RUTHFULLY YOURS

I have been to your church several times this week in an effort to engage with people over the ‘you cannot pass today’ exhibition. The Church decided to use a replica of an Israeli security checkpoint to deliver a message about ‘bringing down walls’.http://david-collier.com/?p=2305

Last night I was also at the circle discussion, that spoke about building bridges between the communities. I always try to reach out, try to understand. My learning process doesn’t include vocally arguing my case, but rather engaging and listening to others, absorbing their message (without confrontation) and trying to build a picture of what it is I see. There are three central points I would like now to get across:
The humanitarian safari park

The exhibition came about because one of the people involved with the church, Katherine Fox, had recently returned from a three-month humanitarian mission in Bethlehem.

Katherine did not go to Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan nor Libya. The reason she did not go to these places is because it is generally too dangerous and there is no similar industry to any of these life threatening areas. Only inside Israel does this type of tourism occur. It is safe to view the humanitarian situation in Israel precisely because it does not involve the dangers that exist elsewhere. I have written on this subject before.

If you had listened to Katherine speak last night, you would hear she was instructed to propagate the information. To return from the safari park and record events as if she had been into a jungle. It is part of the process, part of the industry. You get to go, provided on your return, you hold ‘x’ number of events that perpetuate the myths and convert others to the cause.

You also only get to see what they want you to see. You are on a journey with a clearly laid out path. If for example Katherine had spent three months in Ramallah, she’d be wondering what all the fuss is about . These trips are well choreographed. Your hand is held from the time you arrive to the time you leave.

So the question then becomes, is ‘bringing down the wall’, a message of peace or one of war. Is the church assisting those who seek a peaceful solution, or inadvertently helping to perpetuate a conflict, assisting in spreading the hatred?
The greatest straw man of all

The entire discussion always circles around one single straw man argument. Some suggest that the attack on Israel is dripping with antisemitism, and the offended humanitarians argue in response that they are not antisemitic.

The Islamic State document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

“We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and… whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan.” — Islamic State document, May 30, 2016.

“We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.” — Islamic State video, January 31, 2016.

“Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.” — Islamic State video, January 7, 2016.

Islamic militants are stepping up a propaganda war against Spain. In recent months, Islamic State and other jihadist groups have produced a flurry of videos and documents calling on Muslims to reconquer al-Andalus.

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.

A recent Islamic State document includes a list of grievances against Spain for wrongs done to Muslims since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212, when the Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile routed the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 100,000 Muslims were killed in the battle, which was a key victory in the Catholic Monarchs’ “Reconquista” of Spain.

The document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

The document concludes: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”

On July 15, 2016, Islamic State released its first propaganda video with Spanish subtitles. The high quality of the Spanish translation, both in writing and in syntax, led some analysts to conclude that that the translator’s mother tongue is Spanish and that the subtitling may even have been done inside Spain.

“[I]n spite of dire predictions by secularists, the [ruling] AKP did not introduce conspicuous efforts to Islamize Turkey. But since 2011, this has changed.” — Svante E. Cornell, in “The Islamization of Turkey: Erdogan’s Education Reforms.”

In 2014, Turkey’s government introduced a scheme which forcibly enrolled about 40,000 students at Islamic “imam schools,” and granted permission for girls as young as 10 to wear Islamic headscarves in class.

A new study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that 43% of Turkish women aged between 15 and 29 were neither working nor receiving education.

One way the rise of Islamist authoritarianism in a country can be seen is by the rise in the number of mosques, religious schools and prisons — coupled with a sharp decline in the quality of education. Turkey is no exception.

Most recently, the Turkish government said that it would build 174 new prisons, increasing capacity by 100,000 convicts. This is Turkey’s reply to complaints that six convicts must share a cell built for three. Convicts say they must sleep in turns in their bunk beds.

Before that, Turkey’s government released nearly 40,000 convicted criminals, in order to make space for tens of thousands of suspects, including journalists, businessmen and academics, detained after the failed coup of July 15.

China and Russia completed an eight-day joint naval exercise in the South China Sea last week, and this time the location was also the message. The two autocracies are expanding cooperation and offering each other support in their territorial disputes, a trend that could fuel instability from East Asia to Central Europe.

Days before the drill, which focused on antisubmarine warfare and what a Xinhua dispatch called “island-seizing,” Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping held their 15th bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hangzhou. Mr. Putin announced support for Beijing’s aggressive sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and opposition to “any third-party interference,” an unsubtle reference to the United States.

Mr. Putin’s kowtow to Beijing carries some risks. Vietnam, which angrily opposes China’s behavior, is a major buyer of Russian arms and grants Russian forces access to runways and the strategic port of Cam Ranh Bay. Mr. Putin talked up ties with Hanoi and its neighbors when he hosted a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Sochi in May, but cozying up to Beijing sends the opposite signal.

Mr. Putin also has plenty of reason to distrust China, which undermines his influence in Central Asia, asserts itself in the Arctic and may have designs on Russia’s Far East, where some two million illegal Chinese migrants work as miners, fishermen and farmers because Russia lacks the labor to tap its natural resources. Russian trade with China has fallen below expectations in recent years, and the $400 billion, 30-year bilateral gas deal signed in 2014 is stalled over pipeline construction.

Yet Mr. Putin is tilting toward Beijing anyway. He doesn’t have a better buyer for his gas and still hopes to hit $200 billion in bilateral trade by 2020, up from $68 billion last year.