Getting an earful ... loudspeakers held up near the Nativity Church pump out the noise. Photo: AFP,
Posted on 04/16/2002 1:49:54 PM PDT by history_matters
By Alan Philps in Jerusalem
April 16 2002
Daily Telegraph, London
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Getting an earful ... loudspeakers held up near the Nativity Church pump out the noise. Photo: AFP, |
The Israeli Army is broadcasting ear-splitting screeches and wails at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, traditional site of Jesus' birth, to force out 200 Palestinians besieged there.
Troops brought in a crane to hoist loudspeakers over the ancient basilica, one of the holiest shrines in Christendom, as part of what one person inside called "psycho terror". One of the noises sounds like a car alarm.
Camped outside the church, the army estimates there are about 50 wanted Palestinian militants inside, with clergy and civilians.
The Israeli Government offered a deal on Sunday under which the wanted men would be given a choice between permanent exile and trial before a military court. "If they leave, it's for good but, if they stay, then they will have to stand trial in Israel," said a spokesman for the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. The offer was put by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, during talks on Sunday.
Palestinian negotiators immediately rejected it, saying the men would not accept exile, and if they were to be judged it should be before a Palestinian court. But they would accept any deal that Mr Arafat approved.
In an appeal on Friday the trapped Palestinians called for United Nations intervention to save them from "a slow death".
They have been deprived of food for almost two weeks, and the army has shot at Palestinian youths lobbing bags of bread into the compound.
"We are hearing loud whistles and screeches in the daytime and now at night," said the Governor of Bethlehem, Mahmoud Madani, who is inside the church. "They want to destroy our morale, but the only solution is a negotiated settlement."
The church has responded to the caterwauling by ringing its bells.
In a major blow to the Palestinian resistance, Israel last night arrested Marwan Barghouthi, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the West Bank and regarded by Israel as the top militant in the area, Israeli security sources said.
Barghouthi, sought by Israel since it launched a West Bank offensive on March 29, was arrested in the city of Ramallah, the sources said.
It is a grave error to believe that ends justify the means or that circumstances determine what is or is not ethical.
Sometimes a necessary evil is the ONLY choice presented to man. Those times are few and far between and best left to those who know how to prosecute a just war.
Given the history of political murder and terrorism at the heart of this conflict from its genesis ... I don't think either side's necessarily equal to that task.
It depends entirely on the situation. We have absolutely no idea whom the soldier is pointing his gun at and why. The soldier may have probable cause to believe the person on the ground is a terrorist. Can you say otherwise?
I do find it strange that whatever the soldier is pointing his gun at is not shown in the photo. Either the photographer is incompetent or the photo was cropped. In either case, the photo is misleading and posting it amounts to propaganda.
Lol ... well, I do defer to your expertise in that regard.
I'll be doing some digging to find out where on the "anti-propaganda" site the photo came. I pulled it during a run of photos I was selecting from a string of articles on Jenin (primarily foreign, naturally) and do apologize for its being included.
Now that we have the first photo nailed down as possibly propaganda, will you please tell me what you think of the other ten or so?
Was it agit-prop for me to quote God and Abraham as well?
That is a silly assertion.
You: Lol ... well, I do defer to your expertise in that regard.
Is the photo misleading or isn't it? I think you have aleady admitted it is misleading. You posted it because it appeared to show an Israeli soldier pointing his weapon at a little child. But, in fact it shows no such thing.
Is that propaganda or not?
Dead wrong. It is most certainly a terrible blasphemy to fill God's house with noise and screaches. The Israelis should be better than that.
I've already admitted that as well as the fact I'd meant to respond in kind to another on this thread.
As you no doubt are aware ... we are treated to a steady stream of propaganda here on FR. Some stories don't stick at all but -- worse -- leftist agit-prop is posted again and again and again as if it sufficed as rebuttal.
One reason I was looking for photos with Palestinian children in them was to counter the rash of photos of festive Halloween-costume style "suicide bomber" toddlers and youngsters. I can't think of anything more easy to do than to grab a bunch of radicals' kids and use them thus.
Likewise, I tire of seeing the Sbarro "art exhibit" shown. As I've mentioned more than once to Lent and others, I equate this with taking shots of chocolate vaginas or extolling a staging of the "Vagina Monologues" and other demented "artwork" at some Womyn fest in academia and using that as representative of "Women's Rights" or female empowerment.
No one posts more rank propaganda on this site than those who steadfastly toe the Zionist line. Reasoned argument, factual history, articulately expressed opinion ... all are met with cries of "anti-Semite!" or some photo-op of a staged RADICAL rally or consciousness-raising art exhibit.
That is clearly unfair and I think -- particularly given my agreement with your point -- that your hammering me for the one photo to the pointed exclusion of the rest is disingenuous on your part.
By this, I mean that certain threads are cropped from view. As noted earlier, I posted a piece by Belloc on the very real history of militant Islam and the utterly heretical premises of that faith which predispose it to error.
As happens, certain posters took care to inflame the rhetoric such that the thread was duly yanked for going waaaaay out of the bounds of civil discourse. This is a terrible tactic for shutting down the free exchange of hard information and solid arguments, however provocative, that certainly deserve an equal airing alongside the steady stream of conditioning we receive from the blinkered, pro-government mainstream press.
Those man-things would have the ragheads running out to cover the posters up with burkas in a hurry.
The truth will come out, TopQuark. I suspect it will lie somewhere between the Israeli and other eyewitness accounts as seeping out at present. Saying that the truth is in the middle is a safe bet, isn't it? This happens so often that some people believe it to be a universal truth. But then it is also uninformative, isn't it?
For the sake of your continued integrity, I would wait a while before defending what's been happening in Jenin or impugning as hopeless subjective the accounts of devastation. What on earth gave you an idea that I was, tried to, or was even tempted to defend (or attack) what happened in Jenine?
If you asked, I would tell you that I do not even have an opinion on the matter because I have not acquired sufficient information.
The Times UK evidently feels confident enough already to be airing accounts along these lines:
The situation in Europe is really scary (I came from there on Sunday, after a two-week stay). Thirty years ago, BBC was the most balanced news service with unshakable reputation around the world. It's been a while since things have changed to the worst, but on this visit it was really scary: for the first time For the first time in my life I saw footages designed and deliver in exactly the same manner as... the Soviet propaganda (they are probably similar to other such creations, such as those of the Nazi's but with those I am less familiar).
I would not rely on that press at the moment.
Parenthetically, note that, as I learned today (from the Wall Street Journal, not really a yellow-press publication), the Palestinians mined the roads a few days before the incursion, and, apparently, the IFD learned about that. This explains why the tanks bypassed (and in some cases completely destroyed) the roads and destroyed houses; this is what you see on TV. I just saw that, with all the accompanying lamenting on MSNBC. The high pile you are referring to may be explained byt that as well: when you have a lot of rubble and need to get through with mechanized troops, that's whar you do.
Once again: I do not know what happened there, but I am gathering information with an open mind. While admonishing me to keep my integrity (thank you: this presumes that I have it), you appear to have already prejudged the situation. Somehow you expect a masacre perpetrated by a force that has no history of such.
Had you asked, I would have told you that the news disturb me too. Armies consist of human beings; after years of bombings and loosing a friend, a mother, wife, some soldire may take revenge on the Palestinians. Ask American or any other veterans about that. I would understand the temptation but not condone such behavior for a minute. I know that the Israeli society would do so, too. The sign of a healthy body is not that it does not het sick but that it recovers from sickness. What worries me even more is that the world, including you, expects a massacre to happen. That would really justify the bias of the Europeans and vidicate them: see, told you, Israelis are really bad guys.
You will lose what credibility you do have among men of conscience. Apparently by the end of the note you are not so sure whether I have much credibility.
To reiterate: (i) your suppositions are completely groundless; I have not spoken on the matter, nor have I written anything, precisely becasue I do not have sufficient knowledge even to form a preliminary opinion; (ii) I am amazed that you came to such strong conclusions in response to a one-line question of mine.
However out of character your note appears to be, I do take a slight offense: it appears that for some secondary reasons --- that I am Jewish, perhaps? --- you expect me to take certain positions and be what some here call "an apologist" for Israel or, in the words of P. Buchanan, "amen corner." This is prejudice, Askel, however slight it may be.
Have a good day.
Sharon?
Perhaps I should have assumed but I hadn't realized you were Jewish. (Lots of Israel's most vociferous defenders are not and many of those I know are Jewish don't necessarily spend a great deal of time making that a focal point of their posts on the subject.) Anyway, it doesn't surprise me a bit because I have always thought of you as having integrity, an open and fair mind and a well-formed conscience.
I'm in a wait-and-see as well. All we know for certain at this point is that plenty of wholly innocent people have been caught in the middle as usual and that actions to date don't necessarily evidence our (or anyone's) being headed in the right direction for ending the conflict instead of perpetuating it.
I'm sick at heart, you know. As are most.
Thanks for your reply. I shall read it again in the morning before getting back to you.
Night, TopQuark.
Oh please! It's not bricks and morter that make that place holy, it's what happened there. Noise, war, angry militants, nothing will change the fact that the site is holy. Once this is over, the site will still be holy. Do you really think a little gunfire or acid rock can erase something so significant?
Funny; not so long ago I entertained the same opinion of the WSJ (at least in its editorial and international news) as you used to have of the BBC. Since 9/11, the Journal's Editorial page and "Best of the Web" features have been unreadably shrill and partisan, IMO.
It may well be that the PA mined roads on which IDF tanks were expected. This would not surprise me, considering the bitterness of feelings, nor (seeing that the two parties are at war) does this shock me. If the shoe were on the other foot, Israel would surely be laying mines and ambushes for invading Arabs, nor would I blame them for doing so. I am unable to conceive a moral horror at the prospect of people defending their own land from invasion.
Armies consist of human beings; after years of bombings and loosing a friend, a mother, wife, some soldire may take revenge on the Palestinians. Ask American or any other veterans about that. I would understand the temptation but not condone such behavior for a minute.
Understood and agreed, but would you also agree that a corresponding temptation is equally "understandable" amongst the Palestinians, who have their own experience of loss, humiliation, and temptation to revenge? I don't for a minute defend the despicable acts of terrorists btw, which do nothing but continue the vicious cycle and foreclose any prospect of peaceful dialogue. But I do recommend to your imagination the problem of both sides harboring a deep and bitter sense of grievance. It no longer matters who shot first; you and I both know that we can't put this clock back. The problem is how to go forward.
Though it's too early to know definitively the extent of last week's civilian casualties on the West Bank, the whole world knows that the IDF's non-cooperation with the press and agencies of international relief is sadly consistent with a guilty conscience. Israel is entitled to be indifferent or even contemptuous of world opinion, but it should not feel aggrieved when world opinion returns the compliment.
The sign of a healthy body is not that it does not het sick but that it recovers from sickness.
This is true, and very apt, because the danger of a chronic sickness is quite real. The Israelis are doing a more-than-competent job of defending themselves from the Palestinians, but I invite you to ponder what happens next. If the world accommodates the Israel by letting it destroy the Palestinians, TQ, how will Israel be saved from themselves? No one who really cares for the Jews in Israel can be indifferent to the folly of encouraging in them the fatal, fallen idea that death is a problem-solver.
It's the providential righteousness of Abraham that caused him to exclaim: "Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked,...Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
And it's the justice of God the prompted Ezechiel to say: "Son of man, they who inhabit those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one, and he inherited the land. But we [are] many; the land has been given to us as a possession.' "Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "You eat [meat] with blood, you lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land? "You rely on your sword, you commit abominations, and you defile one another's wives. Should you then possess the land?"
If it is to survive, TQ, Israel must come to see that Death is not its savior. Death is the enemy.
LOL.I guess Bob Dole and the 10th Mtn and millions of others are noble blasphemers of rock and stone then.
Actually I believe you are misusing the word "blashpemy" which by normal standards incorporates the misuse of the name of God liberally, or more seriously is a formal allegiance or oath to show lack of respect to God.
The use of a sonic weapon is invasion of the Church as much as if they had filled the Church with tear gas -- which is strictly forbidden under the accord with the Vatican.
Oh please! It's not bricks and morter that make that place holy, it's what happened there. Noise, war, angry militants, nothing will change the fact that the site is holy. Once this is over, the site will still be holy. Do you really think a little gunfire or acid rock can erase something so significant?
Once this is over, and if the Church is still standing, the Christan communities will engage in both exorcism of the building and its re-consecration. Blasphemies like the presence Palestinian gunmen and IDF sonic weapons will require cleansing and reconsecration because at this moment abominations are going on that make desolate the Church of the Nativity.
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