You are welcome to my story. In my days on earth, I witnessed the occupation of Israel by a foreign power, the Roman Army. My Jewish people resented being occupied, controlled, and exploited by them. I challenged the leaders of Israel; I called them to repent of their unjust and harsh ways of imposing strict laws, rules, and regulations on the people. They were treating the majority of the people that lived in poverty as outcasts, sinners.
The rulers were elite and rich, and they despised the poor, the sick, and the hungry and blamed them for being “sinners” for not following the religious laws. They said poverty was a punishment from God. The elite had made the nation, the People of God, a nation of “sinners.”
There were so many impoverished people. The system was unjust, wrong, and corrupt. I challenged the rulers, chief priests, and the elites and invited them to change and believe in goodness and justice and to love their neighbor.
I gave examples and told the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story the priests and elite people passed by and ignored the wounded and dying man on the roadside that had been attacked by bandits. The elites left him to die.
It was an outcast person, a traveler from Samaria, that showed love and concern and healed the wounded person. We all should be like that person from Samaria and have empathy and compassion and take action to help our neighbor. If Israel had believed me, a Jew, and followed my words and example, they would have been a great, loving nation. By loving God, my Father, and all the people, they would have eradicated the inequality.
Today, after a thousand years in exile around the world, my people, the Jews, returned to Palestine, the land they once lived in, and it was now Palestine. Many people of many faiths had bonds, especially to Jerusalem, the majority being Palestinian Arabs. The Israelis claimed to own the whole of Palestine and planned to reestablish Israel as a nation again. They fought a war with the Palestinian people and, with foreign help, overwhelmed them and grabbed power and came to rule all of Palestine, which they named Israel.
Just like when I was on earth walking, teaching, and calling on my Jewish people to reform and be a loving nation, they refused and ruled and conquered the Palestinian people, drove many into exile, and confined the remaining population in two enclaves, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The Palestinian warriors rebelled and attacked Israel and did terrible crimes against the Israelis, killing 1,200 men, women, and children and taking hostages. The response of Israel was more horrific, and they destroyed most of the buildings in the Gaza enclave and killed 46,900 Palestinians in retaliation. Now today that long war has a ceasefire, and hostages and prisoners are being exchanged.
We must learn from this that two evils make more evil; violence begets more violence, and it is only justice, truth, and love of neighbor that will bring peace. Justice will be when both sides can have their own separate nation and live in peace and harmony. That healing may never happen. And it seems hatred, revenge, and killing are still the evils that will persist and will continue for a long time. None will accept my teaching. May there be no more killing, bombing, or massacres. Let justice be done.
Come again and reflect with me, Jesus.