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You may have a case for this position - I don't know.bibleberean said:I support Israel over the "Palestinians".
One of the specific things on which the New Testament insists, again and again, is that in the life, death and supremely the resurrection of Jesus the promised new age has dawned. The return from exile has happened. ‘All the promises of God’, says Paul in 2 Corinthians 1.20, ‘find their “yes†in him.’ This is in fact the great Return, even though it doesn’t look like people had thought it would. Instead of Israel as a political entity emerging from political exile, we are invited in the gospel to see Israel-in-person, the true king, emerging from the exile of death itself into God’s new day. That is the underlying rationale for the mission to the Gentiles: God has finally done for Israel what he was going to do for Israel, so now it’s time for the Gentiles to come in. That, too, is the underlying rationale for the abolition of the food laws and the holy status of the land of Israel: a new day has dawned in God’s purposes, and the symbols of the previous day are put aside, not because they were a bad thing, now happily rejected, but because they were the appropriate preparatory stages in God’s plan, and have now done their work. When I became a man, I put away childish things. Lift up your eyes, says Paul in Romans 8, and see how the promises to Abraham are to be fulfilled: not simply by a single race coming eventually to possess a single holy strip of turf, but by the liberation of the whole cosmos, with the beneficiaries, the inheritors of the promise, being a great number from every race and tribe and tongue, baptized and believing in Jesus Christ and indwelt by his Spirit.
To suggest, therefore, that as Christians we should support the state of Israel because it is the fulfilment of prophecy is, in a quite radical way, to cut off the branch on which we are sitting.
Are all your answers so black and white?bibleberean said:Israel has given the cruel and ruthless Palistinian leadership land for peace and were rocketed and attacked for their trouble. Israel though far from perfect is the nation I support.
There will never be peace in Israel until the Lord Jesus Christ returns. There will at some point be an appearance of peace.
I support Israel over the "Palestinians".
Israel does not as a policy target children. Palistinians target Israeli children as a policy. Women and children die in war. We need to get a grip on reality.
Israel should not give up any part of Jerusalem or one inch of ground for peace. It won't bring peace but will embolden the Muslims to continue their assault on the Jews.
The Israeli soldier is the "good guy" in my opinion.
You can't make peace with insane people.
The Israeli soldier has placed himself in front of a child to protect it. The Pali soldier hides behind the child for cover.
God bless Israel!
Palestinians are just like us. They love their children. They want them to have a better future. Likewise, Jews are just like us. They love their children and want a better future for them.
I listen to the sparrows chirping outside the window and imagine my backyard in Minnesota, the leaves turning red and yellow, the apples ripening, falling, the rusty colored chrysanthemums enduring the ever-cooler mornings. A deep peace fills me, momentarily driving out the tension of living in an occupied land. For a moment, I am five thousand miles away.
A plane roars over my head and I remember that it is not flying passengers to the Minneapolis airport, but possibly heading on a mission to bomb Palestinian civilians in Gaza. I hear cars on the road and know that they are Israelis driving down an Israeli-only road in the center of Hebron.
I hear the call to prayer from the mosque and wonder if the people going to pray will be detained and searched before they are allowed to enter the Old City to worship.
I look out the window, barred to keep rocks from breaking it, and see the barbed wire of a military installation crowning the building opposite.
I sigh and return to my work. I am not enjoying the crisp days of a midwestern autumn. The days here are still hot. The season is the Muslim Ramadan and the Jewish Succoth. The signs of the season are not the turning of the leaves but the closing of gates, the appearance of metal detectors on the road to Friday prayers, the flocks of Jewish tourists parading through the streets of this Palestinian city. For me it is a season of sorrow at the oppression of innocents.
Today I will walk the streets of Hebron and witness young Palestinian men being detained for hours. I will hear Israeli soldiers spew hatred towards "Arabs." I will listen to the stories of Palestinian families whose homes have been invaded, their possessions thrown about, their men beaten or imprisoned.
I breathe air heavy with the weight of injustice. The sparrows call outside the window. I remember that I am here, in Palestine, living under occupation.
I suggest that a proper understanding of the Scriptures leads to the conclusion that national Israel is not any more the apple of God's eye than any other ethnic group of people. Consider 2 Corinthians 1:20bibleberean said:If Israel which is our greatest ally and the "apple of God's eye"...[/img]
May 19, 2004--Today Israeli missiles and tanks fired on a peaceful demonstration of largely Palestinian children who were protesting the demolition of their homes and escalating assaults against their people by Tel Aviv's murderous apartheid regime. Israeli media are reporting that at least 22 Palestinian women and children were killed and 50 more were injured, mostly young people.
A Palestinian doctor told reporters that a "state of emergency all over Gaza Strip hospitals" has been ordered by President Yassir Arafat.
This murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing continues unabated because of the full support given Sharon by George W. Bush. Both of these war criminals use the pretext of "fighting terror" to justify the state terror they are unleashing against Palestinians and Iraqis in their respective criminal occupations. But in Gaza and the West Bank as well as Iraq, it is defenseless civilians who are being slaughtered by Israeli and US forces.
Sharon and Bush--the true axis of evil on this planet.
It's time for the Israeli and US working classes to throw these gangsters in the dock and try them for war crimes. Along the way, we can fight for socialist governments that would put human needs and peace before profits and war.
The whole world is waiting.
May 18, 2004--Israel continues to thumb its nose at humanity and international law with its murderous assault on the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. Israeli forces have killed at least 19 Palestinians since its latest offensive began, including an 11-year-old boy and his 15-year-old sister. Yesterday, Israel tanks, bulldozers and gunship helicopters sealed off Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, causing panic among Palestinians trapped there.
Since last week the Israeli army has demolished over 100 Palestinian homes, leaving thousands homeless. At least 32 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in intense fighting. Israel has been demolishing entire neighborhoods in the Occupied Territories for years, justifying these outrages on the grounds of self defense because suspected Palestinian fighters lived there. But collective punishment is a violation of international law, from Gaza to Falluja.
Amnesty International just release a report charging Israel with war crimes for destroying more than 3,000 Palestinian homes over the last three years. The report called these demolitions "grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes."
One of the report's authors, Donatella Rovera, said that "In vast majority of cases, it's wanton destruction. It's unnecessary, disproportionate, unjustified and deliberate."
Bush gave Washington's stamp of approval to Sharon's latest war crimes with the obligatory caveat that they were "troubling." [Translation: we're taking international heat for this, but you do what you have to do to get the job done.]
The Village Voice's Rich Perlstein writes this week that National Security Council Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams, the Iran/Contra convicted liar, met recently with a Christian fundamentalist outfit named Apostolic Congress to assure them that Bush's endorsement of Sharon's Gaza pullout was in keeping with their political and theological agenda.
These Christian ultrarightists expressed opposition to any Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, fearing it may lead to a Palestinian state, which would upset their little theological apple cart. These fundamentalist fanatics believe that unless Israel stays intact and David's temple rebuilt, Jesus Christ won't make his grand return in the Second Coming.
Abrams assured the Apostolic Congress that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."
Three weeks after Abrams' pow-wow with the Christian zealots, Bush reversed Washington's decades-long policy and backed Tel Aviv's sovereignty over portions of the West Bank in exchange for Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza.
Robert said:There is no negotiating with people who love death and encourage their children to die as "martyrs" in suicide bombings. Palistinian school books teach that Jews are the off spring of "Apes and Pigs".
…So Yod-Heh is the in-breath and Vav-Heh is the out-breath…
The name of YHVH is alluded to in the structure of the human being, from top to bottom and from bottom to top. How so? The head is like a Yod. The torso is like a Vav. The ten fingers, five on each hand, are the two Heh's. Also, the ten toes, five on each foot, are the two Heh's [and part of a second YHVH]. (Generations of Man, The House of Israel I, p.114, translated by Miles Krassen)
Perhaps this is not intentional on BB's part, but have readers not noticed how often the images he is portraying do not show the faces of those he seeks to villify? When the "enemy" is portrayed as faceless, this legitimizes our tendency to see them as monsters. Check out the images for yourself, the Muslims are largely shown with covered faces or from a perspective where the face cannot be seen.bibleberean said:
Get serious.bibleberean said:For all it's faults the USA ,Israel and England are the most nobel countries on earth.