Thursday, October 8, 2015

Morality of Our Enemies: Present and Past

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       
Palestinians demonstrating 

                                                                           
A young rabbi and his wife were shot and killed in drive-by shooting.  Their 4 children were in back seat witnessing their parents' deaths.  
What turns my stomach is the morality displayed by the Palestinians.  They are made joyous over the death of innocent Jews of Israel.   The Palestinians do not seem to share our morals.  From Palestinian Media Watch we learn that "Palestinians have been celebrating the murder of Israelis by distributing the pictures of dead bodies of Israelis and the terror scenes on Twitter and Facebook, according to the official PA daily. The "most significant" picture is that of the dead bodies of the young Israeli couple Naama and Eitam Henkin who were murdered in front of their four children last week. According to the PA daily, the killing of the couple brings "joy" to Palestinians who see the killing as "heroic".  This is their practice, to give out candies and be happy when they hear of a Jew killed by one of them.  They call the killers martyrs and name streets and places for them.  

Palestinians danced in the streets when they heard about 9/11 and the 3,000 Americans that were killed.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKT-9OpneoY)
                                                                                                                 
IS on the prowl 
Today Palestinians have reason, one would think, of fearing IS as this Salafist group has been cutting off the heads of Sunnis, followers of Islam but of a different sect than IS.  IS is a group gone mad and enticing to other madmen and women.  They are the epitome of evil.  They kill and rob others.  

                                                                                 
                                                                           
During the Exodus 3,200 years ago, Moses taught the Jews to not cheer when the Egyptian soldiers who were chasing them died in the returning water and drowned.  The Jews were told that they were G-d's children, also.  Our lessons came to us while on the Exodus from Moses who was told these things by G-d. It was during a time when mankind was practicing the most vile of habits as judged by today's standards.
                                                                         
It's taken a long time for us Homo Sapiens to learn about having morals. It's possible that Cro-Magnon (early humans) knew something and did have some social standards. They were in the Middle East 37,000 years ago.                                                                          

     
 Remember  the story of Lot, Abram's nephew who was the son of Abraham's brother, Haran?
  Lot had traveled with Abraham but quarreled with his uncle and decided to settle in famed city of Sodom. Have you read  the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?  Sodom's people were most wicked without any morals at all.  Abram had been born in the year 1948 BCE  from the time of creation as Avram, the Hebrew-speaking Ivri (Hebrew)  who came from the other side of the Euphrates River with his father, Terah.  The Sodomites wanted to sodomize (gang rape) some strangers. who had sought refuge in Lot's  house in Sodom.    At that point, Lot offered his 2 daughters to the masses who were rioting outside his window because they wanted the strangers that were with Lot.  The code of honor was that a guest was safe in his house, and he chose to offer his daughters to pacify the crowd instead. Lot didn't realize it but the strangers were angels.    You can only imagine what the mob would  have done to his daughters.  One sees that females were not at the same level as males yet of importance.                                                                      
Then, of course, according to the original Jewish story, Abram offered Isaac to G-d, ready to do child sacrificing, which was obviously done in those days at that locale.  It turned out to be a story showing when this practice stopped with the Jewish people as G-d then told him that he was to sacrifice an animal, instead. With Abram's birth, the world had gone into a new phase of intelligence and understanding. It was then his name changed to Abraham because he was told he would be the father of many nations.  (Genesis 17:5).
                                                                           
Later, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, in about 1310 BCE,  he had to go through the land of the Amaleks, who chased them with great hostile forces.  The Amaleks themselves were a nomadic people who wandered between the southern lands  and Canaan,  and had attacked the Israelites in the desert near Rephidim shortly after the Exodus had started and they killed the weak and weary travelers that lagged at the end of the line.  Other lands had not reacted as violently when they realized that 600,000 men, women and children were going through their lands to reach their destination.  "The Amaleks had their origin within the Edomites, being descendants of Esau. They are often associated with Edom, living in the same area as Edom"     Edom, also called Idumea, was around Mt. Seir and mountainous. The people lived by hunting.  They had kicked out the Horites who had lived their first.  These people, also Semites,  were tribal with a chief, and later had a monarchy.  They fought against King Saul and later, King David.   Finally they became part of the Jewish people as John Hyrcanus, ruler in Jerusalem 135-104 BCE  converted them by force. He was the son of Simon, the Hasmonean.   Herod was one of the Idumean  descendants.                                                        

We know that when Joshua  in the 13th century BCE reached Canaan, there was a fight for the land, and the most all of the Canaanites were slaughtered in that battle.  Those that lived were taken into the new society by marriage.  Few left the land.  Canaanites, a people descended from Canaan, son of Ham, were divided into 11 peoples who occupied the area between the Nile River of Egypt and the Euphrates River of Iraq.  The recent people of Syria had called themselves Canaanites.  Going back even further, the Canaanites were a mixture of HoritesHittites and Hebrews who dated back to the Hyksos period of the 17th century BCE, Philistines who had lived along the coast in the 12th century BCE, and the Arameans in the north in the 11th century BCE.  
                                                                         
King Saul sparing the life of Agag
When Saul was Israel's first king, he captured Agag, the Amalek  king  in a battle  and spared his life.  Samuel, the prophet was not happy about this bid of kindness because the Israelites had been told to wipe out the Amaleks by G-d because they were so evil.
                                                                           
King David
The Amaleks were finally defeated by the Israelite men under Joshua's leadership.  Israelites regarded the Amaleks as an eternal foe.  Later, during the period of Israel's judges before they had a king, of the 12th and 11th centuries BCE, the Amaleks penetrated western Israel at various points and their presence was a standing threat to the peace of the country.  During King David's time, (1010-970 BCE)  the Amaleks invaded southern Judea and burned the town of Ziklag.  David fought and defeated them mightily, with only 400 escaping from him.                                                                            
Haman and his 3 cornered hat
When Hezekiah, King of Judah  reigned from 720-690 BCE,  the tribe of Simeon overwhelmed the Amaleks and settled in their territory.  The name, Amaleks, has remained as a symbol of everlasting enmity to Israel.  Haman, the villian in our Purim history  that took place in Persia, who had the morality of Hitler, was an Agagite and was regarded as a descendant of Agag, King of  Amalek.  Haman wanted to kill all Jews in the empire and had a decree for it to happen.
                                                                         
Moses taught us to have morals and to not be like the people around us.  That's why so many laws existed.  We were to remember and be above the actions of others since we were to act as the examples of good behavior so as to be copied.   This is what we are all about;  people of the Golden Rule of not treating people in a way we wouldn't want to be treated, and people of the Mosaic Law.
                                                                             
 The story is that all the people were visited and offered the 10 Commandments, but there was always given some kind of excuse as to why all 10 could not be followed.  Finally, Moses accepted them all for us to follow.  I find it interesting that Hammerabi, king of Babylon from 1728 BCE to 1686 BCE also had had a code, but the 10 commandments from Moses surpassed and improved on that list.  His penalties for not following his code were severe.  Hammerabi held to the Jus Talionis (eye for an eye) punishment.   The 10 Commandments have appeal to the human conscience through the religious and ethical nature of the Torah .  Hammerabi's code depended on custom and obedience to the king's will.

Update: 6:57pm Thursday: Jerusalem especially has been under attack this last week.  "Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat:

“Come out today with your licensed guns, for those who know how to use it, that’s what needed right now. In a way, this is like reserve duty.”

This is a complete list of attacks that Arutz7 has published, it will give you some idea of what we are facing here in Israel.Thursday, October 1:
Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin were gunned down in their car near Itamar, in Samaria. The young parents, who were in their thirties, were residents of Neria in Samaria. They were murdered in front of the eyes of their four children, aged four months, four years, 7 and 9, who were in the car at the time. A five man Hamas terror cell that carried out the attack was arrested several days later.  from friend Victor Sharpe's article, Israel is one big terror attack right now.  Information sent to him by  a Danish friend, Jane Kiel, in Jerusalem, Israel:
Also happening: Israeli Man Seriously Hurt in Jerusalem Stabbing Attack – Stand for Israel
Hamas, Islamic Jihad Praise Wave of Terrorist Attacks – Israel Hayom
Khamenei Bans Negotiations with the US – Arutz Sheva
Empathetic Jon Bon Jovi Dedicates Song to Israel – Stand for Israel


Resource:  http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=15818
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon
http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-amalekites.htm
http://www.weaselzippers.us/236242-palestinians-share-their-feeling-of-joy-of-seeing-pictures-of-dead-jews/

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