Witnesses Claim Miracle Man Saved Car Crash Victim With Prayer
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Constantemente em Oração
Uma compilação
A oração é a base da vida cristã, a fonte da nossa experiência com Jesus, enquanto Senhor ressuscitado. No entanto, poucos cristãos sabem orar com profundidade! Para a maioria, a oração representa pouco mais do que ficar no banco da igreja por uma hora ou algo assim todo domingo de manhã, ou recitar mecanicamente orações memorizadas na infância. Nossa vida de oração e, consequentemente nossa vida como um todo, se mantêm em um nÃvel muito superficial.
Mas essa abordagem à vida de oração não tem relação alguma com o cristianismo ensinado por São Paulo, que admoesta os cristãos do primeiro século em Tessalônica a “orar sem cessar”.[1] E na sua carta para Roma, o apóstolo instrui a comunidade cristã a “perseverar na oração”.[2] Ele não só esperava oração incessante por parte dos cristãos pelos quais era responsável, mas praticava o que pregava. “Agradecemos incessantemente a Deus”,[3] escreve na carta à comunidade da fé em Tessalônica. E conforta Timóteo, seu “filho na fé”[4], dizendo: “... ao lembrar-me constantemente de você noite e dia em minhas orações.”[5]
Na verdade, sempre que Paulo se refere à oração em suas epÃstolas, duas palavras em grego são usadas repetidamente: pantote, que significa sempre, e adialeptos, que quer dizer constantemente ou incessantemente. A oração, portanto, não é apenas um aspecto que podemos ignorar para dar prioridade a algo que consideramos mais importante, mas engloba todos os aspectos da vida. A oração, como a respiração, é essencial para a vida.
Esse fato levanta questões importantes. Como esperar que estejamos constantemente em oração? Afinal de contas, somos muito ocupados. Temos trabalho, filhos, cônjuge, escola, obrigações que consomem muito tempo. Como vamos fazer para incluir mais tempo de oração nesta vida já tão atarefada? Essas e muitas outras perguntas semelhantes que poderÃamos fazer criam uma falsa dicotomia para o cristão. Orar não significa pensar em Deus em detrimento das outras obrigações, ou passar tempo com Deus em prejuÃzo do convÃvio com familiares e amigos. Pelo contrário, é pensar e viver cada situação na presença de Deus. Paul Evdokimov observou: “Nossa vida, cada gesto, cada ação e até mesmo cada sorriso devem se tornar um hino ou um ato de adoração, uma oferta, uma oração. Devemos nos imbuir do espÃrito da oração e sermos uma personificação dela.” Foi isso que São Paulo quis dizer ao escrever para os corÃntios: “Assim, quer vocês comam, bebam ou façam qualquer outra coisa, façam tudo para a glória de Deus.”[6] —Padre Steven Peter Tsichlis[7]
*
Uma das melhores maneiras de fazer bom uso dos nossos pensamentos é transformando-os em orações. Pense em tudo o que passa pela sua cabeça durante o dia, todos os seus pensamentos deliberados e os aleatórios. Agora avalie e decida aonde estão chegando e o impacto que estão causando. Você está transformando seus pensamentos em orações que podem ter surtir efeitos positivos?
Você está transformando seus pensamentos em orações que podem ajudar alguém? Ou está fazendo vista grossa aos pedidos de ajuda que chegam a você? Você está acionando o poder celestial pela oração? Está direcionando seus pensamentos para que possam influenciar positivamente as situações?
Tudo o que a BÃblia diz sobre oração mostra claramente que Deus deseja que aprendamos a converter pensamentos em orações, interceder pelas pessoas e situações em vez de apenas pensar nelas. Pensamentos transformados em orações podem materializar bênçãos, a intervenção, a proteção, a força e o poder de Deus.
Podemos transformar pensamentos em orações a qualquer hora e em qualquer lugar. Por exemplo, se estiver em casa cozinhando e pensar nas crianças na escola, pode orar para que tenham um bom dia. Se estiver trabalhando e começar a pensar em um projeto difÃcil que precisará encarar, pode transformar esse pensamento em oração pedindo ao Senhor por forças para realizar a tarefa. Ou talvez passe por um acidente a caminho de casa. Nesse caso pode orar pelas possÃveis vÃtimas, pela sua segurança e dos que estiverem trafegando pelo mesmo local.
A maneira como direcionamos nossos pensamentos faz a diferença. Nossa vida ficará mais simples e progrediremos mais conforme aprendermos a transformar nossos pensamentos em oração e os enviarmos para um plano onde poderão ser úteis. —Maria Fontaine
*
A oração não é apenas o ato, é uma atitude — uma atitude de dependência, de depender de Deus. —Arthur W. Pink
*
Pelo fato de a oração representar a relação de alguém com um Deus pessoal, assume as caracterÃsticas da vida de quem ora. Sabemos que uma conversa não se dá com base em regras. É uma interação livre e espontânea que se ajusta à ocasião. É o que torna uma conversa algo pessoal, vivo e ativo. Quanto mais pessoal, mais real se torna a comunicação, a troca entre os envolvidos e o intercâmbio de ideias entre as pessoas.
O mesmo ocorre com a oração. Deve ser livre, espontânea, um convÃvio vital entre a criação e o Criador, uma troca entre os dois. Quanto mais a oração se torna a expressão livre, desimpedida e natural dos nossos anseios, mais real será. —Ole Hallesby
*
Senhor Deus, Tu és o meu tudo. Vida da minha vida e EspÃrito do meu espÃrito. Tem misericórdia de mim e inunda-me com Teu EspÃrito Santo e amor.
Não peço bênçãos, apenas o Teu EspÃrito, Tu que concedes bênçãos e vida. Não peço o mundo com sua pompa e glória, nem o Céu, mas preciso de Ti, pois onde Tu estás, ali se faz o Céu.
Só Tu podes satisfazer meu coração e me trazer plenitude. Tu és o criador e criaste este coração para Ti e para nada nem ninguém mais. Por isso, este coração só pode encontrar descanso em Ti, só em Ti, Pai que criastes este anelo por paz. Tira deste coração tudo o que se opõe a Ti, e vem habitar e dominar em mim. Amém. —Oração de Sadhu Sundar Singh
*
Olhem para o Senhor e para a sua força; busquem sempre a sua face. —1 Crônicas 16:11[8]
*
A oração é o fio de ouro que entremeia a linda peça da sua vida, dando vida e brilho ao quadro. Um pouco de ouro aqui e ali realça a peça. Mas desejo que você transforme essa linha dourada em uma linha ininterrupta entremeando a peça toda — cada parte de sua vida e do trabalho que realiza para Mim. Mantenha-se firme em oração e o Meu poder fará reluzir toda a obra das suas mãos. —Jesus falando em profecia
Publicado no Âncora em fevereiro 2014. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.
A oração é a base da vida cristã, a fonte da nossa experiência com Jesus, enquanto Senhor ressuscitado. No entanto, poucos cristãos sabem orar com profundidade! Para a maioria, a oração representa pouco mais do que ficar no banco da igreja por uma hora ou algo assim todo domingo de manhã, ou recitar mecanicamente orações memorizadas na infância. Nossa vida de oração e, consequentemente nossa vida como um todo, se mantêm em um nÃvel muito superficial.
Mas essa abordagem à vida de oração não tem relação alguma com o cristianismo ensinado por São Paulo, que admoesta os cristãos do primeiro século em Tessalônica a “orar sem cessar”.[1] E na sua carta para Roma, o apóstolo instrui a comunidade cristã a “perseverar na oração”.[2] Ele não só esperava oração incessante por parte dos cristãos pelos quais era responsável, mas praticava o que pregava. “Agradecemos incessantemente a Deus”,[3] escreve na carta à comunidade da fé em Tessalônica. E conforta Timóteo, seu “filho na fé”[4], dizendo: “... ao lembrar-me constantemente de você noite e dia em minhas orações.”[5]
Na verdade, sempre que Paulo se refere à oração em suas epÃstolas, duas palavras em grego são usadas repetidamente: pantote, que significa sempre, e adialeptos, que quer dizer constantemente ou incessantemente. A oração, portanto, não é apenas um aspecto que podemos ignorar para dar prioridade a algo que consideramos mais importante, mas engloba todos os aspectos da vida. A oração, como a respiração, é essencial para a vida.
Esse fato levanta questões importantes. Como esperar que estejamos constantemente em oração? Afinal de contas, somos muito ocupados. Temos trabalho, filhos, cônjuge, escola, obrigações que consomem muito tempo. Como vamos fazer para incluir mais tempo de oração nesta vida já tão atarefada? Essas e muitas outras perguntas semelhantes que poderÃamos fazer criam uma falsa dicotomia para o cristão. Orar não significa pensar em Deus em detrimento das outras obrigações, ou passar tempo com Deus em prejuÃzo do convÃvio com familiares e amigos. Pelo contrário, é pensar e viver cada situação na presença de Deus. Paul Evdokimov observou: “Nossa vida, cada gesto, cada ação e até mesmo cada sorriso devem se tornar um hino ou um ato de adoração, uma oferta, uma oração. Devemos nos imbuir do espÃrito da oração e sermos uma personificação dela.” Foi isso que São Paulo quis dizer ao escrever para os corÃntios: “Assim, quer vocês comam, bebam ou façam qualquer outra coisa, façam tudo para a glória de Deus.”[6] —Padre Steven Peter Tsichlis[7]
*
Uma das melhores maneiras de fazer bom uso dos nossos pensamentos é transformando-os em orações. Pense em tudo o que passa pela sua cabeça durante o dia, todos os seus pensamentos deliberados e os aleatórios. Agora avalie e decida aonde estão chegando e o impacto que estão causando. Você está transformando seus pensamentos em orações que podem ter surtir efeitos positivos?
Você está transformando seus pensamentos em orações que podem ajudar alguém? Ou está fazendo vista grossa aos pedidos de ajuda que chegam a você? Você está acionando o poder celestial pela oração? Está direcionando seus pensamentos para que possam influenciar positivamente as situações?
Tudo o que a BÃblia diz sobre oração mostra claramente que Deus deseja que aprendamos a converter pensamentos em orações, interceder pelas pessoas e situações em vez de apenas pensar nelas. Pensamentos transformados em orações podem materializar bênçãos, a intervenção, a proteção, a força e o poder de Deus.
Podemos transformar pensamentos em orações a qualquer hora e em qualquer lugar. Por exemplo, se estiver em casa cozinhando e pensar nas crianças na escola, pode orar para que tenham um bom dia. Se estiver trabalhando e começar a pensar em um projeto difÃcil que precisará encarar, pode transformar esse pensamento em oração pedindo ao Senhor por forças para realizar a tarefa. Ou talvez passe por um acidente a caminho de casa. Nesse caso pode orar pelas possÃveis vÃtimas, pela sua segurança e dos que estiverem trafegando pelo mesmo local.
A maneira como direcionamos nossos pensamentos faz a diferença. Nossa vida ficará mais simples e progrediremos mais conforme aprendermos a transformar nossos pensamentos em oração e os enviarmos para um plano onde poderão ser úteis. —Maria Fontaine
*
A oração não é apenas o ato, é uma atitude — uma atitude de dependência, de depender de Deus. —Arthur W. Pink
*
Pelo fato de a oração representar a relação de alguém com um Deus pessoal, assume as caracterÃsticas da vida de quem ora. Sabemos que uma conversa não se dá com base em regras. É uma interação livre e espontânea que se ajusta à ocasião. É o que torna uma conversa algo pessoal, vivo e ativo. Quanto mais pessoal, mais real se torna a comunicação, a troca entre os envolvidos e o intercâmbio de ideias entre as pessoas.
O mesmo ocorre com a oração. Deve ser livre, espontânea, um convÃvio vital entre a criação e o Criador, uma troca entre os dois. Quanto mais a oração se torna a expressão livre, desimpedida e natural dos nossos anseios, mais real será. —Ole Hallesby
*
Senhor Deus, Tu és o meu tudo. Vida da minha vida e EspÃrito do meu espÃrito. Tem misericórdia de mim e inunda-me com Teu EspÃrito Santo e amor.
Não peço bênçãos, apenas o Teu EspÃrito, Tu que concedes bênçãos e vida. Não peço o mundo com sua pompa e glória, nem o Céu, mas preciso de Ti, pois onde Tu estás, ali se faz o Céu.
Só Tu podes satisfazer meu coração e me trazer plenitude. Tu és o criador e criaste este coração para Ti e para nada nem ninguém mais. Por isso, este coração só pode encontrar descanso em Ti, só em Ti, Pai que criastes este anelo por paz. Tira deste coração tudo o que se opõe a Ti, e vem habitar e dominar em mim. Amém. —Oração de Sadhu Sundar Singh
*
Olhem para o Senhor e para a sua força; busquem sempre a sua face. —1 Crônicas 16:11[8]
*
A oração é o fio de ouro que entremeia a linda peça da sua vida, dando vida e brilho ao quadro. Um pouco de ouro aqui e ali realça a peça. Mas desejo que você transforme essa linha dourada em uma linha ininterrupta entremeando a peça toda — cada parte de sua vida e do trabalho que realiza para Mim. Mantenha-se firme em oração e o Meu poder fará reluzir toda a obra das suas mãos. —Jesus falando em profecia
Publicado no Âncora em fevereiro 2014. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.
[1] 1 Tessalonicenses 5:17.
[2] Romanos 12:12.
[3] 1 Tessalonicenses 2:13.
[4] Veja 1 Timóteo 1:2.
[5] 2 Timóteo 1:3.
[6] 1 CorÃntios 10:31.
[7] Pe. Steven Peter Tsichlis em The Jesus Prayer, diocese da Igreja Ortodoxa Grega da América.
[8] GW.
German Stance on Russia Complicates Long-Cultivated Tie as G-7 Meets
By Alison Smale, NY Times, June 5, 2015
BERLIN–When seven world leaders meet this weekend in Germany, their agenda will include maintaining pressure on Russia over Ukraine, a policy on which the host country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has proved a reliable ally for President Obama.
Yet for all that Ms. Merkel has done to use her nation’s growing influence on the world stage to counter Russian aggression, Germany’s role in seeking to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia–who has been excluded from the gathering for a second year–has left the host country feeling rankled and a bit mournful about the rupture of a relationship it had spent decades cultivating.
“Everything that we tried to build with Russia in the last 25 years is slipping away, and is in danger,” said Gernot Erler, the government’s envoy for Russia and much of the old Soviet bloc, who has been visiting the region since his student days in the 1960s.
The sense of regret at Germany’s inability to bring Russia into the European fold and to build a relationship that would transcend their bloody history stems from economic and ideological ties dating well back into the era when Germany was divided in two.
In 1970, Willy Brandt, the first West German chancellor to visit post-1945 Poland, atoned for his country’s Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe by kneeling at the Warsaw ghetto. Since then, the easing of tensions known as Ostpolitik has guided Germany in its dealings with Russia and its bloc.
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the two countries drew as close as perhaps they had ever been in centuries of trading and warring.
With his forays into Ukraine, Mr. Putin altered the dynamic. The choice put him at odds with the West and highlighted, particularly in the Baltic States and Poland, lingering Cold War fears about Russia’s true aims. In Germany, even veteran proponents of close ties were troubled by bloodshed they could not have imagined more than a year ago in a Europe they thought had left war behind.
Ms. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany and whose conservative worldview holds no romanticism about the Soviet Union, nonetheless worked hard over many years to make a diplomatic partner out of Mr. Putin. They still speak frequently, though their relationship has grown more strained in recent months.
But the disappointment over how things turned out is felt particularly acutely by her center-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who were once led by Mr. Brandt. A former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who is a personal friend of Mr. Putin’s and works for an affiliate of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, went so far as to say it was a mistake to turn the Group of 8 into the Group of 7 by excluding Mr. Putin from the talks.
Helmut Schmidt, who as chancellor in 1975 helped start the Group of 7, was also sympathetic to Mr. Putin.
“I see clearly that Putin is offended by the fact that, in his view, the West does not take him seriously enough,” Mr. Schmidt, 96, told the news agency DPA. Mr. Schmidt said the Russian leader was fulfilling what he saw as his duty to restore the Russian state after its “Wild West” years under Boris N. Yeltsin.
The business community, and a majority of Germans, have largely supported Berlin’s tough stance with Russia, particularly after a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine.
But the leaders of the two main German institutions for doing business with Russia appealed to Ms. Merkel to let Mr. Putin back into the Group of 7, arguing that Russia was needed to get peace in Ukraine, to deal with chaos in the Middle East or to forge an agreement to address climate change.
Some warned that the West risked losing Russia to deals with China, India or the Middle East.
“Russia has an alternative to Europe,” Mr. Schröder said. “That is not true the other way around.” Last year, Russian-German business declined 18 percent over all.
BERLIN–When seven world leaders meet this weekend in Germany, their agenda will include maintaining pressure on Russia over Ukraine, a policy on which the host country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has proved a reliable ally for President Obama.
Yet for all that Ms. Merkel has done to use her nation’s growing influence on the world stage to counter Russian aggression, Germany’s role in seeking to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia–who has been excluded from the gathering for a second year–has left the host country feeling rankled and a bit mournful about the rupture of a relationship it had spent decades cultivating.
“Everything that we tried to build with Russia in the last 25 years is slipping away, and is in danger,” said Gernot Erler, the government’s envoy for Russia and much of the old Soviet bloc, who has been visiting the region since his student days in the 1960s.
The sense of regret at Germany’s inability to bring Russia into the European fold and to build a relationship that would transcend their bloody history stems from economic and ideological ties dating well back into the era when Germany was divided in two.
In 1970, Willy Brandt, the first West German chancellor to visit post-1945 Poland, atoned for his country’s Nazi crimes in Eastern Europe by kneeling at the Warsaw ghetto. Since then, the easing of tensions known as Ostpolitik has guided Germany in its dealings with Russia and its bloc.
After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the two countries drew as close as perhaps they had ever been in centuries of trading and warring.
With his forays into Ukraine, Mr. Putin altered the dynamic. The choice put him at odds with the West and highlighted, particularly in the Baltic States and Poland, lingering Cold War fears about Russia’s true aims. In Germany, even veteran proponents of close ties were troubled by bloodshed they could not have imagined more than a year ago in a Europe they thought had left war behind.
Ms. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany and whose conservative worldview holds no romanticism about the Soviet Union, nonetheless worked hard over many years to make a diplomatic partner out of Mr. Putin. They still speak frequently, though their relationship has grown more strained in recent months.
But the disappointment over how things turned out is felt particularly acutely by her center-left coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who were once led by Mr. Brandt. A former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who is a personal friend of Mr. Putin’s and works for an affiliate of the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, went so far as to say it was a mistake to turn the Group of 8 into the Group of 7 by excluding Mr. Putin from the talks.
Helmut Schmidt, who as chancellor in 1975 helped start the Group of 7, was also sympathetic to Mr. Putin.
“I see clearly that Putin is offended by the fact that, in his view, the West does not take him seriously enough,” Mr. Schmidt, 96, told the news agency DPA. Mr. Schmidt said the Russian leader was fulfilling what he saw as his duty to restore the Russian state after its “Wild West” years under Boris N. Yeltsin.
The business community, and a majority of Germans, have largely supported Berlin’s tough stance with Russia, particularly after a Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine.
But the leaders of the two main German institutions for doing business with Russia appealed to Ms. Merkel to let Mr. Putin back into the Group of 7, arguing that Russia was needed to get peace in Ukraine, to deal with chaos in the Middle East or to forge an agreement to address climate change.
Some warned that the West risked losing Russia to deals with China, India or the Middle East.
“Russia has an alternative to Europe,” Mr. Schröder said. “That is not true the other way around.” Last year, Russian-German business declined 18 percent over all.
‘Stubborn’ 94-year-old volunteer won’t quit
By Paige Turner, Baptist Press, June 04, 2015
THAILAND (BP)–”This is Jay,” Lorena Mayhugh said as she introduced the Thai-Chinese man next to her to a colleague at the Baptist Student Center in Bangkok, Thailand. “He’s Dr. Jay now,” she added with a big smile.
A few minutes later another colleague walked by and the 94-year-old English teacher quickly asked if he’d met her former student.
Lorena Mayhugh has invested in the lives of thousands of students during her 10 years as a volunteer English teacher at the Baptist Student Center. Jay Juntasa,* however, has become like a grandson to her, and she like a grandma to him.
Like any grandma, she’s a proud one. She can’t keep the smile away when Jay talks about the business he started making facial and skin creams.
“He’s trying to get rid of my wrinkles,” she joked.
Lorena, a public school teacher in the U.S. for about 33 years, is a sharp-thinking storyteller who tosses out funny quips with ease and loves sharing personal anecdotes. She’s also a pretty good “encourager,” of sorts.
To persuade Jay to learn to play guitar for worship during the small group Bible study she had encouraged him to start, she made a deal: If he learned to play guitar, then she’d read his doctoral dissertation.
She read it, all 100 pages, with the help of a magnifying glass.
Most Sundays after church Lorena goes to lunch with Jay and his mom–her Thai family, she calls them–at a Chinese restaurant.
“She sacrifices her time,” Jay said. “She taught me to rely on God and she guides me.”
She’s still teaching me, the 44-year-old said.
Lorena met Jay several years ago in one of her classes at the Baptist Student Center. From university students to government officials to senior adults, anyone can enroll in the classes.
Lorena casts her net even wider at “conversation corners” once or twice a week. Fighting off mosquitoes and enduring brutally hot evening temperatures, she sits at a table outside the center and waits for students. They can drop in any time during a three-hour period for casual conversation practice.
“You can stay awhile,” she said to a middle-aged woman and pointed to an empty chair next to her. The woman sat and Lorena continued conversation corner by telling how God created the world.
The students practiced new vocabulary from the story, and, to help with their listening skills, Lorena asked questions about the story.
On that night Lorena also told the story of Moses, which several students heard for the first time. Most of her students are not Christians. For Lorena, telling Bible stories is not only a good way to help them practice English–it’s an open door to the Gospel.
“The Bible is about people. They make mistakes. But they turn to God and ask for forgiveness,” Lorena told her students after she finished the Moses story.
Bible stories aren’t the only way Lorena gets to the Gospel. She’s a natural at weaving stories from decades of life experience into her English lessons.
She tells how God provided for her family during the Great Depression and how they were able to send milk and chickens home with the pastors who traveled through town. As a young girl, Lorena was drawn to the pastors’ late-night stories; she was already a storyteller in the making.
“I would sit up and listen to these pastors talk to my dad as long as I could keep my eyes open,” she recalled.
Students like Keng Meesang,* who call the 8 million-plus city of Bangkok home, are especially partial to the Missouri native’s narratives about growing up on a farm.
Keng’s favorite Lorena stories are the ones about milking cows, raising chickens and picking wildflowers in the forest on the way into town.
Keng, who now teaches English classes of his own at the Baptist Student Center, learned a lot from Lorena about being a teacher.
“I am learning from my students,” he said. “Teaching is learning.”
“He is right on that,” Lorena chimed in.
Lorena delights in answering questions from students, especially the ever-popular and expected inquiry about her age.
Not far behind is this question: Why would she leave her son, a marine biologist who likes taking his mom whale watching on his boat, and her grandchildren in California to live in Thailand?
Lorena tells them she’s a Christian, and God told her to come to Thailand.
About a year and a half ago she packed up her dorm-sized apartment on the center’s campus and headed home to California, thinking it was finally time to be with family and friends.
It didn’t take long to realize she was already home in Thailand. She returned to her classroom ministry of loving Thai people and sharing the Gospel.
Although some wonder how Lorena still does ministry at her age, slowing down was never really an option.
“I’d be bored,” she said without hesitation.
“She’s so stubborn,” Jay teased about his former teacher’s never-ending drive to remain a woman on-the-go.
Even during a vacation with Jay and his mother to China, Lorena insisted, much to Jay’s consternation, on climbing the steps at the Great Wall of China.
While she may have a stubborn streak and a desire to be independent, something more keeps Lorena going–a fortitude grounded in her relationship with Jesus and her passion for others to know God.
“You can do a lot in a classroom just teaching English,” she said. “Students know if you really like them. They see if a person is kind. And that goes a long way.”
*Name changed.
THAILAND (BP)–”This is Jay,” Lorena Mayhugh said as she introduced the Thai-Chinese man next to her to a colleague at the Baptist Student Center in Bangkok, Thailand. “He’s Dr. Jay now,” she added with a big smile.
A few minutes later another colleague walked by and the 94-year-old English teacher quickly asked if he’d met her former student.
Lorena Mayhugh has invested in the lives of thousands of students during her 10 years as a volunteer English teacher at the Baptist Student Center. Jay Juntasa,* however, has become like a grandson to her, and she like a grandma to him.
Like any grandma, she’s a proud one. She can’t keep the smile away when Jay talks about the business he started making facial and skin creams.
“He’s trying to get rid of my wrinkles,” she joked.
Lorena, a public school teacher in the U.S. for about 33 years, is a sharp-thinking storyteller who tosses out funny quips with ease and loves sharing personal anecdotes. She’s also a pretty good “encourager,” of sorts.
To persuade Jay to learn to play guitar for worship during the small group Bible study she had encouraged him to start, she made a deal: If he learned to play guitar, then she’d read his doctoral dissertation.
She read it, all 100 pages, with the help of a magnifying glass.
Most Sundays after church Lorena goes to lunch with Jay and his mom–her Thai family, she calls them–at a Chinese restaurant.
“She sacrifices her time,” Jay said. “She taught me to rely on God and she guides me.”
She’s still teaching me, the 44-year-old said.
Lorena met Jay several years ago in one of her classes at the Baptist Student Center. From university students to government officials to senior adults, anyone can enroll in the classes.
Lorena casts her net even wider at “conversation corners” once or twice a week. Fighting off mosquitoes and enduring brutally hot evening temperatures, she sits at a table outside the center and waits for students. They can drop in any time during a three-hour period for casual conversation practice.
“You can stay awhile,” she said to a middle-aged woman and pointed to an empty chair next to her. The woman sat and Lorena continued conversation corner by telling how God created the world.
The students practiced new vocabulary from the story, and, to help with their listening skills, Lorena asked questions about the story.
On that night Lorena also told the story of Moses, which several students heard for the first time. Most of her students are not Christians. For Lorena, telling Bible stories is not only a good way to help them practice English–it’s an open door to the Gospel.
“The Bible is about people. They make mistakes. But they turn to God and ask for forgiveness,” Lorena told her students after she finished the Moses story.
Bible stories aren’t the only way Lorena gets to the Gospel. She’s a natural at weaving stories from decades of life experience into her English lessons.
She tells how God provided for her family during the Great Depression and how they were able to send milk and chickens home with the pastors who traveled through town. As a young girl, Lorena was drawn to the pastors’ late-night stories; she was already a storyteller in the making.
“I would sit up and listen to these pastors talk to my dad as long as I could keep my eyes open,” she recalled.
Students like Keng Meesang,* who call the 8 million-plus city of Bangkok home, are especially partial to the Missouri native’s narratives about growing up on a farm.
Keng’s favorite Lorena stories are the ones about milking cows, raising chickens and picking wildflowers in the forest on the way into town.
Keng, who now teaches English classes of his own at the Baptist Student Center, learned a lot from Lorena about being a teacher.
“I am learning from my students,” he said. “Teaching is learning.”
“He is right on that,” Lorena chimed in.
Lorena delights in answering questions from students, especially the ever-popular and expected inquiry about her age.
Not far behind is this question: Why would she leave her son, a marine biologist who likes taking his mom whale watching on his boat, and her grandchildren in California to live in Thailand?
Lorena tells them she’s a Christian, and God told her to come to Thailand.
About a year and a half ago she packed up her dorm-sized apartment on the center’s campus and headed home to California, thinking it was finally time to be with family and friends.
It didn’t take long to realize she was already home in Thailand. She returned to her classroom ministry of loving Thai people and sharing the Gospel.
Although some wonder how Lorena still does ministry at her age, slowing down was never really an option.
“I’d be bored,” she said without hesitation.
“She’s so stubborn,” Jay teased about his former teacher’s never-ending drive to remain a woman on-the-go.
Even during a vacation with Jay and his mother to China, Lorena insisted, much to Jay’s consternation, on climbing the steps at the Great Wall of China.
While she may have a stubborn streak and a desire to be independent, something more keeps Lorena going–a fortitude grounded in her relationship with Jesus and her passion for others to know God.
“You can do a lot in a classroom just teaching English,” she said. “Students know if you really like them. They see if a person is kind. And that goes a long way.”
*Name changed.
My Advice to Teenagers Who Want Money
By James Altucher, ETR, June 5, 2015
She said “No!” to me and slammed the door. She was on my paper route.
I asked out every girl on my paper route. All three of them. I liked having a captive audience. I would hand them the paper and say, “Want to go to a movie?”
They all said “No.”
Well, one girl said, “Yes,” but then the next day her brother told me she really meant “No.”
I made about $2 an hour on my paper route. It took me about four hours a day and then another five or six hours on the weekends collecting money.
One time, delivering papers, a guy drove by and yelled, “One day you’re going to rule the world!”
I guess because delivering papers somehow showed work ethic. I worked hard, but hated it. I had no life but delivering papers.
All of this is to say: My daughter is considering taking an $8 an hour job.
I said to her, instead of that: why don’t you go to Lynda or CodeAcademy and learn basic WordPress skills. You can make blogs for stores.
It would take you one day to learn the basics.
Then go from door to door to every store in town.
Say for $1000, plus $50 / month maintenance, you’ll make their blog or basic website for them and help them upkeep it. If they require a “shopping cart” then charge them $2500.
She frowned a little and said, “They will say ‘No.’ They don’t need it.”
She doesn’t want anyone to say “No” to her. I can relate. I don’t like it when people say No to me either.
I said, “Okay, we have about 40 stores on this street. Let’s say only two say yes. That’s $2000. It will take you 10 hours to do the work.
That’s $200 an hour instead of $8 an hour.
And then the $100 a month you make in maintenance will take you about two hours a month.
Here’s another idea, I said. To be on Wikipedia, you need about 10 media references.
We were in a restaurant. I pointed at the wall. “How many reviews does this restaurant have?”
She was digging in. “I don’t know?” She looked away.
“More than 10,” I said. “So you can make a Wikipedia page for them. Charge $200. Maintain it for $10 a month.”
Or maybe every store needs a Facebook page? One in seven Americans are on Facebook right now this second.
Restaurants can use their page to get local customers to “Like” them in exchange for coupons and future messages.
Again: $500 for setup and $20 per store per month to maintain.
She didn’t want to do it. It’s not a skills issue. Anyone can get the skills by studying one or two online courses for about a day or two.
She does have skills at drawing logos, editing short videos, and some basic design skills she can improve with a course or two.
On fiverr or freelancer.com, she can do an infographic for $20-50 and it would take her 30 minutes.
Here’s my guess. She wants to work at a hang out place, so she can work while seeing her friends.
Ok, I get that. I would love to work at the same time I hang out with my friends.
But if she started doing what I suggest, here’s what she would learn: She Would Create Something Out of Nothing
Most jobs don’t let you create something out of nothing.
You just move some stuff over to some other stuff and get paid.
The best things in the world are when you create something out of nothing. Like: I created her (in part) out of nothing.
I admit I had help with that.
Seriously: if you think you don’t have computer skills, take three online courses.
Now you are in the top 1% of the world in computer skills and can charge for those skills.
Rejection: The most amazing skill to learn. I’ve put in my 10,000 hours of being rejected. I am a master of rejection.
Every time you get rejected you learn a little more about yourself, about how to approach people, about building strength, about getting out of your comfort zone.
Sales: She’ll learn to look at a situation and find what the urgent problem is, what a useful solution can be, and how she can uniquely solve it.
Your New Best Customers Are Your Old Customers: Once she starts making money she’ll do what most people do–she’ll want to make more money. There’s only two ways people who make money make more money.
* Get new customers.
* Offer your old customers new services.
“2.” is the most reliable technique people have used since 3000 BC. Which would force her to learn even more skills and solve bigger problems for her customers.
Maybe someone wants a shopping cart integrated with a database of products.
That’s too much for my little girl to handle.
She can outsource this to India for $100 and pocket $900. Not bad.
Ultimately, customers become friends, they become testimonials, they pay your bills, they refer other customers to you.
Customers are a good, fun thing and some of them end up changing your life.
I hope my daughter will do one of these things but I don’t think she will.
I hope my daughter realizes the average multimillionaire has seven different sources of income. A job is only one source.
Some people say to me, “How can I convince so-and-so to ‘choose themselves’” or “Not go to college!” or “Be more creative!” or “Quit their job” or …” .
You can’t. Nobody can. And I guess that’s the whole point.
I couldn’t convince Beth Mosesman on my paper route to date me. Even though my braces were glistening with passion. My greasy hair was reflecting the sun. My paper route was reeking of luxury.
I can’t convince my daughter to make money the way I want her to.
The best I can be is a good example. Sometimes I’ve been a bad example, but all I have to work with is “now.”
Right now, she’s a teenager, so she doesn’t really listen to me. Teenagers have to bond with their peers and reject their parents.
But she still watches what I do.
She said “No!” to me and slammed the door. She was on my paper route.
I asked out every girl on my paper route. All three of them. I liked having a captive audience. I would hand them the paper and say, “Want to go to a movie?”
They all said “No.”
Well, one girl said, “Yes,” but then the next day her brother told me she really meant “No.”
I made about $2 an hour on my paper route. It took me about four hours a day and then another five or six hours on the weekends collecting money.
One time, delivering papers, a guy drove by and yelled, “One day you’re going to rule the world!”
I guess because delivering papers somehow showed work ethic. I worked hard, but hated it. I had no life but delivering papers.
All of this is to say: My daughter is considering taking an $8 an hour job.
I said to her, instead of that: why don’t you go to Lynda or CodeAcademy and learn basic WordPress skills. You can make blogs for stores.
It would take you one day to learn the basics.
Then go from door to door to every store in town.
Say for $1000, plus $50 / month maintenance, you’ll make their blog or basic website for them and help them upkeep it. If they require a “shopping cart” then charge them $2500.
She frowned a little and said, “They will say ‘No.’ They don’t need it.”
She doesn’t want anyone to say “No” to her. I can relate. I don’t like it when people say No to me either.
I said, “Okay, we have about 40 stores on this street. Let’s say only two say yes. That’s $2000. It will take you 10 hours to do the work.
That’s $200 an hour instead of $8 an hour.
And then the $100 a month you make in maintenance will take you about two hours a month.
Here’s another idea, I said. To be on Wikipedia, you need about 10 media references.
We were in a restaurant. I pointed at the wall. “How many reviews does this restaurant have?”
She was digging in. “I don’t know?” She looked away.
“More than 10,” I said. “So you can make a Wikipedia page for them. Charge $200. Maintain it for $10 a month.”
Or maybe every store needs a Facebook page? One in seven Americans are on Facebook right now this second.
Restaurants can use their page to get local customers to “Like” them in exchange for coupons and future messages.
Again: $500 for setup and $20 per store per month to maintain.
She didn’t want to do it. It’s not a skills issue. Anyone can get the skills by studying one or two online courses for about a day or two.
She does have skills at drawing logos, editing short videos, and some basic design skills she can improve with a course or two.
On fiverr or freelancer.com, she can do an infographic for $20-50 and it would take her 30 minutes.
Here’s my guess. She wants to work at a hang out place, so she can work while seeing her friends.
Ok, I get that. I would love to work at the same time I hang out with my friends.
But if she started doing what I suggest, here’s what she would learn: She Would Create Something Out of Nothing
Most jobs don’t let you create something out of nothing.
You just move some stuff over to some other stuff and get paid.
The best things in the world are when you create something out of nothing. Like: I created her (in part) out of nothing.
I admit I had help with that.
Seriously: if you think you don’t have computer skills, take three online courses.
Now you are in the top 1% of the world in computer skills and can charge for those skills.
Rejection: The most amazing skill to learn. I’ve put in my 10,000 hours of being rejected. I am a master of rejection.
Every time you get rejected you learn a little more about yourself, about how to approach people, about building strength, about getting out of your comfort zone.
Sales: She’ll learn to look at a situation and find what the urgent problem is, what a useful solution can be, and how she can uniquely solve it.
Your New Best Customers Are Your Old Customers: Once she starts making money she’ll do what most people do–she’ll want to make more money. There’s only two ways people who make money make more money.
* Get new customers.
* Offer your old customers new services.
“2.” is the most reliable technique people have used since 3000 BC. Which would force her to learn even more skills and solve bigger problems for her customers.
Maybe someone wants a shopping cart integrated with a database of products.
That’s too much for my little girl to handle.
She can outsource this to India for $100 and pocket $900. Not bad.
Ultimately, customers become friends, they become testimonials, they pay your bills, they refer other customers to you.
Customers are a good, fun thing and some of them end up changing your life.
I hope my daughter will do one of these things but I don’t think she will.
I hope my daughter realizes the average multimillionaire has seven different sources of income. A job is only one source.
Some people say to me, “How can I convince so-and-so to ‘choose themselves’” or “Not go to college!” or “Be more creative!” or “Quit their job” or …” .
You can’t. Nobody can. And I guess that’s the whole point.
I couldn’t convince Beth Mosesman on my paper route to date me. Even though my braces were glistening with passion. My greasy hair was reflecting the sun. My paper route was reeking of luxury.
I can’t convince my daughter to make money the way I want her to.
The best I can be is a good example. Sometimes I’ve been a bad example, but all I have to work with is “now.”
Right now, she’s a teenager, so she doesn’t really listen to me. Teenagers have to bond with their peers and reject their parents.
But she still watches what I do.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Global Warfare in the New World Order
https://www.corbettreport.com/global-warfare-in-the-new-world-order-grtv-video/?
Corbett • 06/07/2015
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
CLICK HERE for mp3 audio of this interview.
Cyberwar. Economic war. Covert war. Theatre war. Proxy war. Nuclear war. Today we talk to Michel Chossudovsky about the development of the global multi-front long war against humanity in the emerging New World Order and the propagandists who make it possible.
TRANSCRIPT:
JC – We are talking once again to Michel Chossudovsky of GlobalResearch.ca. Michel it’s been a while since we had you on the program. The last time we were talking about your new book: The Globalization of War: America’s Long War Against Humanity which, of course, talks about the long war that America and its allies of the NATO empire have been and are currently waging against the population of the world. That long war is quickly developing into a total war with multiple fronts that are really encircling the globe at this point. What can you tell us about this picture of global warfare and how it’s developing?
MC – Well, first of all global warfare is now being waged in all major regions of the world in various forms. In some cases, theatre wars as in Yemin. In Syria and Iraq it’s a US sponsored insurgency, the so-called Islamic State. In Latin America it’s a process of destabilization of national economies, but also militarization, the sending in of Marines to Central America. In Southeast Asia and the Far East it’s the so-called Pivot to Asia. It’s the situation of provocation, largely directed against China. In Ukraine, on Russia’s border, its acts of provocation directed against the Russian Federation and the conquest, essentially, of new frontiers for the global economy. In Africa its US sponsored insurgency, the destabilization of national economies and the battle for oil. Largely, we are dealing with very powerful corporate actors which control and overshadow the governments. If we wish to give it some kind of structure we’re talking about, of course, the oil companies, the big Anglo-American oil companies–Wall Street which is involved in financial destabilization, what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex which are: the large defense contractors, the mercenary companies, the intelligence and security corporate apparatus that are linked to the US Military and to NATO as well as to media conglomerates which are there serving the process of war propaganda, upholding the corporate agenda. Then, you also have bio-tech conglomerates, big pharma. One dimension of this global war is destruction and demise of the agricultural cycle, the fact that when you introduce genetically modified seeds into a region such as Sub-Saharan Africa you not only destroy agriculture but you destroy bio-diversity and you undermine the livelihood of the entire region. That is happening in countries like India. It’s happening throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and it is part of that global agenda. Global warfare is not limited to military interventions. It uses covert operations. It also is geared toward destabilizing sovereign governments through so-called colored revolutions, you-know the installation of proxy regimes which will obey orders and so on and so forth. It’s a very complex process and we have to connect, in a sense, all the different dimensions of this devastating process which is destroying countries, transforming sovereign nations into territories, opening space for corporations, impoverishing world populations, and that impoverishment is not the consequence of the scarcity of resources. It is the result of manipulation and the destruction of economic and social institutions.
JC – Well, you paint a very vivid and concise picture of the total carnage and warfare that is encircling the globe in a number of different aspects. And you, I think rightly, identify it as part of the corporate government collusion, the fascistic collusion, which is at the heart of this empire of chaos that is reigning around the globe. I guess the obvious question then is “what is the next stage of this global warfare?” Does it develop into hot warfare, in the traditional sense or will it remain on an economic/covert operations level?
MC- Well, I think that, in a sense, the military planners have all options on the table, so to speak, to quote Hillary Clinton. They are involved in covert operations and regime change, the destabilization of national economies and economic sanctions. But they are also contemplating the use of high-tech weapons systems including nuclear war. I say nuclear war is not only targeted toward Russian and China using the arsenal of the Cold War era, in other words the thermonuclear weapons, but it is also directed against non-nuclear states using the so-called tactical nuclear weapons. But then there are other systems. There are other areas of intervention. We know that the USAF has command over what is called “environmental modification” techniques or weather warfare. It’s a controversial subject but it’s very well documented that the US Military can modify the weather and trigger environmental catastrophes. They even use the term, and I quote, “owing the weather for military use”. Then you have all the areas of intervention. You have biological warfare, chemical warfare and of course you have the whole area of cyber-warfare, the destabilization of countries communications systems and so on in the realm of high-tech communications. And then another area of warfare is propaganda. It’s turning realities upside down. It’s presenting America as the protagonist of democracy and inciting people to endorse a so-called anti-terrorist agenda when it is known and documented that these terrorists organization, including Al Qaeda and more recently ISIS (the Islamic State) are creatures of US intelligence. So we are now in a situation where we support a global war on terrorism, including sectors of the progressive left who say, well we are against war but we support the war on terrorism. It’s a non-sequester. Within Western countries there is also an internal war that is ongoing. It’s a war of the governments and the corporations against their citizens, namely through the anti-terrorist legislation where you can arrest people, just on suspicion you-know because they are alleged terrorists and so on. That trend now is evolving towards a situation of a police state environment which affects the fundamental rights of citizens. And, that is happening in many countries in the West. Then, with regard to war within Western countries, you have the imposition of these deadly austerity measures. We see the situation in Greece. But it’s not only in Greece but it’s in countries like Spain and Italy, not to mention Iceland years back. That, in a sense, is a form of internal warfare. It’s based on debt conditionality. It’s the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms, something that has been applied in third-world countries from the beginning of the 1980’s but which is now being applied in most Western countries leading to the demise of social programs, the destruction of employment, the creation of mass unemployment, the removal of all social safety nets and ultimately we are evolving at the national and global level from a situation of poverty to despair. People, particularly if we take countries like India where we see a whole range of suicides in the rural areas which are largely attributable to the crisis of agriculture and the imposition of genetically modified seeds where people commit suicide. In Africa, we see humanitarian disasters which are, so to speak, beyond poverty. We are not dealing with global poverty which was something I researched in the 1990’s. We’re dealing with despair, with the destruction of livelihood, the destruction of family life, deaths resulting from warfare, but also the deaths resulting from the process of the engineered destruction of economic activity where poor people no longer have the right to be poor. They’re marginalized and excluded. Simultaneously, we see, when looking at the realm of economics, we see the emergence of this upper-end luxury goods economy which is geared toward a small segment of the population. So there is increased polarization, social polarization taking place everywhere. You won’t see, if you are traveling in Southeast Asia, you won’t see the poor people. You’ll see avenues of hotel and condominiums and so on. So in a sense what is happening is a restructuring of the fabric of national societies where the hope of actually acceding to the status of an employee or worker within a factory may be a dream for many people who are simply marginalized. And that is a situation even happening in countries like Spain or Greece where up to 40% of the labor forces are unemployed.
JC – Well, we see very much that war on the poorest of the poor, even in the heartland of the empire itself with many cities trying to make feeding the homeless a crime of sorts in the United States. So, we see this being waged and more aggressively. Can we see any counter-balances toward globalization of war?
MC- Well, there are some very significant developments if we look at the situation that is in Greece or Spain where seemingly progressive governments have emerged. But I should caution in that regard because these seemingly progressive governments are often hijacked by corporate foundations which are funding them. It’s the same thing with regards to NGOs. They ultimately are caving into the demands of the creditors and the large financial institutions. I think what has happened in the course of the last 20-30 years is that the whole fabric of, particularly, Western society where you had trade unions, civil society organizations and governments that were putting forth a progressive social democracy agenda— this scenario, this landscape has been totally modified. The resistance to this corporate agenda—we’re talking about global capitalism—is no longer there. It’s fragmented. It’s co-opted. The trade union leaders go to Dubos and mingle with the operations, the corporate leaders so that through the process of co-optation we see a fragmentation of civil society into different areas—environmentalists on the one hand, anti-war on the other, women’s rights. Ultimately emerging from that is a mosaic of resistance rather than an organized structure which will challenge this project. Again, we are dealing with a military agenda. We are dealing with an economic agenda which is supported by the military agenda. We’re dealing with a process of destabilization of livelihood, so to speak. It’s the reproduction of real life that is at stake. I think what is extremely dangerous in this situation is that those who decide, particularly with regard to the use of what we might describe as WMDs including nuclear weapons, they believe their own propaganda. There is a whole current within the US Military. We’re talking about nuclear doctrine to the effect that nuclear weapons are “harmless to the civilian population”. And that refers to the tactical nuclear weapons, the mini-nukes. There are other areas where propaganda seems to take over the people who decide. And sometimes those people mean well. But they think by doing some things they are going to improve the livelihood of the world population. And so that when decision makers believe in the use of nuclear weapons as means to bring peace to the world, well we are in a very, very dangerous situation. Having consulted military documents I can that this is true. They say, well we have to use war as a peace making undertaking, as a means to instill democracy. They also say that nuclear weapons might be the avenue, or a certain type of nuclear weapon. I should warn people, although this is a very complex subject, that back in 2002 the US Senate cleared the use of tactical nuclear weapons to be used in the conventional war theatre. The whole notion that the Commander and Chief, namely POTUS could actually give the green light has been scrapped. These tactical nuclear weapons are part of what they call the military tool box. They can be used even by a 3-Star General in the region, or war region, and they are part of the arsenal of conventional warfare. All those dimensions, the economic, social and military dimensions coalesce and are sustained by an extensive apparatus of propaganda—I’m referring the mainstream media and the corporate media—which sustains the lies and ultimately controls what people think. This, I would say, is an inquisitorial environment. It’s much more devastating than the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was also based on a big lie and it lasted for 300-400 years. But we are dealing with a media apparatus which turns realities upside down, presents the Western quest and military intervention as a peace making undertaking, which lies with regard to the casualties of war, which presents the war criminals as protagonists of human rights and so on and so forth. That, in itself, is the pinnacle of the system. Without the mainstream media and war propaganda this NWO agenda doesn’t have a leg to stand on. In other words, without these media lies, the military agenda and the economic agenda would collapse like a deck of cards. And that is why it is absolutely fundamental that within the realm of independent media and alternative media we wage a war against the mainstream media. In other words, it’s a war of ideas. It is an obligation on our part to support the truth and to use truth as a means of a weapon to undermine the legitimacy of this global economic and military agenda which is destroying humanity. It is global war. It is total war and it is destruction. And, it has a logic. It’s part of global capitalism. But, at this stage it is not a struggle against socialism. It is a struggle against national capitalism. In other words, it’s the global capital elites, mainly Anglo-American, dominated by Wall Street and City of London, the large financial centers against competing capitalist powers which, we might name them, Russian and China. China is not a communist country. China is a capitalist country, in fact, a very advanced capitalist country. And so is Iran. So, essentially what this war involves is world domination. It’s the establishment of a global economic and political system whereby countries worldwide would be subordinate to these global corporations and where national sovereignty under national capitalism would be undermined. The trade and investment agreements which have been negotiated behind closed doors are part of this agenda. In effect, they are the end-game of this agenda whereby global corporations undermine and destroy national and regional corporations. In other words, bankruptcy of the entire landscape and impose a global economic agenda throughout the world.
JC – Well, the battle between oligarchs for global control, I think, is nothing new to human history but the technologies that are available to accomplish that goal, I think, really do make this a much more important and decisive battle than it has ever been before. So, that is exactly and precisely that in the alternative media we do battle against these forces.
Corbett • 06/07/2015
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
CLICK HERE for mp3 audio of this interview.
Cyberwar. Economic war. Covert war. Theatre war. Proxy war. Nuclear war. Today we talk to Michel Chossudovsky about the development of the global multi-front long war against humanity in the emerging New World Order and the propagandists who make it possible.
TRANSCRIPT:
JC – We are talking once again to Michel Chossudovsky of GlobalResearch.ca. Michel it’s been a while since we had you on the program. The last time we were talking about your new book: The Globalization of War: America’s Long War Against Humanity which, of course, talks about the long war that America and its allies of the NATO empire have been and are currently waging against the population of the world. That long war is quickly developing into a total war with multiple fronts that are really encircling the globe at this point. What can you tell us about this picture of global warfare and how it’s developing?
MC – Well, first of all global warfare is now being waged in all major regions of the world in various forms. In some cases, theatre wars as in Yemin. In Syria and Iraq it’s a US sponsored insurgency, the so-called Islamic State. In Latin America it’s a process of destabilization of national economies, but also militarization, the sending in of Marines to Central America. In Southeast Asia and the Far East it’s the so-called Pivot to Asia. It’s the situation of provocation, largely directed against China. In Ukraine, on Russia’s border, its acts of provocation directed against the Russian Federation and the conquest, essentially, of new frontiers for the global economy. In Africa its US sponsored insurgency, the destabilization of national economies and the battle for oil. Largely, we are dealing with very powerful corporate actors which control and overshadow the governments. If we wish to give it some kind of structure we’re talking about, of course, the oil companies, the big Anglo-American oil companies–Wall Street which is involved in financial destabilization, what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex which are: the large defense contractors, the mercenary companies, the intelligence and security corporate apparatus that are linked to the US Military and to NATO as well as to media conglomerates which are there serving the process of war propaganda, upholding the corporate agenda. Then, you also have bio-tech conglomerates, big pharma. One dimension of this global war is destruction and demise of the agricultural cycle, the fact that when you introduce genetically modified seeds into a region such as Sub-Saharan Africa you not only destroy agriculture but you destroy bio-diversity and you undermine the livelihood of the entire region. That is happening in countries like India. It’s happening throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and it is part of that global agenda. Global warfare is not limited to military interventions. It uses covert operations. It also is geared toward destabilizing sovereign governments through so-called colored revolutions, you-know the installation of proxy regimes which will obey orders and so on and so forth. It’s a very complex process and we have to connect, in a sense, all the different dimensions of this devastating process which is destroying countries, transforming sovereign nations into territories, opening space for corporations, impoverishing world populations, and that impoverishment is not the consequence of the scarcity of resources. It is the result of manipulation and the destruction of economic and social institutions.
JC – Well, you paint a very vivid and concise picture of the total carnage and warfare that is encircling the globe in a number of different aspects. And you, I think rightly, identify it as part of the corporate government collusion, the fascistic collusion, which is at the heart of this empire of chaos that is reigning around the globe. I guess the obvious question then is “what is the next stage of this global warfare?” Does it develop into hot warfare, in the traditional sense or will it remain on an economic/covert operations level?
MC- Well, I think that, in a sense, the military planners have all options on the table, so to speak, to quote Hillary Clinton. They are involved in covert operations and regime change, the destabilization of national economies and economic sanctions. But they are also contemplating the use of high-tech weapons systems including nuclear war. I say nuclear war is not only targeted toward Russian and China using the arsenal of the Cold War era, in other words the thermonuclear weapons, but it is also directed against non-nuclear states using the so-called tactical nuclear weapons. But then there are other systems. There are other areas of intervention. We know that the USAF has command over what is called “environmental modification” techniques or weather warfare. It’s a controversial subject but it’s very well documented that the US Military can modify the weather and trigger environmental catastrophes. They even use the term, and I quote, “owing the weather for military use”. Then you have all the areas of intervention. You have biological warfare, chemical warfare and of course you have the whole area of cyber-warfare, the destabilization of countries communications systems and so on in the realm of high-tech communications. And then another area of warfare is propaganda. It’s turning realities upside down. It’s presenting America as the protagonist of democracy and inciting people to endorse a so-called anti-terrorist agenda when it is known and documented that these terrorists organization, including Al Qaeda and more recently ISIS (the Islamic State) are creatures of US intelligence. So we are now in a situation where we support a global war on terrorism, including sectors of the progressive left who say, well we are against war but we support the war on terrorism. It’s a non-sequester. Within Western countries there is also an internal war that is ongoing. It’s a war of the governments and the corporations against their citizens, namely through the anti-terrorist legislation where you can arrest people, just on suspicion you-know because they are alleged terrorists and so on. That trend now is evolving towards a situation of a police state environment which affects the fundamental rights of citizens. And, that is happening in many countries in the West. Then, with regard to war within Western countries, you have the imposition of these deadly austerity measures. We see the situation in Greece. But it’s not only in Greece but it’s in countries like Spain and Italy, not to mention Iceland years back. That, in a sense, is a form of internal warfare. It’s based on debt conditionality. It’s the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms, something that has been applied in third-world countries from the beginning of the 1980’s but which is now being applied in most Western countries leading to the demise of social programs, the destruction of employment, the creation of mass unemployment, the removal of all social safety nets and ultimately we are evolving at the national and global level from a situation of poverty to despair. People, particularly if we take countries like India where we see a whole range of suicides in the rural areas which are largely attributable to the crisis of agriculture and the imposition of genetically modified seeds where people commit suicide. In Africa, we see humanitarian disasters which are, so to speak, beyond poverty. We are not dealing with global poverty which was something I researched in the 1990’s. We’re dealing with despair, with the destruction of livelihood, the destruction of family life, deaths resulting from warfare, but also the deaths resulting from the process of the engineered destruction of economic activity where poor people no longer have the right to be poor. They’re marginalized and excluded. Simultaneously, we see, when looking at the realm of economics, we see the emergence of this upper-end luxury goods economy which is geared toward a small segment of the population. So there is increased polarization, social polarization taking place everywhere. You won’t see, if you are traveling in Southeast Asia, you won’t see the poor people. You’ll see avenues of hotel and condominiums and so on. So in a sense what is happening is a restructuring of the fabric of national societies where the hope of actually acceding to the status of an employee or worker within a factory may be a dream for many people who are simply marginalized. And that is a situation even happening in countries like Spain or Greece where up to 40% of the labor forces are unemployed.
JC – Well, we see very much that war on the poorest of the poor, even in the heartland of the empire itself with many cities trying to make feeding the homeless a crime of sorts in the United States. So, we see this being waged and more aggressively. Can we see any counter-balances toward globalization of war?
MC- Well, there are some very significant developments if we look at the situation that is in Greece or Spain where seemingly progressive governments have emerged. But I should caution in that regard because these seemingly progressive governments are often hijacked by corporate foundations which are funding them. It’s the same thing with regards to NGOs. They ultimately are caving into the demands of the creditors and the large financial institutions. I think what has happened in the course of the last 20-30 years is that the whole fabric of, particularly, Western society where you had trade unions, civil society organizations and governments that were putting forth a progressive social democracy agenda— this scenario, this landscape has been totally modified. The resistance to this corporate agenda—we’re talking about global capitalism—is no longer there. It’s fragmented. It’s co-opted. The trade union leaders go to Dubos and mingle with the operations, the corporate leaders so that through the process of co-optation we see a fragmentation of civil society into different areas—environmentalists on the one hand, anti-war on the other, women’s rights. Ultimately emerging from that is a mosaic of resistance rather than an organized structure which will challenge this project. Again, we are dealing with a military agenda. We are dealing with an economic agenda which is supported by the military agenda. We’re dealing with a process of destabilization of livelihood, so to speak. It’s the reproduction of real life that is at stake. I think what is extremely dangerous in this situation is that those who decide, particularly with regard to the use of what we might describe as WMDs including nuclear weapons, they believe their own propaganda. There is a whole current within the US Military. We’re talking about nuclear doctrine to the effect that nuclear weapons are “harmless to the civilian population”. And that refers to the tactical nuclear weapons, the mini-nukes. There are other areas where propaganda seems to take over the people who decide. And sometimes those people mean well. But they think by doing some things they are going to improve the livelihood of the world population. And so that when decision makers believe in the use of nuclear weapons as means to bring peace to the world, well we are in a very, very dangerous situation. Having consulted military documents I can that this is true. They say, well we have to use war as a peace making undertaking, as a means to instill democracy. They also say that nuclear weapons might be the avenue, or a certain type of nuclear weapon. I should warn people, although this is a very complex subject, that back in 2002 the US Senate cleared the use of tactical nuclear weapons to be used in the conventional war theatre. The whole notion that the Commander and Chief, namely POTUS could actually give the green light has been scrapped. These tactical nuclear weapons are part of what they call the military tool box. They can be used even by a 3-Star General in the region, or war region, and they are part of the arsenal of conventional warfare. All those dimensions, the economic, social and military dimensions coalesce and are sustained by an extensive apparatus of propaganda—I’m referring the mainstream media and the corporate media—which sustains the lies and ultimately controls what people think. This, I would say, is an inquisitorial environment. It’s much more devastating than the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was also based on a big lie and it lasted for 300-400 years. But we are dealing with a media apparatus which turns realities upside down, presents the Western quest and military intervention as a peace making undertaking, which lies with regard to the casualties of war, which presents the war criminals as protagonists of human rights and so on and so forth. That, in itself, is the pinnacle of the system. Without the mainstream media and war propaganda this NWO agenda doesn’t have a leg to stand on. In other words, without these media lies, the military agenda and the economic agenda would collapse like a deck of cards. And that is why it is absolutely fundamental that within the realm of independent media and alternative media we wage a war against the mainstream media. In other words, it’s a war of ideas. It is an obligation on our part to support the truth and to use truth as a means of a weapon to undermine the legitimacy of this global economic and military agenda which is destroying humanity. It is global war. It is total war and it is destruction. And, it has a logic. It’s part of global capitalism. But, at this stage it is not a struggle against socialism. It is a struggle against national capitalism. In other words, it’s the global capital elites, mainly Anglo-American, dominated by Wall Street and City of London, the large financial centers against competing capitalist powers which, we might name them, Russian and China. China is not a communist country. China is a capitalist country, in fact, a very advanced capitalist country. And so is Iran. So, essentially what this war involves is world domination. It’s the establishment of a global economic and political system whereby countries worldwide would be subordinate to these global corporations and where national sovereignty under national capitalism would be undermined. The trade and investment agreements which have been negotiated behind closed doors are part of this agenda. In effect, they are the end-game of this agenda whereby global corporations undermine and destroy national and regional corporations. In other words, bankruptcy of the entire landscape and impose a global economic agenda throughout the world.
JC – Well, the battle between oligarchs for global control, I think, is nothing new to human history but the technologies that are available to accomplish that goal, I think, really do make this a much more important and decisive battle than it has ever been before. So, that is exactly and precisely that in the alternative media we do battle against these forces.
Prayers Inflame Tensions Over Jerusalem Holy Site
Reuters, June 4, 2015
JERUSALEM–Every morning at 7.30, Murad Hamad sets up a flimsy plastic chair in the shade of the Moroccans’ Gate entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and waits for the tourists to arrive.
Hamad’s job is to help keep the peace at one of the world’s holiest places, a site sacred to both Muslims, who call the compound the Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because of the building that once stood there. The guard is not much concerned with the sun-creamed tourists. But he pays close attention to the groups of devout Jews and Israeli nationalists who try most days to enter the site and pray.
Those groups are at the centre of a creeping shift in Jerusalem: After 900 years, Jews are chipping away at Muslims’ exclusive control of the site, the third holiest in Islam. The shift, which has provoked violence in the past, threatens to open a dangerous new front in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, adding religious enmity to a political struggle in the very heart of the disputed city.
Al-Aqsa has banned non-Muslim prayer since 1187. Like Muslims across the region, Hamad and the other 70 or so guards employed by the Waqf, the Islamic trust that oversees the mosque, see Jews praying there as a serious insult.
The risk of confrontation remained small as long as the groups pushing for the right to pray remained at the fringes of Judaism. A decade or so ago, a handful of Jewish faithful would enter the compound each day. Attempts at prayer were rare. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared in 2007 that Jews should not visit the site because it was too holy.
But in recent years the radical fringe has become increasingly mainstream, drawing in nationalist, secular supporters and backing from high-profile politicians. A hundred or more Jews can arrive at the mosque some days, in large, organised groups. Last year Yossi Farenti, then Jerusalem District Police Chief, told the Israeli parliament’s Internal Affairs committee that the number of Jews visiting the site had increased 27 percent in the first half of 2014. “There is indeed a worsening in the past few years as to what happens at Temple Mount,” he said. “This is a fact. No one disagrees. You can see it in the numbers.”
A growing number of rabbis have contradicted the Chief Rabbinate, saying visits should be encouraged precisely because the Temple Mount is divine. Jewish visitors mumble prayers under their breath and walk barefoot on the ancient stones in a sign of obeisance.
A range of groups, some of them well financed by the Jewish diaspora, are campaigning for open access to Temple Mount, which Jews believe is the point from where God created the world and was the site of the second Jewish temple until 70 AD. They want the right for Jews to pray alongside Muslims. Some even want to build a new temple and have crafted sacred gold-and-silver vessels and hand-stitched priestly vestments ready for the day it is sanctified. Other supporters are breeding red heifers, hoping for one without a white blemish that can be sacrificially slaughtered at the temple, as described in the Book of Numbers.
Palestinian Muslims and others across the region fear their control is slipping.
“They want to change the rules,” said Hamad, the Waqf guard.
Perched on an esplanade at the eastern edge of Jerusalem’s Old City–the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane behind–there are few patches of land more contested than this 35 acres.
The critical moment in the modern era was Israel’s capture of the Old City in the six-day war of 1967. For Israeli Jews, control of the Old City tied together politics, religion and nationhood. Following the victory, tens of thousands flocked to the Western Wall, believed to have been a retaining support for the second Jewish temple built 2,500 years ago. It was the first mass Jewish pilgrimage to the site since the temple’s destruction.
But days later, with the approval of the prime minister, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan went to see the imams of the Islamic Waqf and handed them back the keys to the mosque.
“I said that Israeli troops would be removed from the site and stationed outside the compound,” Dayan wrote in his autobiography. “The Israeli authorities were responsible for overall security, but we would not interfere in the private affairs of the Muslims responsible for their own sanctuaries.
“We had no intention of controlling Muslim holy places or of interfering in their religious life.”
Over time, a status quo evolved under which Jews have been allowed to enter and tour the area but forbidden to pray. Israeli police and some military help provide security, but the Waqf administers the compound.
There were some early attempts to change that. In the 1980s, a messianic terrorist group called the Jewish Underground plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock and replace it with a temple. That plan was foiled by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
In 1990, another group calling itself the Temple Mount Faithful tried to lay a cornerstone for a new Jewish temple, provoking riots that killed 22 Palestinians.
The Waqf says things really began to shift from September 2000, when Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s opposition leader, visited Temple Mount with a large delegation just before an election. Many Palestinians saw the move as a provocation. It led to a violent uprising called the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which continued for five years and left about 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead. Access to Al-Aqsa for both Muslims and non-Muslims was greatly restricted.
In recent years the groups committed to overturning the status quo have shifted strategy, becoming more organised and gaining donors and influence.
While there are still radical elements, and frequent verbal and physical confrontations with Muslims at Al-Aqsa, the groups try to cast the issue as one of religious freedom, arguing that Jews should enjoy the same prayer rights as Muslims.
The most visible proponent of the new approach is Yehuda Glick, a red-bearded, American-born rabbi who set up the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation in 2007 and now acts as a spokesman for several Temple Mount organisations.
A 49-year-old father of eight, Glick has become a rallying figure for the movement, frequently photographed with supporters such as an outspoken politician from Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, or studying pictures of a possible new temple.
In 2013 and again in 2014 he was arrested by police after confrontations at Al-Aqsa and banned from visiting. He sued and won a court ruling allowing him to return once a month under tight supervision.
Last October, as Muslim anger at the presence of Jewish worshippers triggered clashes, Glick was shot four times by a Palestinian when he left a conference in central Jerusalem. After 10 days in a coma, and life-saving operations by a Muslim surgeon, Glick came around.
“I respect the Muslims’ right to pray,” he told Reuters as he recovered from his injuries. “But there is no reason in the world that at the only holy place for the Jewish people, a Jew should not have the right to pray.
“The Temple Mount is the holiest place in the world according to the Bible and there should be freedom to pray for all believers–Jews, Christians and Muslims.”
That is not how Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the head of the Waqf, sees it.
As the inheritor of a job handed down almost without break since the 12th century, Hussein is the overriding religious authority at Al-Aqsa and holds the keys to the mosque. He believes the precedent created by more than 800 years of religious practice is incontrovertible.
“No one but Muslims are allowed to perform any kind of prayers at Al-Aqsa,” he told Reuters, referring to the compound rather than just the mosque itself.
“Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa is not so much an insult as it is an aggression. If Jews try to pray at Al-Aqsa, it will only create more tensions in the region.”
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that is potentially a big problem.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said the arrangement that has governed Al-Aqsa since 1967 should not change. But after Glick was shot, Israeli authorities temporarily shut all access, including for Muslims. In protest, Jordan withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv, the first time it had taken such a step since signing a peace deal with Israel in 1994. Jordan has had special responsibility for Al-Aqsa since the 1967 war. The Hashemite Kingdom has financed the Waqf and paid for renovations to the mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Its anger was echoed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and beyond, leaving Netanyahu worried about regional stability.
He beefed up Israeli security around the Old City, a move that many Palestinians saw as proof that change was coming.
Six months on, the situation appears calmer, though tensions remain.
Five days a week–there is no access on Fridays or Saturdays–religious-nationalist Jews join foreign tourists to walk up the covered wooden ramp, through the Moroccans’ Gate, the only one of the 11 ancient gates non-Muslims can use, and into the holy compound.
Israeli guards assemble the Jews into groups of 10, confiscate their religious and prayer accoutrements for the length of the visit, and then assign them Israeli police escorts.
At the top of the ramp, where Israeli forces keep dozens of riot shields and other security equipment, Waqf guards join the Jewish groups. The Israeli police lead the visitors around, while the Waqf guards maintain more distance.
On one recent visit, a pious Jewish teenager, yarmulke on his head and long curls hanging either side of his face, fell to the ground in the act of prayer. Police quickly hoisted him to his feet and warned that he would be thrown out if he tried to pray again.
As the group passed in front of Al-Aqsa mosque, the police urged them not to get too close. Several ignored the warnings and stepped towards the portico, where Muslim men and women enter via separate doorways.
A group of women in headscarves and veils began shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Greatest”) at the top of their voices, protesting the group’s presence.
As the Jewish group moved away from the mosque into a grove of trees on the eastern edge of the plaza, it was left alone, allowing surreptitious prayer to begin.
Efrem Goldberg, an American rabbi, wrote an account of a visit he made to the Temple Mount last year, in which he described feeling intimidated by Muslims there. “In a small gesture of defiance,” he wrote, “we continuously prayed in our hearts and when we paused opposite the Kodesh Ha’ Kadashim”–the Holy of Holies, where Jews believe the Ark of the Convenant once stood–“we even had Daniel Katz,” a rabbi, “give us the priestly blessing.”
Netanyahu said in a speech that “only under Israeli rule will there be freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem. Believers pray at their holy sites not in spite of our rule in the city, but precisely because of it.”
Some Palestinians think it is a matter of time before Temple Mount supporters in the Israeli government propose dividing up prayer times, giving Muslims certain hours to worship and Jews others.
Glick said the momentum is all in one direction.
“The Third Temple, which will be a house of prayer for all nations, will be built very soon,” he said, repeating a mantra of the Temple Mount faithful.
Hamad, who said he has seen a steady change during his 10 years as a Waqf guard, is convinced a crisis is coming.
“It’s going to blow up,” said the 36-year-old. “It’s certain.”
JERUSALEM–Every morning at 7.30, Murad Hamad sets up a flimsy plastic chair in the shade of the Moroccans’ Gate entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and waits for the tourists to arrive.
Hamad’s job is to help keep the peace at one of the world’s holiest places, a site sacred to both Muslims, who call the compound the Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because of the building that once stood there. The guard is not much concerned with the sun-creamed tourists. But he pays close attention to the groups of devout Jews and Israeli nationalists who try most days to enter the site and pray.
Those groups are at the centre of a creeping shift in Jerusalem: After 900 years, Jews are chipping away at Muslims’ exclusive control of the site, the third holiest in Islam. The shift, which has provoked violence in the past, threatens to open a dangerous new front in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, adding religious enmity to a political struggle in the very heart of the disputed city.
Al-Aqsa has banned non-Muslim prayer since 1187. Like Muslims across the region, Hamad and the other 70 or so guards employed by the Waqf, the Islamic trust that oversees the mosque, see Jews praying there as a serious insult.
The risk of confrontation remained small as long as the groups pushing for the right to pray remained at the fringes of Judaism. A decade or so ago, a handful of Jewish faithful would enter the compound each day. Attempts at prayer were rare. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared in 2007 that Jews should not visit the site because it was too holy.
But in recent years the radical fringe has become increasingly mainstream, drawing in nationalist, secular supporters and backing from high-profile politicians. A hundred or more Jews can arrive at the mosque some days, in large, organised groups. Last year Yossi Farenti, then Jerusalem District Police Chief, told the Israeli parliament’s Internal Affairs committee that the number of Jews visiting the site had increased 27 percent in the first half of 2014. “There is indeed a worsening in the past few years as to what happens at Temple Mount,” he said. “This is a fact. No one disagrees. You can see it in the numbers.”
A growing number of rabbis have contradicted the Chief Rabbinate, saying visits should be encouraged precisely because the Temple Mount is divine. Jewish visitors mumble prayers under their breath and walk barefoot on the ancient stones in a sign of obeisance.
A range of groups, some of them well financed by the Jewish diaspora, are campaigning for open access to Temple Mount, which Jews believe is the point from where God created the world and was the site of the second Jewish temple until 70 AD. They want the right for Jews to pray alongside Muslims. Some even want to build a new temple and have crafted sacred gold-and-silver vessels and hand-stitched priestly vestments ready for the day it is sanctified. Other supporters are breeding red heifers, hoping for one without a white blemish that can be sacrificially slaughtered at the temple, as described in the Book of Numbers.
Palestinian Muslims and others across the region fear their control is slipping.
“They want to change the rules,” said Hamad, the Waqf guard.
Perched on an esplanade at the eastern edge of Jerusalem’s Old City–the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane behind–there are few patches of land more contested than this 35 acres.
The critical moment in the modern era was Israel’s capture of the Old City in the six-day war of 1967. For Israeli Jews, control of the Old City tied together politics, religion and nationhood. Following the victory, tens of thousands flocked to the Western Wall, believed to have been a retaining support for the second Jewish temple built 2,500 years ago. It was the first mass Jewish pilgrimage to the site since the temple’s destruction.
But days later, with the approval of the prime minister, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan went to see the imams of the Islamic Waqf and handed them back the keys to the mosque.
“I said that Israeli troops would be removed from the site and stationed outside the compound,” Dayan wrote in his autobiography. “The Israeli authorities were responsible for overall security, but we would not interfere in the private affairs of the Muslims responsible for their own sanctuaries.
“We had no intention of controlling Muslim holy places or of interfering in their religious life.”
Over time, a status quo evolved under which Jews have been allowed to enter and tour the area but forbidden to pray. Israeli police and some military help provide security, but the Waqf administers the compound.
There were some early attempts to change that. In the 1980s, a messianic terrorist group called the Jewish Underground plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock and replace it with a temple. That plan was foiled by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
In 1990, another group calling itself the Temple Mount Faithful tried to lay a cornerstone for a new Jewish temple, provoking riots that killed 22 Palestinians.
The Waqf says things really began to shift from September 2000, when Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s opposition leader, visited Temple Mount with a large delegation just before an election. Many Palestinians saw the move as a provocation. It led to a violent uprising called the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which continued for five years and left about 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead. Access to Al-Aqsa for both Muslims and non-Muslims was greatly restricted.
In recent years the groups committed to overturning the status quo have shifted strategy, becoming more organised and gaining donors and influence.
While there are still radical elements, and frequent verbal and physical confrontations with Muslims at Al-Aqsa, the groups try to cast the issue as one of religious freedom, arguing that Jews should enjoy the same prayer rights as Muslims.
The most visible proponent of the new approach is Yehuda Glick, a red-bearded, American-born rabbi who set up the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation in 2007 and now acts as a spokesman for several Temple Mount organisations.
A 49-year-old father of eight, Glick has become a rallying figure for the movement, frequently photographed with supporters such as an outspoken politician from Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, or studying pictures of a possible new temple.
In 2013 and again in 2014 he was arrested by police after confrontations at Al-Aqsa and banned from visiting. He sued and won a court ruling allowing him to return once a month under tight supervision.
Last October, as Muslim anger at the presence of Jewish worshippers triggered clashes, Glick was shot four times by a Palestinian when he left a conference in central Jerusalem. After 10 days in a coma, and life-saving operations by a Muslim surgeon, Glick came around.
“I respect the Muslims’ right to pray,” he told Reuters as he recovered from his injuries. “But there is no reason in the world that at the only holy place for the Jewish people, a Jew should not have the right to pray.
“The Temple Mount is the holiest place in the world according to the Bible and there should be freedom to pray for all believers–Jews, Christians and Muslims.”
That is not how Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the head of the Waqf, sees it.
As the inheritor of a job handed down almost without break since the 12th century, Hussein is the overriding religious authority at Al-Aqsa and holds the keys to the mosque. He believes the precedent created by more than 800 years of religious practice is incontrovertible.
“No one but Muslims are allowed to perform any kind of prayers at Al-Aqsa,” he told Reuters, referring to the compound rather than just the mosque itself.
“Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa is not so much an insult as it is an aggression. If Jews try to pray at Al-Aqsa, it will only create more tensions in the region.”
For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that is potentially a big problem.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said the arrangement that has governed Al-Aqsa since 1967 should not change. But after Glick was shot, Israeli authorities temporarily shut all access, including for Muslims. In protest, Jordan withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv, the first time it had taken such a step since signing a peace deal with Israel in 1994. Jordan has had special responsibility for Al-Aqsa since the 1967 war. The Hashemite Kingdom has financed the Waqf and paid for renovations to the mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Its anger was echoed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and beyond, leaving Netanyahu worried about regional stability.
He beefed up Israeli security around the Old City, a move that many Palestinians saw as proof that change was coming.
Six months on, the situation appears calmer, though tensions remain.
Five days a week–there is no access on Fridays or Saturdays–religious-nationalist Jews join foreign tourists to walk up the covered wooden ramp, through the Moroccans’ Gate, the only one of the 11 ancient gates non-Muslims can use, and into the holy compound.
Israeli guards assemble the Jews into groups of 10, confiscate their religious and prayer accoutrements for the length of the visit, and then assign them Israeli police escorts.
At the top of the ramp, where Israeli forces keep dozens of riot shields and other security equipment, Waqf guards join the Jewish groups. The Israeli police lead the visitors around, while the Waqf guards maintain more distance.
On one recent visit, a pious Jewish teenager, yarmulke on his head and long curls hanging either side of his face, fell to the ground in the act of prayer. Police quickly hoisted him to his feet and warned that he would be thrown out if he tried to pray again.
As the group passed in front of Al-Aqsa mosque, the police urged them not to get too close. Several ignored the warnings and stepped towards the portico, where Muslim men and women enter via separate doorways.
A group of women in headscarves and veils began shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Greatest”) at the top of their voices, protesting the group’s presence.
As the Jewish group moved away from the mosque into a grove of trees on the eastern edge of the plaza, it was left alone, allowing surreptitious prayer to begin.
Efrem Goldberg, an American rabbi, wrote an account of a visit he made to the Temple Mount last year, in which he described feeling intimidated by Muslims there. “In a small gesture of defiance,” he wrote, “we continuously prayed in our hearts and when we paused opposite the Kodesh Ha’ Kadashim”–the Holy of Holies, where Jews believe the Ark of the Convenant once stood–“we even had Daniel Katz,” a rabbi, “give us the priestly blessing.”
Netanyahu said in a speech that “only under Israeli rule will there be freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem. Believers pray at their holy sites not in spite of our rule in the city, but precisely because of it.”
Some Palestinians think it is a matter of time before Temple Mount supporters in the Israeli government propose dividing up prayer times, giving Muslims certain hours to worship and Jews others.
Glick said the momentum is all in one direction.
“The Third Temple, which will be a house of prayer for all nations, will be built very soon,” he said, repeating a mantra of the Temple Mount faithful.
Hamad, who said he has seen a steady change during his 10 years as a Waqf guard, is convinced a crisis is coming.
“It’s going to blow up,” said the 36-year-old. “It’s certain.”
