{"id":37950,"date":"2024-08-26T18:22:15","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T01:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37950"},"modified":"2024-08-26T18:22:15","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T01:22:15","slug":"ignorance-awareness-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/ignorance-awareness-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignorance, Awareness, Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian History Professor, Martin Bunton chronicled the last 120 years of the Israeli\/Palestinian conflict in his book The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, A Very Short Introduction.[1]<\/a> While far from exhaustive of the thousands of years that the conflict has been raging, the book gave me a better understanding of many of the struggles in the area and the hardships that exist. But let me start with what I knew or thought prior to October 7, 2023, based on news casts and limited personal exposure.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quite candidly, my knowledge of the Israeli\/Palestinian was limited to say the least.<\/p>\n

The conflict that Bunton\u00a0 has chronicled in more modern history, was in no way a part of my thinking. Until 1978 when President Jimmy Carter invited Israeli Prime Minister\u00a0 Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Camp David for peace talks, I was not even aware that they needed peace talks until it was blasted over the evening news for several nights. It was the 70s and I was in college living in a bubble of ignorance, play, and \u00a0study. Yes, likely in that order.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, a widowed friend of mine married a Palestinian Christian who was also widowed. Her husband did not speak of the conditions in his homeland. He was a good man, we socialized, and he had no interest in discussing his homeland when we were together. Again, \u00a0my bubble was floating aimlessly, and I was so uninformed I did not even think to ask why not.<\/p>\n

My awareness started to change when a guest minister I invited to preach, talked about the struggles the people in Palestine were facing. It was thought provoking. Yet the part that puzzled me that day was that some people in the congregation got up during the sermon and left. Our friends started talking about the tragedy of the living conditions in Palestine. The conversations were cerebral and interesting, Yet, still, it felt far away. My bubble was punctured and drooping but still floating.<\/p>\n

After October 7, 2023, the bubble completely burst. News outlets accounts of Hamas raiding a festival in Israel was horrifying. Yet the footage of the life the people in Palestine have had to endure was even worse. I cannot imagine being told to flee then still being bombarded with artillery in the refugee site. <\/em><\/p>\n

Martin Bunton\u2019s book helped me understand several things.<\/strong> First, the conflict is not new. In my limited way, I thought that it was only rooted in religion. People of different faiths claim the territory as holy ground for their faiths rooted there. But that is not a simple answer. That part of the world is one that has also known occupation and exile at different times. Jeremiah 29: 1-10 NRSV documents one such exile of elders from Jerusalem for seventy years.<\/p>\n

The current situation is more complicated as both groups have been marginalized at different times. Palestine was an area that knew occupation in modern time. The people living there were under the rule of the British Empire and mistrusted the British due to the perception of their favor toward the Jewish people.[2]<\/a> In 2012, The United Nations recognized Palestine as a nonmember observer with boundary lines based on 1949 armistice.[3]<\/a> I have to wonder if Hamas would have attacked Israeli citizens if the conditions in Gaza weren\u2019t so bleak.<\/p>\n

Jewish people also suffered throughout history. The most blatant in modern times occurred at the hands of the German Nazis who exterminated Jews throughout Europe. It was brutal. By 1949 after WWII, Israel was proclaimed a State and in claiming land, they displaced Arabs currently living there.[4]<\/a> Each time there was some sort of agreement or accord related to boundaries, the Palestinian Arabs lost more land.<\/p>\n

The Jewish people\u00a0 believe that they were given the land by God.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Maybe both sides do, for they both consider parts of the area sacred. One of the main things I have learned reading Martin Bunton\u2019s book is that much of the warring, enmity, and outright hatred is also due to real estate. I believe it is more than just the place to build a home. Access to land and water impacts agriculture, trade, access to the greater world, and ultimately prosperity.<\/p>\n

How I navigate the Israel-Middle East conflict varies from day to day.<\/strong> Sometimes it is very far away, and I am almost completely absent from it to being prayerful, sick to my very being at the suffering that Palestinian people are forced to endure. Yet unlike my college years, and even adult years pre-October 7, 2023, I am reading, watching news, and discussing with people about the issues and hardship of people living in Gaza.<\/p>\n

I would also like to talk with the students in my eighth and ninth grade Sunday school class when we restart in September. I think young people do have the capacity to discuss difficult topics and begin to form their ideas. For instance, why can\u2019t people who have major differences live peacefully side by side? In this case it\u2019s the Israelis and Palestinians. But in their world, it might be the uncool kids, book nerds, or popular teens that seem to have everything handed to them. Each characteristic mentioned has reasons for someone to stay away, mock or trample on them. I could be wrong but maybe teaching about ways to live out our faith in the Lord Jesus is one way to lead young believers to live lives filled with the fruits of the Spirit. Pray it be so.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Martin Bunton, The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013), xii.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Bunton, 147.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Bunton, 107.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Bunton, 116.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Bunton, xv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian History Professor, Martin Bunton chronicled the last 120 years of the Israeli\/Palestinian conflict in his book The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, A Very Short Introduction.[1] While far from exhaustive of the thousands of years that the conflict has been raging, the book gave me a better understanding of many of the struggles in the area and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3222,2967],"class_list":["post-37950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bunton","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37952,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37950\/revisions\/37952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}