One Hundred Eyes for One Eye

Justice? Justice will be their eternal sentence if they do not convert. We should be less worried about politics than their eternal salvation.

Your 'post' or what traditionally might be referred to as a vocation, is to share the Gospel. Christ did not call the Roman soldiers to abandon their post, but to embrace His Truth.

That was nasty.

I agree with jurisnaturalist that taking sides is unnecessary; the value of human life (as Jesus said, "Greater love has no one but to give up his life for a friend") is what matters most. Denigration or destruction of life disregards the power and purpose of Jesus' life and death and resurrection.

And dismissing anyone -- especially whole groups of people -- by mocking, condemning and name-calling ("pr shills..." and "American left") -- shows the same disdain for others that gets major conflicts started in the first place.

Unhappiness, bitterness, disdain lead to war -- between individuals or nations.

Actually, as Christians, we are called to usher in the Kingdom of God.

And on the internet, the word "post" refers to a short piece of writing, such as on a blog, or in comments.

Yes, I thought you'd bring up Iran. Which would force me to remind you of the subject of this post and thread- the bombing of Ghaza (and the rocket attacks by Hamas). If you're wanting to include people who have made threats against Israel as enemies, or people who don't like Israel's policies (since Iran has never overtly attacked Israel), then I guess you live in a world where a couple billion people are America's enemies. That's one scary-a** world.

Because I am imperfect. (Shocking, I know.)

Yitzhak Rabin

I should have known that my comment would not be posted because you are the same as shkhinah... one sided and binded by the Israeli propaganda. May the Lord forgive you and show you the way. Think!!! WWJD?

Not if you read about what the Zionist intended. They never intended to live amongst the Palestinians. What they wanted was a homeland for the Jews...that excluded the indigenous Palestinians.

Hamas is complicit in the destruction of innocent life in Gaza by their actions. These activities clearly identify them as terrorists. It is a horror that Israel is using disproportionate, relatively indiscriminate force to deal with individuals and cells who inflict death while cowering among innocents. There is not absolution for Israel for their actions, but to believe Hamas shows concern for Palestinians in this conflict is naive.

Then I am afraid you misunderstood my post. (I assume you refer to the one on top, and not the one you replied to.) I am not saying Jesus is on the side of Hamas, for unfortunately, it is not Hamas that is being attacked in Ghaza. Jesus is on the side of the oppressed, the outcast, and the downtrodden.

On a side note, most international observers felt the elections were on the up-and-up, though, I agree, the PLO was quite corrupt. And I agree, Hamas has gained the affection of the people by helping them, something Israel should have done long ago, if for no other reason than the pragmatic.

As for picking the fight, that goes back to the questions of the origin of this conflict. The most recent God's Politics article has some insightful ideas on that. However, I don't expect the concept of "turning the other cheek" from Jews or Muslims. Not to say that they don't at times, and more magnificently than many Christians- just that I don't expect it, as it's not part of their teachings or belief system- especially true for the Muslims.

Now, there are certainly arguments for Hamas being terrorist or not. I myself would lean towards that they are, but am aware that the US is in the minority for believing this, and I know of many organizations that the US government thinks are terrorist which decidedly are not. Be that as it may, let us remember, that just as there is that of God in George Bush, so there is that of God in Osama bin Laden. This is not to say that Jesus is on the side, in the sense that he is oppressed, but more, that Jesus still desires to bring Osama to him, as much as he still desires to turn George Bush around. And in both, there is that of God in them, for they are both in the image of God.

Shekhina.. I am shocked at how much you are barinwashed by the zionist propaganda. You are like most American Christians only listen to one side of the news and never bother to even ask about how or what the other side think. You choose to formulate your perceptions out of the comfort of your secure home in the US and can never dare to put yourself in the shoes of those who suffer. I challenge you to think WWJD when He sees Israel doing what it is doing to the children and helpless of Gaza. People like yourself like to always find justifications for what Israel does rather than tell Israel about its responsibility towarsd the people of the land it occupies. You are scared of criticising Israel least you will be cursed as the Old Testament says. Yet you forget that the Bible teaches us to scold and descipline even church members or our own children.

Please take a moment and think and take an accurate account of what happenned in Gaza. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Palestinians had in place an exmplary government that was 100% pr-peace. Members of the Palestinian government spoke fluent Hebrew and were fully in agreement with the Oslo process. Yet, Sharon chose not to deal with them (this was after arafat had died) and instead chose to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza rather than coordinate with the Paletsinian Authority which would have made a totally different set up in Gaza. Many years of futile negotiations with the moderate Palestinians who recongise Israel's right to exists..etc produced only more settlements, more incursions and more extra-judicial assassinations. This is the main reason why Palestinians elected Hamas. The corruption of Fatah was just an additional encouragement but never it was the main reason.

When Hamas took over Gaza the first thing they did was to halt any atrocities against Israel. For several months not one shot or terror act against Israelis came from Gaza. Instead, Israel started assassinating Hamas's leadership and announced Gaza as a hostile territory cutting it from the outside world entirely. At best times, parts of Gaza got few hours of fuel... fishermen were not allowed to fish in the sea, even sewage treatment plans were not allowed to be repaired and raw sewage was being pumped into the Mediteranean. It was only recently and after Tony Blair's interevntion that Israel allowed some cement to enter gaza to allow for the partial reparation of the sewage plant.

If you remember nothing from what I wrote above, please remember one thing: Israel had the chance over the past two years to prove to the Palestinians that it meant well by giving freedom to the West Bank and allow the moderate Palestinian leadership there to establish an independent entity as a first step. This would have shown Hamas supporter - especially in Gaza - how wrongly they were in electing a Hamas government. But instead, Israel gave nothing to Abbas in teh West Bank... on the contrary, more land was confiscated to build illegal settlements, more incursinos took place into the hearts of Paletsinians cities than ever and peace talks were stuck more than they had ever been.

We, as Christians, should be more concerned about people rather than about land. This is what Jesus would be concerned about. I cannot believe ever that jesus would approve that Israel would kill the hundreds of children and women in Gaza and would tell Palestinians "you deserve it because you elected the wrong leadership". Bush has done more eveil than any other US president and yet Americans elected him twice!!!

4 Christians have died in Gaza becasue of the Israeli shelling. Yes... did you know that there are Gazans who are Christians. Those Christians, and with them the thousands of Chritians in the West Bank, feel betrayed by Christians like yourself. You undermine our Christian witness to the Moslems and you make us ashamed.

May God open your eyes to see His justice and recognise His ways.
WWJD

It distresses me that Dean Awad completely ignores the clear warnings Israel has given Hamas before retaliating against rocket launch sites, and the choice by Hamas to not only ignore the warnings but to leave innocents in the path of the Israeli response. He also ignores the many times rockets have been launched against Israel from schools (most recently, I heard this morning, from a United Nations school), setting up their own children to be "martyred" to an absurd cause. Israel has often made inappropriate choices regarding Palestinian issues, but no reasonable or educated commentary on the issues at hand should pointedly ignore, as did Dean Awad, the contempt Hamas shows its own innocent people in order to try to get the world to in its contempt for Israel.

This concept of homeland did exclude the Palestinians. No matter what some Zionists said about letting the indigenous people live amongst them, the driving force of the Zionist leadership was to create a state for Jews immigrating from Europe and Russia. And in order to do so they had to buy up the land and control the government which was not what the Palestinians wanted to happen. Guess who prevailed...the illegal immigrants from Europe and Russia..the Zionists.

The Zionist managed to assassinate the United Nations envoy in the Saint George Hotel bombing and they were constantly smuggling in weapons for the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern gang. Israel was founded on terror and deceit and it has infected their relationships ever since.

OK, Hamas fired the first missile in this particular episode. Because Gaza was under seige. Because the Israeli government feared terrorist attacks on its own territory. Because they had grabbed substantial chunks of Palestinian land in 1968. Because the Arabs attacked them. Because Israel established its existence by expulsion of people from their land - partly by terrorist attacks and partly by making unrefusable offers to corrupt ottoman landlords. And so we go back through history. To say that one side of the other "started it" is both naive and unhelpful.
Maybe it's also worth remembering how Hamas came into existence - as an Islamic counterforce to the PLO, funded and encouraged by Israel to sow dissent within the Palestinian community. And at a time when Israel was prepared to imprison nonviolent Palestinian resistance leaders.

Yes, Hamas are committing terrorist attacks. I'm not clear that what the Israeli military are doing is any different except in scale.
It's a bit like a slogan I saw on someone's t-shirt yesterday: To kill one person is murder; to kill 100000 is foreign policy.

Just wanted to note that not all evangelicals hold to dispensationalist theology (a nineteenth century innovation that has little to do with the way the early church understood scripture) nor to the unthinkingly zionist politics which is has spawned. US rightwing evangelicals are not typical of evangelicals worldwide.

Thank you, and of course you're right. I have made the mistake of generalizing too broadly. Thanks for reining me in.

You are lumping all Arabs into one group. That's just not very appropriate. Different ethnic groups are heterogeneous. If you want to make the argument that there is a united Arab front against Israel (which is the only way that your statement would make logical sense), then you have to explain where the Arab countries are, as they do not seem to be raising a finger to defend Ghaza. Oh, and you must use arguments from today, not from 40 years ago and the 6 Day War.

Israel's enemies at the moment are Hamas and groups like al Qa'ida. The enemies they are working very hard to create are the entire population of Ghaza. That still is a drop in the bucket compared to the 7 million living in Israel.

That was nasty.

I agree with jurisnaturalist that taking sides is unnecessary; the value of human life (as Jesus said, "Greater love has no one but to give up his life for a friend") is what matters most. Denigration or destruction of life disregards the power and purpose of Jesus' life and death and resurrection.

And dismissing anyone -- especially whole groups of people -- by mocking, condemning and name-calling ("pr shills..." and "American left") -- shows the same disdain for others that gets major conflicts started in the first place.

Unhappiness, bitterness, disdain lead to war -- between individuals or nations.

"And dismissing anyone -- especially whole groups of people -- by mocking, condemning and name-calling ("pr shills..." and "American left") -- shows the same disdain for others that gets major conflicts started in the first place."

I am a pr shill by profession.

"Yes, I thought you'd bring up Iran."

Then why didn't you bother to anticipate the argument?

"Which would force me to remind you of the subject of this post and thread- the bombing of Ghaza (and the rocket attacks by Hamas)."

Your choice of punctuation illustrates my problem with this post.

"If you're wanting to include people who have made threats against Israel as enemies,"

I do.

"or people who don't like Israel's policies"

A broader group than the aforementioned, which I was not crtiquing at large.

"(since Iran has never overtly attacked Israel),"

The fact that you need not only to parenthetical the argument that Iran has never attacked Israel, but also add the "overtly" caveat speaks volumes.

"then I guess you live in a world where a couple billion people are America's enemies. That's one scary-a** world."

It is. But we're discussing Israel. Whether Israel's enemies are attacking its citizens covertly or overtly is irrelevant. So long as large nations are willing to conduct proxy wars (which is how nations conduct war without being overt) then a proportional response by Israel inherently constitutes suicide.

"And dismissing anyone -- especially whole groups of people -- by mocking, condemning and name-calling ("pr shills..." and "American left") -- shows the same disdain for others that gets major conflicts started in the first place"

Compared to bombing people with a smile on your face and just dismissing their rights all together .? Too many innocent people are dying , as they do in all wars .

Hamas is complicit in the destruction of innocent life in Gaza by their actions. These activities clearly identify them as terrorists. It is a horror that Israel is using disproportionate, relatively indiscriminate force to deal with individuals and cells who inflict death while cowering among innocents. There is not absolution for Israel for their actions, but to believe Hamas shows concern for Palestinians in this conflict is naive.

I think merely siding with victims is insufficient. I think there are times when victims need to take at least partial responsibility for what happens to them - not to take away Israel's responsibility, but - doesn't it seem true that if the Palestinians would elect better leadership than Hamas, and if they would give up on trying to destroy Israel, that Israel would leave them alone to create a viable state for themselves? I think Israel would - I think they really do want to live in peace with their neighbors and simply do not know what to do with the constant hatred and violence coming at them from Muslim groups and states. And I think our awareness of that is important - not to drive Israel crazy by giving them too much responsibility when they really don't have power over the thoughts and behaviors of Muslims who have been making war on them since the late 19th and early 20th centuries...