freedom

I wrote the following last night for the WAWA Blog Dec. 26, 2007. In this morning's email was this message from Vanunu.

PS- In 1986, Vanunu a secular Jew converted to Christianity just days before being kidnapped by the Mossad and spending 18 years in jail for telling the world the truth that Israel was already nuclear.

Bad news, Dec. 25 th. The police come to the American Colony to arrest me. I was meeting a young German girl who wanted to know more about my story. They took us to the police questioning me, hold me until midnight 24:00. Not so impresive all this again arrest. I think the police was waiting for my arrest in Beet Lehem,since I did come to B L. they found new reason to arest me. Any way life will continue as I am doing all the Time.
vmjc

On Christmas Eve evening I picked up my mail and opened up a card from Jerusalem sent to me by Mordechai Vanunu. He made me laugh out loud, for he addressed it to: "Eileen Flaming" not Fleming, which is my actual name.

But, upon reflection, I think Vanunu has renamed me well; for I am flaming over the hypocrisy and injustice of empire and apathy and ignorance of good Christians who have no eyes to see, ears to hear, or hearts that bleed for the poor and oppressed in the Holy land and the entire Middle East.

How much are we (as a Christian political group) influenced by principals of Liberation Theology? Would more study of Liberation theologists be time well spent for us? Is this a school of thought and action we want to be identified with? If so, how can we avoid the Marxist label (if indeed we want to avoid it)? Is this a path we want to follow?

(next post coming with more basic info about this school of theology, it may take me a bit to write so if your first response is "I'm clueless" (almost always MY first response to about anything) then relax because I am currently writing a simple primer post about this)

Zion's Zealots

[Miami, Fl. November 6, 2007] The James L. Knight Center was packed to the rafters with John Hagee's tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida's right wing Jewish community. Zion's Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: "Isn't that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God."

It was on the second Saturday in September, 2007, while in Arlington, Virginia, at George Mason University attending the 6th annual US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, that I first heard someone say when they were asked their organizational affiliations, reply, "I am here as a free radical."

Free radical, Keren Batiyov, is also a poet, writer, a nonviolent activist with ISM/International Solidarity, and a Russian history maven. Keren was born and bred in a fundamentalist Christian home, but at the age of 40 connected with her Jewish roots and converted Jesus from God back into his originally understood role of divine prophet; and a prophet can best be understood as one who points out impending doom and provokes people to remember God.

The Democratic-controlled Congress did the unthinkable on Saturday night: They gave President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales more unchecked power to wiretap Americans without a warrant.¹ Yes, that's the same Attorney General who is currently mired in scandal and probably committed perjury on this very issue.²

Why'd they do it? Because the president used fear to intimidate them and it worked.³

[Jerusalem, 14, July 2007] On my first afternoon of my fifth trip to Israel Palestine, I headed down Nablus Road to the Old City of Jerusalem. The stairway down through the Damascus Gate was packed with street vendors hawking cheap goods from China. It was shoulder to shoulder people until I arrived at the Via Delorosa; legendary route that Jesus walked while carrying a wooden cross. Only a few tourists were about, but I saw many more Israeli soldiers than the last time I was here in November 2006.