Purim is a time for reflection on what Haman’s real aim was. Why did he hate Mordechai? Why did he want to kill not only Mordechai, but also all Jews?

I developed some time ago the following scenario for the Purim story: The Jews had returned to Jerusalem by permission of King Cyrus, but the local Samaritan population -- like today’s Palestinians -- tried to stop the return of the Jews. They sent an emissary, Haman, to Shushan to ask the king to stop the rebuilding of a Jewish Jerusalem. According to the Book of Ezra, this lobbying campaign succeeded.

King Ahashverosh issued an edict stopping the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 4:6). Obviously the Jews did not sit still. They sent Mordechai to Shushan to lobby for the lifting of the king’s edict. In short, Mordechai and Haman were political foes on a collision course. So we can see that the center of the Purim story was Jerusalem, not Shushan. The story tells how the fate of Jerusalem was in the balance, with anti-Jewish forces, just as today, going all out to destroy the Jewish State. Haman saw a chance to solve the problem of the Jewish State once and for all by killing all the Jews! Haman had brought with him his 10 sons, who had the same agenda as their father. So when their plot failed, they were all condemned and hung.

Just as we were being lulled into believing that Christians the world over realized that Islamic fundamentalism is as dangerous to Christians as it is to Jews -- both considered "infidels" by the Moslems -- and just when we were beginning to feel that the Vatican had given up its diabolical designs to wrest Jerusalem from Jewish sovereignty, eight Christian American bishops, just before Purim and far from the Middle East where Moslems oppress Christians, have reared the ugly head of old-time Christian hatred for Jews, by calling on the Jews to give up sovereignty over their 3,000-year-old capital.

With one hate-filled statement they have torn away the veil of years of "inter-faith" cooperation, revealing it all to have been a sham and a deception. The Church -- in the eyes of these eight bishops --remains as committed as in centuries past to make Jerusalem Judenrein. After all, in 1099, when Christians last controlled Jerusalem under the Crusaders, the first thing the men of the cross did was herd all Jews in Jerusalem into a synagogue and set it on fire. Hitler, also a Catholic, did the same all over Occupied Europe a few centuries later.

Here are some excerpts of the bishops’ appeal to President Clinton.

...in contravention of international law, more and more land is taken out of Palestinian hands and placed under Israeli control by annexation, expropriation and private purchases, often coercive and of questionable legality ... Israeli planning for "Greater Jerusalem" and particularly the protest against Israel claiming that "Jerusalem will remain the eternal and undivided capital of Israel," widely interpreted as a claim of exclusive Israeli sovereignty over the city ...

They also press for "recognizing and supporting Palestinian rights and interests in Jerusalem." And finally -- the cat is out of the bag -- they call for Jerusalem to be "a shared city!"

This dastardly attack on long-held Jewish policies, stressed again and again even by Rabin, is of course a direct result of the ongoing undermining of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem by the entire extreme left, orchestrated by the Americans for Peace Now, who have supported every anti-Zionist plan for Jerusalem, including the breakup of Jerusalem into small pockets allocated to the Jews, while creating a Palestinian majority.

At the last Democratic Party National Convention, it was the APN that influenced the Democratic Party to drop from its platform any reference to Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. One of the APN leaders, Letty Pogrebin, has openly declared that she supports alternative solutions to Jewish sovereignty. She also participated at an Arab-Meretz Party conference in June 1994 where a plan for the breakup of Jerusalem was agreed to. Of course Yossi Beilin is known to support giving up Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, as did Teddy Kollek, before he was defeated as mayor of Israel’s capital.

The old saying, "Wis es Yudelt sich, so Christels es sich," meaning if Jews can do it, Christians will do it, too, is alive and well. The Christians, having watched the staunch resolve for a Jewish Jerusalem torpedoed and undermined by Jews themselves -- albeit Jews with little connection to authentic Judaism -- saw their own chance for attack.

I have for a long time warned that if the Presidents’ Conference remained silent in the face of threats to Jerusalem and Israel’s security, disaster could be expected. It is therefore significant, that now, belatedly, the action that should have been taken long ago finally makes its appearance. Strong and laudable statements from the Conference of Presidents, the Zionist Movement, the World Committee for Israel, and even, surprisingly, from the Reform movement were quickly issued. But much more importantly, I was able to mobilize powerful Christian voices in support of an un-divided Jewish capital in Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty. The text of the statement by the Middle East Christian Committee, which I was able to fax to President Clinton, reads as follows:

In response to a joint press release regarding Jerusalem, issued by eight religious officials of Jerusalem, issued by eight religious officials of Christian faith in the united States on March 6, 1995, the Middle East Christian Committee (MECHRIC issued the following statement:

The Middle East Christian Committee of America (MECHRIC), which represents the American Coptic Association, the Assyrian National Congress, the World Lebanese Organization and the South Sudanese Human Rights Federation, concerned with the above statement, declared the following:

1. We, as representatives of the four major national Christian groups of the Middle East, disagree with the above-mentioned statement with regards its political agenda for the region and for the issue of Jerusalem.

2. The Christians of the Middle East, about eighteen million people living in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and other countries, are threatened by the Arab regimes and not by Israel. Basic human rights of Middle Eastern Christians are often withheld or neglected by regional governments. Christian freedoms are suppressed by the Arab rulers of the region. The Committee is shocked by the absence of any reference to this abuse and to the oppression of their brethren in the statement issued by the eight spiritual leaders.

3. The non-Arab Christian nations of the Middle East recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and reject any attempt to bring this city under Arab control. Instead, the non-Arab nationalities of the region call on the American government to intervene in favor of the oppressed people and focus attention on the abuse of human rights in South Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt.

4. Additionally, the Middle East Christian Committee accuses the Islamic fundamentalist forces of committing aggression against the Christian population in the disputed territories, Israel and Jerusalem. The Committee calls on the Israeli government to extend its protection to the threatened Christians living under its jurisdiction, with the support of the international community.

5. Finally, the Middle East Christian Committee reminds the spiritual leaders who signed the statement that they should remain faithful to the desire of the overwhelming majority of the Middle East Christians. Jerusalem, as a city, should remain under Israeli sovereignty. As for the holy shrines of the three religions, they should be accessible and open to everyone, a reality that will not be possible under fundamentalist or Arab control.

Joseph Saouk
Secretary General
The Middle East Christian Committee

It is good to know that the eight bishops, armchair observers of the Middle East, are contradicted so strongly by the heads of the oppressed Christian minorities living in the Middle East, who back Israel. They are the Christians who know that Christians and Jews are in the same boat!

The Americans for Peace now was admitted into the Presidents’ Conference by signing a statement that it was committed to Jerusalem remaining the un-divided, Jewish capital of Israel. In view of the frequent manifestations of the group’s adherence to the very opposite -- the dismantling of a Jewish Jerusalem -- should not the Presidents’ Conference now see fit to cancel its membership? The incoming chairman of the Presidents’ Conference, Mr. Leon Levy, has his first job cut out for himself, carry out a house cleaning in the organization, so that the true, pro-Zionist, agenda which keeps together all true lovers and supporters of Israel, no more be undermined by anti-Zionist, pro-PLO forces. As a staunch and proud Sefardic Jew of Turkish origin, he should remember that the head of APN, Gail Pressberg, defended in a public newspaper the killing of 22 Turkish Jewish worshipers in an Istanbul synagogue, a crime perpetrated by the PLO.

By showing the world, including President Clinton, a united Jewish front on Jerusalem, we can hope to thwart the new Hamans!

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