Dark Brightness

The Isreali and Egyptian blockade of Gaza is about stopping rockets falling on Isreal and the export of terror to Egypt. The Isreali navy were within their rights… but the recent “relief” flotilla was political theatre.

The flotilla was stocked with the usual assemblage of the wilfully naive: a few hundred European and other “do-gooders,” including even one Jewish Holocaust survivor. They were invited along as a cosmetic imperative; as “human shields.” The violence was, and was intended to be, between the Islamists and the Israeli soldiers they were certain to confront. Those who physically attacked the soldiers were working from the same impulse as suicide bombers; the rest were only there to howl.

It is amazing to me that there are still “liberals” like this, even within Israel. I have actually met people who live a few hundred metres from the front line with an enemy sworn to exterminate them; who think the “road to peace” can be paved with unilateral Israeli concessions. They embody my worst fears for the West at large: that even in the face of extinction, our own “progressive” types will continue to demand the appeasement of our mortal enemies.

Yet this was the very lesson of the Holocaust: Do not agree to go quietly, into the ovens, or into the sea. So long as there is breath in you, and the possibility of resistance, fight.

Israel was herself founded on this “Zionist” premise: that Jews would defend themselves; that they would not “go quietly” again. That they would not depend on the goodwill of false friends. Why should Israelis take advice from people who openly encourage an enemy vowed to exterminate them?

via RealClearPolitics – Singling Out Israel is Nothing New.

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• The crowd had travelled a long way to see Jesus. Into a deserted place. Where food could not be found.
• Jesus had compassion and cured the sick. Then fed them.
• The teaching was to the disciples.
• The crowd was more than 5000.

Matthew 14:13-21

13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.