Arafat calls on Pope for backing in Christmas showdown with Israel

afp via yahoo ^ | 12/23/2001 | afp

[veronica]

The Pope has called Jews 'the chosen people', which is great.

But he has no right to tell the Israeli gov. what to do. Israel must do what it must to for it's own security.

The Pope is also against the death penalty, but we do it anyway.

[EODGUY]

I wish all member countries in the Anti-Terrorism Coalition walked the walk like Israel.

[dennisw]

You should really be appalled by the Pope possibly giving his seal of approval to Arafat the terrorist murderer. You really think this helps Catholicim?

[dennisw]

It's such an obvious scam from Arafat the leftist atheistic Muslim to use your Catholic religion and a few other Christian denominations to help him boost his now pathetic image. Boost it in Bethlehem where Christ was born and  where the Muslims have run the Christians out of town....really hijacked this town. 

Pity you got sucked in by it. Quite amusing really but then your animus towards Israel forces you do this.

[ml/nj]

Ali Ahmet

Another from the Pantheon of Peaceful Muslims.

ML/NJ

[onedoug]

Send in the Swiss Guards!

[ml/nj]

Arafat has practised the murder of innocents. So has Israel since its very founding.

Words mean things.

murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person esp. with malice aforethought.

innocent: free from legal guilt or fault

Can you name even one innocent person intentionally killed by agents of the Israeli govenment?

None come to mind, quite the way Leon Klinghoffer does.

ML/NJ

[God_isa_Jew]

"..............Arafat calls on Pope for backing in Christmas showdown with Israel................"

The current 'intifada' would not have happened had not 'the vicar of Christ', the 'infallible one', not visited Jerusalem in 1999. Arafat's political relationship with the vicar of darkness is clearly reminiscent of another antisemitic regime, The Third Reich.

[Catspaw]

My, oh, my, you've been reviewing your old copies of Spotlight again, haven't you?

[Michael2001]

"BTW Arafat's wife is a CINO"

Is she even that? I heard she converted to Islam.

[Michael2001]

This Pope has apologized repeatedly for what has been done in the past by former Popes; I wonder if future Popes will apologize for some of the things that he is doing now.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Ali Ahmet

That would be Mehmet Ali Agca.

Arafat has to remove his checkerboard kaffia from his grape if he wants into the church. If he refuses, he doesn't get in. Perhaps he won't want the world to see the lice and maggots on his head if he makes it past the border.

[lavaroise]

The Pope did nothing compared to well known Soviet and Eastern European dissidents, who by the way are still ignored while idiots keep pointing at the annointed cases of the Pope or Gorbatchev. The hype is blinding us, and our denial of the outrageous calls for peace by the Pope implicitly against Israel are a bad joke.

Kolyma

The secrecy of Kolyma is still being continued. This land, though infamously steeped in human suffering and death, is still cloaked in mystery to the world. Western encyclopedias, documentary film, and journalism have barely flickered the light of a match within miles of this grim place. Traditional Russian secrecy, dating back to the Tsars, became a parallel of western policy towards the Soviet past, heedless of the countless unmarked graves and the bloodstains still to be found on the permafrost. The recent Russian illustrated publication "Magadan," mentioned no slave labor in the development of this Kolyma's capitol and shies away from any information that would discredit the place's genocidal past.

Encyclopedia Britannica merely mentions the name Kolyma as an arctic river with additional insignificant comments about gold mining activities in its Upper basin (p.878.v.5). From its further pages we learn that Magadan's economic development is wholly restricted to mining in several locations. Another note (p.479 v.6) gives only the following information about slave-built sub-arctic city: "good harbor led to its founding in 1933; later a road was built from Magadan crossing the mountains of the Kolyma gold fields. There is a teacher institute in the town." To some men of the West the only "reliable" source on Soviet and Russian matters are Soviets and Russians themselves.

This strange, unjustified and unexplained attitude of the West is best presented by Prof. Wladyslaw J. Ciesielewicz, who concluded his paper "Russian Bloody Gold" with the following comments on the matter of secrecy of the Kolyma's infamous past:

"George Orwell predicted in his "1984" fiction that the victims of the Big Socialist Brother would be eradicated even from the memory of the people to become true non-beings. Today, in 1985 (the same goes for 1994) of the real world, this fate actually befallen to 4-6 million Kolyma victims of Russian Socialism. Due to the censorship in Russia and her colonies (former East European satellites) and in democratic West these people virtually disappeared from the dustbin of history. They are mentioned only in a few books and in some obscure, often unpublished memoirs, written in languages other than English that no one ever reads. But there is no television documentary series, motion pictures, major historical studies or discussions in textbooks on this subject, and no human rights conferences, United Nations resolutions, Congressional hearings, monuments or memorials anywhere to remind us of the Great Kolyma Holocaust."

Kolyma, still one of the main centers of mineral resources in the world, has changed its face since Stalin's era. Maybe the slave labor still exists there, but likely on a smaller scale and limited to common criminals. Yet behind it, there is a long period of human suffering and sacrifice of life, which should not be forgotten. It is the place of human genocide, like Auschwitz, and as such deserves to be documented in the history of the world on equal basis with Nazi centers of human destruction.

[ml/nj]

How about the 30+ crewmen of our USS Liberty murdered by Israel. I won't link you to the survivor's website for the names because that qualifies as a hatecrime these days.

I am not an expert on the names of the hundreds (or is it thousands now) of Palestinians who have been murdered by the IDF and Israeli intelligence services in the West Bank and Gaza. But, of course, you get the point.

PS- Wasn't Israel founded by the murderers in the Stern Gang and Irgun and Haganah memorialized in street names and museums all over Israel?

Let's take them one at a time.

USS Liberty - I think this happened during a war. It may have been bad judgement by the Israelis, but it hardly qualifies as murder.

I am not an expert - This goes without saying. But you continue to pretend here at FR. You speak of hundreds or thousands but you cannot name one. Ask me to name one or ten Israelies murdered by Arafat's Legions and I would have no trouble.

Stern Gang and Irgun and Haganah - I believe these folks predated the State of Israel. Together they did murder some they felt were enemies, and were sometimes roundly criticized by other Jews; other times maybe they were cheered or quietly supported. What do you think about the Boston Tea Party?

ML/NJ

[a_witness]

The Vatican and the Orthodox churches in Jerusalem have stated repeatedly since 1967 that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is wrong and that Jerusalem should be governed as an open, international city.

Did they state repeatedly since 1948 that the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is wrong and that Jerusalem should be governed as an open, international city ?

As for that last line of Swahili you quoted, you'll have to translate it into American English.

Ha-Ruach Ha-Kodesh is Hebrew for the Holy Spirit.