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By Owei Lakemfa

If on Judgment Day, the Lord asks me what I did while the Palestinians were being exterminated like flies, I will say, I stood up to protest, to campaign against the genocide. I will say I wrote against the world leaders who want an-eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth.

“My Lord,” I will say, “I tried to expose the false prophets who claim that the land of Palestine, peopled for millennia by different nationalities, was given to a group of Europeans to build a colony and a monument to inhumanity.”

I will say even when they, like the Pharisees say, ‘Touch not the anointed men of God’, I denounced them for bearing false prophesy against you; that the Europeans and their North American first cousins who seized the Palestine and made a peaceful land hell on earth, are “God’s Chosen People”,

I will say I told the General Overseers that we are all God’s children. That all human beings are God’s Chosen People; be they Jews or Gentiles, Judaists or Buddhists, Christians or Moslems, believers or non-believers.

I will tell the Lord that I explained to the preachers that the ‘Promised Land’ is not the physical land of Palestine. After all, as we are told in First Corinthians 10:26: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

I will tell the Lord that to justify the pulverisation of Gaza and its inhabitants, some who claim to be ‘Men of God’ opened the Holy Book to Amos 1:6-8 which reads: “Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom. So I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour her strongholds. I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod, and him that holds the scepter from Ash’kelon; I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.”

I will say, I told these Holy Men to proceed to Chapter 2: 6-16 of the same Book of Amos which reads: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver,“and the needy for a pair of shoes— they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar upon garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

“Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, “whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks; “I destroyed his fruit above, and his roots beneath. Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you 40 years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? Says the Lord.

“But you made the Nazirites drink wine,“and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘You shall not prophesy.’ Behold, I will press you down in your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses down. Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life; he who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of foot shall not save himself, nor shall he who rides the horse save his life; and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day. Says the Lord.”

I will add that I enlightened those ‘Men of God’ that the Gaza, Prophet Amos referred to, is not the same Gaza of today nor are their inhabitants the same, just as the Israel he referred to is not the same Israel as that of today nor are their inhabitants the same.

I will report to The Lord that in 30 days of renewed conflict, 1,400 Israelis tragically lost their lives while the Palestinians lost 9,700, over 4,000 of them babies and children. I will complain that most of the victims would have been alive if only the United Nations, established in 1945 to end wars, could agree on a ceasefire. But that old men like Joe Biden, insisted on war without end. That tragically, as the casualty figures mounted, Biden as President of ‘God’s Own Country’ – not God’s Chosen people – said he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using”. For him, the issue is not about the thousands dying, but the exact number.

On Judgment Day, I would have asked the Lord: “Will people like Joe Biden also be docked?” But I am reminded that even when the Lord witnessed Adam and Eve committing the Original Sin, he still gave them the benefit of doubt and allowed them the right to be heard. So, people who commit mortal sins would still have their day in court whether on earth or in Heaven. I would ask that Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant who declared: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly”, stand on trial with Biden.

I will bear true witness that the sins of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are not as grievous as Biden’s. I will tell the Lord that on October 23 after over 5,000 Palestinians had been killed, Mitsotakis told Israel: “We will continue to be able to support you and to hope that whatever happens, happens without too much of a humanitarian cost.” In my opinion, Mitsotakis main sin is not in putting a cap on how many more Palestinians Israel can still kill that would not amount to “too much of a humanitarian cost”, may be 30,000 to 50,000?

I will also bear witness before the Lord that the Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, Michael Freeman is not as sinful as Biden. I will explain that when I appeared on a television programme with Freeman on October 9, that is two days into the renewed conflict, I had reminded him that Israel had earlier in the year, killed over 250 Palestinians. He had claimed that the Palestinians his country had killed months before the Hamas attack were “terrorists” and I had retorted that those were indeed, unique ‘terrorists’ as they included two and four-year-old children, he did not disputed the facts.

On Judgment Day, I will say, I stood for humanity.