Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I think it was Benjamin Netanyahu who observed that if the Palestinians laid down their arms and tried to live in peace with Israel, there would be peace— but if Israel laid down her arms and tried to live in peace with the Palestinians, the next day every Israeli would be dead.
The Palestinians have shown the world they are butchers. It’s just wishful thinking from their apologists to claim the recent atrocities were the work of rogue elements— after all, the Palestinians filmed their murders and destruction and they’ve gleefully broadcast them since. Their social media is awash in what amount to snuff films and gloating about what they’ve done. They’re dancing in the streets in Gaza.
Israel shares a border with neighbors who’ve made it clear that their entire raison d’etre is to murder Israelis whenever they can. Israel has tried to make peace with them, and the Palestinians reject peace. Israel tried to defend themselves, and that just failed. I believe Israel is left with no other response than one the Palestinians really, really won’t like, but one they’ve shown they richly deserve.
In defense of the Lebanese, who boarder Israel- it has never been the intention of Lebanese Christians to see the demise of the state of Israel. This has always been the intention of the PLO and years later- Hezbollah. In the 1960’s Beirut had Jews and Christians living alongside eachother. Even secular Muslims. Then the Khomeini happened. And everything changed for good.
One thing that hits you about Arab advocates in the English-speaking world is that about 1/3 of them know literally nothing about the conflict and just make things up out of their imagination. Another third fixate on minutiae thinking you don’t know the difference between a reason and an excuse. Another third are perfectly open that dead Jews is the goal.
It also strikes me as odd that secularists (who use perversions of Christian morality whenever useful) fail to understand that there is no particular reason for Israel to be troubled by Christian morals.
Theirs, by definition, is the “Old Testament God” (A phrase the secularists use to tut tut Christians when they deem us to be insufficiently “loving” ie when opposed to the secular agenda.)
As people of the Old Testament, calls for them to turn the other cheek and not take an eye for an eye or to decline a fight are particularly uninformed.
Secularists pushed for comparative religions classes but never paid enough attention to actually compare them!
Donald, your knowledge of history far surpasses my own, so a question, please, to save myself research time: is there really any such thing as a “Palestinian people”, or is this just, as some contend, a convenient construct to describe various people of Arabic descent living in the Middle East whose primary characteristic is despising Jews? There is so much garbage propaganda out there, it’s hard to sort it all out.
I’ll but in. The notion that there was such a thing as the “Palestinian” [Arab] people does not predate 1921 and was not the modal viewpoint in and around the territory in question until about 1968. “Syria Palestina” was the name of a Roman / Byzantine province whose use was discontinued in the 7th century AD. In 1920, the British authorities assembled three Ottoman subprefectures, made some adjustments to their collective exterior boundary, and called the territory the “Mandate of Palestine”. During the mandatory period (1920-48) the use of the term ‘Palestine’ as an identifier (“Jewish Agency for Palestine”, The Palestine Post) was common among Jews, not Arabs. Arabs understood themselves as Arabs, as Syrians, as members of a particular confession, as residents of a particular locality, or as members of a particular lineage. “Arab” ethnic identity was fairly novel in the early 20th century. Into the 20th century, it was commonly used only to refer to Bedouin. The great-great-uncle of the current King of Jordan drew a distinction in his correspondence between ‘Arabs’ and “Arabic-speaking’ people.
Correct Art. In the movie Exodus, set prior to the British withdrawal, the Jews refer to themselves as Palestinians. The Arab population at the time was riven by factions, often clan based, and often quite hostile to each other. Palestinian nationalism was largely a creation of being beaten by the Jews in the Israeli War for Independence, although even then it was slow to develop, especially since until 67 the West Bank was ruled by Jordan.
I note that the word Palestine and Palestinian are Latin variations of the words Philistia and Philistine. Wasn’t it the Romans who sometime after the destruction of the 2nd Jewish Temple replaced the name Judea with the name Palestine so as to eradicate any memory of Jewish culture and the Jewish rebellion against imperial Roman rule? Donald is the historian and will know this better than I.
Yes, while the actual Philistines seem to have disappeared from history during the Babylonian invasion around 585 BC, certainly today Palestinian terrorist groups have inherited their violent mantle. Perhaps they should be treated as King David treated their spiritual forebearers in the Gaza strip. After all, isn’t that where some of the major Philistine cities were once located?
The Bruised Optimist wrote:
“As people of the Old Testament, calls for them to turn the other cheek and not take an eye for an eye or to decline a fight are particularly uninformed.”
Orthodox Jewish Apologist Dennis Prager has explained that verse of Scripture on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in this way. Before God gave the Law to Moses, it was standard affair in Mideast cultures for one family to utterly eradicate another family if a person in that other family had wounded or killed a single member in the first family. The idea was to completely devastate the adversary. But according to Dennis Prager, God changed that. No longer was disproportionate revenge allowed. If someone removed your eye, then the most you were allowed to do was remove that person’s eye as punishment; you were not allowed to kill either him or the members of his family in retaliation. The same is true if someone knocked one of your teeth out; the most you could do was knock one of his teeth out in punishment. And the determination of guilt and punishment had to be made by a court of elders if I recall correctly. All this – eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth – was a vast improvement in justice over the previous system of unlimited vengeance. Far being being a mean ogre of a god, the Old Testament Yahweh was truly just and merciful. Is that not the same in the New Testament where in Romans 13:1-7 St. Paul tells us that those in authority do not bear the sword in vain? Yes, Jesus said in Matthew 5:38-40:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”
Nevertheless, the point remains: eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth was a vast improvement in a culture of otherwise unlimited vengeful violence, and Jesus took it a step further.
However, the Palestinians (today’s Philistines) have no concept of this in their Islamic religion. Any offense is to them worthy of complete devastation of the offender.
Thanks, Art D, Donald, and LQC. Most helpful.
LQC:
As I posted to Dave G: Islam is the only major world religion to arise in barbarism, is more at home in barbarism than in civilized societies and always reverts to type. I’ve known and taught the kids of many Muslims: Persian, Pakistani, Egyptian, Moroccan, Palestinian (yes), even Malay and Burmese. They were great people, but the mass culture is dangerous.
Islam must be defeated by the cross or the sword. Take your pick.
Tom Byrne, we agree. Would that a salvo of tomahawk missiles from one of our Ohio class guided missile nuclear submarines in the Eastern Mediterranean could solve the problem.
Today’s Sub Brief on US Naval deployment to the Eastern Med:
https://youtu.be/EQ_Ibuyzjdg?si=UdudhwIFG6pM2GAU
I would like to believe that Hamas is going to get a well-deserved a$$ kicking. But maybe that’s hoping for too much.