Kay Wilson St James’s Church, I Hate Your Hatred
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-st-james-church-london/
A true story…
“And it came to pass that in December 2010, two Palestinian shepherds left their little town near Bethlehem and set out to walk ten miles across the Judean Hills. There in the forest, they kept watch by night. The following day, at about the 6th hour (3pm) the shepherds saw two women walking along the Israel National Trail. With great fervour they took out their knives and attacked the women. Their serrated blades glinted int he sun, shining all around as the shepherds held the girls and pinned them to the ground. With knives to their throats, the women dare not move.
“‘Fear not,’ said the men – for mighty dread had seized the women’s troubled minds – ’we bring you good news that will cause great joy for our people.’ What could these glad tidings be? Rape, a robbery, a beating? Anything was better than death the women pondered in their hearts. And so it came to pass that near the seventh hour, the shepherds said, ‘behold, let us go forth and kill these Jews like Allah has told us to do.’
“The shepherds gagged the women, removed their shoes and bound their hands. They forced one woman to her knees, covered her head and pushed her neck forward. The woman knelt, and prepared herself to be beheaded. Suddenly she saw a great light – the blade of his knife glinting in the sun. The Jewish woman whispered, ‘Hear Oh Israel.’ The Islamic host cried, ‘Allah HuAkbar,’ and the Christian screamed ‘Jesus,’ the name of a Jew born in David’s town.
“Thirteen times the shepherds thrust their knives into the women, breaking bones, tearing flesh, even impaling one to the ground. As the Jew played dead, she watched her Christian friend hacked to death before her very eyes. The shepherds returned home glorifying and praising Allah for all that they had seen and spread the word of what had they had done. ‘Today near the town of David two Jews have been slaughtered,’ they declared. They plotted and schemed, boasting to their neighbours, ‘this will be a sign, they will find two of their own, all meanly wrapped in bloody clothes and in the bushes laid.’”
I have given much thought to the events of that terrible day, that culminated in my near murder and the execution of my friend. I believe that I of all people could be forgiven for hating Palestinians. I believe too that I could be forgiven for thinking all Palestinians are terrorists. I do not. On the contrary I have maintained relationships with my Palestinian friends, so that my ignorance will not give me reason to hate. I hate hatred. It is your hatred, in the form of a Christmas stunt, that has compelled me to write.
I would like to think that as Christians, you would never condone Kristine Luken’s heinous murder or the attack on myself. I suspect, however, that you may rationalise this savagery as an inevitable result of the “Israeli occupation.” You would probably suggest that the Palestinians who murdered my friend were themselves victims who grew up in depravity. I would concur but would point out that if poverty was the case, the aristocrats who flew into the twin towers had no reason to commit their crimes.
The Palestinian terrorists were indeed victims, victims of a radical and primitive Islamic regime that force feeds its people a morally malnourished diet of hatred of Jews and hatred of any life – including their own. They were also deprived: deprived of an education that cherishes culture, history, literature, art and the dignity of difference. Their impoverished morality coupled with ignorant generalisations is what enabled two men to butcher defenceless women without so much as blinking an eye.
Your “wall” that you have erected outside your church, is hopefully just a result of your own ignorance and generalisations concerning the complex situation here in the Middle East. Nevertheless, like all walls, it serves as a facade and a barrier. If your wall was scrutinised, one would see that underneath the whitewashed surface that concerns itself with Israeli policies, there are blocks of anti-Semitism. These bricks stand high. They raise expectations from an entire people group. This wall precedes to separate the nation of Israel as non-desirable. Your wall is cemented together by a superior theology that tells it’s people that G-d gave up on the Jews. This is the same theology that lies behind radical Islam. G-d tried the Jews, then the Christians, but ultimately it was the Muslims who He decided to choose.
Your wall serves as just one brick in a global wall of an Islamic agenda, an agenda that will stop at nothing until the destruction of the Jewish State. To your own cultural detriment, it is a wall that obstructs truth and ultimately seeks not only to destroy Israel but every Judeo-Christian society.Your wall inflames an ancient conflict that for those like myself, who live in this region, long not for an exacerbation in hatred but for a quenching of hostilities. Your wall is an affront to Kristine Luken’s memory and the memories of other victims of terror who may well have been alive today had there have been a wall erected on the other 90 percent of land that separates us from our Palestinian neighbours.
Your wall is an injustice to Christians living under Muslim despotism. Ironically it is the State of Israel, that you deem pariah and unjust, that is unique in the Middle East because unlike all of our neighbours, our Christian population is flourishing and our Christians have full religious rights.
Please write on your wall, under the cross now obscured by the crescent, “R.I.P Kristine Luken.”
Sincerely,
Kay Wilson
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