Good Friday—Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning?

O my God,, I cry by day, but you do not answer….

....I am a worm and not human;

Scorned by others, and despised by the people.

All who see me mock at me….

Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;.

They open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast….

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs are all around me;
A company of evildoers encircles me.

My hands and feet have shriveled;
I can count all my bones.

They stare and gloat over me;
They divide my clothes among themselves,
And for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, O lord, do not be far away!
O my help, come quickly to my aid!

Deliver my soul from the sword,
My life from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen
you have rescued me….
In the midst of the congregation I will praise you….

You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
Stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;

He did not hide his face from me,
But heard when I cried to him….

All the ends of the earth shall remember
And turn to the Lord
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before him….

Future generations will be told about the Lord,
And proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

Many of the photos are mine – some are from http://www.freegaza.org/ and Reuters or AP; recent photos are from http://www.flickr.com/photos/imemc/, the archive of International Middle East Media Center; painting of Christ on the cross is from an exhibit, “Christ in the Palestinian Context” in Bethlehem: http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/photos_ed12.htm . Some were taken on Palm Sunday in Bethlehem; some in recent demonstrations against the ongoing building of Israel’s security wall in Beit Jala; some in Beit Sahour where the Israeli army recently built a watchtower; some show recent arrests and detentions; one shows victims of the war on Gaza in January, 2009; another shows a funeral procession in Nablus.

Dead Palestinian Babies and Bombed Mosques

from Haaretz, Israeli newspaper, March 21, 2009, Adar 25, 5769

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009
By Uri Blau

The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Photo is A T-shirt printed at the request of an IDF soldier in the sniper unit reading 'I shot two kills.'

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

In many cases, the content is submitted for approval to one of the unit's commanders. The latter, however, do not always have control over what gets printed, because the artwork is a private initiative of soldiers that they never hear about. Drawings or slogans previously banned in certain units have been approved for distribution elsewhere. For example, shirts declaring, "We won't chill 'til we confirm the kill" were banned in the past (the IDF claims that the practice doesn't exist), yet the Haruv battalion printed some last year.

The slogan "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan. Read more...

Read about the concerns of an Israeli aunt, whose nephew is in the IDF, conscripted for service. She worries about how his military service is changing him (and her country), and what her role might be: http://www.apilgrimstales.blogspot.com/