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Certainly, like many things in this world, it had an essence of humour. There was a German voice on News Radio, noting that yes, if he had to deal with such antics in his country, such violence, then the perpetrators could expect his reaction. He would go right after them.

Ah! the thought came. Is this at last some news outlet not entirely chloroformed, anaesthetised, paralysed in mind or polluted in spirit, who can see the obvious. It is of course often just that which is so difficult to see. The truth is obvious, but not normally noticed as such. God is obvious, but usually fought against in rhetoric (Romans 1:17ff.). Salvation is obviously needed, but normally surreptitiously or seditiously subjected to armed guards, since the time when Christ was so treated personally, with the aid of Judas and the Temple priest-beasts, those archetypes of what, alas the Jews have so often themselves suffered since. The cry recorded in the Bible, "His blood be upon us and our children!" is one of the most portentous in the history of any nation (Matthew 27:25).

For the enquirer, it must at once be noted that this does NOT apply to those who, by individual repentance FROM the action of that day on the part of their nation, that is severance in spirit and word from the deeds, cease to belong to the milieu, the national continuum. The sins of the fathers go ONLY to those who continue to HATE God, we find in Exodus 20. THAT is the continuity which counts. It is an involvement readily left, an opting in or out being practical, private but public in consequence.

The Jew has suffered, that is, the follower of those who perpetrated this final act of rebellion in heartlessness, ebullition of spiritual pollution and career cum national security. Rarely has ANYTHING so disastrously conceived, so grossly miscarried.

Read however Jeremiah as to the arrogation of divine rights by man:

"Thus says the LORD: 'Against all My evil neighbours who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit - behold, I will pluck them out of their land and pluck out the house of Judah from among them. Then it shall be, after I have plucked them out, that I will return and have compassion on them and bring them back, everyone to his heritage and everyone to his land. And it will be that if they learn carefully the ways of My people to swear by My name, 'As the LORD lives,' as they taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be established in the midst of My people. But if they do not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation,' "says the LORD."

God does not deal in this area, lightly with deviousness. If Allah is to be the idol, the newly invented god (Deuteronomy 32:17ff.), nearly one millenium after the revelation to Moses, so be it. God has His own ways, has disciplined his horrendously straying nation, removed them as in Leviticus 26 from their land, returned them as in Deuteronomy 32 and Ezekiel 36-37, and will act for them at the appropriate time as in Joel 3, Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32, Ezekiel 38-39, Zechariah 12,14, Habakkuk 3, Romans 11, as we have seen on earlier occasions (see scriptural index, and Index Israel, also News list on Israel). There is no small payment for trying to present an idol to Israel, just as there has been an immense desolatory experience by Israel, for following those of its own making as you see in so many places (as in II Kings , Jeremiah 7:30, 8:5, 9:5-6,14). One of the most prominent divine indictments of this people, Israel was this:

• "Through deceit they refuse to know Me!" (Jer. 9:6).

Those who follow this example however, need not imagine that God does not cast His eye on their formulations of folly (Romans 11:20). Sin is sin in any language, in any people, before the one God, and it has but one definition, that of the Maker, who has identified Himself in infallible ways as demonstrated on this site (cf. SMR).

What then of the German speaker whose comments were to be heard on News Radio, the speaker who stated that for his part, if people attacked and assaulted his country, he would feel free to go right after them in theirs. Was he then an exception to the deplorable and gravely grotesque norm of communications bias that reeks of a strange and ungodly passion, similar to that in the earlier stages of the Hitler defilement ? Not at all.

No ? He was not, then, asking for an understanding of the Jew ? He was not  - is it possible with his language ? - for he did not MEAN that because of the marauding Palestinian terrorists and their multitudes of sympathisers,  who despise and revile Israel and are now murdering in depth, making hundreds of deaths and overall, perhaps thousands of casualties, in a slow imitation of the speedy variety seen in the September 11 event in New York: that therefore the Jews of course should go to the heart of the problem, and invade the Palestinian area.

Possible! He meant the opposite. People vary, and individuals do not always follow the national train of thought. It was his view that since Israel was now dealing with the Palestinian menace (his way of putting it was that they were 'invading' that part of their country, in some way or other), therefore the Palestinians were right - apparently - in killing sundry Jewish kids and mothers and so on, in an indiscriminate way. Indiscriminate ? In one sense, yes, but in another, discriminatory. They were trying to kill the most, make the most havoc in the most atrocious way conceivable, of the ladies, the young, the growing lives.
 

Is it becoming impossible to think then ?
 
 

When Israel goes to get terrorists, precisely as Bush does, then, this is some kind of an excuse for more terror ? Well then, are we to have in New York or elsewhere in the USA, in some other city, some more terror ? And would that too be 'justified' ? Is dealing with the sources of terror to become due ground for the extension of terror ? Is seeking to overcome the ultimate in physical degradation, the exposure of the young and mothers to violence of a mayhem character, domestic, deliberate and deadly within their cities, is this GROUND for more terror ? It may indeed be cause for it, for if the terrorists want to grab something, and are thwarted and even repulsed, when attacked in their lairs, they may resent that, and want to overcome what is threatened their mayhem tendencies.

This, it is understandable. But it has nothing to do with justice. If you want to stop a murderer from murdering you because you think it better to continue living, and he resents your efforts to thwart his drastic violence, then indeed he may fight the harder. Is this then a just cause of your rolling over and allowing the ensuing death to occur in way altogether to his satisfaction ? Is violence to take life to be indulged because the violating mode and mood does not like being stopped ?

This may have been the case at Munich, when poor Neville Chamberlain was apparently so drastically deceived by the upcoming dictator, Adolf Hitler, imagining that this bit of paper, as he regarded the agreement, would secure 'peace in our time'. It did not. It allowed the inflamed passions of the dictator to achieve far more than otherwise might have been the case, going from strength to strength, and so becoming the harder to subdue.

Thus now that Sharon (Radio News April 9, 2002) is reported as declaring,

• despite Bush's so gravely inconsistent requirements levied with such Primary School teacher severity on Israel, to which we will return shortly,
• that he has his own Prime Ministerial plans,
• is it so surprising ?

He intends, this Israeli Prime Minister, to secure safety for his citizens. He wishes to remove the terrorist infrastructure, we find reported, from the Palestinian territories. Yes he will withdraw from one town, but not from others. Why ?

Is it possible that Israel, recipient of US aid and support financially  - for there are exceedingly numerous Jews in the USA which thus has some blood ties, as also no doubt,  other ties in terms of its democratic form of government (which tends to be kinder than sultans absorbing prodigious wealth and running things as seems good to them), will defy ? Will it then actually deny, and in terms of current rhetoric, defy the USA President in something ? Will it not always wag the tail when the master pats ? Is it indeed so to be conceived ? Not at all. It is a sovereign nation. But is it possible it will take preventive action to protect its citizens instead of dissolving into the international arms, for so long so treacherous to it ?

Possible ? It is certain. PM Sharon is doing some such thing on this very day. Why ? Is it not because he shares one thing with President Bush, the desire to protect his citizens, the desire to prevent summary execution without the law, of thousands of his citizens, that or maiming. It is his desire that people who have bodies to turn into plastic coated bombs, should not rule the world, or his corner of it, his country, the negotiations, as if force were truth, and bombs that obliterate would also obliterate justice.

If there is justice to be found, will the mere tearing apart of little ones be the way to find it ? Will blackmail to break the heart of mothers be the means to secure land from the country so grossly insulted by the 'international community' - that ludicrous pretension of a divided world - which defaulted on its 1919 UNDERTAKING to give PALESTINE, not part of it, to Israel ?

Again, Sharon is in agreement with Bush's own actions against what by terrorism seeks to intimidate his own country into conformity to plan. Therefore Sharon appears determined that such a thing will NOT be so. Bush is so determined to break the evil forces of terrorism, and so misled in his own alliance with antichristian forces expressly in so doing, just like Jehoshaphat in his own alliance with the ungodly king Ahab, duly and justly rebuked by the prophet Hanani (II Chronicles 19:19), that one would almost think he and Sharon partners in the thing. Almost ? We shall revert to that.

However, the parallel is worthy pursuing.
 

• In each case, there is an ulterior motive to invasive violence at the domestic level, for the USA and for Israel, for the one as for the other.

 
• In each case, there is a sensational aspect to this alien intrusion of violence into the nation.

 
• In each case, there is an endeavour to change the heart and will of the nation by these means.

 
• In each case, there is desire to gain influence for the Islamic cause by these means.

 
• In each case, there is a desire to prevent this on the part of the nation so afflicted. Bush has sought to gain some of the Islamic people in the process, as allies, but so be it, this does not alter the desire, merely the method.

 
• In each case, again, there is a resolute determination: IT WILL BE DONE. There is a face to prevent outfacing. WE WILL NOT BOW.

Let us however return to that 'almost'! In the USA case, unfortunately, there appears to be growing a little clearer, a substantial difference which is little to its credit. It begins to look as if they WILL bow, not as far as they themselves are concerned internally (not the major thrust of the attack, it seems, in terms of bin Laden's remarks), but they indeed may do so on Israel.

The bow will perhaps only apply to the partial abandonment of Israel, UN cries against which are only now being allowed to get through the barrier  the US could offer to them by veto. Thus President Bush is reported in The Advertiser, April 6, p. 51, as having "called for an end to construction of homes for Israeli Jews on the West Bank, withdrawal from territories captured from the Arabs in the 1967 Middle East war, and for Israel to 'show respect for and concern about the dignity of the Palestinian people who are and will be their neighbours.' "
 

• Right then: while you are being strangled, respect the arms of him who is tightening his grip, and do not regard him as foe so much as potential recipient. Give him your wallet and hand back things he wanted long ago, from your bank account, and smile. If he is demented in his desire, so be it.

What then ? It is NOT that human concern and consideration to the murderous bases should cease, qua their containing citizens who may not harbour the atrocious outrage in their hearts, against Israel and its peace and the lives of those its people, in its territories. Of course this should be shown, but when so many CROWDS chant and rant publicly when Israeli citizens are executed by Palestinian raiders, in open public places, it is clear that there is a far wider basis for the terrorist mafia-like murderousness, than merely some tiny group of zealots.

In short, one must always show concern and care, but when murder is the method, there is a need to repel the murderer, especially as his hands grip the tender throat of your infants. The image is not overdrawn: for whether the kids are killed by bomb bits or hands, the result is the same: agony, dismemberment, death or a combination of these.

Bush however is not done, according to this report. "It is crucial," he is quoted as saying, "to distinguish between the terrorists and ordinary Palestinians." In what way ? Is murder so different when it is done this way or that ? Is not terrorism the intentional abuse of force in order to extract gain, on a public scale, so that armed forces need not win what mere multiple murders of unpredictable character may achieve ? Is this then not terrorism ?

Demonstrations in France FOR the Israeli cause, would not seem to hold such a conception!
 
 

This thus merely smudges the facts. What are 'ordinary Palestinians' ? How much is seen in demonstration AGAINST the terrorism ? If there are many who are Christians, well, it may well be so; and these would not be terrorists. If there are many in a silent moral restraint, who deplore the whole outrageous device, well, this may be so, though they are hard to hear. However 'ordinary Palestinians', if by this is meant those not in terrorist organisations, would appear to be in no small measure in candid delight at the terrorists' inflictions on Israeli citizens, in dancings, flag burnings and the like.

Thus the apposite distinction would be this: To distinguish between those who are terrorists and who advocate or support them emotionally and civically, and those who are not, and who do not support but are appalled by their evil antics. This however is no easy matter to implement, and the failure to react soon enough against Hitler was precisely what caused GERMANY as one whole, to be assailed in World War II; for if they could have spoken earlier, their voices were extinguished later.

The enemy thus is consolidated.

Nevertheless, it must be conceded that this is no advocacy of Israel, but of truth. If Israel in the course of its national defence of its young, in particular, from lingering lives of agony, a just cause, is to overcome the cause, two things are clear. It should be, as it is, thorough and systematic in the process, to give it opportunity of success. You do not wait with a cup of tea to reinforce a tiring murderer whose hands gradually close on your wife's throat. It is better to deter him, for his sake as well as for your wife's, for murder is no passport to heaven, nor is its hardening any way to that desire for peace which looks for salvation from the One who Himself was crucified. It was He who mourned for them (Luke 19:42ff.), who so foolishly had rejected His place as Lord and Saviour, and so in turn became victims of the Romans.

Thus restraint and care must be used; ALL Palestinians of course are not of the murdering variety, exemplified and executed by the terrorists: but many more than join gangs show murderous rapture at Israeli affliction.

The Palestinian Authority in allowing this to happen, is NOT as is frequently noted by Bush or Powell, doing what it might to stop it, and has, whether through desire and design, or weakness, or more likely both, become a harbour for enemy vessels, ludicrously inhuman monstrosities of hatred. With the multitude of Islamic nations (Islam - submit) seeking Israel's submission, or as often declared, demission, demise, giving freely support and funds, there is a gang of terror, international, wealthy and oratorically vocal. Exhibited not only in Teheran 1991, but often, and in particular by the capture some months ago, of the notorious war weapons vessel, laden with sophisticated arms, an event so liberally reported,  there is a case too seldom heard, a realism too little realised. This is so diametrically opposed to the fiction presented by many who even in Australia seem blind to the reality in the background, that it is almost adequate as a source for some grisly cartoon.

It is, to be sure, good that Bush has made it clear that Arafat is not doing enough to stop the terrorism. Again, it is fine that he has said that that Palestinian leader has brought it (that is, his isolation and military surround of Israeli troops) upon himself. Bush is by no means at the extreme fringe of Israeli obfuscationists. However, the desire to make HIS terrorists utterly diverse from ISRAEL's variety is simply misled. MANY Arabs are not terrorists. How many is quite unsure, and on the other hand, that many are this who are publicly able to make massed demonstrations, this is clear.

Doubtless, not all Iranians or Iraqis would like to endorse the incendiary September 11 thing, of which the ploy and the play was to tone down US Israeli policy, not least. Does this mean that Bush has no concern about Iraq ? Some in Iraq may diverge from government policy (or actuality, they are not always so very different), and yet does Bush think this is enough ground for his abandoning all plans to remove FUTURE POTENTIAL from Iraq, for more September 11 events, ones feared,  bigger and worse ? The things is deplorable, even to mention, for inconsistency.

Obviously the war on terror is a war on METHOD! If justice is to be done, terror must stop without reward, for reward is its objective, and to give it what it wants merely inflames the fantasy that it is a useful method, so endangering the world all the more, and more and more of it. Has not such a point be made on behalf of the US itself, before now!

It is a cowardly thing, so to capitulate to such methods, and if the USA does not cease this feeding of the fuel with capitulation to the policy-changing September 11 efforts of Arabs and Moslem nations (in part, and in some parts, as explicit policy), seeking that USA STOP helping Jews' efforts against their jihadic mentality, there will be likely to arrive a significant fall-out. Thus, our concern at the gradual erosion of US sensitivity to the atrocities so freely wrought on Israel, in August last year, was great. It reached the point of hoping that the USA might not inherit wrath for it.

If it did not concern itself too much with what was happening to a tiny, Hitler devastated nation, in outrage upon ghoulish outrage, and weakened its help, then perhaps USA would itself be led to find the cost that it was so minimising in such policies ? It did, one month later.

Is it now to go further and insist on such obvious torments of concept, as if terrorism is not terrorism when somebody is troubled by something, and then ask the Jews to stop removing precisely what he is removing for his own nation, the sources of the assault ? Are terrorists normally not troubled by something ?
 

• Is the USA to go further yet in insensitivity and apparent unconcern, requiring the Jews to hand back half of their capital city of old, to the Arabs, for this is involved in returning what they took in 1967, when the noose of Arab and Islamic blockade and violence was tightening, and the very continuation of Israel was at stake! This, incredible as it may seem, is the reported proposal of George Bush as President of the United States of America.

Such language. Such lashings!

How do the mighty fall! How foolish it is to rewrite the Bible, and to remove Israel from part of its capital (see Zechariah 12, 14). There is always a price for ignoring the word of God: repentance and mercy are its outage. To proceed amiss is foolish, and unwise, and ... sad, it is always sad (Proverbs 1 shows this side up poignantly, as does for that matter, Ecclesiastes 12).

For more on this, see Red Alert ... Ch. 10, Part II, and SMR pp. 510ff.. See also on Zechariah overview, The Impregnable Tower Chs.  7 and  8.

The simple solution is always Christ, for where the heart is following idols of mind, spirit or body, there is no peace, nor could there be (cf. Ezekiel 21:27, Isaiah 9:7, Acts 4:11-12). Indeed, idols in the heart are deadly (cf. Ezekiel 14:3^*1); and mischief is the sure result of being missing in the roll call, when prayer to the Lord is required, fear and reverence at His word, and submission to reality, in the love of Christ: not to fists or terrorists in the love of land or any other commodity.

God appoints, has appointed, and is going to make it clear, precisely as He promised in His endless wisdom, that it was HE who removed Israel from its land for its sins, it is HE who will put them back and overcome the terrestrial pomp of man in the process (Ezekiel 39:25-29). It is this which is a prelude to the Messiah, as likewise in Zechariah 14 (see SMR Appendix A, with The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6, Part II).

Once you find Him, the rest is relatively easy, for His yoke is easy.
 
 

What could of course be done in Palestine, if the hearts were not astray, would be to let Israel have what God gave it, let those who want to stay as citizens, and be at peace, do so, insist as did the Balfour Declaration, with which internationally approved Declaration, this would accord, that Israel show some sensitivity  in their attitude, some sort of normal democratic readiness not to subject, Communist style, all to some precepts of a particular religion, or simply refuse physically non-violent religion, while of course being free to insist on some ethical absolutes. As Israel itself is partly secular, this is by no means an amazing thing to suggest. It would keep faith, internationally, with Israel, in terms of the Declaration, and be sensible to other sensibilities.

If however some of the Palestinians in its midst wanted to make war on Israel, then of course, they should not be within its bounds. This is normal for any nation. Such Palestinians as wanted this, should therefore go, for otherwise the Balfour Declaration would be a mere mockery. Terrorists in any nation are criminal, that is, those who strike the bodies of those whom they target. Difference of opinion should be allowed, and reason given full scope, lest truth be damaged as a mere coin for operation.

This will not however happen, since the passions of the flesh, of the idolatrous religions, that do not submit to Christ, do not allow it. This world and its ruler are not of this sort of mind. Intemperance is their very nature. The result in the end, as in Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7:15ff., Joel 3, Habakkuk 3, Isaiah 66 as variously shown in our studies on this site in these areas, is a purge for intemperance. Justice is very sharp when mercy is imperiously, imperviously and impenitently rejected.

In the end, the land was a symbol of God's control, a site for His dissertations to man, His pronouncements, an exhibit (from the first, as in Leviticus 26) of His progressive intentions as man with revelation, absconded from His care, and of His mercy when He re-instated a people called, as He has in part done (phase I of Ezekiel 37's vision), and will do in the second step when He is ready (as in Ezekiel 37:4-14, and Zechariah 12:10).

Terrorism over the hearts of men may work this and that; the real fear is GOD Himself, who does what He declares, and will bring all to book, and by all present appearances, before very long. His is a fearful love and a lovely fear, it is clean. Making peace with Him is making haste also to His word, for it is His own. There are no conditions but Christ, but in Him there is wisdom, and what does it say ? this: "... on this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word" - Isaiah 66:2. Man ? His will be NO glory on that day of judgment, and his pompous pretensions and majesty will be brought low, for in judgment there is justice, and in truth is wisdom (Isaiah 2:12-22).

It is time to repent and return to the Lord, not to live by terrorist pretensions, or national bombast, or for that matter, personal preference of futile fabrications. One word in the Old Testament for idol is vanity!  It is virtue or vanity, truth or tedium, idol or actuality, the God who speaks and does, or the imaginations of the heart of man (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 29, 30 and Biblical Blessings Appendix IV, Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix IV).

It is time for one, for all (Luke 13:1-3, II Corinthians 5:17-21). God has sent ONE MESSIAH, and has no other (Ephesians 1:10) in store (Acts 4:11-12, Colossians 1:19ff.). Peace is for its Prince (Isaiah 9:7). It is simply not available without Him.

His name is well-known: JESUS CHRIST.
 
 

*1
The words of the prophet Ezekiel, from the Lord, here, are not suave, but they sting, as iodine does. The intention is good, but the correction is sharp. Let us hear these words:
 

"Therefore, speak to them, and tell them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Every man of the house of Israel that sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet, I , the LORD will answer him who comes according to the multitude of his idols, that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from them through their idols."

Does He do it to one and not another ? On the contrary, in Romans 11: 20-23! What He at length gave to Israel (after hundreds of years) in severe discipline, will He not accord to the Gentile world in its recidivism and apostasy, after thousands ? His word makes it most clear that He will, and that He  is in fact doing this now. See Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8. The world is reeling and will, apart from a small time to come (I Thessalonians 5) when delusive hopes mounts, for peace, become a ruin when it is all over, indeed be replaced. First, however, there is Christ and His setting of things to right on this earth, for God Himself is determined, that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14 cf. Isaiah 65, Psalm 67, 73).

As to the wandering and the need of man, see Little Things Ch. 5. Concerning the rest for the soul, see That Magnificent Rock Chs.  2 and  3, and with this, SMR pp. 582ff., 611ff..