Weekly Blog - 30 January 2023 - Israel/Palestine
Tensions escalate in Israel and Palestine
Tensions in Israel and Palestine have strengthened significantly in recent weeks. Some 10 Palestinian militants and at least 1 civilian were killed in a violent raid by Israeli security forces in Jenin in the West Bank on Thursday 26 January. It was the deadliest raid for many years. The following day 6 Israelis and a Ukranian citizen were killed when a Palestinian opened fire near a synagogue in East Jerusalem. Elsewhere in East Jerusalem on the same day, a father and son were wounded when a 13-year-old Palestinian shot at crowds. On Sunday 29 and Monday 30 January, two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces in separate security incidents in the West Bank. Tensions, which are always high, have grown considerably since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of an extreme right-wing ultra nationalist coalition in elections last November. His government opposes the ‘two state solution’, which has been seen widely seen as the eventual concluding solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The new government also strongly supports hugely controversial Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, and plans to legalise dozens of unofficial settlements by the end of February.
How did we get here?
In light of these latest heart-breaking developments, let’s rewind the clock and consider how we got to this tragic situation. After hundreds of years of exile (following the widespread expulsion of the Jewish people from Israel by the Romans in ancient times), the developments that led to the modern state of Israel began in the early twentieth century. During World War 1, the British famously made contradictory promises of an independent homeland in Palestine to both the Jewish people, and the local Arab population, in exchange for their support against the Ottoman Turks (who then held the region as part of their empire). At the end of the war, the League of Nations gave Britain the British Mandate over the area in 1922, granting temporary colonial authority with a view to eventual transition of the region to an independent nation. As a result, Jewish immigration into the area in pursuit of this vision increased dramatically in the 1920s, and continues to the present day. Repeated episodes of local Palestinian violence against the Jewish community also began. As pressure for independence grew, Jewish militant groups staged multiple terror attacks against the British colonial authorities. Eventually the British withdrew in 1948, and the modern nation of Israel was declared.
The surrounding Arab nations immediately invaded, but were successfully repelled by the Israeli army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Twenty years later, Israel was the aggressor, launching its own war against those same neighbours, the 6 Day War of 1967. At the end of this short conflict, Israel had captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula (later returned in 1982) from Egypt, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan: the infamous ‘occupied territories’ that have never been recognised as legitimate Israeli territory by the international community. In 1973, Egypt and Syria were again the aggressors in the Yom Kippur War. In 1978 and 2006 Israel launched invasions into southern Lebanon against Palestinian and Lebanese militants who were attacking from across the border. As well as these conflicts with its external Arab neighbours, Israel has also faced attacks from Palestinian militants, ever since the foundation of the modern state in 1948. And in 1987 the First Intifada, mass uprising of the Palestinian people began. In return, Israeli rule over the Palestinian people of the occupied territories has been brutal and oppressive. In addition more than 140 settlements (widely considered to be illegal by the international community), housing around 600,000 Jews have been built in the occupied territories since their capture in 1967.
Against this tragic history, hopes for a better future were high in the early 1990s, when in 1993 peace talks led to the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Later at the Camp David Summit in 2000, the Israeli government for the first time proposed an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, the ‘two state solution’. However, the talks collapsed, and after a controversial visit to the Temple Mount by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon, the Second Intifada began. The following year Ariel Sharon became the Prime Minister and began a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier, a wall to shut off the West Bank from Israel. Tensions have remained high, and hopes for a lasting peaceful settlement remote, in the two decades since then. They have deteriorated even further in the last couple of months with increased violent incidents, and the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of his extreme right-wing ultra nationalist coalition.
As Christians, how should we respond?
So, as Christians what should be our response to this tragic situation? Many Christians feel Israel continues to be a special nation blessed by God, and we should support it. However, this is a misreading of scripture. We now live in the period of the New Covenant, where the way has been opened for all people to have a special relationship with God, through Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross. As Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3: 28) So the modern nation of Israel has no special claim to our unswerving loyalty. Even if it were a nation of special theological importance, the Old Testament overflows with God’s instruction to the rulers of Israel to rule with justice for all. As Jeremiah the prophet said, “Hear the word of the LORD to you, king of Judah, you who sits on David’s throne – you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jer 2: 2 – 3) Other Christians feel outraged by the plight of the indigenous Palestinian population of the Holy Land, and their treatment at Israeli hands, and feel overwhelming antagonism and hostility to the modern state of Israel. But this is to go too far in the other direction. The sad conflict in Israel and Palestine should be treated no differently than any of the dozens of other tragic civil conflicts around the world. There is both innocence and aggression, victims and perpetrators on both sides, whether it be settlements and oppressive rule, or horrific terror attacks on innocent civilians. God loves every person in the region, is heartbroken by every tragedy, and wants to see lasting peace. As we read in Isaiah, we long for the day when “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Isa: 2: 4)
So what can be done?
What then might be the practical steps that the church and the world can take to help end this long running tragedy? One of the key areas that a major report from Arise, The Arise Manifesto, looks at in detail is what works to reduce and end entrenched civil conflicts within nations (Arise Manifesto, pg 129 – 136). It also considers what pressure can be applied from outside of the nation by the international community to help with that process (Arise Manifesto, pg 119 – 124). Drawing from the teaching of the Bible, and all the lessons from civil conflicts around the world in the decades since the Second World War, the report would suggest that pressure must be applied to bring both sides back to the negotiating table to agree a lasting, peaceful and harmonious political settlement in Israel/Palestine. The vast majority of people on both sides of the conflict want to live together in peace, and get on with their lives without fear of oppression or violence. So any such talks must involve strategically marginalising the hardliners on both sides to enable the moderate majority to pursue peace. It must also involve ending the most egregious injustices pursued by both sides, whether that be illegal settlements and brutal every day treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli authorities, or terror attacks on innocent Jewish civilians. It will also require a process of truth telling and reconciliation, similar to other such processes that have been successful in countries like South Africa and Rwanda. This means telling the truth about the violence that has been committed; confessing that it was wrong; asking for forgiveness; turning away and rejecting the use of violence in the future; and receiving forgiveness and amnesty from prosecution for those crimes (Arise Manifesto, pg 89 – 90). Of course the final details of any eventual peace deal, political settlement and normalisation of relations, will be for the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to decide.
However, there is a lot that Christians, churches and the international community can do to provide pressure from the outside to help get to that point. As individual Christian and churches we can pray for peace, and we can give to support organisations working for peace and reconciliation in Israel and Palestine. In addition, we can buy products and services from companies in the region modelling good cross-community behaviour; volunteer to support causes working for peace in the area; and speak out in advocacy, challenging our governments to do all they can to pursue peace in Israel and Palestine. At a government level, the international community should apply sustained and intense diplomatic pressure. They should also loudly and publicly condemn clear instances of human rights abuses and violence. Targeted economic sanctions in response to specific egregious examples of injustice can be applied, as well as travel bans for leaders accused of particular injustices. Governments can seize the overseas assets of those who are responsible for violence and human rights abuses. Above all, they should support moderates, activists and peacebuilders within both communities, in whatever ways they request. Of course, such methods of providing external pressure to create the right internal conditions for peace will take time for their cumulative pressure to be felt. We are sadly a long way from a reconciled and peaceful Israel and Palestine. Nevertheless, all of the lessons of the Bible and recent history would indicate that it is through the patient, prayerful and persistent application of just such policies that the world can best apply pressure, and begin to move that longed for day of peace ever closer.
Find out more
Find out more about how God is at work in the world, and the role we all have to play in that work, in the Arise Manifesto. This report is Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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