October 10, 2023
Unless you have been under a rock, Israel and Hamas are at each other’s throats in the Gaza Strip. God knows why Hamas attacked Israel at this time, they know they can’t win and must have an idea that the US and Europe would come to the defence of Israel and allow Israel to get away with all manner of human rights abuses against the Palestinians. But here we have it. Bombs and rockets everywhere and hundreds of people are already dead.
The war between Israel and the Palestinians goes back to where the Israeli’s were called Israelites and the Palestinians called Philistines. Truly a centuries old biblical conflict that is beyond human comprehension and ability to solve.
We must say, however, that the imposition of the Israeli’s back to the Levant didn’t help the situation. It’s the same thing when Joshua invaded Jericho and routed the Canaanites, the umbrella group of the Philistines. Since then the battle for land and property rights have been extant and as it was then to how it is now, it is the Israeli’s adding structure to a nomadic group of people, who have a polity, but lack organisation and a structured society of ownership and property rights. Just that this time instead of the Canaanites being called Philistines by name, they are now called Arabs. Same problem, different name.
What is anyone to do in a situation like this? Absolutely nothing that can be done. Just watch and see Israel obliterate the remnants of the Arabs in the Gaza strip and maybe that is what needs to happen. We are beyond the matter being moral or immoral, we are at the point where we need an end to the now- the now being the bombing and dead civilians. God cannot be pleased that we are still here. We pray for the innocent caught in the middle of this.