What Should We Know about Gaza?
Gaza is a small strip of land that hugs the Mediterranean coastline. It's I think 130 square miles and is home to 1.5 million people -- most of whom are under 25 years old. I think the average age is 17 or something near that.
Rashid Khalidi, an important scholar of the middle east, wrote in a January 7, 2009 essay in the New York Times about Gaza and its situation. Americans know very little about this strip of land, which the Israelis pulled out of a few years back, but which they still essentially occupy -- that is, they control access to the area and egress from it. With US support they have been cutting of the life line -- we hear about those tunnels. Yes, Hamas is bringing in rockets, but they also bring in food, supplies, fuel and other necessities. The goal now is to further cut them off. To what end? What is the end game?
Khalidi notes:
I know that my continued harping on this issue may sound anti-Israeli, but its not. I'm not anti-Israeli, but I don't think that this program of occupation is healthy for anyone. Again, we need to ask about the end game, and then discern how we're being involved as Americans. And as Christians, we are called to be peacemakers. That is a difficult road to take, but take it we must.
Rashid Khalidi, an important scholar of the middle east, wrote in a January 7, 2009 essay in the New York Times about Gaza and its situation. Americans know very little about this strip of land, which the Israelis pulled out of a few years back, but which they still essentially occupy -- that is, they control access to the area and egress from it. With US support they have been cutting of the life line -- we hear about those tunnels. Yes, Hamas is bringing in rockets, but they also bring in food, supplies, fuel and other necessities. The goal now is to further cut them off. To what end? What is the end game?
Khalidi notes:
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
I know that my continued harping on this issue may sound anti-Israeli, but its not. I'm not anti-Israeli, but I don't think that this program of occupation is healthy for anyone. Again, we need to ask about the end game, and then discern how we're being involved as Americans. And as Christians, we are called to be peacemakers. That is a difficult road to take, but take it we must.
Comments
Is it true that one of the reasons why you want peace in and around Israel is because you don't want Biblical prophesy to be fulfilled?
It's not a matter that I don't want biblical prophesy to be fulfilled, I just don't think that is a proper or responsible way of interpreting scripture.
So, I pray for peace because Jesus calls us to be peacemakers.
"...you don't want biblical prophesy to be fulfilled?"
Good Lord.
How would you define peace between Israel and her enemies? Would it be just that no one was shooting at anyone else, or is there more to your definition? And how long would "peace" have to last in order to meet your definition?
Any call for war, any expression of acceptance of war, anything other than regret and compassion for those driven to such extremes is not following the way of Jesus Christ.
War happens because we are not perfect and imperfect people may not be able to find an acceptable alternative to war. But followers of Jesus Christ should always be able to agree on the desire for peace and for the creation of political and economic systems which foster a healthy and sustainable peace.
Cheerleading for war is the gravest of sin.
Encourage people in a broken situation to find ways to live in a healthy and just peace.
Rooting for war is never an option for Christians.
Armageddon will come if God so wills, in the fullness of God's time, not ours.
John
Do you think that God's promises in the Bible to give the land (of Canaan) to the Jewish people legitimizes at all the presence of a sovereign Jewish State in some portion of that land today?
By my question, I do not mean to ask whether or not you believe the establishment of the Modern State of Israel is at all a fulfillment of prophecy. I'm trying to avoid the issue of prophetic interpretation and touch instead on legitimacy. I considered phrasing it "Divine Legitimacy", but that may be taking it too far.
And to be clear, by "legitimacy" I do not mean a justification for anything the State of Israel would do, only a justification of the State's existence. While most of the world recognizes Israel, its legitimacy is very much called into question - this stemming largely from a narrative that sees Israel as a colonial imposition. The legitimacy issue might not come up very much in the US, but it's quite common in the rest of the world.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. I've enjoyed perusing your blog.
Thank you for the question, which is posed from a different perspective than most.
I suppose to answer the question I would be helped had I read Walter Brueggemann's book on the Land. That said, I understand the importance of the Land to the Jewish identity, but whether God's promise requires a state is another question.
I have interpreted God's ongoing promises of relation to Israel as a commitment to the people of Israel, wherever they may live. That would not require a state. But when the Zionist movement first emerged the hope was for a homeland, a place to call their own, though the idea of a state emerged only later. I could see a peaceful Palestinian state that gave full citizenship rights to all, including Jews, fulfilling that promise.
Anyway, that is an attempt at an answer.