A Prophet's Bold Rebuke Of The Nation Of Israel

Would the message of the Hebrew prophets be any
less disturbing if they addressed nations today?

"You trample on the poor

and force them to give you grain, 

Therefore though you have built stone mansions,

you will not live in them;

though you have planted lush vineyards,

you will not drink their wine.

Seek good, not evil,

that you may live.

Then the Lord Almighty will be with you, 

just as you say he is.

Hate evil, love good;

maintain justice in the courts.

Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy

on the remnant of Joseph."

- Amos 5;11-12, 14-15 (NIV)

In our house church's Bible study yesterday Dick Dumas led us through the  book of Amos in the Bible, noting how relevant this ancient prophet's warnings are for nations today, including the modern nation of Israel.

Amos's tirades against greed, immorality, judicial corruption, extravagant lifestyles, devotion to false gods, and disregard for the poor could certainly be addressed to our own nation as well, and would likely be met with the same hostility. A native of the neighboring nation of Judah, Amos was seen as an intruder with no business crossing the border into the temple city of Bethel and indicting the people there for their wrongdoing. 

Given the nation's unfaithfulness to the terms of God's covenant, its failure to have "justice roll down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream,"Amos questioned Israel's very right to exist and predicted its certain demise unless it changed its ways. This led to Bethel's high priest, Amaziah, to warn King Jeroboam II that Amos needed to be banished to his own country and to "earn his bread and prophesy there."

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes the Hebrew prophets as "some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived:" 

"Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he (the prophet) is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and the affairs of the market place. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum... What if somewhere in ancient Palestine poor people have not been treated properly by the rich? ...Why such inordinate excitement? Why such indignation?"

Heschel then adds, "The things that horrified the prophets are daily occurrences all over the world," and writes:

"When the prophets appeared, they proclaimed that might is not supreme, that the sword is an abomination, that violence is obscene. The sword, they said, shall be destroyed.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares,

And their spears into pruning hooks;

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

Neither shall they learn war any more.

Isaiah 2:4

The prophets, questioning man's infatuation with might, insisted not only on the immorality but also on the futility and absurdity of war.[...] What is the ultimate profit of all the arms, alliances, and victories? Destruction, agony, death."

― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

Prisoner's Work Brings $850 At The Relief Sale

"Innkeeper House With Lean-to Manger" is the third creation Brubaker has donated for the annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, hand crafted from assorted material available inside the Dillwyn Correctional Center.

Here's his written description, a copy of which is shown in the photo above:

It's hard to believe another year has passed and the 2024 Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale auction date has arrived. The creation before you is my contribution to the Lord's work this year. I worked on this project over a period of five months and have put in more than 800 hours of my artistic focus in it, averaging at least six hours a day.

I began crafting nearly four years ago about the time the Covid 19 pandemic hit. The changes it brought to my life's normal routines at that time created a need for releasing my restless, unutilized energy.

Along with this purpose, over the last four years I have also discovered that while I am working on my annual project the process is a great way to share my faith and trust in the Lord as the men around me are drawn to the scene that depicts our Savior's birth, as did last year's project portraying Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the events of Easter weekend. The entire process from start to finish seems to be the most effective way, within my circumstances, to share the gospel with the men I live amongst who desperately need a Savior to transform their lives.

I must acknowledge the many sojourners who make it possible for me to have the means to express my faith in the manner that is before you. It is because of them that I have the means to create the Nativity scene that is my tithe for the year, my sacrifice of time to express my gratitude to the Lord for the gift it is to live under his banner of love, protection and provision in my circumstances.

This year's project consists of the items below, purchased or repurposed, sometimes both. The main substrate for all my creations is the thin cardboard backing that comes on the back of a legal sized paper tablet, 50 sheets of college ruled paper or sketch paper. I purchased more paper than I can use personally and gave it to others in need just so I can craft with the cardboard backs. This year I also salvaged a worn out Scrabble game (destined for the trash) with permission from a staff member and used the letter tiles on the surface of the roof. I also utilized some of the cardboard from the box and the board game, as well as the following:

    2 boxes of craft sticks, roughly 1000 in each box
    60 pink beveled erasers split into 15 stone pieces each
    10 pencils scraped, boiled and split in two for trim
    9 4-oz bottles of Elmer's Glue
    2 containers of cornstarch-based shower powder that is in the figurine plaster, along with sand and Elmers Glue
    1 bottle of Kiwi Brown shoe polish, the liquid used to stain the wood
    20 paper tablet cardboard  pads
    1 sheet of 15" x 20" 140 lb. watercolor artist's paper, the bottom footprint of the build that kept it relatively square
    Acrylic paints, mostly flat black on the bottom of the building
    3 2" length fingernail clippers that were broken by use with which to cut the sticks to length
    Grass makes up the hay bales which are tied with some heavy thread from a worn out cloth belt. This same thread was braided to make the larger animal's tails.
    1 bedroll of the donkey's saddlebag is made out of a clean but aged cloth with some paint applied to the bedroll for a colored pattern, perhaps Jewish in style.
    The stall hinges and the bottom pads on the build are faux leather from an eyeglasses protector I no longer needed.

I must thank the staff here at DWCC for the privilege of purchasing materials necessary for this experience. It is my hope that all the creations here today will honor the God we serve, the one who has given each of us unique talents and ways of expressing them.

Sincerely, B Brubaker

An Open Letter From 99 American Medical Professionals Who Served In Gaza

Just one of hundreds maimed for life.

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
United States of America

The Honorable Kamala D. Harris
Vice President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
United States of America

October 2, 2024

Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris,
     We are 99 American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Combined, we spent 254 weeks volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals and clinics throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans and reservists. We are a multi-faith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.
     The Constitution of the World Health Organization states: “The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and States.” It is in this spirit that we write to you in this open letter.
     We are among the only neutral observers who have been permitted to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7. Given our broad expertise and direct experience of working throughout Gaza we are uniquely positioned to comment on several matters of importance to our government as it decides whether to continue supporting Israel’s attack on, and siege of, the Gaza Strip. Specifically, we believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children.
     This letter collects and summarizes our own experiences and direct observations in Gaza. The letter is accompanied by a detailed appendix summarizing the publicly available information from media, humanitarian, and academic sources on key aspects of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Both this letter and the appendix are available electronically at GazaHealthcareLetters.org. This website also houses letters from Canadian and British healthcare workers to their respective governments, making many similar observations to those herein.
     This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population.
Our government must act immediately to prevent an even worse catastrophe than what has already befallen the people of Gaza and Israel. A ceasefire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law. We also believe it is the right thing to do.

I’ve never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources. Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty.

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, trauma and critical care surgeon, Veterans Affairs general surgeon

     With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child. While working in Gaza we saw widespread malnutrition in our patients and our Palestinian healthcare colleagues. Every one of us lost weight rapidly in Gaza despite having privileged access to food and having taken our own supplementary nutrient-dense food with us. We have photographic evidence of life-threatening malnutrition in our patients, especially children, that we are eager to share with you.
     Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhea. We found cases of jaundice (indicating hepatitis A infection under such conditions) in nearly every room of the hospitals in which we served, and in many of our healthcare colleagues in Gaza. An astonishingly high percentage of our surgical incisions became infected from the combination of malnutrition, impossible operating conditions, lack of basic sanitation supplies such as soap, and lack of surgical supplies and medications, including antibiotics.
     Malnutrition led to widespread spontaneous abortions, underweight newborns, and an inability of new mothers to breastfeed. This left their newborns at high risk of death given the lack of access to potable water anywhere in Gaza. Many of those infants died. In Gaza we watched malnourished mothers feed their underweight newborns infant formula made with poisonous water. We can never forget that the world abandoned these innocent women and babies.

Every day I saw babies die. They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved.

Asma Taha, pediatric nurse practitioner

We urge you to realize that epidemics are raging in Gaza. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas without running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It was and remains guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. Indeed, even the dreaded polio virus has reemerged in Gaza due to a combination of systematic destruction of the sanitation infrastructure, widespread malnutrition weakening immune systems, and young children having missed routine vaccinations for nearly an entire year. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months, especially with the onset of the winter rains in Gaza. Most of them will be young children.

Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.

Dr. Mark Perlmutter, orthopedic and hand surgeon

     Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.

     President Biden and Vice President Harris, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.

I saw so many stillbirths and maternal deaths that could have been easily prevented if the hospitals had been functioning normally.

Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, obstetrician and gynecologist

     The pregnant and breastfeeding women we treated were particularly malnourished. Those of us who worked with pregnant women regularly saw stillbirths and maternal deaths that were easily preventable in any developing country’s healthcare system. The rate of infection in C-section incisions was astonishing. Women underwent vaginal deliveries and even C-sections without anesthesia and were given nothing but Tylenol afterwards because no other pain medications were available.

     We all observed emergency departments overwhelmed by patients seeking treatment for chronic medical conditions such as renal failure, hypertension, and diabetes. Aside from trauma patients, most ICU beds were occupied by patients with type 1 diabetes who no longer had access to insulin. The lack of medication availability, the widespread loss of electricity and refrigeration, and inconsistent access to food made managing this disease impossible. Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s healthcare resources and has killed nearly one thousand Palestinian healthcare workers, more than one out of every 20 healthcare workers in Gaza. At the same time healthcare needs have increased massively from the lethal combination of military violence, malnutrition, disease, and displacement.

     The hospitals where we worked were starved of basic supplies from, surgical material to soap. They were regularly cut off from electricity and Internet access, denied clean water, and operated at four to seven times their bed capacity. Every hospital was overwhelmed beyond the breaking point by displaced persons seeking safety, by the constant stream of sick and malnourished patients seeking care, and by the huge influx of seriously wounded patients who typically arrived in mass casualty events.

     These observations and the publicly available material detailed in the appendix lead us to believe that the death toll from this conflict is many times higher than what is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health. We also believe this is probative evidence of widespread violations of American laws governing the use of American weapons abroad, and of International Humanitarian Law. We cannot forget scenes of unbearable cruelty directed at women and children that our government is a direct participant in.

     As we met our healthcare colleagues in Gaza it was clear that they were malnourished, and both physically and mentally devastated. We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world. Like virtually all people in Gaza they had lost family members and their homes. Most lived in and around their hospitals with their surviving family in unimaginable conditions. Although they continued working a grueling schedule, they had not been paid since October 7. All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of International Humanitarian Law.

     We met healthcare personnel in Gaza who worked at hospitals that had been raided and destroyed by Israel. Many of these colleagues of ours were taken by Israel during the attacks. They all told us a slightly different version of the same story: in captivity they were barely fed, continuously physically and psychologically abused, and finally dumped naked on the side of a road. Many told us they were subjected to mock executions and other forms of mistreatment and torture. Far too many of our healthcare colleagues told us they were simply waiting to die.

     The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.

     We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder.

     President Biden and Vice President Harris, any solution to this problem must begin with an immediate and permanent ceasefire. We appreciate that you are working on a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but you have overlooked an obvious fact: the United States can impose a ceasefire on the warring parties by simply stopping arms shipments to Israel, and announcing that we will participate in an international arms embargo on both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We stress what many others have repeatedly told you over the past year: American law is perfectly clear on this matter, continuing to arm Israel is illegal.

     President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you to immediately withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support from the State of Israel and to participate in an international arms embargo of Israel and all Palestinian armed groups until a permanent ceasefire is established in Gaza, including the release of all Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and until a permanent resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is negotiated between the two parties. Vice President Harris, as the likely next president of the United States, we urge you to publicly announce your support for such a policy, and to state publicly that you are duty-bound to uphold the laws of the United States even when doing so is politically inconvenient.

     President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are 99 American physicians and nurses who have witnessed crimes beyond comprehension. Crimes that we cannot believe you wish to continue supporting. Please meet with us to discuss what we saw, and why we feel American policy in the Middle East must change immediately.

In the meantime, we reiterate what we wrote in our letter of July 25, 2024:

1. The Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt must be immediately reopened, and must allow unfettered aid delivery by recognized international humanitarian organizations. Security screening of aid deliveries must be conducted by an independent international inspection regime instead of by Israeli forces. These screenings must be based on a clear, unambiguous, and published list of forbidden items, and with a clear independent international mechanism for challenging forbidden items, as verified by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory.

2. A bare minimum water allocation of 15L of potable water per person per day, the Sphere Handbook minimum in a humanitarian emergency, must be allocated to the population of Gaza, as verified by UN Water.

3. Full and unrestricted access of medical and surgical professionals and medical and surgical equipment to the Gaza Strip must be resumed. This must include items taken in healthcare professionals’ personal luggage to safeguard their proper storage, sterility, and timely delivery, as verified by the World Health Organization. Incredibly, Israel continues to block healthcare workers of Palestinian descent from working in Gaza, even American citizens. This makes a mockery of the American ideal that “all men are created equal” and degrades both our national ideals and our profession. Our work is lifesaving. Our Palestinian healthcare colleagues in Gaza are desperate for relief and protection, and they deserve both.

     We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply healing professionals who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza. Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets.

President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you: end this madness now!

Sincerely,

(signed by 99 American physicians and nurses) 

Note:  urge the Biden-Harris administration to  meet with American healthcare professionals who've seen the carnage in Gaza:

https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFuwZ5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHa5FIhpSV1OdspyMak8iduGXwHiSKYplOeWcfyTcF8n1SPMrwgccjUOVJA_aem_89m1Fl8XsktE59JI3RySNw

Would Jesus Support Netanyahu's Israel?

“Flevit super illam (“He wept over it”), was painted in 1892 by Enrique Simonet, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Many of my Christian friends see the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of God's covenant promise to bless all the nations of the world through the descendants of Abraham. Based on that premise they support any and all military actions taken to ensure its survival.

But would the Prophet, King, and Suffering Servant Jesus take a different position today than when he led a royal  procession into Jerusalem on a donkey's back nearly 2000 years ago?

It was on the eve of Passover, a celebration of the descendants of Israel's deliverance thirteen centuries earlier from Egyptian oppression, that an enthusiastic crowd welcomed Jesus into the city, believing him to be the fulfillment of their dream of having their Roman occupiers overthrown and Jerusalem restored to its former glory. King Solomon had been been greeted in a similar way as he rode a beast of burden belonging to his father David on his way to his coronation in 970 BCE. 

Sadly, in spite of Solomon's many accomplishments, like building a beautiful temple and an even more elaborate palace, this Son of David's reign ended in a divided kingdom and the eventual end of Israel's political dominance in the region.

The first century citizens of Jerusalem would have also been thinking of the Maccabean revolution just over a hundred years prior, when Israel's enemies were overthrown by force, the Jerusalem temple was rededicated and Israel was for some decades once again an independent nation. But was Jesus to be another Judas Maccabee (the Hammer), or a different kind of world ruler and redeemer altogether?

Sometime before Jesus entered Jerusalem he had sternly rebuked two of his his disciples, James and John, for wanting to order fire from heaven to destroy their Samaritan (Palestinian?) enemies (Luke 9:51-55). In line with the prophets before him, Jesus proclaimed a reign of God in which wolves lie down with lambs, swords are reshaped into plowshares, and nations no longer make war against each other. In keeping with the words of the Torah and the prophets, God's promises of land and other blessings were seen as based on God's people being faithful to their part of the covenant, which included doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. This meant being hospitable to strangers and aliens among them, a command repeated more often in scripture than even the observance of Sabbath.

So surely Jesus would never support having the children of Abraham, so often the victim of oppression themselves, becoming violent oppressors like their Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman conquerors. As a devout Jew, Jesus loved his people deeply and because of that wept over Jerusalem as he lamented, "If you only knew today what is needed for peace! But now you cannot see it."

I join Jesus in that love and that lament.

When Prayers Become All "Asks" And No Action

I've not yet read this book, but the title
(and some of its reviews) intrigue me.

“You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.”  

—Pope Francis

How many of our prayers are mostly of the "Gimme" type or are some version of "Bless-me-and-my-wife-and-my-son-John-and-his-wife-us-four-and-no-more?"

Probably too many, if truth be told. 

I've been convicted lately of the need to have more of my prayers reshaped into the following:

1. A time of attentive listening. How might I/we hear and respond to our Creator's wishes for "God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven?" Maybe we should think of praying being more like standing at attention and reporting for duty.

2. A heartfelt pledge of allegiance. How might the so-called "Lord's Prayer" or a personalized version of Romans 12:1-2 become like a daily renewal of our baptismal induction as members of God's special forces?

3. A time of connecting with our nearby and world neighbors. What if we experienced prayer as a way of seeing all of our fellow humans through the lens of our just and compassionate Creator? Whenever we pray at a meal, for example, we could picture ourselves being around one common, worldwide table.

4. A time of creating an action plan for collaborating with God's "answers" to our requests. Our prayer lists could become a part of our daily action plans for becoming God's heart, hands and feet in making prayers come true--through our letters, phone calls, visits, acts of kindness, deeds of charity, etc. 

5. A time for inner refueling and recharging. How might some of the empowering words of scripture become the focus and content of more of our prayers? For example, this prayer from Ephesians 1:18-21 (emphases mine): 

"I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious inheritance among believers, and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is working among us believers. This power is conferred by the energy of God’s powerful strength. God’s power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at God’s right side in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future."     (Common English Version)                                           

Statement By The Ukranian Pacifist Movement

The following statement was adopted by the General Assembly of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement on the International Day of Peace 21 September 21, 2024, and posted on their website yesterday.

 Clean skies are proudly azure,

When bloodshed of inhuman war is ceased,

And peace endure.

So says the last poem written by Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko; he desired to end the first world war, but didn’t lived to see the Peace of Versailles. If he would, he might be disappointed by short-sighted plans of peaceful life written by victors who never seriously considered life without wars and because of that failed to build sustainable peace.

Of course, in most places, most of the time, people always live in peace, because peace is the need and natural right of every person and every community, including the people of Ukraine. Restraint, truth and love, good trusting relations for centuries and millennia allowed people to live peacefully on the common planet Earth and in each of its countries, including Ukraine.

Peace, rooted in every particle of existence, always surrounds us. Even when we don’t notice it. Even when injustice and evil far or near disturb us, cause pain and loss.

Faith, care and knowledge allow us to find and strengthen peace within and around us. If it is not strengthened, if past traumas are not healed, the fragile peace can suffer from intentional or unintentional harm to people and nature, from violence against oneself and others.

“How countries, burdened by war, desperately want peace! And ignorance learns true values only when they are lost: suffers getting them, doesn’t enjoy having them, and is tormented by losing them,” wrote Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, a self-described “lover and son of peace”.

At the demands of peace congresses of the world civil society, where Ukraine was also represented, pacifism became the norm of international relations. International organizations were created where you can assemble to council, find help, settle disputes with assistance of objective arbitrators, and find common ground with assistance of benevolent mediators instead of the senseless mass killing that is war.

The League of Nations, and then the United Nations, became the foundation of a new world peaceful governance, the leaders of which promised, according to the UN Charter, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and to resolve international disputes by peaceful means, or, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, to maintain a peaceful and mutually beneficial cooperation with members of the international community according to generally recognized principles and norms of international law.

Unfortunately, this architecture of the universal peace of mankind on the common planet Earth was perceived by the victors of wars as a scenery behind which they continued to drill their armies and arm themselves. Instead of preparing for peace, the winners of wars prepared for new wars and set a bad example for other such “heroes”. Peaceful promises were therefore broken, and anyone who breaks them portrays himself as a hero and victim of oppression, even if he is a villain and oppressor.

The problem is not that demonic enemies oppose angelic heroes, but that all humans on the common planet suffering from unnecessary wars are victims of a flawed, outdated political system where far more effort and resources are spent to prepare and wage wars rather than to stop and avoid wars.

Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous part of this vicious system that threatens to kill all life on the planet. To prevent this from happening, we demand general and complete disarmament in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, not to produce, and not to acquire nuclear weapons. We remember this historical fact, we take care of the realization of these peaceful aspirations of the Ukrainian people and call to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and implement its requirements in every country of the world.

Today, Ukrainians are victims of brutal Russian aggression and have the right to fair compensation for the suffering and return of what was conquered by war criminals. Without restoration of justice, there can be no true, honest reconciliation.

The victim’s desire to have victory over the attacker is natural. One must have courage and make reasonable efforts to defend one’s rights in a peaceful way, overcoming fear and anger and deceptive temptations to take cruel revenge or surrender to the mercy of a stronger one.

A truly strong one has a conscience not to do evil and does not need anyone’s destruction or enslavement. And the one who does not have a conscience is deprived of conscious and effective unity and peace with all humanity and nature, and this is one’s weakness.

No victory will be fair if it is not mutual. Common victory, when everyone is satisfied and no one is offended, has a name: peace.

If you want peace, you must prepare for peace.

The aggressor state is preparing for a long-term war against the West. With blunt brutality, the Kremlin is trying to force Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to hate Ukraine and fight in the Russian army, which destroys cities and kills people with barbaric bombings.

This wild and outdated policy, like the general increase in militaristic arbitrariness, is a challenge that cannot be feared.

Rejecting the myopic temptations of the outdated policies of opportunism and surrenderism, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement remains faithful to principles of the “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World” and the statement on the development of unarmed forces of pacifists to resist Russian aggression and implement the Ukrainian vision of world peace, common peace for all humans.

We will continue consistently to move forward on the path of unarmed protection of civilians, nonviolent resistance to aggression and tyranny. We will make every effort to direct as many people as possible to this peaceful path: by personal example, enlightenment, information, etc.

We firmly believe that peace, not war, is the norm of human life, as we stated in the “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World.” Peace≠war: peace is not war, this is the pacifist formula of peace. We consider it an axiom that peace is not equal to war, we support and implement the values of peace, democracy and justice in our activities.

We form and implement a long-term vision of a world without wars and demand that everyone who proposes peace plans must necessarily include in these plans a long-term vision of a peaceful future without wars (a realistic path to eternal peace) and take into account the fair restoration of the rights of Ukrainians as victims of aggression (dignity of victim, so that the power of justice, with support of entire peaceful world, restores and reinvigorates the strength and resilience of Ukraine as a victim of Putin’s genocidal war of aggression).

We support the United Nations in initiatives to build peace through peaceful means and have high hopes for the Summit Of The Future. We hope that world leaders will seize the opportunity to adopt a universal pact for a peaceful future, so that politics, economics, science and technology will work for peace, not war, to liberate future generations from the yoke of war.

We will inspire peaceful people to be strong and courageous in their desire to remain civilians, to protect peaceful life in a peaceful way, to uphold human rights to peace and conscientious objection to military service.

We need global peaceful transformations and more effective global nonviolent governance, involving the efforts of world peace movements into successful activities of the United Nations and achieving such a power of nonviolent actions that will be able to stop Russian aggression.

We, the pacifists, know that the highest law of life is “Thou shalt not kill!”, therefore we cannot become soldiers, murderers and executioners. This is a key point in our strategy to approach peace.

Our vision of the future is eternal peace. And by demanding that all peace plans must include real paths to this desired future, we resist militaristic madness, the desire to fight endlessly. Justice should be brought peacefully, not by war. Highest justice is a world without wars.

War is a crime against humanity, therefore we are determined not to support any kind of war and will strive for the removal of all causes of war.

UKRAINIAN PACIFIST MOVEMENT

To Avoid Voting For A "Lesser of Two Evils"

How do we choose when each candidate promotes policies
and represents positions we simply can't endorse?

I hear lots of concerned citizens, including many people of faith, who lean toward voting for a particular presidential candidate but who know that by doing so they are also supporting a lot of policies they find reprehensible. 

For example, many of my fellow pro life friends believe they must vote Republican for the sake of supporting more restrictive laws limiting abortions. At the same time, they are appalled, among other things, at the prospect of millions of undocumented workers or individuals with temporary legal status having their lives and their families disrupted through forced expulsions if Trump is elected. In communities like Springfield, Ohio, or localities lkie ours this would create unimaginable harm to our community and economy.

Others strongly prefer the Democratic party's policies and candidates, but are equally appalled by how Harris continues to support the kind of military aid that will result in thousands of ever more people being brutally bombed in Gaza and in the escalating and dangerous Ukraine/Russian war.

Yet in spite of feeling highly conflicted, many see the privilege of voting as too important for them to simply refrain from taking part in an election, believing their vote might at least move the needle of justice in a slightly more positive direction. Yet they feel uneasy about having that same vote lend support to policies they strongly oppose.

One option, of course, is for individuals to simply avoid voting altogether and to exert their influence in other ways. 

But here's a third option I've been pondering:

What if every conflicted voter who leans toward supporting one party would find a conflicted voter who leans in the other direction to simply pledge together to abstain from casting a vote in this fall's election? 

This could do several things:

1. It would  engage caring citizens with opposing views in important conversations that may help them understand each other better in spite of their differences.

2. Neither could be accused of simply being passive and doing nothing about matters of national or local concern through not voting and thus simply accepting the will of the voting majority.

3. Since each person's unmarked ballot in this agreement would have the direct effect of canceling the vote of someone who would have voted differently, each will have exercised their civic responsibility in a more impactful and significant way than either simply not voting or voting without having negotiated such an agreement, in which case ones single vote would have been canceled by another's in any case. .

4. All of this could be worked out between any two individuals operating in good faith, and would require no special organizing or funding. 

5. Each agreement could be tailored to the two persons involved, as to whether it would involve every item on a ballot, for example, or just the persons at the top of the ticket. 

6. Followers of Jesus could use this as a way of demonstrating their commitment to policies they see as being accordance with the future and forever reign of God and at variance with short sighted politics of the present age. In other words, it would highlight choices involving above versus below rather than just left versus right.

Feel free to offer your thoughts, or put your contact information and your voting preference in a comment below if you want to connect with an interested vote-trading partner. 

Here's a link to a really thoughtful piece by blogger Jonny Rashid on this topic

https://jonnyrashid.substack.com/p/the-plight-of-the-palestinians-in?utm_source=publicationsearch&fbclid=IwY2xjawFXHxFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdSupJ5CrfJpJBi8wdzMkDutVpotAzykqgP6P1xbEsVVA3DzN3x8R5UCJQ_aem_yyicj2kbd75TeeR1E9U2ng