Do not believe for a second that the world will ever see a credible accounting of who was killed in its war to annihilate a terrorist organization.  War is one thing the United Nations defines with precision and crimes against humanity have gone unpunished since 1948.  Jebusites, marked for extermination in the campaign to take possession of Canaan, lived to see the beating heart of the immigrant community rise with their commercial and reverent contribution.

Marked for death and dispossession

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, (Deuteronomy 7:1, NASB)

Survivors of divine decrees

Now as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out; so the Jebusites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem until this day. (Joshua 15:63, NASB)

Prophet and king who know the truth

So Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2 Samuel 24:18, NASB)

The truth ignored with a racist policy

Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. (Ezra 9:1, NASB)

Exemplary cities in the reliable accounts

Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. (1 Kings 7:13, NASB), then a wave of unprecedented immigration takes place.  (Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. (1 Kings 9:11, NASB)

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22. “Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 11:21-22, NASB)

Contrasts in neighbourly affairs

Compare the policies in the drive International relationships today with those of 2,000 years ago, and see that decency and high marble standards are no longer the priority of the inhabitants of the land flowing with milk and honey.

17. Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18. who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19. And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all. (Luke 6:17-19, NASB)

Bombs and air strikes may impress vengeful people but they solve no problem and undoubtedly corrupt good practice.  Violent crime  and mass murder self defence were never solutions to the human problem of greed, selfishness and idolatry.  So, what else is news?   Human propensity for violence has been growing steadily since the age of Abraham.  Divine judgment is not slack, neither is divine grace for those who respond to supreme generosity