We are told that the Jews’ claim on Israel is rooted in a promise God made to Abraham. God so loved the Jews, He wanted them to have that land. But God wasn’t about sullying His hands to get the job done. He could have smitten their neighbors with deadly diseases or something else really bad, so His people could just walk right in and put in the cement pillars with the “crow foot”.

He didn’t. The Jews had to fight for the land. Those bohgaz, with the belief in a decree from above to bolster their courage, have become very good at this war business.

The website, bbc.co.uk, posts a little story which speaks to the Jews and their war ways. Here goes: Judaism does not regard violence and war to promote justice as always wrong. It accepts that certain kinds of war will be ethically justified, and that it is sometimes morally acceptable to kill people. Before declaring war or starting a battle there must be a genuine attempt to make peace and avoid the conflict.

…In much of the Old Testament God gives his clear approval to war. He is identified as a warrior, and is shown as leading the Jews in conflict, bringing them victory, protecting them from enemy forces. But at the same time the Old Testament is filled with Jewish longing for peace…Peace is seen as something that comes from God and that will only be fully realised when there is justice and harmony not just between peoples, but within individual communities…The Jewish tradition is clear that before declaring war, or starting a battle, there must be an attempt to make peace…

So, they have a clear path to war. But they should seek peace first. Jews aren’t about that. Jewish leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, isn’t even lip-serving peace. He is the Jewish Hitler and he’s about expanding territory.

They are sullying a good thing.The Jews have some notable achievements. There is monotheism. There are arguments that monotheism did not begin with them, but I have never explored that. I have explored another great Jewish contribution, the Holy Bible. And then there is Jesus the Christ. He was a Jew. You have to be truly great to produce such a hero.

When greatness comes, it is to make things better. Jesus saw that the Jews needed to change some of their ways. For sure, they were too much into the war business. We know what they did to Him. They weren’t about giving up their war ways. And they still aren’t. They doant want no peace. They’re about justifying war.

A better Christian

In many ways, these Christians sold on everything Jewish, are better people than I. I suppose they are going to heaven, and people like me will be on the outside looking in, but we can’t know that for sure because only God knows hearts. We humans, we are limited to judging character, and it is on that that I concluded that these Christians sold on everything Jewish, are better people in many ways. But they go off path sometimes. No, they don’t have a lock on goodness.

One Christian who is not sold on everything Jewish, but is “better” than a lot of people who think that way, is former US president, Jimmy Carter. It is a fact that Jimmy Carter is the only US president who saw people south of the Rio Grande not as people to be “used” for the greater glory of “America”, but as full members of the human family, and so to be loved. You have to try really hard to find acts by other US presidents that were done for love of people who weren’t citizens of the USA.

Jimmy Carter saw that the Guatemalan oligarchy was using American weapons to commit genocide, and he banned the sale of military weapons to that country. Jimmy Carter couldn’t lift the US embargo on Cuba, but he eased up on travel restrictions and opened doors to improve dialogue between Cuba and the USA. Jimmy Carter signed a treaty with Panama that ended US control of the Panama Canal. And Jimmy Carter supported the independence of Belize!

If Jimmy Carter was a Catholic Christian, the Pope would quite likely make him a saint. But there are Christians in Belize who prefer to follow Trump! Jimmy Carter is a Jesus-Christian, not a Judeo-Christian. Carter has said that he believes Jesus wouldn’t have stoned gay marriage and that Jesus would have understood a girl who wanted to abort a child conceived through incest or rape.

I respect these Carter positions. On the first, I beg homosexual men to not exercise this right. But a church has a right to say, “not here”, and a baker has a right to say, “no cake baked for you in my oven”. On the latter, this is not a man’s business. And it is not women’s business either. This is business between a girl and her God.

I absolutely endorse Jimmy Carter’s position on the future of Palestine. On November 28, 2016, Jimmy Carter wrote in the New York Times, to advise Barack Obama: …The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine…

…Back in 1978, during my administration, Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, and Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, signed the Camp David Accords. That agreement was based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The key words of that resolution were “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every state in the area can live in security,” and the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

I say, better Christians in Belize must check themselves. In my books, Jimmy Carter is a better Christian than they are. Respect that brother’s views.

Nazi sympathizers in Guatemala

(italicized paragraphs from Wikipedia)

…One writer does note that “there wasn’t a German finca where the Nazi flag did not occupy a place of honor, nor a German finquero who did not participate in local events organized by the Nazis.[citation needed]

…In 1938, a seminal event impacted the German community in La Verapaz; the Third Reich asking their expatriate citizens to vote on the German annexation of Austria, the Anschluss. Some Germans in Guatemala held dual citizenship. A German boat anchored in Puerto Barrios to facilitate the vote. Those who attended were designated as sympathizers of Adolf Hitler. In 1936, 381 Germans in Guatemala voted for Adolf Hitler. Subsequently, most of these were deported, under pressure from the United States, for supporting the Nazi Party.

…According to the book Almas Gemelas by Regina Wagner, that same year (1938) the long-since present German School formed a Hitler Youth, practiced the salute, and discussed National Socialist race theory, disregarding that the German school also had students of Jewish descent.

Last week, this columnist borrowed information from the Wikipedia which showed that Guatemala’s government was sympathetic to the Nazi cause. We see in one excerpt above, that the USA had to lean on Guatemala to expel some overly zealous Nazi agents. The Nazis lost the war, which ended in 1945. In 1948, we see Guatemala as one of the first states to recognize Israel.

Allow me to stick in this excerpt from a 1986 story by Cheryl Rubenberg, published at www.merip.org: A former head of the Knesset foreign relations committee recently said, when asked about the Israeli-Guatemalan relationship: “Israel is a pariah state. When people ask us for something, we cannot afford to ask questions about ideology. The only type of regime that Israel would not aid would be one that is anti-American. Also, if we can aid a country that it may be inconvenient for the US to help, we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face not to.”

A little personal

Someday, if all is well with me, and the Amandala continues to approve of my having a space in the newspaper, I will have to use a little ink and paper to explain to my close friends and family why I rarely appear at “occasions” anymore. Today, I’ll just say that every life is a story.

I don’t mind, not too much, that people form wrong opinions about me. But I mind that some are unhappy about the way I behave. I love my friends and family, always have, always will.

Sometimes it’s a wedding, or a christening, or a birthday, or a funeral, which this occasion was. R.I.P., Tayni. And much love to the Fuller family in Camalote. Always.