For Rabbi Curt Landry and Curt Landry Ministries in Israel, the conflict between Israelis and Hamas has become a personal one.
The animosity between the Jewish and Palestinian people over centuries is certainly no secret, and that animosity has escalated into armed conflict in the Gaza strip over the past week. More than 3,800 rockets have been fired with 13 Israelis being killed and 1,800 innocent civilians wounded.
But Landry says there is another war brewing in Israel that could be devastating. It’s one that has already affected his ministries there.
Landry’s ministries in Israel employ Jews, Arabs, Muslims and Christians. For the first time in 73 years, Landry says Israel is experiencing a civil war that has not entered into the mainstream conversation.
“The relationship with Israeli Arabs has been molded into the sense that you have Israeli Arabs attacking and killing their Jewish neighbors,” Landry told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “You also have radical Jewish groups, of course, defending themselves and firing back—and that’s the civil war side. That’s what people aren’t really talking about.
“The government and our ministry and everyone else is obviously against the shedding of blood and we pray for all sides. We pray for the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Jews, the Druze; all of the people in the region.
“So this civil war, I’ll give you an example of what I know,” Landry continued. “You have Arab Israelis who are Israeli citizens, they all strike in one day. These are doctors to plumbers to hotel workers, grocery store clerks—everybody goes on strike and they won’t go to work. So their employers say, ‘If you’re not going to go to work, we will hire somebody else.’ Then, they sue Israel. It’s very complicated.
“So they’re backing up the court system. It’s just terrible. But the biggest problem with this is that—and this is a story I know of—where you have Arab Israelis and they go to their Arab neighbor in a neighborhood. They ask, ‘Which one of the cars out here belongs to Jewish people?” The Arab neighbor, a grandmother, says ‘Those are the ones.’ She’s been their neighbor for years. She points out the cars and then they go out and torch the automobiles. I’ve been to Israel 45 times and have been in and out of Israel for 30 years. Like I say, I have Arab Israelis on my payroll. So it’s not something we’re used to. We’ve never experienced anything like this.”
For more about the civil war happening in Israel, listen to the entire podcast with Curt Landry. {eoa}
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