Ari Bussel

Peaceniks – Where are You Now?

When three Israeli youths were kidnapped, Israel should have stood as one. A prayer vigil at the Western Wall, the holiest place in the world for Jews, was very well attended. Religious Jews (primarily “knitted yarmulkes,” Modern Orthodox) and “Settlers” (residents of Judea and Samaria) were present, but mainstream (secular) Israelis were noticeably absent.

An Easter Message from Israel

Dear Friends, While we, the Saturday People, celebrate Passover, you, the Sunday People, are celebrating Easter. At sunset, as Easter Sunday ends, the last day of our Passover holiday this year begins.

Lonely at the Top

I remember the look of then Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu at an underground command and control center in a city in Southern Israel crammed with foreign correspondents, when I introduced myself before asking my question, “Ari Bussel, Muslim World Today.”

It is a Very Sad Day

To all our friends and readers

May this year be one of peace prosperity, health and happiness to you and yours May we see an end to the conflicts that divide us and a new beginning for peaceful solutions Shana Tova U'Metuka - a good and sweet new year Ari and Norma Early morning in Los Angeles, the birds and the bees, urban nature and an old man walking to the Synagogue as he has done every single day for decades. Determination, devotion and a hand of a Palm Tree, flowering, full of fruits, as are our hopes - those of the Jewish People - for a better, peaceful year

Israel Walking to the Gallows

We sit at a Jewish or Arab film festival, or at a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" or "free Palestine, end the Occupation" event and watch a full feature film about the Occupation Army, the 21st Century manifestation of Nazis (i.e. Israelis). They are building a wall around Palestinians towns, uprooting their olive tree groves, purposely detaining them and denying them movement, treating them as sub-humans while catching their young males to harvest their organs.

Arab Spring:  Coming to Free Jerusalem

Tahrir Square, Egypt. The message this week: Coming to free Jerusalem from the Jews Finally, not only a free and independent Palestine is awaiting us in September, but also millions are promising to walk onto the tiny Jewish state, from Egypt in the South, Syria in the North East to possibly Lebanon in the North. For the moment, Jordan’s majority of Palestinians is quiet, but that can change without notice.

Kept in a Cage

We sat in the community room at a major LA shopping center. Over sixty people gathered on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to hear two members of the Flotillas to Palestine.

Brotherly Love & Israel’s Redemption

“And what does the Lord God require of you? But just to do justice, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 Jewish People are often called the “Chosen People.” They, alone of all people, are held to a higher standard, for they are the People of God. The world loves to hate Israel and the Jewish People, but the world continues to demand more of Israel, much more than it demands of itself. While the world uses an electron microscope to judge at everything Israel does, the expectation of “a higher standard” seems to be shared by all.

Al Qaeda is to the USA what the PA is to Israel

As we get close to the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the United States, imagine a movement here in the USA, with strong and insistent global backing, demanding the United States apologize to all Muslims. That we also sacrifice four million of our own people, as Al Qaeda’s goal is to avenge the death of four million Muslims it claims the United States has murdered, and pay restitution to the Muslims as the Germans did for Holocaust survivors.

Springtime in Israel

Everything is flowering in Israel at the moment, bursting with a full spectrum and combinations of colors only nature can provide. Blossoms are everywhere, from trees to bushes to lowly grass, in gardens, yards, construction sites, on the roadside and in the most unexpected places. No one will forgo celebrating a spring showing off its natural beauty and a chance to escape dormancy for a short, extraordinarily beautiful while. Life grabs the moment and lives to the fullest, opening up and delicately discovering a world, bestowing its natural beauty as a gift, not to oneself but to others. It is an intoxicating feeling of sharing, one that should be encapsulated and put aside for safekeeping for colder, darker or grayer times.

Help in Answering a Question

I was asked what seemed a very easy question: Why does no country keep an embassy in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem? In 1947 (November 29) the United Nations called for a termination of the British Mandate over Palestine and partitioned the land into a Jewish and an Arab state. It was in 1948 that the Jewish state declared (May 14) and later in 1949 that it was admitted to the United Nations (May11). Sixty-three years have passed, and today there is not a single embassy in Israel’s capital. Earlier this month, the 44th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem was celebrated. Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel with approximately ten percent of Israel’s residents living there. So why, I was asked, is it that no country honors Israel by having its embassy located there?

A Heavenly Promise

2,700 hundred years ago, the Prophet Jeremiah described a mother, lamenting her sons, for they were gone, and with them she had no hope for the future, for her end of days, for continuation. It was a time of deep sorrow and mourning, describes the Prophet and says that God will turn it into immense joy and jubilation. He promised that the mother’s sons would return to their borders from enemy land. This can be the cruelest torture of a parent, who is weeping bitterly, exasperated from sorrow and the inability to bring home one’s sons, but Jeremiah is devoid of any doubt. He comforts the mother, promising—there is reward to your actions, your sons will return.

Those Progressive Liberals

Israel National News reports about the President’s Conference now taking place in Israel. Judea and Samaria Council’s chairperson Danny Dayan and J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami participated in a panel discussion about criticism and loyalty in the relations between Israel and the Diaspora.

Fighting Self-Hating Jews

A local activist in Orange County has been fighting a large organization. The organization is Jewish and it supports an initiative to send students, Jewish and others, to Israel. Thus far, the idea is fantastic. For instance, the program “Birthright,” started by philanthropist Bronfman and now an official endeavor of the Israeli government, sends young Jews to Israel to get to know the country. They return after a short stay, an all-expense paid trip, turned into Israel’s best ambassadors.

Time to React!

There was a barrage of e-mails after Obama’s and Netanyahu’s speeches, what should Israel do, what should the USA do? Some warned Israel’s supporters that action is necessary for Israel cannot survive Obama. Others still use the recent speeches against Israel, blaming her for the fact that peace remains elusive after 63 years.

The True Frontier

Iran seems to be heavily vested in its race to acquire nuclear energy, “for peaceful purposes,” of course. At the same time Israel focuses its energies on the hardships of living in an arid area as population pressures mount to a critical point.

The Holocaust as Seen in 2011

It was ten a.m. in Israel on the Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day, and I stood in a city square as the siren started. It sounded somewhat distant, yet touched every nerve in my body. People stopped, instantly frozen in their tracks. Cars stopped, their doors opened and the drivers and passengers exited. No one was honking. No one was talking. Everyone stood straight, silent, their heads bowed. In this two-minute freeze-frame time span even the birds ceased their spring celebration. All was still, an entire nation respecting its dead, six million of them, as people recalled the Nazis’ attempt to annihilate their very being.

Sacrificial Lamb

I read a detailed account of the immensely detailed work that went into locating Osama Bin Laden and serving him with a message from the United States of America, a business card that read: Final Justice Served. Something, though, cannot escape my mind: the thought that Bin Laden successfully avoided the most sophisticated tracing system in the world for ten long years. Time after time he re-emerged from his “cave” with communiqués to the Western World, and despite repeated attempts, was never foiled. Not until now.

The Spring Revolution

Not much information is allowed out of Syria, other than pronunciations that “foreign elements are at work and must be quashed, while anyone peacefully protesting is protected.” Syria is launching an independent investigation as to the events unfolding, mimicking the UN inquiry. The results of both could not be further apart, teaching that the best defense is a good offense.