Reflections on Israel and Gaza
Overcoming rumor and politics
November, 2023
On October 7, 2023, my wife and I left the United States on a planned trip to visit Israel and Jordan. That was the very day Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israeli civilians. The bloodshed sparked a declaration of war and further violence which, as of the start of November, has not stopped. We arrived with fellow travelers in Amman, Jordan on October 8th. As the situation deteriorated, it became clear that entering Israel was not an option. We left several days later to return home. Though never near any unrest, we had opportunities to learn how local people processed those events.
Friends and family worried about our safety, which makes sense. I reassured them that we were essentially going as tourists, with a Jordanian tour guide and a large group. There was no chance we'd be taken anywhere unsafe. That turned out to be true. At various times, we were 9 miles (15km) from the Egypt-Jordan-Israel border, 20 miles (32km) from Jerusalem, and 60 miles (97km) from the borders of the Gaza Strip. From an American's point of view, an hour's drive from an active war zone is "close." But the worst we experienced was mild inconvenience; without news coverage, we'd never have known anything was amiss.
In conversation, Jordanians often distanced themselves from what was happening near Gaza. That's not to say they enthusiastically supported Israel's side in the conflict. Of course, most of those we interacted with were part of the tourism industry. Also, the Jordanian government's stance on free speech boils down to "no." In short, there was plenty of incentive for guides and vendors to avoid controversial subjects. Yet the typical Jordanian didn't seem on board with Hamas' actions.
A tourist separated from war by international borders and the Dead Sea has little trouble being impassive, or comfortable choosing a "side." Living 6,000 or 7,000 miles away makes it even easier to pick a team to root for—encouraged by local politics, of course—and to reduce the Arab-Israeli conflict into clean, morally simple terms. Yet the conflict is far more complex than Westerners might realize. That's easy to understand, intellectually. But a great advantage of meeting real, live people is injecting gut-level reality into what we know in our heads.
My wife and I had a fascinating conversation with Yusuf, a Palestinian who moved with his then-young family from Israel into Jordan many years ago. He spent an hour driving my wife and I from Sweimeh to Amman. We compared cultures and experiences. We discussed everything from food to schools and even weather. At one point, I asked if he knew anyone affected by the recent violence. He indicated that seven of his family members had been killed. On reflex, I expressed sympathy and sorrow. I did not anticipate his reaction.
Rather than sorrow alone, Yusuf tried to explain his perspective on the family's losses. He suggested that if the same thing happened to me, in the USA, I would think of those family members as dying in a fight for freedom. He suggested that some of my emotions would be pride, or respect. Not that it wasn't tragic, but he suggested a sense of purpose behind what had happened. I don't think he was implying his relatives were actively fighting, nor that they sympathized with Hamas. But for Yusuf, what happened wasn't "just" violence between terrorists and the military. It was about identity, freedom, and a struggle for independence.
Granted, Yusuf was trying to communicate in English, which he spoke quite well but not easily. He was making comparisons to something which I—like most Americans—have never come close to experiencing. But I understood, well enough, the important aspect of his view: there are people in the world for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict is not defined by political parties or theories of diplomacy. They perceive what's happening as a battle over their innermost identity and existence.
We don't need to agree with a single detail of someone's views to recognize when the issue has deeper roots than the casual politics of American talk shows. When Hamas indiscriminately murders civilians, Jewish people sense more than an attack on neighbors: they perceive an effort to erase their very existence. When Israel retaliates, Palestinians who suffer losses can't just shrug their experience off as a cost of war. Agreeing that terrorists need to be stopped doesn't outweigh the pain when your child becomes collateral damage. A typical Israeli citizen isn't involved in organizing how Gaza or the West Bank are managed. Most Palestinians in Gaza aren't working for Hamas. But the "typical" Israeli and Palestinian are left to bear the human cost of the conflict. That cost goes beyond property damage and even loss of life: people perceive these events as battles for their essential being, both as individuals and as groups.
Not least because I believe in the Bible, I "support" the nation of Israel (Genesis 12:1–3; Psalm 122:6). Like any other people, they have the right to exist and to defend themselves from attack. Also because of a belief in the Bible, I express grief and sympathy for the people living in Gaza (Romans 12:15–16; 1 Timothy 2:1–4; 1 John 3:17–18). Support for God's chosen people doesn't mean writing a blank check to endorse everything the modern nation of Israel does. Nor does recognition of all people as God's image-bearers (Genesis 1:27; Galatians 3:28) force me to equate strikes against terrorist targets with deliberate slaughter of civilians.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has continued in more or less the same form since the end of World War I. Bitterness between the two cultures goes back even further (Genesis 16:12). In no sense can the related violence be attributed to sound-bite-level causes. As believers, we desperately need to emphasize the need for reasonableness (Philippians 4:5), Christ-like love (1 Corinthians 16:14), humility (Ephesians 4:1–3) and cautious skepticism (Acts 17:11; Proverbs 18:13, 17; 1 John 4:1).
That's more than a mere suggestion or casual advice. As this month's spotlight verse (Proverbs 17:15) shows, our obligation to condemn evil and support the innocent isn't given exemptions for politics, teams, or tribes. Reactionary views of either side are out of place in a biblical worldview (Proverbs 17:24, 27–28). Whether or not detonating a specific weapon in a particular place is justified, human beings still suffer and die. We ought not echo the oversimplifications of worldly culture. Instead, let's emphasize discernment (Hebrews 5:14; John 7:24) as we seek peace through prayer (Hebrews 12:14; James 5:16), even if it's all we can do.
-- Editor
