WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
The first mention of Israel in the
Hebrew Scriptures is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having
struggled, wrestled and then clung to the Divine. The word jihād is a noun
meaning "struggle."
Gilad Atzmon, http://www.gilad.co.uk/http://www.gilad.co.uk/ is a world renowned,
jazz musician, novelist, essayist, political and social commentator who was
born in Israel. Like all prophets, poets, and creative musicians, Gilad speaks,
writes and plays from his heart. And in the mold of the Hebrew prophets of old,
Gilad often uses humor to get his point across:
It was in 1982, while serving in the Israeli Forces, that
the scales fell from Gilad’s eyes and his heart was broken wide open when he
experienced the inhumanity of war during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He is
an expatriate in exile in Great Britain and regards himself as a
Hebrew-speaking Palestinian.
On June 23, 2010, I listened to this podcast interview with
Gilad:
As he spoke, Gilad inspired me to recall the day Jesus
addressed the settlers in Nazareth during the time when Maccabean Nationalism
sought to create facts on the ground in that area, by transferring Jewish
settlers from Judea into the Galilee with the goal to transform the Galilee of
the Gentiles into the Galilee of the Jews.
I cite Luke 4:17-29, when Jesus inflamed the settlers:
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed
me
to preach good news to
the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners
and recovery of sight
for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor."
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the
attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on
him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in
your hearing...
"I tell you the truth," he continued,
"no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many
widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half
years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not
sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And
there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet
not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard
this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the
hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.
2,000 years later, and the Divine mystery we call God is still raising up
Hebrew prophets; and by prophet I mean one who points out danger and at least
provokes some people to think about God.
Gilad Atzmon, has been touring America this month and will
be performing for free and educating the crowd at the Billsboro Winery www.billsborowinery.com, in Geneva, New York
on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at a fundraiser for the Deir Yassin Remembered
Scholarship Program.
The Deir Yassin Remembered Scholarship Fund is for college
students who want to study in Palestine.
Deir Yassin was once a peaceful Palestinian village on the
west side of Jerusalem. On April 9, 1948 the lives of over 100 innocent men,
women, and children ended by the hand of Jewish terrorists from the Irgun and
the Stern Gang.
Deir Yassin is 1,400 meters to the north of Yad Vashem, the most famous
Holocaust memorial, where the world is taught to “Never Forget.”
Might we also never forget that 55 Million people died
during WW11 and among them were 6 million Jews.
Might we never forget too, that on May 15, 1948, the British
left Palestine and the Israeli military forces consisted of three independent
groups:
"The
larger one was the Hagana. Within the Hagana there was a strike force known as
the Palmah. Outside Hagana there were two more independent smaller forces. The
bigger of the two was Etzel, which was the underground terrorist organization
of the opposition party led by Menahem Begin, and the smaller one was Lehi,
known also as the Stern Gang, a splinter group which separated from the Etzel a
few years previously." [1]
"The Deir Yassin incident was part of the Middle East war of 1948,
variously referred to as the Israeli War of Independence, the First
Arab-Israeli War, or the First Palestine War. The conflict arose out of
decades-old competing claims of nationalist Jews and Arabs for sovereignty over
Palestine (today Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip). European
Jewish nationalists, organized as Zionists in 1897, sought to establish a
Jewish state through colonization of Palestine, while Arab nationalists sought
an Arab state for Palestine's Arab majority." [2]
There are many versions of what happened in Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948.
One
report by then Colonel Dr. Pa'ill, [who later represented the Meretz Party in
the Knesset] a liaison officer representing the Palmah in the headquarters of
the Hagana in Jerusalem gave an interview in the magazine Monitin, on
April 1981:
"Etzel and Lehi had decided to carry out one operation together. They
counted their men and discovered that together they could supply 130 fighters.
Among the Etzel members there was one, Joshua Goldshmid, who lived in Giv'at
Shaul, a western suburb of Jerusalem close to Deir Yassin and he was the one
that pushed for Deir Yassin. The place itself was a small village of 750
inhabitants. It did not have a strategic location and wasn't situated on any
important road....Since the Hagana was holding the lines of communications,
Etzel and Lehi asked David Sha'altiel, the commander of the Hagana's Jerusalem
district for a meeting. I'm telling you this to show that I knew what was going
on, because I was in the picture from the beginning. Sha'altiel told them that
the plan of the Hagana was, that when the British army leave (shortly), they
would take over Deir Yassin and level it to build an airport.
"It was Friday, the 9th of April 1948 and I went in together with them. I
had a tommy-gun with a disc magazine, 50 bullets and proper boots. On that day
I did not fire even one bullet. With me was a guy with a good Leica camera
capable of taking 36 still, black and white pictures. Half of them were shot
during the battle and half afterwards...The raid was supposed to start two
hours before dawn. The road to Deir Yassin was open. It was not mined or
obstructed because it was constantly in use. The plan was that the van carrying
the Etzel/Lehi members would drive on this dusty road and a loudspeaker would
call to the inhabitants to flee from the village. I was walking on this very
road. They (Lehi) didn't know who I was. They were late and reached the village
when it was already daylight…I thought that now a small skirmish would develop,
but there was actually a battle. From my battleground experience I noticed that
the Arabs had only rifles. All their shots were single shots. Only the
attackers had automatic weapons...Suddenly; at about 11 o'clock in the morning,
I heard the explosions of 2 inch mortar shells. I looked out of the window and
I saw ten Palmah fighters under the command of the late Jacob Wog, descending
and taking over the rest of the village…They (Etzel & Lehi), were not able
to carry out even their own task. We had to send in a tired platoon to finish
the job for them. Suddenly I started to hear shooting from all directions in
the village. I ran there with my photographer and I saw gangs of Etzel and Lehi
running through the alleys. In my report I added: 'with bulging eyes' as if
they were 'running amok'. They were running from house to house. They got
inside, and butchered whoever were there by shooting, not by hand grenades! By
shooting! I called it hot-blooded murder. It was spontaneous, not planned. I
ran after them shouting:' what are you doing?' They looked at me as if I was
crazy, also with those bulging eyes. The photographer was taking pictures of
scenes that I can still see, even now, with my own eyes: A corner in a room. A
woman, children and an old man, butchered.
"On the Saturday, Etzel and Lehi notified David Shealtiel: 'Tomorrow we leave the
place. We are a crash unit. We don't hold to command posts. They were asked to
at least bury the corpses. 'We don't care' was their answer. Two platoons of
Gadna, seven and eighth grade students (a pre-military unit of the Hagana),
were brought to Deir Yassin on the Sunday and they did most of the burying.
They counted the corpses. The Red Cross arrived later on. There were 254 dead
out of 750 people who had lived in this village. A third was killed, a third
was evacuated and a third escaped." [3]
The massacre in Deir Yassin was neither the first of its kind nor the most
horrific, but "its timing, scope, and historic long-term consequences have
made Deir Yassin, in the words of philosopher Martin Buber, "infamous
throughout the Jewish world, the Arab world, and the whole world."[4]
Also infamous is the 1954 incident when Israel attempted to bomb US government
offices in Egypt and Israel's 1967 two hour attack upon the lightly armed spy
ship the USS LIBERTY, which resulted in 34 dead sailors and a still traumatized
crew who were commanded to keep silent by the LBJ Administration, who
sacrificed the troops rather than embarrass an ally. [5]
Another infamous fact is that,"through the years, Israel has regularly
spied on the US. According to the Government Accounting Office, Israel
'conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the United States of
any ally.' Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said of Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard: 'It is difficult for me to conceive of greater harm done to national
security.' And the Pollard case was just the tip of a very large iceberg; the
most recent operation coming to light involves two senior officials of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's powerful American
lobbying organization." [6]
Might we also never forget that on December 2001, FOX News
began a four part series [that has since been removed from their website]
regarding Israel's spying on America.
However,
Information Clearing House has preserved those insights.
In
Part One, Part I, host Brit Hume stated,
"It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was
charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to
conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first,
Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took
responsibility for his work. Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators
believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the
U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox
News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part
series." [7]
Carl Cameron reported, "Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have
been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or
for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among
those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also
failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities
against and in the United States. There is no indication that the Israelis were
involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may
have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A
highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked
for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking
these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has
been gathered. It's classified information." [IBID]
Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicated that even prior to
September 11; as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a
secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in
the United States. Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of
a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These
documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country
that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering
activity." [IBID]
"Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.? A general accounting office
investigation referred to Israel as country A and said, 'According to a U.S.
intelligence agency, the government of country A conducts the most aggressive
espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally.'
"A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for
information and said, 'the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts
which dictate every possible facet of their political and economical policies.
It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a
high priority target…Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to
achieve its collection objectives.' "[IBID]
After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but
then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company
that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and
extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country's most
successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state,
surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a
living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war…Israel now
sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States—up
dramatically from $270 million in 1999…That makes Israel the fourth-largest
arms dealer in the world…Much of this growth has been in the so-called
"homeland security" sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely
existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector
will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and
services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in
the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand
asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian
people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror."
[8]
Jesus called politicians FOXES-meaning don't trust them!
Thinking people comprehend that all governments lie, that
politicians get addicted to gaining and keeping power and that religion has
been misused for eons.
Shortly after my first of seven trips to occupied Palestine, in 2005, a USA
Episcopal priest and I exchanged a few emails before he left America to work
with Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust memorial, where the world is taught to
“Never Forget” about the Jewish pain, but not a word is uttered there
regarding the Nakba!
I wrote to that priest about my concern regarding the fastest growing cult in
the US:
The cult of Christian Zionism which is comprised of approximately
25 million US Christians who choose the simple answers of fundamentalism rather
than struggle with a God of justice, mercy and compassion.
Christian Zionists, such as John Hagee cling to Genesis 12:3: "I will
bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and in you
all the families of the world are blessed" as if God meant blessings to be
political power and military might!
The ancient Israelite's and today's religious fundamentalist Zionists hold to
the belief that a particular religion and race are more chosen, worthy, special
and esteemed by God over and above any other.
They choose to look down on their
'enemies' and many even pray to God to smite their 'enemies' just as the
ancients once did.
The fact that Genesis 12:3 was promised even before Ishmael, the father of the
Arab nation, and Isaac, the Jew, were born is overlooked and ignored by
Christian Zionists, who also fail to comprehend that the very first mention of
Israel is when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with
God.
Thus, in the Biblical sense, anyone and everyone who
struggles and wrestles with God is also Israel; for Israel is more than a
geographical location-it is a state of soul!
That Episcopal priest insisted that the modern state of Israel is the
fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures, and God’s covenant with Israel is
eternal, exclusive, and will not be abrogated. He referred me to Genesis
12:1-7, 15:4-7, 17:1-8; Leviticus 26:44-45; and Deuteronomy 7:7:8.
I wrote back that for Christians, the New Testament holds greater weight than
the Hebrew Scriptures and I referred him to Matthew 5:43-45, which not only
critiques Genesis 12:3; it blows it apart, for Jesus commanded his followers
to, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, that you maybe children
of your Father."
I asked that priest to consider the fact that blind allegiance to the Israeli
government has allowed our 'best friend' in the world to become a very big
bully.
I reminded that priest that God is always on the side of the
oppressed and if we truly love our friends, we hold them accountable for their
bad behavior.
I asked that priest to consider how the views of Christian Zionism has come to
see the political state of Israel as a replacement for Jesus at the center of
their Christian faith, and that certainly is not Christian!
I reprimanded that priest regarding how could he take Genesis 12:3 to literally
mean blessings to equate to land and political power, and ignore God’s promise in
Genesis 21:17-20 to ‘make a great nation out of Ishmael’s descendants’ and that
‘God was with the boy.’
I charged that priest that his way of thinking allows for the continuing
military occupation of Palestine and the oppression of people that God also
made promises too!
I riled that priest when I cautioned him that Christians are
supposed to be on the side of the oppressed and marginalized and that what ever
we do-or do NOT do unto the 'least among us' we do it or NOT unto God!
I alerted that priest that the Israeli government is using uninformed,
misinformed Christians like him to become apologists in support of their agenda
of illegal occupation and illegal settlements in the West Bank, occupied east
Jerusalem, Golan, and Gaza, on literal biblical misinterpretations taken out of
context.
I admonished that priest to consider how blind allegiance to every act of
Israel as being orchestrated by God and therefore is to be condoned, supported,
and even praised, is heresy!
I angered that priest when I said that whenever religion and politics get in
bed together, we the people for justice and peace always get screwed!
After three email exchanges, I never heard from that priest again; but a
parishioner of his from his Central Florida church wrote me that he had moved
to Jerusalem and was now working at Yad Vashem!
Jesus' other name is The Prince of Peace, and he was very clear that on the
final day, there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who
were so sure they were in, because they are the one's who get left out.
The Spirit of the Lord in on me...He[SHE] has sent me to bind up
the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from
darkness for the prisoners...For I the Lord love justice.-Isaiah 61: 1,8.
To attend Gilad’s Fundraiser for The Deir Yassin Remembered
Scholarship Fund or to donate to the Deir Yassin Remembered Scholarship Fund
please contact Dan McGowan, 315-789-3524, for more information.
Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world
again."-Tom Paine
Visitors since 07.22.05
Visitors: 34680423
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel