This blog was penned by Tekoa Manning and Merri Trifiro:
In every Nation and amongst every people group on the Earth, our Human capacity and penchant for hatred and violence has flourished and is flourishing still. It happens among the Beast of us! And no, that’s not a typo.
How goes the Empire?
If those holding the strings of power want something from another land or people, they deem them “Other” and ” Enemy,” whether real or perceived. Then, push the narrative until the minds and hearts have made it so.
Dehumanize them so it will be easier to see “others” as things, belongings with a worth lower than animals.
Throughout human history, people have engaged in horrific acts against one another. This includes selling others into slavery, forcing displacement, and throwing individuals from their homes, families, and lands. Communities have been victimized by mass killings, and even genocide has occurred.
“Humanity trashing Humanity” is nothing new; it is as old as the dirt from which Man was formed, but Life is in the blood. Once blood has been shed, it opens a floodgate of carnage. There has been continual bloodshed through every generation and every epoch of Human existence since Cain slew Abel.
And it continues, even as I type.
In the world of Empire Builders, the Way of Love remains elusive. Empire after Empire has risen and fallen. And will again. On continents near and far, Asians and Europeans were conquering lands and peoples while simultaneously warring with each other.
Empire building has been and is still the way of the world. This Nation was built on the backs and blood and sacred graves of its First Nations. All of this, very often, In the name of Christianity. The tactics are universally, the same. It’s the classic story of the life of a LIE. “If you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will believe it.” The saying makes it so.”
Our own nation has perpetuated the pattern of the Empire Builders. People seeking wealth, trade, and resources for their Sovereign Crown, or some seeking a fresh start, religious liberty, and greater opportunity, sailed to our shores from Spain, Portugal, Holland, England, and France, among others.
And those already here, among the First Nations, were seen by Europeans as “fearful savages” peoples to be made ” civilized.” How have ” we civilized”? By subjugation of peoples and assumption of their lands and their resources until complete control was wrested from them. Those who dared resist were killed or exiled.
Again, all I hear in mind and Spirit upon the advance of Empires is Ezekiel 38:13, ” “Have you come to take a spoil?”
Let’s skip ahead past the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.
In the 1950s and 1960s, and some areas extending into the 1970s and beyond, water fountains were often segregated and inaccessible to people of color. Bathrooms, buses, restaurants, theaters, neighborhoods, and schools were also divided along racial lines. A century after the abolition of slavery, people who were considered “free” still lived in a segregated reality where they were treated as “other.”
The color of one’s skin served as a mark that dictated one’s freedom of movement; for white individuals, it granted free access, while people of color faced significant restrictions.
We were still ” othering.” Men and women, Human Beings were still being treated inhumanely ONE HUNDRED YEARS later! Some took notice of such injustices. In 1964, the British Beatles refused to play at a segregated concert at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida. The band said they would not perform in front of a segregated audience.
Ignorance. Brainwashing. Political theater.
How many white people in America dared blink an eye at such injustice?
People mostly kept silent, glad of their privilege, and just continued eating at the restaurants that had placards on the door and displayed in their windows “No Colored Allowed” and went on, accepting that it was ” just the way it is.” Anyone who stood up against those in control was marginalized, demonized, and even murdered.
Our US Military, even through the earlier days of the Vietnam War, still had separate units for whites and units for blacks, even though they all were fighting and dying for their country. We did all this as a matter of course. This Nation normalized injustice until it was just considered ” The American Way.”
We look back at history and shudder at what humans are capable of.
Why did this behavior and abhorrent treatment of others last so long in this ” Land of the Free” America?
Why did Lynchings, Murders, and open hatred continue to happen among us for so long, even after laws on the books were passed and inscribed in our Laws? Why?
Because it was still not written upon each heart. Things usually don’t change overnight; they happen gradually. In Nazi Germany, people slowly adapted to the Government imposed Agenda and assimilated into a collective mindset. It started with forced separation:
* No Jews are allowed to visit the park.
* No Jews allowed in these shops.
* Jews can only see these doctors.
* Jews are not allowed outside after dark.
* Jews need to wear a yellow star.
* Place Jews in confined, walled-in, and gated ghettos.
Before long, the people of Germany were convinced that the dirty Jews had stolen their wealth; the Jews were nothing but swine, dogs, inhumane, and a threat to their prosperity. Soon, it became customary to see yellow stars as it had become customary in America to see the signs “No colors allowed.”
It became ABNORMAL, a curiosity to see a Black man in a nice restaurant or in a bathroom with a White man.
Next, to advance the agenda, Governments enclosed ‘these people’ into confined areas and gave only some, work vouchers. Then Fear tactics and threats continued to intimidate, bursting into “other’s” homes in the middle of the night to ensure “these people” knew who was in control. Add in huge dogs and guns, and it paints a chilling picture. Oh, the horrors of it all! Oh, where is the Perfect Love that casts out our fear?
Many of the things I’ve named are being done today by the Jews, the State of Israel, carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces, to the Palestinians. The persecuted have become the persecutors. It’s a vicious cycle of fear, violence, and trauma responses.
Instilling Fear that Kills. In Pride, that Destroys.
Our lives were changed after COVID-19, and it has shifted further since October 7th, 2023. Certainly, there are atrocities committed on all fronts of this current war. Of late, many Believers have been irate and full of hateful indignation over the Bibas family, who now have a lawsuit. Biba’s Family demands that the Israeli government stop using captives’ deaths for propaganda. The Family’s lawyer sent a cease and desist letter demanding Netanyahu and other officials refrain from publishing information about the deaths of Shiri and her children Ariel and Kfir. HERE.
The reporting and other records suggest that Shiri and their two precious little boys, Ariel, four, and Kfir, 8 months, were killed, along with their captors, in an Israeli bomb strike on Nov 30, 2023, the last day of the 2023 Gaza Ceasefire. However, Israel says they have forensic evidence that shows the boys were killed by their captors “with their bare hands,” though no documentation or such evidence has been produced.
Kfir was the youngest child taken hostage. His crimson hair and huge grin pierced the hearts of all of us. The plight of their suffering spread around the world.
The loss of life and the tragedy and terror of Oct 7, 2023, was and is a real and raw, severe wound to the Israeli people and to us all, with any heart or conscience at all.
The tremendous loss of life, liberty, safety, homes, families, and lives, decades old, is an ongoing tragedy and terror that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have and are experiencing under Israeli Occupation and Military control every single day and night.
“Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed 48,348 Palestinian deaths in Israel’s war on Gaza, while 111,761 people have been wounded. The Government Media Office updated its death toll to at least 61,709, saying thousands of Palestinians missing under the rubble are presumed dead.”
I ask you, would Yeshua/ Jesus have compassion for these girls? Babies raising babies without any human necessities.
Without a mother or father…I should think you know what His response would be, and is!
How many babies and children were blown up, torn to bits, and dug out of the tons of rubble in Gaza? How many children who barely survived are missing multiple body parts, orphaned, with all their family killed? And how does it wrest our souls to imagine the horror of some of those children suffering while their limbs were being amputated without any anesthesia? Unimaginable horrors! All hospitals and medical services are demolished. While we weep for the Bibas family, should we not have tears for the Palestinian children and families? It’s a question to ask. We know, too, that they are not HAMAS.
Today, I’ve heard people state that the reason Egypt and Jordan don’t want to take in more Palestinians is because “they’re animals, and murderers who hate all Jews. Trouble makers.”…. Or, Maybe it is because they took in the most significant numbers of displaced during 1948, supposedly, which was to be a temporary situation. Occupation, by International law, is not supposed to be endless.
If you might remember, there was a ship full of Jewish people fleeing the Holocaust that none wanted or accepted and were turned away at every port.
Sadly, history repeats itself.
Sadly, we humans treat others inhumanely, judging them by their skin color, religion, by our fears, and what we’ve been taught about people groups.
All People are Beloved of God. Yet, some describe others as” ignorant, uneducated people who live in rocks and want to murder the “chosen people.”
And yet view ” the chosen people” as infallible, saints, as the righteous, Bible or Torah keeping people who are for life, liberty, and justice, while we assign all blame, saying it’s all Hamas “because they are animals and “evil Amalek?”
But what do we know about the government of Israel?
Check on the actions of its leadership, those that were part of the Zionist Project even before, leading up to 1948.
Please read about the manipulations that have been wielded against their “Best Friend” and benefactor, the United States, since Israel’s inception.
It’s impressive.
All are capable of doing evil.
Evil is, as evil thinks. And Does.
If it’s gone the way of the world, then it’s still under the reigns of empire.
All empires fall, but the kingdom rises, and its citizens are the people who look, speak, taste, act, and smell like Yeshua/ Jesus! There, is the Kingdom, that IS Come!
Palestine is not a sovereign nation and lacks a formal military or structured government. Since the creation of Hamas, which was initially set up and even funded by Israel, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza have been unable to hold elections for President. This situation has allowed President Abbas to remain preoccupied with disputes over control, enabling Israel to continue building more settlements in the West Bank. Additionally, very few residents of Gaza today were of voting age or had even been born when Hamas was elected.
Palestinians have no rights, autonomy of movement, their stolen family homes, businesses, lands, orchards, personal possessions, livelihood, or even citizenship.
What did black people who had been free for 100 years have?
In 1967, a black and white couple was arrested for getting married.
I was born in 1967. What was their Last name? “Loving.”
Wow, it could have been any other last name, but it wasn’t.
And we often don’t realize that just because the law now allows people of color to eat at any restaurant, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be treated with the same respect and dignity. Their experience, even today, often denies them the same good service or food that hasn’t been spitting upon.
It takes education, knowledge, and “ LOVING” to acquire understanding.
And I’ve heard it all concerning Palestinians today.
Othering is othering… It breeds Hatred…which breeds violence…
Where is the Image of Yeshua/”Jesus among us?
What is happening still, on our Watch?
Can I get a Witness?
How free is free?
Can we talk?
How many journalists have been killed by Israel since the war began?
“As of September/ October 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counted 116 journalists who were killed, 111 Palestinians, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and the International Federation of Journalists counted 166 Journalists and media workers who were killed( 15152 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, 9 Lebanese, and o1 Syrian.”
Statistics for Doctors, nurses, hospitals, ambulances, and medical staff are equally alarming!
But people should have left, we say. They were warned and given opportunities. Were they really? Thousands of Jews could not leave Austria or Germany because of poverty, old age, young children, inadequate paperwork, and the Great Depression—during which no one wanted to accept them. What if our president at that time had turned a blind eye and claimed there was nothing we could do because it was Hitler? What do we say now as we witness evil in our midst?
It’s all the KKK.
It’s all Hamas.
It’s us!
If we woke up to bombings, our front doors sealed shut, our dead family members under concrete, relegated to living in makeshift tents and begging for soup? While we listened to politicians discuss what to do with us? We might think differently if we were the ones who lacked basic humanitarian conditions for our crying children. No water, electricity, or even a port-a-pot? Before this current war started, there were and are Palestinians who lived under blockade and were not allowed electricity for more than an hour a day or had clean water or any “loving.”
This isn’t something that just happened in a vacuum.
Israel, the State, is not representative of ALL Israel, the people!
We who believe in Messiah now and those who are yet coming are faithful Israel. If we, who believe in the Messiah, have murderous hatred in our hearts or lust in our eyes, we have sinned and must turn in repentance! Jesus wept and weeps still.
Someone recently sent me an email, and I’m paraphrasing, but it said, “God is getting rid of “those people” so the Land will be for the Jews. Who are “those people”? Those people are the seed of Abraham; they are not Amalekites whom David destroyed, nor are they Esau or Edomites. They are Arabs and a mixed multitude of human beings who deserve human rights. None are free until all are free!
You can only be suppressed for so long before you rise up and try to defend and fight for your life.
One people’s Terrorist is another people’s Freedom Fighter.
Under International Law, those under Military Occupation have the right to resist their own destruction.
Many false stories have risen, as often do in war zones.
One claimed that an Israeli baby was found burned in an oven, which originated from Eli Beer, the president of United Hatzalah of Israel, a volunteer emergency medical services organization. A source from United Hatzalah told Haaretz the claim arose from a volunteer who thought he saw a baby and relayed it to Beer inaccurately. HERE.
Where’s an Atticus Finch?
In 1947-8, 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes at the hands of militias during the creation of the state of Israel. Yes, there had been resistance to the formation of a Jewish State, as it threatened the regional culture, lands, and way of life.
Hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were emptied of their populations and destroyed. This tragedy is known as the ‘Nakba’ by Palestinians and heralded decades of displacement, conflict, and persecution.
Oh, but it was said it was
” A land without a people for a people without a land.” We say or were told that the Land was worthless and had no vegetation. Yet, it had olive groves tended and flourishing for hundreds of years, oranges, dates, flowers, and families who were happy there, established there for centuries. It had LIFE.
Without journalists, it’s hard to see the truth and know the truth, so murdering journalists is essential if you have an agenda and need to keep control of the narrative.
Thankfully, we HAVE NOT rounded up all our Jews in America and told them they have to go live in Israel, where they belong, and forced them to leave.
“A 700km fence, which Israel is still extending, has isolated Palestinian communities inside “military zones,” and they must obtain multiple special permits any time they enter or leave their homes. In Gaza, more than 2 million Palestinians live under an Israeli blockade, which has created a humanitarian crisis. It is near-impossible for Gazans to travel abroad or into the rest of the OPT, and they are effectively segregated from the rest of the world.” HERE.
Of course, Gaza is rubble now. However, some have plans and visions of making it a new luxurious Riviera, completely devoid of Palestinians.
We read the Bible, and as good Christians, we’ve come to this modern conclusion that the Land has always been, and so must be for the Jewish people and that this is what was promised to them.
Is this all we understand about His Promises?
Did I lose you?
If you’re still here with me, Beloved, and your ears, eyes, and heart are heavy, pray about looking again and digging deeper with a fresh lens.
Do it, if not for the sake of knowledge, for His Name’s sake, if you’re following in His Footprint, set before you.
May your heart be broken for what breaks His HEART.
And may we Cry Out with the rocks, that His mercy remains upon us, who yet, and still, know not, what we do!
May His FireWater wash over us, and His Peace Keep us as we go about our Abba Father’s business of Loving mercy, Doing justly, and walking humbly before Him and among ALL.
May it be so
May it be now
Amen and Amen