Reading the actual Apocrypha: The prayer of Manasses (Manasseh)
"You must be impartial in judgement and give an equal hearing to small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for the judgement is God's. " Deuteronomy 1:17.
Apologies if I am not getting the verses quite right, I am not used to the layout of the Jerusalem Bible.
Anyway, I wanted to write about this, because I have seen some profound ignorance of what is going on between Hamas (not Palestine, that's a geographical location, Hamas, a designated terror group funded by Iran Biden Adminstration Says Tehran Has Been Funding Hamas), and Israel. The first one is the automatic belief that Hamas is telling the truth about the numbers. Never mind the fact that terrorists groups are not exactly known for their integrity.
A bigger problem I have, besides the anti-semitism amongst people defending claims against Israel (and I am aware that semitic includes more than Jewish people, in fact, according to my college history professor, the term "Anti-semite" originated as a way to justify anti-Judaism), is that people have this knee-jerk reaction that Israel is the bad guy.
Before anyone says anything, some of my mom's family is Jewish and are Israeli citizens. But, we're not particularly close, and I don't really talk to them. My great aunt had a Jewish funeral in Mexico City, and she's really the only person on that side of the family I really knew (from my grandfather, I am pretty well associated with my grandmother's family).
Anyway, if Israel is really doing that, and that amount of civilians have been killed, then yes, it should be condemned. But why do we automatically think it's true without doing research?
Because the internet is the internet, Russia claims Ukraine is full of Nazis (because Nazis are well-known for voting for a Jewish president). Well, why there are Neo-Nazis groups in Ukraine (there's a lot more in Russia), the idea that it's overrun by Nazis is an old communist tactic of calling anyone who isn't communist or socialist a fascist or a nazi (if you're American or Canadian, think Antifa, but with the world's largest country by area).
I did this thing called "research", figured out that Ukraine isn't full of nazis, and found out that Russia broke multiple treaties that it had with Ukraine. (And also know that's an absurdity to call for Ukraine to cede land that Russia has already recognized as part of Ukraine, if you knew how the 2014 "annexation" of Crimea happened, if you're a vatnik, there is NOTHING you can defend about what Russia did).
And so it is. We aren't giving Israel a fair shake. Whether it's academia. Whether it's our own laity, and, even in some cases, our own Church leaders.
Note what I am not saying, I am not saying, if this is happening, that it should be justified. No, injustice, no matter who does it, needs to be called out. As for myself, I don't find a claim to be the same as a fact, and I don't trust people who actually do indiscriminate killings of civilians to be honest about this topic.
Make sure you judge fairly, because God will judge you.
*All verses quoted from The Jerusalem Bibe, Copyright 1966, 1967, and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd and Doubleday & Company Inc.
(and I have the reader's edition, so how about that).