Editorial

A Message for Memorial Day: American Soldiers Must Stop Dying in Combat for Israel

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends – John 15:13

T oday is Memorial Day in America. Once again the annual ritual comes in honor of all the military men and women who have given up their lives for the United States of America. Americans remember what these brave soldiers (often at very-young ages) did by honoring the supreme gift they have given the nation by choosing to show greater love to others and of course to their friends who belong to the American public.

But since 1947, the United States has been the biggest donor of American military-and-economic aid amounting to tens of billions of dollars per year to the State of Israel. American policy-and-decision makers have supported—rightly or wrongly—the policies of Israel in waging wars against its neighbors and colonizing many of the disputed territories. The pro-Israeli stand of the United States has created so much rancor in the hearts of more-than a billion people who belong to the Muslim faith that some of them have resorted to violence in getting back at the number-one supporter of the State of Israel.

“Israel is the world's only predominantly Jewish state,[9] with a population of 7.5 million people, of whom 5.7 million are Jewish.[10][11] Arab citizens of Israel form the country's second-largest ethnic group, which includes Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Samaritans.” (More data can be read in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel.)

P erhaps it is time for the policy-and-decision makers of the United States to reexamine the American-Jewish and American-Muslim relations. It is time to consider changing the American policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Muslim world in the hope that a lasting peace can be brought to the birthplace of the world’s premiere Man of Peace, Jesus of Nazareth, who said and showed that no greater love could be demonstrated than by dying for one’s friends, if not for the public good.

The United States supports Israel primarily because an overwhelming majority of American people is Christian and Christians continue to heed the call of Abraham. Christians consider the exodus from slavery in Egypt, and in the rescue from Babylon – all expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures – as part of their religious heritage. In fact the Old Testament of the Bible is actually taken from the Jewish faith. But more-often than not, American leaders forget that Muslims trace also their ancestry to the house of Abraham. The wars and all the quarrels in the Middle East are Cain-and-Abel-like disputes, to use a religious simile. But they are as bloody just the same.

So, all the deaths of American military personnel – from the bombing of the United States Marine headquarters in Beirut during the presidency of Ronald Reagan to the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and anti-terrorist campaigns in Pakistan and else where in the Muslim world and even the deaths of more-than 3,000 civilians in the 9/11 tragedy in New York – can be traced mainly to the anger of the Arabs and the Muslims for the American bias for Israel. It is time to end the effectiveness of the Jewish lobby in the American corridors of power.

How to Stop the Violence in the Middle East and in the Muslim World

As a first step, it is suggested respectfully to the American policy-and-decision makers to adopt an honest-and-fair way of mediating the dispute between Israel and Palestine. American foreign policy must not be pro-Jewish 100% of the time. The United States cannot be an effective mediator if it continues to favor the State of Israel.

Perhaps American policy-and-decision makers must remember the words of Jesus Christ, who—as paraphrased—could have said, “Render to Israel the things that are Jewish, and to Palestine the things that are Muslim."

It is then respectfully suggested next to the American policy-and-decision makers to pressure Israel in agreeing to respect the original terms of the November 1947 decision of the United Nations that “voted in favor of the partition of Palestine, proposing the creation of a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a UN-administered Jerusalem [16].”

Then it is suggested finally that the United States start being fair to the Jewish and Muslim peoples by exercising fairness in dispensing American economic aid to all parties in the Middle-Eastern conflict. (The American military aid has to stop, as it is like pouring gasoline to a raging fire.)

The Wit and Wisdom of Andy Rooney

We end this editorial by quoting what Andy Rooney said last night in the “60 Minutes” program,

Remembering doesn’t do the remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don’t find some new way – some new religion maybe – that takes war out of our lives. That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.

Amen. # # #

Editor’s Note: To watch the complete message of Andy Rooney, please click on this link,

Andy Rooney Observes Memorial Day