The terrible siege of Gaza

Oct 27, 2023

Sunday  Observer- Anil Netto
Long ago, when I attended catechism in secondary school at a mission school, a religious brother told us matter-offactly that Jews from around the world were returning to the state of Israel, established in 1948.

“And when they all return to Israel, that’s when the end of the world would come.” Somehow, I doubt there are sound theological grounds for that prediction for, after all, no one knows when ‘the end’ will come.

But it shows us how closely Middle East politics is embedded within the thinking of people of the Abrahamic faiths.

Much blood has been spilt over the centuries as empires and peoples coveted this land. The violence in the land that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, lived in, continues unabated to this day.

People, even outside the region, have taken sides — pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian.

Yes, we should take sides, the side of justice — for there can be no lasting peace without justice.

At the heart of the Israel-Palestine issue today is the question of land and occupation. The tale is one of occupation by one group and dispossession of another. When the state of Israel was created, following the inward migration of Jews from Europe and elsewhere in what was then known as Palestine, it was followed by the Nakba, the Catastrophe: hundreds of thousands of inhabitants were driven from their homes and villages and became refugees overnight.

Most people have a problem distinguishing Zionism, a political project, from Judaism, the religion. They are also unable to distinguish between ordinary Palestinians and Hamas, and between ordinary Jews and some of their fascist leaders.

This is not a ‘war’ between parties of equal strength. One side is the occupier, armed to the teeth, with superpower backing; the other is the oppressed and occupied, defenceless and dispossessed from their land and property.

What is happening now in the region is an abomination. How would you describe a hospital in Gaza destroyed after Israeli strikes, with 500 lives lost? And the lives lost in a music festival in Israel after Hamas’ brutal attacks?

But the cycle of violence and bloodshed did not begin with Hamas’ terrible atrocities in Israel. The violence has been ongoing.

The Gaza Strip, about 1.2 times the size of Penang Island, has been under siege for 16 long years, a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Peaceful demonstrators there gunned down.

Over at the West Bank, Palestinian territories have been ghettoised by Israeli troops and encroached upon by Israeli settlers.

Some people describe Gaza as an open-air prison, as entry points to the strip are heavily controlled. But even this is inaccurate. A prison houses convicted criminals. But the civilians of Gaza, descendants of refugees driven out of their land, are innocent. What crimes have ordinary families committed?

To cut off water, electricity, food and fuel supplies for one million people in the north of Gaza is a terrible war crime that in any other place and time would have been denounced for what it is. But because of superpower and mainstream Western media ‘protection’, no such condemnation is heard.

In Jesus’ time, the territories were divided between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north and Samaria in between.

The people of Samaria were shunned and looked down on because their faith and blood were thought to be diluted by other foreign elements. They even worshipped at a different Temple on Mount Gerizim, rather than the massive Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

But much to the surprise of His followers, Jesus reached out to the Samaritan woman, who was taken aback (John 4):

19 ‘I see you are a prophet, sir,’ said the woman.

20 ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, though you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’

But Jesus tells her the hour is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father neither on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem: 23 … the hour is coming — indeed is already here — when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks.

Many Christians are sympathetic to Israel, because they see it as the promised land for God’s ‘chosen people’, the Jews.

But surely God wants His followers, chosen or otherwise, to abide by justice, compassion and love. On the question of justice, He does not play favourites. Among the Palestinians are Muslims and Christians, though many Christians have resettled abroad.

What would Jesus say or do? A friend of mine noted how Jesus wept over the fate of the people of Jerusalem (The Romans destroyed first the Temple and then the city decades after Jesus ascended.): “I believe Jesus would weep today because the people dwelling in this land of milk and honey have not stood for peace and missed many opportunities to secure peace (we know from the many attempts to sign a lasting peace treaty).

“Instead, they have wrestled and fought over the land with more powerful and sophisticated weapons and brought suffering to both sides.”

The same Jesus who wept over Lazarus’ death would today weep over the loss of innocent lives, especially the children whom He considered precious.

Today, there are two million Palestinians in Gaza (more than half of them refugees), three million in the West Bank and another two million in Israel. That’s almost 7.5 million or 51 per cent of the population squeezed into ever-shrinking territories. (Another 4.5 million live abroad, many of them refugees.)

Seven million Jews live in Israel, including over 200,000 more settlers in occupied East Jerusalem. Another half a million Israeli settlers live on the occupied West Bank. That’s another 7.5 million.

Given how the Palestinian territories have shrunk due to Israeli occupation and settlements, the two-state solution — Israel and Palestine — in existence side-by-side, looks a distant dream.

It is impossible to drive out the 7.5 million Palestinians from their homeland. To do so would amount to ethnic cleansing, even genocide. It will not be easy to remove the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The land in the entire region, ultimately belongs to God. The only solution is for Israelis and Palestinians, the children of God, to live together in a common land, in peace and justice — without bloodthirsty or fascist leaders egging their followers to violence and hatred.

Perhaps this is the only lasting solution that will find favour with God?

(Anil Netto is a freelance writer and activist based in Penang. He believes we are all called to build the kingdom of God in this world.)