This is a time of rage and devastating loss for the citizens of Israel–Yvrit, Christian, Druze, and Shiite alike. All reasoning people stand empathetic to the pain suffered by people who have all faced pogrom and genocidal hatred since the middle of the 20th century for no other reason than that they hold a particular religion that differs from the majority of those who surround them. Such is the base depravity of our times that those who have publicly declared themselves in support of exterminating the state, religions, and the ethnicity of the Israeli people are seen as equivalently or more greatly persecuted by Israel when she seeks to protect her own through non-lethal means. When she is forced by exigent circumstance to engage in the military or police activities practiced by every sovereign nation on the planet in defense of its people, she is declared a rogue state and persecuted further.
This week Hamas and Fatah have shown themselves to be as criminally committed to genocide as they were in May of 1965. The systematic extermination of private citizens and their children while they were growing corn and living the simple life of the kibbutz, is in parity with Adolf Hitler’s NaZis, not IDF and Israeli Border Security or National Police. No amount of fallacy or hyperbole will cause this false equivalency to stand any reasonable test of truth. Yet the western Media and humor outlets have used sarcasm and mockery to make that very case. This is the basest of depraved indifference and is indecent.
Moreover, no group that engages in forced conversion, torture, rape can legitimately claim to be connected to the God of creation or engaged in warfare. I say this mindful of world history and the origin of modern nations and states. Hamas’ actions and Fatah’s complicity are not justified by the past, and the state and people of Israel must do those things mandated by the ultimate form of diplomacy, the prosecution of a just and necessary war.
But the citizens and their families will draw no comfort from war. It will not bring one beheaded baby or forced convert back to families in health and peace. Join me in praying for my namesake, for Shalom, for Peace in Jerusalem and through the Land of Promise. Pray with me for the comfort and solace of the survivors in Israel and in Gaza. If you aren’t a person of Faith, at least do the human thing and show compassion to the grieving. Quit politicizing, and drawing SEO, and snark points by persecuting them in this terrible moment.