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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, November 28, 1979
Page 11
The Feast may be over--numerically speaking--but in our hearts and
minds we are now savoring all those precious moments and all those
sights our eyes witnessed in person as we now review our notes, and
as we think upon those things we saw in touring Jerusalem and the
land of Israel--the land where Jesus had ministered for three and a
half years. The days of the calendar may be over, but not the Feast
--for those days will be cherished and enjoyed over and over again
each time we open the Bible to read it, to study God's Word.
--Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Domagala (Depew, NY)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
THE SIEGE CONTINUES: While the United States government looks on with
virtual helplessness, 49 American citizens remain captive hostages in
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Thirteen hostages--three women and ten black
males--have been selectively released. The Ayatollah Khomaini is spuing
forth more anti-American venon than ever, his inflamed rhetoric inspiring
acts of anti-U.S. violence in other parts of the aroused Islamic "arc
of crisis." Threats of U.S. retaliation seem not to phase him at all,
his mind apparently shut off to outside reason, whether from Washington,
the U.N. or other representatives of Islam.
Perhaps the best analyses of Washington's predicament to date has come
(again) from the fertile mind of syndicated columnist George F. Will.
In his November 22 column in the Los Angeles Times, Will wrote:
"File the following under 'Notes for Next Time,' for this is not the last
time America will be held hostage. Next time, the U.S. government should
refrain from issuing statements of relief that Americans being held
hostage are not being 'harmed.' Americans deprived of freedom, strapped
to chairs and spoon-fed are being aggressively harmed. U.S. government
assertions that such hostages are not being 'harmed' are symptomatic of
the confusion of a nation that is not half irritable enough about various
forms of harm.
"Next time let it be drummed into embassy personnel that an occupation
of an embassy is an act of war, and as in all war, nothing should be
don�that further�the enemy's aims. In such situations, standards of
behavior for embassy personnel should be as strict as for an infantry
corporal. As part of this policy, there must be no cooperation with a
captor's tactic of selective releases.
"Next time, the U.S. government should tell blacks and women to refuse
to allow themselves to be used cynically by an enemy of their nation, to
refuse to be used by being singled out for special treatment. Such
treatment has the aim of embarrassing the United States, and works
against the remaining hostages.
"But, of course, women and blacks are two of the government-approved
groups now accorded special rights back home because of their sex and
r�ce, in the name of 'affirmativ2 action.' Such a nation cannot expect
en�assy personnel to show instinctive unity in the face of affirmative
action, Khomaini-style.
"The first three hostages released included two of the many hostages who
signed the petition asking the President to surrender to their captors'