Esther Brady Crawford - faintstarlite

The US State Department wants to clear the record. America, and the world, has not given Israel a green light to continue bombing Lebanon:

“The US is sparing no efforts to bring a durable and lasting end to this conflict.”   

-Whitehouse spokesman Adam Ereli (link)

[The above statement made as the US had a rush delivery of precision-guided bombs en-route to aid Israel in its attacks on Lebanon.] (link)

Let’s be honest - the single driving belief behind fifty years of US Middle Eastern foreign policy is the racist notion that Israelis (especially Jews) are more valuable than Arabs (especially Muslims). I personally believe it’s a combination of the powerful Zionist lobby, mixed with some dangerous right-wing Christian fundamentalist eschatology. No matter how many hundreds, or thousands of civilians end up dying in Lebanon, our government will always outweigh their worth to Israeli “security” - infamously referred to as “birth pangs”. It is the only plausible explanation for our inability to muster outrage and demand a cease fire with the rest of the international community.

Every single day across the Middle East – in Iraq, Palestine, and now Lebanon – smoke ascends from US weaponry, signaling the destruction of more expendable Arabs. And then Americans naïvely ask, “Why do they hate us so much?”  

This latest Israeli incursion into Lebanon will no doubt cause innocent Israelis more harm than good, just like it did in 1982. The last time they entered Lebanon was also in the name of ridding its citizens of terrorism, but with the deportation of the PLO came the new group – Hezbollah.

So now they’re fighting Hezbollah and we’re to believe that after the IDF bombs 3 airports, 62 bridges, 3 dams/ports, 5,000 homes, displaces over a half a million people, destroys the Lebanese national economy and tourism sectors, that the militias are going to go away? Not a chance. More will rise up to fight. Leave it to Israel to use the same tactics over and over, with the expectation of different results.

There is no doubt that the history books will write this latest blood soaked chapter as another victory for Israel’s military – they have the technology to ensure it.

But the reality is that Israel, Lebanon, and the greater Middle East have already lost to this insanity. 

Sunday, July 23rd I visited another church – this is the true story of what took place there. Picture of said church located here.

The name

As Brent pointed out, I should have avoided it at all costs just based on the name – “Spirit Life”. Okay, so maybe this time I have no one to blame but myself.

I optimistically walked into the service (amazingly on time) and received the bulletin, and a raffle ticket. I secretly hoped that they were going to have a special giveaway for visitors – who knows what goodies they might give to coax guests into returning again.

The song service went fine; people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds were quite literally getting their groove on. Despite the staring eyes of a few overly-curious parishioners, I felt surprisingly at ease.

The meet & greet

Having become accustomed to being the visitor, I generally look forward to the “shake your neighbor’s hand and be friendly to one another” section of the service (always placed strategically between the songs and sermon to allow stragglers the opportunity to participate). I admit that this church’s tradition threw me off – they all gave each other high fives instead of handshakes. As I awkwardly high fived the elderly lady to my left, I was suddenly pummeled from behind with a bear hug from an official female greeter.

The talk

And I stayed. This was only the second church I’ve visited that had a woman speak. I learned she was not actually the pastor, but his wife who was temporarily filling in. Her sermon entitled “Destroying the Giant of Insecurity” was essentially a lackluster motivational speech. She shared an “inspiring” story about a woman who managed to become a CEO, despite being fat and having a noticable limp. [Who says miracles don't happen today?]

Using other stories most likely obtained from e-mail forwards, she proceeded to make the crowd recite positive affirmations recommended by Christian psychologists (right after discrediting the field of psychology). We were each given bookmarks with verses we were to “claim in the Name” for the next week.

The tickets

As if my intellect hadn’t been insulted enough for one morning, at the end of the talk she asked the congregation to dig out the raffle tickets we had received earlier.

“Hold those tickets high! Wave them around! This is your ticket to heaven! Now please don’t take me wrong – I’m not selling indulgences! I just want you to know that when you accepted Jesus you accepted your ticket to heaven! And that ticket allows you to have a prosperous and wonderful life here on Earth too! So wave those tickets proudly and thank Jesus because you don’t need to be insecure when you have been given eternal security!”

After swallowing the vomit in my mouth, I looked around to see a church full of tickets fluttering in the air – and all I could do was head for the door.

Yesterday Nick & I completed the Wheels & Heels 5K run which kicks off the annual Festa Italiana.

Going into the third mile I started to struggle – my pace was slowing, my side hurt, my face was drenched in salty sweat, and I just really wanted to stop and walk for a couple of minutes to catch my breath. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to walk, but Nick knew I would’ve seen walking any part of it as a failure.

Noticing my fading optimism, he began encouraging me more. We’re almost there. You can do this. You’ve done a great job so far. Every time I wanted to give in to the exhaustion, Nick was there pushing us to finish strong. Despite my own self-doubts, his unwaivering belief in me was what I needed to keep going.

I so thoroughly enjoy his company, no matter what we’re doing – whether we’re sitting in his office surfing eBay, eating yummy meals with his family, digging ditches and planting flowers, discussing global political and economic news, listening to books on CD in the car, or even running. His presence in my life has been an unanticipated gift – a best friend that I both trust and admire.

Yesterday he could have easily ran ahead and completed it more quickly, but instead he stayed behind to be supportive and finish the race with me.

Until Arabs are granted equal rights as Israelis, both in Israel and Palestine, Israelis will not have peace. And neither will their neighbors.

I found these two images on electroniclebanon.net – they are both startling in their own right. Arabs, especially Palestinians, are often blamed for teaching their children to hate Jews. It’s true that some do. I have found that Jews are as guilty and effective at passing on hate messages to their children. I met a sweet Jewish couple in an Israeli bus station, settlers originally from Brooklyn, who refused to see the Palestinians who lived just hundreds of meters from their walled-in suburbs as legitimate heirs to their own land. As they spoke, I saw that they had dehumanized them – they were not people – they had simply become the enemy. I also saw this enmity in the eyes of a professor I had at the University of Jordan – he could no longer distinguish between Jews, Israelis and Zionists – they were faceless, soulless enemies.

Sadly, the victims have also victimized. It’s like the child who grows up in an abusive home who goes on to abuse. These are the militants. They see no hope when they look at the occupation, the economy, or the check points. There are no bunkers to hide in when bombs are dropped, and they watch their land and families torn apart.

Despite those harsh realities, hope can and does exist.