Friday, July 21, 2006

Advice to the Middle East














Photo: http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/

"It's simply not the same thing to say that it's the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fire rockets and use explosive devices or kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense."

John Bolton, U. S. Secretary to the United Nations, commenting on the deaths of an entire Canadian family via Israeli bombs in Lebanon.

If we do it, it is freedom-fighting.
If you do it, it is terrorism.

If our friends do it, it is defending their borders.
If our enemies do it, it is an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation.

If we bomb cities, it is a measured response.
If you bomb cities, it is targeting the civilian population.

If we kill innocent civilians, it is regrettable.
If you kill innocent civilians, it is monstrous inhumanity.

If Israel does it, it is God’s Will.
If Palestinians do it, it is Satanic Evil.

In other words, our words are the only words that count.

So shut up and bleed.














Photo: http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/

Lebanese child killed by an Israeli bomb, July 17, 2006. Over three hundred Lebanese have been killed so far.


5 comments:

chris said...

Hey this sounds glib. You put something very painful very succinctly. I suppose that's what satire does. But it hurts damn it!

My prayer this year is that I can set every other truth I say I believe to one side for the One truth that we humans are somehow made in God's image. All humans. Heaven will be a shock to our system in that we will encounter all these "castoffs" that we never knew about but who are near to God's heart.

Our US culture is all about setting a price on human worth. But that price is so low. We assign value based on buying power. This very imaginative construct is failing. We see it all around us. What should make us Christians different is that we take God's values seriously. But that will involve being transformed non-conformists who live and imagine life by different values.

Here is a portion of a liturgy from the Ekklesia project gathering this year:

"We confess that we are double-minded. We seek to have both our way and yours. We believe those two paths to be the same, but we are deceived. How great is the destruction caused by those who presume to know the way. How great is the darkness within those who trust in their own righteousness and fail to submit to yours."

Lainie Petersen said...

But at least the gay pride parade in Jerusalem has been cancelled!

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279506,00.html

Anonymous said...

Thankyou. It's interesting that Jesus refused to acquiesce to the wishes of his contemporaries, and satan, by succumbing to the temptation of attaining political power. Rather, he taught that the kingdom of God is like a seed that grows into a tree and invites the birds to nest in its branches. Perhaps the allure of political power has ensnared both liberal and conservative Christians. How many of us, in actuality or figuratively, have identified with Bruce Cockburn in regards to this world's real or supposed oppressors by singing with him "If I had a rocket launcher the son-of-a-bitch would die"?

We are out of control! We all feel that we would somehow deal righteously with Sauron's ring of power. But as the verse goes, "One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them / One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

Jon Trott said...

Lainie, you are one sick puppy! (and for others, who don't know you, I'll say that Lainie is being darkly humorous re the C. Right... )

Lainie Petersen said...

Hehe! Sick puppy I am, but I figure it makes me interesting.

:-)