to Kelvin Crombie of CMJ UK

Dear Kelvin - and to our local friend and Elim Pastor, Leon Evans whose church my son attends.

I have read every word of the paper you wrote in 2023 which is your sincerely held, important truth.  It was very good to read your perspective, which is also that of my wife and other Christian friends of mine at church and elsewhere.  You are all of the conviction that only personal repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the lasting solution to the world's troubles.  I once, for many years, believed that, too.  The main truth for me now is that true Christian/spiritual faith must embrace non-violence, social justice, peaceful co-existence and living in harmony with nature.  These are all matters that the human family is struggling with but are fully in accord with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.

The next paragraphs are my summaries of the very measured, detailed but readable account in the BBC's Jeremy Bowen's 2022 book, 'The Making of the Modern Middle East'.  Always very fair, impeccably researched and fully referenced from so many sources.  Plus, his 35 years of first hand experience of covering world affairs on the ground.  Except in Gaza where outsiders are excluded by an Israel fully in control by land, sea and air.  Such is their shame.  They should hang their heads in shame.

From my reading of Bowen, it seems that the Jews/Zionists ended up with the land because they became useful to British governments in helping us in our imperial wars and, with our Christian traditions over many centuries, it meant that we had more in common with them than the Muslims.  The Jews, possibly, would never have got the land, after 50 years of Zionism, if we had lost the 14-18 war.  The second half of the Wild West's World War also ended with the traditional Christian West winning and then having to quickly find somewhere for the Jews to go.  This, after we had slaughtered six million of them and had a most colossal guilt complex, so needing to make amends.  Thus, we caved in to Jewish violence from the three terrorist gangs and, by 1948 we had had enough and slunk away.  We left it to the United Nations to sort out the sorry mess after thirty years of failed and bad governance under the British Empire and then the Mandate.

Incidentally, although the IDF (formerly called Haganah, one of the three Jewish terrorist gangs of the 1940s) has won every war that it has fought, it has never defeated the Muslim terror gangs, viz the PLO, Hezbollah and Hamas.  Eighty years of Israel's violence with the American led West funding them - yet, still no peace and security.  Tragic.  Ineffective.  Only horror upon horror.  Never ending slaughter of Gazans who are labelled terrorists to justify our massacres and our starvation.

We left the mess, the disgrace of the two warring Children of Abraham both wanting the same unHoly Land for only themselves.  Jews and Christians v Arab Muslims.  For them all, having and living in peaceful co-existence is a complete non-starter.  It is an incomprehensible notion for all of them.

The next 80 years saw intermittent wars and, each time with Israel - well and truly on our side now - winning and, of course, being allowed to keep the land gained by aggression because they were our Judeo-Christian representative in the heart of the Arab Middle East.  "The cuckoo in the nest" for some Arabs.  Normally, we fight wars to stop aggression, as with Russia's war on Ukraine.  Ukraine must be under our wing, not the Russian wing.  Something amiss here with balance and sharing, I feel!  Our side has won every war against the Arabs but there is still no peace and security - even after 80 years.  Neither side can be the Good Samaritan to the other.

FROM MY BLOG - no reply or acknowledgement was received from CMJ UK:

Sunday, 22 September 2024

Presentation on 'The Last Words of Moses' - my own words on the matter

Dear Aaron - Aaron Eime of CMJ UK

I much enjoyed meeting you at Hasbury Community Church and found your excellent address full of interesting details and insights.  The Lord has blessed you with great eloquence, and a great memory and intelligence.  You have a superb style of delivery that engages the attention of your audience.  Most attractive.

I have a somewhat jaundiced opinion of humanity's unhappy tenure of this planet to date and, with the record of Israel's leaders and kings in the Old Testament.  And no better since 1945, with the revelation of one Christian nation's horrifying holocaust, after centuries of European wicked oppression and persecution of the Jews; plus, Western and Christian wars around the globe followed, with dear Bibi being the final straw for my sensitive conscience.  Hence, not surprisingly, you kindly commented that you totally disagreed with me.  Great!

You said you did not want a two-state solution but, presumably, Jews/Christians and Arabs living together in peaceful co-existence.  EXACTLY!  However, it does not help when we Jews/Christians/Westerners continue our imperialistic endeavours of being the dominant, controlling force throughout the world.  Hence, we decide unilaterally, what happens to our subjects whether they be the black peoples of past centuries or today's Arabs, Muslims, Gazans, Palestinians, Lebanese.  This is called apartheid governance where we White Europeans/Americans remain firmly in control over every other human group with the wrong colour skin.  We see it in our US/UK/EU member or representative, Israel, in the heart of the Arab, Muslim Middle East.  That tragedy began out of the disastrous 1914-18 World War and continued with our British Mandate over Palestine.  And has never ended, with our allies Israel and Saudi Arabia as the All Dominating Powers in the Middle East.

We are all turning the Greater Promised Land, from the Jordan to the Sea, a land flowing with milk and honey, into a desert of death and destruction, "an unlivable wasteland" - awash with the blood and the tears of the people of non-violence like me and of the violent.  First Gaza and now Lebanon.  Because of Old Testament barbaric, brutal, war crime ethics instead of New Testament ethics of repentance, reconciliation and forgiveness.  We all know what Yahweh wants.

Our Hebrew/Christian Bible seems to be inspiring our side, our representative Israel to "utterly destroy" (exterminate) Amalek

Aaron, in your talk, you even mentioned the annihilation of the Amalekites by the people of Israel that was commanded by the God of Israel.  I know at least one Israeli government minister has talked of doing exactly the same to the Palestinians.  The Jewish annihilation of the Amalekites was many centuries before the Nazis attempted the same wickedness on the People of Yahweh but, this time, failed.  It looks to me as though modern-day Israel is bringing the same atrocities on the Palestinians and Lebanese.  Have the Jews learnt nothing?

Listen to the horrors on BBC Sounds, Radio 4's 6 pm News on 14 Oct 2024, 08:35 from the beginning to 13:20 (nearly five minutes of OUR war crimes).

I started off so well for the first thirty years, too!  I was brought up in an evangelical Christian family, was soon converted and spent my late teens and twenties on summer beach missions in England and Wales.

The problem is that as I have read widely, listened widely, thought deeply and been preached at for decades, including Linda's eloquent talks at church (my wife), I remain disappointed by my Christian friends' embracement of coercion, force, and violence on other peoples.

My God is my conscience and the God revealed in the life and teachings of my Master, Jesus Christ - the very best monarch out of a terrible bunch of miscreants from around the world, including those in the Bible.  

Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see."  It starts with personal integrity and example.  In addition, all we have is the power of the pen and word.  Much mightier and more moral than the US/UK/Israel sword that has solved nothing since 1945 but only ratcheted up the mutual hatred between the unhappy Children of Abraham, especially in the unHoly Land.  Violence begets violence.  War has not achieved peace for Israel. 

I was honestly impressed by your good self, Aaron.  I genuinely think highly of you and wish you every blessing and goodness throughout your days.

By the way, the most Christian book ('I Shall Not Hate') I have ever read was by a Palestinian.  Details of the author here, from Wikipedia:

"Izzeldin Abuelaish OOnt MSC is a Canadian-Palestinian medical doctor and author. He was born in Gaza, and was the first Palestinian doctor to work in an Israeli hospital and has been active in promoting Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. During the Gaza War in January 2009, his three daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli tank fire directed at his home. He had been calling in reports about the effect of the war by phone to a TV station. In his regularly scheduled report, in tears, he described their killing on-air, in a video that was widely circulated in Israel and around the world."

FROM COLIN:

"Very good, well said. I would be very interested to see Aaron's response, if you get one. Whatever the seeds of the current war, I can't use that to justify the actions of power greedy, egotistical men who have hijacked religion to befuddle the minds of the gullible. It is in the hands of Iranian & Israeli Gvts to end the slaughter. That they both seek the entire destruction of each other based on the writings of thousands of years ago signifies to me the shallowness of their morality. The persistence of violence is a matter of political will as is an end to it."

With every good wish and blessing be upon you, Kelvin