ISRAEL THIS & THAT

For more on Christian persecution under the PA, see this report from the JCPA, this article by Joseph Farah, and a report from The Prism Group.

*   *   *

One AP dispatch on the Taibe pogrom did make its way to one major paper ― the Los Angeles Times. But given the degree of destruction and racial violence in question, and given the huge number of reporters that remain in Israel after the Gaza withdrawal, the unfortunate incident merited far greater coverage.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p; LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p; As many as 25,000 evacuated from New Orleans
yesterday,
troops to total 51,000.



    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p; LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR
    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p; A resourceful paramedic pushes an elderly woman in a
shopping cart yesterday, as rescuers reach those trapped in the
Convention
Center, near New Orleans' French Quarter.



    & nbsp; Troops reclaim New Orleans
    & nbsp; From the squalor, tales of human resolve
    & nbsp; Thousands in refugee centres are rescued from days of horror


    & nbsp; TIM HARPER
    & nbsp; WASHINGTON BUREAU

    & nbsp; NEW ORLEANS - The National Guard has restored a semblance of
sanity to
the centre of a city that had descended into a surreal hell, but it
only
served to pull back the curtain on the depravity and squalor wrought by
Hurricane Katrina.

    & nbsp; On a once-busy thoroughfare in a major American city, two men dug
a
grave in a patch of land across from an H&R Block office yesterday,
because
no one had come for the woman marked on the sidewalk in pink paint
merely as
body number 29.

    & nbsp; The neighbourhood was complaining of the stench.

    & nbsp; At the New Orleans Convention Center, just down a corridor from a
sign
touting the benefits of Louisiana tourism, two bodies lie abandoned,
one
elderly woman crumpled in a wheelchair, an empty box of Cheerios at her
feet, the other woman lying partly covered by a blanket.

    & nbsp; A National Guardsman patrols the area because people have tried
to
steal the dead woman's wheelchair. "It's not right," he says. "It's
that
woman's chair."

    & nbsp; Inside the Convention Center, stories of rape and the horrific
murder
of a young girl are on everyone's lips.

    & nbsp; "I've lost about 10 in here," says a worker who points a reporter
in
the direction of the dead, but will say no more.

    & nbsp; An untold number of corpses lie in suffocating attics or float in
bacteria-laden waters in this humid city.

    & nbsp; As many as 25,000 refugees were evacuated to Arkansas and Texas
yesterday, some by bus, some by air. Many were near death, unable to
walk.

    & nbsp; They left refugee centres stinking of urine, with human feces on
the
floor, and a shantytown at an interstate off-ramp so slick with garbage
and
human waste it was difficult to navigate.

    & nbsp; The streets have been given to the military, the dead and those
too
close to death to make it to refugee centres.

    & nbsp; Yet, in this sweltering city where filth hangs in the air, it was
a
good day.

    & nbsp; For every tale of depravity borne of desperation, there are many
more
tales of incredible heroism and human resolve.

    & nbsp; Since the arrival of the National Guard, the emotions seem less
raw.

    & nbsp; The U.S. Coast Guard said it had rescued 1,245 persons from their
homes where they had sought higher ground since Monday, bringing the
total
number of rescues to 9,500.

    & nbsp; At Maiterie, on New Orleans' western fringe, volunteers from
Texas
distributed 5,000 sandwiches that had been made overnight, and were
driving
121 truckloads of water into New Orleans daily.

    & nbsp; "I know that those of you who have been hit hard by Katrina are
suffering," U.S. President George W. Bush said in his weekly radio
address.

    & nbsp; "Many are angry and desperate for help. The tasks before us are
enormous, but so is the heart of America. In America, we do not abandon
our
fellow citizens in their hour of need."

    & nbsp; Yet, to thousands here, that's exactly what he did.

    & nbsp; "This is not about the buses," said Geraldine Levy. "This is
about us.
They want to take this city back from the powerless blacks. That's us,
the
blacks who have no power. We're being held captive. We're slaves
again."

    & nbsp; Lt.-Col. Bernard McLaughlin of the Louisiana National Guard came
to
New Orleans from Iraq and he sees similarities.

    & nbsp; "Human pathos is human pathos," he says. "There is a universal
language in terms of people hurting and people needing help."

    & nbsp; McLaughlin, a lawyer before Bush's war dispatched him to a
foreign
country, knows mediation and it shows.

    & nbsp; He says he has instructed his troops to talk to the people, to
empathize with them, to understand their pain and frustration and, most
importantly, to not treat them like criminals.

    & nbsp; "I understand why they are frustrated," he says. "It's all about
relating to people.

    & nbsp; "I understand why they are mad and I let them vent."

    & nbsp; At a refugee camp in Maiterie, many who had been forced to spend
up to
five days on the interstate were heroes themselves, saving other people
from
death.

    & nbsp; They tried to keep each other alive in the days that followed.

    & nbsp; But many expired right in their midst.

    & nbsp; Joseph Dixon and Demetrius Congress stole a truck in their
neighbourhood and evacuated a nursing home, got to stranded neighbours,
tried in vain to save a pregnant woman from miscarrying.

    & nbsp; "He saved my life," Vanessa Rocker said simply of Congress.

    & nbsp; Sonia Congress, one of the seven family members who finally left
their
concrete home after five days, called her situation "a hellhole."

    & nbsp; But she got out yesterday, headed for Dallas. "I don't care where
I'm
going," she said.

    & nbsp; The refugees had built their own cardboard shelter on the side of
the
road, and many had nothing but plastic bags or gym bags full of
belongings.

    & nbsp; "We've had everyone here, from the homeless, to doctors and
nurses,"
said Troy McNeal, a Louisiana state trooper who has helped keep order
at
Maiterie since Monday.

    & nbsp; The two neophyte gravediggers, John Lee and Glen Kirtland, said
they
have stayed in their homes since Katrina hit, listening to gunshots and
shattered glass every night.

    & nbsp; "They've got to get more National Guard on the street," Lee said,
as
he marked his second hour of digging under the unrelenting sun.

    & nbsp; "They made a big show of driving down the streets when Bush was
here,
but as soon as he was gone they retreated."

    & nbsp; The two men decided they had to do their share for neighbourhood
beautification yesterday, finding a final resting place for a woman
they
knew only as Vera.

    & nbsp; "She's been lying here stinking for days," Kirtland said.

    & nbsp; "People were getting sick."

    & nbsp; Additional articles by Tim Harper