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In this mailing:
by Thomas Smith
• February 23, 2016 at 5:00 am
- Usually, in
regular Lenten services, solemn memories of divine mercy on the
sinners of the world take center stage for Christians. But not in
this liturgy. Center stage was instead given to committing a sin of
evil speech: launching a lie about an Israeli-made water shortage
suffered by Palestinians. The lie is a sin in which all the member
churches of the WCC are invited to participate.
- Those leaders
of Protestant churches, turned into political propagandists, used
the pulpit of Jerusalem unjustly to call upon the Protestant
faithful worldwide to listen to Palestinian water libels against the
State of Israel.
- This liturgy
abused the biblical readings as a means of invigorating the equally
false Kairos Palestine message, that Israel takes the Land of
Palestine and has no right to be where it is.
- A close look
shows no scientific analysis, neither of water distribution nor of
water politics for the territories of Israel and the Palestinian
Authority (PA).
- The
Palestinians certainly are experiencing a water crisis; the question
is to what extent are they themselves are responsible for it, and to
what extent are their own leaders responsible for keeping them as
victims for effective international "marketing."
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem,
Israel. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
On February 10 (Ash Wednesday in the Western Christian calendar),
the Palestinian Lutheran Bishop, Munib Younan, on behalf of the World
Council of Churches (WCC), launched the Lenten Campaign of the Ecumenical
Water Network. Entitled "Seven Weeks for Water," it was
presented at the (German) Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City
of Jerusalem.
Younan -- a "yes-signatory/no-signatory" of the infamous
document published by Kairos Palestine in 2009 -- was flanked by other
well-known supporters of Palestinian agitation against Israel:
by Michael Armanious
• February 23, 2016 at 4:30 am
- "Young
people in the Middle East are less sectarian" than the radicals
who currently dominate the news. The way to defeat radical jihadists
is to invest in young people and families, so they can choose a
"hopeful life over a glorious death." — U.S. Senator Lindsay
Graham.
- Given what the
perpetrators of violence have been encouraged to believe by leading
radical voices in the Muslim community, attacks carried out in the
name of Islam should not come as a surprise.
- Despite how
badly Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wants to revolutionize
the practice of Islam and the country he governs, his government
simply lacks the resources necessary to overhaul the country's
educational system to counter the message of hate broadcast by
radical imams.
Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, delivered a
historic speech to top Islamic scholars and clergy at Al-Azhar University
in Cairo, December 28, 2014. (Image source: MEMRI)
At breakfast recently in Alexandria, Egypt, I struck up a
conversation with my waiter, Sherif. He was 25-years-old; about the same
age I was when I left Egypt. He had recently graduated from a tourism and
hospitality school, just completed his military service and his whole
life was in front of him. He said his dream was to become a chef so he
could save enough money to marry and start a family. He was willing to
work hard for a good life.
Today, the restaurant where Sherif works pays him around 500 Egyptian
pounds (less than $64) a month. He spends most of his wages on bus fare
commuting back and forth to work from one of the poorest sections of
Alexandria. Tips keep him slightly ahead, but during slow times Sherif is
forced to borrow money to cover his bus fare.
To make matters worse, the neighborhood in which he lives is a
stronghold of the Salafists (also known as Wahhabis), an
ultra-conservative Sunni Islam religious movement.
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