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Couple Lights Fireworks in Nazareth Shrine
Friday March 3, 2006 11:01 PM
By AMY TEIBEL
NAZARETH, Israel (AP) - An Israeli couple, joined by a young woman reported to be their daughter, entered one of Christianity's holiest sites on Friday and set off a series of small explosions, sparking a riot that left six people wounded in this Arab town in northern Israel.
The family's motives were unclear, but police said they had been treated for psychiatric problems in the past and faced the possibility of losing custody of their children.
Although the attack did not appear to be nationalistic, it underscored the tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority. Israeli Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, complain of systematic discrimination.
Police said the three entered the Basilica of the Annunciation Friday evening and set off firecrackers and other small explosives. Church officials said the site was unguarded, and witnesses said the explosives were hidden in a baby stroller.
A witness who identified herself only by her first name, Rouan, said the church was crowded with worshippers praying for the coming Easter holiday.
``We heard a boom. It went on for six or seven minutes,'' said the 22-year-old woman. She said the blast left black spots on the walls inside, but witnesses said there was no serious damage.
Within minutes, thousands of people began rioting outside, preventing police from entering. The attackers - who were disguised as pilgrims - remained barricaded inside the building for several hours before police broke through the crowd and took them into custody.
By late Friday, the riot had stopped, though hundreds of young men milled about, as small bonfires set inside garbage bins crackled and the acrid smell of tear gas blanketed the air. An Israeli helicopter hovered overhead.
Police officials said the couple involved in the attack had been treated for psychiatric problems in the past. The officials said authorities had questioned the Jerusalem couple this week and threatened to place their children in foster care.
Police said the couple had previously threatened to attack churches, and also spent time in the Palestinian territories, including a visit to the late Yasser Arafat's headquarters. Israeli media reported that the young woman with them was a daughter, though it was not known how many children they have.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said the attack did not appear to have nationalist motivations. He said the husband is Jewish and the wife is Christian.
Archbishop Elias Shakur, the top Roman Catholic official in Nazareth, dismissed the attackers as lone extremists.
``It's a big tragedy for all of us in Israel, for Christians, for having their most holy places spoiled and used in a barbaric way,'' he said.
The church is at the site where Christians believe the Angel Gabriel appeared before the Virgin Mary and foretold the birth of Jesus.
Nazareth, the boyhood town of Jesus, is inhabited by Christian and Muslim Arabs, and religious tensions have boiled over in the past, with the two sides in a dispute over attempts to build a mosque next to the church.
``We live here two religions together and they tried to make trouble for us,'' said Jaber Zeid, 20, of Nazareth.
Israel's roughly 1 million Arabs hold Israeli citizenship, in contrast to Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip who live under the Palestinian Authority.
Despite tensions between Jews and Arabs, violence is rare. Last August, a Jewish army deserter killed four Israeli Arabs in a shooting rampage on a bus. The attacker was killed by a mob.
In the worst ethnic violence in Israel, police killed 13 Arab-Israeli demonstrators who blocked a highway in October 2000.
But holy crap, I noticed something crazy. You can tell a hardcore Muslim by looking at his forehead. If he has a slight bruise there, it usually indicates the head-to-the-carpet-five-times-a-day Muslim. It's also a great way to tell whether someone will appreciate you telling them about your random sexcapades and alcohol binges. If they have the forehead bruise, then you're better off avoiding conversations around pork and the like.
Witness Ayman al-Zawahiri, below:
See the bruise on the forehead? That means this guy is a serious fan of the Lord.
But, check this out and tell me what is missing in this photo of the ever-so-hip Osama:
That's right bitchez, he doesn't have a bruise. Could he be an infidel? You know, I've always thought so, he just didn't look like the religious type to me. No seriously, I never saw it. So either a) he's a poseur, or b) he's a mutant. I think he is a mutant.
Thoughts?
This is one of the best articles I have ever read on modern Jordanian society.
Ten more days until I leave the country!
I'm one of those Kuwaiti-born Palestinians. Being one these types of folk means I got to live through the first Gulf war between Iraq and Kuwait (or the second Gulf War, if you want to consider Iran-Iraq). I don't remember much from the war; most of my memories come in segments detached from any real historical context. We didn't leave Kuwait until the end of October in 1990, so much of what happened occurred before this period.
Iraq invaded Kuwait when we were visiting my uncle in Morocco, in the summer of 1990. When we got back to Kuwait, I remember our housekeeper running out of the house in tears of relief, because she was scared of being alone.
I only remember bits and pieces, and perhaps my brother could provide more information; I do remember one time we woke up to the sounds of bombs flying. Everyone crowded by the window and when we pulled the curtains we could actually see a missile flying across the dusty Kuwaiti skyline. Another time my parents' friends, Annie and George, saw their neighbourhood go under heavy bombing. As a result, they came and lived with us for a long time, and brought their two sons Mario and Richard. Thus, the war for me and my brother became more of a slumber party than anything else. The four of us slept on mattresses in one room that was bare of anything except for a television and VCR, where we would spend hours watching the same episode of Tom and Jerry on repeat, and laughing like a bunch of maniacs (it was the episode where Tom is trying to catch Jerry in the bowling alley).
Soon afterwards, we had our own mice to catch, and this provided us with endless hours of fun, as the four of us (+ our dads) ran around trying to catch these bloody mice.
There were a couple of weird incidents as well. Iraqis were attacking Kuwaitis, and they eventually broke into the house above ours and stole all their jewlery. I remember we were relieved that it was the only thing that they did, because there were stories of rape, torture and murder, which scared us because we lived in a Kuwaiti-dominated neighbourhood.
I also remember my mom coming home from work one day talking of her workplace getting bombed. She was shaking as she described a co-worker who had a brick fall on her head; she said the lady walked around dazed with blood pouring from all sides of her face. I also remember we were there during me and Richard's birthdays (his is on the 28th of September, mine is on the 29th). Since everything was shut down, my parents had to take us to a looter's house, who had stocked up on Toys R Us goodies when the store was burnt to the ground. He had them in a pyramid style pile in the middle of his living room, and I remember being jealous because he had all these toys for free. He gave us two free gifts, though. When we had our birthday party, there were only a few remaining people left in Kuwait, and since all shops were closed, our gifts consisted of second-hand Thundercats and He-man toys, most of which were stolen from us when we did end up leaving Kuwait anyway.
My grandfater was sick at the time (he had heart problems, which finally killed him less than a month after we finally left); I remember him sitting on one of our couches being checked up by my father, while we all stood by the wall silently watching what was going on.
There was this one incident that was particularly scary. Everyone was forced to bring their passports along with them wherever they went. One day, my brother, mother, and I were just about to get into the car when we heard shooting. My mother immediately put the passports on the roof of the car, as she pushed me and my brother down on the sidewalk. After the shooting subsided, she threw us into the car and quickly drove off, leaving the passports on the roof. We eventually found them, but not before my dad went completely apeshit about the situation.
I should stop since I need to get to a conference on Islamic movements that is halfway across town; I'm going to say that I will try and continue this later, but I probably won't.
'An assault on Iraq will inflame world opinion and jeopardise security and peace everywhere. London, as one of the major world cities, has a great deal to lose from war and a lot to gain from peace, international co-operation and global stability.'
Despite the fact that a lot of my family are currently living in London, I am not in the mood to comment more on this tripe. I refuse to be a hypocrite; the day I begin acting like I care about the 15 thousand a week AIDS deaths in South Africa, or posting whenever someone is killed in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan, is the day that I will join in on this overblown egocentric circle jerk of the West.
If this offends you, that's good. De-friend me.
Lex, on his German assignment: "They want me to find a present perfect tense in the article. What's a present perfect? Nothing in life is perfect."
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Reading the whole Imus debacle first thing in the morning was a great way to start the day. I actually found it not just funny, but freaking hilarious.
The deal is that these guys said some very anti-Arab/Palestinian crap...but I think what they said was really funny, since it was so out there. To me, overblown Arab racism is much less hurtful than implicit racism.
From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:
DON IMUS, host: They're [Palestinians] eating dirt and that fat pig wife [Suha Arafat] of his is living in Paris.
ROSENBERG: They're all brainwashed, though. That's what it is. And they're stupid to begin with, but they're brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now.
MCGUIRK: You can just imagine standing there.
ROSENBERG: Oh, the stench.
IMUS: Well, the problem is that we have Andrea [Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent] there. We don't want anything to happen to her.
ROSENBERG: Oh, she's got to get out. Just warn Andrea, get out, and then drop the bomb, kill everybody.
MCGUIRK: It's like the worst Woodstock.
ROSENBERG: Look at this. Look at these animals. Animals!
Apparently, this is not the first time he's pissed of Arabs. He also has referred to us as "goat-humping weasels" and "ragheads"...I can't argue with either of these, since I have that strange obsession with goats, and am also quite the raghead.
The rest of this insanely funny video can be seen here. Fucking Hi-Larious.
Having said all of this, it does beg the following question:
If Imus said what he said about Jews instead of Arabs, how different/overhyped would this have been?
Peace.
