Bethlehem today

A RECTOR in Dorset can no longer bring himself to sing the carol “O little town of Bethlehem”,

after visiting the Holy Land with parish ioners last month and seeing how much the town had

changed since an earlier visit he made in 1995.

The Revd Stephen Coulter, Rector of Pimperne in Blandford Forum, told his congregation on

his return that having been confronted by the security wall, the checkpoints, and the plight of the

people, he could not sing the words “How still we see thee lie”.

He showed them a carved nativity scene into which a Bethlehem carpenter had inserted a

fence sepa rating the manger and the three Wise Men, and described the town today as

“indeed a place of dark streets and of hopes and fears”. The carol has, with the congregation’s

consent, been removed from this year’s carol service.

Islam and Israel

Obama, the Muslim Thing, And Why It Matters

by Pamela Geller (September 2008)

He knows the stakes involved.

The thing is, you can't be a leader and not know what Islam means. The average Joe pumping gas on Route 66 - okay, not on top of the issue. But there is no way you can be running for President and not know the hell being wreaked on the free and not-so-free world by Islamic jihad.

 

That said, Barack Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta. A madrassa in a Muslim country. Whether he was devout or secular, he knows what was taught. He knows what is in the Koran. Even if he is ambiguous, he knows the stakes involved. His father was a 
 
Muslim who took three wives (without divorcing). His stepfather and close members of his family are devout Muslims. Not an unimportant influence.

Every Muslim who left Islam is very definitive about leaving and why. They are quite vocal. If he left Islam, Obama must have very definite thoughts about it. He has to, he practiced Islam. That is not benign; it's big. And even if, as inferred by big media, it was not big to him, then he can still appreciate how important it is knowing what he knows about Islam and apostasy.

Obama would have had to make a decision to reject Islam. When did he make that decision? How? Why the silence? Why the reluctance to talk about it?

Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. Have there been calls for Obama's death? If not, why not? Islam gives no free passes.

Obama's posture on this is hard to define or understand, because it is a critical issue.

Transitional issues facing this nation and the world at large - the world at war, creeping sharia, the perversion of the rights of free men, individuals, women, etc., hang in the balance on the make up of the next president of the United States. The stakes could not be higher domestically.

On foreign policy, Europe has laid down. The political elites have capitulated to Islamists and to multiculturalists. Suicide. It seems unclear that they could hold up their end even if America did the heavy lifting.

As far as Israel is concerned, if Obama makes it to the big house, Israel is screwed. Finished.  Israel will be on its own.

Perhaps that is necessary, though, because it seems they have relinquished their sovereignty to the US and they expect the US to guarantee their security. Ain't never


gonna' happen. No country, ever, should abdicate its role in protecting and defending itself. Ehud Olmert is on a one-way trip to nowhere. So maybe tough love is necessary, because this relationship is hurting Israel.

The recent revelations of Obama's ties to Raila Odinga in Kenya are disconcerting as well, because Odinga is behind the terrible violence in his country. It was he who instigated bloody riots and killing after he lost the election. Obama's bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenyan government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila's "stooge." And while there are few angels in Kenya, Odinga is the source of great unrest and turmoil; and the MOU he signed with the Muslim Council to institute shariais a foreshadowing of a dark fate for Kenya.  Just how quickly will Kenya go Islamic?

We must be allowed to ask these questions. I do not embrace change for the sake of change - the impossible new buzzword on the campaign trail. Jimmy Carter was the dark horse, the new unknown, and he was an unmitigated disaster. The worst, most damaging president in US history, in my opinion.

This could be even worse. And so, I implore my fellow Americans to question, question, question. The potential damage to this country is incalculable. These are dangerous times, my friends; reckless and capricious intellectual laziness will have disastrous consequences.

Counter offensive (August 2001)

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama launched an online viral counteroffensive Tuesday against persistent e-mail chain letters that lie about his religious and political background. But history suggests that the effort might backfire, according to experts in urban myths and folklore.

"The principle is that a very strong denial makes some people think: 'Uh huh, we knew it. If he's taken the trouble to make such a strong denial, there must be some truth to it,'" says Bill Ellis, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who studies contemporary folklore and popular cultural responses to societal events like the 9/11 attacks.

There are various versions of the e-mails, but they generally insinuate that Obama is secretly a Muslim who attended a radical Islamic school in Indonesia. One of the e-mails charges that he's a radical Muslim who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Another e-mail claims that he was sworn into the Senate using a copy of the Quran. All of the allegations are false.

Prom of Promise

A comment on an earlier blog about another prom alerted me to today's Prom. I am not sure what the comment was trying to say about Barenboim and the orchestra.

5.15pm - 6pm: Proms Intro
Members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra talk to the Controller of BBC Radio 3 and Director of the Proms, Roger Wright.

Prom 38: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Broadcast Broadcast at 7.30pm on BBC Four. Highlights also recorded for broadcast on BBC Two and BBC HD on 16 August. Live on BBC Radio 3, and available as audio on demand for the following week.

Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, formed in collaboration with the Palestinian philosopher Edward Said, began life in 1999 as a one-off experiment to bring Arab and Israeli musicians together. Since then it has met in the summers to continue its work - both musical and social.

While the symbolic effect of joining people on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict remains potent, the orchestra has been in continual artistic development. 'The "exotic" element, if you like,' says Barenboim, 'of an orchestra of Israelis and Arabs performing European music has lessened. This is a positive thing: the orchestra is now judged purely on musical terms.'

Haydn Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major, for oboe, bassoon, violin, cello (21 mins)
Schoenberg Variations for Orchestra, Op.31 (21 mins)
Interval
Brahms Symphony No.4 (42 mins)
Martin Fröst clarinet
West-Eastern Divan OrchestraDaniel Barenboim conductor

Prom 39: Members of West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Time 10.15pm - 11.30pm
Broadcast Live on BBC Radio 3. Available as audio on demand for the following week.

Written during the First World War, 'to be read, played and danced', L'histoire du soldat ('The Soldier's Tale') presents the Faustian tale of a soldier who is tricked by the Devil into trading his fiddle for a book containing the secret of wealth.

Boulez's ... explosante-fixe ... - from which Mémoriale is derived - was written to commemorate the death of Stravinsky in 1971. The Mémoriale realisation (1985) was prompted by the death of Lawrence Beauregard, flautist of Boulez's Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Pierre Boulez Mémoriale (... explosante-fixe ... Originel) (6mins)
Stravinsky L'histoire du soldat (60 mins)
There will be no interval
Patrice Chéreau narrator
Members of West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim conductor

From The Times
August 8, 2008
Inside the peace corps of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Do politics really have no place in Daniel Barenboim’s Arab-Israeli Divan Orchestra?

It’s 1am and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is at play. A Syrian and an Egyptian joke about who has the most national pride. Yoni, an Israeli, plays an energetic game of table tennis with an Iranian. The Iranian is winning.

This is both the private and public face of Daniel Barenboim’s celebrated Israeli-Arab youth orchestra. It’s private because we are at the Divan’s summer camp, a former monastery west of Seville, where the orchestra live and rehearse for two weeks before they tour, including two Proms performances next week. But also the public face: the Divan projects itself as a model of harmony set against the Middle East conflict. And Barenboim certainly has performed a minor miracle by fostering enduring friendships among individuals who, on paper at least, remain enemies. However, harmony comes at a cost; the Divan exerts a degree of control over its young charges and the reality can be less than democratic.

Barenboim, a musical prodigy born in Buenos Aires but raised in Israel, founded the orchestra in 1999 with his great friend, the Palestinian intellectual Edward Saïd. Both men believed that music was a dialogue – a shared experience of playing and listening. Their purpose in founding the orchestra, naming it after Goethe’s poems exploring ideas of “the other”, was to encourage dialogue between two estranged peoples through music.

About 70 young musicians played in the first concerts in Germany. But as the maestro’s musical ambitions for his orchestra have grown, so has the Divan. This year, 120 musicians – the youngest 12, the oldest 30 – from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Iran are playing a massive programme: the Brahms Symphony No 4, Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante, three Wagners including Act I of Die Walküre and Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra.
The Divan also includes a Spanish contingent, a nod to the Andalusian regional government, which helped to set up the Barenboim-Said Foundation. Four players from Gustavo Dudamel’s Simón BolÍvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela swell the brass (and to the Divan girls’ delight, they play late-night salsa gigs).

There is more to the Divan than music, however. It is a philosophy that aims to teach logic in the midst of the illogical Middle East conflict. And this is where the students can diverge from Barenboim and Saïd’s humanitarian vision. For Arabs and Israelis alike the Divan is foremost a musical opportunity. The students benefit from teaching of the calibre they would never receive back home. And with its high profile, the Divan has become an international springboard. It is hard to find Israeli players, especially, who still live in their homeland.

Daniel Cohen, 24, a conductor and violinist who studies in London, joined the orchestra in 2003. “As time went by it became a cultural fascination and an opportunity to meet people from the Arab world,” he reflects. “But the initial reason was to work with Barenboim. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Barenboim is a paternal figure for some, greeting them at lunch and larking about with the youngest Palestinian kids who train in a separate junior orchestra. But when “the maestro” takes rehearsals the anticipation and focus are palpable. Texting and joking stop abruptly. Barenboim goads and charms his players towards excellence through long rehearsals lasting from morning to 10.30 at night. He stamps his feet when the violins mess up: “Play in tempo!” he orders. “Don’t fuss around!”

Wherever possible Arab and Israeli share a music stand. Naturally Arab and Israeli mix, but once rehearsals end they are just as likely to sit apart if only for the ease of speaking their mother tongue. They chat about ambitions and the usual teen concerns. But in the evenings they are encouraged to attend discussions and film screenings related to the Middle East conflict. It could be the outspoken Israeli author David Grossman or the documentary Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel.

These are left-wing contributors and many Israeli members feel that they are denied a full discussion. “You don’t see any extreme right-wing Israelis here,” says Daniel Mazaki, originally from Tel Aviv and in his second year with the Divan. Some believe that Barenboim’s personal thinking further skews the playing field. “The Israeli side is represented by someone so pro-Palestinian, so extreme, that it doesn’t reflect the common vision of Israelis you meet on the street,” adds Guy Eshed, the Divan’s 29-year-old lead flute, also from Tel Aviv.

Why is this Israeli vacuum allowed to happen? For Mariam Saïd, wife of the late Edward Saïd, who coordinates the discussions, equality is not important. “There is no need to balance the discussions,” she says. “We are equal as people but it’s not like: ‘you say this, I say that’. The idea is to make the students use their reason.”

For first-timers the debates provoke an emotional outpour. One claimed that he was asked by a monitor to sit down as he spoke agitatedly about the Jewish suffering. “They told me: ‘This is not a debate’.” He added: “I have great respect for the maestro, but I won’t not speak about my beliefs and my country.”

But perhaps this sacrifice is necessary to achieve the greater good, which is understanding and coexisting with the other side. In my few days with the Divan there were no discussions to attend. But my impression is that each individual – Arab and Israeli alike – is pushed through a sort of Divan process of logic. “At first you use your ammunition of suffering to block discussion,” Daniel Cohen says. “But with time and experience of one conversation after another just exploding in your face, you listen and you learn the language.”

Remarkably, tension rarely spreads beyond the discussions; Divan friendships are resilient. But one occasion when the situation on the ground did spill over was the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. “The project hit a wall that year,” remembers Nabeel Abboud Ashkar, 29, a violinist from Nazareth. Many of the Lebanese and Syrians didn’t, or couldn’t, attend the summer workshop, and Arabs and Israelis sat apart at mealtimes. Barenboim demanded that tables be mixed and an uneasy calm was restored only after the Divan took the unprecedented step of issuing a public statement condemning the violence.

Barenboim maintains that the Divan is not a political project yet politics suffuse its make-or-break moments. The first time they played Wagner, for instance, it was put to a vote. For many members, the Divan’s performance in Ramallah, on Arab soil, in 2005, was their first encounter with the Palestinian settlements.

The West-Eastern Divan is many things to its individual musicians. For some it is simply an incredible musical opportunity and a source of friendship. For others it is a chance to connect with their roots; Palestinian Israelis connect with other Arabs for the first time. For everyone it is a learning process. Barenboim is asking these students to transcend their personal history and emotions.

It’s a big ask, yet the players find a way of accommodating it. Tyme Khleifi is a Christian Palestinian living in Ramallah in the West Bank. “Every day it’s stress, delays, bad treatment,” she says. Yet reflecting on the personal journey she has begun, Khleifi says: “The cornerstone of the Divan is that each side acknowledges there are two sides to stories. We don’t agree but not agreeing doesn’t mean that you don’t understand.”

The Divan Orchestra performs at the Proms, August 14 2008, 7pm and 10.15pm, at the Albert Hall (0845 401 5040, bbc.co.uk/proms)

Israel 60

Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations

(Reuters) - Israel marks the anniversary of its founding on Thursday, 60 years by the Jewish calendar since the declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948. Following is a list of key elements of planned public celebrations:

* At 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) on May 6, sirens and state ceremonies mark start of Remembrance Day for Israelis killed in conflicts. Sirens sound for further two minutes at 11 a.m. on May 7

* On the evening of May 7, displays combining light, music, lasers and special effects held simultaneously across Israel

* On May 8, a public holiday, Israelis will attend picnics and barbecues, the traditional way of marking Independence Day

* Air force aerobatic display over 10 cities on May 8, along with naval review off the Mediterranean coast, mass parachute drops and an international gathering of military bands at Haifa

* On May 11, Israelis turning 60 on Independence Day will attend a birthday party with President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem

* U.S. President George W. Bush visits May 14-16. He will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to review progress on peace talks with the Palestinians, address Israeli parliament on May 15 and also attend conference on "The Future of the Jewish People" hosted by President Peres that runs May 13-15

* Twelve other heads of state are officially listed to attend. They are from Albania, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Georgia, Latvia, Mongolia, Poland, Rwanda, Slovenia, Togo, Ukraine and the Pacific island of Palau. Other notable guests include media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Google Inc co-founder Sergey Brin and former Cold War statesmen Mikhail Gorbachev and Henry Kissinger.

* Last week's launch of Israel's Amos-3 satellite was made part of the celebrations -- it bears a 60th anniversary logo.

* Israeli children are collecting 1.5 million marbles -- for the number of Jewish children who died in the Holocaust.

* On May 8, voting ends to choose a national bird. President Peres will announce the winning emblem on May 29.

* Other anniversary events will be held later in the year. These include mass dancing on streets of Jerusalem, a mass wedding for new immigrants, restoring 60 war memorials, building a 60-km path round the Sea of Galilee, building 60 playgrounds, launching a children's theatre in Jerusalem and a march by some 45,000 youngsters that will pass through key battle sites.

* On May 15, Palestinians will mark the 60th anniversary of what they call the "nakba", or catastrophe when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes at the creation of Israel. Public employees and students will stop work at 11 a.m. to join rallies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sirens at noon start two minutes' silence.

(Reporting by Avida Landau, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Samia Nakhoul)

Homeland for the Jews

Balfour Declaration of 1917

An official letter from the British Foreign Office headed by Arthur Balfour, the UK's Foreign Secretary (from December 1916 to October 1919), to Lord Rothschild, who was seen as a representative of the Jewish people. The letter stated that the British government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

The Israeli Declaration of Independence

Made on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar, 5708), the day the British Mandate expired, was the official announcement that a new Jewish state named the State of Israel had been formally established in parts of what was known as the British Mandate for Palestine and on land where, in antiquity, the Kingdoms of Israel, Judah and Judea had once been.

It has been called the start of the "Third Jewish Commonwealth" by some observers. The "First Jewish Commonwealth" ended with the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 586 BCE, the second with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of Bar Kokhba's revolt by the Roman Empire in the year 135.

In Israel the event is celebrated annually with the national holiday Yom Ha'atzmaut (Hebrew: יום העצמאות‎, lit. Independence Day), the timing of which is based on the Hebrew calendar date of the declaration (5, Iyar, 5708). Palestinians commemorate the event as Nakba Day (Arabic: يوم النكبة‎, Yawm al-nakba, lit. Catastrophe Day) on 15 May every year.