Bartholomew's Notes

A couple of days ago I blogged on Aaron Klein’s WorldNetDaily coverage of the recent shooting incident in Shfaram, Israel. Eden Natan-Zada, a 19-year old army deserter from the West Bank settlement of Tapuach, killed four Arab Israelis before being lynched. Klein described the lynching as murder, but declined to be so judgemental about Natan-Zada’s own actions. His reports also contained gushing tributes to the dead killer, which I speculated were arranged through Klein’s links with the Israeli far right, particularly David Ha’ivri. Many of Klein’s Israel reports are little more than press releases for Ha’ivri, a Kahanist who organises regular protests at the Temple Mount.

It looks like my hunch was correct. From the Forward:

In April, Natan-Zada participated in a march to the Temple Mount — banned and blocked by the Israeli police — that was led by a right-wing Tapuach rabbi, David Ha’ivri. Both men were among the 30 or so people arrested at the event, according to Israeli Defense Ministry officials.

And here’s something else of interest about Ha’ivri (links added):

Ha’ivri, a student of Kahane, is one of a number of Tapuach residents with ties to American organizations. He was hosted during a fundraising tour last fall by a number of Chabad-Lubavitch synagogues in the United States as well as by Americans for a Safe Israel, the organization that has led the most prominent anti-disengagement rallies. The tour came just six months after Ha’ivri was arrested by Israeli authorities for “incitement to violence.”

…In terms of ideology and fundraising, “there’s a pretty thin line between the Americans for a Safe Israel and the Kahanists,” said University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick, one of the few scholars who has studied Jewish extremist groups in depth.

Americans for a Safe Israel has been noted on this blog before. It is run by Herbert Zweibon, and has played in prominent role in rallying Christian Zionists (whom Zweibon appears to believe are anti-Semites beneath the surface) on behalf of Greater Israel. Gary Bauer, the late Ed McAteer and the Apostolic Congress’s Robert Upton have been particularly involved with it.

(story tipped from Failed Messiah)

UPDATE: Terry Krepel of ConWebWatch charts the whole history of Klein’s reporting on the Israeli far-right. His conclusion:

…perhaps…WND should explain why a person who appears to be little more than a PR man for an extremist movement with a history of violence is working as its Jerusalem reporter.

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ASSIST Ministries has another interesting profile (link added):

Professor Dick Day, founder of Sub-Saharan Africa Family Enrichment (SAFE), and co-author with Josh McDowell of the bestselling book “Why Wait? What you need to know about the teenage sexuality crisis”.

Day apparently first came to notice for teaching abstinence in Malawi:

Day happened to be in Malawi on a one-year teaching sabbatical in 1990 when he and his wife Charlotte observed the magnitude of the African crisis firsthand. Horrified, they knew the “Why Wait” message was desperately needed there and decided to remain in Malawi to address the problem.

Word about their Christian-based approach stressing abstinence and faithfulness spread to leaders in surrounding countries. President and Mrs. Museveni of Uganda had particularly receptive ears for the message. Museveni already was bucking the prevailing tide of world opinion by refusing to embrace condoms as the solution to his country’s woes. “I don’t support the idea of condoms myself,” he told the VII International AIDS Conference in 1991.

Instead, Uganda adopted an A-B-C approach to fighting AIDS: Abstinence, Be faithful, use condoms—in that order. “Museveni came out and said there is a place for condoms, but they’re not the solution to the problem,” Day notes.

In 1992, Mrs. Museveni of Uganda invited Day to be the principal speaker at a newly organized youth forum in Kampala. His “Why Wait” message seemed to resonate. “The response from the parents and youth was so positive we did a national one the following year,” Day says. The Uganda Youth Forum became a national event attended by thousands of young people each year.

Museveni has been lauded for his successful results, most famously by George Bush, although there is debate over the official Ugandan statistics, which put the infection rate at 6%, and concern that the role of condoms is being downplayed and marginalized under pressure from the US (see these reports from Human Rights Watch and the Alan Guttmacher Institute).

Back in Malawi, successes have been rather more modest and uncertain. In 2003 UNAIDS reported that

The urban adult prevalence is 23% compared to 12.4% in rural areas. The average life expectancy has dropped to just 39 years. However, there is evidence indicating that HIV prevalence has stabilized over the past seven years at 14–15%. Lilongwe [the capital city] has demonstrated a decline in HIV infection rates among young women (15–24 years) attending antenatal care from 26% in 1996 to 17% in 2003 and among all attendees from 26% in 1998 to 17% in 2003.

Although UNAIDS mentions that “A State Faith Task Force on HIV/AIDS was established with UNAIDS facilitation to enhance the involvement of religious organizations”  in “the fight against HIV/AIDS”, the improvements are put down to anti-corruption efforts, testing, treatment, and information. More recent reports are less optimistic: in February this year the health minister said the county was “increasingly unable to cope”.

Day explains his own approach further in another document (link added):

“WHY WAIT? Africa” was initially presented in 1992 at the first annual week-long Uganda Youth Conference, hosted by First Lady Janet Museveni. In 1993, the Malawi Ministry of Education requested Sub-Saharan Africa Family Enrichment (SAFE) to develop an African-oriented curriculum addressing sexual abstinence, life skills and character development that could be used in schools to help address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The first draft of the WHY WAIT?/Family Enrichment curriculum was drafted by University of Malawi Professor Moira Chimombo. In 1994, the first teacher training and training of trainers (TOTs) workshops were conducted. The WHY WAIT? programme was launched nationally at a convocation of 3,000 students and 500 teachers hosted by State President Bakili Muluzi at Sanjika Palace in 1995.

Day also claims some concrete successes:

…The year prior to the introduction of the WHY WAIT? programme in Ndirande Primary School, 121 girls dropped out due to pregnancies. After the implementation of the WHY WAIT? programme, for two years in Standards 4 through 8, the pregnancy drop-out was reduced to zero.

Meanwhile, a report from Rob and Patricia Williams describes the involvement of Campus Crusade for Christ in what appears to be a complementary program (link added):

In the country of Malawi in Africa in the late 1980’s, Dick Day and Josh McDowell (authors of “Why Wait”) were touring and ministering on the topic of abstinence while presenting the Gospel. The Minister of Education in Malawi approached Dick Day and asked if curriculum could be created based on this message to be taught in the schools. Campus Crusade responded and the ministry CrossRoads was born.

CrossRoads exists to equip national leaders to connect with their target audiences to share the gospel through this AIDS-based curriculum. But its uniqueness is that it involves parent-student involvement, peer involvement, school-community outreach, and teacher-student connection.

CrossRoads exists to equip national leaders to connect with their target audiences to share the gospel through this AIDS-based curriculum. But its uniqueness is that it involves parent-student involvement, peer involvement, school-community outreach, and teacher-student connection.

Day also (not surprisingly, given his association with Biblical literalist Josh McDowell) appears to link his anti-AIDS campaign to anti-evolutionism. Back to ASSIST:

Your world view determines your values, which determines your behavior,” Day notes. “We’re engaged in ideological warfare,” he says. “Are we evolving animals? Or is there a God-given dignity that can be expressed in our sexuality?”

The implementation of Day’s educational curriculum in these countries faces some obstacles. “IF we can keep kids in school we have 10 years to build a biblical world view,” he says.

It seems that for Day, the war against HIV/AIDS is also a war against science itself on behalf of the Bible.

UPDATE: More on HIV in Uganda today.

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The Daily Telegraph 1998:

Ian Paisley, Democratic Unionist Party leader, criticised the Queen for welcoming the deal struck in Ulster on Good Friday and hit out at reports that the Queen was considering a visit to Dublin.

He said: “She is very foolish to do what she is doing, I don’t think the people of Northern Ireland will take kindly to it. She has become a parrot…”

The Irish Times 2005:

DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley is being tipped for elevation to Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council…The Privy Council goes back to the earliest days of monarchy, when it comprised those appointed to advise the king or queen on matters of state.

Just goes to show that it’s not all fun being Queen. Ian Paisley, it should be remembered, also denounced the Queen’s mother and sister for committing “spiritual adultery and fornication” by visiting the Pope; decried the Ulster Unionist Party for running a Jewish candidate; described Northern Ireland Catholics as multiplying “like vermin”, and ran a “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign. But we can be hopeful that Elizabeth will know how to handle the old bigot: any nonsense and she can retaliate with one of her famous impersonations of him.

(Tipped from New Humanist)

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Following on from my previous entry, a titbit from WND‘s other Kahanist fellow-traveller, Hal Lindsey. The funny thing is, while Lindsey is as about as pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian as they come, it seems he has a bit of a soft spot for Bible-based anti-Semitism. At least, if I’m reading the latest Hal Lindsey Orifice Oracle Cartoon correctly, in which fat hook-nosed Jews scowl as Jesus tells them they will one day receive the anti-Christ. The artist, John Rule, seems to be a bit protective of his copyright, so I’ll just reproduce an extract here:

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ConWebWatch gets to grips with WorldNetDaily’s Jerusalem correspondent Aaron Klein, a man whose constant shilling for the fringes of the Israeli far right has been discussed on this blog before. The topic concerns the 4 August shooting incident at Shfaram. As Klein described it at the time:

A mob of Palestinians tonight murdered a Jewish Israeli man in a police uniform…

What, they killed a policeman?

…after he opened fire on a bus and killed four Arabs, allegedly in protest of the Gaza withdrawal plan.

The word “murder” does not appear again. Klein briefly mentions the police designation of the shootings as “Jewish terrorism” before giving us some background to the killer’s home settlement in the West Bank (or “Judea and Samaria”, in WND house style):

[Eden Natan] Zada’s hometown of Tapuach is well-known for its high-profile activist residents, most of whom are former members of the Kahane-Chai movement and its various off-shoots. Rabbi Meir Kahane, assassinated in New York in 1990, was founder of the Jewish Defense League. Kach and Kahane Chai, the Israeli branches of his organization, were outlawed in 1994 following statements in support of Baruch Goldstein, a Kach member who carried out a shooting attack against Arabs at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

A “shooting attack” that left 29 civilians dead, Klein doesn’t bother to add (and while Klein is elsewhere happy to discuss “Palestinian terrorists”, when Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs are the victims they become merely “Arabs”, as ConWebWatch notes). Of course, Klein knows all about Kach – one of his favourite informants is David Ha’ivri, whose regular rallies at the Temple Mount, designed to stir up Palestinians and cause difficulties for the Gaza disengagement, can always count on a lot of free publicity from WND (in fact, there’s a new one of these just now).

The New York Daily News describes Ha’ivri as “cited by Israel as one of the Kahane movement’s central figures”; one suspects he arranged for Klein to meet Zada’s friends and acquaintances, whose tributes and excuses for the shooting precede cursory coverage of condemnations.

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Vendyl Jones has now disassociated himself from claims reported in May that he will find the Ark of the Covenant by August 14. As explained on his website:

What he actually said was that it would be very appropriate IF he could discover the Ark by Tisha B’Av [14 August]. At this time it is obviously not going to happen. However, as soon as the funding permits, he will be in Israel to drill the bore hole and proceed with the dig to uncover the Tabernacle and the Ark. We are hoping that this will be in September.

So all those months of massive publicity were just some misunderstanding. His website also contains the following titbit:

It may be hard to believe but Vendyl has no connection with the popular motion picture character [Indiana Jones].

So was this also a misquote?:

Jones’ escapades and explorations were the inspiration for the blockbuster movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ of the ‘Indiana Jones’ trilogy. The man who wrote the first draft of the film, Randolph Fillmore, was one of the volunteers who worked with Jones in 1977.

“I agreed to help him write the movie,” Jones said, “as long as – number one – he wouldn’t set it here (In Israel). Some people believe the ark is in Ethiopia or Egypt, some believe its in Constantinople or Rome. I just didn’t want it to be portrayed as being here. The second thing was, ‘Don’t use my name.’ So he didn’t. My name is Vendyl – V-E-N-D-Y-L. So he just dropped the first and last letters and it ended up Endy Jones.”

(Actually, this site dedicated to the movie gives a very different account:

…while Lucas was still trying to complete the script of his space adventure now called Star Wars, he met with director Philip Kaufman and the idea of the adventurous archaeologist emerged during a conversation…Kaufman, remembering a story he had heard by his dentist when he was a child, introduced the Ark of the Covenant as the story’s plot device.

…Lucas suggested that Spielberg should find a writer of his choice, so he set out to find the person who would put their adventurous ideas on paper. Spielberg proposed Lawrence Kasdan.

…The film’s main character would be named Indiana Smith after Lucas’ beloved female Alaskan Malamute dog, Indiana…Spielberg didn’t like the name Smith…Lucas then suggested the Jones name.

“Randolph Fillmore” is completely absent from the story)

As I blogged back in May, Vendyl Jones believes that the famous Copper Scroll is the key to finding the Ark. The scroll was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, although its relationship to the other documents is disputed. It is possible that the scroll contains a guide to finding treasure taken from the Second Temple just before its destruction in 70CE, but there is no evidence that the Ark ever resurfaced after the destruction of the First Temple in 587BCE. Jones’s reading of the Scroll also seems to be based in some sort of contentious code. However, Jones believes that he has found the correct location, and that when the holy object is revealed through his Ark-hole Ariel Sharon’s government will be “history” and will be replaced by the far-right theocratic “Sanhedrin” he is associated with.

But Jones has some rivals. First off, The Jewish Press reports on one Barry Roffman, an orthodox Jew and US Coast Guard Lieutenant. Roffman believes the location of the Ark is hidden in a secret code written in the Torah, and was placed in Egypt by Jeremiah “to prevent a nuclear war between Israel and its enemies” (here’s a sample of his work). His book on the subject has a foreword by Robert Haralick of the Torah Code Society, although a 1999 report from the Jerusalem Post (reposted here) recounts the following:

…according to Barry Roffman, who worked for the US Coast Guard for 23 years as a disaster-response planner, a search of the Torah via ELS has revealed to him the longitude/latitude coordinates of the Ark’s final resting place: 31 degrees 16 minutes north, 33 degrees four minutes east, which places it in the Mediterranean 4.6 km. north of the Egyptian coast…

As convincing as Roffman sounded in his 40-minute presentation, the members of the Torah Code Society would have none of it, denouncing in no uncertain terms the methodology of Roffman’s search, as well as his conclusions.

Two further candidates are discussed by WorldNet Daily:

Some 30 explorers from the U.S., Australia, Norway and Estonia have been in a cave system north of the city’s Damascus Gate to try to determine if the Ark is indeed located there.

The group is trying to verify the claim made by relic hunter Ron Wyatt who said he actually saw the Ark there two decades ago after tunneling through a small passageway.

(I’ve been in that cave system, actually. It’s a nice cool spot on a hot day.) Ron Wyatt is now dead, but Richard Rives now runs Wyatt Archaeological Reseach Inc. Wyatt’s alleged successes rival those of St Helen:  as well as the Ark of the Covenant, he’s found Noah’s Ark, house and grave, pre-flood wood without tree rings, sulphur balls from Sodom and Gomorrrah, and much else – including Jesus’ blood, which contained 23 chromosomes from Mary and one from God. Alas, however, the ungodly (including other Christians) have been asking difficult questions (e.g. “Where is the report from the blood sample analysis of what Ron claims is the blood of Jesus Christ?”). But now Rives is about to find real proof – again, a few months from now, if everything goes according to plan.

WND also introduces Mike Sanders, creator of a number of Biblical Mysteries programmes. Sanders has a theory which is rather more sensible, if debateable:

“The Ark was certainly taken by the Egyptian King Shishak,” Sanders told WorldNetDaily. “There were obviously subsequent copies made as there were of all the other temple accoutrements which were also looted many times over the centuries. This has enabled the myth makers to come up with many wild and wonderful scenarios.”

Sanders believes the Ark’s contents – the stone tablets etched by God with the Ten Commandments – are located in the foundation deposit of an Egyptian temple he discovered in the Judean hills.

But even he can’t resist the temptation for sensationalist “it’s just around the corner” rhetoric rather than just getting on with the job:

“Hopefully we will extract the contents live on the Internet and on television sometime early next year when the situation in Israel is somewhat safer,” he says.

Israel safer by “early next year”? Seems Sanders is an optimist in all areas…

(Some links via Paleojudaica and Biblical Theology)

UPDATE: Barry Roffman responds in the comments.

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On Monday, the Texas Freedom Network published its report on the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (which I had blogged on here, noting the complete absence of serious scholars in connection with the enterprise), as was reported in the New York Times. The report’s author, Biblical scholar Mark A Chancey, listed numerous problems with the syllabus, including the following:

… The curriculum cites a “respected scholar” who claims that archaeological evidence “always confirms the facts of the Biblical record” [page 170]. Yet that “respected scholar” claimed elsewhere to have seen Jesus’ school records in India, records from the lost continent of Atlantis and evidence that Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza was used to transmit radio messages to the Grand Canyon thousands of years ago.

The curriculum uses a discredited urban legend that NASA has evidence that two days are missing in time, thus “confirming” a biblical passage about the sun standing still [pages 116-17].

The curriculum identifies a creation scientist as an expert and recommends materials from his Creation Evidence Museum to explain the origins of life.

But now, NCBCPS head Elizabeth Ridenour has responded with a devastating rebuttal. Over to Charisma:

NCBCPS President Elizabeth Ridenour dismissed the network as a “far left” extremist organization that is pro-homosexuality and pro-abortion.

That should do it. Of course Chancey is not impressed with the NCBCPS syllabus – he’s a queer-loving Commie! Ridenour then heads for the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt: her lawyer.

Mike Johnson, a lawyer for the national council [through the Alliance Defense Fund], agreed [that the course is educational]. “The most telling factor is the network held a conference instead of filing a complaint in court,” Johnson, who has been inundated with media interviews this week, told CharismaNow. “That says it all. There’s no legal problem with the approach of this curriculum. If there were one, we would have been legally challenged a long time ago.”

He cited a 1999 legal opinion by four lawyers, including two constitution attorneys from Notre Dame and Princeton, calling the course permissible under constitutional guidelines.

As with Intelligent Design, who cares about the opinions of actual experts when you’ve got lawyers fighting your cause? This is about winning, not truth. (The two constitution attorneys, by the way, are Robert P George of Princeton, who advises George Bush on bioethics, and Gerard Bradley – see here. One wonders whether they gave their opinion on teaching about the Bible in schools in general, or whether they actually lent their reputations to the pseduo-scholarship of the NCBCPS.)

Meanwhile, for a course on the Bible that doesn’t debase the very book it claims to be teaching about, teachers could do far worse than the Bible Literacy Project.

UPDATE: This older report from the Odessa American passed me by. In it, Johnson claims that “they cited passages out of context…They have misrepresented our curriculum and content.” Apparently, some of the wacky material was only mentioned to “broaden perspectives”. But why students need to be “broadened” by the lies of pseudo-scholars and hucksters while serious Biblical scholarship is ignored is not explained…

UPDATE 2: Mark Chancey responds to the controversy.

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Irony escapes the hacks at Agape Press, as they provide another puff-piece for CIA-analyst turned neo-con culture warrior Mark Tooley (emphasis and links added):

Several mainline Protestant denominations are being condemned for their increasing hostility towards Israel…Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) lists those churches taking such a stance. “The Presbyterian Church (USA) has endorsed the divestment idea [here],” Tooley explains, adding that the United Church of Christ has “at least indirectly, endorsed the idea [here], and a committee of the Worldwide Anglican Communion has similarly endorsed the idea [here] — [as have] several regional bodies of the United Methodist Church.”[here]…Tooley maintains that churches in America need to be “more even-handed, factual, and less swayed by failed theological and political fads” when they address human rights concerns in the Middle East.

But what’s Agape’s own particular concern?

Ignoring scriptural warnings to nations that do not support Israel, several mainline denominations are calling for economic sanctions designed to punish the Jewish people.

Yes, don’t be swayed by “theological fads”, but if you care about Palestinian human rights you’re accursed of God. Because in fact all you really want to do is “punish the Jewish people”.

Several months ago the IRD published a report criticising the human rights activism of mainline churches, which I in turn critiqued at the time. Tooley follows the same line: some soft criticism of Israel is allowed, but not much, and unless you precede it with log diatribes against China, Arab dictatorships and Palestinian terrorism then we should dismiss you as an anti-Semite.

(As it happens, the IRD is currently showing its “even-handed, factual” virtues with a gushing tribute to the late John Garang. Jeff Sharlet has further thoughts on how conservative Christians perceive Garang and the Sudan in an interesting article here.)

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Agape Press carries a report that ex-Muslim evangelist W.L. Cati has admonished Tom Tancredo for backing down from his recent call to bomb Muslim holy sites following any Muslim nuclear terrorism in the USA:

“You don’t backtrack,” Cati says. “If you’ve got guts enough to say it, then you have to stand by it.” According to the former Muslim, destroying Muslim symbols is an effective way to deliver a message. “According to Islam, the only possible way they could ever get into heaven, or paradise, would be through death,” she says.

Erm…whereas Christians believe…?

“So if you go and bomb a bunch of Muslims, you just sent them — according to them — straight to heaven, because they died in jihad for the cause of Allah.” But Islam’s religious artifacts or “holy sites” are more precious to Muslims than human life, she explains — which is why destruction of those sites would be an effective response.

So if the US nukes Mecca and Medina (and that appears to be the bombing Tancredo is imagining), it’ll be because Muslims don’t value human lives. In contrast, Tancredo and Cati care deeply about the 2 million human beings who actually live in those cities.

Meanwhile, the BBC carries a report on the “hibakusha”, survivors of the atomic bombs that fell on Japan almost exactly sixty years ago:

“The other day I saw on television that talks on the non-proliferation treaty had broken down,” said Ms Kayashige [who is one of the hibakusha].

“It made me think that is partly because of the hibakusha’s negligence. We haven’t said enough to let the world know about the reality of the atomic bomb, especially in the United States. The US has the information but ordinary people don’t know enough about it.”

****

W.L. Cati’s story is an interesting one: she’s from Texas, and converted to Islam following marriage to a Muslim and exposure to the works of Muslim apologist Ahmed Deedat. Later came conversion to Charismatic Christianity, divorce, and the establishment of Zennah Ministries, Inc, “a Christian organization founded to minister to women who are influenced by Muslims”. “WL Cati” is a pen name, representing the phrase “With Love Christians Announcing Truth to Islam”; back in 1984, as Katrina White, she became Mrs Alabama. In April Agape profiled her work leading Christian groups into American mosques.

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The Anomalist links to a Reuters report about yet another Jesus simulacrum:

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Christians are flocking to a northwestern Bosnian town to view an image of Jesus Christ that allegedly appeared in a section of a cut tree branch two days ago, Bosnian media reported on Friday.

The image resembling Jesus’ face cannot be seen from a close distance but only from a few metres away. The branch in the town of Bijeljina was cut about a year ago, said Oslobodjenje daily.

…The region’s Serb Orthodox bishop Vasilije visited the site and said church officials would discuss the phenomenon and advise believers how to behave. He appealed to visitors not to destroy the tree and not to leave money at the site.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any actual picture of the “phenomenon”. However, while Jesus appearing on a Texas frying pan or an Ohio door can be taken as just a bit of fun, in Bosnia this kind of thing could have a rather worrying political aspect – especially given the involvement of Bishop Vasilije, a noted Serb nationalist who has a history of using the Serbian Orthodox church to bully local Bosnians (The state known as Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two parts: (1) a federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; (2) the Republika Sprska, or “Serb Republic”, which should not be confused with the neighbouring Republic of Serbia. Bijeljina is in the Republika Sprska.) Back in 2003 a report from the Bosnian Institute asked:

Will the Orthodox Church leaders ever be able to explain why Bosniak houses and other buildings in Bijeljina’s centre had to be destroyed so that, on the land ‘liberated’ in this manner, their Bishop Vasilije Kacavenda could build his residence?

…At the time of the signing of the Dayton Agreement, there were 1,800 Bosniaks living in Bijeljina, which is something of a record for Republika Srpska. That provided the basis and encouragement for a massive return of Bijelina refugees in the afterwar period, so that today some 7,000 Bosniaks live in the town. This, and the fact that a similar number of Bosniaks has returned to the nearby town of Janja, has upset the guardians of Serb supremacy in this ‘suburb of Belgrade’, as the town is now known. Among these, key roles are played by the town mayor Dragutin Ljuboviæ and Bishop Vasilije Kacavenda of, who has chosen Bijeljina for his new residence. As a result of their efforts Bijeljina has became the site of a fierce anti-Bosniak campaign that has included an explosion on the premises of the Islamic Community and the demolition or closing down of several Bosniak shops and restaurants, among them a café owned by Jusuf Trbiæ, the most popular Bijeljina journalist in the prewar period.

Bijlelina appeared on British television in 1993, when Gaby Rado of Channel 4 news reported on the night dynamiting of five mosques in the town. Vasilije has opposed the rebuilding of one of these:

…The strongest resistance comes from Bishop Vasilije, who claims that, if rebuilt, the mosque would spoil the view of his residence, including the courtyard and the church, which he has erected on land seized from Bosniak families.

More generally, the bishop is breaking all records in implementing a great Orthodox revolution. Among the new street names, and in heavy competition with various tsars, vojvode, princes and kings, a significant number has gone to Orthodox Church dignitaries. The city hospital is named after the Holy Magi, while every institution in the town boasts its own Christian slava [saint’s day], including the library, the police station, the electric power station, etc.

And just why is the bishop of “Zvornik and Tuzla” based in Bijeljina anyway? Victoria Clark explained in The Tablet in 1999 that Vasilije:

had abandoned his diocesan seat in Tuzla and been branded a war criminal by the Muslims of the town. Even the Serbs of Tuzla did not want him back, so he had built himself a new palace in Serb-controlled Bijeljina. He blamed the United States for starting the Yugoslav wars and then suggested that Britain would soon be doing its own ethnic cleansing of coloured minorities.

Vasilije would also appear to be a bit of a hypocrite. While he objects to the possibility of a mosque blighting his view, Bosnians complaining about an illegal church on their doorstep get short shrift. Back to another report from the Bosnian Institute:

A battle over a church in Konjevic Polje, in Bratunac, in the east of the Republika Srpska, is threatening to ignite a new inter-ethnic and religious conflict in the region, pitting Serbs against Bosniak returnees. The Serb Orthodox church was built there illegally in 1996 on the private land of a Bosniak, Fata Orlovic, after she had been expelled from the village along with other local Bosniaks in the war. After Orlovic returned and got her property back, she asked the church and civil authorities to remove the building, which stands in front of the family home.

…Radio Television Republika Srpska (RTRS)…carried an interview with the local bishop, Vasilije of Zvornik-Tuzla, describing moves to close the Konjevic Polje church as ‘genocidal’. The bishop claimed Orthodox people in the area had been ‘deprived of the right to their religion. Relocation or destroying the church is out of the question.’

Given the strife that can be stirred up by a church, imagine the impact of a holy place where Jesus himself appeared in the form of a tree branch to give his blessings to Serbian nationalism.

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