"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 At every parish where I have had the pleasure of attending services, there is always a small group of people who find their way all the way up to the church building but don't actually attend services. At one parish it was a group of male gypsies who talked on cellphones or smoked cigarettes. At another it was a few Protestant husbands who, though they never attended services, opened the parish doors for people as they filed in. At yet another parish the men stood in the narthex and chatted until it was time to receive and then got in line. Latin or Greek Catholic, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox I see the same small throng of men standing next to the front door, but not standing, sitting, or kneeling amongst the people. If it were me (and I can only speak for myself here) this option would be an unsavory one. The boredom would be immediate. The anxiety of som...
Hilik Bar
ReplyDeleteHamas rockets are aimed at Israel's civilian population, and are unprovoked, sent with murderous intent. Since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has fired over 1,500 rockets into Israel. Israel's operation, meanwhile, is dedicated solely to removing the capacity of Hamas to fire missiles into Israeli population centers and dismantling its terror tunnels.
To discuss the concept of proportionality, one must offset the number of deaths against the aims of the operation. In the context of putting a stop to intolerable, hourly murder attempts against an entire population, Israel's campaign is perfectly understandable. One wonders how the UK would react if a terror group overtook the Isle of Man and began raining missiles down on Britain.
The coldhearted subtext is that Israelis must die in order for their military campaign to gain any sympathy. Yet no interviewer would dream of asking a British army general or politician why more Afghans died than British soldiers in the war there. As Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, said recently: "We don't have to apologize for Israelis not being killed."