© Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu AgencyThousands of Palestinians queue up to cross into Israel and begin their work day as the sun begins to rise, at Eyal Border crossing, in the city of Qalqilya, West Bank on 1 May 2019
Over the years since May 2007, I have lived in different areas of occupied Palestine, witnessing the crimes of the Zionist entity and sharing in the daily tragedies, injustices and realities of Palestinians' lives.
In the occupied West Bank in 2007, I volunteered with the ISM for eight months, during which time I was detained at a protest against a Jewish-only highway in the West Bank, arrested at a road-block removal action, and was finally deported and banned from occupied Palestine.
During those months, I was witness to the ugliest aspects of life under Zionist rule: attacks by illegal Jewish colonists (also armed) and by Zionist soldiers on Palestinian children, women, elderly; humiliating military checkpoints, some with zoo-like turnstiles, all which serve to delay or completely prevent Palestinians' movement; and raids and weeks-long lock-downs on Palestinian towns and cities, in which the Zionist army ransacks homes and usually abducts one or more member of the family, including children. There are currently 195 Palestinian children in Zionist prisons.
In Susiya, a hamlet in the South Hebron Hills, I witnessed land being stolen and quickly annexed by the illegal Jewish colonists. As we were documenting this annexation, a colonist gleefully admitted that the land was Palestinian but that the grape vines they'd planted on the land were worth 60,000 shekels (roughly $17,500) and were intended for wine production. "It doesn't matter. See, the grapes we grow will be wine. And I will drink the wine. It doesn't matter all that you speak."
I slept in the tents of the Palestinian families who two decades earlier had been evicted from their homes and now reside in ramshackle tents many times demolished by the Zionist army โ and always under threat of the next demolition. We stayed with them in hopes of preventing the inevitable attacks by the nearby colonists. Hajj Khalil, an elder in his eighties, had been brutally beaten by colonists the year before I met him. He was again, along with his wife, brutally beaten the year after meeting him.
In encounters with the army which has a military base near Susiya, I would often hear them call the occupied West Bank "Judea and Samaria," testament to their ignorance and brainwashing. Then again, the Zionist occupation army website doesn't even pretend to recognize Palestine either, historic or current, likewise referring to "Judea and Samaria."
Khalil (Hebron) itself is one of the most phenomenally brazen examples of illegal Jewish colonists' control of Palestinian land. Roughly 800 armed colonists have the run H2, an area of Khalil under full Zionist control. Particularly in Tel Rumeida, the attacks have been frequent and severe over the years, their sadistic aggressions supported by Zionist soldiers. The Palestinians of all ages are frequently targeted, and families have been brutally evicted from their homes by the colonists who then occupy the homes.
Many times over in occupied Palestine, I found myself and other solidarity activists doing things which seemed to be an utter waste of time. In Khalil, we would stand for hours near the military checkpoints and monitor whether Palestinians were unduly been held back or prevented passage by the Zionist soldiers.
In some cases our presence shamed the soldiers and Palestinians were allowed passage, but in most cases the soldiers were so belligerent they didn't care whether we saw (and filmed) their acts of cruelty against Palestinians. Often we, too, were detained or arrested by the Zionist soldiers when refusing to leave an area suddenly deemed a "closed military zone," a tactic the Zionist army uses to both keep Palestinians and internationals out of an area, and also to annex more Palestinian land (as was the case of Susiya).
On Shuhada (Martyrs) street โ once the thriving and prosperous main street of Khalil, now a ghost-street, homes shuttered and racist, hate-graffitti sprayed on doors and walls โ we would sit for hours under the sun, merely as a presence which might dissuade the colonists from attacking Palestinian children as they walked to school, or Palestinian women and elders as they moved about. Sitting for hours seemed like a colossal waste of time, but in many cases being present did actually enable a degree of safe passage.
We participated in rebuilding homes demolished by the Zionist military under feeble pretexts of lack of building permits (Israeli-granted) or zoning laws. On one such occasion the family we were with was re-building for a third time. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimates that at least 27,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967 (not including those bombed in Gaza). Under the "Prawer Plan," the Zionists intend to displace 70,000 Palestinians with "Israeli" citizenship, destroying 35 villages in the Naqab desert, occupied Palestine.
Comment: Remember, this piece was written a full decade ago. Thousands more Palestinian homes, farms and businesses have been destroyed since then.
In olive season, we joined families in areas known for brutal attacks by the illegal colonists, harvesting olives with the Palestinian locals until the inevitable attacks occurred. On one occasion, a Palestinian received a nasty head wound from the hefty rocks slung at him. I narrowly missed receiving a rock to the temple, my camera-hand blocking it. The six or so colonists on a hill above us were not chagrined when we yelled that they were going to kill someone. It was, after all, their intent.
© Eva BartlettAn illegal settler attack on a Palestinian olive farmer
During a military invasion in the old city of Nablus, in the north of the West Bank, we walked the streets to bring food to Palestinians trapped in their homes, and escorted those who had been outside of their homes when the "curfew" (lock-down) was imposed. At one point during the evening lock-down, after escorting three women to houses surrounded by Zionist soldiers, a Palestinian medic we were with was taken captive by the soldiers, blindfolded and hand-cuffed, and used as a human shield to deter Palestinian resistance from fighting back against the invading soldiers. None of our attempts to negotiate his release were successful; informing the soldiers that taking civilians โ medics yet โ captive as human shields was illegal had absolutely no impact. After all, Zionists are above the law...
© Atef Safadi/European Press AgencyAn Israeli wall separating the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat from an East Jerusalem neighbourhood. Israel and the US strongly rejected the UN report.
The "rubber" bullets are in fact metal bearings with a very thin coating of rubber, often intentionally split open before being shot, in order to inflict maximum injury. They are meant for use only on the legs, but Zionist soldiers routinely shoot at the face.
The amount of tear gas fired on Bil'in protesters is staggering, but more lethal is the manner in which they are fired: often they are shot directly at the person, which in the case of Bassam Abu Rahme resulted in his death. Shot from a mere few metres away with a high-velocity tear gas canister, Bassam didn't survive. As of his killing in April 2009, he was the 18th protesting against the wall to be murdered by the Zionist army, many 14-16 year olds and a 10 year old among the dead.
Those seen as organizers are systematically abducted, both during the demonstrations and also during night raids on the village, and are usually kept without charge for months on end, some of the 134 Palestinians being held in Zionist prisons under "administrative detention."
Participating in Bil'in and the numerous other Palestinian villages holding such Gandhian protests, we marched with them and were likewise debilitated by the clouds of tear gas. When it seemed the army was going to abduct a Palestinian, we would attempt to "de-arrest" him/her. On one occasion, by wrapping our limbs around Adeeb, one of Bil'in many times abducted protesters, we managed to fend off his arrest, but took a beating to the body and kicking to the head before the soldiers lobbed a tear gas canister directly at us [video].
The irony of such brutality on the various non-violent protests is that corporate media often say, "why aren't there any Palestinian Gandhis?" But every day of surviving under Zionist rule is in itself non-violent protest, not to mention the actual demonstrations happening every week.
While I've witnessed horrific acts of violence and degradation against Palestinians at the hands of the Zionist army and colonists, in my roughly four years in occupied Palestine, I've also surprisingly seen much beauty, generosity, culture, and resilience.
This would not be surprising to anyone who knows Palestinians, but to an observer hearing only of the various wars the Zionist state inflicts on the occupied Palestinians, one would hardly expect beauty and life to flourish.
However, suffering and tragedy far outweigh joy and hope, in an imbalance similar to that of the power imbalance between the heavily-armed Zionist state and the armed with rocks and home-made rockets occupied Palestinians.
The least I can do, we can do, is to work on shifting that power imbalance, towards one of justice.
Part 2
Unusually heavy torrential rains last month inundated much of Gaza, which was already reeling from a tight Israeli-Egyptian siege since 2006. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected with more than 5,000 evacuated from their homes. Power outages of 20-22 hours daily, or complete days, have become the norm, affecting every facet of life in Gaza.
The Gaza Strip, a 40 km long, 12 km at its widest point, 365 square kilometre strip of land is host to 1.7 million Palestinians, two thirds of whom are refugees.
While Gaza's suffering extends decades back, since 2006 much of the world has cut ties with Gaza, and since 2007 Israel, supported by Egyptian and Western powers, has enforced a full blockade on the Strip.
It is not merely an economic blockade, but rather a full lock-down on movement, goods, access to health care outside, and limiting the import of fuel, cooking gas, and medicines, to name some items, into the enclave. It impacts on every facet of life imaginable.
In November 2008, I joined a boat of European Parliamentarians sailing from Cyprus to the Strip, attempting to symbolically break the blockade. Apart from the act of solidarity, it was also my sole means of entering Gaza. With all but one border crossing controlled by israel, and the remaining crossing by the complicit Mubarak rule in Egypt, entry by sea was the only option. However, the outcome was not certain: israel also controls Palestinian waters.
© Eva BartletIsraeli gunboat flanking the Dignity as it sailed through international waters towards Palestinian waters
I joined the handful of other human rights activists from the ISM to begin what would be three years of the most surreal and horrific experiences as an activist I have ever had.
Our work comprised accompanying farmers and fishers as they attempted to work their trades, routinely coming under machine-gun fire from Zionist soldiers. In the case of the fishers, they are also subject to shelling and heavy-powered water cannon attacks โ the force of which shatters windows, splits wooden structural components of the boats, and destroys electronic navigation equipment. The israeli navy also often adds a chemical to the spray which leaves the soaked victims stinking of excrement for days. [videos]
In one assault on fishers, the navy first sprayed machine-gun fire at a fishing trawler one kilometer off Gaza's northern coast for about fifteen minutes, then firing a missile which set the boat aflame. The fishers jumped overboard and were saved, but the boat was not. Gutted by flames, the vessel was destroyed, and along with it the livelihoods of the eight or so fishers who regularly worked on the boat.
Half an hour into my first venture out with fishers, in November 2008, an israeli gunboat charged us, swerving at the last minute. Intimidation. The fishers scrambled to reel in their nets. Soon after, another gunboat sped towards us, water cannon firing. Our trawler managed to escape before the dousing. This minor harassment pales in comparison to the repeated assaults that usually occur when fishers try to fish even a few miles off the coast. Under the Oslo accords, Palestinian fishers have the right to fish 20 nautical miles out, but under Israeli rule six miles is the limit. Often, when the fishers are attacked at sea, it is repeatedly as the Israeli navy follows them from one location to the next, rendering their fishing efforts largely fruitless.
Fishers are routinely abducted, their boats stolen by the navy. If the boats are returned, it is inevitably after many months, and stripped bare of nets and equipment. The process of abducting fishers usually plays out as such: one or more israeli gunboats attack the fishing trawler (or the small, rowed boats common in Gaza) with machine-gun fire and/or shelling; the navy orders the fishers to strip down to their underwear, dive into the water, and often makes the fishers swim or tread water for extended periods, regardless of the temperature of the water. Fishers are then hauled aboard, abducted to a detention centre, and interrogated on anything but fishing.
A similar policy of intimidation plays out daily in Gaza's border regions, where farmers and anyone working or living near the border face potential machine-gun fire or shelling. This includes some of the Strip's poorest, usually children, who work in border regions collecting stones and rubble (from israeli army-destroyed homes) for re-sale in the construction industry. These labourers face danger twice-over: the threat of being targeted by machine-gunning/shelling, and the treat of unexploded ordinances beneath the rubble exploding when disturbed.[videos]
During the 2008-2009 war on the people of Gaza, in addition to warplane bombings, many homes in the border regions were destroyed by demolition explosives. This was in tandem with the intentional destruction of wells and cisterns in border regions. Tanks and bulldozers churned up huge swaths of land into unworkable waves of earth. The combination of this all rendered the areas flanking the border unlivable, and almost impossible to farm. [see: They Make Like Art Here]
Farmers who attempt to access their land, be they elderly or children (male and female), are routinely targeted by israeli soldiers. A 50 meter "buffer zone" established unilaterally by israeli authorities on the Gaza side in the mid-90s, has over the years been expanded to the current 300 metre "buffer zone." In reality, the actual policy is one of attacking Palestinians as far as two kilometres from the border.
This off-limits area steals roughly one third of Gaza's agricultural land, land which happens to be some of the most fertile soil in the Strip. This is an area formerly known as Gaza's "bread-basket" for the many olive, fruit and nut trees, wheat and rye, lentils and chickpeas, and various vegetables and fruit that once grew abundantly on these lands. Now, in the name of "security," every week or two, armoured bulldozers accompanied by tanks, flatten swaths of farmland, even beyond the israeli-imposed 300 metre limit.
We accompanied farmers planting wheat or harvesting their crops, often low-growing crops like parsley or lentils. While doing this, they routinely come under fire from israeli soldiers in jeeps or shooting sniper-style from dirt mounds along the border fence. Some of the farmers are paid labourers, earning the equivalent of five dollars a day, at best, which they contribute to their families' incomes. Others are grandparents, grandchildren, working land their families have farmed for generations.
Military gun towers are spread along the length of the border, including remotely-controlled towers with swiveling machine guns fired by soldiers with joysticks in control rooms kilometres away. Our policy was to stand with arms raised and visibly empty of anything that could be construed as threatening, and to stay in place until the farmers wanted to leave. It was about farmers reclaiming land they are being forcibly pushed off of by the israeli policies and shootings. We wore only a thin fluorescent vest, and most of us carried still or video cameras to document the aggression.
When the soldiers shoot, it is often after surveilling farmers for extended periods. In one such instance, the army watched us working on land over 500 metres from the border for two hours, choosing the moment when the farm labourers were pushing a stalled pickup truck full of parsley to begin sniping at them. Although we stood in front of the farmers, between them and the soldiers, the latter shot around us, hitting a seventeen year old deaf farm labourer in his calf.
In another instance, we came under heavy fire for over 40 minutes from Israeli soldiers roughly 500 metres away. The farmers lay flat on the ground, with no cover to protect them. We stood, bullets flying within metres of our hands, heads, feet. The Canadian embassy called me to say they would do nothing and that humanitarian workers should be aware of the Israeli security policies in Gaza's border regions.
Even if the injury is not an immediately fatal one, people who are shot in the border areas risk bleeding to death before reaching medical care. Ambulances, also targeted by israeli shooting and shelling, cannot risk coming too near to the border. So when Ahmed Deeb, a 21 year old who attended a protest against the border policies, was shot in his femoral artery, by the time a group of young men carried him to an ambulance further away, he had lost too much blood and died upon reaching the hospital. [see also: What Threat Did I pose the Israeli Soldiers?]
On June 14, 2009, we joined Palestinian volunteers in Gaza's northern region of Beit Hanoun to search for the corpse of a young man gone missing two months prior. A shepherd in the area had reported having smelled what seemed to be a dead body in the northeastern region near the border fence. As we walked in a line, combing the ground for the body, Israeli soldiers began firing on us. The dead man's father walked with us, ducking with each shot fired our way. The bullets came closer and more quickly as we located the badly decomposed body, loaded him onto a sheet, and hauled him away, the father wailing. The israelis deny Palestinians even the dignity of recovering the bodies of their loved ones.
During the 2008-2009 war on Gaza which killed at least 1419, we volunteered with the Palestinian Red Crescent, riding in their ambulances and documenting the Israeli atrocities and war crimes.
Our intent in accompanying the ambulances was to deter the warplanes, tanks and drones from attacking medics. We were spurred on by the fact that in the first week already 2 medical workers had been killed and 15 more injured in the line of duty (by the end of the 23 days of attacks, 23 emergency workers had been killed and 50 injured). Medics and rescue workers under the Geneva Conventions are to be provided safe access to the injured and dead. In Gaza, as with so many things, international law matters not, and medics are prevented from reaching those calling for them, and medics are targeted. [see also: Defend the Rescuers and Rescuers Targeted, One Year On]
In the first few minutes of attacks, Israeli warplanes targeted police stations in densely populated areas throughout the Strip. Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main hospital, was a chaotic mass of people seeking out loved ones and bodies all over the place. The floors of were covered with people of varying degrees of severity, waiting for treatment, including in the under-equipped ICU. Ambulances and cars screamed past in an endless stream, dropping off the injured, the dead.
The Red Crescent station in the east of Jabalia, Northern Gaza, was as of our second morning with the medics too dangerous to access: the land invasion had begun during the night, shells flying dangerously close to the building. By morning it was impossible to access, and by the end of the attacks we return to find it studded with machine-gun fire and hit by shelling. Also by the second morning, a medic I had worked with throughout the evening was killed from by a dart bomb fired at his ambulance. [see also: Ensuring Maximum Casualties in Gaza]
Israel uses White Phosphorus over populated areas of Gaza
I also saw terrified civilians who had been kept hostage by the army, denied food, water, medicines, and in many cases terrorized. People streaming from areas all over northern Gaza, on foot, under the bombs, seeking safety where none is to be had. And victims of drone strikes: the army employs the "double-tap" bombing method: strike an area and strike again within minutes, precision-bombing those who've come to help victims of the first strike. I will never forget the shrill wailing of a man whose wife was caught in that fatal second "tap," shrieking as he picked up the pieces of his beloved and accompanied her to the morgue.
Many atrocities later, at the end of 23 days of incessant bombings, we began to see the immensity of the attacks Strip-wide. People assassinated point-blank, including children; families buried alive in bombings of entire buildings, the survivors of which then denied medical care for days until many died of their injuries; racist hate graffiti left on the walls of homes occupied by Zionist soldiers; football-field sized earthen pits used to hold prisoners stripped naked, held for days, some of whom were then taken to Israeli prisons; hospitals bombed, including with white phosphorous-including a rehabilitation hospital where most of the patients were invalids; kindergartens, universities, mosques, markets, schools, and farms, bombed and destroyed. [see: Israeli War Crimes Coming to Light]
This nightmare scenario replayed itself in November 2012, under eight days of Israeli bombing which killed 171 Palestinians. Not only did the army massacre more Palestinians, but it also wreaked havoc on the Strip's infrastructure, again destroying key bridges, water and sewage lines, schools, a soccer stadium, health clinics and hospitals, and television stations, leaving Palestinians again to clean up the mess of Israel's war games. At the same time, Israeli authorities have restricted and now banned construction materials into Gaza, rendering the re-building of destroyed homes and buildings nearly impossible [see: Killing Before the Calm and The Flattening of Gaza].
Even without the massacres and shootings, life is beyond unbearable in Gaza.
In 2006, Zionist warplanes bombed Gaza's sole power plant, which then provided roughly half of the Strip's energy needs. Since then, the ban on construction materials and replacement parts has meant that the plant has never fully been rehabilitated, the dearth of power causing rolling blackouts. In good times, power outages are only 6-8 hours long every day. Currently, with a fuel shortage generated both by the complicity of the Ramallah government and the bombing of the life-line tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, Gaza is so deficient in fuel to run it's power plant that the power outages vary from 14-18 hours per day, on average.
This dangerously impacts the health, sanitation, water, education, and industrial sectors. Hospital life-support equipment, operation rooms, ICUs, dialysis machines, refrigerators for plasma and medicines, and even simple hygienic laundering services are all affected [see: Israeli Siege on Gaza Causes Waste Crisis and Attack on Water Brings Sanitation Crisis].
Sanitation plants, already over-worked for want of repair and expanded sewage holding pools, end up dumping 90 million litres or more sewage into the sea; under power outages dumping is compounded, and sewage pools sometimes overflow into residential areas, as has recently happened in a district of Gaza City. [see: Attack on Water Brings Sanitation Crisis and Israel's threat to cut Gaza water supply would be "complete catastrophe"]
I visited a few tunnels during my time in Gaza. Though some of the hundreds of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt have been fortified and are large enough to bring in banned items, like vehicles, or even camels, the tunnels I saw were small, weakly-fortified in patches with wood planks, and over-lapping neighbouring tunnels side by side, one over another. Those working in the tunnels are among Gaza's desperately poor, working long, unbearably hot hours for a pittance, and always subject to the dangers of tunnel collapse, electrocution from poor wiring inside, or Zionist bombings.
But the tunnels at least allowed into Gaza things banned or limited by the Zionist regime. In the years between 2008-2010, these banned items included random things like diapers, A4 paper, livestock, seeds, fertilizers, shoes, and pasta. The Israeli regime went as far as to calculate the minimum amount of calories needed to keep Palestinians not quite fully starving (see: Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip โ Red Lines). Even after the lightening of some of these ridiculous restrictions, the tunnels were still critical to the import of adequate amounts of fuel and cooking gas.
Damage to the coastal aquifer from over-extraction will be reversible in 2020 if no action is taken now, a 2012 UN report notes. At the moment, 95% of water in Gaza is undrinkable according to WHO standards.
The manufactured layers of crisis rendering life in Gaza utterly unbearable, and dangerous, have continued to escalate while at the same time, the media black-out on Gaza continues. From my experiences in the Strip, including meetings with the different water, sanitation, health and agriculture officials, I learned that the current 80% dependence on food aid could be reversed, unemployment rates lowered, and a decent quality of life possible if, and only if, the blockade is lifted, exports and freedom of movement allowed, and Israeli attacks on farmers and fishers halted.
Until then, and until world leaders, including Canada's own, stop their blind support of the Zionist state and act to enforce the numerous UN resolutions affording justice to Palestinians, the suffering will only worsen.
Reader Comments
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'Palestine is fighting for survival against disproportionate force but prevailing' Israel is being exposed as a paper tiger by VANESSA BEELEY OCT 9, 2023 [Link]
I lost my home recently and have no loyalty to the land or country I was born in, a country where "dogs" (who get free love, shelter and free food) are better off than me, and so in leaving I can find more likeminded people to share my efforts with as an outcast and live more abundantly, so if I was a Palestinian I would voluntarily leave purely on the basis of knowing stubborn principles will eventually bring you to ruin by hostile people, the saying "don't go where your not wanted" becomes wise when you consider both Sodom and Gomorrah were only torched once the very last good people fled/vacated. Why do Palestinians choose to stay, I know they "shouldn't have to leave bro" makes sense but you could stick my sorry ass in the middle of Africa and I would still flower in no time, I would get out of that area....flee, migrate, travel away....has to be better than dodging bullets, white phosphorus and being crushed by concrete, "come out of her my people" ....accept they want the land but trust God will remove these "Tares" at the right time, while you still have the option to preserve your "life" into the future (the risk of staying is clearly death). Makes more sense than waiting to be killed just to struggle and have to keep living in such hostility, which seems uneccessary to me because Palestinians can take their good work ethic and use it where ever they decide to go....while living in safety.
Ask any "Christian" who doesn't study the bible and ask him/her what the 24 flat contradictions are between Yeshua and Paul (Saul) and they will not succeed in explaining them, because the bible contains both instructions and a test for any reader serious about unpacking it. "Knock and I will answer" "seek and ye shall find" I would encourage you to continue to keep reading it.
Why are there so many versions? Which version of the bible from what year is the right version? Why did it constantly get changed or added to every century? Many men wrote the bible which is why they gave God so many human emotions like anger, hate, and vengeance.
I have read the bible in more languages than most. I've read the oldest Aramaic and Koine Greek writings. I've read the Kings first bible from the 1600's. And even since that time the bible wording has been changed or added to it. God would never delivery His message thru man's hands. These are just the facts. Oh and the Roman Catholic Church and the popes made most of the bible. And the Romans killed Jesus so you can imagine they also made up that He died for their sins even tho Jesus never said He did,nor his apostles, nor God. A Catholic Bishop did who said he was an apostle although he never meet Jesus and even stoned Jesus' brother James.
Everyone has a problem with that, even my parents, but the thing they all have in common is they don't take the steps (requires faith and actions upon the faith) to ever take the instructions, also everyone will always reserve priority of opinion based upon their own understanding. I have never needed to know Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew, because the instructions require your heart, your mind, prayer and trusting in these instructions. Im not religious (I don't attend churches or have to "wear" my beliefs for people to see).I can even agree with all your "facts" ("woe unto you scribes.....") but I understand how God is ALWAYS in control, God created Satan also...God also uses the enemies of his children to bring them towards him also, I would encourage you to not rely on your own understanding of who God is, if you genuinely want to know let "him" show you, end your mental and physical struggles my friend and walk fearlessly in the truth. Man really has no answer at all and marvel not at how my decision to trust God helps me, while never negatively effecting you!
Otherwise you will have to figure how did Satan exist in the Garden of Eden if there wasn't any sin in the universe until Adam sinned. Or how come Eve ate first and Adam ate second but God says Adam brought sin into the world. Or why does the bible say YHWH(Yahweh) created man but then later it says Elohim formed Adam. Adam in Aramaic is Ben'elohim(son of God) (Eve was Bath'adamah meaning daughter of man) but later Jesus is the only son of God. Or how come Satan and Jesus are both called the morning star. Or why was Moses,Adam and Jesus called the Gardener. How can Satan exist if God can't create evil because Satans powers are God given unless God is his accomplice.
There are more but that's some examples of where to not dig into or try to figure out.
The Israeli Mossad is just like the CIA and MI6, they foment war and conflict. They use peoples' long held belief systems to excite passion. They murder women and children on video to ensure that the shock value manipulates the people. This is not accidental that it is captured on video.
Why now? In my view, the globalists that run the intelligence agencies are losing control of ALL of their narratives: immigration for freedom, reduce oil based engines for the climate, reduce cattle for the climate, don't use Nitrogen fertilizers for the climate, vaccines will save you from the plandemic, there is only a little side effects like death from the vaccines, the DOMINION machines make elections safe, elections are safer than ever, there are real differences between 2 parties, the Ukrainian war support for freedom, there is only a little child sex trafficking and satanic ritual abuse, there is only a little corruption in government, bioweapons labs around the world are for peace and safety, the Maui "wildfire" was climate change, the Canadian "wildfires" was climate change, there is no deep state or globalist cabal, etc.
Engineered conflicts serve at least 5 purposes. First, they dominate the current news to block out the other failing narratives. Second, they serve the purpose of conflict between sovereign countries that "demonstrates" a global totalitarian government is necessary. Third, it murders people and depopulates. Fourth, it creates fear and traumatic shock value to continue to control the sheep. Fifth, it creates the conditions for totalitarian response and martial law.
[Link]
Because....
Yeshua NEVER ASKED ANYONE TO WORSHIP HIM. Yeshua asked you remember him through bread and wine (his sacrifice of flesh and blood) and ministered the LAW of Moses, fulfilling the law.
The only one qualified to teach the LAW.
Born of a virgin. Came in the flesh (mortal body).
Gave the perfect example of living by the LAW (blameless).
RESURECTED.
FUTURE KING OF ISRAEL UPON RETURN.
Also.....
Yeshua was not "Jewish"....
Judaism is a continuation of the old Pharisee "traditions of men", hence they use the double entendre of "Jew"(Jesus was a "Jew")
Jew can be made synonymous with:
Jude
Judea
Judean
Judah
Judahite
Judas
The point is and Ive explained it many times before, is the "name game".
The synonyms I presented help Jews incorporate multiple meanings to suit where they are in the "name game".
Where does the word Judaism come from?
Judaism is a word for a religion, now modernized to encapsulate the meaning "ethnoreligious" so can borrow from more synonyms like "race" "belief" helping contemporary discourse.
A Judahite is strictly a member of the tribe of Judah, where as a Judaen strictly means someone who resided in the (former) country of Judea and be neither a Jew, Jewish, Judahite or otherwise.
Judaism borrowed from both these words but is defined now as neither. Language and specifically the "name game" is a Jewish (Judaism) thing. Why do people of a specific "ethnoreligious" invest so heavily in practicing changing names? Ever wondered why you don't use your real name online here? Same thing.
The 12 tribes from the biblical era had different names than the ones currently used in the bible. They aren't even close.
I'll have you know the Mcsnacks came over on the Mayflower. I'm kidding. I can't use my real name on here due to my family being higher ups in the political spectrum. I am not but I still have the familial tied in.
Im less in status than a dog.
What say you McSnacks...have you read the scripture that says "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" ?
Discernment is given to those who come to God with a genuine want to know him. You can make of that what you will but the reason why I have used only one bible all my life (the wrong one according to who ever you ask) is because Im praying on what I read (Im keeping the instructions) and many of the difficult passages in the bible have been explained to me somehow afterwards, sometimes by complete strangers, sometimes Ive opened the book and there it was, context and everything, which on my own efforts would of evaded my attention. A relationship with God is a unique experience that is individually nuanced and personal, we are ALL at different levels of understanding and there is no one size fits all untill we are all brought together, for now we are iron sharpening iron. But I can relate to your family perspective, all my family are staunch atheists who mock my beliefs and think Im brainwashed or "got at" by religious fundamentalists, Yeshua encouraged me, "For those of you who have to leave parents and loved ones on account of me".
Rather than argue to convince I simply accept and walk the path now (Im finding just how few "Christians" actually understand me) so the rest will clearly be scoffers and mockers.
"They persecuted me, so they will persecute you also"
I have also heard that when our sun(star) was born it created on the first day light. On the second day a comet from the Oort cloud struck the third planet. Hot and cold meeting up created life. And everytime a comet struck after that it advanced life. Humans soon took over the planet becoming more and more wicked as they advanced. Until another comet came to give Earth its revelation.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and there will be no more death
or mourning or crying or pain,
for the former things have passed away.
And the survivors recovered and filled the Earth again.
Humilty is taking one's space. All one's space, but nothing but one's space.
(Something adults would teach the children)
Humilty is not only remaining a crumb, it is as well, honouring one's baking capabilities.... icing, firecrackers ๐ฃ๐ฅ and all.
Btw, kleenex are available or use your sleeves. GOD is a SHE.
(I'm a Libra ๐) had to do some 'balanced' 'prettiness' there ๐
โIm Tirzu, Ein Zo Agadahโ ~ โIf you will it, it is no dreamโ
โItโs wake up time form our slumberโ Rip Van Winkle
wakey wakey eggs & bakey โฆ.
To be sure, there are some who are troubled by the accounts of military conquest in the Old Testament. Dr. Tommy Lane, Professor of Sacred Scripture at Mount St. Maryโs Seminary views these military actions as a โproblem of innocent people suffering violent deaths by the Israelites acting under Godโs orders.โ[3] Dr. Lynn Jost, Professor of Old Testament at Fresno Pacific University asks, โHow can Christians accept the Old Testament as authoritative Scripture when it commands such atrocities as slaughter of nonbelligerents (Deut 20:16-18), accumulation of spoil (Deut 20:14), enslavement of defeated nations (Deut 20:11), and forced marriages (Deut 21:10-14)?โ[4] And Dr. Mark Bredin, former professor at Cambridge University states, โBiblical traditions often look for the violent end of their enemies. God, for example, commands Israel to seize anotherโs land and destroy all that is in it. The most conspicuous biblical war texts refer to แธฅerem in which all defeated peoples are committed to destructionโฆSuch often embarrass our modern sensibilities.โ[5]
Though I disagree with the above comments by liberal scholars, I appreciate the candor with which they express their understanding of God and Israel in the Old Testament; especially as it relates to Yahwehโs leading Israel into war and conquest. Though one can clearly see Godโs sovereignty, righteousness and justice on display in the Old Testament passages pertaining to war and conquest, this does not mean His love, grace and faithfulness were absent. In fact, there is much material surrounding these events to adequately refute the liberal arguments.
Biblically, God had promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, saying, โTo your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphratesโ (Gen 15:18; cf. 17:7-8). The same promise was made to Isaac (Gen 26:1-3) and Jacob (28:13-14). Because God owns everything (Psa 24:1; 50:12; 89:11; 1 Chron 29:11), any land He promises to give to a person is theirs by divine right. This is important to understand from the divine perspective, for any unauthorized occupants would be regarded as illegals, squatting on land that belongs to another. But God would not give the land to Abrahamโs descendants right away. Rather, the Lord informed Abraham that his descendants would be โstrangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred yearsโ (Gen 15:13). This was the time of their sojourn in Egypt. Then, after the four hundred years, God told Abraham that his descendants โwill return hereโ (Gen 15:16a). Because God is gracious and kind, He permitted the Canaanites to live on the promised land for four hundred years before calling Abrahamโs descendants to take possession it. However, there is the pregnant phrase, โfor the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet completeโ (Gen 15:16b). The word iniquity translates the Hebrew ืขึธืึนื avon which connotes โguilt caused by sin and the consequences thereof.โ[6] The Amorites were representative of all the occupiers of Canaan prior to Israelโs conquest. And the phrase โnot yet completeโ implies the Canaanites were filling their cup with sin and, when it reached its full, judgment would come.
After four hundred years, circa 1445 BC, the first generation of Israelites came out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. The Lord told His people, โI will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORDโ (Ex 6:8). God was willing to fulfill His promise to His people. However, the first generation of Israelites failed to walk with God, and because of their rebellion in the wilderness, they forfeited their right to take possession of Canaan (Num 14:1-39). God said of that generation, they โshall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see itโ (Num 14:23). Though saved, this generation of believers failed to walk with God and were described as an โevil generationโ (Deut 1:35). The exceptions were Caleb and Joshua (Num 14:30), and the children of the Israelites (Num 14:31), who, under the leadership of Joshua, would take the land (cf. Deut 1:36-39). That is, the second generation of Israelites would obey and succeed where their parents had disobeyed and failed.
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Killing and raping young children is wrong. Man wrote that it was righteousness.
Numbers 31:17:18.
The bible is constantly used as an excuse to kill,torture and rape. People are hypocrites. They can preach bible verses then point fingers at others who are sextrafficking women and children. Maybe God is telling them to do those terrible things.
Go to a third world country or fight in a war. You won't be walking thru thinking "Wow, God is doing some fantastic blessings." Or see babies burned and cut up or blown up and think "It's Gods will." GTFOH!
Amen!!
or say to one another, โKnow the Lord,โ
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,โ
declares the Lord.
โFor I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."