My comments about bombing was intended to convey, “I don’t trust the Jews to take enough care to NOT bomb the innocent Lebanese.”  A just war effort makes every effort to protect the innocent.  Both the Jewish military and Hezbollah are showing no concern for the innocent:  they are equally judged before God.  How will this war end?

But thank you thank you thank you for not buying what the media sells. You are awesome.

In Saudi, the highest authority on religion issued a fatwa saying it was a sin to support or pray for Hezbollah’s fighters. It is only in Syria and Iran where the governments are actively supporting these Shiite extremists.

Currently Egypt and Jordan both have peace agreements with Israel, with full diplomatic and economic relationships. Lebanon has several conditions before signing a peace agreement that Israel has not met – including handing over the map to the 400,000 landmines they planted in southern Lebanon that are still hazardous today.

When I visited the largest Palestinian refugee camp (where you will find some of the deepest anti-Zionist sentiments) I heard more people say they wanted peace and a state, than a desire to “drive Israel into the sea”. So although those comments have been openly made by the extremists – most people simply want to have normal lives and realize that Israel is a permanent fixture on the map. Always remember: extremist Jews use the same hostile language to describe their desire of ridding Arabs from “their” land.

In response to Israel being a free and democratic nation – no it’s not. Democracy inherantly states that all citizens are equal and that is simply not true. Just look at the immigration laws and you will see what Israeli “equality” truly means.

Probably the most “peaceful” solution would be to just give the terrorists what they want.  Have all the Jews give up on the free and democratic nation of Israel and scatter back to all those wonderful places throughout the world that love Jews so much.

“Let’s be honest” – it’s hard to be kind, gentle, and merciful when you are surrounded by nations who want you gone and all your people dead.  It’s hard to avoid civilian casualties when your neighbor to the north purposefully starts a war and then hides their weapons with their women and children hoping to stir up more violence and hatred.  It’s hard to rely on diplomacy when two countries over to the east is a nation who vocally, officially, and constitutionally wants you eliminated and is working frantically on developing the nuclear means to do so, while the rest of the world twiddles their thumbs.

We can’t seem to understand why the Middle East won’t just play nice.  It’s because Israel is a blot on the dominion of Islam which Islamo-fascists will not rest until they have eliminated.  That makes diplomacy kind of hard.

You’re right, Americans do have exactly that attitude: “that Israelis (especially Jews) are more valuable than Arabs (especially Muslims).”

And no, I’m not advocating the eradication of Muslims. I advocate freeing them from Islam.

It’s time for the Arab states in the Middle East to hold their Muslim brethern accountable for their actions, to shut down their ability to gain funding and to eliminate the bases they operate from.  Until that happens, any cease-fire or peace agreement is doomed to be temporary.

But like Vic said, until God ultimately resolves the situation and brings peace . . . a

It is the struggle between those two perspectives that primarily defines current events in the Middle East. Not some Zionist conspiracy. Nor wacky eschatology (although, I grant you that these things have an influence).

Personally, I think there’s a chance for regional peace if the younger folks in Iran were to throw out the muslim fanatics who are running Iran, and bring the nation of Iran into the current millenium. It would then be possible to create a sweeping arc of Arab and Muslim moderation in the modern world: from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Iran to Iraq to Jordan and Egypt, etc. At this point its just a dream, and an unlikely one at that, but it could happen.

However you can’t just dismiss eschatology in that to do that you’ll need to remove any authority from the writings on every other issue that guide our lives. I’ve decided it’s not my place to say this is “true”, but this “isn’t” in the BIble.

The thing about eschatology is that what’s going to happen is going to happen.  The thing I object to is when Christians or others think or set out to “manipulate” what they think the role of Christians, Jews, Muslems or others is in order to naively bring about what they think their interpretation of last days is.  There was a great little “short story” on that theme in Chuck Colson’s book– I think it was the Prologue to “Kingdoms in Conflict” (It is worth reading just for that).

On the other hand, therwe is the whole issue of ethnic cleansing to consider.  Clearly it is not Israel’s position to eradicate every Arab or Muslim off the face of the planet politically or in Israel’s popular opinion, but that is clearly the position of the most visible of Muslim leaders, and few moderate Muslim leaders will contradict that thereby giving tacit approval to the eradication policy.

Obviously God’s perfect desire in all this is for peaceful coexistence.  And historically that has happened on occasions in the past.

The thing with humanity (all humanity), is when we respond from natural humanity and not genuine relationship with God we drive toward destruction.  That’s what we see here.  It becomes extremely dangerous when people are given or give themselves a pass from spiritual accountability of actions, or they attempt to justify actions by perverting the standards of justice (equating radical action as acting for God).

Unfortunately, we’ll never separate the politics and garbage out of the situation until God resolves it, and he will.  But we can’t and shouldn’t be arrogant enough to think we can manipulate that or claim his name in our politically/economically motivated actions.

Those are a few thoughts I have anyway.

The real challenge is for you and I to remain/respond compassionately and mercifully to whomeever from whichever side and yet speak the truth in love in the circles of influence that we have. We need to hold up the cause of the oppressed and hurting but from every side. Don’t drop the heart of love though, because at that point we become like all the rest stepping out of God’s grace on those points.

I wonder how Jesus would actually respond to all this– what he would say and do?