The way to protect the USA from the violence and mayhem in the Mid East from revisiting our shores is to truthfully deal with the immorality of trusting in weapons of destruction to change hearts and minds and to be an honest broker for peace in the Mid East.

What is needed is commonsense, imagination and intelligent leadership that reflects upon what we have done wrong and courageously seeks to right it.

"Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion... The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."-Tom Paine

We the people have been told [lied to] that the "terrorists" hate us because of "our freedoms". Not a word is heard from the MSM about USA made weapons being used by Israelis to massacre refugees or that targeted Red Cross ambulances and slaughtered more than 1,000 innocent Lebanese civilians.

And yet, President Bush clings too- and the limp MSM continues to report- that it is our freedoms that they hate!

Journalists quote "security sources" without challenging the information/propaganda and for those who dare to speak out about the other side of The Apartheid Wall, we are ignored or labeled anti-Semitic.

Speaking out against inhumane and violence perpetuated by any government is a moral imperative for those who know the truth and are morrally compelled to share it.

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official."
~Theodore Roosevelt

Criticizing USA policy does not make one an unpatriotic American, but a thinking, feeling and compassionate world citizen. Opposing Israel's occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people does not make one anti-Semitic, but proves one cares for the weak, the vulnerable and those without a voice.

"The Israeli aggression is relentless, and Israel benefits from Lebanon, in that the world is not paying attention to Gaza," said Interior Minister Said Syiam in Gaza City. "I appeal to the world to pay attention." http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/807/re2.htm

Secretary Rice has made four trips to the Mid East within four months, Februrary's Mecca Agreement, King Abdullah of Jordan's passionate pleas to Congress on March 7th on top of the active Saudi diplomats at the Riyadh summit, the time is NOW for we who follow Christ to rise up in unity for the battered, oppressed and occupied people of the Holy Land and entire Mid East.

On July 24, 2006 Franklin Graham, President of Samaritans Purse, issued a "Prayer Alert: Crisis in the Holy Land."

He stated the "latest conflict between Israel and the Hezzbollah terrorist group in Lebanon has created a unique opportunity for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to reach out with God's love to thousands of families displaced by the fighting."

The good news there is that in the midst of the mayhem of the Middle East the potential exists as never before, to wake up USA Christians to the six decade long refugee crisis in the land we all call Holy, in this the 40th year of  occupation of Palestine which has been allowed to not just continue unchallenged by America, but is also supported by the USA with billions of dollars worth of weapons of destruction at bargain basement prices, hundreds of billions of USA tax dollars and 1.5 million PER MILE that is poured into the illegal apartheid wall.

The International Court of Justice has repeatedly deemed The Wall illegal and that it must come down!

Graham sites Matthew 5:44, that Christians are to "love your enemies" and Psalm 122:6 that we are to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem."

Great advice, but prayer without action is hypocrisy.

Lebanon was 30% Christian, and thus, fundamentlalist  evangelicals can finally be aroused from their blind allegience to the Israeli governments policies.
 
With education of the true facts on the ground there is hope that the real crisis in the Holy Land can now be addressed, for the Christian population of that land we claim in holy has gone from 20% of the total to less that 1.3% since 1948 because of:

1. Four decades of occupation.

2. Millions of refugees who are not allowed to return home and millions who cannot get passports to leave.

3. Over 100 unrecognized villages in Israel where Arab's have been given Israeli citizenship and pay taxes but receive no services; no electricity, no water, no medical, no schools, no respect, no human rights.

4. 4,170 Palestinian Homes have been demolished without reason or compensation since 2000. [http://www.ifamericansknew.org/]

5. A concrete wall/electrified fence that does not follow the Green Line and has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and must come down, but continues to grab Palestinian land, water and divides families and prevents farmers from tending their land which terminates their rights to it.

6. 9,599 Palestinians prisoners are being held, many without charges and access to legal council, and many of these are woman and children.

7. 60+ new Jewish-only settlements have been built on confiscated Palestinian land between March 2001 and July 11, 2003. [IBID]

8. The U.S. gives $15,139,178 per day to the Israeli government and military and has furnished billions in weapons of destruction.

"We have seen the enemy and he is US"-Pogo

Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is "a biblical imperative."

The Nation reported that CUFI's pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, to refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah.

The White House has not revealed the names of the officials who met with CUFI lobbyists which is a tentacle from the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee.


Hagee, a fundamentalist, fire-and-brimstone preacher and a leader of the fastest growing cult in America: Christian Zionism, which is inherently anti-Semitic.

While Jewish Zionism began with the hope that all Jewish people would have a safe and peaceful dwelling place, these corruptors of the gospel Christ preached, adhere to a 200 year old mis-interpretation and mis-reading of disparate scriptures that they have weaved together to support their fear based doctrine.

Hagee has captivated nearly 18,000 misled Christians at his Cornerstone Church with his take on who the anti-christ is, and he also hosts a major TV ministry where he explains his views of how the end times will unfold. He blatantly corrupts and denies the message that Christ preached. Hagee, Hal Lindsay and the Left Behinder's are doomsday false 'prophets' who believe that the only way to defeat "Islamist fascists" is with a full-scale military assault.

The cult of 'Christian' Zionism is what the concept of Anti-Christ is all about.

The heretical theology of Premellenial Dispensation worships a god of Armageddon and not the God of love, forgiveness and compassion that Jesus/The Prince of Peace taught, is the epitome of what the majority of theologians have always understood to be what the term anti-christ is really about.

Christian Zionists desire to convert the Jews to Christianity or leave them to perish in a nuclear holocaust, for they believe that is Gods desire.

In 1891, Christian fundamentalist and lay-preacher, William Blackstone appealed to President Benjamin Harrison to help establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Blackstone was a disciple of Dwight L. Moody and they both were influenced by the father of premillenial dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby.

Darby had great success in connecting with the post-Civil War survivors and was able to transmit his new theology into the heartland of America.

Despite the horrifying news of Czarist pogroms that could have been the catalyst to establishing a Jewish state before the Holocaust, the fundamentalists moved onto the Scopes Trial and forgot about the Jews for a while.

Not until after six million innocents were cold bloodedly murdered and the British Mandate ran out, Israel was born.

Most evangelicals interpreted the establishment of Israel to be the fulfillment of -how they understood and interpreted- certain prophetic scriptures. They interpreted the Israeli victory in the 1967 War and the capture of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights to be an act of God and not because of Israeli superior military might.

The American Bi-Centennial in 1976 was a watershed year for the religious right.

While mainline churches declined evangelical fundamentalist churches became the fastest growing sector of American Christianity.


TIME magazine named 1976 as The Year of The Evangelical and suddenly the religous right became a legitimate political force.


"Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the 'western pillar' of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East...During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy. The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question. Pro-Israel organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court the conservative Christians."-pg. 35 Challenging Christian Zionism www.sabeel.org

In 1977, when President Carter stated "The Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland." The Christian fundamentalists and Israeli lobby responded with full page ads stating: "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land...and affirm our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people." [Ibid]

The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fawell and the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing.

"Fawell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal travel...When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister Begin called Jerry Fawell [ before he called Reagan] to ask him 'to explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombings.'" [Ibid pg. 37]

In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17 evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of illegal colonies in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under sovereignty of Israel.

The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem."

They ignored the fact that they were in conflict with American policy and the Oslo process as well as a direct attack on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with the Churches for Middle East Peace that called for a Shared Jerusalem.

What Hagee and the Left Behind crowd have left behind is that Christ promised: "The Peacmakers shall be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

"The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."

The theology of the fictional Left Behind series, is the epitome of the spirit of the anti-christ:
fear of the other that drives one to violence.

THE PHILOSOPHY AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH, as penned by Thomas Jefferson illuminate just how far these neo-Christians have strayed from the message Christ delivered and modeled with his life.

According to Christ, to be his follower, one must be just: for justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart.

And that one is to treat ALL people the way one wants to be treated and not to judge the non-believer.

Christ taught that the only way to resist evil is with good and modeled that one must always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion and forgiveness, as Jesus did when nailed to a cross for he prayed:

"Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing."

eileen fleming
http://www.wearewideawake.org/