This post is written in the blessed memory of the 69 year old Jewish gentleman at the Rally for Israel in Westlake/Thousand Oaks who was murdered by a pro-Palestinian activist on Sunday. This took place in my once-peaceful home town. This is what happens when evil goes unchecked-

To all those well-wishers reading Israel Dreams who have sent blessings and words of support, I appreciate your kindnesses. To those of you who have offered to pray – even taking shifts in the middle of the night – to pray for the safety of my family and for Israel, I pray for an outpouring of G-d‘s blessings upon you. For those offering financial and material assistance, in the coming days I will provide another list of where to contribute so your gifts will be put to direct use where most needed. I can’t begin to tell you how much your emails, messages and calls are helping me through this time.

In the next few posts, I will be countering directly some of the misdirections and misguided barbs that I am also being overwhelmed by. Although, I’m sure well intentioned, I don’t know if people realize the damage they do and fomenting of baseless hatred within others when their personal opinions are not grounded in fact. I have the ability to allow or block comments on both this WordPress site and on my personal email. Sadly, I have had to block 9 people. Knowing that some were both colleagues in my interfaith work and old friends is shocking and saddening to me.

First, I know we (as Jews and Christians) are called to be a light and love to others, doing good works and helping the downtrodden. And yes, I understand your points on the Christian call to ‘forgive seventy times seventy’ and the inability to do so causing ‘a provoked enmity between the people of Israel and her neighboring countries.’ This places the onus squarely upon the Jewish people. In this conflict, one should not play both sides as the sides should not be equated.

I will also address the person that stated my family in particular, as well as all the Jewish people in general, are colonizers who have intruded on the land of the indigenous people with their wealth, their culture and their power.

I will begin with a brief glimpse of history and theology to establish a basis for the unfortunate circumstances of today. The word “Jew” comes from the Biblical land of Judaea and the Hebrew tribe of Judah. Judaea from the time of the monarchies of King Saul and King David included all of the area surrounding Jerusalem. The area northwards from the coastal plain adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea (the Biblical and historical Shefela) to the mountains of Lebanon, northeast to Damascus and east along the Sea of Galilee which pours into the Jordan River, formed the borders for the ten tribes of Israel. The lands Judaea and Israel belonged to the Jews. From the Canaanite period with the progeny of Abraham, they were the indigenous peoples.

Both the kingdoms of Israel and Judaea were displaced in 734-732 BC when they were conquered by the Assyrians, and in 597-586 BC by the Babylonians. Most Jewish people from the Assyrian invasion remained in exile although several thousand were never captured, living in hidden pockets throughout Israel. Babylonian captives returned to their homeland and lived in the territories of Israel and Judaea until they were scattered throughout the nations by the Romans in 70AD and 135 AD (Bar Kochba/Battle of Beitar). There always remained a Jewish presence, however small in the land (Yavne, Safed, Hebron) even after the Romans expelled them.

After the Roman Empire fell, the Holy Land was inhabited by mostly early Christians: Jewish people who believed Jesus was the Messiah, Arameans, Samaritans and Byzantines, all who formed the Church. Also present were Jewish scholars of the Torah, the Talmudists, merchants and traders and Bedouins who wandered the desert lands. Despite the various invaders over the centuries (Mamaluks, Crusaders, Ottoman Turks), Israel remained an inhospitable desert.

Mark Twain visited in 1867, recounting in The Innocents Abroad, his travel diary:

“Stirring scenes…occur in this valley [Hula] no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent—not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings…”

“These unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum; this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal plumes of palms…”

“It was hard to realise that this silent plain had once… trembled to the tramp of armed men…A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely… We never saw a human being on the whole route.”

“Nazareth is forlorn…Jericho the accursed lies in a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua’s miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew…high honor….”

In the latter part of the 19th century, the Jewish people began to return to the land of Israel, now called Palestine, a derogatory re-naming by the Romans. These mostly Russian and Eastern European Jews were escaping persecution and forced expulsion (Fiddler on the Roof). Because I have in previous posts given the history of Jewish return, the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Documents, and UN Declaration of Recognition (1948) I will only refer you to those pages.

Israel was established as a place of particular protection for Jewish refugees – a poor but self-determined peoples hailing not only from Europe but from the Levant, the Middle Eastern countries. They were escaping the Farhud, the true ethnic cleansing of Jews from Iraq, Persia (Iran), Syria, Yemen, and other Muslim Arab countries. They also fled genocidal regimes in Islamic North Africa: Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Israel was a haven for the mostly impoverished Jew returning to his homeland.

In 1953, the chairman of the American Christian Palestine Committee wrote: “The Arab population of Palestine was small and limited until Jewish resettlement restored the barren lands and drew to it Arabs from neighboring countries… When organized Jewish colonization began in 1882, there were fewer than 150,000 Arabs in the land. The great majority of the Arab population in recent decades were comparative newcomers—either late immigrants or descendants of persons who had immigrated into Palestine in the previous seventy years.”

When Israel was first being partitioned (see Partition Plan), the first offer of a Two-State solution was given to the Jews and to the Arabs. The Jews were given (and accepted) a land that was easily divided and indefensible. All the land in the south below Jerusalem was desert. The Arab population , Muslim and Christian, would be given land upon which they could live alongside their Jewish neighbors peacefully. They flatly rejected this proposal, instead asking for all the land – free of Jews. See map below:

The Arabs (Palestinian Authority/Fatah) would go on to reject a two state solution seven times. The “three no’s” first issued in the Khartoum Declaration of 1967 have stood to this day. They are as follows “no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and ‘maintenance of the rights of the Palestinian people in their nation.’ The Khartoum Declaration was the first serious warning to the Israelis that their expectation of an imminent ‘phone call’ from the Arab world might be a pipe dream” (Sachar). There would be no peace.

Despite this, Israel has made several land concessions with the now-labeled Palestinian people in return for peace. The latest was the Oslo Accords of 1993-1995. In 2005 Israel ceded all the land in Gaza to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, based on UN resolutions 242 and 338, giving them a sovereign state and humanitarian aid package. Gaza rapidly devolved into a bastion of terror activities against Israel (and now the West in general) under the elected rule of Hamas.

That is the basic history. As for the Christian response to forgive and love, I believe Jesus was speaking to his followers on a personal level – not a national or political level. As the phrase goes “Peace to all people OF GOOD WILL.” To my Christian friends: no person of good will wants war or collateral damage to the innocent civilians that are always caught in the crossfire. This is a spiritual battle as well as a political battle as you should well understand. There are forces of good and forces of evil; a culture of life versus a culture of death. When Jesus was in the desert, he rebuked Satan. He told him to flee. Jesus did not forgive him or try to live peaceably along side him.

The acts perpetrated by Hamas (which translates ‘violence’ in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic) on the morning of 7 October were acts of barbarism and senseless brutality against humanity. The torture, rape, murder, mutilation and kidnapping of people- including the pre-born, babies, children, women, the elderly and peaceful concert-goers is inexcusable. The Hamas terrorist infiltrators into the State of Israel were ruthless in their actions, not differentiating between Jews, Christians, Muslims or nationality. This is a definition of Barbarian. I will not apologize for my reposting of an image and its wording.

No matter how nicely couched, I pity the fact that you or other Christian humanitarians were offended or ‘triggered’ by the word Barbarian. What is even more interesting is that the original person who posted this, an Israeli Jew, neither called for violence or retribution, but instead asked for prayers. Evil needs to be called out for what it is. Full stop.

As for the three persons who continue to write me on a daily basis: Israel has not “become a nation of bloodthirsty people seeking revenge and a disproportionate response. Their army for decades has been waging war the against innocent Palestinians resulting in genocide of the Palestinian people.”

I addressed this in previous posts, yet the above statement continues to be presented. The definition of genocide or ethnic cleansing is when an entire population is exterminated on the basis of race, class or ethnicity. Please see the table of population in my previous blogpost. The Arab population in British Palestine in 1922 was 673,388. With the influx of Arabic people into the land, it had grown to 1,342, 207 in 1947. Immediately preceding the declaration of the State of Israel as a sovereign nation and majority Jewish homeland in 1948, the Arab League called for the Arabic-speaking residents to vacate (mostly to Jordan, but also to Egypt and Syria) as they declared war on Israel. After planned ‘defeat of the Zionist entity ,’ the displaced Arabs would return. This left Israel with an Arab population of only 155,022.

Today, the Arabic people represent the largest ethnic minority in the country. Excluding the West Bank (Judaea & Samaria) territories, they number 2,463, 094 as of July, 2023. Their population has dramatically increased over the past several years. Obviously this goes against the definition of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Regarding the statement that the IDF is responsible for “collective punishment of the people of Gaza:” This is a new phrase that means the “idea punishing an entire country for the acts of a minority.” It is used for pro-Palestinian propaganda purposes alongside the other phrase you used. I believe you stated that “Israel has been transformed over the past weeks from an instrument of justice to an instrument of vengeance which is antithetical to all Judaea-Christian values. I strongly urge you and your fellow countrymen to take a stance against a disproportionate response.”

Thank you for your thoughts on the situation we find ourselves in. No country is perfect. All institutions are made of humans, which are both fallible and prone to sin. That recognized, I have already stated in previous posts the adherence to the Code of Ethics of the Israel Defense Forces. I have also written on the commitment of the IDF to the International Rules of Engagement for Modern Warfare.

Hamas and PIJ, on the other hand are the ones who continually violate these laws with their war crimes by using civilians as human shields; using humanitarian aid to arm combatants; targeting civilian populations and committing atrocities against innocent individuals. I invite you to read The Hamas Charter which explicitly calls for the extermination of the Jews as an Islamic mandate. As for proportionate response, I leave you with the Skynews interview of the British author and political philosopher, Douglas Murray –

(The demographic statistics and historical data used in my post were substantiated by CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America)