My Stand
Let me be very honest…very honest. For that matter, let me be so honest that some of you reading this will want to unsubscribe, write a hateful comment, or even threaten bodily harm (which is not uncommon nowadays with those who supposedly celebrate free-thinking and tolerance).
I stand with Israel. That’s right, I stand with Israel.
No, it does not mean that I agree with everything Israel’s government does. No, it does not mean that I am happy that Israel’s Prime Minister denies Jesus Christ. But what it does mean is that I stand with the one nation in the middle east which is not tied to a bunch of fanatics who want to cut my head off, burn me alive, or rape my wife and children in front of me until I renounce Christianity and embrace Islam – and then cut my head off.
Hate me, yell at me, curse me, or whatever; I don’t care. You can take the side of Hamas, the Ayatollah’s, Hitler, or Haman of old, but I will stand with Israel.
Bibi’s Speech
Last night the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, made a speech to the joint houses of Congress in the capital building in Washington, D.C. Our president chose to act like a teenager who’d been “dissed” and avoided the speech, along with his staff and a lot of Democrats. However, others were there, including a truly-deserving Nobel Prize winner, award-winning author and holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. (All I could do was cry when I read his book, Night)
So many have taken the opportunity to condemn Netanyahu for coming to America and speaking. They have called his speech “worthless” and “political,” even dismissing it as ineffective for not even making a dent in the current negotiations that the Vietnam veteran and French-serenading John Kerry is currently conducting with Iran.
Big deal.
What Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech proved was that he does not trust his current enemy to behave any differently than any number of previous enemies, including one who signed a 1938 agreement in Munich which was supposed to bring “peace in our time.” As a matter of fact, he sees this attempt to appease a border-thirsty, caliphate-seeking nation as nothing more than starting the countdown clock toward nuclear war.
Another prime minister who spoke to congress three times, Winston Churchill, was laughed to scorn by the leaders of Europe and America when he suggested a future treaty signer was nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Who was proven to be correct?
Purim
It amazes me that in such a short time so many people forget what happened in the concentrations camps. It amazes me even more that there are idiots and psychopaths who deny the holocaust happened. But it did, and it wasn’t the first time, either.
In the 4 century BC, another leader within another Persian empire, a man named Haman, sought to utterly destroy the Jews. Long before the Ayatollahs of Iran came on the scene, even before Nazi Germany, this ticked off noblemen decided to pursue a plan to kill the Jews in one day. By God’s grace a young woman named Esther, who later became queen of Persia, was raised up “for such a time as this” to deliver her people. In one day the tables turned and the Jews were allowed, by another declaration, to defend themselves – which they did.
One of the most brilliant things Prime Minister Netanyahu did was link the intents of an ancient Persian anti-Semite with the intents of modern Persian anti-Semites: the leaders of Iran. How many other countries in the world today have been battling for survival for over 4,000 years? How many times will we have to go down this road before we understand that those who say they want to destroy Israel aren’t joking?
Tonight I will also celebrate the festival of Purim. No, there will be no feast or gifts exchanged (except at a birthday party for my daughter we are also going to), but I will tell the story of Esther and her people’s miraculous deliverance from destruction. I will also pray that more leaders will have the wisdom and foresight Esther’s uncle, Mordechai.
Somebody needs to call the free people of the world to stand with courage, to stand with Israel, and to stand against those who seek her destruction…for such a time is now.
The Recovering Legalist 