Looking at the situation now in Lebanon, I am, filled with nothing but sadness. A series of events all too common in the Middle-East and in areas where the Islamic world touches the rest of humanity generally. A terrorist/militant group launches a 'brazen' (in reality cowardly) attack on a nearby country, presuming a general support for their actions from other Muslims that generally just isn't there- like anyone else, most Muslims wish to live in peace. They thereby draw the fire of whomever they attacked- be it Russia, Israel, India or whomever and do whatever they can to draw such fire onto civilian areas. The response is even more brutal and effects even more people than the original attack, attacking a whole society, into which the terrorists/militants have done their best to melt away into. They then have just what they wanted, 'proof' that the democracies are the tyrants, 'evidence' that they are a popular movement of resistance, and thus escape the focus of blame they so richly deserve.
Are the democracy's responses proportionate? In no way. The kind of actions we see in Gaza, Lebanon, Kashmir, Cetzneya, Iraq can in no way be defended or justified- they maim the innocent, they destroy the chances of peace. Yet we should also be able to pry ourselves away from the media's obsession with what is happening only in the moment of reporting, and remember what provoked the savage and disproportionate response.
Whilst terrorists/militants launch attacks from the midst of civilians, these kinds of tragedies will continue, whatever the mass media or the UN says about such responses. Standing armies simply have no other response, they lack the means to control or restrict themselves to the 'ideal' of surgical warfare, a surgical warfare that has really only ever existed on television screens. Those that breed the hatred, the obsessive hatred, must be stopped with diplomatic means before they breach the peace and processes to establish peace through gradual means. For attacked nations have little patience for their critics, and will continue to employ savagely reactive forms of 'self-defense' which other nations will fall shy of officially criticising (note the lack of official criticisms of Israel, even by nations inconvenienced by events or containing populations appalled at them). They hold back on criticising not so much from their agreement, as from fear for what the future may bring if they seem friendly to terrorist causes, lest they be thrown into the same situation by another reckless terrorist/militant group.
The children of Lebanon suffer and their suffering is mocked by the Islamic extremists who hope for more suffering, for more propaganda. The ordinary Muslims masses continue to be held hostage by their extremists and their purposefully provocative actions, with no way of freeing themselves other than by getting angered and saddened by those attacking them. But I would ask these masses, this billions of people, to ask and realise this one thing- that it is hate that is the original breeder of violence. And that there is little if any actual hatred of Muslims in the average non-Muslim or their governments- but plenty of hatred blackening the hearts of those in the terrorist/militant movements who seem hell-bent on ending the stability and scerenity of others as much as they can.
What am I suggesting?
That Satan himself is behind this and all similar crises, turning human brothers against one another, in a series of efforts to obscure the peaceful divinity from men's minds and hearts. Who can easily envision an infinite and peaceful divinity when seeing such sickening scenes? Perhaps a deity of vengeance who presides over nothing but misery, but not the True God of loving peace and endless kindness. The Lebanese didn't ask to be Hezbollah's cannon-fodder in this maddened attack against a Western outpost, which ironically holds the keys to their future happiness. Yet the occultists who rule Syria and Iran gave them little choice.
Similarly, peaceful solutions which might very well have presented themselves may be overlooked by the occultists who meddle with Israel's destiny, and are held to be at least partly responsible for the growth or organisations such as Hamas, that were seen as useful tools to split the Palestinian political identity into a confused and split one, that could be more easily controlled. The dearth of effective, reasonable-minded leadership on the Palestinian part can partly be explained by this. Yet a people cannot forever merely be controlled- authentic relationships need to be established and nourished- relationships which I have faith that the ordinary good-hearted peoples of Israel, Palestinian and all the other nations are more than capable of achieving. They will do this by building nation-states in the wider framework of the Middle-East, as a federation of states working together or even competing, but towards a common good, a common prosperity, a better future.
The peaceful future will be built by those who focus on peace, rather than vengeance, on forgiveness rather than rage, on understanding rather than ignorance. Whatever the temptations out there, the true followers of God will keep their hearts and minds pure and filled with nothing but Love.
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