**Stop Press**
A LETTER OF APPEAL FROM

BISHOP RIAH, THE ANGLICAN BISHOP OF JERUSALEM

ON THE CURRENT CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

written 25 JULY 2006

Dear Friends,

For the past forty years we have been largely alone on this desert fighting a predator that not only has robbed us of all but a small piece of our historic homeland, but threatens the traditions and holy sites of Christianity. We are tired, weary, sick, and wounded. We need your help. We have seen and we have been the recipients of the generosity of our American and British friends. We cherish the support of everyone throughout the world who stands with us in solidarity.

Daily, I hear from many of them who express outrage at the arrogant and aggressive positions of President Bush, Secretary Rice, Senator Clinton, and Prime Minister Blair. I am saddened to realize just how much the deserved prestige of the United States and Britain has declined as a result of politicians who seem to devalue human life and suffering.

And, I am disturbed that the Zionist Christian community is damaging America’s image as never before. Little more than a week ago, we were focused on the plight of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, four and five generations have been victims of Israeli racism, hate crimes, terror, violence, and murder.

Garbage and sewage have created a likely outbreak of cholera as Israeli strategies create the collapse of infrastructures. There is no milk. Drinking water, food, and medicine are in serious short supply. Innocents are being killed and dying from lack of available emergency care. Children are paying the ultimate price. Even for those whose lives are spared, many of them are traumatized and will not grow to live useful lives.
Commerce between the West Bank and Gaza has been halted and humanitarian aid barely trickles into some of the neediest in the world.

Movement of residents of the West Bank is difficult or impossible as “security measures” are heightened to break the backs of the Palestinian people and cut them off from their place of work, schools, hospitals, and families. It is family and community that has sustained these people during these hopeless times. For some, it is all that they had, but that too has been taken away with the continued building of the wall and check points. The strategy of ethnic cleansing on the part of the State of Israel continues.

This week, war broke out on the Lebanon-Israeli border (near Banyas where Jesus gave St. Peter the keys to heaven and earth). The Israeli government’s disproportionate reaction to provocation was consistent with their opportunistic responses in which they destroy their perceived enemy. I n her recent article, “The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel,” American, Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst says, “The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength.” She continues, “A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer’s brutal murder of a thirteen year old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post (one of nearly seven hundred Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the Intifada began) is not a society with a conscience.” The“situation” as it has come to be called, has deteriorated into a war without boundaries or limitations. It is a war with deadly potential beyond the imaginations of most civilized people.

As I write to you, I am preparing to leave with other bishops for Nablus with medical and other emergency supplies for five hundred families, and a pledge for one thousand families more. On Saturday we will attempt to enter Gaza with medical aid for doctors and nurses in our hospital there who struggle to serve the injured, the sick, and the dying.

My plan is that I will be able to go to Lebanon next week - where we are presently without a resident priest - to bury the dead, and comfort the victims of war.

Perhaps as others have you will ask, “What can I do?”

Certainly we encourage and appreciate your prayers. That is important, but it is not enough. If you find that you can no longer look away, take up your cross. It takes courage as we were promised.
Write every elected official you know. Write to your news media. Speak to your congregation, friends, and colleagues about injustice and the threat of global war.

If Syria, Iran, the United States, Great Britain, China and others enter into this war - the consequence is incalculable. Participate in rallies and forums. Find ways that you and your churches can participate in humanitarian relief efforts for the region. Contact us and let us know if you stand with us. I urge you not to be like a disciple watching from afar.

2 Corinthians 6.11
“We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open to you.
There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours.
In return - I speak as to children - open wide your hearts also.”

In, with, and through Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem

AND NOW ANOTHER MASSACRE

Second Letter from Bishop Riah
1 August 2006

Dear Friends,

When I wrote to you last Friday, I could not have imagined that a second Qana Massacre in a decade would be carried out by the State of Israel on Sunday when they dropped two bombs on a house, crushing at least fifty-six people, including thirty-four children and twelve women. They suffocated under dirt and debris, virtually buried alive in the makeshift bomb shelter where they had had little water and food and no toilet.

“In 1996, one of the deadliest single events of the whole Arab-Israeli conflict took place there—the shelling of a United Nations base where hundreds of people were sheltering. More than one hundred were killed and another one hundred injured, cut down by Israeli antipersonnel shells that explode in the air sending a lethal shower of shrapnel to the ground,” reported Martin Asser of BBC News, Beirut.

With expressions of “deep sorrow” from Prime Minister Olmert, this tragedy of epic proportions is not enough to stop Israel’s attacks on the people of Lebanon.
Today, the Israeli Security Cabinet approved a widening of the ground offensive in the South. Yesterday, Israel violated their agreement to stop the air offensive over Lebanon for forty-eight hours which would have allowed humanitarian aid to reach victims and residents stranded in the South could have traveled more safely to the North. Olmert announced today that the end to the war is not in sight.

While tens of thousands are without food and medical supplies, the U.N. reports that their convoys have been turned away and cancelled by the Israeli government. The short journey from Tyre to Qana is delayed for hours because the roads have been destroyed. Aid trickles in.
“Amid the despair and the grim task of removing the victims, there is deep anger at what many here regard is the callous indifference of the West,” reports Ilene Prusher of the Christian Science Monitor in Lebanon.

The offering of condolences from President Bush, Secretary Rice, and Prime Minister Blair to the Lebanese people for Israel’s murder of innocent children seems hollow, with no condemnation of Israel’s repeated and flagrant disregard for human life and the values of civilized people everywhere.

I have read the letter sent to The President of the United States signed by my brother in Christ The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswald, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church of America and fourteen other Christian leaders in which they say:
“This violent conflict has created a grave humanitarian crisis, and no hoped-for benefit should outweigh the cause of saving innocent lives.”
The letter continues with a plea, “Your presidential leadership and the full weight of the United States, acting in concert with the international community, must be applied now to achieve an immediate cease-fire and to launch an intensive diplomatic initiative for the cessation of hostilities”. I regret that the President has ignored this call.

Last week in Lebanon, Israel bombed and destroyed a U.N. observation post on the border in Southern Lebanon killing four peacekeeping observers. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed indignation that Israel appeared to have struck the well known,established, and clearly identified site deliberately. The bomb made a direct hit on the building and the attack continued even throughout the rescues and recovery mission.

The Security Council’s statement excludes condemnation of Israel at the insistence of The United States. The war rages on into the third week. If fighting does not cease, the homeless count in Lebanon will soon reach one million people. Families and communities continue to be ripped apart.

And, the offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza has been relentless.
This week when Jan Egeland, the U.N.’s Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs visited Jerusalem, he focused much of his attention on “the tragedy happening in the Gaza Strip”. He does not understand what benefit Israel will gain from punishing 1.4 million people by cutting them off from their sources of electricity and jobs, from running water in their houses and from fresh food.
“What is the message that the residents of Gaza receive from the sight of mountains of tomatoes tossed out on the side of the road at the border crossings into Israel? That they should be more productive and support peace?” Saturday, after waiting two and one half hours at the checkpoint, our delegation visited Gaza on a mission of mercy, taking medical and relief supplies to hospitals and shelters. Israel Defense Forces tanks had pushed back before dawn, just one day after ending an unusually deadly incursion that killed thirty Palestinians over three days.

According to an Associated Press count, in the past one month period, Israeli troops have killed 159 Palestinians since they started their relentless attacks on the Gaza Strip in response to the capture of soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

I have seen the Caterpillar bulldozers and the orchards of oranges uprooted by them.
I saw an apartment building where forty families were given forty minutes to leave before it was demolished into a pile of rubble.
I have heard the concern of the Director of our Al-Ahli Arab Hospital regarding medical supplies, staffing shortages, and lack of fuel to run the generators essential to critical care.
And, I have seen children playing near mountains of garbage which are the breeding ground to rats and the threat of cholera, a disease that I watched devastate India when I lived there. We must not become complacent or be desensitized by the images of this human tragedy. Continue to appeal to your government representatives to demand an immediate ceasefire.

It is time that The United Nations and the world community see to it that Israel complies with U.N. Resolutions 242, 338, and 194, so that compliance with Resolution 1559 can be enforced. We must find an end to this madness. Killing and the destruction of the environment is not a war against nations, but it is a war against God.

In, with, and through Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal Bishop
The Diocese of Jerusalem Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria

HOWARD PHONES OLMERT TO OFFER HIS 'PERSONAL SUPPORT':
According to the Australian Jewish News 4/8/06, "Howard Calls on Olmert".
John Howard phoned Ehud Olmert of Israel offering his personal support and in turn Mr. Olmert expressed his 'deep appreciation for Australia's support in the war against Hezbollah'.
The article concludes: "Howard and Olmert met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when Olmert was still mayor of Jerusalem.

Maybe John Howard would now like to talk to the present Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem! The good Christian Bishop appealed to us in his first letter: "Contact us and let us know if you stand with us"
.
But not to be outdone, on the same page of the AJN it is reported Labor's Kevin Rudd ("Pressure Iran, Syria - Rudd") has called for international pressure to be applied against 'reckless' Iran and Syria in order to end their assistance to Hezbollah and Hamas.

When can we expect to hear that these 'great world statesmen' - on behalf of the children of Palestine and Lebanon - have called for 'international pressure' to be applied against 'reckless Israel and the United States'?

THE COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE?

by Brian Simpson
The orthodox financial system has debt creation built into it as a natural by-product of credit by the banking system as a debt. Added to this is what Jewish physicist Albert Einstein called "humanities" greatest creation: compound interest or interest on interest. Debt then can grow at an exponential rate - slowly at first, but ultimately approaching infinity. At this point when the debts are called in, and the piper must be paid, the economic world falls apart.
At present European corporate borrowers are facing debt levels "up to eight times projected earnings" according to Sir Ronald Cohen founder of Apex Partners. (The Australian 21/6/06). These debt multiples, he said are "increasing all the time." Along with this is the threat of slower growth. Cohen said: "It is a dangerous combination if a company's sales and profits fall at the same time as debt servicing costs rise."

Stephen Leeb and Glen C. Strathy have recently published a book entitled "The Coming Economic Collapse: How you can thrive when oil costs $200 a barrel," (Warner Business Books, New York, 2006).
Leeb and Strathy are of the opinion that a civilisation-shaking crisis is at hand due to oil shortages and rising prices. The authors accept the idea of peak-oil - that the world is physically running out of oil - an idea which strikes me as an ideological prop of the military-oil establishment more than anything else.
Nevertheless, apart from this issue the authors devote considerable attention to the far more important issue of the rising cost of oil because of the demands of the fast growing China and India - or what they call "Chinindia". This growth in demand for energy will rise over 5 per cent a year given Chinidia's demands, "far higher than any growth rate we have ever witnessed in modern times." (p.79)
Already "Chinindia currently consumes, on a per capita basis, half as much energy as the entire world and one-seventh as much as high-income countries." It is possible this spiralling demand, not some imagined physical shortage of oil, could be the force which pushes an already tottering economy over the edge. World Wars have erupted over less.

Chapter 3 of Leeb and Strathy is entitled :"The Collapse of Civilisation: Causes and Solutions." The authors' thought is heavily influenced by a book by American historian Joseph Tainter, "The Collapse of Complex Societies," (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988).
He argues that complex societies usually collapse because of complexity and problem overload, leading to diminishing returns (getting less for extra effort).
Strathy documents that technology has been suffering diminishing returns in recent times (which it must as all factors of production do). This means that humanity's problems will not be solved by purely technological answers.
Quoting Michael Shermer (Scientific American, August 2002) they observe that the life span of the average civilisation is only 421 years. Will we go down the same drain hole of history? If other civilisations could fall, for lesser reasons than our own crisis prone world, what immunes our world from cultural and civilisational death?

It cannot be technology because at the end of the day, technological development is dependent upon economic health. Our unhealthy economy could spell the end of civilisation unless the cures of Social Credit are implemented.
This especially involves gaining community control over the creation of credit to control the intrinsic debt creation embodied in our present system, and channelling human technological creativity into serving genuine human needs, rather than the artificial needs of a soulless consumer society.

The League has available some excellent, easily understandable books which show how Social Credit can deal with these "big-picture" civilisation threats.
Anthony Cooney's series is excellent for those who know little about debt-money creation and haven't given any thought to just how a community, nation, or a civilisation, not only develops but is sustained..
Commence by reading Eric D. Butler's "Releasing Reality" and Anthony Cooney's "Social Credit: Economics".
Send to your State Book Services for a list of suitable reading.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND SOCIAL CREDIT

by James Reed
The captains of industry are driving ever ahead with industrial relations 'reform'. The electronic media reported on their lobbying to do away with, or reduce, sick leave and other benefits that previous generations won by blood sweat and tears. All for what?
For this:
James Packer bought a private jet worth $60 million but ordered Nine Network chiefs to axe 100 jobs, reduce news and current affairs, to save $15 million. Of course he couldn't catch a normal flight like everybody else. Somehow I can't get the image out of my mind of an Emperor sitting back having grapes put in his mouth. Couldn't the people have kept their jobs and Packer actually save $45 million?

No, in a nutshell this is what IR reform is about : for the rich to live on as Emperors and the masters of the universe and for working people to be increasingly exploited. It's enough to make a "Marxist" out of one! - but that is one of the failures of the freedom movement. Workers' rights were regarded as something that the union movement, dominated by Communists, looked after.
Freedom movement types coming from small business didn't have much interest in blue collar workers. This gave the Marxists an open field to monopolise. However, that must change. Opinion polls (e.g., The Australian 9/7/06, p.2) have shown that opposing IR has boosted Beazley's chances of becoming PM.

There is a lesson in this for the freedom movement.
There is no real political voice for working people. Working people are the most affected by globalism and world financial policies. They are the most in need of information that we can supply.
Freedom movement activities should begin targeting them, they have the most to gain from the policies of social credit.
Industrial relations reform, much like other economic issues such as the sale of Telstra, privatisation and indeed, economic globalisation itself, is about strengthening the rule of money against the rule of the human spirit and freedom.

All of this is quite contrary to the Social Credit tradition which aims to enrich the common-weal (common well-being) and the cultural heritage of the nation. With such policies put in place, the individual can then reap the full benefits flowing from the complex human associations and the modern production system.
The philosophical ancestry is a long and noble one of Christian natural law philosophy that sees goodness grounded in God and seeks the release of His abundant providence for individuals to flourish and realise their potentialities by living in harmony with God-given laws and Godly-inspired civil laws.
In this fruitful estate, money, and indeed the economy, is to be the servant of man not the master. Money would be, as Major Douglas often put it, a mere ticket to new goods and services, not the evil spiritual entity it has become in this modern world, with a seeming life of its own. Thus in a social credit world, one with rich and liberating technology, it is simply not necessary or desirable to have everybody employed. Individuals could receive a cash credit or dividend based upon the productive prowess of the society - without the humiliation and added cost of Orwellian entities such as Centrelink and a Welfare State.

Social Credit is the most comprehensive and best thought out alternative to the chaos and misery produced by orthodox economic and financial policies. The present Industrial Relations reforms are nothing more than the inevitable sabre-rattling of the captains of industry. It will never stop so long as the economy continues to function as it does where the rule of money has replaced the rule of freedom. The Social Credit movement is about re-establishing the reign of freedom and putting economics back into its proper place.

A PEOPLE WITHOUT A FUTURE?

by Betty Luks
A number of readers have asked why we defend the Palestinians in Gaza when groups of Muslims continually show their contempt for Westerners, and in fact in many parts of the world are attacking and brutally murdering them.
And, 'What about the Cronulla riots? What about the pack-rapes by that gang of Lebanese youths in Sydney?' another reader asked, reminding me, 'they exhibited the utmost contempt for our women.'
If we want the right to determine our own future as a clearly identifiable ethnic and cultural people, at the same time we can appreciate the right of other peoples to do the same.
The problems within Australia did not stem from the Palestinian peoples or the Muslims of the Middle East.
It is to succeeding governments in this country we can look for expressing the utmost contempt for our faith, traditions and culture by implementing and promoting the policies of multiculturalism in the first place.
We can thank those traitorous politicians for implementing policies which not only encouraged, but financially supported, the setting up of the many cultural communities throughout the land, whilst at the same time demeaning our own faith, culture and traditions.
We can also thank those politicians for betraying their own people by imposing alien peoples upon us en masse.

I would ask:
Can we really blame those within the various cultural communities for feelings of contempt for a people who do not value themselves, their own history, or their own cultural inheritance?
A People without Faith, a People without a Past, a People without a Heritage have no sustenance to draw upon - no blood and sap to draw from the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge or Wisdom. They are a people without a future.

MULTICULTURALISM: RULE-OF-LAW'S MORTAL ENEMY

THE CULTURAL VALUES?

It needs to be stressed time and time again, the cultural values in which this concept of a 'rule-of-law' arose, had their origins in those highest features of Christian morality.
What those Christian men aimed at during the formative years of the Common Law was not merely the prevention of obvious injustice or deceit but the fulfillment of the law of Christ:
"Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, you do also unto them."
It was a concept of mutual love and co-operation between husband and wife, between neighbour and neighbour, families, communities and also between nations.
It is a philosophy of a 'two-way street' - mutual love and co-operation - not the philosophy of a 'one-way street' we see all round us today.

Richard O'Sullivan, KC could write[1] :
Ever since the period of the Norman Conquest the emerging principles of the Common Law were being shaped by Christian kings and by Churchmen who were also Canonists. And at all times the canon law made a natural bridge to connect legal ideas with ethical and theological discussion.
[1] "Christian Philosophy in Common Law" by Richard O'Sullivan KC. 1942. It is an expansion of a paper titled "The Foundations of English Freedom".

The League does carry photocopies of the booklet for those readers interested to study a most important document.
Price: $8.00 posted from Heritage Books, P.O. Box 27, Happy Valley 5159

BOMB MADE IN "GOOD 'OL US OF A"

Istanbul's >www.zaman.com< website carries a photo of the English text on a scrap of metal remaining from one of the 'laser-controlled BSU 37/B 'bunker busters' used to bomb the village of Qana, Lebanon.
English-speaking Christians would know of that little village as Cana of Galilee. They would often read St. John's account of Jesus turning water into wine for a wedding feast in that little village of Cana, in the, then, Roman occupied province of Galilee.

Let those same Christians now read the report of what happened to the 21st century's villagers of Qana of Lebanon:
"The Guardian: Qana Bomb Made in the US , by Foreign News Desk, 1/8/06. It has been revealed that the bombs used in the attacks Israel launched on the southern Lebanese village of Qana were produced by the US. At least 60 civilians, most of whom were children had been killed in the attack. The British newspaper Guardian reported that the bombs used in the attacks were laser-controlled BSU 37/B bunker busters manufactured by the US.
"The Independent claimed that inscriptions on shrapnel found at the sight of the attack indicate that the bombs were manufactured by the US. It also noted that the bombs were tested in the war field. The same type bomb had been used in last week's attack that killed four UN observers. The Bush administration had shipped 2.5 tons, 100 GBU-28 "bunker busters" to the region after the operation began on 12 July."

You must have a heart of stone:
"The Guardian, recalling the Qana massacre of 1996 when 105 people were killed, stressed that Israel's foreign policies have never yielded concrete results and there was no guarantee that their latest policies would be any different.
In an article titled, 'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?' Robert Fisk, a popular journalist for Independent, writes, 'You must have a heart of stone not to feel the outrage.'"

BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY PROTESTS AT WEAPONS FLIGHT

BBC On-Line Report:
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has protested to the US about its use of a Scottish airport to transport bombs to Israel. Amid the Lebanon crisis, Mrs Beckett said it seemed the US was not following the right procedures over arms flights.
'Serious fault'
Mrs Beckett was asked about the controversy after discussing the Middle East crisis with fellow foreign ministers in Rome. "We have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened," she said.
If these reports are true, it is particularly provocative for the United States to have acted in this way. Opposition parties have reacted angrily to a report in The Daily Telegraph newspaper that two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick Airport en-route to Israel from the US. The Israelis have requested the munitions to attack bunkers being used by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Laser guided bombs?
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have procedures in place for flights carrying arms. It's important that they are followed. If they are not, we will raise it with the US but we are not going to comment on US flights transiting through the UK. The foreign secretary has discussed this issue with Condoleezza Rice."
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said:
"Any alliance must be based on trust, even one as intimate as that between the United States and the United Kingdom. If these reports are true, it is particularly provocative for the United States to have acted in this way. Who knows how many of these munitions may be used to cause the special damage to Lebanon which the prime minister of that country described in Rome as cutting his country to pieces."

Weapons of Mass Destruction? Mr. John Howard, Prime Minister - Where Are You?
SNP defence spokesman Angus Robertson urged ministers to intervene to prevent Scottish involvement in the conflict.
"The UK government must get behind the United Nations' call for a ceasefire by both Hezbollah and Israel, rather than using Scotland as a staging post for supplying weapons of mass destruction," he said.
A spokesperson for Prestwick Airport said it had supplied logistical support for military flights since WWII:
"Since the Second World War Glasgow Prestwick Airport has provided logistical support for military flights moving troops and cargo.
"That support involves allowing crew to rest, refuelling aircraft and providing food and water. The airport is obliged to allow aircraft from any CAA-registered country to land here."