My friends Lisa Loden and Richard Harvey are both Jewish Christians. Lisa lives in Israel. Richard resides in England.
Today Rob talks with them about their Jewish, Christian perspectives on the current war. Their commitment to following Jesus as the Prince of Peace during a time of war provides a powerful testimony to the presence of God’s kingdom in this world.
I will make only a few brief comments of my own to follow up on some of the issues raised in the interview:
First, I believe it is long past time to stop using the history of Jewish suffering, as horrific as it is, to excuse Israel’s current oppression of the Palestinian people.
Second, by Richard’s own definition of terrorism, Israel is now committing acts of terrorism against the people of Gaza.
Finally, I completely agree with Lisa when she says that this war is not about Israel’s self-defense.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Jonathan Kuttab is a Palestinian Christian from East Jerusalem. He is a human rights lawyer who has practiced law in the USA, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Today Rob talks with Jonathan about the war against Gaza, the death of the two-state solution, as well as his Christian commitment to non-violent living in the kingdom of God.
Dr. Gary Burge was recently interviewed on the podcast Theology in the Raw.
My friend Gary provides an extensive argument for answering NO to this question. No, Christians do not have a theological obligation to support Israel’s right to the land.
If you have any questions about these matters, then please give Gary an hour of you time. You will be glad you did:
British journalist Jonathan Cook addresses the elephant in the room whenever we talk about the Hamas attack of Oct. 7:
Jonathan Cook
How did Hamas guerillas, carrying light armaments, manage to demolish and burn down sizeable concrete buildings in numerous kibbutzim throughout southern Israel?
Numerous Israeli eyewitnesses point their fingers at the Israeli military.
Yep, Israel makes a practice of killing their own. Below is an excerpt of Cook’s article:
Did the Israeli military fire into the Hamas-controlled civilian homes in the same fashion as it had fired into its own military bases, and with the same disregard for the safety of Israelis inside? Was the goal in each case to prevent at all costs Hamas taking hostages whose release would require a very high price from Israel?
Kibbutz Be’eri has been a favoured destination for BBC reporters keen to illustrate Hamas’ barbarity. It is where Lucy Williamson headed again this week. And yet none of her reporting highlighted comments made to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper by Tuval Escapa, the kibbutz’s security coordinator. He said [link is in Hebrew] Israeli military commanders had ordered the “shelling [of] houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”
That echoed the testimony of Yasmin Porat, who sought shelter in Be’eri from the nearby Nova music festival. She told Israeli Radio that once Israeli special forces arrived: “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages because there was very, very heavy crossfire.”
Are the images of charred bodies presented by Williamson, accompanied by a warning of their graphic, upsetting nature, incontrovertible proof that Hamas behaved like monsters, bent on the most twisted kind of vengeance? Or might those blackened remains be evidence that Israeli civilians and Hamas fighters burned alongside each other, after they were engulfed in flames caused by Israeli shelling of the houses?
Israel will not agree to an independent investigation so a definitive answer will never be forthcoming. But that does not absolve the media of their professional and moral duty to be cautious.
Bruce and Alessandra are both friends of mine. Bruce is a retired New Testament professor. His wife, Alessandra is a Palestinian. Together they make a formidable team explaining the ins and outs of the dire situation in Gaza and Israel.
They recently gave a seminar to an East coast church. It’s 90 minutes long but well worth every minute:
Over 1,500 Israeli anti-apartheid activists have signed a petition accusing Israel’s political and military leadership of committing war crimes in Gaza.
Jessica Corbett’s article appears in Common Dreams. Below is an excerpt:
Israelis Against Apartheid, a group representing more than 1,500 citizens, this week urged the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor “to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
“For the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated,” declares the letter to the ICC’s Karim A. A. Khan, noting his ongoing Palestine investigation and recent remarks on the war.
The letter, dated Thursday, explains that “as Israeli anti-colonial activists, we have joined our voices to the voices of Palestinians for decades warning on the dangerous course of action pursued by the Israeli state and repeatedly called for international intervention.”
“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” the letter continues. “The acute deterioration in basic conditions of life that we are now witnessing could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes.”
Ms. Iversen not only describes what she saw in the Occupied Territory, she also reads the moving descriptions of Palestinian suffering posted by others.
Journalist Nida Ibrahim describes and illustrates the escalating violence against Palestinians that is spreading throughout the West Bank, one of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
