Once upon a time there was a bloke who was an idealist. He sought truth, he spoke the truth, he said them out boldly. He believed, rightly too, that 2 + 2 must surely be 4.
He thought his friends and boss would like that, him being an honest truthful bloke. Then he woke up one day to discover much to his confusion his friends and boss didn’t want to know the truth, particularly when it didn’t suit them or was against their interest. He found out much to his disgust, despair and disillusion that there were times when 2 + 2 could not be 4, but another number from a host of other possible figures but definitely, not for that occasion, the inconvenient 4.
Well, a few days ago a reader wrote in to the NST to cry out in despair as follows:
What has gone wrong with the Arab world today? Yes, everything has gone wrong. To begin with, they are not united. They may share the same language but speak with different tongues and have different ideas.
They call themselves Muslims but due to the different sects that they belong to, like Shia or Sunni, they can never co-operate.
Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Jordan are a real disappointment because their leaders are either weak or despotic and tend to lean towards the United States and prefer not to confront Israel.
The so-called Arabs have themselves to blame when confronting their enemies.
This is exactly what is happening to Lebanon today. She is left on her own to face all the problems. The Shia Muslim Hizbollah militants who occupy the areas bordering southern Lebanon are now locked in mortal combat with Israel. It is going to be a one-sided fight as the Israelis are better armed.
How long must the international community continue to sit and watch while Israel wages a massive blitz from air and sea that has already destroyed buildings, roads, bridges and killed many civilians before action is taken?
The United Nations must do something about the catastrophe faced by Lebanon. Sometimes we feel the UN is too slow in making decisions.
What the author of the letter to the NST has written is a plaintive cry of why logic and decency haven't prevailed. But remember my preamble, where I wrote about that idealist bloke’s friends who didn’t want the truth when it was against their interest. I could have just said ‘it was simply politics.’
Yes, politics! And as we Malaysians know, politics is dirty, and the rape of Lebanon shows politics at its dirtiest. The fact is the religious element of politics has been the principal destabilising factor. Religious belief (not religion per se) has been the world’s biggest divisive force and the cause of wars.
Look, in reality the Jews have been Europeans for 2,000 years. But for more than a thousand years they pined to occupy Palestine because of their religion. 'L’shana ha’ba-ah b’Yerushalayim' or 'Next Year in Jerusalem', they would promised each other and remind their succeeding generations during their Passover sedarim. There's nothing more compelling than a vow sworn on religious belief.
Llyod George’s (British PM) conservative Christian belief, what we have termed today as Christian Right, that the Hebrews must walk the Promised Land for Christ to return, fulfilled that Jewish wish by according it the legal structure and political flesh via the Balfour Declaration. European guilt over the Holocaust ensured its passage through the UN. Part of Palestine under the colonial rule of Britian was given to the Jews without any thought for the Palestinian owners.
The Jews became the Israelis who still believed they are the Chosen People, as stated in the bible (Old Testament), which incidentally was written by Jews who were dragged to Babylon as slaves. I doubt those Babylonian Jews would have written the bible to say that the Persians or Egyptians or Edomites or, good lord no, the Babylonians were the Chosen People.
As the self-appointed Chosen People, they believe they are entitled to their Promised Land, a land the authors of the bible informed them was promised by their Judean God, regardless of the fact that someone else had been occupying that piece of real estate for almost 2,000 years.
The American Christian Right then continues Lloyd George’s belief, hence the US' blind (or religious-motivated) support of Israel. The sad reality is that conservative Israelis actually despise them for the murderous unclean goyims (infidels) they are, but of course play the Christians through the latter's belief for all they are worth. Surely you don’t expect the Israelis to tell American Christians who support them politically, financially and economically, that those American Christians are sh*t in their Judaist’s eyes.
Read the website Samson Blinded to see what it says about Christians:
The owner, Obadiah Shoher, said: "What a bizarre notion Judeo-Christianity is! Judaism and Christianity are the different poles, practicality and idealism. Jews do not preach poverty and humility."
"Judaism and Christianity are incompatible, not parts of the same culture. If anything, Islam is closer to Judaism than Christianity is. It is also repugnant to side with people who oppressed and exterminated Jews for millennia against Muslims who were reasonably tolerant to the Jews."
"Peaceful relations with Christians are perfect, but lumping Jewish heritage together with Christian doctrine is abominable."
Abominable! What a frightening Old Testament word.
Then on the Muslim side, the Sunnis hate the Shiites, and vice versa, all over a question of inheritance (of the rightful mantle of succession). To a Saudi Wahhabi Sunni, the Shiites are infidels, worse than the Jews. Surely, you don’t expect the Saudis to support Hezbollah and thus strengthen the reach of Shiite Iran into the region? So the Saudis and otehr Sunni naions in the region play ball with the USA (and indirectly Israel) to finish off the Shiites in Lebanon (and hopefully elsewhere).
But of course, thanks to typical Israeli malicious and vicious excesses, even the Saudis and company are now trying to distance themselves from the American camp, and pretending to show concerns for the Lebanese. As they say, give the Israelis enough rope to hang itself, and indeed it has. Unfortunately the Americans has helped ensure it's a fairly long rope, so the Jewish State, despite its self-declared 48 hours of ceasfire, has ignored its own condiiton as we could only expect Israel to do so, is still arrogantly killing in Lebanon, before the UN is allowed by the USA to step in.
The NST letter writer cried out poignantly as to how long must the international community continue to sit and watch while Israel wages a massive blitz on the poor Lebanese people, who would die and spill red blood regardless of whether they were Shiite, Sunni, Druze, Christians or pagans?
Well, as long as the USA, backed by its toady, Tony B-liar, in the UN Security Council uses their veto to ensure the Hebrews continue to walk the Promised Land.
I wonder whether anyone would be kind enough to tell those American Christians that today, the Promised Land is so soaked with blood of the innocents that the Messiah or Jesus Christ (pbuh) has refused to return.
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