Salaam and Shalom?

Are you watching what's happening in Israel? Are you watching what's happening in the Gaza Strip?

You need to be watching BOTH stories.

As for me, I haven't been able to pull away from my computer. I'm watching video after video of what is happening in Israel and in Gaza. I'm reading everything I can get my hands on from both sides.

Why?
I'm confused. My heart is broken.

Why?
With war, nobody wins. I don't care of there are 1000 deaths on one side and only 1 on the other...everybody loses!

My heart breaks for both sides of this crisis. Both Israel and Palestine are victims of their own making. Both refuse to talk with each other. Both see the "land" as theirs. No one will budge...so they kill.

Sometimes it takes the form of missiles and ground attacks, other times it takes the form of teenagers, strapping bombs to themselves in "martyr" missions...driven to it by their own choosing and sense of honor and killing other teenagers. 17-year-old girls who would be friends in another place on this earth, die in each other's shadow at a grocery store (see "To Die in Jerusalem" for the story of Ayat and Rachel) for nothing.

And then I read the American newspapers that blindly support Israel because it is strategic that we do so. If we can control Israel we can control the Middle East. Is this our master plan?

And then I listen to mainline American Christians blindly support Israel. They're God's peopel right? That's the story they read in the Old Testament. But what about the times that Yahweh kicked them out of their own land because they were adopting the practices of their neighbors? What about the times of disicpline because of their faithlessness and failure to love? Whatever happened to standing in the gap against injustice? Where is compassion? Are we (American Christians and the American government) turning a blind eye to the beginning of another holocaust?

Bush, in response to the incredibly lopsided numbers of both air strikes and casualties (at that time there were 300 Palestinians dead and 4 Israelis dead) he referred to this being an obvious sign that Hamas is a known terrorist threat.

What?!? How is this obvious?

I posted a video on my facebook. The video shows footage from inside of the Gaza Strip. One of the comments I received was, "There are two sides to every story, aren't there? It'd be nice to hear the other side along with this one."

My response?

"Turn on your television or read your newspaper. The 'other side' of the story is all we're being fed in the U.S."

I want to know the whole story. I want my heart to break with compassion for justice and for, in both langauges, salaam and shalom.

Jesus...you are the only bringer of salaam and shalom.

By the way...over 40 Palestinians, mostly children, just died in a U.N. school where they were seeking shelter. They died because a missle slammed into them.

Why?
For nothing.