From the Desk of Father Dave – October 11, 2023
I think we’ve all been shocked by the recent events in Israel and Palestine. Hamas made a well-coordinated military assault on Israel by both land and air that apparently took the Israeli military completely by surprise. Hundreds of people were killed, prisoners were taken, and the whole region has been thrown into turmoil.
I don’t think any of us in the Fighting Fathers community could celebrate the Hamas’ attack. Civilians have been killed and hostages taken. There’s already been a terrible loss of human life, and I’m no fan of Hamas. I’ve seen firsthand some of the things done, if not by them directly, by their parent organisation, The Muslim Brotherhood. I do not support Hamas and I do not support this kind of violence in any way. Having said that, I equally cannot support the sort of retaliation that is being talked about, both within Israel and by Israel’s supporters around the world – a retaliation that Benjamin Netanyahu has promised “will be remembered for decades to come”.
There is a lot being said about this conflict at the moment, and I appreciate that it can all be a bit confusing. I want to say just two relatively straightforward things that I think need to be said. Then I’ll leave it to you to think it through further as you pray for Israel and for Palestine and for our fragile and fracturing world.
The first thing I want to say is that this eruption of violence coming out of Gaza should not have surprised us. Of course, in its timing and in its military success, it has surprised everybody, but that the Palestinians of Gaza should rise up and fight should not surprise us. Indeed, at one level, this is just another round in a long fight, and this despite the fact that US President Joe Biden refered to the Hamas attack as ‘unprovoked’. That really should have picked him up by the fact-checkers because the attack was certainly not unprovoked. Indeed, this attack is part of an ongoing fight has been being waged for nearly a hundred years, and has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, and displaced millions of people.
It all goes back to1917 when the Brits issued the ‘Balfour Declaration’ – a letter written by then Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, committing the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This led to a massive migration of people into Palestine between 1923 and 1948 – a land where, up to that point, 90% of the population had been Palestinian Arabs.
This influx of immigrants eventually led to the first Arab revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, when it was crushed by a combined army of 20,000 British troops and 15,000 immigrant Jewish settlers. 5,000 Palestinians were killed, and three to four times that many were wounded. These were the early rounds of the fight, taking place while the British still had colonial control of the country.
By 1947, the immigrant Jewish population had grown to comprise a third of the population of Palestine though they only owned about six percent of the land. This led the United Nations to adopted ‘Resolution 181’, calling for the establishment of an official Jewish state, comprising a little less than fifty percent of the land. The Palestinians rejected the plan, of course, because they didn’t want to give away that much land, which included most of the fertile coastal region. In response, the immigrant leaders took matters into their own hands and started a military operation to evict Palestinians from their homes and to take control – an operation that has since been referred to by the Palestinians as ‘al nakba’ (meaning ‘the catastrophe’).
As a result of al nakba, around 15,000 Palestinians were killed, as many as 750,000 were forced out of their homes, and seventy-eight percent of historic Palestine was captured. On May 15, 1948, Israel announced its statehood, and the neighbouring Arab states responded by declaring war on the new state. The first Arab-Israeli war ended six months later with an armistice signed between Israel with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria,
At that point there were still around 150,000 Palestinians living in the new state of Israel, with others living on the West Bank of the Jordan (subsequently known as the ‘West Bank’) and in Gaza, but things degenerated further after the war of 1967, where Israel again fought against all its Arab neighbours. After decisively winning, Israel took control of areas in both Lebanon and Syria, along with the Palestinian settlements. This was, formally, the start of the military occupation of Palestine.
Since 1967, the violence has, for the most part, been less overt. What we’ve seen over those years, and continue to see, is a process whereby the Israeli government builds settlements of Jewish-only communities in the West Bank, often evicting Palestinian families from their homes to make way for their new residents. This process has been unrelenting, despite repeated international appeals to halt these developments.
Of course, the Palestinians have not just quietly acquiesced to the theft of their land and the loss of their homes. There have been ongoing, endless, peaceful protests, as well as multiple violent attacks on military and civilian targets. There have also been two major ‘intifada’ (‘uprisings’) – the first going from 1987 to 1993 and the second (far bloodier) uprising going from 2000 to 2005.
Since the suppression of the second Intifada, we’ve seen Israel build an enormous wall around the Palestinian areas in the West Bank that has been successful in reducing terrorist attacks in Israel, though at enormous cost to the Palestinians living inside those walled-off areas, and in 2007 the Israelis (with the help of Egypt) completely sealed off Gaza from the rest of the world – walling the people of Gaza into what has been described as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’. Israel has complete control over who and what comes in and out of Gaza, which has allowed them now to cut off all fuel supplies, electricity, food and water.
This is obviously a very superficial history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and if you read the official statement by Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas, you’ll find that he lists a whole series of other grievances that he believes justify the recent military assault. As well as the settlements and the Gaza blockade, Haniyeh speaks of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the recent actions of Jewish settlers ‘defiling’ the Al-Aqsa Mosque – an action that was bound to mobilise Palestinian Muslims against the Israeli government.
Now, as I say, I don’t like Hamas and I don’t like Ismail Haniyeh, and I’m not suggesting that any of these actions or the terrible history of pain between Israel and the Palestinian people justifies this latest surge in violence. Even so, I am saying that this attack was not ‘unprovoked’. It’s another round in a long history of violence.
That is the first thing I want to say – that this is just another round in a long fight. The second very important thing that needs to be said is that this is not just another round in this long fight, in that sense that there are some very unique aspects to this latest round of violence that should be of particular concern to all of us.
One unique aspect to this latest round of violence, of course, is that it’s the first time in a long time that anyone representing Palestine has had any real military success, which is why many Palestinians will inevitably see this as a cause for celebration. More concerning though, from my perspective, is the timing of this assault in terms of current regional and global power dynamics, as I believe this conflict has the potential to escalate rapidly, and could engulf the whole world.
Hamas have called on al Muslims around the world to support this latest Palestinian military operation, and this call is well-timed. Despite the fact that opposition to the Palestinian Occupation is almost an article of faith for Muslim people worldwide, in recent months we’ve seen a series of Middle-Eastern countries normalise relations with Israel. Both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have done this, and pressure has been put on Saudi Arabia by the US to follow suit. Interestingly, I read only today that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, (known as ‘MBS’) has publicly expressed his support for Palestine, which more or less scuttles any prospect of the Saudis normalising relations with Israel. This is a major political win for Hamas and for Palestine, and I suspect that it may have been one of Hamas’ key strategic goals in launching their military assault when they did.
Of course, Saudi Arabia is not likely to be alone in the Arab world in showing support for Palestine in this uprising. Indeed, Lebanon-based Hezbollah has already fired rockets into the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in support of the uprising, which is particularly significant, I think, because Hezbollah is a Shia organisation that normally would have nothing to do with Hamas, who, as I say, are a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. These two do not normally get on, despite having a common enemy, yet it may be that a ‘3rd Intifada’ could see the two working together.
What will Syria do, I wonder? If they were in a better state, militarily, I suspect that Syria might take this opportunity to retake the Golan Heights, which is sovereign Syrian territory, occupied by Israel ever since the war of 1967. There has never been a peace treaty signed between Israel and Syria since that time, and Israel has indeed been bombing Syria continuously over the last ten years, so there will be little sympathy for Israel coming from Syria at the moment, nor, I expect, will there be from many of Israel’s Arab neighbours. The question is, if some of those Arab neighbours do get militarily involved in this struggle on behalf of Palestine, would this draw the big international players further into the conflict, initiating a third world war?
Certainly, the rhetoric of the some of America’s political leaders suggests that they are more than ready for a global ocnflict. Current US Presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said, “The fanatic Hamas terrorist group must be destroyed. But Hamas is only a small symptom of a larger disease… Iran, Russia, and China are in league together, attacking Americans, American allies, and American values. This is a battle between the civilized world and barbarians. America must stand up for our citizens, our values, and our friends.”
Yeah. ☹
I did hear via a Jewish friend in Israel that evangelical Christians there were saying to her, “Don’t worry. This is just the beginning of Armageddon.” If they are referring to prophecies of the end times, I think they give us every reason to be worried. Moreover, a global conflagration that could potentially could kill millions and millions of people is in no way something that any sane person should support.
We are not there yet, and we don’t have to get there, but the way to pull back from this potential Armageddon is not by further escalating the violence. The way forward, and the only way forward in my view, is for Israel to accept what the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) has been calling for since 2005. Namely:
- An end to the military occupation of Palestine
- Equal rights for Arabs in Israel
- The right of return for Palestinian refugees.
You’ll notice that this list, which has been agreed to by representatives of every section of Palestinian society, doesn’t even mention an independent Palestinian state. These goals are not impossible to achieve. We can do this. We should do this. For the sake of Israel and Palestine, and for the sake of all humanity, we need to do this.
Pray with me, please. Pray that peace will come, and come quickly, but pray that with peace comes justice – the only thing that can make for lasting peace – a justice that entails the end of the Occupation, equal rights for all, and the right of return.
May the blessing of God Almighty – Father, son and Holy Spirit – be amongst us and remain with us always. Amen.
Father Dave – 13th October 2023
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine conflict by on Oct 12th, 2023. Comment. 
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”
Thus Dickens begins ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. The cities he had in mind were London and Paris, and yet his words form a fitting introduction to the story of Jerusalem and Ramallah in 2014.
It is the worst of times!
As I write, the IDF is tightening its military grip on the West Bank and enacting raids and arrests on a scale not seen since the Second Intifada! Meanwhile settlements continue to flourish, Gazans struggle to find fresh water, Australia abandons all pretence of concern, and the negotiating table is empty.
In the corridors of power – in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Washington and Canberra – it is the worst of times for our Palestinian sisters and brothers. But this is not the whole story! Tectonic shifts have been taking place at the grass-roots, and what’s more the church is at the very heart of the shift!
The accomplishment of Pope Francis in bringing Abbas and Peres together for prayer in Vatican City was nothing short of miraculous! Who would have thought that such a thing could happen?!
The tangible effects of the Pope’s initiative might not yet be obvious but what Francis has done is to help accelerate a paradigm shift in the way the world is dealing with the Palestinian Occupation. Israeli and Palestinian peace is no longer simply a political issue. It is also a spiritual issue and a human issue, and as such it is something for which we all need to take responsibility!
The quest for justice and peace in Palestinian is becoming a truly democratic struggle, as seen in the ever-growing ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign’ (BDS). The BDS again moves the struggle for justice beyond the realm of professional politicians to a place where every business, every household and every individual can play a role in defunding the Palestinian Occupation!
And so it should not surprise us to see these two forces converge – spiritual leadership and BDS – with the United Methodists of America last week divesting from companies fuelling the Palestinian Occupation and with the Presbyterian Church of the USA about to follow in their wake!
It is the worst of times for political settlements being established from the top down, and yet the death of the American-led ‘peace process’ has opened up the way for ordinary people, and for the church in particular, to take the cause of Palestinian peace into their own hands!
In Biblical Greek the word ‘kairos’ means ‘time’ but not in the sense of clock-time. It means an opportune time – a God-given moment that needs to be taken hold of and taken full advantage of. Now is such a kairos in the struggle for Palestinian justice. Now is the time to act, now is the time to pray, now is the time for us to organise our churches to act and pray and to shout out to the world that our Palestinian sisters and brothers have suffered long enough!
If we – the Church of Jesus Christ – take hold of this time and work hand-in-hand with other grass-roots groups of concerned people around the world, I do believe this could turn out to be the best of times for Palestine, and a decisive turning point in the global struggle for justice and peace.
Father Dave
Filed under israel and palestine articles by on Jun 23rd, 2014. 1 Comment.
The former Archbishop of Capetown is now 82 years old and he’s been doing his best for some time now to slip into a quiet retirement. The problem is that the man has the heart of a prophet and he simply can’t contain himself and remain silent in the face of injustice and oppression!
The testimony of the prophet Jeremiah comes to mind:
“But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9)
Tutu and Jeremiah, it seems to me, were cut from the same prophetic cloth. While the Palestinian Occupation continues in all its brutality, and indeed becomes even more brutal as more and more land is gobbled up by ‘settlers’, how can a man who has given his life to fighting oppression not speak out!
As articulate as ever, Tutu makes a point that I hadn’t considered before – that the comparison that is sometimes made between supporters of the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” campaign and the Nazi’s of World War II is not only horribly insulting to the upholders of BDS but also trivialises the horrors of the Holocaust!
Father Dave
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Statement by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on 2 April 2014
I am writing today to express grave concern about a wave of legislative measures in the United States aimed at punishing and intimidating those who speak their conscience and challenge the human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people. In legislatures in Maryland, New York, Illinois, Florida, and even the United States Congress, bills have been proposed that would either bar funding to academic associations or seek to malign those who have taken a stand against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.
These legislative efforts are in response to a growing international initiative, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, of which I have long been a supporter. The BDS movement emanates from a call for justice put out by the Palestinian people themselves. It is a Palestinian-led, international non-violent movement that seeks to force theIsraeli government to comply with international law in respect to its treatment of the Palestinian people.
I have supported this movement because it exerts pressure without violence on the State of Israel to create lasting peace for the citizens of Israel and Palestine, peace which most citizens crave. I have witnessed the systematic violence against and humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation and pain is all too familiar to us South Africans.
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime. My conscience compels me to stand with the Palestinians as they seek to use the same tactics of non-violence to further their efforts to end the oppression associated with the Israeli Occupation.
The legislations being proposed in the United States would have made participation in a movement like the one that ended Apartheid in South Africa extremely difficult.
I am also deeply troubled by the rhetoric associated with the promulgation of these bills which I understand, in the instance of Maryland, included testimony comparing the boycott to the actions of the Nazis in Germany. The Nazi Holocaust which resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews is a crime of monstrous proportions. To imply that it is in any way comparable to a nonviolent initiative diminishes the horrific nature of that genocidal and tragic era in our world history.
Whether used in South Africa, the US South, or India, boycotts have resulted in a transformative change that not only brought freedom and justice to the victims but also peace and reconciliation for the oppressors. I strongly oppose any piece of legislation meant to punish or deter individuals from pursuing this transformative aspiration. And I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.
Filed under israel and palestine articles by on Apr 10th, 2014. Comment.
This boy’s story is truly gut-wrenching, and yet to the occupiers it seems that young Atta is just another relatively trivial casualty. This in itself is a damning testimony to the inhumanity of the Palestinian Occupation.
Atta is young in years but he is wise enough to recognise that there will be no justice for him – no investigation, no punishment, no accountability.
His mother recognises that he is burying his anger, for the moment.
Lord, have mercy!
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if you can’t view this video, click here.
Filed under israel and palestine conflict by on Aug 10th, 2013. Comment.
There’s a lot of excitement in the air right now about the apparent resuscitation of the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, with new talks scheduled to begin at any moment!
Former US President, Jimmy Carter, and ‘The Elders’ praised John Kerry for his “tireless commitment to bringing Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table after five years of stalemate” while Christian Zionists blasted the US President for actions that they see as compromising the safety of the state of Israel!
It seems to me that Amira Hass is one of the few who really grasps the situation, even if hers is a truth that nobody wants to hear. The ‘peace talks’ haven’t got a chance! If they serve any purpose at all it will only be to enhance Netanyahu’s political career by portraying him as a willing negotiator.
Father Dave
source: www.haaretz.com…
Amira Hass
After the peace talks fail
A Palestinian generation has come of age that is in no hurry to reach an agreement with the Israelis, because the Israelis aren’t ready for a fair agreement.
By Amira Hass
Don’t worry, in this round of talks with the Palestinians, Israel will again miss the opportunity to change and be changed – just as the Rabin-Peres government and the Barak government missed their opportunities. Discussions over a referendum ignore the essence: Any future worth living for the Jewish community in this part of the Middle East depends on the ability and will of that community to free itself from the ethnocracy (“democracy for Jews only”) that it has built here for nearly seven decades. For this we desperately need the Palestinians.
But military and economic superiority is blinding us. We are sure that they need us and that we have pushed them into such a weak position that we can extricate a yes from them regarding what they have been saying no to for 20 years; that is, much less than the 1967 borders.
The negotiations expected now, with the very non-neutral American participation (if we even get to that after the pre-negotiation phase), will not produce independence for the Palestinians. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition problems can’t be blamed for that. It’s the Israelis who are not yet ready to demand that their leaders work toward a peace agreement, because they’re still enjoying the occupation too much.
It’s not for nothing that we have been blessed with 6,800 weapons exporters, the title of the sixth largest weapons exporter in the world, and first or second place among countries selling unmanned aircraft, which were upgraded by trying them out on the Lebanese and mainly the Gazans. Even if few of our people are involved in the manufacture and export of weapons and in the defense industry in general, that’s a minority with an extensive influence and a great deal of economic power that shapes politics and produces messianic and technocratic rationalizations.
The European Union’s directives on noncooperation with the settlements and companies linked to them have come at least 15 years late. As early as the 1990s it was clear to Europe that the colonization of the West Bank and Gaza contradicted its interpretation of the Oslo Accords, but that didn’t prevent it from spoiling Israel with favorable trade agreements. Neither these agreements nor massive support for the Palestinian Authority (that is, compensation for damage done by Israeli rule and its restrictions on movement), gave Europe real political clout in Israel’s eyes and in the corridors of the negotiations. And then a determined first step by Europe rehabilitated its political standing.
The Palestinians have made clear that if the Europeans back down on these directives, as Israel has demanded and the United States wants, they will stop the talks (when they start). But the directives’ main psychological impact will dissipate without quick implementation. When and if implemented, the results will not be felt immediately in Israel, and even then, they will be felt only gradually. That is, it will take time before more and more Israelis realize that the occupation isn’t worth it. That will be enough time for us to continue feeling that we’re stronger than the Palestinians.
But depending on the Palestinians’ weakness is an optical illusion of the arrogant. True, the PLO’s leadership is fossilized and controlled by one individual who rarely consults and rarely takes his people’s opinions into consideration. But even he can’t accept what the Netanyahu-Bennett-Lapid government plans to offer. True, Palestinian society is more fractured geographically and politically than it was 20 years ago, but it has great stamina, which the Israelis lack.
The PA and the Hamas government are groaning under the financial burdens of economies under siege. The social and economic rifts have deepened and an atmosphere of depoliticization has taken over. But beneath the surface there are new developments. Initiatives are afoot to turn the Palestinian people – in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the diaspora – into one deciding body. Ideas are being seriously discussed for methods of struggle outside negotiations. A generation has come of age that is in no hurry to reach an agreement with the Israelis, because the Israelis aren’t ready for a fair agreement. And when we, the Israelis, wake up and beg for an agreement, it might be too late.
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine conflict by on Jul 26th, 2013. Comment.
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