Hamas’ aggression: On October 7, 2023 the Hamas military organization, recognized in many countries as a terrorist organization, struck a terrible attack on Israel from their stronghold in Gaza. The brutality of their attack on civilians and military was horrible, and completely unjustifiable. The rape and murder of men, women and children was unjustifiable. The intent was bloody mayhem, and Hamas is to be condemned unreservedly. Hamas took hundreds of hostages back to Gaza, a move intended to aid negotiations, one presumes. Many of those hostages subsequently died. The hostages included women and children, even babies..
Israels response: The Israeli political administration, and all the Israeli military machine, including the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has waged a terrible and indiscriminate war on Gaza in which the ostensible aim was to destroy Hamas in Gaza so that Hamas might never again mount an attack on Israel. In so doing., Israel has killed 20 to 25 civilians for every Hamas fighter killed. The killing of civilians has been arbitrary and without due care. The civilians killed include women, children, even babies. The Israel attack has targeted schools, hospitals, and aid workers, with apparent intentionality. The devastation on Gaza has created close to 2 million homeless refugees (effectively the entire population of Gaza) and famine is now endemic. Israel is accused of genocide in the highest courts on the planet, and Israel’s leaders, including their president, have arrest warrants issued by the International Court of Human Rights. Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza continues unabated, with analysts across the world noting the Israeli military seem to be preparing for a long-term occupation and management of Gaza. Civilian deaths mount daily in indiscriminate attacks.
Roots: Hamas October 7th attack, and Israel’s brutal response are set in a long and complex context, in which each sees the other as belligerents in a war for the land, and for national, ethnic and religious identity. Both sides are culpable for immoral murder, which side is more justified, or less culpable is a matter of opinion, and depends on how mar back in history one wants to start the narrative. For me, the creation of Israel in 1948 by the United Nations, following the collapse of the British Administration of Palestine serves as a helpful starting place. (This point is history has personal clarity for me, as my father served as a noncommissioned officer in the British Army during that peacekeeping campaign 1946-1948. His opinion of the culture of both sides has influenced me greatly and left me deeply supporting Palestinian Christians as the unsung victims of the powerful and US-backed Israel dominating the chaotic and underfunded Palestinian people.)
Israel in NOT a Jewish State: One point that I want to be crystal clear on is the Israel is NOT Jewish. It was created as a secular nation in which all its citizens, especially Jews could reside in safety and peace. The United Nations created Israel in 1948 largely as an emotional and moral response to horrors of the Nazi holocaust in which millions of Jews (and others) were systematically murdered by the Nazi so-called Third Reich in World War Two. Israel has pursued a policy of inviting Jews to move to Israel in the hopes of creating a society that is at least 60% Jewish. Many Jews wish for Israel to be Jewish state, and to that end have systematically harassed Muslim and Christian Israeli citizens. As a result, the percentage of Christians in Israel has reduced from 22% in 1948 to 2% in 2024. Israel’s Jewish-lead authorities are not friends of Christians, no matter what their tourism agencies try to project on western Christians. Those who support Israeli military aggression, particularly US Evangelical Christians with a strong Calvinistic theology, often frame Israel as synonymous with Jewish people. This is a deeply significant oversimplification of the situation, and created blindness:
Not all Israelis are Jewish. Not all Jews are Israeli. Indeed, the high number of Jewish people in the USA has driven the US’s long term massive funding of the Israeli military machine and continues to give billion of dollar of unrestricted aid to Israel every year. It is no exaggeration to say that Israel exists today, because of US support. Yet 40% of the Israeli citizenry is not Jewish.
Not all Jews support Israel in its destruction of Gaza: The current Israeli regime is driven my Jewish theologically conservative and socially conservative ideologies. They are not limited to but include ‘Zionist’ ideologies which seek the recreation of a Jewish theological state akin to those from ‘Old Testament’ times such as the reign of King David. Militant adversaries of Israel refer to Israel as ‘Zionist’ and while that is true of many power sectors of Israel, it is a damaging oversimplification. Many Jews, especially younger Jews, seek a secular state that can use it’s US allies and its military force to broker a political solution of peace with Israel’s neighbors and more distant adversaries (especially Iran). Their hope is currently drowned out by the genocide of the current Israeli regime and the decades long apartheid within Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.
As a Christian, (acknowledging my Anglo-American identity), and as an Episcopal Priest, I seek to find a view in which I most faithfully represent the teachings of The Lord Jesus Christ (Jesus for short). Jesus led a life of non-violent differentiation from both the secular and religious authorities of Israel/Judah in His earthly time, and from the occupying military superpower of His earthly time, the Roman Empire. War represents a failure of belligerents seeing and acknowledging the humanity of their adversaries. Peace is both the absence of war and the establishment of justice. Justice requires acknowledging the intrinsic worth and dignity of the common humanity of each party in a conflict. From that root, can grow values that lead to actions that lead to systems of peace and mutual flourishing. It is a colossal irony and tragedy that Jews, Muslims and Christians represent most of the persons involved and caught up in this conflict. Each religious system contains a theology of the intrinsic value of all humans. However, unlike Christianity, both Jewish and Islamic theologies allow for war as an acceptable solution against those who do not adhere to their religions. Only Christianity, when living out the values of Jesus, rejects violence and modality of conflict. This places Christians in a dangerous, unique and hopeful role in the conflict. Christian parties seek to live out a role in the conflict of reconciling the Jewish and Palestinian Muslim factions. This is where my motives lie.
Response: I invite readers of this post to write to their US senators and Representatives to implore them to:
– radically reduce the funding of the Israeli military until such time as Israel changes their genocidal agression in Gaza. However, it is perhaps too late for that already. Indeed the US funding of the Israeli military (that is our personal tax dollars) must be used by Israel only for defensive purposes (i.e. Iron Dome) and not ofr agression of Israeli’s adversaries. The Israeli economy is certainly strong enough to fund it’s own aggressive military!
– to work towards a diplomatic end to the cureent hositlity.
One State Solution: I personally believe the oft proposed ‘two state solution;’ is dead. Dead beyond any reasonable hope of implementation. Instead, the only viable solution is to remake Israel in the vision of the initial UN resolution: as a truly secular society in which each person is considered equal, is a citizen with an equal vote: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or non-aligned, or secular. Yes, Jews will be able to live there in safety and security, as they deserve to, and as all Israeli’s deserve to. If the US wishes to spawn a child, then a secular democracy is a vision of the best of what the US represents.
May peace come to Jerusalem. May the Land of the Holy One see peace. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Inshallah. Oseh shalom bimromav.