Tj-Austin-Jocquetta+Summery

Summary



In his book Blood Brothers, Elias Chacour details his life growing up in what was Palestine during his childhood. He recalls being a young boy spending time in his fathers fig tree orchard. He remembers his brother coming to him one day excited because there were visitors coming into their villages. When he returned home to his father explained that Zionist soldiers were coming to stay with them for a few weeks. These soldiers, however, did not leave. In fact they took control of the village and tricked all of the inhabitants to leave. When the leaders returned to the village, the soldiers told them they were not welcome. Chacour says that the people from his village took refuge in a neighbor village that had been abandoned. He talks about how he was poorly treated by the Zionist as a child, being called out as a terrorist even though he was a child and having all the adult men from his village taken away and he quickly discovers that the people of the neighbor village had not abandon the village, but rather where killed. After his father and brothers make their way back to the village, he is sent to an orphanage so that he can be taught by a priest. Eventually, he is sent to seminary in Paris, where he gets a feel of what non-Middle Easterners think of Palestinians. He realizes that many people see Palestinians as terrorists and that Israelis have a right to the Holy Land. He graduated from seminary and returned to Palestine and soon became a priest of another small village, which had many issues of its own. As Chacour got to know the village he was now in he realized that there was a lot of hate and what was really needed was forgiveness. He recalls being part of organizing a peace walk through Jerusalem and seeing people from Christan, Jewish, and Muslim cultures coming together to promote peace. What Elias Chacour tries to push in his book, is that if there is going to be peace, there must be forgiveness, and people will have to be respected and built up as human beings, not torn down, being humiliated and dehumanized.

In the book Durable Peace Benjamin Netanyahu writes about what he believes Israel's place in the world is today. One of the first central ideas that he talks about in his book is Zionism. This was originally the reestablishment and now development and protection of a Jewish nation within Israel. In the 1840's people like Alexander Keith and J.S. Buckingham described modern day Israel as a desolate and poor place, this enticed the western world to make a home for the Jews there. Up until this point in time the Jews were still a wondering band of people who did not have a country of origin. Later, the Holocaust was the tide-turner in this venture of establishing a Jewish nation within what was western Palestine. Netanyahu speaks about a "betrayal" in his book. This refers to the actions of the British government around the time of the 1920's, they had promised the whole of Palestine to the Jews. However, after conflict rose and anti-Jewish rioting had begun in England, the British only promised a small portion of western Palestine to the Jews. To Netanyahu this was a betrayal because the British turned their back on the Jews. He also speaks about how the United States government has started to blame Israel for much of the conflict in the Middle East; he also regards this as somewhat of a betrayal. He goes on to discuss the theory of Palestinian centrality which is the belief that all of the conflict in the Middle East is caused by the lack of justice for the Palestinians. Netanyahu holds this view to be inaccurate largely due to the fact that Palestine will not be pleased as long as a Jewish state is in the region. He cites a pre-World War II event as an example of how the world is hoping to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was where Hitler wanted to take over Czechoslovakia, but since they had efficient defenses and one of the largest armies in Europe, he turned to political action. He pressured the Czechs to give up the land that their substantial German population lived on. He used the argument that those people have the right to live in their own country of origin. He dwindled the country's size down through political action until he was able to take all of the land from the Czechs. This is similar to what the Arab nations are trying to do to Israel, the only difference being that if politics fail violence will be used anyhow. The book then transitions into talking about peace in the Middle East and how it may be achievable. He mentions two kinds of peace, the peace of democracies and the peace of deterrence. Netanyahu explains that the peace of democracies actually only exist between democracies, this is where free trade, no armed conflicts, and tourism take place; much like the peace between the U.S. and Canada. The peace of deterrence is where one country builds its military up so much that it deters the other entity from attacking. He states that the peace of deterrence is the only possible peace in the Middle East. Netanyahu also mentions a "wall" in his book. What he is referring to is the Sinai Peninsula being a demilitarized zone. This was an agreement reached after the failed Egyptian/Syrian surprise attack on Israel. The importance of economic, political, and military power to a country's future is also discussed in the book. Netanyahu puts an emphasis on the need for Israel to have sufficient military power because of the conflict in the region. Relating to that, he speaks of Israel’s small size and how the Jewish people need more land in order to improve their military might. This is because if there were ever a well-coordinated attack on Israel, there would not be much land to take before the opposing force would be victorious. The entire book is dedicated to the importance of Israel being in the Middle East.

In the article How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend, evangelicals are often less than confident about the predictions for peace. Jimmy Carter in 1979 stated"In spite of the rosy and utterly unrealistic expectations by our government, this treaty will not be a lasting treaty.... You and I know that there's not going to be any real peace in the Middle East until the Lord Jesus sits down upon the throne of David in Jerusalem.” This means that no one really expects any human peace agreement to last a long time. Most of them are only temporary. However, this does not mean that they are of no use. The negative attitude of many other evangelicals toward peace in the Middle East does not give even a temporary peace much of a chance; it certainly does not honor Jesus' words "Blessed are the peacemakers." The article stresses that no peace is perfect; no peace lasts forever. Yet the people are not even sure how close we are to the end to determine if peacemaking is a waste of time or not. They have to know that the future is in God's hands because in the end, Jesus wins. But they also have to open their eyes to see that getting to that point may be more complicated and full of surprises than they think. This article helps us to see that it is definitely time for a strategy of humility and hope.

Now according to a blog posted by Joe Whitehead titled Biblically Resolving the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict, Whitehead uses a biblical scripture to explain how the God of Israel commands Israel on to go about dealing with the Palestinians. It states, "And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shall smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them: Neither shall thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shall not give unto his son, nor his daughter shall thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.For thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth." - Deuteronomy 7:2-6. Joe truly believes that it is the Israelites duty to “drive out” the Palestinians and have nothing to do with them because they are not to make any covenants allowing enemies of Israel and their god(s) such as the Muslim Allah-god, the legal right to stay within the covenant land that the God of Israel set aside for His own place to be worshiped. Therefore, when Israel makes a covenant with the Palestinians they are making a covenant with the (wrong) Allah-god himself! However on the contrary (representing the Muslim Arabic countries) Muhammad founder of Islam, states: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews [not the Zionists] and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews [not the Zionists] would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim or servant of Allah, there is a Jew [not a Zionist] behind me; come and kill him”. So basically regardless of how either side feel, the conclusion seems that it is best for both sides to get rid of each other. So in all understanding, there will be no peace but only genocide. This is obvious that this is not what God intended. So until then there will be no peace only war.

Home Introduction Connections Conclusion External Links