Report Date: January 7, 2009
Alert Subject: Is Peace Possible?
Share Your Thoughts: Here
|
Is peace possible in the
Middle East possible in our lifetimes?
Golda Meir was the fourth prime minister of the State of Israel . Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel on 17 March 1969 . When asked a question as to why the Arabs and Jews could not have peace, she replied, "when the Arab mothers are willing to love their children more than their desire to kill Jews, then there will be peace." Please read the article below...
The Times
January 7, 2009
Daniel Finkelstein
Israel acts because the
world won't defend it. The scenes from Gaza are
heartbreaking. But the whole conflict could be avoided if
the Palestinians said one small thing.
It was strictly forbidden
to have a notebook in Belsen, but my Aunt Ruth had one
anyway. Just a little pocket diary - an appointment book
with one of those tiny pencils. And in it, in the autumn of
1944, she noted that Anne Frank and Anne's sister, Ruth's
school friend Margot, had arrived in the concentration camp.
My mother and my aunt had
been watching through the camp wire when the Franks arrived.
Mum remembers it well, because they had been excited to spot
girls they knew from the old days in Amsterdam. They had
played in the same streets, been to the same schools and
Ruth and Margot attended Hebrew classes together. The pair
had once been pressed into service to act as bridesmaids,
when a secretive Jewish wedding had taken place at the
synagogue during their lesson time.
But Ruth and Margot did
not grow up together. Because while Ruth and my mother
lived, Margot and Anne never left Belsen. They died of
typhus.
I am telling you this
story because I want you to understand Israel. Not to agree
with all it does, not to keep quiet when you want to protest
against its actions, not to side with it always, merely to
understand Israel.
There are two things
about the tale that help to provide insight. The first is
that all these things, the gas chambers, the concentration
camps, the attempt to wipe Jews from the face of the Earth,
they aren't ancient history, and they aren't fable. They
happened to real people and they happened in our lifetime.
Anne and Margot Frank were just children to my aunt and my
mother; they weren't icons, or symbols of anything.
The second is that world
opinion weeps now for Anne Frank. But world opinion did not
save her.
The origin of the state
of Israel is not religion or nationalism, it is the
experience of oppression and murder, the fear of total
annihilation and the bitter conclusion that world opinion
could not be relied upon to protect the Jews.
Israel was the idea of a
journalist. Theodor Herzl was the Paris correspondent of the
Neue Freie Presse when he witnessed anti-Semitic rioting
against the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus who had been
falsely accused of espionage. Herzl was then among the small
corps of journalists who in 1895 witnessed the famous
ceremony of disgrace in which Dreyfus was stripped of his
epaulettes.
The experience led Herzl
to abandon his belief in assimilation. He became convinced
that Jews would only be safe if they had their own national
home. Herzl became the first leader of modern Zionism. For
many years many Jews resisted Herzl's conclusion. My
grandfather was among them. But the experience of Jews all
over the world in the first half of the 20th century - not
just in Europe but in the Middle East too - rather bore out
Herzl.
So when Israel is urged
to respect world opinion and put its faith in the
international community the point is rather being missed.
The very idea of Israel is a rejection of this option.
Israel only exists because Jews do not feel safe as the
wards of world opinion. Zionism, that word that is so
abused, so reviled, is founded on a determination that, at
the end of the day, somehow the Jews will defend themselves
and their fellow Jews from destruction. If world opinion was
enough, there would be no Israel.
The poverty and the death
and the despair among the Palestinians in Gaza moves me to
tears. How can it not? Who can see pictures of children in a
war zone or a slum street and not be angry and bewildered
and driven to protest? And what is so appalling is that it
is so unnecessary. For there can be peace and prosperity at
the smallest of prices. The Palestinians need only say that
they will allow Israel to exist in peace. They need only say
this tiny thing, and mean it, and there is pretty much
nothing they cannot have.
Yet they will not say it.
And they will not mean it. For they do not want the Jews.
Again and again - again and again - the Palestinians have
been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And
again and again they have turned the offer down, for it has
always been more important to drive out the Jews than to
have a Palestinian state. It is difficult sometimes to avoid
the feeling that Hamas and Hezbollah don't want to kill Jews
because they hate Israel. They hate Israel because they want
to kill Jews.
There cannot be peace
until this changes. For Israel will not rely on airy
guarantees and international gestures to defend it. At its
very core, it will not. It will lay down its arms when the
Jews are safe, but it will not do it until they are.
And if you reflect on it,
doesn't recent experience bear this out? Just as Herzl was
borne out? A year or so back I met a teacher while I was on
holiday and fell to talking with him about Israel. He was a
nice man and all he wanted was for fighting to stop and to
end the suffering of children. And he had a question for me.
Why, he asked, doesn't
Israel offer to give back the West Bank and Gaza? Why
doesn't it just let the Palestinians have a state there? If
the Palestinians turned it down, he said, then at least
liberal opinion would be on Israel's side and would rally to
its assistance.
So I patiently explained
to this kind, good man that Israel had, at Camp David in
2000, made precisely this offer and that it had been
rejected out of hand by Yassir Arafat, not even used as the
basis for negotiation. I told him that Israel was no longer
in Gaza, having withdrawn unilaterally and taken the
settlers with it. The Palestinians had greeted this movement
with suicide bombs and rockets. Yet the teacher, with all
his compassion, wasn't even aware of all this. And liberal
opinion? Sad to relate, my new friend's faith in it was
misplaced. It has turned strongly against Israel.
Israel has made many
mistakes. It has acted too aggressively on some occasions,
has been too defensive on others. The country hasn't always
respected the human rights of its enemies as it should have
done. What nation under such a threat would have avoided all
errors?
But you know what? As
Iran gets a nuclear weapon and so the potential for another
Holocaust against the Jews and world opinion does nothing, I
am not so sure that the errors of world opinion are so much
to be preferred to the errors of Israel.
Bro Stef's Thoughts:
This
conflict has been ongoing for thousands of years, from the
time of Abraham until now. This is a conflict that only the
Lord Himself can permanently solve and bring peace to. The
more man attempts to solve only what God can solve, the
worse the problem will become.
The Bible
tells in the book of Daniel, Joel, Zechariah, Matthew and
more that the days are coming where the world will not be
able to solve or cope with its troubles any longer. These
will be the days of Tribulation that are yet future. The
Tribulation will be global in scope, however, the Arab -
Israeli problem we are seeing today will finally find its
end in The land of Israel and at that time Yeshua HaMashiach
(Jesus Christ) will bring the lasting peace that all are
attempting to force in that region. God will impose His
peace and it will last forever!
Hebrews
10:35-39 tells us; do not cast away your confidence, which
has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that
after you have done the will of God, you may receive the
promise: "For yet a little while, And He who is coming will
come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him."
But we are not of those who draw back to
perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
The days
of Tribulation are most certainly coming and they will
challenge us all. It will demand that we live by faith,
faith in the only begotten Son of God. Has things in your
life not been as you had hoped for? Have you had challenges
and difficulties? You're not alone, in fact, it could be
that the Lord is preparing us all for what may lie ahead in
our lives that none of us are aware of. God wants us all to
"live by faith" and that is not natural for us nor
is it easy, however, it is necessary. Remember, when
life is at its darkest God can be found in its midst...faith
is believing in God when circumstances say otherwise!
Never stop believing in Him, "The One"
who paid for our sin by His shed blood on that cross.
"For yet a little
while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
Check out the
headlines below...
Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it. Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall. (Ezekiel 13:1-16 / NRSV) This Month's Headlines... 
Russian_Gas_Dives
Turkey Israel Relations Go Bad
Police
Hacking into Home PC's
Obama
Eligibility Battle Continues
Eligibilty Case Has Legal Standing
Crucifixion is OK in Mid-East?
A Iran and Hamas Christmas
Iraqi
Government Celebrates Christmas
Pope_Benedict_criticizes_homosexual_behavior
Two
State Solution Buried
Son of Hamas Leader Converts
Thank you for being a valued subscriber...Share our reports with a friend. Here "Many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. - Mic 4:2 "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." Psalm 137:5,6
Shalom v'ahava
b'Yeshua HaMashiach Bro Stef
MSN Messenger:
Then those who feared the Lord spoke to
E-Alerts Archive Web Link… |
