When will it ever end?
Editorial: The Rev’d Dr. Nicholas Henderson
Editor: Anglicanism.org
On Saturday 7th October 2023 the fifth war of the Gaza/Israel conflict began when Hamas-led militant groups led a surprise attack on Israel. This resulted in the deaths of 1,915 Israeli and foreign nationals including 815 civilians. Further, 251 hostages were taken captive into Gaza with the stated aim to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The same reasoning applied to Israel’s expansion of settlements and occupation of Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights since the Six-Day War of 1967, which is considered an occupation by the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly.
The Israeli reprisal invasion of Gaza that followed has resulted in the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians and enormous destruction of property and homes in Gaza and increasingly elsewhere. The subsequent steady enlargement of the conflict from both sides has continued in a steady escalation of the war with incursions by the Israelis into both Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. This has drawn the Shiite powerful non-state militia Hezbollah into the conflict and the background influence of Iran has become increasingly obvious.
Initial political response from Western nations has been timid but increasing unrest, popular protests and political tensions have led more recently to calls for a ceasefire – these have been explicitly ignored by all sides and the conflict has intensified. Long-running appeals for a “two-state” solution for Israel and the Palestinians have remained ineffective.
The evident historic hatred between the factions is one of conflicting and often violent variations of interpretation by the Abrahamic faiths. Each of these looks to their various scriptures. So, whilst very conservative evangelical Christians, as evident in parts of the American religious right, see Christian Zionism[i] and the return of Christ being linked to the establishment of Israel, equally conservative elements of the Jewish right aspire to the establishment of a Jewish State that stretches to the utmost imagined limits of what can be gleaned from biblical references to the Davidic kingdoms, of the eleventh century BC. Such a view if ever realised would leave no room for Palestinians, which is unsurprisingly anathema to most Muslims.
This part of the Middle East, standing as it does as a kind of corridor between Europe, Asia Minor and Africa has always been a hotbed of competitive struggle, essentially over land and its ownership. Peace has only ever been maintained when very powerful empires have included it within their aegis. One thinks of the Assyrians, Persians, Romans and in more recent times the Ottoman Empire. Lastly, the British Mandate post First War until 1948 left the one-time world power floundering, with a legacy of a well-intentioned but unstable current division of what we used to call the Holy Land.
It is reasonable in a religiously based site such as Anglicanism.org to speculate how this increasingly dangerous situation might draw to a conclusion?
The current situation doesn’t look good in the absence of a strong international consensus. The British, for example, much weakened as a political power, not least since the disastrous separation from Europe after Brexit, have gestured a minor and inconsequential cessation of export of arms to Israel. The United Nations, set up as a post Second World War body for peace, is constantly locked in a state of veto and its many resolutions regularly ignored. The United States the one-time effective task master of Israel looks increasingly impotent, not least as it is also occupied with the war in Ukraine and its own internal electoral machinations. The European Union preoccupied with migration and the rise of the popularist right struggles to find unity within itself and the emerging great power of China remains, wisely at arms-length.
Last month on 22nd September last month at the International Meeting for Peace held in Palais des Congrès, Paris, the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a renewed commitment to peace in a world of conflict.[ii] Addressing the opening assembly of ‘Imagine Peace’, the Archbishop set out a Christian vision of peace and reconciliation, which he said began by partnering with God in prayer. The Archbishop spoke alongside other guests including the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia and the Rector of the Great Mosque.
Despite the presence of the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, it is difficult to see a gathering such as this making much difference. Except that, consistently the warring factions are aligned to their respective religious positions and making peace under the same allegiances would be a significant development that just might work – or not.It was G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) the author, philosopher and Christian apologist who came out with the pithy statement “I bring you naught for your comfort” but as the acclaimed “prince of paradox” he regularly made his point by carefully turning proverbs, sayings and allegories inside out. As a Christian urging us not to give up he said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
At least the Archbishop is trying, although the solution is ultimately more likely to lie in Tel Aviv and Tehran.
Nicholas Henderson
October 2024
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism
[ii] https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-writing/speeches/archbishop-canterburys-speech-international-meeting-peace