Articles (29)
A New Future Is Looming Ahead
Written by Louis Bohte ofmThe growing number of people, who are visiting our website, shows that many people are longing for a direction in the present situation to realize peace, a better world for all the people. You want an end of the ruling elite and get a government chosen by you in your way.
First of all I have to tell you something about Arab generation of peace. I am the manager of this organization, which started with the Hip Hopper Hajj. The texts of his first album you can find them on this website. I am a Dutch Franciscan friar living in a monastery beside the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, safe behind the wall unless the Israeli army enters Bethlehem since September 2003. A year before I was already in Bethlehem during the time of curfews.
I realize that I have not direct experience which what it is going in the Arab world now, especially in Egypt beside Yemen and Tunisia and other countries, though I was several times in Egypt. It means that what I write has a limited value. Nevertheless I have to write something.
We have to think on two levels: first what makes sense now in this situation and second what to do for the long run. For the first level, there is the problem that people are already moving because of expensive food, unemployment and lack of perspectives on a better future. This movement can’t be stopped. It is even difficult to steer people in whatever direction. People are fed up. There are organizations which do their job of mobilizing people against the present rulers. They are important, because they have worked for a long time for a change. Now they feel that they have the chance to realize their dream for a change. The most difficult point is that it is hard to oversee what is the best for tomorrow and translate the feelings and experiences of ordinary people into meaningful actions. But it could be powerful and helpful to take time for common prayers as it is the habit in Islam. It can help to attract allies among citizens and army, because it shows that the resistance against the rulers is peaceful. Maybe you need people who can protect the people, who are praying. But remain alert on violence against peaceful people.
Here there is a core notion: how to deal with violence. Violence provokes easily violence. Violence is in favor of the ruling party, because they use it as an excuse to continue their power. It is like the choice between me or the chaos. The threat of chaos means that it is important to organize yourself. I think that the best way is to organize you from local level upwards, starting at the level of neighborhoods. Representatives on the level of neighborhoods can organize them on a level which with you can reach a larger group of people like a village, town or a suburb of a city. The main approach is non-violent and protection against violence. For this you have to oversee from which points in the city or town it is difficult to protect you against violence. With a number of people you can try to control these points. From there on you can demonstrate more safely.
Organize leaders who can take over the power. Then the present rulers have no excuse as if chaos is threatening. Organize protection of the leaders. In this way leaders have always contact with ordinary people in order to avoid the trap ton think they know what is necessary, separated from the people. Main issue is to build up a network of people who you can trust; this is not easy at all.
I hope this is helpful for the short run. Give me feedback at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Soon I will write more about the second level.
Louis Bohte, Bethlehem
Online corruption relationships
Written by Louis Bohte ofmWe first have to wonder about the reasons and motivations that motivate adolescent girls to enjoy talking to teenagers and getting involved with them in complex and difficult end situations, leaving too many tears, pain and remorse that do not work yet. It is too late:
1 - lack of access to adolescent rights at home, such as the lack of family understanding between mother and father in the first degree I mean the problems of the couple reflected directly on adolescents and their sense of insecurity at home Viljan to those who discuss with them safety without carelessness of what will happen and believe that proves them sweet talk The sweet to forget the adolescent some of her worries forgotten that this increases mud.
2 - lack of understanding and love between adolescence and those who are with her in the house as brothers and sisters and repeated humiliation and treatment and was a servant or a slave to hear and obey without hesitation ... The contempt suffered by adolescence by family members.
3 - Pressure on the freedom of adolescence and prevent it from some of its rights, such as going to a trip or visit one of her friends or practice one of her hobbies such as painting or hearing music or attend a particular television series ... or work in embroidery or wool fabric.
4_ companions bad Alawati decorates sit on the net and display pictures and exchange sweet speech and take the dead dates falling morally decomposed. Teenager test that all these actions evidence of the ruthlessness and courage, but in fact that these behaviors are extremely prejudicial and unjust without account of the consequences of devastating and the end of the loss of sure .
5 - deprive the adolescent of the expenses of the daily and the presence of the father is unemployed and does not care about the family and the things of the adolescents and adolescents in this case, the adolescent looking for those who demonstrate and give them money and oversees the responsibility .. And its awakening to the nightmare scary and scary black.
6 concern parents about the teenager to solve the problems of the family and not to question the teenager and sit with her and talk to her and discuss the problems and concerns and notice of their existence, forcing them to go out with a strange person away from them do not know anything except that he spoke Maha sweet sweet speech or threatened and rebelled by taking pictures of them either It was almost naked or semi-naked that these were the main reasons for the involvement of the adolescent and her entry into the whirlpool problems she had no solutions.
And most important of the previous reasons and the most painful and left a great impact is the strike of the Agency, which created a great vacancy in the students .. What teenagers should be taken into consideration.
Suggest some solutions:
1_ mother and father solve their problems away from boys and adolescents and reach a solution between them ends with understanding and compromise and love.
2 - Work on the fairness of the adolescents and their consideration in the family especially the girls by the older brothers and their standing and their sense of safety and support and care and attention by all members of the family, especially the mother and father ... Standing against all those who tried to persecute teenagers and work to build the affection between brothers and sisters until They become friends even if one of them is exposed to any problem outside the home can be presented to the family members and take advice and awareness and a cure without resorting to any person away from the family atmosphere.
3 - Giving teenagers freedom in their actions, but limits and adolescents under constant observation without notice, but keep teenagers always under the auspices of the eye to make them practice their hobbies drawing and music and listening to the radio and watching television and are under surveillance without any neglect to accompany teenagers in family trips, Outside the family.
4_One of the visit of girlfriends, especially girls, by persuasion and understanding, not cruelty and intimidation and giving them the alternative atmosphere in the house so that the girl understands that the friend is in school or work or university and not for the unnecessary visit ... Give the girl a sermon and the lesson of what happened to girls wrong in themselves and talk About their tragic fate sad ... and put them in the best ways of the owners of bad persuasion and explain the negative of these adolescents to the family members, especially mother and father notification of the existence of the father and his special supervision to give the teenager the necessary expenses of its own. Financial mow and deprived teen expenses even special because it leaves a tent, difficult and painful results.
5_ Watching adolescence and all the cautious while sitting on the computer and especially the net from time to time and follow up what you read or write or see it even if forced parents or brothers and sisters who hate to sit with them until the end of the Internet session and shut down the computer ... Because the net double-edged sword like his money Of the benefits and culture, but it is abused by the killer and lethal, as it should inform teenagers the seriousness of talking online with unknown people without knowing the truth of knowledge and detailed explanation of what will happen after the anonymous conversations and involvement with them and the inability to withdraw ... To advise our children to eat our slaves and deliver them to safety And Dha who violates the intentional violation remains intentional and humiliating themselves first and then their captivity on this concern is the most severe punishment without mercy and without humanity and without compassion and excuse from warning.
Anti-Jewish Sentiment
Written by Louis Bohte ofmEvery year there is the commemoration of the Shoa as the Jews call the Holocaust. Holocaust means actually sacrifice or slaughter, see the Italian word olocausto. The anti-Jewish sentiment is the main cause that triggered the Shoa (I use the word anti-Jewish sentiment because Arabs are Semitic people too. Therefore anti-Semitism is not correct.) It seems to me to be important to discover what the background of the Christian anti-Jewish sentiment is, because Israeli authorities are not interested in Christian opinion or in any kind of criticism, even from inside their own people. But there is more. A question is also, why it looks as if Israeli authorities don’t want to make comprises in order to realize peace. Moreover, the law that calls Israel a Jewish nation-state makes it worse by excluding Arabs as equal citizens as they feel it.
I start with Jesus Christ, who was a Jew and a strictly religious leader. He didn’t interfere with politics, but one quote became for Him deadly: “Give to the Caesar what belongs to the Caesar and to G’d what belongs to G’d.” (The Christian Bible St. Mathew 22,15 -22) The Caesar had the pretention to be a god. The Caesar needed this title, because in the ruling Greek culture a human being had no meaning, only who is god, can have authority.
With this statement, Jesus said: Caesar, you are not G’d. On this way he attacked the position the Caesar thought to have. Therefore Jesus got the death penalty and was crucified.
The Jews could kill Him. The secular leader had the power to behead Him like St. John the Baptist (The Christian Bible St. Mathew 14,1-12). The religious leaders could kill Him like Stephane was stoned (The Christian Bible The Acts 7,54-60). But Jesus was crucified by the Romans. The idea of the Romans was also, that by killing Him the movement around Jesus should disappear like it happened in the past with other rebellious movements. But they were wrong, just because He was an inspiring religious person for the ordinary people. In the end, rulers can’t control the minds of people.
In this way, there arose a situation, in which the followers of Jesus, the Christians, blamed the Caesar for the death of Jesus and the Caesar saw the Christians as a threat for his position. This can explain the persecution of Christians during the first centuries.
Then Constantine became smarter and became a Christian like his successors. No longer could the Christians blame the Caesar as responsible for the death of Jesus. Rereading the Christian Bible they read that the Jews called for the death of Jesus (The Christian Bible St. John 19,14-16). So now the Christians started to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus. But we have to read carefully what has been written. I discover it, when a friend of our parish in Bethlehem told me, that when he was young and went with other young people to Nazareth, they looked down on the people of Nazareth. The same I have heard some years ago, when a Dutch woman who was at a party with two children from Nazareth, told me that one said: can come any good from Nazareth? (St. John 1,46), She left the party.
So Jews from Judea didn’t like Jews from Galilee. It means that where has been written Jews, we have to read the people from Judea. The consequence is that the people of Judea shouted: crucify the man from Galilee (not our man from Judea).
Jews were excluded from Christian society. The impact is known: Jews couldn’t have an ordinary job, but only in the money business, which was forbidden for Christians. It put Jews in a powerful but also a very vulnerable position. If you can’t pay your debts, kick them out.
Exclusion of people has always a bad impact. An example of the special position of Jews in society told once an old Swiss sister to me. She was born on a small farm in West Switzerland. Every year her father had to sell one or two cows in order to make both ends meet. Always there were Jews who bought the cows and always there were problems with the money. Later on, there came also Jews who sold stuff for making clothes. It was always good stuff. Both examples are not typically Jewish. Who buys something, looks for his own profit. Who sells something, deliver good quality in order to keep customers. But it is strange that Jews had the monopoly in buying cows and selling stuff for clothes. You can’t blame them for this.
In the Middle Ages anti- Judaism got a new impulse by the silly story that Jews used the blood of young boys in order to make matzos, which Jews eat during Pesach. Two stories were used to “prove” that this happened, both in England, in 1144, when little William was found stabbed in Lincoln and in 1255 when little Hugh was found dead in a Jew’s pit. The poor Jew named Copin confessed, in exchange for his life, that the boy Hugh was crucified. His life was saved -- 18 other Jews were hanged for their "crime".
People in Morocco developed another, more civilized habit during Pesach: because during Pesach Jews don’t back bread, only matzos, the Moroccan Muslims bake bread for them. It is known as the Mimouna festival.
Another fact that stimulated anti-Jewish sentiment is the Pest in the Middle Ages with the culmination between 1347 and 1351, which killed at least 1/3 of the population in Europe. Jews were much less affected by this plague. Their death rate was much lower. This led to the accusation, that Jews poisoned the wells, by which people fell ill and died. The fact was that by the Jewish prescriptions for purification the level of hygiene was much higher. This was an important prevention to the Pest spread by a bacteria. Pope Clement VI tried to protect them by the July 6, 1348, papal bull and another 1348 bull, several months later, but 900 Jews were burnt in Strasbourg, where the plague hadn't yet affected the city thanks to the river Rhine that flows through the city. Clement VI condemned the violence and said those who blamed the plague on the Jews (among whom were the flagellants) had been "seduced by that liar, the Devil."
This reaction on the Pest related to Jews fits with the accusation from around the 12th through the 19th century by some Christians that Jews possessed magical powers; some believed that they had gained these magical powers from making a deal with the devil.
In the early 1890's the Tsarist Police produced a false document supposedly written by "The Elders of Zion" and titled "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" expressing the will of the Jews to dominate the world. This document fell in the fertile ground of existing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia and other main countries in Europe. It was a further push for the Shoa. Who is not familiar with the Jewish community and doesn’t know how complicated the Jewish community is, falls easily into the trap produced by this document. The Jewish community is very difficult to organize because of tough different opinions and positions towards each other. Some Jewish groups don’t recognize some other Jewish groups as Jewish.
Carefully reading this document one thing is remarkable: for the most, it is written in plural, but at the end more and more in the single person. The suggestion is that the document was written by a group, but finally, it was one person, who was anyhow familiar with Jewry and Masonry. The suggestion of a conspiracy is a creation of the auteur. It is always difficult to prove the opposite and such a conspiracy theory creates, therefore, distrust between people, which we have to avoid. Distrust is creeping poison among people.
The Russian background is also interesting because there was a big Jewish community and a part of them were involved in the upcoming socialist and communist movement. They were a threat to the ruling Czars. Maybe, for this reason, Communism is also mentioned in this paper. It is also possible, that someone wanted to make him bigger than he is. (Anyhow, I suppose that the auteur was a man).
The impact of this document was a further growth of anti-Jewish sentiment and violence with the top during the Nazi regime.
How dealt the Church with this phenomenon of anti-Jewish sentiment during the Nazi-time? Pope Pius XI was clearly opposed to the Nazi regime. He wrote the encyclical “Mit Brennende Sorge” (With burning worry) against the Nazi regime, published on March 4 1937. It was written in the German language! The draft was written by Cardinal Pacelli (see https://www.britannica.com/
But I have to recognize that there was also the anti-Jewish sentiment in the Church, which was later on denied after the atrocities during the Nazi era. An example of this sympathy can still be seen in a church, which was built by us Franciscans in the south of the Netherlands in 1930. The Stations of the Cross in the church shows Jews, awful as I have seen on a poster in Auschwitz used for elections in Germany in 1919 with the slogan: choose your own government. A disciple of the artist, who designed and made the Stations of the Cross, told once that the persons, who referred to Jews, were taken from ordinary people in a nearby city as the example, obviously not according to the reality.
The question remains why Pope XII didn’t speak out against the extermination of Jews like Pope Clement VI tried to protect the Jews in 1348. Why didn’t he use his moral authority? The encyclical from Pope XI didn’t change anything. In a certain way, one can say that anti-Jewish West was in the war against anti-Jewish Germany. If the Pope knew about the killing of the Jews, the allies have to have known this too without an attempt to stop it by attacking the railroads to the extermination camps like Auschwitz. The late Clement Leibovitz figured out that there was a collusion between the British prime minister Chamberlain and Hitler during the thirties. He wrote a book about this issue.
Anti-Jewish sentiment doesn’t make from Jews saints. No one is a saint. A difficult issue is that Jews see themselves as Chosen People. Not every Jew is happy with this concept, because they see it as a burden. It is a matter of perception. I suppose that Jews developed this idea of Chosen People, when they looked back to their history in wonder, that they managed to escape from their slavery in Egypt, they survived the Babylonian exile, while other peoples disappeared as an entity and other events in their history. They concluded that they are obviously Chosen People based on their perception on their experiences as Jewish people. This is not a problem, but the point is how to interpret these experiences, and what means Chosen People. An interpretation as if they were saved because they are a better people, is a kind of self-overestimating and reduces God to a private god for only Jews, although He created the world for whole mankind. Another interpretation is, that G'd expects from them to show a way to Him by their example. For this reason, some Jews see to be Chosen People as a burden. It is more difficult to make a mistake.
Indirectly the survival of the Babylonian exile shows a previous form of anti-Jewish sentiment. At that time there were other people in exile who disappeared completely by their exile. It is a matter of maintaining their identity or losing it and as a consequence of disappearing as discerned people. Maintain their identity meant to show to be different. This can create inconvenient feelings: There are people unequal to me, which can create anti-feelings. The anti-Jewish sentiment was born. It is like nowadays. The massive transmigration of Muslims creates the anti-Muslim sentiment.
How to deal with this still existing anti-Jewish sentiment? This is a still actual problem because it is difficult to convince Jews that the time of anti-Jewish sentiment is over. Pope Clement VI showed that the position of the top of the Church wasn’t decisive for people on the grassroots level. We can’t underestimate the impact of 1600 years actually Christian anti-Jewish sentiment in almost all churches. I can understand that a number of Jews are not interested in any opinion from the Christian side. Seeing Israel as their final rescue against anti-Jewish sentiment, some say that any criticism shows still existing anti-Jewish sentiment anyhow. Nevertheless what we have to do is to show our own integrity and honesty in the way we deal with Jewish people, especially wherein the past anti-Jewish sentiment played a role. It is an investment for a more peaceful future.
A problem is the present influence of especially the American-Jewish organization AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. There could be a temptation to say the AIPAC proves that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are right. But AIPAC has been founded in the fifties as a reaction on the Shoa. It became more active after the six-day war in June 1967 and moreover after the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. From their point of view, I can understand that they try to control what is related to the safety of Israel. The point is if this approach from AIPAC is helpful for integration of Israel in the world society without assimilation, which means full protection as it is the guaranteed right for every other country or people. Nowadays Israeli politics shows a behavior as if it will say: in the past, the world didn’t care about us, so now we don’t care about the world. This is self-exclusion and therefore destructive. The result is the opposite of evaporation of anti-Jewish sentiment. AIPAC will not remain powerful forever.
AIPAC can also be understood as a reaction to the lack of resistance among Jews against the killing of themselves. The reaction is the opposite among members of AIPAC and its supporters and among Israeli´s. It blocks any agreement for a final peace solution. Any peace deal needs the willingness to solve problems. Any compromise can be seen as a weakness, which has to be avoided. But it can also be seen as a lack of self-confidence.
What is necessary and must be done step by step is the following: the Churches have to recognize their part of anti-Jewish sentiment and moreover why as above mentioned in order to show a change in the mind of the Churches, which is credible. A kind of education inside the churches is necessary. But more is necessary and lies on the societal and political level: I propose the development of a curriculum anti-Jewish sentiment for 15-year-old teenagers from countries with an anti-Jewish past and from the countries in the Middle East finalized with meetings between them spread over the participating countries.
Also, it is necessary that politicians change their way of dealing with Israel. Led by feelings of guilt because of the Shoa they don’t treat Israel in an adult way giving the opportunity to Israeli leaders to show a behavior of a spoiled child.
Moreover, they have to show credibility that ever human is save in the present world order like for instance the protection of Rohingya in Myanmar.
When we oversee the history of anti-Jewish sentiment, it is clear that a huge job has to be done in order to realize a world in which Jews are integrated instead of excluded without the condition of assimilation, and protected like every other human being has the right for. This is also an example for other peoples, who are a part of the world society with their own culture, convictions, and habits. Louis Bohte ofm
Skin hunger and physical distance
Written by Louis Bohte ofmWhite Suprematism
Written by Louis Bohte ofmIn the recent time more often get the so-called white suprematism headlines. It is connected to violence. This raises the question to the background of this phenomenon.
I have read an interview that provides more insight into the background of this phenomenon. It is a shocking story that requires further investigation. The man who was interviewed, Robert P. Jones, has written a book about this. He belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention in the US. It was founded in 1845 after a split between the Northern and Southern Baptists because of the question of whether the clergy could legally held slaves and whether this was compatible with Christianity. The Northern were against and the Southern in favor of holding of slaves. The Confederates felt that holding slaves was compatible with Christianity.
In the course of his life, Robert P. Jones discovered that on the one hand he thanks a lot to his church for his development, but that he never heard anything about the dark side of his church. In the past, when slavery still existed, members of his church who were slaves, were sold to pay the costs of the maintenance of the church and the pastor.
From here I started to think further. Because there is a complex problem here. How can you justify for yourself selling members of your church because they are slaves? The Bible plays a role here. In his letter to Philemon 10-17, Paul, an im-portant leader in the beginning time of Christianity, speaks of Onesimos, who was a slave in a respectful way. This can be understood as a justification for owning slaves.
But there's more. Firstly, the following story: I once heard from an Afro-Surinamese woman told me that her mother warned her brother about his behavior. "Otherwise your soul will be just as black as your skin".
What does this mean? I see it in this way: Black stands versus white, light versus dark. We know the expression that something cannot bear the light of day. It's about doing something that's wrong. Christianss sing at Easter "Light of Christ", the founder of Christianity. This is positive.
If you confuse light - dark with black - white, then you have a problem. You do not make a distinction between who someone is (a black Surinamese) and how someone lives (in a good or bad way). That's how you end up into with racism.
Another aspect of the slavery past is that an African American is judged by his financial worth, not his human worth. African Americans are viewed as objects, not as subjects. This is injustice.
In his research, Robert P. Jones found that the church does not preach about social injustice to either the Protestants or the Catholics. African American Catholics were supposed to attend their own black church and not mingle with white Catholics. Was this a matter of free choice to feel more comfortable in a community of the same social class or was it social pressure from either inside or from the other side?
This makes it understandable to me what an American fellow Franciscan friar from the East Coast of the US once told me, namely that African American Catholics were increasingly becoming Muslims. It should be noted that when Muslims make their pilgrimage to Mecca, everyone is dressed in white: everyone is equal. But white Christianity in the US preached a worldview of white supremacy. This is a broader problem. Worldwide you come across a notion that the more white you look like, the more respect you get. In the 1960s and 1970s, the movement of black is beautiful emerged as a counter-movement.
There was a belief in a God-ordered world where whites, by God's design, were meant to be at the top of the social, political, and cultural pyramid. Robert P. Jones also found out that non-Christian Americans are less likely to see white as superior.
Here I add that Europeans who came to America largely exterminated the native population with an appeal to the Bible. I hereby refer to the fifth book of Moses, Deuteronomy 25, 17-19. A quote from this reads: “so that nothing on earth reminds of the people of Amalek. ” This is an outright call for genocide and a justification for it. In Middle Eastern culture, such a statement is not uncommon without wan-ting to implement it literally in that way. But this is different in Europe. Do what you say.
In this way the Bible can hardly be seen as a holy book.
In my view, holy books are an attempt to achieve meaning in life by describing the history of what was considered generally acceptable in terms of values and norms in society with an appeal to God as an undisputable Authority. Stories of what happened in the distant past were used for this. The Eternal works through people without sanctioning everything people do.
How people see and accept norms and values develops in the course of time. Slaves are no longer acceptable, though actually neo-liberalism makes from people slaves. Further men and women are nowadays seen as equal. More and more women got important positions in society. But still the salaries are unequal for the same work. Also for some men it is emotionally difficult to accept a woman as their boss.
It is significant that Americans feel that America has a special relationship with God: God's own country. This makes self-criticism difficult. Therefore, it is hard to stop white suprematism.
What means freedom of speech?
Written by Louis Bohte ofmThe killing of the 47 year old teacher of history Samuel Patty near Paris on Friday the 16th of October provoked a lot of disgust, which is logic and understandable as a human reaction. Samuel Patty was beheaded by a young man from Chechnya. The motive was that Samuel Patty used cartoons about Mohammed to discuss the issue of freedom of speech.
For me, the central question is thereafter: how do you prevent a repetition of this madness? This is a question about the dynamics behind this violent behavior. It is a tough and necessary question.
I will begin by pointing out that growing up includes for young people finding an answer to the question of the meaning of their own existence. Religion plays a role in this as a framing of their life in a larger whole: you belong to a group.
Personality, dreams and ideals play a role in this. You look at examples around you like relatives, peers, friends or acquaintances and people in the past like Jesus and Mohammed as religious leaders. You look for possibilities to realize your dream. Some dreams cannot be realized for lack of talent. But what will happen, if you feel that others are blocking your ideals or making fun of your dream or ridiculous? Saying that ‘you just have to accept it’, doesn't work, because that ignores or even hurts your feelings.
This is the point. It leads to the source of the dynamic behind your behavior: how do you feel?. The negative attitude to you can lead to aggressive behavior as a possible response. It can be addressed to someone else or to yourself.
You don't always need to be aware of it, but it is about your feelings. This is the source of the dynamic behind your behavior.
Another issue is, what the West emphasizes: freedom of speech like by cartoons. In my opinion, a cartoon is a form of art that makes you smile. A recognizable aspect of someone is magnified.
Depicting Muhammad in a so-called cartoon as a terrorist does not smile, but suggests that Muslims identify them with a terrorist. In this way it is an attack on the faith of Muslims and on them personally, as if they choose to live as shown by a terrorist in stead of a religious leader. It's a form of aggression against Muslims. Violence breeds violence. But Mohammed is just a messenger of Allah. In an indirect way is such a cartoon that shows Mohammed as a terrorist, blaming God.
Further: Mohammed was an Arab. Arabs are Semites. Depicting Mohmmed as a terrorist without knowledge about who he was, is therefore an expression of anti-Semitism. Shouting that this is freedom of speech is nonsense. It is a kind of anti-Semitism.
There is more. When people raise the subject of abuses in a company or with the government, they are threatened in their existence. Therefore they need protection against people with more power in the company or in the government. An appeal to freedom of expression is a hollow phrase. I miss integrity here. I speak from double standard.
The importance of freedom of expression is that everyone is given the space and possibility to realize improvements in a company or in the government and thus for society without fear. It's about exposing wrongdoing.
Everything else is post-pubescent behavior and not freedom of speech. But can this be said in public without any problem?
What about people who justifies their violence with an appeal on their religion?
People who use religion as an alibi for their violence, are violent people. Nothing more. They are responsible for the violence they commit. No religion accept violence for whatever reason, either by deeds or by words.
Also structural violence has to be stopped. This violence is for instance visible, when children of poor families don’t get the chance to develop their talents in or-der to serve the society. Or when poor people can’t live a decent life.
Understanding someone’s violence is not a justification but a tool to find a way to change his or her violent behavior and heal the wounds. It is a societal responsibility to elaborate this tool in concrete situations. Also it can be helpful to prevent that young people derail in their life and become violent.
As society, we have to understand personal grievances and stop verbal aggression as the opposite of freedom of speech.
Conclusion is that freedom of speech is an expression of societal engagement. It deserves respect, which only by the other can be confirmed.
Finally, I will refer to a statement by Pope John XXIII in April 1963: no-one is by nature superior to another one. People who present themselves as superior, don’t show respect to others, but are aggressive.
NB: The emphasis on personal task to work for your own income as self-employed creates a mentality to be a self-employed terrorist, who doesn’t need meetings to organize an attack with a knife. Therefore intelligence can’t catch them before they commit a violent act.
Guilt culture - Shame culture
Written by Louis Bohte ofmThere is a notion of two mainstream cultures: Guilt culture and Shame culture.
The main point of a guilt culture is that everyone has personal responsibility for what (s)he commits or omits in terms of good and bad. There is space to discuss what is good and what is bad in a personal situation. For instance: You have hunger and no money even for a little bread. Is it allowed to steal a little bread? Or you have to beg, which can be humiliating by lacking of a community, to wich you belong? Normally means stealing that you steal the living of another, but in this situation? The Ramadan with Iftar shows another, social solution.
The mainframe are the Ten commandments the Jews got in their history. The solution is that you recognize your wrongdoing. You can be forgiven. It is a part of the development of one’s conscience besides personal awareness about good and bad.
After determination and recognition that something you committed or omitted, was bad, the solution is an appropriate punishment and after the fulfilment of the punishment, you can resume your life as before. You get a new chance because you have been forgiven. You feel relief. The wrongdoing is past.
In a shame culture, you have responsibility for the community to which you belong: your family and your tribe because together you live and survive. You need each other. By itself, it doesn't lead to shame by wrongdoing, but the complication is the importance of the reputation of the community you belong to. This is a male problem.
It is a female way of dealing with your failure by comforting you when you commit a mistake. But a man blames you for the mistake as if you have to be perfect. This is nonsense. No one is perfect. But by blaming you, he can rule over you.
A further problem is male punishment by exclusion. Therefore you have to silence the mistake to avoid a lifelong punishment for you and your community. This is cruel and kills the soul of the one who made a mistake. Exclusion is a violent reaction to what is human, namely to make mistakes.
The refusal by men to accept mistakes reveals a male problem. This is not only the issue of mistakes in general but moreover a specific kind of problems. It is about sex. There are men, who blame women to be attractive. By blaming a woman to be attractive, he says actually that this woman is attractive for himself. This is his problem.
It leads to the derailment of the behaviour of men. This kind of men punishes women for being attractive. They don’t respect women. They commit sexual assault on women and girls, which is for them not safe and secure outside the home.
They can only go out when they are guided by a male member of the family. This is humiliating for women and girls. They have the right to protect themselves, but this can be dangerous. Using a weapon could mean that the assailant catches the weapon and uses it against you.
The killing of Sarah Everard in London by probably a police officer shows that this is a worldwide problem.
But will men ever blame their mothers to be attractive? Or would they sexually assault their mother?
The impact is big. They treat women as a scapegoat because they can’t control their own feelings and emotions about their own shortcomings or bad experiences.
And if they try to control their feelings and emotions in a spastic way, they fail to show tenderness. Tenderness fertilizes relations. Tenderness shows the other respect and shows that you treat the other as a subject, not as an object, not as a punching ball.
In this way, I specify what a shame culture means. It tries to enforce you to act according to the rules of the group and to hide your shortcomings without being aware of why the rules are important. When you are aware of the reason for the rules, you can adapt the rules, when the situation changes. Rules have to make reasonable sense.
A guilt culture disconnect individuals from the group. One is responsible for any wrongdoing, but you can restore the relationship with the group by following a procedure determined by the group.
But the relation between the individual and the group is not clear. My point is that everyone has the right to develop her or his talents in the service of the society to which someone belongs. Rights and plights are combined.
In the present situation in the West, you see two problems: on one side some people catch power and exercise it for their own profit. They act without morality and damage other people. On the other side, a number of people don’t get the chance to develop their talents and don’t get the chance to contribute to society.
These people are treated with mistrust from the perception that they only try to take profit from society, precisely what a group of rich people is doing. But actually, they take profit by manipulation to get unlimited money, stealing it from the poor. A strong example is that the working class of Amazon are enforced to use a bottle for a pee. Some employees need food from the food bank to meet the ends. The owner of Amazon is the richest man in the world. When he dies, will he be happy with this status?
Power needs to be challenged for the benefit of everybody in order to function as a social being, wherever you live, living a decent life.
How to be happy?
Written by Louis Bohte ofmWe live in a challenging time. We live in a difficult time.
Both statements can be defended well. Both are about now.
Yet they are two different statements with a different approach to the times in which we live. The first calls for action. The second makes us feel that we are having a hard time. This is understandable, because we feel a lack of contact with dear family and friends. There seems to be no end to the confinement in our house, our room.
There is more. How can we control ourselves and how do we avoid the anger of others around us? This requires a lot from us. How do we avoid being paralyzed and depressed?
There is no simple answer. But a way out is possible. This goes step by step.
It starts with looking yourself straight in the eye and daring to see how things are going with yourself from the awareness that you cannot run away from yourself. This is not easy, because sometimes you realize the dark sides of yourself that you want to hide.
Sometimes you feel paralyzed by what's happening to you and you don't know what to do.
This is where the challenge begins. It may be wise to put yourself on hold, because you cannot solve all problems on your own, no matter how much you want to. You acknowledge reality, which does not mean that you resign yourself to it. That way you can relax yourself. This rest can make it possible for you to do something else for a while, step outside yourself and show an eye for what is happening around you.
You may see anything that you can do something with and that proves to be meaningful to you. Or you go listen to music, in which you can sink in for a while. That way you can relax. Something is not necessary.
This rest gives you the opportunity to make contact with someone with whom you usually feel comfortable. Just make contact without expecting anything.
If you can make the other person feel that you are listening, you make it possible to talk about something that is good for both of you without coming up with something difficult.
Direct human contact is important to both and can provide relief.
Have faith that this is possible and meaningful.
Activating yourself sets you in motion and you will feel better about yourself. And you are doing the other a favor. You experience that your existence is worth living.
This is how it always goes: you experience that your life is good through contact and connection with other people around you. It is not a matter of thinking. That exhausts you and gives you negative rather than positive feelings.
By accepting that you cannot control your life the way you want, you can see what your options are. In this way you can learn to give direction to your life.
With peace in your soul you radiate peace.
War
Written by Louis Bohte ofmWe are engaged in a dangerous war between Russia and Ukraine. What the media show. is a ruthless destruction of houses where people live. They are fleeing west. Countless people die.
Remarkable is the eagerness with which these refugees are received in the West, but without realizing what is happening to themselves. The refugees have been traumatized by the brutal violence, just as refugees from elsewhere are traumatized. Without appropriate shelter they will give problems their spite. Sometimes they will not be able to control themselves. Often people who take them in don't really know how to take them in, because they don't know how their souls are wounded and what an appropriate response is. And if they are already able to listen to their stories, it is difficult to recognize to what extent they can also become traumatized themselves by their stories.
Another problem is the selectivity of the reaction. People who are fleeing the violence in their environment elsewhere in the world, such as in African countries, are banned by the same countries that receive Ukrainian refugees. Pope Francis calls this racism.
An additional problem is that the facilities for this are inadequate. The recipient countries are not prepared to accommodate such a large flow and to give them sufficient minimum support.
An additional problem is the mentality in the West, which has been poisoned by neo-liberalism, whose motto is that everyone must save themselves. Everything is turned into a revenue model as much as possible, which invites abuse. There's plenty to gloat, but this doesn't help.
How do we understand this madness and can it be stopped?
The media reports on a moving train, but where does the train come from and where is it going to?
The fall of the wall opened up the possibility of entering an era of peace, which should include all people. But those with influence and power saw an opportunity to indulge their assertiveness. They saw people as objects on which they could indulge their lusts. For every choice someone makes, you can come up with arguments to justify it.
What's more important, however, is how you think. Can you think inclusively, include the differences between people. Do you also have the ability to realize what is obvious to you, but not to others? Do you allow yourself to be contradicted and can you listen to it? Can you see through the eyes of the other?
I think it is important to let the points sink in step by step and to discuss this with your family and friends, with whom you suspect that she or he is a possible ally.
I realize that this is an extensive project that takes time to realize.
It takes patience and trust to build your community together as a place where you can live together with those on the run.
I hope with this story to give courage and hope for a better future in this confusing time.
In order to understand the background of this war, it is important to ask good questions for clarification. You then open up.
A 47-minute documentary depicts the history of Russia through the ages, which has been marked by much violence. See https://youtu.be/w0Wmc8C0Eq0
Louis Bohte ofm
Shireen Abu Akleh
Written by Louis Bohte ofm
Shireen Abu Akleh 1971 - 2022
The death of Shireen Abu Akleh has far-reaching consequences. She has shown the way how we should treat and support one another. She had an eye for ordinary people who were trapped by the occupation. She made many reports about Jenin, about the refugee camp there. She visited people's homes and told their story on Al Jazeera. Thus, the entire Arab world learned the reality of the Palestinians without censorship.
The challenge is ours how to honor her memory.
This requires us to realize what values she has lived up to, which are important in our lives regardless of our background. This can be summed up in a sense of inclusive thinking. All people can be connected without any exception.
This is comprehensive. This takes the courage to overcome our fears of others who are different from us. Shireen overcame her fear of becoming a journalist and getting into dangerous situations. She realized this as a young woman.
In her, Palestinian young people have an example of how meaningful your life as a journalist can be by reporting without frills what the lives of people in pressure and oppression look like. This got through to the Arab viewers. This made it a threat to the occupiers and to rulers everywhere in the world, thanks to Al Jazeera, who made this possible.
The next step is to become each other's allies and bring about a change for the better by first and foremost listening carefully and understanding each other. Stay away from fake news and don't spread hatred. Giving the floor to ordinary people, taking children seriously. Let them speak. We were once a child.
Significantly, Shireen learned Hebrew to understand how the other side was thinking. Then she could better stand up for the Palestinian people.
It also takes getting to know ourselves well in order to know what our talents are in order to be allies with others of different talents.
Thus Shireen Abu Akleh lives on in us with dignity in peace as the mother of all Palestinians.
More...
How to face our reality?
Written by Louis Bohte ofmWe live in a turbulent and chaotic world. It's hard to find a foothold. Some turn to random violence or use drugs to feel better. They know that this works temporarily and is an illusion. But they are out of control and know nothing better.
How can we find a way out of this? A ready-made solution is an illusion. But we can start looking for a way out by identifying the problems and asking good questions, even if they can be painful.
Beneath the surface of the failed climate summit, the problems are visible. On the one hand, attempts were made to let go of the limit of one and a half degrees of warming. But that will make the climate even warmer. On the other hand, there was a willingness to compensate and pay for the damage caused by the warming and the necessary recovery.
The expansion of a lignite mine in Germany shows that the energy requirement is now more important in politics than combating global warming.
A big problem is admitting lobbyists.
I compare it to the slave trade three centuries ago. Then there was a powerful lobby of slave traders, which would now be called a criminal organization.
The result is contradictory, because the higher the warming goes, the greater the damage will be. Then more money is needed. I do not expect rich countries to want to pay for this, but they will try to pass it on to poor countries.
Here we encounter a mental problem. After all, who pays the bill?
A test case is the aid to Pakistan to overcome the catastrophic consequences of the flood in the summer of 2022. Is the promised support actually given? There is a tradition of promising more than delivering.
Rich countries will have to pay for this, or rather, people with the most money should contribute the most in a verifiable way. This is where the principle of sweeping a staircase should lead: you start at the top, not at the bottom. Rich people in poor countries will also have to contribute. Lobbyists must be eliminated.
To complicate matters, Pakistan's monsoon floods in 2022 will be roughly $32 billion. This is nowhere near what Pakistan can afford. This is understandable, but how much damage has the local population itself caused by logging, allowing the water that came down from the sky to flow freely and aggravate the flooding? The affected people can't wait for this issue to be resolved. Was the logging necessary or forced by decisions elsewhere?
One approach is for rich countries to adopt poorer countries. This allows a bond to be built between inhabitants of a rich country and people from poorer countries. The consequences of global warming are thus given a face.
Are we going to squabble like little kids or solve like adults? I don't like compromises, because that's compromising. Then you add so much water to the wine that you have no wine left. These are solutions with a view to a better future. This is a challenge.
Another hot topic is the war in Ukraine. In the West, Putin is portrayed as monstrous. The image is strong black and white. But does this bring peace closer? The run-up to this war is almost forgotten. It begins with the fall of the wall in November 1989. This was the moment to bridge the gap between West and East. But step by step, Russia was taken in a pair of pincers. Russia is a huge country. Politicians in the West were afraid of this. Moreover, the ground contains many precious raw materials, especially oil, gas and metals, which were eagerly sought after.
In the US there were people in important positions who felt that the US was entitled to those resources because it had done so much for Europe in the 20th century with the two major wars in the first half of that century.
Incidentally, this argument is dubious, because the many raw materials in Africa are a curse for this continent. Where these substances are in the ground, gangs rule the roost on behalf of large companies in order to eliminate local governments. Americans play a prominent role in those societies, but they are not alone.
An African Christian peace activist, Johannes Viljoen, stated in an article about the violence in northern Mozambique that it is ostensibly a battle of Muslims against Christians. But in fact it's about what's in the ground of gas in the north, and the central government had to be shut down. The further south money is in the ground, the further south the violence spreads. See the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado.
Here I encounter the question whether religions can play a role in making our world more peaceful?
But religions are under fire today. Why?
I see that those responsible within religions are at the temptation to exercise power over people from their position of power instead of being subservient to their members.
How can this be understood? Every person is looking for the meaning of his/her existence. “What am I living for?”
Religions open pathways to an answer. Hebe De Bonafini, a leading woman in the movement of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, demonstrating against Videla's dictatorship in Argentina in search of their missing children. She died aged 93. She said: "Without faith one cannot live, and because of this faith I talk every evening with my (disappeared) sons"
But at the same time, people are vulnerable and can be abused by this dependency. This is a human shortcoming on two sides: to feel trusting and to take advantage of this dependency.
One way out is social control. This means here that whoever has power over others in a positive relationship, that people will feel stronger and become less dependent. Other people can observe this process and form a counterforce. This means a circularity of people in such a position of power.
This brings us to two pillars of the moment: greed and the lust for power. The third factor is social media, in which self-assertion can be gratified.
In upbringing, affirming someone's good sides is important. All adults have a role here. It is a challenge. Have faith in yourself and respect each person's external differences.
Who has more confidence in the good in themselves, more firmly in their shoes. supportive help you other people.
This applies to the name for teenagers, who have to learn their sexuality in order to survive in their personality. They are vulnerable, which others can take advantage of. Adults must make it clear that they must be and remain the boss over their bodies. They do it in the best way by their dealings with them, visible for other people.
Reliability provides something to hold on to in this chaotic world.
The more you can be a whole person, the stronger you are. This requires the courage to face and take responsibility.
War in Gaza
Written by Louis Bohte ofmMadness has broken out in Gaza. It is therefore very important to keep a cool head. Through Al Jazeera I came across Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Hebrew: ישעיהו ליבוביץ; January 29, 1903 - August 18, 1994). He was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish public intellectual and polymath. (A scholar who made his mark in several fields.) He was a professor of biochemistry, organic chemistry and neurophysiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a prolific writer on Jewish thought and Western philosophy. He was known for his outspoken views on ethics, religion and politics. Leibowitz warned that the State of Israel and Zionism had become more sacred than Jewish humanist values. He controversially described Israeli behavior in the occupied Palestinian territories as "Jewish-Nazi" in nature, while warning of the dehumanizing effect of the occupation on its victims, and its oppressors.
His characterization of the occupation is razor-sharp.
A retired Israeli lieutenant general. Mordecai Kedar was interviewed. He mainly reiterated that Hamas is like ISIS, rather short-sighted. I explain why. It is a piece of history that is little known. It starts with the mysterious death of Yasser Arafat on November 11, 2004. He was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas after the elections on January 9, 2005. Abbas received the most votes. A Palestinian friend of mine then told me why he got so many votes. Voters wanted to give him a chance to show what he could achieve for the Palestinians, although expectations were not high. After all, he had become prime minister under pressure from the US and Israel to undermine Yasser Arafat and had yet to achieve anything. Nor did he get anything done after his election.
Elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council were held on January 25, 2006. As expected at the time, Hamas won these elections convincingly. After this, Hamas wanted to form a national unity government, but Fatah refused. A subordinate role was then reserved for her. Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, this succeeded and this government was established in Mecca in March 2007.
An important but forgotten date is Thursday, June 7, 2007. That's when the front page of the Jerusalem Post, which was founded as Palestine Post (An English-language daily founded in Jerusalem in 1932 as part of a Zionist-Jewish initiative.), stated, that Israel planned to deliver 4,000 Kalashnikovs to Fatah in Gaza with millions of bullets. Hamas then kicked out the leader of Fatah in Gaza: Mohammed Dahlan. He was born there in Khan Younis, in a refugee camp. He is a candidate to succeed Abbas if he dies.
Repeated skirmishes now followed between Hamas and Israel. Negotiations took place in secret in Switzerland between the two sides to reach an armistice. This was successful and came into effect on June 19, 2008 for a period of 6 months. Her name was Hudna.
That time was used to reach a 10-year armistice, which would then be used to reach a final settlement.
This went wrong. President Abbas announced the negotiations. Since Israel does not negotiate with terrorists, further negotiations were called off.
Subsequently, Israel again used violence against Gaza and on November 5, 2008, Israel killed five Palestinians in Gaza, after which Hamas no longer considered itself bound by the ceasefire until December 19.
On December 27, Israel started a war against Gaza. This was a profound experience for me. I took a photo of a 4-year-old boy wearing a mask in Bethlehem at the end of December. A 12-year-old boy took it off to see who was underneath. The boy snatched the mask back and placed it back on his head. This was indicative of the influence the war had on children.
The scary thing about the current situation is that it could provide an alibi for Israel to proceed with the so-called transfer, or the removal of the Palestinians from Gaza (and later from the West Bank). The fact that Palestinians are dying in the desert will be not a concern to the West. It does that often. The West has developed the habit of shouting when Israel does something that is wrong, and doing nothing else.
An important, but also painful question is: How did Hamas come about? In December 1987 at the beginning of the 1st Intifada, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin founded Hamas with the support of Israel as a counterbalance to Fatah based on the principle of 'Divide and Rule'. In doing so, Israel made the same mistake as the US, which supported Usama Bin Laden in his resistance against the Soviet Union from the late 1970s on. You cannot control people's minds.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed from an Israeli helicopter on March 2, 2004, while on his way to the mosque for the morning prayers at half past five.
A friend from Battir sent me the link to a song from 1973 in tribute to Kamal Nasser, who was murdered in his home in Beirout on April 10 of that year by a Mossad operation led by the later Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The song is called 'The urgent call of Palestine. Kamal Nasser was a writer, poet and politician. He was the spokesman for the PLO. The singer of this beautiful song is Ismail Shammout: https://youtube.com/watch?v=
I heard from a young friend that he suffers from tear gas that soldiers throw around in his neighborhood.
Palestinians are also being killed in the West Bank, at least 55. For example, a cousin of a nurse who is on duty with me, was shot dead at the Qalandia checkpoint without giving any reason. He showed me pictures of his dead cousin, 24 years old. Settlers fired on a funeral procession in Qusra south of Nablus, seriously wounding Ibrahim Wadi, 63, and his son, Ahmad, 26, and later dying. Furthermore, 11 UN employees have also been killed in attacks by Israel. This is called collateral damage. Too crazy for words.
What I fear is that fanatical Jews will compare the Palestinians to the Amalekites, who had to be wiped off the face of the earth. See the Jewish Bible Deuteronomy 25:19. It is a call for genocide.
There are fears that if an invasion of Gaza occurs, Hezbollah will open a second front on Israel's northern border. The settlers, who have been weaponized, may open a third front in the West Bank.
I read in the Jerusalem Post that the fencing around Gaza cost about 1 billion euros, which ultimately turned out to be worthless.
All in all, Yeshayahu Leibovitz was unfortunately proven right in his warning that the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis dehumanized both sides.
Uri Avneri was a white raven. As a young man he was a member of the Irgun. He became a peace activist. He befriended Yasser Arafat. Once when he visited Gaza, children greeted him with cheers.
Louis Bohte ofm
In the 1980s, the so-called new historians emerged in Israel, three historians, who carefully examined the available material about the origins of the state of Israel and drew their conclusions from it. These three were Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim.
The latter is obliged to give interviews to combat misinformation. In one of them, Avi Shlaim says at the end that there is a lot of misinformation in the West. He sees it as his duty to combat misinformation.
It appears that the US President has discovered that the Prime Minister of Israel cannot be trusted when it comes to making deals. This makes it clear that politicians lack human knowledge and factual knowledge. Already at the beginning of the current war, the Prime Minister of Israel referred to the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 15.3, which calls for genocide against the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Amalek was the grandson of Esau. The Palestinians are seen as descendants of the Amalekites.
It has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Palestinians and injured more than 70,000, mostly women and children, before Western politicians realized this.
It seems to me that there is a lot of work here for the International Criminal Court.
It is not surprising that South Africa has brought the case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. I'm following in his footsteps.
The war in Gaza has been keeping us busy for months. But how can it be understood? I want to try to give some insight into this.
I'll start with the 1880s. A wave of nationalism swept across Europe. Nationalism is generally bad for minorities such as Jews. They were forced to flee their native country. But where could they go?
Palestine was one possibility, bearing in mind the age-old greeting among each other: see you next year in Jerusalem.
The name Palestine was assigned to the Holy Land by the Roman rulers after the Jewish revolt against Roman rule in the 2nd century AD and was derived from the population group the Philistines.
In 1896, the Austrian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl published a book,
called he jewish State, in which he argued for a separate Jewish state in order to have a place where it would be safe for Jews. In addition to Argentina and Uganda, his eye fell on Palestine. A year later he organized the first Zionist congress in Basel. This is generally seen as the beginning of Zionism. Zion is one of the hills of Jerusalem.
This Zionism was secular in nature, bearing in mind the classical Jewish idea that a state of Israel could only be restored when the Messiah had come. Not before.
An intermediate step is the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916, in which France and England divided the sphere of influence in the Middle East. This was preceded by the promise in 1915 to Husain Ibn Ali, the Sherif of Mecca of an independent Arab kingdom if they rebelled against the Ottomans. This promise was not kept.
Then on November 2, 1917 came the famous Balfour Declaration. It now appears that the then Prime Minister of England, David Loyd George, was the driving force behind this statement. I heard this from Avi Shlaim, who said this in an interview. He is married to the great-granddaughter of this prime minister. His idea was that Jews constituted a hidden global financial power. He wanted England to benefit from this. This was a classic anti-Jewish attitude.
In 1922, the Balfour Declaration became part of the League of Nations for the mandate area and therefore an official international document.
From 1926 onwards, Jews began to buy up plots of land in Palestine and expel the existing population. Because of their centuries of experience with anti-Jewish sentiment in Christian Europe, they viewed every non-Jew as a potential threat.
In line with this, David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, wrote in 1937 in a letter to his son, who was studying in England, that his aim was to obtain a piece of Palestine and expand from it: the settlements.
An exception was the relationship between the Palestinian village of Meisir and the kibbutz Metzer. When the first Jews arrived at the village of Meisir, they were received as usual by the Palestinians and helped them establish their kibbutz. Their relationship is good.
Critical Jews are labeled as self-hating Jews. Former Foreign Minister Abba Eban coined this term. This shows that there was a growing way of thinking in Israel to exclude people, especially the Palestinians.
After the establishment of the state of Israel, the Jews were faced with the task of rebuilding the country after the expulsion of local Palestinians. But there was a lack of sufficient manpower. Now there were many Arab Jews living in Egypt and Iraq, among others, who were well established there and were part of the local society. To persuade them to come to Israel, terrorist attacks were committed in these countries, organized by Israel's secret service. There were four attacks in Iraq in 1950/1 and one failed in a Cairo cinema in 1954. The Jewish historian, Avi Shlaim, came to Israel from Baghdad as a 5-year-old child. He was originally an Arab Jew. He had to shed his Arab identity. This applied to all Arab Jews. You can hear his story via the link https://youtu.be/iNg93bLJL18. It takes almost 100 minutes. It is a first-hand testimony. He tells another story of what is called the Naqba, the catastrophe for the Palestinians. They were forced to leave their homes. This included King Abdallah of Jordan was in cahoots with the Zonists and Jordan received the West Bank as a reward: the Jordanian occupation, as I heard the director of the YWCA in East Jerusalem put it in 2001.
The Jewish historian Ilan Pappé wrote a book about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, published in 2006. Subsequently, it became known that on October 13, 2023 the Israeli government published a note stating that the intention is to expel the population of Gaza to North Sinai in the face of resistance from Egypt: a new ethnic cleansing.
A turning point is 1967 with the Six-Day War. Israel had started this war. My late friend Clement Leibovitz studied at the Technion in Haifa. When he was about to graduate, he was told that he could only graduate if he signed a letter addressed to Time stating that Egypt, his native country, had started the war in 1967. According to him this was not true and he refused to sign. He failed.
A comrade told him that according to the statutes of the Technion he was entitled to an oral re-examination. He applied for that. There were also other scholars and he succeeded. He moved to Canada. He told me this personally.
After conquering the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, Israel began building settlements against international law.
One factor that Israel is strongly focusing on is creating images through propaganda. This is reflected in the image surrounding Hamas by labeling it as a terrorist organization. On a closer look things are different. Hamas was founded at the beginning of the first Intifada on December 9, 1987 with the help of Israel, which wanted to have a counterweight to Fatah. Since Fatah is a secular organization, the counterbalance had to be religious, just as Israel has the division between religious and secular Jews.
Fatah leader Yasser Arafat died under obscure circumstances on November 11, 2004 and was buried the next day in Ramallah.
On January 9, 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected his successor. The Palestinians made this choice because Israel and the US wanted this, I was told by a Palestinian friend. They wanted to see if he could get something done for them. These two countries had already forced Abbas to become prime minister to politically curb Yasser Arafat. The US does not have this feature.
Elections for the Legislative Council of Palestine were held a year later, on January 25. Since Abbas had achieved nothing, as usual in a democracy, the opposition became the big winner, Hamas. The observers present concluded that the elections had been conducted regularly. It was the first democratic election in the Arab world, but the result was against the wishes of the US and Israel.
The US has more often suffered from this, such as in 1953 in Iran, in 1954 in Guatemala and in 1970 in Chile, with all the consequences for the populations of those countries.
Although Hamas had won an absolute majority, it wanted to form a coalition with Fatah, but Fatah refused. It should play second fiddle. Hamas wanted this because Fatah had supplied the president.
Under pressure from Saudi Arabia, there came a government of national unity on February 8, 2007 in Mecca. This coalition of Hamas and Fatah did not last long.
On Thursday, June 7, 2007, the front page of the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel wanted to deliver 4,000 Kalshnikovs and millions of bullets to Fatah in Gaza. Hamas expelled the leader of Fatah in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, from Gaza. Strictly speaking, this was not a coup, but Hamas actually prevented a coup.
What followed were skirmishes between Hamas and Israel.
Secret negotiations took place between Hamas and Israel in Switzerland, which culminated in a six-month ceasefire starting on June 18, 2008. The intention was to use this time to establish a long-term ceasefire called Hudna, lasting 10 years. to take. This time should be used for a final settlement.
Mahmoud Abbas was aware of this and realized that his role and that of Fatah would have been played out. He therefore announced the negotiations. Since Israel does not negotiate with “terrorists”, this marked the end of the negotiations. Hamas nevertheless adhered to the agreed six-month ceasefire, but Israel did not. On November 5, 2008, five Palestinians were killed in Gaza. This effectively meant the end of the armistice.
On December 27, Israel's war against Gaza began. The war ended on January 18, 2009. More wars followed with varying numbers of Palestinian fatalities and destruction, which Israel never paid for to restore homes in Gaza. The US and the EU, among others, paid for this.
The Israeli government likes to pretend that all Jews support it. This is not the case. It was significant that at the beginning of the current war there was a demonstration of Jews for Peace at the entrance to the Capitol in Washington. South Africa has an organization with the slogan 'Jews for free Palestine', of which Kelly-Jo Bluen is a spokeswoman. The Netherlands has Another Jewish Sound. A quote from an article by the young Dutch Jew, Nicola Edelsztejn, who studies history in Nijmegen reads: “I know the past of the Jewish people and therefore I detest the present of the Palestinians.”
I am in contact with a Jewish woman who lives in New Mexico. She wrote me the following: “It has taken me years to DEPROGRAM and UNLEARN all the Zionist lies I was fed from early childhood...but to FIND printed information in this "FREE" country, prior to 2000 was nearly IMPOSSIBLE!.. the books were 'AWOL"...missing in action...disappeared.! Learning THAT was also part of my DEPROGRAMMING. I was punished by relatives by being ostracized and ignored these last 30 yrs of my life...but I still bloomed and grew by reading and studying and travel. I have been fortunate..especially as I read daily reports of our brothers and sisters in Gaza and of their ENORMOUS SUFFERING.”
AWOL is an acronym for “absent without leave [permission].
The English newspaper The Guardian contained an article about the American Palestinian Edward Said, who is a beacon for many. He was a professor at Columbia University in the US, and a prominent musician. His daughter Najla is quoted in this article:
“As Najla Said, the playwright, actor and daughter of Edward Said, explained: “My father always recognized Jewish suffering and advocated a way [for Palestinians and Israelis] to live together with equal rights, while still standing firm in his criticism of Israel. ”
It is known that Edward Said would hold a TV debate with Israel's then ambassador to the UN. That was Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter did not want him to sit in the same room with Edward Said or even in the same building with him. He feared being killed by him. This can only be understood as a deep-seated trauma, probably the death of his brother Jonathan during the raid on Entebbe, Uganda to end a hijacking in July 1976. He was the only one who died. See https://youtu.be/TZNGZMczS1o
A fascinating interview with Edward Said in 20 minutes can be found via the link https://youtu.be/pv4B6mooDMY
It is therefore fascinating, because he uses the first five minutes to talk calmly about his illness, leukemia, from which he would die on September 25, 2003, just when I moved from Heerlen to Bethlehem.
In Palestine the conservatory with several branches is named after him.
Edward Said is an antidote to demonizing Palestinians.
The West suffers from a chronic sense of guilt for centuries of anti-Jewish sentiment. It is apparently unable to reconcile with itself. Politicians in particular suffer from this, meaning they are unable to extinguish the flaring anti-Jewish sentiment.
The impact of the Shoah is visible in German pro-Israel politics.
What seems important to me is finding out how people experience themselves in society. Is there a feeling of being treated as inferior? The gap between government and citizens can play a role in this. This can lead to people transferring their unease to the Jews, especially because the government unquestioningly supports Israel, while people recognize themselves more in the Gazans.
On balance, I see the current war as an explosion from centuries of European Christian anti-Jewish sentiment, which has left deep wounds and is difficult to heal. Recognition of this background is a first step towards healing.
A corresponding topic is identity. Many people struggle with the question: Who am I? It is a question of what is my foundation. They feel threatened and can react aggressively, they think in contradictions. This does not promote peace.
Now it is frequently pointed out that Israel's right to defend itself. I'm putting a twist on this. Israel has the right to protect itself. The consequences are great. And first: the Palestinians also have the right to protect themselves. But what if Israel fails to exercise this right? But what if Israel fails to exercise this right on grounds of sexism? (Female soldiers saw dangerous activities in Gaza, reported them, but were not taken seriously. They were just women.) Are there other countries that should step in here? If so, why? And furthermore, are those other countries obliged to chillingly play a perversion of Santa Claus/Baba Noel by supplying deadly weapons that are used against civilians?
And furthermore: what to do if it is made impossible for the Palestinians to protect themselves? Who will step in here then?
It appears that the US President has discovered that the Prime Minister of Israel cannot be trusted when it comes to making deals. This makes it clear that politicians lack human knowledge and factual knowledge. Already at the beginning of the current war, the Prime Minister of Israel referred to the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 15.3, which calls for genocide against the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Amalek was the grandson of Esau. The Palestinians are seen as descendants of the Amalekites.
It has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Palestinians and injured more than 70,000, mostly women and children, before Western politicians realized this.
It seems to me that there is a lot of work here for the International Criminal Court.
It is not surprising that South Africa has brought the case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. In 1997, Nelson Mandela, when he was president, said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” He has great moral authority. But politicians pay little attention to moral authority, unfortunately. Talking about European or Western values is ostentatious nonsense.
The famous psychologist Alice Miller researched during her life the background of people, who derailed in their life. In an interview in November 2002, she said, that the most politicians at that time have mental problems except one: Michail Gorbatsjov, but he was no longer in charge. You can say they are immature.
The consequences of immaturity are serious: These include possessiveness, narcissism, refusal to acknowledge one's faults, disproportionate responses to frustrations, inability to control one's impulses, inability to avoid renunciations, agreements, to accept inherent in entering into a commitment, emotional blackmail and lying (to yourself and to others [Israel as the most moral army in the world]). These usually lead to manipulation and control.
The spiritual leader Thomas Merton wrote an essay titled: The root of war if fear, not of someone else but of themselves.
A world in turmoil
Written by Louis Bohte ofmSince Trump came to power, our world has been in chaos. It is difficult to make sense of this. His motivations are not easy to understand. His behavior is an indication that he is not mentally healthy. A group of psychiatrists compared him to his behavior during his first term and concluded that he is showing signs of dementia like his father got.
He gave an interview to The Atlantic with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who was in the secret chat group where an attack on Yemen was discussed. In this interview, Trump says: “This time I am fighting to help the world and the country.” In psychiatry, this is called the messiah syndrome. That is why he wanted to become pope. He lacks a sense of reality.
But this observation does not solve anything. It does raise the question of who is really pulling the strings. To do this, it is necessary to give him compliments that confirm his messiah delusion. Then you can give him suggestions about what else he can do as a messiah.
He has an organization behind him that makes you shudder. They have produced a book of no less than 920 pages with a lot of capitalization.
A lot of thought has been put into this book. We are running up against that.
A friend of mine is an emeritus professor of economics. He was shocked by the ideas of the makers.
With this knowledge, it is important to look at who the vice president is and what we know about him. It is about J.D. Vance. In an email from Heather Cox Richardson I read the following: Senate candidate J.D. Vance (in 2021) said that the American right "We've lost every major, powerful institution in the country, except perhaps churches and religious institutions, which of course are weaker now than they've ever been. We've lost business. We've lost finance. We've lost culture. We've lost academia. And if we're really going to bring about real change in the country, we're going to have to completely replace the existing ruling class with another ruling class... I don't think we're going to compromise with the people who are actually running the country right now. Unless we overthrow them somehow, we're going to keep losing." "We've got to be really ruthless in the exercise of power," he said. That same year, Vance told the National Conservatism Conference that "we've got to attack the universities in this country honestly and aggressively." "We live in a world made effective by academic knowledge" and to rebuild the nation along the lines of white Christian nationalism, the universities have to be destroyed. Vance told the audience, "The professors are the enemy." I explain this as a deep-rooted fear of not being able to exercise power. This results in a lack of trust in people who think differently. Deep down, this is a lack of self-confidence. Self-confidence made it possible to look at yourself critically without becoming depressed. You can accept your own shortcomings and therefore also those of others. A healing step is to forgive each other. In this way you can form a community. It is a careful process in which you dare to think independently. Accept yourself as a good person with your shortcomings. Because that is human. Whoever pretends to be without shortcomings is a danger to other people.