Awaiting 'all clear'

Dear Editor,

My old neighborhood in Denver had residents who had escaped from Hitler's bombings and conquest of Europe.

John Mott, a fellow student in our fourth grade class, described spending the night in a London bomb shelter. We were active 9-year-olds who sat frozen in our seats. He said that each time the "all clear" signal sounded, his family would return home, wondering if their house had been demolished by German bombs.

The three stories on page 13 of the Feb. 8 Gazette made me wonder if there will be an "all clear" signal for peace very soon. Lebanese and Israeli forces have exchanged fire along the Israel-Lebanon border. In Mecca, Saudiprival Palestinian factions are discussing a possible civil war. In Iraq, a senior health ministry official has been accused in Baghdad of funneling funds to Shiites blamed for violence in that country.

Shiites are a Moslem sect, who follow the teachings of Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad, founder of the Islamic faith, seven centuries after Christ. Sunni Moslems are an orthodox group of Islam who acknowledge the first four caliphs (leaders in their religious community) as the successors to Mohammed. Observers say there is a possible civil war developing between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq.

On the West Bank, located in an area west of the Jordan River in Israel, there are more than 1.3 million Palestinian-Arabs. Living in the Gaza Strip, along the Mediterranean Sea, are more than 680,000 Arabs, 92 percent of which are Moslem.

The rest are Christian. As a group, they are united in their belief that their acts against Israel are justified. This is what has ignited the fighting between Israel and Lebanon. Seventy percent of the population in Lebanon is Islamic, and they support the Arab cause.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in 1967. The same was true for the West Bank. This has left Israel with an uncooperative segment of its population. (Israel captured West Bank from Jordan.) In 1995, an agreement was signed between Israel and West Bank for Palestinian self-rule. In 1994, self rule also was provided for Gaza.

Violence has erupted since then between Arabs and Israelis. In 12 months' time in 2002, Palestinian-Israeli violence had claimed more than 700 lives. As of February 2007, the "all clear" signal for the Middle East has not yet sounded. According to Bible prophecy, it won't occur until the second coming.

(References: Jerusalem, the Eternal City, 1996, the New York Times World Almanac 2002, McCook Gazette 2007, and Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 1998)

Helen Ruth Arnold,

McCook