Strange Bedfellows

Dad
May 28, 2003

—MONovember 1, 1977DFO No.634

1. THERE ARE SOME RATHER STRANGE CONTRADICTIONS IN THE SCENE OF CURRENT EVENTS RIGHT NOW: ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA MAKE VERY STRANGE BEDFELLOWS! They are sympathising with each other, though they appear to be so totally different. Their usual convictions are seemingly at complete odds with each other.

2. THE ISRAELIS USUALLY LOUDLY SYMPATHISE WITH THE BLACKS OF THE WORLD.—Although how genuine this is is a little doubtful.—But because they're a racial minority, they've always sympathised very loudly and self-righteously with the blacks as another persecuted racial minority.

3. BUT WHEN IT COMES TO HER OWN PERSONAL SECURITY, ISRAEL IS OBVIOUSLY WILLING TO SACRIFICE ALMOST ANYTHING, including her own convictions and principles on this issue. So she is strongly sympathising with South Africa in its fight against these very blacks, and has been accused of helping to arm South Africa with the atom bomb! It's not so obvious, but both their situations bear a great similarity.

4. THEY'RE BOTH COMPLETELY SURROUNDED AND OUTNUMBERED BY THEIR ENEMIES—the Jews by the Arabs and the white South Africans by the blacks. The odds against them are running a good deal the same, from 6- to 10-to-1. So both of them feel very threatened by their situation and very insecure, and they are! Both are very highly civilised Western nations with a high degree of intelligence, technocracy, industrialisation, smart management, rich resources, etc.

5. BOTH OF THEM ARE ALSO VERY WELL-ARMED WITH LARGE ARMIES and fairly well prepared to defend themselves. If they felt so threatened, both could probably virtually wipe out their enemies, because it's rumoured that they both have the atomic bomb by this time. Although they both deny it, they probably do have it! Naturally, all countries insistently and piously deny any thing they don't want you to know!—Like Somalia's constant denial she's in a war with Ethiopia!—Ha!

6. FOR SOUTH AFRICA TO WIPE OUT THE ARMED POWER OF THE ILL-EQUIPPED BLACKS would not be such a difficult problem if they have the A-bomb, except for the fact that there are so many blacks.—And for Israel to attempt to totally annihilate her enemies with A–bombs as well, they say she already has that in the works: it's already been rumoured in a Washington Post article that that's the next prospect. But I don't know what she plans to do about Saudi Arabia and Jordan and the rest of the big Arab world, Syria and Egypt's allies.

7. ISRAEL SEEMS TO THINK IF SHE WIPES OUT SYRIA AND EGYPT HER TROUBLES ARE OVER, BUT I DOUBT IT! I don't think the rest of the Arabs nor the Muslims nor the Communist world will stand for it. But there's another thing which causes the problem of Israel's situation in the midst of the Arab world and the white South Africans in the midst of a Black African world, another similarity between the two, besides their insecurity and racial minority situations:

8. BOTH OF THEM HAVE AN ALMOST TOTALLY BLIND BIGOTED PREJUDICE AGAINST THEIR ENEMIES, in which they seem to fail to recognise that their enemies have any rights whatsoever. They both have long practiced this kind of discrimination and oppression.

9. ARABS IN ISRAEL HAVE VIRTUALLY NO RIGHTS! The Israelis pretend that they're fair and give equality to the Arabs, but the Arabs are third-class citizens in Israel‚ as we found out ourselves while living there! Even the Muslim Druses of Northern Israel rank above the poor Palestinian Arabs who live in Israel.

10. INCIDENTALLY, ABOUT HALF OF THE PALESTINIAN ARABS ARE CHRISTIANS, Catholics, Orthodox, Baptists, etc., something that is hardly ever mentioned anywhere in the news of the world.

11. THE AVERAGE WESTERN PERSON JUST ASSUMES THAT ALL ARABS ARE MUSLIMS, whereas the Arabs of Lebanon and Palestine are still largely Christian.

12. SO THE [ISRAELIS] IN FIGHTING AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN ARABS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING A DOUBLE-HEADED WAR in which they are killing two birds with the same stones: Palestinians and Christians!

13. THEY'RE QUITE OBVIOUSLY DOING THEIR BEST TO WIPE OUT BOTH ARAB AND CHRISTIAN COMPETITION. As we found out when in Israel, the [Israelis] were wiping out all the New Testament names of places, so you couldn't recognise the places where Jesus had been or the events of the New Testament occurred, changing the names back to the original Hebrew.

14. THEY'RE TRYING TO ERASE THE MEMORY OF CHRIST and His disciples and the events of the New Testament completely from everything in Israel, including road signs, street signs, town names‚ places, everything!

15. THEY DON'T RECOGNISE MANY RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIANS, CHRISTIANS OR MUSLIMS, although they have literally stolen their country from them! Instead of taking the attitude, "Well, yes, we should try to do something for them, give them some rights in return for taking their country‚" the Israelis refuse to recognise the Palestinians' right to even exist!

16. THEY HAVE PUT THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE and use them for nothing but cheap exploited labour in Israel. Men of a high degree of education and intelligence‚ such as former doctors‚ lawyers, teachers, engineers, etc., have to do hard manual labour construction jobs and servile domestic slavery, etc., because the Israelis refuse to return to them the choice professional positions they once held before the Israeli occupation. And there were only two Arab students amongst the thousands of Jews in the entire University of Haifa when we were there, although many of them were scholastically and intellectually qualified to get in!

17. NOTHING IN ISRAEL IS AVAILABLE TO THE ARABS‚ ITS FORMER OWNERS, BUT THE LOWLIEST MENIAL LABOUR JOBS. Housing always goes first to the Jews and last of all, if any, to the Arabs! We found families of 8 to 11 former wealthy Christian Palestinians living in one room!—Their beautiful mansions had been confiscated by rich and powerful Israeli officials!

18. NOT UNTIL RECENTLY DID THE ISRAELIS EVEN EXTEND SOCIAL WELFARE SERVICES to the Palestinians in their occupied territories, and that was only because Israel now wants to extend its authority and its administrative power over those territories, integrating them solidly and permanently into Israel like 80 new Jewish colonies in the occupied Palestinian lands!

19. SO THE JEWS HAVE TREATED THE ARABS JUST ABOUT LIKE THE WHITES HAVE TREATED THE BLACKS in South Africa‚ enforcing on them both complete apartheid. Apartheid is a definite Jewish policy against the Arabs, as we found out when we lived there.

20. THE SCHOOLS ARE TOTALLY SEGREGATED according to religion, which means according to race as well. No Arabs attend Jewish schools and no Jews attend Arab schools.

21. IN ISRAEL THERE'S ABSOLUTELY THE Nth-DEGREE OF SEGREGATION AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE ARABS, probably even worse than the discrimination and segregation of apartheid in South Africa against the Negroes!

22. SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL ARE BOTH ALMOST TOTALLY BLIND TO THE NEEDS OF THESE PEOPLE WITHIN THEIR OWN BORDERS. Within the tiny state of Israel and the occupied territories the Arabs are in the minority. But if you count their surrounding Arab neighbours, Israel is definitely the tiny minority.

23. IN SOUTH AFRICA THE BLACKS OUTNUMBER THE WHITES BY ABOUT 6-TO-1. The ratio is as high as 25–to-1 in Rhodesia, and even more if you count all of the Southern part of Africa.

24. ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA HAVE BOTH NEARLY IGNORED THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THEIR MINORITIES OR SUBJUGATED MAJORITIES in their own countries. They have both practiced treating them as having little or no rights, no real citizenship, few privileges, very little political representation and virtually no equality. If anything, South Africa has been kinder to her Blacks than Israel has been to her Arabs!

25. THEY HAVE BOTH BECOME SO DESPERATE AND OVERREACTING REGARDING THEIR OWN SAFETY AND SECURITY that they treat the "opposing forces" with cruelty and extremely harsh measures.

26. SO BOTH THE ARABS OF ISRAEL AND THE BLACKS OF SOUTH AFRICA HAVE A LOT OF VALID COMPLAINTS about the way they're being treated. Neither nation has seen the other side's problems as they should.

27. IF BOTH SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL HAD TAKEN A LITTLE MORE TOLERANT ATTITUDE toward their subjugated peoples within their borders and given them more consideration, more tolerance, a little more acceptance, allowed a little more freedom and mixture, and been a little more lenient‚ less segregational, less discriminatory, it wouldn't have aggravated the people to the point of violence, as it has in both of those countries.

28. THE JEWS WOULD HAVE BEEN A LOT SMARTER IF THEY'D TREATED THE ARABS BETTER and really been good to them as they should have been:—Given them a higher degree of citizenship status, acceptance and jobs‚ and more economic, educational, legal and political advantages. Then the Arabs would not have been so aggravated and so exasperated and so desperate to want to get out of their situation, to the point of violence and terrorism.

29. BUT IT SEEMS INSTEAD THAT THE JEWS ARE BENT ON A PROGRAM OF TOTAL ANNIHILATION or shoving the Arabs out of Israel completely if they can, except those they can use as cheap manual labour, almost virtual slavery. The Jews are on top and the Arabs are on the bottom, the same way as it is with the Whites vs. Blacks in South Africa.

30. IF SOUTH AFRICA HAD BEEN A LITTLE MORE CONSIDERATE AND KIND TO ITS BLACKS and given them a little more tolerance and mixture and less discrimination and segregation, they probably would have been a little more satisfied and a little more contented. They wouldn't have been so easily stirred up by radicals to the point of violence and open rebellion, thus stirring up world opinion against the whites.

31. IT'S RATHER INTERESTING TO SEE THAT WORLD OPINION IS NOW ALMOST TOTALLY AGAINST BOTH NATIONS, SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL, because of their intolerance and their violent harsh treatment of their subjugated people. Both nations seem very blind and bigoted regarding their subjugated and exploited poor.

32. IT'S ALSO QUITE OBVIOUS THAT MOST JEWS DON'T LIKE TO BE WITH ARABS, and most Arabs certainly don't like to be with Jews! So I don't think they would have to have legal enforcement of segregation or strict apartheid in either country if they were a little more tolerant of each other.

33. SO THEIR WHOLE TROUBLE IS CAUSED BY A LACK OF LOVE, sympathy‚ kindness‚ tolerance and understanding for those whom they consider beneath them.—Love would be the solution to it all!

34. THOSE TWO COUNTRIES HAVE NOT USED ENOUGH LOVE with their subjugated populations. Both of them are now paying a high price for the way they have treated their exploited races.

35. THE UNITED STATES IS SUFFERING THE SAME THING NOW: They brought in Negro slaves and mistreated them. Then they "liberated" them, but they were still exploited labour-slaves!

36. FOR YEARS THE U.S. MISTREATED THE AMERICAN BLACKS and didn't sympathise with their problems and were intolerant, segregational and discriminatory. But now the slaves have turned to bite the hands of their former masters!

37. IN NEARLY EVERY MAJOR CITY IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY THE NEGROES ARE NOW IN THE MAJORITY! They're getting more political power, economic power, and more power in other ways.

38. IT SEEMS ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE, THE ALMOST TOTAL BIGOTED BLINDNESS OF BOTH ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA!—Blind to the realities of their situation and the realities of their exploited subjugated racial populations.

39. THEY BOTH SEEM UNWILLING TO SEE THAT THEIR OPPRESSED RACES HAVE ANY RIGHTS OR PROBLEMS or that anything needs to be done for them or their lot in any way. Now with almost total world opinion against both countries, they're finally being forced to give consideration to them.

40. SO WHY IS IT STRANGE TO HEAR THAT ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA GET ALONG SO WELL TOGETHER AND HELP EACH OTHER? They do have a lot in common! They've got similar problems that have similar causes because of their similar blindness to the similar needs of others who now threaten their own security.

41. THEY COULD HAVE PACIFIED THESE PEOPLES A GREAT DEAL MORE BY BEING MORE LOVING and more kind and more thoughtful. I'm sure God would have rewarded them by giving them greater security for living in peace with their neighbours instead of declaring war on them as Israel has so often done so violently, and South Africa somewhat also.

42. THEIR BIGOTED BLINDNESS TO THE NEEDS OF THEIR NEIGHBOURS IS ALMOST IDENTICAL, which shows again that if people don't love their neighbours, then they're going to have problems.

43. JESUS SAID, "LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF" and neither the Israelis nor the South Africans have treated their own neighbouring populations with much love‚ so of course they're going to have problems, and they have. So that's "The Case of the Strange Bedfellows," Israel and South Africa.

BLACK AND WHITE RIGHTS:

44. REALLY, IN SPITE OF ALL THAT‚ I HAVE A LOT OF SYMPATHY FOR THOSE SOUTH AFRICANS. The critics of South Africa talk about racism, but the Blacks are also as rascist as they can get.

45. THE BLACKS HAVE TURNED THE TABLES NOW WHERE THEY DON'T THINK THE WHITES SHOULD HAVE ANY RIGHTS at all, and all they can talk about is Black rights. If you are going to be fair you've got to be fair to both sides.

46. IF RHODESIA AND SOUTH AFRICA DO WHAT THE U.S. AND BRITAIN ARE SUGGESTING they do, it would just be like throwing down their arms and surrendering and there would be a massacre! Those vicious [guerrillas] outside will come in and wipe them out! It's happened before:

47. THAT'S WHY HAITI IS ALL BLACK NOW with hardly a white left! The Blacks rose up and massacred every Frenchman on the Island—men, women and children. And this happened in a lot of other places too.

48. THE MAU MAU REVOLUTION WAS A DIFFERENT STORY: The black Africans were massacring some of the farmers whose farms were just within the borders of Kenya, but they finally made some kind of a deal. That was north of Rhodesia, in Kenya mostly.

49. THE THING THAT SAVED THE WHITES WAS THAT THEY FINALLY DID MAKE A PEACE TREATY with the Blacks and allowed a power–sharing black majority rule, but they did it pretty peacefully and it's worked fairly well. Of course, Kenya was very British and the Blacks there were pretty civilised except for the Mau Mau[s]. Kenya was also Christian.

50. IN THE COUNTRIES WHERE THE BRITISH WERE FAITHFUL IN PREACHING THE GOSPEL and Christianising the natives they have had a fairly peaceful transition, and the whites have been able to remain in comparative security. They live apart, like in Zambia and some of those other former British colonies, but the Blacks know they need the Whites there to run the machinery , so they permit the Whites to stay there and they are allowed special privileges and stay pretty much to themselves. So they made a fairly good changeover there.

51. KENYA SEEMS TO BE GETTING ALONG PRETTY GOOD UNDER A SHARED BLACK-AND–WHITE GOVERNMENT. But it was because the Whites and the Blacks both were afraid of the Communist-armed Mau Mau, so they made a deal to make peace together to save both of their necks. That's what they need to do in Rhodesia and South Africa.

52. THE PEACEFUL BLACKS AND THE WHITES NEED TO GET IT TOGETHER TO SAVE THEMSELVES FROM THE GUERRILLAS. It's those Communists and radical Blacks that are stirring up the trouble. They need to get it together and allow peace and freedom and some equality and economic betterment of Blacks and make a deal between themselves to save themselves.

53. THOSE GUN-PACKING BLACK GUERRILLAS WHO ARE ATTACKING FROM THE OUTSIDE ARE SLAUGHTERING THE PEACEFUL INTERIOR BLACKS MORE THAN WHITES in all those countries where they're having such trouble. They go in to those Black villages on the ranches and big plantations owned by the Whites near the borders and massacre the Black workers and their families!

54. THE BLACK GUERRILLAS HATE THE PEACEFUL BLACKS as much as they do the Whites and call them "Uncle Toms" and "collaborators" and "traitors" because they work for the Whites. So the Black natives fear the cruel guerrillas more than the Whites!

55. SO THE SMARTEST THING, AND THE THING SMITH OF RHODESIA IS TRYING TO DO, IS MAKE A DEAL WITH THE CIVIL BLACKS of his own country to gradually allow voting and sharing the power, and give them more privileges and more say-so and more power like they did in Kenya and Zambia and some of the other African countries. But what the U.S. and Britain are trying to do now is say in effect, "Rhodesia, just lay down your arms and tell your army to surrender."

56. YOU SEE, THE BLACKS AND THE WHITES WHO LIVED IN KENYA AND ZAMBIA, FOR EXAMPLE, MADE A DEAL TOGETHER FOR PEACE in order to save themselves and their country, and agreed together how to run the country instead of turning it over to these [guerrillas] from the outside‚ who terrorise the Black border villages and murder the men, women and children, everybody, in horrible slaughters!

58. AND YET THE U.S. AND BRITAIN AND EVEN THE O.A.U.‚ Organisation for African Unity, have in their self-righteous, holier-than-thou‚ hypocritical pride of sympathising with the Blacks, all come out in favour of the National Patriotic Front guerrillas of Nkomo and Mugabe.

59. BUT THE U.S. AND BRITAIN HAVE GONE SO [FAR] ABOUT BLACK RIGHTS and carried their self-righteous black-sympathy kick so far that now they've got their foot in this Communist trap and can't get it out! The U.S. of course is doing it under pressure from the many Blacks they've got in their major cities [who are] pushing Black rights toward Black supremacy vs. White rights.

60. BUT WHAT THEY OUGHT TO DO INSTEAD IS WHAT SMITH AND VORSTER ARE TRYING TO DO NOW: Sympathise with the poor peaceful Blacks who live within their countries, the native Black Rhodesians‚ and South Africans who are the ones who really ought to have the say‚ not these other foreigners and criminals who are attacking from the outside, who'll rob, grab the country, destroy it and pillage it and grab the wealth, like some of them have done. With world opinion backing them they have taken over with force and violence, like they've done in other ex-colonies such as the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, etc.

61. THOSE COUNTRIES WHERE THEY DIDN'T MAKE A COMPROMISING PEACEFUL TRANSITION ARE IN A MESS! They slaughtered the Whites and ran most of them out, and now they are left to run the country themselves without the know–how or the technicians to run the machinery nor the plantations, so they are bankrupt and in a horrible mess.

62. I MUST SAY THE BRITISH DID A BETTER JOB OF PEACEFULLY TURNING OVER THEIR COLONIES to the Blacks, and in those countries they are doing fairly well and many Whites are still living at peace with their Black neighbours. The Belgian Congo was another case where the Whites left too soon, like Angola, and it resulted in a major civil war and nearly wiped out some of the major tribes.

63. SO A LITTLE LOVE and understanding and tolerance and sharing could go a long ways in solving all these problems! As Jesus said‚

64. TO "LOVE GOD ... AND THY NEIGHBOUR" WOULD SOLVE ALL THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS! (Mt.22:37,39.)—Do you? Love would solve your problems too! Write today for more of our Letters on how to love and be happy! God bless you with His Love!