Radical Islam hits home

Elephants are among the world's most potentially dangerous animals, capable of killing any other land animal, from rhinoceros and lions to humans.

I visited a village [just] demolished by a herd of elephants. It looked like an earthquake had hit. 20-foot palm trees were uprooted. Villagers told us the herd stood patiently by while a single male wreaked all this destruction on his own. And they knew the reason why. The herd was making a new route and were not happy at finding the village in the way.

Elephants never forgive, either.

July 4, 2007

In the USA this is Independence Day. There is a rabid elephant crashing our parades and ready to explode with something worse than fireworks. It’s time to stop pretending that it isn’t there.

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17 days ago my brother’s oldest son was riding in a Humvee somewhere in Iraq. His name is David Schrauger. He’s 23 years old and in the U.S. Army. Riding with 3 other men, the Humvee hit an IED.

SPC David Schrauger, Pre-IED injuries

I heard about it here, in Jerusalem. Almost immediately after David was wounded he spoke with his dad by phone. He expressed a number of I-love-you messages.

For a long time information was sketchy. David had a spinal injury, two shattered arms, a damaged knee and shrapnel wounds from shoulders to toes. But his bruised lungs contracted pneumonia. Necessary surgeries were put on hold.

Doctors insisted his parents immediately fly to their son’s bedside in Frankfurt.

Cliff is David’s dad and one of my two brothers. We are close. Before Cliff left we prayed, begging G-d to spare David’s life, to restore his spirit and his heart, his body and his mind.

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During these ensuing days I have continued praying for my nephew. And I’ve thought a lot about that angry elephant’s intent: crush anyone outside its herd.

This dangerous behemoth isn’t George Bush, Tony Blair, Republicans or Democrats. True, they and others like them are big and sometimes bad.

But Bush didn’t blow up 4 young men riding in a Humvee, defending Iraqi citizens from terrorists. Blair didn’t bury the IED that has damaged my nephew for life. Imperfect as these men and others like them are, none of them planted that IED any more than they hijacked those jets on September 11, 2001.

I’m all for blame. But for heaven’s sake let’s put it where it belongs.

The unapologetic rogue is Radical Islam (RI). That’s the rabid mastodon stomping a path through our lands: a rampaging ideology that’s wooing wounded souls with promises of Paradise. And crushing anyone who won’t convert or at least submit.

“Now-now-now,” patronizes the starry host shining in the West’s night sky. “That mammoth and its Ice-Age herd are Over There, not Here. If we’ll get off their land and bring our soldiers home, they’ll leave us alone. After all, they’ve promised.”

Oh. Well. That sounds reasonable. But when I turn the TV off and shut down my computer prickly thoughts resuscitate unease. Remember President Carter’s 1978 Camp David Accords? It created a sovereign Palestinian Authority to rule in Gaza and West Bank territories. And persuaded Israel to withdraw from Sinai.

And 29 years ago it was all based on the same promise: Land for Peace. And such a peace hath this promise wrought. Just ask Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. Whoops, can’t; sorry about that. He was murdered with religious sanction by the EIJ.

(Shh, don’t tell, but today’s CEO of the EIJ is al-Zawahri: al-Qaeda’s Number Two; Bin Laden’s right-hand man.)

Hello? Read that "Shh" again!

For 30 years RI has promised. Its ivory incisors (one called Land, the other Peace) cut deals in two Oslo Accords. Then after Camp David’s Summit “failure” the rogue went on rampage. It was the 2nd Intifada against the State of Israel: indiscriminate suicidal murders that lasted several years. And on that 9/11 day RI celebrated, dancing in the streets.

The Promise works so well, why change it? Today’s RI continues offering Land For Peace. And we continue buying it.

“Here’s an idea,” susurrates Western Intelligentsia like a Miss Universe contestant. “Let’s just bounce-bounce-jiggle-wiggle ourselves out of the Middle East and the Jews out of ‘Palestine.’ Then we’ll have our greatest wish: world peace. Land-for-peace, land-for-peace, land-for-peace…”

Let’s pretend we executed Miss Universe’s plan. Uh-oh, what about members of the RI herd who have trekked West? Are they going to pack their trunks and go home?

Not likely. Just ask the British who are defusing car bombs. Or in the USA let's add this activity to our Independence Day. Check out the government report, Exposing Terrorists in America. Look at the property they own in your State! Check out the training compound nearest to your home!

RI rogues aren’t only There; they are Here.

Soldiers fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan—and in Israel’s IDF—are risking their lives protecting the West from a whole-herd-rampage in our lands. It is high time we thank them and help them all we can. Especially with our prayers.

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Over the past 17 days David has been moved from Baghdad to Frankfurt to Washington D.C. and finally settled at the Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. That’s where he will remain for some time to come. His badly damaged body is recovering, but the road ahead is long.

As it also is for his heart and mind. In spite of a resilient spirit, he is fighting flashbacks. And he's only just begun a pilgrimage of grief. David recently learned that one buddy riding in the Humvee did not survive his injuries.

SPC David Schrauger, Post-IED injuries, in San Antonio's
Brooke Army Medical
3851 Roger Brooke Dr., Rm 462, Bed 1
Fort Sam Huston, TX 78234-4501

For the complete story of David’s drama and updates on his status, click this paragraph. Scroll down the new page and click on David's photo. That will take you his blogsite. Yes, this is the easiest way to get from here to there.

IJS: Israel-Jerusalem Syndrome

June 25, 2007

“There’s something in Jerusalem that makes some 150 tourists a year lose their minds. Some think they’re Messiah or the devil--or Samson trying to knock down walls near the Western Wall. [Some believe] they must destroy a mosque or church. Others know where the Ark of the Covenant is hiding.”

(From Crazy about Jerusalem, YNetNews.com, 18 June 2007)

Broaden this phenomena and call it
IJS: Israel-Jerusalem Syndrome.

Three days ago Michael, an Israeli, said to me, “Whatever baggage people have, they bring it with them when they come here. Once in Israel all their quirks and problems are magnified 10 times. And when they arrive in Jerusalem it’s multiplied by another factor of 10. For many the breaking point is about a month when they simply have to leave.”

I am half-way through a month-long visit to Jerusalem; it is my second one this year. I know what Michael’s talking about. I see it in people I meet, especially non-Jewish tourists. And I feel its malice hunting me: confusion, distorted thoughts, and an extra-forceful pull from black-holes in my soul.

At the same time I have discovered Positive IJS: a passion to know and please the heart of G-d no matter what the cost. And mostly I have found it in the faces, words and conduct of Jewish people in their Promised Land: in citizens and visitors alike.

My first encounter with Positive IJS happens within 48 hours of arrival. While walking through the Old City I ask directions from two teenage girls. Turns out they are students at a Yeshiva for women near the Western Wall. And whoa, are they excited. Not about boys or parties or Paris Hilton. They’re bubbling with enthusiasm about Torah.

“We just graduated from high school,” they announce with Aussie accents. “We hated homework. Now here we are, studying for a year where we never have to take a test. But every day we can hardly wait to study Torah and how to live it!”

Two days later a friend and I are in the West Bank at a city called Bethel. Ramallah, capital city of the PLO and Yasser Arafat's metropolitan tomb, stands on a neighboring hill. In Bethel executives of an Israeli news organization warmly welcome us to the production heart of their English-division studios. “Everything we do,” they say, “is to please the heart of Hashem. And you are welcome to use anything we produce on your radio program.”

The director, Baruch, asks me to make a sample recording. Handing me a script, he turns on a mic. I read the copy cold. Later in the week it will be used on an Internet TV report: my voice interpreting a man speaking Hebrew. What fun, and what a hoot--because I don’t speak Hebrew. (Pictured here with Yishai Fleisher, Program Director of IsraelNationalRadio.com)

Another example of Positive IJS. It also happens in West Bank territory; this time in Hebron. For religiously observant Jews Hebron is the second-holiest city in the world. Because Hebron’s where Abraham paid cold cash for title to a plot of land where he buried his wife, Sarah. Later Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah were also laid to rest in The Cave of the Patriarchs.

80% of Hebron is “governed” by the PLO. Recently, like Gaza, it has become a killing zone for competing factions: Hamas versus Fatah, with countless innocents trapped in murderous crossfire. Call it Negative IJS with Extreme Prejudice.

Meanwhile in the 20% of Hebron governed by Israel there is a tiny minority of Jewish settlers raising their children under the din of gunfire and Islamic calls to worship 5 times every day. Their determination and success in making this place home is breathtaking. Call it Positive IJS with Extreme Chutzpah.

Where in the West are we hearing positive reports like these about Israel? Aren’t almost all mainstream voices condemning the entire nation? Repeatedly portraying her as an oppressive, genocidal, land-grabbing State? Even accusing her of committing a “holocaust” against duly elected terrorists who have publicly sworn to “wipe Israel off the map.”

But the nauseating lie that Israeli’s are today’s Nazis is winning the PR propaganda war. 21st century Thought Police have been so successful in their portrayal of Israel-The-Bully it has become an Orwellian thoughtcrime to say it isn't so. Call it Globally Negative IJS.

Western entities are declaring boycotts. The latest is a British academic lecturer's union that voted to boycott all Israeli universities and faculty members. Days later Britain's largest labor union voted to sanction all business dealings with Israeli companies. And so the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, shakes hands with reality in 2007. Wherever his departed spirit lives George Orwell must be proud.

In a world where day is called night and dark is called light, will no one stand up in our public squares and tell the truth?

Greg and I would like to try with This Week In Jerusalem. We have the content and the skills. But we don’t yet have the structure or the means. Should we set up our own entity or work beneath an existing one? Is it best to be a non-profit or for-profit corporation?

These are huge issues; every path is peppered with land mines. Sitting in Jerusalem today there isn’t any visible way to get from here to there; the obstacles are simply insurmountable. IJS taunts me with despair.

But G-d is greater than every human insurmountable. And though it's worldwide, he also taunts every evil strain of deadly IJS. So be it.