-Caveat Lector- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 6:47 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: PHARISEE WATCH: Generation of Warriors
( http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/Suicide2post.htm ) THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE Part 2, Generation of Warriors By Charles E. Carlson We find a generation of unique warriors in Gaza because, as a young woman named Shirine, from Gaza City told me, �they are robbing us of our dreams.� I call them the �Human Bombs.� I spent one only week alone observing children in Gaza. An American lady named Connie, who has spent much more time with Palestinian children wrote this to me in a letter; I can not say it better she does. "[NOT] UNTIL YOU LOOK INTO THE EYES OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE AS THEY EXPLAIN WHAT THEY EXPERIENCE CAN YOU UNDERSTAND WHY YOU CANNOT CONDEMN WHAT THEY DO. IT IS NOT SO MUCH A SURPRISE THAT THEY WOULD BECOME A HUMAN BOMB, BUT THAT THEY DON'T DO IT MORE OFTEN. I COULD NOT SHOW THE PATIENCE, FORGIVENESS OR COMPASSION THAT THEY SHOW AND TEACH THEIR CHILDREN. HOW THEY SHOW SO MUCH RESTRAINT IN THE FACE OF THE TERROR AND INJUSTICE THEY EXPERIENCE DAILY IS WHY I LIVE IN AWE OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE." It is painful and sad to contemplate that young men, and now women, are willing to submit themselves to an almost certain death in order to inflict a blow, however small, against an occupation force. Imagine taking the risk of being caught and beaten to death while trying to sneak out of Gaza, a fenced prison; then to travel alone overland to some populated area carrying a homemade pipe bomb that you know can only be detonated within a few feet of an enemy if it is not to be wasted. Imagine knowing that if you detonate the bomb too soon or in the wrong place you will kill only yourself and your friends; if you wait one second too long, you will be shot dead or, much worse, captured and likely tortured to death. Who can call these youths "cowards?" No one hundred people have been more sacrificial than the human bombers; how dare anyone who is for Palestine independence condemn them! And no one hundred people have ever been as successful in bringing the economy of a major militarist state to its knees: the State of Israel is in economic convulsions today, sustained only by US war gifts. Before judging them let us look at the latest of these warriors, seven of whom are women. At Erez Checkpoint on the north gate of Gaza one young soldier asked me in clear English, �WHY DO YOU WANT TO GO IN THERE?� He wrinkled his delicate white skinned nose a little as he spoke, pronouncing the words with puzzlement, as if asking why I would visit hell or dive into a sewer. He listened to my noncommittal reply and, no doubt, passed it on by cell phone to the next station to which he then directed me. There was no line to enter Gaza that bright morning in March 2002. I was utterly alone, entering a gulag of 1.25 million people. A hundred yards down the long concrete corridor into Gaza, I stopped as if to rest, dug my camcorder out of my backpack and, as casually as I could manage, swung a 360 scan of the checkpoint. I know they were watching me because there was no one else to watch. I was the only human being in line that morning, and not a vehicle or living soul departed Gaza during my 30-minute voyage toward the inside. That day at Erez checkpoint I saw what Rehm Salih al Rayasha must have seen as she walked to her death in the opposite direction with a crude bomb wrapped around her. Erez checkpoint is in the center of a kilometer long gauntlet with barbed wire topped concrete walls on both sides. She would have seen a concrete barricade arranged throughout the entire distance to prevent any vehicle from approaching the massive reinforced concrete and plate steel bullet shaped gatehouse. The vehicle gate is barricaded and impregnable even by a truck, and the Palestinians have no tanks or dozers. Those hoping to leave Gaza to visit family outside or get a day�s work must walk past the massive reinforced gatehouse and past a four inch slit in thick steel plate with a faceless Israeli on the other side who examines your papers, then passes you on to armed soldiers, male and female, who stand chatting behind the gatehouse. They direct you on and watch you enter a low customs house where you will pass through sensors and see your baggage being examined much like a US airport. Rehm Salih al Rayasha, was to become the first mother to take this lonesome 600 yard walk toward Israel. Hers was one of the most effective attacks ever to penetrate Israeli security, because only Israeli military were killed, no civilians. Several Palestinians who were in the checkpoint at the time were said to be injured, �friendly fire� our leaders might call it. I do not recall a single Israeli missile attack that has not killed or injured non-combatants. Rehm carried her bomb and placed it point blank in the face of her target--military men and girls, who she believed, held all of Gaza captive. She is called a suicide bomber, but her death was not a suicide; her death was an artillery attack on an impregnable enemy emplacement. Human (intelligent) bombs in Gaza are those who use their brains and legs as guided delivery vehicles to place tiny, primitive explosive devices close enough to the enemy to kill some of them--so close to intended targets as to do deadly damage, or in an enclosed area, like busses, to maximize concussion. The bombs are made at a cost of a few dollars of scrap metal--sometimes old bolts, nuts or nails--and a few pounds of precious high explosive. Primitive hand-operated detonators made of hardware store electronics are used, because that is all the bombers have in Gaza. The one inestimable cost is the cost of the life of the human delivery vehicle. Only about 100 amazingly small bombs have been exploded, but many more have attempted. The human bomb is many times more accurate and selective than any million dollar �smart� bomb fired from a warplane, but it is minute in size and explosive power. Israel probably fires several hundred smart bombs for every human bomb that reaches his target. Still Israel is being destroyed economically before the whole world by a mere handful of human bombs. It may be the most successful offensive ever carried out by so few people under such impossible conditions. HUMAN BOMBS DO NOT TARGET CIVILIANS At last count, based on Israeli official sources, less than 90 Israelis under the age of 18 have been killed from all military acts, including �suicide bombs� in the entire 17 years of the Intifada. This count is taken from public available reports of all �suicide bombings� from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the propaganda arm of its military and the Israeli Defense Forces (Army). The former lists include those killed one by one including age and rank. (endnote#1 Government sources) This writer does not minimize the deaths of 90 Israeli children. Any death is sad, collateral damage always includes children. But it is a small number compared to thousands of Palestinians children killed or maimed in the same time period, not to mention the psychological damage on the survivors. Ninety is also a very small number compared to the number of military personnel killed by the same hundred bombs. Btselen, a reliable Israeli human rights organization, reports the total death count to be about 3544 Palestinians killed, compared to 532 Israelis, since the Intifada began in 1987. The Israelis dead are almost half military according to the Btselem and about 30% military according to Israeli Military sources. Approximate eight Palestinians have been killed for every one Israeli, including active military. Child killing is even more unbalanced. One Israeli child has been reported killed for about every 20 Palestinian children killed by the Israeli soldiers and air force. Wounded and maimed even are more lopsided. (endnote #2 Private sources) It is clear from IDF reports that the human bombers do indeed target Israeli military and not civilians. According to the Feb. 10 Israeli report, 248 of the 905 Israelis killed by �suicide bombers� are members of its military. This is about 27% and does not include the many under-45 male casualties who are almost certainly reservists; the IDF never identifies reservists killed, though most men under 45 are in the reserves. Since the active military is about 7% of the Israeli population, one would expect the bombers to kill about 56 military without even aiming at them. If intelligent bombers hit targets accidentally, they would have killed very few military and many more civilians; the real rate is almost 4 times higher than by accident. Clearly the military is the target, because the military is what is being hit. The human bombs track soldiers to the nighttime saloons, discos and shopping centers, and to the buses. In Israel the military mixes constantly with civilians, especially on public transport, so civilians will always be in the line of fire. To say that human bombers target innocent civilians is a provable lie. It is like accusing a guy of hunting without a license when his bag is full of fish. It is idiocy to say the Palestinians aim for civilians when Israeli statistics prove they constantly kill 400% more military than are found in the general population; the numbers do not lie. Yet the IDF and the US media always imply that the bombers seek out easy to kill "innocent" civilians. Palestinians like Rehm seek out and kill the Israeli military because they have grown up knowing only daily oppression. They are as much combatants as were Sampson and the defenders of Masada, who Israelis proclaim as their ancestral heroes. By comparison, virtually 100% of the Palestinians killed by Israelis are civilians. Israel claims 327 assassinations of suspected tourists, and all the rest of the thousands are bystanders. None of those assassinated, including Sheik Yassin, have were tried and convicted of anything. They are simply proclaimed to be enemies and killed. It is fair to say the American press reports the killing in reverse ratio to what really takes place. It is this author�s totally unscientific observation that in the US media that about 20 minutes of TV time or headline newsprint is devoted to Palestine intelligent bombs ("suicide bombs") for every one minute devoted to Israeli shootings of Palestinian children. How much press would Rachel Corey's death have received if she had been a Jewish American student murdered by an employee of Yassar Arafat? What if Palestinians had deliberately driven a 40-ton Caterpillar, made in the USA and paid for by American taxpayers, over the body of an American Jewish girl? I don�t recall any Nightline or 60 Minutes specials on Rachael's' death. HUMAN BOMBERS DO NOT COMMIT SUICIDE All who call themselves by Christ�s holy name must respect the spark of life that comes to each person from God and can only be taken back by Him. Suicide is an insult to God because it rejects his gift. Every Muslim knows this; every Christian should know it, too. Gazans who set out to kill their enemies face to face and lose their own lives in the process are not committing suicide; they are committing acts of war. The Arab press usually uses the Islamic term �martyrs� to describe bombers. In my own article on the subject, I chose to use the term �intelligent bombs� to describe them. Sacrifice bombers might also be a good term. But in no way do these warriors seek to take their own lives, and suicide is by definition the intentional act of taking ones own life. No dictionary defines suicide in terms of acts of combat, no matter how hopeless the odds of survival might be. Heroic impossible missions are not new in Palestine. The Hebrew Bible contains the account of Sampson, who pulled the temple down around him in order to kill Philistine enemies along with himself. Samson was accused of many sins, but he was never accused of committing suicide for dying with his enemies. The first century Judean zealots are claimed to have committed mass suicide at Masada rather than allow themselves to be captured by the Romans. In our own culture we have our Nathan Hale and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one of whom described that as their death warrant. The prophecy found fulfillment for many before the war ended, but none were ever accused of committing suicide. Intelligent bombs like Rehm go to great lengths to preserve their lives until such time as they have an opportunity to take the lives of the enemy. If the intent was suicide, why bother to strap on a bomb and run the terrible risk of being taken alive by the Israelis? Intelligent bombs act with superhuman bravery, hardly the case for those whose aim is to take their own lives. Among the more bizarre US / Israeli explanations of bomber behavior are claims that they kill themselves for pay or for the promise of "72 virgins" in Paradise. Are we to believe the seven ladies who carried bombs sought fulfillment of that promise as well? CULTURE OF LIFE VS.CULTURE OF DEATH As a hopeful follower of Christ, I have no problem stating that most of Islamic culture holds life sacred, and that many professing Christians think they do, but do not hold life sacred. Abortion, which is epidemic in Israel, is all but unknown on the Gaza side of Erez gate, and suicide is forbidden. The Palestinian sacrifice bomber must believe he is carrying out a mission that is heroic and indispensable. If this is so, then it is not suicide any more than it was suicide when Joan of Arc refused to recant to save her life. A remarkable interview that proved this point occurred last year during or shortly after the Janine massacre. A Palestinian female about 28 years old backed out on a mission. After arming herself with an explosive belt and going into the street with intent to bomb an undisclosed target, she had a change of heart and was later captured with her explosive belt beside her while sitting in her aunt�s house in the West Bank. Later, the Israeli government granted a rare press interview with the woman prisoner, allowing the Israeli media to ask questions. One reporter asked the woman why she had changed her mind; her answer was revealing of Muslim thinking. She stated that she became worried as she approached detonation because she felt the weight of deep personal problems in her life; she said she began to wonder if God would judge her a sinner for ending her life. She feared He would judge her as casting her life away because she was not happy with it. Unless her motives were pure, her mission might be "suicide" in God's eyes. The journalist�s account made the woman's statement of faith in God's eternal justice very clear. She would face the terrible consequence of being a captured bomber rather than risk God judging her unworthy! I do not know this woman's outcome, but surely she has her God on her side. She will need Him, for she is now in the hands of Zionists who hate her. HUMAN BOMBERS HAVE ISRAEL ON ITS ECONOMIC KNEES Behind the condemnation of the human sacrifice bombers is the fact that they have not given their lives in vain. They and they alone have brought the powerful militaristic State of Israel to its economic knees when there was no other military way to challenge it. For two years, tourism, especially American, once Israel�s leading cash industry, has been almost non-existent. Israel is now being supported by private tours that are sponsored by Christian Zionist groups led by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and many more like them. In spite of this concerted effort to generate revenue for Israel from �the flock,� its nominal wages are down 3% in the last year, and the real income of Israelis is collapsing. On April 27th the bank of Israel agreed to cut wages by 10%. Only massive aid and loan guarantees from US taxpayers allow it to continue the horrors we describe here. Furthermore, there will probably be little tourism as long as there is one youth left who is willing to give his life to keep Israel on the ropes. Israel was in rags financially two years ago. Oranges hung rotting on the trees. Alleys were strewn with uncollected trash, tourist buses were occupied only by soldiers and locals. Businessmen could only shake their heads and say �it must end; it has never been so bad.� Worst of all, the immorality that comes with extreme militarism was disgusting even to Americans. It can be seen on the street at any time of night. In peaceful Elate, a high-class tourist village on the Red Sea far from the conflict of Gaza and the West Bank, there are few tourists but many soldiers, and no visible Americans. Hotel owners wait at the bus stops, holding up signs to pick up lone tourists who the owner will gladly drive to his hotel. An affable Burmese Jewish hotel owner bargained with me in front of the bus. On the way to his hotel in his personal auto, he told me he averaged only two guest a day. It was, he said, the worst business in his forty years in Israel and not enough to cover his utilities and taxes. He described his situation as desperate. But his situation was favorable compared to the stormy north. A small businessman riding on the bus said, �Sharon is rich and insane; the rest of us cannot stand his war.� The dilution of the shekel necessary to keep the military funded is pegged to the dollar�s dilution and is sinking with the dollar in the world market. Americans are being diluted into a sub-middle class with our war partner, Israel. An enemy is destroyed by destroying its economy and with it its ability and will to continue waging war. Never have 100 warriors died to accomplish more with less. Armed with about a truckload of old pipes, junk electronics, bolts and nuts and a few hundred pounds of explosives, the Palestinian Intifada has destroyed Israel�s ability to support itself. The only prosperous businesses appear to be those that feed off the military, and tours of cloistered American tourists, who are almost never seen in public and certainly not in the occupied territories. Most are �christian�-Zionists on sequestered tours arranged and chaperoned by the likes of Jerry Falwell. He recently received an award from none other then Ariel Sharon for helping to keep Israel alive by influencing �400,000 American visitors� to spend their money in Israel. No doubt every one wear Israeli supplied blinders, and I would guess not one sets foot in an Muslim Arab�s home or business. TERRORIST OR PATRIOT Pharisees and Israeli patriots in the US are outraged by any mention of the courage of the human bombs. Palestinian patriotism and commitment are beyond the imagination of overfed pastors and overpaid US soldiers. Consider Rehm, who left two infant children behind for someone else to care for. For every human bomber who dies, about 20 Palestinian children are killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli soldiers. The hope for her children lay not in how good a mother she was, but in whether the occupation of her homeland is ended and freedom comes to the children of Gaza. Like every Palestinian I met, Rehm knew that children in Gaza will soon be starving unless the terrible blockade is broken. She has been criticized and besmirched as a libertine, but she will be a heroine to her children if they survive. WHO IS THE DEATH CULTURE I met a man in Gaza who was the proud father of 23, and he did not complain about too many, though I do not know how he fed them. A workman who was lucky enough to have a job made coffee for me and told me he had seven children. He wondered if it was true that Americans were restricted in the number of children they could have; he didn�t understand what I told him about abortion in America and may not have believed it, so alien was our way to his idea of life. Jewish Americans, including Wiesenthal, speak of Palestine as a death culture because of Rehm and a hundred like her, but they are wrong. Israel is the death culture, with a birth rate so low that population experts fear they will be overrun by the Arab minority through births alone, unless genocide swings the balance. The Israeli tactic is not to have more babies, but to kill Palestinians. MORE ARMS FOR ISRAEL The practice of condemning human bombs as terrorists is a matter of survival with the Israelis. Only by vilifying its enemy has Israel managed to keep military aid and multi billion dollar loans coming. When American aid stops, Israel will elect a peaceful settlement with the Arabs, and at that time the great migration will take place. It will not be Arabs leaving their homeland; it will be Israelis returning to the USA, Germany, and a dozen other places. The real killers in Palestine are the Americans who continue to finance the bombs and rockets that keep the assignation and torture going. Worse yet are the pastors and religious leaders who fail to stand for peace and life. The blood of the innocents is on all of us. The best way to bring an end to the killing on both sides is to un-fund and un-tithe the Christian-Zionist churches. Celebrity Media Moguls who support the joint military actions of Israel and America in the name of Jesus must be discredited. Their leaders now threaten us financially by their support of militarism in the name of Israel-worship. Their perfidious acts will soon entrap our sons and daughters into a mercenary and brutal military. Blame them; picket them; un-fund them; confront them. There is a way; let us use it! Endnote #1, MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS and ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCES (http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa) and (http://www.mod.gov.il) Endnote #2, THE ISRAELI INFORMATION CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES (btselen) (http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Total_Casualties.asp) Link to part I published in March, 2004 THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE, Part 1, WHO KILLS THE HUMAN BOMBERS? (http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/Suicide1Fnl.htm ) Books and tapes and videos special package: VALUE $84.50: OCCUPIED LANDS SPECIAL $60.00 JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM-Halsell, book $12.00 GAZA STRIP- Langley, video- $25.00 DILEMMA: BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE GAZA STRIP- Carlson, 2 hour audeo-$8.00 MESSAGE FROM SHIRENE OF GAZA-English Student and C. Carlson, audio, $6.00 ONE NATION UNDER ISRAEL-Hurley, classic book, $17.50 INSIDE GAZA, HUMAN BOMBS- tape, Carlson, $6.00 (http://www.whtt.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=211&osCsid=8962f29 fcd31bc69f3a10b9f3baf4ef4) To be added to our list, type "Subscribe" in the subject line. Calls and radio interviews are invited. WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS (www.whtt.org) Strait Gate Ministries P.O. Box 14491 Scottsdale, AZ 85267 480 947 3329 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) To be removed, reply with "Remove" in the subject line. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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