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Tag: War and Peace

Anti-Personnel Landmines: U.S. President Joe Biden Said He Wouldn’t, But He Did

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
joe biden warmonger

President Joe Biden seems hellbent on stoking the flames of war, both in Ukraine/Russia and Palestine before he leaves office. It is hard not to conclude that Biden is a warmonger — one who urges or attempts to stir up war. Instead of trying to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, Biden stokes the war by giving Ukraine increasingly sophisticated offensive weapons. U.S. armaments have slaughtered countless Russian soldiers — many of whom are conscripts. Recently, Biden permitted Ukraine to use U.S.-provided missiles in Russia. Russia’s response was to shoot a new kind of ICBM missile armed with a conventional warhead into Ukraine. These missiles could be armed with nuclear warheads.

Anti-personnel land mines are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim civilians, and especially children, for generations after wars end. These weapons cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law.

Hichem Khadhraoui, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict

In 2022, Biden released the following statement about changes in U.S. policy on anti-personnel landmines:

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing important policy changes to U.S. Anti-Personnel Landmine policy. After conducting a comprehensive policy review, the United States is joining the vast majority of countries around the world in committing to limit the use of anti-personnel landmines (APL).These changes reflect the President’s belief that these weapons have disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped, and that we need to curtail the use of APL worldwide. They also complement longstanding U.S. leadership in the clearance of landmines and other explosive remnants of war.
 
The new commitment announced today will align U.S. APL policy outside of the Korean Peninsula with the key requirements of the Ottawa Convention – the international treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of APL – which has more than 160 parties, including all of our NATO Allies. This means that the United States will:

  • Not develop, produce, or acquire APL;
  • Not export or transfer of APL, except when necessary for activities related to mine detection or removal, and for the purpose of destruction;
  • Not use APL outside of the Korean Peninsula;
  • Not assist, encourage, or induce anyone, outside of the context of the Korean Peninsula, to engage in any activity that would be prohibited by the Ottawa Convention; and
  • Undertake to destroy all APL stockpiles not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.

Additionally, the United States will undertake diligent efforts to pursue materiel and operational solutions to assist in becoming compliant with and ultimately acceding to the Ottawa Convention, while ensuring our ability to respond to contingencies and meet our alliance commitments. 

The new policy announced today represents a further step to advance the humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention, and to bring U.S. practice in closer alignment with a global humanitarian movement that has had a demonstrated positive impact in reducing civilian casualties from APL.   

Even as the United States takes this further step, the unique circumstances on the Korean Peninsula and the U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea preclude the United States from changing anti-personnel landmine policy on the Korean Peninsula at this time.  As the United States commits to continuing our diligent efforts to pursue material and operational alternatives to APL, the security of our ally the Republic of Korea will continue to be a paramount concern.

World Leader in Humanitarian Mine Action

The United States is the world’s single largest financial supporter of steps to mitigate the harmful consequences of landmines and explosive remnants of war around the world, including through land clearance and medical rehabilitation and vocational training for those injured by these weapons.  Since the United States Humanitarian Mine Action Program was established in 1993, the United States has provided over $4.2 billion in aid in over 100 countries for conventional weapons destruction programs. Through this assistance, the United States has:

  • Helped 17 countries become free from the danger of landmines;
  • Provided assistive devices and other rehabilitation services to over 250,000 people in 35 countries through the U.S. Agency for International Development-managed Leahy War Victims Fund.

This vital U.S. assistance has helped post-conflict countries consolidate peace and set the stage for reconstruction and development.  Clearance efforts and victim assistance programs return land and infrastructure to productive use and assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration into society of survivors of mine and explosive remnants of war incidents.
 
— end of statement

This statement is little more than the Biden Administration’s attempt to gaslight the American people; presenting the United States as being aligned with 160 other nations in banning anti-personnel mine use. Of course, the U.S. is NOT a signatory to the Ottawa Convention! Biden wants to tell the rest of the world what to do, but reserves the right to use anti-personnel mines.

Ukraine is a signatory of the Ottawa Convention. Explain to me, then, Biden casting aside what he said in 2022 and sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine to use in their war against Russia. Explain to me, then, Ukraine’s use of these mines in direct contravention of the Convention they signed in 2022.

Politico reports:

Human rights groups are fiercely criticizing President Joe Biden’s decision to give Ukraine anti-personnel land mines as it fights off a Russian invasion.

The decision reverses a pledge Biden made to limit the use of such land mines in 2022. It comes as Biden prepares to leave office and reflects mounting U.S. concerns over Russia’s battlefield gains in eastern Ukraine.

But although the type of land mine the Biden team is handing to Ukraine has certain safeguards, rights groups nonetheless warned that the weapons pose special and long-term dangers.

“Anti-personnel land mines are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim civilians, and especially children, for generations after wars end,” said Hichem Khadhraoui, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict advocacy group. “These weapons cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law.”

Ben Linden, a top official with Amnesty International USA, said, “It is devastating, and frankly shocking, that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books.”

The Biden administration defended the move on multiple grounds. It noted that the types of mines it is providing are “non-persistent,” meaning they become inert after a time.

“They are electrically fused and require battery power to detonate. Once the battery runs out, they will not detonate,” said a U.S. official, who was granted anonymity to candidly explain the administration’s choice.

The Biden administration in July 2023 began to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions that had been held in large numbers in U.S. military stockpiles since the end of the Cold War, but which the United States had previously been barred from sending. But it held off on sending anti-personnel land mines, such as the ones it is sending now, which can be effective in stopping massed infantry assaults that Ukraine is likely to face from thousands of North Korean troops that have arrived in the Kursk region of Russia, but can be left on the battlefield for generations, potentially long after the conflict is over.

More than 50,000 square miles of Ukraine needs to be searched for land mines and explosives, according to Ukrainian government estimates, an area larger than England.

Biden in 2022 issued a new policy to bar the U.S. use or transfer of anti-personnel mines outside of the Korean peninsula. This came after then-President Donald Trump in 2020 undid Obama-era restrictions on U.S. land mine uses.

The latest decision underscores growing unease within the Biden administration over the desperate battlefield situation as Russia makes slow and costly but incremental gains against Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine.

The land mine decision follows another Biden reversal: He recently agreed to let Ukraine use American-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia following months of pressure from Ukraine and its strongest supporters in the West.

In providing the mines, Biden said to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Hey Volod. How ya doing, buddy? Hunter says, Hi! Please don’t use these in Russia or Ukrainian civilian areas. Promise, pinky swear?” Zelenskyy replied, with fingers crossed behind his back, “I promise, Uncle Joe.”

Here’s what I know about war. Nations start with high ideals, promising to adhere to international law such as the Geneva Conventions and making appeals to just war theory. The longer wars go on and political and military leaders become more desperate for victory, international law falls by the wayside and warring nations use any and every means to win — including dropping atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, firebombing citizens in Dresden and Tokyo, and dropping napalm on helpless Vietnamese.

The United States has a long, continuous history of military intervention, violence, and bloodshed. Biden’s actions are unsurprising. He is just another president in a long line of presidents who think war begets peace. This is a delusional lie; one that warmongers use to convince themselves that they are good people.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce’s Ten Hot Takes for May 2, 2024

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
hot takes

President Joe Biden thinks giving Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel billions of dollars in direct military aid is a “good day for peace.” His statement is irrational. U.S. military aid is directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the past year, and millions of deaths since the inception of our nation. Many of these deaths were children and civilians.

Colorado coach Deion “Prime Time” Sanders is a bully. His treatment of Colorado’s football players shows he has no regard or respect for them as men.

Social Security is not broken, contrary to what Congress tells us. Congress owes the Social Security Administration the 2.7 trillion dollars it “borrowed” from the fund. Repay this first before saying the fund is insolvent.

According to Evangelical megachurch pastor and grizzled culture war general John MacArthur, there’s no such thing as mental illness, especially PTSD. Someone should sue MacArthur for not only being an asshole, but practicing medicine without a license.

President Joe Biden supports “peaceful protest.” Evidently, “peaceful” means doing what you are told or we will send in the police to arrest you. Biden is clueless when it comes to war, peace, civil disobedience, and nonviolent resistance.

Atheists, agnostics, and nones overwhelmingly support Joe Biden. Why, then, does the president and the Democratic Party pretend we don’t exist?

Kristi Noem shot and killed her fourteen-month-old puppy. She also killed a goat that she deemed unworthy of continued life. Noem is a bad person, yet she is being considered for vice president on the Republican ticket. The Republican Party lacks a moral and ethical foundation. Trump is their God, and whatever he says is law.

Evangelicals think Taylor Swift’s latest album is Satanic and anti-Christian. Good job, Taylor! Anyone that pisses off Evangelicals is good by me.

Childhood immunization should be required before students enter school. No religious exemptions, and that includes students in private religious schools.

God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah due to homosexuality. It’s in the Bible. Look it up.

Bonus: Churches should be required to run annual state and federal background checks on all clerics. staff, and volunteers. Churches that refuse to do so should lose their liability insurance coverage.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Are Pro-Palestinan College Protesters Anti-Semetic?

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
college protests texas

By Howard Winant, Used with Permission from Common Dreams

Like the Black movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, the movement for a free Palestine is global, not just a U.S. domestic movement. Central to the movement is opposition to the war on the civilian population of Gaza, rightly labeled genocidal. This combines with ongoing opposition to the slower-moving but still brutal Israeli offensive against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Yes, the destruction of Gaza was in reaction to the unprecedented and unjustifiable October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas (rightly labeled terrorist) on Israeli civilians. But there is no equivalence between these two criminal acts, at least not in quantitative terms. To equate them is to engage in ideological posturing, not credible political analysis. Indeed the parallel between the terms “genocide” and “terrorism” is a lot more intelligible.

I have been told by family members I have in Israel that “all Palestinians are terrorists” (full disclosure: I am Jewish and the child of survivors of the Shoah), but I don’t think they really believe that; they are expressing their rage rather than thinking deeply. I’m sure some Palestinians would say that Zionism equals genocide, but I don’t think they really believe that either. They are expressing their rage rather than thinking deeply.

The student-led movement for a free Palestine is not antisemitic. Thousands of Jewish students have joined it. Hundreds of rabbis and cantors too, as well as leaders of Jewish organizations and prominent Jews across U.S. society and beyond. Despite fervent attempts to stigmatize anti-Zionism as anti-Jewish, despite strident efforts on Israel’s part to merge its national identity with Judaism itself, or indeed with Jewish culture and ethnicity, despite the wildly inappropriate calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the U.S. to crack down on student protest, Israel does not represent all Jewish people or types of Jewishness. So the movement for a free Palestine is not a movement to destroy Israel and expel Jews. Everybody knows that the Israeli Jewish population is not going anywhere, any more than the Palestinians are. The phrase “from the river to the sea” is frequently used both by both Palestinians and Israelis. The movement for a free Palestine and the Israeli peace movement (small but important) should demand that that language be rearticulated so that it applies to both peoples.

Efforts to repress the student movement for a free Palestine will never succeed. It is too big and too broad. It is part of a worldwide struggle for justice. It is a working-class and poor people’s movement. It is an anti-racist movement and a feminist movement. It is an anti-colonialist movement, connected to the long struggle against European empires and the U.S. empire. It closely resembles the movements against South African apartheid and the Black Lives Matter movement, among many others.

It is not an accident that attacks on the movement have concentrated on repressing student voices. As they have so many times before, students have shown that they are our leaders in struggles for freedom, equality, and democracy. As has been true so many times before, opposition to the movement is concentrated among the wealthy and the right wing. It is wealthy donors who play the most significant role in opposing freedom for Palestinians, pressuring universities to prohibit pro-Palestinian speech and seeking to curtail nonviolent student protests. It is right-wing politicians who have become the new “snowflakes,” madly canceling students and faculty for the “antisemitism” of criticizing Israel. Not just the students, but the university itself is their frequent target.

Notably, universities were already under sustained attack before October 7, indeed long before that awful day. Universities are one of the most central institutions in society. They have not yet effectively been brought under the control of the wealthy, of anti-democratic governments and political parties, of racist and sexist power structures, and of repressive religiously based groups. This is because universities are institutions where knowledge and culture are produced, where democratic debate happens, where the wisdom of the past is preserved and studied, and where youth are able to develop their ideas and skills. Even though attacking universities is attacking their own children and destroying the futures of their own country, U.S. holders of wealth and power are willing to carry out those attacks, because they feel threatened by their own children’s views of the world. They fear the future they themselves are creating: one of permanent warfare, global heating and ecocide, and planetary apartheid. They hate being reminded, especially by their own kids, of their hypocrisy and violence.

The movement for freedom in Palestine shows us what a different future looks like. The movement demands university divestment from the Israeli warfare state and from Israeli apartheid. It calls out the oligarchs who threaten their own type of divestment, threatening to withdraw their funding from Penn, or Harvard, or the University of California, my own professional home. Let them go! Let them support Bob Jones University or Bari Weiss’ ridiculous University of Austin. Let them subsidize notorious political hacks like Christopher Rufo and political poseurs like Rep. Elise Stefanik (D-N.Y.). By and large rich donors’ funding is based on a hunger for prestige, not on any commitment to education. They seek tax write-offs. They subsidize their businesses through their donations. They hardly care about poor or working-class students, and even less about the humanities, arts, and social sciences, which are the fields where most undergraduate students major, and where the future of civilizational knowledge resides. Higher education is a public trust; it cannot be entrusted to the rich. As elsewhere in the world, it should be financed by the public, not greedy and blind billionaires.

The movement for freedom in Palestine is a new kind of movement, because it is not siloed. Students supporting freedom in Palestine have learned from Palestinians. Many have noted the connections between the Black Lives Matter movement and Palestinian freedom struggles. For example, in 2014 after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Palestinians who had long experience with the repressive police tactics of the Israelis taught Black protesters how to resist militarized police repression. (Meanwhile the Anti-Defamation League ferried U.S. cops to Israel to learn torture techniques practiced upon Palestinians.)

Movements resisting U.S. ecocide, like the Oceti Sakowin water protectors in the Standing Rock reservation, as well as anti-pipeline protesters and other climate justice activists, have learned from the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank defending their land against settlers who cut down their olive groves and destroy their water wells. U.S. feminists have learned from Palestinian women, like the then 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who in 2018 slapped an Israeli soldier as he tried to enter her family’s house in the occupied West Bank town of Nabi Saleh. U.S. LGBTQ activists have repudiated Israeli “pinkwashing” to express their support for Palestinians. U.S. doctors and nurses are supporting their Palestinian counterparts, reacting in horror as Israel has destroyed every hospital and health facility in Gaza. U.S. educators are supporting Palestinian scholars and teachers as Israel has blown up every university in Gaza, and has razed schools in the West Bank. People in the U.S. who take their religion seriously, rather than using it to score political points, recognize that Israeli policies imposing mass starvation would make Jesus weep. And Rabbi Hillel, and the Prophet Mohammed, and Mohandas K. Gandhi too. What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. say about Israeli policy in Gaza?

The movement for the freedom of Palestine, led by students, has emerged at long last as the leading political current in the worldwide struggle for freedom in general. Just as the student-led Black freedom movement led the global freedom struggle in the years after World War II, joined by anti-colonial movements and the student-led anti-Vietnam War movement, the movement for the freedom of Palestine has taken its place in the struggle’s leadership today. Or course the movement has its flaws: There are unsavory allies like Hamas and Iran whose politics hardly coincide with those of the student movement; Jewish students get harassed on campus just as Muslims do; not only Islamophobia but antisemitism lives on in the U.S., notably on the Christian right where the Quran is defiled and Rev. Hagee praises Hitler as an avatar of the Rapture.

But we have to look at the big picture: Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Israel/Palestine can become a safe home for both Jews and Arabs. The student movement for the freedom of Palestine teaches us that the people of the world demand social justice everywhere, including in the Middle East. Mass murder solves nothing.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce’s Hot Takes for January 19, 2024

Bruce Gerencser 12 Comments
hot takes

The Biden Administration says the United States is not at war with the Houthis. We are bombing the hell out of them, but that’s not “war.” Sure . . .

G-Poem is not a surgical procedure, even though it is invasive, done under general anesthesia, and takes 2 hours to perform. G-Poem, which I hope to have done soon if my insurance pays for it, is considered by doctors to be a “procedure” or “intervention.” I learn something new every day.

Electric vehicles are not ready for prime time — especially in rural areas. Terrible actual battery life (especially in cold weather), high repair costs, lack of parts, and sparsity of charging stations that work make owning an EV a no-go for most rural people.

PayPal donations in 2023 dropped significantly, while Patreon supporters stayed steady. I know I don’t push asking for donations, but I wonder if I should be more aggressive in this regard.

Creon, a pancreatic enzyme replacement made from pig pancreases, is used for the treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency — a rare disease. I take nine capsules a day — three with full meals, two with smaller meals. Cost? Almost $3,000 a month. Fortunately, the drug company is paying most of the cost. How long this will last remains to be seen.

Gastroparesis, another rare disease, affects stomach/bowel motility. Food doesn’t transverse the bowel as it should. I’ve had food take 4 days to make it through my digestive system. Food will stay in my stomach for hours before emptying, leading to nausea, vomiting, pain, and a plethora of bowel problems. Gastroparesis is incurable, with few treatments available. Drugs, Botox injections, G-Poem, feeding tubes, and nerve stimulators are the only treatments available for gastroparesis.

I received some free light bulbs, night lights, and a power strip from First Energy (Toledo Edison). I wonder how much “free” is going to cost me on my electric bill.

Income tax time. Kill me now.

Winter is taking its toll on wildlife. Last night, we had three deer in our yard scrounging for food. This afternoon we had thirteen cardinals at our feeders — beautiful red birds against a white snowy landscape.

New year, new insurance company: Aetna Blue Cross, Blue Shield. My therapist is not in network. 🤬 We need universal, single-payer health insurance for all. This will not happen in my lifetime.

Bonus: New network programming is back. I’m already bored. We are rewatching Treme on Max. Now there’s an awesome show.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Are You an Antisemite if You Oppose Israel’s Apartheid Policies?

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
Palestinian children 2

“Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbors it is called an antisemite.” Wikipedia

I have no hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. Not one scintilla. I have never uttered one word that could be considered antisemitic, yet in recent weeks I have been accused of hatred for the Jewish people. Evidently, unless you blindly and without reservation support the military, political, and religious objectives of Israel, you are guilty of antisemitism.

Defenders of Israel love to use the “antisemite” label to cut off all discussion about Israel’s eight-decade-long apartheid practices. During the United States’ immoral wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, President George W. Bush famously tried to cut off all discussion and debate by saying “You are either for us or against us.” Who wants to be considered un-American during a time of war, right? This is exactly what is happening now with Israel’s war against Palestine. Either you are on Israel’s side or you are an enemy of the Jewish people.

I am against all war. As a pacifist, I see war as a failure of human imagination; an inability to solve conflicts without violence. While I grudgingly admit that self-defense is, on rare occasions necessary, few wars are prosecuted for self-defense reasons. When nation-states wage indiscriminate war, the result is always failure. There are other ways to settle conflicts, but we humans tend to take the easy way out by using violence, bloodshed, and carnage to settle our disagreements. That’s what Hamas did, and that is what Israel is currently doing.

Peace in the Middle East is possible, but until the West sees Israel as part of the problem, peace is impossible. Israel must be held accountable for their crimes (as must Hamas), and as long as they are given a pass, blood will continue to flow in the streets. Driven by Bible verses, Israel will not stop until they take ALL the land God promised to Israel in the Old Testament. There’s no room for a two-state solution, and as long as that is true, Palestinians will continue to push back against Israel’s apartheid practices.

As long as dead children keep piling up in Gaza, I will not turn a blind eye to Israel’s murderous behavior. Further, I hold the United States and President Joe Biden responsible for the war. As long as Israel has the U.S. standing with them and funding their military, they will continue to do what they are doing. Cut off the money and tell Israel that we will NOT defend them if they expand this war to Lebanon and Iran. As long as their bully big brother stands behind them in support, the bloodshed will continue and could lead to the deaths of American soldiers.

Call me an antisemite all you want, but I will continue to care about the deaths of children and other innocents far more than I care about being labeled a Jew-hater.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Genocidal War Plan Against Palestine

Bruce Gerencser 33 Comments
israel palestinian war

Over the weekend, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a stirring speech to the Israeli people about Israel’s war against Palestine. Netanyahu made it clear that the conflict is a religious war.

Common Dreams reports:

“The biblical reference to Amalek is genocidal,” noted one theologian after the prime minister invoked an ancient enemy. “The Bible commands to wipe out Amalek, including women, babies, children, and animals.”

Human rights defenders on Monday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of an “explicit call to genocide” after he delivered a televised address calling Israel’s imminent invasion of Gaza a “holy mission” and invoked an ancient mythical foe whom the God of the Hebrew Bible commanded the Israelites to exterminate.

Declaring the start of a “second stage” of Israel’s war on Gaza—which he described as a “holy mission”—Netanyahu said that “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.”

According to the Hebrew Bible, the nation of Amalek was an ancient archenemy of the Israelites whose extermination was commanded by God to Saul via the prophet Samuel.

Netanyahu believes that Israel must do to the Palestinians what the genocidal God of the Old Testament commanded Saul to do to the Amalekites:

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (I Samuel 15:3)

Is this not exactly what Israel is presently doing in Gaza? How then, does their slaughter of Palestinians not constitute genocide or war crimes?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is “Israel” Evidence for the Existence of God?

Bruce Gerencser 15 Comments
israel palestine

Guest Post by Neil Robinson

“As for evidence, you might be aware of Israel. That nation has been in the news much of late. So, without being flippant at all, I present Israel as evidence. Think about it. They are living the script written thousands of years ago. Not by chance.“

— Don, A Christian Apologist

Israel as evidence for the existence of God. I’m thinking about it as Don suggests.

Where did it all begin, this bizarre notion that one tribe in the Middle East was chosen by God to be his special people? According to the Genesis myth, it was when YHWH promised Abraham he’d be his best buddy forever and ever, so long as he mutilated his body and those of his sons in perpetuity. They would also have to keep every one of this bullying god’s 365 rules and regulations, including the petty and piffling ones. So far so good, apart from the fact it was all very one-sided, and the mutilation of course. You’d think this would’ve been a sign that things weren’t quite kosher, but no; Abraham and his descendants buy into it and almost straight away, YHWH begins to let them down.

God’s Chosen Ones soon find themselves slaves in Egypt. A second mythical character is needed – up pops Moses – to get them out of this scrape. Unfortunately, after Moses has finished chatting with YHWH, who identifies as a burning bush on the top of a mountain, the sulky deity feels slighted by something the Israelites are doing. As is his way, he has many of them slaughtered and the rest he forces to troop around the same small plot of land for 40 years. This is how best buddies treat each other!

Later, the Jews find themselves defeated by the Babylonians and are carted off into exile. This exile, which YHWH does nothing to prevent, lasts 70 years. Still, it leads to a pleasant song made famous by Boney M in 1978 so I suppose it was worth it.

For the next few hundred years, Israel fell under the rule of other nations more powerful than itself. Not to worry though, YHWH is still ‘looking after them’, particularly those who are slaughtered in the rebellions that ensue. As Robert Conner says in a recent comment on Debunking Christianity, ‘If Yahweh ever threatens to bless you and your children, just kill yourself and get it over with.’

Fast forward to the Roman occupation of Israel. YHWH, having undergone a makeover, reneges on his promise to take care of his Chosen Nation forever and ever and comes up with a different plan to save people from his own cussedness. Now, if they want to continue as his friend, they have to believe a supernatural being has returned from the dead.

Abandoned by God, as he now wants to be called, Jews who haven’t defected to the new faith see their sacred, eternal temple destroyed by the Romans in AD70. Thousands of them are massacred and the Jewish nation ceases to exist.

This sets the pattern for the next two millennia in which God’s new friends organise pogroms, massacres, and vicious persecution of Jews. This culminates in the Final Solution of the Third Reich which seeks to eliminate the Jewish people entirely. While awaiting extermination in a concentration camp, Andrew Eames scrawls on the wall of his prison: ‘If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness.’ God allows six million of his Chosen People to die at the hands of the Nazis.

Following the Second World War, Israel took possession of the area surrounding Jerusalem, then occupied by Palestinian Muslims who are themselves descended from earlier immigrants. Thousands on both sides are slaughtered in the conflict that follows. In 1948, after almost 2,000 years, Israel became a nation once again; not through any miracle of God but as a result of human endeavour and bloodshed.

Tension and further skirmishes followed, leading to the present day when Israel finds itself under attack by Hamas terrorists. Thousands of innocents – women, children, and babies – have been slaughtered without mercy. Israel is, as I write, retaliating and intends to enact further vengeance. And where is God in all this? You guessed it: nowhere to be seen.

According to some – including the naive writer at the top of this post – all of this serves as evidence of God’s existence. That Israel has persevered for so long, despite opposition, persecution and the holocaust is not, however, evidence of God, any more than the great cathedrals of the world are. It is instead testimony to the resilience, resolve, and sheer bloody-mindedness of the people themselves. Perhaps their belief in YHWH (they don’t, of course, recognise his Christian counterpart) has fuelled their persistence, as it has their territorial claims.

Jewish beliefs and history are not evidence that YHWH exists. If anything, his apparent abandonment* during their many trials and tribulations is evidence to the contrary.

*Of course a non-existent entity can’t actually abandon anything, any more than it can lend its support or favour one group of people over another.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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A Child . . . Is a Child . . . Is a Child

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
palestinian children

Children have always suffered the most from human thirst for dominance, power, and control. Governments and political leaders regret their deaths in war, but see them as necessary collateral damage in their quest for real estate. Fundamentally, the war between Israel and Palestine is about a promise the Jewish God allegedly made to a storybook character named Abraham. Thousands of years later, Israel demands the world accept as fact that God gave them all the land (and more) that currently makes up Palestine and Israel. Countless people have died and will continue to die as Isaac and Ismahel continue to fight over whom the land belongs to.

Israeli and Palestinian children bleed and die without difference. Yet, for some reason, many Americans think Palestinian children “deserve” suffering and death; that they must pay the price for the sins of others. Of course, this should not surprise us. The Old Testament is a written record of God commanding his chosen ones — Israel — to slaughter his (their) enemies. Why should we expect Israel to do anything differently today? Hamas can be brought to justice without destroying Palestine, but Israel has no interest in doing so. Much like the United States did after 9-11, Israel plans to kill anyone and everyone — including children and civilians — who stands in their way of destroying Hamas (and by extension, Palestine).

And so Israeli and Palestinian children will continue to die.

Thousands of miles away, Ukrainian and Russian children will continue to die.

Syrian children will die.

Yemeni children will die.

African children will die, both from war and starvation.

The world says it cares about children, but the actions of major world powers and militia leaders alike suggest that children are an inconvenience; their deaths are a necessary consequence of humankind’s endless fight over real estate.

Americans wept over the children killed on 9-11, yet when it comes to Afghan, Iraqi, and Palestinian children, their deaths are considered necessary consequences of the war.

As long as the blood of innocents flows in the streets, don’t tell me about the justness of your war and the greatness and rightness of your God. All I see are bloody hands.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is Hamas “Evil”?

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
evil

Evil is a word bandied about these days, used to describe people, groups, and institutions that commit violent, vile, abominable acts against innocents. The word evil is also used to describe offending political and social beliefs. In Evangelical circles, the word evil is used to describe human behaviors that run afoul of their interpretations of the Bible or standards. Thus, two people of the same sex engaging in sexual intercourse are evil. Both the person and the act are evil.

Scores of Evangelicals have emailed or messaged me to let me know that I am “evil.” Never mind the fact that I have never committed evil. My beliefs and/or behavior offend these riders of the high moral plains, so I am given the “evil” label.

Evil is used so often that the word has lost a lot of its power and meaning. There was a time when we reserved the word evil for Hitler and Stalin. Today, a person is evil just because he wrote a blog post that denied the existence of God.

Israel and Hamas are currently at war. Hamas attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 people, many of whom were innocent men, women, and children. Hamas’ wanton slaughter of innocents certainly meets the qualifications for the label “evil.” I have listened to and watched a lot of programs over the past two days where Hamas was called evil. I have yet to hear a podcast host, news anchor, or Middle East expert, say the same about Israel. Oh, I heard the voices of people who recognize Israel’s barbaric response to Hamas’ attack, but none dare utter the word “evil.” To do so would be professional suicide.

Let me be clear, Hamas is evil; its murderous actions against Israel are evil. What I refuse to ignore is the fact that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is evil too; that its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is every bit as evil as the violent, murderous actions of Hamas insurgents. The West seemingly wants to give Israel a pass on its war crimes, much like they did to the United States when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan — killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

Fundamentally, war is evil. How can it be otherwise? The goal of every war is to inflict maximum violence on your opponent, hoping that the bloodshed, carnage, and death will cause them to surrender. There’s no such thing as a “good” war. As a hypocritical pacifist, I recognize that war is inevitable; that as long as humanity is divided by race, ethnicity, economic status, resource availability, and geographical borders, men and women will kill each other, hoping to either maintain the status quo, gain power, or financially profit. That said, there’s no moral high ground when it comes to war. Calling a war “just” as Christians often do doesn’t change the fact that the machinations of war run contrary to all that is just, holy (for the religious), and good.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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The Rules of War

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
cartoon by phil hands
Cartoon by Phil Hands

U.S. President Joe Biden informed the American people that he personally contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, reminding him that Israel must play by the “rules of war” when they attack, level, and destroy Gaza.

The “rules of war?” Really? There are no rules of war. Oh, there are conventions, treaties, and agreements, but nation-states rarely abide by them. When it comes to war, there are no rules. States agree to abide by rules until they don’t.

In the present conflict between Hamas and Israel, both parties have already ignored the “rules of war” and committed horrific war crimes. It is certain that both Hamas and Israel will continue to commit war crimes in the days and months ahead. As of today, Israel turned off the electricity and water in Gaza. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are under siege. Told to flee the rage bombing of Israel, Palestinians literally have no place to go.

Let’s stop with the talk about the “rules of war” and “war crimes.” Such rules may exist on paper, filed somewhere in the bowels of government, but practically speaking, these rules are ignored with nary a thought. War crimes? Let me be clear, “war” itself is a crime against humanity. The governments of the world have spent most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries slaughtering one another. And to what end? Hostilities cease for a time, something will provoke a military response, and war returns with a vengeance, with no thought given to the rules of war or whether their actions are crimes.

To President Biden, I ask, “Israel has already committed war crimes and will continue to do so as God’s chosen people turn Gaza into a rubble-strewn parking lot. Will you commit to holding them accountable for their crimes against innocent men, women, and children?” No need to respond, I already know the answer. It’s no; it is always no. The United States has a long history of committing war crimes — both intentional and accidental. We have no moral high ground on this issue — or any other, for that matter. If President Biden wants to do something that will save lives in Palestine, how about ending U.S. military funding to Israel? Instead, the President plans to give Israel billions of dollars more in military aid. The United States is funding multiple wars across multiple fronts. According to Reuters, the U.S. is the largest arms exporter in the world — $206 billion in 2022. In 2021, that number was $138 billion. War is certainly good for business, with no thought about the war crimes men and women will commit with these weapons of mass destruction.

Rules of war? There are no rules of war, only carnage and death. There are no winners, only losers.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.