Tag Israel-Palestine

Israel Is a Sovereign Nation And Therefore Permitted to Defend Itself

Allen Frederick 1 Comment

A recent AP headline read: “Israel Remains defiant, seizes Gaza-bound aid ship” and the opening paragraph reads:

A defiant Israel enforced its 3-year-old blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday, with naval commandos swiftly commandeering a Gaza-bound aid vessel carrying an Irish Nobel laureate and other activists and forcing it to head to an Israeli port instead.

Defiant Israel? Why is defiant used instead of determined, or perhaps steadfast, or maybe even reticent? They are not the ones defying the rule of law, but the boats attempting to crash the legal blockade established by a sovereign nation to protect it’s ports are engaging in defiant behavior.

The organizers of Saturday’s sail said they planned to dispatch as many as three more ships in coming months and that four captains already have volunteered for the missions.

Now that sounds more like DEFIANCE to me. Organizers of those who want to crash through the legal blockade are the ones being defiant. Let’s get some definitions of terms here shall we?

de·fi·ance

  1. The act or an example of defying; bold resistance to
    an opposing force or authority.
  2. Intentionally
    contemptuous behavior or attitude; readiness to contend or resist

Okay who again is being defiant? The one setting the rules or the one challenging the rules? Is the one enforcing the rule the one who is defiant or the one who is contemptuous of the rule? It would seem to me those that are supporting the flotillas challenging the Egyptian and Israeli blockade are the ones being defiant. The way this article reads they have everything exactly backwards. They make it sound like the Palestinians are the recognized soveign state and Israel is the one acting unlawfully. What other country would stand by and allow anyone to enter their ports without a regard for safety. especially if cargo carrying ships have brought weapons into the region. AP wants Israel to give up their land to militant invaders and leave their own country. That is totally out of whack and if no one else is going to say so I shall.

“What Israel needs to understand is that nothing is accomplished with
force,” said Greta Berlin of the Cyprus-based Free Gaza group, which
sent the latest aid vessel, the Rachel Corrie.

AP wants Israel to understand that nothing is accomplished with force and yet they turn a blind eye to the forcible attempts by the flotilla to break through a legal blockade. Israel has a security concern which is why they set up the blockade to begin with. Egypt apparently agrees that there is a possible threat for they too are participating in the blockade.

Israel said it would block any attempt to reach Gaza by sea, in order to
prevent weapons from reaching the Iranian-backed Islamic militant
group. “Israel … will not allow the establishment of an Iranian port
in Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Israel and Egypt closed Gaza’s borders after Hamas seized the territory
three years ago from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The disengenious tenure of this article is appalling. It is written to make it sound like Israel is forbidding humanitary aide from reaching the residents of Gaza which is totally not true. All Israel is forbidding is an Iranian[ backed militant group from establishing a port in Gaza. Israel is more than willing to off load the cargo at another secure port and transport true aid into the Gaza region. Because of the constant missle strikes from Gaza over the years Israel decided to stop the flow of weapons into the region.

Hamas and other groups have fired thousands of rockets and mortars on
Israeli border towns in recent years. The U.S. and Europe, like Israel,
have branded Hamas a terrorist group.

Israeli officials said the cargo was to be unloaded in Ashdod, and items
permitted under blockade rules would be taken to Gaza by land.

The Free Gaza group, which organized Saturday’s sail and other attempts
to break the Gaza embargo, said Saturday it was closing its Cyprus
headquarters and relocating, but won’t stop sending ships to challenge
the blockade.

Doesn’t that sound like defiance to anyone else besides me? In another article we read an entirely different perspective on the Flotilla incident.

One participant told Al Jazeera, “Either the Israelis let us reach Gaza,
or they can stop us . . . . We can also die as martyrs and never
return, which is okay with us.” read the full story here

Again this sounds like a defiant attitude to me does it you?

This same report goes on to say this:

Despite all the misreporting, Gaza is not starving as Israel allows tons
of food, drugs and humanitarian aid to reach Gaza every day. The
entirely legal naval blockade is designed to prevent arms, primarily
from Iran, from reaching the terrorists in Gaza, from which Israel
withdrew in 2005. The flotilla’s aim was not to feed ordinary
Palestinians, but to help Hamas break the embargo so that it can bring
in weapons.

The last sentence sums up the entire intent of the flotilla ships’ defiance of the Egyptian Israeli blockade, they wish to get the international community to force Israel to open the ports in Gaza so that they can ship in weapons along with their so-called humanitarian aide.

Like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this past week Israel is guilty until proven guilty by the UN no matter what they do. There remains a group of people who desire Israel’s total annihilation and will not stop until that happens. Israel is constantly being bombarded with the idea of making peace with Hamas and the Palestinians and yet the Palestinians reciprocate with escalated violence every time Israel relinquishes land. Some people are never satisfied no matter what you give them. The only way to have peace in Israel is if the Palestinian authority is defeated and the people agree to live peaceably with Israel not continue with their desire to take over Israel and capture Jerusalem for their own capital. Now that is what I would call defiance not protecting your country. Resolute, determined, steeled, principled, would be a better description of Israel’s attempts at national security and if I was an Israeli I would not want it any other way.

The Free Gaza group are the ones participating in defiant behavior and yet AP did not mention this fact once in their article. Apparently only Israel can engage in bad behavior everyone else gets a pass.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Related articles by Zemanta

Armageddon and an Independent Palestinian State

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Image via Wikipedia

By Don Costello

There is much talk in the news lately about the formation of a Palestinian state. It has become a major goal of President Bush. I believe that he is making the worst mistake of his Presidency. Biblically the West Bank, as it is called today is part of the land that Almighty God covenanted with Abraham to give his descendants through Isaac. Even more important is the fact that one of the reasons Jesus Christ is coming back at Armageddon is to destroy the people trying to steal the land of Israel away from Him and Israel. Although the Golan Heights are included in that Covenant, I want to focus on the area of the West Bank because that is the area the whole world is trying to make an independent Palestinian state.

A crucial element of this debate for the Bible believing Christian is that the West Bank as it is known today is referred to in Scripture as “Judea” and “Samaria” or “the mountains of Israel”. In 1999, the magazine “Christians for Israel” published an article documenting this entitled, “The Mountains of Israel”, by Karel van Oordt and Pee Koelewijn. There is also a book entitled, “The Mountains of Israel” by Norma Archbold that refers to this.

According to scripture, from the time when Lot and Abraham separated until after God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham lived on the plain of Mamre, which is present day Hebron in the West Bank. The events of Genesis 15 of the cutting of the covenant and the giving of the land occurred at that very place. In these scriptures we see the elements of the ancient Middle Eastern covenant. In Genesis 15:9, the animals are chosen, in verse 10 they are divided and laind against one another and in verses 17 and 18 the participants pass through the divided animals. The purpose for this according to Unger’s Bible Dictionary was to confirm the covenant, “by slaughtering and cutting the victim into halves, between which the parties passed, to intimate that if either of them broke the covenant it would fare with him as with the slain and divided beast.” The element not mentioned in the Genesis passage but most definitely took place at the time of the oath in Ezekiel 47:14 (NIV) where God, “swore with an uplifted hand”, to give the land to Israel. We get that impression from Jeremiah 34:14, which says the LORD will punish those, “which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.” The picture we see when all these elements are included is when the LORD was passing through those pieces, He was swearing with an uplifted hand He was going to give Israel the land.

According to Isaiah 62:4, God is married to Israel and the land. The New American Standard Version says, “It well no longer be said to you “”Forsaken”” Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “”Desolate””; But you will be called, “”My delight is in her,”” and your land, “”Married.”” It is no wonder then that the first three verses of Ezekiel 36, which deals with the mountains of Israel, i.e. the West Bank, are laced with a very stern warning from God in the spirit of a jealous husband. Ezekiel 36:5 says the LORD is speaking, “in the fire of my jealouslyagainst the rest of the nationswho appropriated my land for themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and scorn of soul.” The LORD God in Jeremiah 12:14 (NIV) calls those nations “wicked neighbors” who would “seize the inheritance I gave my people Israel.” Continue reading “Armageddon and an Independent Palestinian State” →