Israel, Hamas, Gaza, Palentinians

Over the last few days:

• Israel bombed Gaza with more airstrikes. 
• Israeli soldiers fought Hamas militants on the ground in raids within the besieged Palestinian enclave.
• Israeli aircraft also struck southern Lebanon and Syria. 
• Israeli troops fought Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Most observers and commentators suggest much more will happen this week.

• So how do we respond? 
• How do we talk about Israel, Hamas, Gaza, and Palestine? 
• We live in a world where it seems if you say anything that attempts to be even-handed you are condemned. 

The following comments are drawn from a variety of sources and reflections, including my own.

First, we need to be in prayer: 

• in lamenting the grievous deaths and violence; 
• in pleading with God to awaken the desire for shalom, not just a peace-fire; 
• in asking God for each of us to be patient and compassionate as our first step. 

Prayer is a form of activism that does not replace social activism.

Second, talk about justice. 

• Talk about justice for each human on planet earth. 
• Talk justice for all image-bearing humans, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and others.
• Justice, not in the legal sense of Just War Theory or in the sense of international war policies and rules or in the legal rulings of a given nation, but a deeper sense of justice for all.
  Justice for Israel.
  Justice for the Palestinians.
  Justice for Hamas.
  Justice for Hezbollah. 
• Justice is doing what is right. 
• Justice for a Christian is doing what is right in the way of Jesus. 
• Justice is also doing what is right at the time as far as possible.

Third, talk compassion, talk love, talk empathy. 

• Compassion leads us to become educated about the history of the Palestinians, about Israel, about Middle Eastern social tensions, injustices, terrorism, and violence. 
• The simplistic story often heard, namely that the Palestinians and Jews lived in the land together in total peace but 1948 ended all that, requires nuance and correction rather than simplistic political finger-wagging.

Fourth, justice and compassion should prompt a return to the conditions for Jewish persons throughout Europe, to the Holocaust, to the need for people to have the right to rule themselves. 

• Including modern Israelis and modern Palestinians. 
• The conditions for Palestinians are intolerable. 
• The rhetoric of some that they want Israelites or Palestinians, wiped from the face of the earth is intolerable.

So, fifth, talk peace. 

• Talk shalom - flourishing.
• Talk peace-making. 
• Talking toward peace is Christian; war is not. 
• If we talk peace we will avoid taking sides. 
• We will avoid saying “we stand with Israel” when that implies not standing with Palestinians. 
• We will avoid saying “we stand with Palestinians when that means not standing with Israel.” 
• We cannot excuse the violence of terrorists. 
• We need to speak up and out about kidnapping, hostages, and taking prisoners.
• We need to talk about blocking aid and other acts of retaliation.

Sixth, be very careful linking this with prophecy, 

• either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. 
• for many in North America, a major prophetic event was the rebirth of Israel in 1948, which was understood to be not just miraculous but a fulfilment of the fig tree parable in Matthew 24. The problem was that the fig tree was followed by a prediction that the Lord would return within a generation. 

Many of us in North America were socialized into believing that 1948 fulfilled some special prophecy; 

• many of us never looked into it; 
• many of us have been nurtured in a faith shaped by such a pro-Israel political stance that we can never ponder that Israel is not infallible in its decisions. 
• We need to recognize this orientation, that any alternative view can be disorienting, and that a reorientation takes time. 
• We need a new evangelical culture when it comes to politics.

This needs to be said: 

• every precise fulfilment of some Bible verse (understood as) prophetic prediction so far has been shown not to be a fulfilment. 

To put it more bluntly, the predictors have all been wrong about every prediction so far. 

• Predictors, prophets, apostles, and preachers, need to stop. 
• We need to stop. 
• Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Gorbachev, Putin, the list goes on... none were THE antichrist. None. WWI, WWII, the Six Day War, the oil crisis, you name it, each has been ramped up with apocalyptic expectations and every last one – name them all – has been wrongly connected to the end of history. 

That approach is entirely wrong.

This is why we need to be more biblical by talking justice, compassion, and peace.