West Java.: Christians have won a court battle restoring the right to worship in their building in Depok

http://www.charisma mag.com/index. php/news/ 23489-indonesia- church-wins- legal-battle- to-worship- in-building

Christians have won a court battle restoring the right to worship in
their building in Depok City, West Java.

Depok Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail on March 27 had revoked the building
permit for a multipurpose building and house of worship for Gereja
Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) church following protests by
Muslims. A court in Bandung on Sept. 17 rescinded the order that
revoked the church building permit, paving the way for congregants to
resume worship there.

Head Judge A. Syaifullah read the decision of the three-judge panel,
which found the mayor’s reasoning for canceling the building permit
inadequate. The mayor had said that most people living near the church
objected to its building in Jalan Pesanggrahan IV, Cinere Area of
Depok City.

“These objections by the local residents should have been raised when
the building permit was going through the approval process, not
protesting afterwards,” said Syaifullah.

Syaifullah added that the mayor also should have taken the views of
church members into consideration.

“In this case, the revocation of the building permit was based upon
the objections of one group in the community without considering those
from the church,” he said.

Construction of the church building had begun in 1998, shortly after
the permit was issued, but halted soon afterward due to a lack of
funds.
When the project began anew in 2007, members of a Muslim group from
the Cinere Area of Depok City and neighboring villages damaged the
boundary hedge and posted protest banners on the walls of the
building. Most of the protestors were not local residents.

The court determined that lawyers for the church successfully
demonstrated that church leaders had followed all Depok City
procedures for the building permit. Betty Sitompul, vice-chair of the
HKBP church building committee, stated that the church court win was a
victory for all Christians.

“We won because we had followed all the procedures and had completed
all the required documents,” she said.

In early June the church had filed suit against the mayor’s action in
a provincial court in Bandung, with church lawyer Junimart Girsang
arguing that the mayor’s revocation of the permit was wrong.

Girsang said that the court had finally sided with justice for all Indonesians.

“The judges made the right decision and had no choice, because all of
the papers for the permit were done properly,” he said.

The church had been meeting in a naval facility located about five
kilometers (nearly three miles) from the church building since the
permit was revoked, causing great inconvenience for church members,
many of whom did not have their own transportation.

In South Sumatra Province, another HKBP church outside the provincial
capital city of Palembang is trying to overcome objections by Muslim
protestors in order to complete construction of its building in Plaju.

Church leaders acknowledge they had not finished the application
process for a permit before beginning construction. They said they
went forward because after they applied to the mayor of Palembang, he
told them to talk with the governor of South Sumatra. After talking
with Gov. Alex Noerdin and securing his approval on Feb. 10, church
leaders began construction on a donated plot of 1,500 square meters
only to face a demonstration by members of several Muslim
organizations on June 27.

The South Sumatra Muslim Forum (FUI Sumsel) organized the
demonstration. Carrying a copy of a mayoral decree dated May 2009
ordering a halt to construction, the protestors gathered outside the
building site, listened to speeches and then destroyed a bridge
leading to it before demanding that the government ban the building
project.

Applications for church permits are often fraught with difficulty in
Indonesia, leaving many congregations no choice but to worship in
private homes, hotels or rented conference facilities. Such gatherings
leave churches open to threats and intimidation from activist groups
such as the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front), in recent
years responsible for the closure of many unregistered churches.

———— -

How to Be More Emotionally Present to Your Family No Matter How Busy You Are
 
6 Steps to Enjoying Your True Wealth
By Bo Sanchez
     We  were going to Hong Kong that day. I was going to preach for three days but had two extra days to be with my family. Picture us at the airport:  My  wife  carrying  our  baby in her arms, my eldest son bouncing about  like  a rabbit and announcing to the whole world, “I’m going to Hong Kong  Disneyland!”  And  the  poor  skinny  father? Straining to push eight massive  bags  on  a wobbly cart with a stubborn right wheel. (I’ve noticed that these deranged carts supernaturally end up with me wherever I go.)

     That was when we heard the crying.

     Correction.  Not  crying.  But  spine-chilling,  lung-busting screaming.  Two kids were holding onto their mother. They were separated by four-foot  tall  steel  bars. But to those distraught children, those steel bars  represented two years of being without their mother – the contract of a domestic helper in Hong Kong.

     Four small arms clutching, grabbing, not letting go.
    
     The  whole  world  heard  their pleading scream, “Mommy, please don’t go! Please don’t go!” I’ll never forget the mother’s pained, tortured face  -  as  though  a  knife  was  ripping through her body. My wife cried openly. I wept inside and held onto my kids more closely.

      That was two days ago. Yesterday, the story continued…

      Those Small Arms Continue to Reach Out Yesterday was Sunday.

      And I walked around Central.

      If you don’t know Hong Kong, Central is where thousands upon thousands of Filipina Domestic Helpers congregate. They sit on sidewalks. They sit on overpasses. They sit by storefronts.

       I walked passed one woman who was reading a handwritten letter.

       The handwriting was obviously a child’s penmanship.

       I walked passed another listening to a little cassette player – not to listen to music – but to a voice of a kid telling stories.

       But  what  broke  my heart was the news given to me by Shirley, the  head  of  one  organization  that  tries  to  help  them get financial education.  I  was  shocked  by  what she said. “Brother Bo, out of our 700 members who are married, 80% is already separated from their husbands.”

       Families aren’t designed for prolonged separation.

       They’re not just made for that.

       We’re supposed to spend time together.

              6 Steps to Spending More Time with Your Family No Matter How Busy You Are

      “Bo, why are you telling me this? I’m not in Hong Kong. I’m living with my family under one roof.”

        Listen. Yes, you’re not in Hong Kong.

        But if you don’t have time for your family – and your heart is not focused on them – you might as well be in another country.

        You could be physically present – but are you emotionally present as well?

        Let me share with you six important steps you could take to become more emotionally present with them…
Step #1: Be Close.

     I’m still in Hong Kong as I write this piece.

     It’s  five in the morning as I type this article in bed. And my little family is literally around me because we’re all sleeping on one bed. Yes, we’ve become one mass jumble of intertwined humanity – our limbs, legs and  arms  crisscrossing  each  other.  And that’s when I realize – gosh, I don’t know how blessed I am.

     Why?

     Here I am with my family. I feel their skin. I smell their scents. We’re so close, I feel their breath.

     And yet I’m surrounded by 148,000 domestic helpers here in Hong Kong that have been away from their families for months, for years, for decades.

     And for those who’ve separated – forever.

     Let me say it again: We don’t know how blessed we are.

     We complain that our families are nutty. But we don’t understand how blessed we are to have them close enough to experience their nuttiness. We complain about our petty quarrels, our cold wars, our dysfunctionality.

      But whose family isn’t dysfunctional?

      I’ve  talked  to  some  people here in Hong Kong who would give anything  to  be  with  their  families  again  -  even for just one day of nuttiness.  The first step is to be more emotionally present to your family is to actually be physically present to them. Be close!

      You  need  to know how precious your family is – and treat them that  way.  You need to see them as your true wealth – that nothing is more precious than your relationships.
Step #2: Be Deliberate.

     Because you need to protect this treasure or they get stolen from you.  No matter how busy I am, I schedule a weekly romantic date with my spouse.
     Yes, I actually write it down in my appointment book and treat it like a meeting with the President of the Philippines. These weekly nights are blocked off for the entire year. Nothing can touch it, except some dire emergency.

     Why?  Because if my marriage fails, everything else stands to fail as well: My  ministry,  my businesses, my soul… So it is an emergency that I bring her out every week.

     I also schedule a weekly date with my kids.

      I believe parents need to do these one-on-one dates with each of their kids. Unless of course you’ve got 18 children and may need to bring them out by two’s or three’s.

     Sometimes my son and I just walk around the village and talk.

     It doesn’t have to be big. But swapping stories and opening our hearts to one another on a consistent basis is already very big to them. It means they matter to you – that you value them – and you’ll see their self-esteem grow.
Step #3: Be Expressive.

     I tell my wife “I love you” seven times a day.

     I hug my kids countless of times a day.

     At  night,  I  tell  my kids, “I’m so proud you’re my son. I’m so proud I’m your  Daddy.  You’re  a  genius.  You’re a loving boy. You’re an incredibly gifted young man…”

     This is true. I have met 40-year olds who long to hear these words from their parents – “I’m proud of you,” and feel an empty space – like a gaping wound in their souls because their parents have never told them this.

     Don’t do that to your kids.

     And before I forget: Praise your kids seven times a day.

     And praise your spouse seven times a day.

     I’m not kidding. It will revolutionize your marriage.

     If I say, “Criticize your spouse seven times a day,” I bet you’d say, “Kaunti naman. I do that already.” But that’s the problem. We don’t realize that when we criticize our spouses, we actually destroy our marriage bit by bit – not just our spouses.

     But when you praise and honor your spouse – you build up your marriage.

     It can be very simple stuff:
        Ang sarap ng luto mo ngayon, Hon.
        I thank God He gave you to me.
        You’re so hardworking.
        I love it when I see you play with the kids.
        You know how to make me happy.
        Ganda mo ngayon.

     Keep on doing this and you’ll see changes in your life and your marriage you thought were not possible.

     Let me say it again: Praise your spouse – and your children – seven times a day.

  Step #4: Be Deep.

      Your weekly dates shouldn’t just be watching movies, eating out and going home.

      Talk deep.

      Talk about your feelings.

      Enter into each other’s worlds. Dive into each other’s dreams, hurts, desires, worries, hopes and burdens.

       When you open yourself up to your spouse or your child, there are more chances for the other person to open up to you.

Step #5: Be Simple

     Yesterday afternoon, I preached to 700 people in Hong Kong.

      I usually give my talks for 45 minutes. That’s been my trademark. But yesterday, I gave a solid two-hour talk. Vein-popping, heart-pounding, passion-driven talk – because I had a burden in my heart.

      Because I preached on Financial Literacy.

      I challenged them, “Raise your financial I.Q.!”

      I  scolded  them, “When you left the Philippines, you told your kids,  ‘Anak, two years of separation lang ‘to. After two years, Mommy will have  saved enough and will go home and we’ll be together again.’ But after two  years,  you  go  home and you haven’t saved. Because you repainted the house.  Because there’s a new TV set in the living room and a new gas range in the kitchen. Because the kids have new designer rubber shoes.

      I taught them how to live simply and ruthlessly save 20% of their income.

      Because unless they do this, they will be forever trapped in Hong Kong.

      Look at your life.

      Are you living simply?

      Are you saving 20% of your income?

Step #6: Be Financially Intelligent

     I also taught them where to invest.

     I told them, “It’s not enough to just save. You need to know where to put your money. Because savings accounts at 1% and time deposits at 5% won’t do. Inflation – which is at 7% – will simply eat them up.”

     So I taught them about mutual funds and other investment vehicles, including the ability to sell something and get into business.

     Here’s the truth: The more you know about money, the less time you need to make money. So the more time you have for your family.

     Actually, a time should come when you don’t need to make money. Instead, you let money make money. And that requires financial intelligence.

     Read. Attend seminars. Look for mentors.

     Go Home.

     After giving my talk, I took a deep breath and told my audience in Hong Kong, “When you follow these principles and have saved enough – please go home. Please go home to your children.”

     I made a lot of people cry that day.

     I’m telling you the same thing.

     Oh yes, you may be living with your family in one house, but it’s possible that your heart is so far away from your spouse and kids – and they are far away from you as well.

      You need to let your heart go home.
 
      Go home my friend.
      Your heart belongs there.

Pormadi has begin a discussion on mylot.com, here is the discussion:

Do you think that religion could create a terrorism? I do not want to say that certain religion. Every single religion have potentiality to create a terrorism. How do you think?

Sunny68:

I do not agree with you. no religion can create terrorism. all religions are good both in content and intent. unfortunately some so called custodians of religions misinterpret and misuse religion for their own vested interests. history is full of events where wars have been waged in the name of religion but in reality were wars for land and wealth. empires were expanded in the name of religion but the benefit went to kings and so called custodians of religion.

Jis2507:

Religion cannot create terrorism.
Yeah, the media portrays (wrongly) Muslims as terrorists. This is very wrong and should stop.
Sure there are some extremeists but they do not speak for all Muslims.
There are extremists in every religion. I am a christian and let me tell you; there’s a such thing as Christian extremists.
The religion itself doesn’t create terrorists. It’s when the religion is taken completely out of proportion and not interpretted correctly, so no, religion cannot, will not, and should not create terrorism.

Ravenladyj:

Religion by itself doesnt and can’t for the most part but when combined with fanatics and ppl who misinterpret what any given religion tries to teach then yes it can….MIND YOU religion on its own comes very close to being able to create terrorism simply by how certain beliefs/rules etc are worded…Religion can, is and has been for centuries, the BASE of terrorism but the acts themselves fall strictly on the doorstep of man..

Pose123:

Hi pormadi, I don’t believe that any of the major religions of the world teach terrorism, in fact no religion that I know off does so. It is only when fanatics twist what religion is saying to mean something else that we have this problem. Blessings.

I think the problem is not a religion, but the people who do not understand the true teaching of a religion.

Indonesia’s quiet revolution bodes well for the relationship

• Tim Colebatch
• August 18, 2009

Our next door neighbour is booming politically and economically.

THIS year, most of the world’s economic growth will take place in China. Much of the rest will be in India. But the third biggest source of global growth will be right next door: Indonesia.

We don’t think of Indonesia as a rising economic power. Its output ranks only 15th in the world (a bit bigger than ours). Its market ranks 18th (a bit smaller than ours). But Indonesia is changing.

Yes, there was a terrorist attack in Jakarta last month, but that was the first in four years. It has just held free elections for president and legislature that gave an emphatic mandate to its modernising moderate leader, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, for a second five-year term. The army no longer rules. The economy is no longer broken. Indonesia, for so long under the heel of dictators, is now what one analyst calls ”the best functioning democracy in South-East Asia”.

A decade ago president B. J. Habibie unexpectedly ended the dictatorship to allow free speech, a free press, independent courts and free elections. While China, Singapore and Malaysia remain in the grip of ruling elites that won’t let power out of their grasp, Indonesia has become a country where people can say what they like without having to check who’s listening.

And as the global financial crisis has flattened most countries, Indonesia has flourished. In this decade, its economy has grown by almost two-thirds. More Indonesians now live in cities than on farms. Per capita incomes have risen almost 25 per cent in five years, almost 50 per cent in a decade. Even on the IMF’s forecasts – seen in Jakarta as unrealistically low – its economy would grow 15 per cent over the three years of this global recession. Only China and India will do better.

Indonesia has no lack of problems. But a month travelling the country has left me with a strong sense that it is moving ahead, that the roots of democracy have grown deep in its decade of freedom, and that its potential importance to us and the world will grow if Yudhoyono’s 10 years as President becomes the bridge between the chaos of old and its emergence as a new world power.

Indonesia never will be a giant on the scale of China and India. Indonesia has 230 million people; they each have well over a billion. But it is moving along very different lines from China. Last year, analysts Andrew MacIntyre and Douglas Ramage published an essay for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute titled provocatively Seeing Indonesia as a normal country. Their thesis was that Indonesia is developing into a middle-income, stable democracy that poses no threat to its neighbours, and solves issues by peaceful, democratic means. At the time I thought their title provocative; a year and two elections later, it looks prescient.

China is much bigger, much mightier. But China is not a normal country. As we have been reminded starkly, it is an authoritarian dictatorship that tries to solve problems by bullying and force: arresting Rio Tinto’s chief in China, trying to bully the Melbourne film festival, and now, according to The Canberra Times, engaging in ”cyber espionage”, with China suspected of having sent Australian diplomats fake emails, designed to give the sender access to DFAT’s computer network.

Indonesia is different. For all the mistaken fears of Australians past and present, it is not a threat to us. In a wise paper for the Lowy Institute, Australia and Indonesia: current problems, future prospects, Professor Jamie Mackie tells how in the turmoil of the 1960s, when the British embassy was burnt to ashes, president Sukarno summoned Australian ambassador Mick Shann to explain why his embassy remained intact. ”You [Australia] are part of our region, and we both have to learn how to live alongside each other.”

And we have. At government level, the relationship is in excellent shape. Indonesia and Australia are working closely on issues from climate change to people smuggling. Indonesia is now the largest destination for Australia’s development aid, receiving almost $500 million a year to build schools, roads and health centres. There are 17 Australian Government departments and agencies with staff working in the Indonesian Government, helping them make government work. (One big success has been the Australian Tax Office helping its Indonesian counterpart make Indonesia’s big companies and rich people pay their taxes.)

People-to-people relationships are improving, if underdeveloped. There are now 15,000 Indonesians studying in Australia. In the year to June, a record 436,000 Australian tourists went to Indonesia, despite the official warning urging them to reconsider.

The commercial relationship, however, could be much bigger. Indonesia still has a widespread hostility to foreign investment, which Yudhoyono’s reforms have not challenged. Yet Australian companies in Indonesia – such as the ANZ, Toll and Thiess – are doing well, and there is the potential for Australia to help modernise Indonesian business as it is helping to modernise government.

Indonesia’s democratic revolution has put down deep roots. Its economic revolution is starting to do the same. Much depends on Yudhoyono’s second term, and how it tackles corruption and reforms to the bureaucracy, the labour market, infrastructure and investment. What will be good for Indonesia will be good for us.

Tim Colebatch is economics editor.

Manufacturing Consent For The “War On Terror”

Terror Plot Emerges as Secret Service Game

By Julio Godoy

August 20, 2009 — BERLIN, Aug 20 ( IPS) – It was announced as a terror plot busted. German police had captured three young Muslim men in the small village Medebach-Oberschled or, some 450 km southwest of Berlin Sep. 4 in 2007. The police declared they had seized 730 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide, enough to make 550 kg of explosives.

The three men, and a fourth, who was captured a year later in Turkey, wanted to bomb U.S. military and other facilities in Germany, and to kill “as many U.S. soldiers as possible,” one of the accused later confessed.

The four men told court their plans were in retaliation against the U.S. war on ‘Islamic terrorism’, especially the abuse of hundreds of Muslims detained at Guantanamo prison. German authorities and the media dubbed the four men ‘the Sauerland group’, in reference to the region where they were captured.

The Sauerland group were declared to be members of the Islamic Jihad Union, an alleged terrorist organisation based in Uzbekistan.

Almost two years later, the case is before the higher regional court in Duesseldorf, some 460 km southwest of Berlin, and should come to a close early 2010.

But now, the case has ceased to be “the serious terrorist threat” it was called. It is now a mysterious puzzle of secret service games, prosecutors’ alarmism spread by the media, and basic failures of justice.

The supposedly dangerous group members have emerged as no more than some muddle-heads. They had no links whatsoever to international Islamic terror groups.

“No Islamic chief villain…in Pakistan or somewhere else influenced the group,” says Hans Leyendecker, one of Germany’s top investigative journalists. “Its members are dumb, narrow-minded young men who hate the U.S.”

Moreover, the fifth member of the group, yet to be captured, has been described as a Turkish national known only as Mevlut K. He now appears as an informer of the Turkish national intelligence organisation (MIT, after its Turkish name). He was the key figure in the plot, according to confessions by other members of the Sauerland group.

“Without Mevlut, we would not have been able to go as far with the preparations as we did,” Attila Selek, one of the accused, told the court. ‘K’ had procured 26 fuses for the bombs the group was supposed to make, Selek said. Only, the fuses were useless. German police investigations showed that all but two were too humid to work.

Fritz Gelowicz, another member of the terrorist group, said the four men were informed of K’s links with the MIT. “We knew that Mevlut had links with several secret services,” Gelowicz told the court. “We though that these links were good for us.”

K apparently did not hide his links to the Turkish secret service. On at least one occasion K told the group they were being monitored by the German security agencies. “Then he told me he was stealing this information from secret services,” Selek told the court.

Despite warnings that the German police were constantly informed of their actions, the four men continued their preparations until they were captured.

Numerous sources have confirmed that the German foreign intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendi enst (BND) knew in 2004 that Mevlut K worked for the MIT. That year, the sources said, the MIT proposed to the BND that K be infiltrated into Islam movements in Germany. The BND reportedly rejected the Turkish plan.

Despite the confessions about K’s involvement, German justice failed to order his capture for a long time. Mevlut K. is believed to be living in Turkey.

German authorities only issued an international warrant against Mevlut K. Aug. 13, several weeks after depositions by the other four members of the group had been widely circulated.

The Sauerland group could have been “an orchestration to make believe that a huge terrorist threat” was looming over U.S. military facilities in Germany, says Rene Hellig, leading commentator with the Neues Deutschland daily.

Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray calls it a fake case orchestrated by Uzbek security services.

“I should make plain that regrettably it is a fact that there are those who commit violence, motivated by a fanatic version of their faith,” Murray wrote in his personal blog. “Sadly the appalling aggression of the U.S. government and allied war policy has made such reaction much more frequent. They may or may not have been planning to commit explosions. But if they were, the question is who was really pulling their strings, and why?”

Murray says there is no evidence of the existence of Islamic Jihad Union, alleged to have been directing the Sauerland group, other than that given by Uzbek security services. “There are, for example, no communications intercepts between senior terrorists referring to themselves as the Islamic Jihad Union,” he said.

Murray said the planned attacks the Uzbekistan government attributed to the group since the spring of 2004 “are in fact largely fake and almost certainly the work of the Uzbek security services, from my investigations on the spot at the time.” (END/2009)

C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help to Kill Jihadists

Zionist Pioneer Renounces Zionism

By HELENA COBBAN

I’ve never met Dov Yermiya, a Jewish Israeli peace activist who is now 94 years old. But I read of course the book he published in 1983 in which he wrote with anguish about the torture and other gross mistreatment of civilians he witnessed directly during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon the year before.

I have it in my hand now.

I just learned, from  an open letter published  by Uri Avnery, that Yermiya, recently renounced the ideology and practice of Zionism with these stirring words:

“I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel,

“Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it.

“… for 42 years, Israel turned what should have been Palestine into a giant detention camp, and is holding a whole people captive under an oppressive and cruel regime, with the sole aim of taking away their country, come what may!!!

“”The IDF eagerly suppresses their efforts at rebellion, with the active assistance of the settlement thugs, by the brutal means of a sophisticated Apartheid and a choking blockade, inhuman harassment of the sick and of women in labor, the destruction of their economy and the theft of their best land and water.

“Over all this there is waving the black flag of the frightening contempt for the life and blood of the Palestinians. Israel will never be forgiven for the terrible toll of blood spilt, and especially the blood of children, in hair-raising quantities.. . “

Avnery’s response is fascinating. He too is a veteran peace activist, and of about the same generation as Yermiya. But in the letter he is, I think, pleading with Yermiya not to renounce Zionism completely, but rather to reconnect with the “idealistic” Zionism that they both experienced during their youth.

He writes,

“When I think of our youth, yours and mine, one scene is never far from my mind: the 1947 Dalia festival.

“Tens of thousands of young men and women were sitting on the slope of a hill in the natural amphitheater near Kibbutz Dalia on Mount Carmel. Ostensibly it was a festival of folk dancing, but in reality it was much more – a great celebration of the new Hebrew culture which we were then creating in the country, in which folk dancing played an important role. The dancing groups came mainly from the kibbutzim and the youth movements, and the dances were original Hebrew creations, interwoven with Russian, Polish, Yemenite and Hassidic ones. A group of Arabs danced the Debka in ecstasy, dancing and dancing and dancing on.

“In the middle of the event, the loudspeakers announced that members of the UN Commission of Inquiry, which had been sent by the international organization to decide upon the future of the country, were joining us. When we saw them entering the amphitheater, the tens of thousands spontaneously rose to their feet and started to sing the “Hatikva”, the national anthem, with a holy fervor that reverberated from the surrounding mountains.

“We did not know then that within half a year the great Hebrew-Arab war would break out – our War of Independence and their Naqba. I believe that most of the 6000 young people who fell in the war on our side, as well as the thousands that were wounded – like you and me – were present at that moment in Dalia, seeing each other and singing together.

“What state did we think of then? What state did we set out to create?

“What has happened to the Hebrew society, the Hebrew culture, the Hebrew morality that we were so proud of then?”

Then, he pleads this:

“You, Dov, have invested in this state much too much to turn your back on it in a gesture of anger and despair. The most hackneyed and worn-out slogan in Israel is also true: ‘We don’t have another state!’

“Other states in the world have sunk to the depths of depravity and committed unspeakable crimes, far beyond our worst sins, and still brought themselves back to the family of nations and redeemed their souls.

“We and all the members of our generation, who were among those who created this state, bear a heavy responsibility for it. A responsibility to our offspring, to those oppressed by this state, to the entire world. From this responsibility we cannot escape.

“Even at your respectable age, and precisely because of it and because of what you represent, you must be a compass for the young and tell them: This state belongs to you, you can change it, don’t allow the nationalist wreckers to steal it from you!

“True, 61 years ago we had another state in mind. Now, after our state has tumbled to where it is today, we must remember that other state, and remind everybody, every day, what the state should have been like, what it can be like, and not allow our vision to disappear like a dream. Let’s lend our shoulders to every effort to repair and heal!
These are very weighty issues that these two longtime Zionists are debating.”

I remember the evening I had back in early March with longtime Jewish-Israeli nonviolence activist Amos Gvirtz. Gvirtz is “only” in his late 60s or early 70s. But like Avnery and Yermiya he grew up in Israel.

He told me in March,

“I became an anti-Zionist after Oslo, when the government expelled the Arabs of Jahhaleenn to make room for the big new settlement area if Maale Adummim… Like the Zionists, I believe we Jews need a state of our own. But unlike the Zionists I don’t think this should be built on the ruins of someone else’s home. So our state need not necessarily be right here.”

Gvirtz, too, like Avnery, identified a strong link between the events of 1947-48 and the situation today– though the nature of the link Gvirtz identified was very different from Avnery’s: “The Nakba wasn’t really a single event that happened in 1948, so much as a long-drawn-out process, that continues to this day.” In other words, he was quite unwilling to neatly divide Israeli history, as Avnery still does, between the idealized, prelapsarian days of the 1947 Dalia festival and the post-lapsarian era that was inaugurated- – in Avnery’s view– only by Israel’s conquest of the West Bank.

Obviously, this is a very weighty issue for Zionists and their supporters to grapple with. Did 1967 mark a notable break between a laudable past and a troublesome present? Or were there indeed, as Gvirtz and many other current non- and anti-Zionists have argued, many elements of continuity from the 1947 period right through to the present?

Anyway, I’d love to see the whole text of the latest Yermiya letter from which Avnery is quoting, if anyone can provide a link to it, preferably in English. The only recent English text that I could find by him online was this letter, published in the Communist weekly Zo Haderekh in June 2008.

In it, Yermiya was returning to Defense Minister Barak the invitation he had been sent to attend a ceremony to honor all veterans of Israel’s 1948 “War of Independence” .

He wrote,

“As a veteran of the 1948 war, who was already wounded in face to face combat two weeks before the Declaration of the State, I feel obliged herewith to return the invitation to you, as Minister of Defence. I do so regretfully but see this as my duty.

“I consider you, Ehud Barak, as one of the top military commanders and prominent political leaders who were responsible for converting the army from ‘the Israeli Defence Force’ to an army of occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people and defender of the criminal settlements in their country.

“40 years of occupation have utterly corrupted the Israeli army and all strata of Israeli society.They are both characterized by the nationalist ‘east wind’ [the east wind brings the chamsin and locusts ]which blows and kindles conflagrations of endless wars, which threaten our people and land with the third and final destruction. Your share in the responsibility for all this is enormous, and therefore I return your invitation to you, without thanks…”

Helena Cobban is a veteran writer, researcher, and program organizer on global  affairs. Since 2003 she has published  “Just World News”, a lively blog on international issues that has gained a broad international readership. She can be reached at hcobban@gmail. com