12-4-23<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends have asked me for my opinions on the violence and bloodletting in the Middle East, and I know people are asking each other the same question. I have realized an anomaly in the situation \u2013 in the Christian and conservative communities in America there seems to be near unanimity on the \u201cissues\u201d \u2013 Israel is right on every aspect of the conflict; Palestinians are wrong. Yet many ask their friends, earnestly, what their opinions are, as if doubts are nagging them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, the repeated questions might not indicate doubts, although facts are elusive things. And we must all realize, even subliminally, the wisdom in the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus\u2019s dictum that in any war, the first casualty is truth. Yet conservatives and Christians largely hew to the Israeli versions of events, not always exercising discernment, nor caring to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I am asked for my opinions, I do have some. I am persuaded that so-called Replacement Theology might be valid \u2013 that Jews were the Chosen People because they were chosen to be the bloodline of the Savior. I believe the prophetic words that Jews who have rejected the Savior will, in the End Times, be reconciled with their Messiah. (More systematized than Replacement Theology, without getting too much into weeds, is Dispensationalism, whose Supersessionist origins are not recent theories but can be traced back to St Augustine.) I find nothing in Scripture that persuades me that in these in-between times those who reject Jesus and even persecute Christians \u201cget a pass\u201d in this life or the next. \u201cAll who believe and are baptized shall be saved\u2026 oh, also, Jews who deny Christ and denigrate Christians…\u201d Not saith the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christians who think that Jews do not need to know Christ tacitly approve of consigning them to hell \u2013 which is, in its way, the most bigoted act of hatred we can imagine. When this attitude extends to other \u201cfree passes,\u201d on national platforms, greater misery follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally I will say what I should not have to say \u2013 except to knee-jerk folks who are myopic. The nightmarish atrocities described in the October Seventh attacks are repellent and to be rejected and condemned. Period. American TV news anchors occasionally have shown videos of devastation and mangled bodies in Gaza after Israeli raids \u2013 \u201cunless these are faked videos.\u201d Never are Israeli videos similarly questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a student of history I remember the Irgun and Stern Gang terror movements that bombed the King David Hotel and school buses; who carried out the \u201cNight of the Beatings\u201d where British soldiers were kidnaped, beaten in public. Or other incidents where people were hanged and their bodies booby-trapped; or the Deir Yassin massacre of a Palestinian refugee camp where children and the elderly were mutilated and women violated. But (?) those Israeli gangs were on a crusade to drive the British from Palestine so Israel could be established. Closer to our time, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and (with the assistance of Lebanese Christian gangs, the Phalange) massacred as many as 3,300 refugees who had been driven from their homes in Israel. I remember videos of children strapped to the fronts of IDF jeeps \u2013 \u201chuman shields,\u201d like we hear about today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of these terrorists in these gangs, by the way, became \u201cstatesmen\u201d and prime ministers \u2013 Yitzhak Shamir; Menachim Begin; Ariel Sharon \u2013 some even received Nobel Peace Prizes years later. In Egypt, a terrorist named Anwar Sadat who was twice jailed (and escaped) as a terrorist opposing the king, also won a Nobel Prize years later, as President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet among common citizens \u2013 those \u201cfortunate\u201d to survive these endless acts \u2013 the tears of mothers are the same, no matter who cries, from either \u201cside\u201d of the conflict. But mourners do more than cry. I recall that Jewish leaders like Albert Einstein compared the Irgun terrorists to Nazis; I recall that Osama bin Laden wrote that Sharon\u2019s atrocities in the Shatila refugee camps \u201cinspired\u201d him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am aware that some Jewish sects, some Orthodox scholars, do not believe that the present “state” of Israel is the Zion promised in Scripture. I am aware that, at the other side of that discussion, there are contemporary Zionists who believe that Israel should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates or beyond. I am aware that multitudes of people would be happy if the nation of Israel would be “pushed into the sea,” and all the murderous implications thereof. God forbid; God forbid; God forbid. Such matters manage to make the current crisis fade in significance: they have historic, apocalyptic implications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My opinions? I wonder about \u201cequivalency,\u201d a word we often hear. Responding to the brutality of 1400 murders on October Seventh, and those kidnaped \u2013 by killing 13,000 civilian citizens of Gaza, so far? I wonder whether years of Israel letting only 11 per cent of Gazans to leave the Strip; rationing clean water; and limiting electric power to several hours a day can be considered not an excuse but an explanation for violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t wonder, however, that any<\/em> of this can be filed under WWJD \u2013 What would Jesus do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, any observance of Christmas has been canceled in Bethlehem. Despite, at this writing, the indiscriminate bombings occurring mainly to the north and south of Bethlehem \u2013 which is not in Israel but in that \u201cno man\u2019s land\u201d of the Occupied West Bank, just as Gaza is not a country or a part of another country \u2013 leaders fear that bombs might explode in Manger Square or other areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There also is a desire among Christian leaders in Bethlehem to make a statement about the situation in Gaza. \u201cMadness,\u201d Pastor Munther Isaac, of Bethlehem\u2019s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, called it. \u201cThis has become a genocide with 1.7 million people displaced.\u201d Speaking for leaders of other Christian denominations in Bethlehem including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Armenian, he challenged American politicians: \u201cGod has placed political leaders in a position of power so that they can bring justice, support those who suffer, and be instruments of God\u2019s peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of opinions, the president of Bethlehem Bible College, Jack Sara, noted the opinions of many American Christians who conflate Israeli politics with Biblical eschatology. He quoted an American church leader who called for Israel to \u201creduce Gaza to a parking lot.\u201d Among the damaged buildings in Gaza, by the way, were some of the oldest Christian churches in the world, dating back to the days after the Resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concerning Manger Square in Bethlehem, there is a powerful song about a heart-wrenching story that was in the news a few years ago. Britain\u2019s Independent <\/em>newspaper reported then: \u201cFor 30 years, Samir Ibrahim Salman had made his way dutifully to his task as bell ringer and caretaker at the fortress-like stone and wooden church revered by millions as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Samir \u201ccrossed Manger Square to get to the church to climb the steps to the fourth-century bell tower\u201d as he did every day of the year. One day, \u201cSamir was struck by a bullet in the chest. It was an hour before an ambulance could reach him but by then, he was already dead. The Palestinians claim he was killed by an Israeli \u2013 the Israeli army says they did not fire a shot near the church. Samir, who was mentally disabled, may have been unaware of the danger.\u201d Medical crews feared an ambush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another death. Should our opinion be altered? Whether 1400 die, or 13,000 \u2013 or one<\/em> \u2013 are mothers\u2019 tears any different? Was there anyone who even wept over Samir? He was a Palestinian, but not Islamic; he was a Christian. Does it matter, Christians? He had been beloved of the town, and special to the church, because he rang those bells as a volunteer every day of the year for decades, different bells for different occasions, serving Christ and his neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed the simple Christian Bell Ringer of Bethlehem? To those of us who are ignorant of the issues, who blindly perpetuate stereotypes, who support missions we don\u2019t understand \u2013 and don\u2019t support missions we ought to \u2013 those of us who have opinions not based on knowledge or facts \u2013 we can shudder at the thought that we<\/em> might have been closer, in commitment of spirit, to the triggerman than to the Bell Ringer that awful day in Manger Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n A note. A friend who sometimes reviews my essays made a “hit me like a ton bricks” comment. She pointed out something we all know but need to know better: Neither “side,” for the most part, in this eternal conflict, knows Jesus. Yes, Christians have been involved in wars, many wars we may judge as unrighteous. Yes, we remember Jesus’s words: How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite!<\/em> But where is Jesus these days? As neglected as His bell-ringer? Reminders need to be… re-minded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Please listen to the song about that Bethlehem Bell Ringer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n An ancient church in Bethlehem, A target in a battle of men, Stands on the ground where Christ was born Trapped inside the eye of a storm…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Soldiers move from door to door; Mortar fire, it\u2019s all-out war. Army tanks patrol the street, They treat civilians with conceit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Samir Ibrahim Salman fulfills his task the best he can. Each day at dawn he tolls the bells, While all around the army shells.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He walks across the Manger Square; For thirty years he\u2019s lived near there, A simple man who spends his time In quiet prayer at Jesus\u2019 shrine<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon the roof a sniper aims His bitter heart with hate inflames Samir walks slow, his back bent low And is struck down by the bullet\u2019s blow\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n