{"id":42260,"date":"2025-10-14T19:52:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42260"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:53:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:53:45","slug":"holy-land-broken-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/holy-land-broken-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Land, Broken People"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Christian reflection on fear, displacement, and the hope of shalom in Israel and Gaza<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. What do you currently understand, and how have your assumptions and emotions been shaped?<\/b><\/p>\n

I did not grow up in a part of the country\u2014nor in a church environment\u2014that had much to say or think about the twentieth-century nation of Israel. My early knowledge was purely biblical: the enslaved Israelites in Egypt, the prophets who called them back to covenant faithfulness, and the Roman occupation during Jesus\u2019 lifetime. Modern Israel existed only as a vague news item. I remember hearing about the Camp David Accords in the late 1970s, but as a young teen, I was far more concerned with ordinary adolescent concerns than Middle Eastern politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an adult, I came to appreciate Israel\u2019s longing for a secure homeland. The idea of a people so often persecuted finally having a refuge seemed deeply just. Yet I was confused that a nation born from centuries of displacement could itself seem to treat another displaced people\u2014the Palestinians\u2014so harshly. I didn\u2019t know how to interpret that contradiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

My understanding changed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, murdering and abducting civilians in acts that Douglas Murray describes as \u201cbeyond comprehension,\u201d revealing an unconscionable level of hatred. In his book, <\/span>On Democracies and Death Cults<\/span><\/i>, Douglas Murray writes, \u201cThere are people who are worse anti-Semites than the Nazis.\u201d\u00b9 The stories of callous brutality and gore shocked me. I felt both horror and anger. Yet I also began to sense the complexity beneath the horror: how suffering can beget more suffering, and how quickly moral clarity can melt into moral confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Much of my perception has been shaped by Western media, American political loyalty to Israel, and my Christian empathy for the Jewish story of exile and return. My emotions oscillate between grief for the Israeli families who lost loved ones and compassion for Gazan civilians trapped under both Hamas rule and Israeli bombardment. I now see how easily any people\u2014including God\u2019s chosen\u2014can move from being oppressed to oppressor when fear and trauma harden the heart. The <\/span>imago Dei<\/span><\/i> can easily become obscured by pain and ideology.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. How do history, displacement, and regional realities shape this conflict?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The story of Israel and Gaza cannot be understood apart from the long shadow of displacement\u2014both Jewish and Palestinian. As Howard Sachar notes in <\/span>A History of Israel<\/span><\/i>, Zionism arose in the late nineteenth century when Jewish communities across Europe faced relentless persecution, pogroms, and exclusion.\u00b2 The idea of returning to the ancient homeland became not only a religious longing but a political necessity, a means of survival. After the Holocaust, the world\u2019s moral conscience was pierced, and many nations supported the creation of a Jewish state as an act of restitution. Yet this \u201chomecoming\u201d came at enormous cost to the people already living there. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted during the 1948 war, many still calling themselves refugees three generations later.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that sense, both people groups carry trauma in their collective memory. Jews remember centuries without safety; Palestinians remember the loss of homes, olive groves, and ancestral towns. When Israel celebrates independence, Palestinians commemorate the <\/span>Nakba<\/span><\/i>\u2014the catastrophe. Two narratives of survival occupy the same land, both claiming justice, both formed by fear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are Gazans refugees or at home?<\/strong> Historically, many Gazans are descendants of those displaced from what became southern Israel in 1948. The Gaza Strip, where people have lived in a liminal space, is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, neither fully free nor recognized as a sovereign entity. Egypt\u2019s refusal to absorb them stems from political calculation: fear of importing instability and a reluctance to relieve Israel of responsibility. Thus, Gaza became a pressure cooker of statelessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reading <\/span>Hamas<\/span><\/i> by Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, I was struck by how the authors describe Hamas\u2019s emergence from this cauldron of deprivation as both a resistance movement and a provider of social welfare.\u00b3 When a people has known only control, checkpoints, and blockades, militancy can begin to look like dignity. And when a people has known only terror, security can begin to look like a righteous response.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a Christian perspective, this reveals an ongoing cycle: fear breeds control, control breeds resentment, resentment breeds violence. The land still groans for <\/span>shalom<\/span><\/i>\u2014right relationship with God and neighbor.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. What criteria are important to consider in evaluating Hamas, Israel\u2019s response, and the ethics of warfare?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Reading <\/span>Hamas <\/span><\/i>confirmed my expectation that the situation is too complicated for simple labels. Hamas was born in 1987 during the First Intifada, combining militant resistance with a vast social-service network that cared for the poor and educated children.\u2074 This dual identity helped Hamas gain credibility among Gazans disillusioned with the Palestinian Authority. Yet its foundational ideology is built on the destruction of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

The October 7, 2023 attacks\u2014mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of civilians\u2014demonstrate a moral collapse. Murray writes, \u201cPerhaps the only force in the world even greater than evil itself is the great, collected, concentrated evil that is war.\u201d\u2075 Yet these acts violate every principle of just-war ethics: discrimination between combatants and noncombatants, proportionality, and right intention.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s response, however, also raises ethical questions. Since its 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Israel has faced the impossible tension between defense and domination. Its bombardments have killed thousands of civilians. International law demands proportionality, yet proportionality itself is subjective; how much force is \u201cenough\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

Scripture warns Israel not to forget they were once strangers in Egypt (Exod. 22:21). Theologically, both sides carry moral responsibility: Hamas for its deliberate cruelty; Gazans for empowering it; and Israel for responding with overwhelming force that deepens suffering. As a Christian leader, I see in this the call to lament rather than justify, and to remember that Christ\u2019s justice never separates truth from mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. How does language like \u201cgenocide\u201d and \u201capartheid\u201d shape public understanding\u2014and what are the risks?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Words shape moral imagination. Calling Israel\u2019s actions \u201cgenocide\u201d or \u201capartheid\u201d evokes deep emotion but carries specific legal meaning. \u201cGenocide\u201d refers to the intent to destroy a people. While Israel\u2019s actions have caused massive suffering, many legal scholars argue they do not meet that standard. \u201cApartheid\u201d describes racial segregation like South Africa\u2019s; Israel\u2019s occupation shows parallels but also differences, as Arab citizens vote and serve in parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

The indiscriminate use of such words can strip the world of moral clarity. Yet avoiding these terms altogether can also conceal injustice. <\/span>As Christian leaders, we must use language that reveals truth without fueling hatred.<\/span><\/i> \u201cDeath and life are in the power of the tongue\u201d (Prov. 18:21). Words should illuminate reality and preserve the dignity of every image-bearer of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. As a Christian leader, how do you reflect theologically, ethically, and vocationally on this conflict?<\/b><\/h3>\n

This conflict serves as a sobering reminder of how fear can overshadow faith and how a justified defense can slip into aggressive retaliation. Every person\u2014Israeli or Palestinian\u2014bears the image of God. Jesus entered a world of occupation and retaliation, yet chose the way of self-giving love. His command to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44) feels impossible here; and that is precisely the point. Only divine grace can break the cycle of fear and revenge.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Personally, I sense a call to model a non-anxious, undefended presence: to listen before speaking, to lament before judging, and to pray for peace that is rooted in justice. May the peace of this last weekend hold well into the future!<\/span><\/p>\n

Our task is not to solve this conflict but to bear witness to Christ\u2019s reconciling love in the midst of it. We live in hope for the day when swords will be beaten into plowshares (Isa. 2:4), and until then, we hold both truth and compassion in trembling hands.<\/span><\/p>\n

Footnotes<\/b><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Douglas Murray, <\/span>On Democracies and Death Cults<\/span><\/i> (London: HarperCollins, 2024), xvii.<\/span>
    \n<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Howard M. Sachar, <\/span>A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time<\/span><\/i>, 3rd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 4\u20136.<\/span>
    \n<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, <\/span>Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement<\/span><\/i> (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2010), xi.<\/span>
    \n<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Ibid., x\u2013xi.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Murray, On Democracies and Death Cults<\/i>, xx.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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