And Justice for All

“Get down,” Doran pleaded with the people. They kept running. He trained his weapon on the terrorist, looking for an opening in the crowd.

“Allah Akbar!”

“No!” Doran screamed at the diabolical words, straight from the gates of Hades. His finger covered the trigger. Doran fired.

With exact duplication of time and space, the mujahedeen answered.

The detonation leveled nearly everything and everyone in a thirty-yard radius. Doran and his driver remained untouched. Many of his people had blocked the blast, absorbing it with bodies shredded by deadly shrapnel.

Dazed by the explosion, Doran slumped to the seat of his jeep. Within a few seconds his head cleared. His ears opened to the horrific screams of the injured. He stood and stared at his men as they approached the dead and dying with weapons raised. His eyes drifted to his hands, which still clutched the gun. His gut twisted at the blood and body tissue splattered on his hands and arms. He frantically wiped his hands on the seat of the jeep.

The haze of smoke and human debris settled over the ghastly killing field. He fell to the seat again, looked at his driver, and mumbled, “This is wrong. This is so wrong.”

Doran Zimmerman is an Israeli Defense Force Captain who and whose men were unable to prevent the 12^th and final terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Some of the previous (planned) assaults had been thwarted, but not this one. Dozens of innocent Israeli civilians died in these horrific attacks. Stunned by the savage enormity of such evil, all Doran could think and say was that this inhumane cruelty was wrong, so very wrong.

Sometimes that’s all any of us can say. How else can we express our horror and sorrow for the brutal shootings, knifings, bombings, and ramming of cars into bystanders taking place in Israel on a far too regular basis?

The gruesome scene just described to you took place at Carmel Market in Tel Aviv. Fortunately, it is fictional … as depicted in one of the early chapters of my first book, a novel entitled, O Israel … the end is the beginning for those left behind. (Published 2007, Pages 49, 50).

Unfortunately, what you just read is an all too real illustration of life in Israel, something that has taken place much too often in the market places, streets, schools, homes, and just recently synagogues of Israel. The fence barriers and increased security at Israeli checkpoint crossings have greatly diminished the incidents of suicide bombings, but terrorists determined to kill and maim totally innocent people are adept at adjusting and improvising. And missile launchings continue periodically from the Gaza Strip.

Permit me to quote another excerpt from O Israel; this from one of the main characters, Avram Levitt, a Jewish scribe; in one of his seven global email messages addressed to, All Who Have Eyes to See and Ears to Hear:

…May I begin with a tough question? What is it that drives someone to strap explosives around his waist, push a button, and detonate himself into eternity in order to maximize the killing of those who may look, think, and believe differently?

How can a mother proudly celebrate the death of her child who has taken his own life along with the lives of innocent people? Is it because her child has graduated from terrorist training and been given the label of shahid in order to accomplish shahada, the so-called sweet death for Allah? Or is it a demonstration of how much hatred the human heart can hold and parcel out through incomprehensible actions that only the hard of heart would not consider evil? (Page 57).

Fiction Becomes Frightening Fact

Fast forwarding to the news source, Ynet; which earlier this week reported a direct quote from parents of the two terrorists who stormed into a Jewish synagogue this past Tuesday (11-18). Said the parents in praising their sons who had just murdered four Jewish Rabbis and one Israeli Druze policemen and wounded (some seriously) other Jewish worshipers who were in the midst of morning prayers at the west Jerusalem Har Nof synagogue:

“They are both Shahids (martyrs) and heroes.”

One of the terrorist’s cousins, Allah Abu Jamal boasted, “This act occurred because of pressures exerted by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in general, and a prolonged harming of the al-Aqsa mosque…. We responded with cheers when we heard of their death. People offered candy to those who came to visit us, and there was happiness for the Shahids.”

Shocking. Appalling. Grisly. Repugnant. Sickening. There aren’t enough adjectives in any language to describe the macabre mentality of a religion and people of that religion who express glee at the death of innocents and happiness at the loss of their sons and daughters who murdered the innocents.

What pressure is Abu Jamal referring to? What prolonged harming of the Temple Mount mosque is he describing? Those of us who keep our thumb on the pulse of Jerusalem and Israel and the Middle East, who know anything at all about the history of Israel, who know what’s really happening can say with a great deal of certainty and accuracy:

There is no pressure, but the pressure built by the Muslims bent on Israel’s destruction, on elimination of every single Jew in the Promised Land. There is absolutely no harm done to the Muslim Mosque on Temple Mount by the Jews. There is, however, a great deal of harm inflicted by Muslims to Jews who visit this Holy Site of Temple Mount, which has belonged to the Jews from Biblical times as given to them by God himself. Lately there has been a surge of rock throwing, Molotov cocktails, beatings, riots, perpetrated by Muslims on Jews who ascend Temple Mount.

A New Breed of Killers

Early Tuesday morning, two cousins from East Jerusalem, Ghassan and Oday Jamal shamelessly slinked into the Jewish synagogue and mercilessly killed the rabbis and policeman with a gun, ax, and meat cleaver. I wanted to include photographs of the bloody crime scene in this article, but decided at the last minute not to. The words of dismay and revulsion expressed in this post are enough.

What makes this assault and other recent incidents different from past homicide bombings or missile attacks is that the attackers were Arab residents of East Jerusalem. Whether they were actual Israeli Arab citizens is unclear, but East Jerusalem residency allows for many of the same privileges afforded to Israeli citizens … municipal voting rights, access to social security benefits and state health care, and issuance of Israeli ID cards. They were not Palestinian Arabs occupying the West Bank proper or Gaza Strip.

The recent weapons of choice have been cars slamming into children; knives and screwdrivers plunged into unsuspecting men and women; axes and meat cleavers butchering rabbis praying to God … the true and living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

These lone wolf attacks are extremely difficult to predict, prevent, or defend by even the IDF. Now days, it’s nearly impossible for a Palestinian from the West Bank or from Gaza to enter Israel carrying wrap around explosives or high-profile weapons. But not so with Israeli Arabs and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem who enjoy the liberty so cherished in Israel—a great deal of freedom to travel through Israel as they choose.

We’re not talking about undocumented immigrants or unauthorized personnel walking the streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Nazareth while stalking their Jewish prey. Now we have Arabs who possess some or all the rights of Israeli citizenship; using their freedom of movement and privacy to pounce on unsuspecting men, woman, and children. Innocent human beings who only wanted to accomplish their tasks for that day, go home to the welcoming arms of their family, and prepare for another day of the precious existence given to them by their Creator and their Country.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—snuffed out in a moment of indescribable horror. Their very presence on this earth unlawfully, immorally, unjustly, indiscriminately, and unfairly taken away by the hands of another. There aren’t enough adverbs in any language to express the wicked depravity of such men and their deplorable deeds.

This is wrong, it is so wrong.

Israeli Mourners for the Slain Rabbis

A Disgusting Celebration

What makes this horrendous crime different from any mass murder in the United States or anywhere else in the world is that thousands upon thousands of Arab Palestinians proceeded to celebrate the death of the innocent victims. And it’s understood that many Arabs who did not overtly celebrate, gave tacit approval to the carnage and death. Of course there are murderers all over the world. But do their relatives, friends, and compatriots rejoice over the death of the victims?

Just as Palestinians danced with delight in the streets over the shockingly unjust murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11, so there was rejoicing by both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs in Israel over the death of four Jews and the maiming of several others. They celebrated the brutal death of Rabbis, Moshe Twersky, 59; Aryeh Kupinsky, 43; Kalman Levine, 55 (all three US-born citizens who moved to Israel). Plus a British born Jewish Rabbi, Avraham Goldberg, 68. Together, the four left four widows, a total of twenty-six children, and multiple grandchildren to grieve forever over their loss. And not to forget the Druze policeman, who later died from his wounds.

Rabbi Kalman Levine grew up in Kansas City and moved to Israel in his twenties. His father, Bernard Levine still lives just south of the Country Club Plaza.

Born in Lawrence, Kansas and a resident of Kansas City, Missouri for many years, I have shopped at and driven through this plaza often. I’m sure I’ve driven by the Levine house on or near Ward Parkway hundreds of times. For all I know, I may have seen Kalman (formerly Cary) Levine outside his home at one time or another. This makes his and the violently tragic death of all who were slain even more (personally) heartbreaking.

Photo of Rabbi Levine

Revolt with me in indignation at the vicious words of “praise” for the deaths of more Jews and “victory” of the Muslim “martyrs,” Again quoting the terrorists’ cousin, Allah Abu Jamal who claimed that the family was unaware of the men’s intentions: “The terror attack was a big surprise for us. Praise Allah, a man dying a Shahid is a great thing.” In the context of adulation for his cousins, Jamal’s choice of words “terror attack” was either a slip of the tongue or facetious sarcasm to mimic or scoff at, or a parody of the true nature of the crime, which indeed is terrorism—cold-blooded random murder of innocent victims.

Or the expected, but nevertheless insensitive, inconsiderate, and cruel statement of Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri, who called the attack a, “heroic action.”

Palestinian social media has already been inundated with cartoons and graphics celebrating the murders and calling for other such actions. These malicious, hateful taunts followed a Palestinian song urging further use of their cars for terror attacks in what they are now labeling, Car Intifada or Autofada. Or social campaigns using animation to promote the murder of Jews in any fashion and with any weapon imaginable. To be more creative in killing Israelis.

Says another Hamas spokesman, Husam Badran, to all Arabs: “…Turn your weapons against your enemies and ours. Write your names in the true list of honor.”

Honor? Justice? Righteous Acts of Violence? I think not and so do you or anyone who embraces true honor, who longs for real justice, who understands that authentic righteousness precedes and follows Peace, not murder and mayhem of innocent people.

No place is a place for murder. But in a synagogue? At the most holy moment of the prayer service … Amida, the central prayer to God. Wrapped in their talits (prayer shawls) that would in a moment of terror be soaked with their life’s blood. I shed tears of sorrow, sympathy, and wrath as I write these words. And I’m a Gentile.

This is wrong; so very, very wrong.

What is God’s View?

Here is what the Sovereign Lord of Scripture says about murder: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6, NASB). This reference is to premeditated murder, not to the self-defense justified killing of someone to protect life. Or even the killing that goes with war.

Though God cannot tolerate any kind of sin, Scripture tells us that he particularly despises the following: “There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family” (Proverbs 6:16-19, italics for emphasis).

Muslim terrorists and the political and social leaders who support them (or any terrorist or murderer, but the vast majority of global terrorists are, in fact, Muslims) frequently plot evil and lie about anything and everything to achieve their warped goals. This includes rewriting Israel’s history, pouring out lies to the world about their rights to the Temple Mount and who instigates the violence there and elsewhere, and by inflaming their people, for example, to: “Keep the settlers and the extremists away from Al-Aqsa and our holy places.” (A recent quote from the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen).

Indeed, it’s the so-called moderate leader of the West Bank that has recently turned radical to ingratiate himself with his chief rival, Hamas of the Gaza Strip; who has incited the recent lone wolf attacks with such rhetoric as, “We will not allow our holy places to be contaminated. Keep them away from us and we will stay away from them, but if they ever enter Al-Aqsa, we will protect Al-Aqsa and the church and the entire country.”

Their holy places! Really? Says who? The Koran? Not hardly. The Koran doesn’t even mention the city of Jerusalem … not once! The Bible references Jerusalem hundreds of times.

Holy places contaminated? What Jew would ever think or want to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque? Abbas is really saying that the Jews are contaminating all of Israel, a land that the Palestinians claim is rightfully theirs. But they have no ancient or contemporary deed to the land.

And just how do Arab Palestinians interpret these warnings from Abbas? No less than by entering a Jewish synagogue and murdering Rabbis at prayer. Is that how they keep the Jews away from the Arabs? Is that how they stay away from Israelis … by slaughtering them? Is that how they are supposed to protect Al-Aqsa and the entire country? Whose country is it anyway? There is no Palestinian State and never has been. There is no Palestinian people … only Arabs. There is no Palestinian language and never has been … only Arabic. The Arabs were not there first. The Jews were; at least 2,500 years before. Originally, Palestinians were Jews. Arabs didn’t refer to themselves as Palestinians until Israel became a State in 1948. Actually, not until the Palestinian Authority in the 1960s.

No, the Palestinian Arabs do not want peace, or to be left alone, or to co-exist with the Jews. They want one thing and one thing only: To be rid of all Jews in Israel and the entire world. That is precisely what is propagated in the Palestinian Charter.

Where is the Justice?

As in a previous Eye of Prophecy article, Bring Back Our Boys (published 6-28-14), this blog post contains some harsh language regarding Muslim atrocities in the name of Islam or Allah. Yes, I am angry over the needless, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking slaughter of innocent Jews—in our time and throughout the annals of human history. And, in more general terms, for all innocent people whose precious lives were extinguished by their fellow human beings for a myriad of motives; but particularly because of their race and beliefs. This also includes arbitrary killing of Jews and Muslims by the Crusaders, who were not true believers in Christ, but Christian in name only.

Is mine a righteous anger? Is yours? I’d like to think so … I believe it is. But only because my righteousness is God-given, imputed through and by the righteousness of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I have no innate righteousness of my own. I have been declared righteous because of my trust in Yeshua as Savior. So, too, do I strongly believe in justice. As do many people throughout the world for thousands of years.

Yet, those who have not accepted the redemption found through Christ—purchased through his death, burial, and resurrection—often think more in terms of revenge than justice. The Bible speaks of justice in dozens of passages, and tells us that God loves justice … a pure justice. Indeed, that is one of his many attributes. Frequently, Scripture declares that God will avenge (with a holy, righteous justice) the innocent. Such as:

“For, I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrongdoing. I will faithfully reward my people for their suffering and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be recognized and honored among the nations. Everyone will realize that they are a people the Lord has blessed” (Isaiah 61:8-9). God’s love of justice is a universal, perpetual truth applicable to all peoples and situations. But the passage is also referring more specifically to the nation of Israel, to the Jews.

There is a special favor from God to those who pursue justice. “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

The two assailants that murdered the rabbis were shot and killed by Israeli police, who had no other choice in order to save more lives. And rightfully so … that was justice. It is also justness for the Israelis to demolish the houses of the terrorists, if for no other reason that a stern lesson and deterrent from future attacks. In some countries, particularly Islamic governments, the immediate family of the offenders might have been arrested, imprisoned, or even killed out of retribution. Thus, additional measures by the Israeli government are mild in comparison.

As in my follow-up article to Bring Back Our Boys, entitled Prince of Peace (published 7-5-14), I want to reaffirm that I (and I hope all who are believers in Christ) will not direct my reactions and emotions to hatred of the assassins; rather, only loathing of their actions. For one thing this deplorable behavior of terrorists and murderers all over the world is only an extreme expression of the sin that we all are capable of. This statement in no way condones what they have done. Rather, it simply highlights the fact that I am a sinner saved by the grace of God. As John Newton said, “I am a great sinner. And Christ is a great Savior.”

To once again emphasize that there will not be any real peace, no pure justice until Messiah Jesus returns to this war-torn, evil preoccupied, worn-out earth to establish his Kingdom of Righteousness, Justice, and Peace.

Listen to these majestic words of prophecy concerning the glorious second coming of Messiah Jesus: “Look at my servant, whom I strengthen. He is my chosen one, who pleases me. I have put my Spirit upon him. He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. He will bring justice to all who have been wronged. He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth. Even distant lands beyond the sea will wait for his instruction” (Isaiah 42:1-4, italics for emphasis).

Not crushing the weakest reed or putting out a flickering candle refers to the poor, weak, downtrodden of the earth who, in spite of all their trouble, truly seek God. Messiah will treat these folks with tenderness and love. He will right all the wrongs that have been done to them.

Funeral Procession for Three of the Slain Rabbis

Things to Ponder

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Despite several recent legal challenges, one Nation under God, has withstood the misguided efforts to remove God from the US Flag salute. But I fear that one day, under God will be legally removed from this honored salutation, and perhaps from our seats of government and halls of justice.

I firmly believe that unless we and our leaders at least acknowledge the sovereignty of Almighty God in creating and blessing this great nation, there will no longer be liberty and justice for all. In fact, liberty and justice is already being twisted and tainted in, of all places, our courts of law. Judges are overturning referendums and laws passed by majority of citizens in several states on important moral issues such as marriage and abortion.

We all need Jesus in our hearts, lives, and relationships with family, friends, community, state, nation, and the world. Only the Prince of Peace can bring true justice and peace to this world.

“But the Lord reigns forever, executing judgment from his throne. He will judge the world with justice and rule the nations with fairness. The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you. Sing praises to the Lord who reigns in Jerusalem. Tell the world about his unforgettable deeds. For he who avenges murder cares for the helpless. He does not ignore the cries of those who suffer” (Psalms 9:7-12).

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

Jesus is right, so very right.