Witness To Palestine: The New Pharisees
Zahi / Political Theatrics
[Political Theatrics: This article was emailed to me by a reader of Palestinian descent, his background as well as his families background are noted in the following article. I believe it is a must read for any Christian supporter of Israel for it shows the plight of the Palestinian Christians we hear so little of.]
As Jesus had warned, ‘beware the leaven of the Pharisees, for it is hypocrisy. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
As within most families, children can generally sense if their parents are feeling anxious or uneasy, no matter how much parents try to hide their feelings, naturally, out of a protective instinct that any loving parents have for their children. Little usually needs to be said in order for children to sense any stress or emotional pain a parent may be experiencing at any particular moment. In my family, the triggers for an elevated level of anxiety often came from news reports about unfolding events in Palestine.
My parents spoke little about their traumatic experience as children in Palestine. As with most children of Palestinian descent (mom was born in Jerusalem, dad was born in Haifa), the sense of traumatic loss that my parents experienced as children themselves was palatable, having been driven out of their birthplace of Palestine in that fateful year of 1948, along with over 700,000 of their Palestinian brethren. Contrary to any thinking that it may an unhealthy family environment to grow up in, where severe trauma had historically been inflicted, having been raised in my Palestinian family has been a source of profound strength and inspiration. I wouldn’t want to have grown up any other way. You see, as with all Palestinian families I know, parents are deeply dedicated to their children. Don’t believe even for one moment the venom that spills forth from the tongues of that brood of vipers who babel like pagans about how Palestinian parents glorify death by sending their children on suicide bombing campaigns. Until you have walked in the shoes of an average Palestinian, it is wise to hold one’s tongue or reflexively feel indignation as one seeks to understand the level of despair that drives a person to commit such an atrocity. Ask the Almighty to forgive those who give in to the depth of despair at the hands of the Pharisees who, for over sixty years, have schemed to make the minutiae of Palestinian life a hellish nightmare.
My parents spoke very little about their lost childhood in Palestine. Perhaps they did so out of a protective instinct that any dedicated parent would exhibit. Perhaps because they were so busy trying to provide for their family in a foreign country that they had taken refuge in. In as much as parents look to protect their children, the children often grow up with a remarkable desire to reciprocate by protecting and providing comfort to their parents.
The odd time that they my parents did relive their painful memories of the Palestinian exile, the Nakba, of 1948, I would hear of the terrible fear that would overcome Palestinian families as news streamed in of some new massacre of innocents. Massacres that were growing in intensity and brutality by the day shortly around Israel’s declaration as a country. When the forefathers of today’s Pharisees, the Zionists, were not murdering Palestinians, they would break into homes and destroy everything in it to ensure that it was unliveable and to terrorize away the occupants should they ever return. I would hear of stories of how the Zionists would specifically target the kitchen and lay waste to all neatly stored goods like eggs, sugar, olive oil, herbs and spices by throwing them into a heap onto the floor rendering them worthless as a source of daily sustenance. Palestinian families of the day were relatively large by today’s standards. My father was the eldest son with six siblings. My mom was the eldest daughter with five siblings. This was 1948. The kitchen was, in many ways, a sacred part of any home. This was an almost saintly place, where the Palestinian matriarch would pour out her heart with pride in order to provide nourishment for her family. Although this pales in comparison to the endless other atrocities inflicted by the Zionists, the hypocrites appeared to scheme well in advance the specific evils they would commit in order to achieve their goal of ethnic cleansing. As with today’s Zionists, when they are not murdering Palestinians outright away from world cameras, they scheme to make Palestinian life a living hell, expecting that the Palestinians will either leave or starve to death. The disciples of satan can then falsely claim as they do today in front of the world’s cameras, that Palestinians had left voluntarily. My parents stand as witnesses to the Zionist terror that drove them from their homes in an orgy of ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the forefathers of today’s Pharisees who occupy the house of Jesus. My parents stand as witnesses to the victims of the hundreds of horrible massacres and atrocities committed by the Zionists.
The truly sad part is that my parents would also speak affectionately of their many Arab neighbours who were of the Jewish faith in Palestine. It was not until the arrival of European Zionism, whose disciples ‘claim they are Jews, but are instead a synagogue of satan’, that Palestine began a disfigurement from a blessed paradise into satan’s abyss.
My family has wisely retained the land deeds of my father’s home in Haifa, Palestine. I still have my father’s passport issued in Palestine. These documents will serve as a reminder and a thorn in the side of those who claim that there has never been a Palestine or a Palestinian people. Golda Meir, one of Israel’s early prime ministers, infamously coined the phrase ‘a land without people for a people without a land’ in speaking about Palestine. I say to Golda and her ilk in a long line of satan’s disciples: ‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’
Not long ago, as I watched the main stream Anglo media get taken over by a right wing Israeli-inspired cabal, I briefly lost hope that the truth would continue to see the light of day. The Father indeed works in mysterious ways. In spite of an exponential rise in media censorship of the on-going and rising Israeli brutality against Palestinians, the truth has not only continued to come out, but has spilled forth as a watershed onto the world’s conscience. As it has been said, the truth exists, whereas lies have to be invented and maintained with a great deal of effort. Whereas lies require tremendous energy to maintain, the truth is endowed with an uncanny ability to ripple effortlessly, albeit according to the Father’s clock. The energetic property of truth is perhaps one of the unique design features of the Creator’s universe.
For a long time, it appeared as a great mystery how Israel could escalate its oppression and occupation of Palestinian lives, while at the same time, the world witnessed the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the fall of apartheid. By chance, I had one day decided to pick up the New Testament, more out of educational curiosity about what Jesus had actually spoken, as opposed to a sense of religious rebirth. As I read through the gospels according to Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, I was struck by the parallels between the behaviour of the Pharisees that Jesus so passionately spoke out against, and that of the Zionist leadership in Israel and throughout the world. In an apparent contradiction to the peaceful and patient teachings of Jesus, it is poignant that the few times that He seemed to lose his temper was when He was speaking in opposition to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers of the law in Jerusalem.
The occupation of Palestine, in many ways, has been revealed to those with eyes to see, as a microcosm of a growing occupation and enslavement of the world itself, starting with the European and North American world. The occupation of the US, Canada, and Europe in terms of foreign and domestic policies, law, media, academia, banking, and other critical facets of daily life, is in many ways perhaps more sinister than the occupation of Palestine. The Palestinians at least have no uncertainty about the identity of their occupiers, unlike their hapless western brothers. Jesus’ sermons to ordinary Jews and gentiles against the Pharisees, Sadducees, teachers of the law are as relevant today as they were some two millennia ago.
As Jesus had warned, ‘beware the leaven of the Pharisees, for it is hypocrisy. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. The Scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with as much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men. They outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.’
Today’s Pharisees and their minions the world over are descendents of the same synagogue of satan, whom Jesus spoke out so passionately against and prophesized about. They support the murder of civilians whom they casually dismiss as terrorists for resisting the theft of their land, separation of their communities with walls, destruction of their olive trees, denial of education, as they have for generations. Modern day Pharisees at B’nai B’rith, ADL, and other blind supporters of Israel preach against hatred, speak of justice, and ‘tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with as much as a finger.’ The hypocrites gnash their teeth as they scream anti-Semitism, as if they were of Semitic origin, casually ignoring the genuine Semitic origin of Palestinians and other Arabs. The hypocrites force hate crime legislation through parliaments and congresses, when they themselves promote, from the shadows, hatred of the most sinister kind against other peoples and their faiths. With a forked tongue, they preface their speech for show with empty wishes for peace and negotiations while they lobby aggressively for the deceived elect to launch diplomatic and military wars against those they seek to oppress or those who seek to help the oppressed. They lay down all kinds of pre-conditions for negotiations and demand of others to negotiate without pre-conditions. The oppressor tells the oppressed to give up the right of return for Palestinian refugees or claims over Jerusalem, and then accuses them of setting pre-conditions.
Any western politician, organization, or ordinary citizen with the courage to speak out against Israeli atrocities is intimidated into silence through false accusations of anti-Semitism. Revel in glory when the minions of the anti-Christ accuse you of anti-Semitism. Their ancestors similarly hurled false accusations against Jesus. Just as they had done during those heady days, today’s hypocrites are quick to resort to ridicule, gnashing of the teeth, and intimidation when light is shone on their crimes. How else to expect the deceiver’s disciples to react to the truth, they whose father is a liar and the father of lies.
In their haste to usher in their father, the deceiver and the father or darkness, the hypocrites engender fear and suspicion in societies in order to divide and control. The Pharisees appear to have managed to instil fear in western societies, whose deceived elect have adopted the same dark policies of the hypocrites. How else to attempt to silence the western voices of conscience, reason and compassion as they scheme in the shadows, in preparation of ushering in their father the deceiver into the new temple in Jerusalem that they scheme to build on the ruins of a world at war.
The hypocrites prey on the fears of the ordinary man and women. Out of irrational fear, societies have given up their liberties for a false sense of safety. As has been said, those willing to give up their liberty for safety deserve neither. How much safer do Israel and other nations believe themselves to be in building walls, security screens, and road blocks. In constructing walls to encircle or keep others out, they lay the foundation for the cage they will build around themselves.
To all men of good will who fear for their safety in speaking out against the Pharisees and their minions, draw strength and take comfort from the liberating words of the Messiah who spoke about ‘comfort’ and ‘safety’. As you do so, remember to ‘be as shrewd as a snake and as innocent as a dove. When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say. Have faith that the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’ The Pharisees will no doubt falsely accuse you and threaten your livelihood, among other threats to your daily necessities of a normal life. As it relates to comfort, ‘do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more clothe you.’
As it relates to safety, ‘don’t be afraid of those who threaten you. For the time is coming when everything that is covered will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell. What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.’
The Pharisees incessantly focus on the speck of sawdust in another’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in their own eye. How can they say to another ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when all the time there is a plank in their own eye? The hypocrites ought to first take the plank out of their own eye, so that they will see clearly to remove the speck from another’s eye. The hypocrites of Israel lecture other countries about nuclear weapons when they themselves have stockpiles of hundreds of nuclear missiles. The hypocrites ought to first remove the plank of nuclear weapons from their eye so as to see more clearly in order to remove the speck of nuclear dust from another’s eye. The hypocrites lecture other countries about violating nuclear treaties when they themselves refuse to sign or submit to these treaties. They lecture the world about other countries being in violation of United Nations resolutions when they themselves have a plank of UN resolution violations bursting from they own eye.
As was the case in ancient Palestine, the children of Judaism have been deceived by the dark minions of Zionism. The Pharisees have no shame left in bearing false witness, amongst the rest of the commandments that they have trampled on, in their worship of their father the deceiver. The Pharisees often refer to Palestinians as a cancer that has to be excised from Israel; are they so blind as to not see that the cancer that will eventually be excised is the cancer of Zionism along with the Pharisees at its dark service, if not by man, then by the grace of the God and the Son of Man, Jesus.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Source: http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/?p=883
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2009/11/30/witness-to-palestine-the-new-pharisees
