Israel
Palestine
Israel and Palestine
Israeli War
Aggressors in War
Revenge
Forgiveness
9/14/25
As I prepared to write on this topic that I quite honestly don’t want to write about, I listed out those possible titles for this post. If that list is an indication of anything, it’s how scattered my thoughts on this topic will be.
I actively avoid politics. I aggressively avoid current affairs.
It’s not that I want to, I’d like to be aware of the important things happening around the world. It’s that I feel like I have to.
Politics and current events are so filled with hatred, vitriol, unkindness, unfairness, poison, and frankly stupidity that I have chosen to actively avoid it. This becomes a problem when my wife wants to discuss these things, and would really like her husband to be able to discuss it with her, and then she has to watch me like an ostrich putting my head straight into a hole. I just want no part of it.
Recent events have led to me looking into some things.
I hear so much leftist this and right wing that – I am aggressively trying to keep myself from knowing what these distinctions mean. Call me naive. I think it’s all so stupid.
What does this have to do with those topics listed above?
Just saying Israel and Palestine, I believe, ignites passionate political beliefs.
If you need proof, yes, even wars are split along party lines:
I do not like passionate political beliefs. I hope this post has nothing to do with politics.
I hope this post has something to do with history, what’s right, and prophesy.
I’ve written about Israel and Palestine before HERE and ten months later HERE.
The Book of Mormon was written so that we, the Gentiles of today, will understand what is coming in our future. The Book of Mormon is meant for our day and is meant to guide us.
I’ve recently been reading Hugh Nibley’s thoughts on what the Book of Mormon teaches us about how a civilization and a people can go wrong and destroy themselves.
I probably lost most people at “prophesy.” Prophesy is real. And while I put my head in the ground about political affairs and current events, I think the rest of the world puts its head in the ground when it comes to prophesy.
Hugh Nibley emphasized, as I’ve been studying his words regarding Mormon chapters 1-9, how the ancient inhabitants of Mesoamerica ultimately destroyed themselves. He detailed how the chosen people of this land, those who were given this land and given God’s covenant that it would be their land as long as they followed Him – how those people lost their favor and were destroyed.
The extinction of a people started with:
Pride.
No repentance.
War.
Revenge.
War is justified when it comes in self-defense. The thing I want to focus on here is revenge. Hugh Nibley talks about how the Nephites of the Book of Mormon were destroyed when they officially became a bloodthirsty people bent on revenge. God withdrew from them when they decided they would avenge all their fallen brothers who had been killed.
Which leads to me today, long having put my head in the ground since that post about Palestine and Israel four years ago.
I accidentally read an article about the current state of the Israel – Palestine war.
I decided to write this post when I read this:
“Signs for this old-new vocabulary are everywhere. It is common among Jews, for example, to add the initials for “blessed his memory” next to the name of the dead – but in this war, almost every soldier or civilian victim is memorialized with the phrase “Hashem yikom damo” (God will avenge his blood).”
God punishes the wicked with the wicked. You don’t want to become the people punishing the wicked in the name of God. Because at that point, you are the wicked. And at that point, your day will come too.
I fear how long the United State of America has felt the need to be the aggressor in the war against wickedness around the world.
There is a big difference between wars of self-defense, wars of aggression, and wars of revenge.
Ceasing to remember the blessed memory of loved ones and instead seeking to avenge blood is not God’s way.
The world has long said this is how God works. It is not how God works. It is how Satan works. And when people think they’re acting on behalf of God but really being led chain-linked by Satan, the worst atrocities happen.
Prophesy is being fulfilled before our eyes and the world collectively puts its head in the ground.
Which leads to my concluding point that Hugh Nibley mentions. Ultimately, we will all be judged for our own actions. What we do matters. All we can do is what we can do – kindness, forgiveness, love, peace, avoid contention, avoid fighting, avoid hatred, avoid judgment, meekness, humility, faith. These are the things we can do in a world that is lost and confused. A world that is deviating. A world that distances itself from God more and more every day.
You do your part. You do what’s right.
You love. That’s all.
9/15/25 Update
As I painfully, accidentally read more political information, I come back to add more because it seems relevant to what I’ve already written.
Some recent quotes I’ve read from Donald Trump regarding Charlie Kirk’s assassination:
“We have radical left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
And then I read articles and comments and it’s all attack attack attack hate hate hate while yelling at Trump for saying to attack attack attack. Does no one see the irony?
The same article with the headline
later, quietly, adds:
“The president added in a separate answer that he would urge his supporters to follow a nonviolent path in response to the shooting. “He [Kirk] was an advocate of nonviolence,” Trump said. “That’s the way I’d like to see people respond.””
Why does “beat the hell out of them” get the headline?
Because it evokes emotion on both sides. It gets clicks.
The same article that condemns Trump for violent speech chooses to promote the violent speech.
Why?
Because the violent inflammatory statement get the clicks.
It is all hypocrisy.
I’m not excusing Trump’s, “beat the hell out of them.” I am condemning it. But if we fail for this click-baiting and this hatred, this you against us mentality, we become part of the problem.
Then I read Governor Cox of Utah’s statements:
“We can return violence with violence; we can return hate with hate. That’s the problem with political violence. It metastasizes. We can always point the figure at the other side. At some point we have to find an off ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.”
I stand by the Governor Cox’s words.
An eye for an eye quickly becomes lives for lives. Revenge hurts everyone.
How do we find an off ramp?
Again, from Governor Cox:
“Social media is a cancer on our society right now,” Cox said. “And I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community.”
Love. Forgive. Look past the thing you disagree with someone on and instead look at the beautiful, passionate, important person they are.
We all have a divine heritage and one day we will be embarrassed about how we thought of the people around us.
There is no other side. There are only people. We are all imperfect and the sooner we realize that and forgive and show love, the better we will all be. Only love can heal the divide in our world.
No Coincidences 