The God of Abraham erred

I hope I do not offend some powerful gods up there. But the Mid-East conflict that started as early as 5,000 years ago has its roots in the errors, let's call them miscalculation, by the God of Abraham.

The root of the conflicts there is religious, not political. The real leaders of the warring Arab countries are religious fanatics, not elected politicians. Who is the president of Lebanon? You don't know. You don't read him in the news.

Abraham means "Father of many nations". He lived some 2,300 years before Christ. Because he was childless at the age of 76 with his wife Sarah, God permitted Abraham to have a son with Sarah's maid, Hagar, who became Ishmael. God did this because of his promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a nation. But God must have realized his mistake of allowing Abraham to fool with his wife's maid that he allowed Sarah to bear a son, Isaac, even if Abraham was already 100.

At that age, God must have helped, I mean interceded, for Abraham to have a son. It was a mistake corrected by another mistake. God erred. All these quarrels had their roots in the conflict of the two sons with different mothers.

Many have not learned these lessons of not fooling around with a wife's maid.

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Life in Canaan, later Palestine and later Israel, was harsh and difficult that they went as "OFWs" to Egypt. They were very good OFWs like ours today, so that the Egyptian monarch was afraid the "OFWs" would take over. So they were abused, like all OFWs.

A leader came up, Moses who was told by God to lead his people out of bondage to the promised land.

Like President Arroyo today who promised bounty to OFWs, the God of Abraham promised Moses a land that flowed with milk and honey. But another mistake, Moses did not find milk, nor honey. Not even the land.

Moses did not find that land until he died. It was Joshua later who did.

The God of Abraham also helped Moses by parting the Red Sea to let Moses and his people pass, saving them from the hordes of the Egyptian soldiers, who drowned while pursuing them.

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I hope GMA can also convince God to bring home the 30,000 stranded OFWs in Lebanon by parting the Atlantic to let the hundreds of buses pass and truck them back to the Philippines.

Why, Ric Yanson might be convinced to contribute even just 10 buses. The most that he will ask for will only be, "Just take care of the diesel fuel."

This amount we can take from the OFW funds.

I reiterate my disclaimer about offending Abraham's God. But he has also made other mistakes.

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He sent Moses out of Egypt but he did not give Moses a road map that for many years until his death Moses had to roam around Sinai desert looking for that milk, honey, and the land.

It was only when Moses died and Joshua took over that they found Canaan to be Palestine occupied by the descendants of Ishmael. The Israelites were the descendants of Isaac.

Battles after battles were fought. In the Jewish accounts, they won with the help of the God of Abraham. I believe when the Palestinians also won, it must have been also with the help of the God of Abraham.

In one battle I recall on the account of the Bible, the sun delayed its setting to make the Israelites complete their rout of the enemy.

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The state of Israel which was Canaan, later Palestine, was recognized by the United Nations under the Balfour Declaration sponsored by the British.

After this declaration which made Israel in 1947 a state, neighboring Arabs attacked and Israel defeated them. In every battle, Israel always won that gave them more lands because they never returned their seized land unless their security was assured by the enemy, like Egypt.

Israelites or Jews were persecuted by Hitler during World War II and that's why after the War they came home to form a state.

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A sense of humor was made by a grade school pupil when he asked why the Middle East conflict continues. He said, the problem was the tablet brought by Moses from the mountain was a stone tablet.

The world would have less headaches, he said, had the tablets been aspirin, Medicol, or paracetamol.

After 5,000 years of conflict among religious fanatics, probably there could have been a change if we all look at this with a sense of humor.

And only the God of Abraham can provide the answer by correcting his errors. Let us humor him.

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Yesterday's television program of Sonny Coscolluela on Gawad Kalinga was very informative.

Sonny has been presenting many informative programs. I can understand if his political enemies are gunning after his neck. He is becoming more popular.*

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