Israael has entered Gaza

BBC report [news.bbc.co.uk]

this is NOT good for anyone

Lord Have Mercy!!!

It will be hard at Church this weekend. We have so many Palastenians and they really have a strong disdain for Israel. May they find their peace in their Creator, One God, Undivided, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pray for peace Jerusalem!

If one believes in Israel's continued existence one cheers this move and wonders why it has taken so long for them to act. If one doesn't care one way or the other whether Israel continues to exist at least for a few more years then one laments or criticizes the move.

The Palestinian Christians are between a rock and a hard place. They have no hopeful future. If the Palestinian Arabs want peace which they don't seem to care about one way or the other they ought not to vote for Hamas who promised war. If they are interested in killing Israelis and destroying Israel then I would imagine that they are at least not troubled by this latest event and many probably cheer it.

CDL

Son of Hamas Leader Gives Glimpse Into Terror Organization

Friday, January 02, 2009

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leaders try to broker a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, one former member of the militant Islamic organization said there will never be lasting peace between the two groups.

"There is no chance. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water?" said Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the group's founding members.

Yousef added: "It's not about Israel, it's not about Hamas: it's about both ideologies."

Yousef, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the most influential leaders of the militant group, said the organization betrays the Palestinian cause and tortures its own members.

Hamas, formed in the late 1980's as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, is considered a terror organization by the U.S. government. Hamas seized power in the Gaza strip in 2007 in a violent coup against the more moderate Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas.

Renouncing Islam Son of Hamas Leader Speaks Out Yousef said he was indoctrinated at an early age to use violence to challenge Israeli control in the region. As a teenager he moved up within the organization and became the leader of the radical Islamic Youth Movement that fought Israeli tanks and troops in the streets, celebrated suicide bombings and recruited young men to the cause.

Yousef, 30, said he realized the true nature of Hamas and radical Islam during a stint in an Israeli prison. He renounced his Muslim faith, left his family behind in Ramallah and converted to Christianity.

"Islam is not the word of God," said Yousef. "If you want to be offended it's your problem. But you know something? Go study. Think for a second that I might be right. So wake up, look at your path, see where you're going. Are you really going to heaven with 72 virgins after you kill yourself and kill another 20 people?"

Yousef has sought asylum in the United States and now attends an evangelical Christian church in San Diego, Calif.

"The Hamas leadership, including my father, they're responsible; they're responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization. I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel (for) which there was the killing of many civilians."

Yousef talks more about his extraordinary story of faith, courage, violence and betrayal in a FOX News documentary, "Escape From Hamas," hosted by Bill Hemmer.

Escape from Hamas airs Sat at 10p, with repeats at 1am and 4a, EST, and Sun at 9pm, with repeats at 12 midnight, 2am, EST.



www.foxnews.com [foxnews.com]

A very appropriate prayer the Palestinians ought to find solace in is Psalm 78 (LXXX numbering). Their plight seems to reflect that of ancient Israel, with a similar enduring of much suffering and with the same spirit of violation.

God spare us from the dreadful wrath this counterfeit modern Israel has merited for itself through its many crimes.

Ila mata yaa Rab?

If Israel can destroy Hamas, or better, if the Palestinians destroy Hamas before Hamas destroys the Palestinians then these prayers can be answered. I will join with you in prayer for the Palestinian Christians and for Palestinian Arabs who despise Hamas but I won't pray for Hamas' success. I will pray that they will repent and follow Christ but not that they continue to destroy Palestinians and Jews.

CDL

May I suggest to those on both sides of the issue that, rather than offering our prayers for anyone's destruction, we instead pray for the restoration of peace in the land of Our Saviour's birth, earthly life, death, and resurrection.

Many years,

Neil

I think that's what I did.

CDL

A hopeful confession http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475226,00.html

I think we can only pray.

The bottom line is: are people from both sides willing to compromise?

If we take the Northern Ireland situation, who would have thought that Sinn Fein and DUP would be in a coalition government as near as 10 years ago? Or that Rev. Ian Painsley would actually be laughing with Martin McGuinness on the same table?

Christ is born!! Glorify Him!!

As long as Hamas refuses to admit that Israel has right to exist and as long as radical Islamists insist that Jews and Christians have not right to do anything but submit, there will never be peace.

For over 60 years there has been a war going on in the Holy Land over the settlement of the Jewish people there after the Holocaust. Unless those who have dedicated themselves to destroying Israel cease and desist, there will be no end to this conflict. Our country has been involved in trying to mediate this--without success--from the very beginning. This may be the start of President-elect Obama's testing.

But any government and any country that does not protect its citizens has failed to do waht it is supposed to do. And the Israeli government has acted to stop the unprovoked shelling of its citizens in the southern part of its country.

BOB

The Israel government is no better to the Christians than Hamas, perhaps worse. They have no regard for Christian rights in the region, nor do they care that Palestinian Christians are being assaulted right alongside the Muslims.

I am long past arguing online about the Palestinian situation. I would still like to thank God though that so much has been made possible with the Internet, that many can see what before was not possible for them to access. I recently came across this disturbing video (even disturbing to one such as myself who has seen such things for years and grown used to it), and wish to provide a link to it here:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Leaked_graphic_video_shows_carnage_in_0104.html

I am genuinely interested in knowing whether North American media has become a little less sanitised over the years and whether such content has been able to penetrate its filters and iron curtain. Could somebody tell me, please?

War is and always has been "hell". That will never change. When you can provide a place for Jews to live unmolested or when Hamas will leave them alone then there is a serious case to be made. Until then I'm not interested in any argument either.

CDL

"A place for Jews to live unmolested"? How about here in the US? What about Europe? What about the vast majority of the region of Israel?

How can we Catholics support LIFE when discussing abortion and the life of the innocent and then support the DEATH of innocents that Israel causes by it's disproportionate and unfocused reaction?

Remember, many Muslims and ALL CHRISTIANS have nothing to do with this and are also being killed along side the Hamas militants.

Why does no CHRISTIAN care at the very least about the Palestinian CHRISTIANS who are being victimized?



Frankly, my concern regarding CHRISTIANS (mainly CATHOLICS and ORTHODOX) far outweigh the support of a non-religious, secular, culturally but not religiously Jewish state.

Shlomo Bob,

You state:
My question, and that of many Middle Eastern Christians is why does Israel have the right to exist? And if it has the right based on what was done to the Jewish people, then why doesn't Europe or the Americas pay the price.

As Michael Thoma has stated:
I am sorry, but my question is why don't Western Christians seem to care about Christians in the Middle East. The very same people when visiting the Holy Land do not support Christian business people, and then wonder why Christianity is dying in the Holy Land.

Further, I have also found that many Zionists try to shut donwn anti-Zionists with claims of anti-Semitism. While it is true that nearly all anti-Semites are anti-Zionst; not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

To go on the old saying: Speak of the Devil and he will apprear. This was in the Daily Star [dailystar.com.lb] out of Beirut.

More than a decade ago, when I first arrived in the Middle East, I tended to put these, er, discrepancies down to honest mistakes. By now, however, I have concluded that huge organizations like CNN (which seeks my input from time to time) and The Associated Press (which emphatically does not) are not being forgetful when they consistently neglect to mention certain very pertinent facts, nor merely ignorant when they almost invariably misstate others: They are lying, they know they are lying, and they bank on a calculation that most people are either too ignorant ("Israel jails Palestinian women and children without charge or trial?") to know the difference or too intimidated ("anti-Semite!") to point it out.

This paragraph puts the issue for us Middle Eastern Christians in a nut shell.

Fush BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Theophan writes:

I am not a "radical Islamist", nor any other sort of Mohammedan. I am a Greek-Catholic priest. I know of nothing which gives the Zionist state any moral or legal right to exist. I trust you are not threatening to kill me.

Fr. Serge

Father Serge:

Father bless!!

Heavens no.

My understanding of history is that the British gave the Jews the place they occupy at the end of WW2 as part of worldwide guilt over the Holocaust. Similar to pushing the borders of Poland 40,000 square miles into eastern Germany and allowing the Soviets to take 70,000 square miles of eastern Poland, this was part of the settlement of that war. Maybe it wasn't the best idea, but it is what it is.

The Palestinians have been upset over this arrangement ever since.

There have been many problems of border placements by the governing forces in the past and we still live with them. This is but one. We've got the Balkans, we've got Iraq, we've got the Indian subcontinent, we've got Tibet, lots of places in Africa . . .

BOB

This charge is simply not true. Whenever I have gone to Israel the encouragement by the company conducting the tour was to always shop at Christian run businesses. I have always done so when I travel. I've been a tour host on a few occasions. The guides always took us to Christian run businesses. When worshiping I always went to a Christian Church. There may be some tourists who only frequent Jewish businesses but I know of none.

Why would the Jews ever trust their future to Europe or North America? Why should they have to?

You mention safe places within Israel. The intifadas have demonstrated that this is pure fantasy. So where are these safe places?

CDL

Why should Catholics and Orthodox in the HOLY Land - natives of the region - trust their future to Western cultural Jews who moved into the region from elsewhere (many who hold dual-citizenship elsewhere), neither care about the future of Orthodox-Catholic Christianity, or worse, actively promote their destruction?

And the Muslims do?

CDL

Carson,
many of the Musilims, Christians, and original Jews of the region lived as brothers together, before the Zionists came along.

The Jews were always there.

Choosing Death over Life [article.nationalreview.com], Hamas’s tin rockets killed Gaza’s golden opportunity, By Deroy Murdock

Hamas does not want peace. It wants the death of all Jews.

Muslims and Christians have seldom lived as brothers (at least not for long) with the Jews in Europe, or the Islamic empires of West Asia or North Africa. Forced conversions and massacres were their lot.

So.. Muslims kill Christians, we condemn them. Israel kills Christians... we give them money to kill more?

Dear Michael Thoma,

You are substantially correct. But don't get me started, please!

Fr. Serge

I am sure nothing I say will make any difference.
As those who have ears have already listened.

And anyways, the massacre had already begun, and it will only create new fierce hate. Those children who survived, are surely not going to seed love in the future that is for sure.

I found this article with half answers interesting:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...he-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html

Honestly, all I can do now is lift a prayer, and hope that God above will decide to interfere.

Lord have Mercy

Rockets are being fired on Israel from Lebanon. Let us pray this is not getting any messier than it already is.

I find this post the most fair and indicative of what many Americans feel. I love the Israelis as much as the Palestinians and I am saddened at the situation. War is hell. Both sides are usually to blame.

I recently read this and my heart breaks for these poor orphaned children--there is nothing more heartbreaking than a child losing its mother:



I pray for these children and all children of the world who are suffering one way or the other. Lord have mercy on them.

In Christ,
Alice

It was a bit earler than WWII Bob. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is what set the scene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917

By 1948 the UK government had given up and just walked out and left the various sides to fight it out.

The early attacks in 1948 were not to establish a Palestinian state but for the neighbouring countries to carve the place up among themselves. Egypt controlled the Gaza strip with an iron fist up until 1967 and Transjordan (created out of East Palestine) took over the West Bank and dropped the 'Trans' from it's name when it annexed the territory. The Arabs of the region have been fought over but not part of the process until very recent times when Jordan dropped it's claim to the West Bank. Jordan still has a toe in the water through it's connection to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Let those who have eyes see: Sab'bah's collection of pictures [slide.com] showing the reality of this war, three hundred of them so far.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Security/Default.aspx?id=377966

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel' -Benjamin Netanyahu