Thursday, April 23, 2009

Hamas' War On Hope

A new YouTube video by the IDF "explains the background to operation Cast Lead, specifically the terrorist tactics that Hamas employs. It shows how Hamas smuggles in weaponry in order to arm itself and how it employs the civilian population and infastructure in order to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel. Hamas' use of human shields during operation Cast Lead caused many civilian casualties."



As a teen I walked away from my religious faith for many reasons; a small one had to do with all the stories of demonic possession I would read in the New Testament. How improbable, I thought. Evil spirits jealous of human potential for goodness, taking over a body in order to rot the soul within, by continually making it act against it's own best self-interest... how ludicrous, declared my teenage mind.

Today, my older self wonders instead, how else to explain the motivation of the palestinian leadership to wage war as they do? If their objective isn't to corrupt the souls of good people, by trying to force their opponents to kill other people's children, by finding every means available to cause their opponents to stain their conscience as they try to live a holy life, well what other possible agenda could fully explain such hellish behavior?

I cannot understand hamas' actions, their tactics, if their goal were purely material, that is, the annihilation of the state of Israel. Increasingly it only makes sense to me when taken as spiritual warfare, as a war against Hope, a war on the very Covenant between God and the People He chose to teach the rest of us what it means to resist material temptations that cause temporary pleasure in order to see, long-term, how to lead a godly life that may bring eternal nourishment to the soul.

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