Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Mahmoud Ibrahim, 10, center, and other Palestinian boys survive by selling goods salvaged at a West Bank dump, near Hebron.

West Bank Boys Dig a Living From Settlers’ Trash - New York Times, September 2, 2007

Members of the Saint Benedict Center, which has been in a protracted dispute with many of its neighbors, include (clockwise from upper left) Brothers Maximilian Maria and Andre Marie, their superior Francis, and Sisters Marie Therese and Maria Philomena. Andre Marie, whose real name is Louis Villarrubia, condemns “the Jewish tendency to undermine public morals” — one of many reflections of the center’s anti-Semitism. Photography by Dave White

SPLCenter.org: Trouble in Paradise, summer, 2007

In 2004, SBC prior Louis Villarrubia, who goes by the name of Brother Andre Marie, put it like this: “If anti-Semitism means opposing the Jews on religious matters, opposing the Zionist state in Palestine (as St. Pius X did), or opposing the Jewish tendency to undermine public morals (widely acknowledged by Catholic writers before the present age of PC [political correctness]), then we could rightly be considered such.”

That same year, The Boston Globe quoted Brother Anthony Mary, whose real name is Douglas Bersaw, blaming the Jews for the murder of Christ and denying the World War II Holocaust: “There’s a lot of controversy among people who study the so-called Holocaust. There’s a misperception that Hitler had a position to kill all the Jews. It’s all a fraud. Six million people… it didn’t occur.”

In 2005, at a radical conference hosted by a group called St. Joseph’s Forum, Bersaw added that “the perpetual enemy of Christ is the Jewish nation” and said Jews should be dealt with using “blood and terror if it’s required.”

Today, Douglas Bersaw is Richmond’s town moderator.

Maryland state legislator declares: ‘No law created by man that is not in concert with God’s law can be any law at all.” Church and State, September 2007

On the Maryland conference’s final day, July 3, attendees at the Severn church were treated to a defiant rant from a Maryland state legislator. Del. Don Dwyer Jr. R-Anne Arundel kicked off his speech by alerting the gathering that he would not “speak in politically correct terms.”

He wasn’t kidding. The state lawmaker seemed to relish trashing secularists and progressive politicians, and he depicted an America awash in sin, while promoting his religious beliefs as superior to all others. Dwyer seemed to be really, really angry and, indeed, toward the end of his over-the-top lecture, he acknowledged that anger.

Dwyer groused about not being permitted to open House sessions with prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. He vowed that if he were ever allowed to give an invocation, he would do so his way, which means acknowledging Jesus….

“The law is what God says it is, first and foremost,” continued Dwyer, “The foundation of law. No law created by man that is not in concert with God’s law can be any law at all.”

Comment le monde a enterré la Palestine, par Alain Gresh, Le Monde diplomatique, juillet 2007)
Même M. Ehoud Olmert découvre soudain en M. Abbas un « partenaire » pour la paix. Sourds durant des années aux rapports accablants sur la situation de la Cisjordanie et de Gaza publiés par des institutions aussi différentes que la Banque mondiale, Amnesty International ou l’Organisation mondiale de la santé, la Maison Blanche et l’Union européenne se seraient-elles enfin sorties de leur profonde léthargie ?

Ce réveil subit a été suscité par la victoire sans appel du Hamas à Gaza. Pourtant, ni les Etats-Unis ni Israël n’avaient lésiné sur les moyens militaires donnés au Fatah pour l’emporter, autorisant à plusieurs reprises le passage d’armes destinées à la garde présidentielle comme à la Sécurité préventive (1). Rien n’y a fait. La désertion de la plupart des responsables militaires du Fatah (MM. Mohammed Dahlan, Rachid Abou Shabak, Samir Masharawi), qui ont préféré se terrer en Cisjordanie ou en Egypte plutôt que d’être aux côtés de leurs troupes, n’est qu’un des éléments d’explication d’une cuisante déroute. L’incapacité du Fatah à se réformer, à abandonner son statut de parti-Etat d’un Etat qui n’existe pas pour celui de force politique « normale » en est un autre : népotisme, corruption, clanisme continuent de gangrener l’organisation fondée par Yasser Arafat.

A l’est de Jérusalem, l’entrelacs de routes aménagées par les Israéliens compromet la viabilité d’un futur Etat palestinien, le Monde, le 1er septembre 2007
D’après un rapport de l’organisation pacifiste israélienne La Paix maintenant, publié lundi 27 août, 315 millions de shekels (55 millions d’euros) ont été investis cette année dans la construction de six routes destinées à relier au territoire israélien des colonies situées à l’est de la “barrière de séparation”, donc promises à la démolition dans la logique d’un accord de paix. L’un des chantiers prévoit notamment de connecter à Jérusalem quatre implantations du sud de Bethléem : Tekoa, Asfar, Maale Amos et Nokdim, lieu de résidence d’Avigdor Lieberman, le ministre des affaires stratégiques, chef du parti d’extrême droite Israël Beitenou. “Cette route doit lui permettre de rejoindre son bureau d’une seule traite, sans croiser le moindre indigène“, raille l’avocat israélien Dany Seideman, fondateur de l’association Ir Amim, qui travaille à une meilleure entente entre Juifs et Arabes dans la Ville sainte.

Mazower reviews Sacred Causes, washingtonpost.com
Burleigh is nothing if not opinionated. He despises “sneering secularists” but is a considerable sneerer himself. Targets include “humanist radical eggheads,” “tenured radicals” who take a “vampiric interest in female students,” the “horde of bodgers and shysters” in the English construction trades and “dingy Irish theme pubs” with their “relentless, mindless gabbling.”

As the book moves on, jibes and bile clog the writing, and one has the sinking feeling of being cornered by the pub bore, ranting on about 60s swingers, the threat to European civilization, terrorists and trade unions — pretty much everything and everyone except the pope, Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher.