On Friday night, a disturbed Israeli couple (a Jewish husband and his Christian wife, along with their 20 year old daughter) set off fire crackers in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The Jerusalem Post story about the incident had these details:
Police said on Saturday that Haim Eliyahu Havivi carried out the attack during a packed Lent prayer service at one of the holiest sites in Christianity because he wanted to draw attention to his economic distress.
The riot that took place after the attack left 17 policemen and 10 protesters injured, as police who arrived at the scene to protect the family were confronted by stone throwers. The angry mob also torched several police vehicles.
Havivi, a 44-year-old Jewish resident of Jerusalem, carried out the attack in the presence of his 40-year-old Christian wife, Violet, and their 20-year-old daughter, Odelia, although it was unclear if the two women participated, a spokeswoman said. All three were taken to Tiberias Magistrate's Court on Saturday night and remanded in custody for 15 days.
"I have nothing against Christians or Muslims," a lightly wounded Havivi said at the hearing. "All I want is my children who were taken away from me by the state."
In addition:
Welfare authorities had placed two of his younger children into foster care. According to police, he may have had a history of mental illness.
I have been unable to discover whether the children were removed because of abuse, neglect, or some other reason.
An additional fact of note was that Havivi had petitioned the Palestinian Authority for asylum in ~1998 but was rejected. I think it is fair to say that if Mr. Havivi does not have a mental illness, he offers significant evidence of poor judgment and confused thinking.
John Hinderaker at Powerline points out some sad and troubling aspects of the Arab response to the incident:
Now Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian--there are far more Muslims, of course--are using the firecracker incident as a political weapon against Israel's majority Jewish population.
John points out one of the most glaring defects in press accounts of the story:
Reporting on the riot has been a bit odd, I think. Who, exactly, were the rioters? Israeli Arabs, of course. News accounts suggest, without saying explicitly, that they were Arab Christians. If they were, I am ashamed of them.
John has posted pictures of the riot and includes a poster which proclaims:
"BURNING MOSQUES
BURNING CHURCHES
NO RESPECT means
NO FUTURE"
He comments:
"Bombing churches"? Hardly. And "burning mosques"? What burning mosques? Only one thing is missing from the sign: burning, bombed and desecrated synogogues, which is what happened to the synagogues in Gaza when Israel withdrew. But that's not the "respect" these people have in mind.
It's sad to see Arab Christians participating in this sick charade--which is, frankly, unChristian.
The world's press has done an exceptionally poor job of reporting on one of the most tragic and widespread trends in the world, and this is quite germane to the events in Nazareth. In every area in the world where Muslims are a majority, the primary victims of Muslim violence and discrimination are Christians. (In part this is because most Jews have been ethnically cleansed from Muslim lands, and in part because Christianity is seen by Islam as a major threat.) All we see in our newspapers are stories about victimized Muslims, yet Christian churches are regularly torched, Christian school girls have been beheaded, Christians are being systematically forced out of areas where they have lived for centuries. In just one example, David Meir-Levi wrote about the Christian exodus from Bethlehem, in an article on Frontpage magazine in January:
The Christian exodus has been going on for almost a decade because of relentless Moslem terror threats against Christians. Moslem terrorists taunt Christians with chants of "al-yaum es-sabbat bas ghanem el-ahad" (today is Saturday, but tomorrow is Sunday), or "abel es-sabbat jibel-ahad" (after Saturday comes Sunday). The Christians are clear about what the terrorists mean.
Moreover, in 1996 Arafat redistricted Bethlehem, redefining by executive fiat its municipal boundaries so that they included many nearby Moslem villages. Overnight the Christian population found itself reduced from an 80 percent majority to a minority. Arafat's long-term plans for Bethlehem were clear.
And Arafat's long-term plans for the entire West Bank were clear as well. The preliminary draft of the not-yet-finalized Palestinian constitution refers to "Palestine" as a Moslem state, not the secular democracy that Arafat has promised the West. This puts Christians on notice that they can look forward to Shari'a (Islamic religious jurisprudence) instead of democracy, and dhimmitude (2nd-class non-citizens lacking legal status) instead of equality, in the new Moslem "Palestine"; just as Christians and Jews experienced for 1,350 years under Moslem rule throughout the Arab world.
Now we have Hamas running the Palestinian territories; for those who have sleeping, Hamas is not only devoted to Jewish genocide but is equally devoted to the creation of an Islamic state, run under strict Sharia law, throughout the land. Again for anyone who has not been paying attention, Sharia does not allow for the construction of infidel houses of worship (which includes Christian churches and Jewish synagogues) and constantly moves to increase the sway of Islam over all who happen to live in their bailiwick. Additionally, if Muslims take over a church and proclaim it a Mosque, Christians have no authorization to redress the insult.
I would suggest that the identity of the rioters is not terribly important. If they are Israeli Arab Muslims, this would represent just one more example of their well-rehearsed and cynical ability to paint themselves as the victims of Jewish and Israeli aggression. They have been enabled in this by the world's press, for a mix of reasons which include laziness and outright cowardice among others. The Israelis do not threaten journalists with death if they print unflattering stories; need I point out that the Islamic world specializes in this particular form of intimidation?
On the other hand if the rioters are Christian, and I have my doubts about this, they are behaving no differently than some of their more distinguished colleagues in Britain and the United States who have been waging campaigns to disinvest from Israel because of their "unjust" treatment of the Palestinians. It is likely that this complex form of appeasement is the outgrowth of fear and intimidation along with a pinch of "identification with the aggressor", which is one of the refuges of the abused victim. It is always safer to act like (identify with) your abuser and attack the Jews than to stand up for yourself and risk attack. Furthermore, the confusion of Politically Correct thinking and Multi-culturism makes it extremely difficult for an "enlightened" liberal to admit that Muslims are persecuting Christians.
Glenn Reynolds links to an article in The Guardian last week in which Timothy Garton Ash connects PETA, the Danish cartoons, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone, and David Irving and the growing threat to free speech around the world:
These days, the main threats to freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of association no longer come from the totalitarian ideological superstate that inspired George Orwell to write his 1984. (First line, for the few readers who may not have caught the opening allusion: "It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.") That totalitarian horror still exists in places like Burma, but the distinctive feature of this new danger is the creeping tyranny of the group veto.
One of the most remarkable things about the current climate is that the forces of repression really require very few agents to enforce their demands. A few hundred protesters, with signs threatening to behead those who insult them or annoy them, is all it takes, apparently, to have societies throughout the world, and the press throughout the West, cede Rights of free speech that people have died for in the past; sad and troubling times.
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