REBUILDING GAZA? HOW ABOUT AIDING THE INNOCENT?

By James Wilson

            Even today the cultural tendency for people in authority is to ignore bullying until the victim protests.  After that the default is to blame the victim; everything was fine until he began to make others uncomfortable.  This is especially so if the victim has fought fire with fire.  Sometimes – if the victim perseveres – the bullies are confronted.  In any case, it should surprise no one that this dodging of responsibility by authorities translates readily into relations among nations.  The policy makers at the macro level are the spiritual and cultural siblings of those who make the rules in family and school communities.  And the first rule is the victim is not allowed to take matters into his own hands and just fight back against the bullies.  Said victim is to wait upon the goodwill of the very authorities whose inaction permits the bullies to flourish.

            That said, why – in the name of all that is good – are the United States, Western Europe, and the United Nations rebuilding the Gaza Strip without so much as a dollar going to rebuild Israel?

            The destruction in Gaza is a tragedy.  This is especially so when we consider the vast majority of casualties are civilians and the destruction of homes and schools is a mutilation to the survivors.  But the civilians of Gaza elected Hamas to be their government; they are not innocent.  Truth is the present tragedy began when Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens.  Fact is Hamas fires about three thousand rockets into Israel each year with the sole intent of killing Israeli civilians; about that number has been fired this summer alone, and the tunnels destroyed were equipped with handcuffs and tranquilizers meant to facilitate the murder of many more – after being taken alive.  Reality is Hamas – the legitimate authority in Gaza – places civilians between its weapons and the Israelis in hopes that many will die and world opinion roast the “ruthless” Israelis for defending herself.  So far the strategy is working well.  The UN investigates war crimes allegations against Israel without a word about Hamas targeting their own civilians by using them as human shields.  American journalists report ceasefire after ceasefire shattered without mentioning who did the shattering.  Apparently our media is too delicate to tell it like it is.

            We give half a billion dollars to the bullies to repair damage done when the victim struck back.  We give nothing to restore the innocent party.  Of course some will say – and it’s true – there is much less damage done in Israel.  But since when does the fact Israel is so much better defending herself than the Palestinians are at attacking her a moral failing?  Since when is the sixty-six year absence of Jewish aggression in the Middle East compared to five wars of extermination and God knows how many murders evidence the Israelis deserve anything but sympathy and support?

            The predecessors and founders of every Muslim/Terrorist organization were mentored, supplied and suckled by the remnants of Nazi Germany after the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent the war as Hitler’s guest.  They have proven worthy heirs, and their movement is resurgent in the Europe from which so many Jews fled after World War II.  My Dutch friends told me when we volunteered together in Israel that if I wore my IDF baseball cap on the streets in Rotterdam at night I would likely not survive the night.

            Yet the Father God who creates the world and redeems it through His Son in the Power of His Spirit is sovereign – whether we acknowledge Him or not.  This God said in the Old Testament before He paid for it on the Cross in the New; justice is to roll like a river and He will save His people.  Israel does not need our help to prevail.  We need to help Israel and so align with Israel’s God if we want His blessing.  Yet it remains a matter of simple justice any intelligent person can comprehend.

People on the fence over this ought to check out the 1960 film, Exodus.  It illustrates the story textbooks only tell, complete with the Nazi forebears of the Islamo-fascists of today and the merciless brutality of the so-called Palestinians when one of their own tries to walk in truth.  Some will opine that this movie is fiction, but the real fiction is the absurd notion that Hamas – or any of the other Islamo terrorist outfits – have even the remotest claim to any moral high ground.  Or that their goal is anything but genocide – beginning with the Israelis and moving on to the people of our land.