Israel has forgotten its past or ...

.. it is reliving it, this time, as the cruel oppressor.

"You were once strangers in a foreign land. Therefore, love the stranger in your new homeland." my paraphrase of Deuteronomy ch 10 v 18-19. Chapter 20 is the Lord's rules for waging holy war to obtain the Promised Land from the existing settlers - holy war endorsed by Jews and Christians but not found in the Koran.

You were once victims of barbarity and genocide in a strange land. Therefore, you of all peoples, should know how to behave to all the children of Abraham - and to all the human family - in your Middle East region.

You were once not a nation; now you are a mighty nation and the regional super-power. That brings its attendant responsibilities and restraints and obligations to behave within international law and in compliance with numerous UN resolutions over the last sixty years.

Unholy human inhumanity to human in the Holy Land!

Everyone seems unmoved by the latest slaughter - a ratio of 100:1 in Gaza in favour of the Jews. Their big supporters, like some at our church, see what is going on in Israel/Palestine as fulfilment of biblical prophecy and everything working together for the return of Christ. Turning their back on violence and sharing the land with the Palestinians seems to be an alien concept! I really do despair for our God-fearing people and explains my infrequent church attendance, these days, on principle.

One friend wrote in reply:

If all this slaughter is there to prepare the way for the Second Coming, I do not want to accept a God who uses innocent humans as fodder to trumpet his eventual arrival...

I do not believe this is "God's Will"... it is the behaviour of a collective aggressive neurosis which has its basis in the Holocaust .. the Palestinians are only second in the queue behind the Jews when it comes to their revulsion of Hitler.