Obama visits remote Israeli town with Chicago ties
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Printable FormatCHICAGO ABC 7 NEWS
By Chuck Goudie
Illinois Senator Barack Obama flew to areas along the northern border with Lebanon on Wednesday. Obama's first Middle East visit took him to a small village that is well-wired to Chicago.
Israel may be a Jewish state, but more than a million people who live there are non-Jews, most of them Christian. But the Christian population in Israel is rapidly declining. That exodus has attracted the attention of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese and the Chicago Jewish Federation. Israel's loss of its Christian minority attracted the attention of Senator Obama.
Three hours from Jerusalem, as far north in Israel as possible, just before Lebanon, this is the town of Fassouta, and this is where the village worships. All 3,000 residents of Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic.
Wednesday, the Catholic pastor for this entire village in upper Galilee welcomed visiting Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who is traveling with leaders of Chicago's Jewish community. Fassouta is a living example of interfaith good will in action, an overseas extend-a-hand. A computer lab is part of a literacy project funded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago.
"This community center had been built not long before that, but it's empty. Ours was the first project that went into it, and it became a draw for the other things that are now functioning in here. Children's ballet classes, chess classes," said Linda Epstein, Chicago Jewish Federation.
Senator Obama may be the first member of congress ever in Fassouta, and a grateful mayor and village leaders proudly gave him a look around. A prominent Northwestern and Tel Aviv University professor says his visit sends an important signal.
"Israel has a minority of 20 percent non-Jewish Arab minority, And the visit of the senator to this village is an acknowledgment that there is this minority that needs to be acknowledged and seen," said Elie Rekhess, Northwestern University.
But the real winners are the young people of Fassouta, who for the first time have new computers and are wired to the world.
Many villages along the northern Israel border have a more troubling distinction. They are easy targets of Hezbollah terrorists just over the border in Lebanon.
For years Lebanese militant groups perched just north of Israel have opened fire on Israeli border towns. Most recently, on December 22, the village of Kiryat Shmona was hit by Hezbollah rockets.
Wednesday morning, ABC7 news flew with Illinois Senator Barack Obama in an Israeli army Blackhawk helicopter to the border zone. We flew over Israel's most vulnerable border areas,the narrowest part of the country between the West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea, over Arab villages in the Galilee and then on to the Lebanese border region that recently came under attack.
We visited one of the Israeli homes that was hit by Katyusha rockets in the overnight barrage that killed 14.
The family that lives in the house was asleep when the terrorist missiles hit. They survived but their home is badly damaged and their lives shaken.
"I thought it was a gas tank that had exploded, because it smelled like fire. We couldn't come out of the room because this room was all filled with shrapnel," said Kiryat Shmona, Israeli.
Israeli military officials mapped out for Illinois' junior senator Wednesday how Hezbollah terrorists unsuccessfully tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers during the attack. They offered information to Obama that the militant militia group is going unchallenged by Lebanese leaders and United Nations commanders, hoping Obama and the US will press Lebanon to stop the border assaults.
The Palestinian problem has recently received far more attention than the Lebanese border stand-off with Hezbollah. With the country now preoccupied by the recent stroke of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and upcoming elections, military commanders on the ground in northern Israel are concerned that the rocket attacks will get worse.