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Dedicated to Freedom of the Press, Investigative Reporting and Revisionist History
Michael A. Hoffman II, Editor
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The Bethlehem Church Fire and the Talmudic Injunction to Lie
by Michael A. Hoffman II
April 8, 2002
http://www.hoffman-info.com/palestine52.html
Objective observers of the Israeli scene have long noted the distinct
Israeli penchant for lying, the more outrageous the better. This
heritage of lies is, sad to say, of religious origin. The Talmud,
Judaism's holiest book, decrees: "Jews may use lies ('subterfuge') to
circumvent a Gentile (Baba Kamma 113a).
We observe this institutionalized lying in a disturbing case in
Bethlehem today where Israeli soldiers started a blaze in the Basilica
of St Catherine, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity.
Israelis lie and say their "troops are under orders not to fire at holy
places" such as the Church of the Nativity, which is revered as the
birthplace of Jesus Christ. Palestinians fleeing shoot-on-sight Israeli
tanks and snipers have found haven in the church complex for nearly a
week, along with a group of monks and nuns.
To explain the fire, this is the grostesque cover story Israeli
propagandists are distributing to the media: "Palestinian gunmen
provoked a fire which broke out near the Church of the Nativity on
Monday (April 8). Gunmen opened fire from a belltower, wounding two
Israeli border policemen in a nearby rooftop look-out, an army officer
told Reuters news agency. He said the Israelis returned fire and a smoke
grenade started the blaze in a second-floor meeting hall overlooking the
Basilica of St Catherine, adjacent to the Church of the Nativity. One
Palestinian gunman was shot dead in the battle. Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon said today that his soldiers would not 'defile the holiness of
the site."
Now, here is the truth: Israeli soldiers started the fire in the church.
A priest inside the church, Father Amjad Sabbara, told the BBC that the
Palestinian man killed by the Israelis was not shooting at them but had
been trying to douse the flames. The Israeli soldiers killed him because
he was trying to extinguish the flames and save the church. After the
Palestinian was murdered, the blaze burned for an hour, destroying altar
cloths and ceremonial cups and damaging mosaics inside the Basilica of
St Catherine.
Christian clerics from Jerusalem were prevented by Israelis from
entering Bethlehem on April 8 to bear witness. Monks at the church had
reported damage to "sacred spaces" and evidence that Israeli troops had
entered the church.
A spokesman for Catholic monks in the Holy Land testified that Israeli
soldiers were guilty of an "indescribable act of barbarity." Israelis
had broken their international obligations and risked "long-term and
incalculable" consequences, Father David Jaeger said.
Yossi Kelin Halevi, a columnist for the L.A. Times wrote on April 8: "
...mainline churches continue to ignore Israeli fears and offer
simplistic judgments..It is time for mainline churches to reconsider
their anti-Israel bias, which undermines the credibility of Jewish
proponents of dialogue and jeopardizes our historic reconciliation...in
their obsessive attacks on Israel, some churches are inadvertently
reawakening old anti-Semitic instincts that, since the Holocaust, much
of Christianity has tried to uproot. For example, an Episcopalian church
in Scotland, seeking to express solidarity with the Palestinians, has
just unveiled a painting showing a crucified Jesus flanked by Roman and
Israeli soldiers."
<PRE>Hoffman is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press
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