"Please pray for the Peace of Israel" Psalm 122  [Chapter-17]

Hamas turned the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City into a terrorist fortress. On July 16, 2014, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report stating, “The Israeli military delivered text messages to virtually all the residents of Ash Shuja’iyya and Az Zaitun neighborhoods in eastern Gaza city, approximately 100,000 people, warning them to leave their homes by 8 am today [16 July], ahead of attacks to be launched in the area.” Also according to OCHA, “Subsequently, the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza reportedly instructed the residents to … not flee the area.”  As a result, OCHA admits that “the vast majority decided to stay.”  (JPost) By directing its citizens to stay in areas that Israel intends to attack, it is in clear violation of Article 51(7) of the Geneva Convention that states: “Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.” Yet Israel has satisfied Article 57(2)(c) that requires “effective advance warning."

An Arab Israeli who attended the Heart to Heart camp program in

Canada reveals in an interview that Arabs and Israelis can get along.

 Jewish and Arab Israeli Youth Attend Camp in Canada

"For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  (Galatians 5:14)

For the fourth summer in a row, 20 teens from Israel, 10 Jewish and 10 Arab spent three weeks together attending the Heart to Heart (H2H) program being hosted by the Zionist youth movement HaShomer HaTzair (the Youth Guard) on the shores of Otty Lake in Canada, located 100 kilometers southwest of the nation’s capital, Ottawa. The youth, who have internalized the ongoing conflict back home, are given the opportunity to gain a new perspective. The program is designed to teach coexistence and foster dialogue between the two disparate groups.  It is operated in partnership with Givat Haviv, an Israeli educational institute founded by HaShomer HaTzair. "Every time I said to [my friends] that I love Jewish and Israeli people, they’d say to me 'you are not with us,'" said 15-year-old Palestinian Yanal Abdallah, explaining that he felt pressure to hate.  "I love the Jewish people; I don't want [there] to be a war between them." Israeli camper Roei Hasnes, 15, echoed that sentiment. "We always heard stories in Israel that Palestinians are bad, mean, not good," Hasnes said.  "I know that I have a little fear.  But when we go here, and I met [Palestinians], I talked with them, and know who they are, I learned that they are human like me, not monsters; they do everything like me."  (CBC)

Coexistence is an honored concept that is taught in Israeli schools and

there is much evidence throughout the country that it is very possible for

Jews and Arabs to coexist peacefully.  In the above photo, an Arab teen

gives a paid ride to two little Jewish girls.

All of the participants in the Heart to Heart Program live in or near the Wadi Ara area of Israel’s lower Galilee.  This is a mostly Arab locale situated close to the so-called “Green Line” that separates Israel proper from Judea and Samaria. Although they live relatively close to one another, most of the young Jewish Israelis admit that they had never met nor spoken with an Arab Israeli before entering the program.  One explanation for this might be the violent Intifadas, the most recent of which occurred between September 2000 and February 2005 in which many terrorist attacks occurred. What had once been close ties between the Arab village of Meisar in the Wadi Ara and the Israeli community of Kibbutz Metzer right next to it, came to a halt when in 2002, an Arab gunman from Tulkarm on the other side of the Green Line, entered the kibbutz killing five people, including a mother and her two small children. In spite of this history, the H2H has been effective in changing and shaping the thinking of youths from the two cultures.

 Muslim schoolgirls in Judea and Samaria, also called the West Bank.

Last year, as it did this year, part of the camping experience took place during the Muslim fast of the month of Ramadan. Several of the boys, although not required by Islamic tradition since they are travelling, chose to keep the fast in which adherents are only allowed to eat during the hours following sunset.  Consequently, when 14-year-old Ram Pade, a Jewish Israeli, sat down to eat his lunch on the grass near Hamza, who was fasting, he suddenly realized what was happening, apologized and was about to move when Hamza insisted he stay, saying that it was not necessary. Their interaction shows the sensitivity among the teens to each other’s beliefs.  As one of the Arab attendees, Bashar Yahia, 14 of Umm al-Fahm put it, “We’re learning to look past our differences.”  (Globe and Mail) As a group, the Arab teens report that the communities they come from are very conservative and less open to such mixing of cultures. Now that the conflict with Hamas is in its 20th day, the situation is even more complex as protest rallies turning into riots break out in East Jerusalem and even in Wadi Ara. Thankfully the H2H participants were far removed from these conflicts, and could continue, if only for a brief time, to build bonds that may not result in lasting relationships but will at least lead to greater understanding.

Israeli President Shimon Peres spent the last days of his presidency

comforting grieving families. 

Peres Parts Presidency as Public Servant

"Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account."   (Hebrews 13:17)

In the last days of Shimon Peres' presidency over Israel, the Polish-born 90-year-old met in shared sorrow with the families of some of the 35 Israeli soldiers slain since June 2014 when Hamas escalated its attacks against Israel. Greeting the mourners as if closes friends—with heartfelt, compassionate hugs—Peres spent an emotional whirlwind last Monday visiting the loved ones of Bnaya Rubel, 20; Major Amotz Greenberg, 45; and Sgt. Eitan Barak, 20. Visiting the homes of the Israel Defense Forces' slain heroes, Peres joined with parents, children and wives as they sat shiva (a seven-day mourning period), listening to stories of the soldiers' lives—their passions, their dreams. (Jerusalem Post) When visiting fallen Army Reserve soldier Amotz Greenberg, Peres struggled with his emotions as he embraced Sagit Greenberg and her three children, Lihi, Ori and Shira. “'I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners, creating praise on their lips.  Peace, peace, to those far and near,’ says the Lord.  ‘And I will heal them.’” (Isaiah 57:18–19)

 

Israeli President Shimon Peres sits shiva with a grieving father.

Turning to Ori, Peres held the 12-year-old's face in his hands and told him that at his father's funeral, "I could hear your father through your voice, full of love and dedication." "You represent the third generation of the values which strengthen the State of Israel," he added. In his July 24, 2014, farewell speech to the nation three days later, Peres stated, "I am taking leave of my position as president, but not from my duty as a citizen.  I was a president who loved his people.  As of now, I am a citizen in love with my people."  (World Jewish Congress) "Even if we serve as a target for evil—we will not deviate from our moral heritage," the nation's ninth president said.  "I did not imagine that in the last days of my presidency I would be called upon, once more, to comfort bereaved families."

 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."  (Matthew 5:4)

 

Peres comforts an Israeli family during the last days of his presidency.

 

Peres also highlighted on Thursday the dangers engulfing the civilians of Gaza, that Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a "man-made tragedy." "We must alert the world to the madness of the terrorist threat," Peres said at his farewell speech.  "Terrorism aims to spill our blood.  And leads to blood being spilled among its people.  Never has such a minority torn apart the fabric of whole societies, so cruelly sent children to serve as shields for its crimes." "They forced their children to serve as human shields, and sent them into the fire,” he said.  “I say it again, I say it clearly, the Arabs are not our enemies.  The policy of murder is the enemy.  It is also the greatest danger to the Arab world." Peres has closed his seven-year presidency as the world's oldest head of state after giving 66 years to Israeli statesmanship.  He was elected twice previously as prime minister of Israel, and has served as minister of foreign affairs, minister of defense, minister of finance and minister of transportation. Let us stand with tpgether with prayer in these last days as Israel and her people in urgency of Good News of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah).

“You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain.  You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, 'Here is your God!'”  (Isaiah 40:9)

"Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins."  (Isaiah 40:1–2