The Triumph of Hope in a Violent Time
Spiritual and moral truth, courage, and love amid the devastation of the Palestinian holocaust
“For unto us a child is born… and his name shall be called… The Prince of Peace”—ESV Bible, Isaiah 9:6
Biblical events around the time of Jesus’s birth tell of a radiant, emerging hope in a very violent time. The parallels with our own time are uncanny as I write this essay on Christmas morning of 2023, nearly two thousand years later. In solidarity with the Christian Palestinian church leaders in Bethlehem, the site of Jesus’ birth, I have chosen to forgo Christmas celebrations in favor of meditation and prayer for the over 10,000 Palestinian children slain in three short months in genocide-devastated Gaza and for those Palestinians continuing to be killed in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
I have also chosen to write this essay outing myself as an anti-Zionist.
According to the biblical account in Matthew 1 and 2, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the humble surroundings of a manger and visited by three wise men (magi) from the East anointed by a guiding star from the heavens. Upon hearing of Jesus’ birth, the Roman ruler, King Herod, ordered the wholesale execution of all male children in and around Bethlehem. He feared the baby Jesus would grow to become the prophesied King of the Jews and present a rivalry to his own power (NASB, Matthew 2:16-18):
16 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. 17 Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
Weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children;
And she refused to be comforted,
Because they were no more.”
I too weep, as Rachel, for the 10,000 Palestinian children, dead under the rubble, torn from the earth and their mothers arms by the blasts of two-thousand pound bombs as indiscriminate and unjust as Herod’s purported genocide. The story of Herod’s genocide may be disputed by biblical scholars, but the present body count of Palestinian children is all too real, and it calls for truth, courage, and love.
Today we face a similar ruling mentality as Herod’s in which we are told what to think and do… and to accept utter injustices as “normal” and defensible despite the contrary prompting of fundamental morality and individual conscience. We are railroaded by mainstream media to believe in fictional narratives about “the only democracy in the Middle East” that justifies the slaughter of thousands of innocents to maintain a most barbaric Zionism as an outpost of“Western civilization”, which is neither Western nor civilized. We are lulled into an encroaching globalism that represents, at best, the interests of of a few billionaires and an out-of-touch, servile professional managerial class and conscience-free, process-driven and heartless technocrats that are sacrificing the world, while claiming to save it, to fulfill their own desires for power, control, and money.
Truth
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”— John 8:32 (ESV)
First we, must start with truth, and to free ourselves of propaganda: There is no possible justification for the present retaliation and carnage in Gaza. Hamas, the governing body of Palestinian and one among many militant groups in Gaza, struck a fatal blow to the impregnability of Israel by conducting, by most honest accounts, a strategically brilliant coordinated breach into Israel. Hamas and other militant groups hit Israeli military facilities and took military and civilian hostages with the aim of exchanging for those hostages for Palestinians who had been imprisoned and abused by Israel (many of whom were incarcerated without charge, including women and children).
The resulting surprise, humiliation, and chaos prompted a disordered response from the Israeli military in which 1200 people (civilian and military) were killed. It is my prediction that most of these people will be eventually proven to be killed by Israeli “friendly fire” as Israeli helicopters, tanks, and infantry were ordered to level, shoot, and bomb even those facilities, cars, and houses containing Israelis, in order to take out Palestinian militants. This is an official policy of Israel known as the Hannibal Directive. Israel is apparently perfectly willing to sacrifice its own people, to wipe out any challenge from Palestinians. Hundreds of incinerated cars, that could have only been destroyed by U.S.-supplied Israeli “Hellfire” missiles, reinforce this assessment. The evidence presented by these cars and other sources is either hidden or being shredded and buried by the Israeli government as we speak to prevent its own accountability in the matter.
Gaza is surrounded by walls, erected and patrolled by Israel, that enclose what scholars have described as an “open-air prison” and a “concentration camp” a 5.5 x 25 mile tract of land and a population completely controlled by Israel, including all movement to and from. A Palestinian must gain permission from Israel even to enter or exit their “own land.” All ports are controlled, all commerce is controlled. Palestinians are even put on food rations, a starvation diet meant to limit their vitality (and ostensibly ability to resist). This is not fiction. All of this is real, and not a single person who has a functioning conscience would put up with this for themselves or their children, but Palestinians have been forced to incur this treatment for 75 years since the first “Nakba” (Catastrophe) in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were summarily evicted from their homes, and many thousands were shot and killed in yet another genocide.
Non-violent resistance by Gazans, massing on the barbed-wire border of “their” land, to support a “March to Return” to their illegally seized homes, resulted in over 200 sniper assassinations of unarmed civilians in 2018 and 2019. Did Palestine reject a two-state solution? No. That is simply more propaganda. Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu has openly bragged about sabotaging the so-called two-state solution. Illegal settlements by Israelis, in contravention of international law, have made a sick joke out of the whole “two-state” pretense, to say nothing of the right of self-determination stripped from Palestinians in their day-to-day life. How could any pro- “democracy”, pro-law and order advocate stomach this? Yet the U.S. not only stomachs this grotesque miscarriage but enables it diplomatically through the United Nations, where it vetoes any past accountability for Israel and any present cease-fire. My present calling to write is but one small voice, but it is one among a growing mass of millions crying as together: “NOT IN OUR NAME!”
Courage
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.”— 2 Timothy1:7, CSB
What can overcome fear, but courage born of love?
I was sitting in a Bible class, yesterday Christmas eve, and I heard my fellow congregants bemoaning and praying for ‘Israel' and all the Israeli babies that had ostensibly died, and I felt compelled to speak up. I was shaking on the inside and a little bit on the outside, but I could not let such fables stand, and this ongoing travesty go unrecognized. There are few things more theologically tragic than traditional Christian churches throwing unconditional support behind Israel and Zionists as “the chosen” people, even though Christian theology explicitly notes that Christ died for all, and that the new covenant under Christ made ALL peoples and families of the world “chosen.”
I spoke up, knowing that I would “out” myself as a supposedly liberal or progressive Christian in a largely conservative church. Even now, I wonder if my admission of my faith may alienate readers of this blog. Nonetheless, I proceed: May truth and courage will out in the name of love.
Here is what I said, as accurately as I can recall it:
“I’m sorry, but I cannot let this stand. Ten thousand Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israel, many by indiscriminate bombing that has leveled a good portion of Gaza. The propaganda about Israeli babies being beheaded, being strung up on a clotheslines, being killed in an oven have all been proven to be lies. There is only one confirmed dead Israeli baby, who was shot unintentionally in a crossfire. We need to recognize that real pre-mature Palestinian babies were left to die in incubators at a Palestinian hospital raided by Israeli soldiers to say nothing of the estimated 10,000 children who have been murdered in 3 months by Israel’s unrelenting attack on Gaza.” (I forgot to mention that all the stories put out by Israel about mass rape and atrocities by Hamas have also been debunked as unsubstantiated Israeli propaganda, even as rape and abuse against Palestinians held in Israel prisons HAS been substantiated with first person accounts.)
When some of the congregation murmured the propaganda that Hamas was using the Gazan population as “humans shields”, I confronted that too: “There is NO EVIDENCE of a Hamas command and control center in tunnels under the hospital. This was an excuse by Israel to bomb more hospitals and kill more Palestinians.”
I continued: “We need to stop agreeing to be misled by a Zionism founded in atheism, and we have to stop ignoring that Israeli snipers are assassinating even Christians in churchyards, as the Christian daughter and mother were shot dead while attempting to go to the bathroom. [Pope Francis himself called it an “act of terrorism.”] These Zionists have only contempt for our Christian tradition. Conservative commentator and Zionist, Ben Shapiro calls Jesus Christ a common criminal for resisting Roman rule who got “killed for his trouble,” and another Zionist rabbi calls our Virgin Mary a whore, a prostitute. Enough.”
To this day, I do not know how any self-respecting Christian can do anything other than oppose an atheist Zionism that feels content to use a romantic attachment with the Old Testament to gin up support and funding for genocide, as if it were a Holy War against Muslims and not a murderous rampage largely against innocents. Yes, Israel’s vaunted intelligence and military apparatus was humiliated, and it’s people shocked, but why should they have been? On October 7, 2023 Israeli youth were celebrating “peace and harmony” at a music festival/rave just a couple kilometers away from some of the most desperate oppression and poverty in the world until the actual Gazan wall and the metaphorical wall of their ignorance were breached. Many of those celebrants died in the fiery aftermath.
It is my belief that there will be great divine retribution against Israel not only for the murders, but the idolatry, the atheism, the hubris of establishing a “third temple” by the hand of man rather than God as foretold in their own sacred prophesies. If the present situation continues, I sense a breaking point where Israel itself may become physically overrun. I fear that Israel’s people may experience the consequences of the callous disregard of their leaders. I do not relish this prospect, as I do not relish any visitation of the consequence of foolish, arrogant, and corrupt leaders (my own or others) on the people abused and used under their alleged “care.” So my prayers go out for courage on the part of Israeli citizens, as well as Jews worldwide, to recognize the atrocities being committed in their name and, in the name of peace and humanity, to oppose these atrocities with every fiber of their beings.
Love
“I am God says Love for Love is God and God is Love and this Soul is God through its condition of Love”— Marguerite Porrete (13th century Beguine Christian, The Mirror of Simple Souls)
We are not simply conscious humans of dubious intelligence. We are spiritual creatures with heart, soul, and spirit. What does it mean to love in the time of war, warring ideologies, warring identities, warring interests, and warring instincts, even warring within one’s own self? I think it means taking the time to be still and quiet this Christmas, amidst all the celebration, family, warmth, gifts, and noise. Take time to step outside today, take a small walk, find a quiet space (or as quiet as you can find), and simply feel with love and hope into the radiant presence of spirit in this world. Meditate upon the joyful recognition that we can love at all, much less come to the aid of those who suffer. In love we are freed, and in true love we lose even the fear of death.
Because where love exists, hope persists.
We don’t have to take sides in a war against ourselves and each other. We can call out the war for what it is, an attempt to divide us against the truth of our spirit. That spirit is collective as we souls are brought together to create in love as we were created in love. That spirit is individual as each of us is evoked to become a caring, compassionate person enjoined to “Love your enemy.” We do this by admitting and confronting the abuse and trauma we have experienced, which can be redeemed and healed in the risen child within us and a risen love and consciousness in the world. None of us can truly thrive, unless all are thriving, and none of us can truly be whole and healthy unless we all are. Let us tirelessly work for that world and put our money, our actions, our words, and our callings to those ends. Let us collapse the moral compartments that allow us to survive and “get ahead” at the expense of others.
Let us take time to recognize suffering in the world, and the joy that comes when we do not flee in fear and pain from suffering but rather approach it with open arms and open hearts that we may help to comfort and heal our friends of the spirit.
Please also consider donating to some of the organizations doing tireless work to engage the life-threatening conditions in Gaza:
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF)
Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
Be well, and Merry Christmas, and to all wishes for the dawning of a new Love to envelop the world and rebirth a new heaven and earth.
Beautifully written Zeus. Heart wrenching, reflective and profoundly meaningful to encourage us to love instead of fear and continue to hope and have faith in a tumultuous and tragic time. May the souls of those lost be wrapped up in love.
good on you for speaking up.
rather than unfollowing you I'm leaving kudos.
I did have to unfollow several substack authors for being Israel apologists who refuse to understand that killing tens of thousands in retaliation for the deaths of 1400 is not... kosher, for lack of a better word.
especially considering how a large percentage of those 1400 were killed by Hannibal Doctrine "friendly fire."