Dear Ed
She knows it all, so it's not news for her! We've been married 41 years during which I've departed from born-again evangelical Christianity to emphasising the non-violent Christ of the Gospels, especially all the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. The secret of domestic bliss is peaceful co-existence which our Jewish and Arab friends in Israel need to learn when it comes to the Palestinians!
The powerful, privileged traditional Christian West departed from the Christ of Matthew 5,6,7, soon after the followers of the Way were subsumed into the Roman Empire after the unfortunate 'conversion' of Constantine in about 300 CE.
The powerful, wealthy and entitled 'Christian' West in the form of the mighty British Empire caved into Jewish terrorism in the 1940s to allow our Jewish friends to profit from aggression, violence and opportunism. The 1917 Balfour Declaration was 'all things to all men', a pretty meaningless letter but, it put the Jews first before the existing Arab inhabitants. The Christian West has always had more sympathy with the Jews than the Muslim Arabs. Partly because the Hebrew Scriptures form part of the Christian Scriptures, of course. Always preferential treatment and duplicity to benefit ourselves and to break our promises to the Arabs, to land them in it, as Lawrence of Arabia discovered.
More aggressive land grabbing by the Israelis went unpunished in 1967 and 1973. When we, our side, take to warfare and land grabbing that is totally acceptable. If the other side does it all hell breaks loose except with the unfortunate, battered Ukraine, the West will not defend it as resolutely and as generously as we defend Israel from hundreds of drones and missiles.
The Western rulers of the world which include our great buddies Israel, can get away with murder. So far, tens of thousands have been murdered by our side and our weapons. The murder of wholly innocent men, women and children who simply want to live and to live in peace with neighbour Israel in the spirit of being the Good Samaritan to Israel.
That outstanding story is the best thing in the Bible but, is the most ignored by the violent, powerful 'Christian' West.
We believe, because "Israel is an ally of the UK, is the victim of a brutal terror attack and clearly has a right to defend itself" (Guardian 15.04.24), our ally can defend itself for time immemorial in murdering rampage. In other words, for as long as it likes. And we call ourselves civilised!
Similarly, our powerful, wealthy country can wreck railway lines, front gardens with 1,000 trees and shrubs felled and, hammer nature as we give an almighty boost to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with greedy, grandiose grossly extravagant tram extensions to accelerate the climate emergency. That is levelling up for the wealthy, powerful types. They run the immoral tram into Merry Hill to increase the value of that estate for the already wealthy owners. They profit mightily from the tram coming to their shops at the expense of Dudley and Brierley Hill traders. The rich get what they want; the poor want warm homes and food and energy bills they can pay. But they are not the ones in charge. We wealthy types are. We're not so bothered about the poor or the poor Palestinians being murdered and starved to death in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.
£7m/Km for the 2015 Borders Railway construction to rebuild a 50 Kms railway through the Southern Uplands of Scotland. £144 m/Km is the 2023 figure for Brum Eastside Metro extension that also includes public realm works in Digbeth. A big difference between £7m and £144 m after only eight years of inflation. It is clear corruption, incompetence and scandal at 16 Summer Lane B19 - HQ of the national tram promotion group and of TfWM/WMCA.
REMEMBER: As ever, must level up the rich to level down the poor.
Tell me what you think, Ed
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