It’s hard to believe that the Religious Right spent one entire year moving to impeach President Clinton for uttering one harmless lie that he didn’t have sex with Monica Lewinsky. Then they swift boated John Kerry out of office by claiming that he not only didn’t win 3 purple hearts, but he was never even in Vietnam, while George Bush was valiantly leading the American Air Force in Vietnam. President Bush is an alcoholic deserter and pathological liar. Jesus must be rolling over in his tomb that this liar is leading a Christian Crusade to massacre every Muslim and reclaim the Holy Land for Jesus as the Pope did in his famous Crusade 1000 years ago next Wednesday. Perhaps if the American troops had sprinkled a little anthrax on one of Saddam Hussein’s suits when they captured his palaces things might not be so bad today. Yesterday I purchased one of Saddam Hussein’s white shirts on eBay for $66.66. I’m going to wear it on my wedding night. When my fiancé asks me why I have the initials S.H. monogrammed on my cuffs, (sex with the lights on is so much better, don’t you think?), I’m going to tell him that Paris Hilton gave me the shirt, and the S.H. stands for “So Hot”. Barring any episodes of premature ejaculation over my wearing one of Paris’ shirts, the evening holds vast potential oil reserves, 2/3 of the world’s oil to be exact.

When people mention that the United States of America is spewing 25% of the world’s pollution into the air, and people in Denver are choking to death on the smog, the little evil grinning shape shifting child in the oval office simply says, “There is no such thing as global warming.” Let him say that next year when the polar ice caps melt and his ranch in Crawford Texas is under 50 feet of water permanently. Swift boat that you imbecile. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck M.D., who sold 5 million copies of “The Road Less Traveled”, says in his book “People of the Lie” that the lies of the Deevil are endless and obvious. This brutal tyrant’s latest lie is that the United States went into Iraq 6) to spread Democracy to the Middle East, to make America safer. He sets up a puppet Iraqi government in the Green Zone. Then at the G8 he tells Putin that Russia should have a democracy like Iraq. Putin says, “I would never want to have a democracy like Iraq.” Had he said this at a White House press briefing, the press would have sat silently aghast like the little tin soldiers that they are. At the G8 press conference, the journalists laughed so hard that some of them fell off of their chairs and rolled around on the floor howling. Bushwacker has made himself and the United States of America the laughing stock of the World so badly that Ahmanidejad and Kim Jong Il the leader of munchkinland are daring the U.S. into a world war. Perhaps if the wizard could give the President a brain, he could while away the hours, contemplating flowers, if he only had a brain.

How can you trust a guy who walks from the helicopter to the White House like he just came from his posture lesson at the physiotherapist? He 7) went to Iraq to spread Democracy to the Middle East to make America safer. George Bush is the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar Salad and Ehud Olmert is his puppet Governor Pontius Pilate in case you have been paying attention. The Palestinians are the Jews in Israel 2000 years ago under Roman occupation. This would make the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah the King of the Jews, Jesus Christ come to smash the occupying Roman armies as prophesied in Psalm 2 of your Holy Bible. The United States and Israel have in the past 2 weeks smashed to the ground the democratically elected governments of Palestine and Lebanon, all the while blaming Syria and Iran. Why could the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein keep order in Iraq and Al Qaeda out of Iraq while democracy in Iraq has brought anarchy to Iraq and provided a training ground and recruitment center for Al Qaeda in Iraq? Is tyranny the only practical form of governing human beings?

Every story has a beginning, middle and an end. It’s like J. Lo. Soon you will see the real reason that America went into Iraq. Israel is about to bomb Damascus. Iran has vowed to protect Syria. Syria will be forced into using their chemical weapons. This will give Alexander the Bush the excuse to take the gloves off and unleash his full nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal upon the Muslim people and conquer the Middle East for America, turning the Gulf into Lake George. We are talking legacies here. America will then have enough money to add both Bushes and Jesus to Mount Rushmore. Then Jesus will congratulate President Bush in Jerusalem for converting the world to Christianity, and Ann Coulter can blame the 9/11 widow harpies for almost costing the United States of America the Middle East. Russia, China, and the United States will divide up the Middle East, just as they did Berlin. We are talking about the Apocalypse, the Genocide of 1 billion innocent Muslim men, women and children, the people who the Christian Right refers to as IslamoFascists, IslamoNazis. Who are the real Nazis? Satan, The Father of Lies was to come disguised as the Prince of Peace. Mathematically speaking not every prophecy can be wrong. After all, someone in Sun magazine did predict that Tori Spelling’s marriage wouldn’t work out.

by Karen Fish

“Israel is the guard dog of America’s plans for Middle East.” This is how noted journalist and documentary maker John Pilger has described America-Israel relation. United States of America is the principal patron of Israel which continues to receive nearly 40 percent of all American foreign aid. Most of this aid has been granted since 1967 when Israel occupied the territories of Palestinians and other Arab nations. America is expected to provide Israel with $30 billion in military aid between 2008 and 2017. In fact this excessive level of absolute diplomatic, financial, military and moral support to Israeli occupation forces and their policies are not unconditional. American support comes from the recognition of how Israel supports their strategic interests in the Middle East and beyond. Therefore, when reputed human rights groups have observed that the majority of violent actions have come from Israeli occupation forces and settlers, America have always found only the Palestinians to blame. America does not really want peace in the region. Its absence of will is exposed by the dual role it is playing – as the chief mediator of the conflict as well as the chief supporter of Israel’s atrocious crimes in Palestine.

From the earliest days, the Israeli state had used its mighty war machine and shrewd calculations to dominate the region. To fulfill their insatiable appetite for Palestinian land and in order to dominate the Middle East, Israeli’s political establishment has tried to dump indigenous Palestinians from the course of history by either denying or suppressing their identities and has cunningly planned to drive the Arab states into frequent confrontation and wars. Decades of Israeli occupation has compelled the Palestinians to have total economic dependence on Israel. All aspects of Palestinian economy including its workforces are in complete control of Israel. This has enabled Israel to impose economic blockade at will whenever Israel considered squeezing Palestinians. Agriculture has also suffered enormously due to this blockade as the occupied territories largely depend on Israel to vend their products. In many areas farmers could not even work on the fields due to Israeli military seizure. As with everything else, Israel always describe the blockade as a ‘measure to defend itself’ from Palestinian violence.

The birth of the conflict and the subsequent ongoing events are unique, multi-layered and highly complicated in nature. With the disintegration and collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the end of the First World War, the League of Nations in a slapdash manner shared the former Ottoman Arab territories between the constituent ‘great power’ nations as pieces of cake. The rights of the indigenous people of the region received no attention at all during this distribution process. While all the other territories became fully independent states in due course, the British rulers who were allocated with the Palestine territory had a different scheme in their mind. Instead of supporting a sovereign Palestine state of the Arabs, the British Government discretely assured their support to Zionist Organization leaders for ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ and to ‘use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object’. The Zionist leaders were fervently campaigning to ‘create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law’, an idea originally formulated by Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement. From the beginning, the ultimate intention of the Zionist’s was to create a Jewish State in Palestine. Palestine was the chosen territory due to its ‘historical connection’ with the biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) – the holy land where their ancestors had once lived two thousand years ago before dispersing into the ‘Diaspora’.

During the end of the nineteenth century, Jews were immigrating to Palestine in small groups for purely religious reasons. But from 1922 soon after the First World War ended, large-scale Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe started to enter and settle in Palestine territories. From 1930, the numbers ascended extensively and brought an exodus of Jews from Germany and other European countries when the Nazis started hounding of the Jews. Quite naturally, the influx of immigrant Jews caused grave discontentment to the Arabs whose ancestors had been settled in this land for almost 2000 years. They viewed the invasion as a violation of their natural and absolute rights and reacted violently. Demands for independence and resistance against the Jewish influx led to a Palestinian rebellion in 1936. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in the region followed by enduring clashes between Palestinians and Jews. The Jews retaliated against the Palestinian assaults through Haganah, a covert paramilitary force that will later develop into the modern Israeli army. The British Government initiated large scale military action against the Palestinian nationalist guerrillas. When violence ravaged Palestinian situation became too intricate to manage, the British coolly handed over the ‘Palestinian problem’ to the United Nations in 1947.

The United Nations did acknowledged the natural rights of the Palestinian people but strangely, proposed for a partition of Palestine into two independent States – one for Palestinian Arabs and the other for the Jewish immigrants. The UN initiative could attain nothing as in 1948, the Jews abruptly declared independence with the foundation of the State of Israel. The Arab countries refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and soon the Arab-Israeli war broke out. Israelis called this fierce conflict as War of Independence and the Palestinians call it the Nakba (catastrophe). In the rapacious urge to seize all of Palestine, Israeli army occupied 77 percent of the territory of Palestine including larger parts of Jerusalem and forced out more than half of the indigenous Palestinian population from their homeland by applying brutal force. Those who remained were deprived from all their rights and freedom including their national identity and held as hostages by Israel’s systematic oppression, settler colonization and cruel occupation.

Since then, the Palestinian people are struggling to regain their lost rights. Most of the 5 million Palestinian ‘stateless’ refugees are now living in various neighboring Middle Eastern countries like Syria, Lebanon and Egypt; many are still living in refugee camps. Twenty-two percent of all Palestinian refugees are currently in Gaza Strip. Though the Resolution 194 of United Nation General Assembly had declared in December 1948 that the ‘refugees wishing to return to their homes…..should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date’, Israel has refused the return of displaced Palestinians to their homeland. Israel has an unmatched record of defying the maximum number of United Nations resolutions, even more than big brother America. The Palestine-Israel conflict cannot be fixed without resolving the Palestinian refugee question.

In 1967, following a comprehensive six-day war with three neighboring Arab countries; Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. Though later, the Sinai Peninsula was eventually returned to Egypt through a peace agreement between the two countries (Israel completed its withdrawal only in 1982), the rest of the two territories are still occupied by Israel. About three million Palestinians are living in these two areas, surrounded by Israeli settlements.

West Bank and Gaza Strip are the only two territories that Palestinians are demanding today as their future Palestine State. One must keep in mind that the two territories represent only 22 percent of the original, pre-Israel Palestine. Subsequent to the Oslo Accords signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel, a five years interim Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was formed in 1994. The organization was responsible to administer some rural areas and major cities in West Bank and Gaza Strip. Unfortunately the PNA rule was tainted by corruption charges. Its stalwart leader Yasser Arafat was losing his authority and control over the people of Palestine who started to sense him as ineffective. PNA was fast losing popularity to the Islamic hardliner group Hamas. Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections in Gaza Strip against Fatah – the largest faction of the former Palestine Liberation Organization has greatly undermined the significance of PNA. Though the PNA president and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas runs the Palestinian part of West Bank he has no influence or control on Gaza.

After the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel started to withdraw its forces from the Palestine populated parts of West Bank (17 percent of total West Bank land) but soon started putting up a 703 kilometer long barrier encircling major Palestinian urban areas. On the pretext to ‘safeguard Jewish residents of the State of Israel’, the Israeli government developed a philosophy of forced separation between ‘us and them’. This multi-layered separation barrier comprises barbed fences, vehicle-barrier trenches, high concrete walls and 500 checkpoints. Palestinians residing in West Bank are restricted from free movement, access to water sources, medical aid, education and other essential services. Large areas of fertile agricultural land was seized from Palestinian peasants and eventually destroyed to build the barrier. A 2004 Amnesty International report describes the condition of the Palestinians in West Bank and the effects of the Israeli barrier:

The fence/wall is not being built between Israel and the Occupied Territories but mostly (close to 90%) inside the West Bank, turning Palestinian towns and villages into isolated enclaves, cutting off communities and families from each other, separating farmers from their land and Palestinians from their places of work, education and health care facilities and other essential services.

The condition of the Gaza Strip is even worse. Gaza is one of the most densely populated and poorest areas of the world with little water or natural resources. The territory was occupied and governed by Israel from 1967 to 2005. During this period six thousand Israeli settlers have occupied about one-third area (including the military bases and bypass roads) of Gaza and one million subjugated Palestinians are squeezed into the other two thirds. Like in West Bank, Israel also left Gaza for the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo Accords. On 2005, the Israeli cabinet formally declared to withdraw its military rule in Gaza but stationed military troops surrounding the territory. With electronic fences and military posts, Gaza is tightly sealed from the outside world and has been turned into a massive prison ghetto.

Gaza is currently ruled by Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) which came to power after winning a fair and democratic election in January 2006. After the victory Hamas opted for a confrontational policy by refusing to recognize Israel’s existence in the ‘historic homeland’ of Palestine. Explaining their standpoint on Israel, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has stated that:

Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us – our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people. (Emphasis added)

Hamas was the creation of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to damage the popularity of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat. At that point, Israeli hawks including the former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sanctified the project but could not anticipate that this crafty strategy would eventually transform into a grave future threat for Israel. During 1990-2000, Hamas become infamous for its ferocious attacks on Israeli targets including large-scale suicide bombings that killed several Israeli civilians. The attacks were executed through Hamas’s military wing – the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Soon Israel and the Western world labeled Hamas as a notorious Islamic terrorist group. Hamas has intensified its hard-line confrontations with Israel since their 2006 election victory.

The imposed restrictions and barriers have nearly destroyed every aspect of social cohesiveness in the occupied areas. This will give some idea why Hamas enjoys a considerable popularity among the Palestinians. With an aggressive anti-Israel posture, Hamas also carries out numerous social welfare activities in the occupied areas. This is a vital reason behind their immense popularity. Allegedly funded by Iran and private Arab donors, Hamas spends a major portion of its annual budget to run relief and education programs like schools, hospitals, orphanages, daycare clinics, blood banks, free or inexpensive medical treatments, financial aid and scholarships, community kitchens and sports leagues. The popularity of Hamas is the real threat to Israel and not the hundreds of homemade Qassam rockets that they regularly fires from Gaza into Israel. These rockets do trifling damage to the mighty Israeli establishment but instead provide ample excuse to clamor before the international community.

Israel still controls the Gaza airspace, territorial waters, offshore maritime access and the Gaza-Israel border. It also controls entry of foreigners, the collection and reimbursement of taxes and inflow and outflow of Gaza’s all essential resources. As it’s happening now, Israel has blocked the internal roads and divided the area into smaller penal complexes, each surrounded by Israeli tanks. Even during the June 2008 ceasefire was in place the people of Gaza were not exempted from their troubles. When Israeli airplanes are bombarding their home, school and hospitals, Gaza inhabitants miserably abide the terrible assault as they have nowhere to escape.

The events leading to the present catastrophe began on 18 June 2008 when a bilateral ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hamas through Egyptian mediators. It should be kept in mind that Egypt is a ‘key regional ally’ of America in the Middle East. By November the ceasefire began to break down when Israeli Defense Forces discovered Hamas tunnels in the outskirts of Gaza, intended to infiltrate Israeli territory and sneaking in weapons caches. After Israeli forces fired on the tunnels, Hamas retaliated by firing rockets into Israel. On 27 December, Israel unleashed Operation Cast Lead against Hamas. Israeli fighter planes started bombing the civilian localities of Gaza including police stations, government buildings, educational institutions, residential homes and apartment buildings, hospitals, mosques, busy market places, shops and bakeries, Though Israel has claimed that their systemic attacks are only targeting Hamas leaders and institutions and they are trying their best to avoid civilian causalities, the ground facts are just the opposite. Most of the 700 dead and 3000 injured in Gaza are innocent civilians including numerous women and children. Israeli military has blocked food and medicine supplies; electricity and fuel are cut off. Even humanitarian aid are not been allowed to enter Gaza.

The western mainstream media has deliberately picked up the Israeli version of the account. By undertaking a rigid pro-Israeli stand, the mainstream media has started their wordy propaganda for weakening and eventually eliminating Hamas at any cost. According to the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, weakening of Hamas is important because, “…nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers…..Hamas’s attacks on towns in southern Israel is destroying a two-state solution, even more than Israel’s disastrous West Bank settlements.” Mr. Friedman has made his apologist standpoint crystal clear when he writes, “Israel has proved that it can and will uproot settlements, as it did in Gaza. Hamas’s rocket attacks pose an irreversible threat.” Surprisingly, Mr. Friedman did not find it important to mention about the crippling Israeli blockade of Gaza that has left the inhabitants completely distressed with no food, fuel and medical supplies for days. Not a single word of condemnation came from him about the atrocious killing of more than 700 innocent civilians. Instead he has asserted that “…death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar.”

In these circumstances where does India stand? During the freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress were against the creation for a Jewish home in Palestine. After independence, India pompously voted in 1947 against the UN partition plan of Palestine. In 1949 India had also opposed the admission of Israel to the UN. India later recognized Israel but did not establish diplomatic relations with the country for a long time. It was much later in 1977-79 when the External Affairs Minister of Morarji Desai government, Atal Behari Vajpayee laid the foundation of a close relationship between the two countries. Subsequently, the Indian standpoint on Israel started to change.

India and Israel

India-Israel political and military relationship was elevated to heights by the centre-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after it came to power. From January 1992 India became one of the closest allies of Israel after the two countries established full diplomatic relations. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was invited by Atal Behari Vajpayee, now the Prime Minister of India, for a two day state visit amid stern protests from the Indian Left parties. BJP had also strongly advocated for a US-Israel-India alliance to “… take on international terrorism in a holistic and focused manner… to ensure that the global campaign against terrorism is pursued to its logical conclusion.” BJP leaders have a special place in their hearts for Israel. BJP’s mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also has an acute and age-old Israel obsession. RSS had hailed India-Israel bond and strongly criticized the Left because, “Both India and Israel are facing Muslim terrorism. Israel has faced the threat from Muslim terrorists boldly and effectively and we should appreciate it.”

In many respects, BJP’s Hindutva and Israel’s Zionism are blood brothers. Ideologically both are hyper-nationalists. Both claim to represent themselves as the sole and authentic spokespersons for the religion they represent. And, most importantly, both are anti Muslim to the core and share a common Islamophobia and hatred against Arabism. Also the RSS, BJP and its affiliates are fascinated with the gutsy nature of Israeli establishment and the adamant way it carries out systemic assaults against the Palestinian Muslims. These Hindutva hardliners passionately desire for a ‘strategic alliance’ between Hindus and Jews to avenge the Muslims. Narendra Modi, BJP’s poster boy and chief minister of the Indian state Gujarat has already tried his hand into an Israel like ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 2002.

Since then, India has continued with its close ties with Israel. Today, Israel is the second biggest supplier (after Russia) of defense equipments to India. The present UPA government led by the Congress party also did not consider changing the ‘friendly’ relation. Here, the India-America connection seems to have struck the right cord. According to the America obsessed Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India’s relation with Israel is of an ‘enlightened self-interest’. After the Mumbai terror attacks, India-Israel relation has taken a new-fangled turn. India-Pakistan situation is now viewed as parallel to Israel’s situation with Syria, Lebanon and Iran. There are plenty of free advices available now on how India can learn from Israel’s experience to “consider cross-border raids against terrorist camps or retaliation to pressure the terrorist sponsor to desist”. From a peculiar perception of terrorism, hoards of lessons are delivered by the national and international experts on how India can possibly emulate Israel. At the same time, India is being continuously advised to ignore the dangerous ‘root cause’ argument and go for all an out offence against the dreaded global terrorists (read Muslims).

What will India do then? Will India consider emulating Israel to fight its own war on terror? Will India take lessons from Ariel Sharon’s guide book? Will India also become a cruel aggressor like Israel? Will India adopt Israel’s ideology of war and start bombarding the home, school and hospitals of terrorist affected regions situated in neighboring countries? Well, these are secret desires of scores of home-bred patriots and international friends. Only time can tell what India will ultimately do. But one thing is certain. India’s choice will determine whether the Indian subcontinent will turn into another Middle East in future or not.

by Susanta Bhattacharyya

Hamas doesn’t want peace, only time to regroup, if they wanted this asset, they would have had it long ago. Neither does Iran or Syria want the PLO to stand down, and create a lasting peace: it keeps Israel busy, as they put other plans into motion (as you can see, Iran has the bomb now). I am not sure if the rest of the world is dumb, or just hate Jews, but it is a lopsided game, and the USA, knows this, and that is why I suppose they support Israel. If it was up to the EU or UN, Papa Arafat, would have exterminated Israel long ago, with the help of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia (the truth is the truth, and this is it); the main players in this game of hide and seek, also boast and yell, trying to get the squeaky wheel greased. Hamas and the PLO are the same figurines, with different noses–no more than that; interchangeable.

Recently they used women as shields, thus, they became warriors for Hamas, which is fair in war, you use what you can (I’m an old Vietnam Veteran, and this is fine with me); but then they must remember, the women killed are no more than war veterans, as in any war, and subject to dying for a cause, so let’s not make this in to anymore than what it is, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would like it to be. And evidently, the mosque is no more sacred to the Muslim fighter than a mouse trap, and so one can not expect Israel to honor it anymore than the Arab does: that when killers hid inside, or soldiers and fire bullets from the Mosque, the Mosque becomes a fortress for war, and the enemy and the mosque must be dealt with: so let’s not get into what is holy and not holy in this war, especially in fighting, there is nothing sacred I see; nor are colleges sacred, as the POL has already proven by killing American students, nor hospitals. So I say, let the war go on, and no rules banned, it is better that way, then we don’t get confused who is the bad guy and the good guy.

by Dennis Siluk Ed.D

There is so much confusion around regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that it places many people in a spiritually perilous situation.

How did the message of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and his resurrection from the dead, ever become confused with bunnies, eggs, and almost drowned in chocolate?

When March and April come April around, the shops and stores and malls are chock-a-block with chocolate. This might even start as early as February!

All this happened gradually, as man moved away from Passover, preferring the “E” word, which is never found in Scripture, and which the early apostolic church never used. It is now nigh on twenty years since I stopped using the “E” word. Let me explain simply and clearly.

Man will do many things to distance the Church of Jesus Christ from her Jewish roots.

We have a Jewish Bible and a Jewish saviour, and we wild Gentile branches are engrafted into the Jewish trunk. Man will even try to move away from geographical and historical words like Israel and Judah and use the Romanised version of Philistine, which then reads Palestine. When people refer to Palestine today, I usually ask them where it is, and some become quite embarrassed or annoyed and some become angry and furious.

The covenants, the law, the basis of worship, the promises, the patriarchs and the human ancestry of Jesus Christ, can all be traced back to the Hebrew people.

The background to the word Easter relates to the fertility cults, with references to the goddess of the spring, or the goddess of the dawn, and is linked to the vile goddess Ashtoreth, which the Word of God forbids, and warns the people of God to avoid. Oestrogen is derived from the same linguistic root.

Some time following Jesus’ birth, wise men came asking, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We have come to worship him.”

Wise men will always have that desire and longing to worship the living God.

Even Pilate had a significant placard prepared and fastened to the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”. The sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek, the three main languages of that time.

Whoever walked by, and looked at the cross, would have learned and known exactly who it was nailed to the tree, that Passover.

Jesus observed the Passover, and He says quite clearly and distinctly, “Follow Me”.

by Sandy Shaw

It is about living up to their doctrine, dogma-not to bend, not to give in, not to ever stop until either they are all dead, or the Jew is. Why does the United Nations, and the United States, and the EU, have a hard time understanding this. Peace is what everyone else wants, so of course, Hamas and the world of the Palestine go along with it, keep their mind on peace while we work our canon. Perhaps it is a conspiracy, but I hate that word, I’d like to think of it as all the common folk in the world is being fooled by the few. It is easier to fool the masses, then a few folks.

The only Solution: It was well put a number of years ago by one of the PLO leaders, and after he made his comments was killed, he said or implied: “The only way this war will be won is if we eradicate the Jews, or they us.” And I believe he was the only honest PLO member of the group. Hamas is simply a new name for the old creed “Not to ever give in, and to kill all the Jews.” Thus, push them into the Red Sea, or fight until the last standing man.

Dedicated to the PLO, and Annan.

by Dennis Siluk Ed.D

It is as shame, and outright disgrace when warriors, such as Hamas, cower to such levels as hiding behind the walls of so called innocent skirts, women and children. When I see this it tells me they have no pride, or dignity (I’m sure Allah is the only one proud of them, the hoofed Allah that is), and any willing Palestine that sits on a roof, or in the front yard eating pizza and drinking coke, thinking they are a hero in the deadly war with Israel (as Hamas sneak out the back to kill more Jew), should find a hole to hide in, and this haven of sorts, should be considered a military target, with or with its civilian guards; they are like militant mice while the feministic Military Rats dot the map of what cities in Israel will be hit the next day.

In war, any willing participate can be considered a soldier, thus, these women and children and men who sit around outside with no soldier uniforms on, are soldiers, even if they wish to be called civilians. Thus, they are enabling Hamas, the ones that think they are the heroes, to go about killing at will and running back to their Starbucks, for coffee time–with out reprisal, thus, they are subject to be killed as warriors, and should be looked upon that way; plus they go to paradise soon (you can’t get anything better than that); just like any other soldier, and I’d not lose any sleep over blowing that house off the map, right to kingdom come, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a right to criticized a UN resolution passed on Friday that calls on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to scorn Israel.

Annan, no better than the Antichrist, is not worth even quoting, and should have been thrown out of the UN long ago, if anyone is a mass murderer, it is he and his African cowardness, when he could have prevented many lives, he looked the other way; father like son: he most likely taught his son to be a thief also.

Dedicated to the PLO, and Annan.

by Dennis Siluk Ed.D

Olive Wood Articles
Olive wood is ideal for carving works and lends itself easy to work accurately with simple hand tools. It is available in natural colors. Its tonal depth due to annular structure renders complex artistic carvings possible. Religious articles, crosses, picture frames, cute boxes, paper knives, ink stands and crucifixes are some of the olive wood handicrafts made by the dexterous fingers of men and women of Bethlehem. Tourists from Europe taught the art of carving olive wood to the native people of Palestine. In turn there was transfer of wisdom to the workmen who eventually setup their own shops for these artistic items.

Mechanization
During the World Wars, Palestine was brought under British regime wherein a small industrial revolution stormed through the quiet cottage industry of olive wood carvings. Electric saws replaced hand saws. General purpose lathes and motorized drills replaced simple manual gadgets. Revolutionary copying machines were deployed to produce multiple designs from the master pattern operated by single workmen within a short time. This resulted in enormous increase in volume of production at a faster rate with high degree of accuracy. New products such as chandeliers, beads were also added to the array of sculptural works. In essence the market was flooded with articles at affordable prices beckoning tourists from all over the world. Owners of business houses made high profits due to reduced cost of mass production. The high volume of production enabled export of artworks to countries all over the world.

Ill Effects of Mass Production
Mechanization had its own adverse effects – high degree of unemployment and lack of job satisfaction amongst artisans. Original hand carved masterpieces became things of the past. Precious creativity of artisans was killed virtually. Workmen were utilized as mere assembly mechanics and machinists.

To cut short the process time, irrigated olive wood was used as raw material which was inferior in quality as it contained moisture. This resulted in cracking and disfiguring of the artworks despite careful handling. This quality dilution resulted in sudden rejection of souvenirs by tourists.

Other Problems
The perennial struggle between the ethnic groups in Palestine resulted in political uncertainty and economic imbalance. Israel imposed strict restrictions in respect of tourist guides and bus operators of West Bank and Gaza Strip. This had a negative effect on tourists visiting East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Tourists postponed or cancelled their trips fearing trouble. Pilgrims made trips in organized tours wherein they were taken to specific shops only for short duration. In some tour programs shopping facility might not be available.

Small business houses and individual artisans were unable to compete with the big business houses as they were not able to cut production costs owing to small volumes and hence their products were priced out.

On the whole, the overall situation was grim for olive wood industry at the end of the twentieth century.

by Alon Y Cohen

There are many individuals that appear throughout the book that are either leaders, members of various groups, or families caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they were from Israel and traveling to Palestine they were vulnerable to attack, torture, rape, and a long, drawn out death. If one were lucky the death would be fast. The same circumstances go for someone from Palestine who was caught in Israel. To be quite honest I had a difficult time keeping the many individuals contained in this book separated from another. You must realize I am not familiar with the names of those that live in that part of the world. If I were from any one of the nations where this book took place I would no doubt recognize not only the individual names but also the military and civilian leadership contained.

You will feel as though you were with these people and live their brutal lives that in most occasions involve hurt mentally and/or physically. Prison, battlefield, hiding in an open or enclosed area, behind the scope of a snipers rifle watching and waiting, trying to exist with food scarcity, worrying about your family and many times not knowing where they were, much less not knowing their health condition or if they were still alive. These things among many other situations come to life as you travel and live with those in “Palestine”.

The latter part of the book gives actual full conversations and/or speeches between leaders, media, and family, that go into deep detail and give the reader a full explanation of the actual thoughts that to this day still go on in that area of our world. The statements are scary and make the reader wonder what lies in the future of that area of the world. While I feel most of the book was about relations and physical and mental battles between Palestine and Israel, many other factors arise that could change current and future history, some of which would be good but far too much that would cause extreme hurt and burdens.

review by Cy Hilterman

The Hamas faction of the proposed unity government remained particularly puzzled, demanding Israel explain exactly what it means by its recognition of Palestine’s right to exist. Hamas also insisted that any recognition of Israel’s right to exist could only be addressed after certain recurrent provocations by Israel were ended, such as militant Jewish grandmothers acting as suicide bombers and malcontent Orthodox Jews firing rockets into Gaza and the West Bank that are loaded with matzoh balls.

Undaunted by the intense confusion among the Palestinians, Israel continued to forge ahead with its plan, saying that, even if Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, it plans to move ahead independently to recognize Palestine.

Israel’s continued insistence on a Palestinian state caused even more head scratching among the Palestinians, with the leader of Hamas declaring, “What do the Israelis mean? I don’t know what the ramifications of such a go-it-alone policy are. I have to think about it. We’re a state but they’re not? How does that work?”

Ehud Olmert said, “In Yiddish we call what we gave them a real kinnahurra. But it’s for their own good. We can only hope they eventually figure it out.”

Given the new willingness to face reality on the Israeli side, there may finally be the real possibility of a tit-for-tat two-state agreement.

According to an official Israeli announcement, the shish-kabob is now in the court of the Palestinians, where Hamas radicals are still attempting to decide if they can make a break with their past and adjust to having a state they can call their own.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did figure out that the Israeli plan is a good one and has cancelled talks with Hamas about a unity government until the long-time terrorist organization figures it out for themselves. He is flying to New York for a meeting with the United Nations, at which time he is expected to say, “If Israel says Palestine has a right to exist, I’m ready to say Israel has a right to exist. I only ask that they keep their grandmothers and motzah balls to themselves.”

by Tom Attea

In July 2005, Palestinian’s chief export hope, Israel, signed a deal to import natural gas not from its gas-rich neighbor, Palestine, but instead circumventing them to import their natural gas fuel needs from Egypt. Purely a move motivated by politics, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opposed any financial agreement made with the Palestinian Authority fearing that any monies exchanged would be used to support terrorist operations against Israel. This Israeli deal squashed initial Palestinian hopes that the gas trade would motivate the formation of new jobs in Gaza and earn $40 million to $45 million in taxes annually to help assist in bolstering their government towards eventual statehood.

The Gaza Marine field promises a yield of approximately 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its ample reserve. This large reserve of gas has the ability to provide much more than Palestine’s energy needs, which are minimal. British Gas entered into the last stages of talks, nearly reaching an agreement with Egypt as recently as 2006 to export a minimum of 1.5 billion cubic yards of natural gas annually for 50 years through a proposed Gaza-E Arish pipeline. This proposed deal was thrown a major road block by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair who decided that British Gas should give Israel one more chance at making the gas deal with Palestine, insisting that the gas could provide a large part of the energy needs of Israel’s rapidly growing economy. Though Israeli leaders recognized this growing need for gas, their opposition to trade with Palestine once again hobbled the hopeful bridging of gaps between the two. This has resulted in British Gas and Palestine resuming talks with Egypt, hoping to finalize a deal in early 2008, putting an end to the confusion which began with hope and anticipation of wealth nearly a decade earlier.

by Robert Jent