The killing of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated.
As of today, the death toll has risen to 31, including at least 1 journalist wearing a vest emblazoned with the word “PRESS.” 6 journalists in all have
been shot. The numbers of people wounded by live ammunition is now in the thousands.
Children are counted among the dead.
Reporting on the journalist’s death, today’s AP says:
“Witnesses said Murtaja was over 100 meters (yards) from the border, wearing a flak jacket marked “press” and holding his camera when he was shot in an exposed area just below the armpit.
“The Israeli military has said it fired only at ‘instigators’ involved in attacks on soldiers and was investigating Murtaja’s death amid a very hectic environment.”
A reporter armed only with a video camera “instigating attacks” on soldiers safely sequestered behind barriers and a fence 100 yards away?
The journalist Glenn Greenwald puts it best (watch the interview here):
“I think it’s just time to acknowledge and accept the reality of what Israel is…And even people who once believed that [Israel was a democracy] are now starting to come and see that Israel is an apartheid, rogue, terrorist state.”
Israel long ago slipped down the rabbit hole with Alice and the Mad Hatter. Now Israel wants the rest of the watching world to follow suit. Eat Israel’s magic mushroom, listen only to the official press releases and repeat Israeli propaganda.
All Palestinians are, by definition, terrorists. As Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said:
“There are no innocent people in the Gaza strip.”
“From the standpoint of the Israeli soldiers, they did what had to be done. I think that all of our troops deserve a commendation…”
American politicians and the mainstream media all remain silent, or 
nonchalantly mimic Israeli press releases. Bernie Sanders is still the only member of Congress to speak out and condemn the mass slaughter now occurring (here, here and elsewhere).
US news outlets are obsessed with Stormy Daniels but have nothing to say about Gaza.
Our government has expelled 60+ Russian diplomats, on the flimsiest of evidence, but refuses to criticize Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza.
And where is the Christian church in this mix? Where is the so-called pro-life movement? Where is the voice of Christian conscience?
The church is nowhere to be found. We have eaten too many of Israel’s magic mushrooms.
Evangelicalism remains silent, too busy groveling at the feet of its Republican idols to look up and notice the criminality of America’s tacit complicity in Israel’s crimes.
But the most powerful force behind this evangelical silence is not politics, not even politics veiled beneath religious conviction. No. The grotesque force holding its hand over the mouth of most evangelicals is the depraved theology of Christian Zionism.
A theology of Israeli privilege that overshadows and negates all competing ethical concerns. A theology that baptizes genocide as the approved work of God. A theology – that is really an IDEOLOGY – as effectively racist towards Palestinians as the political Zionism animating the monstrously perverse Middle Eastern beast once known as Israel.
American evangelicalism will one day be held to account.
Just as the largest part of the American church will be held to account for approving slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, Jim Crow and its indifference to the poor, so too will our Eternal Judge ask us all, “Why did you not lament, and work to change, the fate of your Palestinian brothers and sisters?”
I encourage everyone to call one of Bernie Sanders’ office numbers. Thank him for protesting the killings in Gaza. Ask him to remain vigilant, not to give up, to enlist others to his cause, and to continue to speak up for Palestinian lives.
