Beyond War, Beyond ‘Justice’, Beyond ‘taking sides’

For my own sake, my own sanity, and to reaffirm my own belief that ‘love is stronger than the power of death’ and that even in the darkest of days death and evil will not have the final say, I went in search of ‘other voices’ whose response to violence is not more violence. And some of those voices came to me from others. Below are some words, groups and people who have come to my attention in recent days which give me cause to hope. I hope they may encourage you too.

First - Rabbis for Human Rights, who have long been assisting Palestinian farmers with their annual olive harvest, in an act of solidarity and against settler violence inflicted by some of their Israeli compatriots. Despite heightened tensions, they have still been able to undertake that to some extent - as a link to this news report shows.

Next, an American-born Jew, Ori Hanan Weisberg, who now lives in Israel, and who was put onto me by a friend. This is one of his more recent posts (6 November 2023) from his Facebook site www.facebook.com/ori.weisberg.1232:

I’m thinking about joy. Which is a bit perverse. More than a bit. And I more than thinking about it. I’m seeking it. ….
But how can I seek joy when I am surrounded by death, and not death from disease but from savage human folly? It feels obscene to rejoice amid the slaughter, and when so many people I know are grieving for close friends and family members. And when so many people are dying in Gaza. Unseemly. Disrespectful. I certainly don’t want to numb myself as an escape. The moment requires grief and outrage and compassion. To lose that would entail a loss, or at least a muting of humanity. ..
 …Seeking joy doesn’t efface or erase or obscure or diminish it. It simply refuses to succumb to it. It gives me strength to oppose its savage sources. To resist the awful tyranny of violence. To refuse implosion. To stand up and stare down the abyss and accuse it without becoming an abyss. To raise the banner of life in the face of death. …
Both Israel and Palestine sorely need some good government right now, which we've lacked for...ever?

Finally, in this blog, I want to share excerpts from an Open Letter by various Palestinian Christian organisations (iuncluding Kairos Palestine, Bethlehem Bible College, YMCA and YWCA and Arab Orthodox Society, Jerusalem). Called “A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians” the letter
laments the renewed cycle of violence in the Holy Land and expresses “horror” at many western Christians unwavering support to Israel’s war against the people of Palestine.

Although many Christians in the West do not have a problem with the theological legitimization of war, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians do not condone violence—not even by the powerless and occupied. Instead, Palestinian Christians are fully committed to the way of Jesus in creative nonviolent resistance (Kairos Palestine, §4.2.3), which uses “the logic of love and draw[s] on all energies to make peace” (§4.2.5). Crucially, we reject all theologies and interpretations that legitimize the wars of the powerful. …

Finally, and we say it with a broken heart, we hold western church leaders and theologians who rally behind Israel’s wars accountable for their theological and political complicity in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, which have been committed over the last 75 years.”

Read the full statement here: "An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians".