Ending the Journey of a Lifetime at Golgotha

Our last day began with a brief tour of the hospital where Tom Gronewald volunteers as a missionary servant to Israel. It was very enlightening to hear about and to see the medical facilities and preparations done by this hospital.

We went from the hope of holistic medicine to the sobering reality of the Holocaust! Touring the Yad Vashem museum and the atrocities of the Nazi Holocaust leaves you an ache in your heart. The staggering scenes and video-taped interviews with Holocaust survivors left a grim reminder of the evil that is in this world. It ignites the passion for showing love and restoring the dignity and value of every human being. People matter to God and people matter to us too!

Our final journey took us to the Praetorian where Jesus was flogged, mocked and spat upon. He went through all the agony of Gethsemane, the beatings and the crucifixion for us!

Wow, what a Savior!

We wept as we stood on the stones in which Jesus received His cruel thrashing. We followed the Via Dolorosa , the way of suffering where Jesus carried His cross with the help of Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21).

Along this busy road we came to Golgotha and the Garden Tomb. We were truly standing on holy ground as we saw the Skull in the rocky cliff and personally witnessed the empty tomb. We gathered to read, worship and celebrate Holy Communion. What a special time of personal renewal and spiritual intimacy with our Lord. Richard played his violin and Kyler led us in worship as we spent an hour and a half just praising God for His gracious sacrifice on our behalf. This is the fitting conclusion to an amazing tour.

Isaiah 53:4-5 reveals the prophetic truth of our Messiah Jesus:

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.”

Our group has truly become a family and many are already planning to join us on our next trip to Israel and Greece from July 8-22, 2011. Please pray about joining us as well. You will never be the same!

Shalom!

I just got Leeland’s newest album, Love is on the Move, and so far this is my favorite song on it.  ”Via Dolorosa” is the Latin name for the road in Jerusalem that Jesus Christ likely walked on his way to Golgotha, where he was crucified and died for our sins.

He traded his crown for a crown of thorns
He picked up His cross and laid down His sword
He stumbled down the road bruised and beaten for me
Jesus walked the way of grief
Hallelujah!

[Chorus]
On the via dolorosa!
All my sin was carried away!
And the power of Him was broken
As He gave His life away

He knew it was to come from the very start
But his love for the world beat inside His heart
He climbed the road of suffering to the hill of calvary
Where the saints would be redeemed.
Hallelujah!

[Chorus]
On the via dolorosa!
All my sin was carried away!
And the power of Him was broken
As He gave His life away

Jesus fixed His eyes upon the new horizon
Soon he would arise and the world would be forgiven!
Jesus fixed His eyes upon the new horizon
Soon he would arise and the world would be forgiven!

Hallelujah, Jesus rose again!
On the cross He she’d His blood on Calvary
I’m thankful for the journey of my King!

[Chorus]
On the via dolorosa!
All my sin was carried away!
And the power of Him was broken
As He gave His life away
As He gave His life away

He traded his crown for a crown of thorns

The Via Dolorosa is “the way of suffering”. This is the path that Jesus walked from Antonia’s fortress, where He was convicted and severely beaten, to Golgotha, where He was crucified. This path, as far as we know, took him out the northern side of the city, and around to the east, where two major roads intersected, where He could be executed as an example in front of thousands of people. The clear message: don’t mess with the Roman empire.

Today, the part of the Via Dolorosa that is inside the old city walls is in the Muslim quarter. We walked through this area to get from Antonia’s Fortress to the Wailing Wall. I think the new name for it is the Via Shopolosa, or “the way of shopping”. It was lined with stores, and street vendors accosted us freely trying to sell us everything from Coke to bookmarks to hats. It was absolutely impossible for me to pause and reflect or to make walking this path any kind of spiritually contemplative event. But at least I was there, which was a blessing.

T.S. Elliot said that April is a cruel month, and it certainly is, but autumn is the “via dolorosa” – a season which gives us sunny days followed by mist and vapors, that when parted reveal a soft landscape sculpted out of snow.

On Tuesday the storm was approaching – breezy, cold and grey – warning us to prepare.

Grey skies in the distant – storm coming

last of the pansies

View from my front door

After the storm – a carpet of leaves

Lexington, KY

Oingo Boingo – Dead Man’s Party

The Ghastly Ones – Haulin’ Hearse

The Revels – Midnight Stroll

I love the Roman Catholic Church,
Although it’s left me in the lurch.

Our Lady wasn’t “Typhoid” Mary,
That mistake was fairly scary!
And Stations of the Cross divine,
Cannot be mapped to the Circle Line.

Finally I saw my fate,
But it would seem I was too late.
Before I could give up, recant,
I was an ex-communicant.

To Anglicans I shall repair,
They like the woolly liberal there!

Sathya Sai Baba

One day, a little over half a century ago, I was sitting in a coffee house in the wonderful city of Old Jerusalem. The table where I sat looked through the open front onto a cobbled street. This was the street I had come to see and to walk along. Its name was the Via Dolorosa, which means the Way of Sorrow. This is the street along which Jesus of Nazareth walked carrying his heavy cross on that first Good Friday some two Millennia ago. His back was covered with blood from the metal tipped whips with which he had been scourged and there was blood on his face from the crown of thorns that had been forced into his scalp. Though a man of strong build, he had been greatly weakened from the torture he had suffered at the hands of the Roman soldiers and his cross was heavy. Story tells that he fell over at least once during his journey up the hill to the place called Calvary or Golgotha. Having reached that summit, he was nailed to the cross he had carried and remained there suffering until the sun set on that first Good Friday. Then, as bodies were not permitted to remain on a cross on the Jewish Sabbath, which was the Saturday, Jesus the Christ was killed by a spearthrust by the Roman legionnaire named Longinus. The corpse was taken down and Jesus was carried by his great uncle Joseph of Arimathea and his friend, another devotee of Jesus, named Nicodemus. They put the corpse in the private tomb in the garden of Joseph’s house in Jerusalem. Then a large stone was rolled in front of the tomb, closing it off. Finally a squad of soldiers from the Temple troops was placed on guard at the entrance of the tomb.

All was quiet throughout the Saturday, the Sabbath, but early Sunday morning brought the beginnings of the final act of this world drama, out of which a great religion was born. Somehow the stone had been rolled back and the tomb was empty. Nobody was there. A little later in the day, Jesus walked through a closed door into a room where some of his disciples had gathered. His physical body had been transmuted into a subtle body which some have called a spiritual body, a body of glory and a body of light. This is a phenomenon that Sathya Sai Baba has demonstrated many times. That is, he travels through walls or closed doors in his subtle body and when necessary lowers its vibration to create a solid body that can be felt by human hands and can be seen by normal human eyesight. Some days later, after communicating with his disciples and others, this body of Glory, this body of Light, ascended to the highest spiritual realm as Lord Rama and others have done.

What, if anything is the significance of this Easter story to you and to me? “Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected to save all mankind,” write the Christian theologians. “But,” preach the Christian evangelists, “To be saved you must believe in Him, in Jesus.” I want to take you, if you have not gone there already, a step deeper into this great, important question. In fact, Sathya Sai Baba has already shown us that step if we can take it. He teaches us that we are all one and I feel that most of us accept that, even though we may not have experienced it. But if we ordinary humans are all one beneath the surface, then surely Godmen are also all one and they are aware of it. Sathya Sai Baba has shown himself in the forms of Rama and Krishna and Dattatreya and Jesus. All physical forms are but the clothing of one Godman, one Avatar of God. Sathya Sai Baba has indicated, not only by taking the form, but in other ways, that he and Jesus are one. Once on the Christmas day platform at Prashanti Nilayam, I said a few words about the several different names Jesus had been known by when he was on earth and afterwards. One of these was Isa, which he was called in India and the Middle East. Sathya Sai Baba opened his own discourse by saying the true name of Jesus was Isa the letters of that name also make the word Sai. Isa and Sai are one. So the Godman who can save us from our iniquities and lead to the goal does not have to be named Jesus or Isa. Today his name is Sai and by his loving grace, his infinite mercy, he is leading us on to our spiritual home. But why, you may ask, did the all-loving Godman in the body named Jesus or Isa have to suffer the Via Dolorosa and the Crucifixion?

Long before the time of Jesus, in the temples of ancient Egypt, men went through the ritual of crucifixion as an initiation to the highest. But why did one have to go through it in agonising actuality on the human stage? Was it simply that a great spiritual Light should come into the dark world of the west under the Roman Empire? It was that and more than that. Spiritual masters such as Rudolf Steiner have given interesting esoteric reasons why the Crucifixion of Jesus is for the benefit of all humanity, but here I would like to give only the explanation given by our own great Master, who, as I said earlier, went through it all himself in an earlier body. And why do I say that you and I are today treading the Via Dolorosa, treading it voluntarily as the Godman did two thousand years ago? We have come through a certain doorway in consciousness from the ordinary self-consciousness of mankind to a level where we have become aware of the purpose of our lives and where we are going. We know that our destination is union with God. We know that we are treading the path to our spiritual home. We have discovered, too, beyond all doubt that we are two people. Each of us is at least two people, one the obvious self-assertive one who makes a great deal of noise on the stage of life, what Sathya Sai Baba calls the personal ego. We have inherited this from a long way back when we were parts of the animal consciousness. This was necessary for that phase of life but now, with our feet on the spiritual path, we realise that this ego who dominates our lives is really an anachronism. He is an anachronism and an impostor who belongs to a past time. He has no place in eternity. But the other Self does belong to eternity. He has been buried away in the dungeons of falsehood and maya, in the darkness of our ignorance for so long that we seldom hear his voice. And when we do, we call it ‘conscience’. It is, in truth, the voice of God and is therefore the root of all consciousness. We now know that the ego self has to be eliminated in order that the God Self can take command and guide us into that spiritual harbour which is our destination. But it is not an easy struggle while our feet are on this slippery and narrow path. Some have named it the razor’s edge. Jesus himself said that it was a way that was strait and narrow. I am calling it the Via Dolorosa.

Sathya Sai Baba has said that pleasure is just an interval between two sorrows and here we know the purpose and meaning of sorrow, hardship and adversity. We know their meaning and their value in helping our faltering footsteps up the slippery, rough, cobbled road to Calvary. We know that we must strive here to live the dharmic or sacred life that will take us in the shortest possible time to the cross on the hill and what lies beyond it. Sathya Sai Baba makes a cross with his two forefingers and states that the cross stands for the final death of the personal ego. When this false ego is finally annihilated from the body, which is its tomb, there will arise that glorious eternal spiritual Being which is our true Self. And this, as the Godman Jesus illustrated, will be able to communicate with and inspire his brother men who are still on the human path, to arise and become part of the one God.

So this great drama of Easter is important to every one of us because it illustrates what every human being must go through before he comes to his glory. It is our model. It seems to me that we must strive with all the divine will that is in each of us to live the life of dharma, the special sacred life, as we strive with brave hearts and divine understanding towards the cross of final victory that stands on the hill. We all know and we are all striving to practice those five divinely human values, those five bright beacons that our Lord has given us to keep our feet on the slippery way. I just want to say here that it behoves us to delve as deeply as possible into their meaning.

Take, for example, the first one, Sathya or Truth. It was Jesus who said, “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” What is this truth that will set us free from our bondage? For me it is the fundamental truth of oneness. If we can reach within the glittering lights of diversity and take hold of this truth of oneness and strive to live it, then we are well on the way to freedom.

The last of the five beacons is Ahimsa or Non-violence. That seems fairly straightforward, but is it? One of our greatest Godman leaders, Lord Krishna, encouraged the violent destruction of a large part of the Kshetria caste in order to rid the world of a group that had grown evil beyond redemption. He was cutting down the diseased tree, as Sathya Sai Baba says. But Krishna encouraged the right understanding and the right attitude when necessary violence must be carried out. We know that life must be destroyed in order for man to eat and to live. When our hands are doing violent acts, from the chopping up of spinach, through the cutting down of a tree, to the slaying of men in battle, we must do it with love and reverence, without any violent feeling towards the form of life that we needs must destroy for a greater good. For all forms of life from a blade of grass to the greatest sage are a part of God. I feel it would be true to say that the more we can follow the life of dharma, the more we can weaken our false ego as we try to tread the narrow path, less painful will be the final crucifixion of the ego.

Here we have the key to true Shanti. While our feet and hands are playing their part in the tug of war between good and evil, let our minds be in the eternal, the infinite. A line from an old prayer says, “There is a power that maketh all things new. It lives and moves in those who know the Self as one.”

May that power grow in us all as we struggle up the Via Dolorosa with the great vision of oneness before us.

Reference:: “The Lights of Home” by Howard Murphet

Por la Via Dolorosa que es la via del dolor
Como oveja vino Cristo, Rey, Senor
Y fue El quien quiso ir por su amor por ti y por mi
Por la Via Dolorosa al Calvario y a morir
- Via Dolorosa in spanish.

Wah…………. I want to cry already! I deleted all my handphone messages in accident! Actually wanted to delete Jia Zi and Eunice message then I think I clicked the delete message option. And wala, everything is empty. I practically yelled at my phone for one whole minute (Okay, maybe not that serious but anyway) So I thought for the next minute, maybe it’s time to start anew. Not that angry now, God has calmed me down.

Well, okay before I start on my day. There’s a super funny video that Pris had shared on Facebook. It’s called Facebook breakup, on how lovers/couple treat what each other do on facebook to others too seriously. Video link! Got sis laughing for the whole video.

Okay, yeap! Let’s start on what happened today. Morning assembly – Simin said something that made me went LOL! History – Test, super duper UNPREPARED. Cause setter set the questions all I never really study in that chapter. But still able to score I think… I very retardedly answered the question What does BMA stands for this: British Adminstration Military which is BAM instead of BMA! Arghh. TPI – Mrs. Cheong made us clean up the classroom for ONE WHOLE PERIOD and an extra ten minutes which eat up my recess time. Recess – Studied in Mugspot (my name for Study Corner) with Ishwa. English – Did summary and pronunciation practise to prevent the next Ris Low from happening again. (Wahaha, Mrs. Sng knows about Ris Low!) CE – Mrs. Cheong talked about cyberbullying. Suddenly remember what happened to me last year. Simin trying to take photo of the people around her and put on Facebook. Everybody started blocking their faces with CE book. Ahahaha. Science – Wrote the science presentation script. MRS. CHEN IS SUPER SLOW IN MARKING OUR REPORT. Tsk tsk tsk! Chinese – The lesson wasn’t so boring, so didn’t fall asleep. Highlighted all my chinese words. Ahaha.

After school rushed home to go to dentist. Took cab to Alexander Hospital, almost got in to a car accident. It was like almost the same as the one I saw at Dawson Place’s Jayzee Cafe. Freaked me out and Mum almost knocked into the taxi seat. Scary! Went to the dentist. THE DENTIST TIED MY BRACES SUPER TIGHT TODAY! Painful painful! Blender will really be my best friend for now. But still can eat fish porridge after that. Next appointment 21 October Mum say my jaw reclined a lot! I think it’s true because last time when I put my finger on my teeth with my mouth shut, the upper teeth is almost covering my whole nail. Now it is only less than half of my nail. GOODIE GOOD.

After that went to study at Jayzee Cafe again. Was quite happy there until… Mum saw a girl with very long legs. Her legs was until the counter top there and she looked very pretty. And she looked like Ms. Ang (In fact, she is Ms. Ang) Then I realized that she was Ms. Ang from her red Addidas watch. She was studying outside, then when the waiter served her drink. She talked to the waiter for a while then the waiter went back and take an ASHTRAY! Super disappointing. MS. ANG SMOKES! Then she changed seat and Mum said that most likely is Ms. Ang recognized me and feel guilty or something so changed to somewhere where I can’t see her. I don’t feel angry you know, I just feel sad, very sad for her. Because she don’t know what she is doing to her body and what more worse is that she has a really pretty face and a supermodel body you know? Totally damaging the supermodel body that God made.

Went home in the rain. Mum rushed home to get her night course materials and went out again. Sis came home soon after that. Haha, I was joking about Minnie and Mickey Mouse at Jayzee Cafe. (Don’t worry Sis, I won’t share it out here. HAHA!)

Alright now, I shall end my post here! Goodbye and STAY TUNED.
Last note: Sis’s promo (exams) starts at 8 Oct. WHAT AN COINCIDENCE.

You’re part time lover and a full time friend
The monkey on your back is the latest trend
I don’t see what anyone can see
In anyone else but you.
-Anyone else but you, The Moldy Peaches (Juno OST)

Christian pilgrims praying on the Via Dolorosa near a Palestinian child and Israeli police in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Via Dolorosa, also known as the Path of Sorrow, is the route taken by Jesus Christ through Jerusalem to his crucifixion.

More images from JERUSALEM can be seen on my main website.

Mi-ai incercat
inima, credinta,
rugaciunea, lacrima.
la randul meu
incerc
promisiunea, aripa duhului,
hrana pe inserare.
Vei mai ‘cerca,
eu voi gusta .
In adierea aripilor,
Tu vei sopti duios,
Eu voi striga mereu
si mereu crezand
ca asa,
ma vei auzi mai bine.
Peste praguri voi sti
ca am fost todeauna
de TATA , Ingeri,
Aripile-petale, Cuvant,
si … de Foc,
cu TINE legata.

The Via Dolorosa is the route that Jesus took between his condemnation by Pilate and his crucifixion and burial which many Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem will walk.

and yes, i mean jews: the zionist entity insists on being called a “jewish state” that is an apartheid state in which jews have special rights and non-jews have no rights. of course, any jew who lives in occupied palestine is by definition a zionist. but the zionist entity’s laws specify these rights are for jews. and these jewish zionists are the colonists occupying palestinian land.

it may seem like a sign of progress to most outsiders: 2 zionist terrorist colonies in khalil were dismantled by the zionist terrorist army. but notice in this story that it alerts us to the fact that this has happened before. they have removed one of these colonies and it went right back up. this is the norm here:

The Israeli army demolished two illegal settlement outposts installed by extremist far-right wing Jewish settlers, members of a Yeshiva School from Kiryat Arba’ illegal settlement, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli army radio reported that one of the outposts (Havat Federman) was constructed by an extremist right-wing settler, identified as Noam Federman.

The Second illegal outpost Givat (Hill) Avichai, also known as Hill 18, was constructed by Yeshiva students of the illegal Keryat Arba’ settlement.

As the Israeli police and soldiers arrived at the Havat Federman, shortly before the evacuation was to take place, they found out that the construction was already removed, and all of its supplies were placed in one tent, Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported.

The Federman outpost was first dismantled on Friday October 31, 2008, and the settlers clashed with the Israeli police and attacked Palestinian residents in the Hebron area. They settlers rebuilt the outpost later on and the army did not remove it.

The Israeli police was expecting clashes with the extremist settlers but the evacuation went without noticeable clashes.

Israeli sources reported Wednesday that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had decided to evacuate the outposts in an attempt to avoid pressure by the US Administration.

But the evacuation of the outposts angered several extreme right wing members of Knesset and officials.

Member of Knesset, Michael Ben-Ari, of the National Union Party slammed Netanyahu and Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, for the evacuation of the illegal outposts and added that the “deceived the public and their voters”.

meanwhile more palestinian homes are being destroyed in al quds by zionist terrorist colonitsts:

The Jerusalem Municipality handed on Tuesday orders to demolish 17 Palestinian homes in different parts of East Jerusalem under the pretext that they were constructed without a permit.

The orders are regarding 17 homes in Al Ashqariyya, Beit Hanina, Shu’fat, Al Esawiyya and Jabal Al Mokabbir and Silwan.

Lawyers representing the residents started the legal process in an attempt to stop or freeze the demolishing orders.

The lawyers managed to temporarily freeze some of the orders and managed to delay the demolishing of a home south of the Al Aqsa Mosque until July 10.

The new orders came amidst an ongoing Israeli campaign targeting Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem, as Israel plans to demolish dozens of homes and apartment buildings under the pretext that they were built without a construction permit.

The Jerusalem municipality largely refrains from granting the Palestinians in Jerusalem construction permits in an attempt to force them out of the city while the Israeli government is ongoing with its illegal settlement activities in East Jerusalem and the Arab areas around it.

to get a sense of the political game being played here read jerrold kessel and pierre klochendler’s article in ips:

Netanyahu dug in his heels, although he tried to couch the impending set-to in a mild manner. No new settlements would be built, he told his cabinet colleagues, but settlement expansion should go on, for all the U.S. objections: “Not to address the question of natural growth is simply not fair,” the Prime Minister said.

A close Netanyahu political ally, Transport Minister Yisrael Katz, added: “There is one thing to which we just cannot agree – that the government agenda will look like a witch-hunt against the settlers and the drying up of the settlements.”

And, Defence Minister Ehud Barak lined up behind Netanyahu: “It’s not conceivable that anyone seriously intends that a family with two children who have bought a small apartment will be told that an order has come from the U.S. that they may not add two extra rooms when the family grows – that’s illogical,” Barak said.

The Israeli position is most unlikely to satisfy the U.S. Netanyahu seems fully aware that this could be just the beginning of a major row with Washington. He thus appears to be preparing to parry the comprehensive U.S. ‘no’ on settlements by backing the intention of the Israeli defence establishment finally to move on so-called “illegal settlements” (small outposts that were established on the fringes of government-approved settlements in order to expand Israeli control over Palestinian territory).

The day Netanyahu came back, the army pulled down one such wildcat settlement, but within hours the settlers had rebuilt the outpost. Now, though, the Defence Ministry confirms that a comprehensive plan is being drawn up to dismantle 23 mini-settlements created since 2001 without government approval.

Israeli Public Radio quoted sources in the Prime Minister’s office as confirming that Netanyahu would “stand firm behind” Defence Minister Ehud Barak if he concludes that a showdown with the “illegal” settlers is required. This, even at the risk of an improbable showdown with his own nationalist coalition: “We are first and foremost obliged to respect the law,” Netanyahu insisted at Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

Obama urged the ending of settlement building in order to lay the ground for a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said there is no point in meeting Netanyahu unless he stops settlement construction and agrees to open talks on Palestinian independence.

Over the years, successive Israeli governments have sanctioned 121 settlements, with the settlers themselves putting up an additional 100 or so small outposts since the early 1990s. The overall settler population is around 280,000.

the zionist entity’s destruction of palestinian homes as a form of ethnic cleansing and it’s fake destruction of zionist colonies (which you can see in bold above are temporary). meanwhile, the hasbara propaganda machine is already at work to get obama and clinton to submit to its colonial expansionist regime. i have no doubt they will succeed.

Israel is planning to offer dismantling 26 illegal settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in exchange for American approval that Israel keeps all of its settlements and expands the existing settlement blocs though all settlements are illegal under the international law.

Israeli officials stated that Israel would dismantle 26 illegal settlement outposts within a number of weeks in exchange for allowing Israel to expand its settlements under the pretext of natural growth.

The new so-called Israeli offer was reached during a Monday night meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli Ynet News reported that Israel sent on Tuesday a delegation to London in order to hold a meeting with US officials in order to coordinate Ehud Barak’s visit to Washington.

The delegation includes representatives of the offices of Barak and Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Ehud Barak is scheduled to hold a meeting in Washington with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and the National Security Advisor, James Jones.

On his side, Barak claims that removing the 26 illegal outposts is a “gesture of good will” towards the Palestinians.

Removing the already illegal outposts comes at a price of US acceptance to be flexible in its demand regarding Israel’s freezing of settlement construction and expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It is worth mentioning that the former US president, George W. Bush, recognized Israel’s illegal settlement blocs in a letter he sent to the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

On his side, Benjamin Netanyahu intends to remove some outposts in an attempt to focus the talks with the US on the Iranian issue instead of settlements.

Talks on removing illegal outposts should not be a condition to getting something in return, as such outposts are not only illegal under the international law, but also under Israeli law.

As for settlements and settlements blocs built in the occupied territories, dismantling them should be unconditional; even if Israel considers them legitimate, they are still illegitimate under the international law and the Fourth Geneva Conventions, and constitute a war crime.

It is worth mentioning that Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions clearly states that an occupying power cannot move part of its civilian population into territories it occupies.

so palestinians seem to be working on a new strategy, or at least a very small minority are. kamahl santamaria’s “inside story” the other night on al jazeera featured a discussion about zionist colonies and in the first few minutes of this you can see a report by sherine tadros in which she shoes you some palestinian families living in the illegal zionist colony of pisgat ze’ev in al quds. the discussion that follows addresses the issue of zionist colonialism on palestinian land, though as usual al jazeera pits two zionist colonitst terrorists against one palestinian (jad ishaq, danny seidmann, shmuel berkovich):

in the episode santamaria begins by saying: “Settlements, neighborhoods, suburbs, call them what you will.” well, i call them colonies. because zionism is a colonial ideology and they are a foreign presence here on palestinian land. there is no way around it. but unfortunately the world continues to think of these colonies on “occupied” land in the west bank or al quds as the only occupied colonies when the entire land of palestine is occupied and filled with such colonies. for instance, look at what zionist terrorist colonists did in naqab this week to palestinian olive trees:

The so-called Israel’s Land Authority uprooted on Monday nearly 250 olive trees and several fig trees and grapevines south of Shqeib Al Salaam Arab village in the Negev.

The authorities them loaded the uprooted trees onto trucks and took them away.

The new violation is one of numerous ongoing violations carried out by Israel against the “unrecognized” Arab villages in the Negev. The violations harm the very existence of Arabs in the region as Israel repeatedly demolished their homes and displaced the villagers.

The Regional Council of the Unrecognized Arab Villages in the Negev demanded Israel to recognize the ownership rights of Arabs in the Negev and to recognize the Arab villages there.

Ibrahim Al Waqeely, head of the Regional Council of the Unrecognized Arab villages, told the Arabs48 news website that instead of preserving the greenery, Israel is uprooting trees and terrifying the Arabs to force them out.

He added that Israel is ongoing with its illegal conducts against the Arabs in the Negev while at the same time it is ongoing with constructing malls and Jewish only areas in the area.

Al Waqeely added that the residents will replant their olives “exactly as they rebuild their homes which Israel demolishes”.

He also said that the Arabs inhibited the Negev way before Israel occupied Palestine and declared its independence.

and here is what palestinians have to endure because of zionist terrorist colonists on their land, in their midst:

Local sources reported on Monday at evening that a group of armed extremist settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds east of Yatta town, south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

The settlers came from Bait Yatir and Maon illegal outposts, installed on privately owned Palestinian lands, east of Yatta.

Some of the attacked shepherds were identified as Ismail Abu Qbeita, Issa Makhamra, Ibrahim Ali Awad, Ali Mohammad Makhamra, and Mohammad Abu Qbeita.

Resident Mohammad Abu Qbeita stated that nearly twenty armed settlers attacked the shepherds with batons forcing them out of the grazing land, and inflicting wounds on them, especially in their legs.

The Israeli army did not attempt to intervene.

and this is true when palestinian women are subjected to terrorism at the hands of zionist colonists:

A Palestinian woman sustained moderate wounds on Tuesday afternoon after she was attacked by an Israeli settler in northern West Bank.

Hiba abed Al Hak, 21, was going from her city Salfit to Ramallah through Nablus city. She was stopped at Za’tara military checkpoint near Nablus, while waiting at the checkpoint she was attacked and beaten up by the settler, local sources reported.

Medical sources reported that Al Hak was moved to hospital for treatment, medics said that she was attacked while soldiers at the checkpoint were watching.

Resident they have been attacked by settlers at that military checkpoint for the past two days.

still other palestinians find themselves prisoners in their own homes such as the khatib family in al quds because of the pisgat ze’ev illegal colony on palestinian land reported in the above al jazeera piece:

The Israeli construction of the Annexation Wall on the Khatib family land has rendered 24 members of the family on the Israeli side of the Wall, where they are being kept under house arrest. No members of the family have committed any crime, but the Israeli military keeps them under house arrest because the Israeli military constructed the Wall with the family on the Israeli side.

The family’s home and land have been annexed into the Pisgat Ze’ev settlement, and the family has thus been unwillingly “turned into settlers”. To visit the rest of their relatives and friends in their village of Hizma, they are forced to travel to an Israeli checkpoint border crossing. Their friends and relatives who have been rendered on the Palestinian side of the Wall have an extremely difficult time obtaining the permits and permission necessary to cross to visit the Khatib family stuck in Pisgat Ze’ev.

A recent exposé by the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahranoth documented the family’s situation, including interviews with family members. Kifach Khatib, the mother of the family, told Yedioth Ahranoth, “The fact that we have been turned into settlers does not mean that we gave up on our way of life. We continue to raise chickens and sheep for a living.”

But even the simple family farming lifestyle of the Khatib family has been rendered impossible by the Israeli settlers who now surround the family’s home and land. According to Kifach Khatib, the family has faced harassment and theft of animals by the Israeli settlers. The family has had to move their sheep and chickens, which are their main source of income, across the Wall to the Palestinian side, where they are depending on the goodwill of their former neighbors to care for their animals. She added, “A month ago settlers stole my best goat, and from time to time we have to cross over to the other side of the fence to feed our animals. Our Palestinian neighbors cannot raise the animals themselves – I don’t know what to do.”

The Israeli District Coordination Office, which is the main interface between the Israeli military and the occupied Palestinian population in the West Bank, told Yedioth Ahranoth that they are familiar with the Khatib family’s situation, and have issued the family permits to cross the Wall to the Palestinian side, which the Office says will allow the family to maintain a normal life.

Members of the Khatib family, which includes two disabled girls suffering from a neurological condition, say that living under house arrest under the continuous threat of harassment by Israeli settlers, is far from a normal life.

moreover because of these colonies the ground water supply is being contaminated by zionist colonists abusing palestinian land as reported in electronic intifada:

Israeli army bases in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel are contaminating land and water sources, says a letter addressed to Major General Gadi Shamni, commander-in-chief of the central command in Israel.

According to the 12 May letter signed by Issac Ben David, deputy director at the Ministry of the Environment, and seen by IRIN, five bases in the OPT are a major source of contamination due to poor handling of diesel fuel and oil.

The bases in question are Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem; Ramallah (West Bank); another is near Hebron (West Bank); and two are Israeli army fuel stations near Macabim and Halamish.

Ben David’s letter said: “In a recent inspection conducted by the ministry inspectors of [Israeli army] bases in [the OPT] we discovered a bleak picture of neglect and severe damage to the environment due to leakage of fuel and oil. This severely damages the soil and ground water.”

all of this destruction and audacity will continue, i suspect, regardless of anything the u.s. administration says or does as Omar Yousef Shehabi explains in electronic intifada:

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for his first meeting with US President Barack Obama earlier this week, preliminary construction began on the Maskiot settlement in the Jordan Valley, which forms the Eastern Bantu of the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, it will be Israel’s first new settlement in the northern West Bank in 27 years.

More accurately, Maskiot was established as an army brigade encampment in 1982, abandoned in the late 1990s, reconstituted as a army preparatory school in 2005, and promised to former residents of an “illegal” Gaza settlement, Shirat Hayam, in 2006. That plan to settle 30 families roughly 15 kilometers east of the Green Line — the internationally-recognized boundary between Israel and the West Bank — was abandoned under American pressure in 2007 and resurrected in the final months of the moribund Bush presidency. Obviously, neither the roughly 50,000 Palestinians of the Jordan Valley nor their listless leaders in Ramallah play any role in this kabuki dance between the Israeli and American governments.

The Obama administration will halt construction of Maskiot once more, likely in exchange for its acquiescence to the further (and nearly complete) Judaization of Jerusalem. Specifically, Netanyahu wants to complete partition of the Palestinian West Bank into northern and southern Bantus by completing development of the “East 1″ or E1 area between Jerusalem and the mega-settlement of Maale Adumim. Israel first authorized development in this area in March 1997, during Netanyahu’s first premiership. It opened a massive new police headquarters for the West Bank in E1 this month, intends to build 3,500 housing units for settlers in this area of less than five square miles, and has spent more than NIS 120 million ($30 million) on a segregated road that will connect E1 to Jerusalem for Jews, and shuttle Palestinian Arabs between their northern and southern Bantus without desecrating the holy city with their presence.

Let us remember that Netanyahu orchestrated a similar provocation early in his first premiership to advance his geopolitical agenda. On 24 September 1996, towards the end of protracted negotiations over the Hebron Agreement, Netanyahu ordered that a gate to the Western Wall tunnel be opened along the Via Dolorosa, blasted through the grounds of the Umariya elementary school (incidentally, my father’s primary school). As a result, tourists who once had to retrace their steps to exit the tunnel now exit onto the Via Dolorosa and are escorted by armed Israeli soldiers through the Old City’s Muslim quarter (think of it as a quotidian version of the annual Jerusalem Day celebrations that flaunt Israeli “liberation and reunification” of the city by parading through Arab Jerusalem and dancing atop the ruins of the Moroccan quarter in the Western Wall plaza).

Upon landing in Tel Aviv, which I wrote about yesterday, I met with my guide Amir and we made our way to Jerusalem. It was a 35-minute drive. After a quick breakfast (hot chocolate and yes, another bagel), we commenced a walking tour of Jerusalem. Before I share with you the highlights, I must tell you that if you do a walking tour of this holy city, be sure to wear GOOD walking shoes (I love my Rockport shoes for walking!) and wear light clothes because the sun can get really hot. But be sure to bring a shawl or pashmina with you so you can cover up if necessary to gain entry to certain sacred sites. I just happened to have one with me, which was lucky, because I was told (quite brusquely, I might add) to cover up when visiting the Western Wall. (Surprising, since I was covered from head to toe, but for bare arms; I hadn’t changed since arriving from Toronto.)

Anyhow, it was an action-packed day, visiting some of the holiest Christian sites in the world. We visited the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested, we walked the Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus walked carrying the cross on his back and finally, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. There are no words to describe what I felt there. This was only my first day in Jerusalem and I knew that this incredible and special start was merely an indication of all that was yet to come.

Dispretuit si parasit de oamnei, om al durerii si obisnuit cu suferinta,era asa de dispretuit ca iti intorceai fata de la El, si noi nu L-am bagat in seama.

Totusi, El sufeintele noastre le`a purtat si durerile noastre le`a luat asupra Lui, iar noi am crezut ca este pedepsit, lovit de D`zeu si smerit.

Dar El era strapuns pentru pacatele noastre, zdrobit pentru faradelegile noastre. Pedeapsa care ne da pacea a cazut peste El si prin ranile Lui suntem tamaduiti.

Noi rataceam cu totii ca niste oi, fieacre isi vedea de drunul lui; dar Domnul a facut sa cada asupra Lui nelegiuirea noastra, a tuturor.

Cand a fost chinuit si asuprit, n-a deschis gura deloc, ca un miel pe care il duci la macelarie si ca o oaie muta inaintea celor ce o tund: n-a deschis gura.”(Isaia cap.53)

Olive path

Drumul durerii

Some folks shot me strange looks as I was coming out of Home Depot a few days ago. 

I was carrying a 5’ wooden cross.  I also got some nods of partial understanding…it was, after all, Good Friday.  Members of my family in Christ didn’t need to know the reason for the cross I was carrying.  They simply did the math and reckoned it had something to do with Easter celebration.  I lugged the cross through the parking lot feeling the splinters of the oak beam dig into my shoulder.  For a moment I paused to consider the weight of the Cross Christ bore on the Via Dolorosa. 

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I love special occasions.  My domestic flair peaks with the approach of a holiday.  Determined not to permit decorating and cooking for 20+ people to overshadow the meaning of our Lord’s death and resurrection, I had gone to Home Depot with a mission in mind.  The cross would be placed out side my front door with 9” spikes partially nailed at opposite ends of the crossbeam.  A sign posted above the cross draped with a crimson sash read “It wasn’t the nails that held Him there.  It was His love for You.” Guests would be invited to hit one of the spikes with a hammer as a visual and auditory reminder, “Christ took the nails for me”.   

Predictably the guests began to arrive and each person was surprised to be greeted with a hug and a hammer.  Still all understood the powerful imagery and were sobered at the invitation to hit the spike.  The sound of the hammer driving the nail was powerful and sent chills down my spine each time I heard it.  It was the sound of Love’s sacrifice.

What must it have been like that day at Calvary?  Christ did not simply hear the spikes, He felt them.  Every blow.  In His wrists.  Through His ankles.  These were not little nails but large spikes ruthlessly driven deep into His flesh.  Did He grimace?  Did He cry aloud?  Did He weep?  Whatever His response to this torture, we know 2000 years later the nails were not what held Jesus to the Cross.  As a mob at His feet mocked Him to save Himself, Jesus could have called legions of angels to His rescue.  But love made a choice that day, a choice to hang there.  Love chose to endure the agony.  Love chose to die for the sin of mankind.  Love chose to pay a price man could never afford, to give a gift man would never deserve. 

He endured the suffering that should have been ours. Isaiah 53:4

Praise be to God that Calvary was not the end.  As I celebrated Easter Sunday with friends and family today, we gave thanks for the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and we rejoiced in His Resurrection.  Because He lives we have hope for this journey.  Beyond that, Christ’s victory over the final enemy…death…offers us the promise of eternal life with Him in heaven.

“God raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” Acts 2:24

CNN reports that the path that Christians have been retracing on Good Fridays in Jerusalem is not the route Jesus took on the way to his crucifixion.  Christians believe that Jesus took the path along the “Via Dolorosa (“the Way of Suffering”) to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christians believe he was crucified.”  Israeli archaeologist, Shimon Gibson, believes  that route is wrong.

Traditionally it is believed that the trial took place at the Antonia Fortress, outside the Temple Mount, near Lion’s Gate. But Gibson believes the trial was actually conducted in an area just outside what is now the western wall of the Old City.

“You have a courtyard and a pavement and a rocky outcrop on one side,” he says of the site.  Watch more about Gibson’s claim »

“In the Gospel of John, you have a description of the trial taking place at the Lithostratus, Greek for pavement, at a place called Gabata, which is the word for an ancient hillock or a rocky outcrop, and this is what we have here.”

So if the trial was outside the Old City, as Gibson believes, and not in the Antonia Fortress, then the traditional Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus took to his crucifixion, is wrong.

The new route begins in a “nondescript” parking lot.  Something tells  me that Christians will be sticking with tradition, especially when no one will ever know for sure anyway.  At some point you have to take it on faith and realize that it is more the belief in what happen, rather than what actually happened.

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