I’m thinking of a number between one and infinity

Can you guess what number I’m thinking of? Hint: it’s not 1.

Another hint: it’s the number of Palestinians that have been killed in Gaza since October 7th.

If, with this hint, you really have no idea what the number is, it’s a pretty good bet that you don’t consider Palestinians to be as human as you are. And that’s something we need to talk about.

The correct answer – according to recent reports – is 40,786. Without a doubt, this number became obsolete as soon as it was published. Very likely, most of those killed in the last few hours were women and children.

Of those 40,000+ dead bodies, roughly 15,000 are the bodies of children and babies. Many of those were decapitated or blown to pieces by Israeli bombs. In fact, after a recent attack on a school-turned-shelter (while Gazans prayed their morning prayers together), the bodies were dismembered or destroyed so far beyond recognition that doctors were only able to give grieving families an anonymous bag of human remains to bury.

If you are thinking, “well, that’s what they deserve after decapitating Israeli babies on October 7th,” you need to do some reading. Start with this and this and this. Cliff Notes: no babies were decapitated that day.

If you are thinking, “I don’t believe you. Hamas totally decapitated babies that day, even if there is zero evidence,” you need to do some soul-searching. Is there a reason why you choose to believe an unsubstantiated statement (“Hamas decapitated babies”) rather than proven facts (“no babies were decapitated”)? Is it, perhaps, because you think of Hamas fighters as less than human, as monsters and savages?

That was apparently the thinking of the Netanyahu government and Israeli first responders. No one – no one – saw a single decapitated baby anywhere, and yet they conjured dozens of them up in their minds. They believed it’s realistic to expect such acts from Hamas fighters.

But again, it did not happen. Sit with that fact for a minute.

The mass, systematic rape that you’ve probably heard about (Kamala Harris mentioned it in her acceptance speech at the DNC) – that didn’t happen either. Read about it here and here and here, for starters. The information is readily available.

If it’s hard for you to wrap your head around “no mass, systematic rape,” why is that? Is it, perhaps, because you think of Hamas fighters as less than human, as monsters and savages?

For many of us, it is easier to believe the lies than the truth.

I don’t want to brag, but when I heard accusations of beheadings and rape, I called foul immediately.

Here’s a little-known fact: all people are regular human beings, not savages. There is the occasional psychopath, of course, but people are, as a rule, just people who want to live a relatively comfortable life and make the world a little better for their children than it is for them.

This is unequivocally true for the Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of whom have lived their entire lives in brutal, enforced poverty. Some of the men and women of Gaza are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the future of their people – just exactly like our own armed forces. Palestinians do not “celebrate death,” but some are willing to die in pursuit of justice.

Human beings.

Human beings, of which 40,786 are now dead (actually, the number is much higher than that – at least 10,000 more are buried beneath rubble and presumed dead; tens of thousands more likely have died or will die of secondary causes, including famine, water-borne diseases, and other illnesses).

So….I’m thinking of a number between one and infinity. If Palestinians are human beings, the number 40,786 should utterly break your heart. If they are savages, it doesn’t matter how many are killed – the world is better off without them.

If they are human beings, we are witnessing a genocide. If they are subhuman, it’s just the eradication of pests.

They are human beings.

(To people of faith, the statement “they are human beings” should never need to be uttered. Believers in God know intuitively that God made every individual in God’s own image. But for some reason, I have found that Christians more than any other group struggle to see this one particular group as human. Christians, we have work to do – on ourselves.)