Monday, December 29, 2008
Concering the Crisis in Gaza and Southern Israel

Please pray for Palestine/Israel, especially southern Israel and Gaza where the killing by both sides is killing the innocent as well as the guilty. Hold all people in the Light.

The whole situation of Palestine/Israel is so very complicated.

I don't have any quick answers for the extremely complex situation. However, I did live in Palestine/Israel in 1974, worked on a Jewish kibbutz, stayed briefly with a Palestinian family who befriended me in Nablus, and have read extensively books by both sides, etc.

My first suggestion is that we need to concentrate on giving all the different people of the Middle East the Good News. This is what America and Europe HASN"T done, except to a tiny degree with such activities as the Friends School in Ramallah,
Christian Peacemaker Teams, Brother Andrew's involvement in bringing Jew and Arab together, even going to HAMAS to share his perspective with its leaders (and helped
them when they were dumped midwinter into Lebanon years ago).

For instance, Eli Chacour a Palestinian/Israeli Arab priest gives out the Good News to all. He has worked with and started a school/university for all peoples of the area--Christian, Muslim, Druse, and Jew. He has also befriended non-theists.

That is a start.

Also, here are several books that might assist in helping everyone to understand the complexity of the area:

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh and Anthony David

Blessed are the Peacemakers by the former assistant mayor
of Ramallah (don't remember the name right now)

Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour
We Belong to the Land by Elias Chacour

Chacour's father, a Palestinian said that they needed to love
the Jews (when the Jews were escaping to the M.E.) yet later
the Israeli army kidnapped him and Chacour's brother
and dumped them in a foreign country, then they blew up
their Catholic church and drove all of the Palestinians
out of their town.

Yet Chacour still shows love to the Jewish people and all others.

Sounds like the Lamb's War,
the only war worth having.

Peace in the Light of Christ,

Daniel Wilcox
http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/