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Por segundo día, miles de personas salieron hoy a las
calles en el mundo árabe, Europa y Estados Unidos para
protestar por la ofensiva aérea de Israel en la Franja
de Gaza, que dejó al menos 345 muertos.
En la manifestación más numerosa, decenas de seguidores
del movimiento islamista Hezbollah permanecieron
parados bajo la lluvia en la capital del Líbano para
condenar la campaña de bombardeos israelíes, que hoy
entró en su tercer día.
Los manifestantes desbordaron una gran plaza y sus
calles aledañas, mientras agitaban banderas palestinas,
libanesas y de Hezbollah y pancartas con frases de
apoyo a los palestinos y condena a Israel.
La marcha fue convocada por el jefe de Hezbollah,
Hassan Nasrallah, quien ayer había urgido a los árabes
y musulmanes a levantarse en apoyo a los palestinos y
declarado hoy lunes como día de luto y solidaridad con
los habitates de Gaza.
Nasrallah se dirigió hoy a la multitud por una pantalla
gigante desde un lugar secreto, y llamó a los
palestinos a unirse.
"La fuerza aérea israelí no podrá destruir la voluntad
de los combatientes que tiran cohetes, y los residentes
de las colonias (judías) a 20 y 40 kilómetros de
distancia de Gaza tendrán que quedarse afuera de sus
colonias o en refugios, dijo Nasrallah.
"Muerte a Israel", gritaban los manifestantes, informó
la agencia de noticias DPA.
Nasrallah volvió a advertir a Israel que sufrirá
numerosas víctimas si lanza una ofensiva terrestre en
Gaza, y que fracasará otra vez como cuando luchó contra
las milicias de Hezbollah en una guerra por aire y
tierra durante un mes en 2006.
Más de 300 palestinos murieron desde que Israel comenzó
con sus bombardeos en Gaza, el sábado. El Estado judío
dijo que la ofensiva fue una represalia a los continuos
ataques con cohetes desde esa región ubicada entre
Israel y el Mediterráneo.
Las protestas no se limitaron al mundo árabe y
musulmán, ya que también hubo manifestaciones en
embajadas de Israel en grandes capitales de Europa y
otras acciones en Estados Unidos.
Entre 500 y 1.000 personas protestaron enfervorecidas
por segundo día ante la embajada israelí en Londres,
gritando consignas contra Israel, al que denostaban
como "Estado terrorista", y agitando pancartas.
En un clima de máxima tensión, policías parados detrás
de una valla de seguridad custodiaban el perímetro de
la sede diplomática, ubicada en el oeste de Londres, y
de tanto en tanto debían contener a manifestantes que
querían trepar la barrera.
En Grecia, unos 300 griegos y árabes arrojaron piedras
a la embajada de Israel en Atenas y protagonizaron
escaramuzas con la policía en una acción organizada por
el partido comunista.
Diez personas fueron detenidas ayer frente a la
embajada israelí en Londres en otra protesta que
coincidió también con manifestaciones frente a las
embajadas de Israel en Madrid y con marchas anti
israelíes Conpenhagen y París.
Las marchas también se extendieron a América, y en
particular a Estados Unidos, donde hoy hubo protestas
en Anaheim, una ciudad de California donde habitan
muchos palestinos, y en Phoenix, Arizona. Unas 300
personas se manifestaron ayer en Nueva York.
Además de la marcha en Beirut, miles de personas más
tomaron las calles del puerto libanés de Sidón y de
otras ciudades de países árabes, entre ellas El Cairo,
en Egipto, donde unas 3.000 personas se manifestaron
frente al sindicato de prensa egipcio.
En Irán, un influyente partido político, Sociedad
Clerical Combatiente, comenzó a registrar hoy a
voluntarios para pelear contra Israel en represalia por
sus ataques en Gaza.
En Irak, unos 1.000 seguidores del clérigo chiita anti
estadounidense Muqtada al-Sadr también protestaron en
el este de Bagdad con cantos contra Israel y una quema
de baneras estadounidenses e israelíes.
El partido político del primer ministro iraquí emitió
un comunicado en el que condenó la ofensiva israelí y
llamó a todos los países árabes a cortar relaciones con
el Estado judío y poner fin a "las conversaciones
públicas y secretas" con Tel Aviv.
El rey de Jordania Abdullah II donó hoy sangre para las
víctimas y se manifestó "molesto" por la ofensiva de
Israel.
"Denunciamos con todas las letras que el terrorismo de
Estado israelí, la hipocresía de la ONU, en primer
lugar, y de las potencias mundiales por respaldar a un
país usurpador, racista y asesino como es Israel", dijo
el presidente de la Federación de Entidades Arabes de
la Argentina (FEARAB), Alejandro Salomón, durante su
discurso de protesta frente a la Embajada de Israel en
Buenos Aires.
De ese acto participaron la presidenta de la Federación
de Entidades Argentino-Palestinas, Tilda Rabi, y
representantes de la Federación de Tierra y Vivienda,
de Luis D´Elía, el Partido Obrero, el Partido
Socialista, el MST, la Corriente Clasista y Combativa
(CCC), la FUBA y agrupaciones barriales, además de los
dirigentes Luis Zamora y Mario Cafiero.
Por su parte, Salomón pidió al Gobierno que exprese
su "solidaridad" para "terminar con esta masacre".
martes, 30 de diciembre de 2008
Hamás o el reto de gobernar una franja de miseria
Los islamistas expulsaron de Gaza a los leales a Fatah en junio de 2007
JUAN MIGUEL MUÑOZ | Ashkelón 29/12/2008
El Serrallo de Gaza, el edificio que ya fuera ocupado por militares británicos e israelíes, está en ruinas. Un bloque de la Universidad Islámica, varias mezquitas, el Ministerio del Interior, decenas de comisarías, inmuebles e instituciones que el Gobierno de Hamás iba construyendo paso a paso han sido derruidos por los bombarderos israelíes.
Israel asegura que la ofensiva militar contra Hamás en Gaza está "en sus fases iniciales"
El Ejército israelí ataca un barco con ayuda humanitaria
El Gobierno israelí califica la ofensiva en Gaza como "guerra hasta el final" contra Hamás
Ismail Haniya
A FONDO
Capital: Tel Aviv. Gobierno: República. Población: 7,112,359 (est. 2008)
Es un varapalo tremendo para el movimiento islamista palestino. Le costará remontar. Desde el 14 de junio de 2007, Hamás gobierna la franja tras expulsar a las fuerzas policiales y militares leales al presidente Mahmud Abbas, que hicieron todo lo posible para derrocar al partido vencedor en las elecciones de enero de 2006. Ha sido un año y medio de esfuerzos del Gobierno de Ismail Haniya para cumplir unos objetivos que sólo podían ser modestos. Poco han conseguido. Pero tal era la gravedad del caos antes de la toma del poder en la franja de Gaza, que ciertos logros sí son apreciados por la población.
El primero: la seguridad en las calles. Los matones y los tipos armados -a saber de cual de las facciones palestinas- pululaban por las ciudades a sus anchas. En la cúspide del enfrentamiento entre Hamás y Fatah, en mayo y junio de 2007, los milicianos de ambos bandos se apostaban en los tejados de decenas de edificios del centro de la ciudad para dirimir a balazos la grave fractura política que todavía persiste. Casi nadie salía de su casa durante aquellos días.
De golpe todo cambió. Nadie dispara ahora al aire ni en bodas ni entierros; las patrullas son las de la policía; la gente sale a pasear y a cenar a alguna terraza en el Mediterráneo -poco más se puede hacer-; los asaltos a comercios son cosa del pasado y ningún cooperante o periodista occidental ha sido secuestrado bajo el mando de este Gobierno. Grandes carteles instan a los ciudadanos a acudir a comisarías y juzgados para resolver sus litigios. Se les promete atención y educación. Lo corrobora Ahmed, un hombre recién casado que detesta a Hamás, pero que admite que el trato dispensado en las comisarías y el afán de los funcionarios por resolver los problemas es encomiable.
Afronta Hamás la tarea de gobernar con una plantilla que derrocha entusiasmo pero que carece de experiencia, como han puesto de manifiesto las huelgas orquestadas -todavía hoy se mantienen- por la Autoridad Palestina que gobierna Cisjordania. Jueces y funcionarios de justicia fieles a Fatah abandonaron sus trabajos siguiendo instrucciones del presidente, Mahmud Abbas. Cobran sus salarios a condición de rechazar toda colaboración con el Ejecutivo de Haniya. Lo mismo hicieron muchos profesores de escuela, que se sumaron a la huelga, y los médicos. Aunque en este caso, son muchos los que afirman que no dejarán morir a gente por seguir las directrices de Fatah.
Sin embargo, claro está, aliviar las penurias económicas del millón y medio de habitantes de la franja de Gaza era una meta primordial, nunca conseguida. Imposible eludir el bloqueo económico israelí, jamás relajado aunque durante cuatro meses de tregua Hamás impuso orden y no se dispararon cohetes contra Israel. El suministro de energía eléctrica, combustibles y gas es raquítico, y los materiales para la construcción no entran desde hace casi tres años. Tampoco se suministran muchos alimentos ni medicamentos. Los cientos de túneles horadados en la frontera con Egipto no son más que un pequeño alivio a una hecatombe económica que sirven para introducir alimentos, bienes de primera necesidad y fuel. También armas. Sin apertura de las aduanas con Israel o sin una salida al exterior a través de Egipto, todo queda al arbitrio de los gobiernos hebreos.
Es un secreto y no lo es. Pero al Gobierno no le falta dinero. Más de una vez, a final de mes, el Ejecutivo ha adelantado una semana el pago de los salarios a los funcionarios. Solía coincidir con retrasos en el abono de los sueldos a los trabajadores que dependen de la Autoridad Palestina que gobierna en Cisjordania. ¿Cómo consigue Hamás los fondos? No contestarán con precisión sus dirigentes, pero las aportaciones de Irán y de algún país árabe no alcanzan las sumas que donan devotos y prósperos musulmanes de todo el mundo. Por los túneles, en maletas, llegan a Gaza los fondos. Ahora los deberán emplear para reconstruir lo arrasado. Otra vez.
Pais: Israel
Israel asegura que la ofensiva militar contra Hamás en Gaza está "en sus fases iniciales"
El Ejército israelí ataca un barco con ayuda humanitaria
El Gobierno israelí califica la ofensiva en Gaza como "guerra hasta el final" contra Hamás
Los islamistas expulsaron de Gaza a los leales a Fatah en junio de 2007
JUAN MIGUEL MUÑOZ | Ashkelón 29/12/2008
El Serrallo de Gaza, el edificio que ya fuera ocupado por militares británicos e israelíes, está en ruinas. Un bloque de la Universidad Islámica, varias mezquitas, el Ministerio del Interior, decenas de comisarías, inmuebles e instituciones que el Gobierno de Hamás iba construyendo paso a paso han sido derruidos por los bombarderos israelíes.
Israel asegura que la ofensiva militar contra Hamás en Gaza está "en sus fases iniciales"
El Ejército israelí ataca un barco con ayuda humanitaria
El Gobierno israelí califica la ofensiva en Gaza como "guerra hasta el final" contra Hamás
Ismail Haniya
A FONDO
Capital: Tel Aviv. Gobierno: República. Población: 7,112,359 (est. 2008)
Es un varapalo tremendo para el movimiento islamista palestino. Le costará remontar. Desde el 14 de junio de 2007, Hamás gobierna la franja tras expulsar a las fuerzas policiales y militares leales al presidente Mahmud Abbas, que hicieron todo lo posible para derrocar al partido vencedor en las elecciones de enero de 2006. Ha sido un año y medio de esfuerzos del Gobierno de Ismail Haniya para cumplir unos objetivos que sólo podían ser modestos. Poco han conseguido. Pero tal era la gravedad del caos antes de la toma del poder en la franja de Gaza, que ciertos logros sí son apreciados por la población.
El primero: la seguridad en las calles. Los matones y los tipos armados -a saber de cual de las facciones palestinas- pululaban por las ciudades a sus anchas. En la cúspide del enfrentamiento entre Hamás y Fatah, en mayo y junio de 2007, los milicianos de ambos bandos se apostaban en los tejados de decenas de edificios del centro de la ciudad para dirimir a balazos la grave fractura política que todavía persiste. Casi nadie salía de su casa durante aquellos días.
De golpe todo cambió. Nadie dispara ahora al aire ni en bodas ni entierros; las patrullas son las de la policía; la gente sale a pasear y a cenar a alguna terraza en el Mediterráneo -poco más se puede hacer-; los asaltos a comercios son cosa del pasado y ningún cooperante o periodista occidental ha sido secuestrado bajo el mando de este Gobierno. Grandes carteles instan a los ciudadanos a acudir a comisarías y juzgados para resolver sus litigios. Se les promete atención y educación. Lo corrobora Ahmed, un hombre recién casado que detesta a Hamás, pero que admite que el trato dispensado en las comisarías y el afán de los funcionarios por resolver los problemas es encomiable.
Afronta Hamás la tarea de gobernar con una plantilla que derrocha entusiasmo pero que carece de experiencia, como han puesto de manifiesto las huelgas orquestadas -todavía hoy se mantienen- por la Autoridad Palestina que gobierna Cisjordania. Jueces y funcionarios de justicia fieles a Fatah abandonaron sus trabajos siguiendo instrucciones del presidente, Mahmud Abbas. Cobran sus salarios a condición de rechazar toda colaboración con el Ejecutivo de Haniya. Lo mismo hicieron muchos profesores de escuela, que se sumaron a la huelga, y los médicos. Aunque en este caso, son muchos los que afirman que no dejarán morir a gente por seguir las directrices de Fatah.
Sin embargo, claro está, aliviar las penurias económicas del millón y medio de habitantes de la franja de Gaza era una meta primordial, nunca conseguida. Imposible eludir el bloqueo económico israelí, jamás relajado aunque durante cuatro meses de tregua Hamás impuso orden y no se dispararon cohetes contra Israel. El suministro de energía eléctrica, combustibles y gas es raquítico, y los materiales para la construcción no entran desde hace casi tres años. Tampoco se suministran muchos alimentos ni medicamentos. Los cientos de túneles horadados en la frontera con Egipto no son más que un pequeño alivio a una hecatombe económica que sirven para introducir alimentos, bienes de primera necesidad y fuel. También armas. Sin apertura de las aduanas con Israel o sin una salida al exterior a través de Egipto, todo queda al arbitrio de los gobiernos hebreos.
Es un secreto y no lo es. Pero al Gobierno no le falta dinero. Más de una vez, a final de mes, el Ejecutivo ha adelantado una semana el pago de los salarios a los funcionarios. Solía coincidir con retrasos en el abono de los sueldos a los trabajadores que dependen de la Autoridad Palestina que gobierna en Cisjordania. ¿Cómo consigue Hamás los fondos? No contestarán con precisión sus dirigentes, pero las aportaciones de Irán y de algún país árabe no alcanzan las sumas que donan devotos y prósperos musulmanes de todo el mundo. Por los túneles, en maletas, llegan a Gaza los fondos. Ahora los deberán emplear para reconstruir lo arrasado. Otra vez.
Pais: Israel
Israel asegura que la ofensiva militar contra Hamás en Gaza está "en sus fases iniciales"
El Ejército israelí ataca un barco con ayuda humanitaria
El Gobierno israelí califica la ofensiva en Gaza como "guerra hasta el final" contra Hamás
lunes, 29 de diciembre de 2008
VIVA ZAPATA???
El periodista del zapatazo a Bush será juzgado el último día del año
• Al Zaidi dice que no se arrepiente y que volvería a hacerlo, según su hermano
Familiares de Muntadar al Zaidi muestran carteles con su foto y un texto que pide su libertad. Foto: AP / KHALID MOHAMMED MÁS INFORMACIÓN
La presencia en Irak de las tropas que no son de EEUU, en el limbo
EL PERIÓDICO
BAGDAD
El juicio de Muntadar al Zaidi, el periodista iraquí que lanzó sus zapatos contra el presidente de EEUU, George Bush, comenzará el 31 de diciembre, según señalaron ayer el juez que ha llevado a cabo las primeras investigaciones y el hermano del procesado, Udai al Zaidi.
El juez de instrucción que se ha ocupado del asunto, Dhiya al Kenani, afirmó que "la investigación ya ha terminado y el caso ha sido transferido al Tribunal Penal Central". El magistrado confirmó que el juicio comenzará el último día de este año.
El CARGO Zaidi está acusado de "agresión contra un jefe de Estado extranjero en visita a Irak" por el incidente ocurrido en una rueda de prensa en Bagdad el pasado día 14. Este delito conlleva una pena de entre 5 y 15 años de cárcel, pero muchos observadores creen que, al final, se enfrentará solo a un cargo de "intento de agresión", que reviste menos gravedad.
Udai al Zaidi pudo reunirse ayer, durante una hora y cuarto, con su hermano encarcelado y afirmó que "tenía signos claros de tortura en su cuerpo, como quemadas de cigarrillo en el oído" y el ojo izquierdo hinchado. Agregó que tenía también una herida en la nariz y hematomas en los brazos y las piernas y que su hermano piensa presentar una demanda por el maltrato recibido.
Udai explicó que, durante el encuentro, su hermano lloró de felicidad y le dijo que no se arrepentía de su acto y que, si tuviera la oportunidad, volvería a hacerlo. Según Udai, Muntadar dijo al juez que le tomó declaración que esperaba ser abatido a tiros después de haber tirado el primer zapato. "Como no ocurrió, le dio tiempo a lanzar el segundo", explicó Udai, citando a su hermano.
Además, señaló que el periodista escribió bajo coacción y amenazas la carta en la que pedía perdón al primer ministro iraquí, Nuri al Maliki, que fue divulgada por el Gobierno de Bagdad el pasado jueves.
• Al Zaidi dice que no se arrepiente y que volvería a hacerlo, según su hermano
Familiares de Muntadar al Zaidi muestran carteles con su foto y un texto que pide su libertad. Foto: AP / KHALID MOHAMMED MÁS INFORMACIÓN
La presencia en Irak de las tropas que no son de EEUU, en el limbo
EL PERIÓDICO
BAGDAD
El juicio de Muntadar al Zaidi, el periodista iraquí que lanzó sus zapatos contra el presidente de EEUU, George Bush, comenzará el 31 de diciembre, según señalaron ayer el juez que ha llevado a cabo las primeras investigaciones y el hermano del procesado, Udai al Zaidi.
El juez de instrucción que se ha ocupado del asunto, Dhiya al Kenani, afirmó que "la investigación ya ha terminado y el caso ha sido transferido al Tribunal Penal Central". El magistrado confirmó que el juicio comenzará el último día de este año.
El CARGO Zaidi está acusado de "agresión contra un jefe de Estado extranjero en visita a Irak" por el incidente ocurrido en una rueda de prensa en Bagdad el pasado día 14. Este delito conlleva una pena de entre 5 y 15 años de cárcel, pero muchos observadores creen que, al final, se enfrentará solo a un cargo de "intento de agresión", que reviste menos gravedad.
Udai al Zaidi pudo reunirse ayer, durante una hora y cuarto, con su hermano encarcelado y afirmó que "tenía signos claros de tortura en su cuerpo, como quemadas de cigarrillo en el oído" y el ojo izquierdo hinchado. Agregó que tenía también una herida en la nariz y hematomas en los brazos y las piernas y que su hermano piensa presentar una demanda por el maltrato recibido.
Udai explicó que, durante el encuentro, su hermano lloró de felicidad y le dijo que no se arrepentía de su acto y que, si tuviera la oportunidad, volvería a hacerlo. Según Udai, Muntadar dijo al juez que le tomó declaración que esperaba ser abatido a tiros después de haber tirado el primer zapato. "Como no ocurrió, le dio tiempo a lanzar el segundo", explicó Udai, citando a su hermano.
Además, señaló que el periodista escribió bajo coacción y amenazas la carta en la que pedía perdón al primer ministro iraquí, Nuri al Maliki, que fue divulgada por el Gobierno de Bagdad el pasado jueves.
Gaza: "This is only the beginning"
Ewa Jasiewicz writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 28 December 2008
Palestinian children attend funeral processions for victims of Israeli missile strikes in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 December 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
27 December 2008
As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the house. Apache helicopters are hovering above us, while F-16s soar overhead.
United Nations radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of al-Shifa hospital -- the largest medical facility in Gaza. Another was a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.
Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts plunge the city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only perhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their lifetimes.
As of this writing, more than 220 people have been killed and at least 400 injured through attacks that shocked the Strip in the space of 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and unable to cope. These attacks come on top of the already existing humanitarian crisis that came about because of the 18-month Israeli siege which has resulted in a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity, fuel and freedom of movement.
Doctors at al-Shifa Hospital had to scramble together 10 make-shift operating theaters to deal with the wounded. The hospital's maternity ward had to transform their operating room into an emergency theater. Al-Shifa only had 12beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.
There is a shortage of medicine -- over 105 key items are not in stock, and blood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.
Al-Shifa's main generator is the life support machine of the entire hospital. It's the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and lights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn't have the spare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red Cross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.
Al-Shifa's Head of Casualty, Dr. Maowiya Abu Hassanieh explained that "We had over 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the operating theater, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were sending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital in the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short space of time."
As Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli occupation forces Chief of Staff, said this morning, "This is only the beginning."
But this isn't the beginning -- it is an ongoing policy of collective punishment and killing with impunity practiced by Israel for decades. It has seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread, revenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza. People are all asking: If this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?
11:30 am
Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, and I were on the border village of Sirej near the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Strip. We had driven there at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief Committees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided villages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents about conditions on the border. Stories of olive and orange groves, and family farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for Israeli army watch towers and border guards. Prior to today, Israeli attacks have been frequent -- indiscriminate fire and shelling sprayed homes and land on the front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us the grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would shoot into his fields.
Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile attack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire from resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by the border. Israel had rained rockets and M-16 fire back. The family, caught in the crossfire, has not returned to their home.
I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us off our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F-16 bombs slamming into the police stations and bases of the Hamas authority across Gaza. We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to Gaza City, before jumping out to film the smoldering remains of a police station in Deir al-Balah near Khan Younis. Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had soared through a children's playground and a busy fruit and vegetable market before striking its target.
Civilians dead
There was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead donkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and splattered blood covered the ground. A market trader present during the attack began to explain in broken English what happened: "It was full here, full, three people dead, many, many injured." An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh scarf around his head threw his hands down to his blood-drenched trousers and cried, "Look! Look at this! Shame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kill us, they are killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are they, we are being killed here, hell upon them!"
He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking them up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a small tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his legs were bloodied. He couldn't get up and was sitting, visibly in pain and shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.
The Deir al-Balah police station itself was a wreck, a mess of twisted piles of concrete -- broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree split the road.
We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four US-made Apache helicopters whose trigger mechanisms are supplied by the United Kingdom's Brighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares -- a defense against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.
Turning down the road leading to the Deir al-Balah Civil Defense Force headquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road, shouting "They've been bombing twice, they've been bombing twice!" We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from "a ministry building," which our friend explained could be a possible second target as the Apaches rumbled above.
Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work smashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman's hat, the ubiquitous bright flower-patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around 20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverized walls and floors and a motorbike, tossed on its side like a toy.
Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under the rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his cell phone. "Stop it everyone, just one, one of you ring," shouted an officer. A fire licked the underside of a room now crushed to just three feet high. The men rapidly grasped and threw back rocks, blocks and debris to reach the man.
We made our way to al-Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the men of entire families -- uncles, nephews, brothers -- piled high and speeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without interruption.
Hospitals on the brink
Entering al-Aqsa was overwhelming -- pure pandemonium, charged with grief, horror, distress and shock. Limp, blood-covered and burnt bodies streamed by us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue, tens of shouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. Our friend explained that "they could not even identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who, because they are so burned." Many were transferred, in ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to al-Shifa Hospital.
The injured couldn't speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against the outside walls, being comforted by relatives, with wounds temporarily dressed. The more drastically injured were inside, where relatives jostled with doctors in constant motion to bring in their injured in scuffed blankets. Drips, bloody faces, scorched hair and shrapnel cuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area, wards and operating theaters.
We saw a bearded man on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting downwards -- a spasm consistent with a spinal cord injury. Would he ever walk again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.
A first estimate at al-Aqsa Hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured.
The hospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, a playground, a Civil Defense Force's station, a civil and traffic police stations -- all were leveled. Two of the dead were carried out on stretchers from the hospital. Their bodies were lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men and taken to the graveyard accompanied by cries of "There is not God but God!"
Who cares?
Many Palestinians in Gaza feel that no one is looking out for them apart from God.
Back in al-Shifa Hospital tonight, we met the brother of a security guard who was sitting in the doorway of the former headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The building collapsed on top of him after an Israeli missile strike. He said to us, "We don't have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world? Where is the action to stop these attacks?"
Majid Salim, stood beside his comatose mother, Fatima. Earlier today she had been sitting at her desk at work at the Khadija Arafat Charity, located near the headquarters of Hamas' security forces in Gaza City. Israel's attack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, a tube down her throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, "We didn't attack Israel, my mother didn't fire rockets at Israel. This is the biggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work."
The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched al-Shifa hospital are stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We spoke to a group of men whose brother had both arms broken and serious facial and head injuries. They explained that "We couldn't recognize his face, it was so black from the weapons used." Another man turns to me and said. "I am a teacher. I teach human rights -- this is a course we have, human rights." He paused. 'How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of human rights under these conditions, under this siege?"
The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and local government schools have developed a human rights syllabus, which teaches children about international law, the Geneva Conventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, and The Hague Regulations. One goal of the program is to develop a culture of human rights in Gaza, and to help generate more self-confidence and a sense of security and dignity for the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to as a common code of conduct agreed to by most states, including Israel, and the realities on the ground is stark. International law is not being applied or enforced with respect to Israeli policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, inside Israel, or the millions of refugees living in camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate from rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by Israel. Earlier this month, Richard Falk, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, was held prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet. In the Jabaliya refugee camp alone, Gaza's largest, 125,000 people are crowded into a space of only two square kilometers. Bombardment by F-16s and Apache helicopters at mid-morning, as children leave their schools for home, reveals an utter contempt for civilian safety. This is compounded by an 18-month siege that bans all imports and exports, and has resulted in the deaths of more than 270 people as a result of a lack of access to essential medicines and treatment. Israel is granted immunity by an international community that offers empty phrases for Israel to "urge restraint" and "minimize civilian casualties."
A light
There is a saying here in Gaza: "At the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel." Not so funny when you consider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel and medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1,000 tunnels running from Egypt to the southern city of Rafah. On average, one to two people die every week in the tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education, see their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Other tunnels are reportedly big enough to drive through.
As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring the children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take on another twist. After today's killing of more than 200, is it that at the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave? Or is it a wall of international complicity and silence?
Yet, there is a light through the wall -- a light of conscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn a spotlight onto Israel's crimes against humanity and the enduring injustice here in Palestine, by coming out onto the streets and pressuring our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and occupation, broadening our call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, and for a genuine and just peace. Through institutional, governmental, and popular means, this can be the light at the end of the Gaza's tunnel.
Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist, community and union organizer, and solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement.
Related Links
BY TOPIC: Gaza massacres (27 December 2008)
Ewa Jasiewicz writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 28 December 2008
Palestinian children attend funeral processions for victims of Israeli missile strikes in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 28 December 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
27 December 2008
As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the house. Apache helicopters are hovering above us, while F-16s soar overhead.
United Nations radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of al-Shifa hospital -- the largest medical facility in Gaza. Another was a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.
Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts plunge the city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only perhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their lifetimes.
As of this writing, more than 220 people have been killed and at least 400 injured through attacks that shocked the Strip in the space of 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and unable to cope. These attacks come on top of the already existing humanitarian crisis that came about because of the 18-month Israeli siege which has resulted in a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity, fuel and freedom of movement.
Doctors at al-Shifa Hospital had to scramble together 10 make-shift operating theaters to deal with the wounded. The hospital's maternity ward had to transform their operating room into an emergency theater. Al-Shifa only had 12beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.
There is a shortage of medicine -- over 105 key items are not in stock, and blood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.
Al-Shifa's main generator is the life support machine of the entire hospital. It's the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and lights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn't have the spare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red Cross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.
Al-Shifa's Head of Casualty, Dr. Maowiya Abu Hassanieh explained that "We had over 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the operating theater, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were sending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital in the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short space of time."
As Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli occupation forces Chief of Staff, said this morning, "This is only the beginning."
But this isn't the beginning -- it is an ongoing policy of collective punishment and killing with impunity practiced by Israel for decades. It has seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread, revenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza. People are all asking: If this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?
11:30 am
Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, and I were on the border village of Sirej near the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Strip. We had driven there at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief Committees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided villages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents about conditions on the border. Stories of olive and orange groves, and family farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for Israeli army watch towers and border guards. Prior to today, Israeli attacks have been frequent -- indiscriminate fire and shelling sprayed homes and land on the front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us the grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would shoot into his fields.
Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile attack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire from resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by the border. Israel had rained rockets and M-16 fire back. The family, caught in the crossfire, has not returned to their home.
I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us off our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F-16 bombs slamming into the police stations and bases of the Hamas authority across Gaza. We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to Gaza City, before jumping out to film the smoldering remains of a police station in Deir al-Balah near Khan Younis. Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had soared through a children's playground and a busy fruit and vegetable market before striking its target.
Civilians dead
There was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead donkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and splattered blood covered the ground. A market trader present during the attack began to explain in broken English what happened: "It was full here, full, three people dead, many, many injured." An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh scarf around his head threw his hands down to his blood-drenched trousers and cried, "Look! Look at this! Shame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kill us, they are killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are they, we are being killed here, hell upon them!"
He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking them up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a small tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his legs were bloodied. He couldn't get up and was sitting, visibly in pain and shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.
The Deir al-Balah police station itself was a wreck, a mess of twisted piles of concrete -- broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree split the road.
We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four US-made Apache helicopters whose trigger mechanisms are supplied by the United Kingdom's Brighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares -- a defense against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.
Turning down the road leading to the Deir al-Balah Civil Defense Force headquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road, shouting "They've been bombing twice, they've been bombing twice!" We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from "a ministry building," which our friend explained could be a possible second target as the Apaches rumbled above.
Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work smashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman's hat, the ubiquitous bright flower-patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around 20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverized walls and floors and a motorbike, tossed on its side like a toy.
Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under the rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his cell phone. "Stop it everyone, just one, one of you ring," shouted an officer. A fire licked the underside of a room now crushed to just three feet high. The men rapidly grasped and threw back rocks, blocks and debris to reach the man.
We made our way to al-Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the men of entire families -- uncles, nephews, brothers -- piled high and speeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without interruption.
Hospitals on the brink
Entering al-Aqsa was overwhelming -- pure pandemonium, charged with grief, horror, distress and shock. Limp, blood-covered and burnt bodies streamed by us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue, tens of shouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. Our friend explained that "they could not even identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who, because they are so burned." Many were transferred, in ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to al-Shifa Hospital.
The injured couldn't speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against the outside walls, being comforted by relatives, with wounds temporarily dressed. The more drastically injured were inside, where relatives jostled with doctors in constant motion to bring in their injured in scuffed blankets. Drips, bloody faces, scorched hair and shrapnel cuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area, wards and operating theaters.
We saw a bearded man on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting downwards -- a spasm consistent with a spinal cord injury. Would he ever walk again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.
A first estimate at al-Aqsa Hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured.
The hospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, a playground, a Civil Defense Force's station, a civil and traffic police stations -- all were leveled. Two of the dead were carried out on stretchers from the hospital. Their bodies were lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men and taken to the graveyard accompanied by cries of "There is not God but God!"
Who cares?
Many Palestinians in Gaza feel that no one is looking out for them apart from God.
Back in al-Shifa Hospital tonight, we met the brother of a security guard who was sitting in the doorway of the former headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The building collapsed on top of him after an Israeli missile strike. He said to us, "We don't have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world? Where is the action to stop these attacks?"
Majid Salim, stood beside his comatose mother, Fatima. Earlier today she had been sitting at her desk at work at the Khadija Arafat Charity, located near the headquarters of Hamas' security forces in Gaza City. Israel's attack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, a tube down her throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, "We didn't attack Israel, my mother didn't fire rockets at Israel. This is the biggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work."
The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched al-Shifa hospital are stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We spoke to a group of men whose brother had both arms broken and serious facial and head injuries. They explained that "We couldn't recognize his face, it was so black from the weapons used." Another man turns to me and said. "I am a teacher. I teach human rights -- this is a course we have, human rights." He paused. 'How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of human rights under these conditions, under this siege?"
The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and local government schools have developed a human rights syllabus, which teaches children about international law, the Geneva Conventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, and The Hague Regulations. One goal of the program is to develop a culture of human rights in Gaza, and to help generate more self-confidence and a sense of security and dignity for the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to as a common code of conduct agreed to by most states, including Israel, and the realities on the ground is stark. International law is not being applied or enforced with respect to Israeli policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, inside Israel, or the millions of refugees living in camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate from rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by Israel. Earlier this month, Richard Falk, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, was held prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet. In the Jabaliya refugee camp alone, Gaza's largest, 125,000 people are crowded into a space of only two square kilometers. Bombardment by F-16s and Apache helicopters at mid-morning, as children leave their schools for home, reveals an utter contempt for civilian safety. This is compounded by an 18-month siege that bans all imports and exports, and has resulted in the deaths of more than 270 people as a result of a lack of access to essential medicines and treatment. Israel is granted immunity by an international community that offers empty phrases for Israel to "urge restraint" and "minimize civilian casualties."
A light
There is a saying here in Gaza: "At the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel." Not so funny when you consider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel and medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1,000 tunnels running from Egypt to the southern city of Rafah. On average, one to two people die every week in the tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education, see their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Other tunnels are reportedly big enough to drive through.
As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring the children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take on another twist. After today's killing of more than 200, is it that at the end of the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave? Or is it a wall of international complicity and silence?
Yet, there is a light through the wall -- a light of conscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn a spotlight onto Israel's crimes against humanity and the enduring injustice here in Palestine, by coming out onto the streets and pressuring our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and occupation, broadening our call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, and for a genuine and just peace. Through institutional, governmental, and popular means, this can be the light at the end of the Gaza's tunnel.
Ewa Jasiewicz is a journalist, community and union organizer, and solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement.
Related Links
BY TOPIC: Gaza massacres (27 December 2008)
BARACK - blessed, baruch-- OBAMA AND THE JEWS.
How Barack Obama learned to love Israel
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2007
(EI Illustration)
I first met Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama almost ten years ago when, as my representative in the Illinois state senate, he came to speak at the University of Chicago. He impressed me as progressive, intelligent and charismatic. I distinctly remember thinking 'if only a man of this calibre could become president one day.'
On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago. It had been much anticipated in American Jewish political circles which buzzed about his intensive efforts to woo wealthy pro-Israel campaign donors who up to now have generally leaned towards his main rival Senator Hillary Clinton.
Reviewing the speech, Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama "sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period."
Israel is "our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy," Obama said, assuring his audience that "we must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs." Such advanced multi-billion dollar systems he asserted, would help Israel "deter missile attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza." As if the starved, besieged and traumatized population of Gaza are about to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Obama offered not a single word of criticism of Israel, of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians.
There was no comfort for the hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza who live in the dark, or the patients who cannot get dialysis, because of what Israeli human rights group B'Tselem termed "one cold, calculated decision, made by Israel's prime minister, defense minister, and IDF chief of staff" last summer to bomb the only power plant in Gaza," a decision that "had nothing to do with the attempts to achieve [the] release [of a captured soldier] nor any other military need." It was a gratuitous war crime, one of many condemned by human rights organizations, against an occupied civilian population who under the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel is obligated to protect.
From left to right, Michelle Obama, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama, Columbia University Professor Edward Said and Mariam Said at a May 1998 Arab community event in Chicago at which Edward Said gave the keynote speech. (Image from archives of Ali Abunimah)
While constantly emphasizing his concern about the threat Israelis face from Palestinians, Obama said nothing about the exponentially more lethal threat Israelis present to Palestinians. In 2006, according to B'Tselem, Israeli occupation forces killed 660 Palestinians of whom 141 were children -- triple the death toll for 2005. In the same period, 23 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, half the number of 2005 (by contrast, 500 Israelis die each year in road accidents).
But Obama was not entirely insensitive to ordinary lives. He recalled a January 2006 visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona that resembled an ordinary American suburb where he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters." He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizbullah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).
Six months later, Obama said, "Hizbullah launched four thousand rocket attacks just like the one that destroyed the home in Kiryat Shmona, and kidnapped Israeli service members."
Obama's phrasing suggests that Hizbullah launched thousands of rockets in an unprovoked attack, but it's a complete distortion. Throughout his speech he showed a worrying propensity to present discredited propaganda as fact. As anyone who checks the chronology of last summer's Lebanon war will easily discover, Hizbullah only launched lethal barrages of rockets against Israeli towns and cities after Israel had heavily bombed civilian neighborhoods in Lebanon killing hundreds of civilians, many fleeing the Israeli onslaught.
Obama excoriated Hizbullah for using "innocent people as shields." Indeed, after dozens of civilians were massacred in an Israeli air attack on Qana on July 30, Israel "initially claimed that the military targeted the house because Hezbollah fighters had fired rockets from the area," according to an August 2 statement from Human Rights Watch.
The statement added: "Human Rights Watch researchers who visited Qana on July 31, the day after the attack, did not find any destroyed military equipment in or near the home. Similarly, none of the dozens of international journalists, rescue workers and international observers who visited Qana on July 30 and 31 reported seeing any evidence of Hezbollah military presence in or around the home. Rescue workers recovered no bodies of apparent Hezbollah fighters from inside or near the building." The Israelis subsequently changed their story, and neither in Qana, nor anywhere else did Israel ever present, or international investigators ever find evidence to support the claim Hizbullah had a policy of using civilians as human shields.
In total, forty-three Israeli civilians were killed by Hizbullah rockets during the thirty-four day war. For every Israeli civilian who died, over twenty-five Lebanese civilians were killed by indiscriminate Israeli bombing -- over one thousand in total, a third of them children. Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israel's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians. But Obama defended Israel's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its "legitimate right to defend itself."
There was absolutely nothing in Obama's speech that deviated from the hardline consensus underpinning US policy in the region. Echoing the sort of exaggeration and alarmism that got the United States into the Iraq war, he called Iran "one of the greatest threats to the United States, to Israel, and world peace." While advocating "tough" diplomacy with Iran he confirmed that "we should take no option, including military action, off the table." He opposed a Palestinian unity government between Hamas and Fatah and insisted "we must maintain the isolation of Hamas" until it meets the Quartet's one-sided conditions. He said Hizbullah, which represents millions of Lebanon's disenfranchised and excluded, "threatened the fledgling movement for democracy" and blamed it for "engulf[ing] that entire nation in violence and conflict."
Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.
As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"
But Obama's gradual shift into the AIPAC camp had begun as early as 2002 as he planned his move from small time Illinois politics to the national scene. In 2003, Forward reported on how he had "been courting the pro-Israel constituency." He co-sponsored an amendment to the Illinois Pension Code allowing the state of Illinois to lend money to the Israeli government. Among his early backers was Penny Pritzker -- now his national campaign finance chair -- scion of the liberal but staunchly Zionist family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. (The Hyatt Regency hotel on Mount Scopus was built on land forcibly expropriated from Palestinian owners after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967). He has also appointed several prominent pro-Israel advisors.
Michelle Obama and Barack Obama listen to Professor Edward Said give the keynote address at an Arab community event in Chicago, May 1998. (Photo: Ali Abunimah)
Obama has also been close to some prominent Arab Americans, and has received their best advice. His decisive trajectory reinforces a lesson that politically weak constituencies have learned many times: access to people with power alone does not translate into influence over policy. Money and votes, but especially money, channelled through sophisticated and coordinated networks that can "bundle" small donations into million dollar chunks are what buy influence on policy. Currently, advocates of Palestinian rights are very far from having such networks at their disposal. Unless they go out and do the hard work to build them, or to support meaningful campaign finance reform, whispering in the ears of politicians will have little impact. (For what it's worth, I did my part. I recently met with Obama's legislative aide, and wrote to Obama urging a more balanced policy towards Palestine.)
If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power. Palestinian-Americans are in the same position as civil libertarians who watched with dismay as Obama voted to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, or immigrant rights advocates who were horrified as he voted in favor of a Republican bill to authorize the construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico.
Only if enough people know what Obama and his competitors stand for, and organize to compel them to pay attention to their concerns can there be any hope of altering the disastrous course of US policy in the Middle East. It is at best a very long-term project that cannot substitute for support for the growing campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions needed to hold Israel accountable for its escalating violence and solidifying apartheid.
Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
Related Links:
The senator, his pastor and the Israel lobby , Ali Abunimah (31 March 2008)
Obama and the Jews, The Jewish Journal (9 March 2007)
Obama Pivots Away from Dovish Past, The Jewish Week (9 March 2007)
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Obama and the Jews
Harold Brackman, The Jewish Journal, 9 March 2007
One of the many paradoxes of contemporary American politics involves the Democratic Party's two most loyal constituency groups: African Americans and Jews. They have managed to stay under the same political tent even as their historic relationship has continued the long descent from the heights reached when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched side-by-side in Selma, Ala.
In the decade or so since Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, the best -- or worst -- that can be said about the relationship is that it has pretty much moved from mutual alienation to mutual indifference as black newspapers rarely mention Jews except to take potshots at Israel, and Jewish papers can be relied on only to ritually invoke King on his birthday.
Bill Clinton, the ultimate political empath, became a favorite of both groups without really bridging the growing rift between them. A crowning irony of the next presidential sweepstakes is that the contender who may have the best chance of restoring Black-Jewish enthusiasm for the same candidate has the middle name "Hussein," after his paternal grandfather.
Everybody by now knows the outlines of Barack Obama's odyssey as the Hawaiian-born son of a white Kansas mother and a Kenyan father who was educated early on in Indonesia (the home of his Muslim stepfather) as well as Honolulu, worked as a community organizer in Chicago (his real political education), graduated from Columbia University, became president of the Harvard Law Review and spent six years in the Illinois State Senate before his nationally acclaimed speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention and election that same year to the U.S. Senate.
As Obama hires an operative to prepare the groundwork for a major Mideast policy speech, perhaps before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, his less-known Jewish connections are beginning to surface in the media: Gerald Kellman ("Marty Kaufman" in Obama's semi-autobiographical "Dreams From my Father"), a practitioner of Saul Alinsky-style community organizing, was Obama's first mentor in Chicago. Jay Tcath, director of Chicago's Jewish Community Relations Council; Robert Schrayer, a leading Chicago Jewish philanthropist; and Judge Abner J. Mikva are among Obama's fans. David Axelrod, his media maven, lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Those looking for Obama's views on the Mideast won't find a great deal. In 2004, he disappointed Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada by giving a speech to Chicago's Council on Foreign Relations endorsing the U.S. alliance with Israel. Speaking before Jewish audiences during his Senate campaign, he reassured them that his Swahili first name, Barack ("Blessed"), is a close relation of Baruch in Hebrew.
His current bestseller, "The Audacity of Hope" -- a carefully crafted manifesto positioning him for his 2008 run -- has a page on a recent trip to the Mideast, where he talked to both Holocaust survivors and Palestinian villagers. The book emphasizes the need for enhanced homeland security while offering sensible suggestions for a comprehensive approach, including carrots as well as sticks, to wean the Arab and Muslim world from Islamic extremism.
A reading of Obama's remarkably candid and insightful "Dreams from my Father," written in 1995, suggests his ultimate appeal for Jewish voters may not be ideology but temperament and sensibility. One telling moment in the book comes in 1992 with Obama, in his early thirties around the time of his marriage, joining Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, a congregation popular with upwardly-mobile black professionals.
One can't escape the impression that getting married and joining the church were both the politic thing for him to do. Regarding religion and politics, Obama emerges as a man wise beyond his years, with a deep appreciation of human frailties (including his own) and a profound aversion to fanaticism in any form. As a community organizer in Chicago, he learned the social importance of the black church and pulpit rhetoric.
Yet it is impossible not to be struck by temperamental affinities between Obama and earlier great Illinoisans -- not only Abe Lincoln, also a lanky, big-eared agnostic who married late -- but wryly wise Adlai Stevenson. Conversion or not, Obama remains deeply skeptical of religious dogma -- as was Old Abe (who never joined a church), despite his political mastery of biblical cadence and imagery. His careful, skeptical frame makes for a chilly relationship between Obama and demagogues like Al Sharpton and others who view Obama as inauthentically "black."
Another critical point in Obama's moral self-education, dramatized in "Dreams," comes during an interlude in New York when he was dating a white, apparently Jewish girl. He took her to a play, shot through with anti-white humor, at which the mostly black audience laughed and clapped, almost like in church.
"After the play was over, my friend started talking about why black people were so angry all the time. I said it was a matter of remembering -- nobody asks why Jews remember the Holocaust, I think I said, and she said that it was different, and I said it wasn't, and she said the anger was just a dead end."
The night ended with the girl crying that "she couldn't be black.... She would if she could, but she couldn't. She could only be herself, and wasn't that enough."
Relating the story a few years later to a friend, Obama said "whenever I think back to what my friend said to me, that night outside the theater, it somehow makes me ashamed."
Like other Americans, Jews who support Obama will be making a bet that -- despite his limited national political experience (another similarity with Lincoln, who served only one term in Congress before his election to the presidency) -- he has what it takes to move America beyond multicultural cliches to engaging real 21st century challenges, including our inescapable post-Iraq War responsibilities in the Mideast.
Like Stevenson, he will have to "talk sense to the American people," especially the left wing of his own party.
Like Lincoln, he will have to harness "the better angels of our nature" to reconcile Americans with each other, and challenge them to intelligently engage the rest of the world.
Harold Brackman, a historian who has written extensively on the history of Black-Jewish relations, lives in San Diego.
viernes, 21 de noviembre de 2008
STORIA DELLA SICILIA
Storia della Sicilia
Tempio della Concordia, Agrigento
La storia della Sicilia è stata influenzata dai tanti dominatori che sono passati sul suolo della più grande isola del mar Mediterraneo. Grazie alla sua posizione geografica, la Sicilia ha avuto un ruolo di una certa importanza negli eventi storici che hanno avuto come protagonisti i popoli del Mediterraneo.
L'avvicendarsi di molteplici
Periodi storici
Storia della Sicilia greca (735 a.C. - 212 a.C.)
Storia della Sicilia fenicia (VIII secolo a.C. - 241 a.C.)
Storia della Sicilia romana (241 a.C. - 440)
Storia della Sicilia vandala (440- 493)
Storia della Sicilia ostrogota (493-555)
Storia della Sicilia bizantina (535-1043)
Storia della Sicilia araba (827-1091)
Storia della Sicilia normanna (1060-1194)
Storia della Sicilia sveva (1185-1266)
Storia della Sicilia angioina (1266-1282)
Storia della Sicilia aragonese (1282-1513)
Storia della Sicilia spagnola (1513-1716)
Storia della Sicilia piemontese (1713-1718)
Storia della Sicilia borbonica (1734-1860)
Storia della Sicilia dall'Unità d'Italia (1860-oggi)
Bibliografia
Storia della Sicilia fenicia (VIII secolo a.C. - 241 a.C.)
Storia della Sicilia romana (241 a.C. - 440)
Storia della Sicilia vandala (440- 493)
Storia della Sicilia ostrogota (493-555)
Storia della Sicilia bizantina (535-1043)
Storia della Sicilia araba (827-1091)
Storia della Sicilia normanna (1060-1194)
Storia della Sicilia sveva (1185-1266)
Storia della Sicilia angioina (1266-1282)
Storia della Sicilia aragonese (1282-1513)
Storia della Sicilia spagnola (1513-1716)
Storia della Sicilia piemontese (1713-1718)
Storia della Sicilia borbonica (1734-1860)
Storia della Sicilia dall'Unità d'Italia (1860-oggi)
Bibliografia
Francesco Renda, Storia della Sicilia dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Sellerio, Palermo 2003
Santi Correnti, A Short History of Sicily, Les Éditions Musae, 2002 ISBN 2-922621-00-6
Donald Matthew, I Normanni in Italia, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1997 (ISBN 8842050857) (ed. orig. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, Cambridge University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-521-43774-1
Moses I.Finley, Storia della Sicilia antica, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1979
Jean Hure, Storia della Sicilia, Brancato Editore, 2005 ISBN 88-803-1078-X
Santi Correnti, Breve storia della Sicilia dalle origini ai giorni nostri , Newton, Roma 1996 (2002) ISBN 88-7983-511-4
Luigi Riccobene, Sicilia ed Europa dal 1700 al 1815, 3 voll., Sellerio, Palermo 1996 ISBN 88-389-1253-X
Santi Correnti, A Short History of Sicily, Les Éditions Musae, 2002 ISBN 2-922621-00-6
Donald Matthew, I Normanni in Italia, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1997 (ISBN 8842050857) (ed. orig. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, Cambridge University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-521-43774-1
Moses I.Finley, Storia della Sicilia antica, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1979
Jean Hure, Storia della Sicilia, Brancato Editore, 2005 ISBN 88-803-1078-X
Santi Correnti, Breve storia della Sicilia dalle origini ai giorni nostri , Newton, Roma 1996 (2002) ISBN 88-7983-511-4
Luigi Riccobene, Sicilia ed Europa dal 1700 al 1815, 3 voll., Sellerio, Palermo 1996 ISBN 88-389-1253-X
tracce della presenza dell'uomo in Sicilia, si perdono nella notte dei tempi. Proprio la sua disposizione al centro del mar Mediterraneo e le glaciazioni che ridussero di molto le distanze dalla costa nordafricana e dalla penisola italiana sono ritenuti i motivi dell'insediamento umano così precoce.
Indice[nascondi]
1 Nella notte dei tempi
2 Il Neolitico in Sicilia
3 Dopo il II millennio
4 Le invasioni
5 Bibliografia
//
Nella notte dei tempi
Indice[nascondi]
1 Nella notte dei tempi
2 Il Neolitico in Sicilia
3 Dopo il II millennio
4 Le invasioni
5 Bibliografia
//
Nella notte dei tempi
Recenti ritrovamenti di selci e di amigdale, asce a forma di mandorla, nei pressi della foce del fiume Platani, nella zona di Eraclea Minoa hanno convinto gli studiosi a datare al paleolitico inferiore la comparsa dell'uomo in Sicilia.Al paleolitico superiore invece si attribuiscono le tracce trovate nella grotta detta Rifugio della Sperlinga nei pressi di Novara di Sicilia e nella grotta di San Teodoro ad Acquedolci in provincia di Messina.Al mesolitico appartiene invece l'insediamento della Grotta dell'Uzzo nei pressi di Erice, con i suoi cocci di ceramiche non decorate ma con manici e tacche per facilitarne la presa, e tracce evidenti di abitanti dediti alla caccia e alla pesca e che praticavano l'agricoltura. Alla stessa era appartengono i graffiti della Grotta dell'Addaura di Monte Pellegrino a Palermo che rappresentano delle figure umane dedite a danze rituali e forse ad un sacrificio umano. Tracce della presenza dell'uomo in Sicilia, attorno al 10000 a.C. si rilevano anche dai graffiti con scene di caccia e rituali delle pareti della Grotta del Genovese nell'isola di Levanzo.A Pantelleria sono evidenti le tracce della popolazione detta dei Sesioti, un popolo del mare, che fece dell'isola un vero e proprio centro commerciale di esportazione dell' ossidiana molto ricercata per utensili da taglio in tutto il Mediterraneo; Le mura ciclopiche e le caratteristiche tombe dette sosi.
Il Neolitico in Sicilia
Scavi sistematici effettuati a partire dal 1950 a Lipari hanno rivelato testimonianze importantissime e stratificate di tutte le civiltà che dal Neolitico, sei millenni a.C., in poi hanno colonizzato l'isola. Anche questo era un centro di produzione di ossidiana e di ceramiche. Molto interessanti sono le rovine del villaggio neolitico sul promontorio di Capo Graziano a Filicudi. Ad Ustica alla fine degli anni 70 il Seminara, un frate cappuccino, portò alla scoperta di un villaggio commerciale per il traffico di ossidiana.
Un villaggio fortificato dotato di tempio e necropoli è venuto alla luce vicino Enna sulle rive del Lago Pergusa, dove nell'8000 a.C. fu introdotta, per la prima volta lontano dalle coste, la coltivazione dell'ulivo.
Dopo il II millennio
Tra il 1900 e il 1800 a.C. avvenne una penetrazione di genti indo-europee che si fusero con gli indigeni dando inizio all'età del bronzo: Presso Noto, venti chilometri a nord, è stato individuato l'importantissimo l'insediamento di Castelluccio che ha permesso di tipizzare tutta una importante fase della civilizzazione ( periodo tra 1650 a.C. e 1250 a.C.) detta Cultura di Castelluccio; questi studi hanno permesso di scoprire, data la coincidenza delle ceramiche di tipo egeo, l'intensa relazione commerciale con Malta in tale periodo. A Panarea il ritrovamento di un villaggio, a Cala Junco, con una cinquantina di capanne circolari ed ovali, atte all'alloggio di circa 220 individui, ha fornito la testimonianza di commerci con il mondo miceneo. Ed ancora a Thapsos, nella zona di Naro, a Milazzo, a Filicudi, a Pantalica e Siracusa.
Le invasioni
Secondo Diodoro Siculo intorno al XIV-XIII secolo a.C. le isole Eolie vennero attaccate e occupate dagli Ausoni guidati dal condottiero Liparo, (da cui prese il nome l'isola maggiore). Gli scavi archeologici confermano il fatto che a partire dal 1270 a.C. nei villaggi eoliani risultano tracce di distruzioni violente ed improvvise. Dopo tale periodo la vita riprende, nella zona del castello di Lipari, ma in maniera diversa come usi, utensili e tipo di insediamento, molto simile a quello dei siti del continente italico. Verso la metà del XIII secolo arrivano i Sicani, un popolo non indoeuropeo, secondo Tucidide provenienti dalla zona iberica, in fuga perché cacciati dai Liguri, e sconfiggono gli abitanti locali, di razza gigantesca, che egli chiama i Ciclopi e i Lestrigoni. I Sicani si stanziano principalmente al centro e nella zona sudoccidentale della Sicilia. Tracce di loro rimangono nella necropoli di Caltabellotta con le caratteristiche tombe a camera, nella valle del Platani con l'antica città di Camico, secondo gli archeologi a Sant'Angelo Muxaro, e le sue ceramiche scure con decorazioni impresse e segni del culto antico della Madre terra. Vennero presto spinti verso l'interno dall'arrivo degli Elimi, i fondatori di Segesta ed Erice.Nel tardo periodo dell'età del bronzo, i Micenei in crisi per motivi politici ed economici, cominciarono a scomparire dalla scena mediterranea. Al loro posto arrivarono dal nord altri popoli. Ellanico di Mitilene, narra dei Siculi e degli Ausoni, scacciati dagli Enotri attorno al 1260 a.C. Sono i Siculi in particolare ad importare nell'isola l'uso del cavallo e il culto dei morti.L'età del ferro, in Sicilia, si situa tra il 1200 e il 1100 a.C. Reperti del periodo sono presenti a Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, Monte Finocchito (Noto), Sant'Angelo Muxaro. Ultima infine, tra XI e X secolo, avvenne la penetrazione dei Fenici ritenuti i fondatori di Solunto, Mozia, Palermo e Lilibeo.
Riassumendo, tra il XIII e l'VIII secolo a.C., il periodo precedente all'arrivo dei Greci in Sicilia, l'isola risultava così suddivisa tra quattro popoli:
ITALIA Y EL HERMETISMO OCULTISTA.
Los nombres de las regiones italianas (en orden alfabético) son: Abruzos; Apulia; Calabria; Campania; Cerdeña; Emilia Romaña; Friul-Venecia Julia; Lacio; Las Marcas; Liguria; Lombardía; Lucania; Molise; Piamonte; Sicilia; Toscana; Trentino-Alto Adigio; Umbría; Valle de Aosta; y Véneto.
Turismo en Italia
Por razones históricas, religiosas y culturales, se puede decir que no ha perdido vigencia aquello de que «todos los caminos conducen a Roma». En "la Ciudad Eterna", muchas cosas cautivan al visitante: pintorescas plazas, fuentes, monumentos —entre los que se destaca "El Coliseo"—, museos —el más grande de los cuales es el Museo Capitolino—, catacumbas —donde padecieron la persecución los primeros cristianos—, cafés y restaurantes. Dentro de Roma se encuentra la Ciudad del Vaticano, independizada de Italia en 1929 por el tratado de Letrán y ubicada en la zona oeste de la ciudad, sobre la margen derecha del río Tiber. Es el centro del mundo católico (sede del papado) y alberga dentro de su pequeña extensión una serie de construcciones de alto valor arquitectónico (la Plaza de San Pedro, la Basílica de San Pedro y la Capilla Sixtina) e innumerables obras de arte de afamados artistas, como Miguel Ángel y Rafael. Pero en Italia no sólo Roma merece la atención de los turistas. Otras ciudades italianas que atraen a viajeros de todo el mundo son: Aosta, capital de la región Valle de Aosta, enclavada en los Alpes italianos; Turín, capital del Piamonte, ubicada a orillas del río Po; Génova, capital de Liguria, uno de los principales puertos del Mediterráneo; Savona, importante puerto de Liguria; Milán (Milano), capital de Lombardía, centro industrial y cultural de primer nivel mundial; Trento, capital de Trentino-Alto Adigio, bella ciudad histórica, símbolo del encuentro entre las culturas de la península itálica y de la Europa central; Údine, en la región de Friul-Venecia Julia, ubicada entre los Alpes y el mar Adriático; Verona, en la región del Véneto, la ciudad de "Romeo y Julieta"; Venecia (capital del Véneto), con sus góndolas, canales y puentes; Padua, centro económico del Véneto; Bolonia, capital de la región de Emilia Romaña, con su bello centro histórico; Florencia, capital de Toscana, la ciudad de los Medici; Asís, en la región de Umbría, la ciudad de San Francisco; Nápoles (Napoli), capital de Campania y principal ciudad del sur de Italia; Bari, capital de la región de Apulia, y segunda ciudad del sur italiano después de Nápoles; Catanzaro, capital de la región de Calabria; Cágliari, capital de la región insular de Cerdeña; y Palermo, capital de la región insular de Sicilia.
Por razones históricas, religiosas y culturales, se puede decir que no ha perdido vigencia aquello de que «todos los caminos conducen a Roma». En "la Ciudad Eterna", muchas cosas cautivan al visitante: pintorescas plazas, fuentes, monumentos —entre los que se destaca "El Coliseo"—, museos —el más grande de los cuales es el Museo Capitolino—, catacumbas —donde padecieron la persecución los primeros cristianos—, cafés y restaurantes. Dentro de Roma se encuentra la Ciudad del Vaticano, independizada de Italia en 1929 por el tratado de Letrán y ubicada en la zona oeste de la ciudad, sobre la margen derecha del río Tiber. Es el centro del mundo católico (sede del papado) y alberga dentro de su pequeña extensión una serie de construcciones de alto valor arquitectónico (la Plaza de San Pedro, la Basílica de San Pedro y la Capilla Sixtina) e innumerables obras de arte de afamados artistas, como Miguel Ángel y Rafael. Pero en Italia no sólo Roma merece la atención de los turistas. Otras ciudades italianas que atraen a viajeros de todo el mundo son: Aosta, capital de la región Valle de Aosta, enclavada en los Alpes italianos; Turín, capital del Piamonte, ubicada a orillas del río Po; Génova, capital de Liguria, uno de los principales puertos del Mediterráneo; Savona, importante puerto de Liguria; Milán (Milano), capital de Lombardía, centro industrial y cultural de primer nivel mundial; Trento, capital de Trentino-Alto Adigio, bella ciudad histórica, símbolo del encuentro entre las culturas de la península itálica y de la Europa central; Údine, en la región de Friul-Venecia Julia, ubicada entre los Alpes y el mar Adriático; Verona, en la región del Véneto, la ciudad de "Romeo y Julieta"; Venecia (capital del Véneto), con sus góndolas, canales y puentes; Padua, centro económico del Véneto; Bolonia, capital de la región de Emilia Romaña, con su bello centro histórico; Florencia, capital de Toscana, la ciudad de los Medici; Asís, en la región de Umbría, la ciudad de San Francisco; Nápoles (Napoli), capital de Campania y principal ciudad del sur de Italia; Bari, capital de la región de Apulia, y segunda ciudad del sur italiano después de Nápoles; Catanzaro, capital de la región de Calabria; Cágliari, capital de la región insular de Cerdeña; y Palermo, capital de la región insular de Sicilia.
SICILIA
THE HISTORIY OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR BY CHARLES ADDISON.
The History of the Knights Templar
by Charles G. Addison
[1842]
This is a mainstream history of the Knights Templars, written in the 19th century. Addison details the rise of the Templars to become, essentially, the first multinational corporation. The Templars were entrusted by the Church and States of Europe to be the spearhead of the crusades. In the process they gained immense wealth and influence, although individual Templars took a vow of poverty. Jerusalem was won and lost several times by the crusaders through the 12th and 13th centuries. Addison notably cites eye-witness descriptions from both the Crusaders and their Moslem opponents to give a well-rounded picture. After the crusades, and the loss of the Holy Land, the Templars began a quick decline from which they never recovered. Accused of heresy and bizarre secret rituals, the Templars were subjected to torture and the stake.
The second portion of the book focuses on Temple Church in London, the English headquarters of the Templars in their prime. Addison details the architecture and history of this edifice. The Temple Church eventually became the center of the legal profession in the City of London, a hostel and school for lawyers. Addison mentions on the title page that he is a member of the 'Inner Temple,' which doesn't mean that he was part of a secret society, but instead qualified to practise law in England.
Addison quotes liberally from contemporary accounts in Latin, Norman French, and Early Modern English (which he thankfully occasionally translates), and includes extensive citations of source documents. If you want to learn the fascinating history of the Knights Templars without any extraneous theorizing, this is an excellent book to start with.
by Charles G. Addison
[1842]
This is a mainstream history of the Knights Templars, written in the 19th century. Addison details the rise of the Templars to become, essentially, the first multinational corporation. The Templars were entrusted by the Church and States of Europe to be the spearhead of the crusades. In the process they gained immense wealth and influence, although individual Templars took a vow of poverty. Jerusalem was won and lost several times by the crusaders through the 12th and 13th centuries. Addison notably cites eye-witness descriptions from both the Crusaders and their Moslem opponents to give a well-rounded picture. After the crusades, and the loss of the Holy Land, the Templars began a quick decline from which they never recovered. Accused of heresy and bizarre secret rituals, the Templars were subjected to torture and the stake.
The second portion of the book focuses on Temple Church in London, the English headquarters of the Templars in their prime. Addison details the architecture and history of this edifice. The Temple Church eventually became the center of the legal profession in the City of London, a hostel and school for lawyers. Addison mentions on the title page that he is a member of the 'Inner Temple,' which doesn't mean that he was part of a secret society, but instead qualified to practise law in England.
Addison quotes liberally from contemporary accounts in Latin, Norman French, and Early Modern English (which he thankfully occasionally translates), and includes extensive citations of source documents. If you want to learn the fascinating history of the Knights Templars without any extraneous theorizing, this is an excellent book to start with.
KNIGHT TEMPLARS -
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon
(Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), commonly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple (French: Ordre du Temple or Templiers), were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders.[3] The organization existed for approximately two centuries in the Middle Ages, founded in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096, with its original purpose to ensure the safety of the many Christians who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem after its conquest.
Officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church around 1129, the Order became a favored charity throughout Christendom, and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades.[4] Non-combatant members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[5][6] and building many fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.
The Templars' success was tied closely to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. Rumors about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created mistrust, and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, took advantage of the situation. In 1307, many of the Order's members in France were arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake.[7] Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in 1312. The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the "Templar" name alive into the modern day.
1 History
1.1 Rise
1.2 Decline
1.2.1 Arrests and dissolution
2 Organization
2.1 Grand Masters
3 Legacy
3.1 Modern Templar organizations
3.2 Legends and relics
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
//
History
Main article: History of the Knights Templar
Rise
The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, Al Aqsa Mosque, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The Crusaders called it the Temple of Solomon, as it was built on top of the ruins of the original Temple, and it was from this location that the Knights took their name of Templar.
After the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099, many Christian pilgrims traveled to visit what they referred to as the Holy Places. However, though the city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure control, the rest of the Outremer was not. Bandits abounded, and pilgrims were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa into the Holy Land.[8]
Around 1119, two veterans of the First Crusade, the French knight Hugues de Payens and his relative Godfrey de Saint-Omer, proposed the creation of a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims.[9] King Baldwin II of Jerusalem agreed to their request, and gave them space for a headquarters on the Temple Mount, in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount had a mystique, because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.[4][10] The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that the Order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or "Templar" knights. The Order, with about nine knights, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the Order's poverty.
The Templars' impoverished status did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure and a nephew of one of the founding knights. He spoke and wrote persuasively on their behalf, and in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Order was officially endorsed by the Church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favored charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the Order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, and were exempt from all authority except that of the Pope.[11]
"[A Templar Knight] is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith, just as his body is protected by the armor of steel. He is thus doubly-armed, and need fear neither demons nor men."
Bernard de Clairvaux, c. 1135, De Laude Novae Militae—In Praise of the New Knighthood[12]
With its clear mission and ample resources, the Order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armored knights on their warhorses would set out to charge at the enemy, in an attempt to break opposition lines. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[13]
Map of Jerusalem, showing the location of the Templar headquarters on the Temple Mount
Although the primary mission of the Order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, the Order in 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking, and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar coffers.[4][14]
Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built churches and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[13]
Decline
1187's Battle of the Horns of Hattin, the turning point in the Crusades
In the mid-1100s, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem was captured by Saladin's forces in 1187. The Crusaders retook the city in 1229, without Templar aid, but held it only briefly. In 1244, the Khwarezmi Turks recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when the British captured it from the Ottoman Turks.[15]
The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. But they lost that, too, in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (in what is now Syria), and Atlit. Their headquarters then moved to Limassol on the island of Cyprus,[16] and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in coordinated military efforts with the Mongols[17] via a new invasion force at Arwad. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluks in the Siege of Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.[13][18]
Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France
With the Order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.[19] The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level.[2] The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the Order as a bank in which to store personal valuables. The Order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state"—its standing army, though it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia,[14] and the Knights Hospitaller were doing with Rhodes.[20]
Arrests and dissolution
King Philip IV of France (1268–1314)
In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two Orders. Neither was amenable to the idea but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that had been made two years prior by an ousted Templar. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King Philip IV of France a written request for assistance in the investigation. King Philip was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English and decided to seize upon the rumors for his own purposes. He began pressuring the Church to take action against the Order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.[21]
On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date sometimes incorrectly linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition)[22][23][24] Philip ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The Templars were charged with numerous heresies and tortured to extract false confessions of blasphemy. These confessions, despite having been obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. After more bullying from Philip, Pope Clement then issued the bill Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[25]
Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[26][27]
Templars being burned at the stake
Convent of Christ in Castle Tomar, Portugal. Built in 1160 as a stronghold for the Knights Templar, it became the headquarters of the renamed Order of Christ. In 1983, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[28]
With Philip threatening military action unless the Pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the Order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[29]
As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his statement. His associate Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, followed de Molay's example, and insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and they were sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral, and hold his hands together in prayer.[30] According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.[31]
With the last of the Order's leaders gone, the remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Some may have fled to other territories outside Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland or to Switzerland. Templar organizations in Portugal simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to Knights of Christ.[32]
In 2001, a document known as the "Chinon Parchment" was found in the Vatican Secret Archives, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars, and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308, before formally disbanding the Order in 1312.[33][34]
It is currently the Roman Catholic Church's position that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal, and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.[35][36]
Organization
History of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar legends
Knights Templar Seal
Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar in England
Knights Templar in Scotland
List of Knights Templar
List of places associated with the Knights Templar
Modern associations
Knights Templar (Freemason degree)
Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
The Templars were organized as a monastic order, similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe.[37] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Poitou, Apulia, Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Anjou, and Hungary[38]) had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region. All of them were subject to the Grand Master (always a French knight), appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[1][2]
It was Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens who devised the specific code of behavior for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses defined the ideal behavior for the Knights, such as the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and were not to have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse."[39] As the Order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses expanded to several hundred in its final form.[40][41]
One of the many reported flags of the Knights Templar
There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the aristocratic knights, the lower-born sergeants, and the clergy. Knights were required to be of knightly descent, and to wear white mantles. They were equipped as heavy cavalry, with three or four horses, and one or two squires. Squires were generally not members of the Order, but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. Beneath the knights in the Order and drawn from lower social strata were the sergeants.[42] They were either equipped as light cavalry with a single horse,[43] or served in other ways such as administering the property of the Order or performing menial tasks and trades. Chaplains, constituting a third Templar class, were ordained priests who saw to the Templars' spiritual needs.[44]
The knights wore white surcoat with a red cross, and a white mantle; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on front and back, and a black or brown mantle.[45][46] The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147, when Pope Eugenius III, King Louis VII of France, and many other notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their headquarters near Paris.[47][48][49] According to their Rule, the knights were to wear the white mantle at all times, even being forbidden to eat or drink unless they were wearing it.[50]
Initiation,[51] known as Reception (receptio) into the Order, was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the suspicions of medieval inquisitors during the later trials.
New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and goods to the Order and take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience.[52] Most brothers joined for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period. Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's permission,[46] but he was not allowed to wear the white mantle.[53]
The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honor that assured a place in heaven.[54] There was a cardinal rule that the warriors of the Order should never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders, such as that of the Hospitallers. Only after all flags had fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield.[55] This uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage, excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of the most feared combat forces in medieval times.[56]
Grand Masters
Main article: Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
Starting with founder Hugues de Payens in 1118–1119, the Order's highest office was that of Grand Master, a position which was held for life, though considering the martial nature of the Order, this could mean a very short tenure. All but two of the Grand Masters died in office, and several died during military campaigns. For example, during the Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay led a group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls. When the rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including their Grand Master, were surrounded and beheaded.[57] Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort was beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the Siege of Acre.
The Grand Master oversaw all of the operations of the Order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and Eastern Europe, and the Templars' financial and business dealings in Western Europe. Some Grand Masters also served as battlefield commanders, though this was not always wise: several blunders in de Ridefort's combat leadership contributed to the devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin. The last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV.[27]
Temple Church, London. As the chapel of the New Temple in London, it was the location for Templar initiation ceremonies. In modern times it is the parish church of the Middle and Inner Temples, two of the Inns of Court. It is a popular tourist attraction.
Legacy
See also: List of places associated with the Knights Templar
Cross of the Order of Christ (Portugal, present)
With their military mission and extensive financial resources, the Knights Templar funded a large number of building projects around Europe and the Holy Land. Many of these structures are still standing. Many sites also maintain the name "Temple" due to centuries-old association with the Templars.[58] For example, some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which led to the names of the Temple Bar gateway and the Temple tube station. Two of the four Inns of Court which may call members to act as barristers are the Inner Temple and Middle Temple.
Distinctive architectural elements of Templar buildings include the use of the image of "two knights on a single horse", representing the Knights' poverty, and round buildings designed to resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Modern Templar organizations
By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Order of Hospitallers, which also absorbed many of the Templars' members. In effect, the dissolution of the Templars could be seen as the merger of the two rival orders.[59]
The story of the secretive yet powerful medieval Templars, especially their persecution and sudden dissolution, has been a tempting source for many other groups which have used alleged connections with the Templars as a way of enhancing their own image and mystery. [60] Since at least the 1700s the York Rite of Freemasonry has incorporated some Templar symbols and rituals,[4] and has a modern degree called "the Order of the Temple". The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, founded in 1804, has achieved United Nations NGO status as a charitable organization.[61] There is no clear historical link between the Knights Templar, which were dismantled in the 1300s, and any of these other organizations, of which the earliest emerged in the 1700s. However, there is often public confusion and many overlook the 400-year gap.
Legends and relics
Main article: Knights Templar legends
The Knights Templar have become associated with legends concerning secrets and mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumors circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves. Freemasonic writers added their own speculations in the 19th century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in modern movies such as National Treasure and Kingdom of Heaven, video games, and popular novels such as Ivanhoe and The Da Vinci Code.[4]
The Dome of the Rock, one of the structures at the Temple Mount
Many of the Templar legends are connected with the Order's early occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there, such as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.[4][14][56] That the Templars were in possession of some relics is certain. Many churches still display relics such as the bones of a saint, a scrap of cloth once worn by a holy man, or the skull of a martyr: the Templars did the same. They were documented as having a piece of the True Cross, which the Bishop of Acre carried into battle at the disastrous Horns of Hattin.[62] When the battle was lost, Saladin captured the relic, which was then ransomed back to the Crusaders when the Muslims surrendered the city of Acre in 1191.[63] The Templars were known to possess the head of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon.[64] The subject of relics also came up during the Inquisition of the Templars, as several trial documents refer to the worship of an idol of some type, referred to in some cases as a cat, a bearded head, or in some cases as Baphomet. This accusation of idol worship levied against the Templars has also led to the modern belief by some that the Templars practiced witchcraft.[65] However, modern scholars generally explain the name Baphomet from the trial documents as simply a French misspelling of the name Mahomet (Muhammad).[4][66]
There was particular interest during the Crusader era in the Holy Grail myth, which was quickly associated with the Templars, even in the 12th century. The first Grail romance, the fantasy story Le Conte du Graal, was written in 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes, who came from the same area where the Council of Troyes had officially sanctioned the Templars' Order. In Arthurian legend, the hero of the Grail quest, Sir Galahad (a 13th-century literary invention of monks from St. Bernard's Cistercian Order), was depicted bearing a shield with the cross of Saint George, similar to the Templars' insignia. In a chivalric epic of the period, Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to Templars guarding the Grail Kingdom.[67] A legend developed that, since the Templars had their headquarters at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, they must have excavated in search of relics, found the Grail, and then proceeded to keep it in secret and guard it with their lives. However, in the extensive documents of the Templar inquisition there was never a single mention of anything like a Grail relic,[13] let alone its possession by the Templars. In reality, most scholars agree that the story of the Grail was just that, a fiction that began circulating in medieval times.[4][14]
One legendary artifact that does have some connection with the Templars is the Shroud of Turin. In 1357, the shroud was first publicly displayed by the family of the grandson of Geoffrey de Charney, the Templar who had been burned at the stake with Jacques de Molay in 1314. The artifact's origins are still a matter of controversy, but in 1988, a carbon dating analysis concluded that the shroud was made between 1260 and 1390, a span that includes the last half-century of the Templars.[68]
See also
Knights Hospitaller
Teutonic Knights
Notes
^ a b Burman, p. 45.
^ a b c Barber, in "Supplying the Crusader States" says, "By Molay's time the Grand Master was presiding over at least 970 houses, including commanderies and castles in both east and west, serviced by a membership which is unlikely to have been less than 7,000, excluding employees and dependants, who must have been seven or eight times that number."
^ Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-42041-5.
^ a b c d e f g h The History Channel, Decoding the Past: The Templar Code, 7 November 2005, video documentary written by Marcy Marzuni
^ Martin, p. 47.
^ Nicholson, p. 4
^ Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0.
^ Burman, pp. 13, 19.
^ Read, The Templars. p. 91.
^ Barber, The New Knighthood, p. 7.
^ Burman, p. 40.
^ Stephen A. Dafoe. "In Praise of the New Knighthood". TemplarHistory.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
^ a b c d The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006, video documentary written and directed by Stuart Elliott
^ a b c d Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1.
^ Martin, p. 99.
^ Martin, p. 113.
^ Demurger, p.139 "During four years, Jacques de Molay and his order were totally committed, with other Christian forces of Cyprus and Armenia, to an enterprise of reconquest of the Holy Land, in liaison with the offensives of Ghazan, the Mongol Khan of Persia.
^ Nicholson, p. 201. "The Templars retained a base on Arwad island (also known as Ruad island, formerly Arados) off Tortosa (Tartus) until October 1302 or 1303, when the island was recaptured by the Mamluks."
^ Nicholson, p. 5
^ Nicholson, p. 237
^ Barber, Trial of the Templars, 2nd ed. "Recent Historiography on the Dissolution of the Temple." In the second edition of his book, Barber summarizes the views of many different historians, with an overview of the modern debate on Philip's precise motives.
^ "Friday the 13th". snopes.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ David Emery. "Why Friday the 13th is unlucky". urbanlegends.about.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ Clar, Mimi (1957). "Friday the 13th". Western Folklore: pp. 62-63.
^ Martin, p. 118.
^ Martin, p. 122
^ a b Barber, Trial, p. 3
^ "Convent of Christ in Tomar". World Heritage Site. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
^ Martin, pp. 123–124
^ Martin, p. 125.
^ Martin, p. 140
^ Martin, pp. 140–142
^ http://video.aol.com/video/knights-in-the-clear/2000137
^ "Long-lost text lifts cloud from Knights Templar", msn.com (October 12, 2007). Retrieved on 12 October 2007.
^ "Knights Templar secrets revealed", CNN (2007-10-12). Retrieved on 12 October 2007.
^ Frale, Barbara (2004). "The Chinon chart—Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay". Journal of Medieval History 30 (2): 109–134. doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2004.03.004, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC1-4CC314K-3&_user=1589142&_handle=V-WA-A-W-Z-MsSAYWW-UUA-U-AAVADBEZEV-AABEBWUVEV-ZBZVECBYZ-Z-U&_fmt=summary&_coverdate=06%2F30%2F2004&_rdoc=2&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235941%232004%23999699997%23504102!&_cdi=5941&view=c&_acct=C000053912&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1589142&md5=cc8dc869d6bc4326929c25a42c118a60. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.
^ Burman, p. 28
^ Barber, Trial, p. 10
^ Burman, p. 43
^ Burman, pp. 30–33
^ Martin, p. 32
^ Barber, p. 190
^ Martin, p. 54
^ "The Knights Templars" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
^ Barber, p. 191
^ a b Burman, p. 44
^ Barber, The New Knighthood, page 66: "According to William of Tyre it was under Eugenius III that the Templars received the right to wear the characteristic red cross upon their tunics, symbolising their willingness to suffer martyrdom in the defence of the Holy Land." (WT, 12.7, p. 554. James of Vitry, 'Historia Hierosolimatana', ed. J. ars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol I(ii), Hanover, 1611, p. 1083, interprets this as a sign of martyrdom.)
^ Martin, The Knights Templar, page 43: "The Pope conferred on the Templars the right to wear a red cross on their white mantles, which symbolised their willingness to suffer martyrdom in defending the Holy Land against the infidel."
^ Read, The Templars, page 121: "Pope Eugenius gave them the right to wear a scarlet cross over their hearts, so that the sign would serve triumphantly as a shield and they would never turn away in the face of the infidels': the red blood of the martyr was superimposed on the white of the chaste." (Melville, La Vie des Templiers, p. 92.)
^ Burman, p. 46.
^ Martin, p. 52
^ Sharan Newman,The Real History Behind the Templars, Berkeley Publishing, 2007, pp. 304-12
^ Barber, Trial, p. 4
^ Nicholson, p. 141
^ Barber, p. 193
^ a b Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, 1997, ISBN 0-684-84891-0
^ Read, p. 137.
^ Martin, p. 58.
^ "The Knights Templars, Catholic Encyclopedia 1913". Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
^ Finlo Rohrer (2007-10-19). "What are the Knights Templar up to now?", BBC News Magazine. Retrieved on 13 April 2008.
^ "List of non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council as at 31 August 2006" (PDF). United Nations Economic and Social Council (31 August 2006). Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
^ Read, p. 91.
^ Read, p. 171.
^ Martin, p. 139.
^ Frank Sanello, The Knights Templars: God's Warriors, the Devil's Bankers, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN - 0-87833-302-9, p. 207-208.
^ Barber, Trial of the Templars, p. 62.
^ Martin, p. 133.
^ "Science and the Shroud: Microbiology meets archeology in a renewed quest for answers", The Mission, Spring 1996. Retrieved on 2007-04-01
References
Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-42041-5.
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars, 1st edition, Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-521-67236-8
Barber, Malcolm (1992). "Supplying the Crusader States: The Role of the Templars", in BZ Kedar: The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London, 314-326.
Burman, Edward. The Templars: Knights of God. Destiny Books, 1986. ISBN 0-89281-221-4.
Frale, Barbara. "The Chinon chart—Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay". 2004. Journal of Medieval History 30 (2): 109–134. DOI:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2004.03.004.
Hietala, Heikki. The Knights Templar: Serving God with the Sword, 1996, Renaissance Magazine.
The History Channel, Decoding the Past: The Templar Code, November 7, 2005, video documentary written by Marcy Marzuni
The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006, video documentary written and directed by Stuart Elliott
Martin, Sean, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1.
The Mission. "Science and the Shroud: Microbiology meets archaeology in a renewed quest for answers", Spring 1996.
Newman, Sharan. The Real History Behind the Templars. Berkeley Publishing Group, 2007. ISBN 978-0-425-21533-3.
Nicholson, Helen. The Knights Templar: A New History. Sutton, 2001. ISBN 0-7509-2517-5
Picknett, Lynn and Prince, Clive. The Templar Revelation, 1997, ISBN 0-684-84891-0.
Read, Piers Paul, The Templars. Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 0-306-81071-9.
Further reading
Barber, Malcolm. "Who Were the Knights Templar?". Slate Magazine, 20 April 2006.
Brighton, Simon (2006-06-15). In Search of the Knights Templar: A Guide to the Sites in Britain (Hardback), London, England: Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 0-297-84433-4.
Butler, Alan and Stephen Dafoe, The Warriors and the Bankers: A History of the Knights Templar from 1307 to the present, Templar Books, 1998. ISBN 0-9683567-2-9.
Haag, Michael, The Templars: History and Myth, Profile Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84668-148-6.
Partner, Peter. The Knights Templar and their Myth. Destiny Books; Reissue edition (1990). ISBN 0-89281-273-7.
Ralls, Karen. The Templars and the Grail, Quest Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8356-0807-7.
Smart, George. The Knights Templar: Chronology, Authorhouse, 2005. ISBN 1-4184-9889-0.
Upton-Ward, JM. The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar. The Boydell Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85115-315-1.
(Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), commonly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple (French: Ordre du Temple or Templiers), were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders.[3] The organization existed for approximately two centuries in the Middle Ages, founded in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096, with its original purpose to ensure the safety of the many Christians who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem after its conquest.
Officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church around 1129, the Order became a favored charity throughout Christendom, and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades.[4] Non-combatant members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[5][6] and building many fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.
The Templars' success was tied closely to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. Rumors about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created mistrust, and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, took advantage of the situation. In 1307, many of the Order's members in France were arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake.[7] Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in 1312. The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the "Templar" name alive into the modern day.
1 History
1.1 Rise
1.2 Decline
1.2.1 Arrests and dissolution
2 Organization
2.1 Grand Masters
3 Legacy
3.1 Modern Templar organizations
3.2 Legends and relics
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
//
History
Main article: History of the Knights Templar
Rise
The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, Al Aqsa Mosque, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The Crusaders called it the Temple of Solomon, as it was built on top of the ruins of the original Temple, and it was from this location that the Knights took their name of Templar.
After the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099, many Christian pilgrims traveled to visit what they referred to as the Holy Places. However, though the city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure control, the rest of the Outremer was not. Bandits abounded, and pilgrims were routinely slaughtered, sometimes by the hundreds, as they attempted to make the journey from the coastline at Jaffa into the Holy Land.[8]
Around 1119, two veterans of the First Crusade, the French knight Hugues de Payens and his relative Godfrey de Saint-Omer, proposed the creation of a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims.[9] King Baldwin II of Jerusalem agreed to their request, and gave them space for a headquarters on the Temple Mount, in the captured Al Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount had a mystique, because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon.[4][10] The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that the Order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or "Templar" knights. The Order, with about nine knights, had few financial resources and relied on donations to survive. Their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasizing the Order's poverty.
The Templars' impoverished status did not last long. They had a powerful advocate in Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a leading Church figure and a nephew of one of the founding knights. He spoke and wrote persuasively on their behalf, and in 1129 at the Council of Troyes, the Order was officially endorsed by the Church. With this formal blessing, the Templars became a favored charity throughout Christendom, receiving money, land, businesses, and noble-born sons from families who were eager to help with the fight in the Holy Land. Another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent II's papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the Order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, and were exempt from all authority except that of the Pope.[11]
"[A Templar Knight] is truly a fearless knight, and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith, just as his body is protected by the armor of steel. He is thus doubly-armed, and need fear neither demons nor men."
Bernard de Clairvaux, c. 1135, De Laude Novae Militae—In Praise of the New Knighthood[12]
With its clear mission and ample resources, the Order grew rapidly. Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily armored knights on their warhorses would set out to charge at the enemy, in an attempt to break opposition lines. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, where some 500 Templar knights helped to defeat Saladin's army of more than 26,000 soldiers.[13]
Map of Jerusalem, showing the location of the Templar headquarters on the Temple Mount
Although the primary mission of the Order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, the Order in 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking, and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar coffers.[4][14]
Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built churches and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[13]
Decline
1187's Battle of the Horns of Hattin, the turning point in the Crusades
In the mid-1100s, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become more united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose among Christian factions in and concerning the Holy Land. The Knights Templar were occasionally at odds with the two other Christian military orders, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights, and decades of internecine feuds weakened Christian positions, politically and militarily. After the Templars were involved in several unsuccessful campaigns, including the pivotal Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Jerusalem was captured by Saladin's forces in 1187. The Crusaders retook the city in 1229, without Templar aid, but held it only briefly. In 1244, the Khwarezmi Turks recaptured Jerusalem, and the city did not return to Western control until 1917 when the British captured it from the Ottoman Turks.[15]
The Templars were forced to relocate their headquarters to other cities in the north, such as the seaport of Acre, which they held for the next century. But they lost that, too, in 1291, followed by their last mainland strongholds, Tortosa (in what is now Syria), and Atlit. Their headquarters then moved to Limassol on the island of Cyprus,[16] and they also attempted to maintain a garrison on tiny Arwad Island, just off the coast from Tortosa. In 1300, there was some attempt to engage in coordinated military efforts with the Mongols[17] via a new invasion force at Arwad. In 1302 or 1303, however, the Templars lost the island to the Egyptian Mamluks in the Siege of Arwad. With the island gone, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land.[13][18]
Templar building at Saint Martin des Champs, France
With the Order's military mission now less important, support for the organization began to dwindle. The situation was complex though, as over the two hundred years of their existence, the Templars had become a part of daily life throughout Christendom.[19] The organization's Templar Houses, hundreds of which were dotted throughout Europe and the Near East, gave them a widespread presence at the local level.[2] The Templars still managed many businesses, and many Europeans had daily contact with the Templar network, such as by working at a Templar farm or vineyard, or using the Order as a bank in which to store personal valuables. The Order was still not subject to local government, making it everywhere a "state within a state"—its standing army, though it no longer had a well-defined mission, could pass freely through all borders. This situation heightened tensions with some European nobility, especially as the Templars were indicating an interest in founding their own monastic state, just as the Teutonic Knights had done in Prussia,[14] and the Knights Hospitaller were doing with Rhodes.[20]
Arrests and dissolution
King Philip IV of France (1268–1314)
In 1305, the new Pope Clement V, based in France, sent letters to both the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the Hospitaller Grand Master Fulk de Villaret to discuss the possibility of merging the two Orders. Neither was amenable to the idea but Pope Clement persisted, and in 1306 he invited both Grand Masters to France to discuss the matter. De Molay arrived first in early 1307, but de Villaret was delayed for several months. While waiting, De Molay and Clement discussed charges that had been made two years prior by an ousted Templar. It was generally agreed that the charges were false, but Clement sent King Philip IV of France a written request for assistance in the investigation. King Philip was already deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English and decided to seize upon the rumors for his own purposes. He began pressuring the Church to take action against the Order, as a way of freeing himself from his debts.[21]
On Friday, October 13, 1307 (a date sometimes incorrectly linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition)[22][23][24] Philip ordered de Molay and scores of other French Templars to be simultaneously arrested. The Templars were charged with numerous heresies and tortured to extract false confessions of blasphemy. These confessions, despite having been obtained under duress, caused a scandal in Paris. After more bullying from Philip, Pope Clement then issued the bill Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.[25]
Pope Clement called for papal hearings to determine the Templars' guilt or innocence, and once freed of the Inquisitors' torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.[26][27]
Templars being burned at the stake
Convent of Christ in Castle Tomar, Portugal. Built in 1160 as a stronghold for the Knights Templar, it became the headquarters of the renamed Order of Christ. In 1983, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[28]
With Philip threatening military action unless the Pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, including Vox in excelso, which officially dissolved the Order, and Ad providam, which turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.[29]
As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his statement. His associate Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, followed de Molay's example, and insisted on his innocence. Both men were declared guilty of being relapsed heretics, and they were sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral, and hold his hands together in prayer.[30] According to legend, he called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God. Pope Clement died only a month later, and King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year.[31]
With the last of the Order's leaders gone, the remaining Templars around Europe were either arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully. Some may have fled to other territories outside Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland or to Switzerland. Templar organizations in Portugal simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to Knights of Christ.[32]
In 2001, a document known as the "Chinon Parchment" was found in the Vatican Secret Archives, apparently after having been filed in the wrong place in 1628. It is a record of the trial of the Templars, and shows that Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308, before formally disbanding the Order in 1312.[33][34]
It is currently the Roman Catholic Church's position that the medieval persecution of the Knights Templar was unjust; that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its Rule; and that Pope Clement was pressured into his actions by the magnitude of the public scandal, and the dominating influence of King Philip IV.[35][36]
Organization
History of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar legends
Knights Templar Seal
Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar in England
Knights Templar in Scotland
List of Knights Templar
List of places associated with the Knights Templar
Modern associations
Knights Templar (Freemason degree)
Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
The Templars were organized as a monastic order, similar to Bernard's Cistercian Order, which was considered the first effective international organization in Europe.[37] The organizational structure had a strong chain of authority. Each country with a major Templar presence (France, England, Aragon, Portugal, Poitou, Apulia, Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Anjou, and Hungary[38]) had a Master of the Order for the Templars in that region. All of them were subject to the Grand Master (always a French knight), appointed for life, who oversaw both the Order's military efforts in the East and their financial holdings in the West. No precise numbers exist, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars, of whom about a tenth were actual knights.[1][2]
It was Bernard de Clairvaux and founder Hugues de Payens who devised the specific code of behavior for the Templar Order, known to modern historians as the Latin Rule. Its 72 clauses defined the ideal behavior for the Knights, such as the types of garments they were to wear and how many horses they could have. Knights were to take their meals in silence, eat meat no more than three times per week, and were not to have physical contact of any kind with women, even members of their own family. A Master of the Order was assigned "4 horses, and one chaplain-brother and one clerk with three horses, and one sergeant brother with two horses, and one gentleman valet to carry his shield and lance, with one horse."[39] As the Order grew, more guidelines were added, and the original list of 72 clauses expanded to several hundred in its final form.[40][41]
One of the many reported flags of the Knights Templar
There was a threefold division of the ranks of the Templars: the aristocratic knights, the lower-born sergeants, and the clergy. Knights were required to be of knightly descent, and to wear white mantles. They were equipped as heavy cavalry, with three or four horses, and one or two squires. Squires were generally not members of the Order, but were instead outsiders who were hired for a set period of time. Beneath the knights in the Order and drawn from lower social strata were the sergeants.[42] They were either equipped as light cavalry with a single horse,[43] or served in other ways such as administering the property of the Order or performing menial tasks and trades. Chaplains, constituting a third Templar class, were ordained priests who saw to the Templars' spiritual needs.[44]
The knights wore white surcoat with a red cross, and a white mantle; the sergeants wore a black tunic with a red cross on front and back, and a black or brown mantle.[45][46] The white mantle was assigned to the Templars at the Council of Troyes in 1129, and the cross was most probably added to their robes at the launch of the Second Crusade in 1147, when Pope Eugenius III, King Louis VII of France, and many other notables attended a meeting of the French Templars at their headquarters near Paris.[47][48][49] According to their Rule, the knights were to wear the white mantle at all times, even being forbidden to eat or drink unless they were wearing it.[50]
Initiation,[51] known as Reception (receptio) into the Order, was a profound commitment and involved a solemn ceremony. Outsiders were discouraged from attending the ceremony, which aroused the suspicions of medieval inquisitors during the later trials.
New members had to willingly sign over all of their wealth and goods to the Order and take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience.[52] Most brothers joined for life, although some were allowed to join for a set period. Sometimes a married man was allowed to join if he had his wife's permission,[46] but he was not allowed to wear the white mantle.[53]
The red cross that the Templars wore on their robes was a symbol of martyrdom, and to die in combat was considered a great honor that assured a place in heaven.[54] There was a cardinal rule that the warriors of the Order should never surrender unless the Templar flag had fallen, and even then they were first to try to regroup with another of the Christian orders, such as that of the Hospitallers. Only after all flags had fallen were they allowed to leave the battlefield.[55] This uncompromising principle, along with their reputation for courage, excellent training, and heavy armament, made the Templars one of the most feared combat forces in medieval times.[56]
Grand Masters
Main article: Grand Masters of the Knights Templar
Starting with founder Hugues de Payens in 1118–1119, the Order's highest office was that of Grand Master, a position which was held for life, though considering the martial nature of the Order, this could mean a very short tenure. All but two of the Grand Masters died in office, and several died during military campaigns. For example, during the Siege of Ascalon in 1153, Grand Master Bernard de Tremelay led a group of 40 Templars through a breach in the city walls. When the rest of the Crusader army did not follow, the Templars, including their Grand Master, were surrounded and beheaded.[57] Grand Master Gérard de Ridefort was beheaded by Saladin in 1189 at the Siege of Acre.
The Grand Master oversaw all of the operations of the Order, including both the military operations in the Holy Land and Eastern Europe, and the Templars' financial and business dealings in Western Europe. Some Grand Masters also served as battlefield commanders, though this was not always wise: several blunders in de Ridefort's combat leadership contributed to the devastating defeat at the Battle of Hattin. The last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake in Paris in 1314 by order of King Philip IV.[27]
Temple Church, London. As the chapel of the New Temple in London, it was the location for Templar initiation ceremonies. In modern times it is the parish church of the Middle and Inner Temples, two of the Inns of Court. It is a popular tourist attraction.
Legacy
See also: List of places associated with the Knights Templar
Cross of the Order of Christ (Portugal, present)
With their military mission and extensive financial resources, the Knights Templar funded a large number of building projects around Europe and the Holy Land. Many of these structures are still standing. Many sites also maintain the name "Temple" due to centuries-old association with the Templars.[58] For example, some of the Templars' lands in London were later rented to lawyers, which led to the names of the Temple Bar gateway and the Temple tube station. Two of the four Inns of Court which may call members to act as barristers are the Inner Temple and Middle Temple.
Distinctive architectural elements of Templar buildings include the use of the image of "two knights on a single horse", representing the Knights' poverty, and round buildings designed to resemble the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Modern Templar organizations
By papal decree, the property of the Templars was transferred to the Order of Hospitallers, which also absorbed many of the Templars' members. In effect, the dissolution of the Templars could be seen as the merger of the two rival orders.[59]
The story of the secretive yet powerful medieval Templars, especially their persecution and sudden dissolution, has been a tempting source for many other groups which have used alleged connections with the Templars as a way of enhancing their own image and mystery. [60] Since at least the 1700s the York Rite of Freemasonry has incorporated some Templar symbols and rituals,[4] and has a modern degree called "the Order of the Temple". The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, founded in 1804, has achieved United Nations NGO status as a charitable organization.[61] There is no clear historical link between the Knights Templar, which were dismantled in the 1300s, and any of these other organizations, of which the earliest emerged in the 1700s. However, there is often public confusion and many overlook the 400-year gap.
Legends and relics
Main article: Knights Templar legends
The Knights Templar have become associated with legends concerning secrets and mysteries handed down to the select from ancient times. Rumors circulated even during the time of the Templars themselves. Freemasonic writers added their own speculations in the 19th century, and further fictional embellishments have been added in modern movies such as National Treasure and Kingdom of Heaven, video games, and popular novels such as Ivanhoe and The Da Vinci Code.[4]
The Dome of the Rock, one of the structures at the Temple Mount
Many of the Templar legends are connected with the Order's early occupation of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there, such as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.[4][14][56] That the Templars were in possession of some relics is certain. Many churches still display relics such as the bones of a saint, a scrap of cloth once worn by a holy man, or the skull of a martyr: the Templars did the same. They were documented as having a piece of the True Cross, which the Bishop of Acre carried into battle at the disastrous Horns of Hattin.[62] When the battle was lost, Saladin captured the relic, which was then ransomed back to the Crusaders when the Muslims surrendered the city of Acre in 1191.[63] The Templars were known to possess the head of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon.[64] The subject of relics also came up during the Inquisition of the Templars, as several trial documents refer to the worship of an idol of some type, referred to in some cases as a cat, a bearded head, or in some cases as Baphomet. This accusation of idol worship levied against the Templars has also led to the modern belief by some that the Templars practiced witchcraft.[65] However, modern scholars generally explain the name Baphomet from the trial documents as simply a French misspelling of the name Mahomet (Muhammad).[4][66]
There was particular interest during the Crusader era in the Holy Grail myth, which was quickly associated with the Templars, even in the 12th century. The first Grail romance, the fantasy story Le Conte du Graal, was written in 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes, who came from the same area where the Council of Troyes had officially sanctioned the Templars' Order. In Arthurian legend, the hero of the Grail quest, Sir Galahad (a 13th-century literary invention of monks from St. Bernard's Cistercian Order), was depicted bearing a shield with the cross of Saint George, similar to the Templars' insignia. In a chivalric epic of the period, Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to Templars guarding the Grail Kingdom.[67] A legend developed that, since the Templars had their headquarters at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, they must have excavated in search of relics, found the Grail, and then proceeded to keep it in secret and guard it with their lives. However, in the extensive documents of the Templar inquisition there was never a single mention of anything like a Grail relic,[13] let alone its possession by the Templars. In reality, most scholars agree that the story of the Grail was just that, a fiction that began circulating in medieval times.[4][14]
One legendary artifact that does have some connection with the Templars is the Shroud of Turin. In 1357, the shroud was first publicly displayed by the family of the grandson of Geoffrey de Charney, the Templar who had been burned at the stake with Jacques de Molay in 1314. The artifact's origins are still a matter of controversy, but in 1988, a carbon dating analysis concluded that the shroud was made between 1260 and 1390, a span that includes the last half-century of the Templars.[68]
See also
Knights Hospitaller
Teutonic Knights
Notes
^ a b Burman, p. 45.
^ a b c Barber, in "Supplying the Crusader States" says, "By Molay's time the Grand Master was presiding over at least 970 houses, including commanderies and castles in both east and west, serviced by a membership which is unlikely to have been less than 7,000, excluding employees and dependants, who must have been seven or eight times that number."
^ Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-42041-5.
^ a b c d e f g h The History Channel, Decoding the Past: The Templar Code, 7 November 2005, video documentary written by Marcy Marzuni
^ Martin, p. 47.
^ Nicholson, p. 4
^ Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars. Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0.
^ Burman, pp. 13, 19.
^ Read, The Templars. p. 91.
^ Barber, The New Knighthood, p. 7.
^ Burman, p. 40.
^ Stephen A. Dafoe. "In Praise of the New Knighthood". TemplarHistory.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
^ a b c d The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006, video documentary written and directed by Stuart Elliott
^ a b c d Sean Martin, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1.
^ Martin, p. 99.
^ Martin, p. 113.
^ Demurger, p.139 "During four years, Jacques de Molay and his order were totally committed, with other Christian forces of Cyprus and Armenia, to an enterprise of reconquest of the Holy Land, in liaison with the offensives of Ghazan, the Mongol Khan of Persia.
^ Nicholson, p. 201. "The Templars retained a base on Arwad island (also known as Ruad island, formerly Arados) off Tortosa (Tartus) until October 1302 or 1303, when the island was recaptured by the Mamluks."
^ Nicholson, p. 5
^ Nicholson, p. 237
^ Barber, Trial of the Templars, 2nd ed. "Recent Historiography on the Dissolution of the Temple." In the second edition of his book, Barber summarizes the views of many different historians, with an overview of the modern debate on Philip's precise motives.
^ "Friday the 13th". snopes.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ David Emery. "Why Friday the 13th is unlucky". urbanlegends.about.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-26.
^ Clar, Mimi (1957). "Friday the 13th". Western Folklore: pp. 62-63.
^ Martin, p. 118.
^ Martin, p. 122
^ a b Barber, Trial, p. 3
^ "Convent of Christ in Tomar". World Heritage Site. Retrieved on 2007-03-20.
^ Martin, pp. 123–124
^ Martin, p. 125.
^ Martin, p. 140
^ Martin, pp. 140–142
^ http://video.aol.com/video/knights-in-the-clear/2000137
^ "Long-lost text lifts cloud from Knights Templar", msn.com (October 12, 2007). Retrieved on 12 October 2007.
^ "Knights Templar secrets revealed", CNN (2007-10-12). Retrieved on 12 October 2007.
^ Frale, Barbara (2004). "The Chinon chart—Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay". Journal of Medieval History 30 (2): 109–134. doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2004.03.004, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC1-4CC314K-3&_user=1589142&_handle=V-WA-A-W-Z-MsSAYWW-UUA-U-AAVADBEZEV-AABEBWUVEV-ZBZVECBYZ-Z-U&_fmt=summary&_coverdate=06%2F30%2F2004&_rdoc=2&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235941%232004%23999699997%23504102!&_cdi=5941&view=c&_acct=C000053912&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1589142&md5=cc8dc869d6bc4326929c25a42c118a60. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.
^ Burman, p. 28
^ Barber, Trial, p. 10
^ Burman, p. 43
^ Burman, pp. 30–33
^ Martin, p. 32
^ Barber, p. 190
^ Martin, p. 54
^ "The Knights Templars" in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
^ Barber, p. 191
^ a b Burman, p. 44
^ Barber, The New Knighthood, page 66: "According to William of Tyre it was under Eugenius III that the Templars received the right to wear the characteristic red cross upon their tunics, symbolising their willingness to suffer martyrdom in the defence of the Holy Land." (WT, 12.7, p. 554. James of Vitry, 'Historia Hierosolimatana', ed. J. ars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol I(ii), Hanover, 1611, p. 1083, interprets this as a sign of martyrdom.)
^ Martin, The Knights Templar, page 43: "The Pope conferred on the Templars the right to wear a red cross on their white mantles, which symbolised their willingness to suffer martyrdom in defending the Holy Land against the infidel."
^ Read, The Templars, page 121: "Pope Eugenius gave them the right to wear a scarlet cross over their hearts, so that the sign would serve triumphantly as a shield and they would never turn away in the face of the infidels': the red blood of the martyr was superimposed on the white of the chaste." (Melville, La Vie des Templiers, p. 92.)
^ Burman, p. 46.
^ Martin, p. 52
^ Sharan Newman,The Real History Behind the Templars, Berkeley Publishing, 2007, pp. 304-12
^ Barber, Trial, p. 4
^ Nicholson, p. 141
^ Barber, p. 193
^ a b Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, 1997, ISBN 0-684-84891-0
^ Read, p. 137.
^ Martin, p. 58.
^ "The Knights Templars, Catholic Encyclopedia 1913". Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
^ Finlo Rohrer (2007-10-19). "What are the Knights Templar up to now?", BBC News Magazine. Retrieved on 13 April 2008.
^ "List of non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council as at 31 August 2006" (PDF). United Nations Economic and Social Council (31 August 2006). Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
^ Read, p. 91.
^ Read, p. 171.
^ Martin, p. 139.
^ Frank Sanello, The Knights Templars: God's Warriors, the Devil's Bankers, Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003. ISBN - 0-87833-302-9, p. 207-208.
^ Barber, Trial of the Templars, p. 62.
^ Martin, p. 133.
^ "Science and the Shroud: Microbiology meets archeology in a renewed quest for answers", The Mission, Spring 1996. Retrieved on 2007-04-01
References
Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-42041-5.
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars, 1st edition, Cambridge University Press, 1978. ISBN 0-521-45727-0
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-521-67236-8
Barber, Malcolm (1992). "Supplying the Crusader States: The Role of the Templars", in BZ Kedar: The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London, 314-326.
Burman, Edward. The Templars: Knights of God. Destiny Books, 1986. ISBN 0-89281-221-4.
Frale, Barbara. "The Chinon chart—Papal absolution to the last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay". 2004. Journal of Medieval History 30 (2): 109–134. DOI:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2004.03.004.
Hietala, Heikki. The Knights Templar: Serving God with the Sword, 1996, Renaissance Magazine.
The History Channel, Decoding the Past: The Templar Code, November 7, 2005, video documentary written by Marcy Marzuni
The History Channel, Lost Worlds: Knights Templar, July 10, 2006, video documentary written and directed by Stuart Elliott
Martin, Sean, The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, 2005. ISBN 1-56025-645-1.
The Mission. "Science and the Shroud: Microbiology meets archaeology in a renewed quest for answers", Spring 1996.
Newman, Sharan. The Real History Behind the Templars. Berkeley Publishing Group, 2007. ISBN 978-0-425-21533-3.
Nicholson, Helen. The Knights Templar: A New History. Sutton, 2001. ISBN 0-7509-2517-5
Picknett, Lynn and Prince, Clive. The Templar Revelation, 1997, ISBN 0-684-84891-0.
Read, Piers Paul, The Templars. Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 0-306-81071-9.
Further reading
Barber, Malcolm. "Who Were the Knights Templar?". Slate Magazine, 20 April 2006.
Brighton, Simon (2006-06-15). In Search of the Knights Templar: A Guide to the Sites in Britain (Hardback), London, England: Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 0-297-84433-4.
Butler, Alan and Stephen Dafoe, The Warriors and the Bankers: A History of the Knights Templar from 1307 to the present, Templar Books, 1998. ISBN 0-9683567-2-9.
Haag, Michael, The Templars: History and Myth, Profile Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84668-148-6.
Partner, Peter. The Knights Templar and their Myth. Destiny Books; Reissue edition (1990). ISBN 0-89281-273-7.
Ralls, Karen. The Templars and the Grail, Quest Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8356-0807-7.
Smart, George. The Knights Templar: Chronology, Authorhouse, 2005. ISBN 1-4184-9889-0.
Upton-Ward, JM. The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar. The Boydell Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85115-315-1.
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