July 2001 Personal Letter

Dear Friends,

Faisal Husseini, Arafat’s “Representative for Jerusalem” or whatever title he held in the bogus Jerusalem government of the PLO, has died. A funeral with all sorts of honors was held for him in Ramallah, which has become the de facto “Palestinian” capital.

I was acquainted with Faisal Husseini because we interviewed him for a television program a few years ago (“The PLO Speaks” in our Jerusalem 3000 series).

To speak as kindly as possible of the dead, Husseini just didn’t tell me the truth. I have many times cited his amazing statements in that interview, and if you get the video series you will hear verbatim a man trying to tell me that the “Palestinians” — a nationality invented in 1964 — have lived in Israel for 5,000 years! Here is my exact dialogue with Husseini from that interview:

ZOLA

How long have the Palestinians been in Jerusalem?

HUSSEINI

We consider those who built it in the beginning, when it was Jebus, we consider them Palestinians. So, since 5,000 years ago.

ZOLA

5,000 years ago?

HUSSEINI

Yes, if we are talking about Palestinians.

ZOLA

Across town, there is a [Jewish] celebration called Jerusalem 3,000, but you claim 5,000?

HUSSEINI

5,000. If you say 1,000, I will say 2,000, and so we will reach 5,000.

ZOLA

It’s a bidding war?

HUSSEINI

Yes. 5,000 years ago there was Jerusalem. Then came other people, then came Hebrews, then came other people. So the Jews’ history, I believe, is the history of all of us, including Jews, including Crusaders, including Moslems, including Arabs, including all of these people. And if I would like to find who of those people own all of these things, I could say Palestinians.

If that’s not astonishing enough, the PLO lie has progressed from there to a history that no longer includes the Jews. They are presently saying that the Jews never lived in Israel at all! It wasn’t that Husseini was being more honest than the more recent fabricators, but that this invention just hadn’t come along yet at the time I interviewed him. Naturally, I couldn’t object very strenuously, since we were at the Orient House in East Jerusalem, and by my count there were 25 PLO thugs standing around inside and outside the place with ready guns. My crew wasn’t particularly comfortable, and neither was I.

But when I completed the program back home, I said in the closing few minutes that, according to Husseini’s rules, I might just decide the American Indians were Latvian Jews, and therefore America is my country!

It is commonplace for the highest officials in the Arab world to simply lie through their teeth, even to interviewers quite alert to the false information they are trying to establish. Naturally, not all interviewers are very knowledgeable about Israel and its history, but some are. Unfortunately, Charlie Rose is not among those.

In a recent article in the International Jerusalem Post titled “When PBS met Hosni Mubarak,” the sitting “president” of Egypt, a nation of over 60 million people, told the most childish set of lies, but nevertheless completely fooled his interviewer, Charlie Rose. Andrea Levin wrote, “[Rose] betrayed a sharp lack of awareness of basic information about Egypt, Israel and the Palestinians, and a deference to his guest that crossed into outright sycophancy.” American interviewers do tend to be awestruck by the most common of title-bearing Arab personalities, even common thugs. Rose was overly solicitous to his illustrious guest, but he should have been better prepared for the interview.

“Mubarak was unchallenged when he declared that, regarding the holy places in Jerusalem, ‘before 1967 there [was] free access for all people — Palestinians, Jews, Moslems, everybody could go there. So if it is going back to the Palestinians, I think there will be no problem about Jews to visit their holy places, or Moslems or Copts or Christians or other religions.’”

What an amazing revision of history that is! Reporter Andrea Levin goes on, “An interviewer may not be able to question every obfuscation by a guest, but such lies should have been challenged. The claim that Jews and Christians had free access to their holy sites in Jerusalem when Jordan occupied the eastern side of the city is absurd. Jews were unable to pray at the Western Wall or to enter the Temple Mount for 19 years. Israeli Christians too were severely limited in their access to holy sites.

“But the interview got worse. Mubarak, a veteran handler of Western journalists, anticipated being asked about the virulent government-controlled Egyptian press, and so he took the offensive, charging that religious Israelis have defamed Muhammed. Only then did Rose broach, in notably stumbling language, the delicate matter of the Egyptian media. He asked, ‘Do you know what they write in Egyptian papers, about the anti-Israel diatribes? Even the Secretary of State was attacked in Egyptian newspapers…. [They used the expression] “the so-called Holocaust.”’

“An unperturbed Mubarak interjected, ‘Charlie, Charlie… you know we have free press.’ Although Egypt has nothing of the kind, Rose promptly agreed: ‘Right.’”

Egypt’s press is simply a government-controlled agency in a police state, as are media in all Arab nations. That Charlie Rose would not know this basic fact about his profession is appalling, but that is how Arab spokesmen get away with the most outrageous lies; they depend on unprepared interviewers, and frankly, American reporters in general are plain ignorant about the Middle East. Ted Koppel is well beyond his depth in his “town hall meetings,” which he holds from time to time between “Palestinians” and Israelis, and reporters at such august publications as The New York Times and The Washington Post are equally duped.

Arab regimes tell lies, and it seems they do so under the direction of the Father of Lies. After all, the idea is to undermine the Chosen People and the Promised Land, and that is best accomplished with other than godly means, to say the least. And yet I’m still stymied by the idea that reporters in a democracy like ours favor the establishment of another totalitarian dictatorship in the midst of a successful democracy like Israel. Even considering anti-Semitism, “rooting for the underdog” and the threat of higher oil prices all taken together, I think it’s completely a Satanic impulse that guides otherwise intelligent writers to make so bizarre a choice. No citizen in a democracy, in his right mind, would choose a thuggish regime like the PLO over the democracy of Israel.

The recent excessive terrorism in Israel brought many reporters up short, however. Even those newspapers which strain to make everything Israel’s fault had a real problem with the young man who blew up a crowd of other young men and women in front of a disco in Tel Aviv. Even the worst of the Arab sympathizers could not congratulate him, and only the lunatics in his own rebel organization were proud. But he may not have done very well for his cause. As a matter of fact, this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When I started to prepare this letter, I paused to see if Israel would retaliate in some strong way. As we go to press, matters stand this way: the Israelis are being very restrained, but they’re absolutely ready to put a full stop to all this foolishness.

Thank Heaven! I’ll be so glad to see the end of the “peace process.”

We didn’t even get phone calls about “renewed violence,” as it is known in the American media, even though the incident happened the weekend before our June Tour. The pilgrims left as usual, and I am sure that I will report still another peaceful and successful tour of Israel, even while CNN dithers and blathers about the situation. Naturally, these incidents are like American school shootings, post office shootings, etc., and no where near the scale of our Oklahoma City or World Trade Center bombings. As I’ve explained before, that seems to be the price of democracy these days, and anyone is still safer travelling where the tours go in Israel than they are in any American city.

If you still don’t believe me, well, take a break from the violence in the U.S. and join one of the tours below. There is still time to register for this fine upcoming spiritual expedition. “Soon, and very soon, we’re going to see the King” are words from a chorus that celebrates our Lord’s soon return. See the “Kingdom” now! Join us for a Greek luxury cruise, our Eilat/Petra extension and our Israel tour for an all-inclusive Holy Land experience. Our Fall Tour has four options:

• Our Deluxe Tour: Sep. 3 – 13.
  Ten days in Israel, with Israeli guides, drivers, hotels and restaurants.
• Our Grand Petra Tour: Aug 30. – Sep. 13.
  Adds Eilat/Petra to our ten-day Israel itinerary.
• The Grand Athens Tour: Sep. 3 – 18.
  You’ll enjoy our Deluxe Israel Tour plus the cruise of the Greek isles.
• The Ultra Grand Tour: Aug. 30 – Sep. 18.
  Includes everything above: Israel, Eilat/Petra, and the luxurious Mediterranean cruise.

For more information, please call Tony at (214) 696-9760 during office hours. You may also call 1-800-WONDERS (966-3377) anytime to request a full-color brochure.

Stay tuned for our new series, Thy Kingdom Come: The Future of Believers, and remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Your Messenger,

P.S. Please remember that we pay for our television air time as well as the production of our TV programs and covet your prayers and support.