"Well, there is a first time for everything, Bob" ??
Juan Cole — Informed Comment
"Well, there is a first time for everything, Bob" ??
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren not only called the head of CBS news in an attempt to quash a report on the displacement of Palestinian Christians by the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but he briefed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the far right wing Likud Party on his attempt.
Here are the top ten reasons Israel’s Likud Party would have wanted to censor American television news on this occasion (and of course we don’t know all the occasions they have successfully done so):
1. The report told Americans that there are Palestinian Christians.
Right wing Israelis have attempted to displace, expropriate and erase the Palestinian nation, and to convince Americans that Palestinians don’t exist or if they do are enemies of the U.S.
When the foe of the US was the Soviet Union, they made the Palestinians Communists.
When the foe became al-Qaeda, they made the Palestinians violent fundamentalists. But if some percentage of Palestinians is Christians, then that fact disrupts the propaganda. In fact, millions of Palestinians are descended from the 700,000 or so Palestinians ethnically cleansed by the Israelis from what is now Israel in 1948, of whom about 10 percent were Christian.
2. The report mentioned that some Palestinians are Lutherans, Catholics and Episcopalians, establishing a link of commonality between them and Americans. The Israeli Likud Party wants Americans identifying only with Israelis, not with Palestinians.
3. The report told Americans that Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land. Most Americans think it is the other way around because of the success of Likud disinformation.
4. The report let it slip that Palestinians in the West Bank need a permit to travel to Arab East Jerusalem and are subjected within the West Bank to humiliating check points that turn a 7 mile journey into an all-day ordeal. This system sounds an awful lot like the old South African Apartheid.
5. The report allowed Palestinians to speak for themselves and to refute Oren’s anti-Palestinian talking points. It is a key principle of right wing Israeli propaganda that Palestinians should never be allowed to challenge the Israeli narrative on American television.
6. The report allowed a prominent Palestinian businessman and Coca Cola distributor to say that he knew of no Palestinian Christians who were leaving the West Bank and Jerusalem because of Muslims but that rather they were leaving because of Israeli oppression.
7. It allowed the Palestinians to point out that the West Bank now looks like Swiss cheese, with Israeli colonies grabbing the good land and water, and the stateless Palestinians pushed into the holes.
8. The report described the Palestinian Kairos Document, calling for nonviolent, peaceful struggle by Palestinians against Israeli Occupation and land grabs. Likud propaganda insists in racist fashion that all Palestinians are inherently angry and violent and that their protest against being made stateless and homeless by Israel is irrational.
9. The report quotes an Israeli scholar who puts “Political Judaism” on par with “Political Islam.” It is a key principle of Likud propaganda that no movement in Israel may ever be compared to movements in the Muslim world.
10. The report allows Palestinians to point out that the way the Israelis built the Separation Wall isolated Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace and a city that still is 18% Christian, had made it “an open-air prison.”
Bob Simon’s report on Christians in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and Jerusalem is here:
United Methodist Kairos Response – Answering the Call from Holy Land Christians
Editing: Debbie Menon
Ed. note: Some entertainment! A token gesture from the crew that runs Hollywood. Their confidence knows no bounds:
Charlie presents the President with a map of the Holy Land that he found at a flea market. The map does not depict Israel as it was drawn in 1709. The President wants to frame the map and hang it outside the Oval Office. Toby, C.J. and Leo convince him otherwise. Copyright: Aaron Sorkin & NBC
The West Wing – Holy Land Map
I can't hear the word Israel without wanting to barf!
Take a look at this Pat: There was no Israel in 1709! A token gesture from the crew that runs Hollywood.
The West Wing – Holy Land Map :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k9IlR3-_-A&feature=player_embedded
me too
What I could not understand is the die hard support of Evangalical Christians for Israeli racists and ethnic cleansing policies? Israel has nothing but contempt for other faiths, Muslims as well as Christians, yet, this state recieves unconditional support from the likes of Obama, Romeny, John Hagee and Pat Roberston.
I am a conservative, Evangelical Christian and I am not duped by the propoganda that ooozes from the majority of pulpits. I want you to know that we are out there and we are making gains!
It isn't "conservative Evangelical Christians" who put Israel on the same level as Christ, but "Christian" Zionists! Not all "conservative Evangelical Christians" are "Christian" Zionists. And I use the term "Christian" loosely, because they are more Zionist than Christian, and, for Hagee followers anyway, do they even know what Hagee means when he refers to Christ as "the Lamb of God" (as in his exortation, "Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!"), instead of calling him Christ? It is because Hagee is a wannabe Judaizer first, Christian second. We must pray to our Lord and Savior and be convinced He will help our fellow Palestian Christians.
Israel is too entrenched in American culture, religion and every aspect of American life:
Check this short clip:
This pretty much sums it up here: The source of America’s wars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBCxYicxTow&feature=player_embedded
and here list of names and faces :
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/03/13/whos-to-blame-for-the-iraq-war/
and some pretty powerful testimony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx1eRkBgzcA&feature=player_embedded
Thank you for publishing the four maps showing the loss of Palestinian land from 1946 – 2005.
No wonder the Palestinians are upset, the Jews have stolen their country !
Learn why Catholics cannot be Zionists: http://www.catholicintl.com/index.php/component/content/article/37-christian-zionism/756-catholics-cannot-be-zionists
Reply to DL..we must return the land back to the palesinians pals whether they were jewish or christian or muslim. the occupaion of european jews is wrong, we all know this, but it must be remidied for all not just for the christians. because even the palestinian jews did not want them.
I would just like to say thanks for this insightful artical. As a follower of Christ it sickens me to see this fraud being supported in so called Churches across the United States. The problem is the Scofield comic book, and the bible most so called christians have never read, and I mean read the whole bible. The truth will set you free as well as our Palestinian brethren. If you want to know where the unrepentant Jew stand in relation to salvation,read the words of our lord in the 23 chapter of Matthew, he makes it all very clear.
The Zionist cuckoos in Christianity’s nest
What does Hagee’s CUfI believe in? The scary US-based Unity Coalition for Israel brings together more than 200 partners claiming to represent more than 40 million Americans in the largest network of Pro-Israel groups in the world. »
Pastor Hagee’s Million Christians United For Israel
CUFI now has as much influence with our Republican Congress as does the Jewish Zionist lobby, AIPAC.
As someone else had stated in another comment. hagee and his ilk aren't christian, they are Zionist and as far as I'm concerned I would deport the whole worthless un chrisitan gaggle of them to their homeland of Israel.
Ambassador Oren is mad because he could not stop 60 Minutes from airing this program. I am amazed that it aired at all. This is remarkable due to the degree which Zionist Jews control the media in America. What is really going on here? I think main steam media is losin so much market share that now they are resorting to acutally telling the truth in an attempt to win back viewers.
The Zionist Jews that own the media have lost the trust and respect of millions of Americans and they will never get it back. The next step will be to try and subjugate us.