Thanks so much, John. Not one good, proper, evangelical, born again, Bible-believing Christian, it seems, agrees with me over USA/UK/Europe/Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians. I think, only your good self and a retired Methodist minister have expressed concern to me in writing.
There remains a guilty silence from my one-time neighbour, Leon Evans, the Senior Pastor of Lifecentral in Halesowen (the former Zion Christian Centre). My son and his family attend the church. The church and my son (with both our wives) are all firmly on the side of Israel and they believe that the Lord is working his purposes out for the Return of Jesus Christ, after Armageddon, in the unHoly Land. Armageddon has certainly arrived for battered, flattened, wiped off the face of the earth, Gaza. All this with the full support of the 'Christian' West as we all piled in to help with our weapons, apart from WMD. I also want Jesus to return, immediately but, the non-violent Christ of the Gospels. Seemingly, too much to ask!
Lifecentral is easily the biggest and loudest church in town with even a mighty Christmas jamboree of a fun fair with big equipment hired in Somers Square in the town centre once a year. John Bunyan would call it Vanity Fair (my name for the merry-go-round of billions of GHG emissions from Metro/HS2 fiascos and mix ups galore!). Lifecentral is rarely, if ever, seen at meetings and events of our Churches Together in Halesowen because they are a cut above the rest of us and, because we are ecumenical, I suppose. (GHG = greenhouse gas)
I will copy Lifecentral into this for them to correct me - please! Linda has just told me that Lifecentral does indeed take part in the yearly ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - BUT, by incorporating their normal, every Friday morning prayer session into the Churches Together calendar for this week of praying for Christian unity. However, their prayer session is always at 6.30 in the morning, on EVERY Friday every year, and Linda is the only one who attends out of all the other churches in town once a year. Hardly surprising at 6.30 am. The other churches have their prayers each day, in this Unity week of the year, at a less unearthly hour but never to be seen, I expect, is a single Lifecentral member, let alone one of their pastors/leaders. Only Linda goes to theirs and it's always all men, apart from one dear Afro-Caribbean sister in one year!!
I would value your thoughts on what I have written, below:
3 short Christmas reflections - nothing changes and revenge every time
Our Judeo-Christian War on the Palestinians must be reinforcing Putin's conviction that in attacking Ukraine (for becoming part of the West) he is truly attacking Nazis. (Our side slaughtering Palestinians and laying waste their scrap of land reminds me of what our side did under the Nazis.)
One December 2025 Radio 4 'Crossing Continents' is showing evidence that the 20% Israeli Palestinians are becoming the new Jews, ripe for persecution by the 80% Israeli Jews.
You and I are the problem in this sad world of ours. Only our side must dominate, and be The World Power Of All Time. Sharing and balance and toleration are all totally unacceptable!
More at timweller1.blogspot.com and timweller1@gmail.com
I now think that Russia needs its own Monroe Doctrine and, somehow, needs to be rehabilitated into the community of peace loving (or, more realistically, war hating) United Nations. I am currently watching four 59 mins documentaries called 'Putin, Russia and the West' on BBC iPlayer. Very revealing over Western interference and over enthusiasm that our culture/democracy/religion is the only true one and, therefore, must dominate throughout the world!
I have also found a book by a former BBC Russian correspondent, Martin Sixsmith and his son(?) Daniel Sixsmith, called 'Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War', extremely helpful. This is from Amazon:
"An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War.
"Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn't over.
"Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him?
"Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia's mission to change the world."
"Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn't over.
"Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him?
"Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia's mission to change the world."
The other quite superb book you might already know is the 2022 published, authoritative guide to the Middle East: 'The Making of the Modern Middle East' by the brilliant, articulate, fair, level-headed and, speaking in such moderate/reasonable tones - Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's International Editor. Bowen is despised by the Israeli lobby but that, for me, is a badge of honour.
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