When you sow the wind you do reap the whirlwind. Bad things happen in war zones. The blowing up of families who were sitting down to partake in a Biblically mandated celebration started this latest round of dire things.
And no, I do not justify the PA's horrific record of terror bombings of Jews, no more than I do its cynical manipulation of its people in that direction.
Do you also reject moral equivalence between that and the actions of IDF that is specifically not targeting civilians?
But as a Christian, I assume you like me, reject the ethics of payback.
This is not pay back but an attempt to bring terrorist to justice and hopefully prevent future homicide bombings. If this were pay back the Israelis would have simply started shelling or started playing by Hama rules like Syria did in the early 80’s
The Franciscans are refusing to choose sides not because they're terrorist sympathizers or moral cowards who refuse to distinguish between good and evil, but because they're moral heroes who refuse to let one evil stampede them into the arms of another. Christianity is full of such inconveniences, but it's the spiritual legacy of Francis that moral clarity is a simple matter that once accepted, no matter how superficially inconvenient, allows everything else to snap into place.
There is that moral equivalence thing again. So,by your words, in the eyes of the Franciscans both sides are evil. Terrorist and Soldier all the same.
You seem to be unaware that the Church's historical role as sanctuary has nothing to do with the moral worthiness of the refugee. Sanctuary is not about moral cowardice and sheltering the guilty; it's about non-violence, reconciliation, and the nature of sacred space. These concepts don't receive much attention in our culture, but they deserve to.
I am quite aware of the history here. And I disagree with both the concept and how it is being used.
I am not implying that the clergy are happy to have their church full of armed men. But isn't that the way it always is? Being a Christian means just one damn thing after another; the Christian life is full of such and even worse inconveniences and dangers that are entirely without meaning to those who're blind to the larger imaginative vision of what the Church is.
The larger vision of the Catholic church is to shelter terrorists? From their resent actions here and in other places it does seem so. If that is not the case they need to start making that clear. Or this could get real ugly real fast.
The Israelis are doing a more-than-competent job of defending themselves from the Palestinians, but I invite you to ponder, once they've succeeded in reducing the Palestinians to subhumans or stateless refugees, who will save the Israelis from themselves?
Now, that statement is the height of arrogance. Why should they need saving? As to the idea that the Israelis are reducing the so-called palestinians to sub-human, isn’t that something that they have done to themselves? When you teach your child to hate to the point that he or she will go commit a homicide bombing and then encourage then to do so and then accept money for that action… Well, what more is there to say? No one did that to them, they did it to themselves. As they have made choices that have left them without a state. Actions have consequences.
Compare the actions of the Israelis to those of the rest of the Muslim world. Do you see dancing in the street? Or do you see a professional attempt to protect themselves while attempting to keep the civilian causalities on the other side to a minimum.
If reconciliation sounds preposterous and impossible-just as preposterous as "love your enemy"-so did "He is risen." It's the only solution.
Only if both sides want peace. Otherwise you do not have a solution, just a recipe for suicide for one side.
a.cricket
We can forgive them for killing our children, what we can not forgive is that they are making us kill their children. Golda Meyer
Yeah; that's what war criminals always say.
I stand by my comments. The packaging of the Israelis as the good guys -- the plucky, put upon defenders of democracy -- is a myth. Did I believe it in 1967, and again in 1973? Sure; who didn't? It was the standard model at the time. But there's a lot of blood under the bridge since then.