A few headlines jumped out at me over the last few days. First, the Israel Defense Forces produced a video showing Israeli soldiers helping Palestinian farmers with their broken tractor.
It was a human moment—a civil moment. It was a brief glimpse of what could be, if people started acting like human beings.
Those warm and fuzzy feelings didn’t last long.
Then came this headline: “Terrorist who killed 38 Israelis appointed as advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”
Yes, this is real. Hussein Fayyad is one of the terror masterminds behind a massacre that left 38 Israelis dead in 1978, including 13 children. He was released in a prisoner swap with Israeli in 1985. Now Fayyad claims that Palestinian President Abbas (our partner in peace) signed a decree promoting him to the position of “advisor” to the president.
Just what could this kind of sick individual give advice on? We can use our imaginations.
Then another headline on the same day: “Hamas says abducting soldiers and kidnapping Israelis is at the heart of our culture and is a source of pride not shame.”
What could I possibly add to that?
And, here’s one final headline—this one from an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament). He is pushing for a bill that would make it illegal to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The bill also outlaws cartoons of Yeshua or Moses. But that’s beside the point.
This last headline is most disturbing to me, because this is coming from an Israeli. This is someone who enjoys all the freedoms of Israeli society, to the point that he ran for and won a seat in the parliament. And despite enjoying this freedom, he’s now pushing a law to stifle some of it. He wants to limit free speech—the same free speech that allows him to be leader in this country.
It’s sadly nothing new to hear Hamas or Fatah glorifying terror and murder and chaos and injury, although you’ll never hear John Kerry or William Hague or Barack Obama acknowledge this as the real obstacle to Israelis and Palestinians ever coming to a final peace agreement.
But it is very disappointing to see an Arab-Israeli pushing a law to limit freedom.
It begs the question, What are we doing here? What are we trying to settle? What are we trying to agree on? The Palestinians are looking to kidnap and kill us from without, and now Arab-Israelis are looking to squash our rights from within.
It can be exhausting and discouraging reading stories like this every day. I am grateful my hope isn’t in these men—but in my Savior Yeshua. They can try to ban cartoons of Him, but they’ll never be able to thwart His plans.
Chaim Goldberg is the director of media for Maoz Israel. For the original article, visit maozblog.com.
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