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The Palestinians Tell the World Their Strategy: Why Make Peace with Israel When We Can Get Everything from You Instead?
Posted: 10 Dec 2009 01:24 PM PST
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By Barry Rubin
If you want to understand what’s really going on in the alleged Israel-Palestinian peace process—beyond the babble that progress is being made, it’s all Israel’s fault, and everyone is working hard on it—here’s what you need to know.
For the present, the Palestinian leadership isn’t interested in pursuing negotiations with Israel because it has a different strategy: get everything it wants from others without making any concessions.
First, the Palestinian Authority (PA) came very close to obtaining a European Union (EU) resolution which made it sound like the Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem is an accomplished fact. The rejection of the Swedish-sponsored proposal by more moderate European states staved this off, along with a U.S. reminder that this kind of issue was supposed to be resolved by a negotiated agreement between the PA and Israel.
Nevertheless, the PA no doubt drew hope—albeit erroneously so–from this experience that with a little more time the EU will back its position completely and give it a state on a silver platter.
The other front is the UN. On December 15, a meeting of the Fatah leadership will discuss and probably endorse a plan to seek UN recognition of their state, with no preconditions.
In the words of one Council member, Munib Masri:
“We will ask the UN Security Council to endorse a two-state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, to compensate Palestinian refugees and affirm their right to return to their homeland.”
There is a very interesting phrase at the end of that statement. Masri was referring to the Palestinian demand that all refugees and their descendants can go live in Israel if they want, a formula for massive violence, chaos, and civil war in Israel. Of course, that’s precisely what the PA wants–and will never get. The idea is that the “two-state solution” it is thinking about is merely a transitional step toward wiping Israel off the map, the real goal and the reason why there isn’t any peace.
By defining Israel as the Palestinian homeland, or at least a part of it, Masri shows the two-state solution is not a serious Palestinian goal. If it were, a West Bank-Gaza Strip-east Jerusalem state would be defined as the homeland.
Of course, he adds:
“If Israel remains steadfast in building settlements, then we will seek a one-state solution that is based on a timetable.”
Masri and others in the PA don’t give any credit for Israel’s settlement freeze. Like all Israeli concessions, it is pocketed and then denounced as insufficient, certainly not as warranting any reciprocal Palestinian gesture.
What Masri himself represents is the friends-of-Yasir-Arafat faction which still dominates both Fatah and the PA. This is the mainstream of both institutions and the base on which PA leader Mahmoud Abbas depends to stay in power.
The attractiveness of unilateralism is understandable. Why make a deal with Israel that might require recognizing it as a Jewish state, taking a bit less territory on the West Bank or having to swap some pieces of land with Israel, providing Israel with security guarantees, giving up the dream of total victory and Israel’s elimination, and accepting limits on your military forces when you can just demand, and possibly get, everything you want from the United States, Europe, the UN, or the international community in general?
This is also an ideal strategy in domestic terms since any concessions are unpopular. If Fatah and the PA want to make up with Hamas, avoiding any concessions is vital. And if they don’t want Hamas to make political capital out of their “treasonous moderation” the same point applies.
Of course, that means the conflict will continue, people will die, Palestinians will continue to be (or at least will be perceived as) suffering, and everything can be blamed on Israeli intransigence. There would be no peace and no Palestinian state, but that better suits the PA’s current strategy and again would largely be blamed on Israel.
Is it really so hard to understand that this is what is really happening? The PA is not desperately eager for a deal. The construction of apartments is not the roadblock. The PA and Fatah have very good reasons from their standpoint for not wanting to make peace with Israel.
Nevertheless, the illusion is maintained: If only one more concession is made to the Palestinians. If they are only reassured and flattered. If they are only promised east Jerusalem as their capital. If Israel freezes construction on West Bank settlements. And stops finishing up 3000 apartments. And stops any building in Jerusalem. And does this or that action and give such and such a concession then the kingdom of peace will be upon us.
And when this strategy fails over and over again–as it did throughout the 1990s, instead of learning the lesson there will be found one more fault of Israel which explains why things didn’t work out.
Of course, this also means that the rest of the world is functioning as enablers–to use the current term for those who help someone maintain a harmful addiction–permitting the continued illusion that there is some solution other than either the status quo or a fair, negotiated deal.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
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Lebanese Hizballah to be on UN Security Council
Lebanese Hizballah to be on UN Security Council
Posted: 07 Dec 2009 10:04 AM PST
By Barry Rubin
On January 1, Lebanon will become a member of the UN Security Council, having been elected last October by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The Lebanese government now includes a majority of ministers who are nominees of either Hizballah or of President Michael Suleiman, a Syrian and thus Iranian client. Hizballah also has a veto over government decisions.
This means that Hizballah will have a say in resolutions condemning Israel, managing peace-keeping operations in Lebanon, dealing with sanctions against Iran, and so on.
It was bad enough that a Libyan official chairs the General Assembly while Sudan, Algeria, and Iran virtually run the Human Rights Commission.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated in an interview that his government has concluded that “carefully considered contact with Hezbollah’s politicians, including its MPs, will best advance our objective of the group rejecting violence to play a constructive role in Lebanese politics.”
What does this “constructive role” mean? To say such a thing he has to ignore:
–Its refusal to disarm the Hizballah militia which is used for terrorism and intimidation within Lebanon.
–Forcing the government to agree that Hizballah can launch a war with Israel whenever it chooses.
–Sabotaging the UN peace-keeping effort in Lebanon through refusal to cooperate, including threatening, and sometimes carrying out, attacks against the UNIFIL troops.
–Kill the international tribunal examining Syrian and Hizballah involvement in terrorism within Lebanon including the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
–Representing Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon which is gradually becoming dominant.
—Blocking peace with Israel and Lebanese cooperation with the West.
–Ignoring the fact that there is no distinction between Hizballah “politicians” and gunmen. They both take orders from the same leaders and themselves deny any difference between the two groups.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
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In Search of Deja vu: For Intellectuals, Political Correctness is Twenty-First Century Communism
In Search of Déjà vu: For Intellectuals, Political Correctness is Twenty-First Century Communism
Posted: 18 Nov 2009 12:51 AM PST
By Barry Rubin
We are all searching, in this bizarre era we inhabit, for a healthy sense of déjà vu. By this I mean, we seek precedents for some of the strange things that Political Correctness forces onto people and current political debates bring into play.
Unfortunately, the virtually sole candidate brought up play in such matters is summarized by the word “fascism.” But the extremities of Nazi Germany generally don’t fit well with the relatively mild forms of mischief gotten up to in Western democratic states. Actually, the best parallel I can think of is the way that the Communist party and its fellow travelers tried to impose a cultural line on intellectual life, a process at its peak in the United States and in Britain during the 1930s, while continuingfor many decades longer in countries like France and Italy.
The experience described below by George Orwell in 1937 is a wonderful example of how history is repeating itself. I want to add quickly that I am not speaking here of subservience to a foreign state (the USSR) or even the kind of discipline exercised on party members, but how it permeated into the broader cultural, media, and intellectual scene.
To sum up the three themes:
–There is a party line which should be followed by everyone, even if they aren’t in the party.
–Those who don’t follow it will be called all sorts of awful names which even horrifies the victim since these insults have nothing to do with what he was trying to do or say. In those days, it was fascist or Trotskyist; today it is racist, neo-conservative, or Islamophobic.
–The line is justified because not following it is said to lead to terrible results (historically, the triumph of fascism and big business; today, the triumph of racism, Islamophobia, and big business). Another reason is that telling the truth would help the enemy, in those days, fascism or capitalism, in these days, Republicans, George W. Bush, or various reactionary, Christian fundamentalist, or fuddy-duddy forces.
–The punishments are not torture, prison, and execution but ridicule, denial of a teaching job or tenure, or just not getting your book or articles published.
The particular examples cited by Orwell pertain to the treatment in Britain of the Spanish Civil War. Orwell, a militant socialist but not a Communist, went to Spain to fight and, partly by accident, ended up in the POUM militia. This was a socialist group, mainly in Catalonia, which did not follow the Communist party line and believed that such things as peasant land seizures and workers running factories would strengthen rather than weaken the Spanish Republic in its war against the Fascist forces.
The Communists, however, wanted to control the republic and saw the POUM as a barrier. It repressed the group using bloody attacks, executions, and denunciations of it as fascist or Trotskyist. Orwell would call this in a letter, “Fascism being imposed under the pretense of resisting Fascism.”
Wounded by a sniper, Orwell headed back to Britain for treatment and here our story begins. He quickly discovered that the Communists would suppress the truth out of self-interest and goals, while fellow travelers and “well-intentioned” people would do so because they believed that knowing the truth would not lead the masses in the right direction.
Remember, too, that it doesn’t matter how stupid any idea or belief is as long as it is fashionable.
Now to Orwell’s experience in 1937. As soon as he reached France, he contacted the left-oriented New Statesman about writing an article on his experiences. As he recounted in a letter to a friend:
“Of course they said yes, but when they saw my article was on the suppression of the POUM they said they couldn’t print it.”
So to buy him off, they offered to let him review a new book on the war. But, Orwell continued, “once again when they saw my review they couldn’t print it as it was “against editorial policy.” They did, however, offer to pay him the full fee for the review, which Orwell saw as “hush-money.” The magazine was desperate to ensure he wouldn’t reveal publicly its policy of censorship.
Orwell wrote that the editors warned it would “cause trouble” or, in Orwell’s words, “blow the gaff on the Communist party…..They were evidently very anxious to prevent me giving away the fact that they are covering up important pieces ot the news.”
Orwell also lost his publisher which, he explained, “is of course part of the Communism-racket” and as soon as it realized he had been with the POUM and would be critical of the Stalinists, explained it would be unable to publish the book even though they hadn’t seen a word of the text. Orwell found another publisher and his Homage to Catalonia became a classic.
But this is how things worked then and work today. Blacklisting was not merely a technique of Senator Joe McCarthy. Back then, it was forbidden to write about Soviet concentration camps or antisemitism, or the economic incompetence of the USSR because that would allegedly “help” the bourgeoisie, or fascism, and hurt the cause of the workers.
Today, one cannot write about lots of things because they allegedly wouldn’t be good for people to think or believe. In the 1930s that was also true, except all the things designed to do good through self-censorship actually did immense harm. In fact, Orwell wrote as much in another letter:
“A number of people had said to me with varying degrees of frankness that one must not tell the truth about what was happening in Spain, and the part played by the Communist Party, because to do so would be to prejudice public opinion against the [Republican] Spanish Government and so aid [General Francisco] Franco [the fascist leader].”
Today we know that the Communists, including NKVD agents dispatched for the purpose, tortured and murdered huge numbers of people for the crime of having a view of their own. We also know about the Gulag of concentration camps and the framing of hundreds of thousands of people, many crimes of the USSR which were hidden from the world by those supposedly so solicitous of the rights of man and the worker’s cause. Of course, the result was that more people died and no effort was made to help them.
Another result was that the Republicans lost the war. You see, if you shut up about the misdeeds of those with the good fortunate of being dubbed “progressives” you do more harm both because of the people they victimize and since their weaknesses undermine whatever good there might be in the wider cause.
And all of this also shows one other thing: the cowardice of intellectuals. If the Wicked Witch of the West demanded that they surrender Dorothy, they probably would, and pronounce the deed just retribution for Dorothy’s house landing on the Wicked Witch’s sister. Disproportionate force, you know. And after all the Wicket Witch of the East was a civilian.
It is a cowardice both physical—though they beat their chest to advertize alleged courage in defying forces that in fact will do nothing to them—and moral. Dorothy Parker ridiculed such people long ago in a poem where she wrote: “Their one ambition is to get themselves arrested,/So that they can come out and be Heroes.”
Yet nowadays even such minimal inconveniences are avoided, replaced by the feather-lined mattresses of rewards for alleged heroism with no pain or risk whatsoever. The pain is suffered by others, including victims of the causes rationalized by the self-described virtuous.
Leaping to the defense of courageous democrats crushed by left-wing (at least in rhetoric) dictatorships might not make them look like courageous battlers for progressive causes.
Publishing the “Danish cartoons” or telling the truth about the radical Islamist threat might hurt someone’s feelings. Remember, it is always more popular to avoid hurting the feelings of people who might want to kill you in response.
Ah yes, to paraphrase Bob Dylan once put it, we’ve been in this movie before.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
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Joel 2:28-32; Promise of Mercy; “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit;” The judgments of God upon a sinful world, and the frequent destruction of wicked kingdoms by fire and sword, are prefaces to and presages of the judgment of the world in the last day; Those on whom the Spirit is poured out shall foresee and foretel that ‘great and terrible day of the Lord,’ and expound the wonder in heaven and earth that go before it; for, as to His first coming, so to His second, all the prophets did and do bear witness, Rev. 10:7. B.C. 720
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28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: 29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. 30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. 32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
The promises of corn, and wine, and oil, in the foregoing verses, would be very acceptable to a wasted country; but here we are taught that we must not rest in those things. God has reserved some better things for us, and these verses have reference to those better things, both the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory, with the happiness of true believers in both. We are here told,
I. How the kingdom of grace shall be introduced by a plentiful effusion of the Spirit, (v. 28, 29). We are not at a loss about the meaning of this promise, nor in doubt what it refers to and wherein it had its accomplishment, for the apostle Peter has given us an infallible explication and application of it, assuring us that when the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 1, &c.), that was the very thing which was spoken of here by the prophet Joel, v. 16, 17. That was the gift of the Spirit, which, according to this prediction, was to come, and we are not to look for any other, any more than for another accomplishment of the promise of the Messiah. Now,
1. The blessing itself here promised is the pouring out of the Spirit of God, his gifts, graces, and comforts, which the blessed Spirit is the author of. We often read in the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord coming by drops, as it were, upon the judges and prophets whom God raised up for extraordinary services; but now the Spirit shall be poured out plentifully in a full stream, as was promised with an eye to gospel-times, Isa. xliv. 3. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed.
2. The time fixed for this is afterwards; after the fulfilling of the foregoing promises this shall be fulfilled. St. Peter expounds this of the last days, the days of the Messiah, by whom the world was to have its last revelation of the divine will and grace in the last days of the Jewish church, a little before its dissolution.
3. The extent of this blessing, in respect of the persons on whom it shall be bestowed. The Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh, not as hitherto upon Jews only, but upon Gentiles also; for in Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, Rom. x. 11, 12. Hitherto divine revelation was confined to the seed of Abraham, none but those of the land of Israel had the Spirit of prophecy; but, in the last days, all flesh shall see the glory of God (Isa. xl. 5) and shall come to worship before him, Isa. lxvi. 23. The Jews understand it of all flesh in the land of Israel, and Peter himself did not fully understand it as speaking of the Gentiles till he saw it accomplished in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Cornelius and his friends, who were Gentiles (Acts x. 44, 45), which was but a continuation of the same gift which was bestowed on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh, that is, upon all those whose hearts are made hearts of flesh, soft and tender, and so prepared to receive the impressions and influences of the Holy Ghost. Upon all flesh, that is, upon some of all sorts of men; the gifts of the Spirit shall not be so sparing, or so much confined, as they have been, but shall be more general and diffusive of themselves. (1.) The Spirit shall be poured out upon some of each sex. Not your sons only, but your daughters, shall prophesy; we read of four sisters in one family that were prophetesses, Acts xxi. 9. Not the parents only, but the children, shall be filled with the Spirit, which intimates the continuance of this gift for some ages successively in the church.
(2.) Upon some of each age: “Your old men, who are past their vigour and whose spirits begin to decay, your young men, who have yet but little acquaintance with and experience of divine things, shall yet dream dreams and see visions;” God will reveal himself by dreams and visions both to the young and old.
(3.) Upon those of the meanest rank and condition, even upon the servants and the handmaids. The Jewish doctors say, Prophecy does not reside on any but such as are wise, valiant, and rich, not upon the soul of a poor man, or a man in sorrow. But in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, Gal. iii. 28. There were many that were called being servants (1 Cor. vii. 21), but that was no obstruction to their receiving the Holy Ghost.
(4.) The effect of this blessing: They shall prophesy; they shall receive new discoveries of divine things, and that not for their own use only, but for the benefit of the church. They shall interpret scripture, and speak of things secret, distant, and future, which by the utmost sagacities of reason, and their natural powers, they could not have any insight into nor foresight of. By these extraordinary gifts the Christian church was first founded and set up, and the scriptures were written, and the ministry settled, by which, with the ordinary operations and influences of the Spirit, it was to be afterwards maintained and kept up.
II. How the kingdom of glory shall be introduced by the universal change of nature, v. 30, 31. The pouring out of the Spirit will be very comfortable to the righteous; but let the unrighteous hear this, and tremble. There is a great and terrible day of the Lord coming, which shall be ushered in with wonders in heaven and earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke, the turning of the sun into darkness and the moon into blood. This is to have its full accomplishment (as the learned Dr. Pocock thinks) in the day of judgment, at the end of time, before which these signs will be performed in the letter of them, yet so that it was accomplished in part in the death of Christ (which is called the judgment of this world, when the earth quaked and the sun was darkened, and a great and terrible day it was), and more fully in the destruction of Jerusalem, which was a type and figure of the general judgment, and before which there were many amazing prodigies, besides the convulsions of states and kingdoms prophesied of under the figurative expressions of turning the sun into darkness and the moon into blood, and the wars and rumours of wars, and distress of nations, which our Saviour spoke of as the beginning of these sorrows, Matt. xxiv. 6, 7. But before the last judgment there will be wonders indeed in heaven and earth, the dissolution of both, without a metaphor. The judgments of God upon a sinful world, and the frequent destruction of wicked kingdoms by fire and sword, are prefaces to and presages of the judgment of the world in the last day. Those on whom the Spirit is poured out shall foresee and foretel that great and terrible day of the Lord, and expound the wonders in heaven and earth that go before it; for, as to his first coming, so to his second, all the prophets did and do bear witness, Rev. x. 7.
III. The safety and happiness of all true believers both in the first and second coming of Jesus Christ, v. 32. This speaks of particular persons, for to them the New Testament has more respect, and less to kingdoms and nations, than the Old. Now observe here,
1. That there is a salvation wrought out. Though the day of the Lord will be great and terrible, yet in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance from the terror of it. It is the day of the Lord, the day of his judgment, who knows how to separate between the precious and the vile. In the everlasting gospel, which went from Zion, in the church of the first-born typified by Mount Zion, and which is the Jerusalem that is from above, there is deliverance; a way of escaping the wrath to come is found out and laid open. Christ is himself not only the Saviour, but the salvation; he is so to the ends of the earth. This deliverance, laid up for us in the covenant of grace, is in performance of the promises made to the fathers. There shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said. See Luke i. 72. Note, This is ground of comfort and hope to sinners, that, whatever danger there is in their case, there is also deliverance, deliverance for them, if it be not their own fault. And, if we would share in this deliverance, we must ourselves apply to the gospel–Zion, to God’s Jerusalem.
2. That there is a remnant interested in this salvation, and for whom the deliverance is wrought. It is in that remnant (that is, among them) that the deliverance is, or in their souls and spirits; there are the earnests and evidences of it. Christ in you, the hope of glory. They are called a remnant, because they are but a few in comparison with the multitudes that are left to perish; a little remnant but a chosen one, a remnant according to the election of grace. And here we are told who they are that shall be delivered in the great day.
(1.) Those that sincerely call upon God: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, whether Jew or Gentile (for the apostle so expounds it, Rom. x. 13, where he lays this down as the great rule of the gospel by which we must all be judged), shall be delivered. This calling on God supposes knowledge of him, faith in him, desire towards him, dependence on him, and, as an evidence of the sincerity of all this, a conscientious obedience to him; for, without that, crying Lord, Lord, will not stand us in any stead. Note, It is the praying remnant that shall be the saved remnant. And it will aggravate the ruin of those who perish that they might have been saved on such easy terms.
(2.) Those that are effectually called to God. The deliverance is sure to the remnant whom the Lord shall call, not only with the common call of the gospel, with which many are called that are not chosen, but with a special call into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, whom the Lord predestinates, or prepares, so the Chaldee. St. Peter borrows this phrase, Acts ii. 39. Note, Those only shall be delivered in the great day that are now effectually called from sin to God, from self to Christ, from things below to things above.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
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Latest surveillance trend: cameras capturing all vehicles coming into city limits
City signs have a unique way of greeting people. In Issaquah, for instance, motorists are told they’re entering “a special place where people care.” For years, Bothell invited people to stay “for a day or a lifetime.”
In Medina, a new sign bears this warning: “You Are Entering a 24 Hour Video Surveillance Area.”
Cameras have recently been installed at intersections to monitor every vehicle coming into the city.
Under the “automatic license plate recognition” project, once a car enters Medina, a camera captures its license-plate number. Within seconds, the number is run through a database.
If a hit comes up for a felony — say, the vehicle was reported stolen or is being driven by a homicide suspect — the information is transmitted instantaneously to police, who can “leap into action,” said Police Chief Jeffrey Chen.
“These cameras provide us with intelligence,” Chen said. “It gets us in front of criminals. I don’t like to be on a level playing field with criminals.”
He declined to give the number and location of all the cameras.
Medina — a city of 3,100 with an average household income of $222,000 — had discussed the idea for years as a way to discourage crime, city officials said.
Last year, there were 11 burglaries, Chen said.
“Some people think that number of burglaries is tolerable,” he said. “But even one crime is intolerable.”
All captured information is stored for 60 days — even if nothing negative turns up, he said. That allows police to mine data if a crime occurs later, Chen said.
Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said such a system smacks of privacy violations.
“Government shouldn’t be keeping records of people’s comings and goings when they haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “By actions like this, we’re moving closer and closer to a surveillance society.”
Medina City Councilmember Lucius Biglow said crime prevention “outweighs concern over privacy.”
“Privacy is considerably less nowadays than it was, say, 50 years ago,” he said. “I think most of us are pretty well-documented by the federal government … simply because of the Internet and credit cards.”
It’s no secret cameras are everywhere — in stores, streets, parks and intersections where police want to cite drivers for running red lights.
A 2005 city survey showed that nearly a half of Medina’s residents agreed with the camera installation. In 2007, the City Council unanimously approved moving forward.
The city looked to nearby Hunts Point as an example. The peninsula-shaped residential community just north of Medina has been using a video-camera setup to record a continuous loop of car traffic in and out of town for more than three years, town administrator Jack McKenzie said.
The town of about 500 residents hasn’t had a single break-in since the cameras were installed. “I recommend it highly,” McKenzie said.
He said visitors to Hunts Point can’t miss the video equipment: “It’s 12 feet tall and covered with cameras,” he said of the installation, which is located at the traffic circle at the entrance to the community. There are eight cameras in all; pairs of cameras point in four directions.
No residents have ever complained about it, he said.
McKenzie said the town has used it for evidence in a couple of cases. In one case, he said, a woman driving a Mercedes ran into a mailbox pagoda, damaging the mailboxes and her car.
Medina police — who provide Hunts Point with police protection — reviewed the tape and picked out the undamaged Mercedes going into town, and the damaged car later coming out.
Medina City Council members say the cameras aren’t about preserving a gated-community atmosphere.
“We’re not elitist at all,” Councilmember Robert Rudolph said. “There is a mix of people in Medina of all economic strata. What we’re doing here is protecting our citizenry.”
- From Prophecy News Watch
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Meet the Palestinians’ Next Leader, Muhammad (Abu al-Mahir) Ghaneim: The Man Who Will Make Comprehensive Peace Impossible
Meet the Palestinians’ Next Leader, Muhammad (Abu al-Mahir) Ghaneim: The Man Who Will Make Comprehensive Peace Impossible
September 16, 2009ATTENTION WEBMASTERS. You are welcome to post this entire article as long as you give a direct link to the article on our site and to http://www.gloria-center.org
There’s nothing written about more often—and inaccurately—than the Palestinians, yet there is curiously little interest about the politics and ideology which governs their behavior. The same situation applies to the man s slated to become that movement’s next leader, only the third to hold that post in 50 years, after Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
The fact that an issue that is supposedly the most important, high-priority question in the Middle East, or even the world, is so little studied in depth has a simple answer. The contemporary narrative is that the Palestinian leadership yearns for a state, an end to the conflict, and peace, while the failure to achieve can be blamed on Israel. Yet even the slightest real examination shows the exact opposite is true.
This point is only underlined by looking at the current candidate for next leader, Muhammad Ghaneim, often known as Abu Mahir. Of all those who might credibly have been considered for the leadership of Fatah—and hence of the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA)—he is probably the most hardline one.
Ironically, while media coverage of the 2009 Fatah Congress stressed the accession of young and more flexible leaders, the 72-year-old Ghaneim certainly does not fit that description.
Born in Jerusalem on August 29, 1937. His first political involvement was with the Muslim Brotherhood but he became a founding member of the Fatah movement in 1959 and active ever after, involved mainly in recruitment and organizational matters.
It is difficult to say to what extent Ghaneim’s early involvement with radical Islamism has shaped his thinking and whether it would make it easier for him to reconcile with the even more radical Hamas. Most Fatah and PLO people came out of more secular Arab nationalist or leftist movements. The only prominent leader who blended an Islamist background with nationalism was Arafat himself, and this certainly remained a prominent theme in his worldview during his entire career.
Ghaneim’s big career break came in 1968 when at the age of just 30 Arafat appointed him commander of Fatah’s forces in Jordan. And later that year, at age 31, he was put by Arafat on Fatah’s Central Committee in charge of the organization and recruitment department.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of these two jobs. At that time, Jordan was a Fatah stronghold and the group constituted a dual government alongside that of King Hussein, the country’s nominal ruler. Fatah guerrillas—and shortly after Arafat took over the whole PLO—had military bases from which they launched attacks on Israel across the Jordan River. Arafat must have had an extraordinarily high opinion of Ghaneim to appoint him to such a sensitive post.
Since so much of this task was involved with military matters, Ghaneim took a short officers’ course in China. On his return, in 1969, Arafat gave Ghaneim still a third chore, as is deputy for military issues. While the details aren’t clear this means Ghaneim must have played a central role in planning and implementing scores of guerrilla and terrorist attacks.
The other job was just as important. Ghaneim played a central role in selecting those to be given key jobs and just how much authority each had. Of course, everyone was far below Arafat in power but Ghaneim was about as essential as a second-tier figure could be. That job is also useful in making contacts with those who would continue to be top people in the movement in ensuing decades.
In 1970, Fatah overplayed its hand, was defeated by Jordan’s army, and had to flee to Lebanon. Ghaneim continued his organizational and military duties there. When the PLO and Fatah were forced out of Lebanon in 1982, Ghaneim accompanied Arafat to Tunis. From 1982 to mid-2009 he remained living there, though as early as July 2007 he may have begun visiting the PA-ruled territories in the West Bank.
Ghaneim didn’t return with Arafat in 1994 because, despite serving Arafat closely and loyally for 35 years, Ghaneim rejected the Oslo accords of 1993 as too moderate. Only continued armed struggle, total victory, and Israel’s destruction were worthy goals in his eyes.
While Arafat’s strategy sought these things covertly, the compromises involved in such a pretense were too much for Ghaneim, who openly criticized his old chief. He stayed in Tunisia despite numerous invitations from Arafat, starting in October 1994, to join the PA and instead insisted Arafat cease all negotiations with Israel.
Ghaneim moved closer to the popular Farouq Qaddumi, often referred to as the second most powerful man in Fatah and PLO or as the PLO’s “foreign minister.” Qaddumi rejected the Oslo agreement and kept up a close connection with Syria. Arafat undercut him but Qaddumi was so strong in the movement that he could never be fired altogether.
Finally, Ghaneim decided to return and support Mahmoud Abbas. While the details are not clear, this coincided with Abbas naming him as successor, which was certainly a great incentive for changing sides. Despite some analysts claiming that Ghaneim has moderated his positions, there is absolutely no evidence that he has done so.
On the contrary, it is likely that he joined the PA and Abbas because he felt that they were closer to his long-held views in many respects.
Ghaneim has a definite appeal for Abbas as ally and successor. He is one of the few remaining original founders of Fatah and has wide contacts throughout the movement.
On the one hand, he possesses Arafat’s seal of approval historically but on the other hand he is so hard-line as to appeal to that powerful tendency in Fatah. In addition, as someone who has been outside the PA politics for 15 years he was seen as a neutral figure in many petty and personal disputes.
But this is not the man to choose if your top priorities were making peace with Israel and maintaining good relations with the West. He is the man you would choose if you intended to reject compromise, rebuild links to Syria and Hamas, and perhaps return to armed struggle in future.
On arrival at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan on July 29, 2009, just before the Fatah Congress, Ghaneim was picked up by Abbas’ personal limousine, taken to his office, and welcomed in a ceremony.
At the reception, Ghaneim stated: “The struggle will continue until victory” and that if political means did not win Palestinian demands the movement would return to armed struggle. (Al-Hayat al-Jadida, July 30, 2009). It is clear how Ghaneim defines victory and it is not a West Bank-Gaza state with its capital in east Jerusalem living alongside Israel in perfect harmony.
That Ghaneim would give up demands that all Palestinian refugees and their offspring must be allowed to live in Israel or that he would make any territorial compromise, or that he would end the conflict permanently in any peace agreement is extremely unlikely. These are things—all necessary for peace—that even the less extreme Abbas has rejected.
Thereafter, Abbas promoted Ghaneim among the delegates to the meeting. He finished first in the Central Committee elections with 1338 votes, about two-thirds of those participating and far ahead of every other candidate.
Ghaneim’s success, and the others elected, show that the old Arafat crowd is still in control rather than any transition, youth cohort, moderate, or reformist group. Given the fact that there are virtually no real moderates in the leadership, having the tired, corrupt old guard in charge is better than having younger, more extreme elements running things.
Yet the hardline parts of the old guard have a large portion of power even among this group. If Ghaneim becomes leader of Fatah the PA and PLO, then you can forget about peace. Violent conflict becomes far more likely. Yet Ghaneim will not take over by a coup but because the current elite wants precisely the policy he represents.
No one should say a word about the Palestinian issue, the peace process, or Israeli policy without analyzing these factors. Unfortunately, there isn’t at present a Palestinian partner for peace. Fortunately, there is a Palestinian partner for maintaining a relatively peaceful status quo. But if and when Ghaneim takes over, even this consolation might be gone.
(For more detailed discussions of contemporary Palestinian leadership and politics read two articles by me here and here as well as my books Revolution Until Victory? and Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography which can be ordered here.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge), The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
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Proverbs 16:14-15; These two verses show the power of kings, which is every where great, but was especially so in those eastern countries, where they were absolute and arbitrary; Whom they would they slew and whom they would they kept alive; Their will was a law; How formidable the wrath of a king is: It is as messengers of death; How valuable and desirable the king’s favour is to those that have incurred his displeasure; it is life from the dead if the king be reconciled to them.
14 The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it. 15 In the light of the king’s countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain.
These two verses show the power of kings, which is every where great, but was especially so in those eastern countries, where they were absolute and arbitrary. Whom they would they slew and whom they would they kept alive. Their will was a law. We have reason to bless God for the happy constitution of the government we live under, which maintains the prerogative of the prince without any injury to the liberty of the subject. But here it is intimated,
1. How formidable the wrath of a king is: It is as messengers of death; the wrath of Ahasuerus was so to Haman. An angry word from an incensed prince has been to many a messenger of death, and has struck so great a terror upon some as if a sentence of death had been pronounced upon them. He must be a very wise man that knows how to pacify the wrath of a king with a word fitly spoken, as Jonathan once pacified his father’s rage against David, 1 Sam. xix. 6. A prudent subject may sometimes suggest that to an angry prince which will cool his resentments.
2. How valuable and desirable the king’s favour is to those that have incurred his displeasure; it is life from the dead if the king be reconciled to them. To others it is as a cloud of the latter rain, very refreshing to the ground. Solomon put his subjects in mind of this, that they might not do any thing to incur his wrath, but be careful to recommend themselves to his favour. We ought by it to be put in mind how much we are concerned to escape the wrath and obtain the favour of the King of kings. His frowns are worse than death, and his favour is better than life; and therefore those are fools who to escape the wrath, and obtain the favour, of an earthly prince, will throw themselves out of God’s favour, and make themselves obnoxious to his wrath.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
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MS Patient Foments Assisted Suicide Debate in Britain
MS PATIENT FOMENTS ASSISTED SUICIDE DEBATE IN BRITAIN
Assisted suicide has bubbled back to the top of the pot of controversy in Britain this week after the Law Lords ruled on July 30 that the nation’s assisted-suicide law must be clarified. The question at hand is, should Britons be prosecuted for going abroad to help loved ones medically end their lives, and will assisted suicide be legalized in Britain itself?
Right now, British law forbids assisted suicide. According to Britain’s Suicide Act of 1961, “a person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another” could be sent to prison for 14 years. The law has not prevented Britons from prematurely ending their lives. Instead, 115 determined people have traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, to receive deadly medications at the Dignitas clinic there – 23 people in just the past year. British authorities have not bothered to prosecute any of the friends or family members who have accompanied them.
Debbie Purdy, a British woman suffering from multiple sclerosis, has pushed the issue. Before going to Zurich herself, she wanted to know if her husband Omar would be prosecuted for accompanying her. She said she needed to know, because if he would not be bothered, she could allow the disease to progress further before ending her life. If he was in danger of prosecution, though, she would have to go soon while she could still make the trip on her own.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has not chased down any helpers of the 115 Britons who have made their fatal journeys to Zurich, and there was therefore little chance that Omar would have been prosecuted. Debbie Purdy received support in her case from the organization Dignity in Dying, which promotes legalizing assisted suicide. Bryan Appleyard suggests in The Times that Purdy’s real struggle was not about keeping Omar out of jail. “No, the real fight was for the full legalisation of assisted suicide in Britain. Indeed, Purdy said she would ‘prefer to be able to have an assisted death in this country and not to have to travel,’” writes Appleyard.
Britain’s highest court reviewed Purdy’s case and ruled on July 30 that the assisted-suicide law was simply just too vague. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer is now under the gun to clarify the law and describe specifically which situations will be excused and which will be condemned by the British justice system. The clarification won’t just affect those traveling to Zurich, though. Mr. Starmer has made sure everybody knows the guidelines will affect everybody, including those who want to end their lives in Britain itself.
That means the new guidelines could go either way. The DPP most likely does not want to go out and prosecute those hundreds of friends and relatives that have so far escaped the law because they flew to Zurich. Yet, the DPP still wants to protect the vulnerable against relatives who might be overly eager to help patients commit suicide. The government does not want Grandma pressured into ending her life, or even more frightening, to be “suicided.”
The Muddy Hill:
There is also concern over the “slippery slope” effect of legalizing assisted-suicide. If Mrs. Purdy can end her life early because she’s suffering from MS, what about those people who suffer from some dreadful, but not terminal, disease? What about people who want to die because they are weary of dealing with terrible, daily depression? In the 1990s, the Dutch courts ruled a woman could receive the help to end her life because her two children had died and she didn’t want to deal with the grief anymore. Once a society decides that the value of human life is dependant on “quality” of life, it is hard to stand firm on any ground.Michael Smythe, head of public policy at law firm Clifford Chance LLP in London, noted that the DPP will need to be specific. “You can imagine the public brouhaha if the guidelines permitted those who were temporarily ill or not very ill to be assisted in their premature passing without any sanctions for those assisting them,” he said.
Assisted-suicide advocates argue that we have far more power to keep people alive than in the past. Hearts don’t just stop and people don’t just die. We can resuscitate people and restart their hearts and keep them alive on ventilators. We can’t hold off death forever, but we can prolong life. This, they argue, makes the question of “when to die” more confusing. Either way, that’s not a good argument for assisted-suicide; a person who has to take an airplane to Zurich to take life-ending drugs is obviously not on life-support.
My Life Is Not My Own:
Nigel Biggar, an Oxford theology professor, makes the argument that the issue of assisted-suicide is not just one of personal choice. Each human life has value, not just to the individual, but to society as a whole. If we tell people not to interfere with our death because it’s our business alone, we deny the greater significance of our lives. Biggar says, “The problem is that what fends off interference also generates indifference and carelessness,” he said. “If my life only has the worth that I accord it, then it has no objective value; and if it has no objective value, then why should anyone else care for it?”Yet, we do care for the lives of others. We don’t stand by while they drown - in water or in debt or in depression. We don’t let people end their lives arbitrarily because human life has value even when the living one doesn’t want to go on any longer. It’s dangerous to equate the worth of a life with some subjective idea of “quality” because it denies that life itself is intrinsically valuable. That understanding is even more pronounced when we realize that God has a purpose in our lives, even when we can’t see that purpose. We do not know what God is doing in the hearts and souls even of those suffering near the ends of their lives. We don’t know what lives can still be touched and eternal purposes can be accomplished through the woman with MS or the man on his deathbed with bone cancer.
It is a dreadful thing to watch loved ones struggle with pain day after day and feel helpless to ease their agony. We all want to end the suffering of those we love. Yet, if we really truly believed that God loves these precious people, far more than we do, would we find the willingness to trust Him and put the situation fully into His hands? The world does not know how to do that. How can we help the world learn, unless we first learn ourselves?
“What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?” - Job 6:11
“He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’” - 1 Cor 12:9
Related Links:
• Assisted Suicide: Whose Life Is It Anyway? - The Sunday Times
• Government May Consider Assisted Suicide Bill - Telegraph.co.uk
• Britain to Clarify Its Assisted-Suicide Law - Time
• Should Assisted Suicide Be Legalised? - Sunday Herald
• Dangers of Euthanasia - Koinonia House eNews
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John 16:23-27; Encouragement to Prayer; “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full; Ye shall ask in My name;” Here is an express promise of a grant; The preface to this promise is such as makes it inviolably sure, and leaves no room to question it.
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Encouragement to Prayer. |
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23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. 25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. 26 At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: 27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
An answer to their askings is here promised, for their further comfort. Now there are two ways of asking: asking by way of enquiry, which is the asking of the ignorant; and asking by way of request, which is the asking of the indigent. Christ here speaks of both.
I. By way of enquiry, they should not need to ask (v. 23): “In that day you shall ask me nothing;” ouk erotesete ouden–you shall ask no questions; “you shall have such a clear knowledge of gospel mysteries, by the opening of your understandings, that you shall not need to enquire” (as Heb. viii. 11, they shall not teach); “you shall have more knowledge on a sudden than hitherto you have had by diligent attendance.” They had asked some ignorant questions (as ch. ix. 2), some ambitious questions (as Matt. xviii. 1), some distrustful ones (as Matt. xix. 27), some impertinent ones, (as ch. xxi. 21), some curious ones (as Acts i. 6); but after the Spirit was poured out, nothing of all this. In the story of the apostles’ Acts we seldom find them asking questions, as David, Shall I do this? Or, Shall I go thither? For they were constantly under a divine guidance. In that weighty case of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, Peter went, nothing doubting, Acts x. 20. Asking questions supposes us at a loss, or at least at a stand, and the best of us have need to ask questions; but we should aim at such a full assurance of understanding that we may not hesitate, but be constantly led in a plain path both of truth and duty.
Now for this he gives a reason (v. 25), which plainly refers to this promise, that they should not need to ask questions: “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, in such a way as you have thought not so plain and intelligible as you could have wished, but the time cometh when I shall show you plainly, as plainly as you can desire, of the Father, so that you shall not need to ask questions.”
1. The great thing Christ would lead them into was the knowledge of God: “I will show you the Father, and bring you acquainted with him.” This is that which Christ designs to give and which all true Christians desire to have. When Christ would express the greatest favour intended for his disciples, he tells them that it would, show them plainly of the Father; for what is the happiness of heaven, but immediately and everlastingly to see God? To know God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest mystery for the understanding to please itself with the contemplation of; and to know him as our Father is the greatest happiness for the will and affections to please themselves with the choice and enjoyment of.
2. Of this he had hitherto spoken to them in proverbs, which are wise and instructive sayings, but figurative, and resting in generals. Christ had spoken many things very plainly to them, and expounded his parables privately to the disciples, but,
(1.) Considering their dulness, and unaptness to receive what he said to them, he might be said to speak in proverbs; what he said to them was as a book sealed, Isa. xxix. 11.
(2.) Comparing the discoveries he had made to them, in what he had spoken to their ears, with what he would make to them when he would put his Spirit into their heart, all hitherto had been proverbs. It would be a pleasing surprise to themselves, and they would think themselves in a new world, when they would reflect upon all their former notions as confused and enigmatical, compared with their present clear and distinct knowledge of divine things. The ministration of the letter was nothing to that of the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 8-11. (3.) Confining it to what he had said of the Father, and the counsels of the Father. what he had said was very dark, compared with what was shortly to be revealed, Col. ii. 2.
3. He would speak to them plainly, parresia–with freedom, of the Father. When the Spirit was poured out, the apostles attained to a much greater knowledge of divine things than they had before, as appears by the utterance the Spirit gave them, Acts ii. 4. They were led into the mystery of those things of which they had previously a very confused idea; and what the Spirit showed them Christ is here said to show them, for, as the Father speaks by the Son, so the Son by the Spirit. But this promise will have its full accomplishment in heaven, where we shall see the Father as he is, face to face, not as we do now, through a glass darkly (1 Cor. xiii. 12), which is matter of comfort to us under the cloud of present darkness, by reason of which we cannot order our speech, but often disorder it. While we are here, we have many questions to ask concerning the invisible God and the invisible world; but in that day we shall see all things clearly, and ask no more questions.
II. He promises that by way of request they should ask nothing in vain. it is taken for granted that all Christ’s disciples give themselves to prayer. He has taught them by his precept and pattern to be much in prayer; this must be their support and comfort when he had left them; their instruction, direction, strength, and success, must be fetched in by prayer. Now,
1. Here is an express promise of a grant, v. 23. The preface to this promise is such as makes it inviolably sure, and leaves no room to question it: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I pledge my veracity upon it.” The promise itself is incomparably rich and sweet; the golden sceptre is here held out to us, with the word, What is thy petition, and it shall be granted? For he says, Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. We had it before, ch. xiv. 13. What would we more? The promise is as express as we can desire.
(1.) We are here taught how to seek; we must ask the Father in Christ’s name; we must have an eye to God as a Father, and come as children to him; and to Christ as Mediator, and come as clients. Asking of the Father includes a sense of spiritual blessings, with a conviction that they are to be had from God only. It included also humility of address to him, with a believing confidence in him, as a Father able and ready to help us. Asking in Christ’s name includes an acknowledgment of our own unworthiness to receive any favour from God, a complacency in the method God has taken of keeping up a correspondence with us by his Son, and an entire dependence upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness. (2.) We are here told how we shall speed: He will give it to you. What more can we wish for than to have what we want, nay, to have what we will, in conformity to God’s will, for the asking? He will give it to you from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift. What Christ purchased by the merit of his death, he needed not for himself, but intended it for, and consigned it to, his faithful followers; and having given a valuable consideration for it, which was accepted in full, by this promise he draws a bill as it were upon the treasury in heaven, which we are to present by prayer, and in his name to ask for that which is purchased and promised, according to the true intent of the new covenant. Christ had promised them great illumination by the Spirit, but they must pray for it, and did so, Acts i. 14. God will for this be enquired of. He had promised them perfection hereafter, but what shall they do in the mean time? They must continue praying. Perfect fruition is reserved for the land of our rest; asking and receiving are the comfort of the land of our pilgrimage.
2. Here is an invitation for them to petition. It is thought sufficient if great men permit addresses, but Christ calls upon us to petition, v. 24.
(1.) He looks back upon their practice hitherto: Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name. This refers either
[1.] To the matter of their prayers: “You have asked nothing comparatively, nothing to what you might have asked, and will ask when the Spirit is poured out.” See what a generous benefactor our Lord Jesus is, above all benefactors; he gives liberally, and is so far from upbraiding us with the frequency and largeness of his gifts that he rather upbraids us with the seldomness and straitness of our requests: “You have asked nothing in comparison of what you want, and what I have to give, and have promised to give.” We are told to open our mouth wide. Or,
[2.] To the name in which they prayed. They prayed many a prayer, but never so expressly in the name of Christ as now he was directing them to do; for he had not as yet offered up that great sacrifice in the virtue of which our prayers were to be accepted, nor entered upon his intercession for us, the incense whereof was to perfume all our devotions, and so enable us to pray in his name. Hitherto they had cast out devils, and healed diseases, in the name of Christ, as a king and a prophet, but they could not as yet distinctly pray in his name as a priest.
(2.) He looks forward to their practice for the future: Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. Here,
[1.] He directs them to ask for all that they needed and he had promised.
[2.] He assures them that they shall receive. What we ask from a principle of grace God will graciously give: You shall receive it. There is something more in this than the promise that he will give it. He will not only give it, but give you to receive it, give you the comfort and benefit of it, a heart to eat of it, Eccl. vi. 2.
[3.] That hereby their joy shall be full. This denotes, First. The blessed effect of the prayer of faith; it helps to fill up the joy of faith. Would we have our joy full, as full as it is capable of being in this world, we must be much in prayer. When we are told to rejoice evermore, it follows immediately, Pray without ceasing. See how high we are to aim in prayer–not only at peace, but joy, a fulness of joy. Or, Secondly, The blessed effects of the answer of peace: “Ask, and you shall receive that which will fill your joy.” God’s gifts, through Christ, fill the treasures of the soul, they fill its joy, Prov. viii. 21. “Ask for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and you shall receive it; and whereas other knowledge increaseth sorrow (Eccl. i. 18), the knowledge he gives will increase, will fill, your joy.“
3. Here are the grounds upon which they might hope to speed (v. 26, 27), which are summed up in short by the apostle (1 John ii. 1): “We have an advocate with the Father.“
(1.) We have an advocate; as to this, Christ saw cause at present not to insist upon it, only to make the following encouragement shine the brighter: “I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you. Suppose I should not tell you that I will intercede for you, should not undertake to solicit every particular cause you have depending there, yet it may be a general ground of comfort that I have settled a correspondence between you and God, have erected a throne of grace, and consecrated for you a new and living way into the holiest.” He speaks as if they needed not any favours, when he had prevailed for the gift of the Holy Ghost to make intercession within them, as Spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father; as if they had no further need of him to pray for them now, but we shall find that he does more for us than he says he will. Men’s performances often come short of their promises, but Christ’s go beyond them.
(2.) We have to do with a Father, which is so great an encouragement that it does in a manner supersede the other: “For the Father himself loveth you, philei hymas, he is a friend to you, and you cannot be better befriended.” Note, The disciples of Christ are the beloved of God himself. Christ not only turned away God’s wrath from us, and brought us into a covenant of peace and reconciliation, but purchased his favour for us, and brought us into a covenant of friendship. Observe what an emphasis is laid upon this “The Father himself loveth you, who is perfectly happy in the enjoyment of himself, whose self-love is both his infinite rectitude and his infinite blessedness; yet he is pleased to love you.” The Father himself, whose favour you have forfeited, and whose wrath you have incurred, and with whom you need an advocate, he himself now loves you. Observe,
[1.] Why the Father loved the disciples of Christ: Because you have loved me, and have believed that I am come from God, that is, because you are my disciples indeed: not as if the love began on their side, but when by his grace he has wrought in us a love to him he is well pleased with the work of his own hands. See here, First, What is the character of Christ’s disciples; they love him, because they believe he came out from God, is the only-begotten of the Father, and his high-commissioner to the world. Note, Faith in Christ works by love to him, Gal. v. 6. If we believe him to be the Son of God, we cannot but love him as infinitely lovely in himself; and if we believe him to be our Saviour, we cannot but love him as the most kind to us. Observe with what respect Christ is pleased to speak of his disciples’ love to him, and how kindly he took it; he speaks of it as that which recommended them to his Father’s favour: “You have loved me and believed in me when the world has hated and rejected me; and you shall be distinguished yourselves.” Secondly, See what advantage Christ’s faithful disciples have, the Father loves them, and that because they love Christ; so well pleased is he in him that he is well pleased with all his friends.
[2.] What encouragement this gave them in prayer. They need not fear speeding when they came to one that loved them, and wished them well. First, This cautions us against hard thoughts of God. When we are taught in prayer to plead Christ’s merit and intercession, it is not as if all the kindness were in Christ only, and in God nothing but wrath and fury; no, the matter is not so, the Father’s love and good-will appointed Christ to be the Mediator; so that we owe Christ’s merit to God’s mercy in giving him for us. Secondly, Let it cherish and confirm in us good thoughts of God. Believers, that love Christ, ought to know that God loves them, and therefore to come boldly to him as children to a loving Father.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
