Blog

More Than One Story

FB post, 12 October 2023

Let me tell two stories from the ‘Holy Land’.

There is a family, for whom I care deeply, who live just south of Tel Aviv. The young father has been as a son over the years, particularly since the death of his father, my close friend; whose marriage I was honoured to bless; and who now has three beautiful children. The first missiles landed near them at 6:30 Saturday morning, 7th October, and the family huddled in their safe room for two days before they could safely come out; they still spend nights there. He speaks particularly of his traumatized children, whose whole young lives have been lived under the threat and reality of missiles exploding. They are terrorized.

There was a family near Jericho whom I met some years ago, on a Peace and Reconciliation tour I helped organize to meet people working for peace in the region. A French aid team took our group to visit a family whose homes had been demolished just a few days earlier. This NGO provided substantial tent structures for short-term housing for the families. Authorities were claiming they lived illegally on their property, and the case was in court—but the diggers arrived one morning and gave the families 30 minutes to vacate their houses before all five houses were demolished. We witnessed the result. What stands out vividly in my mind’s eye is the scene as our two cars pulled onto the property: the young children ran screaming away from us. We were strangers, they could only imagine we were there to add to their trauma. They were terrorized.

I can feel a father’s agony in the first story, and carry that with me each day; I saw the second with my own eyes, and have never been able to forget. My heart aches for them.

I focus on the children to ground this horror story in reality. Whatever religion or politics one may hold, however one may interpret Scriptures written thousands of years ago, our calculations must account for the particular and personal consequences in the cost to human lives, families and communities.

Anyone who knows me well also knows my considered views on the toxic mixture of politics and theology in the Israel/Palestine conflict of the past 70 (and more) years. If you wish to learn, you may read my observations on the 2021 Gaza war (there are two parts): https://an-oblique-view.blogspot.com/.../once-more...

I have been, and will continue to be, an advocate for the Palestinian people. This has been (often wilfully) misread by some as being anti-Israel, but it arises from a profound sense of obligation to my Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters to remind Western Christians that they exist, and are not to be accepted as collateral damage in God’s ‘great plan’ for Israel.

In the second part of my blog I commented on the heightened levels of security I have watched over the years of conflict, by 2016 with armed and armoured police on almost every street corner. My comment then was:

‘The Israeli government response [to Palestinian attacks] is always with greater force. My thoughts, then as now, were that the constant pressure-cooker suppression could only lead to the lid exploding.’

The lid is well and surely blown away. And the response?

Increased ‘security’ has not succeeded in bringing resolution to conflict. Waiting for Jesus’ return has not offered comfort to the bereaved. My conclusion two years ago was:

'There is, in fact, one truth that has to be addressed: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Muslims and Christians, have to figure out how to live with each other.'

This is what we, watching with horror from outside, must support.