I don’t know much about building underground tunnels. Don’t know how to dig them, ventilate them or illuminate them. But I do know that it takes a lot of people a lot of time and effort to make it happen. It costs lots and lots of money. And like any building project, there’s a certain amount of danger that workers will get hurt. You can multiply my tunnel-ignorance many times over anytime a whole system of tunnels is built.
So I am impressed that Hamas invested so much time, effort, money, ingenuity and know-how to build what is basically an underground city. Can’t be stupid to think of an idea like that and can’t be stupid to actually execute it. You’ve got to be pretty smart. Sadly for them (and us), Hamas is the wrong kind of smart. “They are smart enough to do evil, but when it comes to doing good they don’t know how” (Jeremiah 4:22).
Imagine, and I know for some of us it will be difficult to imagine this, but imagine if Hamas had invested all that time, money, ingenuity etc., into building factories, schools, a hi-tech development center and the like. How many thousands of Gazans would have benefited? How many Gazans would be alive today? The Israeli blockade prevented this from happening? That’s patently false. Despite the blockade, Hamas managed to smuggle in everything it needed to build an underground city that leads all the way into Israel. And right under the noses of the vaunted Israeli intelligence, too.
Hamas could have done so much good for its own people and, by extension, the entire world. Not only would Israelis be safer, but people and nations across the globe would have been calm instead of angry, peaceful instead of belligerent, loving instead of hateful. Arab pride would have gone through the roof. (No pun intended.)
But Hamas couldn’t channel their energies in a positive way because they hate our guts so much. That blinds them to the good they could do. And it blinds them to making peace. “The way of peace they do not know. There is no fairness in the roads they take. They have twisted their paths; whoever walks them will know no peace” (Isaiah 59:8).
May the Blessed Creator soon open the eyes of all us to be the right kind of smart. Amen.
© Copyright 2014 148west.com/O. Bergman
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