Katrina, the wrath of God

Depending on who you ask, God sent Katrina either to punish the US for supporting Israel’s disengagement plan:

On August 14, citizens in the United States, like people around the world, heard about the issuing of an order for the forced evacuation of Jews from parts of Israel’s biblical land.

For six days they watched as thousands of weeping people were pulled and carried from their homes, forced to leave their gardens, parks, communities, schools, towns and synagogues, everything they had spent decades building; banned from ever returning again. Those scenes were soon followed by pictures of bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery pulverizing the just-vacated homes into heaps of dust.

While this was taking place, a small tropical depression was forming near the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean. Slowly, as the air began to revolve, the nonthreatening weather system began moving in the direction of Florida.

Yesterday, we in Israel watched as American officials, including President George W. Bush, ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans and its surrounds. That small depression had turned into a frightening fiend. Now we are seeing on our television screens up to a million people being forced to leave their homes. People are weeping on camera, mourning that they are going to lose “everything we own; everything we have worked for.”

As today unfolds we are bracing to see wind and water pounding homes, whole communities, into the ground.

Is this some sort of bizarre coincidence? Not for those who believe in the God of the Bible and the immutability of His Word.

What America is about to experience is the lifting of God’s hand of protection; the implementation of His judgment on the nation most responsible for endangering the land and people of Israel. (Jerusalem Newswire, Aug. 29)

Or, Allah sent Katrina to punish the US for its imperial endeavors:

“When the satellite channels reported on the scope of the terrifying destruction in America [caused by] this wind, I was reminded of the words of [Prophet Muhammad]: ‘The wind sends torment to one group of people, and sends mercy to others.’ I do not think — and only Allah [really] knows — that this wind, which completely wiped out American cities in these days, is a wind of mercy and blessing. It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire. Out of my absolute belief in the truth of the words of the Prophet Muhammad, this wind is the fruit of the planning [of Allah], as is stated in the text of the Hadith of the Prophet.

“But I began to ask myself: Doesn’t this country [the U.S.] claim to aspire to establish justice, freedom, and equality amongst the people? Isn’t this country claiming that everything it did in Afghanistan and Iraq was for truth and justice? How can it be that these American claims are untrue, when we see how good prevails in the streets of Afghanistan, and how it became an oasis of security with America’s entrance there? How can these American claims in the matter of Iraq be untrue, when we see that Iraq has become the most tranquil and secure country in the world?

“But how strange it is that after all the tremendous American achievements for the sake of humanity, these mighty winds come and evilly rip [America’s] cities to shreds? Have the storms have joined the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization?

The latter article, by Kuwaiti official Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, ran Aug. 31 in the the Kuwaiti daily al-Siyassa, according to MEMRI. It was titled, “The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah, But Not an Adherent of Al-Qaeda.”

    1. Don’t forget the sodomites and the witches…
      Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God’s mercy in the aftermath of Katrina — but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

      The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as “Southern Decadence” — an annual six-day “gay pride” event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week — God’s judgment would be felt.

      β€œNew Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it’s free of all of those things now,” Shanks says. “God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we’re going to start over again.”

      The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. “It’s time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won’t have to deal with that wickedness,” he says.

      Believers, he says, are God’s “authorized representatives on the face of the Earth” and should say they “don’t want unrighteous men in office,” for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to voice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexual marriage. “We don’t want a Supreme Court that is going to say it’s all right to kill little boys and girls, … it’s all right to take prayer out of schools, and it’s all right to legalize sodomy, opening the door for same-sex marriage and all of that.

        1. Ovadia Yosef: It’s the pullout
          Last update – 22:07 07/09/2005
          Shas rabbi: Hurricane is Bush’s punishment for pullout support
          By The Associated Press

          Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi and the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, said on Wednesday that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for U.S. President George W. Bush’s support for Israel’s Gaza pullout.

          “It was God’s retribution. God does not shortchange anyone,” Yosef said during his weekly sermon on Tuesday. His comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday.

          Yosef also said recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and that Katrina’s victims suffered “because they have no God,” singling out black people.

          “He (Bush) perpetrated the expulsion (of Jews from Gaza). Now everyone is mad at him. This is his punishment for what he did to Gush Katif, and everyone else who did as he told them, their time will come, too,” Yosef said.

          A Shas official, Tzvika Yaacobson, did not deny Yosef made the comments but said they were taken out of context and that people were misinterpreting the rabbi.

          “He has a special style he uses when he speaks to the people,” said Yaacobson. “He tells jokes that you may like, and may not like. When you just tell the joke, you are ignoring the connotation.”

          Yosef singled out black victims, saying “they don’t study Torah.” He used the word “Kushim,” which in the Bible refers to an ancient African people but in vernacular Hebrew is considered derogatory.

          Yosef, 85, is no stranger to controversy. Last March he declared that God will strike dead “the evil one” who evacuates Israelis from the Gaza Strip, referring to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

          He has called on the Israel Defense Forces to “joyfully” annihilate Arabs with rockets, and he caused a huge uproar when he stated that the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust died because they were reincarnations of sinners in previous generations.

  1. this is just dumb
    Really think about it if there is a god (witch there isn’t) don’t you think he would go after a city that matters like; New York, Chicago, LA or even Seatle. Why wouldn’t he go after one of the affulent cities? I mean he is all powerfull right? Or could it just be that New Orleans is built below sea leval and this was bound to happen and will happen again if precautions aren’t taken. By the looks of it we will. Also what did the people in that tsunami do to upset god. Nothing! That is the error of your logic, stuff happens some times and it is stupid to look to god when it does. It’s just weather. By the way New Orleans still looks better than half of your crapy third world counties.

    1. And the pot calls the kettle black…
      Of course all this wrath-of-god jive is unspeakably dumb. But what are we to make of the above commentator, who not only cannot spell “which” or “level” or “crappy,” but doesn’t understand the vital importance of New Orleans as the United States’ largest seaport (and the world’s fifth largest)? And of course lugubrious Christian wingnuts claimed the Asian tsunami was the wrath of God. As did lugubrious Muslim wingnuts and lugubrious Jewish wingnuts.