Down a few posts, I was probably pretty harsh using the term " ...parroting the media ..." in terms of ignorance concerning Middle East issues.  I say I was harsh, because it's all there is - in the main media outlets.  Some of the things I've learned through digging and searching have never been told on any of the media outlets.  Not the more conservative, certainly not the left leaning.  I was personally dumbfounded when I began to learn the untold story.  One has to ask, "Why is the truth so elusive, and why are these things not being told?"  Why indeed.  (The book "Philistine" goes into it a bit ... what happens to people who tell the truth.  It's a bit scary ... for me too, even writing this blog.  I think we can see by what has happened in recent years, even recently concerning the Pope's remarks - that no one can say much of anything without serious death threats.)  In 1984, Joan Peters wrote a book "From Time Immemorial" which deals with the Middle East conflict.  She started out researching from one point of view.  Her research instead led her to things she had never known, and she wound up on the other side of the view.  In other words, she uncovered the lies.  Her book has been very controversial, but the central theme is right on, and unrefuted.  From Wikepedia: 

The American Middle East authority, Harvard scholar, and well regarded author Dr. Daniel Pipes expressed a more favorable opinion, stating:

"The fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath."

My heart aches for Israel, yes.  But it also aches for those people who are taught every day to hate their Jewish neighbor, lie stacked upon lie stacked upon lie.  A poor and oppressed people who have been kicked out of their homes -- and enough years have passed that they do not know they were asked to leave their homes so that the Arab nations 'round about could blow Israel off the planet.  Strategically, Israel gained and kept land - so tiny is that country - it was necessary for survival.  People are taught that the Holocaust (a major reason for the necessity of a land for the wandering Jew) never happened.  I am reading that more and more, on some of the boards I have visited:  "The Holocaust never happened."  Incredible.

So you have a people - these Palestinian refugees - who are used as pawns by their own selfish, power hungry dictators.  One thing I never heard until the past few years -- and certainly not from any main media outlet -- was that there were Jewish refugees who had to leave the areas outside the boundries of the alloted land created for them.  Their country did not leave them to rot, but rather absorbed them.

It makes me angry.  Not just for Israel, but for these Palestinians as well.  A missionary I know, that our church supports, traveled to Israel.  When he got to Bethlehem, a Palestinian was nearby as he read from Luke.  He was reading out loud, and got emotional, and began to cry.  He couldn't continue.  The Palestinian nearby picked up where he left  off, and read ... then the missionary read ... then the Palestinian read ... and on they went.  Soon, the Palestinian had tears running down his face, and he whispered "I believe."  He was a believer.

Believers or not, these people are hurting, are being told lies, are being used and abused by their own leadership.  Now that Arafat is gone, there's a better chance for them, but Hamas is in there, fueling the fires of hatred.  We need to pray for these poor souls.  My heart goes out to them.  I'm angry at their leadership who has put them in this situation ... not at them.  I am angry at the book that demands " ... the last day cannot come until all the Jews have been killed ..." and that " ... all Jews are pigs ..."  These are in Islam's Hadiths ... revered almost as much as the Koran itself.  The Koran demands that if one does not bow to Islam, he must be killed.  Yet it also states "there is no compulsion in religion."

John Kerry wanted a more sensitive war (anyone remember the characiture of him standing around a pile of skeletons, asking "can't we just talk about it?").  There's an ideology at work here, that is entirely different from ours.  You cannot talk about something that you are on an entirely different page on.  Tolerance is encouraged, and I wonder what is meant by that?  "I'm OK, You're OK"?  "You believe what you want, I'll believe what I want"?  What about when your beliefs demand my head?  Am I supposed to tolerate that?

I'm getting off topic.  The Palestinian people ... they've been lied to about the Jews.  About their homes.  They've been used as pawns.  They are poor, and most of them filled with hatred.  A misplaced, misdirected hatred.  Because they've been lied to.  My heart goes out to them, and I pray that more will come to believe in Him, for in Him lies all truth -- and eternal life far from this veil of tears they've been born into.  Not living eternally with all those constantly reestablished virgins and rivers of wine.  Eternal life with Him, in perfect peace and joy - fellowship with Him, the giver of all life - and with all who have bowed their hearts to Him.  He offers forgiveness and eternal life to "whosoever will."  And He promises that all who seek Him will find Him.  One onlyneed have a desire for truth, and ask "God, are you there?  Are you real?  Show me yourself, make yourself real to me."  Isn't that seeking God?  The bible speaks all over the place of seeking Him, and calls on men to do so.  I know that God loves this people too.  That's why He chose a people to call His own -- that's why He created the Jewish nation -- that the Messiah would be born through it, and in turn bless all nations.  This people too ... He loves them so much.  God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather they turn and live (Ezekiel).  We are all "the wicked."  "... for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God ..." (Romans). 

Luke 2:10  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. He came for all people.  He came for the Palestinian refugees.  He loves them so much.

(P.S.  I would exercise caution in reading "Philistine."  The tortures described are very hard to handle, but the hard facts of what goes on is also important to understand if you want to "get" the ideology and the methods.)