The genocidal scriptures

In the grisly aftermath of the Garissa University College massacre, we have heard a lot about how the Al-Shabaab (like their brethren, al Qaeda) are devilish extremist fundamentalist gun-cocking, hellish jihadists who kill the innocent — like the students in Garissa — with no compunction or compassion. And it is true.

We have also heard all sorts of pastors and other pastoral types, who like to talk of leading their “sheep” to pasture, yet Al-Shabaab treats these as sheep for slaughter.

It is the Koran that has provisions for fatwa, like the one the Ayatollah Khomeini delivered on the head of author Salman Rushdie 26 years ago, and for jihad, they say.

The Bible, the “Good Book,” brooks no such horrors.

Not true.

Look at the sixth book, Joshua, that follows the five books of the Torah in the Old Testament.

Joshua, son of Nun — who was certainly no nun — is told by the Lord God after the death of Moses: “I have given you and all my people the land you will be marching over. Just be determined and confident, for I will always be with you.”

False information

So, in real CIA fashion, Joshua sends two spies into Jericho, and in an act of espionage that would make the old KGB proud, they recruit a double agent, Rahab the prostitute into their “Mossad” ranks; and she provides aid, succour, harbour and comfort to the Enemy — in the same way some native Kenyans are covering up for Al- Shabaab.

She even gives false information to the city authorities, the Jericho NIS, sending them scouring the countryside for the spies she hides, until they can slip back across the border — à la Somalia — into safety.

Back at Joshua’s camp, there is mass circumcision of all the Israeli males at a place called Gilgal — no weighbridges there — where the leader weighs in with his thoughts of how the Hebrews are “no longer unclean.”

This is indoctrination of the highest order, the separation of the Chosen Ones and the “Uncleans” (infidels and kaffirs). The Lord himself provides the logistics for the fall of Joshua — you can read all about this thrilling incident in Joshua Six as we do not have the space to get into it all here.

But suffice it to summarise it thus, that “once the walls of Jericho fell, Joshua’s army rushed in and with their swords, they slew everyone (in Jericho), men and women, young and old.”

Let us throw the Biblically cloaked language aside and say it as it is: “with their pangas, they murdered everyone in the city, tearing babies from the arms of their mothers to slash them dead, and fatally stabbing even the old and infirm.”

Set fire to the city

This is worse than ISIS. Then they took gold, silver, bronze and iron for the Lord’s Treasury, set fire to the city and burned it to the ground, with Joshua decreeing the Lord’s eternal curse — death of the children — on whoever tried to rebuild the city. Those who believe in generational curses may be relieved of their burden by knowing Jericho, the city of palm trees, has been re-built over 20 times — having existed for 12,000 years — with a current population of less than 20,000 souls and a Sh15 billion casino attraction, built under the orders of arch-enemy of Israel, Yasser Arafat, in 1998.

But back to our “holy warriors.

Does that term sound as familiar as a modern day Mujaheeden? After sacking the city (modern-day parallel are allegations that the KDF traded in sacks of charcoal in conquered/captured areas of Somalia), it was found that a man called Achan had kept a beautiful Babylonian cloak lined with silver for himself, perhaps as a souvenir to their pillage.

Joshua ordered the unfortunate Achan, his sons, daughters, cattle, donkey and sheep taken to a place called “Trouble Valley” and stoned to death by his own clan.

Is this not reminiscent of the intolerant Taliban? An interesting sideline is that the wife was spared — perhaps to be “inherited” by the Keepers of the Lord’s Treasury?And it is the city of Ai where we see Bible-size genocide at an incredible scale.

Greatest of war criminals

The Good Book says Joshua “kept his spear pointed at Ai until every last man and woman was killed, then hanged the Ai king on a tree.”

Presumably because the Lord’s Treasury was full with booty from Jericho, Joshua now let his Israelites run amok through Ai to loot livestock and plunder goods for themselves as their reward for mass murder.

They killed twelve thousand Aites in Ai. Considering the estimated world population then was 70 million people, that is like massacring 1.2 million folks.

The same number that were killed in the Rwanda genocide 21 years ago!

Joshua and his men were génocidaires, no different from the Interahamwe. If there had been ICC in those days, no doubt he would have stood trial as the greatest of war criminals, alongside the likes of Colonel Theoneste Bangasora of Rwanda for crimes against humanity.

Yet we try and put these evils into Biblical literary context.

After all, Joshua conquered all the territory west of Jordan, from Baalgad to the valley of Lebanon to the heights of Mount Halak to the south near Edom as the Lord’s peoples’ permanent possession, the “greater Israel” that some still lay fantastic claim to, with the likes of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu still sanctioning settlements in areas of Jerusalem.

Wicked deeds of terrorism

These so-called conquests occurred with the displacement, destruction and extermination of local populations, the same crime the greatest war criminal of all time, Adolf Hitler, attempted on the Slavic peoples of Russia with his Lebensbraum (living space) programme in a war of pogroms whose end 70 years ago we will be celebrating in two Sundays’ (May 9) time.

The Lord’s Chosen People, Allah’s Holy Warriors, 144 000 for paradise — it is this claim to Divine selection that is the fundamental seed of all terrorism, and its justification for the extermination of the Other, just like it was in Garissa.

Yet the shame of all the Joshuas’ statements in Shechem, whether they are wielding swords, AK 47s, or chemical weapons, remains. “As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”

It is always done, these wicked deeds of terrorism, in the name of God.

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