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image from https://markdurie.comA view from down under
How does the violence and suffering across the Middle East look from down under, from Melbourne in particular, as we think back through the last year, see the headlines each day, and wonder what tomorrow may bring?
I have found Mark Durie’s voice helpful.
He “has a life-long passion for freedom and to see people claim their spiritual freedom and walk in it.”
His backstory equips him to write and speak as a pastor and academic.
He has written an eight part guide to understanding Hamas, addressing these questions. There is a downloadable pdf with the whole set on the first page.
What is Hamas?
Why does Hamas think it will win?
Who supports Hamas?
Who are the Palestinians?
What is the occupation?
Is antisemitism part of the problem?
What are the rules of war?
Some concluding thoughts about the future.
He writes a careful and sorrowful account of the reality that “the numerous passages in Islam’s canonical sources (the Qur’an and Sunna) that depict the Jews as a warmongering, cowardly, and treacherous lot have played a key role in the perpetuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict… 1”
He concludes with the hope that Muslims can somehow find a way to compartmentalise some of the antisemitic content in their sacred texts, so that they are “only applicable to Muhammad’s time, and not to conflate the Jews of Israel with the long-dead seventh-century Arabian Jewish tribes.2”
You can read the details. Downloadable pdf at the top of the first page.
Thank you to Mark for these excellent pieces.
Islamic Antisemitism Drives the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Middle East Forum (accessed October 4 2024)↩︎
ibid.↩︎