The Heartache of an American

As I write, a war is raging in Israel. I was expecting the war because I think the human race is fast approaching the end of Gods patience.

Theodor Herzl planted the seeds of this war in 1896 when he published “The Jewish State.” The pamphlet called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.  As History.com notes, “After the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, growing numbers of Eastern European and Russian Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, joining the few thousand Jews who had arrived earlier.”

Great Britain adopted the Balfour Declaration after World War I.  This policy supported creating a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.  Palestine was, after all, the original homeland of the Jews that God gave to them when He called them to form a nation.

In 1947 the UN voted to partition Palestine into Arab and Israeli territories. Then on May 14, 1948, the UN officially sanctioned the modern state of Israel.

(Along with the History.com article already linked to on how the state of Israel was formed, a short explainer entitled “The Long History of Arab/Israeli Conflict” provides more insight into the conflict. CS writer Dr. Edouard Belaga also offers his thoughts Here.)

War is Evil

In my opinion, both sides are fighting a religious war.  And many are accusing both sides of war crimes.  How is it possible that both sides are guilty of committing evil deeds and God does not intervene?

The Israelis are worshipping God the Father as the ancient Jews used to do, The Father issued the Ten Commandments for all humans to obey. Why are those Commandments no longer valid today? The Palestinians are adherents of Islam. Islam worships the Eternal God as the Christians do. But if both sides are committing acts of terrorism and genocide against each other, both sides are evil.

The evil they are really committing is they are not treating each other with brotherly love.  They are not willing to suffer so that their neighbors might yet repent and realize they are offending the Father. They don’t realize that their own unwillingness to deny their very selves could win for them the repentance of their neighbor and stop their aggression against them.

All wars are like this, but this war is between opponents who say they worship the same God. Why is there a contradiction between what they say and what they do? If I were God, I would punish both side for gross evil in their attempt to imitate God.

The Israelis claim that Hamas, a terrorist organization, rules the Palestinians.  Hamas was using the Palestine people as human shields to protect themselves from Israeli fire. They captured and held 220 civilians as hostages in case the present war goes badly for them.

College students around the world are staging protests against both the Israelis and Hamas.  They are demanding an end to the war before too many innocent civilians are murdered. I can understand the outrage against Hamas, but, I think, the outrage against the Israelis is wrong.

Why is there no prophet speaking for God saying “Look how can I admit two struggling people to possess the same land?” The world is certainly big enough. Why can’t they learn to live in peace?

Outrage and Honor

The Jews have been a displaced people ever since their forebears turned Christ over to Rome to have Him crucified. This was a cataclysmic error on the part of the Jewish Temple leaders. But Christ had predicted it, and there was good reason for God to allow it. The rejection of Jesus led to a further identification of the divine son with the human race.

Some outstanding Jewish people that I admire include, Jesus Christ, His mother and father. I also admire the apostles and disciples, especially Saint Paul. But my admiration also includes many modern Jews after the break in the Jewish family over religion.

There are a number of Jewish men who have made a profound impression on me.  Many Jewish men were leaders and pioneers in science, music, and philosophy. There are so many I don’t even know how to count them. I welcome their contribution to our database of knowledge and wisdom. After all, they are members of the human race, and we have all benefitted from their contribution.

Think too, of Anne Frank who, as a young girl, along with her mother and sister were sent to the gas chamber.  And Edith Stein, a Jewish girl who experienced a conversion to the Catholic faith. She is a genius who studied German philosophy. She eventually understood God so well that her book “Created and Uncreated Being” is considered by many as equal in status to the “Summa Theologica” of the great St Thomas Aquinas.

But there are more Jewish people I admire who did not believe in God.  They were just ordinary lay people in American life, like Milton Beryl, the comedian who brought laughter into my life, or Jerry Lewis who not only did a lot to help Children with Muscular Dystrophy but also showed his love for another person when he suffered anguish when his partnership with Dean Martin broke up.

The Holocaust

The holocaust almost made me lose faith in God. How could Germany of all nations, one of the most civilized nations on earth, have done this?  Germany led other nations in engineering and in beautiful music, and is the home of the man who composed Silent Night. How could this nation take such a sudden and total turn away from Christian virtue?

The answer is concupiscence, the innate attraction of humans toward evil. This is more than just an attraction towards the idea of evil. It is a vice encouraged by devils who can more easily than we suppose foster this hatred in humans. Any one of us can be very easily subverted from a person of virtue into a hellish monster killing innocent people without any qualm of conscience. The book Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a popular novel about a man that shows two opposite characters, one good, the other evil. We Americans should be familiar with this kind of evil.

The German people suffered considerably following World war I. They were blamed for starting the war and were forced to pay reparations to the other nations.  The land Germany lost went into the reshaping of other countries, and Germany had to endure reductions in its military forces.

Hitler came along and offered Germany an alternative to the punishment. He said Germany was betrayed by the Jews who sold them out to the advantage of the Jews. Of course, it was not true, but the outrage and hysteria the Germans felt was utilized by the devil to drive the Germans into a frenzy.  It obliterated Germany’s good points and changed the good to vengeance against those they thought oppressed them.

Concupiscence is a Handicap

There is incredible evil lurking in the hearts of all of us. Concupiscence is an innate reluctance to live the Christian lives.  And God allows all of us to struggle with it. We must all conquer it, and defeat the devil, if we want to demonstrate our real fidelity to God.

We humans have to be very careful not to let ourselves be driven into this trap of hatred because of uncontrolled rage. Rage of this type is common to humans entering war.  Witness what the Germans did to the Jews and what the Japanese did to the Chinese at the start of WWII.  But even in everyday life, we see it in how whites in America treated blacks following the repeal of slavery.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s sad to witness the insane rage of others against people they hate, but it is much worse if we fall into that trap ourselves. I think the United Nations was foolish when they failed to see the intense reaction of the Arabs against the Jews when some of their land was given to the Jews so they could have their own country.

But this is not the first time this has happened in history. Most nations suffer this fate when stronger nations conquer them. Throughout history nations, including our own, encountered weaker nations, conquered them, and took their land.

My advice to both Israelis and Palestinians is if you cannot resolve this issue peacefully, then you must be humble enough to let God’s will prevail. After all a private homeland is not the best of what God is offering to His followers.

Remember God’s will is supreme and no matter what we seize in this life, God has the final say in heaven. God is disturbed if we suffer in this life, but suffering also helps us to submit humbly to God’s will.

In the next life, God will not tolerate suffering. God describes heaven as a place where no tear is shed. None of us should be the source of someone’s else’s suffering. God wants us to live joyful lives where no tear is shed, no whimper is heard.

The End Times

There are two ancient biblical prophecies about the Jews in the end times.

Jerimiah 31:10-11 says:

Hear the word of the LORD, you nations,
proclaim it on distant coasts, and say:
The One who scattered Israel, now gathers them;
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from a hand too strong for him.

And Isiah 11:12:
He shall raise a signal to the nations and gather the outcasts of Israel;
The dispersed of Judah he shall assemble from the four corners of the earth.

The only way for this to happen is for everybody on earth to follow God’s will in all things.