In the Christmas season—the season of peace and goodwill—one of the prayers in our Way of Living is for “Rulers, especially in the Holy Land.” So my mind has been there, each day in our morning prayers, as Jane and I have said the Office. It has been a strange juxtaposition as I have enjoyed the joy and rest of Christmas time and at the same time followed news of great distress in Israel/Palestine. The Bethlehem of Christmas cards and Christmas cribs seems far different to the Bethlehem in the midst of conflict and great unrest.
Many issues shave intersected for me this week. Here are some of them:
• On December 28 we remembered the Holy Innocents, when Herod killed baby boys in ancient Judea.
• Hamas rockets fired into Israel killing four people. Pictures of damaged buildings.
• Israeli fighter-bombers killing 400 people in Gaza; 100 who were civilians. Pictures of maimed children; little girls the age of my granddaughters with tears and great fear in their eyes.
• A former student in Israel who is Jewish and is part of a peace movement there. She wrote to me and asked for prayers for peace. I wrote back and asked if she is safe. She told me, yes; the nearest rockets had exploded half an hour south of where she is. That is the distance from our home in Ithaca to the university in Cortland where I teach.
• A keffiyeh from Bethlehem bought for me by a friend who is a minister and who, this past fall, went to the West Bank to work with Palestinians on the olive harvest. Israeli settlers have often harassed these poor Palestinian farmers at harvest time. The presence of internationals helps prevent that. I have worn my keffiyeh this week in solidarity with Palestinian children—it has become a kind of sacrament for me.
• The scriptures in the Daily Office that talk often of the promise of the land made by God to ancient Israel. Stories of battles for the land and of ancient peoples being dispossessed, all in God’s name. The ancient stories repeated as justification for intense violence.
I have tried to make sense of all this without much success. I have been sad. But, here are a few thoughts.
My commitment to love and nonviolence leads me to condemn all acts of violence whether by state actors or by non-state groups and individuals. Violence is always a failure to love.
In my prayers and imagination, I have tried to put myself in the place of those in the conflict. I can imagine some of the fear of the southern Israelis in range of rocket attacks. The chances of being killed by those rockets are very slim. Yet, the fear remains and is very real. In the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, the IRA regularly and randomly bombed English towns. Several times we were very close: on a train where a bomb had been planted at the next station. My brother and his baby son were evacuated from the center of Manchester before the IRA destroyed a whole shopping mall. Jane’s sister was a regular visitor to a pub in Birmingham where 21 people were killed. The town center of Warrington, where Jane and I were married, was destroyed. Little children were killed as they shopped with their parents. The fear of those random attacks is very real, even though the chance of becoming a victim is rare. Nonetheless, you carry on with your everyday business. I think it will be like that in southern Israel.
Yet, I cannot imagine the fear of living on the Gaza strip where literally thousands of tons of bombs have been dropped in a week. That fear is real terror. Terrorism—the deliberate production of that kind of fear— is loathsome.
As a pacifist, I do not think the just war tradition is sufficient. Yet, it has been a necessary attempt to limit war. It tells us when wars can be fought and by whom. How they may be fought. How to end wars in a just manner. Proportionality is a major tenet. Defenders may only fight wars with the same amount of force used against them. It must also be the least amount of force necessary. It seems clear to me that 4 deaths compared to 400 is a disproportionate use of force. State terror is as sinful as any other kind of terror.
I have tried, and will continue to try, to be faithful to my former student’s request. I pray for peace. I pray for the victims of violence. I pray for the children who will be traumatized and radicalized by their experiences.
Many issues shave intersected for me this week. Here are some of them:
• On December 28 we remembered the Holy Innocents, when Herod killed baby boys in ancient Judea.
• Hamas rockets fired into Israel killing four people. Pictures of damaged buildings.
• Israeli fighter-bombers killing 400 people in Gaza; 100 who were civilians. Pictures of maimed children; little girls the age of my granddaughters with tears and great fear in their eyes.
• A former student in Israel who is Jewish and is part of a peace movement there. She wrote to me and asked for prayers for peace. I wrote back and asked if she is safe. She told me, yes; the nearest rockets had exploded half an hour south of where she is. That is the distance from our home in Ithaca to the university in Cortland where I teach.
• A keffiyeh from Bethlehem bought for me by a friend who is a minister and who, this past fall, went to the West Bank to work with Palestinians on the olive harvest. Israeli settlers have often harassed these poor Palestinian farmers at harvest time. The presence of internationals helps prevent that. I have worn my keffiyeh this week in solidarity with Palestinian children—it has become a kind of sacrament for me.
• The scriptures in the Daily Office that talk often of the promise of the land made by God to ancient Israel. Stories of battles for the land and of ancient peoples being dispossessed, all in God’s name. The ancient stories repeated as justification for intense violence.
I have tried to make sense of all this without much success. I have been sad. But, here are a few thoughts.
My commitment to love and nonviolence leads me to condemn all acts of violence whether by state actors or by non-state groups and individuals. Violence is always a failure to love.
In my prayers and imagination, I have tried to put myself in the place of those in the conflict. I can imagine some of the fear of the southern Israelis in range of rocket attacks. The chances of being killed by those rockets are very slim. Yet, the fear remains and is very real. In the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, the IRA regularly and randomly bombed English towns. Several times we were very close: on a train where a bomb had been planted at the next station. My brother and his baby son were evacuated from the center of Manchester before the IRA destroyed a whole shopping mall. Jane’s sister was a regular visitor to a pub in Birmingham where 21 people were killed. The town center of Warrington, where Jane and I were married, was destroyed. Little children were killed as they shopped with their parents. The fear of those random attacks is very real, even though the chance of becoming a victim is rare. Nonetheless, you carry on with your everyday business. I think it will be like that in southern Israel.
Yet, I cannot imagine the fear of living on the Gaza strip where literally thousands of tons of bombs have been dropped in a week. That fear is real terror. Terrorism—the deliberate production of that kind of fear— is loathsome.
As a pacifist, I do not think the just war tradition is sufficient. Yet, it has been a necessary attempt to limit war. It tells us when wars can be fought and by whom. How they may be fought. How to end wars in a just manner. Proportionality is a major tenet. Defenders may only fight wars with the same amount of force used against them. It must also be the least amount of force necessary. It seems clear to me that 4 deaths compared to 400 is a disproportionate use of force. State terror is as sinful as any other kind of terror.
I have tried, and will continue to try, to be faithful to my former student’s request. I pray for peace. I pray for the victims of violence. I pray for the children who will be traumatized and radicalized by their experiences.
+Ab. Andy