The psalmist tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. After the terrible escalation of violence since 7 October, Christians will have been extending their prayers to all of what we still call the Holy Land. On that day, Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,400 Jews, including the very young and very old, and took a number of others hostage – among them a grandmother who had survived the Holocaust. Indeed, not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in a single day. The atrocities Hamas committed during the attacks included rape and the defilement of dead bodies. They recalled, in their savagery, the brutalities of IS in Iraq and Syria. Whatever the sins of the Netanyahu government – and they are real – there can be no justification, no exculpation of what happened. The voice of Rachel was again heard crying for her children, and she would not be comforted.
The retaliation of the Israeli state for the attacks has been violent. Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed; hundreds of thousands were forced to flee from their homes in anticipation of an Israeli ground offensive. The huge human cost of this displacement and of Israeli bombardment was aggravated when a missile hit the Anglican hospital in Gaza – and it is interesting that so few news outlets, including the BBC, acknowledged that it was owned and run by Christians. At the time of going to press, the origin of that strike is not yet established, but what is clear is the sheer scale of the human misery of which it is part. Israel is now allowing supplies of food, water and medicine into Gaza, but this necessary palliative measure is not any kind of an answer to the question of what happens next. Israel’s friends, including the US and UK, have urged that Israeli counter-offensives to drive Hamas out of Gaza should respect the rules of war and should discriminate between combatants and civilians. It is, to put it mildly, an enormous challenge. As for Iran, the backers of Hamas, whose leaders may have initiated the original attack, they are far removed from the consequences, at least for now.
The Christian Churches in Jerusalem have responded to the catastrophe with calls for prayer and fasting and statements calling for a de-escalation of the conflict and an end to the violence. One began with a quote from Genesis declaring that God made man in his image and likeness – a reminder that all those involved are equal in dignity, as mirrors of the Almighty. That statement concluded that “it is not too late to stop the hatred”, though that sentiment seems at odds with diabolic reality. But the response of the Churches is also evident in the work of the devastated hospital, which extended its care to everyone who sought help, and in all the other institutions such as schools run by Christians. Practical compassion has always played a part in the mission of the Churches in the Holy Land.
The Churches also called for the resumption of international efforts to mediate a just settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. And, although that seems to ignore the realities, it is still worth seeking. It is not enough to say that after the horrors there can be no peace process. Rather, one reason for Palestinian disaffection is the absence of a peace process. While Benjamin Netanyahu has presided over the government of Israel, he has given every encouragement to militant Israeli radical groups and encouraged settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – there are now up to half a million of them – who have made the prospects for a two-state solution more remote. The Churches have been attempting for years to draw attention to these groups’ activities. Netanyahu wilfully crushed the prospects for a negotiated peace. And for this, no less than his failure to protect his people, he should be held accountable. The international community must, once the immediate catastrophe is past, attempt gradually to reinstate the peace process. But it will do so knowing that all those who seek discord and bloodshed have been emboldened; those who seek compromise and co-existence humiliated.
To say all this is not to exculpate the Hamas atrocities. Rather, it is in the interests of Israel as well as those of the Palestinians to insist that, ultimately, there is no alternative to a negotiated settlement, such as that to which the international community came so close with the Oslo Accords.
For now, however, all Christians can do is to extend practical help to the victims, including refugees, the wounded and imprisoned – the Latin Patriarch, Cardinal Pizzaballa led by example when he offered to take the place of the child hostages of Hamas – and to pray. And let us not forget, prayer is powerful.
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