A song that shows how war can destroy your humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Jj_Oe7uQc”

This video was recorded in Tel Aviv by Ha’aertz journalist Haim Har-Zahav. The lyrics of the chant start off with an attack against the Israeli Arab lawmaker Ahmed Tibi saying that he’s a terrorist and he needs to have his papers taken away from him. Then it comes to a line that is chilling to the bone: “There’s no more school in Gaza; there are no children left. Ole! Ole!” The full transcript is provided by Ali Abunimah. I know there’s no answer to the following question but I’ll ask it anyway. How do you get to the point where you feel okay jeering about the massacre of children?

I’ve been around some pretty crass and psycho people. The guys I hung out with in tenth grade said the word nigger on a regular basis, not because they were wannabe white rappers but because they were real-deal racists who wanted to have a racial war with the black kids from our high school, which we almost did one night in front of the Mardi Gras bowling alley in Durham, NC. I’ve just never met anyone before who could sing a chant mocking the death of children. It really disturbs me as a pastor, because the demonic spirit is so palpable. If I were a rabbi in Israel right now, my main concern would be whether Judaism will survive this perpetual war with the Palestinians. Will this ancient, beautiful faith simply evaporate into secular Zionist nationalism? Will Israel finally push all the Arabs east of the Jordan and discover that there’s no one left in the country who is able to pray with any sincerity at the wailing wall? How do you celebrate Yom Kippur among people who are celebrating the death of children? How do you not tear your clothes and pour ashes on your head like the ancient prophets did? There is a Jewish sect called the Neturei Karta who believe that Zionism is actively destroying Judaism by secularizing it. That certainly seems analogous to what Christendom did to Christianity in Europe after Constantine collapsed the church and the Roman Empire into more or less the same entity.

I realize it’s presumptuous and offensive of me to speak this way. I confess that I completely don’t understand the concept of being an apologist for the absolute infallibility of either my nation or my religion. It is so utterly antithetical to the foundation of my ethics, because I hold self-justification to be the root of all evil. Perhaps it’s part of my privilege as someone whose people have never been through a Holocaust to be quite comfortable criticizing America and the church fiercely. I really don’t have a patriotic bone in my body because I consider myself to belong to the kingdom of God and I see most patriotism as straightforward idolatry. And I believe that the most important freedom I gain as the result of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the capacity to be brutally honest about all my personal failures as a Christian and our collective failures as a church.

I can’t say I’m a Christian if I’m incapable of self-criticism. That is the most important litmus test of whether or not I’ve put my trust in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. But Christians inherited that capacity for self-criticism from the Jews. There was never a more self-critical, introspective people in the ancient world. It’s incredible to read how negatively the ancient Jewish scribes talk about their most successful kings in the Hebrew Bible when you put that in contrast with the hyperbolic praise that other ancient peoples gave their king. Jews have always been the moral conscience of humanity. It’s no accident that they’ve always been at the forefront of every social justice movement we’ve had and that they’ve given us the most brilliant moral philosophers. I’ve only gained access to this incredible spiritual legacy of wisdom and integrity as a Gentile grafted into their family tree because of the missionary work of a renegade 1st century rabbi named Paul.

Judaism can’t be responsible for producing men who chant about celebrating the death of children. They must be the products of some strange nationalist demon sweeping through Israel, because Judaism is about shalom and tzedek and chesed and mishpat. Judaism teaches that you can’t worship with blood on your hands. That’s what God says in Isaiah 1:15: “When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.” Zion is supposed to be the mountain where all the nations come to learn how to beat their swords into plowshares and submit themselves to the wisdom of the God of Israel. No other religion before Judaism had ever talked about beating swords into plowshares. It’s a beautiful legacy. I just don’t understand how Judaism produced a secular nation whose primary industry is making weapons. Israel’s drone manufacturers have had an excellent time in the global stock markets over the past three weeks due to the success of their product demonstration in Gaza.

I have no idea what it’s like to be Israeli. A dozen years ago, suicide bombers were blowing themselves up every other week. It was such a profoundly morally despicable and strategically stupid thing for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to do. How long a shadow does that terror have? Can it make people so bitter that they make up songs celebrating the death of children? Maybe so. I don’t have the right to tell Israelis who lost their loved ones to hurry up and get over it. Nor do I have the right to tell Gazans who are being terrorized by Israeli drones that they need to overthrow Hamas if they want to have any human rights at all.

My religion teaches me that the starting point no matter what has been done to me is always for me to confront my own sin, confess it, and repent of it as though it were the only thing that existed. So that’s what I would exhort other people to do, whether they’re Christian or Jewish or Muslim or otherwise. Start by confessing your own sins. Repent. Love your enemies. Seek reconciliation with them. We can love our enemies when we start by looking at our own sins and considering them to be the most important problem in the world. Yes, it’s presumptuous for me to say that to people who have suffered in ways that I never have. But it’s the only wisdom I have to offer. I hope nothing ever happens in my life that makes me sick enough to mock the death of children in a song. We should honestly pray for the spiritual healing of all who are involved in this terrible war, because the spiritual casualties are hidden from view. Those who are victorious on the battlefield may be losing the battle with Satan in their hearts.