Learn to do Right !

“ Learn to do right., seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the orphan, plead the case of the widow.”  Isaiah ( a Jewish/Christian prophet 1:17

Another terrorist attack has taken place, this time in Manchester, England . This is evil, and this time it seems that children were targeted. There is no justification for targeting women or men either. I cannot imagine thinking that bombing innocent people is right in a religious or secular sense, ever. In recent years , there has been more terrorist attacks in Turkey. I have travelled to Turkey nine times, and now I think about whether I can return to Istanbul for a tenth visit. This means that terrorism, and its fear has changed my life. Suicide bombers are often from ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas. These bomber are radicalized through politics from the margins, and then secondarily through the religion of Islam. ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas are not Islam.

The United States uses drone warfare in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Drone airplanes have no pilot, and so targets are identified and bombs dropped from the military  in rural Kansas, or anywhere in the world. The US identifies who is a threat and then tries to kill them with a drone. In other countries,  this might be called assassination. They become the police , the jury and the judge in one sortie of bombs . But the killing takes out terrorists, if you believe that the US have identified the right terrorist . And these drone bombs bring about collateral damage, This means they kill innocent people, at weddings, in markets and at mosques. Why do we not call this US terrorism ?

The state of Israel is completing a wall that increases their security, but does not release them from their fears. During the building of the wall, Israel took away land from the Palestinians. They build the wall through the farms of Palestinian as well. Beginning in 1948, Israel killed or deported 750,000 Palestinians. But 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. That is right, but they were killed by Western European Christians ( with possible blind permission of North American Christians ). Palestinians are a vulnerable people. They are refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan . They have no friends in the area of the Middle East . Israel harrasses the local Palestinian population through arrests, identity checks and many other demeaning activities. Their  economic blockade of Gaza Strip is so awful and illegal. Why not call this slow daily terrorism ?

And why do we think that 110 billion dollars of arms sales to Saudi Arabia will bring about peace and security ?

Isaiah is a Jewish prophet. He spoke and wrote 2500 hundred years ago. I think he tells the truth. Israel is God’s people, but that does not give us or them the right to do anything. To act like the people of God, we must defend the “least of these”. Why do Palestinians get treated like the worst of these ? When we treat people as second class humans, how do you think they might react ? How would you react ?

Fred Redekop