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Upon reading in the Islamic Flat Earth News that a fellow minister in Pennsylvania is suing the Joooos, Presbyterian ministers from around the USA today rushed to join him in a show of solidarity against the Evil Zionist Entity.
They arrived in Pennsylvania panting and sweating. "We aren't sure what the latest fashion is," said their spokesminister person, "So we came nearly naked."
"The important thing," said another, "is that we show our solidarity with our fellow anti-racist minister person in the right kind of fashion-statement clothing. Personally, I prefer a chic chiffon gown in stone-washed salmon, set off by a salmon moussed bouffant coif to give that subtle but daringly avant garde ambience to my persona." Asked about further Presbyterian fashion statements in support of the PEEE-PUL, he said: "I'll finish off my ensemble with green gaberdine and alligator spats."
In a late-breaking press release in Latin the Presbyterian Synod declared in support of innocent Palestinians babies: "Coito ergo sum."
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Presbyterians everywhere, in rapidly diminishing numbers, press on to divest themselves from the Hated Zionist Entity that forces the Palestinian PEEE-Pul to commit murder by suicide bombing martyrdom.
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A TIME OF CHANGE
ISRAELIS, PALESTINIANS AND THE DISENGAGEMENT
Boy ready for martyrdom
Friday, August 12, 2005
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Netanya, Israel -- The series
Fifteen-year-old Abdel Kareem Mohammed Abu Habel sits in an Israeli prison after he tried and failed to martyr himself last year. Would he do it again? Without a doubt, he says.Abdel Kareem Mohammed Abu Habel agrees with Israeli critics who say that next week's disengagement from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank will do nothing to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel.
Sitting in his jail cell in the Sharon Detention Center in central Israel, he also said he would never accept peace with the Jewish state, even if Israel eventually pulled back to its pre-1967 borders, behind the so-called Green Line. He doesn't even know what the Green Line is.
The only peace he wants "is to get back all our lands," meaning the entire state of Israel.
"We don't want the Jews on this world," he said.
Abdel is 15. He has a baby face that sharply contrasts with the cigarette sticking out of his broken teeth. He is in prison for strapping a bomb to his belly in the spring of 2004 and trying to kill Israelis by killing himself.
If he were released today, he said, it would not be long before he tried again.
"One month," he estimated. "I would want to see my family first."
Those who fear the consequences of Israel's disengagement cite teenagers like Abdel, who have been increasingly recruited into the ranks of suicide bombers by extremist anti-Israel groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"I don't like Abu Mazen," he said, referring to the name Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is known by. "Abu Amar (the late Yasser Arafat) didn't want peace. Abu Mazen wants peace."
"When I was a little boy ... I saw people killed become martyrs," Abdel said, fidgeting in a cheap plastic chair in the cellblock classroom. "When I saw that, I started thinking I wanted to do an operation."
Growing up, he heard over and over again the stories -- true or not -- of how his family was driven from its home near Ashkelon during the 1948 Arab- Israeli war, and of a grandfather who died fighting the Jews.
"It is an honor for us to go and fight and throw stones," he said. "Every stone we throw is another step toward honor from God."
His older brother was shot in the legs, he said, and never walked properly again. Abdel proudly showed the scar on his own leg, where he said he had been shot by an Israeli soldier, and the scar from a bullet he said had grazed his head. He talked about seeing his own blood on his hands after that injury, about being taken to the ambulance as he recited the shahadah, an Islamic prayer: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet," the words a Muslim tries to speak in the final moments before death.
Quickly, Abdel moved beyond stone-throwing in Jabaliya. In one incident, he claimed, he pressed the detonator to set off a bomb that blew up an Israeli tank.
That night, he said, he saw on the news that the explosion had injured three soldiers.
"I was very happy. The other people knew I had done it and were happy for me. And somebody had filmed me!" he said. "My family told me, 'This is what we want. We want mujahedeen.' "
The injured soldiers, or their families, he said, did not enter his mind.
He was arrested and released three times over the next two years, he said. On the last of those occasions, he was held for three months, he said. Israeli laws do not allow the review of juveniles' files, so his account could not be independently confirmed.
A week after he was released, Abdel made plans for martyrdom. He purchased the components -- explosives, belt, detonator -- to make a suicide belt, using money he had earned by making gold bracelets for sale. It cost about 1,000 Israeli shekels -- approximately $250.
Three friends helped him make a video of himself holding an M-16, with the Hamas flag behind him and saying some final words that he has since forgotten. Then, he donned the belt and went to a checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers not far from his home.
He insisted the plan was his own idea, although Israeli officials have accused extremist groups in the West Bank and Gaza of recruiting young men like Abdel for terrorist acts.
"I was going to be dead," he said. "I was going to see God and defend Jerusalem. I was happy." He was 14.
He thought about his family -- about how his brothers would be interrogated, his family home demolished.
"They would be honored," he said confidently. "It's worth it. The most important thing is that the operation succeeds."
But there were problems. Somehow, the soldiers had a picture of Abdel. They ordered him to halt and disrobe. Surrounded, he said, by fellow vulnerable Palestinians, he removed the belt, watching in fury as an Israeli Defense Force robot dragged it away. Then, he was taken into custody.
His parents, brothers and sisters still live in Jabaliya in the same concrete home.... It is filled with photos of Hamas leaders and shaheed (martyrs) -- dead men with guns -- and a few photos of Abdel.
But the boy changed around his 10th year, she said, when he was hit in the knee by an Israeli bullet. He spent four months in the hospital, two more before he could walk on his own. He missed examinations, then refused to return to school, she said. He was angry. He wanted revenge.
"His father insisted he stay here, away from the soldiers and away from the kids who were throwing stones at the soldiers," she said. "The first time, he was hit in the knee. The second time, he might be hit in the head."
Abdel turned a deaf ear to the entreaties. He would reply, Besma said: "It's too bad that bullet hit me in the knee and not in the head. I would have been a martyr."
During an interview with The Chronicle, she first said her son's attempted suicide bombing was an Israeli fiction created in interrogation. Or a frame-up by older boys. But when told by a reporter that the story came from his own lips, she said something different.
"All the youngsters these days, this is what they talk about. Anywhere you go in this area. This is what they think about, the little kids. To blow themselves up," she said. "If you take the youngest kid, he'll say this is what he wants to do. Kill Jews."
"Of course I was proud that my son was fighting back. Not only him -- most kids his age," she said. "The parents are proud because the children are engaged in resistance. But we didn't think it would get to the point of suicide belts."
Had her son succeeded in his mission, Besma said, her feelings would have been mixed.
"Of course, yes, I would have been happy," she said. And proud. Even though it would be very sad for me to lose my son. But I would be very proud," she said.
"But of course, not when he was 14. This is for somebody older that him .. . 18 and up to 20 ... somebody this age, it would be OK," she said. "The first thing is to get them to higher education -- become doctors, teachers, educators. Then joining moqawama (resistance)."
As she spoke, Besma was surrounded by small boys, her sons and grandsons, ranging from toddlers to teens. Asked whether they wanted to become martyrs, the boys universally nodded yes. Besma smiled with a mix of pride and resignation.
"I'm still a mother. Of course this is hard for me," she said. "But when I think about the history of Palestinians, we got kicked from our land. We are even chased here. We are restricted from moving. ... It's obvious who started the attacks and who is the enemy. That's why they grow up learning revenge. Each martyr has a son or a brother or a daughter who misses them when they die. And they grow up wanting revenge."
Israel should release her son, and the other child prisoners, Besma said.
Abdel was pleased to hear that the fighting goes on. "Alhamdulillah!" he cried. Thank God, yes.
"I will not give up on one meter of Palestinian land," he said, dismissing any kind of road map or peace process. "If God helps us, we will destroy Israel."
And he went back to the Israeli cell he shares with another teenage prisoner to wait for the dubbed Japanese cartoons to end and hope to see one of his favorite action films on the television set he has in his cell.
Except he doesn't call them action films.
He calls them "killing movies."
E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com.
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Independent (UK), February 16, 2003
"The show was over, recorded for one of those nice liberal local American TV cable channels – this time in Texas – where everyone agrees that war is wrong, that George Bush is in the hands of right-wing Christian fundamentalists and pro-Israeli neo- conservatives. Don Darling, the TV host, had just turned to thank me for my long and flu-laden contribution. Then it happened. Cameraman number two came striding towards us through the studio lights. 'I want to thank you, sir, for reminding us that the British had a lot to do with the chaos in the Middle East, he said. 'But I have something else to say.' His voice rose 10 decibels, his bare arms bouncing up and down at his sides, his shaven head struck forward pugnaciously. 'Yeah, I wanna tell you that the cause of this problem is the fucking medieval Arabs and their wish to enslave us all – and I tell you that it is because we want to save the Jews from the fucking savage Arabs who want to throw them into the sea that we are about to fuck Saddam.' There was a pause as Don Darling looked at the man, aghast. 'And that,' cameraman number two concluded, 'is the fucking truth.' Darling called to the studio manager. 'Where does this man come from?' he demanded to know. The lady from the University of Texas – organiser of this gentle little pow-wow – advanced on to the studio floor in horror: 'Who is this person?' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. All of a sudden, our nice anti-war chat had been brought to a halt by a spot of redneck reality ... The people with whom these liberal academics should be building bridges are the truck-drivers and bell-hops and Amtrak crews, the poor blacks and the cops whose families provide the cannon fodder for America's overseas military adventures. But that, of course, would force intellectuals to emerge from the sheltered, tenured world of seminars and sit-ins and deal directly with those whose opinions they wish to change."
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IFEN has also learned that it is only smart people who know the Islam is the Religion of Peace:
"I am delighted that the leaders of the three major faith communities — Muslim, Jewish and Christian — have come to one mind on the importance of a two-state solution and on U.S. leadership for peace in the region," Kirkpatrick told the Presbyterian News Service. "This is clearly a moment of opportunity for peace in the Middle East, and I hope and pray that the Administration will seize the opportunity to join us in working for peace."
"Delay is not the way."
Majorities of Israelis and Palestinians desperately want the violence to end, not only because of the terrible toll on human life, but also because it is clear that peace with justice — that is, real security for Israelis and an end of occupation for Palestinians — can only be achieved by negotiations.
http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2005/05019.htm
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Smart people, Presbyterians in Pennsylvania, know that Islam is the Religion of Peace, and that moral equilevance is the only valid argument when dealing with stupid people.
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Mr. Lou S. Nowasielski, writing on the same date, at least calls the barbaric acts "tortures," but implies in an astonishing leap of illogic that the killings in Munich over 30 years ago, the hostage-taking in Iran over 20 years ago, the downing of Pan Am Flight 103, and other bombings including the World Trade Center, all somehow combine to justify the shameful acts by our soldiers. He then quotes several verses from the Qur'an with which he paints all the prisoners as radical Muslims who deserve such treatment.
Dan Mertz
.Milroy, Pa.
http://www.layman.org
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There has been much discussion at the IFEN office regarding the sincerity of the writer above, whether he is mocking Islam and the Prophet, (PBUH.) If this is true, we will kill ten innocent by-standers.
Said Stewart, a Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania, "Cut off my head if I'm wrong, but real security for Israelis and an end of occupation for Palestinians — can only be achieved by negotiations. 'Delay is not the way.'
"But enough of that. How do you like my shoes?"
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[Shhh. There's a bum sleeping on the parkbench at this address. Let's not disturb him.]
Welcome to my park bench from which we can notice and discuss the traces and signs of God's presence and activity in the center of Tarentum, Pennsylvania. Have a seat. Relax and take a look around. Something big is happening, and you are invited to participate.
- At Friday, August 12, 2005 12:41:15 PM, Anonymous said...
- This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
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