ALLAH SEES ALL OF THE ISRAELI FELONIES

Besides that, influential friends of ours gave us half of your house as a gift to us.

But they had no right to give you half of our house. It did not belong to them to give to anyone.

Whether they had the right to give us half of your house is not important. The important reality is that they did give us half of your house. In fact, with our cleverness and their help we now occupy all of your house.

By the way, have you thought of a solution for your problem yet? I wish we had more time to help you. But, you must understand that we have more important things to do than to help people who cannot solve their own problems.

You see, our loving GOD has called us to build a showcase democratic nation- -a nation which has justice, mercy, and righteous as its foundation. This nation will be a light for the world. This is our first priority.

So, you must hurry up and solve your problem because you are delaying GOD’S will for us. If you do not solve your problem quickly, we will have to make you all leave our house, and our nation. Since you are an inferior people, you are preventing us from establishing a democratic nation composed of a racially and culturally superior people.

The “Palestinian Problem” as it has conveniently but shamefully been labeled, is being considered in some way by every nation in the world. This problem has caused inhumane suffering. It has taken thousands of lives and has also cost the world billions of dollars. Instead of spending a much smaller amount to solve it, nations have purchased hundreds of thousands of weapons in order to kill those who differ in opinion. Instead of solving the problem, thousands of us have become killers. Living in occupied Palestine and traveling throughout Israel for several weeks has caused me to think more deeply and to pray more desperately than I ever have about any other problem. I would now like to explore the relationship between two phenomena which have been previously seen by others as unrelated. I feel that ALLAH has led me through study of the Bible and the Qur’an, and by living in both Saudi Arabia and occupied Palestine, to ponder both issues and thus to see their significant relationship.

The first phenomenon is what I will re-title as the “Israeli Felonies” rather that the “Palestinian Problem.”

Felony is defined by Webster as meaning “major crime.” The second phenomenon is the virtual certainty that Muslims have not yet fully realized the intended emphasis of two particular verses in the Glorious Qur’an. By not fully understanding this emphasis, Muslims have remained separated from the greatest act of compassion that one man has ever accomplished for his fellow man. When a connection is made between the “Israel Felonies” and a new understanding of these two key verses, I am convinced new opportunity and resources will become available for people from all nations, not just Islamic nations, to receive justice and experience new meaning.

“And because of their saying: We

slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary,

ALLAH’S messenger-They slew him not nor

crucified him, but it appeared so unto

them; and Lo! Those who disagree

concerning it are in doubt therefore; they

have no knowledge thereof save pursuit

of a conjuncture; they slew him not for

certain.

But ALLAH took him up unto Himself.

ALLAH was ever mighty, wise.”

Women 157-158

These two verses are interpreted by most Muslims to teach that ALLAH took the Messiah Isa to be with Himself, before Isa was crucified. They believe that someone else who resembled Isa was on the cross instead of Isa. I am personally convinced that ALLAH has been leading me to see these verses in a new way, a way in which the Qur’an is emphatic in its teaching that Isa courageously died and victoriously rose from death. In fact, the Qur’an is so emphatic that Isa dies and rose again, that the very strength of the Qur’an’s statement has confused people so much that they believe it actually teaches the opposite.

Additionally, I hope to demonstrate, with ALLAH’S help, the major reasons that these verses from the Qur’an have been interpreted the way they have. I will show the immorality and lack of care and concern of the West have been important factors in Islam’s only partial understanding of the deeper messages of these verses. Also, our explanation to the third world nations and our all to often-disgraceful representation of Christianity have been main obstacles. We have, without our realizing it, influenced the majority of Islam to not understanding that the Qur’an proclaims to the entire world that the Messiah Isa defeated death and still defeats every foe of ALLAH. By our rigidity and our coldness to Isa’s message, we have hidden a wonderful reality, that Isa rose to new life in order for us to understand that the love and justice of ALLAH will ultimately defeat all of the injustice and deceit of man.

The crimes of Israel against the people of Palestine have been horrible. What makes these crimes even more horrible is the fact that my own nation which has had the reputation of being a Christian nation, has offered much assistance to Israel in its tormenting of the people of Palestine. As a citizen of a nation assisting in this crime, I have to admit that I had no idea of how serious the felonies of Israel are against the people of Palestine, until I lived among the Palestinians and witnessed what is occurring. I then began to feel very ashamed of the sympathy I have had for some of the policies of Israel. I could still feel sympathy for what Jewish people have experienced in the past. I could even feel that the Jewish people needed to have their own homeland. But, one reality began to be very clear to me. The ALLAH that I came to understand through my own study of the Scriptures and through my own prayers and relationship with Him, is not the power leading the Israeli people to build a nation by brutalizing, exploiting and murdering the people of Palestine. After having this become very clear to me, I then began to realize that if it took my own living in Palestine to come to this conclusion, the majority of people in the U.S. need assistance in understanding how out of control and evil the actual situation is in Israel. My prayer to ALLAH is that parts of this paper may help the people of my own country put pressure on the policy makers of Israel to come to their senses and recognize their evil treatment of the people of Occupied Palestine and Gaza. I hope Americans begin to sense the seriousness of the crimes committed against the people of Palestine, and realize that the Living ALLAH is even more angry at the hardness of our hearts than many of us can begin to imagine.

DOES THE QUR’AN TEACH THAT ISA WAS CRUCIFIED?

As you read the above question regarding whether or not Isa was crucified, if you are a Muslim, you may have thought that this writer is either crazy, stupid, or both. You are convinced that there should not be anything that is more clear in the Qur’an, than the fact that the Messiah Isa did not die. You have possibly even memorized Women 157-158, the Qur’an verses depicting Isa.

You may ask yourself, “Why is this fellow wasting our time? How could anything be clearer than the Qur’an’s statement that Isa was not crucified.”

You may be correct. Yet, you may not be correct. I wish to demonstrate two realities which may at first appear to contradict each other. However, if you are patient with my reasoning, I think you will agree that both realities can be true at the same time. Additionally, you will come to appreciate why I believe that the suffering, humiliation, and injustice which has been taking place in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza have a special relationship with whether Isa was crucified.

Reality One: The Jews did not crucify or kill Isa

Reality Two: Though Isa was killed and crucified; in the deepest meaning of these words, he was not.

In dealing with reality one, there is one very quick answer. While this particular solution will be only one part of our total solution, it is a reality we must not ignore. As shocking as it may at first appear, the Qur’an does not state that Isa was not crucified. It only states that “they,” the Jews, did not crucify or kill him. It is exceptionally clear in the Qur’an that it is only discussing whether the Jews did not crucify or killed Isa.

As the West Bank and Gaza strip are now occupied by the Jews, Palestine was then occupied by the Romans. The Roman authorities had taken the power to execute away from the Jewish authorities. The Qur’an does not state that the Romans did not crucify or kill Isa. It only states that the Jews did not. Therefore, the New Testament does not contradict the literal words of the Qur’an when it clearly teaches that the Roman occupying force crucified Isa.

You may now say that this argument does not satisfy you. You may reasonably object that I have only considered certain words in my presentation, that I must look beyond simple words and reach both the meaning and the spirit behind the words. You may point out that words taken only by themselves out of context may mislead. You may say that we must look at what the author is really trying to say, and what are those convictions motivating the writer.

For instance, you may tell me that when someone states, “I am dying of thirst,” that person really means that they want a drink. They are only saying that they are quite thirsty. They are not saying that in a few minutes they will be dead. So, you want me to look at the broader context of what the Qur’an is really saying about whether Isa was or was not crucified. The fact that history clearly agrees with the Qur’an in the reality that the Jews not crucify Isa, is not enough. You insist that I go behind the words on paper. It is the meaning behind the words that are important, you say.

PLEASE CONSIDER ALL OF THE SERIOUS CHARGES OF THE ENTIRE PASSAGE

That seems a reasonable way to proceed. What was the purpose behind the idea that they did not truly crucified or kill Isa, son of Mary, ALLAH’S messenger? In the Qur’an’s verses preceding this verse, it is the Jews who are clearly being rebuked. They have broken covenants. They have killed ALLAH’S Prophets. In addition to this series of felonies, they apparently even boasted about the hardness of their hearts. Then, they heaped further indignity on Isa by making an attack on the reputation of his mother.

The flow of the entire passage is exceptionally clear. It is the attitudes and actions of only the Jews which are condemned. Isa and his accomplishments are being defended. The beliefs of his followers are not under attack. The Entire Passage is an attack on Jewish arrogance rather than a frontal attack on vital Christian belief. This is precisely what the words are telling us. This is also what the spirit behind the words is telling us.

As if breaking covenants, not believing ALLAH’S revelations, killing His prophets, hardening their hearts, and attacking the reputation of Isa’s mother were not enough, an additional wicked phenomenon is described. As the Prophet Muhammad understood ALLAH’S revelation to himself, something so horrible occurred that ALLAH could not tolerate it for even one second. After all the things that the Jews had done, they now had the arrogance to say that they killed Isa, son of Mary, ALLAH’S messenger. They were actually boasting that their people killed the one of whom the Qur’an would later speak of as a revelation for all mankind. It had already been written in the Family of Imran that those who followed Isa would be above disbelievers in him until the day of resurrection. Additionally, in Imran’s Surah, it had already been recorded that ALLAH’S care for Isa was so great that He was gathering Isa (implying death) so that Isa would ascend into ALLAH’S own presence. So definite was the honor which ALLAH had bestowed upon Isa that the Qur’an had already recorded that those who refused to believe in him would not have one to help them, either in this world or in the world to come.

The Qur’an’s implied question is: How could Jews, no matter how hard their hearts, boast about killing the one on whom ALLAH had bestowed such honor? ALLAH most certainly would not have allowed them to kill Isa, in the sense of permanently ending his life. It was a horrible enough phenomenon that Jewish leaders at a time of misguided passion had made the blatantly unjust decision to condemn him to death. To boast to others of the killing of the Messiah was even worse. ALLAH would not remain silent about this horrible distortion of historical reality.

They were claiming that Isa was now dead. Yet, ALLAH had given him power to raise the dead. He had healed the sick, given sight to the blind, comforted prisoners, encouraged those in sorrow, fed the hungry, exposed the exploiters, shown disgust for oppression and hypocrisy, given hope to the hopeless, taught wisdom to all and taught that it is the desire of ALLAH that people from all nations worship at his holy temple. Additionally, he consistently surprised his Jewish disciples by often interacting in very favorable ways with those who not Jewish and commenting on the great faith of those who were not Jews. Though he had done nothing but good throughout the length and breadth of Palestine, some Jews were now boasting that their own ancestors had permanently ended the Messiah’s life. To them the word kill or crucify had the meaning of permanent death, because most Jews did not believe in Isa’s glorious victory over death.

The Prophet Muhammad knew from ALLAH and from hearing about the teaching of previous Scriptures, that the Messiah Isa was alive. For these Jews to be saying that any person or group had permanently ended Isa’s life could not be tolerated. It must be spoken against in an emphatic way that would show them for all time their error in saying he was dead. ALLAH was shocked. It was a horrible thing that was happening. The Prophet knew that ALLAH would expose their lie. ALLAH allowed his magnificent, but humble and compassionate messenger to have his life ruthlessly and permanently ended. ALLAH had not allowed his own plans to be defeated by cruel men. ALLAH possesses all power. His very nature is characterized by justice. He certainly did not allow the Jews to accomplish their evil purpose of permanently ending the Messiah’s life.

As we look not only at the words, but also at the meaning behind the words, the Messiah was indeed neither killed nor crucified. In the true sense of what killing means, the Jews were not successful. In the deepest meaning of what crucifying signifies, they did not crucify him.

Justice was ruthlessly cast aside at the trial of Isa. Fake witnesses had been brought in to tell lies against Isa. Dishonest persons bore testimony against him and began contradicting one another. After the trial, which had been a mockery of justice, many Jewish leaders circulated among the crowd. These leaders were able to persuade the people who did not know Isa, to cry out to the Roman governor Pilate, to have him crucified. “Crucify him! Crucify him!”, they hostilely shouted.

Pilate wanted desperately to release Isa. The governor’s wife had even sent an urgent message to him during the trial pleading with him to release the innocent Isa. She said that she had gone through terrible turmoil in a dream about his innocence. But the crowds who had been stirred up by the priests kept shouting, “Crucify him!” When Pilate continued to resist their pressure, the Jewish leaders even threatened the governor. They told him that unless he would give in to their demands, they would report him to Caesar in Rome. Afraid that he himself might go to prison over this matter, or possibly even be put to death, he finally gave in to their evil pressure campaign. The ancient Prophet Isaiah’s sad description, as later quoted by Luke in the book of Acts, had come true. Isaiah spoke centuries before about this trial, as though the event had already taken place, “In his humiliation, justice was denied him.”

AN IMMORAL TWISTING OF JUSTICE

Yes, the trial and execution of Isa was one of the greatest immoral twisting of justice ever to occur in the history of man. What made it so horribly immoral was that the ruling religious body of the Jews carried out this injustice. The one group of leaders who had more access to truth from ALLAH than any other group ever had, carried out this wicked act. However, there appears to be evidence to indicate that the emergency meeting of the Jewish Sanhedrin was arranged in a secret way. This prevented the righteous members of the group, who would protest against immoral condemnation of the totally righteous Isa, from attending the meeting.

Wicked scheming permeated the entire process of the Messiahs trial and execution. Isa and his crucifixion would today be entirely forgotten if it was not for what occurred next, an event so marvelous and glorious in its meaning that it totally overshadowed all the evil which preceded it. Three days after the murder of Isa, ALLAH took Isa up unto Himself. So magnificent was the resurrection of our Messiah that it was as if he had not died. No, he was not slain or crucified. Why? Because; the might of ALLAH had not been defeated. The scheming of the Jewish leaders had not triumphed over ALLAH’S wisdom.

ALLAH’S faithful Messiah Isa endured his own execution and triumphed. So great was his victory, it was as though he had not been executed. Isa’s execution was horrible, but the plans of ALLAH’S enemies totally failed. His executioners boasted that they accomplished their evil purpose, but they had not. They had not crucified the Messiah he sent. They had not killed him. No, a thousands times, no. Their purposes were totally defeated. ALLAH had taken him up.

Some of you may still say that I have read my own thoughts into what the Qur’an states. You tell me that the meaning in Arabic is very clear. You say the obvious meaning is that someone else who appeared to be Isa was on the cross instead of him. Once you have reached the conclusion that it was not Isa on the cross, you conclude that the words, “ALLAH took him up unto Himself,” mean that Isa was taken up before the crucifixion.

I plead with you to ask ALLAH to help you look again at this verse to see exactly what it says and also what it does not to say. In the original Arabic it does not state that someone with Isa’s appearance was on the cross instead of him. It may be possible to derive that meaning from the verb “appeared” (Shubeha), but the verse itself does not say that someone else was on the cross instead of Isa. Also, the verse following does not say that Isa was taken up before the crucifixion took place. The verse that contains the word “appears” in its most obvious interpretation in Arabic and English has the rather direct meaning: It appeared to the Jews that they killed and crucified Isa, but in reality they had not. The next verse tells us why they had not crucified him: because ALLAH had taken him up unto Himself. No time sequence is mentioned as to when ALLAH took Isa up. Since over a billion Muslims have decided someone else was on the cross instead of Isa, the assumption has been made that Isa was taken up before his death, while another person died in his place.

Since Isa was raised from death the third day, as the Scriptures preceding the Qur’an so clearly teach, it was in reality, logical and consistent for the Qur’an to state that Isa had not been killed or crucified. An example may help us see this.

A STRANGE CONVERSATION

Suppose, after Isa’s resurrection, someone who did not know Isa and who did not believe a dead person could come back to life saw Isa and asked someone else who he was.

“Who is that man over there?”

“That is Isa.”

“You can’t mean Isa, because he was crucified.”

“I do mean Isa. Three days after he was crucified, ALLAH gave him new life.”

“Then he was not really crucified.”

“Yes, he was truly crucified, but ALLAH raised him from the dead.”

“Then in the true sense of what the word “crucified” really means as far as permanently taking away a person’s life and really killing him, Isa was not crucified.”

“Yes, in the very logical sense in which you are speaking, Isa was neither killed nor crucified.”

I will readily admit that when over a billion persons are all telling each other that a verse means a particular thing, and then it is exceptionally difficult to read that verse without reading the common understanding into the verse.

THE GOSPEL OF BARNABUS

To add to the difficulty in understanding that the Qur’an emphatically teaches that Isa was crucified, the Gospel of Barnabus (not to be confused with the Epistle of Barnabus) has for several centuries taught people that someone appeared on the cross instead of Isa. That document also contradicts the Qur’an by teaching that the Scriptures of the Christians cannot be trusted. This document can easily by exposed as a counterfeit or fraud. Nevertheless, we can each appreciate the possible motivation of its author. He apparently wished to degrade Christianity, since many of those who claimed to follow Christ participated in the ungodly and evil crusades and were involved in other things disgraceful to Christianity. Though the Barnabas gospel represented itself to have been written near the time of Isa, it was most certainly written after the Crusades. Its author obviously did not have an accurate knowledge of the geography of the Bible land nor did he understand the mercy of ALLAH as revealed through Islam.

Although many Muslims think that the Qur’an itself teaches that the Scriptures preceding it have been changed, it clearly does not teach this. Rather, it teaches that the Scriptures preceding the Qur’an are protected by ALLAH from being changed. The Qur’an does teach, however, that Muslims should be aware that Jews would discuss the Scriptures in such a way that they would change the meaning of the Scriptures by misrepresenting the context of how things were originally stated in them. The Qur’an’s emphasis is what Jews did with their tongues and does not accuse them of doing anything with their pens. They certainly would not have used their pens to make Isa a risen victorious Messiah when they did not even believe he was the Messiah.

The emphasis of the Qur’an is for people to obey the Torah and Gospel and it does not want them to think it has been changed.

“Say,” Oh people of the Scriptures! Ye have naught (of guidance) till ye observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto you from your Lord…”

The Table Spread 5:68

JEWISH TONGUES – NOT JEWISH PENS

For verses clearly showing that the Qur’an’s emphasis is not that the Scriptures were changed by Jewish pens, but instead their meaning was changed by Jewish tongues, see The Family of Imran 3:78, Women 4:46, and the Table Spread 5:13.

Returning to our consideration of the meaning of Women 157, the keyword in the popular interpretation of this verse is the verb shubeha. In Arabic it has only three letters and can be interpreted as “appears.” For several centuries, millions have taken this verse to mean that someone who appeared to be Isa, but who was not him, was on the cross instead of him. I suggest that another interpretation fits better with the meaning intended by what the Prophet recorded as is demonstrated both by the ideas preceding this verse and those succeeding it. Also, the manner in which the Qur’an appeals to both the intellect and emotions of its readers and hearers appears to justify this alternate interpretation. I propose that when the context of the verse is adequately considered, it becomes apparent that an appeal is being to the reader to understand a deeper meaning than the surface words might at first indicate.

The meaning then becomes it “appeared” (shubeha) to the Jews that they had accomplished their evil intention of permanently ending the Messiah’s life. Since his final death was their purpose, in the deepest meaning of kill and crucify, they had neither killed nor crucified Isa. It appeared to them that they had been successful. But in their plans they had failed to recognize the greatness of ALLAH. In ALLAH’S plan, the temporary taking of the Messiah’s life had not for one second interfered with the eternal purposes of ALLAH. Though Isa had temporarily died, in relation to the eternal purposes of GOD, it was unfitting to say that he was crucified because he rose again from the dead. It may have appeared to their small minds that they had accomplished their purpose of permanently ending his life. ALLAH had no need to deliver Isa before his death. Rather, the most evil plan that ALLAH’S enemies could conceive, was courageously faced and totally destroyed by a triumphant Isa. He encountered death itself and conquered it. ALLAH then took a triumphant Isa up unto Himself.

I am writing this paper while living in the occupied city of Bethlehem. When I bought a newspaper today from a vendor in Bethlehem Square, there were two heavily armed Israeli soldiers a few feet away from me. Another hundred feet away were approximately eight more. As I watched one of the two soldiers near me, his finger never left the trigger of his weapon, which part of the time was inadvertently pointed at me. He seemed very nervous. From newspaper accounts I have read, there have been approximately three-hundred Palestinian deaths in this Intifada from Israeli action, while there have been zero to four official deaths of Israelis from Palestinian action.

It should have been the Palestinians who were nervous. Yet, an emphasis I see in the English language newspaper here is the front-page coverage of the suffering and sacrifices of the Israeli soldiers. Admirably, there is some mention of the injustice occurring to the Palestinians, but it is the sacrifice of the Israelis which is emphasized.

THE MYSTERIOUS LARGE STONE

Adjoining this city on two sides are the occupied towns of Beit Sahur and Beit Jalla. While living here, I am constantly mixing with the people of these other towns as well as with the people of Bethlehem. The day before I arrived, a seventeen years old Beit Sahur boy, Edward Ghanem, had a large stone mysteriously fall on his head from the roof of a four-story building. He was walking down the street with his friends one moment, and the next moment later he was dead. Israeli Soldiers were standing on the floor from which the stone fell.

The army gave two different accounts as reported in the Jerusalem Post. At first, they said a part of the wall collapsed and struck Edward. (In my personal observation, I could not see a wall that could have collapsed.) Then they said that the rock held down a tarpaulin and fell off the roof when a gust of wind moved the canvas that the rock was holding down. But, a young woman claimed to have seen a soldier drop a rock. This death was not just something I read about because I have friends here who knew this fine young man and his family. Neither the Israeli army’s explanation nor the Palestinian witnesses’ account will bring back his life.

A few days later, the Jerusalem Post had an article about the first person to be killed in Beit Jalla, the city on the opposite side of Bethlehem from Beit Sahur. The paper again cited a dispute between what the Israeli Army reported as having happened and what Palestinian witnesses said actually occurred.

THREE SHOTS IN THE STOMACH

The army explained that Jiryas Kunkar, a father of four with no known history of involvement in demonstrations, was shot when a soldier who was chasing him stumbled, fell, and accidentally discharged his rifle three times. Local residents explained that Mr. Kunkar was shot three times in the abdomen when he innocently stepped out of his house to watch a clash occurring near his home.

According to local accounts, troops started the violence when they used gas to break up a peaceful march of woman and masked youths who came out of a church carrying Palestinian flags. The army claimed dozens of marchers’ hurled stones, carried flags, and refused orders to break up. Even considering the differences in these accounts of the death, the army’s account of three perfect shots from a stumbling soldier, strains all standards of credibility. I had to depend on the accounts of newspapers and others in these two tragic deaths, since I did not witness either. (It is to the credit of the Jerusalem Post and to the government of Israel that you can read information unfavorable to Israel. The repressive attitudes and actions that I have observed toward West Bank Palestinians would lead me to expect less freedom of the press than seems to presently be the case.)

What I personally did witness my first morning in the holy city of Jerusalem, was not a death. Nevertheless, it was a serious wound for morality. I witnessed an ugly blemish on any government which would call itself democratic. Twenty yards from where I stood inside the Baptist bookstore, not far from the Old City wall, I watched incredulously and helplessly as events unfolded across the narrow street. At least four policemen beat a thirteen to fourteen-year-old schoolgirl with their white clubs. (I neglected to ask why all of the clubs were white. I hope it is not because they are supposed to represent purity and righteousness.)

I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES

Before GOD, the girls’ parents and the girl, I can give no adequate excuse as to why I didn’t run into the midst of the beating, waving my American passport and attempt to stop them. I simply could not believe my eyes as I watched one policeman quickly drag the terrified girl from a shop door by her hair and throw her down on the sidewalk. From the looks and gestures of the also-stunned bookstore employees, I thought I was being silently told that if I ran out, I would do more harm than good.

As I watched, events seemed to occur at a rather slow motion pace. A certain calmness and deliberation appeared to be a part of each separate circumstance in which the police were involved. At one point a middle-aged Arab woman attempted to shield the girl with her own body. After receiving several blows herself, she drew back in pain. Then the shop owner, who was doing nothing and saying nothing, was struck once on the chest with a club. Though the total of the dozen or more blows on the girl’s body by at least four different policemen, appeared not designed to maim, the excessive punishment seemed unreal, totally unnecessary and virtually unrelated to the uprising. Though I sincerely tried to suppress it, I had the uneasy feeling that I was witnessing a contrived attempt to stir up and stimulate both violence and resistance, rather than an attempt to quell it. My mind was telling me that I must respect these police authorities that were of the approximate age to be the young girls’ father.

These were not untrained reserve soldiers, but were supposedly well-disciplined Israeli policemen. I tried to tell myself that they had to be doing what they were doing to maintain order. On the other hand, now that I calmly reflect on what GOD allowed me to observe, I cannot reconcile how a beating of one isolated young girl by four or more adult policemen could be considered maintaining order in a supposedly enlightened democracy. At the same time, it has been so ingrained in me that Israelis are to be respected for the way they have overcome so much tragedy in their own past, and have built this miraculous nation, that my mind was not able to sort out the contradictions quickly enough to come to her aid as I saw it happening on a calm street in front of me. Yet, I tried to tell myself that it could not be happening. Several minutes after the first blows were struck, a senior police officer came and (possibly for our benefit or because he was a righteous man) made sweeping arm gestures to indicate that the one policeman who was still there should no longer hit the weeping, terrified girl. She was then pushed off to a police wagon. At least I could thank ALLAH for the shaking, terrified, small schoolgirl who had found refuge in the bathroom of the bookstore. As persons under Israeli police authority in this nation, should we have called the officers and turned her in, as some might suggest? GOD forbid! If we had, GOD should have struck us dead or at the vary least, smitten us with blindness.

What crime against the state had this excited schoolgirl committed on her way home from the last day of school, for which she was both beaten and arrested? From what I observed, her most serious crime was her choice to run the wrong direction to avoid the pincher movement of the police as they set off tear gas from three different directions. Their obvious purpose was to disburse the twenty or so marching; chatting young school girls on their way home from school.

It seemed they beat her after they successfully disbursed the group in order to plant within her a fear and disbursed of Israelis which would never leave her, and would also remain with her friends and family.

What slogan did these naïve schoolgirls chant that so upset the authorities that they responded with tear gas, clubs and three police wagons? “We want our land! We want justice!” Did the girls throw stones? I did not observe all of their movements, but from everything I saw, no stones at all were thrown. Rather, these terrified young girls appeared to run in all directions as soon as they heard the sirens and saw the first signs of tear gas.

I must admit that even as I observed the Israeli display of force and also reflected upon it later, I was consciously asking myself questions.

Does not the terrible tragedy experienced by the Jews over four decades ago at the hands of the vicious Nazis explain this violent suppression and apparent over-reaction of the Israeli government? Do not the threats, both real and imagined, from various Arab countries justify violent repression? Or, does past PLO terrorism justify the beating of a naïve, isolated Arab school child? Or, could it be that the excitement of the situation caused the police to over react, as it was clearly explained to me later by a friend who was not there to witness the event. Yet, the only excitement that I observed was created by the police.

I am well aware that there are much wiser minds than the one possessed by this particular father of five. Perhaps they know ramifications to my questions that are beyond my limited experienced. But, from any experiences in life, reading and observation, no present or past circumstances in my background allow me to justify the calloused and racial arrogance that I am observing here in the name of maintaining order and building a nation. Faithfully the Jerusalem Post day after day carries articles of violent deaths of Palestinians. They are dying throughout the West Bank and in prisons, under very questionable circumstances.

CHILDREN OF THE STONES

There is also the booklet entitled Children of the Stones, compiled by Mubarrak Awad, before his expulsion. It documents multiple cases of police and military torture and brutalization of teen-agers, a copy of which was sent to United States Secretary of State George Schultz. One can imagine how long the list of brutalizations might have been if most Palestinian teen-agers were not in desperate fear of having their victimization documented due to a dread of what reprisal might be taken against them. Also, there are other situations about which I personally am aware, but will not mentioned in order to protect the innocent and vulnerable.

IN A REFUGEE CAMP

I spent an hour and a half in a refugee camp, and it was almost too much for me to handle emotionally. I visited a mother of eight who was approximately my own age, and had lived there for forty years. She showed me the original room of their present four rooms living space, all of which could be placed in many of our living rooms. The original one room was two and a half by three meters, and this one small room was the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room for a family of five for several years. You could not call it a house, but it did now have a total of three small rooms plus a kitchen. This was for a family of ten.

The grown sons had serious questions for me in addition to the standard question of “after you have seen what you have seen, how can you justify the United States support of Israel?” They were especially upset over two issues. They wondered why United States presidents always wait until after they are out of office before they speak out against the crimes and injustices of Israel against the Palestinians. They also wondered why it was that the U.S. government chose Palestinians to be the victims of new weapons and gases, and why our state department requests Israel experiment with these weapons and gases against them.

The mother’s question was also emotionally straining for me. She spoke in Arabic with much anguish, but I only understood a small part until it was translated. The anguish did not need to be translated, “Abu Toma, why do Israeli mothers think that Palestinian mothers do not have feelings when the children they love are beaten and murdered?” This serious question bothered her much more than the fact that the soldiers had recently pushed her into a mud puddle and then laughed at her while she struggled to get up.

One method of harassment Israelis use against the Palestinian refugees is to set off tear gas in their camps. It is not unusual for an expectant mother to be a victim of the tear gas, and to lose her baby to miscarriage within a few days of the gas attack. I thought of how ironic it is that so many Americans are anti-abortion, and yet support the American policy on the Occupied West Bank which causes these tear gas abortions.

The sun torture that is apparently used in the Israeli prisons to control the prisoners is also a source of great anguish to the refugees. This treatment appears to be behind what the August 21, 1988 front-page article in the Jerusalem Post was referring to. The article entitled Inmates Charge Ketzoit Prisoner Deliberately Shot by Senior I.D.F. Officer. When a few prisoners refused to carry out orders that they were certain were against the Geneva Convention, all the prisoners in that section were ordered to sit in the intense sun without any cover or shade. They were not even permitted to use their hands to shade their eyes, but were forced to hold their hands behind their backs. The prisoners finally got up and walked to their tents without permission, after two hours of this torture. When one of the prisoners was beaten for this disobedience, the others then shouted, “Don’t hit him, stop,” and, “GOD is Great.” Before it was all over, two prisoners were dead and one was wounded. Since Israel is a democratic nation, each of these murders or unfortunate deaths is investigated, sometimes some disciplinary action is taken, and reports are filed along with hundreds of other investigations of brutalizations and possible murders. Tragically, there appears to be no public attempt to counter the prevailing attitude which leads to immoral victimization of Palestinians. This prevailing attitude among an alarming percentage of Israelis is that a Palestinian is less than human.

LESS THAN HUMAN

Every military officer of any nation is aware that a key step in defeating an enemy is to indoctrinate your own personnel so that they view the opposition as less than human. This way, a person does not violate his own conscience when he brutalizes another human because in his own mind the person has been reduced to an animal or possibly even lower. Once this step has been achieved, human rights violations are considered a temporary nuisance. They are given routine attention, but are not taken seriously by most authorities because the attitude that led to the abuse or even murder is seen as an attitude that serves the nations highest good. In most civilized nations, the elected leader would keep himself removed from this type of negative brainwashing.

In this context, when you have the elected leader of the nation of Israel make a public statement reducing Palestinians to a step lower than animals, it can be considered an important indication of the extent of the nation’s moral degeneration. Israel’s prime minister set the example by speaking publicly of crushing Palestinian rioters “who are grasshoppers compared to us.” Investigations of human rights violations in an atmosphere where the opposition are regarded as insects to be crushed become almost meaningless. Investigations become a game played to satisfy a public relations image, and to soothe the consciences of the general population so that they feel reassured that they are living in a civilized nation.

THE COMPASSIONATE HEEL OF THE STATE

The situation in Israel is even more pathetic than in most other police states attempting to be democracies. Most other such nations resort to a carrot and stick approach in oppressing their people. The victims will receive the promise of some reward in the midst of their oppression. According to the August 18, 1988 Jerusalem Post, Israeli leaders have promised no rewards. The only incentive being offered the Palestinian is to avoid being crushed by the compassionless heel of the state. Then the state turns hypocritically around and announces to the world that there are no moderates with whom to negotiate because it has done everything in its power to undermine the credibility of any moderates leadership that might emerge. This leaves the state the opportunity to proceed with impunity to build illegal outposts on territory that is not its own. When it is severely criticized by the world community for this illegal behavior, it sends up the smoke screen of saying it is breaking the law to insure its own security. Since Israel’s public relations approach is consistently antagonistic to its neighbors and contemptuous in its treatment of them, Israel cleverly assures itself of continuously being justified in doing as it pleased, even when it involves going against international law. When world opinion becomes sufficiently aroused, Israel points a finger at her angry neighbors and pleads that security needs makes it to do everything illegal that it does. Then the United States assures Israel that we understand that Arabs cannot be trusted, so she can rest in peace because we will protect her from all evil Arabs.

WORSE THAN SELMA ALABAMA

When I first arrived on the West Bank, I felt that there was much similarity between the treatment and attitude toward Palestinians here, with the treatment Blacks received in Selma, Alabama in the 1960’s. Now I have concluded that the subterfuge, deceit and sophisticated public relations cover-up that is taking place here, makes a comparison almost irrelevant. Yet, there are some significant similarities. Through film documentation I have watched, in my reading, and through personal conversation, I have concluded that what occurred in the South, and throughout our nation at various times and to various degrees, is something about which our GOD of justice is angry. Blacks have been forced to plead for the right to be treated like human beings. They have been attacked with clubs, fire hoses, police dogs, and weapons. They have also been exploited economically.

Here, there are obviously many positive relations between Arabs and Jews. But all too often the attitude of Israelis toward Palestinians is at best, condescending, and much of the time, contemptuous. The weapon is used much more here than it was in Alabama. Additionally, the destruction of property, random intimidation by beating, forced long-term separation of family members, the wanton destruction of homes of innocent families, large scale imprisonment, and extreme measures of group punishment of the innocent are all tactics used here on a much broader scale than they ever were in the American South. In fact, the question must be asked, how our government can protest the tactics and apartheid in South Africa and still support and assist the degrading policies against the occupied people here.

There is one additional significant difference between the treatment of the Palestinian here and that which the Black experienced in the South. In the South, the larger national government, of which the South was only a part, fought wrong attitudes and actions and succeeded in changing many of the actions and some of the attitudes. Here, the source of the policy and the attitude is the state. Here it is the very vision of the state, and the excuse of building the state, that cause both GOD and human values to be subordinated to the national goal of building the nation. The nation appears to have replaced GOD as GOD. Once this goal has been accomplished, it is only a minor step to rationalize the cruel oppression of human beings, whether they are the rights of the women, children, old men, or any other type of refugee. If persons are perceived as obstacles to the creation of a greater Israel, they may be treated as refuse. At this point, most of the states victims have been Palestinians, with Nicholas Vanunu being the most notable Israeli exception.

What I have just stated about the exploitation and victimization of individuals by Israeli authorities is undoubtedly information, that if you are an Arab, you are already well aware. Yet, you may legitimately enquire as to how all of this relates to whether or not our Messiah Isa defeated death, or whether he only escaped from death. Please bear with me a little longer and I hope to adequately demonstrate this vital connection.

Although I am a Westerner, I hope I have at least a small understanding of the tremendous injustice being experienced by especially the Palestinian members of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, though I have read considerably about sides of the issues, I have not really felt and understood the extent and evil of the injustice occurring here living and intermingling with the people. However, since Palestinians have begun to accept me and understand that I have gained some perspective on what is happening to them, again and again I have been asked a question. This question has most of them confused about the United States, depressed regarding us and very disillusioned with us. While the question may be simple, the answer is certainly not.

Why do the people in the United States have so much sympathy for Israel and care so little about the injustice being suffered by the Palestinians?

DEIR YASSIN

I have pondered this question a great deal recently. Especially, I thought about it when I was riding with a friend in an outer part of Jerusalem. As we drove past large apartments, he calmly asked me the question, “Do you know where you are?” I looked blankly at him, obviously confused by his question. I wondered what these nice apartments had to do with where we were. When he asked, “Have you heard of Deir Yassin?” I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

In April of 1948, it is documented that approximately 350 Palestinians; were slaughtered there by Israeli forces, though many reputable Jewish leaders had furtively attempted to prevent such slaughter. I admitted to myself that not one in one hundred thousand Americans is familiar with the name Deir Yassin. Strangely connected with people not knowing about Deir Yassin is the unavailability of the 1984 book, Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour, which documents the occurrences there. I called over fifteen major bookstores in Seattle, and was unable to locate the book. I asked myself if there was some network which helps to prevent certain books from being available. Or, is it that we Americans are really not interested in what happens to Palestinians in their own land so that the bookstore do not carry this excellent book? The difficulty in obtaining this book in the U.S., as well as the absence in the U.S. and Israel of the balanced British television account of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, Courage Along the Divide, does not seem a good advertisement for two democratic countries. While the Ted Kopel, ABC coverage was excellent, there is much more that must be heard and seen.

I have neither an excuse nor an adequate explanation as to why the people of our nation are as unconcerned and uninformed as we are. I could use as an excuse the previous public position of Yassar Arafat in refusing to publicly recognize the right of Israel to exit as a nation. But, while it is a part of the problem, it is only a small part. Also, the killing by terrorists of innocent people is a significant part of our problem, but again, only a small part. Perhaps the guilt that we still have from not having helped the Jewish victims of Hitler’s insane rage is a bigger problem than any I have so far mentioned. It seems that this guilt, which in itself is legitimate guilt, prevents us from looking objectively at Jewish treatment of Palestinians. Also, I think that since the Jews are ancestors of our Lord Jesus, we have a sub-conscious idea that members of Jesus’ race would not perpetuate injustice. On this issue, we seem to successfully separate the reality that it was certain Jewish leaders who manipulated Jesus’ crucifixion as taught in the New Testament Scriptures, from the reality of acts against Palestinians brought about by the policies of certain Jewish leaders today. We are tremendously sensitive about being criticized for being anti-Semitic even though we intellectually realize that being in favor of justice for the Palestinians does not mean that a person is anti-Semitic.

It is a terrible injustice to the Palestinians that these two totally different subjects have been made to seem inseparable. Perhaps, if the term anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian carried equally negative connotations and equally negative emotional overtones as anti-Semitic, we would all be more balanced. We conveniently forget that the Arabs are also Semites. Our anti- Semitic attitudes currently impact them more negatively than current anti-Semitic attitudes impact the Jews. The fact that many of us have somehow become brainwashed to believe that an Arab is not to be trusted or that all Palestinians are terrorists, is an international crime of horrible dimensions.

Additionally, many of us at least subconsciously feel that Jewish people have a special right to this land because of their special relationship to Jesus and the Prophets. Our interpretation of predictions in the Bible of Jewish people returning to this land in the last days has also influenced many of us. Yet, we must admit that none of these predictions imply that a major part of the returning process would be callously stealing the land of those who continued to live there. The Bible does not justify a return that includes using extreme legal technicalities in order to justify confining the moral and legal owners to disgraceful refugee camps. The Bible certainly does not give the Israelis any moral, legal, or theological excuse to threaten to finally drive Palestinians totally out of their nation, after having already driven them off their own property.

In this regard, it is terrifying how many of us conveniently separate our interpretation that the Scriptures teach that there should be a land of Israel with certain eventual boundaries from a more certain reality contained in the same Scriptures. Thee Scriptures also teach that profound acts of judgment will come upon the Jewish nation when its policy is to steal from others and when it treats the sojourner among them unjustly. A very serious crime in the Old Testament was moving a land marker. This obviously makes the stealing of large plots of land a deplorable crime in the eyes of a just and compassionate GOD/ALLAH.

Our nation has many times desired to defend the vulnerable, especially when it is to our geo-political benefit to do so. Since Egypt and Jordan have been the only Middle Eastern nations to unequivocally recognize Israel’s right to exit as a nation, we feel that our protection of Israel is vital to its survival. We are convinced that it would be absolutely wrong and inhumane for us to allow Israel to be driven into the sea, or destroyed as a nation. At various times, this has been a well-publicized threat that Israelis have magnified to their advantage. It is very difficult for us to know much substance is behind the threat, once the threat became public.

Also it is the desire of the U.S. to have the nation of Israel as a sort of political, economic, military outpost in the Middle East, in order to represent U.S. interests there, and to somewhat balance the power of the Arab nations.

MILITARY CONTRACTS

The economic needs of our nation profit by having a certain amount of political tension in the Middle East, in order to provide contracts for our giant military-industrial complex. I do not want to believe that our top government officials purposely attempt to delay peace in order to stimulate our economy by selling weapons. I am convinced however, that there are many interrelated and difficult to control factors, as well as greedy groups who work against the peace process. This insures that our economy is stimulated by our weapons sales and all the support services connected with those weapons sales.

Some students of the Bible have had a difficult time justifying one particular teaching of the Bible. When Moses and Joshua led the descendents of Jacob into this area from Egypt, they were ordered to destroy and drive out a particularly wicked group seven of nations. These nations’ behavior seemed to be like the people at the time of the flood or like Sodom and Gomorrah, whom ALLAH destroyed for their wickedness. Whether or not we have totally accepted the teaching that it was GOD’S will to drive out those seven nations previously occupying the land, many of us have failed to make an extremely important distinction or separation. We apparently do not understand that there is absolutely no relationship between Moses and Joshua’s responsibility to drive out the former occupants of the land at that time, with the present return of Jewish people to this land. For the people of either Israel or the United States or any other nation to have Moses’ and Joshua’s action as a conscious or subconscious model for the present Jews coming to the land is a vicious corruption and terrible distortion of the teaching of the Bible. It is shameful that this distortion would influence even one follower of the Messiah. There is not one verse in the entire Bible which suggests or even hints that the Jews returning in the latter days should treat the residents of the land who were here before they returned, with anything but the greatest respect.

Moses and Joshua had no instructions to either drive out or destroy the Philistines, as they were not part of the seven nations. Though the Philistines were adversaries of Israel, there was never any directive to destroy them. Nevertheless, for those who may feel that today’s Palestinian should some type of punishment for the military struggles of their Philistine ancestors, there is a vital point of which to be aware. Reputable scholars are unanimous that today’s Palestinian is not related ethnically, religiously, or linguistically with the Philistines of King David’s time. For either Christians or Jews to think that Palestinians are historically the enemies of ALLAH and Israel and therefore ought to be punished, is absurd, racist, unbiblical, and totally unacceptable to ALLAH. Therefore, to conclude that the Israel which will have ALLAH’S blessing, will be a racist Israel that excludes Palestinians or treats them as less than human is a grave error. That kind of Israel will have GOD’S Judgment, not His Blessing.

WE MUST ANSWER TO ALLAH

If Americans take seriously any reason for favoring Israel and ignoring the Palestinian plight, we must finally answer to ALLAH, our own consciences and to the Palestinians. We cannot, as either Americans or human beings, use the excused we used when the Jews were massacred, that we didn’t realize that there existed such a deplorable situation. We cannot, we must not, close eyes to the Palestinians’ suffering, and close our ears to their desperate cries anguish. The number of Palestinian deaths when compared to Jewish death at the hands of the Nazis may seem to be insignificant. The total viciousness or extent of the suffering may appear to be irrelevant in comparison. Nevertheless, we cannot use statistics to justify standing idly by to watch influential leaders encourage politics that have injustice as their foundation. Someone has truthfully said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. “When we sincerely search our hearts, our conscious, and our Bibles, we know that the GOD of justice will not truly bless a nation which has as three of its main foundation stones; injustices, bigotry and racism. No, we have no excuse before GOD, before the world and before the Palestinian people for our lack of compassion for the people of occupied Gaza and occupied Palestine. Also, we are harming the Jewish people, if by our doing and saying nothing, we encourage them to build their nation upon a defective and evil foundation and thus incur ALLAH’S worth.

The God who sent the Messiah Isa into the world is the GOD who wants justice and compassion for all peoples. If this land of Israel is to receive ALLAH’S blessing as a nation, it must show justice and compassion for all people. If my own reading of the Prophets and understanding of the teachings of the Messiah are correct, while this land maybe a homeland for Jews from many nations, the GOD of the Bible is constantly and consistently inclusive rather than exclusive. The fact that King David’s great, great grandmother was the former Jericho prostitute Rahab and that his grandmother was Ruth, a Moabite woman, are two beautiful examples of GOD’S forgiveness and integration of persons from diverse personal, racial and national backgrounds.

HELPED PERSONS WHO WERE NOT JEWISH

The Messiah Isa’s first public teaching at Nazareth, a penetrating condemnation of racial exclusivists, upset his Jewish listeners to such an extent that they almost succeeded in murdering him. He explained Old Testament Scriptures in which both the Prophet Elijah and the Prophet Elisha were sent by GOD to perform miracles to help persons who were not Jewish. Isa emphasized the point on these two occasions, GOD, for his own reasons, chose not to lead these prophets to help Jewish persons. This enraged his listeners.

The August 12, 1988 Jerusalem Post had a front page article proclaiming that a full forty-nine percent of adult Jewish voters favor the forced transfer of Palestinians from their homes and lands, an article which should shock the civilized world. It is more than frightening to note that the reported reason for Israeli Jews favoring this plan is so that this “would allow the democratic and Jewish nature of society to be maintained.” Democracy for whom? A racial elite? Certainly not for the human beings, who were living here before the presence of the majority of today’s Jewish citizens. It is a sad historical irony that this is so close to the thought of creating a “master race.” The plans encouraged by this racist attitude also remind us to the inhumane policies of Joseph Stalin. These policies are not what you would expect from the Jewish heritage of justice and compassion, the foundation laid by the Hebrew Prophets.

Our Messiah Isa linked his own vision for Israel with the glorious and inclusive vision of the Prophet Isaiah when he quoted him as he cleaned out the Jerusalem temple,

“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations… Instead of Isa’s generation actively encouraging people of every nation to worship in GOD’S temple, they made it a place to steal. Isa used the words of the Prophet Jeremiah to complete his stinging condemnation of his own generation,

“…but you have made it a den of thieves.”

ALLAH will seriously discipline the nation that publicly claims its historical connection with Him, but at the same time has as one of its main foundation the theft of land from others. The Israeli lust for Palestinian land is the foundation for the strife between these two peoples. This reality becomes even more serious when it is recalled that this is the identical condemnation ALLAH had against one of the wicked kings in Israel’s history, King Ahab. He and his descendents were totally condemned and destroyed because the king and his wife stole land from its legal and moral owner.

King Ahab and his immoral wife Jezebel were both condemned to death by ALLAH for their shameless greed in arranging the murder of a vulnerable and righteous man named Nabath. Their purpose was to steal from him the land he legally and morally owned. This despicable act of murder was so offensive to ALLAH that the Prophet Elijah was sent to announce to King Ahab a prophecy, whose fulfillment was one of the most gruesome completions of prophecy in the entire Bible. The first part of Elijah’s prophecy was to predict the death of the King and the gruesome murder of his wife. The prophecy’s second part was to announce that every male descendent and every male representative of the house of Ahab would die in the relatively near future. These deaths were a necessary demonstration to all future generations of how severely King Ahab and Queen Jezebel’s wickedness had corrupted the whole nation of Israel. So, it is an absolute certainty that the ALLAH of the Bible who is the great GOD of justice is today pleading with the hearts and spirits of the people and leaders of Israel to build their nation on a foundation of justice, to totally renounce the injustice which permeates national attitudes and national policies. Justice is the only foundation which will have ALLAH’S approval and His blessing and which will defer severe judgment from Israel.

A RELATION TO FASCSM

Yet, even in the present darkness there are brilliant rays of light. There are Jews of influence who proclaim publicly with great personal risk and significant sacrifice that Jews should be ashamed of their nation’s policies. They openly state that though Israel proudly boasts to the entire world that it is the only Middle Eastern democracy, some of its most important policies, especially as those policies relate to the occupation, are not democratic, but fascist. The rights of individuals have become subordinate to the vision of the state and the state has been raised above the level of GOD. Israel’s relation to fascism becomes more frightening when you reflect on how prominent the club and the power of life and death have become in Israel.

In Rome, the word faces, from which fascist is derived, were bundles of wooden rods or clubs enclosing an ax. The rods were symbolic to the Romans of the power of punishment and suppression; the ax was symbolic of the power the state had over decisions regarding life and death. In this context, is it not appropriate to refer to Israel today as fascist, at least in their treatment of Palestinians?

There are Jews who cry against the disgusting contrast which exists in the favorable way that the Israeli government treats convicted Jewish murders of Palestinians, with the shameful way it treats Palestinians who have only been accused of the crime of waving a Palestinian flag or of chanting in a protest. ALLAH should be praised for the Jewish lawyers and others who cry out in defense of innocent victims of this cruel repression. There are other brave Jewish citizens who vehemently protest Israeli economic policies and taxes that are meant to cripple the Palestinians economically so that they will give up and leave their land for the Israelis to take over. There are those courageous but otherwise ordinary Israeli citizens who protest and demonstrate in the streets against the selling of land stolen from Palestinians to Israelis. There are those voluntary heroes who have sometimes been allowed to help innocent Palestinians rebuild their homes which for various unjust reasons have been destroyed by the Israeli authorities.

Each of these bold persons is like a beacon light shining in the darkness showing the nations that some truth and justice does exist in Israel. They are bright searchlights exposing hypocrisy, greed and injustice. Other citizens of Israel should be especially thankful for these righteous voices in the desert. The Prophets of old would proclaim that if it were not for the radiance which shines forth from these polished gems of justice, ALLAH’S judgment would break out against Israel as it did against the rebellious children of Israel when Moses returned from receiving the righteous law on Mount Sinai.

Though the sin of the nation of Israel today may seem far different from what is commonly considered to have been the transgression of ancient Sodom, according to the Prophet Ezekiel, the major sins of both may have shocking similarities. According to Ezekiel 16, Sodom’s sin could be considered a description of the public policy of Israel today toward the suffering Palestinians. The Prophet Ezekiel condemned ancient Sodom for their unconcern or callousness, for not aiding the poor and needy, and for behaving in ways which ALLAH considers detestable. (For an example of what GOD considers detestable in Israel today, please read the September 24, 1988 issue of the International Edition of the Jerusalem Post, the article entitled The Dairy of a Soldier.) When Abraham plead with ALLAH on behalf of Sodom, GOD revealed to him that if enough righteous persons were found there, the city would not be destroyed. Regretfully, they were not found. The city was destroyed. In light of this, the other citizens of Israel should be thankful for the presence of righteous Israelis.

A SPOKESPERSON FOR NON - VIOLENCE

Israeli leaders publicly proclaim that they wish to put an end to the violence. Yet, there are shocking contradictions in what they say and what they do. One such contradiction is that while claiming publicly to deplore violence, they banished the main Palestinian spokesman of non-violence, Mubarrak Awad. His crime was in helping Palestinians learn non-violent ways of protesting, using Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi as his main models. Do the Israeli authorities really expect the people, who have lost their homes and their land to meekly remain in punishment chambers in their stuffed refugee camp ghettos, to endure another twenty years of deprivation and humiliation, without complaining?

Many will say that it is cruel, insensitive, and unfair to make any illusion to Hitler’s gas chambers. I must agree that those gas chambers represent the most cruel and inhumane treatment of human beings to ever occur in the history of man. The main reason no comparison should ever be made with them is that a civilized society should not have allowed them to exist. But since they did exist and were used, we are cruel and barbaric unless we learn from these gas chambers that man must not treat his fellow man with barbarity. It is cruel and inhumane that as many as eight human beings live day after day, year after year in as small a space three and a half by four meters. These persons slowly suffers and inch toward a humiliating and depressing slow death of spirit from lack of hope, as they exist in their bleak prison-like enclosures. Their disgust with their oppressors grows even more when barbed wire, restricting confinements and curfews are added. In many of the camps, the more crude among the heavily armed Israeli Defense Force members regularly submit the refugees to degrading harassment when they are breaking none of the oppressive regulations. As a further indignity, Palestinians are told that they have no right to complain because they have no rights.

Then, a person from their own land comes to help these suffering people. Even more than help, he offers them hope. His own father was a victim of the violence they are experiencing. He and the other six children in his family were raised near here, not in refuge camps, but in orphanages. He patiently teaches them to not use violence, but to hold their heads high and proclaim to their oppressors that they are human beings. But he is banished from the land. The highest court of Israel permanently banishes him, demonstrating to all who will take note, that it is Israeli national policy to oppose compassion for Palestinians when that compassion does not fit into the state’s definition of how compassion can be legally expressed. This must certainly remind us of a Jewish man who lived two thousands years ago in this land. He also was harshly condemned, by the authorities for not following rigid rules on how and when to express his compassion. He received the authorities wrath for the terrible crime of healing a suffering human being on the wrong day of the week. Please read the Gospel of John, Chapter 9, and Matthew 12:1-14, Mark 1:21-28, and Mark 3:1-6.

What was Mubarrak Awad’s crime which justified lifetime banishment from democratic showcase of the Middle East? He opposed the goals of the nation by bringing hope to the hopeless. He tried to help the oppressed. His crime was to teach humiliated, enraged, depressed victims of cruelty and gross injustice how to protest their oppression without violence in a land where violence is a national policy. The gross hypocrisy of the leaders of Israel in justifying his expulsion on the grounds that he did not sufficiently condemn others for not renouncing their violence is a cruel distortion of reality.

Without realizing it, Israeli leaders point ALLAH’S wrath at themselves rather than at Mubarak Awad. They have made violence a national policy. They have the arrogance to say that Mr. Awad has not sufficiently condemned the violence that certain other Palestinians have advocated as the only way to get a change in Israeli policy. The government justified their condemnation of him by taking out of context remarks he had made in former speeches.

Why can’t Israeli leadership be honest enough to admit that the main reason they expelled Mubarak Awad is for the embarrassment he caused Israel by printing his booklet entitled Children of the Stones? This booklet documents the state’s violence committed against vulnerable, innocent, teenage victims who had consistently committed no greater crime than to have been born Palestinian. A Middle Eastern friend of mine borrowed it to read, but couldn’t read it no longer than five minutes a day because the graphic accounts of Israeli human rights violations made her ill. Another friend signed the cover letter for this document when it was sent to the U.S. Secretary of State, George Schultz. The friend related to me the shocking action that he is convinced that Israeli authorities took against him for signing the letter which accompanied the depressing and shameful revelation. He had an excellent reputation with both Israeli and Palestinian authorities for his more than two decades of humanitarian work with Middle Easterners. After the Israeli authorities heard of the report, he was subjected to a humiliating attempt to intimidate him at the airport by strip-search and an implied threat against his family. Though he had traveled in and out of Israel dozens of times, this time in addition to the strip search, authorities demanded the address of his family. He was convinced that they were implying that his family might get harassed or worse if he was involved in any more complaints against Israeli persecution of Palestinians.

When Israeli officials use threats and expulsion against those who are attempting to aid victims, it reminds us of what the Messiah said centuries ago. He told the leaders of his time that by the very words they were using to condemn him, they were actually condemning themselves (Matthew 12:33-37.)

Which will come first to this land? Will it be justice by man to his fellow man, or will it be judgment from GOD?

There is a faint glimmer of light connected with Mubarrak Awad’s forced departure. Many Jewish citizens protested his deportation. One prominent Jewish educator even protested it with a public hunger strike. As a result, as reported in the Jerusalem Post, this man had to endure a painful stream of insults and curses spat out by Jewish passers by. He said that they especially objected to the fact that he, a Jew, would help an Arab. Have these haters of Arabs never read their own Scriptures? The Jewish Prophet Elijah was not sent during a famine to one Jewish widow in the land of Israel. Instead, ALLAH sent him to help an Arab widow in the city of Sidon. Have they never read of Elijah’s student, the Prophet Elisha, who was not sent to heal one Jewish leper in Israel? Instead, he was sent to heal an Arab leper from Syria. Another Jewish person named Jesus told these Old Testament stories in his hometown synagogue in order to demonstrate that ALLAH is not a racist and does not tolerate racist attitudes. He attempted to break through their rigid hypocrisy and help his neighbors replace their hearts of stone and severity with hearts of love and compassion. They become so enraged at Isa’s attempt to challenge their compassionless complacency that they reacted with rage and total loss of perspective. They attempted to permanently silence Isa’s unwanted reminders of ALLAH’S lack of tolerance for bigotry by trying to push him off a Nazareth cliff. Please see the Gospel of Luke, 4:24-30.

There is another exceptionally sobering side to the violence being done to the Palestinians and to people like Mubarrak Awad. The Prophet Obadiah taught that an act of violence, need not be an aggressive act, but violence can also be standing aloof and turning a deaf ear on another’s cry for help. For even this passive type of violence, Obadiah predicted terrible punishment on the people, who, by refusing to help their brothers, violently hurt them. Jesus taught the same concept in his parable of the sheep and the goats made famous by Mother Theresa (see Matthew 25:31-46.) He taught that when anyone turns from the naked, hungry and imprisoned, that he so closely suffers with these persons, that when we reject them, we reject him. He then spoke symbolically of eternal fire prepared for those who do not help the needy. How much worse punishment is stored up for those who not only turn away from helping those who are suffering, but who themselves cause the suffering and punish the sufferers?

Oh citizens of Israel--even if you think the Palestinians are less than human, by relieving their suffering, you may yet save yourself from ALLAH’S judgment!

ISHMAEL MEANS GOD HEARS

Oh, Arabs--though the crime of Israel towards the Palestinians is horrible, if vengeance is the answer; it is GOD who will avenge, not man. ALLAH named the man who many consider as the symbolic forefather of all Arabs, the wonderful name Ishmael. This comforting name, which was given to Ishmael’s mother by GOD Himself, literally means in its original language --“GOD hears.” None of us have cried out like we should have, and yet can, to a hearing GOD. We have taken action, but we must continue to cry out to ALLAH. For one generation, forty years, ALLAH has watched the unrelieved suffering and injustice. We must continue to cry out as Hagar and Ishmael did. GOD will hear and act, but only when we renounce vengeance and the weapon. While we still trust vengeance for our motivation and worship the weapon as the path to justice, we do not truly trust ALLAH or walk in his path.

MY QUESTION

I have tried to be very honest with you regarding why we Americans appear to favor the Jews over the Palestinians. Now, I have a puzzling question for every Muslim. Why do you Muslims appear to favor the Jews?

Most of you know that central to the faith of any person who follows the Messiah Isa is the wonderful belief that Isa defeated death by rising from the dead. We also sincerely believe that there is a kind of illness or defect with which each person in the world is afflicted. Our conviction is that Isa’s unselfish death upon the cross begins to heal that illness. Consequently, both central and vital to our faith is the death, resurrection, and ascension to ALLAH of our Messiah. Also, there is virtually no Muslim who does not realize that the majority of Jewish people do not recognize that Isa was anyone special. Therefore, most Jews have not yet allowed him to begin his healing process in their lives. Most Muslims also know that it was the Jews, though they represented the deceitful hearts of all of us, who first rejected Isa and who planned his death.

In view of these realities, why does there still remain, so many centuries after the horrible Christian Crusades, an apparent Muslim desire to punish Christians? By constantly interpreting Women 157 and 158 the way Muslims are required to interpret them, the heart of every true believer in the Messiah Isa is deeply wounded. By continuing to deny that Isa was willing to suffer horrible pain and public humiliation, you are cutting yourself off from the most sacrificial act of love one human being has ever done for another in the history of man. Please remember. It is not the Qur’an that teaches that ALLAH would not have allowed someone as good as Isa to suffer at the hands of a people as disobedient as were the Jews of that day. This is man’s teaching, not the Qur’an’s. If ALLAH’S true purpose was to save Isa from humiliation, he would have rescued him before they spit on his face and beat him with a whip.

I presented my case at the beginning of this paper for the Qur’an’s teaching that the Messiah Isa did die and rise again. My presentation may have influenced you but it probably did not persuade you. Therefore, please allow me to ask this question. Why, in my discussion with many Muslims on Women 157, have none of them emphasized the link that this verse has with those verses preceding it? Not one Muslim has demonstrated to me the influence on this verse by the Qur’an’s serious denunciation of Jews for the terrible mistakes they made and crimes they committed, contained in the verses before 157. The Qur’an clearly rebukes them for their serious errors, but contemporary Muslim interpretation changes the focus of the criticism away from the Jews. The contemporary approach then changes the criticism of Jews to a denunciation of Christian belief. Instead of criticizing sinful actions of Jews. Two verses which are ment to emphasize the glorious victory of the Messiah over sin, and death and over the plotting of these same Jews have their meaning totally cancelled. In the place of the interpretation which honors the Messiah, is substituted a characterization of the Messiah of the Qur’an so that he becomes too fragile to endure suffering.