People of the Book, Why Do You Fight? (satire)

A close look at the Quran would reveal that it is based mainly on the Jewish Talmud, as is the Bible.

Both books - even the Bible - affirm that all Christians, Jews and Muslims are sons and daughters of God - hence the term "people of the Book.".

Yet the Bible does not state that Jesus is the Only-Begotten. Rather, this doctrine was rooted in the pagan religions of the Gentile converts and assimilated as the Trinity. To believe that the Christ Jesus was solely a prophet and a son of God as all believers are sons and daughters of God is heresy to Christendom today.

Indeed, it is the evangelical Christians that aggressively proselyte the blasphemy — to Jews and Muslims alike — that Jesus is the Christ and God's Only Begotten. Were it not for insisting that Jesus is the Son of God, neither Jew not Muslim would persecute a Christian.

Yet the new Crusaders, those Evangelical fanatics, came to Iraq and Afghanistan with the invading US troops to offend the Muslims.

This is because of that aggressive evangelism by Christendom that the Crusades happened in response to the failure of the eastern Roman empire of Byzantium to appease the Muslims since the 7th Century CE.

When bribes only led the Muslim army to demand more tributes, the Emperor of Byzantium asked the western Roman Empire for help, which lead bastard sons of European kings to massacre innocent Syriac Christians, sack Constantinople, and build kingdoms in the Holy Land, much to the chagrin of the Muslims.

None of this was for the glory of God, but so that both Christians and Muslims could amass war booty. For both the Muslims and the Christians worship God, but their true motives are based on human glory. Their faith in God has never justified war. Rather, their willingness to go to war shows their lack of faith.

Today it is no different: Islamic State has obtained booty, be it ransom for captives or brides forced into sexual slavery. In contrast the West maintains it is fighting the IS for humanitarian reasons.

In fact, the West is in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to recapture oil wells as dictated by multinational corporations.

Thus the Christians and their Zionist allies are there to help affirm the propaganda that Muslims are terrorists and they are fighting for peace. The Evangelical zealots are there to fan the flames of enmity even higher, showing once again that Crusaders wish only an Armageddon rather than peace just like their Islamic State counterparts.

It is these militants be they Zionist and Muslim that want Armageddon, but shall not get it. This is because mankind's actions will not usher in the Millenarian end of days, no matter what American televangelists and their Muslim counterparts say.

For these militants ignore the truth: only God knows when the End of Days is near. No amount of war will usher it in. It never happened during the Crusades circa 1000 CE, and neither shall it happen now.

So, why do Christian militants and their Zionist backers fight against their Muslim counterparts? Only to affirm the propaganda that Arabs are only Muslims, and these Muslims are terrorists, despite the fact that the Zionists are in control of the propagandists in mainstream media.

Yet not all Arabs are Muslims. Some of them are Christians while other Arabs are Jews. Few of them are terrorists, and those of them that are terrorist have bought the propaganda that the biggest evil in the world is the West especially America.

For recent history tends to prove their fears that Islam is threatened by the Zionists through the islamophobia propaganda, which is based on the lies about Arabs and Muslims.

However, the root of the problem is the bigotry of the West.

It is not Islam that is the problem; it is the lies that Zionist controlled media continues to manufacture which has led American domestic terrorists - most of whom are white supremists - to murder innocent people, most of whom are not Muslims.

It is the bigotry of French nationalists that lead Muslim youth of France to riot and turn to crime.

And that bigotry may lead to a civil war in the West between Muslim youth and Western youth, both of them radicalized by right wing ideology that says "my tribe is better than yours."

Thus are we at the pinnacle where we could let the governments of the West be consumed by the tyranny of fascism or remember the words of a famous prophet who said, "Love one another" and "love your enemies". He also warned mankind that living by the sword implies dying by the sword to discourage his disciples from ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven by force because it would only lead to death.

This prophet was Jesus.

Indeed, Jesus also tempered his love with a limited militancy by healing the ear of a soldier accidentally cut by the sword of one of his disciples. Yet the wielder of the second sword has never been known, probably to prevent the founding of a Christian militant sect that would have died by the sword.

In any case, militancy is anathema to Christianity, no matter what the militants say. If you live by the sword, be you Christian, Jew or Muslim, then you die by the sword. If this be for God, then he mourns the loss as much he does of the martyrs.

On this note, I leave you with this quote, which summarizes the folly of trying to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven by force:

'We often hear Jesus words quoted, “… for all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Matt. 26:52).” Some say He was condemning all military action throughout time. If this was the case, Jesus words simply were not true. Everyone who has taken the sword in conflict has not died violently. I believe Jesus’ words were most likely a warning to His own people. He was saying if you try to bring the kingdom of God by violence, you will all die. He was right. Those who rebelled against Rome died often in a very cruel manner.

'The instrument that would overcome Rome was not the sword but the cross. It was not an act of violence but an act of love. It was not vengeance but forgiveness that eventually conquered the Roman empire.' - http://www.thorncrownjournal.com/timeofchrist/zealots.html
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Update: December 14, 2015

Yet the violent persecution by Muslims against Christians of the Middle East is being hidden from the unsuspecting citizens of Western nations. Like their Jewish brothers and sisters, Muslims find the Christians' glorification of the Christ Jesus as Son of God blasphemy.

There is much evidence to support the Muslim persecution of Ahmadiyyans, Christians, Jews, and Yazidis.

In Pakistan, Ahmadiyyans are banned from calling themselves Muslim and can be imprisoned for 10 years under Pakistan's anti-terrorist legislation.

In Syria, Christian boys and men were murdered by Islamic State terrorists, simply for being Christians. Their wives, sisters and daughters were forced to become sex slaves for the militants.

In northern Iraq, Yazidi women captured by Islamic State militants were forced to work in a brothel. Subject to brutal rape, some of them have committed suicide rather than be horribly abused by their captors.

Yet both America and Canada are letting in Syrian refugees, most of whom are Muslim. There is no quota for Christians because the Western nations are leaving that up to Christian refugee organizations to handle — that is, if the Syrian Christians make it safely out of Syria.

IMHO the people of the book — the Ahmadiyyans, the Baha'i, the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims and the Yazidi — are left take care of their own.

But a few questions still remain:

• Will the Ahmadiyyans, Baha'i, and Yazidi be free to choose to follow their own traditions without Christian evangelicals soft selling their way of worship?
  
• Will the same friction between Christians and Muslims that occurred in Syria continue in Canada and in the US?
  
• Will the Christians stand up to protect the people they sponsor without discrimination?

Only time with tell. All in all, the Christian charity groups had better plan their refugee program well and ensure that all people of the book are protected under the law.

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References:

Strange End-Times Beliefs Of Some 'Evangelical' Christians:
http://www.rense.com/general72/ssome.htm

Middle East attacks on Christians cause for concern - Russian ombudsman: https://www.rt.com/politics/320065-russian-ombudsman-voices-concern-over/

Desperate plight of Yazidi woman sold into sex slavery by ISIS
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2801353/i-ve-raped-30-times-s-not-lunchtime-desperate-plight-yazidi-woman-begged-west-bomb-brothel-isis-militants-sold-sex-slavery.html

Faithkeepers is an upcoming documentary film about the violent persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East: http://faithkeepers.clarionproject.org/

Hitler's First Victims: The Quest for Justice (book review)

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 9780385352918

In this biography of Josef Hartinger, the German public prosecutor who brought to justice the first killers of the Holocaust, author Timothy W. Ryback meticulously documents the atrocities suffered by Hitler's first victims at Dachau, both Jews and communists.

Hartinger's quest for justice is inspiring as proof that not all Germans were complicit in the Nazi atrocities.

I am however not going to romanticize this aspect of World War II or apologize for either side.

Overall, the German state police was not complicit in the deaths at the prison camps. Nor were the regular soldiers of the German Army.

Rather, the responsibility for most of the deaths which occurred at Dachau rested on the SA and especially on the SS officers involved, most of whom were not nice men.

Even though World War II ended 60 years ago, this book is required reading for a mature audience to understand the nature of the Holocaust with respect to the treatment of prisoners in Dachau.

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Reference:

Dachau concentration camp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp

Liberation of Dachau: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/Surrender.html

Timothy W. Ryback's article in New York Times, January 3, 2012:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/the-first-killings-of-the-holocaust.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Syrian Crisis: Cutting Through the Propaganda (satire)

Image courtesy of Reuters

Robert Ford is why wannabe jihadis are flocking to Syria to fight against the corrupt regime of Bashir al Assad.

Thanks to strong propaganda against Syria, primarily due to its ties with North Korea, the US government has created the current crisis in that country.

Since Robert Stephen Ford is the mastermind of American sponsored terrorism in Syria, the blood is truly on the hands of American government.

However, Islam is not the enemy in Syria.

That would be the US-backed propagandists labeling Assad an evil tyrant in their mainstream media. His crime would be aligning with Iran and dealing with North Korea. Yet the majority of people suffering are Palestinians, displaced by the birth of Israel in 1947.

Hence, Syria's Arab Spring is but a continuation of the struggle between a people (the Palestinians) demonized by propaganda and a world misled into believing Israel is one of the good guys.

If you do not believe Israel is on our side, then you are an anti-Semite, even if your lack of trust in Israel is based on the cold facts that Israel acts like a client state of America and its imperialism in the Middle East.

Even America's invasion of Iraq is but a cold and calculated move for American dominance in the Middle East, or, so the propaganda goes.

However, both sides are in error since the endless war is never over, because the so-called oppressed nation of Israel will be exposed for crying wolf. Yet the sheeple will side with Israel because of right-wing propaganda painting all Muslims as caricatures of Islamic jihadism.

If you hate all Muslims then know that you have been duped by the mainstream media and your gut feeling has been manipulated by propaganda from CNN and FOX News. We all saw how well they tried to blame Amerithrax on Iraq when it's more likely that might have been an inside job.

Muslims who know the truth will laugh at this compliance with propaganda. Nobody who is Muslim in the Middle East and well educated believes al Qaeda and their ilk are Muslim. They know them to be criminals who will burn in hell for their crimes against humanity.

Once, right wing militants like the Muslim Brotherhood will cheer on those criminal terrorists who hide under the robes of a pious Muslim. Now, with the rise of the Islamic State in northern Iraq, all the Muslims have condemned them.

Those who condemn Syria should remember that Ambassador Robert Ford egged on the civilians of Syria to protest in a country where the Assad regime rules with an iron fist.

Given that the rebels did not sent their envoys to the failed peace talks in Geneva, that makes them look like they are only interested in an endless war controlled by ideology rather than by cold hard facts.

However, if you think Syrians are suffering, think again. These people in the picture are not Syrians. The smart ones with the means have already fled Syria, either fleeing to Turkey or to America. It is the unfortunate ones that end up anywhere else, including Jordan and Egypt.

For the people in the photograph are Palestinians, and they suffer due to ideology be it Shi'a or Sunni or even American foreign policy as expedited by Israel, often with prejudice favoring Jews over Arab.

Indeed, the enemy here is not Assad. It is those criminals behind al Qaeda and the Taleban, and especially the Islamic State. No Muslim in their right mind would support them. It is they who threaten, Syria and now Iraq, because their Sharia will ruin both Syria and Iraq were they to win. Any Muslim who supports the Islamic State is Muslim in name only. For the Qatari and Saudis who are behind them are crazy, crazy for oil money, and eager to pay for a holy war, contrary to Islam, all thanks to Big Oil.

Think about that the next time you line up for gas at the gas pumps: your driving privileges support terrorism. It also leads to endless war in the Middle East. So regarding any propaganda about Muslims that you hold, you've been lied to just to manipulate your fears by mainstream media.

If you really cared about the Middle East, then please sell your second car, which you don't really need. Its convenience is echoed in millions of other people with two vehicles actually fund unrest in the Middle East.

Yet, were I to tell this to people filling up their SUVs at the gas pumps, they would be angry due to their fear of losing status among their peers. It is such a waste of money but everyone is doing it, hoping that another recession controlled by powers-that-be won't cause them to lose their jobs.

For all these wars in the Middle East are the doing of elites around the world who want to make a profit from it. Who cares if you lose your jobs? Who cares if Palestinians suffer in Syria? They are also hoping you side with the thinly veiled propaganda designed to cause you to hate the Muslims.

Still, what good does this do except gain more subscribers for the propaganda machine called mainstream media? Indeed, the mainstream media sources are merely propaganda outlets for US foreign policy which has caused much of the civil unrest in the world today. By pushing democracy, America has only caused anarchy in the world.

In my opinion, Muslims were never our enemies. Islamic terrorists did not fly planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That is only what the elites want you to believe. You have been lied to.

A jihadi is not Islamic -- he is an Islamist. The term "Islamic terrorist" is used for propaganda, and is only true within context of mainstream media. They are a corporate terrorist network that is nominally Islamic in that they take what is in the Quran and its hadiths only to utterly distort its true meaning.

I'm sure that people who believe otherwise think that what I am writing is propaganda. However, I am telling you truth based on what Muslims tell me. They were never the enemy. That has always been truth. I am just saddened that few people are willing to discover the truth about what Muslims think about those quasi-Muslim terrorists - the Islamists - that the mainstream media write about.

However, it's not up to me to change the minds of bigots. They would rather listen to the propaganda than work to open their minds to Truth.

It is Sayyid Qutb who is the father of Islamism. However, the acts of violent revolution are influenced by his words.

By "setting up the kingdom of God on earth, and eliminating the kingdom of man," Islamists think they are "taking power from the hands of its human usurpers and restoring it to God alone".

Instead, they are taking power into their own hands and forcing sharia in contravention to the Quran by limiting the choices of their Muslim subjects in the Islamic State to submit or die.

Thus, the Islamic State is merely continuing human usurpation and oppression of Muslims by Islamists who are political ideologists bent on total control and domination of the Ummah that they are purported of restoring power to God alone.

Since this has occurred in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, it is still a part of the Syrian crisis. That crisis has proven time and again of being orchestrated by American foreign policy in Syria, and funded by Qatari and Saudi sympathizers of the Syrian rebels.

For the almost-religious zeal of the American government to force democracy on the Middle East, especially Afghanistan, Iraq and even Syria will only lead to more anarchy in the Middle East.

Perhaps then, the Islamic State is only a symptom of that anarchy, which makes Islamism a Muslim answer to globalism. Might that mean jihadi is just another name for "freedom fighter" and the freedom that they are fighting for is the extreme of the right to freedom of religion?

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Originally posted March 2, 2014 at 10:48 AM
Update posted July 10, 2014 zy 1:29 AM

Reference:

A shocking image of Syria's brutal war - The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/28/shocking-image-syria-brutal-war-yarmouk

Who is Ambassador Robert Stephen Ford? The Architect of US Sponsored Terrorism in Syria:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-is-ambassador-robert-stephen-ford-the-architect-of-us-sponsored-terrorism-in-syria/5385973

The Moors Declined Due to Economic Competition with the Holy Roman Empire (satire)

I once checked the genetic map for Spain. It turns out that the ancestry of Spanish men were likely to be Greek, Berber, and what used to be called Moorish, along with a few Normans, Carthaginians, and Visigoths.

On the female side, the mitochondria assaying shows a predominantly Western European gene-pool e.g. Christian Hispanics (of Norman and Visigoth ancestry) sealing trade deals with the Moors by marrying off their daughters to predominantly Berber and a few Arabic Muslims.

Indeed, Spain and a part of France, and Sicily was conquered by the Moors, who soon settled into fiefdoms, only to conquer their neighboring Moorish governor if he kept his borders unguarded.

Once the Moors began to encroach on the Christian northlands of the Iberian peninsula, Christian knights in France were beseeched by emissaries of the Pope to rid Hispania of the Moors.

However, during the Moorish domination of Hispania, increased trade led to alliances between Christians, Jews and Muslims. IMO the reason for the Inquisition was originally to ensure piety and forced Christian conversion, so that the Pope's coffers were full of the faithful's tithes (and property when they died without heirs).

So the Colonial Period of Europe was probably due to economic competition with the Muslims. And it is not preposterous to have the Muslims discover America first.

Once the Catholics had the Moors leaving Spain, they at first let the Moors alone, being told they would give up Islam for Christianity along with a few of the Jews. In the end, a mass exodus of Jews left Spain for Constantinople and Asia Minor.

Meanwhile the Moors were forced to accept Christian or be burned at the stake after being tortured by the Inquisitors from Rome, who were Jesuits.

So, it was not just the lust for gold in China that led to Colonial powers of Europe sailing west. It was also the fact that a lot of gold left with the vanquished Moors, and Spain became somewhat impoverished just as the Dark Ages were falling.

Without the Moorish presence, the King and Queen of Portugal had to send explorers to find more gold to rebuild Spain for Western European tastes.

A pity though. The Moors were a cash cow for Europe but the Pope's anti-Muslim bigotry led to the rise of the Plague, since the storehouses of grain probably had less cats keeping the rats at bay due to the wars that drove the Moors out.

Now today, the average European is ignorant of Muslim culture and its history in the Levant and Arabia. So are a great many Americans, whose hatred is unfounded and much Islamophobia is concentrated among neo-conservative religious folk some of whom can barely read science or do their income taxes. As for any sense of history, even their GOP leaders are simpletons about Arab history in the Middle East.

In my opinion, this is probably why 911 happened: to smarten the West up to the fact that it was not Muslims who bombed the World Trade Centres but Islamists and al Qaeda who have made a mockery of Islam by using Salafi and Wahhabi Islam rhetoric in perverted ways.

Meanwhile, these political ideologists are not truly religious but fanatical about Sharia without any compassion or mercy whatsoever. If the descendant of Moors were more organized, then they'd teach the fanatical terrorists about what real Sharia actually is. But alas! They are in an unofficial civil war in Liberia, or dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood west of Tripoli to Morocco.

Indeed, the Arab Spring has yet to bear any fruit of democracy, due to the perversion of Salafi and Wahhabi ideology into its political ideology consisting of being so pious everyone else is an unbeliever and only worthy of death.

Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are their bankrollers, and America and Canada their propagandists.

Good Alone Means Nothing (satire)

For good is empty of evil; evil, of good.

Empty implies the quality called "good and evil" is not a thing that has been here since the beginning. Instead it is a reified object of abstract origin made to be real which it is not.

Indeed, there is no reified good or evil.

For the "battle between good and evil" is a metaphor for what each person does in his life.

As well, the devil is not a personification of evil opposed to the personification of good (God).

Rather, the devil or satan is merely the metaphor of the Tempter without any power to harm us, just as God is aloof from man. It is within the mind of a person that the so-called battle rages, not from the supernatural realm (a mystical dimension).

For God is the author of good and evil, and Jesus-worship is a violation of the first commandment that God is your Lord, and he does not take kindly to worship of Jesus, whilst forgetting God is in deity with Jesus. All "Jesus is Lord" means is Jesus is the god of the Chrisitans.

Yet, to Christians, Jesus in deity with God means Jesus is Lord God.

Therefore, asking us to accept Jesus into our hearts is unnecessary as God-worshipers such as Jews and Muslims believe in God, and can do very well without Christianity.

For a Christian, Jesus-worship is empty of God-worship but is full of Jesus in deity with God.

What that means is that Jesus became the means by which Gentiles (non-Jews) and Jewish converts came to know God as the Jews tend to keep Gentiles (Goyim) in the dark about all things Jewish.

Thus it became difficult to know God personally as the Jew would stone any Goyim who tried to read the Talmud.

This is why Christianity was invented: to know God by accepting Jesus into their hearts. In this way, the Bible replaced the Talmud and the Jewish tendency to isolate was rejected.

As well, the Salafi Muslims err in persecuting Coptic Christians because their hate crimes against Christians violate Muslim respect for Christians.

Salafi propaganda is a fascist political tool that combines religious hatred for Christianity with violence against Christians, Jews and so-called unbelievers. For them, good means a worldwide Caliphate, which is impossible to arise due to the tendency for humanity to resist against hate and violence.

As much as anti-Semitism against Jews is a hate crime, so too is oppression of Coptic Christians and violence against unbelievers.

For Salafi Muslims are much too zealous to be considered a proper Muslim. Here the good that is full of hate and empty of love for all people as the Salafi display it is untrue and thus a pernicious fallacy inflamed by their zeal.

Were God to bless their enemies, not one Salafi Muslim would view as such. In their blindness, they are led by Shaitan and fooled by Iblis. Yet a Salafi would deny this and resort to violence while affirming that they are led by God to cleanse the land for the future Caliphate.

I do not write this to inflame a man's heart against Islam, but rather to convince people that Salafi Muslim are Muslim only in name. Even if they pray five times a day, they cannot wash off the curse of Cain, which is to murder others out of jealousy over God's blessing of their works.

Just as a Jew Jealously guards his Talmud from Christian eyes, so too does a Salafi guard his faith from the moderation of mainstream Islam, which he finds to be the root of unbelief of the moderate Muslims.

Good alone means nothing to a zealot. For he thinks he is good and others evil. The truth is, good and evil is relative to the situation, and in the situation of the Salafi warrior, it is good to kill unbelievers. His way is subtly influenced by Shaitan.

No matter how many infidels a Salafi warrior kills, his reward will still be the one of what the Christian calls "sinners", which is a time when to help cleanse the warrior of his sins, he will be cast into the pits of the Hells.

What this means is, the Salafi warrior has besmirched his name and brought shame to his ancestors. It is only by the forgiveness of the rest of humankind that their legacy will be redeemed. For there is a purpose to such zealous acts of mayhem and violence.

Since the Salafis see the Coptic Christian displays of piety as sacrilege, it is due to their level of shame which conflicts with the level of pride the Christians demonstrate when consecrating their churches. It makes me wonder if their ancestors were also guilty of condemning the Christ.

Out of their shame they act with the zeal of madman, killing Christians, be they men, women or child.

All the Christians of this world can do is condemn it and think of the good in forgiving the Salafis, for their ignorance of their actions.

That ignorance is what leads to the evil caused by their violence against the Christians.

It is not the Christian's duty to resist evil through violence, lest by raising a hand they go to Hell.

Even though the Jews may laugh at such things, even their actions bear the fruit now of evil rather good. It may be good to Israeli to kill nine Palestinians, but the one Israeli who was shot by a Palestinian sniper was a contractor to the Israel Defence Force. Though it was also a good for the Palestinians to martyr the killers of their people, their revenge is an evil.

Thus, no good will come of it, all this violence in the Middle East.

If I take a side, then I am no better than them. So on this matter, relative to good and evil, neither side is good (worth defending), be it Christian, Jew or Muslim.

For good alone means nothing.

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Originally written January 20, 2013 4:21 AM

The Fallacy of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism

Roman lawyer Tertullian wrote the first anti-semitic propaganda circa "fugitives and vagabonds, condemned to be scattered all over the earth because of the disrespect they had shown to the Christian Saviour".

Thus Christian anti-semitism was born and adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as dogma.

Such propaganda are based on fallacies. For Jews are neither fugitives nor vagabonds. Rather they are successful, hard-working people. Tertullian's propaganda was hard to resist at first.

Even 1700 years later, I have to realize the fallacy of anti-American == anti-semitism and anti-Zionist == anti-semitism, when actually anti-American actually means "democracy free of American foreign policy" and anti-Zionist means "objection to Zionist zealotry consisting of confrontation of Palestinians, stealing their land and other violation of human rights not excluding the use of MOSSAD to fund certain Arab terrorism organizations".

I object to anti-semitism because I condemn Tertullian, and the acts of modern day Zionists. For both of them condoned violence to oppress Jews and Arabs respectively which belies their fallacies.

However, it would be nice to hear from Arabs and Jews who have not bought into the radicalism of politics.

In wake of the Israeli elections today, the current centrist-left versus right situation is better than before the election.

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History in Jews in Tunisia: http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/045/8.html
Final vote tally in Israel: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-final-vote-tally-in-israel-20130124,0,222963.story

The Vatican Originally Participated in Oppression In Croatia

It took the Catholic Church two years to cry out against death camps in Croatia during WW2.

Meanwhile it continued to oppress natives in North America until the 1970s.

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In the interwar period the Catholic church in Croatia had been a staunch supporter of Croatian nationalism, and it welcomed the establishment of the Croatian state. The Vatican had always supported the stand of the Croatian church and had encouraged Croatian separatism. The Ustaša extermination drive against Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies presented the church with a dilemma.

Many Catholic priests, mainly of the lower rank, took an active part in the murder operations. Generally speaking, the reaction of the Catholic church was a function of military and political developments affecting Croatia; when the standing of the NDH regime was weakening and the war was drawing to an end, protests by the church against Ustaša crimes became more and more outspoken. This was not the case in the earlier stages. A bishops’ conference that met in Zagreb in November 1941 was not even prepared to denounce the forced conversion of Serbs that had taken place in the summer of 1941, let alone condemn the persecution and murder of Serbs and Jews. It was not until the middle of 1943 that Aloysius Stepinac, the archbishop of Zagreb, publicly came out against the murder of Croatian Jews (most of whom had been killed by that time), the Serbs, and other nationalities. The Vatican followed a similar line. In the early stage, the Croatian massacres were explained in Rome as “teething troubles of a new regime” (the expression of Monsignor Domenico Tardini of the Vatican state secretariat). When the course of the war was changing, the leaders of the Catholic church began to criticize the Ustaša, but in mild terms; it was only at the end, when Allied victory was assured, that Vatican spokesmen came out with clear denunciations. In some instances, Croatian clerics did help Jews. Their main effort was to save the lives of the Jewish partners in mixed marriages, and most of these did in fact survive. The church also extended help to the Zagreb Jewish community in providing food, medicines and clothing for Jews in the concentration camps. -- http://emperors-clothes.com/croatia/encr.htm