I’ve never really known much about the history of the conflict between Palestine and Israel. When I was younger I can recall hearing and seeing stuff on the news, but never really cared or did some investigations on my own as to what is happening there. That is until October 7 2023.
At that point in my life I was 43 years old. Not really bound to any religion, but definitely still aspiring to live an “enlightened” life, a pursuit of God and a pursuit of what would be a life well lived. By no means am I a church-going religious believer, but I do think my life up-to-now (taking into consideration all the knowledge and wisdom I did gain while being a Christian) made it pretty easy for me to “live like Jesus”. Or rather let me say.. to know what Jesus would have wanted and done (doing it can be challenging right).
I delved into an intense study on what happened on October 2023 and the entire history of the region and Israel and Palestine. The terrorist organisation Hamas attacked Israel and captured hundreds of Israeli’s and killed many more. The facts keep changing here, which is kinda why I enjoyed delving into an intense period of analysis over what is happening here, but I guess nobody can with any certainty say exactly how many people were killed, by whom, were there any beheaded babies, etc. etc.
Little did I know that this conflict has been going since before 1948. You have to go back to the beginning of Zionism. The challenges I faced was nothing new. Who can you trust? News agencies have agendas. Politicians lie. And family members and friends are biased towards their own religion or racial preference.
I can share a few people whom I really started trusting in their objective views, and it is with these people that I started asking myself; why aren’t more people taking the stance that Jesus would have taken? It became clear to me that you cannot trust any western-media outlet, and you have the be careful when believing an Arabic or non-western news source. Buy I kept wondering why there’s so much hatred for each of these groups, and such an absolute alignment to one of the other side. Where is the humanity, where is the love, where is Jesus?
The reason why I started this post, was due to my confusion on how many people I know, good people, Christians, that cannot see anything wrong with what Israel is doing and have been doing for over 70 years. I realised that you may call yourself and Christian and with that by default decide that the Arabs and Muslims are the bad guys, or the Jews and the Christians are the good guys. Without really even knowing what is really going on there.
The second reason I felt I had to at least voice my feelings on this is due to what happened in WW2. Back then we all know about the Holocaust and the Concentration camp, and back then we heard a lot of people saying “we didn’t know”. I always asked myself what would I have done if I lived in Germany or even Europe during that time and saw what the Nazi’s were doing. Would I have stayed silent? Would I have hidden behind ignorance and religious prejudice? Well, this time that excuse of not knowing is no longer valid. People inside Gaza are literally live-streaming their destruction and ethnic-cleansing. You just need to know where to look.
It breaks my heart when I see videos of kids no older than my own son walking around in rubble, carrying an even younger family member in search of water, one of them with one leg, or burn wounds. Or when I see video’s of dead bodies lined up, kids… with sniper wounds. Or hear about all the humanitarian aid workers whom have been killed by direct fire or bombs in so called “safe zones”. Or when I see videos of Israelis already planning settlements in northern Gaza. Or when I hear the Israeli military speak about how the Palestinians, like dogs. Or when I read about the different types of laws that exist for Israelis and Palestinians. Different roads for each, different ID cards, different water sources. It sounds a bit familiar right. A true Apartheid state. And they’ve been doing it for 70 years.
Now, with this in mind, can you blame the extent to which people have gone to resist this oppression?
The hypocrisy from the western media and nations are glaringly obvious. This is not the first time one nation oppresses another, which gives birth to rebellion groups and revolutionary fighters that resit and fight back. Even Nelson Mandela came to believe that armed resistance (uMkhonto weSizwe) was the only way to end apartheid in South Africa. But does this give the oppressor the right to go and defend themselves against this revolutionary/rebellion/activist group by destroying an entire nation? Nowhere in the world in all its history and all the examples of oppression and resistance was this ever allowed by international voices and powers as it is now. Well actually it’s only a few countries that still condone and support officially, but due to a very confusing and corrupt veto system in the United Nations, the genocide continues.
Imagine Hitler and the Nazis saying during WW2 after a Jewish resistance group kill a few Germans as the Jews broke through a Polish Ghetto, that they as the Nazi’s now have the right to defend themselves by wiping out all Jews? And lets not shy away from saying what it really is like now: Right now it’s reached the point where so many innocent Palestinian woman and kids and been killed you cannot wonder if the Zionist mein-kamf manifesto is actually true when it talks about expansion of land at all cost, a greater Israel, the ethnic cleansing of other nations.
What would Jesus do? I think its obvious. Stop the war, stop funding the war, stop the hatred for other nations. Each life have equal value, no matter if you are brown, white, black, Jew, Muslim, Christian or Zionist. \
I will continue to expand my knowledge on this topic, and who know I may swing around my opinions a bit. But as things are now I sincerely hope people can look past racial and religious preconceived believes and see the world through the eyes of Jesus. We are all human, made in his image.