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EASTER IN TODAY'S "HOLY LAND"
"God willing, there will be a car-bomb very soon inside Israel,
and they too will cry. They will cry blood."
Quoted in today's New York Times
"Today the sniper's bullet substitutes for the crucifiers nails."
MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4/13:
Two thousand years ago on the ancient streets of Jerusalem it was the Roman army
in control, the Jewish people under occupation, and Jesus, a heretical Jewish rabbi,
heading to his crucifixation as a result of "official" Jewish and Roman cooperation.
Today on these same ancient streets of Jerusalem it is the Israeli Army in
control, the Palestinian people under occupation, and Jewish rabbis with racist
ideologies who dominant the scene with visions of resurrecting the ancient Jewish
Temple in the years ahead. And yes as well, there is a cunning form of "official"
Jewish, Christian (the Vatican and other Chistian authorities), as well as Muslim (the
"client regimes" whom themselves have co-opted things Muslim) cooperation at work
making possible this Israeli occupation complete with its Romanesque brutality. Today
the sniper's bullet substitutes for the crucifiers nails.
How shameful today's situation should be for the Jewish people who at other times
in their own long history have suffered so terribly from such racist and militarist
madness. How shameful as well so many of those who so falsely and so hypocritically
speak in the names of Christianity and Islam today.
The "turn the other cheek" Christians may indeed believe that "God watches over us"
at Christmas time -- themselves still smitten with the medieval "son of God"
mythology. But then the Christian church too, especially the Roman Catholic church,
has so much blood on its own hands, so much need to atone for so many sins, past and
present. And the fact that a few well-meaning but oh so naive Christians now hold a
Washington monthly prayer vigil for peace in the Holy Land the 22nd of each month is a
bit like applying a little external bandaid to a raging internal cancer.
The tragic reality at this time of Easter is that all three of the religions of
the book, and all the common Children of Abraham, have so terribly besmirched their
own history, teachings, and values -- with the Israeli people, claiming to represent
the historical Jewish people, today at the very top of this devilish list for racism,
militarism, bloodletting and oh so much of the worst kinds of hypocrisy.
HOLY LAND VIOLENCE CLOUDS EASTER CELEBRATIONS
By Brian Williams
JERUSALEM, April 13 (Reuters) - Bowed down by crosses and carrying candles flickering
in empty drink bottles, Christian pilgrims on Friday retraced Jesus's walk to
crucifixion in subdued Holy Land Easter celebrations.
Protected by heavier-than-usual security because of recent Israeli-Palestinian
violence, the Good Friday religious parade is the once-a-year day when Christianity
takes the spotlight in a historic location also revered by Jews and Moslems.
However the numbers were dramatically down on previous years because of the violence.
"Fewer people and they don't seem as carried away as in other years," said a coffee
shop waiter.
Devout Christians have braved wars and ruthless rulers for nearly 2,000 years to make
the pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jesus along the Via Dolorosa in the old quarter of
Arab East Jerusalem.
Grouped in main Christian religions -- from Roman Catholic to Greek Orthodox to
Protestant -- as well as individuals, the pilgrims shuffled jammed together down the
narrow cobbled alleyway where the 14 Stations of the Cross lie.
The stations mark the places where Jesus was scourged, stumbled and crowned with
thorns. The journey starts at the prison -- now a church -- where Jesus was taken
after the Last Supper.
In one of the many historical ironies of the journey, the seven-month-old Palestinian
uprising against Israeli occupation flared just metres from the end of the walk at the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus was crucified and buried.
Surrounded by armed guards, Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon, now Israeli prime
minister, on September 28 visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a site also sacred to
Jews because it is the location of Temple Mount.
CROSSES TO BEAR
The order of dress in the Jerusalem processions was mainly black, with priests and
nuns accorded special status among the thousands of other pilgrims in tourist-like
summer clothing.
Wooden crosses, from six-foot and longer ones carried by an individual or groups of
men to small crosses clutched in the hands of elderly women, dotted the snaking line
of thousands of pilgrims.
The most dramatic enactment was a man, bare from the waist up, with red paint
spattering his body to resemble blood, dragging a lengthy cross.
With a crown of thorns on his head, he was guarded by men dressed as Roman soldiers
carrying whips.
The Israeli Tourism Ministry said the number of foreign tourists visiting over the
Easter period was about half of the three million expected before the violence broke
out.
Visitors from Italy and Germany were down by about 70 percent while there was a 50
percent fall in tourists from the United States.
"Usually at Easter we have pilgrims who come from Cyprus and from Greece, yearly about
ten thousand people. This year only three hundred people so it's very very bad, it's
terrible -- the worst we have ever seen in our life," said Ziad Hashima, a souvenir
shop owner on the Via Dolorosa.
Restaurant owner Jacir Hanna's reservations book for Good Friday is blank this year,
compared to more than 100 diners scribbled in for last year's Easter.
"This year it is zero. The reason is the uprising," he said.
American Rob Green said he was a "little apprehensive" at first about attending the
procession because of the warnings that it could be drawn into the present violence.
"But it's the holiest place on earth and I didn't want to give up that opportunity,"
he said.
Fellow American Lori Quick said she felt the warnings had been overdone.
"God watches over us," she said.
NEW CLASHES AS SHARON SETS CONDITIONS
JERUSALEM (Reuters - 13 April) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon favors a
long-term interim deal with the Palestinians that would give
them a far
smaller and weaker state than they demand, according to an
interview
published on Friday.
But heightened tensions after an alleged Israeli attempt to
assassinate
an activist of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah
movement in the
West Bank and new clashes in Gaza have made talk of peacemaking
seem like empty words.
In the Old City of Jerusalem, turnout for traditional Good
Friday
processions, held under heavy Israeli security, was low
compared with
previous years. Cross-bearing pilgrims retraced the traditional
route
Jesus took to his crucifixion.
The procession ended without incident but shortly afterwards
Palestinian
youths briefly threw stones at Israeli security guards at a
location that is
sacred to both religions and frequently the scene of clashes
after Muslim
Friday prayers.
In incidents outside Jerusalem, three Israeli soldiers were
wounded
when a bomb exploded near their vehicle about six miles from
the city, an
army spokeswoman said.
Witnesses said two separate gunbattles took place in Gaza near
the
Egyptian border at Rafah but there were no casualties.
About 2,000 Palestinians rallied in Nablus after Friday prayers
to protest
at the lack of progress in ending violence.
Witnesses said minor stone-throwing against Israeli soldiers
erupted
near Karni crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Palestinian hospital sources said seven people were wounded when
troops opened fire to break up the trouble.
Stating publicly what his aides have said, Sharon told the
Maariv
newspaper he could accept a Palestinian state on some 42
percent of
the West Bank.
With another Israeli withdrawal in the West Bank, such as the
one
promised in a 1998 interim peace accord, "it's possible to
reach 42
percent, plus or minus," he told the newspaper.
That is only a little bit more than the West Bank land in which
Palestinians
already have full or partial control under interim peace deals
going back
seven years.
As before, Sharon conditioned any peace talks on an end to
violence that
has raged for nearly seven months in a Palestinian uprising
against
Israeli occupation.
In Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, about 40 masked men,
shrouded in white sheets -- a symbol of martydom to
Palestinians --
renewed their vows as members of the military wing of the
Islamic Jihad
group to kill Israelis.
"We swear to God that the sons of the Jerusalem brigade will
come at
you like an earthquake," said the leader of the group, which
has carried
out bombings in Israel.
"Every Zionist monkey is number one on our wanted list," he
said as the
contingent of self-declared suicide-bombers-in- waiting kissed
a Koran
and submachinegun at a rally attended by hundreds of Islamic
Jihad
supporters.
SHARON SEES DEMILITARISED PALESTINIAN STATE
In the newspaper interview, Sharon said a Palestinian state
would have
to be demilitarized and its police forces armed only to
maintain order,
while Israel would for years oversee the external borders and
be free to fly
over the territory.
He has said he can envisage only a long-term agreement of
non-belligerency with the Palestinians, not a final peace deal.
Palestinians have already ruled out establishing a state on
anything less
than all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip --
lands that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
PALESTINIANS LASH OUT AT ISRAEL
OVER BOOBY-TRAPPED CAR
Palestinians, meanwhile, lashed out at Israel over the alleged
attempt to
blow up Fatah activist Nasser Abu Hmeid in a refugee camp near
the
West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday.
The alleged incident occurred less than 24 hours after
U.S.-arranged
talks between Israeli and Palestinian security officials aimed
at reducing
violence.
Palestinian officials said two "collaborators" with Israel had
delivered a
booby-trapped car to Abu Hmeid, but he suspected foul play and
called in
security forces who took the vehicle to a field where it
exploded, causing
no casualties.
"Sending a booby-trapped car into a residential area was a
serious
escalation," Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Amr told
Palestinian
television.
Asked to comment, the Israeli army said: "We are unaware of any
such
explosion." Palestinian television showed the charred remains
of what it
said was Abu Hmeid's car.
Palestinian officials have accused Israel of assassinating more
than 20
activists since the uprising began.
At least 376 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 71 other
Israelis have
been killed in the violence that erupted last September after
peace talks
deadlocked.
GAZA, IN RUINS, AND SETTLERS IN THE SURF
By JOEL GREENBERG
New York Times - 13 April:
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip, April 12: In a cluster of tents pitched in a sea of
rubble where Palestinian dwellings were flattened here Wednesday by Israeli
Army bulldozers, Fatima Abu Loz sat hollow-eyed today, nursing a child.
"We've lost everything," she said of her family's razed home and belongings
buried in the wreckage. "We were building the future and it was destroyed."
At least 15 cinder block houses were destroyed and scores of people made
homeless when the Israelis thrust into the edge of the Khan Yunis refugee
camp on Wednesday, targeting what the army said were buildings used by
gunmen to shoot at the neighboring Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim.
Stunned Palestinian residents were still milling through the wreckage today,
salvaging what remained. A refrigerator and washing machine poked out of a
pile of rubble. Behind the ruins, apartment buildings gutted by Israeli
shelling and machine- gun fire stood empty.
A short drive away across the sand dunes, on a heavily guarded beach used by
Jewish settlers, Hagit Cohen watched her children play in the surf.
On Tuesday, her settlement, Katif, was hit by three mortar shells fired by
Palestinians. No one was hurt in that attack, but earlier this month a baby
was seriously wounded when mortars fell on another settlement.
Mrs. Cohen fears leaving her children outside the house, so the beach outing
was a break from the anxiety at home. "We're living our lives, but also
feeling the war," she said.
Israeli teenagers carrying surfboards headed back to their settlements,
passing soldiers in bullet- proof vests. Tanks and armored troop carriers
were dug in along roads flanked by the uprooted trees of Arab-owned
orchards. The groves had been bulldozed to deny cover to Palestinian gunmen
who had fired at settlers' cars.
A tank was positioned in Neve Dekalim's deserted industrial zone, facing the
Khan Yunis refugee camp. Meanwhile, soldiers peered into the camp from an
armored observation booth hoisted high by a crane. A lone burst of gunfire
shattered the erie calm, scattering boys who had gathered in the rubble.
In the tent on the ruins of his house, Mrs. Abu Loz's husband, Jalal, said
that the couple and their eight children had been left with only the clothes
they wore, and that neighbors were bringing them food. The Red Cross
supplied the tent, and the Palestinian Authority had provided a few
mattresses and blankets, he said. "We were here before the settlements were
built, and we're not going away, even if we have to stay in a tent," he
said.
A neighbor, Hassan Abu Ubeida, who also lost his house, said he fled with
his family early Wednesday when he heard the Israeli armored vehicles
approaching. "There was no chance to take anything out," he said. "This was
an assault on unarmed civilians."
On the beach nearby, Mrs. Cohen said it was hard for her to watch television
images of the homeless Palestinians. "They're just civilians, and I don't
know if they have the power to stop the shooting, but on the other hand,
human lives are at stake," she said. "My husband says that in a war
individuals always get hurt. We don't want this, but what can we do?"
Yossi Chen, a settler who had been wounded in a shooting attack on his car,
said that conflict with the Palestinians left no alternative but to strike
back, even if that resulted in harm to civilians. "Since we're in a state of
war, there's no choice" he said.
Mr. Chen, who travels daily in an armored military truck to study at a
yeshiva in a neighboring settlement, said he felt more protected in Neve
Dekalim than on the streets of cities inside Israel, where there has been a
wave of bombings in recent weeks.
Mrs. Cohen agreed. "Right now there's no place that's secure," she said.
In the Khan Yunis camp, residents said the only solution was the departure
of the settlers.
"This is Palestinian land and they should go away from here," said Suleiman
Abu Musa, whose house was destroyed. "If they leave, the problem will be
solved."
Then he added a wish: "God willing, there will be a car-bomb very soon
inside Israel, and they too will cry. They will cry blood."
----------------------------------
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