As a child I wasn’t taught to pray for the Vietnamese people. I was not taught that there were Vietnamese children whose fathers were being slaughtered in their country, the same as my father. I wasn’t taught that their mothers were suffering as well, many of them much worse off than my own mother. I wasn’t taught that Vietnamese children were having to flee their homes, sometimes losing their limbs and/or lives in the process. I wasn’t taught that some had been purposely murdered by American soldiers under the orders of men like Lt. Calley.

I wasn’t taught about the sufferings of the Vietnamese people at all. And shamefully,I didn’t learn about their sufferings until I became a mother myself and made friends with the refugees who had fled Vietnam. It took me going to Vietnam to open my heart up to the sufferings of the Vietnamese, people I had been taught were my enemy.

That’s right. I had been taught that the Vietnamese were the reason my father had been KIA. I had been taught that while American soliders had gone to help liberate the country, the Vietnamese didn’t want or need liberation. I had been taught that everything we did in Vietnam was done in vain. I had been taught that my father’s death was unnecessary. “A waste,” so many said to me growing up.

Guess what else I was never taught? I was never taught that it was Congress who made the decision to send men like my father to fight a war that should never have been waged. I was never taught to hold our own elected officials responsible for all the losses.

Instead I was taught that Americans were a godly people who always did right by others. I was taught to say the pledge of allegiance without ever thinking of the indoctrination behind such a pledge. I was taught to trust untrustworthy politicians. I was taught that war was necessary in order to maintain peace, which sounds like the perfect slogan for companies like Lockheed Martin or Dow Chemical, or any of the myraid of liars getting richer off of warring. (You don’t think Jared Kushner got that $2 billion for nothing, ,do you?)

I think about what I wasn’t taught everytime someone says, “Pray for Israel.”

What about the Palestinians? I want to answer, and sometimes do.

Years ago, we hosted a young Palestinian woman in our home. She was lovely and bright and kind and loved her homeland with the same fervor that Americans love their homeland.

Extremism is not the friend of any people group, no matter their religious or political affiliations. It is extremism that is tearing apart America. That is tearing apart the Middle East. That is tearing apart the UK.

I was taught as a child that Israel is God’s chosen nation. I believe that in the same way I believe we are all God’s chosen people. Creator loves us all the same but differently, the way any good parent does any of their children. All the same but differently.

I am no longer a child. Nor do I think like one.

When I pray for Israel, I also pray for the Palestinians, because this one truth I know – most people want to live peaceably. We want to share. We want to get along. It’s the powerful and power-hungry among us who are sure to gain from the war-mongering-making business. Whether they be politicians or religious leaders or CEOs of defense contracting businesses. I once had a man who owned funeral homes tell me he made his wealth off of the war in Vietnam.

That’s another thing I was never taught – that there are plenty of people making money off these wars around the world.

Yes, please do pray for peace in Israel, but why you are at it, pray also for the Palestinians and the Ukrainians and the Russians whose families are being impacted by extremists seeking to benefit from all these wars. There are people in America today who see the wars in Israel and Ukraine as a boon to their business. Bet you didn’t learn that in the same school where you were required to say the pledge.