Aliens

 

Are you an alien?  I am.  No, I'm not green or some gaudy color with more or fewer eyes than two, and I don't look "weird".  Ha, at least I don't think so, even though I get stared at a lot.  After all, I do have different hair, eye, and skin color, than the native-born folks around here.  Yes, I am a human being but not living in the land of my citizenship.  That makes me an alien wherever else I may live.

An alien never gets to be a non-alien either while remaining in a foreign land and even after spending so many decades in said 'foreign' land. "Where are you from?"  "Do you have your documents?"  "Show us. Prove it to us!"  All legal, yes.  Oh, and its purportedly the aliens, those foreigners, who borrow books from the local library and then run off with them, never bothering to return them.  Strange it's only us aliens who get accused of such acts.

Should an alien be treated the same way as the native-born citizen?  Must they kowtow to the same rules and regulations?

Let's have a mini-case study of God's mandate for treating aliens within the Isaelite borders.  He emphasizes it more than once.  Look at Leviticus 19:33-34.  The alien, 

"...must be treated as the native-born; love him as yourself! Oh my.  Isn't that a caution!?  Why should they do this?  God continued, "...because you were aliens in Egypt."  

Well, well, well!

Here's what else God commanded, 

"DO NOT mistreat an alien or oppress him" (Exodus 22:21; 23:9NIV; emphasis mine).  

God attached another reason, yes, because they'd once been slaves and aliens in Egypt, but also because they also "know how it feels to be an alien" (Exodus 23:9).

Yeah, I firmly believe everyone should get out of their comfort zone and go visit a very, foreign-to-them, country and spend an extended period of time in that land.  Everybody needs to get a feel for being an alien.  However, I digress.

So God gave the Promised Land to the Israelites as their inheritance.  They were supposed to have rid the land of those who'd formerly occupied it.  They didn't.  So, nowadays there's that tug-of-war called the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  So many so-called "peacemakers" hoped and helped to bring increments of peace since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Backspacing from that time, we learn that there has been so much history lived through, between God's initial commands and the Promised Land occupation, and to the present day.  The Israelites did become aliens again and had been scattered among the nations to which the conquering empire had flung them.  They were whittled down so that mostly only the tribe of Judah, was left, along with some of the Levites and fragments of Ephraim and Manasseh; now lumped under the heading, "Jews".

So volatile.

They were captives in Babylon for 70 years, humbled, but eventually released and returned to Jerusalem.  In Jesus' time, they were under Roman rule.  Captive again on their own turf.  history, history....

Skipping many years hence to 1299 to 1922, to when the region of the Promised Land was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.  Folks of many races and religions more or less lived in peace and harmony in that "Jewel" of God's eye where His, "apple of the eye" people were supposed to be living and that, according to all His rules and regulations.

Then the bombshell of the British Mandate.  The British had come to occupy these territories previously ruled by the Ottoman's.  They'd conquered it in 1917 during WWI.  The ole League of Nations and their arbitary governance had stuck and struck their oar in again, giving support for a Jewish homeland.  Sounds good, right?  Essentially, God had given them the whole place long ago.  It was theirs.  Nevertheless, this Mandate did provide for the Arab needs as well with portions of land designated for each.  It should have been happily ever after, right?

Zionists, a very pro-patriotic sect of Jews, strong-armed their way through.  Also mass migration of Jews escaping Hitler's regime in Germany, Poland and so on, amassed in Palestine.  Where were all the people going to fit?

There have been many conflicts between Jews and Arabs since the Mandate and then the Six-Day War happened.  The Jews became the victors and created Israel.

Now, two books I recently read have actually sparked and spurred me to write this Aliens article.  One book was of a Christian Palestinian Refugee lady*, written by her daughter, and the other of a Jewish grandmother and mother (written by the grandson/son)*.  Each had their pathos and evoked the heart's compassion.  Both are true stories which I'll briefly detail.

Starting with the Jewish journey we track Rachel fleeing from Russian Pograms to Harbin, China, which was under Japanese control at the time.  The pograms that beseiged the Russian Jews involved eviction from homes and possessions confiscated, brutal, inhumane batterings and treatment; cleanse us of these people!  The Russians were little better than Hitler's Germans during WWII.

We are reminded of the very heartless treatment of Jewish peoples or even, part Jewish ones, under Hitler:  killed in ovens; medically experiemented upon; left to basically starve to death in concentration camps and so on.  

We digress though.  Let's keep on the Russian Jewess, Rachel's trail.

Things begin to become unbearable for the Jews once again;  this time in Harbin as the Chinese began to take back their territory.  Rachel became involved with a fellow and moved to Kobe, Japan.  There she had her daughter Helmi.  Due to circumstances, the two eventually found themselves alone and moved to Shanghai where they lived in the slum of the slums to survive.  Eventually they ended up back in Kobe, all the while documented as "stateless"; often the bane of a refugee's existence.

WWII set in, conditions got worse before getting better yet they strived to keep a low-profile wherever they went.  Rachel insisted Helmi learn English who, as it turned out, was somewhat of a linguist and additionally got a couple other languages under her belt.  This advantage helped her get translator jobs, helping an NGO "process" Jews who streamed into Shanghai and to Kobe, mostly from Europe.  It also earned her the interest of an American soldier at the end of WWII and again as a translator for them.

No doubt God blessed the Japanese in the end because they were only half-hearted in abuse against the Jewish refugees.  They let them onto Harbin, Shanghai, and obviously, Kobe, and so on.

Again, to be stateless and shuffled about, having ones possessions, possessed by others, being displaced, there was always an unsettling fear of being sent back to where one had come from, only to be shamed, rejected and/or even killed.

How would you feel?  How would you endure?  Somehow, these two women had the courage, resilience and fortitude to survive.

Now we turn to our Palestinian refugee woman.  She was evicted from Palestine and fled to Egypt.  Stateless, but somehow, putting one step ahead of the other.  However, the flashbacks of bombs, screams, terrors in the night; murder of their men was etched into her memory.

She did find some happiness and married an Egyptian and had some children.  She had found a semblance of life but that life was once again shattered.  She and family embarked upon a holiday out of Egypt but ended up they couldn't go back there.  Displaced again.

They bounced to Lebanon, then landed in Geneva, Switzerland.  Ah-h!  They had done better than most Palestinian refugees and even stamped out the stigma of "refugee" by gleaning  Swiss citizenship and passport; her daughter eventually, an American one.

The indelible happy childhood memories of a peaceful, prosperious co-existence with other religious people groups in Palestine, was just as vivid as the 1948 fallout nightmare days, in this Catholic Palestinian mother's mind.  These were what she clung to, so much so that her daughter was compeled to follow her mother's footprints 'in the land', years later.  Mind you, that was NOT, when it was "safer" for Palestinians.  NOT by a longshot!

This daughter did have some immunity compared to what all her Palestinian 'kin' endured, even in this time of years, as you all know well from news accounts; there's anything but settled peaceful co-existence.  She had the 'magic' USA passport to buffer her.

Mona, the daughter, spent the better part of the year in Palestine among 'her' people in Ramallah. She taught school to school children who'd witnessed multiple violent evictions, abuse against family members, the indignity of unreasonably l-o-n-g lines, extended waiting to enter restricted areas to go to work and/or school or school field trips.  Sometimes, due to a moody guard, that guard who'd been a Jewish refugee from Eastern Europe, once upon a time was the cause of the hold up.  How galling is that!/

A young brash, recently 'minted' Israeli poised against a native-born Palestinian who's ancestors, for several generations back, had once resided peacefully in the land, and who still wished to do so (there are those who do).  Didn't that type of guard remember he/she was once a 'refugee'?  Did he/she not remember how it felt?

Don't let your prejudices run away with you.  Hear me out.

This daughter, Mona, was making every effort to teach these children to learn more 'diplomatic' ways of interacting even among themselves.  She started with teaching them to respect each other because each one was/is a human being.

We need to readjust our perceptions too!

As Mona got her students to repeat, let us do so too, "I am a human being."  Whether you are an Israeli, a Palestinian, or from Timbuktu, we are each, still, human beings.  Say it with one further step added, "We are human beings, made in God's image!"

As such, we each need to have compassion one toward another.  This cannot be ignored!

This is the time to jump in and be reminded of God's Old Testament laws.  What were they?

"Do NOT mistreat an alien or oppress him" (Exodus 22:21; 23:9 - emphasis mine).

How about reviewing this one.

"The alien must be treated as the native-born; love him as yourself" (Leviticus 19:33-34).

God, the LORD, their God, was talking to the Isrealites.  Ironic, isn't it?!  The Jewish peoples of the world have been through so, so much!  I do feel sorry and have felt great sorrow for them, and all they have had to suffer over time.  I have loved them for years!  After all, Jesus was born into a Jewish family!  He's my Savior and best Friend.  I have nothing against Jewish people.

I admit, I have also loathed the Palestinians!  How could they blow themselves up to kill masses of others not their own kind.  Serves them right, the current treatment they get.  They should be evicted from their homes if they are not paying rent to their Jewish landlords.  Hey!  One should pay what's owed, right?  Of course, right!

BUT, step back a bit, some of those beautiful homes currently owned and lived in by Israeli's were once the property of Palestinians who had had to flee violence and/or eviction at the hands of Israelis.  Did you realize this?

I didn't.  So we need to be human if there is a good one of those with proper behavior, and look at the situation from all sides.  Remember a coin has two sides.

We're talking about aliens and their treatment.  Granted, perhaps the Bible's, especially the Old Testament's definition, of 'alien' was mostly that of a non-Israelite who wanted to follow the laws and decrees God had set up for the nation of Israel to follow, even to the point of circumcision and being allowed in to the Tabernacle/Temple to worship God and offer sacrifices to Him.  Those who had indeed recognized Who the One true God was and still is.

In the New Testament, Jesus reminded the expert in the law, the two main laws were to "love the Lord thy God with all his heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love his neighbor as himself".    This was not new (compare again with Leviticus 19:33-34 and Luke 10:26-37.  Irony again. The parable that followed involved Jews and a despised Samaritan.  A Samaritan who'd cared for his 'enemy'.  The inquirer was told to go and do likewise.

Fellow followers of Jesus Christ, as we have opportunity, let us also do good to all people..." (Galations 6:10).

We will have to adjust our thinking.  What are our attitudes and perceptions regarding the homeless in our neighborhood?  How about refugees from foreign lands despite, race or religion?  Do we see them as human beings, or a bunch of cattle to be herded?  Herded away from us, preferably?  OR, can the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, flowing from Him to us, then flow through us to 'those aliens'?  Ultimately, you never know when you might become one and then you'll know how it feels.

                                                        ~ERC  August 2021~

*Disclaimer:  Some of the details of the two books mentioned:  In My Mother's Footsteps (audiobook) By Mona Hajjar Halaby and of Helmi's Shadow, By David Horgan, may be a bit mixed up but I did attempt to be true to the respective authors' accounts to the best of my remembrance.