I have a word from God...

And he says "Stop killing people."

As I write this, Israel is attacking Gaza, and the reports about MH17 indicate that it was deliberately shot down.

The news reports make for very grim, very depressing watching, with a range of pictures that are totally unsuitable for viewing, that should not be shown. Many people are mourning their losses from both of these terrible events, both events that are deliberate attacks intended to kill other people.

The reality is very difficult to get to in these situations, because there have been many pictures going around purporting to be from the Israel/Palestinian conflict that are actually not. The images of the children bombed as they were running along the beach seems to be valid, and is sickening.

I am not wanting to take sides in these conflicts, because I do not understand all of the complexities involved. I do know that Israel has massive military power, and the Palestinians do not, so that seems like a rather one-sided contest: Israel is killing people it doesn't want around, people who cannot defend themselves, people who were on their land decades before Israel invaded.

Both sides has a religious affiliation, but - despite my opening paragraph - I don't believe this is primarily a religious war. It is political: Israel wants to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza. And most of the West is prepared to let it.

I know that one of the reasons behind this is the belief that Israel was "given the land by God". Well, I can see that argument, if you read only those parts of the Bible that suit your purposes. God brought the people out of Egypt, and into a land for them to conquer. And then, because they were not faithful to Him, he drove them out of that land again. Many years later, they returned, supposedly humbled, and as the subjects of a foreign power. Shortly after the time of Jesus, they lost Jerusalem and much of the land again.

I don't see anything in this that gives them any "divine right" to the land. I don't see anything in this that indicates a justification for using massively superior fire-power to fire at and kill unarmed people in their own land. They may have good reasons for thinking they are justified in this, but divine right should play no part in it.


The plane crash over Ukraine does not make for any more cheerful reading - and once again, I don't want to take sides, because I don't know the whole picture, and who might be responsible is still very unclear. But it would seem that someone shot down a civilian plane over a politically troubled area, I can only presume with political motives.

Included on the plane were 100 top AIDS researchers, so this will put AIDS research back some way. But there were also hundreds of other people - ordinary people - on the plane. They will all be missed and mourned for by families and friends. They are innocent victims of a power struggle over land - not that different from Israel and Gaza. The people who pay the price for these battles are rarely the ones who make the decisions to attack or to defend. Whatever the resolution of the Ukraine struggle, these people will not be brought back - their loss will be felt for many years to come.


It is the innocence of many of the victims of these battles that I struggle with. OK, nobody is entirely innocent in the eyes of God, but many of the victims are innocent of any involvement in the dispute for which they give their lives. My reading of the Bible is that God is on the side of the innocent, and is not in support of them being killed. So whatever your faith and your God, please stop killing others. It sucks.