Overheard at Table 1: Gaza

It's a strange thing to be alive today, in Houston, so far from the Middle East, from Israel, from Gaza, and to hear the news, the strange news, the strange news, about the deaths of protesters, the deaths of children.  Protesters, armed with slingshots and rocks, being gunned down by soldiers with bullets made in the US of A.   ....

and then to hear the news blame their deaths on Hamas.  Hamas, the terrorist organization, that has long called for the death of Israel.  Terrorist organization, yes, definitely, certainly, there's no good there.  None.  We get that.  It's settled. 

But Hamas didn't put an American bullet in a child's head.  Hamas didn't force the Israeli soldiers to fire on the crowd.  Heck, it seems like even this time, Hamas didn't even really incite the protests.

The protests were incited by the US of A moving its embassy to Jerusalem.  A move that is merely symbolic.  A move that sends a message to the Palestinians, very clearly, that every word every American ever said about peace in the region is a lie.  A flat out lie.

Palestinians knew it was a lie, surely, but they had hope.  For a long time, they had the thinnest amount of hope, that possibly, just possibly, the US of A would talk to Israel, to have them observe some modicum of restraint.  To stop building so many illegal settlements, to stop killing protesters, all the time.

All that is gone now.  Gone now that the Trump's pretty blond daughter and Trump's money man opened the embassy.  So strange how the main representatives of the US Government were the daughter of the Commander-in-Chief (with no qualifications of her own) and the Secretary of the Treasury.   The Treasury.   Surely that means something.

It's all about the Benjamins, amirite?

But now, today there are people dead.  Some say 28, some say 58, some even say 90.   Some say 6 are children.  It's really hard to know how many people are dead, but we just know that they ARE dead.  And they would NOT be dead - most likely - if what has happened on THIS day had NOT happened.

Had the US of A not moved their embassy, these people would not be dead.  At least not on this day.

Tomorrow they will be forgotten.  Next week there will be some other tragedy.   But there will be families that will always remember the dead on this day, and on the lessons learned.

And at the end of it wall, what does it say about the message of Love and Salvation of Jesus Christ.

It says nothing at all.

What it says is that Christ does not love Palestinians.  What it says is that the people who proclaim Christ feed Israeli soldiers the bullets and the guns and the missiles and the tanks and the airplanes that they use to kill Palestinians.   That's all.

And Christ is mute in the Holy Land.

This Holy Land that slides into the sea under the weight of Palestinian blood.