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Our Mission |
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.
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The Walls of Berlin and Bil'in |
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Garth Hewitt: From the Broken Heart Of Gaza |
FACTS ABOUT THE WALL from friends in Bethlehem
Read the truth about the Wall and what is happening today in the Holy City of Bethlehem. |
Read more...
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Eileen Fleming's Biography
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"We're on a mission from God." The Blues Brothers "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
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"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
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DO SOMETHING! |
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
DO SOMETHING! Click Here |
Declaration of Independence |
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 |
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Home Blog December 2010 December 24, 2010: Mystical Christmas Eves and why I am 'flaming' Fleming
December 24, 2010: Mystical Christmas Eves and why I am 'flaming' Fleming |
December 24, 2010: Mystical Christmas Eves and why I am 'flaming' Fleming
Excerpted from BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu 's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker
Chapter 16: MYSTICAL CHRISTMAS EVES
"The Light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." - John 1:5
On Christmas Eve evening of 2007, I picked up my snail mail and opened up a
card from Jerusalem. Vanunu made me laugh out loud, for he addressed it to:
"Eileen Flaming" not Fleming, which is my actual name.
I picked my Christmas Eve mail up three years to the very hour to when I had
first read an article by Jerry Levin about Vanunu's 2004 Christmas Eve arrest
for attempting to travel the less than two-hour walk from Jerusalem to
Bethlehem. Levin had been a CNN Mid East Bureau Chief in the 1980's and a
secular Jew when he was kidnapped and held hostage by the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Levin escaped his captivity unharmed shortly after a mystical Christmas Eve
experience and he then became a committed Christian. Jerry was my guide through
Hebron on the first day of summer 2005 and it was on that very evening that I
met Vanunu for the first time.
It was from Jerry Levin's Christmas Eve 2004
article about Vanunu's Christmas Eve that I also learned that Vanunu had been
released from Ashkelon eight months prior. I hadn't heard a word about it when
that happened and learning about that at the same time as another arrest, set
my Irish temper off and flaming. I spent hours that evening at my computer
emailing letters to the editors and my congressional reps about how unjust of
Israel to deny someone the right to worship in the next town. How ignorant I
was to think they would care, for I had not yet learned that what Vanunu had
been subjected to, is standard operating procedures against Palestinians every
day of the year.
In 2004, Vanunu had attempted to celebrate his first Christmas Eve Mass back in
the world, in the Little Town of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, which is
in Occupied Territory. Instead of mass, Israel arrested him and Vanunu
spent Christmas Eve night in prison and Israel claimed Vanunu was
"attempting to leave the county" but he has no passport or visa and
was only carrying a Santa hat. I tried to comprehend how a democracy could deny
anyone from worshiping anywhere and anyhow they desired.
I read Jerry's article just moments after my
own mystical Christmas Eve experience. After my husband who played piano and
our daughter who sings at a local Methodist church, left for two services that evening,
I spent an hour walking in the woods adjacent to our home with our dogs. When I
returned to our circular driveway, the very moment I stepped onto the pavement
and off the dirt road, a security light that had not lit since the summer
before turned on.
"How weird is that!" I thought as
that light had been extinguished since 25 September 2004, when Hurricane Jeanne
blew through and became the reason why I did not have scheduled surgery the day
after. Due to many years of rollerblading and dancing, my left kneecap had
wedged itself out of place and I was unable to bear any weight on my left leg.
The orthopedist informed me that the only way to fix me, was to cut my knee
wide open, remove and reattach my knee cap and put me in a leg cast for six
weeks.
I spent three weeks on bed rest and three
times a day I massaged my knee with Holy Land olive oil from Taybeh. The night
before I was scheduled for surgery, Hurricane Jeanne blew over our sanctuary
and downed dozens of trees along our quarter mile driveway and left us without
electricity for many days afterward. I canceled my surgery as there was no way
to even get to the main road and on the day after that, I asked my orthopedist
for a physical therapy prescription. He warned me surgery was my only long-term
solution, but gave me the script and I have proved him wrong. The combo of bed
rest, olive oil, prayer and a change in my life style, six year later I roller
blade two or three times a week, dance a little and do a lot of Pilates, and
have not needed any surgery.
In the moment after the security light on my
circular drive lit for the first time in three months on Christmas Eve 2004, I
felt it a confirmation that the 'lemon aide' out of Hurricane Jeanne had
been the healing of my left knee.
And in the moment that security light on my
circular drive lit for the first time in three months on Christmas Eve 2004, I lit up like a Christmas tree.
After my mystical walk out of the woods and
as my family was away, I logged onto my email and opened one from my friend
Faith-the very same Faith who had shared George of Beit Jala's photo with me.
[It is his face that adorns the banner of my website.]
Faith had forwarded Jerry Levin's article
about Vanunu's Christmas Eve arrest that compelled me to spend the next few
hours at my computer emailing the media, in particular Mr. Bill O'Reilly-the
champion of the "war on Christmas" the New York Times and
dozens of other MSM outlets.
As I reflect back now, I laugh at how
deluded and naive I had been back then, to expect the US Media would report on
such an event.
In 2004, I was naïve, but I also was and
remain livid that the Fourth Estate has ignored that Israel, "blocked clergy from
reaching their churches and Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem and elsewhere
in the Holy Land.
"The Israeli authorities
are arbitrarily denying entry to clergy and volunteers belonging to or working
for Christian institutions and service providers. The clergy being harassed and
denied entry to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) join tens
of thousands of ordinary foreign passport holders of Palestinian and
non-Palestinian origin who wish to be with their families, work or study, as
well as tourists and pilgrims.
"In addition, there
appears to be a new policy by Israel to refuse entry or visa extension for
foreign, primarily Western, Christian volunteers working with various Christian
organizations here. This is affecting the viability of these organizations and
the normal connection with their supporters and fellow Christians in the
countries that contribute to the presence of these Christian workers. They
represent mainstream Christian and faith-based groups, such as the World
Council of Churches and the American Friend's Service Committee that advocate
non- violence and brotherhood and are in no way a threat to the security of
Israel.
"Israel has continued to
pursue both policies and practices that fail to comply with International
Humanitarian Law."
Vanunu's Message to Hillary Clinton re: The Apartheid Wall
During Holy Week, 2010, things got worse.
For the week of Passover, Israel enforced a
closure on the entire West Bank. Very few Palestinian Christians will be
allowed to enter Jerusalem and participate in Holy Week and Easter activities.
In response to a nonviolent protest on Palm Sunday, Israel barred international
tourists from visiting Bethlehem.
The week before that, Israel approved more settlements in the Sheikh Jarrah
neighborhood of East Jerusalem and Vanunu continues to wait for the right to
leave the state...
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Visitors since 07.22.05 |
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"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 |
Order My Books |
"Memoirs of a Nice Irish-AmericanGirl's Life inOccupied Territory" AND "Keep Hope Alive" To order either book click here. |
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
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.
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The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway. © 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith " In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
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“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 |
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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
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