I have been busy with much to do the last two months so I did not realize that it has been so long since my last post. April, May, and June are usually my busiest months, and April/May have not disappointed. June promises to be more of the same.

From the title of this post, one can see that I am departing somewhat from the content of my typical messages. However, we who are Pro-Life respect the life and dignity of all persons in all stages of life, in all conditions, and in all circumstances, from conception to natural death. This often leads us into conflict with persons who disagree on those points and with governing authorities that enforce another view. At the same time, violent conflict in other places around the world threatens the life and dignity of large populations. We care very much about the plight of others, both at home and abroad, but there often seems to be little that we can do about circumstances in other countries.

However, in our current world, we are assaulted daily with information that is designed to change our beliefs and cause us to voice an opinion or take some action to benefit the party propagating the information. Have-truths and completely false information are flung at us out of historical and contemporary context. Deceit and corruption manipulate us. Hatred and violence destroy lives and threatens to drag us into the fray.

Over the last four years I wrote a book that I have titled “A Timeline of the Journey of Humankind.” This required much research so I could tell the story of humankind and not omit important events that have shaped the modern world. It is being printed at this time and will be available on Amazon and wherever books are sold in a few weeks.

During my research and writing, I learned much about what has shaped current events. It has become evident that the public is largely ignorant of history, that there will be no attempt to teach history in schools so that our young people will be critical thinkers, and that public figures, even if they know the facts, do not want to share them with the public.

In fairness, the information we receive today is in sound bites and videos that are designed to titillate our senses, and we have not been taught to investigate supposed facts, do our own research, and form our own opinions. For that reason, I wrote both about the good, the bad, and the ugly in history, in context, throughout the manuscript, so we can observe our successes and failures and, hopefully, find a better way forward.

What has disturbed me a great deal in recent months concerns the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East. I am frustrated with the mixing of fact and fiction, the way in which the American public is being manipulated with misinformation, and the human tragedies that are a part of armed conflicts.

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, we are asked to demonize Putin, as if he is responsible for all the evil in the whole world. Similarly, we are called to lust for the blood of Russian soldiers. Nations that could have prevented the war are now planning to prolong the violence. Yet, there is no discussion of why Russia took this action and how it should have been prevented.

In my book, I relate how NATO made an agreement with the Soviet Union that allowed Germany to rearm a military after WW2 and join NATO. There was to be no further expansion of NATO to other countries near borders with Russia. After invasion of Russia by Tartars, Mongols, French (Napoleon), and Germans (Hitler), Russia wanted (and was granted) the Eastern Block countries as a buffer zone against future invasion from the west. Ukraine provided a buffer zone along the south and protected Moscow while ensuring access to the Black Sea by the Russian navy .

Instead of abiding by that agreement, more and more countries were allowed to join NATO, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union, until a hostile force of nations armed with nuclear weapons was pointed at Russia. Ukraine also became independent, but eastern Ukraine (heavily ethnic Russians) protected Russia (Moscow) from the south.

However, Ukraine has continuously been consumed by corruption, and western Ukraine is heavily influenced by Europe. In the Donbas (eastern Ukraine) and in Crimea, the people are Russian-speaking ethnic Russians with family and friends and historical ties to Russia. Corrupt Ukrainian governments with ties to Europe have exploited these populations and bred discontent. Then, the Ukrainian government began to discuss an economical union with Europe (choosing that option over Russia/Asia in a blatantly corrupt process). Then, to threaten Russia, there was movement for Ukraine to join NATO. Europeans showed such interest in this prospect while Russia began to see its sovereignty threatened.

Whereas I must simplify the discussion and leave out details that are in my book, these decisions led to insurrection in the Donbas and civil war in 2014, with Russian invading and annexing Crimea (without a shot being fired) to secure the bases for the Russian navy there in the context of the civil war.

After years of civil war in Ukraine, and with Russia supporting eastern Ukraine, the West and Russia became more polarized. Russia began to see the need to use force to establish a buffer zone against an increasingly hostile Ukraine that was progressively aligning with Europe. Russia was not going to have a hostile NATO country on its border and was not going to give up its naval bases in Crimea.

Nevertheless, Putin advanced the prospects for a treaty between Russian and NATO in which (1) NATO would decrease its weaponry along borders with Russia, and (2) NATO would agree that Ukraine would never become a NATO member. NATO dismissed the proposition and did not agree to any further talks on these issues. In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in force.

Many people on both sides have needlessly died, suffered, and been displaced. We are asked to demonize Russia, kill Russians, and not to ask why the violence could not have been prevented. In the meantime, corrupt Ukrainian officials have made a fortune off US funds and moved abroad. Western countries seem only interested in prolonging the violence and the suffering of the Ukrainian people, which is largely the result of their own poor leadership.

In the Middle East, hatred of Jews has led to even worse carnage. Iran continues to provide money and weaponry to militants in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. They make no secret about wanting all of the Jews out of the Middle East. The militants they sponsor openly call for the murder of Jews, simply because they were born to their parents. But, why the hatred of Jews? When hatred is mindless, one just has to accept it without logical explanation.

However, we can know some factual information to provide context to the current situation. The history of the Middle East is woven through over 3000 years of conflicts that go back to when Biblical Israelites that fled from slavery in Egypt settled the area. But, we must fast-forward to WW1. The Ottoman Empire controlled vast parts of the Middle East and aligned with Germany. When the Allies defeated Germany, the Ottomans were also defeated and the British took control of what is now Israel and Jordan after being part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years.

Whereas, once again, there is not enough space here to recite information available in my book, we can only note that a movement arose among Jews in Europe to find a place where Jews could live and not be persecuted, displaced, and murdered. The following is an excerpt from an appendix in my book:

“Forced deportation of Jews dates as far back as 733 BC when
ordered by King Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) of the neo-Assyrian
Empire when he conquered the Kingdom of Israel. Other than
massacres, expulsions, and slavery after the Assyrian and Babylonian
conquests, Jews were expelled from Rome in 139 BC, AD 19, and
AD 41–53, then from lands occupied by the Roman Empire after
the Jewish-Roman and Kitos wars and following rebellion against
Byzantium in 629.

Other such expulsions were from Alexandria in 38 and 415;
from Minorca in 418; by the Visigoths in 612; by Muslims throughout
the seventh century; from Mainz in 1012; during the Crusades
(1095–1350); by Muslims in Spain in the mid-thirteenth century;
from Bavaria in 1276, 1442, and 1551; from France in 1182, 1254,
1306, 1322, 1359, and 1394 (often readmitted for a ransom/bribe);
from Vienne, France, in 1253; from Naples, Italy, in 1288, 1293,
1495, and 1510; from England in 1290; from Berne, Switzerland, in
1294 and 1392; from Hungary in 1360; from Austria in 1420; again
from Vienna in 1669; from Passau in 1478; from Ravenna in 1491;
from Spain in 1492; from Sicily in 1493; from Portugal in 1497;
from Nuremberg 1499; from Berlin in 1510; from Regensburg in
1519; from Pressburg in 1526; from Calabria, Italy, in 1554; from the
Papal States in 1569 and 1593; from Milan in 1597; from Frankfurt
in 1614; from Yemen (by Muslims) in 1679; and from (French controlled)
Haiti in 1683.

This list is by no means complete and does not address other
systemic persecutions, malign treatments, disparagement, and
discrimination over the last 2,800 years. To the shame of modern
cultures, this prejudice is persistent today in corners of society and
widely in some nations around the globe, some with deadly intent.
Ulysses S. Grant expelled Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and
Kentucky in 1862. The Russians carried out pogroms from 1880 to
the 1910s with emigration of 2.5 million Jews. The Nazis killed six
million Jews while millions more Jews suffered horribly in World
War II. The Fascists in Italy expelled Jews from Italian cities from
1943 to 1944.

In 1948, the state of Israel was established in the historical
Jewish homeland. Jews from all over the world have immigrated to
Israel with hope of being safe from persecution. Unfortunately, the
state of Israel exists under constant threat of destruction by other
countries in the region.”

On October 7, 2023, thousands of rockets were launched from Gaza at Israeli cities, and the world saw acts of pure evil as hatred of Jews included murder, rape, dismemberment, and taking of hostages, including the elderly and children as young as 9 months of age. This has led to war in Gaza with much destruction and loss of life. The organization that initiated this conflict is known as Hamas, and they have earned the designation as a terrorist group more than any other.

However, Hamas was elected by the people in Gaza over a somewhat less militant competitor group vying to govern the territory. Hamas then began to control the people of Gaza and promote hatred of Jews, requiring the glorification of murdering Jews, requiring even small children to recite slogans denigrating Jews and calling from their infancy for the killing of Jews; no more elections were allowed to change leadership.

Sponsored by Iran, Hamas developed a spider web tunnel system under Gaza of about 450 miles through which they could move men and weaponry. These tunnels connect weapons facilities and rocket launchers with mosques, schools, and hospitals so that Israel could not strike the terrorists and their weaponry without risking collateral damage of propaganda value to Hamas, even if non-combatants were not harmed. Hamas also carries out its strikes against Israel from population centers so that civilians are guaranteed to become casualties, sometimes from Hamas’s own ordnance. Likewise, Hamas has usurped fuel, food, water, and medical supplies so that non-combatants are left in desperate situations, once again to blame Israel.

Now we see anti-Semitism raising its ugly head again all over the world, even in the United States, despite our Civil Rights laws. After WW2, and the defeat of Germany with its eugenics programs and attempts to exterminate Jews, anti-Semitism dropped out of popularity. Criticism of those promoting hatred of Jews has driven them back to a position where they now begin to declare themselves not to be “anti-Semitic,” just “anti-Zionist” (despite their vitriolic attacks on all Jews everywhere just for being Jewish).

So what is a Zionist. Zionism became a movement after WW2 to establish a place where Jews could live and not be subject to discrimination, persecution, deportation, and murder. The United Nations decided to create in the former Ottoman territories occupied by Great Britain in the aftermath of WW2 the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Sparsely populated territories were divided for both a Jewish state and a Palestinian state (now called a “two-state solution”).

As the British withdrew according to the UN plan, the state of Israel was declared in the territory allocated to it, but surrounding Arab nations would not tolerate coexistence with a Jewish presence in Palestine. They also did not want an independent Palestinian state. They wanted the Jews gone. They attacked Israel from all sides with intent to kill the Jews and drive out any survivors, making the Middle East once again totally Muslim. That war and subsequent wars resulted in Israel prevailing and establishing more defensible boundaries.

So, what is Zionism? It is the movement to preserve a place where Jews can live and not be subject to discrimination, persecution, deportation, and murder…a place where they can fight back. So, simply put, when one runs from the label of anti-Semitism to that of anti-Zionism, it is a statement that a nation-state where Jews can defend themselves is not to be tolerated, that there should be no place where Jews can escape discrimination, persecution, deportation, and murder. One cannot say that such a position is ignorance; it is driven by mindless hatred that neither we nor they can understand.

As groups around the world call for a “cease-fire in Gaza,” they mean that Israel should stop its military from destroying weapons and armaments being used to attack and kill Jews (along with the militants operating these devices) and to give up on rescuing the surviving hostages. Israel should let Hamas continue its attacks against Israel and just keep the hostages. Seriously ??

It is hard to know about the suffering of non-combatants in Gaza and not be able to do anything about it. However, Hamas could end the violence at any time by declaring a ceasefire and agreeing to release the surviving hostages and the bodies they are also holding in captivity. Instead, they plan to fight until they do not have the means to continue to attack Israel. That leaves Israel with no choice, and non-combatants are caught in the middle.

Hamas reports increasing numbers of civilian casualties to promote sympathy for their own casualties. They also travel with their families and carry out their activities with their families so that their women and children get killed with them. However, the UN has now decreased substantially the estimated number of civilian casualties. They are over-reported by Hamas for propaganda purposes. Hamas wants the suffering to continue because the goal is to make it so horrible for so long that the world will turn against Israel, even thought Hamas still holds hostages. Are the hostages just to be discarded?

Well, Hitler would not do anything to limit the suffering of the German people either. Millions died while he knew the war was hopeless. Whereas there are no really good data, it is also estimated that nearly one million German POW’s and as many as nine million civilians died of starvation after WW2. Who is responsible for that? Who started the violence that brought down the wrath of the world on Germany that led to that tragedy?

The boundaries of the nations and territories in the Middle East are derived from very complex situations arising out of decades of conflicts. Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen are in shambles with violence and poverty and suffering of the people. Egypt is in poverty with limited resources despite avoiding to being drawn into violence again, and they refused to administer Gaza in the aftermath of loosing a war with Israel. Jordan prospers after refusing to be drawn into this morass of hatred and violence again, but they abandoned the West Bank territory, refusing to administer it after a failed war with Israel. Thus, these areas are a cesspool of poverty, ignorance, and violence, partially administered by an ineffective Palestinian Authority with a simmering hatred of Jews.

Now, the people of the world have become pawns to be fought over through propaganda appealing to compassion for those non-combatants that are suffering. In that statement we come full circle. We in Pro-Life respect the life and dignity of all persons, and we are called to do so even when those people are not likeable. We can do that in our prayers when it is not possible to be of material help. We can only hope and pray for an end to violence.

Unfortunately, in this messy business, where we are slammed with images and slogans and our hearts are wrenched by the suffering of the innocent, it is not possible to conclude the suffering of the people by prolonging the violence. Yet, there are calls from some leaders to reward Hamas by meeting some of their demands. By encouraging Hamas, the people of Gaza suffer longer as the violence is prolonged, since Israel will not ever stop seeking the release of the hostages. They understand very well what is at stake.

Hamas must be rendered incapable of attacking Israel again and the surviving hostages must be freed. It is baffling that the leaders of the world do not call for this every day. If a terrorist group is ever allowed to benefit from its violence and the taking of hostages, this will become a tactic to be repeated again and again.

As messy as it is, Israel must be supported in its war to eliminate those who resort to violence and the taking of hostages. They must be helped to do so as quickly as possible so the people of Gaza can receive relief. That is where Pro-Life people must take their stand. We respect the life and the dignity of the hostages also. They must be freed, and this tactic of taking hostages as a means to try to obtain a political goal must not be repeated. It only leads to more violence and the suffering of more innocent people.