And it is this disproportionate response — typical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — that has people around the world up in arms. This war will only result in Palestinian cassualties, and many of these will be children and unarmed civilians — young and old. The propaganda from the Israeli government will be, as it has always been, that Hamas is ‘hiding behind human shields,’ but the sorry reality is that in such an overcrowded urban environment non-combatants have nowhere else to go.
Our Christmas Present from the United Nations
In the real world – a place both Netanyahu and Danon are ill at ease – we have to deal with real people and their real rights and claims. In the real world gods don’t act as guarantors. Laws do. In this case we have the current position of international law and the reality of Palestine and Israel as real and existing states with rights.
Crossing Swords with Christian Zionism
If questioning Zionism is a dangerous task then challenging Christian Zionism, the largest, best funded, and most religio-politically fundamentalist branch of Zionism, is infinitely more perilous. It is all the more dangerous because its influence – advocating the agency of God in Israel’s present history – reaches deep within the Church and to every level of US and British government.
Honesty is required in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israel and Palestine can exist only behind their respective sides of the 1967 Green Line. Yet when this point comes to the table the dishonesty begins. It is true that there are elements within Palestine who would do Israel harm, but these are exceptions, and as we have seen in the most recent Israeli invasion of Gaza their capabilities are insignificant in comparison to Israel’s armed forces.
לך־לך | Israel’s Claim to the Land of Palestine
In 1967 Israel launched an aggressive land and air invasion of its Arab neighbours, and has since held the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank under military occupation – despite both the United States and the Soviet Union determining that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria did not pose a threat to Israel’s security.
