We are not done yet with the current war in Lebanon and clear signs of the next war have become very apparent, and from a city seldom in the news. Nazareth is an old city in Israel's Galilee.
It has a population of roughly 60,000 Arabs, with less than 35% of them of the Christian faith. Nazareth is not located right below the Lebanese border, and it is not in the West Bank or any other disputed territory. Nazareth is located between Haifa and Tiberias.
Nazareth has managed to remain under the radar for the greater part of Israel's modern conflicts, Intifadas and violent clashes. Nazareth, in all truthfulness, is not even mentioned in the Bible (in the "Old Testament", that is). It is not mentioned in the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha, not even in early rabbinic literature. In the Bible, 12 towns and 6 villages are mentioned as part of Zebulon's territory, 45 cities in the area are mentioned by Josephus (37 CE-100 CE), and 63 towns of the Galilee are mentioned in the Talmud; yet, Nazareth is not mentioned once.
Nazareth became known through the New Testament (compiled 300 years after Jesus), which suggests that Jesus' parents, Joseph and Mary, were residents of the town. Nazareth, according to the New Testament, is where Jesus grew up. Prior to that, it was the site of the Annunciation, when one of God's angels, in Christian tradition, told Mary that she would mother Jesus.
Nazareth, whether historically fictitious or real, became a Christian holy city. However, it has been overrun with Muslims, who have turned a new page for this mystical city.
Nazareth has become the key to understanding what Israel's next war will be like. And the bright clue came about when two children playing in the street were killed by a direct hit of a Katyusha rocket propelled by the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah. Mahmoud, 7, and his 3-year-old brother Rabia were playing soccer when the rocket hit.
Sheikh Abu El-Walid Ghazalain stood by the lifeless bodies of these two young children and said to the press: "Israel has killed these two." The Hizbullah had been pounding Israel with rockets for two weeks, causing deaths, injuries and enormous destruction, but this sheikh, the spiritual leader of Nazareth's Arabs, blamed Israel for a war they did not start. "Israel could have avoided this," said Abed Taluzi, 45, the father of the two children. "It could have been solved through negotiations." The children's aunt, who was standing nearby when they were struck, said: "I would sacrifice my life for (Hizbullah leader) Hassan Nasrallah. I hope victory will come to the Arab nations."
These are all Israeli citizens. These are the Arabs the Left claims like Israel and deserve our respect.
Mathew Wagner from the Jerusalem Post quoted Sheikh Abdel Salam Manasra, another spiritual leader of Nazereth and Secretary General of the High Sufi Council in the Holy Land, as he equated Zionism with idolatry.
"Just as it says in the Bible that there were Jews who worshipped Ba'al [a type of ancient idolatry], so too there are Jews today who are Zionists," said Manasra. "You are not a Jew as you should be if you [support] Zionism," he added. "Zionism is a bad thing." Manasra rejected the idea that Israel was a Jewish state or a homeland for the Jews.
These are the "model" citizens of coexistence.
Another model Israeli citizen of Nazareth was in the news shortly thereafter. Professor Razi Peleach, a geography teacher, was arrested in the north of Israel while taking pictures of military installations and spying for the Hizbullah. Professor Peleach, a man of peace (sic), no doubt.
"The Arabs of the West Bank want and deserve their own country," says Peace Now. "But the Arabs that live inside Israel just want equality." Is that so? Is that what they want? Nazareth, a relatively quiet Arab Israeli city, is the key to understanding the Arab mentality. Is the key to understanding that Israel's future depends on us coming to terms with the truth that Arabs despise us, and the numbers of these Jew-haters are in the hundreds of thousands; they must be transferred out.
There are cities and villages where Jew-hatred runs rampant. There is Um Al-Fahm, Baqa Al-Gharabiye, Shfaram, Beit Jala, and many others where Israel's Left continues to scratch their heads trying to figure out what causes them to hate us so much. But then, the same insane leftists are quick to point out that there are also the "good Arabs".
"Look at the Arabs of Haifa, Nazareth, and Jaffa," they proudly say; and then, in one split moment, the true colors of the hateful Muslims surprise and shock these Israeli "intellectuals". How much more land can Israel cut off to get rid of the Jew-hating Muslims that are eating up our country? How close will the borders be? How will the Yossi Beilins, the Ehud Olmerts and the Shimon Pereses protect the tiny Tel Aviv state? The answer is: they won't. Most of the leftists that take on the Arab cause against Israel, that fill the positions in the Israeli media, justice system and political arena, will be flying out of Israel at the first sign of trouble.
These characters are not simply leftists, they are deniers. They deny all obvious truths. They deny God, they deny Arab hatred, and they deny the only logical solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict: a transfer of the Arab population out of the Holy Land. They say it is not pragmatic, not practical and not realistic. How realistic are the rockets that have turned over a million Israelis into refugees these past few weeks? How real are the body bags of our soldiers trying to clean up a mess that the leftist Ehud Barak created six years ago by running out of Lebanon without logic and with no strategy? How real is the Arab hatred, even that of the Israeli Arab "model" citizen?
Facing the truth is always the hardest approach. To shut your eyes and deny the truth is the deniers' way out.
The thing is, the truth always comes back to bite you.
It has a population of roughly 60,000 Arabs, with less than 35% of them of the Christian faith. Nazareth is not located right below the Lebanese border, and it is not in the West Bank or any other disputed territory. Nazareth is located between Haifa and Tiberias.
Nazareth has managed to remain under the radar for the greater part of Israel's modern conflicts, Intifadas and violent clashes. Nazareth, in all truthfulness, is not even mentioned in the Bible (in the "Old Testament", that is). It is not mentioned in the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha, not even in early rabbinic literature. In the Bible, 12 towns and 6 villages are mentioned as part of Zebulon's territory, 45 cities in the area are mentioned by Josephus (37 CE-100 CE), and 63 towns of the Galilee are mentioned in the Talmud; yet, Nazareth is not mentioned once.
Nazareth became known through the New Testament (compiled 300 years after Jesus), which suggests that Jesus' parents, Joseph and Mary, were residents of the town. Nazareth, according to the New Testament, is where Jesus grew up. Prior to that, it was the site of the Annunciation, when one of God's angels, in Christian tradition, told Mary that she would mother Jesus.
Nazareth, whether historically fictitious or real, became a Christian holy city. However, it has been overrun with Muslims, who have turned a new page for this mystical city.
Nazareth has become the key to understanding what Israel's next war will be like. And the bright clue came about when two children playing in the street were killed by a direct hit of a Katyusha rocket propelled by the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah. Mahmoud, 7, and his 3-year-old brother Rabia were playing soccer when the rocket hit.
Sheikh Abu El-Walid Ghazalain stood by the lifeless bodies of these two young children and said to the press: "Israel has killed these two." The Hizbullah had been pounding Israel with rockets for two weeks, causing deaths, injuries and enormous destruction, but this sheikh, the spiritual leader of Nazareth's Arabs, blamed Israel for a war they did not start. "Israel could have avoided this," said Abed Taluzi, 45, the father of the two children. "It could have been solved through negotiations." The children's aunt, who was standing nearby when they were struck, said: "I would sacrifice my life for (Hizbullah leader) Hassan Nasrallah. I hope victory will come to the Arab nations."
These are all Israeli citizens. These are the Arabs the Left claims like Israel and deserve our respect.
Mathew Wagner from the Jerusalem Post quoted Sheikh Abdel Salam Manasra, another spiritual leader of Nazereth and Secretary General of the High Sufi Council in the Holy Land, as he equated Zionism with idolatry.
"Just as it says in the Bible that there were Jews who worshipped Ba'al [a type of ancient idolatry], so too there are Jews today who are Zionists," said Manasra. "You are not a Jew as you should be if you [support] Zionism," he added. "Zionism is a bad thing." Manasra rejected the idea that Israel was a Jewish state or a homeland for the Jews.
These are the "model" citizens of coexistence.
Another model Israeli citizen of Nazareth was in the news shortly thereafter. Professor Razi Peleach, a geography teacher, was arrested in the north of Israel while taking pictures of military installations and spying for the Hizbullah. Professor Peleach, a man of peace (sic), no doubt.
"The Arabs of the West Bank want and deserve their own country," says Peace Now. "But the Arabs that live inside Israel just want equality." Is that so? Is that what they want? Nazareth, a relatively quiet Arab Israeli city, is the key to understanding the Arab mentality. Is the key to understanding that Israel's future depends on us coming to terms with the truth that Arabs despise us, and the numbers of these Jew-haters are in the hundreds of thousands; they must be transferred out.
There are cities and villages where Jew-hatred runs rampant. There is Um Al-Fahm, Baqa Al-Gharabiye, Shfaram, Beit Jala, and many others where Israel's Left continues to scratch their heads trying to figure out what causes them to hate us so much. But then, the same insane leftists are quick to point out that there are also the "good Arabs".
"Look at the Arabs of Haifa, Nazareth, and Jaffa," they proudly say; and then, in one split moment, the true colors of the hateful Muslims surprise and shock these Israeli "intellectuals". How much more land can Israel cut off to get rid of the Jew-hating Muslims that are eating up our country? How close will the borders be? How will the Yossi Beilins, the Ehud Olmerts and the Shimon Pereses protect the tiny Tel Aviv state? The answer is: they won't. Most of the leftists that take on the Arab cause against Israel, that fill the positions in the Israeli media, justice system and political arena, will be flying out of Israel at the first sign of trouble.
These characters are not simply leftists, they are deniers. They deny all obvious truths. They deny God, they deny Arab hatred, and they deny the only logical solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict: a transfer of the Arab population out of the Holy Land. They say it is not pragmatic, not practical and not realistic. How realistic are the rockets that have turned over a million Israelis into refugees these past few weeks? How real are the body bags of our soldiers trying to clean up a mess that the leftist Ehud Barak created six years ago by running out of Lebanon without logic and with no strategy? How real is the Arab hatred, even that of the Israeli Arab "model" citizen?
Facing the truth is always the hardest approach. To shut your eyes and deny the truth is the deniers' way out.
The thing is, the truth always comes back to bite you.