the problem or requirement you needed. Sometimes this even has the effect of the store or wherever you are, going the extra step and finding what it is you requested even after initially believing they had none in stock, a very surprising but not actually all that unusual case, just was not the reputation of the particular instance we recently experienced.

 

The ultimate test of a society is how they react when a person appears distressed, especially somebody they do not know and likely may not have even ever crossed paths. Suffering, as I do from a disability which often limits my ability to walk distances which are embarrassingly short on my worst days that I often end up sitting on low walls or the benches at bus stops and around town, of which there are numerous as this is a resort location, and I am usually breathing rather hard and sweat rather profusely partially from physical exertion and additionally likely due to the cocktail mix of medications physicians assure us are required for our betterment as they will place our blood tests and other medical tests within their preferred ranges. Needless to say, I make quite a site at times when I am out and around and more often than I may be completely comfortable though I am very appreciative and would probably be more ill at ease if things were the opposite and everybody just passed a person in distress by without any concerns sufficient to stop and offer to help. These good citizens will even seek the assist from another to work as a translator just to make sure you are not in need of medical or other assistance. This would have been a real rarity before I made Aliyah as my limitations are far from something new and I had sufficient opportunities to test the situation before reaching Israel.

 

Many of you are probably wondering if I have lost my mind or is there something towards which I am working and you would be correct. As many of us have been reading here there has been a steadily increasing levels of violence with stabbings, vehicular assaults, rock attacks, Temple Mount rioting replete with assaults on the police and some shootings as well. Further, there have been calls from Hamas for Arabs to start using poison on their knives as well as to start utilizing homicidal suicide bombings. The idea behind the terror assaults, the rocket attacks and every other form of attacks against Israeli citizens and the IDF are intended to accomplish two things, first to chase the Jews out and destroy Israel or second to murder every Jews thus destroying Israel. There is absolutely no desire to actually form an Arab nation called Palestine unless it replaces Israel after which Fatah and Hamas allied with Islamic Jihad will fight to see who gets to rule on their state founded on the corpses of the six-million plus Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Interestingly enough it often appears that the Europeans and the United States State Department and others from all over the globe, as indicated when the General Assembly voted to accord an Arab state of Palestine non-Member Observer State status in the United Nations with one-hundred-thirty-eight in favor and nine against which were Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, Palau, United States and with forty-one nations abstaining. One-hundred-thirty-eight nations decided to recognize an Arab state which has refused to accept any offer for a state from the initial offer in 1948 to have the lands divided evenly between Israel and an Arab state, and again including a series of times during the last weeks of the Clinton Administration while President Willian Jefferson Clinton worked with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offering over ninety percent of Judea and Samaria with the remainder covered through land swaps as well as all of Eastern Jerusalem including all of the Old City and the Temple Mount even to include the Western Wall and the plaza before it where Jews currently pray as close as possible to the location of the Holy First and Second Temples on the Temple Mount. Then there was the nineteen years when the lands were occupied by Jordan in Judea and Samaria and Egypt in Gaza when there was no desires, claims, votes at the United Nations or calls about occupation over the presence of Jordan and Egypt in the lands now being recognized by the United Nations as an independent nation with overwhelming accordance.

 

The reason which will stop the aims of Fatah, PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO plus additionally Iran and the Islamic State who have also expressed their desire to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, or the Zionist Entity if one listens to their propaganda, is this family feelings between the majority of Israelis and particularly within the religious Zionist community which has been and continues to gain new adherents every day. Even in Israel there are those in the political classes who are attempting to take whatever they can to prevent the eventual surge in the religious Zionist camp from coming to the forefront and take control of the Knesset and the office of Prime Minister. What has been holding these groups back have been efforts to subvert their rising power in the right wing parties, a conflict here in Israel which might come close to the same resurgence in the United States of religious right in the Republican Party. It is just with the political zoo of parties in Israel such subversion is sometimes accomplished by some being driven by the old party power structures while others are lost through the foolish rivalries within this community which in too many cases are due to differences too insignificant for many to even understand. But politics are the same across the world and often make little sense to the average person but apparently are humongous in the political realms. Politics aside, in the real world within Israel, as best as I have been able to discern, there is an attitude which bodes well for the future and the taking on the challenges no matter what the world might try to throw our way. It took close to two-thousand years for the Jewish People to return to our ancient homeland making Israel the first nation to return into existence from exile twice (thrice if the four-hundred years of slavery in Egypt) and one of the few peoples to keep their original language and genetic integrity while in such an extended existence spread over as many differing nations as was the case of the Jewish People. This was extremely well worded in a recent article we read where it was simply stated,

 

“Israel, rooted in the Jewish people as an Abrahamic people, is a prototypical First Nation or aboriginal people, just as the Jewish religion is a prototypical aboriginal religion, the first of the Abrahamic religions. In a word, the Jewish people is the only people that still inhabits the same land, embraces the same religion, studies the same Torah, hearkens to the same prophets, speaks the same aboriginal language – Hebrew – and bears the same aboriginal name, Israel, as it did 3,500 years ago.”

 

The central congealing, central, and treasured truth which held these numerous communities was Torah. Torah cemented our history. Torah preserved our language (even if many of us have yet to remaster our ancient language, the language from where the first two letters, Aleph and Bet gave the English language the word ‘alphabet’). Torah retained our laws. Torah safeguarded our covenant with Hashem reminding us of our special responsibility to work the lands of Eretz Yisroel. Torah gave us hope during the darkest hours. Torah also challenged us through the ages to be better people despite the events which were often collapsing around us. Torah taught us the importance of reading and study. And Torah steeled us to remember our roots in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Exodus with Moses and the entirety of our history and some of the wisest and most sagely rules and advice on life, relations and virtually any situation we might encounter in life. It was the Ten Commandments and the rules establishing moral codes establishing the basis for Judeo-Christian society and the teachings of Psalms and Proverbs which filled out the basis for conscience and morality when most of the world still worshipped idols sacrificing children and others before great stone edifices.

 

 

Ten Commandments
Arranged in Hebrew
Reading from Right to Left
with English Translations
Underneath the Hebrew

 

Much of the basis for a just society was everything opposed by the Nazis as evidenced in this song sung by the Hitler Youth;

“We are the joyous Hitler youth
We do not need any Christian virtue
Our leader is our savior
The Pope and Rabbi shall be gone
We want to be pagans once again.”

That about says it all and many in the Arab Palestinian leadership and the leaders in Iran and other Arab and Muslim nations, terror groups, Islamic religious organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the anti-Semites, anti-Israel and anti-Zionists such as the leaders and members of the Islamic State all share an admiration for Hitler’s and the Nazis’ stand on exterminating the Jews with a special note for perhaps one of the main influences to inculcate these thoughts and concepts into Islamic and especially Arab Palestinian thought was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Hussein, the man who mentored Yasser Arafat and had a great deal of influence on Mahmoud Abbas who all dream of causing another Shoah, another Holocaust while a number which includes some of the Iranian leaders, other Arab and Muslim leaders both political and religious, as well as some like Mahmoud Abbas whose doctoral thesis revolved around a version of Holocaust denial. A few final thoughts which need telling, the Arab Palestinians are being fed lies about their state being denied them by the Jews in Israel as it is their leadership which will only accept replacing a destroyed Israel and placing their nation on the corpses of six-million plus Jews and the people, especially those being forced to remain in refugee camps are all being denied basic human rights by the Arabs who refuse to assist their brethren as they would hurt and impose hardship on generation after generation in the hope these refugees descendants will be permitted to flood Israel and vote their subjugation of all the Israeli Jews when they elect the leader who will surrender the lands to the Arab Palestinian state ending any two state solution making all the land between the Jordan River and the Sea one Arab nation and the Jews in Israel stand ready to enforce their idea which is summed up in a single concept, “Never Again!” As we actually are a family whose tree dates back to Abraham and Sarah over four thousand years ago, and yes such things matter and they matter to our family greatly.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

A Test of True Zionism, Yerushalayim

 

The true test of a Zionist and of Zionism generally lies with the answer to a single question, where does your heart lie when you think of a Jewish State. There is but one acceptable answer, ‘My heart lies with Jerusalem and with the building within of the Temple, the Throne of G0d.’ This is true as we proclaim every year at the end of our Passover Seder in every Jewish home, “Next year in Jerusalem.” The final truth lies within Psalms in the powerful words within the lines to the “Song of Babylon” written in Psalm 137 which reads:

1) By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2) Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps.
3) For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth.
4) How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?
5) If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6) Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I fail to count Jerusalem the greatest of all my joys.
7) Remember, O LORD, against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; who said: ‘Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof.’
8) O daughter of Babylon, you will be destroyed! A blessing on anyone who pays you back for the way you treated us!
9) A blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and smashes them against a rock!

This is the test which the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu as there will be calls from much of Europe and the Western World with a few notable exceptions; Canada will oppose such a demand be lain upon Israel for as long as Stephen Harper remains their Prime Minister and likely carried on for as long as his Conservative Party holds on to power in the Canadian elections. There is also a strong possibility that Great Britain will also not favor the division of Jerusalem providing the Israelis put forward a strong face of determination to never allow the dividing of their Capital City or the loss of the Temple Mount and all the importance which that holds. Other than these two it would fall to any conservative or traditional party to take the lead for any other nation to oppose such a demand. The crux of why this may become an immediate crisis belongs to President Barack Obama who as the leader of the United States will be left to direct and dictate the manner that United States Ambassador Samantha Power will vote and whether or not she would utilize the United States veto power to block any Security Council Resolutions which would call for Israel to return to the Green Line which describes the armistice lines from the 1948 – 1949 War launched by over a half dozen Arab States to annihilate the nascent State of Israel which divided Jerusalem. Many wish to demand that Israel grant Eastern Jerusalem to the Arabs to use as the capital for their state, ignoring the fact that Israel annexed the entirety of Jerusalem after reuniting the two halves of Jerusalem in 1967 and by doing so included all the Arab residents who had resided under the Jordanian occupation permanent resident status which makes the individual to hold all rights as an Israeli citizen with the exception of political rights. The Israelis actually are only required to grant any Arabs or other non-Jews all rights but withhold political rights according to the San Remo Conference and the British Mandate, both included as valid by the United Nations Charter in Article 80. Israel went as far as to grant the former Jordanian citizens who were included in the reunification annexation of Eastern Jerusalem partial political rights when they were permitted voting rights in Jerusalem city elections. This one further indication proving that all of Jerusalem belongs to Israel and it will never be permitted peaceably to be torn in half; to this too do we say “Never Again!”

 

Any government which would permit the division of Jerusalem will find itself on the wrong side of the people of Israel who in polling have supported and demanded that Jerusalem remain unified and the Capital City of Israel for this time and forevermore into the future and never ending usually surpassing 75% and even reaching over 90% in numerous local polling. Thus we can easily conclude that any platform which supports the division of Jerusalem as one of their main planks in their platform can forget gaining a majority no matter what their social programs or other money promised to particular groups in order to convert their opposition to splitting Jerusalem muted while they are a part of the coalition such a party might manage to make. The problem is that such a government would be extremely unstable for as soon as a vote came to permit the splitting of Jerusalem or the making of Jerusalem an ‘International City’ presumably managed and run by an agency of the United Nations the promises made not to vote against such a resolution brought before the Knesset would probably not be honored by a significant number of Ministers from such parties who would vote against any such resolution. Furthermore, the Israeli Supreme Court has recognized the annexation of Jerusalem and thus they also might step in to invalidate anything passed through the Knesset and signed by the Prime Minister making any such deal void and without support by the government without opposing the Supreme Court and facing dissolution of the government and new elections. This would place the central issue of the ensuing campaign the division of Jerusalem and losing any possibility that the rights of Jews to visit holy sites in the Old City and around and on the Temple Mount as once the Arabs have control over Eastern Jerusalem such attempts by Jews to visit these sights would result in their death as soon as they were identified. This situation itself, and such extremes required to visit other holy sites described above, are sufficient to reject any proposal for peace which would preclude access by any Israeli to the Temple Mount or the numerous holy sites of Judea and Samaria.

 

That brings up the other point which is often claimed about the universality of the holy sites and their access being guaranteed for all peoples. This was part of the claim made when the IDF was pulled from Hevron and the majority of the city was relegated to Arab control. This required the strong presence of Israeli security personnel to keep the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Cave of Machpelah, in order to make it safe for Israelis to visit this holy site. The worst case scenario comes from Joseph’s Tomb, Kever Yoseph (Hebrew: קבר יוסף) which is located in the outskirts of Nablus and is completely within Arab areas of control, as they enjoy an almost completely autonomous region within the parts of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) of Area A and B, which according to all agreements is a place of holy pilgrimage or visitation for prayers and other religious purposes and is set apart as to be made available and safe passage to and from this holy place of great importance to the Jews. The reality is something completely different. There is one visit permitted each month, with permitted being very loosely defined, which is arranged by the IDF were one or two busses, heavily armored made bullet proof and strongly reinforced to withstand mines, and a convoy of IDF troops fully armed for security who escort the few fortunate visitors to the tomb somewhat after midnight and steal away back to the safety of Israeli governed lands making very sure they have left at least an hour before sunrise. Even with this covert action there have been times when the convoy was set upon and for reasons of security the trip is cancelled and a retreat to safety becomes the main objective. The trip can be cancelled right before they were to depart if IDF intelligence reports that trouble such as an ambush is a definitive probability. Part of the time spent at each visit is used to cleanup and repair as much of the destruction done to the tomb since the previous month’s visit, whether it was a single month or three or more months since the last visit. The tomb is violated every time after the Israelis try to make it presentable and given the honor it deserves and the Arabs apparently do similarly but have little respect or honor felt towards Kever Yoseph.

 

The manner and security required for visits to Joseph’s tomb, Rachel’s Tomb, Kever Rachel (Hebrew: קבר רחל), which is a place where women will visit for special prayers the first of each Hebrew calendar month and also require heavy security as it is located northern outskirts of Bethlehem which is within the disputed areas and under shared Arab and Israeli security and Arab semi-autonomous rule and this often leads to the Jewish women being assaulted with rocks and other items hurled at them which most often do not strike within the high walls placed around Rachel’s grave and the women are completely safe within the rebuilt dome which grants them freedom from assault as they pray and neaten the area making the tomb a more honored place. This would be the requirement and limitations placed on the Temple Mount and the Western and other walls of the Temple Mount, the final point of defense in days which are hopefully permanently behind us as Jerusalem deserves a future free of strife and sacking as has been its unfortunate history and may Jerusalem never again feel deserted by her faithful servants whose hearts are gladdened by a visit to her ancient walls and its grasping for a degree of modernity. Israel must demand that all of Jerusalem remain under complete Israeli rule as it has only been since June 1967 that every religion is permitted their rights to visit the Temple Mount and witness the city, both its centuries old buildings intermixed in areas with modern structure thankfully mostly in a style which has them more blend than clash with their surroundings. Let us end with the most remembered lines from Psalm 137 lines 5 and 6 as they speak strongly and resonate at least in this Israeli’s heart, mind and especially and primarily my soul.

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I fail to count Jerusalem the greatest of all my joys.

 

Beyond the Cusp

Israel Under the Gun as World Tightens Trigger

 

There are numerous fronts where Israel is under assault and all threaten the legitimacy of Israeli claims to lands defined as belonging to the Jewish State by International Law. Yes, we’re back to the San Remo Conference and Treaty and the legitimacy of its contents accepted by the world by means of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. The sole means by which any lands are to be removed from the official boundaries of the State of Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River is by treaty made, approved and signed by Israel. The Oslo Accords demanded discussion to forming a Palestinian entity within these lands and were to be terminated by the year 2000. It was in the year 2000 when Israel made her most generous offer through efforts extended by United States President William Jefferson Clinton which included almost 95% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Eastern Jerusalem as its Capital City. This was the effort which Yasser Arafat declined even to make a counter offer and stalked out of the talks in Paris and continued refusing entreaties made at Taba, Egypt January21, 2001 to January 27, 2001 as President Clinton, with complete cooperation and willingness from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to concede to virtually any compromise required to make a peace deal, made final proffers. All advances and offerings were left refused without even the slightest hint regarding what made the proposed deals unworkable and with Israeli elections were coming the final tender was communicated on January 27, 2001 with an addendum that this was the final opportunity to reach an agreement and still only silence from the Palestinians.

 

This lack of acceptance will forever be contemplated seeking any logical reason for Yasser Arafat’s refusal of an offer which met every last demand, which included the eastern half of Jerusalem along with 95% of the ‘West Bank’ lands and all of Gaza, Arafat had demanded for him to accept such a deal in his private meeting with United States President Clinton, which eventually brought forth the offer to meet every demand expressed to President Clinton granted grudgingly, but full hopes for the promised final peace agreement by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. If ever a deal was to be made, this would have been the best moment and greatest offer but Yasser Arafat had to refuse this deal or any deal which did not also include the remainder of the lands between the River and the Sea, that is Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, as that is the actual claim of the so-called ‘Palestinian’ the actual and only acceptable claim for their imaginary land of ‘Palestine’, as accepting anything less as the final deal will always be unacceptable. The only manner in which even a deal which is backed by the rest of the planet Earth and all the leaders within including the entirety of the expressed demands for two States for two Peoples living side by side in peace and security would be accepted is if the offer is interpreted by the Palestinian leadership as an accord and not necessarily the final peace allowing for the Palestinians to continue their war of attrition through the use of terrorism and subterfuge towards their final desires of all of Palestine from the River to the Sea, exactly as chanted endlessly by their advocates and provocateurs on college and university campuses across the Western World. Now the world in its numerous formations and connivances is collectively working to force the demarcation of a State of Palestine by force upon Israel without the inconvenience of an actual treaty ending the violence, assaults and provocations by the Arab Palestinians or resolving once and for all the demands for the liberation of the remainder of the land of Israel by Arab Palestinian terrorist and political intrigues and subversions.

 

The first real and cast in cement, not quite stone, was the refusal to issue a birth certificate for Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Naomi Siegman for their son, Menachem Binyamin, to have his passport, United States birth certificate and other documents requested from the State Department to show Israel as his country of birth as he was born in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital in western Jerusalem. The United States Department of State current policy requires that Menachem Binyamin’s and any other children’s passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (equivalent of a birth certificate) only show that their place of birth as Jerusalem without any mention or denotation of nation so as not to imply that United States policy has changed in regards to the final claims to the city of Jerusalem. So now the United States Department of State does not recognize Western Jerusalem as part of Israel but rather as contested lands. First step in the assault on Israel and the eventual dissolution of the entirety of the Jewish State, a desire the State Department has advised and remained as their policy that Israel not be treated as an actual State, and actual nation replete with the normative respects and treatments legal and otherwise as granted every other nation. All of this controversy despite law passed in 2002 by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush providing for children born in Jerusalem and being United States citizens by birth to have their birth listed Israel as their birthplace; what could be more obvious and simple.

 

This Sunday, May 18, 2015, Pope Francis will canonize four nuns who include Sister Maria Baouardy and Sister Mary Alphonsine Danil as well as the 19th-century nuns Sister Jeanne Emilie de Villeneuve, from France, and Sister Maria Cristina dell’Immacolata of Italy. Sister Maria Baouardy and Sister Mary Alphonsine Danil Ghattas will be canonized denoting them as being the first Palestinians to be so honored. This is only the first of the official offences to Israel coming from the Vatican this weekend. Already Pope Frances has met with Mahmoud Abbas referencing Abbas as being an “angel of peace” during the traditional exchange of gifts at the end of an official audience in the Apostolic Palace. This is far from the first slight by this Pope. Pope Francis on his first trip to the region met first with Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem making numerous complimentary statements toward Abbas and the Arab Palestinians which was followed by a processions by Pope Francis with an ‘unplanned,’ ‘unscripted’ and ‘completely random’ stop to pray and contemplate for peace standing before a section of the security barrier which was adorned with graffiti which compared Bethlehem with the Warsaw Ghetto, called for Palestine to be Free and various other similar references arranged in such a manner that a central space was left clear as if planned for somebody to stand in that exact spot for a photo shoot, how unbelievable fortunate this random choice came to fruition. Pope Francis presented Mahmoud Abbas with a medallion explaining that it represented the “angel of peace destroying the bad spirit of war.” Now the Pope will make saints out of two nuns presenting them as having lived in the state of Palestine despite the truth that they resided and worked in the Province of Greater Syria within the Ottoman Empire and not in any pretend state of Palestine. To make reference to Palestine, Israel, Jordan or Lebanon during this period is simply theater of the absurd. But when have such small inconveniences such as reality and facts gotten in the way of making reference to the Palestinians and their claims against Israel ever caused the slightest of difficulties. Had the Pope really have desired to make reference to any form of Palestine he might have chosen to Canonize as saints some figures from the period when Emperor Hadrian of the Roman Empire renamed all of the “Provincia Judaea” as “Provincia Syria Palaestina” which is far closer to Palestine and did occur during the time of the early Christians though it was slightly before the birth of actual Catholicism. The final slight it has been announced that Pope Francis will be making a treaty with the State of Palestine. The Vatican announced this past week that the final touches were being applied to an accord summarizing the Catholic Church and its life and its activities in Palestine which “will be submitted to the respective authorities for approval ahead of setting a date in the near-future for the signing.”

 

Perhaps a brief summary of the lives of Sister Maria Baouardy and Sister Mary Alphonsine Danil Ghattas is in order. Sister Maria Baouardy received her beatification by St. John Paul II in 1983. She was born into the Melchite Greek Catholic Church in 1846, in a village near Nazareth in the Province of Syria within the Ottoman Empire. Sister Baouardy went on to join the Carmel of Pau in France and was subsequently assigned to India where she founded several convents, before retiring to Bethlehem where she died in 1878. This was quite an accomplishment as she was an illiterate which must have presented Sister Baouardy with great challenges. The Vatican has noted that Sister Baouardy “experienced many sufferings together with extraordinary mystic phenomena” from an early age. Sister Mary Alphonsine Danil Ghattas led a somewhat less travelled life being born in Jerusalem in 1843; she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition at the age of fifteen. Sister Ghattas subsequently founded the Congregation of Sisters of the Most Holy Rosary of Jerusalem where she “worked tirelessly to help young people and Christian mothers,” according to statements from the Vatican.

 

In the United Nations Security Council the French delegates will be presenting for consideration a resolution setting the borders for a Palestinian State using the pre Six Day War in June of 1967 boundaries, also called the Green Line, with mutually agreed swaps and to designate Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state, a dangerous wording if there ever was one. By making any exchange of territories subject to mutual agreement all Mahmoud Abbas need do is meet every proposal for an exchange of lands and amending the borders with the same silence utilized so efficiently to avoid making any nature of agreement to force Israel to abandon even the main settlement blocks and repatriate almost one million Israelis taking them in homeless and also probably unemployed should they have also worked in their neighborhood or region close to their residence. This would place a financial burden upon Israel which would take decades to recover from and place a hardship beyond measure of the entirety of Israel, but that only makes such a refusal all the more tantalizing. Responding to the information of the French resolution Abbas stated during a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), “We do not need more decisions that then fail to be implemented. It is known that we have 12 resolutions passed by the Security Council, including resolutions endorsed by America, but despite these calls for de-colonization no progress has been made.” He of course failed to mention why no progress has been made as that would have also meant his taking responsibility for the failure of progress due to his intransigence and refusal to accept any agreement which does not include the replacement of Israel, all of Israel from the River to the Sea, by Palestine and for that area to be voided of any Jewish presence. This is the small truth that has been ignored and will continue to be ignored as it does not fit the agenda that Israel is the impediment to peace. Anything which contradicts the ‘it is all Israel’s fault’ line of reasoning originally endorsed and forwarded for the world to adopt by the Europeans and passively accepted by the United States, especially the State Department, and definitely adopted by the Arab League has made Mahmoud Abbas using the silent treatment and refusal to sign any agreement and also never present in a formal proposal what would be acceptable and gain his signature while permitting the world to assume he merely desires the ‘pre 67 lines with East Jerusalem as its Capital’ when he desires exactly the same as his predecessor Yasser Arafat, the desire of Palestine replacing all of Israel with all its Jews removed or resolved by whatever means prove necessary including another holocaust style genocide. Abbas will gladly and silently allow for the French resolution be applied and forced upon Israel as by refusing to respond to all Israeli entreats he knows the world will force Israel to meet what they believe falsely is exactly what Abbas has agreed with.

 

This agreement they put so much faith in has been fashioned without ever receiving Abbas’s signature or even a whisper of compliance or agreement. They have received his smiling façade which he puts on as part of his suit and tie, the face for the Westerners is understood by every Arab Palestinian as it is not his revolutionary face which they see when he claims that ‘from the River to the Sea Palestine must be free’ and every denunciation of the Jews and how the Israelis will foolishly fall before the requests that he allows the rest of the world to enforce despite his actual statements to Arab audiences as it is impossible to translate Arabic to English and get an accurate translation. Abbas calls for the end of Israel and the death of the Jews in Arabic and the West translates it to match the United States Department of State official translation which reads, ‘Abbas, the great maker of peace, desires minimal amounts from Israel, just the slightest of sacrifice, just the West Bank and East Jerusalem, nothing more and accommodating swaps of land he has said nothing against such things.’ There is truth in their translation when they claim that Abbas has said nothing officially to them against such an agreement, they ignore that he has actually said nothing, nothing for, nothing against, nothing at all. There is no agreement when one side refuses to even grant an answer as to whether or not they will sign such a treaty. But that is where this United Nations Security Council is such a gift to Abbas, it demands Israel to meet the demands of the Western Nations and their belief of what constitutes a fair resolution to the problem, never does it claim to have the agreement from the Arabs, especially Abbas, it just claims that Israel must sacrifice for peace. Abbas has never promised peace, he has only promised misery. His promise is for misery when possible for Israel through the coopting of the Western weakness to stand up to his aggressions and misery for the Arab Palestinians because of the corruption and kleptocrats who feed and gorge themselves on Western monies which they send millions upon millions and even now billions and trillions. They blame Israel because the trillions they have granted to Gaza has not rebuilt or built replacement housing ignoring that almost all the concrete and rebar and other building materials have been confiscated and utilized to rebuild the tunnels even better, deeper, larger, many more in numbers and reaching further under Israel readying for the war this summer which will bring Hamas and Islamic Jihad more supplies for even more and deeper tunnels eventually reaching the depths of, well, you know.

 

What will the West do when the forces under ISIS take over the terror state in Gaza as they have sworn to be their primary responsibility for their forces in the Sinai Peninsula? Will the trillion of Euros and Dollars continue to flow even to ISIS as long as they promise war and destruction on Israel? Of course the funds will flow and attacks upon Israeli civilians including women, children and the elderly and all in between, both Jewish and Arab, Christian and Muslim, any who reside within Israel are legitimate targets. Will such matter or will they ignore to whom the trillion to rebuild the terror infrastructure continues while the attention is on forcing Israel out of Judea and Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem. Never mind that this places the holiest places in all of Judaism outside of the reach of Jewish prayers and they will be too far to see the Jewish tears but they will in the still moments harken to the Jewish sobbings and lamentations as they have always heard and in time there will be an answer and Israel will be able to rejoice the coming of the Mashiach (Messiah), the restoration which His coming promises and the final coming of the Mashiach will bring peace, lasting peace for as long as we can foresee into the future. But those thoughts are the highest of hopes of which we know not their timing. We can pray and attempt to deserve the Mashiach, but we have no way of foreseeing or bringing about this deliverance, His deliverance. Unlike what the Ayatollahs claim they can do which will bring their messiah, by creating a world of conflict where all the cities burn and all peoples suffer the depredations and chaos of all-out war across the entirety of mankind, that is their desire and why they have the need for nuclear weapons, to make the world burn. That is also the aim of Hamas and ISIS and too many others who promise a world in flames on their way to world domination. The desire to rule the world did not die with the Romans, nor did it die with the end of the Crusades or the Ottoman conquest. The desire to rule the world is alive and thriving across much of the Arab world and in Asia and Russia. There may be others who so aspire but the Western world believes such desire has died simply because they have reached the reformation that amongst all its beliefs includes that the destruction accompanying the desire to rule the world makes such undesirable if not also impossible as the weapons required would destroy the world making ruling it a pyrrhic victory.

 

Beyond the Cusp