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Emet m'Tsiyon

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Time Magazine whitewashes Hamas

Slightly Revised 8-12-2007, 2nd video added 8-14-2007

Time Magazine was notorious as long ago as the 1920s for whitewashing Mussolini's Italian fascist government of the time. Then they claimed that Mussolini was straightening out the Italians, giving the "wops," as Time called them, a taste of discipline. Mussolini was making the trains run on time. And Time gave the rest of the pro-fascist propaganda line too. Today Time has found new fascists --or their equivalents-- to admire and adulate. Now they are flattering and fawning over the Hamas, the branch of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood that rules the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the Italian fascists were relatively mild and civilized compared to Hamas, although it may not be politically correct to say so. To be sure, this judgement is "relative" and "comparative."

Anyhow, we have previously shown that many Establishment books on Middle Eastern issues, including supposed histories and works by historians, have long sugar-coated the story of the brutal Arab conquests of the Middle Ages. Previous posts at Emet m'Tsiyon have quoted embellished versions of the Arab conquests from Carl Brockelmann, the German, and William Polk, the American. What is Time saying about Hamas in Gaza now? Andrew Lee Butters wrote a fine specimen of sugary falsification in the Time issue of 13 August 2007 (Time dates its issues ahead about a week after they actually come out). Not only is Hamas prettified but Israel is besmirched.
The rule of law has returned to Gaza. Just two months ago, it was one of the most dangerous places on earth.
Butters depicts the Hamas "Executive Force" demonstrating its respect for law, order, and kind policing.
On patrol in Shaja`iyah, the toughest neighborhood in Gaza City, Lieut. Naim Ashraf Mushtaha, 31, an officer of the Hamas Executive Force, spots a man in civilian clothes carrying an M-16 assault rifle and walking through the street suqs [market places] in broad daylight. [My goodness, carrying a gun in Gaza -- in broad daylight of all things!!! How does he dare??] His officers quickly encircle the suspect and demand that he identify himself and turn over the weapon. The man turns out to be a member of one of the neighborhood's most powerful clans, and he refuses to give up his gun. "What's my name, boys?" he shouts to the gathering crowd of curious onlookers. "Mohassi Abbas!" they shout back. "See everyone knows who I am," says the gunman.
"I don't care who you are," says Mushtaha calmly, without raising his voice or his weapon. "No one is above the law."
Wow, what a great cop!! Calm but firm, avoids the use of force, rejects favoritism in policing, and respects the law. But it gets better:
Security is key to support for Hamas. Within a week after the takeover [by Hamas of Gaza], crime, drug smuggling, tribal clashes [clan vendettas] and kidnappings had largely disappeared. According to human-rights groups, the ability of the Executive Force to achieve such a result is an indictment of the corruption and criminal collusion at the top of the Fatah-dominated security services that once controlled Gaza. . . Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center forHuman Rights [said] "Gaza became like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Thugs and gangsters were ruling and some were even supported and protected by our own security services" [under the orders of Fatah's Muhammad Dahlan].
There have been isolated cases of civil rights abuses by the Executive Force since the takeover. But Hamas hasn't set up Shari`a courts. Without any help from the regular police, prosecutors, and judges. . . Hamas is slowly trying to train itself in the administration of Palestinian law. Mushtaha and his officers spend most of their time delivering subpoenas and telling the families of wanted men to turn the suspects in.
The people of Gaza are in good hands now.

One of the "law and order" events that Andrew Lee Butters couldn't know about when he wrote his gushing paean of praise to Hamas was how [see here] [OR here] the Hamas' "law and order" Executive Force raided a wedding celebration in Beyt Hanoun in the Gaza Strip. This raid seems to have taken place after slippery Butters wrote his propaganda tract, his pro-Hamas PR copy.It seems that the marrying couples belonged to a pro-Fatah clan [hamulah] and now Fatah doesn't have a right to celebrate. Of course, Fatah are terrorists too but does this raid by Hamas "security" men have anything to do with law and order? The wedding celebration was filmed, according to Reuters, by a "palestinian authority" TV cameraman. Apparently, he transferred the video cassette to PA TV [pro-Fatah] in Judea-Samaria who put the video on PA TV. He was probably there because several Fatah leaders were guests at the wedding. Some were arrested. I saw the video on Israel TV with the Arabic sub-headings copied from PA TV. The raid took place despite the amnesty that Hamas had promised to Fatah after the conquest of Gaza.

Then there is the matter of the Christian Arab woman who was a professor at Palestine University in Gaza. She disappeared for two weeks, then turned up in the hands of Hamas government officials and said she had converted to Islam and was going to marry a Muslim. She met her family under the supervision of Hamas officials. I guess her disappearance was just part of Hamas' "law and order" policy.

Be that as it may, whatever troubles or problems there may be in Gaza are all Israel's fault.
Israel's stranglehold remains as tight as ever.
But this "stranglehold" is not tight enough to stop Hamas from bringing law and order to Gaza. The next post will give more detail. Meanwhile, I suppose we should blame Israel for raiding the wedding party and for kidnapping the woman professor. Actually, when Egypt ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, Egyptian control was very tight. There was no possibility for Arab Gaza residents to cross the armistice line into Israel. And crossing into Egypt required a permit from the Egyptian officials that was granted only in special cases. All imports and exports to and from Gaza went through Egypt. So basically, Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip restored the pre-1967 status of Gaza, except that now the Egyptian forces are not actively controlling the area.
- - - - - - - - -
Coming: more on Time and Gaza, Jim Baker & US foreign policy, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.

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  • The Season of Generation- Choicemaker
    Joel 3:14 kjv

    Consider:
    The missing element in every human 'solution' is
    an accurate definition of the creature.

    In an effort to diminish the multiple and persistent
    dangers and abuses which have characterized the
    affairs of man in his every Age, and to assist in the
    requisite search for human identity, it is essential to
    perceive and specify that distinction which naturally
    and most uniquely defines the human being. Because
    definitions rule in the minds, behaviors, and institutions
    of men, we can be confident that delineating and com-
    municating that quality will assist the process of resolu-
    tion and the courageous ascension to which man is
    called. As Americans of the 21st Century, we are oblig-
    ed and privileged to join our forebears and participate
    in this continuing paradigm proclamation.

    "WHAT IS MAN...?" God asks - and answers:
    HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH'S CHOICEMAKER
    by James Fletcher Baxter (c) AD 2007

    The way we define 'human' determines our view of self,
    others, relationships, institutions, life, and future. Many
    problems in human experience are the result of false
    and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
    in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

    Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe.
    The balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human
    reason cannot fully function in such a void; thus, the
    intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it
    perceives and measures values.

    Humanism makes man his own standard of measure.
    However, as with all measuring systems, a standard
    must be greater than the value measured. Based on
    preponderant ignorance and an egocentric carnal
    nature, humanism demotes reason to the simpleton
    task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of appe-
    tites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.

    Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament,
    cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist
    lacks a predictive capability. Without instinct or trans-
    cendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with
    foresight and vision for progression and survival. Lack-
    ing foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and
    is unwittingly committed to mediocrity, collectivism,
    averages, and regression - and worse. Humanism is an
    unworthy worship.

    The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with
    a functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the
    foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behav-
    ior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and
    validated in His Word, the Bible, brings a transcend-
    ent standard to man the choice-maker. Other philo-
    sophies and religions are man-made, humanism, and
    thereby lack what only the Bible has:

    1.Transcendent Criteria and
    2.Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.

    The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival
    equipment for today and the future. Only the Creator,
    who made us in His own image, is qualified to define
    us accurately.

    Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
    nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
    Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
    characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
    foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
    spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
    ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
    universe.

    At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum
    physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the
    causal chain; particles to which position cannot be
    assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy
    state to another without manifestation in intermediate
    states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is
    as insubstantial as "a probability."

    Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to
    deterministic forces. Singularities do not and are
    therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this
    sense, uncaused. The finest contribution inanimate
    reality is capable of making toward choice, without its
    own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation
    of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers
    to the natural action of living forms.

    Biological science affirms that each level of life,
    single-cell to man himself, possesses attributes of
    sensitivity, discrimination, and selectivity, and in
    the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified
    life form.

    The survival and progression of life forms has all too
    often been dependent upon the ever-present undeterminative
    potential and appearance of one unique individual organism
    within the whole spectrum of a given life-form. Only the
    uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden
    Wedge of Ophir, capable of traversing the causal gap to
    survival and progression. Mere reproductive determinacy
    would have rendered life forms incapable of such potential.

    Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables
    the present reality.

    Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
    developed, and sensitive perception of variety. Thus
    aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
    ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
    Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
    itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.

    Human is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes
    his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall
    that his other features are but vehicles of experi-
    ence intent on the development of perceptive
    awareness and the following acts of decision and
    choice. Note that the products of man cannot define
    him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-
    making process and include the cognition of self,
    the utility of experience, the development of value-
    measuring systems and language, and the accultur-
    ation of civilization.

    The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
    customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
    his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
    creative process, is a choice-making process. His
    articles, constructs, and commodities, however
    marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idol-
    atry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own
    highest expression of the creative process.

    Human is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and
    significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
    fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
    forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
    ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
    natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
    bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his
    singular and plural brow.

    Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication
    by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,
    inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of
    singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based
    system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness
    of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the
    selective creative process, they are self-relegated to
    a passive and circular regression.

    Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his
    survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete
    by denying the tools of variety, individuality,
    perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.
    Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts
    are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's
    indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.

    Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just
    begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,
    The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever
    learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
    The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates
    the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and
    delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect
    cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the
    criteria by which it perceives and measures values.

    Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria
    self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to
    decision-making for survival and progression. He is left,
    instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-
    sight, including human institutions characterized by
    averages, mediocrity, and regression.

    Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric
    predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent
    criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive
    superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting
    winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires,
    appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere
    device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justifica-
    tion.

    The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such
    instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The
    appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the
    point of contention standards are perceived as alien, re-
    strictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our
    physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sover-
    eignty of the mind and of the spirit.

    It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal
    and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and
    fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelli-
    gent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the
    prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard
    by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate
    results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.

    Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deserved-
    ly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free
    the individual to measure values and choose in a more
    excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
    words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,
    I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."
    Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will
    draw all men unto myself."

    As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality
    and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and
    collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-
    acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
    others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect
    justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their
    own choosing.

    That human institution which is structured on the
    principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with
    ...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural
    Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are
    necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and
    nature's God. Biblical principles are still today the
    foundation under Western Civilization and the American
    way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the
    present generation and the "multitudes in the valley of
    decision."

    Let us proclaim it. Behold!
    The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV

    CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
    "I should think that if there is one thing that man has
    learned about himself it is that he is a creature of
    choice." Richard M. Weaver

    "Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and
    impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges
    his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts.
    What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
    adjusts his behavior deliberately." Ludwig von Mises

    "To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be
    presumed that the human being is responsible for his
    actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart
    from the presumption of freedom of choice."
    John Chamberlain

    "The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary
    of the orderly laws of cause and effect, of probability
    and of chance, of which man is not completely informed.
    It is complementary of them because it rests in part upon
    the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator
    with the power of individual choice."
    Wendell J. Brown

    "These examples demonstrate a basic truth -- that human
    dignity is embodied in the free choice of individuals."
    Condoleeza Rice

    "Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered
    universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the
    universal order of things. Stated another way, they
    believed in God. They believed that every man must find
    his own place in a world where a place has been made for
    him. They sought independence for their nation but, more
    importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to think
    and act for themselves. They established a republic
    dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preserva-
    tion of individual liberty..." Ralph W. Husted

    "We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching
    that we can choose either to accept or reject the God
    who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the
    Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
    equally free in our relationships with other men.
    Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer
    and social freedom for its completion." Edmund A. Opitz

    "Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the
    worse that has made possible life's progress."
    Charles Lindbergh

    "Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for
    oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibil-
    ity of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not
    a man but a member, an instrument, a thing."
    Thomas Jefferson

    THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
    Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son
    of man that You visit him?" Psalm 8:4
    A: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against
    you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing
    and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
    your descendants may live." Deuteronomy 30:19

    Q: "Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
    Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?" Psalm
    144:3
    A: "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose
    for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the
    gods which your fathers served that were on the other
    side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
    land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
    serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

    Q: "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is
    born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" Job 15:14
    A: "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He
    teach in the way he chooses." Psalm 25:12

    Q: "What is man, that You should magnify him, that You
    should set Your heart on him?" Job 7:17
    A: "Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his
    ways." Proverbs 3:31

    Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son
    of man that You take care of him?" Hebrews 2:6
    A: "I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have
    laid before me." Psalm 119:30 "Let Your hand become my
    help, for I have chosen Your precepts."Psalm 119:173

    References:
    Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23
    Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14
    Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

    DEDICATION

    Sir Isaac Newton
    The greatest scientist in human history
    a Bible-Believing Christian
    an authority on the Bible's Book of Daniel
    committed to individual value
    and individual liberty

    Daniel 9:25-26 Habakkuk 2:2-3 selah

    "What is man...?" Earth's Choicemaker Psalm 25:12
    http://www.blogger.com/profile/4744267
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2728/
    http://www.choicemaker.net/
    jbaxter@choicemaker.net

    An old/new paradigma - Mr. Jefferson would agree!
    (Alternative? There is no alternative.)

    + + +

    "Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He
    can only discover them and he ought to look through the
    discovery to the Author." -- Thomas Paine 1797

    "Got Criteria?" See Psalm 119:1-176

    semper fidelis
    Jim Baxter
    Sgt. USMC
    WWII & Korean War

    Teacher, 5th Grade - 30 Wonderful years !
    vincit veritas

    "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"
    - Yogi Berra

    By Blogger Jim Baxter, at 3:15 AM  

  • Dear Eliyahu
    I was meaning to thank you for your comments on my blog, especially for your support in the discussion over the treatment of the Jews of Morocco some weeks ago. (I have since added a bit about the Casablanca riots of 1907 to that post)
    Kol hakavod
    Bataween

    By Blogger bataween, at 3:00 PM  

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