[HANASHIR:7150] message for all of us

[FAVNI <FAVNI...>]

To all my colleagues who are so full of spirit and hope and creativity, 
always looking for ways to bring Jewish music/prayers/innovative offerings to 
community - here is an email I just received from members of the Jewish 
renewal movement. I felt it important to pass it on. We are all involved in 
some way as shlichim - and touch many with our music. These are important 
facts that we can't seem to convey clearly.
Please forgive me if this is not the right place - but we are aspiring to be 
role models for Jewish culture, ethics and spirit - no matter where we stand 
on the continuum of committment -  we need to be involved in the current 
tragic events. We do have voices. We sing for peace - and understanding - 
somehow we must contribute something meaningful----There is much renewed 
anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish sentiment that is only just beginning.
Fran Avni
favni (at) aol(dot)com

Hi all- I received this forwarded email from a woman who lives in Jerusalem. 
Following are links I obtained that perhaps you could use to write letters to 
elected leaders and major media outlets to let them know that we will NOT 
stand for biased, incomplete reporting. If we let this go, it will indeed 
prove the validity of the Nazi Big Lie Technique.


http://clerkweb.house.gov/mbrcmtee/mbrcmtee.htm




http://www.refdesk.com/paper.html




Randy Shiner






 Subject: Fwd: RV: RV: LA LUCHA DE LAS MUJERES POR LA PAZ EN ISRAEL Y


 PALESTINA


I received this email from a dear lady friend who lives in Jerusalem. I 
believe it very candid and truly concerned.


Rafael Mareyna




Subject: Shabbat Shalom, Please.


Israel can never win the war of words with the Palestinians. The press  and


the world love the underdog, a position we lost after 1967, and


when we hear our opponents in the debate lie we become frustrated and lose 
our cool. Last night


we watched Nightline with Ted Koppel. We heard the beautifully worded, 
perfectly


orchestrated words of Saib Arikat and Hannan Ashrawi, we heard the children 
from the Seeds of Peace


movement, we heard Arab Member of Knesset, Azmi B'shara and we saw the 
frustration of the


Israelis which made their responses seem loud, angry and arrogant. Minister 
Sneh tried to answer the accusations of


IDF violence with facts,  but it was made to seem petty and childish. The 
Minister told the truth. They ARE willing


to sacrifice children in the cause. Arafat himself has made a speech in which 
he compares himself to


Saladdin who sacrificed 70,000 martyrs for the sake of Jerusalem, and that he 
too was willing to sacrifice in


the name of "justice". Dr Sneh did not manage to tell the millions of people 
listening to the "debate" that the CIA was invited by 


Israel to come undercover, with Israeli undercover agents, into the 
territories, into the areas of  violence, to see the truth.


They found that the Palestinians were shooting their Kalashnikovs wildly from 
the cover of high walls, many


 times killing their own people. They found that the riots within Israel were 
started by the Tamzin, the Palestinian


undercover movement that entered Israel at least a week before the violence 
erupted....at least a week before Ariel Sharon went 


to the Temple Mount, in order to begin incitement toward the conflagration. 
He did not manage to tell the world that "Chairman "


Arafat  has released all of his Hamas terrorists from prison, including the 
top bomb-making experts.


Their targets are not only here in Israel.  Ehud Olmert, when he heard the 
ludicrous accusations made against his


country, his city and his integrity, tried to answer quietly and then 
resorted to shouting above the never-ending volley of


word-fire. It was unwise and unbecoming. His frustration should never have 
been allowed to spill over. In his possession he had 


the United Nations evacuation document, the one in which he had proof that 
this whole conflagration was known to the UN 


in August of this year. His frustration made him lose touch with the constant 
referral to the Temple Mount by its Islamic


name. His frustration at the rewriting of the history of the Jewish people 
that allows the world to believe that Islam was here 


before Judaism made him lose his grip on the argument. His frustration at 
being told that he was not the Mayor of Jerusalem 


because Jerusalem doesn't exist, it is the Palestinian town of Al Quts, 
stolen from the Palestinian people.


Jordan, apparently, didn't exist! The orchestrated barrage of accusations, in 
one voice, of Ashrawi and Arikat, took


him off balance. My friend Sheila, a wonderful journalist, tried to warn him 
not to go on the programme, he should have listened to 


her. We have heard about the unbelievable bias of the American press through 
our friend Arlene and my daughter Rachel. Rachel 


has taken to watching the BBC reports rather than the American ones. They are 
sweet by comparison, at least


they present facts. The Temple Mount is not the only place to have changed 
name recently. Do you


 remember Josephs Tomb? It is now a mosque. Do you remember the Rabbi that 
was killed, shot


 throughout his body, because he wanted to protect the tomb, alone? Well, the 
members of the funeral procession were stoned 


and shot at yesterday. I hope our Christian friends who receive this missive 
are not duped into believing that the Palestinians are 


just anti Jewish and the only land they want is Israel. We are just the hors 
d'oeuvres. Christianity is the


main course. Islam requires that we all become believers.....of Islam of 
course. I have said little about the Arab member of


Knesset that sat on the Palestinian side of the argument yesterday. Azmi 
B'shara said very little. He knows that the complaints of 


Israeli Arabs have already been addressed.  He knows that even in their 
former conditions they


were better off than their neighbours. They live in a democracy. Had a member 
of Arafat's cabinet


sat in a television debate on the Israeli side, his body would have been 
found by his family the next day, always assuming his 


family were not in the car with him when it got blown to pieces. There are 
some towns where the living conditions must be


improved, but it is in mixed Arab and Jewish towns such as Jaffa, Haifa and 
Nazereth. Those towns, where Arabs and Jews


live in the old cities, the services are limited by the antiquity of the 
surroundings, sometimes from


crusader times and earlier. Changing those services to modern ones is a very 
expensive process, but it must be carried out. 


Strangely enough, it is in Jerusalem that the Mayor has insisted upon 
improvements to the services in the Arab neighborhoods. 


That same Mayor of Jerusalem that they denied his existence! The Arab 
villages and towns have been forgotten. The fact that


the municipalties in these areas, as in rural areas around the world, do not 
raise sufficient taxes to allow an improvment of the 


services is no longer an excuse. They must be improved and will be, and the 
money will have to come from central government.


In stark contrast one sees villages and neighborhoods like Abu Ghosh and Beit 
Safafa, where the Arab Israelis have chosen to live 


in peace and prosperity with us, things are very different. Also in Beit 
Hanina. Beautiful homes, wide roads, plush schools, booming


businesses........... We, Israel, need you more now than ever. Weneed you to 
write to any paper, President, Prime Minister, Member 


of Parliament or Senate, that you can think of. Get all your friends to write 
too. We cannot afford to wait for the world to


come to its senses and see the truth. Lobby anyone you can. I don't know if 
you realise how close we are to losing


the war of words and lives. The last few weeks have proven Goebbels theory 
that if you tell a lie


loud enough, long enough and convincingly enough, the press, and the people 
will believe it. Don't allow the world


to be fooled. Demand a fair hearing, demand the truth. Please send this 
letter to whomsoever of your friends that you feel can do 


something, butplease remove my email address.




Thank you all for your love and concern, we really, really appreciate it.  We 
are physically well, emotionally strong but tired of the 


verbal and written bombardment.




Shabbat Shalom, pray for Jerusalem, pray for Israel, pray for us all.


Sheila




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