In December 2022, former war correspondent Chris Hedges predicted the Hamas uprising that occurred on October 7, 2023. Not the exact date or modes of attack, of course, but the fact that it was coming. This is what he said:
“Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed coalition government of Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists and religious bigots represents a seismic change in Israel, one that will exacerbate Israel’s pariah status, erode external support for Israel, fuel a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada, and create irreconcilable political divides within the Jewish state.”
After the Hamas attack happened, Hedges knew, as horrendous as it was, it did not occur randomly or in a vacuum. While all people of goodwill condemn the Hamas assault that killed 1,400 Jews and took over 240 hostages, we must also ask these questions: What drove them to commit such an atrocity? Is it just insanity or can something else explain it? Conventional wisdom answers, “Because they are terrorists. Period.” But listen to what Hedges said. The emerging Israel coalition government was full of corrupt fanatical extremists. Rather than attempt peace with the Palestinians, they would provoke political division and a third uprising. That’s exactly what happened. A national protest against Netanyahu’s government began in March 2023. Then the Hamas attack in October. More importantly, listen to the context of this conflict:
Things Most Americans Don’t Know and I Didn’t Either Until Recently
I heard about the plight of Palestinians many years ago and began supporting a proactive peace-seeking approach and a two-state solution. But what I learned back then was only the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more. The Palestinian people have been treated with a colonial-settler mindset since 1948 and been under an apartheid system instituted by Israel for decades. The Israeli military is not pure as the driven snow. In 1948, Jewish militia forcibly drove Palestinians from their land. The Christian Zionist narrative that Palestinian leaders told them to leave is a lie. Over decades, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has launched airstrikes, bombed and killed civilians, illegally occupied Palestinian land (which should have been returned after the 1967 War), imposed a blockade on Gaza, and abducted and unjustly imprisoned thousands of innocent Palestinians. The record of this is simply incontrovertible as shown by reporting by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem (The Israeli Info Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), If Americans Knew, journalists, and internal and international witnesses. People like Chris Hedges, Norm Finklestein, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Kathy Shihadah, Palestinian Christian Daniel Bannoura, and many others. The problem is most people don’t want to read this account. But we must. Pappe explains why in his piece, Why Israel wants to erase context and history in the war on Gaza. A helpful exercise to gain this perspective is Shihadah’s This thought experiment will make you smarter about Gaza and Israel.
Netanyahu’s and the IDF’s response to the horrendous Hamas attack (the worst of which—beheading babies and raping women—were debunked or never confirmed) has been all out war to wipe out Hamas. But their methods to achieve that objective are doing more to divide and escalate a wider war than they are to end the threat. As of this writing, Israeli airstrikes have killed over 10,000 people in Gaza. Nearly half of those, at least 4,000, are children. It’s virtually impossible to retaliate toward Hamas without significant collateral damage and Israel knows that. Bombing has occurred in both north and south Gaza, even though Israel told people to move south. Neighborhoods, one refugee camp, and hospitals, from where patients and personnel cannot flee (and not just the one that Israel claimed was struck by Palestinian terrorists), have been bombed by the IDF. Water, food, and fuel for electricity has been cut off for weeks, with only 20-30 daily aid trucks allowed to come into Gaza recently (before October 7, the daily import of goods into Gaza was around 400-500 trucks).
Moreover, the strategy of disproportionate retribution only fuels more extremism. This is a lesson from history and our American experience after 9/11. And it’s often told by military veterans. Even President Biden warned Netanyahu about this, saying “don’t be blinded by rage.” Experts are saying that Israel has not thought through the consequences of their actions nor have they a plan for what happens afterwards. The way they are waging this war risks other countries entering it.
War crimes and attempted genocide are happening before our eyes. Hedges has called this round of violence against Palestinians the worst that has occurred. The attack on October 7 was the worst by Hamas. Prior to that, their rudimentary rockets shot over decades only killed around 40 Israelis. One too many for sure, but Hamas is no match for IDF airstrikes that have killed thousands and thousands of Palestinians during the same period. The psychological impact of bombing and violence on both Gazans and Israelis, what therapist Jack Saul calls “the moral injuries of war,” is devastating. The overwhelming brunt of this has been born by Palestinians and particularly the children, as the 2014 documentary Born in Gaza attests. This new round of bombing Gaza increases this trauma exponentially. Hamas fighters today would likely be among the children traumatized by the 2014 bombing by Israel that the documentary describes. They would also have lost loved ones from Israeli attacks. This all amounts to an inhumane and reckless response by Israel to the terrible Hamas attack. What’s more, the Biden administration and the international community, with a few exceptions, is largely extending unquestioning support for Israel. The U.S. supplies the bombs they use in the Gazan airstrikes.
More Critical History
Contrary to what we are usually told, Hamas and Palestinians have a record of peaceful protest. As political scientist Norm Finklestein describes, after Hamas won the election in Gaza in 2006, “it repeatedly sent out peace feelers to try to resolve the conflict with Israel,” proposing the international consensus of two states that would keep the pre-1967 borders. Israel resisted. In 2008, Hamas negotiated a ceasefire with Israel and held it for five months. Israel was the one who broke it when they implemented a raid on Gaza. After a rudimentary-rocket response by Hamas, Israel launched a military offensive on Gaza that killed 1,400 people including over 300 children. A UN mission concluded that both sides committed war crimes. But of course, conventional wisdom would claim only Hamas did. And, it would ignore the fact that Israel was the one who broke the ceasefire.
In 2018, Palestinians began a series of peaceful protests against the Gaza blockade and called for the return of refugees to their original land. This was known as The Great March of Return. It led to protests every Friday for eight months. It was overwhelmingly peaceful but did have some small aggressive acts that never put Israeli soldiers at grave risk. The UN voiced concern over the excessive use of force used by Israeli soldiers. Per Amnesty International, whereas 150 Palestinians were killed, over 10,000 were injured and 5,800 were hit by live ammunition. Only one Israeli soldier was killed and one injured.
Our Propensity for Retributive Rhetoric and Responses
Human societies including Americans have a strong propensity to respond to violence by dehumanizing the enemy, scapegoating populations, and retaliating with reciprocal violence. In other words taking revenge, complete with a justification for it. That’s what we did after 9/11. But that path led to two long drawn-out wars, American justification of torture, and more instability in the region. Some veterans of the War on Terror admit our military initiatives only fueled more terrorism. “One soldier in Iraq said he went into the military because he wanted to fight terrorism but ended up realizing they were creating it” (Beating Guns, page 223).
Hamas responded to longstanding injustice against them with a one-day violent attack without regard for civilians. They took over 240 hostages. Israel has responded for the last month with revenge and retribution on Hamas with little to no regard for civilians. Today this includes a ground war. This is an ongoing cycle of violence both parties are guilty of. Not just Hamas.
Israel is to blame for its outrageously disproportionate killing of civilians. For example, in this war, Israel claims to target Hamas fighters and leaders in its bombardment. But the U.S. has urged them to scale down the size of the bombs because they are destroying civilians and neighborhoods way beyond their targets. Israel has refused. They have also historically killed thousands and thousands more than Hamas. And, in their apartheid system, they have abducted, arrested, and, through military courts, imprisoned or “administratively detained” thousands of Palestinians unjustly with little to no due process of law afforded them. Loved ones are prevented from visiting for months, even years. According to Aljazeera, “One in every five Palestinians has been arrested and charged under the 1,600 military orders that control every aspect of the lives of Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation.” Kathy Shihadah reported the not uncommon practice of imprisoning Palestinian children and teens who throw stones or merely stand next to someone who does. One boy who was merely a bystander has been in prison for over 10 years. Any form of even mild resistance is deemed terrorist activity.
Antisemitic and Islamophobic Acts
Other responses include antisemitic and violent acts on U.S. college campuses by people who blame Jews for the actions of the nation-state of Israel. This is inhumane and irresponsible scapegoating. There have been violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank by extremist settlers and a few against Palestinians in the U.S. This too is inhumane scapegoating. Both antisemitism and Islamophobia should be roundly condemned. Yet the assault on Palestinians is fueled by Israel’s policies and rhetoric the same way Hamas’ rhetoric fuels violence.
Abusing the Bible to Justify Revenge
Recently Netanyahu twice referenced violent passages in the Bible to justify Israel’s retaliatory response. He spoke of Israel’s revenge against the Amalekites that God supposedly ordered them to commit. This is the extreme Jewish and conservative Christian belief in a retributive God who is okay with violent retaliation, even the killing of non-combatants, the elderly, women, children, infants, and the unborn. I wrote about it in Breaking Bad Faith and in The Myth of the Retributive God. It warps, twists, and destroys the essence of divine love, not to mention ignores contemporary international law.
A Call for a Full Ceasefire
On October 18, the U.S. vetoed a UN resolution for a humanitarian pause of the hostilities. Back then, we wouldn’t even allow a pause. The stalemate is this: Israel will not stop bombing or the ground war unless Hamas releases the hostages and Hamas won’t release the hostages unless Israel initiates a ceasefire. Neither side will stop the cycle of violence the way things stand.
But many are rightly calling for a ceasefire by Israel, not merely a pause. 377 international aid agencies have called for a ceasefire. Palestinian Christians have called for a ceasefire in their Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders. Senator Dick Durban is the only one in Congress today who is calling for a ceasefire. Even Bernie Sanders is only supporting a humanitarian pause. Norm Finkelstein immediately rebuked Sanders for not calling for a full ceasefire. He explains how the ongoing bombing of Gaza is making things worse and is perpetuating a monstrous moral disgrace.
What Many Christians Ignore
Many Christians, particularly evangelicals and fundamentalists, have lost the vision for the restorative love ethic that Jesus taught his students: to love our neighbors, including our enemies and only resist them by non-violent and restorative means. To turn the other cheek. To go the second mile for your adversaries. To wish them well who persecute you. To be kind to the ungrateful and wicked. To not take revenge. To be peacemakers, for they are blessed. To leave ultimate justice in God’s hands—a God who is merciful, of whom Jesus told us, “Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful.”
Moreover, Jesus taught his followers to be wary of conventional wisdom. Especially, the “wisdom” of war, revenge, and retaliation that historically has always led to stronger resolve in your enemy. In the end, we know how Jesus reacted to terrorism. He responded to one of the worst acts of terror—torture and murder by a vile method of Roman execution—by saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In other words, Jesus taught us to humanize our enemies and not demonize them. They are never beyond redemption.
The other thing many Christians ignore is this record of injustice against Palestinians. Hamas and Palestinians are the only side to be held responsible for this violence, goes the conventional narrative. But the record says otherwise. The nation state of Israel and their military is responsible for so much of the injustice. Followers of Jesus are on the side of all victims, not just the victims of “our side.”
A Way Out of the Cycle of Violence
Don’t ignore the record. Question conventional wisdom on violence. Join people of goodwill who know the history and the terrible consequences of violent retaliation. Listen to Palestinians Christians who know and have lived the record of history. Call for a full ceasefire. As for a long-term solution, as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says, the way out is “…a change of regime in Israel that brings equal rights for everyone from the river to the sea and allows for the return of Palestinian refugees. Otherwise, the cycle of bloodshed will not end.”
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Michael Camp tends the Spiritual Brewpub, which helps disillusioned or post-evangelicals uncover historical facts and insights that help them deconstruct, rethink, and rebuild a more authentic faith or philosophy of life. He is the author of Breaking Bad Faith: Exposing Myth and Violence in Popular Theology to Recover the Path of Peace. To get specific help deconstructing conservative Christianity and rebuilding healthy faith, see Michael’s Religious Deconstruction Workshop.
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