Ishmael's Cry: A Call for Cross-Cultural Compassion

The Text
I was reading recently in Genesis 20 and came across a verse that touched me profoundly. The account of Genesis 20 is one known by many but studied by few; that of the birth of Isaac.
We are told that after Issac was born that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, demanded that her maidservant, Hagar, and the child born of her husband by this servant, Ishmael, be sent away.
The author of Genesis goes on to tell us that although this troubled Abraham greatly he went ahead and sent Ishmael and Hagar away. We are told he did this because God said, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring." (v. 12& 13)
So Abraham sends his child and the child's mother out into the desert. Eventually, however, their provisions run out. They use up all their water. Hope is lost. Hagar sets the 14 year old Ishmael down in the shade and walks away, unable to watch the inevitable death of her son, who would undoubtably soon succomb to the desert heat without water.
It is this part of the passage, then, that intruiged me. The New Living Translation tells us, "Then God heard the boy's cries, and the angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, "Hagar, what's wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy's cries from the place where you laid him. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants."
The Big Deal
"God heard Ishmael cry". God hears the cries of the oppresse. Very significantly, he is not deaf to those outside his plans or kingdom. Ishmael went on to be a great nation, and he is commonly considered in Biblical and Qu'ran sources to be the father of the Arab peoples.
Why does this matter? It matters because the American church has a tendancy to believe that only we Americans pray to God, and that God hears only our prayers here in America. If God heard Ishmael's cry then who is to say that he will not hear the cry of Ishmael today? Millions of the descendants of Ishmael are crying out now.
It certainly is not a subject we like to think about, but in truth we must. Arabs all over the Middle East are crying out today. They are oppressed by tyranical governments, women are treated like animals under much of the strict Muslim law, the wealth of their nations is robbed out from under the people by their rulers, and they have been convinced by their poverty and desparation to follow creeds of Islamic fundamentalism and extremism. These people cry out to God for deliverance from their governments, our government, the Israelis, the desert, the heat, the poverty, and the percieved pillaging of their culture. Their cries are being raised to God.
Conclusion
Don't get me wrong, I do not condone acts of terror that this desperation promotes. I do not necessarily blame Israel for its acts of agression. It is a rough and cruel world. However, beware, God hears the cries of Ishmael, and so should we. God is intimately aquianted with those who descend from that Abrahamic line. He knows each of them by name. Although we may not agree with them, they too are near to God's heart. Thus they should be to ours also. God has heard Ishmael's cry. Can you?