ISIS v. Israel

No, the title is not suggesting that this post has to do with a direct confrontation between ISIS (aka Daesh) and the nation of Israel.  I suspect that any unbiased writer would have no difficulty in predicting the outcome of such a conflict!  (Clue: Israel would not come out of it as second-best!!).

However, in the last couple of days, I have viewed two specific photographs that clearly display the difference between these two entities.  The first has also appeared in today's online Daily Express.

The executioner is in the act of beheading a 15 year-old boy - in front of a large crowd, including many teenagers.  Ayham Hussein was handed the death sentence after being tried in a strict Sharia law court.   ISIS thugs had found the teenager listening to a portable compact disc player inside his dad's shop in an open-air market in western Mosul, in Iraq.  Sentenced to death - for listening to music!  No words of mine could ever suitably describe such an act!  Those responsible will, in eternity, if not before, answer for such a crime - because their's was the crime; the boy was innocent of any crime - certainly in any civilised society.

The second picture was e-mailed to me from the Scottish Friends of Israel.

In his short life, Mohammed al-Farra has known just one home: the yellow-painted children's ward in Israel's Tel Hashomer hospital.  Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed's hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3½ year-old moves about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won't pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.  

Mohammed was rushed to Israel as a newborn for emergency treatment. His genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, doctors say, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.   In the midst of his treatment, his mother abandoned Mohammed because her husband, ashamed of their son, threatened to take a second wife if she didn't leave the baby and return to their home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, al-Farra said. In Gaza, polygamy is permitted but isn't common. But it's a powerful threat to women fearful of competing against newer wives.  Now Mohammed spends his days undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs, while his 55-year-old grandfather cares for him. Mohammed's Israeli doctors, who've grown attached to the boy, fund-raise to cover his bills, allowing him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.

Two children; two cultures; two situations; two outcomes.   For ISIS/Daesh, death for listening to music; for another Arab Muslim boy, life because of the dedication, love, and concern, of Israel and its medical staff.

Such stories could, of course, be multiplied many times over.  Sadly, although ISIS/Daesh do have their evil actions publicised, you will rarely find the "western" media informing people of the situation of children such as Mohammed al-Farra.  To do so, of course, might cause the unthinking among us to realise that the bias against the State and Nation of Israel is unfounded.

I believe, as a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth - Himself born and raised as a Jew; tried and falsely convicted, as a Jew; crucified as King of the Jews (in accordance with prophecy: see Isaiah 53) - I have a moral, and even spiritual, obligation to support Israel.  I may not agree with every policy decision of the Israeli government (although I would gladly exchange the current incumbent of 10 Downing Street, for Mr Netanyahu!) but, as Corrie ten Boom's father reminded her at the time of the Holocaust: "They are still the apple of His eye"! (see Deut.32:10; Ps.17:8; Zech.2:8 - the reference is to the keen sensibility of the eye, and denotes the careful protection, and security, of Almighty God - HaShem).

If you have a heart for Israel, please do all that you can to publicise the truth and, of course, pray for the peace of Jerusalem - Sh’alu shalom yerushalayim.

Is this the beginning of the end for the EU?

So, at long last, there is a focal point for those of us who long for the U.K. to get out of the discredited (and you may take that in any way you wish!) E.U.  The Daily Express newspaper has commenced a 'crusade' to "... liberate Britian from the stranglehold of Brussels."  Mind you, I trust that those who run this campaign remember that "Britain" or, more accurately, "Great Britain" (as in Grande Bretagne - size rather than importance!) consists of only England, Scotland, and Wales, even if the adjective 'British' is applied to all of the peoples of the U.K.!  If N.Ireland (which is still separate from the Republic of Ireland) is included - as it should be - then one should refer to "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and N.Ireland" - see your passport for confirmation!  The two islands, and their associated smaller ones, are The British Isles!

However, I digress!

Let me state, for the record, that I love Europe, and have very good friends in each of a number of European countries.  Even after our experience of the summer that has now passed, my wife and I plan to return to France in 2011.  Indeed, we are seriously considering a wee holiday home in the Dordogne, or the Vendeé, or Charente, or Charente-Maritime!  However, when I voted, almost 40 years ago, against joining the European Economic Community, I was at least voting about a trading partnership.  Only in his latter years did the late and, in my opinion, treasonous, Edward Heath confess that he had hidden from the British public the truth that a political union, with its associated, and manifestly corrupt, bureaucracy, had always been the ultimate vision!

The current Coalition Government (for whom I still pray, on a daily basis!) has done no better.  'Students' may continue to riot over what they claim is Mr Clegg's broken promise with regard to the proposed increases in their fees in spite of his repeated explanation that the Lib Dems did not win the last General Election, and that he has had to make compromises - especially when the scandalous state of the nation's finances, after the abysmal performance of the previous administration, is taken into consideration!   However, many have pointed out that the 'stiff' (well, it's hardly 'hard'!) line of the Conservative leader on Europe has had to be watered down because of the Lib Dem love affair with the E.U.!

I welcome the move by The Daily Express, and trust that there will now be such a groundswell of public opinion that not even the Government will be able to ignore it.  I do not claim to have the gift of predictive prophecy, but I am fairly certain that, if a referendum were to be called on the matter, there would be an overwhelming majority who would wish to say "Cheerio" to the E.U. and the Brussels' bureaucrats.  I certainly know which side would be getting my vote!