The claim is often made that all that is needed to end the war on Gaza is for Hamas to lay down its weapons and return the hostages: “If Israel lays down their weapons, there will be war, but if Hamas lays down its weapons, there will be peace.”
This statement reflects a profound ignorance of the situation in Israel-Palestine and of the nature of violent reprisals in general.
Huckabee’s ignorance
Last week, Mike Huckabee, former pastor and now US Ambassador to Israel, reported that he received a call from Dr. Hanan Balkhy, a regional coordinator for the World Health Organization for the eastern Mediterranean. During the call, Dr. Balkhy asked Huckabee to put pressure on Israel, which has once again placed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, to allow food and other necessities to the people of Gaza.
Huckabee said that he appreciated the call, but that they need to work together to put pressure on the real culprits, Hamas.
Huckabee’s response is absurd in its ignorance, grotesque in its inhumanity, unsufferable in its blindness, and damnable in its complicity.
The fact that these words come from a former Christian pastor makes it even more disgraceful.
Huckabee is, in effect, saying that we will not demand that Israel stop withholding food from the people. WHAT?
So, it’s okay to starve people? Sorry, Mr. Huckabee, it is NEVER okay to starve people.
Engaging in justice work
When people ask me how I became involved in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, I tell them that I went to the land and saw things for myself. And what I saw was not what I had been told.
Early in my efforts to work towards peace in the conflict, I knew there would be a significant, if not insurmountable, problem.
In 2011, on my fourth trip to the land, I spent a week walking through the land and meeting people. I spoke with dozens of leaders and others just trying to hear their stories.
Upon picking me up from the airport, my wife asked, “Well, how did it go?”
“It was tremendous,” I replied. “There is only one problem, however.”
“Oh, and what is that?” she asked.
“No one will believe me,” I asserted.
Could it be that we have been so profoundly affected by the empire’s propaganda that we are beyond the ability to see or believe anything different? I know this is not true, but it seems like it is.
No Other Land
I recently watched the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land. If you haven’t seen it, you need to.
“Oh, but it only tells one side of the story.”
Of course, it does. But it is the side that most haven’t heard. And it is the side that few understand.
Justifying terrorism
Let me be clear: there is never a justification for terrorism.
Nonetheless, it behooves us to ask if the stealing of land, the destruction of homes and schools (with the kids inside! –they escaped through a window), the confiscation of cars and personal belongings, as well as the total subjugation of a people, justify acts of terrorism?
What about the consistent violence that Israeli settlers inflict on Palestinians? Acts of violence, mind you, that are “rarely” (I prefer the use of “never” here because it is much closer to the truth than “rarely”) punished. Unfortunately, settler violence, which is just as much an act of terrorism as anything the Palestinians do, is regularly done with the support of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
NB: IDF soldiers have one responsibility when it comes to encounters between settlers and Palestinians, namely, to defend the settlers. This means that armed settlers, with armed IDF soldiers walking alongside, can terrorize Palestinians, and the Palestinians have no recourse.
What would you do?
Most Palestinians do not respond with acts of terrorism. In fact, it is incredible that so few do. I couldn’t help but watch No Other Land and wonder how I would have reacted to the IDF bulldozing my home, my neighbor’s home, or our kids’ school.
When the “terrorism” discussion comes to the forefront in the conversation of Israel-Palestine, I think we need to push back.
We need to ask, “Is not the issue Israel’s oppressive military occupation of the Palestinians? Is not the issue the use of force by the Israeli military to steal Palestinians’ ancestral lands? Is not the issue Israel’s ‘detaining’ of innocent Palestinians (I say “innocent” here in reference to the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians who are detained by Israel are never even charged with a crime.
These are certainly not the only issues, but they are issues. And they rarely get addressed.
What else is Israel to do?
Almost every time Israel’s oppressive occupation with the untold list of injustices is brought to the table, the conversation inevitably turns to “What else is Israel to do?”
NB: I realize that these questions are complex. Every geopolitical situation is.
Well, let’s begin with, “Stop oppressing the Palestinians.” Then, we can move to “Stop stealing their lands and building settlements.” Perhaps next, we can address, “Stop detaining innocent Palestinians simply because they speak against Israel’s oppressive occupation” . . . .
Now, will addressing these questions be enough to end the conflict? By no means. But it may make peace far more likely than the current course we’re on.
Note, no one is asking Israel to put its weapons down. We are asking them to stop using them to do injustice.
What is Israel to do? How about, “Act justly!”
“But if Israel laid down its weapons, it would be destroyed.”
There may be some truth here, but the problem with this claim is that it betrays a lack of understanding of “terrorism” and what it is that often serves as the catalyst for terrorism.
NB: The notion that Israel has gone too far in its efforts to squash Palestinian terrorism has caused some Christian Zionists to begin to rethink their support of Israel concerning the current conflict.
On Tuesday, April 29, at 11:00 am PST / 2:00 pm EST, we will interview Prof Joel Willits to discuss his conviction that he can no longer support Israel.
NB: Each of these links will work even after the event has been recorded.
On Wednesday, May 7 at 2:00 PST / 5:00 EST, we will interview Prof Darrell Bock to see how his views towards Israel and its assault on Gaza have changed.
Then, on Wednesday, May 14 at 2:00 PST / 5:00 EST, Prof Ross Wagner and I will discuss these interviews and more.
Terrorism often has a backstory
Resistance movements seldom, if ever, arise in a vacuum.
NB: I am obligated to remind you that I am in no way condoning Hamas or any acts of terrorism (including those committed by the IDF and radical Israeli settlers). I have repeatedly condemned all acts of violence. I firmly believe that violence is the way of the god of this world and his kingdoms, and not the way of Christ and His kingdom.
The problem is that we have been overwhelmed with propaganda that depicts Islamic extremism as deriving from two primary factors.
First, we are told that extremism and jihad are innate within Islam.
Second, we are told that they hate our freedom.
The problem here is that historical facts demonstrate that hatred of the other often arises from the behavior of the other.
In his book, Already Enough, Scott Horton catalogues numerous terrorist acts and contends that they are often accounted for not because of religious extremism nor because others hated our freedoms, but because they were responding to our acts of violence against them.
For example:
Manchester attack, May 2017
On May 22, 2017, a suicide bomber attacked an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, leaving 22 dead and injuring more than 800.
Official reports were quick to blame the attacks on Islam. Scott Horton, in his book Enough Already, responds, “While the usual suspects rushed to blame faith in Islam for the attack, they should have been blaming the lily-white, Anglican MI-6 and their allied intelligence agencies” (271).
Horton adds that the attacker’s sister suggested, “I think he saw children—Muslim children—dying everywhere and wanted revenge. He saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge. Whether he got that is between him and God” (271).
Fort Hood attack, November 2009
On November 5, 2009, a U.S. Army major killed 13 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood. The attack was first declared to be the result of “workplace violence.” Republican officials were quick to dismiss this assertion and instead blamed it on radical Islam. During his trial, the attacker stated that he was motivated by the need to respond to the US war against Islam (Horton, 272).
Boston Marathon attack, April 2013
On April 15, 2013, three people were killed (including an 8-year-old boy) when two brothers planted bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Their motivation: “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, co-conspirator with his brother Tamerlan in the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon attacks, told investigators they were motivated by the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Horton, 272).
Orlando Night Club attack, June 2016
On June 12, 2016, 49 lives were lost and another 53 were injured when a shooter opened fire in the Orlando Pulse nightclub. Though the cause of the horrific shooting spree was allegedly Islamic extremism and the hatred of gays, Horton notes that one of the hostages, “Patience Carter, who was shot in the leg by Mateen [the shooter] and held hostage in the bathroom of the club for three hours with the gunman, said, ‘The motive was very clear to us who are laying in our own blood and other people’s blood, who are injured, who were shot. Everybody who was in that bathroom who survived could hear him talking to 911, saying the reason why he’s doing this is because he wanted America to stop bombing his country’” (Horton, 273).
We’ve been lied to
I could go on. But the point has been made. Our government lies to us.
We are regularly told that the primary cause of such attacks is radical Islam. Included in the rhetoric is the assumption that we (the US and the West) are the innocent recipients of violence and that our only recourse is to defend our freedoms and our democracy and to root out the evil among us.
This is not always the case. It is often the extremism in our own country that is the cause.
Perhaps the biggest problem in all this is the Church
There is, however, a far greater problem that needs to be addressed. Namely, that some of the loudest voices supporting violence in general and Israel’s violence against the Palestinians in particular come from the mouths of Christians.
The very ones who follow the Prince of Peace advocate for violence the most.
NB: Jesus must be rolling over in His grave. Oh yeah, He’s not there!
What’s the solution, then?
The only solution that may work is to demand peace and justice for everyone. As one of the Israeli activists declared in the documentary No Other Land, “Unless the Palestinians get freedom, we will never have peace in Israel.”
It is also time for the Church to be the Church. Hence, the reason for this post.
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