I am a Christian. As such my response is one Christian’s response to the Palestinian tragedy. I speak for myself. I have asked no one or group permission to speak. I represent no one or group but myself.
My birth year coincides with the UN resolution which brought statehood status to Israel which unfortunately also contributed to much of the problems faced by the Palestinian people. Hence, my personal interest and concern for the Palestinian people has been over a long period of time beginning as soon as I became educationally of age.
First and foremost, the current situation in Palestine is a humanitarian tragedy with many lives lost and families separated and properties damaged and serious threats of fearful diseases. The Gaza strip is experiencing a colossal complex humanitarian emergency which requires immediate and continuing large-scale humanitarian response. Such a humanitarian response should and must be supported by all regardless of ethnic, religious or political persuasions. Humanitarian response supersedes any and every loyalty we human beings may have. There are many Christians in Palestine. But I would have responded (in speech and deed) even if there were only Muslims in Palestine. Regardless of ethnic origin, religious creed or nationality, as human beings we must respond to the sufferings of other human beings.
The Palestinian tragedy encompasses tragedies of various categories and combinations.
Humanitarian tragedies have human causes. We should be wary of blaming humanitarian tragedies merely on nature or the devil. We human beings are often to blame for the tragedies which plaque other human beings. A mixture of arbitrariness and injustice and arrogance and a good measure of ignorance combine to bring about human tragedy.
Let me illustrate with the declaration of war on Iraq. George W. Bush citing (unproven) WMD and Iraqi complicity with Al Qaeda’s attacks on USA launched a war on Iraq ending his speech with “And may God bless America”. As a Christian I was appalled and incensed by such narrow self-serving partisanship. You are about to visit a country with the state of the art weaponry and wreak havoc and calamity on its people and all you could think of is your own country? God should only bless your people but not the people you are about to bomb?
God is brought into the picture. God is on America’s side. America is blessing the rest of the world by carrying out God’s agenda. According to some sources, the American president had even claimed that God had spoken to him about invading Iraq and Afghanistan. Bringing God into unethical, unwise, and unfair decisions is religious blasphemy (not religious truth). As a Christian I don’t want any leader of any nation to hijack my religion and force God Almighty into his particular smallness of heart and mind. You want to make war do so in your own name and take responsibility for it yourself. Don’t drag God into the equation to justify your own human decision.
Israel without American backing would not have been able to do what they have been doing to the Palestinian people over so many generations. I am appalled as a believer in Jesus Christ at the fact that in giving undying support to Israel, America has the backing of so many American Christian churches and people.
I believe that many human tragedies including the Palestinian tragedy have arisen through a combination of misplaced patriotism on the one hand and mistaken religious theology on the other hand. These are deadly combinations resulting in untold hardship and misery to countless human beings.
Misplaced patriotism is the cause of wars throughout human history. It gives rise to chauvinistic arrogance and irrationality. Other people commit wrong not us. It is these other people and nations who do bad things not us. Blame the other person or people and take no responsibility for yourself or your nation. I can do no wrong and the other person can do no right.
Unquestioning Christian support for Israel is the result of weak bible knowledge resulting in bad theology. For me as a Christian the “new Israel” expounded in the New Testament of the Holy Bible is not synonymous with the political Israeli state of today. Israeli membership with the United Nations isn’t the same thing as the aspiration and intention of biblical prophecy. To believe that the belligerences of the Israeli state today is somehow sanctioned by the God of both Old & New Testaments of the Holy Bible is simply bad theology and does not represent Christian Faith and Truth. As a Christian I owe the present Israeli state no allegiance of automatic support. Like all other nations, the Israeli as well as the Palestinian states must accept their own responsibilities for whatever wrongs they have humanly committed. The good which any nation commits is to be credited in the same way as any wrong they commit is to be summarily condemned. Let no nation claim biblical status and act against the very values and principles which God commands of every human being.
Lest it should be said that as a Christian in Malaysia my views on the Palestinian issue is influenced by an Islamic-centric view, let me quote an American Christian source. In 2002, a letter was addressed to the US President from over 40 evangelical Christian leaders. (I apologize for its length but it is only fair to quote them in full.) In it, the evangelical Christian leaders wrote:
“Dear Mr. President,
We write as American evangelical Christians concerned for the well-being of all the children of Abraham in the Middle East – Christian, Jewish and Muslim. We urge you to employ an even-handed policy toward Israeli and Palestinian leadership so that this bloody conflict will come to a speedy close and both peoples can live without fear and in a spirit of Shalom/Salaam.
An even-handed U.S. policy towards Israelis and Palestinians does not give a blank check to either side, nor does it bless violence by either side. An even-handed policy affirms the valid interests of Israelis and Palestinians: both states free, economically viable and secure, with normal relations between Israel and all its Arab neighbors. We commend your stated support for a Palestinian state with 1967 borders, and encourage you to move boldly forward so that the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own state may be realized.
We abhor and condemn the suicide bombings of the last 22 months and the failure of the Palestinian Authority in the first year of the intifada to stop the violence against Israeli citizens. We grieve over the loss of life, particularly among children, and the suffering by Israelis and Palestinians. The longer the bloodletting continues, the more difficult it will be for both sides to reconcile with each other.
We urge you to provide the leadership necessary for peacemaking in the Middle East by vigorously opposing injustice, including the continued unlawful and degrading Israeli settlement movement. The theft of Palestinian land and the destruction of Palestinian homes and fields is surely one of the major causes of the strife that has resulted in terrorism and the loss of so many Israeli and Palestinian lives. The continued Israeli military occupation that daily humiliates ordinary Palestinians is also having disastrous effects on the Israeli soul.
Mr. President, the American evangelical community is not a monolithic bloc in full and firm support of present Israeli policy. Significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for every policy and action of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions – of both Israelis and Palestinians – on the basis of biblical standards of justice. The great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, declared in the Old Testament that God calls all nations and all people to do justice one to another, and to protect the oppressed, the alien, the fatherless and the widow.”
(Among the signatories of this letter were such recognizable names as Richard J. Mouw, Tim Dearborn, Ronald J. Sider, Leighton Ford, Steve Hayner, Luci N. Shaw, Richard Stearns, Peter Kuzmic, David Neff, Philip Yancey, a few of whom I know personally.)
The role of religious belief in the affairs of state is a given but this being the case, leaders of nations as well as religions (Christian and Muslim) must do their homework and ensure that their knowledge of their respective Holy Scriptures and the theologies based thereon must be more sound and accurate. Otherwise, their “religious” conclusions and pronouncements can only sow discord and incite divisions and inspire unending conflicts. (Chauvinistic stance and rhetoric can only make matters worse and postpone further the day of liberation. I believe that a chauvinistic stance hurts more than it benefits the Palestinian cause in the same way that a chauvinistic Israeli stance hurts even the legitimate Israeli case.)
Let us pledge our support to alleviate the undue sufferings of all human beings in West Asia. Let us pray for peace not war. Let us strive for solutions beyond our rhetoric.
(An address given at the recent C.O.M.P.L.E.T.E. (COALITION OF MALAYSIAN NGOS AGAINST PERSECUTION OF PALESTINIANS) on January 18, 2009 in Kuala Lumpur)
onGOHing 
ricardo raymond
January 20, 2009
It can’t be an achievement when the battles are so lopsided.My heart goes out to the Palestinians
triplexpresso
January 20, 2009
“Don’t drag God into the equation to justify your own human decision.”
Amen to that.
My prayers goes out to all the Palestinians who have suffered in one way or another.
Peace out.
Joseph Leong
January 20, 2009
Dear Hing
Have you ever thought what the arabs will do to Israel during the 7 day Yom Kippur War in 1967 had the Arabs intrude into Israel land? Their aim is to wipe Israel off from the face of the earth. Have you ever thought why God commanded Israel to wipe off her enemies, otherwise, they will do likewise to them. It was in the heart of the enemies to wipe Israel off from the face of the earth. So please don’t judge Israel when you aren’t sure of the historical background of Israel and what God is currently doing.
add
January 20, 2009
Hi there fellow Abrahamaic ,
Thank God for today that im able to read at least an article that able to see it as human carnage issue rather that narrow religion base conflict written .
I am a brought up Muslim that frequent to churches with my Christians friends just to listen to some words of compassion that is similar to my early Islam education ( but badly highlighted the war part by current Islamic religion institution nowadays )
Being Norwegian+Malay mixed does helped me to be more accessible to non bias conversation no confrontation with other and I do enjoy it. I have 2 aunts from Norway served before under UNCHR in Gaza before teaching Palestinian kids maths science.All kids of God are equal in brain but with such poor condition there how are they able to strive ? They lost at least one person in their family by Israelis weapon ( never mention Jews as deep in my heart I do believe there are some of them that do not believe in violence ). With such sadness , it has translated to hate and revenge .
The homemade rockets etc is basically a proof of how far a despaired human able to do from an injustice served to them for ages.
When you have nothing , what is the price to lose anything , even your life ? Nothing .
It is sad that human ability to condone their action of violence just by flipping pages of an old book but unable to flip the book to look words of compassion and love
Adam Breimo
takbolehlah
January 20, 2009
No man has the right to take away the life of another under any circumstance.
…very especially the killing of innocent people in order to protect their own..
Any one who kills has to answer for it..
Jason Loh
January 20, 2009
Dear Brother,
Thank you for your thoughts as expressed in the address given above. You’re right; as Christians we are obliged to repudiate Christian Zionism, for it is against the Word of God and the Gospel. My sympathy for the Jewish people is not based on the Promised Land but on their long-standing historical and social ties with Israel. The Jews have a fundamental right to self-determination and self-existence as a sovereign nation in their ancestral land. And maintaining the Jewish character of the State of Israel does not mean the exclusion of Arabs anymore does Malay special position means unequal rights for the non-Malays. Israel is no more “racist” than Malaysia is.
The root problem of the on-going conflict is not humanitarian but ideological. It is the persistence of the Arabs with their Islamic concept of wakaf which makes it virtually impossible for there to be solution. The only practical solution is the two-state solution which has been agreed in the Oslo Accord by both sides. Any other solution, that is one state is totally unacceptable whether Israeli or Palestinian. It is not enough to say that the Palestinians must take responsibility. But that Israel has the right to defend itself against Islamic terror.
We do no service to the Muslims if we agree with them on the Palestinian issue. Most of them are literally ignorant, wilfully or otherwise of the real issue. Self-denial and blaming others characterise the mindset of these Muslims. But for the sake of a viable Palestinian, Hamas must be destroyed for there to be a functioning Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
Enemies of Israel says that it is occupying Gaza. How can it be when former PM Ariel Sharon had unilaterally withdrew in 2005 leading the elections in 2006? Did the State of Israel interfere in the elections at all? Hamas won the so-called democratically-run elections. If this is the case, then how could it happen under Israeli occupation. Hamas destroyed whatever legitimacy it had by ousting Fatah in a bloody coup the year after in 2007. And from 2001 onwards, it fired more than 9000 rockets to Southern Israel. Between then and now, Israel showed restraint, until it could no longer afford to do so in view of the coming elections which predicts a victory for Likud.
The first victims of Islamic terror are always the Muslims. Hamas terrorises its own people. Suicide bombers come in all shapes and sizes, and gender. Hamas is bent on the destruction of the State of Israel its most holy duty. To allow Hamas to succeed would be to aggravate the de-stabilisation process in the Middle East led by Iran. The rest of the Islamic world would be in peril. This might even lead to WWIII.
No, the international community wants Palestine to succeed. Development aid worth billions have been pouring in and will continue to be poured in. But the blame game must stop and root cause of Palestinian misery must be confronted. Or else Muslims and non-Muslims will have Palestinian blood on their hands.
Amir Hamzah bin Amha
January 20, 2009
Thank you this. I appreciate your comments and efforts.
Your brother in Islam,
Amir Hamzah bin Amha
daeng chelak
January 20, 2009
it sounds very much like this>>>>>>>
a policeman got shot in a neighborhood, and you know what? Several trucks load of policemen came to that neighborhood and start shooting everyone just to flush out one bad guy…….
if it hapen to your family in takbolehla neighbourhood i hope you dont go around crying foul…..coz they were just looking for that guy who shot their comrades….thats cool dude…
and you why such drastic measures have to be taken?
well my answer would be that the enemy is confined…in any great battles that we studied in various continent by great conquerers, they always surround the enemy in a horseshoe fashion, leaving room for the enemy to retreat..But this does not seem to be the case with the palestinains…so if a victor wants to attack gaza it would only mean to make the confinement smaller……coz no way youre gonna just pass anyone behind as you march forward in an area that is already confined without shooting anything in site before going any deeper into the territory…….
as for the defeated race how do you expect them to behave……..if you have the answer lets imagine then what every single attack would mean to the oppressor…..it simply means that the enemies will get smaller and while slowly killing them will have the opportunities to see the humiliation and disgarce forced on before they die a losers death……so wat the hack!!!!!! JIHAT Lor!!!!!!!!!!!!
so sit back and relax and watch this mega show …..
Goostee
January 20, 2009
Ongohing,
Am proud to have a fellow Malaysian who, though not a Muslim. sympathises with Muslim feelings. Your views should serve as an eye opener to the blind supporters of the West. We Muslims sympatise with the Palestinians not merely because they are Muslims, but more so because they been opressed for decades. If we Malaysians find our freedom being jeopardised by the BN Govt, just think of the Palestanians who are totally denied of freedom. Israel’s latest invasion is flagrant demonstration of arrogance as the Palestanians are totally helpless against the military might of the US assisted Zionist.
chris
January 20, 2009
Very interesting reading.But I have few questions to ask.1.Why the ho ha about Palestians?After 11/9 not a single muslim country condemn it.After Mumbai tragedy, not a single muslim country and not a single islamic organisations condemn it. The Tragedy in Myanmar, The Darfur crisis and so many other tragedies happened and still happening but why no condemention from MUSLIM COUNTRIES AND OIC.But when Palestians were attacked the all muslim world protest including those idiots that called street demonstrators monkey.After 9/11 there was a kenduri at a mosque near my house and the Imam prasised the almight God for the destruction.After Mumbai Tragedy the same happened.In fact my neighbour threw a big kenduri to celebrate it.He had the guts to invite me to the kenduri. So I don’t understand it. Non muslims usually help other without looking at race religion or ethnic but the same canot be said about the other party.Be ahuman and all will be well, be a religious the whole world will be in chao.
NONPartisan
January 20, 2009
religion, race, polarized party are always been used by those who have personal agenda but do not want to appear so. They use popular religion, races issues to gain support, create tension to their advantage. These are scums of the earth that needs to be rejected and told to back off or else…..
Charlie Joe
January 20, 2009
A visit to this website… http://www.terrorismawareness.org will enlighten us on tragedies we may not have known… It’s good to know.. and will help us gain more knowledge on this issue..
BTW.. I’m a Catholic, but more, a human being..
alice
January 20, 2009
God is love and so we should love one another regardless of religion,ethnicity ,race etc. We should be compassionate. An eye for an eye is not going to solve anything on earth .Both Israiel and Palestine should have a more civilised approach on this issue. Spare us the agony of watching your countries being destroyed due to your stupidity!! At the end of the day what are you planning to achieve? We are temporary inhabitants of this earth so lets live in PEACE. SEEK GOD IN A SINCERE WAY AND HE WILL GUIDE YOU TO THE RIGHT PATH!
Andrew Cheah
January 20, 2009
Dear Author,
Your perspective is honorable indeed. For 40 years, the Jewish community was living in Palestine with good treatment and freedom by the Palestinian until annexed by Israel. What have the Palestinians done to the Israeli people to deserve this ? If catastrophe comiited by Hitler, there is no reason to take over Palestine and kill the inhabitants. The Jews cannot change history by wiping out Palestine off the world map.
Malaysian
January 20, 2009
This war is something weird.
I don’t care about the history of this war but the present.
Rationally thinking i think the Israels are defending themselves today. It was Hamas who initiated this war not the Israels.
They were the one who drew the first blood. They were the one who keeps firing the rocket into Israel.
“Even a calm tiger would attack if someone keeps bothering it”. Yes, innocent people are dying and that saddens me too.
Most religionist are just hypocrites. They kill people in the name of religion and always seems to justify their action against their holy book.
This problem is very simple issue but no, it can’t be simple anymore because religion is involved. The muslims will continue to defend Palestinians and the Christians will continue to support Israels.
I know one thing for sure, majority Malaysian muslims have never met any Israels in their life but they will continue to hate them because of Islam and majority Christians will continue to hate Palestinians because of Christianity.
The only way to solve this issue would be to put religion aside and solve it rationally but hey would the religionist want that ? Nope… so this war will never end unless someone can inject some rationality in their mind.
Independent Thinker
January 20, 2009
What the Israelis and the Palestinian doing to each other are some sort of the game played by the naughty boys in the backyard.
Look at the Arab World, what had they done to stop that. Nothing, just a mere back rubbing, right? They knows a powerful Hamas means a problem for them, so they are more than happy enough for the Israelis to screw them outright.
More still, the Hamas are nothing to the Israel power punch and they even can’t engaged the IDF in any open battle. In contra to what they had claimed. They are nothing more than just a Rat in the Rubbish Dump and behave naughtily when the Cat is not around.
What is so pitiful for us to heaped on to this silly and stupid Palestinian Hamas?. Throwing rocket and provoking the IDF for no proper reason, other than to prove that the Iranian Hezbullah in Iran and Syria are behind them. What the Hezbullah in Lebanon did, just throwing rocket and they claimed and that wasn’t done by them. Childish, stupid and coward, right. They are good at hiding behind the women skirt, a training taught by Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Actually, the IDF can’t take it anymore of their stupid act and when the IDF screw them up, they are hiding behind the innocent civilian and women skirt and that proved they are coward and a stupid Hamas monkey. Provoking and throwing rocket at the IDF doesn’t give them any peace at all.
What do they expect from the IDF, just let them (Hamas) continue throwing rocket and pretend not to know anything happening?. Not good.
I had been working for a numbers of years in Israel in the Oil and Gas Industry and knows the attitude of these Gaza occupants and the Palestinian people very well and they are listed down as follows:
1. They rely on the donation of the Arab Countries and Iranian for all their requirement. This facilities are only extended to the Hamas cadres. The ordinary peoples are forced to support their struggle against the IDF for free.
2. They don’t want to work and do collect levies amongst the ordinary Palestinian and will force them to comply by providing their houses or buildings as a weapon storage or launching sites for their Rocket toward Southern Israel.
3. They will penalized the local masses should they don’t comply to their Policy of erasing Israel Nation from the face of the Earth.
4. Made use of the local population as their shield when provoking the IDF in any ways and means.
5. Recruited & Trained local Palestinian to become a suicide bomber who are not the Hamas Cadres families member. It’s fine for the non Hamas families members to die just like a Pig for them (Hamas).
6. Non compliance means, severe retaliation by the Hamas Cadres.
7. The Hamas Arab leaders were shun by their fellow Arabs and they were considered a miscreant amongst the Arabs World, it is only the Iranian who are only interested with them because they are needed as a pawn in their war trading business with each other(between Iran & Israel). The Iranian doesn’t like the Palestinian at all, but they have to do it, since that is the only choice to fulfill their ambition in the Middle East theater of Conflict.
8. The Arab Countries were not serious at all and only offer a lackadaisical approach to the IDF recent invasion and only acted when the Whole World are barking mad at Israel.
Conclusively, the Hamas are there as a pawn of the Iranian and the stooge for the Hezbullah to stir trouble and create fears in the Middle East and it is nothing more than just a continuity of influence in the area through proxy means via Hamas. All their upkeep, weapons are supplied by Iranian Agent and smuggled through the tunnel at the Egyptian Border, which had been severely bombed by the IDF. The Hamas controlled everything from prostitution, gambling, weapon smuggling, drug smuggling, monopoly of daily commodities prices, movement and supplies. They traded everything at their own value and rates. They fleeced the ordinary Palestinian to their last penny. They abuse the UN Assistance Program, i.e Food, Medicine and all the facilities accorded under the said program and channel all that to the Hamas cadres first then give it to the local Palestinian only a portion of what they get.
These peoples are treating their fellows peoples as what the the North Korean does and nothing less. All International Funds, Donation in any form will be converted to Cash and abused by Hamas.
It is right for us to heap pity on the local Palestinian peoples but we must scorn the Hamas and we had been made a laughing stock of the Iranian and the Hezbullah.The outside World look very silly and stupid to the core by siding them, when there are no one to stop them from abusing their own countrymen.
Stop and denied them the access and right to all the UN International Assistance Program and Donation and that must be done and supervise by the UN bodies itself and not by the Palestinian. Don’t ever trust them, least the Hamas agent will abused it away to their cadres and their own benefit as well.
The International Bodies should forced the Hamas to stop throwing rocket or let the IDF finish them once and for all. Or clear all the local Palestinian to one place and those left behind are the Hamas elements and they are the people to be engaged militarily by the IDF and to be cripple to the most severe stage by eliminating their leaders and cadres as much it can be done by the said action.
To the Local Palestinian Masses, your tragedy are the result of a wrong place at the wrong time and it is very pitiful indeed to look at. We knows that, you are not in the position to stop that from happening. Nothing much can I offer, but just a prayer to the Lord Jesus, requesting him to grant peace to their departing soul and to those of you who are the victim of circumstances, it is wished that it will end soon, but since Hamas is there, it will take sometimes more, perhaps.
Mei
January 20, 2009
So Israel should sit still and let Hamas finish the job that Hitler began? You seem to think that you’ve got your scriptural understanding pat down and no doubt you belong to the group that believe that Israel has been replaced by the church (only for blessings. The curses stay with them of course). That’s how the church ended up being the prime persecutor of Jews in the last 2000 years. We’re not talking about the New Jerusalem. We’re talking about the Jerusalem here on earth right now. Paul says clearly in Romans that we Gentiles are the wild branches that have been grafted in and if we who were wild can be grafted in, how much more will those who are natural (Jews) and who have been cut off be grafted back into their own tree? If God is not finished with Israel, why are you so quick to decide that the old Jerusalem does not figure in His plans anymore? The fact that there is an Israel today should prompt you to read the scriptures with new eyes.
I think you’ve studied the scriptures thoroughly and you truly believe you’ve understood them. There’s indeed some pride in you when you dismiss those who support Israel as “unquestioning” and “chauvinistic”. And while you were born in 1947, the history of Israel goes thousands of years back. 1947 is not the starting point. It may be the beginning of the end.
If you and the rest of the world were so concerned about the Palestinians’ humanitarian needs, why wasn’t there a concerted effort getting them to agree to a truce that Israel repeatedly offered them before the war started? Why were you and your humanistic friends looking the other way while Hamas fired rockets into Israel day after day for the last 6 years, targeting civilians in densely populated areas. Or are Jewish lives less valuable? Or perhaps not enough of them died. Or perhaps Israel failed to wail in front of cameras. Hamas is the one who has repeatedly said that they will never live in peace with Israel. The Palestinian people voted them in on this platform. It’s not like they didn’t try to fulfill their promise to annihilate israel, they’re just horribly bad at it. Does that make them the victim? If you attacked someone with the intention to kill and completely mucked it up and the person you attacked turned around and hit you back, do you then become the victim? Do you think he’ll let you off with slap so you can come back and hit him again and again until one day, no matter how incompetent you are, you succeed at crippling and eventually killing him?
Hamas is clear. No compromise. They will not rest until Israel is wiped off from the face of the earth. How humanitarian is that? How humanitarian was it for 7 Arab nations to attack Israel on its very first day of modern nationhood on May 15, 1948 before she could put together an army to defend herself? How humanitarian was it for Syria and Egypt to attack Israel on their national day of fasting in 1973? If you want to talk about humanitarian issues, do it in totality. Don’t pick and choose your piece and present them as if the Palestinians and Arabs had nothing to do with their own fate.
I’m not trying to say that Israel has done no wrong. However, for you to take the high ground and accuse Christians who support Israel’s right to exist and to defend herself as chauvinistic, unquestioning (implying that we’re dumb) and practicing bad theology certainly comes off stinking of pride and self-righteousness. If God has revealed to you to help Palestinians, go and do your bit. Leave Israel to those of us who have been called to be her watchmen. But don’t assume you’re right and we’re wrong.
By the way, what’s this about the sources who said something about Bush hearing from God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq? Is this on record? Who are these sources? Have we Christians now full of humanistic wisdom been reduced to judging others on rumors? God help us!
Fair
January 20, 2009
If HAMAS have the idea to wipe Isreal off the map of the world then Isreal has every right to retaliate. If HAMAS can launch a few thousands rockets in ISREAL then Isreal has evry right to to fight back. I am totally not on the side of Isreal cause so many innocent people were killed. The reason I want to ask is who started this war? The Palistinian people are a pitiful lot. HAMAS pressure them and they got killed because of them. Who is actually to blame for their conditions? My heart aches when I see innocent children and weman killed. When will this stop? May God help the innocent.
borneorainbow
January 20, 2009
I share your views. If you and I couldn’t sleep properly at night after viewing the bombings in the TVs, can’t comprehend what is it like being there.
The war isn’t about religion, take my word. Its something else bigger than religion.
http://kadayanjournal.com/
Julian
January 20, 2009
Ah, love what I read. Many support a cause (in this case, Israel-Palestine) blindly without knowing the root cause of the ongoing problems.
I’ve heard from people on both sides of the divide, about how Palestinians and Israelis are killed. Some said it’s aggression because of religion. Some say it’s political.
But whatever it is, no one could stop arguing. One thing’s for sure, both sides suffer. When anyone goes to war, let not God be dragged into it. Our minds are really limited when we think God would allow Himself to be part of this. We’re creating space for Him, to confine Him in our ideals – to be on our side when we bomb another human being. Blasphemy, and I concur.
cruzeiro
January 20, 2009
First and foremost allow me to say that I don’t see the relevance of the writer saying specifically that he gives this opinion as “an evangelical christian”, unless he’s speaking for a certain establishment, so as to dispel unfounded ideas of religious leanings.
This crisis shouldn’t be seen from a religious perspective, but that of humanitarian aspect only. As the writer said, all those who use religious ideas to express their political leanings are simply misguided.
While I agree with all that has been said, and sympathize with the predicament of the Palestinians, I cannot but believe that these “leaders” of Palestinians want a war themselves. In fact, the leadership has built a following based on the platform of war, and nothing less.
They want this war, they need this war – just as badly as the Israelis. The people are the ones who are shortchanged into becoming the shield for the politicians and “fighters”. It is sad that they fail to see this. It reminds me of a saying attributed to Ceasar which goes “Beware the leader who beats the drums of war ….”.
As far as I’m concerned, the Hamas leadership is at best daft. To make matters worse, they use and abuse religion to achieve their political goals, when religion has nothing to do with the political stalemate in Israel/Palestine.
This is compounded by the fact that Muslims see this simply as a legitimate Islamic “Jihad”!
Some comments here would attest to this.
These “holier than thou” supporters of truth and justice, wouldn’t lift a finger or even raise a whimper should the victims be anyone of another faith – and they wonder why people despise their hypocrisy.
Did anyone hear a whimper of protest beyond the “politically correct” condemnations, when “jihadists” blow up “others” in Kashmir, Bombay, Calcutta, Bali etc?
Oh but these are the heroes who go out screaming that God is Great and burn American flags when muslims are the victims of “western/other powers”. Did they realize that It was America and not the “great Muslim brothers” who brought an end to the slaughter of Bosnians?
Who are the ones perpetrating the slaughter of Muslims in Darfur? Where are the Muslim voices for justice when it is their brethren who perpetrate these crimes?
It is this Hypocrisy that’s eating into the minds of many a Muslim.
It is the same Hypocrisy that’s deprives them of their ability to have rule of law in all their lands (with a few exceptions).
It is this hypocrisy which has led to the Palestinian problem, since the Mufti of Jarusalem sided with Hitler in the second world war.
What the Palestinians suffer today, is the fruits of the hypocrisy of their leaders.
Nevertheless, I still feel sorry for them and their gullibility in falling for the politics of hate espoused by the Arab leaders.
Mahdzir
January 20, 2009
1948 was when the palestinians driven out from their homeland by the zoinist Israel supported by the western allies. The palestinians have been war fugitives since then. They are fighting for their right to live and until today they have never given up hope. They were slaughtered by Arel Sharon in Shabra Shatila and many countless incidents. And now GAZA.. it is again slaughtering of palestinian children so that zoinist isreal don’t have to face future generation to fight..save the trouble. My support and prayers for the brave palestinians who never bows down to the zionist(aided by western supplied wesponary)opression unlike their arab neighbours(Egypt,Saudis,Kuwait,Jordan,Syria)disgraced to ISLAM.
DJ Khaled
January 20, 2009
LISSSSSTTTTEEENNNNNN!!!!!! WEEEEE PALESTINNNIANNNNSSSS, WEEEEE THHHHHEEEE BESSSTTTT!!!!! REPRESENTING GHETTOES ACROSSSSS THE WORRRLLLLLDDDDDDDD, BROOKLYNNNNN TOOOOO GGGAAAAAAZZZZAAAAAA!!!! LISSTTTENNNNNN!!!! CHRISTIIIIANNNNSSSS STANNNDDDDDD UPPPPP!!!!! THISSSSS IS FORGIVENESSSSSS SEASOOOONNNN!!!! WEEEE THEEEEE BESSSSSTTTTT!
The People's Poet
January 20, 2009
I pray every single day, for the complete and total annihilation of the pirate-terrorist state known as; ISRAEL.
Amen
orange
January 20, 2009
why look so far or dwell too deep? see some of the bickerings being posted? not enough compassion and too much ego. we are all capable of behaving like idiots.
Phillip Gonzalez
January 20, 2009
Great read! I never knew the president said god had spoken to him. I agree with you fully on his blasphemy.
sandygraves
January 20, 2009
Tragedy that it is, I would like to point out that Hamas straps bombs to its own children to carry out its point. I don’t see rioting in the street and demonstrations in the States about that. Once you start strapping bombs to your babies, I have no desire to hear your claims of oppression. And as for Israel,imagine that all of your neighbors had guns pointed at you every time you left the house. They wanted you abolished, and your children dead on the side walk. How humanitarian would you be then? I am not a violent person. But the first person that points guns at MY babies is in serious danger.
Michael
January 20, 2009
Dear Hing,
It is a breath of fresh air for a someone to speak both boldly about their nation and their religion. It seems we are left with either one or the other, and the combination of the two has become a taboo. Far that, I applaud you.
This grabbed my attention: “As a Christian I owe the present Israeli state no allegiance of automatic support. Like all other nations, the Israeli as well as the Palestinian states must accept their own responsibilities for whatever wrongs they have humanly committed.”
Wow, this needed to be said. There is a difference between caring for the human being, and then just excusing them because of who they are. These states should be held responsible for their actions, but NOT necessarily by the US. They need to figure it out themselves.
willohroots
January 20, 2009
The children of Ishmael, the children of Isaac, how true is the bible.
I abhor blood shed, but if my leaders wanted me to lob unguided inaccurate bombs into civilian areas, and I knew the response would be laser guides bombs from F-16’s, I would get a new leader, both for moral and logical purposes.
Brigitta Deistler
January 20, 2009
I’m a Christian missionary and I identify myself completely with your message. Hopefully the Spirit of Christ will do his work amongst hardcore Christian fundamentalists. God doesn’t support menslaughter, no matter who claims to have a right to it. My hear aches for the Palestine people, as it does for all who suffer.
John S
January 20, 2009
obviously this is religious.Why the muslims woked up when Palestine got attaked but kept quiet when Mumbai was attacked,its religion.Lets say the Isralites become Muslims and the Palestenians converted to Judaism,I bet you the Isralites will become the darling and the Palestenians will become the arch enemy for the muslim world,its religion.
DysfunctionalParrot
January 20, 2009
Hamas would use their own children as bulletproof vests given the chance.
Bottom line…until the Palestinians can love their own children more than they hate Jews, peace will never happen. Never.
Richard
January 20, 2009
George Bush has as much right to say “God bless America” as you have to say you are a Christian. Too many words! Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 sums up best what you’ve written:
“(2)Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think.Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear.God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.(3)Over-work makes for restless sleep.Over-talk shows you up as a fool.”
I know George Bush said “God bless American” because he said it. How do I know you are really a Christian just because you claim it?
In the final analysis God will decide whose word He will honor.
apartment1d
January 20, 2009
Israel is not intent on destroying the Palestinian people. Israel is trying to find a solution to the mess that was left when the British pulled out of Palestine, and 5 Arab countries attacked the next day.
Israel has prospered, and is trying to keep its citizens safe. It is with a heavy heart that Israeli soldiers are killing Palestinians.
The amount of innocent civilians dead is staggering. It is something mourned in Israel, not celebrated. The Israeli government and military go to great lengths doing their best to protect civilians while attacking Hamas militants who are hiding in their midst.
This is not a religious battle for the Israelis. It is a pragmatic operation designed to protect its citizens. Most Israelis do not want to be in control of the West Bank or Gaza, and do not want to be controlling the Palestinian people.
The Totton linnet
January 20, 2009
The Arabs fire their rockets [for 8 years] for the sole purpose of forcing Isreal to act in exactly the manner in which they have, any other nation would have done it years ago. Isreal hates the situation that the Arabs have forced upon them. All those lives lost for cheap propaganda. But as your post proves it works. They are a crual merciless people.
Rizal Alwani
January 20, 2009
“When the truth is replaced by silence,” the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie.” It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia’s incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.
The horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas
They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist.” They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous “Plan D” resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as “ethnic cleansing.” Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, “What shall we do with the Arabs?” Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, “made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ÔExpel them’. The order to expel an entire population “without attention to age” was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world’s most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya’ari noted “how easily” Israel’s leaders spoke of how it was “possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled.”
Every subsequent “war” Israel has waged has had the same objective ..
Every subsequent “war” Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Yuri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein have dispatched this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called zionism. “It seems,” wrote the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 2 January, “that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system … Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology Ð in its most consensual and simplistic variety Ð has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanize the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern [of genocide].”
In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. “Is it an irresponsible overstatement,” asked Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, “to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not.”
Holocaust-in-the making
In describing a “holocaust-in-the making,” Falk was alluding to the Nazis’ establishment of Jewish ghettos in Poland. For one month in 1943, the captive Polish Jews led by Mordechaj Anielewiz fought off the German army and the SS, but their resistance was finally crushed and the Nazis exacted their final revenge. Falk is also a Jew. Today’s holocaust-in-the-making, which began with Ben-Gurion’s Plan D, is in its final stages. The difference today is that it is a joint US-Israeli project. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound “smart” GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4 billion in war-making “aid,” give Washington de facto control. It beggars belief that President-elect Obama was not informed. Outspoken on Russia’s war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama’s silence on Palestine marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state, chief of staff and principal Middle East advisers. When Aretha Franklin sings “Think,” her wonderful 1960s anthem to freedom, at Obama’s inauguration on 21 January, I trust someone with the brave heart of Muntadar al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower, will shout: “Gaza!”
Provoking the Palestinians
The asymmetry of conquest and terror is clear. Plan D is now “Operation Cast Lead,” which is the unfinished “Operation Justified Vengeance.” The latter was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with Bush’s approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time. In the same year, the authoritative Jane’s Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the “green light” to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel’s secret designs for a bloodbath. It was typiccal of New Labor Party’s enduring, cringing complicity in Palestine’s agony. However, the 2001 Israeli plan, reported Jane’s, needed the “trigger” of a suicide bombing which would cause “numerous deaths and injuries [because] the ‘revenge’ factor is crucial.” This would “motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians.” What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Chief of Staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks. On 23 November, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud, and got their “trigger”; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.
Something uncannily similar happened on 5 November last, when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda “trigger.” A ceasefire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government Ð which had imprisoned its violators Ð was shattered by the Israeli attack and homemade rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were “cleansed.” The On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel’s charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
Dagan Plan
Behind this sordid game is the “Dagan Plan,” named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon in his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organization, Dagan is the author of a “solution” that has seen the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, effectively a concentration camp. The establishment of a quisling government in Ramallah under Mohammed Abbas is Dagan’s achievement, together with a hasbara (propaganda) campaign relayed through a mostly supine, if intimidated western media, notably in America, that says Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to Israel’s destruction and to “blame” for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, long before its creation. “We have never had it so good,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir in 2006. “The hasbara effort is a well-oiled machine.” In fact, Hamas’s real threat is its example as the Arab world’s only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians’ oppressor and tormentor. This was demonstrated when Hamas foiled a CIA coup in 2007, an event ordained in the western media as “Hamas’s seizure of power.” Likewise, Hamas is never described as a government, let alone democratic. Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce as a historic recognition of the “reality” of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders. As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, 99 per cent of humanity concurs. On 4 January, the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto, described the Israeli attack on Gaza as a “monstrosity.”
When the monstrosity is done and the people of Gaza are even more stricken, the Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a “1948-style solution” Ð the destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authority followed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller “cantonments” and perhaps finally into Jordan. This demolition of institutional and educational life in Gaza is designed to produce, wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian exile in Britain, “a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed … Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Sharon] had in store for us, and he has nearly achieved it.”
Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic Referring to Gaza and Palestine ..
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American writer on Palestine. She has a Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. “Holocaust denial is anti-Semitic,” she wrote on 31 December. “But I’m not talking about World War Two, Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (the president of Iran) or Ashkenazi Jews. What I’m referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years … Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn’t get more anti-Semitic than this.” She quoted Rachel Corrie, the young American who went to Palestine to defend Palestinians and was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. “I am in the midst of a genocide,” wrote Corrie, “which I am also indirectly supporting and for which my government is largely responsible.”
Responsibility: Breaking the lie of silence
Reading the words of both, I am struck by the use of “responsibility.” Breaking the lie of silence is not an esoteric abstraction but an urgent responsibility that falls to those with the privilege of a platform. With the BBC cowed, so too is much of journalism, merely allowing vigorous debate within unmovable invisible boundaries, ever fearful of the smear of anti-Semitism. The unreported news, meanwhile, is that the death toll in Gaza is the equivalent of 18,000 dead in Britain. Imagine, if you can.
Then there are the academics, the deans and teachers and researchers. Why are they silent as they watch a university bombed and hear the Association of University Teachers in Gaza plea for help? Are British universities now, as Terry Eagleton believes, no more than “intellectual Tescos, churning out a commodity known as graduates rather than greengroceries”?
Then there are the writers. In the dark year of 1939, the Third Writers’ Congress was held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the likes of Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein sent messages and spoke up to ensure the lie of silence was broken. By one account, 3,500 jammed the auditorium and a thousand were turned away. Today, this mighty voice of realism and morality is said to be obsolete; the literary review pages affect an ironic hauteur of irrelevance; false symbolism is all. As for the readers, their moral and political imagination is to be pacified, not primed. The anti-Muslim Martin Amis expressed this well in Visiting Mrs. Nabokov: “The dominance of the self is not a flaw, it is an evolutionary characteristic; it is just how things are.”
If that is how things are, we are diminished as a civilized society. For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people’s courage and resistance and their “luminous humanity,” as Karma Nabulsi put it. On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.
John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, film-maker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism’s highest award, that of “Journalist of the Year,” for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Joy
January 20, 2009
It is a always sad to see ppl killing ppl in armed conflicts. It is not everyone intention to cry over the lost of their love ones. Like any armed conflicts once it has stop time will heal and ppl will forgive the pass and move on for a better future.
However the Islamo Facist continue to harp on the hurts of the ppl. rubbing salt into their wounds, reminding the death of their loved ones. Worst the started to fill their education system with hate. Teaching a whole new generation of innocent children to hate and to be suicide bomber and martyrs. Will we achieve peace in such a manner? Will the palestinian children learn to respect and to have peace if they are taught ‘Jews are pigs and dogs!’
We can only sympatize with the lost of lives and properties but what can we do if the general population voted in tyrants that have no regards to their well being and lives besides to see one particular race is wiped out of the earth… just to fulfill their holy scripture.
artstarzz
January 20, 2009
It is Hamass that is to blame . It is Hamass that hides behind women and children . It is Hamass that sends rockets to Israel . It is Hamass the Palestinian people should blame .
When then American government does something the world blames the American people .
When 9/11 happened the people in Gaza danced . Now they have a group that they voted in that is killing them . It is not Israel fault Hamass has the Palestinian people bamboozled . As long as Hamass attacks Israel from Gaza then Israel should defend to the end .
I attended a rally in Denver colorado . Some Jewish people stood on the Denver capital building and asked for support for Israel . Across the street some Palestinian supporter held a large nazi flag .
To me the people in Gaza should throw Hamass out . Stop rocketing Israel and seek peace . Like president Obama said . If someone was trying to bomb the house where my daughters were sleeping ,he would do every thing in his power to stop them . Stopping them does not mean today it mean for always . Stop bombing Israel for always . Not just until Hamass gets strong again then Hamass bombs Israel again . Stop them from bombing Israel for always .
I’m American born and raised . There are places in our big cities that I won’t go to . I would say that to the people of Gaza . Leave Gaza let Hamass fight for what they think is right . Hamass gets help from places like Iran so don’t make it look like it is a david and Goliath situation . It is Hamass that is to blame .
dburrows1278
January 20, 2009
Israel or no Israel – might be worth doing a word study in the Scriptures you hold faith in of ‘My Land’. I suggest the owner of the land will not be mocked.
Adam's Son
January 20, 2009
Before post any article concerning about belief and religion, the writer must know the history and facts about christianity and the Bible teaching WELL, and not base on assumption and little knowledge.
I sympathise with the war victims, not only in Palestine but also in other parts of the world, not only for those who practise the same faith as I am, but those from other faith too.
Israel is like a clock to the christians, what ever is happening there is indeed just fulfilling Biblical prophecy. Keep our heart pure and calm.
I completely agree with Mei’s comment. Shalom
spinnakerjksc
January 21, 2009
If the Palestinians want a state of their own, firing rockets isn’t going to get it for them. Nobody gives a tantrum-throwing 3 year old what he wants, it’s the same here. They’re not going to force Israel into compromise, they’ll nuke them first. I think it’s time for our Muslim and Palestinian friends to grow up a little, and if they care ANYTHING for their people, stop firing rockets and provoking the Israelis.
just my two cents.
Jordan.
http://www.theriverjordan.net
chiew ka 4...!
January 21, 2009
Yeah…. God did bless America !
With Obama…!
Only the innocent are killed during wars. Why can’t we all talk. Words will come out of our mouth. We understand each other. Why create war…..?
It has to stop… please !
Look at us, Malaysians….
We are peaceful. The only war we have are blowing unwanted people up with C4…, corruption of the highest order, backstabbing, liwat, cronies, much much more.
Now with the new president of America, lets see some changes…
daeng chelak
January 21, 2009
the palestinian have been israel’s prisoners of war since 1967…..
in the olden day, the romans created a huge coiiseum for the peole to watch how their war prisoner fight for their lifes against beast ten time their size….to cut the story short we humans made it into a spectator sports
The israelis has made gaza into that “coliseum” and we the world are the spectators…every time they oppressed the population gets lesser and gaza gets to shrink…..the beast would be the f16 and tanks sprewing scatter bombs and sh*t……the excuses wll always be that “the prisoners PROVOKING its captors to stike…
wonder if hercules will come this time around…
daeng chelak
January 21, 2009
hey not to forget its brought to you live in you-tube by the israelis themself………cheers!!!!!!
andrealudwig
January 21, 2009
1 Samuel 15:2-3 says,
“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ “
andrealudwig
January 21, 2009
Just wanted to make the point that although we hate to witness any human suffering, sometimes it is necessary and sometimes God commands it.
Richard
January 21, 2009
Brigitta Deistler what would you do if someone were lobbing grenades into your house at your children? Would your heart ache for those lobbing the grenades? Would you say hopefully the Lord can work amongst my children. Or, would you seek some deliberate way to eliminate those lobbing the grenades at your children?
If the Palestenian people will rise up against Hamas and put a stop to their “lobbing rockets” over into Israel, the conflict will end. No rockets, no war! What part of that do you not understand?
Richard
January 21, 2009
Amen andrealudwig!
Mg
January 21, 2009
God is Love..he never support conflict.
bgees
January 21, 2009
What ever the Muslims do is always right, killing innocents,descriminate and terrorise is always halal…. but we cannot retailate.
giannina
January 21, 2009
Doctrine determines behavior.
I am a born again Christian, living in the U.S., and I am appalled by the false doctrine of dispensationalism which has caused many believers to support Christian Zionism. Supporting bloodshed and injustice has been the result.
Also, the merging of church and state here is a dangerous mixture, an apostate Christianity. Principles of love, mercy, and justice are being ignored. We are Christians and belong to another Kingdom and are to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ, glad tidings of reconciliation, to all peoples. Never are we to take anyone’s life or cause anyone suffering. We are to love our enemies.
When speaking of these things, Hitler and Nazi Germany are very often brought up. I recommend this excellent book, a true story, of believers living during those times. Their story of love and victory is inspiring.
Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Richard
January 21, 2009
Janso you’ve made your point…give it a break already!
Palestine Cause
January 21, 2009
nothing is more dangerous than a man with nothing to loose, The Palestinians forced to abandon their lands and homes… and now you are blaming them becuase they are trying to get back their lands, you are blaming them to have the right of return, blaming them even to defend their refugee camps!!!
splim
January 21, 2009
The right to self-defense does not give one the right to commit mass murders.
Just me
January 21, 2009
I read the comments with interest of some of the arguments and strong assertions on both sides of the divide depending on the inclination of the individual.
As human it is quite natural for one to be emotional and sentimental – that’s where it stops. As human we can only see what we are capable of physically – beyond that we are handicapped. Worst, we want to see and hear what we desire to see and hear, hence prejudices and intorance. Being humanistic, we only see Love – anything that does not fit into our can of knowledge we will not accept and reject outright.
What you are about to hear may seems crazy or even absurd, just hold your horse – don’t expect everyone to believe or accept. That’s not the point.
The point is …
The bitter wars fought between Palestians and Israel or for the matter any other wars in other parts of the world (past or present); the atrocities, killings under the name of religion, major natural disasters that destroyed hundred of thousands of lives, are the works of darkness – not just physical happenings.
They are spiritual happenings.
Nothing happened by chance!
The spiritual controls the physical.
It all begins in heaven.
The rebellion in heaven started with the dark thought of God’s arch angel, Lucifer, to overthrow his creator and seize his throne. Fierce battles ensued when God released his might and power, Lucifer with his supporters and sympathizers were totally defeated. Even with his failed attempt to overthow God by force, the good lord proffer him and the rebels a chance to repent but stubbornly and arrongantly rejected. Instead the whole bunch were banished to earth.
Earth became their abode – dark, desolate and dreary with a bleak future. Through his shrewdness he accused God being unfair and unjust, petitioned God for a contest to decide who was right and command the respect amongst his creation … but the creation must be a new specie, not angels. Being just and righteous God agreed to the contest.
That new created specie is HUMAN – YOU and I.
The new creation of God is put here on earth not by chance. Like it or not, we are the pawns in the contests between God and God’s arch enemy, Satan. Know that we are here to serve God’s purpose. We are given the choice to be on God’s side or the Devil’s.
It is a WAR – a WAR against God’s arch enemy, Satan. Bible say, we are not fighting against flesh and blood but against spiritual principalities, world rulers, etc … in short, against the forces of darkness – the evil and wicked works of Satan.
We all got it wrong, instead of engaging war against our common enemy, Satan, we are fighting against flesh, man against man. We failed in our intended target instead we did our enemy a great favor by killing each other.
You know what?
Satan did his dirty, evil and wicked works behind the scene, irritated and stirred up men to blame each other. Ignorant and foolish men ensnared by his trickery. Indeed people perished because lack of knowledge.
When you begin to see and understand in this light your perspective of things would be entirely different. God is a good God, trying to save men from the miseries, sufferings and oppression of Satan’s evil work upon men.
Satan blamed men for his failures to defeat God in the contests throughout the ages. Since he could not get at God, he hit at his creation, inflicting the greatest sufferings and miseries upon mankind – wars, bloodshed, natural disasters and catastrophe, sickneses, diseasses and plagues, etc. taking as many as possible to join his company in hell.
Our enemy is not physical one, human being but the spiritual enemy. With the elimination of the ACTUAL enemy, only then real peace will reign. Spiritual eyes will be opened to see things in the right perspective.
Remember, we are just pawns – how we play our role and whom we support, God or Devil is very crucial and determinative to our well being.
Until then, we can only hope and pray for the deliverance from our Savior – from the tyranny of the Devil.
Richard
January 21, 2009
Many deny Israel self-defense, yet condone Hamas’ thirst for innocent Israeli blood. Who is seeking to commit mass murder here? Does Israel not have the right to exist peaceably? Where was Hamas when Israel defended itself against Hamas aggression? They disappeared among the Palestinian people and used their children for shields.
One day, perhaps, the Palestinian people will see that Hamas is not their friend and stamp them out. Would this then make the Palestinians mass murders?
The fly in the ointment is Hamas. Why is the fly more important than the ointmnet, i.e., lives of men, women, and children? Extract the fly and make good the ointment. Peace will make its debut.
Independent Thinker
January 30, 2009
Very good articles written by all those smart men and women on this blog, however we were left with one small line of word that by pass our pen a little bit and that Goes as Follows.
Why are the Palestinian (Hamas)are having “No Prisoner Taker toward the Israel as a Nation”
My Answer are as simple as the illustration made out as below.
1. The Iranian need them to act as their proxy against the Israel.
2. They are paid for doing that crappy job.
3. They were promised a nation of their own by throwing rocket to Israel by the Iranian.
4. Stop throwing Rocket means no support from the Iranian for the Hamas and they will definitely crumble at the hand of the Fatah.
5. No activity, means no support, and no support they are doomed to be a failure and the Hamas Leaders will be a scorn to the Palestinian themselves.
6. As we are well aware, the Fatah are receiving billions of Aids from the Muslim World in all forms of requirement, whereas the Hamas only get it from the Iranian and probably from few other Nations who are in cahoot to their struggles against the Israel wall of brick. So they have to work hard to survive and continue throwing rockets, least the Iranian stop throwing aid to them.
7. Beside that Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, taught them with an ideology of Women Skirt Shield (Hamas – WSS) when they are fighting and teasing the IDF with their Rockets.
8. Conclusively, there is very little Religion or of that same sort of argument were needed in the Hamas circle of struggles other than working and behaving as an Iranian stooges.
Comment- Welcome please.
Linda Martion
October 14, 2009
I am an american believer in Yeshua Jesus the one true Messiah. I have been serving him for 39 years. I have been praying for truth in regards to how to pray effectively concerning the turmoil of the nations.
Thank you for this article. My eyes have been opened to some very important issues. May I shed all prejudices and pray for my fellow believers in all parts of the world and share in the fellowship of their sufferings. Blessings!