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mrlnsfrt · 4 years ago

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Behaving Wisely

David has slain the giant that seemed unbeatable. The Israelite has won a great victory. (for more read The Battle Belongs to the LORD)

Was David lucky?

Is it possible for him to maintain his winning streak?

"So keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do." -- Deuteronomy 29:9 New American Standard Bible

Let’s continue to read the story of David and see what happens next.

Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day, and would not let him go home to his father’s house anymore. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. - 1 Samuel 18:1-4 NKJV

David and Jonathan have a lot in common. They were both courageous and capable young warriors who had great faith in the Lord. Both had also initiated attacks against the Philistines against terrible odds that lead to great victories for Israel. (Bergen, Robert D. The New American Commentary. Broadman & Holman, 1996. p199) (for more on Jonathan’s victory read A Mighty Minority)

The fact that Jonathan gives David the clothes and weapons originally reserved for the heir to Saul’s throne is worth noting. Especially when you combine it with the fact that David was offered the king’s clothing during the battle (1 Samuel 17:38, see also The Battle Belongs to the LORD) These details are rich in symbolic and thematic significance, we see that David is well on his way to becoming the next king of Israel. Though Saul is king and Jonathan is the crown prince, David’s experiences point to the exceptional future God has in store for him.

At this point, Saul decided to keep David with him and not allow him to go home to his father’s house anymore, and Jonathan also loves David. Things are going well for David he is being honored and elevated by the royal family. David goes wherever Saul sends him and he is successful.

Success

Whatever Saul asked David to do, David did it successfully. So Saul made him a commander over the men of war, an appointment that was welcomed by the people and Saul’s officers alike. - 1 Samuel 18:5 NLT

If you click on 1 Samuel 18:5 it will take you to a page with several different translations and you will notice that some describe David as acting wisely, and some describe him as being successful. So which one is the best translation? Yes. What if the writer meant exactly what he wrote, that David behaved wisely and was successful. Sure in English we have two different words for this idea, but in the Hebrew mind, the two ideas seem to be mingled into one. Behaving wisely is success, prosperity and wisdom are intermingled. Even more interesting is how the same root שָׂכַל (sakal) is found in Deuteronomy 29:9.

Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. - Deuteronomy 29:9 NKJV

Essentially God provided us with the key to success, a strong loving relationship with Him. The covenant was in essence for us to not turn after any other Gods. The 10 commandments give us the core of God’s covenant, those are His plans for our lives, those are His guidelines for us to prosper in all that we do. He gives us success. The 10 commandments in essence protect us from leaving our relationship with God. They keep us from shooting ourselves in the foot. In the story of Saul and David we see one man, Saul, turn from God and lose everything while another man, David, remains faithful to God and gains everything.

This does not mean that obedience buys you immunity or salvation. Those are gifts from God. Life is still tough for David, as we will see, but he keeps succeeding because he always humbles himself before God. This will become clearer as we study the biblical account of the life of David in its entirety. But even here, at the beginning of David’s rise, we see evidence of God’s blessings and of David’s love for God.

What I take away from this is that the way to success will never go against the will of God for my life as expressed in the 10 commandments. If I am being pressured to go against God’s expressed will it will not lead to success, but rather to failure. Also, it is important to define success here as the ultimate success in life, not just the acquisition of money or power or both. Money and power can be a curse in the life of those who have sacrificed their relationship with God for the things this world has to offer.

Challenges that follow success

Sometimes a quiet meaningful life is more enjoyable than a life of fame and power. When the armies returned victorious from the battle the women were singing about the heroes and their victories. They sang about how “Saul had slain his thousands,” this was nice, Saul liked listening to this. We don’t have a record of the whole song, we also have no idea what the melody was like. However, we do have the record of one more line from this song and it went like this: “And David [has slain] his ten thousands.” (1 Samuel 18:7)

It’s fine to be wise, to be successful, but being more successful than the king is bad for your health.

Saul notices that David is well on his way to becoming king. He is popular with the people and the court. Surely Saul was reminded of the words of Samuel found in 1 Samuel 15:28.

So Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. - 1 Samuel 15:28 NKJV

I believe this is why the story continues in this way

Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him; and he said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?” So Saul eyed David from that day forward. - 1 Samuel 18:8-9 NKJV

Saul eyed David

From this point on Saul sees David as a threat. 1 Samuel 18:9 (link to different translations) is a bit awkward to translate to English but when you read the different ways its translated you get the idea of what it means to “eye” someone or to be “eyed” by someone. Saul was watching David closely, looking for an opportunity to rid himself of this threat.

David meanwhile, continues to serve king Saul faithfully. When Saul was being tormented by a distressing spirit and David came to play for him Saul threw a spear at David, twice (1 Samuel 18:11)! This means that David came back to play the hard a second time after Saul had tried to kill him! This shows that David was faithful and willing to help Saul even if it meant putting his life on the line. This also shows that music is not a sure-fire way to deal with people struggling with evil spirits. (for more on that checkout Mental Health, Music and the Bible) It is also worth noting that Saul being armed with a spear against David associates him with Goliath (1 Samuel 17:7) not to mention that Saul was also very tall (1 Samuel 9:1-2).

Fear

Although Saul a powerful king and is armed with a spear, he is afraid of David who is an unarmed nobody.

Now Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul. Therefore Saul removed him from his presence, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people. And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. Therefore, when Saul saw that he behaved very wisely, he was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them. - 1 Samuel 18:12-16 NKJV (bold mine)

David continues to have success. David behaves wisely and prospers in everything he does (Deuteronomy 29:9). Saul is afraid because he realizes that the LORD was with David. Just as Goliath was unable to destroy David, Saul too realizes he is no match for him. Saul decides to change tactics.

Royal Wedding!

Saul realized he would not be able to kill David with his own hands, or at least he realized he shouldn’t since David was becoming so popular. Saul decided to let his enemies take care of David.

Then Saul said to David, “Here is my older daughter Merab; I will give her to you as a wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight the Lord’s battles.” For Saul thought, “Let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.” - 1 Samuel 18:17 NKJV

Saul figured the more often David was involved in battles against the philistines the greater the chances of him dying in battle. That way David can die a hero at the hand of the Philistines and Saul can be rid of a “problem.” David agreed to fight the LORD’s battles. David would likely have agreed to fight even if there wasn’t the promise of marriage to the princess. This could also have been interpreted as taking the place of the dowry, like when Jacob offered to work as a way of paying the price for his wife (Genesis 29:15-19 for more read Rules of Engagement).

However, when it came time to it, Saul gave his oldest daughter to someone else. Maybe he feared giving David even more power and influence seeing he refused to die. Saul should have given David his daughter because David killed Goliath ( 1 Samuel 17:25), but Saul keeps adding details and clauses to the fine print of his promises.

Now Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. So Saul said, “I will give her to him, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” Therefore Saul said to David a second time, “You shall be my son-in-law today.” - 1 Samuel 18:20-21 NKJV

David is incredibly humble. This could be due to Saul being king and having come from a wealthy family. David however was the youngest son in his family, he was a bumble shepherd and his genealogy was not pure, since one of his ancestors had been a Moabite (Ruth 4:13-17).

It is interesting to notice the word choice of Saul here. Michal was to be a “snare” to David. This same word is used in the Torah to describe the dangers of idols and idol worshipers (Exodus 23:33;34:12; Deuteronomy 7:16) Perhaps Saul was aware of his daughter’s idolatrous inclinations ( 1 Samuel 19:13) and how if she could lead David astray then he would surely fall at the hand of the Philistines.

Similarly to how David had heard by word of mouth about the rewards offered to whoever killed Goliath, David now heard that Saul was willing to make him his son-in-law. Saul asks for 100 Philistine foreskins as a way of taking vengeance on the enemies of Saul. David is so willing that he gets Saul 200 foreskins. Saul then has no option but to give David his daughter.

Now David was part of the royal family, even closer to the throne. Saul became even more afraid of David and decided to be his enemy continually. But David continues to prosper.

Then the princes of the Philistines went out to war. And so it was, whenever they went out, that David behaved more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name became highly esteemed. - 1 Samuel 18:29 NKJV (bold mine)

David is faithful to God, God is with him, granting him wisdom and success. For me, the lesson is clear, be faithful to God, receive His wisdom, and prosper, regardless of who is against you.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. - Proverbs 9:10 NKJV

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. - James 1:5 NKJV

#success #David #Saul #Narrative

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crimethinc · 6 years ago

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The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump’s Withdrawal

Following Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he is withdrawing US troops from Syria, we’ve received the following message from an anarchist in Rojava, spelling out what this means for the region and what the stakes are on a global scale. For background, consult our earlier articles, “Understanding the Kurdish Resistance” and “The Struggle Is not for Martyrdom but for Life.”

I’m writing from Rojava. For full disclosure: I didn’t grow up here and I don’t have access to all the information I would need to tell you what is going to happen next in this part of the world with any certainty. I’m writing because it is urgent that you hear from people in northern Syria about what Trump’s “troop withdrawal” really means for us—and it’s not clear how much time we have left to discuss it. I approach this task with all the humility at my disposal.

I’m not formally integrated into any of the groups here. That makes it possible for me to speak freely, but I should emphasize that my perspective doesn’t represent any institutional position. If nothing else, this should be useful as a historical document indicating how some people here understood the situation at this point in time, in case it becomes impossible to ask us later on.

Mark my words, Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria is not an “anti-war” or “anti-imperialist” measure. It will not bring the conflict in Syria to an end. On the contrary, what is actually happening is that Trump is stepping back and giving Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan a free hand to invade Rojava and carry out ethnic cleansing against the people who have done much of the fighting and dying to halt the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS). This is a deal between strongmen to exterminate the social experiment in Rojava and consolidate authoritarian nationalist politics from Washington, DC to Istanbul and Kobane. Trump aims to leave Israel the most ostensibly liberal and democratic project in the entire Middle East, foreclosing all the possibilities that the revolution in Rojava opened up for this part of the world.

All this will come at a tremendous cost in lives. As bloody and tragic as the Syrian civil war has already been, this could open up not just a new chapter of it, but a sequel.

This is not about where US troops are stationed. The two thousand US soldiers at issue are a drop in the bucket in terms of the number of armed fighters in Syria today. They have not been on the frontlines of the fighting the way that the US military was in Iraq.1 The withdrawal of these soldiers is not the important thing here. What matters is that Trump’s announcement is a message to Erdoğan indicating that there will be no consequences if the Turkish state invades Rojava.

There’s a lot of confusion about this, with supposed anti-war and “anti-imperialist” activists like Medea Benjamin endorsing Donald Trump’s decision, blithely putting the stamp of “peace” on an impending bloodbath and telling the victims that they should have known better. It makes no sense to blame people here in Rojava for depending on the United States when neither Medea Benjamin nor anyone like her has done anything to offer them any sort of alternative.

The worst case scenario now is that the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA), backed by the Turkish military itself, will overrun Rojava and carry out ethnic cleansing on a level you cannot imagine from wherever you are reading this. They’ve already done this on a small scale in Afrin. In Rojava, this would take place on a historic scale. It could be something like the Palestinian Nakba, not to say the Armenian genocide.

I will try to explain why this is happening, why you should care about it, and what we can do about it together.

To understand what Trump and Erdoğan are doing, you have to understand the geography of the situation. This site is useful for keeping up with geographical shifts in the Syrian civil war.

First of All: About the Experiment in Rojava

The system in Rojava is not perfect. This is not the right place to air dirty laundry, but there are lots of problems. I’m not having the kind of experience here that Paul Z. Simons had some years ago, when his visit to Rojava made him feel that everything is possible. Years and years of war and militarization have taken their toll on the most exciting aspects of the revolution here. Still, these people are in incredible danger right now and the society they have built is worth defending.

What is happening in Rojava is not anarchy. Yet all the same, women play a major role in society; there is basic freedom of religion and language; an ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse population lives side by side without any major acts of ethnic cleansing or conflict; it’s heavily militarized, but it’s not a police state; the communities are relatively safe and stable; there’s not famine or mass food insecurity; the armed forces are not committing mass atrocities. Every faction in this war has blood on its hands, but the People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) have conducted themselves far more responsibly than any other side. They’ve saved countless lives—not just Kurds—in Sinjar and many other places. Considering the impossible conditions and the tremendous amount of violence that people here have been subjected to from all sides, that is an incredible feat. All this stands in stark contrast to what will happen if the Turkish state invades, considering that Trump has given Erdoğan the go-ahead in return for closing a massive missile sale.

It should go without saying that I don’t want to perpetuate an open-ended Bush-style “war on terror,” much less to participate in the sort of “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West that bigots and fundamentalists of both stripes have been fantasizing about. On the contrary, that is precisely what we’re trying to prevent here. Most of the people Daesh [ISIS] have killed have been Muslim; most of the people who have died fighting Daesh have been Muslim. In Hajin, where I was stationed and where the last ISIS stronghold is, one of the internationals who has been fighting Daesh longest is an observant Muslim—not to speak of all the predominantly Arab fighters from Deir Ezzor there, most of whom are almost certainly Muslim as well.

The Factions

For the sake of brevity, I’ll oversimplify and say that today, there are roughly five sides in the Syrian civil war: loyalist, Turkish, jihadi, Kurdish,2 and rebel.3 At the conclusion of this text, an appendix explores the narratives that characterize each of these sides.

Each of these sides stands in different relation to the others. I’ll list the relations of each group to the others, starting with the other group that they are most closely affiliated with and ending with the groups they are most opposed to:

Loyalist: Kurdish, Turkish, jihadi, rebel

Rebel: Turkish, jihadi, Kurdish, loyalist

Turkish: rebel, jihadi, loyalist, Kurdish

Kurdish: loyalist, rebel, Turkish, jihadi

Jihadi: rebel, Turkish, Kurdish and loyalist

This may be helpful in visualizing which groups could be capable of compromising and which are irreversibly at odds. Again, remember, I am generalizing a lot.

I want to be clear that each of these groups is motivated by a narrative that contains at least some kernel of truth. For example, in regards to the question of who is to blame for the rise of ISIS, it is true that the US “ploughed the field” for ISIS with the invasion and occupation of Iraq and its disastrous fallout (loyalist narrative); but it is also true that the Turkish state has tacitly and sometimes blatantly colluded with ISIS because ISIS was fighting against the primary adversary of the Turkish state (Kurdish narrative) and that Assad’s brutal reaction to the Arab Spring contributed to a spiral of escalating violence that culminated in the rise of Daesh (rebel narrative). And although I’m least sympathetic to the jihadi and Turkish state perspectives, it is certain that unless the well-being of Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Syria is factored into a political settlement, the jihadis will go on fighting, and that unless there is some kind of political settlement between the Turkish state and the PKK, Turkey will go on seeking to wipe out Kurdish political formations, without hesitating to commit genocide.

It’s said that “Kurds are second-class citizens in Syria, third-class citizens in Iran, fourth-class citizens in Iraq, and fifth-class citizens in Turkey.” It’s no accident that when Turkish officials like Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu list the “terror groups” they are most concerned about in the region, they name the YPG before ISIS. Perhaps this can help explain the cautious response of many Kurds to the Syrian revolution: from the Kurdish perspective, regime change in Syria carried out by Turkish-backed jihadis coupled with no regime change in Turkey could be worse than no regime change in Syria at all.

I won’t rehash the whole timeline from the ancient Sumerians to the beginning of the PKK war in Turkey to the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS. Let’s skip forward to Trump’s announcement on December 19: “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

Has ISIS Been Defeated? And by Whom?

Let me be clear: Daesh has not been defeated in Syria. Just a few days ago, they took a shot at our position with a rocket launcher out of a clear blue sky and missed by only a hundred yards.

It is true that their territory is just a fraction of what it once was. At the same time, by any account, they still have thousands of fighters, a lot of heavy weaponry, and probably quite a bit of what remains of their senior leadership down in the Hajin pocket of the Euphrates river valley and the surrounding deserts, between Hajin and the Iraqi border. In addition, ISIS have a lot of experience and a wide array of sophisticated defense strategies—and they are absolutely willing to die to inflict damage on their enemies.

To the extent that their territory has been drastically reduced, Trump is telling a bald-faced lie in trying to take credit for this. Just as he did with the US economy, Trump is claiming responsibility for the results of the preceding administration’s policies. More importantly, the achievement he is claiming as his own is largely the work of precisely the people he is consigning to death at the hands of Turkey.

Under Obama, the Department of Defense and the CIA pursued dramatically different strategies in reference to the uprising and subsequent civil war in Syria. The CIA focused on overthrowing Assad by any means necessary, to the point that arms and money they supplied trickled down to al-Nusra, ISIS, and others. By contrast, the Pentagon was more focused on defeating ISIS, beginning to concentrate on supporting the largely Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) during the defense of Kobane in 2014.

Now, as an anarchist who desires the complete abolition of every government, I have no love for the Pentagon or the CIA, but if we evaluate these two approaches according to their own professed goals, the Pentagon plan worked fairly well, while the CIA plan was a total disaster. In this regard, it’s fair to say that the previous administration contributed to both the growth of ISIS and its suppression. Trump, for his part, has done neither, except insofar as the sort of nationalist Islamophobia he promotes helps to generate a symmetrical form of Islamic fundamentalism.

Up until December, Trump maintained the Pentagon strategy in Syria that he inherited from the Obama administration. There have been signs of mission creep from US National Security Advisor John R. Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who ultimately hope to undermine Iran on account of it supplying oil to China. This far—and no further—I can understand the concerns of a pseudo-pacifist “anti-imperialist” like Medea Benjamin: war with Iran would be a nightmare compounding the catastrophe brought about by the war in Iraq. So yes, insofar as the YPG and YPJ were forced to coordinate with the US military, they were working with unsavory characters whose motivations were very different from their own.

To sum up: what has brought about the by-now almost total recapture of the territory ISIS occupied isn’t rocket science. It’s the combination of a brave and capable ground force with air support. In this sort of conventional territorial war, it’s extremely difficult for a ground force without air support to defeat a ground force with air support, no matter how fiercely the former fights. In some parts of Syria, this involved the YPG/YPJ on the ground with US backing from the air. Elsewhere in Syria, it must be said, ISIS was pushed back by the combination of Russian air support and the loyalist army (SAA) alongside Iranian-backed militias.

Outside Interventions

It would have been extremely difficult to recapture this territory from ISIS any other way. The cooperation of the YPG/YPJ with the US military remains controversial, but the fact is—every side in the Syrian conflict has been propped up and supported by larger outside powers and would have collapsed without that support.

People employing the Turkish, loyalist, and jihadi narratives often point out that Kobane would have fallen and YPG/YPJ would never have been able to retake eastern Syria from Daesh without US air support. Likewise, the Syrian government and the Assad regime were very close to military collapse in 2015, around the time Turkey conveniently downed a Russian plane and Putin decided that Russia was going to bail out the Assad regime no matter what it took. The rebels, on their side, never would have come close to toppling Assad through military means without massive assistance from the Turkish government, the Gulf states, US intelligence services, and probably Israel on some level, although the details of this are murky from where I’m situated.

And the jihadis—Daesh, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and the others—would never have been able to take control of half of Iraq and Syria if the US had not been so foolish as to leave an army’s worth of state-of-the-art equipment in the hands of the Iraqi government, which effectively abandoned it. It also helped them that a tremendous amount of resources trickled down from the abovementioned foreign sponsors of the rebels. It also helped that Turkey left its airports and borders open to jihadis from all over the world who set out to join Daesh. There also appears to have been some sort of financial support from the Gulf states, whether formally or through back channels.

The Turkish state has its own agenda. It is not by any means simply a proxy for the US. But at the end of the day, it’s a NATO member and it can count on the one hundred percent support of the US government—as the missile sale that the US made to Turkey days before the withdrawal tweet illustrates.

In view of all this, we can see why YPG/YPJ was forced to cooperate with the US military. My point is not to defend this decision, but to show that under the circumstances, it was practically the only alternative to annihilation. At the same time, it is clear that this strategy has not created security for the experiment in Rojava. Even if we set aside ethical concerns, there are practical problems with relying on the United States—or France, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or any other state government with its own state agenda. As anarchists, we have to talk very seriously about how to create other options for people in conflict zones. Is there any form of international horizontal decentralized coordination that could have solved the problems that the people in Rojava were facing such that they would not have been forced to depend on the US military? If we find no answer to this question when we look at the Syria of 2013-2018, is there something we could have done earlier? These are extremely pressing questions.

No one should forget that ISIS was only reduced to their current situation by a multi-ethnic, radically democratic grassroots resistance movement, that incidentally involved international volunteers from around the globe. In view of Trump’s order to abandon and betray the struggle against ISIS, every sincere person who earnestly wants to put a stop to the spread of apocalyptic fundamentalist terror groups like ISIS or their imminent successors should stop counting on the state and put all their resources into directly supporting decentralized multi-ethnic egalitarian movements. It is becoming ever clearer that those are our only hope.

What Does the Troop Withdrawal Mean?

I’m not surprised that Trump and the Americans are “betraying an ally”—I don’t think anybody here had the illusion that Trump or the Pentagon intended to support the political project in Rojava. Looking back through history, it was clear enough that when ISIS was beaten, the US would leave Rojava at the mercy of the Turkish military. If the forces of the YPG/YPJ have dragged their feet in rooting ISIS out of their last strongholds, this may be one of the reasons.

But it is still shocking that Trump would rush to give up this foothold that the US has carved out in the Russosphere—and that the US military establishment would let him do so. From the perspective of maintaining US global military hegemony, the decision makes no sense at all. It’s a tremendous gift to Putin, Erdoğan, and ISIS, which could take advantage of the situation to regenerate throughout the region, perhaps in some new form—more on that below.

The withdrawal from Syria does not necessarily mean that conflict with Iran is off the table, by the way. On the contrary, certain hawks in the US government may see this as a step towards consolidating a position from which that could be possible.

In any case, Trump’s decision is big news. It indicates that the US “deep state” has no power over Trump’s foreign policy. It suggests that the US neoliberal project is dead in the water, or at least that some elements of the US ruling class consider it to be. It also implies a future in which ethno-nationalist autocrats like Erdoğan, Trump, Assad, Bolsonaro, and Putin will be in the driver’s seat worldwide, conniving with each other to maintain power over their private domains.

In that case, the entire post-cold war era of US military hegemony is over, and we are entering a multipolar age in which tyrants will rule balkanized authoritarian ethno-states: think Europe before World War I. The liberals (and anarchists?) who imagine that this could be good news are fools fighting yesterday’s enemy and yesterday’s war. The de facto red/brown coalition of authoritarian socialists and fascists who are celebrating this are hurrying us all helter-skelter into a brave new world in which more and more of the globe will look like the worst parts of the Syrian civil war.

And speaking from this vantage point, here, today, I do not say that lightly.

What Will Happen Next?

Sadly, Kurdish and left movements in Turkey have been decimated over the past few years. I would be very surprised if there were any kind of uprising in Turkey, no matter what happens in Rojava. We should not permit ourselves to hope that a Turkish invasion here would trigger an insurgency in northern Kurdistan.

Unless something truly unexpected transpires, there are basically two possible outcomes here.

First Scenario

In the first scenario, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) will make some kind of agreement with the Assad regime, likely under less favorable terms than would have been possible before the Turkish invasion of Afrin; both sides would likely make concessions of some kind and agree to fight on the same side if Turkey invades. If Russia signs off on this, it could suffice to prevent the invasion from taking place. Either YPG/YPJ or SAA will finish off the Hajin pocket, and the war could be basically over except for Idlib.

Both the Assad regime and the various predominantly Kurdish formations have been extremely hardheaded in negotiating, but perhaps the threat to both Rojava and the Assad regime is so extreme that they will choose this option. It is possible that this is one of the objectives of the Turkish threat, or even of Trump’s withdrawal: to force YPG to relinquish military autonomy to the Assad regime.

YPG, PYD, and company are not in a very good bargaining position right now, but the regime knows it can at least bargain with them, whereas if northern Syria is occupied by Turkish-backed jihadis and assorted looters, it is unclear what would happen next. Rojava contains much of Syria’s best agricultural land in the north, as well as oil fields in the south.

I can only speculate what the terms of this theoretical agreement might be. There’s lots of speculation online: language rights, Kurdish citizenship being regularized, prior service in YPG counting as military service so that soldiers who have been fighting ISIS all these years can return to being civilians rather than immediately being conscripted into SAA, some kind of limited political autonomy, or the like. In exchange, the YPG and its allies would essentially have to hand military and political control of SDF areas over to the regime.

Could Assad’s regime be trusted to abide by an agreement after they gain control? Probably not.

To be clear, it’s all too easy for me to speak abstractly about the Assad regime as the lesser of two evils. I’m informed about many of the atrocities the regime has committed, but I have not experienced them myself, and this is not the part of Syria where they did the worst things, so I more frequently hear stories from the locals about Daesh and other jihadis, not to mention Turkey. There are likely people in other parts of Syria who regard the Assad regime regaining power with the same dread with which people here regard the Turkish military and ISIS.

In any case, there are some signs that this first scenario might still be possible. The regime has sent troops to Manbij, to one of the lines where the massive Turkish/TFSA troop buildup is occurring. There are meetings between the PYD and the regime as well as with the Russians. An Egyptian-mediated negotiation between the PYD and the regime is scheduled to take place soon.

This first scenario does not offer a very attractive set of options. It’s not what Jordan Mactaggart or the thousands and thousands of Syrians who fought and died with YPG/YPJ gave their lives for. But it would be preferable to the other scenario…

Second Scenario

In the second scenario, the Assad regime will throw in its lot with Turkey instead of with YPG.

In this case, some combination of the Turkish military and its affiliated proxies will invade from the north while the regime invades from the south and west. YPG will fight to the death, street by street, block by block, in a firestorm reminiscent of the Warsaw ghetto uprising or the Paris Commune, utilizing all the defensive tactics they acquired while fighting ISIS. Huge numbers of people will die. Eventually, the Assad regime and Turkey/TFSA will establish some line between their zones of control. For the foreseeable future, there would be some kind of Turkish-Jihadi Rump State of Northern Syrian Warlordistan.

Any remaining Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Christians, and other minorities would be expulsed, ethnically cleansed, or terrorized. TFSA and related militias would likely loot everything they could get their hands on. In the long run, Turkey would probably dump the Syrian refugees who are now in Turkey back into these occupied areas, bringing about irreversible demographic shifts that could be the cause of future ethnic conflicts in the region.

We should not believe any assurances from the Turkish state or its apologists that this will not be the result of their invasion, as this is exactly what they have done in Afrin and they have no reason to behave differently in Rojava. Remember: from the perspective of the Turkish state, the YPG/YPJ are enemy number one in Syria.

Now let’s talk about Daesh. Despite the looming threat of invasion, SDF is still finishing off the Hajin pocket of ISIS. If it weren’t for the fact that Turkey is throwing Daesh a lifeline by threatening to invade, Daesh would be doomed, as they are surrounded by SDF, SAA, and the Iraqi army. Let me say this again: Trump’s giving Turkey the go-ahead to invade Rojava is practically the only thing that could save ISIS.

Trump has repeatedly said things to the effect that Turkey is promising to finish off ISIS. To believe this lie, you would have to be politically ignorant, yes—but in addition, you would also have to be geographically illiterate. This describes Trump’s supporters, if no one else.

Even if the Turkish government had any intention of fighting Daesh in Syria—a proposition that is highly doubtful, considering how easy Turkey made it for ISIS to get off the ground—in order to even reach Hajin and the Euphrates river valley, they would have to steamroll across the entirety of Rojava. There is no other way to get to Hajin. If you’re unfamiliar with the area, look at a map and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The Assad regime holds positions right across the Euphrates River from both the SDF and Daesh positions, and would be willing and able to finish off the last ISIS pocket. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather see the regime take the losses there to accomplish that than see YPG overextend itself and bleed any further. But the point here is that when Trump says something to the effect that “Turkey will finish off ISIS!” he is sending a blatant dog whistle to Turkish hardliners that they can attack Rojava and he won’t do anything to stop them. It has nothing to do with ISIS and everything to do with ethnic cleansing in Rojava.

If nothing else, even if Assad allies with the Turkish government, we can hope that the forces of the regime will still finish off ISIS. If Turkey has its way and does what Trump is talking about, beating a path all the way through Rojava to Hajin, they will likely give Daesh’s fighters safe passage, a new set of clothes, three meals a day, and this village I’m living in in exchange for their assistance fighting future Kurdish insurgencies.

So there it is: in declaring victory over ISIS, Trump is arranging the only way that ISIS fighters could come out of this situation with their capacities intact. It’s Orwellian, to say the least.

The only other option I can imagine, if negotiations with the Assad regime break down or PYD decides to take the moral high road and not compromise with the regime—who are untrustworthy and have carried out plenty of atrocities of their own—would be to let the entire SDF melt back into the civilian population, permit Turkey and its proxies to walk into Rojava without losing the fighting force of the YPG/YPJ, and immediately begin an insurgency. That might be smarter than a doomed final stand, but who knows.

Your silence is the echo of the bombs—a solidarity demonstration in Milan, Italy.

Looking Forward

Personally, I want to see the Syrian civil war end, and for Iraq to somehow be spared another cycle of war in the near future. I want to see ISIS prevented from regenerating its root system and preparing for a new round of violence. That doesn’t mean intensifying the ways that this part of the world is policed—it means fostering local solutions to the question of how different people and populations can coexist, and how they can defend themselves from groups like Daesh. This is part of what people have been trying to do in Rojava, and that is one of the reasons that Trump and Erdoğan find the experiment here so threatening. In the end, the existence of groups like ISIS makes their authority look preferable by comparison, whereas participatory horizontal multi-ethnic projects show just how oppressive their model is.

Overthrowing Assad by military means is a dead project—or, at least, the things that would have to happen to make it plausible again in the near future are even more horrifying than the regime is. I hope that somehow, some day, there can be some kind of settlement between the regime and YPG/YPJ, and the regime and the rebels in Idlib, and everyone else who has been suffering here. If capitalism and state tyranny are the problem, this kind of civil war is not the solution, although it seems likely that what has happened in Syria will happen elsewhere in the world as the crises generated by capitalism, state power, and ethnic conflicts put people at odds.

What can you do, reading this in some safer and stabler part of the world?

First, you can spread the word that Trump’s decision is neither a way to bring peace to Syria nor confirmation that ISIS has been defeated. You can tell other people what I have told you about how the situation looks from here, in case I am not able to do so myself.

Second, in the event of a Turkish invasion, you can use every means in your power to discredit and impede the Turkish state, Trump, and the others who paved the way for that outcome. Even if you are not able to stop them—even if you can’t save our lives—you will be part of building the kind of social movements and collective capacity that it will take to save others’ lives in the future.

In addition, you can look for ways to get resources to people in this part of the world who have suffered so much and will continue to suffer as the next act of this tragedy plays out. You can also look to support Syrian refugees who are scattered around the world.

Finally, you can think about how we could put better options on the table next time an uprising like the one in Syria breaks out. How can we make sure that governments fall before their reign gives way to the reign of pure force, in which only insurgents backed by other states can gain control? How can we offer other visions of how people can live and meet their needs together, and mobilize the force it will take to implement and defend them on an international basis without need of any state?

These are big questions, but I have faith in you. I have to.

A solidarity demonstration in Germany.

Appendix: Rival Narratives

Drawing on this helpful overview, here is a review of the narratives we often see from different sides in the Syrian civil war:

Loyalist narrative:

Emphasis on how the US and other countries supported and financed rebels for their own geopolitical ends as the main cause for the escalation of the conflict.

The existence of ISIS is mostly attributed to rebel support landing in the wrong hands and more fundamentally as a result of the fallout of the 2003 Iraq war.

Emphasis on links and cooperation between so-called moderate rebels and groups like Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in order to argue they are all part of the same problem.

Varying views on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its legitimacy. This seems to be different from loyalist to loyalist, with some thinking they are almost as bad as traditional rebels and others seeing them as allies against ISIS and Turkish-supported rebels.

Western, gulf Arab, and rebel narrative:

Emphasis on the Arab spring and how the brutal suppression of (relatively) peaceful protests led to an escalation of the conflict and armed rebellion and eventually full blown civil war.

Existence of ISIS mostly attributed to Assad’s actions. Often claiming how his brutal actions and reliance on sectarian militias created an environment in which ISIS could grow and gain support. Moreover, the point is made that Assad’s military deliberately targeted other rebels more than ISIS, and hence is for a large part to blame for its rise.

Emphasis on how there is a clear distinction between moderate rebels and radicals, and we should separate the two in honest analysis.

Views on SDF ranging from unfriendly to outright hostile. Often coushed in emphasizing cases in which the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the SDF worked together. In milder forms, this narrative criticizes a perceived overreliance on Kurds in majority Arab areas, while still recognizing the legitimacy of the organization in majority Kurdish areas.

Turkish narrative:

The Turkish narrative is basically the same as the previous on most issues, with the important exception that the hostility towards the SDF intensifies to the extreme. Here, the links between the SDF and the PKK are emphasized and the SDF is characterized as an illegitimate terror organization that is a threat to Turkey and suppresses local Arabs.

Western, Kurdish narrative:

The conflict is often seen as a historic opportunity for the Kurdish peoples in their quest for nationhood. Emphasis on how Kurds were discriminated against before the war and how they can take matters into their own hands now.

The existence and expansion of ISIS is mostly blamed on Turkey. Especially Turkey’s passivity during the battle of Kobane is highlighted, along with accusations of direct support of ISIS and importing ISIS oil.

Regarding rebels, the views tend to come closer to that of loyalists. Rebels (in relevant areas, anyway) are seen either as Turkish proxies or as radical lunatics to whom Turkey can turn a blind eye. The line between rebels and ISIS is often blurred, though they aren’t lumped in together to the same extent as in the loyalist narrative.

SDF is seen as one of the only sane and moral armed actors in a battle otherwise characterized by bad versus bad. Both rebel and loyalist atrocities are emphasized to support this point of view.

ISIS and radical Islamist narrative:

The start of the conflict is seen as a great awakening of Muslims against their apostate Alawite overlords. Emphasis on the solidarity of foreign fighters towards their suffering Syrian brethren.

This perspective includes ISIS itself and also Al Qaeda and similar radical groups, who see ISIS as a group that betrayed the jihadi cause.

The rebels are seen as naïve sellouts serving the interests of foreign governments and implementing non-Islamic ideals on their behalf. Emphasis is also put on how rebels negotiate and reach deals with loyalists, only to be betrayed and lose territory.

SDF are seen as atheist apostates on the US payroll. The chief difference with Turkey is perhaps the emphasis on lack of religion rather than connections to the PKK.

There is a monument in Kobane marking the furthest point that the territorial expansion of ISIS reached in Iraq and Syria in 2014 during the battle of Kobane. ISIS took 85 percent of the city; they made it as far as this intersection before being turned around by fierce resistance.

In Hajin, where the last ISIS stronghold is, the American position is way behind the front, in artillery range but out of range of any weapons Daesh has, so they can sit there and pound away without being hit back, while the risks are run by ground troops of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This is precisely what the Turkish army would do to us if Turkey invades Rojava. ↩

In fact, there are two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan in addition to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). They each have their own armies and police; they fought an actual civil war once. They do not like each other at all. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Barzani family dynasty, is more closely aligned with Turkey and the US; it was more closely aligned with Saddam Hussein before. They have bad relations with the administration in Rojava; they are roundly despised here because they basically stood aside and let the catastrophe in Sinjar happen in their own backyard while the PKK scrambled to rush into the breach. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has better relations with Iran, PKK, and the administration here. There is a KDP-related militia called Rojava Peshmerga in Rojava; again, they have a poor reputation because they’ve spent the whole war doing very little while YPG has died in droves fighting ISIS. All this is simply to say that there is no single Kurdish position; there are reactionary Kurdish groups, too. ↩

Mind you, the Syrian rebels were never homogenous; among them, you can find both an element aligned to Turkey and jihadis and an element aligned more closely with YPG/YPJ. Unfortunately, many of those who were interested in more “democratic” solutions to the situation in Syria were forced to flee the country years ago. ↩

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thestreamofconsciousness777 · 6 years ago

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The faithful ones Jehovah is safeguarding, but he is rewarding exceedingly anyone showing haughtiness & precious in the eyes of Jehovah is the death of his loyal ones...

“Seven years old was Je·ho’ash when he began to reign, and for forty years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zib’i·ah from Be’er-she’ba. And Je·ho’ash kept doing what was right in Jehovah’s eyes all the days of Je·hoi’a·da the priest. And Je·hoi’a·da proceeded to get two wives for him, and he came to be father to sons and daughters.

Now it occurred afterward that it became close to the heart of Je·ho’ash to renovate the house of Jehovah. Accordingly he collected the priests and the Levites together and said to them: “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to repair the house of YOUR God from year to year; and YOU, for YOUR part, should act quickly in the matter.” And the Levites did not act quickly. So the king called Je·hoi’a·da the head and said to him: “Why is it that you have not required an account of the Levites for bringing in from Judah and Jerusalem the sacred tax ordered by Moses the servant of Jehovah, even that of the congregation of Israel, for the tent of the Testimony? For as regards Ath·a·li’ah the wicked woman, her sons themselves had broken into the house of the [true] God, and even all the holy things of the house of Jehovah they had rendered up to the Ba’als.” Then the king said [the word], and so they made a chest and put it outside at the gate of the house of Jehovah. After that they issued a call throughout Judah and Jerusalem to bring to Jehovah the sacred tax ordered by Moses the servant of the [true] God upon Israel in the wilderness. And all the princes and all the people began to rejoice, and they kept bringing and casting it into the chest until they all had given.

And it came about at the proper time he would bring the chest to the care of the king by the hand of the Levites, and, as soon as they saw that there was plenty of money, the secretary of the king and the commissioner of the chief priest came and then emptied the chest and lifted it up and returned it to its place. That was the way they did from day to day, so that they gathered money in abundance. Then the king and Je·hoi’a·da would give it to the doers of the work of the service of Jehovah’s house, and they came to be hirers of the stonecutters and of the craftsmen for renovating Jehovah’s house, and also of the workers in iron and copper for repairing Jehovah’s house. And the doers of the work began operations, and the repair work kept advancing by their hand, and finally they made the house of the [true] God stand as it structurally should and made it strong. And as soon as they had finished they brought before the king and Je·hoi’a·da the rest of the money, and they proceeded to make utensils for the house of Jehovah, utensils for the ministry and for making offerings and cups and utensils of gold and of silver; and they came to be offerers of burnt sacrifices in the house of Jehovah constantly all the days of Je·hoi’a·da.

And Je·hoi’a·da got to be old and satisfied with years and gradually died, being a hundred and thirty years old at his death. So they buried him in the City of David along with the kings, because he had done good in Israel and with the [true] God and His house.

And after Je·hoi’a·da’s death the princes of Judah came in and proceeded to bow down to the king. At that time the king listened to them. And gradually they left the house of Jehovah the God of their forefathers and began serving the sacred poles and the idols, so that there came to be indignation against Judah and Jerusalem because of this guilt of theirs. And he kept sending prophets among them to bring them back to Jehovah; and they kept bearing witness against them, but they did not give ear.

And God’s spirit itself enveloped Zech·a·ri’ah the son of Je·hoi’a·da the priest, so that he stood up above the people and said to them: “This is what the [true] God has said, ‘Why are YOU overstepping the commandments of Jehovah, so that YOU cannot prove successful? Because YOU have left Jehovah, he will, in turn, leave YOU.’” Finally they conspired against him and pelted him with stones at the king’s commandment in the courtyard of Jehovah’s house. And Je·ho’ash the king did not remember the loving-kindness that Je·hoi’a·da his father had exercised toward him, so that he killed his son, who, when he was at the point of dying, said: “Let Jehovah see to it and ask it back.”

And it came about at the turn of the year a military force of Syria came up against him, and they began to invade Judah and Jerusalem. Then they brought all the princes of the people to ruin from among the people, and all their spoil they sent to the king of Damascus. For it was with a small number of men that the military force of the Syrians made an invasion, and Jehovah himself gave into their hand a military force of very great number, because they had left Jehovah the God of their forefathers; and upon Je·ho’ash they executed acts of judgment. And when they went away from him (for they left him with many diseases), his own servants conspired against him because of the blood of the sons of Je·hoi’a·da the priest; and they got to kill him upon his own couch, so that he died. Then they buried him in the City of David, but they did not bury him in the burial places of the kings.

And these were the conspirators against him: Za’bad the son of Shim’e·ath the Am’mon·it·ess and Je·hoz’a·bad the son of Shim’rith the Mo’ab·i·tess. As for his sons and the abundance of the pronouncement against him and the founding of the house of the [true] God, there they are written in the exposition of the Book of the Kings. And Am·a·zi’ah his son began to reign in place of him.

At the age of twenty-five years Am·a·zi’ah became king, and for twenty-nine years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Je·ho·ad’dan of Jerusalem. And he continued to do what was right in Jehovah’s eyes, only not with a complete heart. And it came about that as soon as the kingdom had become strong upon him, he promptly killed his servants who had struck down the king his father. And their sons he did not put to death, but [did] according to what is written in the law, in the book of Moses, that Jehovah commanded, saying: “Fathers should not die for sons, neither should sons themselves die for fathers; but it is each one for his own sin that they should die.”

And Am·a·zi’ah proceeded to collect Judah together and to have them stand according to the house of the forefathers, by the chiefs of thousands and by the chiefs of hundreds for all Judah and Benjamin; and he went on to register them from twenty years of age upward, and finally he found them [to be] three hundred thousand choice men going out to the army, handling lance and large shield. Further, he hired from Israel a hundred thousand valiant, mighty men for a hundred silver talents. And a certain man of the [true] God came to him, saying: “O king, do not let the army of Israel come with you, for Jehovah is not with Israel, [that is,] all the sons of E’phra·im. But come you yourself, act, be courageous for the war. The [true] God could cause you to stumble before an enemy; for there exists power with God to help and to cause stumbling.” At this Am·a·zi’ah said to the man of the [true] God: “But what is there to do about the hundred talents that I have given to the troops of Israel?” To this the man of the [true] God said: “There exists with Jehovah the means to give you much more than this.” Accordingly Am·a·zi’ah separated them, namely, the troops that had come to him from E’phra·im, to go to their own place. However, their anger got very hot against Judah, so that they returned to their own place in the heat of anger.

And Am·a·zi’ah, for his part, took courage and proceeded to lead his own people and go to the Valley of Salt; and he went striking down the sons of Se’ir, ten thousand [of them]. And there were ten thousand that the sons of Judah captured alive. So they brought them to the top of the crag, and proceeded to throw them from the top of the crag; and they, one and all, burst apart. As for the members of the troop whom Am·a·zi’ah had sent back from going with him to the war, they began making raids upon the cities of Judah, from Sa·mar’i·a clear to Beth-ho’ron, and went striking down three thousand of them and taking a great plunder.

But it occurred after Am·a·zi’ah came from striking down the E’dom·ites that he now brought the gods of the sons of Se’ir and set them up for himself as gods, and before them he began to bow down, and to them he began to make sacrificial smoke. Consequently Jehovah’s anger became hot against Am·a·zi’ah, and so he sent a prophet to him and said to him: “Why have you searched for the people’s gods that did not deliver their own people out of your hand?” And it came about when he spoke to him that [the king] immediately said to him: “Was it a counselor of the king that we constituted you? Quit for your own sake. Why should they strike you down?” Accordingly the prophet quit, but he said: “I certainly know that God has resolved to bring you to ruin, because you have done this and you have not listened to my counsel.”

Then Am·a·zi’ah the king of Judah took counsel and sent to Je·ho’ash the son of Je·ho’a·haz the son of Je’hu the king of Israel, saying: “Come! Let us look each other in the face.” At that Je·ho’ash the king of Israel sent to Am·a·zi’ah the king of Judah, saying: “The thorny weed itself that was in Leb’a·non sent to the cedar that was in Leb’a·non, saying, ‘Do give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ However, a wild beast of the field that was in Leb’a·non passed by and trampled the thorny weed down. You have said to yourself, Here you have struck down E’dom. And your heart has lifted you up to be glorified. Now do keep dwelling in your own house. Why should you engage in strife in a bad position and have to fall, you and Judah with you?”

But Am·a·zi’ah did not listen; for it was from the [true] God for the purpose of giving them into his hand, because they had searched for the gods of E’dom. So Je·ho’ash the king of Israel went up, and they proceeded to look each other in the face, he and Am·a·zi’ah the king of Judah, at Beth-she’mesh, which belongs to Judah. And Judah came to be defeated before Israel, so that they took to flight each one to his tent. And it was Am·a·zi’ah the king of Judah, the son of Je·ho’ash the son of Je·ho’a·haz, that Je·ho’ash the king of Israel seized at Beth-she’mesh, after which he brought him to Jerusalem and made a breach in the wall of Jerusalem, from the Gate of E’phra·im clear to the Corner Gate, four hundred cubits. And [he took] all the gold and the silver and all the articles that were to be found in the house of the [true] God with O’bed-e’dom and the treasures of the king’s house and the hostages, and then returned to Sa·mar’i·a.

And Am·a·zi’ah the son of Je·ho’ash the king of Judah continued to live after the death of Je·ho’ash the son of Je·ho’a·haz the king of Israel fifteen years. As for the rest of the affairs of Am·a·zi’ah, the first and the last, look! are they not written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel? And from the time that Am·a·zi’ah turned aside from following Jehovah, they proceeded to form a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem. At length he fled to La’chish; but they sent after him to La’chish and put him to death there. So they carried him upon horses and buried him with his forefathers in the city of Judah.

Then all the people of Judah took Uz·zi’ah, he being sixteen years old, and they made him king in place of his father Am·a·zi’ah. He it was that rebuilt E’loth and then restored it to Judah after the king had lain down with his forefathers. Sixteen years old was Uz·zi’ah when he began to reign, and for fifty-two years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Je·co·li’ah of Jerusalem. And he kept doing what was right in Jehovah’s eyes, according to all that Am·a·zi’ah his father had done. And he continually tended to search for God in the days of Zech·a·ri’ah, the instructor in the fear of the [true] God; and, in the days of his searching for Jehovah, the [true] God made him prosperous.

And he proceeded to go out and fight against the Phi·lis’tines and break through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jab’neh and the wall of Ash’dod, after which he built cities in Ash’dod [territory] and among the Phi·lis’tines. And the [true] God continued to help him against the Phi·lis’tines and against the Arabians that were dwelling in Gur·ba’al and the Me·u’nim. And the Am’mon·ites began to give tribute to Uz·zi’ah. Eventually his fame went even as far as Egypt, for he displayed strength to an extraordinary degree. Moreover, Uz·zi’ah built towers in Jerusalem by the Corner Gate and by the Valley Gate and by the Buttress, and made them strong. Further, he built towers in the wilderness, and hewed out many cisterns (for there was a great deal of livestock that became his), and also in the She·phe’lah and on the tableland. There were farmers and vinedressers in the mountains and in Car’mel, for a lover of agriculture he proved to be.

Moreover, Uz·zi’ah came to have a force engaging in war, those going out on military service in troops, by the number of their registration by the hand of Je·i’el the secretary and Ma·a·sei’ah the officer under the control of Han·a·ni’ah of the king’s princes. The entire number of the heads of the paternal houses, of the valiant, mighty men, was two thousand six hundred. And under their control the army forces were three hundred and seven thousand five hundred men engaging in war with the power of a military force to help the king against the enemy. And Uz·zi’ah continued to prepare for them, for the entire army, shields and lances and helmets and coats of mail and bows and slingstones. Further, he made in Jerusalem engines of war, the invention of engineers, that they might come to be upon the towers and upon the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. Consequently his fame went out to a great distance, for he was helped wonderfully until he was strong.

However, as soon as he was strong, his heart became haughty even to the point of causing ruin, so that he acted unfaithfully against Jehovah his God and came into the temple of Jehovah to burn incense upon the altar of incense. Immediately Az·a·ri’ah the priest and with him priests of Jehovah, eighty valiant men, came in after him. Then they stood up against Uz·zi’ah the king and said to him: “It is not your business, O Uz·zi’ah, to burn incense to Jehovah, but it is the business of the priests the sons of Aaron, the ones sanctified, to burn incense. Go out from the sanctuary; for you have acted unfaithfully, and it is not for any glory to you on the part of Jehovah God.”

But Uz·zi’ah became enraged while in his hand there was a censer for burning incense, and, during his rage against the priests, leprosy itself flashed up in his forehead before the priests in the house of Jehovah beside the altar of incense. When Az·a·ri’ah the chief priest and all the priests turned toward him, why, there he was stricken with leprosy in his forehead! So they excitedly began to remove him from there, and he himself also hastened to go out, because Jehovah had smitten him.

And Uz·zi’ah the king continued to be a leper until the day of his death, and he kept dwelling in a house exempt from duties, as a leper; for he had been severed from the house of Jehovah, while Jo’tham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

And the rest of the affairs of Uz·zi’ah, the first and the last, Isaiah the son of A’moz the prophet has written. Finally Uz·zi’ah lay down with his forefathers; and so they buried him with his forefathers, [but] in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said: “He is a leper.” And Jo’tham his son began to reign in place of him.

-2 Chronicles 24-26, NWT

Uzziah: Uncovering a King of Judah

#Jehovah #God #Chronicles #Israel #Jerusalem #Judah #Isaiah #Zechariah #Jehoash #Jehoahaz #Amaziah #Uzziah #Bible #Scripture #History

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dfroza · 4 years ago

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to be healed of inner torment

and of the chains of the enemy who formed a rebellion against our Creator, the One who made us free to choose to be in Love, or not. to walk in Light and its eternal truth or to reject it. this is a True story seen documented in Today’s reading of the 5th chapter in the book of Mark in the significance of the Scriptures of the Bible which holds God’s new covenant of grace being offered to us, to all who “believe...”

and to conserve spiritual truth is something we have been entrusted as caretakers of earth to do.

[Mark 5]

They traveled across the sea to the land of Gerasa in Galilee. When Jesus came ashore there, He was immediately met by a man who was tortured by an evil spirit. This man lived in the cemeteries, and no one could control him—not even those who tried to tie him up or chain him. He had often been bound in chains, but his strength was so great that he could break the chains and tear the irons loose from his feet and hands. No one and nothing could subdue him. Day and night, he lurked among the tombs or ran mad in the hills, and the darkness made him scream or cut himself with sharp-edged stones. When this man saw Jesus coming in the distance, he ran to Him and fell to his knees in front of Him. Jesus started commanding the unclean spirit.

Jesus: Come out of that man, you wicked spirit!

Unclean Spirit (shouting): What’s this all about, Jesus, Son of the Most High? In the name of God, I beg You—don’t torture me!

Jesus: What is your name?

Unclean Spirit: They call me “Legion,” for there are thousands of us in this body.

And then Legion begged Jesus again to leave them alone, not to send them out of the country.

Since the Gerasenes were not Jews (who considered pigs to be unclean), there happened to be a large herd of swine, some 2,000 of them, feeding on the hill nearby.

Unclean Spirit (begging): Send us into those pigs if You have to, so that we may enter into them.

Jesus granted the request. The darkness swept up out of the man and into the herd of pigs. And then they thundered down the hill into the water; and there they drowned, all 2,000 of them.

The swineherds ran away, telling everybody they met what had happened. Eventually a crowd of people came to see for themselves. When they reached Jesus, they found the man Legion had afflicted sitting quietly, sane and fully clothed; when they saw this, they were overwhelmed with fear and wonder.

Those who had witnessed everything told the others what had happened: how Jesus had healed the man, how the pigs had rushed into the sea, and how they had destroyed themselves. When they had heard the whole story, the Gerasenes turned to Jesus and begged Him to go away.

When Jesus climbed back into the boat, the cured demoniac asked if he could come and be with Him, but Jesus said no.

Jesus: Stay here; I want you to go back home to your own people and let them see what the Lord has done—how He has had mercy on you.

So the man went away and began telling this news in the Ten Cities region; wherever he went, people were amazed by what he told them.

After Jesus returned across the sea, a large crowd quickly found Him, so He stayed by the sea. One of the leaders of the synagogue—a man named Jairus—came and fell at Jesus’ feet, begging Him to heal his daughter.

Jairus: My daughter is dying, and she’s only 12 years old. Please come to my house. Just place Your hands on her. I know that if You do, she will live.

Jesus began traveling with Jairus toward his home.

In the crowd pressing around Jesus, there was a woman who had suffered continuous bleeding for 12 years, bleeding that made her ritually unclean and an outcast according to the purity laws. She had suffered greatly; and although she spent all her money on her medical care, she had only gotten worse. She had heard of this Miracle-Man, Jesus, so she snuck up behind Him in the crowd and reached out her hand to touch His cloak.

Woman (to herself): Even if all I touch are His clothes, I know I will be healed.

As soon as her fingers brushed His cloak, the bleeding stopped. She could feel that she was whole again.

Lots of people were pressed against Jesus at that moment, but He immediately felt her touch; He felt healing power flow out of Him.

He stopped. Everyone stopped. He looked around.

Jesus: Who just touched My robe?

His disciples broke the uneasy silence.

Disciples: Jesus, the crowd is so thick that everyone is touching You. Why do You ask, “Who touched Me?”

But Jesus waited. His gaze swept across the crowd to see who had done it. At last, the woman—knowing He was talking about her—pushed forward and dropped to her knees. She was shaking with fear and amazement.

Woman: I touched You.

Then she told Him the reason why. Jesus listened to her story.

Jesus: Daughter, you are well because you dared to believe. Go in peace, and stay well.

While He was speaking, some members of Jairus’s household pushed through the crowd.

Jairus’s Servants (to Jairus): Your daughter is dead. There’s no need to drag the Teacher any farther.

Jesus overheard their words. Then He turned to look at Jairus.

Jesus: It’s all right. Don’t be afraid; just believe.

Jesus asked everyone but Peter, James, and John (James’s brother) to remain outside when they reached Jairus’s home. Inside the synagogue leader’s house, the mourning had already begun; the weeping and wailing carried out into the street.

Jesus and His three disciples went inside.

Jesus: Why are you making all this sorrowful noise? The child isn’t dead. She’s just sleeping.

The mourners laughed a horrible, bitter laugh and went back to their wailing. Jesus cleared the house so that only His three disciples, Jairus, and Jairus’s wife were left inside with Him. They all went to where the child lay. Then He took the child’s hand.

Jesus: Little girl, it’s time to wake up.

Immediately the 12-year-old girl opened her eyes, arose, and began to walk. Her parents could not believe their eyes.

Jesus (to the parents): Don’t tell anybody what you’ve just seen. Why don’t you give her something to eat? I know she is hungry.

The Book of Mark, Chapter 5 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is Deuteronomy 20 with Moses giving instructions for war against the nations who were practicing in idolatry in the land of Israel that was being promised by God for the Jews to possess. war is a harsh and brutal thing. and so is death. but death absent the True illumination of the Son who is known by the Spirit is truly a separation that nobody would wish for in the eternal. it is the black hole where no Light exists. it is a separation from God and from Love who made the heavens and the universal garden of earth. idolatry is the worship of other false gods and the worship of things in this world as a replacement for the True God as King of the heart which was designed for humility as a child of our heavenly Father.

[Deuteronomy 20]

Moses: This is how you should act during wartime: When you go to battle against your enemies, if you see their army is larger than yours and they have horses and chariots, don’t be afraid of them! The Eternal your God is with you—the same God who defeated Pharaoh and brought you out of Egypt. As you are approaching the battlefield, your priest will come over to you and address you: “Listen, Israel! Today you’re going to fight a battle against your enemies. Don’t be intimidated by them! Don’t be afraid! Don’t run away! Don’t let them terrify you! The Eternal, your True God, has come out here with you, and He’ll fight for you against your enemies and save you.” Then the officials will say to the people who are eligible for a deferment, “Has anyone just built a new house but hasn’t begun to use it yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would dedicate it. Has anyone planted a vineyard but hasn’t enjoyed its fruit yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would be the first to enjoy its fruit. Has anyone become engaged to a woman but hasn’t consummated the marriage? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would take her.” They’ll continue, “Is anyone here afraid or intimidated? You can go back home too! We don’t want you to make everyone else as scared as you are!” When the officials have finished speaking to the troops, they’ll appoint commanders to lead each section of the army.

When you first approach a city you’re going to fight against, shout out, “Peace!” If they shout back, “Peace!” and open their gates to you, then you must let them surrender. Make everyone in the city your slaves, and put them to work for you. But if the city doesn’t surrender, if it resists you instead, then lay siege to it. When the Eternal your God enables you to capture the city, kill all the men who are left in it with your swords. But you can take the women, children, livestock, all the other goods in the city, and all of its spoils as your plunder for your use. The Eternal your God has given you these spoils from your enemies.

This is what you’re to do with cities that are a great distance from you that don’t belong to the nations living here. But when you conquer one of the cities the Eternal, your True God, is giving you to live in and pass on to your children, don’t spare anything that breathes! If it’s a city that belongs to the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, or the Jebusites, then completely destroy the inhabitants as He has commanded you. If you don’t, they’ll teach you to do all the horrible things they do for their gods, and you’ll sin against Him.

When you’re fighting against a city, and it hasn’t fallen to you even after a long siege, don’t chop down all the trees around it. You can eat the fruit and nuts they produce, so don’t cut them down. Are these trees humans who are resisting your siege? Of course not! Only cut down the trees you know don’t produce any food. You can use them to build siege machines against the city you’re fighting with until it falls.

The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 20 (The Voice)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, july 18 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s daily email from the ICR (Institute for Creation Research)

July 18, 2020

The Pure Word

“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” (Proverbs 30:5)

When the inspired writer of Proverbs testified here that God’s Word was “pure,” he did not use the usual word for, say, moral purity or metallic purity. Instead, he asserted in effect that every word of God had been refined and purified, as it were in a spiritual furnace, so that any and all contaminants had been purged out, leaving only the pure element.

The same truth is found in the great psalm of the Scriptures (Psalm 119). “Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” (Psalm 119:140). David used the same word in another psalm, where it is translated “tried” in the sense of “tested for purity.” “As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him” (Psalm 18:30). The word for “buckler” in this verse is the same as for “shield” in our text. Thus, God equips with a perfect shield against the weapons of any foe, because “His way is perfect” and “every word” in Scripture has been made “pure” before the Spirit of God approved its use by the human writer.

This surely tells us that the human writer of Scripture (that is, Moses or David or John or whomever), with all his human proneness to mistakes or other inadequacies, was so controlled by the Holy Spirit that whatever he actually wrote had been purged of any such deficiencies. Thus, his final written text had been made perfectly “pure,” free from any defects. This control applies to “every word” so that we can legitimately refer to the Scriptures as verbally inspired and inerrant throughout.

As the apostle Paul stressed, our spiritual armor in the battle against evil is “the shield of faith” and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:16-17). HMM

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americanlibertypac · 8 years ago

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Video and Full Text of Trump Address to Congress

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJuvNMLBcQk]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and Citizens of America.

Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our Nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.

Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice –- in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present.

That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world. I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart.

A new chapter of American Greatness is now beginning.

A new national pride is sweeping across our Nation.

And a new surge of optimism is placing impossible dreams firmly within our grasp.

What we are witnessing today is the Renewal of the American Spirit.

Our allies will find that America is once again ready to lead.

All the nations of the world — friend or foe — will find that America is strong, America is proud, and America is free.

In 9 years, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding — 250 years since the day we declared our Independence.

It will be one of the great milestones in the history of the world.

But what will America look like as we reach our 250th year? What kind of country will we leave for our children?

I will not allow the mistakes of recent decades past to define the course of our future.

For too long, we’ve watched our middle class shrink as we’ve exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries.

We’ve financed and built one global project after another, but ignored the fates of our children in the inner cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit — and so many other places throughout our land.

We’ve defended the borders of other nations, while leaving our own borders wide open, for anyone to cross — and for drugs to pour in at a now unprecedented rate.

And we’ve spent trillions of dollars overseas, while our infrastructure at home has so badly crumbled.

Then, in 2016, the earth shifted beneath our feet. The rebellion started as a quiet protest, spoken by families of all colors and creeds -– families who just wanted a fair shot for their children, and a fair hearing for their concerns.

But then the quiet voices became a loud chorus — as thousands of citizens now spoke out together, from cities small and large, all across our country.

Finally, the chorus became an earthquake – and the people turned out by the tens of millions, and they were all united by one very simple, but crucial demand, that America must put its own citizens first … because only then, can we truly MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

Dying industries will come roaring back to life. Heroic veterans will get the care they so desperately need.

Our military will be given the resources its brave warriors so richly deserve.

Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our beautiful land.

Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately, stop.

And our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity.

Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people.

It’s been a little over a month since my inauguration, and I want to take this moment to update the Nation on the progress I’ve made in keeping those promises.

Since my election, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart, and many others, have announced that they will invest billions of dollars in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs.

The stock market has gained almost three trillion dollars in value since the election on November 8th, a record. We’ve saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing down the price of the fantastic new F-35 jet fighter, and will be saving billions more dollars on contracts all across our Government. We have placed a hiring freeze on non-military and non-essential Federal workers.

We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a 5 year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials –- and a lifetime ban on becoming lobbyists for a foreign government.

We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job?crushing regulations, creating a deregulation task force inside of every Government agency; imposing a new rule which mandates that for every 1 new regulation, 2 old regulations must be eliminated; and stopping a regulation that threatens the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners.

We have cleared the way for the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines — thereby creating tens of thousands of jobs — and I’ve issued a new directive that new American pipelines be made with American steel.

We have withdrawn the United States from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership.

With the help of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we have formed a Council with our neighbors in Canada to help ensure that women entrepreneurs have access to the networks, markets and capital they need to start a business and live out their financial dreams.

To protect our citizens, I have directed the Department of Justice to form a Task Force on Reducing Violent Crime.

I have further ordered the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, along with the Department of State and the Director of National Intelligence, to coordinate an aggressive strategy to dismantle the criminal cartels that have spread across our Nation.

We will stop the drugs from pouring into our country and poisoning our youth — and we will expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted.

At the same time, my Administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security. By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone. We want all Americans to succeed –- but that can’t happen in an environment of lawless chaos. We must restore integrity and the rule of law to our borders.

For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great wall along our southern border. It will be started ahead of schedule and, when finished, it will be a very effective weapon against drugs and crime.

As we speak, we are removing gang members, drug dealers and criminals that threaten our communities and prey on our citizens. Bad ones are going out as I speak tonight and as I have promised.

To any in Congress who do not believe we should enforce our laws, I would ask you this question: what would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or a loved one, because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders?

Our obligation is to serve, protect, and defend the citizens of the United States. We are also taking strong measures to protect our Nation from Radical Islamic Terrorism.

According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. We have seen the attacks at home -– from Boston to San Bernardino to the Pentagon and yes, even the World Trade Center.

We have seen the attacks in France, in Belgium, in Germany and all over the world.

It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values.

We cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America — we cannot allow our Nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.

That is why my Administration has been working on improved vetting procedures, and we will shortly take new steps to keep our Nation safe — and to keep out those who would do us harm.

As promised, I directed the Department of Defense to develop a plan to demolish and destroy ISIS — a network of lawless savages that have slaughtered Muslims and Christians, and men, women, and children of all faiths and beliefs. We will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.

I have also imposed new sanctions on entities and individuals who support Iran’s ballistic missile program, and reaffirmed our unbreakable alliance with the State of Israel.

Finally, I have kept my promise to appoint a Justice to the United States Supreme Court — from my list of 20 judges — who will defend our Constitution. I am honored to have Maureen Scalia with us in the gallery tonight. Her late, great husband, Antonin Scalia, will forever be a symbol of American justice. To fill his seat, we have chosen Judge Neil Gorsuch, a man of incredible skill, and deep devotion to the law. He was confirmed unanimously to the Court of Appeals, and I am asking the Senate to swiftly approve his nomination.

Tonight, as I outline the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited.

Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force.

Over 43 million people are now living in poverty, and over 43 million Americans are on food stamps.

More than 1 in 5 people in their prime working years are not working.

We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years.

In the last 8 years, the past Administration has put on more new debt than nearly all other Presidents combined.

We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved, and we’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion dollars.

And overseas, we have inherited a series of tragic foreign policy disasters.

Solving these, and so many other pressing problems, will require us to work past the differences of party. It will require us to tap into the American spirit that has overcome every challenge throughout our long and storied history.

But to accomplish our goals at home and abroad, we must restart the engine of the American economy — making it easier for companies to do business in the United States, and much harder for companies to leave.

Right now, American companies are taxed at one of the highest rates anywhere in the world.

My economic team is developing historic tax reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone. At the same time, we will provide massive tax relief for the middle class.

We must create a level playing field for American companies and workers.

Currently, when we ship products out of America, many other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes — but when foreign companies ship their products into America, we charge them almost nothing.

I just met with officials and workers from a great American company, Harley-Davidson. In fact, they proudly displayed five of their magnificent motorcycles, made in the USA, on the front lawn of the White House.

At our meeting, I asked them, how are you doing, how is business? They said that it’s good. I asked them further how they are doing with other countries, mainly international sales. They told me — without even complaining because they have been mistreated for so long that they have become used to it — that it is very hard to do business with other countries because they tax our goods at such a high rate. They said that in one case another country taxed their motorcycles at 100 percent.

They weren’t even asking for change. But I am.

I believe strongly in free trade but it also has to be FAIR TRADE.

The first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned that the “abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government [will] produce want and ruin among our people.”

Lincoln was right — and it is time we heeded his words. I am not going to let America and its great companies and workers, be taken advantage of anymore.

I am going to bring back millions of jobs. Protecting our workers also means reforming our system of legal immigration. The current, outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers.

Nations around the world, like Canada, Australia and many others –- have a merit-based immigration system. It is a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially. Yet, in America, we do not enforce this rule, straining the very public resources that our poorest citizens rely upon. According to the National Academy of Sciences, our current immigration system costs America’s taxpayers many billions of dollars a year.

Switching away from this current system of lower-skilled immigration, and instead adopting a merit-based system, will have many benefits: it will save countless dollars, raise workers’ wages, and help struggling families –- including immigrant families –- enter the middle class.

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation’s security, and to restore respect for our laws.

If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.

Another Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, initiated the last truly great national infrastructure program –- the building of the interstate highway system. The time has come for a new program of national rebuilding.

America has spent approximately six trillion dollars in the Middle East, all this while our infrastructure at home is crumbling. With this six trillion dollars we could have rebuilt our country –- twice. And maybe even three times if we had people who had the ability to negotiate.

To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking the Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in the infrastructure of the United States — financed through both public and private capital –- creating millions of new jobs.

This effort will be guided by two core principles: Buy American, and Hire American.

Tonight, I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better Healthcare.

Mandating every American to buy government-approved health insurance was never the right solution for America. The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance, and that is what we will do.

Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. As an example, Arizona went up 116 percent last year alone. Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky just said Obamacare is failing in his State — it is unsustainable and collapsing.

One third of counties have only one insurer on the exchanges –- leaving many Americans with no choice at all.

Remember when you were told that you could keep your doctor, and keep your plan?

We now know that all of those promises have been broken.

Obamacare is collapsing –- and we must act decisively to protect all Americans. Action is not a choice –- it is a necessity.

So I am calling on all Democrats and Republicans in the Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.

Here are the principles that should guide the Congress as we move to create a better healthcare system for all Americans:

First, we should ensure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage, and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the healthcare exchanges.

Secondly, we should help Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use of tax credits and expanded Health Savings Accounts –- but it must be the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by the Government.

Thirdly, we should give our great State Governors the resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.

Fourthly, we should implement legal reforms that protect patients and doctors from unnecessary costs that drive up the price of insurance – and work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs and bring them down immediately.

Finally, the time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across State lines –- creating a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring cost way down and provide far better care.

Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope.

Our citizens deserve this, and so much more –- so why not join forces to finally get it done? On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American people.

My administration wants to work with members in both parties to make childcare accessible and affordable, to help ensure new parents have paid family leave, to invest in women’s health, and to promote clean air and clear water, and to rebuild our military and our infrastructure.

True love for our people requires us to find common ground, to advance the common good, and to cooperate on behalf of every American child who deserves a brighter future.

An incredible young woman is with us this evening who should serve as an inspiration to us all.

Today is Rare Disease day, and joining us in the gallery is a Rare Disease Survivor, Megan Crowley. Megan was diagnosed with Pompe Disease, a rare and serious illness, when she was 15 months old. She was not expected to live past 5.

On receiving this news, Megan’s dad, John, fought with everything he had to save the life of his precious child. He founded a company to look for a cure, and helped develop the drug that saved Megan’s life. Today she is 20 years old — and a sophomore at Notre Dame.

Megan’s story is about the unbounded power of a father’s love for a daughter.

But our slow and burdensome approval process at the Food and Drug Administration keeps too many advances, like the one that saved Megan’s life, from reaching those in need.

If we slash the restraints, not just at the FDA but across our Government, then we will be blessed with far more miracles like Megan.

In fact, our children will grow up in a Nation of miracles.

But to achieve this future, we must enrich the mind –- and the souls –- of every American child.

Education is the civil rights issue of our time.

I am calling upon Members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.

Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather. As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, with the help of a tax credit scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year she will get her masters degree in social work.

We want all children to be able to break the cycle of poverty just like Denisha.

But to break the cycle of poverty, we must also break the cycle of violence.

The murder rate in 2015 experienced its largest single-year increase in nearly half a century.

In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone –- and the murder rate so far this year has been even higher.

This is not acceptable in our society.

Every American child should be able to grow up in a safe community, to attend a great school, and to have access to a high-paying job.

But to create this future, we must work with –- not against -– the men and women of law enforcement.

We must build bridges of cooperation and trust –- not drive the wedge of disunity and division.

Police and sheriffs are members of our community. They are friends and neighbors, they are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters – and they leave behind loved ones every day who worry whether or not they’ll come home safe and sound.

We must support the incredible men and women of law enforcement.

And we must support the victims of crime.

I have ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American Victims. The office is called VOICE –- Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement. We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.

Joining us in the audience tonight are four very brave Americans whose government failed them.

Their names are Jamiel Shaw, Susan Oliver, Jenna Oliver, and Jessica Davis.

Jamiel’s 17-year-old son was viciously murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member, who had just been released from prison. Jamiel Shaw Jr. was an incredible young man, with unlimited potential who was getting ready to go to college where he would have excelled as a great quarterback. But he never got the chance. His father, who is in the audience tonight, has become a good friend of mine.

Also with us are Susan Oliver and Jessica Davis. Their husbands –- Deputy Sheriff Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis –- were slain in the line of duty in California. They were pillars of their community. These brave men were viciously gunned down by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record and two prior deportations.

Sitting with Susan is her daughter, Jenna. Jenna: I want you to know that your father was a hero, and that tonight you have the love of an entire country supporting you and praying for you.

To Jamiel, Jenna, Susan and Jessica: I want you to know –- we will never stop fighting for justice. Your loved ones will never be forgotten, we will always honor their memory.

Finally, to keep America Safe we must provide the men and women of the United States military with the tools they need to prevent war and –- if they must –- to fight and to win.

I am sending the Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the Defense sequester, and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.

My budget will also increase funding for our veterans.

Our veterans have delivered for this Nation –- and now we must deliver for them.

The challenges we face as a Nation are great. But our people are even greater.

And none are greater or braver than those who fight for America in uniform.

We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of a U.S. Navy Special Operator, Senior Chief William “Ryan” Owens. Ryan died as he lived: a warrior, and a hero –- battling against terrorism and securing our Nation.

I just spoke to General Mattis, who reconfirmed that, and I quote, “Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies.” Ryan’s legacy is etched into eternity. For as the Bible teaches us, there is no greater act of love than to lay down one��s life for one’s friends. Ryan laid down his life for his friends, for his country, and for our freedom –- we will never forget him.

To those allies who wonder what kind of friend America will be, look no further than the heroes who wear our uniform.

Our foreign policy calls for a direct, robust and meaningful engagement with the world. It is American leadership based on vital security interests that we share with our allies across the globe.

We strongly support NATO, an alliance forged through the bonds of two World Wars that dethroned fascism, and a Cold War that defeated communism.

But our partners must meet their financial obligations.

And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.

We expect our partners, whether in NATO, in the Middle East, or the Pacific –- to take a direct and meaningful role in both strategic and military operations, and pay their fair share of the cost.

We will respect historic institutions, but we will also respect the sovereign rights of nations.

Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people –- and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America. But we know that America is better off, when there is less conflict — not more.

We must learn from the mistakes of the past –- we have seen the war and destruction that have raged across our world.

The only long-term solution for these humanitarian disasters is to create the conditions where displaced persons can safely return home and begin the long process of rebuilding.

America is willing to find new friends, and to forge new partnerships, where shared interests align. We want harmony and stability, not war and conflict.

We want peace, wherever peace can be found. America is friends today with former enemies. Some of our closest allies, decades ago, fought on the opposite side of these World Wars. This history should give us all faith in the possibilities for a better world.

Hopefully, the 250th year for America will see a world that is more peaceful, more just and more free.

On our 100th anniversary, in 1876, citizens from across our Nation came to Philadelphia to celebrate America’s centennial. At that celebration, the country’s builders and artists and inventors showed off their creations.

Alexander Graham Bell displayed his telephone for the first time.

Remington unveiled the first typewriter. An early attempt was made at electric light.

Thomas Edison showed an automatic telegraph and an electric pen.

Imagine the wonders our country could know in America’s 250th year.

Think of the marvels we can achieve if we simply set free the dreams of our people.

Cures to illnesses that have always plagued us are not too much to hope.

American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream.

Millions lifted from welfare to work is not too much to expect.

And streets where mothers are safe from fear — schools where children learn in peace — and jobs where Americans prosper and grow — are not too much to ask.

When we have all of this, we will have made America greater than ever before. For all Americans.

This is our vision. This is our mission.

But we can only get there together.

We are one people, with one destiny.

We all bleed the same blood.

We all salute the same flag.

And we are all made by the same God.

And when we fulfill this vision; when we celebrate our 250 years of glorious freedom, we will look back on tonight as when this new chapter of American Greatness began.

The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us.

We just need the courage to share the dreams that fill our hearts.

The bravery to express the hopes that stir our souls.

And the confidence to turn those hopes and dreams to action.

From now on, America will be empowered by our aspirations, not burdened by our fears –-

inspired by the future, not bound by the failures of the past –-

and guided by our vision, not blinded by our doubts.

I am asking all citizens to embrace this Renewal of the American Spirit. I am asking all members of Congress to join me in dreaming big, and bold and daring things for our country. And I am asking everyone watching tonight to seize this moment and —

Believe in yourselves.

Believe in your future.

And believe, once more, in America.

Thank you, God bless you, and God Bless these United States.

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dlmoodyweekly · 6 years ago

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D.L. Moody Weekly: The Compassion of Christ

I want to call your attention this evening to just one word – compassion. Some time ago I took up the concordance, and ran through the life of Christ to see what it was that moved him to compassion; for we read often in his life, while he was down here, that he was moved with compassion. I was deeply pleased in my own soul as I ran through his life, and found those passages of Scripture that tell us what moved him with compassion. In the 14th chapter of Matthew and 14th verse, we find these words: “And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion towards them, and he healed their sick.” He saw the great multitude, and he was moved with compassion, and he healed their sick. And in another place it says that he healed all that had need of it.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him what was in the hearts of the people. When I stand before an audience like this I cannot read your history; but he knew the history of each one. He could read every man’s biography; he knew the whole story. And as he stood before that vast multitude, the heart of the Son of God was moved with compassion; just as in the preceding verses we find him, when John’s disciples had come to him with their sad story, and with broken hearts. Their beloved Master had just been beheaded by the wicked king; they had just buried the headless body, and came to Jesus to tell all their sorrow to him. It was the best thing they could do. No one could sympathize with them as Jesus could; no one had the same compassion with them that Jesus had. In all our troubles, the best thing we can do is to follow in the footsteps of John’s disciples, and tell it all to him. He is a high-priest that can be touched with our infirmities.

In Mark, the 1st chapter and 41st verse, there is a story that brings out the compassion of Christ. There came to him a leper, and when he saw him his heart was moved with compassion. The poor leper was full of leprosy from head to foot. I can just imagine how the leper told his whole story to Christ; and it was the very best thing he could do. He had no friends to be interested for him; he might have had a wife and family, or a loved mother, but they could not be there to plead for him. The law forbid any one speaking to him or touching him; but undoubtedly someone had some day come out and lifted up his voice, and told him that a great prophet had arisen in Israel who could cure him of the leprosy; that he was quite sure that he could do it, because he had performed miracles equal to that, and that he could give him life if he would only ask him.

Let us bring that scene down to our own day. Suppose that anyone in this assembly here tonight should find that he was a leper, and the law required him to leave home. What a scene it must have been when that poor leper left his home, left the wife of his bosom, left his own offspring, with the thought that he never was to see them again! It was worse than death; he had to go into a living sepulcher—to vanish from home, wife, from mother, father, children, friends, and live outside the walls of the city. And while he was out there, if any man should come near him, he had to cry, “Unclean, unclean, unclean!” He had to wear a certain kind of garment, so that all men should know him. You can see him outside the walls of the city. It might happen in the course of years that someone came out and shouted at the top of his voice, and told him that his little child was dying; but he could not go to see his dying child, or comfort his wife in her affliction. There in exile he had to remain, banished from home, while his body was rotting with that terrible disease, with no loved friends to care for him, nothing to do to occupy his time. That was the condition of the poor leper; and when he heard that Jesus could cure him, he went to him and said: “Lord, if thou wilt thou canst cure me; Lord, hear my pitiful story; Lord, have mercy upon me; Lord, save me.” And Jesus was moved with compassion; and he reached out his hand and touched him. The law forbade him doing it, forbade any one touching him; but that great heart was moved, and he touched the man. And the moment he touched him the leprosy was gone; he was healed that very moment. He went home, and told his wife and family what a great blessing had come to him.

Did you ever stop to think that the leprosy of sin is a thousand times worse than that leprosy? All that it could do was to destroy the body. It might eat out the eye; it might eat off the hand; it might eat off the foot – but think of the leprosy of sin! It brought angels from heaven, from the highest heights of glory down, not only into this world, but into the very pit of hell. Satan once lifted on high hallelujahs of heaven; but sin brought him out of heaven down into darkness. Look into the home of the drunkard; look into the home of the libertine; look into the home of the harlot; look into the homes of those who are living in sin! The leprosy of sin is a thousand times worse than the leprosy of the body. But if the poor sinner, all polluted with sin, will come to Christ, and say as this leper did, that we have just read about, “Lord, thou canst have compassion on me: thou canst take away this desire for sin; if thou wilt, thou canst save me,” he will save you tonight. O sinner, you had better come to him; he is the very best friend that you have. It is Jesus that we preach here tonight, the Son of God. He has come to help you; he stands in this assembly, now. We cannot see him with the bodily eye; but we can with the eye of faith; and he will save every sinner who will come to him to-night! My dear friends, will you not come to him and ask him to have mercy and compassion upon you?

This is from Mr. Moody’s sermon The Compassion of Christ? in The Gospel Awakening

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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As Gaza Teeters on Precipice, a Hamas Leader Speaks Out

By David M. Halbfinger and Iyad Abuheweila, NY Times, May 10, 2018

GAZA CITY--With a climactic confrontation expected days from now at the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, where Palestinians have been demonstrating for weeks, Yehya Sinwar, the leader in Gaza of Hamas, the militant group that rules the territory, offered little hope for a bloodless encounter.

“What’s the problem with hundreds of thousands of people parading through a fence that’s not a border?” he said Thursday. “What’s the problem with an influx like that?”

Mr. Sinwar offered lip service to nonviolence, saying he hoped that the presence of international journalists would constrain Israeli soldiers from massacring people who crossed the fence. But he demurred when asked if he would urge protesters to refrain from trying to cross the fence, as hundreds of others have tried with often fatal results. Since the demonstration began on March 30, 47 people have been killed and nearly 7,000 wounded.

A day earlier, however, speaking to hundreds of young Gazans, Mr. Sinwar was far less restrained in his language, saying, “We would rather die as martyrs than die out of oppression and humiliation,” and adding, “We are ready to die, and tens of thousands will die with us.”

The protests are expected to peak on Monday, when the United States formally moves its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and on Tuesday, the 70th anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of them fled or were expelled from their homes in what became Israel.

In what was believed to be his first news conference as the leader of Hamas in Gaza, at least with foreign journalists, the press-shy Mr. Sinwar, who took over in February 2017, seemed to vacillate in tone between openness and moderation on the one hand, and vaguely menacing defiance on the other.

The siege must end. Gaza has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since 2007, when Hamas seized power from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. The blockade strictly limits the flow of people and cargo in and out of Gaza. Under added pressure from Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s president, Gaza has suffered severe shortages of electricity and widespread layoffs that have sent its economy into a free-fall.

“It’s something Palestinians can’t put up with anymore,” Mr. Sinwar said. “It’s unacceptable that we would continue dying slowly.”

Mr. Sinwar, who was serving multiple life sentences for the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers before being released in a controversial prisoner exchange in 2011, said the siege was worse than jail.

“I lived 25 years, almost half my life, in Israeli prisons,” he said in Arabic through an interpreter. “Living in those small rooms was much easier than living the way life is now run in Gaza.” He said that it affected even his own young child: “The first words my son spoke were ‘father,’ ‘mother’ and ‘drone.’”

Protesters are peaceful. Like a hungry tiger. Hamas insists that the protests are peaceful because the participants, it says, are unarmed. “Some media are adopting the Israeli narrative,” he complained.

“But not one single bullet was shot at the Israeli forces. Not one rocket was fired.”

He did not address the homemade firebombs, grenades and even flaming kites that participants in the protests have hurled or launched at Israel, according to the Israeli military.

He ridiculed Israeli accusations that the protesters have included members of the military wing of Hamas. “What do you expect?” he asked. “Is it better that they launch rockets, or go to a peaceful march and end up being killed by armed-to-the-teeth Israeli soldiers?”

Mr. Sinwar insisted that protesters “pose no life threat to anyone, even the soldiers on the other side.”

Yet in the next breath Mr. Sinwar likened Gaza residents to a “very hungry tiger, kept in a cage, starved, whom the Israelis have been trying to humiliate. Now it’s on the loose, it’s left its cage, and no one knows where it’s heading or what it’s going to do.

At other points he compared Gaza to a time bomb likely to explode at any moment.

Hamas is open to nonviolent tactics. Mr. Sinwar was frank in acknowledging what he called the “power imbalance” between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as a changed Middle East in which the Palestinian cause has diminished in importance compared with geopolitical concerns like the spread of Iranian influence.

Given all that, he said: “We believe that if we have a way to potentially resolve the conflict without destruction, we’re O.K. with that. We want to invest in peace and love.”

Mr. Sinwar noted that he had some success with nonviolent protests in his Israeli prison, where he led hunger strikes to obtain better food and medical care and even to allow prisoners access to pens and paper.

“When we went on hunger strikes, the Israelis approached us,” he said. “Now, it’s the same thing: We Palestinians are coming out in droves, looking for compromise, so there should be negotiations.”

Hamas is not giving up its arsenal of rockets, however. “We would prefer to earn our rights by soft and peaceful means,” Mr. Sinwar said. “But we understand that if we are not given those rights, we are entitled to earn them by resistance.”

#Gaza #Hamas #Yehya Sinwar #Israel-Gaza border

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stopkingobama · 8 years ago