“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
–Jesus
Hostility to Christianity seems to run in the DNA of Israeli Jews. We’ve seen settlers carrying out numerous “price tag” attacks against churches and monasteries, with vandals spray painting such epithets as Jesus is a monkey, Jesus is a son of a bitch, and so on.
They’ve also written Mohammed is a pig, so maybe they are equal opportunity haters, but despite the Zionist-led war against Muslims over the past 60 years, I’ve always suspected that the most intense and visceral hatred held by Jews is reserved for Christianity. And of course let’s not forget the famous words–We killed Jesus and we’ll kill you too–screamed out by a group of settlers as they attacked a Swedish solidarity activist back in 2006, or the equally catchy, “We killed Jesus and we’re proud of it,” whinnied by a drunken Israeli as shown in a video here.
Perhaps it should come as no great surprise, then, that Israel now finds itself in the business of confiscating land belonging to monasteries. The following item was reported by Haaretz in October of last year, but in case you missed it as I did (I didn’t learn of it until a friend emailed me the article yesterday), you will perhaps find it illuminating:
Israeli authorities have confiscated land belonging to the Russian Orthodox Monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene, on the Kinneret near Tiberias, for the development of a recreational area, according to the Orthodox Christian Network website.
The monastery is located close to the modern town of Migdal, formerly Magdala, where Mary Magdalene was reputedly born.
The land was acquired in 1908 by Archimandrite Leonid Sentsov, then-director of the Russian mission in the Holy Land, and a small church was built there in the 1960s. The monastery’s garden has warm springs which reputedly have therapeutic properties.
The Russian news agency Interfax reported that local residents of the area regularly destroy the property’s fence, despite a sign reading “Private Property,” in order to swim in the hot springs and have barbecues, leaving behind trash and fires.
The monks have also complained that part of the grounds have been turned into a free beach, with large crowds and loud music. Crucifix mosaics that the monks put in the monastery’s basins to prevent people from using them have been disabled and stolen, according to the report.
Wouldn’t it be nice to visit a monastery located so close to the place where Mary Magdalene was born? Can’t you just imagine walking through there and seeing the hot springs? Alas, it is no more.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
Israel also seems to be waging a war against Palestinian shepherds, which I suspect might be tied into their hatred for Christianity, for of course Jesus, after all, did pronounce himself “the Good Shepherd.”
Last month I posted an article about attacks by Israeli settlers that included the poisoning of 13 sheep.
The poisoning of the sheep took place on January 5, and was preceded, two days earlier, by an incident in which five shepherds were grazing their sheep near the West Bank village of Aqraba when they found themselves under attack by a group of settlers who fired upon them.
And that’s not, by any means, something new.
The following video was uploaded in 2010 and gives you kind of a graphic glimpse into the ongoing war between the Jews and the shepherds:
http://youtu.be/6pd4WCf-JTo
What better evidence could you ask for–that the European Khazars who have invaded and grabbed the land of Palestine are not native to this part of the world and do not belong here–than the above video? Does the settlement security officer chasing the sheep not look utterly ridiculous and thoroughly out of his element?
Now comes the latest mugging of Palestinian shepherds–an attack that took place on Friday of last week:
Two Palestinian Shepherds Arrested in South Hebron Hills
On the morning of February 6, Israeli soldiers arrested two Palestinian shepherds, one of them aged sixteen. The soldiers tried to arrest another Palestinian shepherd but villagers prevented the arrest by popular nonviolent action.
At about 10:40 a.m. four Palestinian shepherds were grazing their flocks on Khelly valley, in the South Hebron Hills area village of At-Tuwani, when the security chief of the Ma’on settlement arrived and called the Israeli army to prevent the shepherds from using land that is the object of settlement expansion. At 10:55 a.m. an Israeli Army jeep arrived in Khelly area and the soldiers started to run after the shepherds.
The shepherds, who are all young boys, were scared and began to run away. The soldiers caught one Palestinian shepherd and immobilized him on the ground.
Meanwhile Palestinians from At-Tuwani reached the soldiers and, by a nonviolent popular action, freed the shepherds. The soldiers then drove after three of the shepherds as they moved their sheep back to their village. One shepherd was able to run away while the others two were prevented from leaving by the soldiers. At around 11:30 a.m. the soldiers put them inside the army jeep and drove away. At about 8 p.m. the Palestinians were released.
This is the fifth time since the beginning of this year that Palestinian shepherds have been harassed in the Khelly area. The Israeli administration declared Khelly valley a “closed military area” in September 2013, and it is the site of frequent threats and violence by Israeli settlers and Israeli armed forces. This valley is Palestinian property where the Palestinians continue to resist with their daily work, despite of all the restrictions.
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The fifth attack against shepherds this year–and that's only in this one area of the West Bank. Perhaps the following is worth recalling in closing:
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
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