Jerusalem Notebook

Jun 30, 2015 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jews and the Jewish State

I have spoken with dozens of American Christian visitors to Israel during my nine years in Jerusalem, especially since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. As the years have passed, their troubled thoughts and uneasy observations about the present American administration and its policies have steadily increased.

An enormous amount of written material has made its way from my inbox, past my eyes and into my trash folder. I have received blogs, articles, emails, jokes and more. Some are clever and articulate, some are misspelled and some are nearly incoherent. But every one of them communicates a sense of apprehension.

Many of these concerns relate to religious freedom and minority persecution, both in the United States and abroad. Others are economic, philosophical and ideological. Still others are concerned about America’s increasingly strained relationship with the Jewish State. Naturally, most correspondents are quick to say that the American people still “support Israel.”

But what about the American president?

A lot of Christians are aware of shifting global alliances; they share an eagerness to uncover possible fulfillments of biblical prophecy. Others wonder if the president is secretly Islamic. Still others – those from more international backgrounds – have taken me by surprise with the deep fears and dangers they intuit, in large part because of current American policies vis-à-vis Israel.

Since my earliest days in Jerusalem, I have been impressed with the work of one particular scholar, Michael Oren. I met him while he was part of an elite think tank at Shalem Center – the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies – where he worked in the company of his good friend and fellow author Yossi Klein Halevi, as well as with today’s Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, all under the direction of former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky.

Before Oren served as an Israeli ambassador to the U.S. from 2009 – 2013, he was already well known in Israel as an historian and best-selling author. His book “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East” is an authoritative record that also happens to be beautifully written. It’s not every day that a history book is also a page-turner.

The same could be said of another of Oren’s offerings, “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present.” Released in 2007, it was acclaimed by historians and critics alike.

This book introduced me to Oren.

One of the first things I learned about him was that Oren holds America’s Christians in high regard. In a conversation with him, he told me about the research he’d embarked upon while writing “Power, Faith and Fantasy” and how it had revealed America’s deep connections to the Jewish State and the greater Middle East – powerful bonds that were strongly rooted in Christian faith and biblical belief.

One of the book’s fascinating aspects is the link it discloses between the first decades of American history and Islam. Between 1801 and 1805, the newly formed U.S. Marine Corps waged fierce battles against the Barbary Pirates, merciless thugs who ruled the high seas along “the shores of Tripoli.”

These Muslims were in the business of ravaging ships, kidnapping fair-skinned western women to be sold (at premium prices) as slaves or to various harems, and abducting naval officers who were held for huge amounts of ransom (some of the men were given the choice of conversion to Islam or death).

It turns out that America’s earliest military involvement in the Middle East was aggressive, ferocious and successful.

Oren reported that in the meantime, as early as 1819, the first Protestant missionaries left Boston for the Middle East “with the goal of restoring Palestine to Jewish sovereignty” along with saving souls.

The Christian dream of “restoration” – re-establishing exiled Jews in their Promised Land – was a powerful influence.

En route to the New World, the Puritans took the concept with them to Holland, where they petitioned the Dutch government to ‘transport Izraell’s sons and daughters … to the Land promised their forefathers … for an everlasting Inheritance.’

Harvard College President Increase Mather went so far as to call ‘…for the destruction of the Ottoman Empire to make way for the Jews’ return.’

Oren told me that this early American heritage was both moving and motivating to him. It inspired him to seek solid footing with today’s American Christian community.

Even more such insights emerge from the pages of Michael Oren’s newly released book “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide,” which was launched just over a week ago. There he also speaks of the American founders’ generation, which “felt a powerful responsibility for restoring the Old Israel to the original Promised Land. ‘I really wish the Jews in Judea an independent nation,’ John Adams, America’s second president professed.”

Oren went on to say,

Discovery of this “restorationist” strand in mainstream American thinking came as a shock to me, and a deep source of gratification. I felt as if Adams was validating a belief that quietly guided my life. Beyond their common strategic interests, Israel and the United States were spiritually and morally bound.

Historical American Christians and their views about Israel are certainly intriguing. However, that topic is a far cry from the primary focus of Michael Oren’s electrifying new book.

For Christians who continue to wrestle with troublesome questions about Obama, his foreign policy and his treatment of the Jewish State, Oren’s book “Ally” is essential reading.

Even before it appeared on bookstore shelves or flickered to life on Kindle screens, “Ally’s” early buzz had already stirred up a political and diplomatic firestorm. The book provides a surprisingly personal inside look at Oren’s four-year tenure as Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Fortunately for his readers, Oren – who clearly took careful notes from beginning to end of his tenure – is eloquent, candid and thorough.

“Ally” has received glowing reviews. John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary Magazine, wrote in The New York Post, “Michael Oren is going to be the talk of Washington and Jerusalem. I’m not sure that in the annals of diplomatic history there’s ever been anything quite like this astonishing account of Oren’s four years as Israel’s ambassador in Washington. It’s an ultimate insider’s story told while all the players save Oren are still in place.”

In the Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon explained, “‘Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israel Divide,’ is a first-hand account of ‘mistrust, mistakes and missed opportunities’ that Oren saw as ambassador from 2009 to 2013, with ‘Obama in the role of bully in chief.’ In the book he reportedly describes how Israel was continuously blamed for lack of progress on the diplomatic front, while the Palestinians were given a free pass.”

Other interested parties – particularly those who represent Obama’s political orientation or administration – are less than pleased with Oren’s outspoken and revealing account of his Washington years. He has faced criticism for everything from dishonesty to disingenuous book promotion to dabbling in psychobabble.

“Michael Oren published an imaginary account of what happened,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said. “I disagree with what he wrote. He was an ambassador in the past, but he is now a politician and an author who wants to sell books.”

Yair Lapid, former finance minister and leader of the Yesh Atid party, told Israel radio that Oren’s claim of Muslim influence on the U.S. president was “utter nonsense” and “pseudo-psychological analysis not based on anything.”

Interestingly, a majority of such critiques – and there are a number of them – do not dispute specific facts or personal accounts in “Ally.” As the saying goes, they simply attack the messenger because they are displeased with the message.

After I read Oren’s book, I spoke with him and thanked him for addressing so many of the concerns I’ve heard expressed by Christian friends, both in Jerusalem and in the United States: worries about Obama’s political philosophy, his warm embrace of Islam and his hard-nosed attitude toward Israel and, specifically, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

Oren’s new book addresses many of our doubts and goes a long way in explaining what’s been happening behind the scenes since 2009.

But as far as our spiritual questions are concerned – precise answers about the deepest intentions of our leaders, the fate of their misbegotten plans, and the outcome of the tumultuous times in which we’re living– those answers are yet to be revealed.

Still, other realities are undeniable. We can cherish the powerful words of the Bible’s poets and prophets and kings. We can rely on the ancient wisdom they contain. And we can trust the One who inspired them – whose promises remain true yesterday, today and forever:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter…

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath;
Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.
For evildoers will be cut off,
But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.

[Isaiah 5:20; Psalm 37:7-9 NASB]

Jul 21, 2015 | Christians and Minority Rights

An unusual and touching human-interest story broke in The Times of Israel on July 16, recounting the remarkable efforts of a Holocaust survivor who has pledged himself to rescue 2,000 Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria and to relocate them in Poland.

Lord George Weidenfeld, the Christian refugees’ benefactor, is a 95-year-old British publisher and peer of the realm. But he is far more than just a successful businessman.

In 1938, this wealthy co-founder of Weidenfeld and Nicolson Publishing House and Member of the House of Lords was a desperate and penniless Jew. Weidenfeld was rescued from Nazi-occupied Austria and transported to Britain by Christians – Quakers and Plymouth Brethren.

The Independent reported, “The publisher is spearheading Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund, which last week supported the flight of 150 Syrian Christians to Poland on a privately chartered plane to allow them to seek refuge, making them the first beneficiaries of the resettlement project.”

Weidenfeld explained that he owes a debt of gratitude to the Christian community for his own rescue. After recently facilitating the transport of the first 43 Syrian families to Poland, he has vowed to continue to assist them for 12 – 18 months – long enough for them begin new lives out of harm’s way. He also intends to arrange for hundreds more Christians to immigrate in the months to come.

About his efforts, Weidenfeld said,

In the 1930s, thousands of Jews – mainly women and children – were helped by Christians who took enormous personal risks to save them from certain death. We owe a debt of gratitude. We have been deeply moved by the plight of Christians in conflict-torn Middle East countries, and we are supporting the transfer of Christian families to safe havens where they can lead normal lives.

This heartwarming effort is noteworthy for a number of reasons, and it has not gone unnoticed. Apart from its lessons of gratitude and generosity, it also exposes a sea change in the thinking of an increasing number of relief organizations concerned with the plight of millions of refugees and displaced persons in the Middle East.

Victims of war and invasion who have fled the sword of ISIS terrorists, the barrel bombs of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army or the deadly scourge of various Islamist mobs can be counted in the multiplied millions.

These displaced people – hundreds of thousands of whom are victims of Christian persecution – clearly need a safe haven and a new beginning. But where? Who will provide help for them? And how long must they wait?

When I visited Kurdistan in October 2014, my conversations with both Christian and Muslim refugees were distressing. Grim and weary, and with little hope reflected in their eyes, they spoke about the inestimable losses they had sustained.

They described not only the brutal deaths of family members and friends, but also spoke about the stripping away of their possessions – their homes, businesses, clothes and household goods, personal identity papers, deeds, cash, and computers, vehicles and even cellphones and medications. They had been driven out of their houses with nothing more than the proverbial shirts on their back.

As they explained what had befallen them, they seemed skeptical about returning to their homes. Their longtime neighbors had betrayed them, and it was well known that Sunni Muslims in their towns and villages had aligned themselves with the Islamic State, making a pact with murderers, rapists and kidnappers rather than defending their communities.

Still, at that time, church leaders in the Kurdistan area cherished the hope that Kurdish Peshmerga fighting forces, along with Shia militias and U.S.-sponsored bombing raids, would soon drive ISIS out of the many towns and villages they had invaded.

These hopeful clergymen envisioned well-trained defense units – comprised of local Christians as well as seasoned international warriors – that would guarantee protection for the Nineveh Plain and thus create a refuge for Christians within their own ancient homelands.

Although some expressed doubt about this scheme, few wanted to argue with beleaguered religious leaders. If these clergymen opted to entrust their people to the protection of the Kurds until peace was restored, so be it. Meanwhile, donated food, clothing, hygienic kits and weatherization materials continued to be brought in.

But over the course of the next six or eight months, support for the idea of a Christian refuge began to erode. As days turned to weeks, car bombs rocked Erbil, Kurdistan’s capital, and the security situation became increasingly unpredictable. Before long, the conversation changed.

As I wrote in the Washington Times,

Some religious leaders … believe that ISIS and other terrorists will soon be driven out and that a safe haven for Christians will be created, including trustworthy international security protection. However … there are many who question this optimistic scenario. Indeed, most experts say that a safe haven for Christians is unlikely to appear any time soon.

With this in mind, humanitarian organizations, human rights experts, Christian support agencies and donors have begun to look at the alternate plan that Weidenfeld recently adopted: airlifting refugees to safety outside the Middle East.

Moving vulnerable victims out of harm’s way – beyond the ebb and flow of warfare that has virtually washed away all semblance of “normal life” in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding countries – can offer a far more urgent solution.

Unfortunately, it is also complicated and challenging.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has proved itself capable of providing protection for groups of refugees, and a secure airport is available in Erbil. At the present time, airlifts from there are costly, but not a particularly high-risk endeavor.

But airlifts from inside Syria are another story. Refugees have to be transported through dangerous territory and disputed borders. Myriad potential dangers require strategic and tactical preparations and personnel.

Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan have now now closed their borders to departing Syrians; the resulting process of vetting self-proclaimed “refugees” to ensure they’re not terrorists is exhaustive. Because these countries are responsible for the evacuees’ resettlement for a year’s time, they are understandably cautious.

Meanwhile – to complicate matters further – very few countries on the receiving end are willing to open their doors to displaced Christians.

My friend and colleague Charmaine Hedding is the founder and director of the Shai Fund, a nonprofit relief organization based in Munich, Germany. In April, she and I sat through one discouraging meeting after another in Washington, D.C. Congressional aides, representatives from relief organizations, and religious freedom advocates all told the same story: There is little to no interest within the present U.S. government for welcoming Middle Eastern Christian refugees.

Why? Because specifying Christians for refugee status – although Christians make up only a small percentage of the millions of Middle Eastern refugees – is considered discriminatory against Muslims.

At the same time, few influential global voices are demanding change in immigration quotas or relaxation of entry requirements. Special consideration of persecuted Christians who need a new beginning, removed from warzones and threats of danger, is a top priority for concerned activists. Yet only a few international leaders have spoken up.

Where, for example, is the voice of Pope Francis?

As Catholic priest Benedict Kiely recently wrote in National Review,

Francis enjoys uncritical acclamation from media worldwide. He should turn that into an opportunity to call on the nations of the world – before it is too late – to open their borders generously to receive the thousands of Christian refugees who wish to leave Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan.

So far, only a handful of countries – including Armenia, Canada, Poland and Belgium – have agreed to receive displaced Christians. Others have been approached without response.

I asked my Hudson Institute colleague Nina Shea, who directs the Center for Religious Freedom, how she and others make the case for providing visas to Christian refugees as a specific persecuted minority. She said there are three reasons to do so:

First of all, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, Middle East Christians are not simply victims of the war; they are targeted for religious cleansing by ISIS and other extremists. Second, they have no armies and militias of their own to protect them. And, finally, there is no Christian country or enclave left in the region where they can resettle, and meanwhile their own property is being distributed to others, not only by ISIS but, in Baghdad, by their own government.

Complaints that Christian visas discriminate against Muslim refugees were also voiced about Weidenfeld’s recent rescue of Syrian Christians to Poland. He robustly defended his project’s narrow focus. “I can’t save the world, but there is a very specific possibility on the Christian side. Let others do what they like for the Muslims.”

Weidenfeld hopes to replicate the work done by the late Sir Nicholas Winton, who died on July 1. Winton helped to organize “Kinderstransport” trains that saved more than 10,000 Jewish children from the Nazis.

“It was Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England,” Weidenfeld said. “It was a very high-minded operation and we Jews should be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians.”

Aug 4, 2015 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

Has America’s present administration turned a blind eye to the Christian massacres in the Middle East?

Stories about this disappointing possibility have been circulating for months, but they at first seemed more like social media rumors than legitimate concerns.

Most people assumed that the United States would speak up, take positive action and prove itself – as it has historically – to be a safe haven for “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Then came a devastating report from the National Catholic Register, which recounted the Obama Administration’s indifference to what Pope Francis has described as a “third world war, waged piecemeal … a form of genocide.”

According to the Register, the Iraqi Christian Relief Council has compiled figures on the status of Iraqi Christians. Out of the 25,014 refugees from Iraq who were admitted to the U.S. between January 2014 and June 2015, only 21 percent were Christian. More than 79 percent were Muslim. Never mind that during the 2014 Islamic State invasion of Iraq’s “Christian heartland,” virtually 100 percent of the survivors who fled to Kurdistan were Christians.

The ICRC also pointed out that during the same time frame, fewer than 1,000 Syrian refugees were admitted to the U.S. And only 4 percent of those were Christian.

Meanwhile, America’s dubious hospitality has been outpaced by less prosperous and spacious states like Poland, Armenia and Belgium, who have opened their arms to Christians. Canada is also presently receiving Christian refugees, while proposals are under consideration elsewhere.

I asked my colleague Nina Shea why the United States should reconsider its denial of Christian refugees.

“First of all,” she said, “like the Jews in Nazi Germany, Middle East Christians are not simply victims of the war. They are targeted for religious cleansing by ISIS and other extremists.

“Second, they have no armies and militias of their own to protect them.

“And, finally, there is no Christian country or enclave left in the region where they can resettle, and meanwhile their own property is being distributed to others, not only by ISIS, but in Baghdad, by their own government.”

Shea’s reference to the Nazis raises an important point: This isn’t the first time the U.S. has rejected refugees during a period of grave danger.

Indeed, when I discussed this tragic situation with some my Jerusalem friends, it was evident that today’s pattern of discrimination and rejection provokes bitter memories for the Jewish community.

During the 1930s and early 1940s, European Jews became progressively aware of the dangers they faced under Hitler’s Third Reich. Violence increased and their situation grew more precarious. Many decided to flee. But instead of providing the Jews with a warm welcome, America instead closed its doors to Jewish immigration.

The U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum described the controversial rejection of immigrants from Nazi Germany.

Influenced by the economic hardships of the Depression, which exacerbated popular anti-Semitism, isolationism and xenophobia, the refugee policy of the U.S. State Department … made it difficult for refugees to obtain entry visas, despite the ongoing persecution of Jews in Germany.

Beginning in 1940, the United States further restricted immigration by ordering U.S. consuls to delay visa approvals on national security grounds. After the United States entered the World War II in December 1941, the trickle of immigration virtually dried up, just as the Nazi regime began systematically to murder the Jews of Europe.

As I reflect on America’s dismal rejection of Jews and now Christians, I think about the radical Islamist adage, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”

Or, as a photo of a Palestinian flag in my book “Saturday People, Sunday People” says in Arabic, “On Saturday we kill the Jews, on Sunday we kill the Christians.”

Of course the Holocaust took place at the hand of Adolf Hitler and his Jew-loathing Nazi henchmen. Yet there was, and still remains, a powerful connection between yesterday’s Third Reich and today’s radical Islamism.

In 1921, a cold-blooded, anti-Semitic Arab named Amin “Hajj” al-Husseini was promoted by British Mandate authorities to a lofty and influential religious position: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Husseini was ambitious and power-hungry. He was also an ideological ally of the Nazis and aggressively collaborated with them.

Husseini met with the Fuhrer at least once, and repeatedly conspired with several of his closest Nazi associates, including Heinrich Himmler. Husseini applauded the “Final Solution of the Jewish problem” and vowed to recreate it in the Middle East.

Several sources date the “Saturday people, Sunday people” slogan to anti-Zionism riots in the 1920s, with Husseini’s serving as key ringleader. With increasing ardor, he sought to drive the Jews out of Palestine or, better yet, kill them.

Husseini was enormously successful. His strategic use of blood libels, baseless rumors and rabble-rousing tactics increasingly inflamed the Arabs’ disdain for the Jews.

In my book “Saturday People, Sunday People,” I describe one of Husseini’s best-known early successes.

In mid-August 1929, following a Jewish demonstration near the Temple Mount, which involved flags and patriotic songs including Hatikvah, Arabs were incited by false reports of Jewish attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The incitement has long been attributed to the infamous anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj al-Husseini, who later collaborated with Hitler in plans to exterminate the Jews in the Middle East.

The violence stirred up by those false rumors led to the first modern “pogrom” in Israel, during which 67 Jewish residents of Hebron were murdered.

In the years that followed the Hebron massacre, Husseini and his devotees accelerated their efforts. Anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist hostility simmered, swelled and threatened to erupt across the Middle East.

Forced labor camps for Jews – imposing brutal conditions – were constructed in Morocco and Algeria. Plans to fully cleanse the Middle East of Jews were laid once Hitler’s erstwhile favorite general, Erwin Rommel, successfully completed his invasion of North Africa.

The first large-scale eruption took place in Iraq in 1941 with a massacre of Jews known as the Farhud; some described this event as a “Nazi-like pogrom.” During its 48-hour bloodletting, more than 180 Jews lost their lives and some 1,000 were injured.

Survivors of the Farhud reported that – several days before the event – many Jews’ homes were marked with a red handprint, the “Hamsa.” This eerily foreshadowed the marking of Christian houses in Mosul in 2014 with the letter “N” for Nasrani (Christians).

The Farhud was the beginning of surging violence against Jews across the Middle East, which climaxed in 1948, following the declared independence of the State of Israel.

Between 1948 and the early 1970s, some 850,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were driven out of their Muslim-majority homelands.

Like today’s Christians, those Jews were marked for death or expulsion by the crazed hatred of Muslim extremists. But unlike today’s Christians, who have been turned away by most of the world’s nations, Middle Eastern Jews had a place to go – a homeland. They managed to make their way to the newborn State of Israel.

It was a painful struggle for the fledgling nation to provide shelter and food for hundreds of thousands of penniless, Arabic-speaking refugees. And it was an indescribable agony for the displaced and dispossessed – many of who had been prosperous, well-known and eminently successful just months before.

Still, they had reached the safe haven foretold by the vision of Zionism – “to be free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” And they had also seen their ancient prophets’ words fulfilled: Jews, once scattered to the four corners of the earth, were being re-gathered in the Promised Land.

The Saturday people had finally come home.

Which brings us to today. What lies ahead for the Sunday people?

A heartwarming story recently emerged about Lord George Weidenfeld, a 95-year-old British publisher and peer of the realm who successfully airlifted 150 Syrian Christian men, women and children to Poland, with a goal of rescuing at least 2,000 of them.

It turns out that Christians had rescued the young, Jewish Weidenfeld from the Nazis many years ago. Mennonite and Quaker groups committed to saving Jewish children smuggled Weidenfeld out of harm’s way into the relative safety of Great Britain.

Today, Weidenfeld is assisting Christians, hoping to repay what he describes as his personal “debt of gratitude” to them.

In fact, Weidenfeld may also be pioneering the next phase in today’s ongoing efforts to rescue displaced Christians. Relief and development groups and their donors are considering the option of flying Iraqi and Syrian families to safety.

Airlifts may be to be the wave of the future. On the other hand, as the saying goes, there’s nothing new under the sun.

An airlift of near-biblical proportions took place during the late 1940s. It serves as a worthy reminder of what can be accomplished – despite ongoing Islamist terrorism, despite the rejection of the nations and despite the despair of the refugees and those trying to help them.

When heaven’s work is being done, nothing on earth is impossible.

Between 1948 and 1950 – unlikely as it seems – Alaska Airlines took part in the historic and daring rescue operation of some endangered Jews. Along with charter carriers and with military help, the small U.S. airline helped transport more than 40,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel.

Alaska Airlines’ website described the company’s courageous participation in “Operation Magic Carpet.”

Known as the lost tribe of Israel, the Yemenite Jews had wandered the deserts for at least two centuries after being driven out of Palestine. Nomads, they had never seen an airplane and never lived anywhere but a tent.

Ironically, their faith included a prophecy that they would be returned to their Holy Land on the wings of eagles.

An Alaska flight attendant, Miriam Metzger, who served as a nurse on several of those rescue flights, described a touching moment.

“One of the things that really got to me was when we were unloading a plane at Tel Aviv,” Marian explained. “A little old lady came up to me and took the hem of my jacket and kissed it. She was giving me a blessing for getting them home.

“In her eyes, we were the wings of eagles!”

With that in mind, let’s not grow weary in our efforts to reach out to today’s refugees, nor lose heart when our political leaders disappoint us.

Miracles still happen, and a promise is still a promise.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint [Isaiah 40:31]

Aug 24, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

This year, summer arrived in Jerusalem on literal waves of heat. Fortunately – unlike in most of the sweltering Middle East – afternoon breezes cooled the air considerably. So one evening, I bravely stepped away from my apartment’s air conditioner and took a 15-minute walk to the Mamilla Mall.

Once I got there, I was reminded that despite the warm temperatures, the tourist season brings with it a bustling scene, as colorful crowds wend their way along Mamilla’s lively pedestrian shopping street, ascending and descending a flight of stairs to the Old City’s Jaffa Gate.

In addition to the mall’s very appealing collection of stores and boutiques, one of Mamilla’s attractions – at least for me – is the exceptionally varied array of shoppers. Unlike any other places I have ever visited, in Israel, even the most casual observer can make a fairly accurate guess about what people believe in, based on what they wear.

The shopping throngs at Mamilla comprise a casually defined religious mixture, with Muslim women in hijabs’ shopping shoulder-to-shoulder with Orthodox Jewish mothers, fathers and children. At the same time, clergy in clerical frocks representing the most venerable church traditions mingle with American Christian youth groups wearing matching T-shirts.

This kaleidoscopic scene always reminds me of the absurd accusation that Israel is an “apartheid state,” a label that was first popularized in Jimmy Carter’s infamous book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” Carter’s accusation was particularly ridiculous to the South Africans who actually experienced apartheid.

Even the notorious South African judge Richard Goldstone, who trashed Israel’s 2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in a United Nations report, later decried the “apartheid” accusation in a New York Times op-ed.

“In Israel, there is no apartheid,” he wrote. “Nothing there comes close. Israeli Arabs – 20 percent of Israel’s population – vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including in its supreme court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.”

Goldstone was correct (at least about that). Israeli Arabs are judges, army officers, lawyers and business people. Even diplomats.

Israel

Take, for example, George Deek, Israel’s vice-ambassador to Norway. An outspoken critic of what he describes as a “culture of victimhood,” he claims that this philosophy robs Israeli Arabs of their dignity. Of his upbringing, he has said, “I was a Christian Orthodox kid in a French Catholic school with a majority of Muslim students, in the Jewish country in the Arab Middle East. And nothing seemed more normal.”

Deek also pointed out that, while Arabs in Israel experience one of the “best qualities of life for Arabs in the region,” these people are surrounded by the ever-growing persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

“Outside Israel, Easter celebrations have become a rare sight. Christians were driven out of Mosul in Iraq. [They were] put to flight in Syria. The last church in Afghanistan was destroyed in 2010. Thirty Christians were beheaded in Libya. And in Gaza, bishops are beaten up and Christian symbols are forbidden.”

Deek could not be more correct. In the Middle East, persecution against the region’s ancient churches continues to smolder, flare and rage out of control. Inflamed by Islamist ideology and targeting minorities (particularly Christians), the brutal acts – including torture, beheadings, enslavement and other atrocities – have escalated to unprecedented levels.

The cradle of Christianity is all but going up in flames – most notably in Iraq and Syria, but also in Egypt and elsewhere in the region. Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population is growing.

It is no wonder that some Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel have noted that they live in the region’s sole safe haven for their faith. And they have decided to do more than give thanks.

An increasing number of Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Assyrian and other Christian communities want to defend their homeland – and many of them have chosen to take action. Not only are they choosing to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces, but they are also forming political parties and seeking reforms in Israel’s educational system, insisting that the country’s officially sanctioned curriculum includes Christian history alongside that of Judaism and Islam.

A young Arab-speaking Christian man put it this way: “I will continue to defend and protect the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. I have no other country.”

As Goldstone pointed out, Arab-Israelis – both Christian and Muslim – serve essential roles in the country’s leadership.

For instance, Judge George Karra, an Arab from Jaffa, presided over the judicial panel that sentenced former Israeli President Moshe Katsav to a seven-year prison term for rape. Meanwhile, another leading Israeli jurist, Salim Joubran from Haifa, is the first Arab judge to receive a permanent appointment to the Israeli Supreme Court.

None of this should imply that the relationship between Arab and Jewish Israelis is trouble-free. It is not. There are debates, declarations and discussions, public and private, which include everything from infinitesimal woes to hugely significant issues affecting both populations. These involve matters like income and educational equality, construction permits, trash collection, bureaucratic impartiality and innumerable other issues involving alleged discrimination.

Nonetheless, Newsweek magazine claimed that “the real Arab Spring is blooming in Israel.”

Arab activists are using the Jewish State’s robust democracy and independent institutions to push their agenda of radical, but peaceful, political change. A rainbow coalition of nationalists, Islamists, feminists, socialists and supporters of Jewish-Arab co-operation stood in [the recent] election. The Joint List won 13 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, making it the third largest party.

Recently, a surprising and unexpected defense of Israel’s melting pot came from a young man who just graduated from Tel Aviv University and was awarded the role of valedictorian for his class.

Haisam Hassanein grew up in Egypt, in a rural area that was a hot-bed of anti-Semitism and fear of Israel.

“If you think you heard a million reasons why not to come to Israel,” he told the university’s appreciative graduation audience, “I heard a million and a half. Growing up in Egypt, the entire country had opinions about Israel, and none of them were positive. All we knew was that we had fought bloody wars, and that they were not like us.”

He went on to describe his first impressions:

On my very first day here at the university, I saw men in kippas [and] women in head scarfs and hijabs. I saw soldiers walking peacefully among crowds of lively students. I learned there were people of every kind in the university, and the university had a place for all of them: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouins and even international students.

How fascinating is it to be in a city where you can to go a beach in central Tel Aviv and see a Muslim woman, a couple of gays kissing, and a Hasid sharing the same small space? Where else can you find a Christian Arab whose apartment is decorated with posters of Mao and Lenin? Where else can you see a Bedouin IDF soldier reading the Quran on the train during Ramadan? Where else can you see Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews arguing about whether or not Ashkenazi families had kidnapped Yemenite babies in the 1950s?

In a video that has been widely viewed, Hassanein related other insights that he had gleaned from his experience in Israel. “Perhaps the greatest revelation of my being here was that in spite of all the conflicting histories and identities, people are still able to live their daily lives in a spirit of cooperation,” he said. “We must always question our assumptions. Being here in Israel has taught me that life is full of paradoxes and complexities – that nothing is straightforward, and that things are often not as they are made to seem.”

Israel

As for me, I have lived in Jerusalem for more than nine years. And my own view of life in Israel largely mirrors Hassanein’s. There are complexities that mock simple explanations or pat answers. As the overused saying goes, “It’s complicated.” There are puzzles without solutions. There are disagreements that defy negotiation. Mistrust surges beneath the surface – more deeply than anger, resentment or hatred.

But above all else, the ebullient and brilliant Israelis are the beating pulse of the country. Like people everywhere, they have their problems, and they struggle and worry and fret.

But they are exceptionally courageous – insolent in the face of danger, and mockers of death. As a people they are optimistic, quick to laugh, sing and applaud. And when life goes wrong, they weep their tears, sweep up the remains of the day, and go out to face tomorrow.

I believe this, in large part, is because the people of Israel – despite all that threatens them – embody an ancient commandment:

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

That’s exactly what the Israelis have done.

And, in fact, they do more than choose life. They celebrate it!

Sep 2, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Once or twice a year, I say goodbye to Jerusalem for a few weeks and return to the United States. And I often find myself in my former hometown: Orange County, Calif.

I first become fully aware of my new surroundings when I awake to the sound of waves’ breaking along the Pacific Shore and the barking of seals. No longer can the Dormition Abbey’s bells, chiming from Mt. Zion, mark the hour for me.

In some ways, it would be difficult to find a region less like Israel than Orange County. It’s true that the weather is similar to Jerusalem’s, minus the Holy City’s occasional snowstorms and sandstorms. Some international corporations offer identical wares in Israeli shopping centers and California malls: Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Nine West and the like. And most restaurants in one place or the other feature such global favorites as hamburgers and fries, spicy pasta and elegant salads.

But the differences between the two locales are far more striking than their similarities. Jerusalem’s gold-hued stone buildings – most of them centuries old – bear little resemblance to the modernity in most of America’s suburban centers. One of the oldest and most picturesque places in Southern California – the chapel at the San Juan Capistrano Mission – dates to only 1776.

Meanwhile, the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City – built by Ottoman Sultan Suleiman “the Magnificent” in the 1500s – surround the Temple Mount, the Roman Cardo, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Mosque of Omar and dozens of other authentically ancient sites revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.

Outside those city walls, a sleek modern light rail is juxtaposed against a jumble of venerable boutiques and cafes and trailing flowers along the Jaffa Road (first paved in the 19th century), leading to Jaffa/Yafo, a Mediterranean port that has served seafarers for more than 7,000 years. Jaffa is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament and in the historical writings of Josephus.

Still, buildings are only buildings, and of course it is people that bring cities to life. Health-conscious, hard-bodied California joggers, leashed to what some call “designer dogs,” are rarely sighted in Jerusalem, although scantily attired men and women do appear in the hot summer months.

These provide a rather jarring contrast to the modestly dressed Orthodox Jewish men and women in their dark colors and sober, weighty garb. Nor are Muslim women and girls, whether in brightly colored designer scarves or black hijabs, an unusual sight either, especially on the Eastern side of the city.

If there’s time for conversation with these various Jerusalemites, it doesn’t take long to learn of their experiences with war, terrorism, political disappointment or Holocaust history. Nearly everyone in the city has a story to tell – and there are countless broken hearts, half-healed wounds and deep scars. Yet, more often than not, a spirit of joy and celebration shines in their eyes.

In fact, it is here – in the stories of the people – that the contrast between my two familiar locales is most readily apparent.

In California, one of my usual stops is KBRT’s studio, where “The Bottom Line” talk radio host Roger Marsh often invites me in for an interview to discuss Israel and whatever the latest news about the Middle East may be.

It is during these radio interviews that I am most conscious of the fact that I live, for all practical purposes, in two different worlds. And that difference has to do with geography, but far more significantly with the rather messy details of human experience. Few Californians have had to face the threat of rocket fire, the danger of looming terrorism, the possibility of fleeing their homes or – worst of all – the loss of life, limb and loved ones.

These days, with the JCPOA – aka the “Iran Deal” – in the news, American Jews and Christians are expressing great concern for the future of Israel and the Jewish people who live there. And well they should.

“What is the American administration thinking?” Roger asked me in the course of our recent interview. I tried to answer, even though I can hardly imagine what kind of naiveté – or worse – has led to the unprecedented concessions that the U.S. (and other) negotiators have offered to Iran, seemingly on bended knee.

And at what human cost – apart from the billion-and-a-half dollars of unfrozen funds – will this agreement be signed, sealed and delivered?

To a large majority of Israelis, the danger of a nuclearized Iran – and ultimately a nuclear race involving several Middle East countries – is a very real threat. An enemy such as Iran – which habitually calls for “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” – is the last nation on earth that should have the capability of developing nuclear weapons. That is an insane proposition.

Many Californians like Roger and his listeners are aware of and concerned about the state of affairs in the Middle East. Admittedly, apart from the occasional earthquake, their experience with life-and-death challenges has been limited. Yet they want to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.

For example, we of a certain age who attended California elementary schools remember getting on our knees under our little wooden desks and covering our heads with our arms when “bomb drills” took place. In retrospect, it seems like a laughable exercise in futility. But of course the bombs never fell, so we didn’t realized until years later that we would have more likely been instantly incinerated than bumped on the head by a fallen ceiling tile.

In Israel, air raid sirens are quite another matter. I have an app on my iPhone called a Red Alert that makes a nerve-wracking sound if there’s a rocket attack anywhere in Israel. It startles me about once a month, when a missile is fired from Gaza or the Golan. Thankfully, no such application is currently necessary in California or anywhere else in the United States. May it ever be so.

But curiously, as I took a break from writing this very article, my Israeli Red Alert went off – most inappropriately – in a California café! Sirens had sounded in another seaside city, half a world away. An hour or so later, the Times of Israel reported,

Sirens were activated in the Hof Asheklon regional council north of the [Gaza] Strip before sunrise, sending frightened residents running to shelters. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The Israeli military said it was scanning for an impact site, but added that the sirens were likely the result of a failed launch attempt.

In nine years, only three times have air raid sirens threatened my calm life in Jerusalem, and those were all during Israeli military operations in Gaza. In every case, the rockets fell far short of Jerusalem’s city limits. I was away in July 2014 when rockets launched at Jerusalem struck a little closer to home.

Also in 2014, just after I returned there and Israel ended its battle with Hamas, another drama was acted out in the Christian heartland of Iraq. This was just over an hour’s flight away from Jerusalem. Assyrian International News Service reported on Aug. 7,

The push of the Islamic State (IS) from Mosul north into the Nineveh Plain, the last stronghold of Assyrians in Iraq, has created fear and panic in the population, causing a massive exodus from Assyrian villages. The influx of refugees into Ankawa and Noohadra (Dohuk) has overwhelmed the towns. There is a shortage of everything — shelter, food, water. Displaced Assyrians are sleeping on sidewalks and in open fields.

In Israel, Christians and Jews alike were horrified by this unprovoked assault; by seeing houses roughly painted with the Arabic letter “N,” marking them for invasion and confiscation; and by the Iraqi army’s utter lack of protection. The soldiers were described as simply having “melted away.”

In late October 2014, I was able to fly from Israel to Iraq to visit those same Christian refugees in Erbil, Kurdistan.

I found myself in the midst of broken, displaced women, men and children, who all told me essentially the same story: how they have lost everything – their homes, businesses, all personal possessions, passports, deeds and documents of ownership, vehicles, cash and food. ISIS has robbed them of their past, as well as their hopes for the future. They said, in so many words, that prayer is all that remains for them, but so shattered are their lives that even faith and hope seem ephemeral.

Can we American Christians even begin to imagine such a cruel twist of fate? With notable exceptions, America has been shielded from such atrocities imposed by bloodthirsty religious fanatics.

Perhaps natural disasters come closest to inflicting the kind of total personal losses that Middle East populations are enduring today. Americans have recently recalled the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the deadly storm that nearly drowned the city of New Orleans 10 years ago. More recently, brush and forest fires have ravished vast swathes of the West Coast, leaving a trail of ashes where family homes once stood. Floods and tornados took a terrible toll, too, not so many months ago.

Victims will struggle to rebuild, battling governmental authorities, insurance companies and the emotional hardships of starting over. And in most cases, they will find a way.

For the rest of us, all things considered, life is good. I’m grateful to hear the rush of the ocean tides’ coming and going and the cry of gulls: hours of gentleness in what can be a hard, unyielding world.

But I do miss Mt. Zion’s echoing bells, and am happy that I’ll soon be back in Jerusalem to hear them peal once again. Those chimes, the sound of the muezzin’s call to the city’s mosques, and the warning of the Red Alert all serve to remind me of the time and place in which my friends and I live.

Meanwhile, weeks like these in Southern California reaffirm the virtue of gratitude. May the habit of thankful prayer be our first priority. And may it never have to become our last resort.

Sep 21, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

It is good to be back in Jerusalem. After I spent a month in the United States, my return to the Holy City happily coincided with the eve of Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year.

On the downside, I also arrived during an escalation of violence on the Temple Mount.

It’s my habit to follow Middle East news on a daily basis, so reports of trouble on the Temple Mount Plaza – known to Muslims as “the Al-Aksa” – came as no surprise.

In fact, written reports of violence were underscored by the sound of helicopters’ circling in the skies above me, confirming that stones and fireworks were once again being hurled at the Israeli police from inside the Al-Aksa Mosque.

Perhaps the greatest contradiction in Jerusalem – and there are many – is that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, yet Jews (and Christians) are not permitted to pray there.

Religious Jews have attempted to relax that aspect of the so-called status quo. Just prior to the New Year, right-wing Israeli minister Uri Ariel visited the compound after vowing that he would pray there, arousing angry commentary across the Muslim world.

Nonetheless, when Jewish or Christian tourists arrive at the site, they are routinely informed about some stringently enforced regulations: Prayer and worship, prayer books and visible symbols of non-Muslim worship (such as phylacteries) are strictly forbidden.

Time Magazine explained,

The recent violence has been partly triggered by belief of some Palestinians that Israel is preparing to allow Jews to pray on the site – something right-wing Jewish nationalists have been calling for. Though the Israeli government has emphatically denied plans for this and said the status quo will remain, deep distrust among Palestinians regarding Israeli intentions has led many to see this as further encroachment of Israeli presence onto what is currently a Muslim-managed site.

As a fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, I’ve focused my attention on international religious discrimination and persecution for decades. So several years ago, during my first visit to the Temple Mount – where Herod the Great’s magnificent Jewish Temple once stood and Jesus once preached – I was somewhat taken aback by the Saudi Arabian atmosphere of the place.

On the other hand, as a Christian, I was at far less risk of offending the powers that be than religious Jews who regularly make their way to the Temple Mount – men wearing yarmulkes and tzitzit fringes; women with distinctive hair coverings, modest attire and Star of David jewelry.

It is no exaggeration to say that on the Temple Mount, incitement to violence by radical Muslims never stops for long. Disturbances frequently break out, usually inspired by rumors and falsified reports that the Jews are “storming,” or otherwise “defiling” Al-Aksa. These reports are widespread in Middle East news, simultaneously appearing in Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, Lebanese, Egyptian and other Muslim-dominated media.

Provocation – including name-calling, threats and shoving – is predictable during the brief window of time Jews are permitted to enter this site; they are watched carefully, lest they so much as move their lips in silent prayer.

Mourabitat women protesting outside the Temple Mount.
Mourabitat women protesting outside the Temple Mount.

Islamist women known as Mourabitat, accompanied by their children, have been know to crowd around Jewish groups, robotically screaming “Allahu Akbar!” Their often-photographed faces are distorted with rage. Reportedly paid generously by Hamas, these female protestors may have lost their jobs during the recent upheaval. They have – at least temporarily – been banned from the site.

Nonetheless, the authorities have their hands full.

Israeli police and other security officers are on the receiving end of everything from furious tirades to clenched fists and obscene gestures. They sometimes even sustain serious injuries, thanks to hurled blocks of cement and stone, as well as fireworks and the occasional pipe bomb thrown in their faces. They respond with tear gas and other non-lethal defensive tactics, when necessary.

During the years I’ve lived in Jerusalem, a number of vicious episodes have occurred, due to a false rumor that “Al-Aksa is in danger.” This libel has long been used to instigate violence, and ever-increasingly stirs up rioters well beyond Israel’s borders as it flashes at lightening speed across news sites and social media.

In his book The “Al-Aksa is in Danger” Libel: The History of a Lie, author Nadav Shragai wrote,

“Al-Aksa is in danger” is a classic libel that was embroidered in the first half of the twentieth century against the Jewish people, the Zionist movement, and, eventually, the State of Israel. The state and its institutions – so, in brief, the libel claims – are scheming and striving to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount and build in their stead the Third Temple. The longer the libel lives, its delusive variants striking root, the more its blind and misled devotees proliferate.

The libel … strikes at the Jewish people and the State of Israel precisely in the place where the Jewish State has made the most generous gesture, the greatest concession, ever made by one religion to another – on the Temple Mount, the holiest place of the Jewish people and only the third place in importance for the Muslim religion.

That “greatest concession” took place in 1967, literally minutes after the Israeli Defense Force’s defeat of multinational Arab armies and the long-awaited reunification of Jerusalem.

For reasons yet to be fully fathomed, Israel – in the person of war hero Moshe Dayan – relinquished authority over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Waqf. Ultimately, that ended up meaning that Jewish and Christian prayer and worship would be forbidden.

But something more disturbing than the banning of prayer lies at the heart of today’s accelerating violence.

There is a widespread falsehood – a 20th century rewriting of ancient history – that there was never a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in the first place. Popularly known as “temple denial,” this delusion first reached international ears during the Camp David Conference in 2000. Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat shocked President Bill Clinton and numerous others by publically declaring that a Jewish Temple never existed in Jerusalem.

Shragai wrote,

Arafat himself endorsed this claim at Camp David and reiterated it in slightly different form in September 2003, when he lectured to a delegation of Arab leaders from the Galilee and told them that the Jewish Temple had not been located in Jerusalem but, rather, in Yemen. “I myself,” Arafat testified, “visited Yemen and was shown the site where the temple of Solomon existed.”

But what about those who believe the biblical account, recorded in both the Hebrew Scripture and New Testament (not to mention numerous other historical reports, including those of Flavius Josephus)? The assumption among Islamists is that those who affirm the existence of the first and second temples are also actively working toward the construction of a third one.

Of course, the vision of a third temple on the Temple Mount has existed since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and many Jewish (and Christian) believers hope it transpires at some future time. But no such construction has begun. And, politically speaking, any change in the present arrangement of holy sites on the Temple Mount is implausible.

Meanwhile, Muslims congregate there by the thousands during Friday prayers, and in crowds as large as 400,000 during Ramadan. They listen with bated breath to the exhortations of various scholars and imams who retell the Quranic story of how Muhammad’s “Night Journey” began there.

Interestingly – not to mention ominously – many of those same Islamic authorities also predict that a messianic figure – the 12th Imam (Shia) or the Mahdi (Sunni) – will launch his global reign on the Temple Mount.

This Muslim messiah’s utopian new world order will transpire in the wake of a blood-drenched genocide of the Jewish people.

At times even now, confrontations regarding the Temple Mount take a deadly turn. Yehuda Glick – a beloved rabbi and an activist seeking equal rights of worship for Jews and Christians – was shot in the chest four times in October 2013.

Glick miraculously survived. Today, he quietly carries on his efforts, while in the meantime, the Temple Mount seethes and simmers. Will Glick succeed in his mission? Will there ever be freedom of worship at the holiest site in Judaism?

If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has his way, the answer to those questions will remain an unequivocal no.

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours as well. They have no right to desecrate the mosque with their filthy feet, we won’t allow them to do that,” Abbas told Palestinian activists.

“We will not forsake our country and we will keep every inch of our land,” he said. “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, clean and pure blood spilled for Allah. Every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.”

Christians and Jews both have an historical and spiritual interest in the Temple Mount. But now we hear Abbas ambitiously declaring that he is also the voice of authority over an indisputably Christian site – the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Driving the Jews out of Jerusalem is the goal of the PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran, the Islamic State and numerous other Muslim states and terrorist groups.

As the jihadi saying goes, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” Israel’s enemies attest that the Jews will soon be forcibly removed not only from the holy sites, but also ultimately from the Holy Land. If so, judging from the religious cleansing we’ve recently seen in Iraq and Syria at the hand of ISIS, Israel’s Christians won’t be far behind.

Most of us reject the possibility that an overthrow of Israel will take place. The country’s defenses are formidable; its leadership is indomitable and the Jewish people’s faith is fixed on the One who re-gathered them in their land.

However, Jews and Christians alike have been instructed to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” It seems to me that the time has come to do so in earnest, without ceasing; to intercede for the Holy City with deep conviction, and to thank God for every day that passes without violence.

Following this year’s Yom Kippur fast and prayers, perhaps a truly Shana Tova will arrive – a fulfillment of the hopeful “Happy New Year” wishes Israelis are offering one another, despite the turbulent days in which we’re living.

Oct 5, 2015 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

I hadn’t been awake very long last Sunday morning when I opened a rather cryptic email from my friend Dexter van Zile, a talented researcher and writer based in the United States.

His subject line read, “So what do we know about the fire in the monastery in Bethlehem?” The email text asked me, “Got anything substantive?”

At that point I was still half-asleep – mostly focused on a cup of very strong coffee. But Dexter’s message was a literal wakeup call, and I bolted upright, thinking, What fire?

I quickly wrote to two friends in Bethlehem who I was sure would know about a local inferno. One sent me some photos from an Arabic-language media source, but said that no details were available. Another said that the Palestinian Authority was blaming an electrical problem.

A few hours later, the Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) featured a rather ironic headline, “PA Strangely Silent after Muslims Set Bethlehem Church Afire”

The story continued,

The Palestinian Authority has been curiously silent over a major fire at a Christian church in Bethlehem. In its sole statement, the PA said that the fire at the St. Charbel Church in the city was caused by an “electrical malfunction” – a description that is at odds with an account by Israeli Christian Arab Father Gabriel Naddaf, who said that the church was burned down Saturday night by “Palestinian extremists.”

I posted the story on Facebook, and almost immediately received a string of responses – most of them mocking the “strangely silent” wording of the headline. My friends’ comments all said pretty much the same thing: “What’s so strange about that? Of course they aren’t reporting the real story!”

It took a day or two more to collect further details: the St. Charbel Maronite Monastery in Bethlehem had been intentionally torched. And Sobhy Makhoul, the chancellor of Jerusalem’s Maronite Patriarchate, wasted no words: “It was an act of arson. An act of sectarian vandalism by radical Muslims.”

Asia News, a Catholic site, went on to say,

The fire caused no casualties or injuries because the building is currently unoccupied and under renovation, but the damage is evident and the local Christian community is now fearful of further violence. The arsonists “got inside a room that had a lot of stuff, including furniture … because the building is undergoing restoration work. The fire reached it and spread quickly throughout the structure.”

Police sources said that Muslim extremist groups have been active in the area and the culprits are already known and should “be soon apprehended.”

Meanwhile, a reliable source informed me that although thieves had ransacked the Maronite Monastery two days prior to the fire, the police neither responded nor investigated. And, contrary to the PA’s report of an electrical fire, St. Charbel has no electrical supply.

All this reminded me of another fire at a Bethlehem church – the Church of the Nativity. After Pope Francis’ visit to Bethlehem in May 2014, a blaze did substantial damage to the grotto where tradition says that Jesus was born.

I also received photographs of that incident from someone in Bethlehem who indicated more harm than what was described as a “curtain set ablaze by a lamp.”

Friends of Fox News posted the photos on Facebook. The entire area appeared to have been seriously torched.

Still, the lamp-curtain story stuck, even though Christians who live or work in Bethlehem remain convinced that radical Muslims set the church alight in defiance of the Pope’s visit – and that the destruction was far greater than the widely reported smoke-damage.

More recently, the beloved Tabgha Church in Galilee was also set on fire by vandals and was badly damaged. The historic church is cherished by Christians all around the world because of its beautiful setting and its fifth century mosaic portraying a basket of bread and two fishes. This mosaic recalls Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes, which is believed to have taken place at that same seaside location.

In a Philos Project article, I wrote that the church sanctuary itself was, thankfully, not too badly harmed. However, the roof, some storage areas and a few meeting places were significantly damaged.

But deeper injury was inflicted on the tenuous alliance between Israel’s Jews and Christians. The bold red graffiti marking the incident indicated that the attack was the work of “price-tag” vandals; this term generally describes vandalism carried out against non-Jews in response to Arab attacks, government decisions or disapproval of Christian activity.

The Tabgha Church fire was widely reported internationally. The assumption was that Israeli Jews had harmed a historic Christian site, providing just the kind of sensational hook that news editors rely on for headlines, as well as for multiple tweets and likes.

In sharp contrast, radical Muslims attacking a church that is supposed to be under the protection of the Palestinian Authority is an entirely different matter. Unless there is serious bloodshed or celebrity involvement, such episodes remain largely unreported.

Unlike the press freedom in Israel, where reportage and commentary are freewheeling and unrestrained, all news outlets in PA-controlled areas are carefully monitored – including social media. It is perilous for Christians and their families, who live in those areas, to write or speak openly about radical Islamist threats, injustices or violence.

At times, the powers-that-be aren’t even satisfied with silence. In a recent article, a prominent Protestant minister in Jerusalem accused the Palestinian Authority of coercing the Christian leadership in the Holy Land into speaking out against Israel.

Wishing to remain anonymous, this senior clergyman told The Algemeiner that the release of a “Statement from the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem” – signed by 13 church leaders and demanding that Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan take custody of all holy places in Israel to maintain the “status quo” – was the direct result of an “unholy” relationship between Arab Muslims and the Christians who live in fear of their wrath.

The Christian leaders in Israel and the Palestinian Authority “are put under threat by the Palestinian-Muslim authorities … so much so that today there was a meeting of the heads of the churches, begging the PA to be nice to the Christians in Bethlehem, who live under severe threat.”

In exchange for temporary relief from Islamist harassment, the Christian leaders signed a document that falsely accused Israel of “threats of change to historical (status quo) situation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Haram Al-Sharif) and its courtyard, all buildings and in the city of Jerusalem.”

Dhimmitude is a term for the obligatory discrimination and subjection of minorities – dhimmis – under Islamic Sharia law. In the days of the Ottoman Empire, both Christians and Jews were required to submit to their Muslim overlords with regards to their clothing, their places of residence, their finances, their means of transportation – in short, every conceivable Islamic demand required their abject capitulation.

Those who did not submit suffered harassment, physical abuse and perhaps even death. We see this acted out horrifically before our eyes in today’s world: the cruelty of Islamist terrorists such as ISIS toward Christians, Yazidis and other minorities is widely reported, including graphic videos of beheadings and mass executions.

To a lesser degree, we also see dhimmitude in the Palestinian territories. Likewise, it is evident on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where Jews (and Christians) are required – like dhimmis – to obey the demands of the Jordanian Waqf. They are denied the right to pray or worship, and even have been accused of defiling the holiest site in Judaism with their “filthy feet.”

After centuries of subjugation, Christians who live in Bethlehem and other PA-administered cities habitually live in dhimmi-like fear. Most do not openly oppose Muslims. Those of us who write about Christian persecution in such places are well aware that we cannot provide real names or cite organizational sources.

This is the primary reason for media silence about Muslim attacks on churches and individuals in Palestinian-controlled areas. Few Christians are willing to take the risk of speaking openly. In the meantime, by many accounts, the pressure on Christians is increasing exponentially.

With these realities in mind, and after concluding his research, van Zile passed on to me his personal observations about the monastery fire – and the grim picture of intensifying Christian subjugation in the Palestinian territories.

It’s hard to talk about the fire at St. Charbel’s without implying that the chickens are coming home to roost. But that’s what is happening and it needs to be said openly.

For decades, [Palestinian] Christians have been pointing the finger of accusation at Israel, where Christians are able to participate in politics in a free and open manner. Meanwhile, they remain silent about the mistreatment they endure at the hands of radical Muslims in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Christians have aligned themselves with a Sharia-inspired nationalist movement in hopes of protecting their lives and property. This was always a short-term strategy, because Sharia enshrines Islamic supremacism over non-Muslims. And now those attitudes are manifesting themselves in an undeniable manner.

“Such,” van Zile concluded, “are the wages of dhimmitude.”

Oct 9, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

On Saturday night, I welcomed my good friends Gary and Cindy Bayer for dinner. They live in Jerusalem’s Old City part-time, but we hadn’t seen each other in months. It was a happy reunion and although they’d been wrestling with health issues, our conversation was entirely happy and upbeat.

After they left, I checked my computer for messages or late news, as usual, and quickly noticed that there had been another terrorist attack – this time in the Old City. I say “another terrorist attack” because it wasn’t the first one to take place last week.

A heartbreaking double murder occurred last Thursday. A husband and wife, Rabbi Eitam and his wife Naama Henkin, were shot dead on a road near the Itamar community in Samaria. Miraculously, their four small children survived – orphaned, but physically unharmed.

It was reported that a hail of terrorists’ bullets killed Naama instantly. Her husband Eitam, although mortally wounded, somehow got out of the car, opened the back door to get his children out safely, and then collapsed in death.

Hamas happily took credit for this murder and celebrated it that night and the following day, handing out candies on the street.

Back to Saturday night. What had happened this time? I frantically surfed the Internet for details, and it didn’t take long to find them.

It was another murder; another attack on a family of four.

When I tried to figure out where this all took place, I braced myself as I watched a rather gruesome video in which I could hear a woman screaming, a baby wailing, and a male voice shouting, “Allahu Akbar.”

I also recognized the location. That’s when I realized it a happened way too close to my friends’ home.

I phoned Cindy Bayer immediately.

“Yes, we just walked through the Damascus gate,” she said. “We hit a wall of riot police. Not sure when we’ll be able to get home.”

The police were indeed out in force. Why? Because a young Muslim had tried to murder another Jewish family, this time with a knife. He stabbed to death Aharon Banita, a young Orthodox Jewish father, and seriously wounded Aharon’s wife Adele as the couple pushed their two babies in strollers, making their way to the Western Wall.

Nehemia Lavi, a rabbi who lived nearby, heard the family’s screams and rushed out to help. He, too, was stabbed to death. The Banitas’ two children survived, their toddler was injured by a bullet (the assailant had grabbed Lavi’s gun after killing him and fired it at the police) and their infant was traumatized but unharmed.

The minute the police appeared, the assailant was shot dead. The sound of the gunfire was piercing, even in the video I saw.

Thankfully, the Bayers eventually made it home. It took them a long time to get past the police barricades, because the murders had happened just around the corner from their building.

One of them later told me, as they waited in the crowd behind the police lines, that the local Arabs had “displayed no remorse whatsoever.”

This was confirmed by Ruthie Blum, who wrote in The Algemeiner that the incident was “documented on the cell phones of Arab onlookers, who laughed and spit at the young mother covered in blood, begging for help as she tried to flee the scene with a knife wedged in her shoulder. ‘You should die, too,’ they chanted, while she stumbled ahead in the direction of Israeli Border Police.”

Haaretz later reported,

The attacker was identified as Mohammad Halabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian law student at Al-Quds University from a village near Ramallah. On his Facebook page, Halabi wrote that the Palestinian people would not accept Israel’s attacks on the Al Quds Mosque in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and that the third intifada has already begun.

In the days that have followed, a list of subsequent terror attacks continues to grow longer.

Terrorists have repeatedly thrown rocks at buses and cars. These are not small stones or pebbles, but cinder blocks and weighty projectiles large enough to shatter windows and windshields.

On Wednesday, dozens of young, masked Arabs stoned several cars as they drove toward Jerusalem in the morning traffic. A popular talk-show host and free-lance journalist, Israeli-America Josh Hasten, reported that he feared for his life as his car was attacked.

Lone wolf stabbings have also continued.

Yesterday, Oct. 8, a Jerusalem man was seriously wounded in a Jerusalem stabbing. Five Israelis were “lightly injured” in a Tel Aviv attack; one of them was a female IDF soldier.

As I write, a man has been critically wounded in Kiryat Arba, a community in the Hebron area. “Initial reports indicate a Palestinian assailant stabbed a civilian. The attacker fled the scene. Forces are searching the area. The civilian was severely wounded and is now being evacuated for emergency medical care.”

Stone-throwing at IDF troops, rioting and violence has spread so dramatically over the last week that it is difficult to keep up with it.

Clashes between IDF troops and rioters were reported today near Ramallah.

A soldier was stabbed hours ago in Afula.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat instructed residents with gun permits to carry their weapons with them. “I have a licensed gun,” Barkat said. “Every time there is tension, I instruct people who are allowed to carry weapons and are experienced in using them to carry their guns with them. If you check, you’ll see that in many cases, those who neutralized terrorists were citizens who aren’t necessarily police officers, like former soldiers.”

And the trouble isn’t over yet.

The Jewish holidays ended on Monday night. Between Rosh Hashanah and the Sukkot feast, many Jews from abroad as well as local residents visited not only the Western Wall but also the Temple Mount. They are forbidden to worship or pray there, but still they go, as an act of remembrance and courage, and as a statement of faith.

These visits are reported across the Middle East with the absurdly libelous Temple Mount accusations: “Settlers storm the al-Aqsa.” As I recently wrote for The Philos Project,

It is no exaggeration to say that on the Temple Mount, incitement to violence by radical Muslims never stops for long. Disturbances frequently break out, usually inspired by rumors and falsified reports that the Jews are “storming,” or otherwise “defiling” Al-Aksa. These reports are widespread in Middle East news, simultaneously appearing in Saudi, Iranian, Turkish, Lebanese, Egyptian and other Muslim-dominated media.

Provocation – including name-calling, threats and shoving – is predictable during the brief window of time Jews are permitted to enter this site; they are watched carefully, lest they so much as move their lips in silent prayer.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rightly blamed Arab incitement – particularly the outrageous lies about the Temple Mount – for the largest part of this recent wave of Arab violence. Indeed, many are calling it “The Third Intifada.”

Will it be so? Or will this epidemic of hatred be stopped – once again – by Israel?

Another of my friends is the survivor of a terrible Hamas bombing, which took place in 1997 at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. In that infamous assault, 16 people were killed and 178 injured. My friend was terribly burned and lived with excruciating pain for years following the attack.

Originally from Germany, Dr. Petra Heldt is a scholar, professor and ordained minister in the Lutheran church. She came by my home for a visit just a few hours ago.

After a pleasant conversation, I had to ask her what I hoped wasn’t an inappropriate question: What does she think about when terrorism escalates the way has done in recent days?

Today, Petra’s scars are still visible, but her smile always eclipses them. And she smiled broadly as she answered my question.

“Whenever those who hate Israel strike out with terrorism, there is invariably strong resistance – a powerful pushback,” she said. “And every time that happens, Israel becomes just a little stronger.”

Needless to say, we all know that the loss of life to terrorism is horrifying – that much is obvious. Death and injury leave behind orphaned children and disabled survivors. And in the meantime, fear is a dark shadow that hangs heavily over the country.

And yet Petra has more to say than simply to mourn what threatens and what has been lost.

“When they bombed the Mahane Yehuda Market where I was injured,” she told me, “they not only wanted to kill people, but they also thought they had destroyed a thriving center of Jerusalem’s way of life – the beating heart of the city.

“Instead, today, the market is bigger, livelier, more beautiful than ever before.

“Whenever terrorism means to kill and destroy, the brutality is always defeated. It is overcome by the Israeli people’s faith in God, love of life, and celebration of their beloved country.

“And that,” she concluded, with another radiant smile, “is the spirit of Israel.”

Nov 4, 2015 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States

In its early days, the current Arab uprising in Israel brought almost daily violence to the streets of Jerusalem.

Now, the action has largely moved to other parts of the country – at least for the time being. Nonetheless, we Jerusalemites are still paying close attention to our surroundings and taking careful note of the random characters that walk behind us on the sidewalks.

And, like most of my friends and neighbors, I am especially conscious of bus stops. How many people are gathered around them? How accessible they are to “vehicular” attacks? And what kind of expressions do I see on the faces of those who are standing nearby?

A few days ago, in this present calm but cautious atmosphere, I was delighted to have coffee with my friend Liz Kopp. Her husband Chuck pastors the Narkis Street Congregation, a non-denominational church near the center of town. In fact, Liz and Chuck have been deeply involved in the city’s spiritual and material concerns for more than 40 years.

For me, the opportunity to catch up with Liz was long overdue. We met at Aroma Café in the German Colony, and we started our conversation by updating each other about our families and friends.

But then the subject changed. I was stunned by what I learned from Liz. And she wasn’t just reporting what she had read or heard on the radio.

Her story began with a widely recounted terrorist attack. I could hardly believe what she told me.

On Oct. 14, Haaretz reported,

11:05 A.M. Two Israelis were killed after two suspected terrorists entered bus 78 in Jerusalem’s Armon HaNatziv neighborhood. At least 16 other Israelis were wounded in the attack, which saw one assailant open fire within the bus while the other attacked passengers with a knife; at least one person is in critical condition. One of the attackers is dead, while the other is in serious condition.

It so happened that Liz and Chuck Kopp and their family were well acquainted with not just one, but two of the injured victims who were, coincidentally, riding on Bus No. 78 at exactly the same time.

One survived; the other has since died.

For almost as long as she’s been in Jerusalem, Liz has been part of a group of a dozen-plus women – all Jewish except for Liz herself – that she affectionately calls her “Koffee Klatch.” One of the women, an alarmed Karen Lakin, phoned Liz on Oct. 13.

That morning, her ex-husband Richard Lakin, 76, had been rushed to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in critical condition.

Liz knew that her son Jesse was already at Hadassah hospital for an unrelated medical reason. She told him to go to the emergency room and check on Richard. The next morning, Jesse Kopp posted on Facebook:

Yesterday, a friend of mine was stabbed in his liver, and was shot in the head on a bus. Doctors are currently fighting for his life. He is a man of peace and promotes coexistence. My heart goes out to him and his family who I was with during the first few hours at the ICU. I would like to ask everyone I know for more love, no matter where you are in the world. Love as hard as you can. Peace.

The Kopps knew Lakin, a Jew, to be a valiant advocate of peace between Jews and Arabs in Israel. He taught English to Arab and Israeli children. His Facebook page features the well-known “CoExist” banner as its cover photo. And his rabbi recalled that Richard Lakin never missed a peace rally.

The New York Times described the morning’s events.

After a routine doctor’s appointment on Oct. 13, Mr. Lakin called his ex-wife (and still best friend), Karen, to say he was taking the No. 78 bus rather than walking home because he thought it would be safer amid the spate of stabbings on Jerusalem streets.

When news broke that a No. 78 had been attacked, she and her son started frantically dialing Mr. Lakin’s number.

“Eventually, one of the nurses in the operating room answered his phone,” recalled [their son Micah Avni], 46, who works in finance and had walked out of a meeting in his Tel Aviv office to drive to Jerusalem. “She said, ‘Come to Hadassah Ein Kerem as soon as possible.’ ”

Hadassah and Jerusalem’s other hospitals are rare oases of the Arab-Jewish coexistence Mr. Lakin promoted.

A Palestinian nurse in the emergency room recognized him as he was wheeled in: Her two sons had taken his classes.

The surgical team that struggled to stitch together his injured organs included Dr. Abed Khalaileh, an Arab from East Jerusalem, like the attackers on the bus.

Despite valiant medical efforts, Lakin died two weeks after the bus attack. His son Micah is participating in a lawsuit against Facebook, the social media outlet he holds responsible for numerous posts and videos that did far more than incite terrorists to attack Israelis with knives.

Those graphic posts actually instructed would-be assassins about how best to cause maximum injury – for example, by stabbing deeply and then forcefully shoving the knife downward, injuring the victim as severely as possible.

Liz Kopp explained to me that Richard Lakin was stabbed repeatedly in the head, face and abdomen; his intestines and several internal organs were severed, as per the instructions on Facebook. He was also stabbed in the head and slashed in the face. And shot in the temple.

One of Bus No. 78’s terrorists was shot dead. The other was also rushed to Hadassah Hospital, where he shared the same intensive care unit as Lakin.

Lakin’s son said, “I had the auspicious pleasure of holding my father’s hand and looking that man straight in the eye as he woke up … and it sounds like he’s doing OK – as opposed to my father.”

Unfortunately, Lakin wasn’t the only victim who ended up at Hadassah. Among the other injured Bus No. 78 passengers was a Danish Christian woman, Marike Veldman.

“I knew Marike as one of the many Dutch Christians serving in so many different ways in Israel, and who occasionally attended the Narkis Street Congregation,” Liz told me. “From a distance, I admired this attractive tall, regal and single Dutch woman who was known for the many Arab children she had taken in to live with her.”

Indeed, for some 30 years, Marike Veldman, 78, had taken in unwanted Arab children who were abandoned in Jerusalem’s Old City. As Ynet news reported,

Veldman remembers the attack. “I entered the bus 78 in Armon Hanatziv [and] I saw two Arab men sitting in the very beginning of the bus. I thought to myself, ‘What were they doing on a bus at this hour? They should be at work. They looked suspicious,’” she said.

“They were laughing, exchanging maybe a joke or something, and then all of a sudden they got up and started screaming ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and then one of them started stabbing me and he stabbed me several times.

“I yelled, ‘Jesus help me!’” she recounted.

Ms. Veldman went on to say that the man pulled away from her after she cried out those words, and he appeared to be frightened; he retreated from her immediately and headed further back in the bus, stabbing several others. He didn’t touch Marike Veldman again.

But to this day, she cannot erase from her memory the look of hate that was in the eyes of her assailant. She has struggled to regain her sense of security ever since. One of the stab wounds punctured her lung. Although it was a dangerous injury, she is gradually healing, both inside and out.

Majda Shakawi, 28, grew up in Marike Veldman’s foster home. Today, she lives in Virginia. Asked about the attack on her foster mother, she said, “When it happened, I was in shock. There is a lot of anger, shame and guilt. I am thankful that she is alive and I am trying to accept the forgiveness that she feels. I believe that everyone was born in the image of God. That’s what my faith taught me. It’s a shame to my religion when someone goes and does something like this. It’s cowardly. I thought that even before this happened to my mom, but now it’s personal.”

The intertwined stories of the attacks on Bus No. 78 are profoundly troubling. Such vicious assaults on two elderly and charitable members of the Jerusalem community are unbearable and indefensible.

Those knives and bullets did more than carve and slash the flesh of two innocent people. They also cut to the quick the benevolent vision shared by Richard Lakin and Marike Veldman – a vulnerable and perhaps even improbable dream of peace – which each of them persistently expressed in both word and deed.

For most of us, all this is simply unforgivable.

And yet…

In reflecting on this tragic scenario, Liz Kopp told me, “One would be tempted to give up hope if it weren’t for people like Marike, who is choosing to forgive.

“And, amazingly, each member of the Lakin family is doing the same, even in the face of such brutality and murder. Although Richard was taken from them by hatred and evil, the family knows that he wouldn’t want them to respond with hatred and evil in return.

“Difficult as it is, they agree that only in forgiveness can this kind and loving man’s legacy be upheld.”