Recently my Dad decided to go ahead and post some excerpts from the upcoming book "Once an Arafat
Man" over on his blog. I had a chance to read through the book and all I can say is...wow. Last Thursday I opened it up to read a couple of pages then looked at the clock to find forty minutes had passed. It's a book that has the power to change the American churches perspective in it's response to the middle east crises in very positive ways. Too often I hear from many folks who are oblivious to the world beyond our borders and how it impacts our lives. By the way...he's going to be swinging through the U.S. this summer and if you have any interest in exploring the idea of having him share his story at your church or missions conferences, you can shoot him an email here.
Here's an excerpt from the book found on his blog:
Deadly Surprise
The growling of
the IDF engines grew louder. My heartbeat began to pound. I positioned myself
for steady action as I peered through my scope. The enemy convoy reached the
edge of the village. I picked out my closest target. I trained the weapon on
his head … and ever so carefully squeezed the Simonov’s trigger.
At nearly the same
moment, my comrades in the village began firing from their hiding places. The
firefight exploded all at once. The noise was deafening. The Israeli infantry
at that time had no flak jackets, so we were able to wound or kill them right
away. All hell broke loose that morning in al-Karameh.
Of course, we
began taking our own casualties, too. Every Fatah fighter knew this would happen.
None of us counted on surviving this day, in fact. We were fully prepared to
die. We might never see the moon again, but we would regain our honor. That was
in fact the meaning of this village’s name, Karameh.
It was the Arabic word for “honor” or “dignity.”
The street battle
raged on at full force, while I kept picking off targets from the hillside.
Minutes passed, perhaps even a full hour. There was no subtlety to our
approach; we were going with every thrust we had to inflict mortal damage on
the Jews. Then a massive bomb blast shook the entire valley. Our troops had
blown up the Allenby Bridge, cutting off the
escape route if the IDF tried to pull back. The Israelis were now trapped on
our side of the Jordan—the
east side—and would have to fight to the death. Only a miracle of Joshua-sized
proportion would save them now.
A few minutes
later, my commander shouted at me with alarm in his voice. “Do you hear that?
Helicopter gunships are coming!” I had been too focused on my targets to
notice. “Get off this hill!” he ordered. “If you stay here, they’ll blow you to
bits from the air! Get down into the village with everybody else!”
I scrambled down
the hill to join my comrades in the fight. There the conflict grew increasingly
close-range. You hardly had room to use a weapon. It became a hand-to-hand
brawl with fists, knives and even rocks. We put our karate and judo training to
use immediately. The two sides were so intermingled that their helicopter
gunners couldn’t sort us out. At this point, I was fighting on sheer instinct.
There was no time to think or strategize. I simply kept bashing the nearest IDF
soldier before he could bash me.
I could tell the
enemy was bewildered at our bravery. They had expected us to act more like
classic guerrilla fighters, feinting and withdrawing. Instead, here we were in
a no-holds-barred fracas. Guys were screaming, blood was splashing, the wounded
were moaning, and all of us were jumping over an increasing number of dead
bodies to keep up the attack. I glanced down at several cuts on my arm but paid
little attention. The kick of adrenalin was too strong to worry about it.
We Fatah fighters
were in fact more agile than the IDF, since we carried less gear than they did
and could therefore run faster. We also had our bayonets already fixed on our
weapons and ready to use, while the Israelis were still fumbling to get theirs
off their belts and attached. At times they literally ran into our knives.
Whenever they
tried to regroup behind one of their tanks, a suicide bomber would leap down
from a rooftop with a thunderous explosion of nails and other metal bits. Blood
spattered and body parts flew through the air.
Once in a while
throughout the afternoon, there would be a short lull in the fighting when the
Israelis barricaded themselves in a house. We would quickly set up in the house
across the street, where we would then open fire again. We stormed building
after building.
This excerpt is from the forthcoming book "Once An Arafat Man"
arriving on shelves September 15, 2008 published by Tyndale House. Visit the blog "OnceAnArafatMan.com"
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