Message To Israel
From Israel's well-wishers and religious neighbours abroad and within the geography of the Middle East, comes an indelible message. You're where you are on suffrage, and are being put on notice by the regional religious authorities that you do not make the rules, the Holy Roman Catholic Church does. Now this is a strange, albeit explicable admixture of tribal inheritance and religion.Arabs who are not Muslim, but Christian, adhere to their tribal affiliations in the guise of presenting as religious purists interpreting the word of God Almighty. Presumptuous in the extreme, since God Almighty was first represented by the recognition of Judaic monotheistic practise, morphing into Christianity, giving birth to Islam.
The progenitor is afforded scant courtesy of respect in the house of its offspring. This is human nature mocking the ineffable nature of the mysterious Spirit that overwhelms us by its omniscient concern for we lowly human creatures so given to fallible error, exercising our free will to antagonize and criticize and berate and extend misunderstandings between one another.
In direct contradiction to the dictates of the Holy Spirit to respect one another as they are to give homage to Him by so doing. That homage is freely given, but always in a manner felt reasonably suitable to the needs of those particular human groups whose compact with the Almighty feel assured should always favour them.
The title of Archbishop comes complete with respect for the venerable position, but it cannot hide the reality that this Archbishop, head of the commission that drew up a statement agreed upon by Middle East Catholic bishops, is of Arab-Lebanese origin.
Presumptuousness could not possibly play a part in the conclusions of that distinguished company which determined through their grave discourse that Israel, the people and the state, had no divine right to claim the treasured land they were forced to abandon through blood, sweat and tears, and conquest that scattered them all over the face of the Earth, to mourn what they had lost.
It is true that Jews of the truly Orthodox persuasion, fixated on their heritage and history, proclaim Israel their Promised Land. But it is also true that Zionism was never a religious movement, but a social, ideological, practical political movement, one meant to rescue the diaspora of world Jewry from further attrition through dedicated, organized attempts at mass eradication.
It was a return to heritage and geographic roots, to be sure, but many Jews did not have to travel too far to gain entry to Israel's past geography; they came in their droves from Arab countries which barely tolerated their presence despite millennia of residence, to join those of their brethren who had always lived in Jewish Palestine.
It is not surprising, under the circumstances, to see a Palestinian-Arab population - which once summarily refused to accept a UN-brokered Partition of Palestine that would offer 70% of the land to Palestinian Arabs, and 30% of the land to Jews anxious to provide a haven for themselves, only to have the Jews accept and the Arabs violently dissent - eagerly take up the conclusions of the synod's call for a two-state solution that would see Israel withdraw from portions of the land Palestinians insist must be theirs.
It is, however, risibly dishonest to hear that august body claim that Israel is responsible for the ongoing emigration of Christians from the 'occupied territories'. Where the reality is that the Christian population has increased under Israeli-administered Jerusalem, and it is at the angry hands of Arab Muslims that Arab Christians have been tormented, threatened, assaulted and forced to flee the lands they once felt comfortable in.
Labels: Human Relations, Israel, Middle East, Realities
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, October 28, 2010
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