The Truth about Christmas

Both Muslims and serious Christians can learn a lot from Christmas, the annual celebration of the victory of paganism over the religion of Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ). No one disputes that the event and all its symbols came from pagan religions; it has nothing to do with the birth or teachings of Jesus Christ. For one thing, no one knows with certainty the date of birth of Jesus Christ. "In fact, dates in almost every month in the year were suggested by reputable scholars at one time or another," notes The American Book of Days. For another, the celebration of birthdays is itself a pagan idea, never promoted by any Prophet or Book of God, including the Bible. Early Church leaders opposed it strongly. As late as 245 CE African Church father and philosopher Origen wrote that it was sinful even to contemplate observing Jesus's birthday `as though he were a King Pharaoh."[The American Book of Days].

But the pagan world did have prayers and celebrations during the winter season. Those who worshipped the sun god because of its apparent power, used to become concerned about the fate of their god, in a world of many gods, as days became shorter and air very cold. It looked like the sun was being defeated by the god of snow that brought death and misery with it. "... In Rome, the sun in its winter solstice was at its weakest on December 25th and had to be born anew with the help of bonfires, lights, processions and prayer." [Reader's Digest Book of Christmas]. The Roman pagan celebration was called Saturnalia. The Persians also had similar celebrations for Mithras, their sun god.

The evergreens, holly, ivy, and mistletoe plants, which remained green even during this wintertime, were similarly considered by the pagans to have magical powers. The Druids, whose Stonehenge temples can be seen in England, regarded mistletoe with reverence and used to burn it in sacrifice during the solstitial festivities. They also used to hang it in their houses. When you don't know the One True God, even leaves and plants can become god. They thought it brought good luck, fertility, and protection from witchcraft, and was an antidote to poison. Mistletoe is used even today, although the U.N. might consider banning it if the fertility claim proves true!

In 1822, Dr. Clement Moore, professor of divinity, wrote a poem titled "The visit of St. Nicholas." The poem became popular and Santa Claus was born. The reason for popularity? "... the time was ripe. A myth was needed, and the recreation of `old Christmas' was well in the wind."[William Sanson, A Book of Christmas]. Some decades later The New York Sun answered an 8 year old's question: Is there a Santa Claus? The answer has become classic and is worth noting. "Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see." So Santa Claus is divine, and judging from the Christmas celebrations, certainly more important than Jesus Christ himself.

Early church leaders wanted to Christianize the pagan festivities, but their operating principle became: When you can't beat them, join them. For as Pope Gregory declared in 601 CE, "... from obdurate minds it is impossible to cut off everything at once." It was a license for another pearl of "wisdom": When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

And so they did. First slowly and then rapidly. The Son of God replaced the sun god. Saturnalia was replaced by the ceremony for Christ or Christ Mass, which later became Christmas. For several centuries it was solely a church anniversary, observed by religious services. "At Christmas, men and women were not, repeat not, to dress up or mime; there were not to be auguries, such as superstitions about fire; houses were not to be decorated, no presents given, no well-laden tables, and a strict watch was to be kept on drink." But false religion drives out true religion. Consider Christmas gifts, a carryover from the Roman practice of giving dolls as gift in lieu of their earlier barbaric custom of offering human sacrifices. "The early Church frowned on gift giving as a pagan custom. But the people enjoyed it too much to abandon it, and so finally the Church accepted the idea and sanctioned it." [Barbara Rinkoff, The Family Christmas Book]. Evergreens? "The early church forbade the use of them, but here again the custom was too deeply rooted and the ban was ignored. Finally the church accepted the use of evergreens for decoration." And on and on. Now consider this portrait of Saturnalia and contrast it with the original don'ts mentioned above: "... a fortnight of near riot, of drunkenness, noise and games, naked slaves singing, men dressing up as animals and behaving with less dignity, sex, often with perversion." [Reader's Digest Book of Christmas]. Anyone can see which picture represents today's Christmas more closely.

With the advent of Capitalism, the old pagans got a new supporter in the form of the adman. George Bernard Shaw observed: "Christmas is forced on a reluctant ... nation by...shopkeepers and the press." This is how they can serve God, and make money at the same time. This in itself is a pagan idea and it is alive and well today.

Did You Know?

Did you know the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year?

Did you know that yearly US aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole African continent?

Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

And did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

Did you know that Israel currently occupies territories of sovereign nations in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

Did you know that Israel has for decades routinely sent assassins in to other countries to kill its political enemies?

Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed by the IDF?

Did you know that Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

Did you know that Israel routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses, and land and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation?

Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt (1954) and attacked a U.S. ship (1967) in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?

Did you know that the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders, is the Israeli AIPAC?

Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel?

Did you know that Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?

Did you know that Jerusalem, both East and West, is considered by the entire world community, including the United States, to be occupied territory and NOT part of Israel?

Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians?

Did you know that today's Israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 now-vanished Palestinian villages, and that the Israelis re-named almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces?

Did you know that it was not until 1988 that Israelis were barred from running "Jews Only" job ads?

Did you know that four prime ministers of Israel (Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Sharon) have taken part in either bomb attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, or forced expulsions of civilians from their villages?

Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays two American public relations firms to promote Israel to Americans?

Did you know that Sharon's coalition government includes a party Molodet which advocates expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories?

Did you know that Israel's settlement-building increased in the eight years since Oslo?

Did you know that settlement building under Barak doubled compared to settlement building under Netanyahu?

Did you know that the Palestinians have already accepted Israel's existence on 78% of what was Palestine. Bible: God said to Abraham, "Unto thy seed, I will give thy land." Abraham had two sons: Ismael - the Arab son, and Isaac - the Jewish son. So even if one wants to go to the Bible, the land would belong to both.

Did you know that Palestinian Christians are considered the "living stones" of Christianity because they are the direct descendants of the disciples of Jesus Christ?

Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel's High Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

13 November 2006 , Tunisia: releases welcome but harassment and intimidation

Amnesty International welcomes the recent release of more than 50 long term political prisoners in
Tunisia but remains concerned about the continuing imprisonment of others and widespread harassment
of critics and opponents of the government. The organization is calling on the Tunisian authorities to
show greater respect for human rights.
Some 54 political prisoners were released on 5 November to mark the 19th anniversary of President Zine
El 'Abidine Ben Ali’s accession to power on 7 November 1987. All had been imprisoned for over 14 years
because of their membership of the banned Islamist organization, Ennahda, after unfair trials before the
Bouchoucha and Bab Saadoun military courts in 1992. Several, including Mohammed Akrout, Habib
Louze and Abdallah Massaoudi, were sentenced to life imprisonment. All of the releases are conditional.
Any former prisoner who breaches the conditions of his release can be re-arrested and made to serve the
remainder of his sentence by decision of Minister of Justice, without any judicial process, or placed under
house arrest for the same period.
At least 100 Ennahda prisoners who were also sentenced after unfair trials in the early 1990s were not
released. They continue to be held at various prisons in Tunisia. Some are reported to be in poor health
and in urgent need of medical treatment after being tortured in pre-trial detention and subjected to
harsh prison conditions, including prolonged solitary confinement, for many years. These include Ahmed
Bouazizi, Ridha Boukadi and Sahbi Atig. In addition, the Tunisian authorities continue to hold some 400
prisoners under the 2003 counter-terrorism law allegedly for seeking to go to fight in Iraq.
Despite these prisoner releases, Tunisian security forces continue to harass and seek to intimidate local
human rights defenders, lawyers and other rights activists as well as families of political prisoners and
former prisoners, and to severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression and association. Human
rights lawyer Saida Akremi, a member of the International Association for the Support of Political
Prisoners, is under constant surveillance by security officials who frequently question her clients and
suggest they engage a different lawyer. In one incident on 25 October, a plain-clothed police officer
reportedly followed one of Said Akremi’s clients when she left the lawyer's office and terrified her by
snatching away her three year old child when she resisted showing him her identity card at the
Barcelona bus station in central Tunis. He ran away but then returned the child when the mother, Samah
Jendoubi, pursued him screaming and calling for help. Subsequently, she lost a child she was expecting
apparently because of the stress caused to her by this attack.
In another recent incident, Samia Abbou, wife of prisoner of conscience Mohammed Abbou, and two of
her children aged 10 and 13, were threatened by armed police stationed outside her home on 25
October. While a number of police officers stood by, two others on motorcycles drove at Samia Abbou
and her children in apparent attempt to intimidate and frighten them. On 24 October, the wife and two
children of political prisoner Hatim Zarrouk and Sabiha Tayyachi, widow of former political prisoner
Hachemi Mekki, were assaulted outside their homes by being beaten and dragged before being taken in
an unmarked police car to a police station in the Sidi El Bechir district of Tunis, where they were detained
and questioned for several hours before being released.
During the past month, security officials have also kept the office of the National Council for Liberties in
Tunisia (CNLT), a leading non-governmental organization that is being denied legal registration, under
particularly heavy surveillance, apparently to deter or prevent access to it by former political prisoners
and prisoners' families. Some who did succeed in visiting the CNLT are reported to have been arrested
afterwards, taken to nearby police stations and made to sign statements that they will not visit the
CNLT’s office again.
Security officials are reported also to surround the home of Moncef Marzouki, leader of the Congress for
the Republic, a banned opposition political party, who returned to Tunisia in October 2006 after five years
of self-imposed exile in France, to prevent or deter people from visiting him. As well, he has been
reportedly charged with incitement and civil disobedience, offences punishable by up to three years'
imprisonment, for urging Tunisians to hold peaceful protests to demand greater respect for their rights in
an interview with Aljazeera TV on 14 October.
The Tunisian authorities have also stepped up harassment of women who wear the hijab (Islamic
headscarf). This follows statements by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Interior and the Secretary-
General of the ruling political party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally, against the rise in the use of the
hijab by women and girls and beards and the qamis (knee-level shirts) by men, and calls for a strict
implementation of decree 108 of 1985 of the Ministry of Education banning women from wearing the
hijab at educational institutions and when working in government. Some women have reportedly been
ordered to remove the headscarfs before being allowed into schools, universities or work places and
others have been made to remove them in the street. Some women, apparently, have been taken to
police stations and required to sign written commitment to stop wearing the hijab. Amnesty International
believes that individuals have the right to choose whether or not to wear a headscarf or other religious
covering, consistent with their right to freedom of expression.
Amnesty International calls on the Tunisian government to respect the country's obligations under both
national law and international human rights law and standards, and to end the severe restrictions which
continue to be used to prevent exercise of fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association and
peaceful assembly. The organization is also calling on President Ben Ali's government to end the
harassment and attempted intimidation of human rights defenders and civil society activists and ensure
that all officials responsible for abusing their rights are removed from their positions and brought to
justice.

A interview!!!

“I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child are more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child's existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I encourage my soldiers to rape Arabic women and girls as the Palestinian women are a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.”


- Ariel Sharon, in an interview with General Ouze Me

The Muslim Woman "Unveiled"by Izdehar Albowyha

You look at me and call me oppressed,

Simply because of the way I'm dressed,

You know me not for what's inside,

You judge the clothing I wear with pride,

My body's not for your eyes to hold,

You must speak to my mind,

not my feminine mold,

I'm an individual,

I'm no mans slave,

It's Allahʼs pleasure that I only crave,

I have a voice so I will be heard,

For in my heart I carry His word,

" O ye women,

wrap close your cloak,

So you won't be bothered by ignorant folk",

Man doesn't tell me to dress this way,

It's a Law from God that I obey,

Oppressed is something I'm truly NOT,

For liberation is what I've got,

It was given to me many years ago,

With the right to prosper,

the right to grow,

I can climb mountains or cross the seas,

Expand my mind in all degrees,

For God Himself gave us LIB-ER-TY,

When He sent Islam,

To You and Me!

Children and Terror by Alexander Podrabinek

On this photograph are not the children who have died in Beslan. On this photograph are bodies of the Chechen children who died by the hand of the Russian army in autumn 1999. Their deaths did not warrant the call-up of the UN Security Council, and Dr. Roshal did not rush to the scene of the tragedy with water and medicines to try and persuade terrorists to spare children’s lives.They were Chechen children, and Russia did not shudder at the horror of the crime it committed. It simply did not notice.

Imagine a well-fed hefty fellow beating up a man in a busy street. He twists his arms, kicks him on the kidneys and head; he beats him methodically day after day in broad daylight. From time to time an educated passer-by would stop in indignation and attempt to appeal to the ggressor’s conscience. A journalist would come by, look at what’s happening and write a report in his newspaper: beating continues at the crossroads, but the man beaten is seemingly losing the ability to defend himself. A foreign correspondent would drive by, photograph this disgrace and write in his foreign newspaper: a little man is being continuously tortured at the crossroads in Russia; is it not time the Russian authorities responded? However, nobody really cares about the little man’s fate. And so it goes on until the half-dead man, bleeding and mad with pain manages by a stroke of luck to pull out a gun and fire. He shoots the aggressor, the passers-by, the journalists running past and children crossing the road. He is overcome by the only desire: to break free and save his life.

It is only then that an unimaginable public outcry raises. "He uses unlawful methods," shout clever lawyers from TV screens. "We condemn any violence used non-selectively," nod grey heads from parliamentary tribunes and international organizations. "We must restrain terrorists and everyone who helps them," shout patriots — uniformed or otherwise — on every corner, shedding bitter tears over a small wound on the aggressor’s body stunned by the resistance.
Who has noticed the deaths of 40,000 Chechen children during the years of Russia’s war against Chechnya? Where were then all those who today have brought down their righteous anger on the ‘untermenschen’ who are holding schoolchildren hostage in Beslan? Is it not hypocrisy to be upset about the possible deaths of some children and remain indifferent to the deaths of other?
Propaganda is our government’s job. President Putin says that his main concern in the present situation is the fate of the hostages. This was what he said two years ago during the events of Nord-Ost, and then Russian special forces gassed 120 hostages to death in cold blood and fired control shots in the heads of 40 terrorists. Chechen mujahidins still believe that Putin will not be prepared to kill all the hostages again, especially children, that he will begin negotiations and political resolution of the Russian-Chechen conflict, that the war could be stopped as it had been by Basaev in Boudyonnovsk.

But today’s president had an altogether different schooling, whereby he had not been taught compassion, justice or law. He had been taught to achieve the ends by whatever means, and will continue to do so even at a cost of children’s lives. Why, having taken the lives of thousands of Chechen children, would he suddenly stop at having to take the lives of hundred and fifty young Ossetians?

There was a simple and sound solution to the horrific situation in Beslan: stop Russian terror in Chechnya to spare the lives of the hostages, or at least, begin negotiations with Maskhadov’s government in exchange for the release of the children. It must be understood that the terrorists’ only demand — to stop the war in Chechnya and give peace to its people — is concrete enough and absolutely justified. It is impossible to justify terror, especially against children. But it is possible to understand the reasons. It would have been sanctimonious to deny the fact that Chechens’ response to terror is terror. Until Russia stops the violence in Chechnya, terrorist war will continue.

Alexander Podrabinek is an editor in chief of the Prima News Human Rights Service. The Prima News Human Rights Service web site may be found at www.prima-news.ru