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Praying for the people of Gaza


Received:

Your seriously want me to pray for "our beleaguered brothers and sisters in the Holy Land"? They have created the mess they now deplore and have subjugated 1.5 million Gazans to three years of inhumane and intolerable hell you seem to overlook.

Is it any wonder then that the Gazans, backs to the wall desperate, choose to lob rockets into Israel? Perfectly understandable, perfectly courageous.

Let us pray for the Palestinians. Above all let us pray for peace.

[signature]

(Yid like you, but with a conscience and a reasonable sense of decency).

PS As to "send a package", I'll be doing so -- to the Jerusalem Fund or ANERA -- but not to the oppressor.

Responded:

We agree on far more than we disagree. Along with you, I believe that we have a responsibility towards the people living in Gaza. They are an oppressed people whose right to go about living normal, healthy lives has been stolen from them by a ruthless pack of gangsters.

The true terrorists are the leaders of Syria and Iran, as well as their hired thugs in Arab lands. If not for them, the people of Gaza could have long ago been leading a peaceful, thriving existence. These brutal criminals massacre their own people willingly, for nothing more than singing at a wedding party or for daring to oppose their policies. They stockpile their weapons in mosques and schools and fire from densely populated areas. On this topic, this video is crudely made, but nonetheless powerful: The Real Face of Hamas See also the related videos there. Take each one critically and discern the truth for yourself.

A thousand Arab lives could have been savedTruthfully, the Israeli government is also to blame. Rather than concerning itself with the welfare of the Arab population living in Gaza and the West Bank, their only concern was self-defense and world opinion. If they truly cared in a really humanitarian way about these people, they would not suffice with providing hundreds of millions of dollars of food, electricity and medicine, but would also have done all possible to stomp out the foreign-based thugs long ago--along with providing a proper, moral education for youth. If we had kept a presence in Gaza, as dangerous as that was, it would have saved over a thousand Arab lives. We are too quick to find the fast and easy solutions to peace, rather than to take the harder, longer yet proven road.

On our own site, here is an essay that presents an approach to the humanitarian issue: Should I pray for the death of terrorists?

As for the Jerusalem Fund and ANERA, both of these organizations spend large percentages of their funds on biased propaganda. I would advise you to find more neutral humanitarian organizations that will actually get the aid needed into the hands of those that need it.

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By Tzvi Freeman   More articles...  |   RSS Listing of Newest Articles by this Author
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Reader Comments
Latest Comments:
Posted: Nov 8, 2010
I pray that the arabs of Gaza...be kept far away..
I pray that the arabs of Gaza...be kept far away from us!!
Even during WW1, the Germans and Brits stopped the fighting on New Year's day to play a game of soccer and they even exchanged gifts. This would never happen between the arabs and the Israelis as there is too much hate generated from the hamas. Until Israel became a state, there was no 'nation of Palestinians' it was created to drive out Israel. when occupied by Jordan the arabs in the west bank were fine being under Jordanian rule. i pray that the hatred be removed but no chance of that when the babies are trained from the crib to be human missiles. Wake up to reality !!!
Posted By Elie, Ottawa, Canada

Posted: Nov 2, 2009
Hatred?
You both make comments about hatred and how bad Hamas is for the Palestinians. You wont even recognize their existence as a nation or a culture. You are the ones saying everything they believe in or hold dear is a lie.Their entire identity is a lie. Your comments about how there are no palestinians are the same as those who say no one is really gay or that we as jews have no connection to the ancient kingdoms of israel, that who we are is a lie. There is no greater act of hatred than to erase a people out of existence.
Posted By Jeremy Wood, Vancouver

Posted: Nov 2, 2009
Gaza
I love your response to this question...Hamas is using the people in Gaza and I will not call them Palestinians..I agree that Israel should have maintained a presense in Gaza,if they had the situation would have been different by now.
Posted By Izabella, Brisbane, Qld
via chabadbrisbane.com

Posted: Sep 20, 2009
Prisoners of their own hatred
It's strange, isn't it, that all of the Arab countries have sympathy for those of so-called Palestinians but don't want a single one of them in their countries. The reason is obvious, they want to grow generations of "refugees" who feed on hate of Israel. And yet, I feel an obligation to pray for them especially that they will learn that hatred be it from themselves or Israelis is self-destructive and solves nothing. It gives them not a square cm of Israel's land. Will they ever learn? Will they ever overthrow Hamas? Until they are gone, there is no hope.
Posted By Beverly Kurtin, Hurst, TX

Posted: Sep 10, 2009
Re: the cost
And I would say it was a result of the blockade. And the blockade is there because there were attacks following the Hamas takeover which was a coup but one that came out of the denial of Hamas' rights as the democratically elected government. I could go on but I'm stating facts we all know. The point is to illustrate that its hardly as clearcut as "they are wrong, we are right except when we try to be nice and then we're wrong". A docent at Independance Hall in Tel Aviv put it in a way to me I have never forgotten. There are two truths with some measure of justice and righteousness and they are butting up against one another. It's a tough situation but we, Israelis, Jews and Palestinians need to retain love for eachother and humility towards our own faults, our own capacities for wrongdoing. We must all change if there will be peace. It is for that I pray.
Posted By Jeremy Wood, Vancouver

Posted: Sep 9, 2009
1967
Pray for Gazans? Of course. We are related to them. But when I pray for them I pray that their eyes will be opened and they will come to their senses and fight Hamas and rid themselves of that bunch of thugs.
Posted By Beverly Kurtin, Hurst, TX

Posted: Sep 8, 2009
Re: The cost
The cost of that campaign was a direct consequence of leaving Gaza to begin with.
As for the numbers of casualties, I simply do not believe the high figures. There is a terrible difficulty in discussing all this, because there are two divergent narratives with entirely discrepant sets of facts and figures.
Posted By Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

Posted: Sep 7, 2009
For "I agree with the poster..."
It is obvious that you have blindly accepted the Arab propaganda. What happened when the Israelis moved completely our of Gaza? Hamas started lobbing rockets into Israel. Israel retaliated.. Completely innocent people were killed BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF HAMAS WHICH IS BACKED BY THE CRIMINAL REGIMES OF IRAN AND SYRIA! When Gazans claimed that they were not receiving electricity from Israel they marched in the streets...showing steet lights shining brightly. When they claimed they had to meet in dark, sunlight was streaming behind the closed curtains. I feel badly for the innocent people who die because of the terrorists--on both sides of the border. Until the Arabs accept the FACT of Israel there can be no peace. When they do, Israel will help them if the Arabs permit them to help.
Posted By Beverly Kurtin, Hurst, TX

Posted: Sep 6, 2009
The cost.
I agree with the poster. The situation in Gaza was largely created by the callous blockade. But I don't want to discuss that. I'm curious as to what Tzvi thinks of the cost of Cast Lead. You speak of saving a thousand lives. What about the thousands that were lost in the bombing in this campaign? How is this justified?
Posted By Jeremy, Vancouver

Posted: May 7, 2009
prayer?
yes it has been documented and scientifically studies that prayer does work. Now only if we can get more ppl to pray for these people. I myself am not doing so well financially either, as being sick I have no income, but the next hundred I get I am sending 20 to some humanitarian aid company, of sorts, after checking them out. We all can do a little something , each and everyone, yes just a little will grow and grow. PRAY. ALSO, ON ANOTHER NOTE, I have been studying ancient scrpts and one called the book of Enoch. IT says there that one of the fallen angels called Azazel was chained in the rocks and caves in that area, gaza=azazel, no wonder there is so much turmoil there.
Posted By DONT LET THE LEFT HAND KNOW WHAT THE RIGHT HAND IS DOING, ohio



 


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