Most Underreported Story of 2006

Dr. Michael L. Ford

15 January 2007

            One of the things about being a Christian writer is we have to be careful what we write and how we write it. There are those who can hardly wait to catch us in a factual error or making a statement they can decide is unchristian. I even get responses every once in a while for grammatical errors or when “southernese” enters into my dialogue. At the same time our work has a lasting quality that sometimes means articles wind up being used in research papers by students and so forth. For many reasons, we have to get it right. This is why I have delayed over two weeks in deciding what was the most underreported story last year.

             There were a lot of candidates for this recognition. We could point out the persecution of Christians in Africa or point to specific problems like the Sudan or Somalia. But there are plenty of other regions of the world where Christian persecution is taking place such as Sri Lanka. The mainline media consistently neglect these for easily reported police car chases. Then there is the persecution of Jews around the world. We could spotlight places like France where anti-Semitism and Moslem violence against Jews is actually pushing French Jews into making “aliyah” immigration to Israel. That’s a big one but it is an ongoing story.

            One of the biggest underreported stories of the year was the real reason Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon. It was because the daily rocket attacks had become so intolerable the wounded nation had to do something. Then there was the betrayal of Israel in the ceasefire when, with the complicity of the United States, U.N. “peacekeepers” actually aided the terrorists to rearm. Had I been in charge in Israel during this I would have fulfilled the biblical prophecy concerning Damascus’ ultimate destiny.

            But the big story of 2006 was how few cared about the victims of terrorist rockets in Israel. There was much moaning about the sufferings of the people who allowed terrorists in their midst in Lebanon. Horror stories about Jewish indifference to Lebanese “collateral damage” kept being repeated even after they were disproved. Sympathy for the Lebanese extended even to the injured pets in Lebanon but not to the injured of Israel. I am still waiting to find out how much of the money given for Lebanese relief, especially for the animals made it into terrorist pockets? But who wept for Israel?

             Just before I made my decision concerning the most underreported story of the year, I was digging through a number of files. One thing I scanned was an article done by PBS that covered two kinds of negative attitudes toward peoples. It seemed that PBS has decided that the reason Christians and Jews oftentimes come into line for negative responses is because they are there. That’s right. If Christians and Jews would move off the planet some people think it would be a better place. They would do well to remember God blesses those who bless His people and gets really upset with those who curse them!