One in a thousand

Quote
"Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven.”  Yiddish Proverb

News

The release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit this week in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners

was hailed as a triumph by Hamas, who held Shalit and negotiated the terms of release.  It brings to 13,509 the number of Arab prisoners freed since 1957, in exchange for a total of 16 captured Israeli soldiers – which equates to a ratio of around 800 to one.

On the Israeli side, feelings were mixed.  Journalist Ari Shavit summed it up.  "There are many very good reasons to oppose the deal for the release of Shalit.  They include the fact that the deal is a surrender by Israel to terror; that it will spur Hamas... and empower extremists in the Arab world and in Palestine... And yet there is one decisive reason to support the deal: Israeli solidarity; without this feeling there is no meaning to our lives here."

The extraordinary terms of trade involved in the prisoner exchange indicate two widely different valuations of human life.  The Israelis sense of solidarity is so strong – of covenantal proportions – that they will pay far over the odds to release one of their own from captivity.  On the other side of the coin, though, is the implication that a Palestinian is worth just 1,000^th of an Israeli.  The danger is that this will be manifested in other ways in the complex politics of Israel/Palestine, and lead to further injustice.

Read on

The latest Cambridge Paper by Julian Rivers touches on the same underlying issues as it examines the new British equality law.  It contrasts the biblical concept of equality with the prevailing cultural approach which marginalises the genuine differences of conscience between people, which are essential to honest public debate.  You can read this insightful paper here. 

Walk the talk

How much do we allow notions of political correctness to stifle different expressions of belief or conscience in our office, home or school?  Might you do something to encourage more honest airing of different viewpoints, and hold back the tendency to mock or pass immediate judgment on others who don’t appear to be politically quite correct? 

The last word
From the Bible, Galatians chapter 3:28 “In [Jesus] the distinctions between Jew and Gentile, slave and free man, male and female, disappear; you are all one in Christ Jesus.”