Musings from Heather’s Heart
Americans Committed to Justice and Truth

July 12, 2004
ANONYMOUS MIKE

As you read this, please remember that often the most patriotic thing we can do is  question our government.  I’ve been accused of being an “anti-semite” for stating what you’ll read below.  I’m not.  I’m no more an anti-semite than an Israeli soldier who refuses to serve in the occupied territories is a “self-hating Jew.” 

For several months I’ve been putting off writing this piece.  As a result of Anonymous Mike’s interview today on NPR (we have a link to it on our Truth page) I can no longer keep quiet.  And by the way, until you listen to that interview, what I’m writing here will probably frustrate you at best.  So I would like to suggest that you go back to our Truth page and click on the Anonymous Mike link, take a half hour to hear it clearly, then come back here to this musing. 

As a full-time Palestine/Israel activist, I’ve been saying that George Bush is wrong.  He thinks the reason many followers of Islam hate us so much is that they “can’t stand that we are free.” Our President says that terrorism happens because they know we want to make Afghanistan and Iraq free nations.  That is absolute bovine excrement!  They have several reasons for hating us but one of them is not that they hate our freedom.  Number one on their list is our shameful unquestioning support of Ariel Sharon and his policies in Palestine.  If you respect Anonymous Mike’s experience and his brave truth-telling you will hear him clearly and embrace his message.  Israel’s policies are wrong.  The occupation’s most blatant outrage among many is the so-called security barrier.  What started out as “fence” is now a 3 and 4 story steel reinforced concrete wall.  Sharon’s policies are—I’m loathe to use one of President Bush’s words—evil.  And how stupid are we to accept this Likud leader’s protestations that it is merely there as a necessity for security from terrorists?  If it were there only for security, it would be built on the accepted border between Israel and the West Bank rather than winding in and around Palestinian towns east of the ’67 Green Line.   Please click here on following map. www.MIFTAH.org/doc/documents/apr30wallupdate.pdf   

Notice the abusiveness of the wall as it cuts off Palestinian homes from their orchards, hospitals, relatives, stores.  You may want to also click on www.nad-plo.org/index.php  for additional Palestine/Israel Maps and Photos. 

Here is where my ordained Christian self diverges from what you hear Anonymous Mike and others say in answer to the question:  “Well, we can’t just give them (Osama and others) what they want can we?”  Mike says:  “of course not.”  But he says we’re left with only a military option.  In words eerily reminiscent of what Schwartzkopf said after Gulf War I, he thinks the problem is that we haven’t used our military in fully efficient ways. 

I ask why?  Why can’t we give Al Quaeda and its offshoots a Palestine free of the Israeli occupation?  Mike correctly identifies Usama bin Laden’s first and most important issue.  He calls it “our unqualified support of Israel.”  According to the United Nations and the International Court of Law in The Hague, Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal.  But here’s the important thing as I see it; the only reason the occupation continues is that we fund it.  It’s your and my tax dollars going to Israel that make it happen.  Israel’s occupation of Palestine would cease immediately if we stopped sending them unfettered billions of dollars every year.  Israel could not afford to continue the occupation if we Americans turned off the spigot. 

Call me an idealist and a dreamer if you must (by the way, I’d take that as a compliment.)  But can anyone deny that, at minimum, Palestinian terrorism would immediately cease if Israel moved out of the West Bank?  Moreover, I sincerely believe bin Laden would lose most of his support if Israel, and by implication we, stopped oppressing the Palestinians. 

Finally, please notice that I’ve not said, as Mike does, that it’s our unqualified support of Israel that riles those who hate us so.  I say it’s our support, not of Israel in general, but our support of only one Israeli named Sharon.  He has less support in Israel than he does here!  As a matter of fact, what’s now true is that the majority of Israelis agree that the best way to end the suicide bombings is to end the occupation.  By the way, I have many Jewish friends, some of them Zionists, who agree and unequivocally support me in this.

May 5, 2004
ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST

I was in East Jerusalem the day Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office announced he would be coming to Israel (West Jerusalem) “to speak at a museum ground-breaking.”   Four days later I walked 3 blocks from our hotel in Palestine (East Jerusalem) and stood on the spot where the museum will be built.  What the Western Press has not even mentioned is that the site of the new museum “to promote tolerance” is a several millennia-old Palestinian cemetery. 

Arnold fulfilled his commitment last Saturday.  Wow.  Sexual abuse of prisoners in Iraq is a bad thing.  We United Statesians understand that.  But we need to get our hearts and minds around the fact that building a 3-story tolerance (sic) museum with a 3-level underground parking structure on a sacred burial site is evil.  It is an ecclesiastical sin! 

Here’s the really tough part.  Evil and sin is one thing.  But from a purely enlightened self-interest standpoint, ratcheting up the hatred many outside our borders feel for us is political and economic suicide.  Arnold isn’t our President yet but he expects to be.  The question is, how much less likely is it that he would have done this incredibly stupid thing as the President?  Or, better yet, how likely is it that Bush might have done it had he been asked?

Question:  Do you care? 

December 10, 2003
"THEY WILL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS"

Most people would say that religion is about faith.  They would say that the difference from one Christian to the next is defined by how much faith they have.  They are right of course.  But to leave it there is not adequate. 

To illustrate this, let’s consider medicine.  In one sense it would be correct to say that the difference between medical practitioners is how much they believe in their profession—how much passion (faith) they have for healing.   But to leave it there would be ridiculous.  When it comes to education and experience there is a world of difference between the hospital orderly, the Certified Nursing Assistant, the Registered Nurse and the Doctor.  The same can be said for religion.  In churches you will find custodians, Office Administrators, Elders, and Pastors.  It might be said about each of them, “s/he has a tremendous passion for religion.”  But the education and experience that defines their work in the church is clear. 

Now, let’s be clear.  Some would say:  “When it comes to religion I say Scholars, Schmolars!!  I want my preacher to preach the word o’ God!  Don’t give me no high falutin theologian.”  I’m not one of those.  When I’m in my 39^th week of pregnancy with no complications I’m very happy with mid-wifery.  But if I’m in labor in my 22^nd week I want the best Obstetrician I can find.  And when my son is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor I don’t want some bible-banger telling me:  “Well Dear, it’s a mystery but sometimes God’s ways are not our ways.  All we know is that He (sic) had a reason for taking your son so soon.” 

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June 11, 2003
THE TRUTH ABOUT SUICIDE BOMBERS

As I watch the coverage this morning of today's suicide bombing on the very bus #14 I rode on Jaffa Street last August I am moved to make this humble request of you:

Please say to everyone you know....Yassir Arafat cannot 'stop the terrorism'.  Nor can any other Palestinian leader.  Even in the totally unlikely event that Hamas would say "OK, we'll not send any more suicide bombers," there are at least two other organizations that would then send them.  In the even more unlikely event that the other two or three 'militant' Palestinian organizations would discontinue sponsoring suicide bombers, others would emerge. 

This child is standing on what was his home in Jenin. Three days before I took this picture it was leveled by an armored Israeli D-9 Caterpillar.

What has to be understood is this: 

There will be no cessation of suicide bombing as long as Israel continues to occupy the West Bank.  Any young man or woman--ultimately every child or grandmother--can turn her/himself into a deadly missile by strapping on a bomb belt that is readily available anywhere in Palestine for $110.  The situation there is not very dissimilar from what we experienced in Viet Nam....vastly superior military might will not/cannot prevail against millions of non-military people willing to die for their country. 

You will hear endless pontificating by Israeli leaders about their rocket firings into cars, houses, and now even the populated streets of Gaza.  They say that there is a critical difference between their rocket firings and Palestinian bombings.

This little boy lives in Bethlehem just a few hundred yards from where legend tells us Jesus was born. His mother and uncle were both killed here by a rocket fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter.

PLEASE DO NOT BE PERSUADED BY THAT.  Sure there are Palestinian terrorist.  And there are also Israeli terrorists.

But there is one major difference.  Palestinians are being occupied; the Israeli settlers are hostile occupiers.

My heart is close to bursting over this.  Please, this hell in the 'holy land' is not something we 'professional tradents in religion' can allow ourselves to turn away from; nor should any freedom and justice-loving American citizen try to look the other way.  We attempt to ignore this situation at our own peril.

Everyone needs to see this most complicated and seemingly insoluble situation as something they can personally, positively influence.  Talk the truth with your family and friends.  And, if you are a religious or business leader my personal plea is that you use whatever influence you have to become and agent for change in Israel/Palestine .

Shalom/salaam/peace,

Heather

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