Blessed are the Peacemakers - 3 Gaza

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Part 3: Gaza

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I want that people in Gaza will think of me as a friend even if they don’t agree with my Christian faith. I suspect that in expressing a desire to enter the work of trying to be a peacemaker with the people of Gaza there will be some American Christians who will decide my Christianity is suspect. I can live with that. I think nothing I have ever written has been more important for me to write than this writing on seeking to be a peacemaker in regards to Gaza.

            The people who live in Gaza are described by themselves as well as others as Palestinians. The reality for many Americans is that when the word “Palestinian” is said another word is invariably joined to that word. I want that word to be replaced in your thoughts about Palestinians. I think it is important to replace our negative stereotypes with words of shared humanity.

            While I and many Americans took vacations to enjoy life and see beautiful things this summer, the people of Gaza faced war. The war destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure including much of their power of electricity, most of their water treatment capacity, most of their sewage disposal capacity, and much of their food production. The war caused at least 100,000 people to be homeless. The death toll of the small region was in the thousands. A photograph beneath these words captures a surreal perspective of someone in a damaged home surveying the rubble that had been a neighborhood.

The surreal scene of someone sitting in a damaged home with the debris of war before him

 

            In America, I have Christians urging me to “stand with Israel.” Before I sign on to standing with Israel, does that mean I am not to stand with certain other people whose suffering is immense? I don’t think that to stand with Israel means I am not to stand with those whose lives are filled with suffering if Israel stands against them. So perhaps it is best for me to say I am with Israel in her suffering but also with those suffering due to their dealings with Israel. My war is with neither people group but with the sufferings that come from war.

            I know that some Christians believe that Israel is entitled by Bible promises to the “Holy Land” as we in the West describe it. But even if you believe that, I would ask if you also believe the Bible would call upon Israel to regain the land in the same way as it is described as having been given to Israel in the days of Joshua. If you do believe that even the genocide implied in the commands given to Joshua are repeatable then you believe something which no respectable modern Jewish or Christian theologian believes. If the genocide of Joshua is not a repeatable command in our modern times then we must acknowledge that there are truly limits to the sort of power Israel may employ in turning the land to a Jewish homeland. In my understanding given the absence of a repeatable command of destroying those who reside in the land from which Israel was exiled for centuries, the way in which Israel was meant to return to that land was in peace as neighbors with those in the land. I do not see any repeatable Biblical suspension of the normal laws of justice for Israel’s return to the land.

            I am an American. My nation has been in some ways an evil nation. I am a part of a nation that has a history of enslaving Africans. I am a citizen of a nation that in the name of manifest destiny treated horribly the people who had previously lived in the land we now call our land. We remain the only nation to have used nuclear weapons against cities. It is obvious that as an American I hardly have any right to speak from the moral high ground to either an Israeli or a Palestinian. I come from a nation with many good people but also much evil to answer for. I expect the same to be true of those living both in Israel and among the Palestinians. But as an American when I see how Palestinians are treated in Gaza and the West Bank I feel like some of the things my country did to the Native Americans as we settled our land is how Israel has come to treat the Palestinian who lived in their land before the people of Israel returned to the land they now call Israel.

I am not sure how long it will take for a realization to set in that the policies which separate Israel and the Palestinians cannot be maintained indefinitely. What is Israel’s present policy towards the Palestinians? It is something like a history lesson from my nation’s treatment of the Native American a little more than a century ago. We made room for our settlers to a new land by creating reservations where the Native American could be contained and controlled. We did not treat the Native American as an equal but as a barbarian. We had proof. They would get frustrated, angry and some would leave their reservations and attack settlers. We had a name for them, “savages.” Today’s Israel needs to know its policies are policies that need reviewed and evaluated for what they are doing to others and what they are creating in others and themselves. The moment we think of other human beings as lesser creatures to be controlled we have not only diminished their humanity but endangered what remains of our own.

I would hope that people would look at a couple of photographs capturing something of Gaza’s present sorrows and the human faces that are struggling with sorrow.  In the photograph beneath we see a woman graduating on what should be one of the happiest days of her life, a day to rejoice in an accomplishment. But instead she is responding with tears as the names of graduates are read who died in the bombing between the last days of the university year and when it was finally safe to have the graduation ceremonies.

Graduation day, a graduate reacts to the reading of the names of her classmates killed in the bombings

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gazas-students-graduate-amidst-destruction-1642024757

 

            Gaza is small by international standards. Life is difficult in the best of times. Now is the worst of times. Frustrations are part of daily existence. There is very little ability for a Palestinian living in the West Bank to visit Gaza; or for one from Gaza to visit the West Bank. In the West Bank Israeli settlements are protected by creating checkpoints for Palestinians passing from one Palestinian area of the West Bank to another area. The check points are humiliating for Palestinians passing through their own lands. In Gaza the blockades meant to control weapons flow slow all goods movement to a crawl so that a Palestinian ordering books through Amazon can express the joy of receiving her books after six months. Then the stories spread of those who already suffering so much, lost so much more. In the photograph beneath in the background are Palestinian schoolchildren on the first day of school. They are wearing their school uniforms. The girl standing holding her hands over her face is wearing a very special dress. It was the last dress her mom bought for her. She wore the dress as a remembrance to those who died in the bombing. This little girl is the only member of her family to have lived through this summer’s war.

The girl not in her school uniform is wearing the last dress her mom bought her,

She is the only one of her family who survived the bombings.

 

            Like many Americans I once had no compassion for Palestinians. But I have begun to see them as human beings. I have followed several on Twitter because I need to listen to them. I want them to know that I am listening to them even if our faiths and some of our perspectives are different. I have learned to appreciate people who can express frustration alongside of humor like one Palestinian who tweeted: “If I were to die today and go to hell, I think it would take at least a week to realize I was no longer in Gaza.”

            What will I do to be a peacemaker in regards to Gaza? First I will try to change the endings of sentences saying “Palestinians are ________. I want those around me to learn to say “Palestinians are . . . human beings. I believe the first step to warfare and genocide is when we define another person as something less than an equal human being. I believe the first step to building peace with another is to finally see that other person as equal in humanity.

            What will I do to be a peacemaker in regards to Gaza? I love a line from the musical “Rent.” The line says “The opposite of war is not peace. The opposite of war is creation.” So often when a war is declared over and a truce is made, the peace seems only like a place to wait for the next round when someone attacks someone and the peace is shattered. But real peace I think comes when someone who is looking over what the last war destroyed is approached by one from the other side who quietly but earnestly says “I am willing to give you a hand in your rebuilding. I don’t want to continue our destroying each other’s lives.” Wars do not end with a declaration of peace, but only when two people decide helping each other build something is better than destroying what each other has built. But I am not sure Israel and the Palestinians are ready for that. But that is maybe where others of us can come in. There is so much need for rebuilding in Gaza. Maybe the rest of us who weren’t directly involved in the horrible war can say to those living in Gaza, we know there is much to do, would you accept our help? I am not sure where to donate to those organizations which will be helping this work. But I think one of the most important ways we can help to build peace is to let these people living in Gaza know that we do care for their humanity.
            I remember how one of the first Palestinians I followed on Twitter had a single sentence in her profile. My profile tells how I usually think I have something to say but usually need more to listen and then I have a small quote from St. Bonaventure. Her profile had a single sentence that I believe she must have chosen to say something of her life as a Palestinian. She had simply written, “I do not exist.” I will be saying with my donation to the rebuilding of Gaza, I am glad you exist.”

            Let each of us in our own ways find a way to be named among those for which it is said, “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)