A Blog from David Crump
Dr. Gary Burge was recently interviewed on the podcast Theology in the Raw.
My friend Gary provides an extensive argument for answering NO to this question. No, Christians do not have a theological obligation to support Israel’s right to the land.
If you have any questions about these matters, then please give Gary an hour of you time. You will be glad you did:
Do Christians Have a Theological Obligation to Support the Modern State of Israel? Dr. Gary Burge
British journalist Jonathan Cook addresses the elephant in the room whenever we talk about the Hamas attack of Oct. 7:
How did Hamas guerillas, carrying light armaments, manage to demolish and burn down sizeable concrete buildings in numerous kibbutzim throughout southern Israel?
Numerous Israeli eyewitnesses point their fingers at the Israeli military.
Yep, Israel makes a practice of killing their own. Below is an excerpt of Cook’s article:
Did the Israeli military fire into the Hamas-controlled civilian homes in the same fashion as it had fired into its own military bases, and with the same disregard for the safety of Israelis inside? Was the goal in each case to prevent at all costs Hamas taking hostages whose release would require a very high price from Israel?
Kibbutz Be’eri has been a favoured destination for BBC reporters keen to illustrate Hamas’ barbarity. It is where Lucy Williamson headed again this week. And yet none of her reporting highlighted comments made to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper by Tuval Escapa, the kibbutz’s security coordinator. He said [link is in Hebrew] Israeli military commanders had ordered the “shelling [of] houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”
That echoed the testimony of Yasmin Porat, who sought shelter in Be’eri from the nearby Nova music festival. She told Israeli Radio that once Israeli special forces arrived: “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”
Are the images of charred bodies presented by Williamson, accompanied by a warning of their graphic, upsetting nature, incontrovertible proof that Hamas behaved like monsters, bent on the most twisted kind of vengeance? Or might those blackened remains be evidence that Israeli civilians and Hamas fighters burned alongside each other, after they were engulfed in flames caused by Israeli shelling of the houses?
Israel will not agree to an independent investigation so a definitive answer will never be forthcoming. But that does not absolve the media of their professional and moral duty to be cautious.
You can read the entire article here.
Bruce and Alessandra are both friends of mine. Bruce is a retired New Testament professor. His wife, Alessandra is a Palestinian. Together they make a formidable team explaining the ins and outs of the dire situation in Gaza and Israel.
They recently gave a seminar to an East coast church. It’s 90 minutes long but well worth every minute:
Over 1,500 Israeli anti-apartheid activists have signed a petition accusing Israel’s political and military leadership of committing war crimes in Gaza.
Jessica Corbett’s article appears in Common Dreams. Below is an excerpt:
Israelis Against Apartheid, a group representing more than 1,500 citizens, this week urged the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor “to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
“For the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated,” declares the letter to the ICC’s Karim A. A. Khan, noting his ongoing Palestine investigation and recent remarks on the war.
The letter, dated Thursday, explains that “as Israeli anti-colonial activists, we have joined our voices to the voices of Palestinians for decades warning on the dangerous course of action pursued by the Israeli state and repeatedly called for international intervention.”
“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” the letter continues. “The acute deterioration in basic conditions of life that we are now witnessing could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes.”
You can read the entire article here.
Ms. Ahmed, of Human Rights Watch, provides essential context and shocking details that should illuminate our view of the current war against Gaza.
Daniel Levy worked as a peace negotiator for Israel in the days when such negotiations were taking place.
Here are two short clips where Mr. Levy expresses a few hard truths about Israel/Palestine.
Ms. Iversen not only describes what she saw in the Occupied Territory, she also reads the moving descriptions of Palestinian suffering posted by others.
Palestinians are human beings too.
Journalist Nida Ibrahim describes and illustrates the escalating violence against Palestinians that is spreading throughout the West Bank, one of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
I understand that this video is being blocked when folks try to access it through this post.
Try this instead: Open your computer and place the following url address into your web brouser. Do not include the quotation marks at the beginning and end of the url address. I’ve only added those to prevent the video’s transfer into this post. Capich? The video should come up.
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efgSONavf90”
This video is grotesque. Here is my advisory warning.
To watch the video, click the link. It will take you to the YouTube page for viewing.
It shows severe violence, both in actions and language, directed against Palestinians by both Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
This is not unusual.
I apologize for the severe nature of the video. But I think it is important to see that this is real life for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Dr. Gary Burge is another good friend of mine. He is a well-known New Testament scholar and author of numerous books and commentaries. Gary has worked and traveled widely throughout the Middle East, including Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In this interview, Gary discusses the circumstances leading up the Hamas’ October 7 attack.
He also answers various biblical and theological questions about “Israel’s right to control the land.”