Mark Twain on Palestine
From his travelogue, The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain had this to say about the Palestine he traveled through in 1867-68.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a
curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where
Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now
floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists--over
whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead--
about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of
cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching
lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; about that
ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with
songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins
of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even
as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem
and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about
them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the
Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their
flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to
men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature
that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest
name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a
pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the
admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was
the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is
lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of
the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where
Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed
in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and
commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a
shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and
Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round
about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice
and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is
inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.
Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can
the curse of the Deity beautify a land?
I bring all of this up due to
this post at
Mystery Achievement. It's about another attempt by Palestinians to rewrite history in order to pretend that there is legitimacy to Islamic claims to Jerusalem. Yes, I swiped the following photos from Mystery Achievement. Look at them carefully. They are of the Al-Aqsa Mosque taken in 1877.
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Notice all of the weeds in the foreground. It doesn't appear that there have been enough feet traveling through to keep pesky vegetation from growing between the paving stones . . . in a desert. Let's face it, this real estate didn't become important to Muslims until Jews began to move in and make the desert bloom.
And if you haven't already done so, head over to Mystery Achievement and read the original post. Read
this one too. Muslims aren't only trying to take away Jewish and Christian history. They want to replace all of the world's history. From Mystery Acheivement:
What makes the story in Meryl's post (and her comments on it) so important, though, is that it elegantly combines Arab Muslim replacement theology with its secular equivalent: a make-believe world in which the founding of the West had nothing to do with either Judaism or Christianity, resulting in the banishment of even the most rudimentary knowledge of the Bible from a culture founded on the premise that everything in it was literally true. Rushing in to fill this howling vacuum is a culture that will help the secularists achieve their goal--though what awaits the secularists once it is accomplished is perhaps a topic best left alone. And not even the most defenseless and helpless people in any society--the dead--are spared their combined assualt.
None of us are being spared the assault of Islam. We need to wake up to that fact.
Labels: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Innocents Abroad, islam, Israel, Mark Twain, Mystery Achievement
The Need for Something Bigger
This post at
Mystery Achievement got me thinking. It's a fairly long post, but you should read the whole thing. Reading that post brought me back to a recent session when I was teaching a class about cults at my synagogue. We were trying to figure out why the followers of Jim Jones would follow him to their deaths. What were they looking for?
That brought me to another question. I asked my eighth graders, "Do human beings need something bigger than themselves to believe in?" We have G-d, but across an increasingly secularized western culture, belief in G-d is not only waning, but some say is being actively discouraged. I'm not going to touch the battle for Christmas, even though it is a symptom of the problem.
Instead, I'd like to point out that even atheists seem to be searching for that "something bigger", something that is beyond what is in front of us in our day to day life. I remember a few years back when a movement known as Communism was making waves in our world. It denied the existence of G-d, but it was a proselytizing movement, and it gave its followers something bigger than themselves to believe in. And while some of the anti-religious like to explain their disbelief in the fact that there have been so many wars fought over religion during Man's existence, Communists killed a fair number of people in their efforts to bring the "benefits" of Communism to the whole world.
Not all athiests are or were Communists. Some have other things they hold as their "something bigger". For some, it's an ill-defined spirituallity. For others it's Art, or Nature, or Reason, or Humanity. But for most people, there seems to be something that they need to have faith in.
Over the years though, the strongest faith has been directed towards G-d. Other things have come and gone, but G-d remains a constant. As the West becomes increasing secular, and G-d is removed from life, it seems to me, a vacuum is formed. As nature abhors a vacuum, something must fill it. As we scan the horizon, we see a movement willing to fill that vacuum: Islam. Like Communism, however, this is not a faith that is good for children and other living things. As so many others have pointed out, Islam, while billing itself as the "religion of peace", is intolerant, warlike, vicious, deceitful, and does not work and play well with others. We've seen that as Muslim populations grow in formerly non-Muslim countries, Muslims begin demanding special rights, and insisting that others follow their rules, while in Muslim countries, non-Muslims are at best, regulated to second class status, at worst, degraded and abused.
No matter how much our mainstream media denies the tyranny of Islam, we can still see that it's there.
This leads me to my question: With so many heads in the sand, how do we reverse this trend? How do we fill this vacuum before it's filled by Islam?
Labels: atheists, God, islam, Mystery Achievement
The Paris Intifada
From
Mystery Achievement I linked to this
editorial at the Jerusalem Post. Here is a very large chunk:
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the US media became preoccupied with a key question: "Why do they hate us so much?" A fair-minded people, the Americans believed there must be a good, rational explanation why 19 educated, economically comfortable young men would ram planes into buildings, killing themselves along with thousands of innocents.
Among the many reasons proffered, one that appeared frequently - and drew concern in Jerusalem - was that it was all due to US support for Israel. If the US would only toe a more pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian line, this argument ran, then the Arab and Muslim masses wouldn't hate it so.
The events in Paris over the last 12 days have confirmed the vacuity of this argument.
Since the mid-1960s, France has consistently been among the most pro-Arab countries in western Europe.
Indeed, one can make a compelling argument that one reason French President Jacques Chirac was so opposed to the US war in Iraq was that he believed this would give France special status among the world's Muslims.
France, unlike the US, cannot be accused of a pro-Israeli slant. Nevertheless, its Muslim youth are rioting in the banlieues of Paris. Though it is too early to dissect this ongoing French revolution, one thing that can already be said is that these rioters hate France - otherwise they wouldn't be destroying its property and setting fire to its towns and suburbs.
And this hatred of France has nothing to do with Israel.
Why is this important to state? Because for too long much of the West, with France at the vanguard, has tried to paper over its real conflict with radical Islam with the argument that if only a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict could be found, then all would be well with the world and Islamic enmity would disappear.
Not so. The Muslim youth in France are not rioting as a sign of solidarity with their Palestinian or Iraqi brothers. They are rioting in large part because they feel discriminated against, alienated, and cut out of that great French "liberte, egalite, fraternite" pie.
The French would be wise to pay attention to the fact that these flames of alienation are being fanned and leveraged for their own use by Islamic radicals who - as the homegrown London bombers proved in July - are thriving on the streets of Europe.
Parallels can be found with our reality. At one time the Arab-Israeli conflict looked predominantly like a territorial one. Indeed, this thinking underpinned UN Security Council Resolution 242, which created the territories-for-peace rubric.
What was ignored was the religious and ideological component of the conflict. It is not coincidental that the recent Palestinian paroxysm of violence here goes by the name of al-Aksa Intifada - and not, for instance, the Gaza intifada, or the West Bank intifada.
Naming the violence after the mosque on the Temple Mount, and not one or other of the disputed territories, underlines that religious component, a component that - with the help of Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad - has made the conflict much more violent, volatile and intractable. Land-for-peace, for the radical Islamic groups, has always been obsolete.
France - yes, ironically, France - has now awakened to find itself facing a similar dilemma.
I'm not gloating about Islamic riots in France. Even though they are stupidly anti-semitic and have repeatedly bent over further to get a better grip on their ankles whenever their Muslim masters - uh - I mean allies demanded it, I don't want France to be part of the Islamic caliphate. I'm really hoping they rediscover their warrior spirit and take their country back; even if it means they have to insult the sensibilities of their Muslim inhabitants - uh - I mean invaders.
Hey France! Find your spine! It's got to be around there somewhere!
Labels: France, French riots, Muslims, Mystery Achievement
Steven Vincent
Thanks to
Mystery Achievement for posting the link to an obituary for Steven Vincent at
Gates of Vienna. I had read one of his posts from Iraq without knowing who he was. After reading more from him, I realize how important his voice and perspective were to this war and our society. He demonstrates that Western Civilization is fighting for its life, not only against vicious and devious Muslim agression, but also against their allies; Multiculturalism and the spoiled, pampered, grievence-mongering, self-loathing left. While your're at it, read
this interview with Steven Vincent at
FrontPage Magazine.
Sometimes you really don't what you've got until it's gone.
Labels: Gates of Vienna, Mystery Achievement, Steven Vincent
The Latest by Oriana Fallaci
Someguy at Mystery Achievement has translated Oriana Fallaci's latest column into English. If you care about Islam's war against the world, read it. If you don't care, read it anyway.
Here is part 1.
Here is part 2.
Previously, I wrote about Oriana Fallaci
here.
Labels: Mystery Achievement, Oriana Fallaci
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
