The following article should be read by every pro-Israel Christian; and copied and handed to friends and family. Grace Halsell learned by experience that what her church had taught her about Israel is a myth.
It must be mentioned here, though, that Mrs. Halsell was apparently (at least when this article was written) uninformed about the hoax of the Holocaust. She also mentions that the Jews don’t accept the Old Testament, and rely solely on the Talmud, when in fact, the first five books of the Old Testament are the Torah, which are the first five books of the Talmud. — Jackie — May 26th, 2003
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Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs
Special Report
What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
By Grace Halsell
May/June 1998, pages 112, 126
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? President Bill Clinton as well as most members of Congress support Israel — and they know why. U.S. Jews sympathetic to Israel donate lavishly to their campaign coffers. .
The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere — among those who support Israel but don’t really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel — and Zionism — often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.
I am one of those. I grew up listening to stories of a mystical, allegorical, spiritual Israel. This was before a modern political entity with the same name appeared on our maps. I attended Sunday School and watched an instructor draw down window-type shades to show maps of the Holy Land. I imbibed stories of a Good and Chosen people who fought against their Bad “unChosen” enemies.
In my early 20s, I began traveling the world, earning my living as a writer. I came to the subject of the Middle East rather late in my career. I was sadly lacking in knowledge regarding the area. About all I knew was what I had learned in Sunday School.
And typical of many U.S. Christians, I somehow considered a modern state created in 1948 as a homeland for Jews persecuted under the Nazis as a replica of the spiritual, mystical Israel I heard about as a child. When in 1979 I initially went to Jerusalem, I planned to write about the three great monotheistic religions and leave out politics. “Not write about politics?” scoffed one Palestinian, smoking a waterpipe in the Old Walled City. “We eat politics, morning, noon and night!”
As I would learn, the politics is about land, and the co-claimants to that land: the indigenous Palestinians who have lived there for 2,000 years and the Jews who started arriving in large numbers after the Second World War. By living among Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian Christians and Muslims, I saw, heard, smelled, experienced the police state tactics Israelis use against Palestinians.
My research led to a book entitled Journey to Jerusalem. My journey not only was enlightening to me as regards Israel, but also I came to a deeper, and sadder, understanding of my own country. I say sadder understanding because I began to see that, in Middle East politics, we the people are not making the decisions, but rather that supporters of Israel are doing so. And typical of most Americans, I tended to think the U.S. media was “free” to print news impartially.
“It shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel.”
In the late 1970s, when I first went to Jerusalem, I was unaware that editors could and would classify “news” depending on who was doing what to whom. On my initial visit to Israel-Palestine, I had interviewed dozens of young Palestinian men. About one in four related stories of torture.
Israeli police had come in the night, dragged them from their beds and placed hoods over their heads. Then in jails the Israelis had kept them in isolation, besieged them with loud, incessant noises, hung them upside down and had sadistically mutilated their genitals. I had not read such stories in the U.S. media. Wasn’t it news? Obviously, I naively thought, U.S. editors simply didn’t know it was happening.
On a trip to Washington, DC, I hand-delivered a letter to Frank Mankiewicz, then head of the public radio station WETA. I explained I had taped interviews with Palestinians who had been brutally tortured. And I’d make them available to him. I got no reply. I made several phone calls. Eventually I was put through to a public relations person, a Ms. Cohen, who said my letter had been lost. I wrote again. In time I began to realize what I hadn’t known: had it been Jews who were strung up and tortured, it would be news. But interviews with tortured Arabs were “lost” at WETA.
The process of getting my book Journey to Jerusalem published also was a learning experience. Bill Griffin, who signed a contract with me on behalf of MacMillan Publishing Company, was a former Roman Catholic priest. He assured me that no one other than himself would edit the book. As I researched the book, making several trips to Israel and Palestine, I met frequently with Griffin, showing him sample chapters. “Terrific,” he said of my material.
The day the book was scheduled to be published, I went to visit MacMillan’s. Checking in at a reception desk, I spotted Griffin across a room, cleaning out his desk. His secretary Margie came to greet me. In tears, she whispered for me to meet her in the ladies room. When we were alone, she confided, “He’s been fired.” She indicated it was because he had signed a contract for a book that was sympathetic to Palestinians. Griffin, she said, had no time to see me.
Later, I met with another MacMillan official, William Curry. “I was told to take your manuscript to the Israeli Embassy, to let them read it for mistakes,” he told me. “They were not pleased. They asked me, ‘You are not going to publish this book, are you?’ I asked, ‘Were there mistakes?’ ‘Not mistakes as such. But it shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel.’”
Somehow, despite obstacles to prevent it, the presses had started rolling. After its publication in 1980, I was invited to speak in a number of churches. Christians generally reacted with disbelief. Back then, there was little or no coverage of Israeli land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian homes, wanton arrests and torture of Palestinian civilians.
The Same Question
Speaking of these injustices, I invariably heard the same question, “How come I didn’t know this?” Or someone might ask, “But I haven’t read about that in my newspaper.” To these church audiences, I related my own learning experience, that of seeing hordes of U.S. correspondents covering a relatively tiny state. I pointed out that I had not seen so many reporters in world capitals such as Beijing, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Paris. Why, I asked, did a small state with a 1980 population of only four million warrant more reporters than China, with a billion people?
I also linked this query with my findings that The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post — and most of our nation’s print media — are owned and/or controlled by Jews supportive of Israel. It was for this reason, I deduced, that they sent so many reporters to cover Israe l— and to do so largely from the Israeli point of view.
My learning experiences also included coming to realize how easily I could lose a Jewish friend if I criticized the Jewish state. I could with impunity criticize France, England, Russia, even the United States. And any aspect of life in America. But not the Jewish state. I lost more Jewish friends than one after the publication of Journey to Jerusalem — all sad losses for me and one, perhaps, saddest of all.
In the 1960s and 1970s, before going to the Middle East, I had written about the plight of blacks in a book entitled Soul Sister, and the plight of American Indians in a book entitled Bessie Yellowhair, and the problems endured by undocumented workers crossing from Mexico in The Illegals. These books had come to the attention of the “mother” of The New York Times, Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger.
Her father had started the newspaper, then her husband ran it, and in the years that I knew her, her son was the publisher. She invited me to her fashionable apartment on Fifth Avenue for lunches and dinner parties. And, on many occasions, I was a weekend guest at her Greenwich, Conn. home.
She was liberal-minded and praised my efforts to speak for the underdog, even going so far in one letter to say, “You are the most remarkable woman I ever knew.” I had little concept that from being buoyed so high I could be dropped so suddenly when I discovered — from her point of view — the “wrong” underdog.
As it happened, I was a weekend guest in her spacious Connecticut home when she read bound galleys of Journey to Jerusalem. As I was leaving, she handed the galleys back with a saddened look: “My dear, have you forgotten the Holocaust?” She felt that what happened in Nazi Germany to Jews several decades earlier should silence any criticism of the Jewish state. She could focus on a holocaust of Jews while negating a modern day holocaust of Palestinians.
I realized, quite painfully, that our friendship was ending. Iphigene Sulzberger had not only invited me to her home to meet her famous friends but, also at her suggestion, The Times had requested articles. I wrote op-ed articles on various subjects including American blacks, American Indians as well as undocumented workers. Since Mrs. Sulzberger and other Jewish officials at the Times highly praised my efforts to help these groups of oppressed peoples, the dichotomy became apparent: most “liberal” U.S. Jews stand on the side of all poor and oppressed peoples save one — the Palestinians.
How handily these liberal Jewish opinion-molders tend to diminish the Palestinians, to make them invisible, or to categorize them all as “terrorists.”
Interestingly, Iphigene Sulzberger had talked to me a great deal about her father, Adolph S. Ochs. She told me that he was not one of the early Zionists. He had not favored the creation of a Jewish state.
Yet, increasingly, American Jews have fallen victim to Zionism, a nationalistic movement that passes for many as a religion. While the ethical instructions of all great religions — including the teachings of Moses, Muhammad and Christ — stress that all human beings are equal, militant Zionists take the position that the killing of a non-Jew does not count.
Over five decades now, Zionists have killed Palestinians with impunity. And in the 1996 shelling of a U.N. base in Qana, Lebanon, the Israelis killed more than 100 civilians sheltered there. As an Israeli journalist, Arieh Shavit, explains of the massacre,
“We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.”
Israelis today, explains the anti-Zionist Jew Israel Shahak,
“are not basing their religion on the ethics of justice. They do not accept the Old Testament as it is written. Rather, religious Jews turn to the Talmud. For them, the Talmudic Jewish laws become ‘the Bible.’ And the Talmud teaches that a Jew can kill a non-Jew with impunity.”
In the teachings of Christ, there was a break from such Talmudic teachings. He sought to heal the wounded, to comfort the downtrodden.
The danger, of course, for U.S. Christians is that having made an icon of Israel, we fall into a trap of condoning whatever Israel does — even wanton murder—as orchestrated by God.
Yet, I am not alone in suggesting that the churches in the United States represent the last major organized support for Palestinian rights. This imperative is due in part to our historic links to the Land of Christ and in part to the moral issues involved with having our tax dollars fund Israeli-government-approved violations of human rights.
While Israel and its dedicated U.S. Jewish supporters know they have the president and most of Congress in their hands, they worry about grassroots America — the well-meaning Christians who care for justice. Thus far, most Christians were unaware of what it was they didn’t know about Israel. They were indoctrinated by U.S. supporters of Israel in their own country and when they traveled to the Land of Christ most all did so under Israeli sponsorship. That being the case, it was unlikely a Christian ever met a Palestinian or learned what caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is gradually changing, however. And this change disturbs the Israelis. As an example, delegates attending a Christian Sabeel conference in Bethlehem earlier this year said they were harassed by Israeli security at the Tel Aviv airport.
“They asked us,” said one delegate, “‘Why did you use a Palestinian travel agency? Why didn’t you use an Israeli agency?’”
The interrogation was so extensive and hostile that Sabeel leaders called a special session to brief the delegates on how to handle the harassment. Obviously, said one delegate,
“The Israelis have a policy to discourage us from visiting the Holy Land except under their sponsorship. They don’t want Christians to start learning all they have never known about Israel.”
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Washington, DC-based writer Grace Halsell is the author of 14 books, including Journey to Jerusalem and Prophecy and Politics.
Introduction to Israel
By Jackie Patru
What IS this all about? First we should attempt to determine what a Jew is, or isn’t. Is a Jew a person who embraces a particular religion known as Judaism? Or, is it a Semitic person who traces his/her bloodline to the ancient tribe of Judah? Or is it both? Actually, it is neither. Their Biblical territory? The WORLD.
A Jewish Defector Warns AmericaUpdated
BENJAMIN FREEDMAN SPEAKS. In 1961, at the Willard Hotel, Mr. Freedman warned of the cabal laying plans for WWIII, and the genocide being committed by Israel on the Palestinian people figured heavily then as now. This is a repost, taken verbatim from the taped version of the speech.
The Zionist State (Harbinger of WWIII)
By Douglas Reed
A microscopic look behind the scenes at the manipulations, threats, bribes and murders committed in order to secure the vote by the United Nations, mandating the ‘state’ of Israel as a homeland for the so-called Jews. A gruesome picture of the bloody terror in Palestine that began simultaneously with the UN mandate. This a MUST READ, even for those who believe they know the facts.
Rothschild-Israeli Connection
Baron Edmond James (Avrahim Binyamin) de Rothschild (1845-1934) is known as the “Father of the Settlement” (Avi ha-Yishuv). The Independence Day coin is dedicated to the memory of Rothschild and marks the centenary of his first projects in Israel.
The Kol Nidre
The first and most important prayer of the Talmudist (Jewish) Holiday. “All vows , obligations, oaths, and anathemas. . . from this Day of Atonement until the next. . . we do repent.. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. The vows shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.”
Purim: What’s It All About?
G.W.Bush announced ‘his’ decision to sack Iraq on Purim Eve, March 17th, 2003. WHY? Why Purim Eve? It was not his plan, it was the plan of his advisors/handlers. On CNN that evening, a boxed quote told the viewers, it was “A Time Of Our Choosing.” Whose choosing? Read this about Purim — the Feast of Lots, and you will KNOW who chose the time for the massacre in Iraq. “On Purim, the Jews reaffirm their allegiance to Judaism — and reach new spiritual heights. But then come masquerades, parodies, and serious drinking and feasting.” Celebrating the death of their named ‘enemies’.
Samuel Untermeyer’s Speech
A transcript of Samuel Untermyer’s speech made on WABC, declaring a ‘holy war’ by the Jews against Germany, and appealing to the masses of non-Jewish humanity to boycott German-made imports and all merchants who have German-made items in their establishments. The entire speech was published in the New York times on the morning following the broadcast (August 7th, 1933) which was mentioned by Benjamin Freedman in his talk before a group of patriots.
The ProtocolsUpdated
A chapter from the Controversy of Zion, by Douglas Reed
“Uncanny knowledge, therefore, again seems to have inspired the statement, made in 1905 or earlier: ‘Ever since that time’ (the French Revolution) ‘we have been leading the peoples from one disenchantment to another… By these acts all States are in torture; they exhort to tranquility, are ready to sacrifice everything for peace; but we will not give them peace until they openly acknowledge our international Super-Government, and with submissiveness’.”
Israel: The Jewel-Box of the World
ISRAEL – THE ARTIFICIAL ‘NATION/STATE’ IS THE WEALTHIEST ‘NATION’ IN THE WORLD! READ: Message To Israel: May 1971: “See how this central piece of land, that is given the preeminence over all other land by God is, ‘The Jewel Box of the World’. . . They [minerals in the dead sea] are estimated to have a total market value of about $1700 billion [$1.7 trillion] which is far more than the total wealth of the United States. . . This means that the Dead Sea will be a perpetual source of wealth to the nation that controls it.”
The Cost of “Occupied” Israel to the American People
By Richard Curtiss
“Put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis had received from the U.S. government by October 31, 1997, cost American taxpayers $23,241 per Israeli. That’s $116,205 for every Israeli family of five.”
The Finest Senate Money Can Buy
By Uri Avenim, member of Israeli Knesset
“One thing, however, is quite clear: Israel is not the 51st state of the United States of America, as some would like to think; rather, the US Congress is one of the occupied areas of Israel.”
Israeli Lobby Slips Anti-Israel Speech Bill Through U.S. House of Representatives
This bill was introduced some time ago by Rick Santorum, ‘Christian’ Senator from Penna. The original bill would withhold ‘federal funds’ from a college that allowed ANY criticism of Israel. WHO controls the U.S. Congress?
Oscar Levy, a Jew, Admits His People’s Error
“We (Jews) have erred, my friend; we have most grievously erred. And if there was truth in our error 3,000, 2,000, nay, 100 years ago, there is now nothing but falseness and madness… a madness that will produce an even greater misery and an even wider anarchy. There has been no progress, least of all moral progress. . . And it is just our Morality, which has prohibited all real progress, and — what is worse — which even stands in the way of every future and natural reconstruction in this ruined world of ours.”
Disraeli’s “Coningsby’ – An Excerpt
(London, 1844)
“And at the moment, in spite of centuries, or tens of centuries, of degradation, the Jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs of Europe. I speak not of their laws, which you still obey; of their literature, with which your minds are saturated, but of the living Hebrew intellect.”
The Ship Wreckers
By George Lincoln Rockwell
“… in spite of all the fronts and cover-ups, there is one sure way of knowing who is the real boss anyplace.”
Israel-Backed Firm Buys U.N. Plaza
Capital Real Estate, a New York-based company backed by Israeli shekels is now in contract to buy the glamorous green glass U.N. Plaza from the United Nations Development Corp. for approximately $161 million.
Israeli Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists – The Alliance
By Grace Halsell
“By the time my book came out those “crazies” were on the front page of every American newspaper and on every news channel. we are seeing how the Christian Zionists, motivated by religious beliefs, are working hand in glove with politically motivated, militant Jewish Zionists around the world.”
A Lobby to Reckon With: Pro-Israel Christian Zionists
BBC Broadcast and transcript.
America’s new Christian Zionists lobbying for Israel. “From this we see that the engine driving the U.S. and Israel into an all out world conflagration is — along with the money from the Jewish PACs which control the U.S. Congress — the Christian Zionists. Judeo-Christian wasn’t quite ‘Jewish’ enough. What an oxymoron, and what a spit-in-the-face of Jesus.” Jackie Patru
Israel Wants U.S. to Pressure Syria
Associated Press: In remarks published Monday, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel has “a long list of issues we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians, and it would be best done through the Americans.”
Greater Israel: What Does It Really Mean?
The U.S. led war on Iraq… and eventually many other Muslim nations may be part of an Israeli plan to let others die for the goal of its expansion into Greater Israel. Extremist Zionist sympathizers in Bush’s administration are the perpetrators of this scheme to have American military men and women die for Israel. See the arguments for this claim. Webmaster’s note: This document is lengthy and is full of maps and other images. Please allow extra time for loading.
American Murdered by Israeli Soldier
Hoffman Wire: “Rachel Corrie, 23, is the American woman who was killed by an Israeli soldier operating a giant, D-9 armored bulldozer (paid for with your tax dollars). Congress, the president and the war-Zionist media are all silent. Imagine if she had been killed by an Iraqi!”
Rachel Corrie’s E-mails Home
The Guardian – UK: “23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life.”
Four Eye-witnesses Describe the Murder of Rachel Corrie
“Her faced showed she was panicking and it was clear she was in danger of being overwhelmed. . . They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit. They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time. Every second I believed they would stop but they never did.”
Rachael Corrie’s Memorial Service Disrupted by Israeli Army The Guardian – UK: “Israeli forces fired teargas and stun grenades yesterday in an attempt to break up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an army bulldozer in Gaza on Sunday.”
Rachael Corrie’s mom speaks up and out
. . . about the Israeli genocide on Palestinians: “Friday, approximately twenty [Israeli] military vehicles surrounded the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) media office, seized ISM computers and video equipment, pillaged files and photos, broke equipment and damaged office space. Three females in the office (one from Human Rights Watch, a Palestinian volunteer, and an American volunteer) were taken away.”
Israel – The Secret Arsenal of the Jewish State
MSNBC Interactive: “Despite Israel’s refusal to acknowledge its nuclear weapons status, its secret arsenal is an open secret that Israeli policy makers don’t go out of their way to deny.” Look at the dots on this map! 2 Air Bases, 7 Strategic Weapons Plants and 3 Missile Facilities! It appears that no nation should have WMDs except U.S., U.K and Israel.
Israeli Professor: ‘We Could Destroy All European Capitals’
“We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.” [It’s called The Samson Option, folks.]
What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
By Grace Halsell
“We believe with absolute certitude that right now, with the White House in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the same way as our own.” —Israeli journalist, Arieh Shavit
Jewish Calendar for Soldiers and Sailors
Actual calendar, showing Bush family heritage.
Tell a Joke, Go to Jail
“In Hungary, the democratically-elected Parliament just last week passed a law stipulating a two-year prison term for ‘someone who publicly insults a Jew’. What’s more, if the insult amounts to an expression of ‘hatred’, the sentence goes up to three years! Fortunately, at the last moment, Hungary’s President declined to sign the bill. It will be back, just like the American Federal hate-crime legislation kept coming back until it was passed recently.
Israel’s Mossad
Black Ops and False Flags. Summary – MUST SEE! You WILL believe!
New Order > From the President of the United States
Jewish American Heritage Month, 2006
For our visitors who haven’t read “Jewish Persecution”, go to Chapters 12 and 18 if you would like to see the influence these people have had in the past — early, early settling America, including the not-so-spontaneous American Revolution. A tough, bitter pill to swallow. -Jackie
Related Link:
www.come-and-hear.com
(Links outside of sweetliberty.org)
Come-and-Hear is: “A secular and pragmatic view of Talmud law as it advances into American law and society.” Read: “America Under the Talmud: Will It Work for US? by Carol A. Valentine — Each essay is amply documented by hotlinks to the Talmud and other Rabbinical/Judaic sources. Learn what Talmud law says about: Religious Freedom; Atrocities & Just War; Animal Sacrifice and Blood Ritual; The Death Penalty; Marriage & Divorce; Sexual Fulfillment; Pederasty and Homosexuality; Polygamy; The Special Place of Gentiles” Also features is: “The Babylonian Talmud — A searchable hypertext version of the Jews’ College (London) translation of the Babylonian Talmud, published through Soncino Press between 1935 and 1948: Tractates Sanhedrin, Berakoth, Shabbath, Yebamoth, Kethuboth, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Gittin, Baba Kamma, Baba Mezi’a, Baba Bathra, Abodah Zarah, Horayoth, Niddah, and Tohoroth. This was the first complete English translation, produced by the most authoritative Judaic scholars in the world. It is the gold standard of English Talmuds, but chances are you won’t find it in your local public library.”
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