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If the deputation from the UN goes there, what is the point ? What does it matter whether it has this or that ? Surely there is no space for variation in assessing the killing of innocent civilians!

Such appeared to be the tenor of the remarks of one styled an expert of some kind, concerning the Middle East situation, following Israel's national defence of its women and children, its youth and territories, its peace and its order, against what can only be called mass murderers. Ramallah ? The case is closed, needs no eyes, stands revealed before the cultural wave of knowledgeability, that sweeps the earth, at least in so many of the communications media, like a dust storm.

It is rather remarkable that such "judges" can act without making an assessment based on facts: even the UN has not had that chance yet. Such critics do not need to know anything, it seems, except what they think. In fact, Israel may have done this and that: this is a matter of fact. It might have used unnecessary force, might not have been sufficiently careful in seeking to hunt down murderers (just as the US doubtless could have shown more care in some of its raids on the headquarters of those who appeared the base of its own mass murder situation, in Afghanistan). It may be that some actions of some soldiers could have been more restrained, or some of the battles conducted with more civility - like some of those in World War I or World War II, for example ?

It may be so. This needs to be established^*1  in the case in point, in Israel.

However, in the most general terms, when you are attacking a country or territory because not once, not twice, but scores of times it blows your people up in domestic situations, gloats over it, exults about it, glorifies its mass murders, does dances of hatred to congratulate the murderers, we are beginning to make Lady Macbeth look more restrained by contrast! She killed only one, whereas these kill in the scores, disable in the hundreds, domestically. Israel is the target of such endless seeming invasions of hatred, designed to terminate her refuge from the ravages of the terrible.

INNOCENT CIVILIANS are killed, we gather, in the efforts of Israel to remove the power
structure of the bombastic bombers who blight her people, and seemingly expect to do so with impunity, or glory, yes perhaps even with some admiration or support from the great powers that look on. Perhaps Berlin did not have 'innocent civilians' killed ? or London ? Perhaps the speaker did not live through World War II ?

Coventry was one of the innocent civilian places bombed. What horror our 'judge' on Radio News, April 24, must have felt when reading that Germany so treated the British populace; and indeed, when reading of the U boat attacks on innocent merchant shipping, only trying to get food to innocent civilians so that they might not starve - well perhaps soldiers too, but innocent civilians - that is the phrase ? - and finding that these also were involved to the tune of tens of millions in concerted enterprise, in the U boat efforts.

Fancy doing that. Is it that the War Crimes Tribunal  did not come upon such endeavours,  has failed to check out this case ? Is Nuremberg perhaps interested ? By such standards, all the world stands condemned, or very nearly all, at the national level.

The points are basically two, at this simple level. ONE: Did the Jews act unnecessarily, indeed with gross disregard for people only accidentally involved, people who deplored the murderous crusade being made by PLO parties against Israel, and were in no sense participants in heart or substance, in display or device, when it sought out the assassins and their bases ?

If so, this needs to be proved with the utmost care.

On the other hand, did they with all but magnificent restraint bear from the PLO and Hamas, and all the blood-letting assailants of peace, for years, until the lives of the weak, the distressed, the young, all were so threatened that it appeared like the beginning of a new holocaust, wrought from a little and a safe distance, by such parties as Iran (arms shipment ?), Iraq (statedly still at war), and the rest of the Islamic alliance!

Is this a crime, that Israel was so patient ?

Is a sovereign territory to ignore with a bland and supposedly becoming lethargy and apathy, the lives of its people, attacked by marauding wolves, sharp of claw and glaring of eye, in packs and in singles, as if they were goons, as if the nation were a ward of a Hospital Ship being bombed by an enemy air force that had forgotten all restraint! Name a few other nations who sp do, perhaps ?

Is it customary ? Is it normal ? Is it then the ordinary thing ? The ordinary is not thereby good, of course, but if you are going to single out one ordinary thing as extraordinary from among the mass of things done, then you need no merely ordinary reason to do so.

In fact, of course, far less than this could lead to war in days past, with a swift retribution, or annihilation of the grossly murderous disregard of all ethical standards by the assailants. Repetitive assailants ?
Are you joking ? one might ask. Not at all, it was a case of repetitive assailants. Involving hundreds wounded ? But of course. Often ? What else ? With gloating ? Certainly. And the nation bears it ?

Now, from an expert on Radio News, it seems we should learn that OF COURSE this response to such assault on Israel, is a case of the slaughter of innocent civilians, a horror case of anti-humanism, a gross violation of the humane, a woeful wastage of life, and this, it is so clear that no investigation is needed. What, then, the question seemed to be asked by the speaker, did it really MATTER, who was to go and check up for the UN ? The case required nothing: it was clear in advance.

It is indeed clear in advance in one of its facets. The factual matter of the degree of force used (like Flying Fortresses against Germany in World War II), and whether somewhat less could have been adequate, this is not addressed. No need, apparently.

It is CLEAR, we learn, that it is the slaughter of innocent civilians. It is not a question of war for some unknown reason; it is not a question of clearing out mass murderers who practise with relish their loudly proclaimed arts, for a reason, if reason has any place at all, equally unknown, unless it be desire to occupy more of Israel, in better circumstances than now, and that not as participants but rulers.

The terrorism vanishes in word; but it does not go in practice, as the mangled bodies writhe, as the tortured children lose their liberties in the gross crippling so gloriously inflicted by such most religious people.

These facts of life, unable to be strangled in even journalistic suppression, are too public to suffer pretence. If someone murders your sister, then dances on the grave, puts newspaper announcements about the world, and so on, it is not really too much use declaring that it was all a mistake, or that he hated her anyway, or that she once jilted him.

This is not to the point. What she did, in the course of her ways, or he did, does not really alter this, that unless there was war declared, murder is murder. Even in war, there is the precedent question: Was it necessary, what is its point ? If it merely on civilians in order to vent anger, fulfil spleen, or to shout abuse in physiological terms, if it seeks areas where children may abound, or the young congregate, it is vile, vicious, worse than war, a crime against humanity at the most intimate of levels.
 

In World War II, it was a war against Hitler, at first, because he wished to oppress, suppress, re-shape the nature of Europe and in the end, if necessary, the world, to slaughter Jews as a matter of rejoicing, and to bring in a barbaric philosophy which, though its ostensible aim could be dressed up, made of one race a master, and of others, the servants.

This did not seem good. Britain, for one, fought him. Brave people tried to prevent this tyranny against the Jews, against races, against nations, to bring about SUBMISSION. It was really rather like the current jihad concept of many of the Moslem people. You say, jihad, and then you do what you wish, killing the innocent, slaughtering the young, exulting in your multiple murders, in your slaughter of peace, in your mini-invasions, in your  maxi-provocations. Then you ask the UN to say how really BAD the Jews are, for making ANY steps to prevent this, and point out that really, you would like more of their territory, despite the fact that dozens of Islamic nations surround Israel, and you seek the UN to come in and hand it over for you.

We did not have such a United Nations when World War II first broke out, to suggest to the Jews in Hitler's Reich, that it should help Hitler annihilate them.

Now the language is different. The UN is not actually SAYING this; but its deeds, in denying the Balfour Declaration and the Allied confirmation of Palestine for the Jews, and forwarding the removal of Jerusalem from the Jews, after World War II, are rather like it. Its withdrawing of its troops which separated Nasser of Egypt from Israel, when that gentleman showed a desire - a need ? - to invade Israel with the express purpose of giving them intimate admission into the sea (or ocean if you are a purist of some kind), this too rather suggested a certain unreliability in seeking to secure for Israel the land it had been granted internationally, earlier.

It offered land in current Israel, in former Palestine, freely to the Arab cause, in the 1947 and later episodes; but in this, it was turned down! By whom ? By the Jews ? No, it was by the Palestians order! Is it possible that they refused all this ? Certainly, for what has happened MUST be possible, how otherwise could it happen ?

Now that Israel has taken Palestine, the UN would like it to be removed from much, to find the 1967 borders restored, which is another way of saying, this: it would prefer to see the violation of the 1919 agreement accomplished once more, the borders of the Arabs, on all sides, extended and expanded for some obscure reason, once more into the small terrain for the Jews, and would like to supervise, we learn, as well, the restoration of the body, the PLO, which has been a territorial base for the terrorist blasting, for the mass murdering PROGRAM.

Indeed, this is a program as surely as was Hitler's. It is continual; it is murderous; it knows no bounds of ethics; it stalks, it preys, it knows no pity.

You may say, But what pity has Israel shown to the Arab ? Pity. Does London in pity for Africa give it London, the British equivalent of Jerusalem ?

It is not pity but denial of nationhood, as well as of the international promises on which action was based for many years, allowing many to act, on those terms. It is perfidy in dress-up clothes, it is robbery with sanctions; it is authority without a basis, but force, a ground, but desire. It is not the mere intention which needs examination in such a case, but the result, the plan, the program in the light of its realities.

Did the US perhaps not really want to round up the Al Qaeda roguery, and try them ? Is one then so very misled ? Has all this really not happened at all ? Has there been some massive, and mischievous international mishandling of the news ? Has one, all this time, been kept in ignorance, and has the USA not at all been concerned at the loss of a few thousand citizens and a few billion dollars, not fazed by the ample threat of a STRUCTURE AND AN ORGANISATION DEDICATED TO CONTINUE SUCH MURDERS!

But no! there is no error. The USA has done just what Israel has done, in a far smaller scale. It has achieved much blasting in an entire nation. Not all of it ? Ah, then the photos, if they are confirmed to be accurate, supplied by Israel showing only a relatively small part of Ramallah destroyed, these are certainly false ? It is perhaps not necessary to CHECK this ! Judgment needs no facts ? It might indeed seem so, in the current fiasco in the communications media, to so vast an extent!
 

What is its cause ? Is it cynicism ? Give the people something to bay about, and your papers will sell ? Such cynicism is not necessarily a ground for the case at all, and is always presumptuous as a mere assumption. Facts are needed, and some of these are known to God only.

What then ?

Is it oil ? Keep the Arab nations happy, or petrol prices will rise through closing down production ? Even if this were a sound proposition economically (for they have needs who produce, as well as they who consume), is it ... ethical ? Keep the Middle East quiet, and there are so many religiously vehement Arabs that you will never get useful economic peace, unless you give them large slabs of territory ? What does it matter if they then bay and howl for more, more, more ? After all, the STATED intention of many is to destroy Israel, just as it is, with some of these, to destroy the US as well! Just keep the machinery going, somehow.

This may be the desire of some, short-sighted, irrational and prodigal, as if realities flew because of desire, or results did not, in human relations, follow causes, of a different texture to the mere economic, being moral, spiritual and involving such trifles ? as justice and judgment.

Recall that bin Laden wanted all the ancient Islamic conquests RESTORED, as attested on this site earlier (Lord of Life Ch. 3, and Ch. 8, *1) ?  Putin may have had some point when he emphasised that what was occurring in some parts of the former USSR might come to assail the West before long! This does nothing to justify cruelty, or forcing peoples to join a Union that has so crushed them in the past, as in the case of the USSR; but it can give a point about Islamic ambition. The thrust of lust can dominate people's thought at time, and subservience can be the response, if not in word, then in spirit. Such things can happen, but even if this be so, in some measure, is it all ?

Is it hatred of the Jewish people ? Is it a form of veiled anti-Semitism ? specific to the Jew, anti-Israel obsession ? Is it an underlying desire for the power of God - predicted, and  as former Israeli P.M. Netanyahu rightly proclaimed in an address, also attested in the return of Israel to its land - the word of God to be blighted ? Is it indeed a fear of what the LORD might do ? Is there at least in some, a latent terror of the LORD, that if He wants to put Israel back after so long a time, and then does so, after such famous prophecy about this very thing, that perhaps this will move on swiftly (as it will of course), to the nemesis of judgment, not to be avoided, which is soon to confront the entire world ?

Whatever it is, it is a fascinating spiritual and social phenomenon, this blindness to just comparison, to just concern, to justice itself, but above all, to the word of God.

Israel is blind in no mean part, too, in this, that the Messiah has not as yet been welcomed by that nation. What did Christ say to His disciples ? This:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Matthew 23:37-39).

Jerusalem has still to do this. It is predicted to occur, has not yet occurred, and will occur: all the scenario predicted to precede it as in Czech. 12, HAS occurred; and it has been the most amazing insertion of change into world history that you could ever wish. The future looms in its intensity, its immensity, because the coming resolution has not yet been taken. Israel continues on its own, in the grace of God restored to its land (phase 1 of Ezekiel 37's prediction, with the emphasis on grace as in Ezekiel 36:22), is surrounded by baying wolves, as prophetically provided, has won its way to continue, as alike predicted, amazingly, as also foretold, and the next Scene in the play awaits.

It is not the removal of Israel; it is the removal for many in it, of the blindness of which Isaiah spoke in 42:18ff., Romans 11:25ff..  Hence the tension, the assaults allowed in such depth while the victories likewise have come in such number for Israel. It is a little thing ? Not at all: it is as deep as the heart, as broad as the truth, as high as mercy. It is a great thing: repentance and faith in the Messiah who came as and when predicted, and has done what He had to do, and leaves to mankind the heritage of history by prophecy, and of grace by power, for all who receive Him.

While it waits, waits (cf. Isaiah 32:17^*2), this returning to the Lord in Israel, the perils mount like vast ocean surgings; but the time is coming. The United Nations, the kings of the earth, will vex themselves in vain with their 'judgments'. They have been warned (Psalm 2:9-10). The Judge is going to act, Himself as we have often seen (cf. SMR Appendix A, The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 10, More Marvels. .. Ch. 3). Action is indicated, as in Isaiah 51, 59, 63, 66, Joel 3, Habakkuk 3, Micah 7, Ezekiel 38-39, Romans 11. It will be consummated yet further as in Revelation 16, 19, II Thessalonians. All in its time, as it has always proceeded according to the book, will do so.

Even the intense desire for peace when there is no peace, because the hearts concerned are not at peace, being filled with unbelief, idolatry and war from false gods, seeking to expunge the true One, this is as prophetically indicated in I Thessalonians 5. Peace, peace! they are going to cry, like poor Neville Chamberlain of Britain, just before the onset of World War II, which was not so very peaceful. This, however, it is the antechamber to what divorce from God entails. That ? It is not and could not be peace, but pretence, misused power and vainglorious pretensions. That too is coming; but it will go.

So God is going to act, in decisive steps.

When He does so, it will be seen clearly the part that facts have to play, for judgment will be according to truth, and when without mercy, that is severe indeed.

Mercy ? For any and all mankind, it may be found where it is scheduled, in the crucified Christ (I Corinthians 1:18-31, Galatians 3:1-13). For the Jew ? yes, and also for the Gentile. It is unnecessary to join in the yelping of the hounds. It is better to acknowledge the truth, with peace. It is not obtainable, anywhere else, this peace. It is a bosom companion of truth, of which Jesus Christ declared: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).
 
 

*1  BLOOD LUST,  RELIGIOUS DERRING-DO, DELUSION ARE 'IN'

As to any 'investigation' or finding of facts, it should scarcely be executed in isolation from that other outstanding assault on mass murderers, made in Afghanistan, as if they were so diverse, because the Arab cause against the US (its defence of Israel, in measure, was cited as a major stimulus to it, by bin Laden) is not the same as that against Israel.

The main ground of assault on Israel seems to be this, that it should not exist, should be aided in ceasing to exist. Thus it has long been a major point whether the Arabs will ‘grant’ it right to exist. They sometimes mention this as if it were some great bounty, that yes, there may be granted to it the right to exist, but this and that need to be done in compensation for such a bounty.

On the other hand, when one seeks to diversify, one finds that the main bin Laden offence against the US, and indeed not it alone, is that Arab lands should be regained as once in the height of the invasions of Islam - that is, invasions BY it - and that the US in retarding this dream, especially by helping Israel, is a palpable enemy! Hence it has symbols to be destroyed, is a people who should be murdered, and so forth.

The difference in the approaches to the two countries seems to have need of some development. Superficially at least, they are almost identical. It is just that the US is not likely to be caused to cease to exist as readily as Israel might be: that is the impression one gains. Hence it is treated somewhat differently, one might say, in an educational manner, at the outset, rather than in mere devastation alone.

Nevertheless, the latest development from the mouth of the highly placed  Al Qaeda leader recently captured, Abu Zubaydah,  is that dirty bombs were a project of that body (The Advertiser, April 24, p. 41). This simply meant that radioactive waste would be dispersed by being exploded through conventional explosives, merely contaminating the earth. It does not seem particularly bright, since contaminated earth is not the best to inhabit, whoever is there. Yet long term benefaction for anyone, does not appear to be high on the list of priorities of Al Qaeda. Irrationalities are composed with a sacred indifference, it appears, to all but that inner state which dictates in the name of an idol, the devastations which the Bible has predicted (Revelation 6), for these days. (Cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4.)

Certainly, it is ironical that in the name of what is an idol, they should fulfil scriptural prescriptions by their incessant, vast, ghoulish, lustful bloodshed; but then, what would you expect, when an idol takes God on, as an adversary. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible and the redemption of the life by Christ’s sacrifice are all despised by this false prophet; and even though he magnificently fulfils or takes his place in the tenor of Christ’s prophecy of Matthew 24:24, neither he nor his destructive advocates, who are many quite apart from those who do not follow those ways among them: the guilt remains, the tilt is not altered, the war on God is not diminished.

The USA is merely one nation which in times past has shown a tremendous affinity for the Gospel, not pervasively, but tendentially. Currently, this is vastly reduced, and in Government, there has been a relative indifference, while means far from godly means have often been used, and more than one President has been disgraced morally; while currently, as noted earlier, a degree of collaboration, even religiously, with Islam has reduced its credibility as in any sense a Christian country, and that dramatically (cf. Lord of Life Ch. 4).

It is not, then,  some nation which is the actual adversary of the bin Laden structure, or some group of nations, though they tend to see it that way. It is God who is their adversary, not because of their attacks, their murderous assaults alone, not because of any national considerations, but because He is definably dismissed by them acridly, assiduously,  in terms of an idol. They do not realise the extremity and the extravagance of their arrogance in ambition, perhaps; but this not does not alter it.

This having been said, however, we are left with the actual case before us, rather than the Arabian intentions. What did Israel do ? It wants more military people on any Committee or Panel to investigate, or rather to fact-find as the case now is put ? It wants anti-terrorist personnel to have more place in an effort by the UN to investigate action in response to anti-terrorist phenomenon ? Very well.

If terrorism is the cause, this would seem an apt requirement for considering its results. (Cf. The Impregnable Tower Chs.  1, and   4, with Cascade of Truth, Torrent of Mercy Ch.   4.) Even more to the point would be the realisation that in dealing with terrorism, you do not have some sort of automatic exclusion , as soon as Israel is concerned. It is not merely a matter of prejudice, but of definition.
 
 

*2 There is an end of violence and vileness in the end, but in the meantime note the beauty of this promise, this premiss and this power (Isaiah 32:15-17):
 

• "Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,

And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
And the fruitful field is counted as a forest.

"Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
And righteousness remain in the fruitful field.
The work of righteousness will be peace,
And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever."

There is none who is in Christ who does not have of this Spirit (Romans 8:8-14). Those covered by His atonement, have Him IN them, and there is this that the great ‘mystery’ as Paul declares it, is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY (Colossians 1:27). This, it has profound effects.