Israel and the West should be like the good Samaritan but instead are they like the priest, or the Levite, or the robber, or the victim, or none of the above?
So many Christian believers support right-wing leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu with their total inability to understand that perhaps a little understanding, conciliation and sharing of land and resources might be a very good idea. From all of them, we just see more of the same hatred, fear and the trotting out of, 'Well, our enemies want to wipe us off the face of the earth, so we are in no way going to let them do that because we will wipe them off the face of the earth, first!' Extraordinary!
The state of Israel and their Christian supporters, really do think that Hamas, Fatah, and the Arabs will drive them into the sea unless they do expand their settlements into the Occupied Territories on the West Bank. They think that unless they do fight and kill even more ferociously than the Arabs, it is they who will have their state overthrown.
Hamas does want to replace Israel with an Islamic state but this is so far-fetched it should not be given so much credence by Israel. Both sides must compromise and learn to live in peaceful co-existence. Instead, the people with so much are after even more and, the people with so little get even less. Exactly what Jesus once said!
The Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth showed the way forward in his story of the Good Samaritan. In modern dress, my pastor once told me that he thought that Israel could be seen as the robber and the Palestinians as the man beaten up. In the story, the hero is the enemy of the Jews, for 800 years and the two official Jewish leaders are put in a very bad light indeed - a story told by one of their own Jews! But, the story is all about loving your neighbour, loving your enemy and being generous to a complete stranger and, possibly, your nation's (or tribe's) traditional enemy for 800 years.
The lessons for today are so obvious! But so very difficult. Hence, we perish as fools rather than living as brothers of one human family.
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