Fresh light on the story of the Good Samaritan

It seems that in the time of Jesus, the Jews and Samaritans had hated each other for 600 years.  "The Samaritans were descendants of the surviving Israelites of the northern kingdom who intermarried with the newly imported alien population after the fall of Samaria in 722 BC."  (The Lion Handbook to the Bible, p 497)  The Jews saw them as a heretical sect, especially after they built their own temple on Mt Gerizim.  Perhaps, the final straw of rejection and disdain.  It was a Jewish king who destroyed this temple in 128 BC.  Yet, the Jews and Samaritans had so much in common.  The believed and worshipped the same God and both accepted the Torah, the first five books of the Bible as their authority.  Both waited the coming of a prophet like Moses - the Messiah.

Do the people of Israel have a new set of Samaritans to hate?  The Palestinians or the Gazans or Hamas or the Iranians, perhaps?
Or, Jeremy Corbyn - the JC of Islington North instead of the JC of Nazareth?
Just as the Jews longed for a Messiah to overthrow their Roman rulers 2000 years ago, is the boot on the other foot today in that part of the holy land that the state of Israel has designs on - Judea and Samaria?
In other words, do the Palestinians, in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria, regard their Israeli occupiers in the same way that the Jews, 2000 years ago, regarded their Roman occupiers?
Is the state of Israel the new Rome for the people in the internationally recognised Occupied Territories, that many Jews and Christians call Judea and Samaria?
Is raising these questions so indicative of the new anti-Semitism on the Left in the UK today?

For 600 years, the people of Israel regarded the Samaritans as their enemy.  Yet, the Israelities had so much in common with this Jewish sect.  For the next 1900 years, the Jews were dispersed and, then in more recent centuries they were the subject of enmity from the West and from the Western Christian Church.  From 1948, the Jews regarded some Arabs, many Muslims, all Palestinians, every Gazan, Hamas en bloc and, the nation of Iran - all as their enemies.

When it comes to the Luke 10 story or parable of the Good Samaritan, is it acceptable to ask if Jesus the Jew was being deliberately provocative or even disloyal to his compatriots in putting his own religious leaders in such a poor light and, to cap it all, to put their enemy as the hero - the hated Samaritan?

He seems to have  been putting himself and his fellow Jews down and putting their enemies, the Samaritans on a pedestal to be admired.  Or, is there no significance in Jesus choosing a Samaritan as the hero?

Or, was Jesus giving an example of what it means, practically, to love your enemies, to do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you and to pray for your persecutors?

The story in modern dress
For the Judaeo-Christian nations today, is a modern day Samaritan, our 70 year old traditional enemy, Russia?  But we Westerners would call them the Bad Samaritan, of course but Jesus would see some good in the Russians and put one Russian in a story to put them in a good light.  Or is politicising the parables of Jesus unacceptable, for they are meant for personal, private holiness by individual, born again believers?

Or, does the West view the Robbers in the story as wicked Russia beating up our allies like Ukraine and occupying Crimea?

The 89 year old Father of my church and retired leader has wondered if the State of Israel is behaving as the robbers beating up the poor defenceless Gazans.  The 2014 July/August war killed over 2200 including about 500 children and the 2018 boundary protests killed over 140 Gazans and one Israeli soldier.

Who would you class as a modern day, walk on by, do nothing, priest and levite in the story?
Were we the priest and levite in knowing but doing nothing to save the Jews, the Roma and all the other minorities and outcasts in the 1930s and 40s in Nazi ruled Germany?

"And who is my neighbour?"
The shocking thing about this story is that we are being told that our neighbour is Hamas, Hezbollah, the suicide bomber, the terrorist, the Gazan and the Palestinian.  Our neighbour is our enemy to whom we are to do good.  But, never, the enemy is our neighbour!  Unfortunately, Israel has made enemies of some neighbours by giving nothing and wanting more.  Yet, it has made peace treaties with two of its neighbours - Egypt and Jordan.

​Switzerland's values v UK/France/US values

Corbyn is NOT a warrior, NOT a warmonger.  He does NOT believe in upping the violence to turn friends into enemies and, then, with more retaliation from our side, making even more ferocious enemies.  Make the UK like Switzerland - famous for non aggression, for being revenge free and, with a first class rail network.  What a fine example for us to follow, James, my friend!  (James Morris, my MP)

Switzerland never attacked Egypt in what the UK, France and Israel called the 'Suez Crisis'.

Switzerland never ousted democratic Prime Minister Mosadeq in Iran.

Switzerland never ousted democratic Allende in Chile on another 9/11.  This time, 1973.

Switzerland never ousted Saddam from Iraq in 2003 or the Taliban in 2001, only to find that the Taliban popped up again, al Qaeda was reinvigorated and Islamic State also rose like a phoenix out of the ashes of our own making in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Switzerland did not remove Gaddafi from Libya to make things worse for the people there.

Switzerland is not part of the crusader ("if you are not for us you are against us" GW Bush) coalition of the willing to oust Bashar al Assad from Syria.

Non-aligned Switzerland does not get attacked, bombed and hated for killing our fellow humans 3,000 miles away.
Switzerland is morally strong on the world stage.
UK/France/US is militarily strong on the world stage.

World mastery by - not Hitler - but Churchill; exactly what he, Churchill, was after!

Quotes from Radio 4, 'Britain at Sea' presented by Admiral Lord West.  Transcript of a small part of the programme:

Churchill's decision to go for oil had huge implications internationally.  Britain needed a secure supply and unlike coal, we did not have oil on our mainland.  Churchill's eyes turned towards the Middle East.

Daniel Yergin has written a definitive history of oil, called 'The Prize: the epic quest for oil, money and power', commented Lord West. In the programme, 'Britain at Sea', Jurgen said,

"The momentous decision meant that oil entered into strategic decisions.  ... Oil became the fuel of national power. ... In converting the Royal Navy from coal to oil and proceeding to ensure an oil supply Churchill said, 'The prize of the venture was world mastery itself' ... That captured what it was all about.  Once the decision was made it meant that Britain was no longer dependent on Welsh coal for its Royal Navy but rather upon oil supplies and they happened to come from this distant country, Persia (Iran) raising all sorts of questions about security and reliability of supply.  It did mean a pivot towards the Middle East and, coming out of the First World War, it really confirmed Churchill's understanding of the strategic importance of oil.  That was when countries started to focus on the Middle East and its resources and that was the beginning of the Middle East role that it has today as such a central source of oil on which the world depends."

Without the relentless application of naval power, we could never have won (1st WW). From the RN's perspective, arguably the most important meeting of the 1WW came not in 1914 but three years earlier on the 23 August 1911 ... That was when Britain moved away from a maritime to a continental strategy

Brits: more American than European

David Reynold's 'Empire of Liberty' looking back over 1,000 years of history on the N American continent was fascinating for someone like me who is more horrified than delighted by the behaviour of our American kith and kin. I say kith and kin because we Brits colonised what is now the USA to escape religious persecution by other religious people in England. Spain, Portugal and France also colonised the continent but our military prevailed. Our ancestors in England and Europe, said Reynolds, brought God, guns and germs to the native American Indians, especially germs!

Empire of Liberty is both a contradiction in terms but also accurately summarises American history over the last 500 years, I think. Liberty for the white man; empire that enslaved millions of black people; and, empire that incorporates us and imperialism over the poor world or, the black (non white) nations in the world.

The native Indians had survived for thousands of years before the white man appeared on the scene and upset their apple cart - well and truly! Their civilisation was impressive and was sustainable, unlike our own that is built on the flawed foundations of black sand - oil, coal and gas. That means we are eating tomorrow's seed corn and, therefore, contain the seeds of our own destruction, as our resources exhaust and life support systems collapse from our behaviours that are so alien to how we should be living as part of nature and part of the earth and Earth. We belong to the earth and the Earth, rather than the Earth belonging to us!

I think, we Brits are hopeless Europeans because of these traditional links with the new country. They speak the same language, they built their new country on England's example but with great improvements and, there is much more inter-marriage with them than with our European neighbours.

Hopeless Europeans because we have fought countless wars with them over more than 1,000 years that, finally, culminated with the Great War and its sequel in 1939. The European empires around the world and their religious persecution and wars are also a feature of European and British history.

Whereas, our good friends the Americans have bailed us out twice in the World War in two halves and then bailed us out again with their enormous loan that we only finally paid off a couple of years ago! We, in our turn, for 64 years have been their staunchest allies in our joint wars against godless Communism from Korea to Cuba, today and military occupation of Arab lands to this day - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran (to the overthrow of our stooge, the Shah), Afghanistan and Pakistan (our drones killing people in the borderlands). The Americans even supported us in the Falklands War after initially disapproving of Mrs T's bellicosity and intent to take back the islands.

As with the Middle East, our own green and pleasant land has been slowly disappearing under concrete runways, motorways, and American military bases for nuclear and conventional missiles and bombs. Our island is still America's largest aircraft carrier. We are, unofficially, the 51st state of the USA! We are the only nation that has a special relationship with them.

No wonder, so many Brits want independence from Europe and continuing dependance on hyper power, America!