²³’And if lasting harm follows, then you shall give life for life, ²⁴an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot ²⁵burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’

Exodus 21:23-25 – The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

¹¹’But if any man hates his neighbour, and lies in wait for him and rises up against him, and takes his life so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, ¹²then the elders of his city shall send word and bring him from there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, so that he might die.’

Deuteronomy 19:11 – The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

^6’For you are a people holy to the Lord your God and he has chosen you out of all peoples on earth to be his special possession.

Deuteronomy 7:6 – The Revised English Bible

¹He said to his disciples, ‘There are bound to be causes of stumbling; but woe betide the person through whom they come. ²It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone round his neck, rather than to cause the downfall of one of these little ones.’

Luke 17: 1-2 – The Revised English Bible

⁴³You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour”, and “Hate your enemy”. ⁴⁴But I say to you love your enemies; speak good words to those who curse you; do good to those who hate you; and pray for those who treat you maliciously and persecute you…’

Matthew 5: 43-44a – The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

¹⁹Love, therefore, the stranger, for you became strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:19- The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

³⁶Become compassionate, therefore, in the same way your Father is also compassionate.

Luke 6:36- The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

²⁴And when Pilate saw he was getting nowhere but, rather, an uproar was rising, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, ‘I am guiltless from the blood of this righteous man. You see to it.’

²⁵And in answer all the people said, ‘Let his blood be on us, and on our offspring.’

Matthew 27:24-25 – The Keys of the Kingdom Holy Bible

(Note: for centuries this verse from Matthew was used as an excuse for hatred of the Jewish people)

Picture courtesy of Pexels

In October 1962, I was at boarding school in Hertfordshire, aged 11. I remember that in the hall we had huge wooden lecterns, on which the daily newspapers were displayed. At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis 61 years ago, the headlines were all about the imminent arrival of World War III. All our families had suffered in the earlier wars; my generation was brought up with instruction about the horrors of nuclear war; it was beyond our imagining. We all had to live during this period with the very real possibility that we might all be incinerated in a fireball and that this could happen in the blink of an eye, as a result of an accident, or because someone over-reacted. It was quite literally terrifying for a small boy.

I’ve held off writing about the events in Israel and Gaza that have been in our faces for the last week or so, but now feel that I have to say something. Why? Well, there is a great deal of noise in the media and on our streets, but what I’ve picked up is that the noise seems to be based on wishing to see the annihilation of the opposing side, not concern for how bad this is for all humanity and innocent civilians. I’m painfully aware that most of those reading this will fall into one camp or the other. No-one seems to be worried about a possible escalation into nuclear war. My generation has done a very poor job of failing to instil into our children and grandchildren the sheer horror and madness of nuclear exchange.

The recent iteration of a Middle Eastern problem that goes back to a time before my birth, was that of Hamas breaking out of Gaza, on a mission to kill as many Israelis as possible. They didn’t care if they were civilians, women, children or babies, or actually visitors to Israel rather than inhabitants. They have ‘justified’ this by stating that there is no such thing as a civilian in Israel. They use the mantra ‘From the river to the sea.’ This means that they wish to ‘reclaim’ the entire territory of Israel, from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean; it is in effect a call for ethnic cleansing and genocide on a monstrous scale. Those who run Hamas have made it clear that their aim is to wipe out Israel and all its citizens. They’ve killed, in the estimation of most observers, about 1,300 people, almost entirely civilians. Sky News has reported that among the dead, evidence has been found of torture and rape before execution, in as many as 80% of the bodies so far recovered. Hamas has taken at least 150 hostages, including small children. They have said that they intend to execute them all. There has been evidence of the desecration of dead bodies, often on vile video films that I’ve declined to watch. Limbs of dead people have been hacked off; their eyes have been put out; they’ve been spat on. People appear to have been beheaded, both before and after death. There’s also evidence that some children may have been tied together and burned alive.

But we need to pause here for a moment. I can almost hear those of you who are inclined to support Israel, including a number of close friends, shouting out for revenge.

The reason we need to pause is because the reaction of the Israeli government has also been inhuman, brutal and illegal. So far it is estimated that over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in the bombing of Gaza, and the Israeli government has stated that they ‘haven’t even started yet’. The bombing of such a densely populated area in Gaza ignores the fact that among those killed will also be many women, children and babies. Initially, the Israeli government cut off all water, food and supplies to Gaza. They gave instructions that the entire civilian population of the northern part of Gaza should move out within 24 hours and stated quite clearly that if they didn’t, they’d be killed when the threatened ground assault by the Israeli army started. There’s been evidence of a direct attack on a large convoy of civilians trying to escape from the inevitable ground attack, by an army that’s armed to the teeth and bent on revenge, at any cost.  I’ve been uncomfortable in the past that when Hamas has fired rockets and killed civilians across the border, the response has been to exact a massive revenge, with maybe thousands dying in Gaza for every Israeli citizen losing their life. Against that history, what are we to make of this statement by Benjamin Netanyahu a couple of days ago?

‘We will find these accursed murderers, these human beasts, with full force and we will defeat them. We will wipe them off the face of the earth.’

And thereby hangs the problem. There is scarcely a single voice calling for restraint, for a ceasefire, for an end to violence and torture, for peace, anywhere in the world, not even from the United Nations. It would seem the entire world is divided into one camp that wishes to annihilate the Palestinians, and another that wishes to annihilate the Israelis. Both sides dehumanise the other: ‘These human beasts’.

How on earth can the world have forgotten the harsh lessons from our past? We know, for certain, what happens when people are dehumanised. It’s writ large on almost every previous conflict in the long history of the world. We also know what happens when we dehumanise ourselves by carrying out acts of atrocity against other innocent people.

The reason that I’ve quoted so many Bible passages with this article is that I wanted to underline that if you select just one biblical text, in isolation from others, you’re very clearly abusing the Bible. The Bible has to be read as a whole; you cannot take ‘an eye for an eye’ or ‘a tooth for a tooth’ and ignore ‘do good to those who hate you’. You cannot equate the modern secular state of Israel with ‘God’s chosen people’ and reconcile that with the exhortation to treat strangers with kindness. I’ve said before that the Bible is like a stick of rock with themes running through it; themes of mercy, forgiveness, love, tolerance, kindness, justice, humility and self-control. Which is why I think that the only response that we can or should have as Christians to the current conflict is to call for restraint; suppression of thoughts of revenge and hatred and rejection of all claims that the other side is less than human.

There are, ultimately, only two ways this situation will unfold.

The first is an all-out, no-holds-barred, brutal war.

The second is that both sides decide to treat each other with humanity and respect and accept that eventually every war ever started, eventually ends up with a negotiation and peace. No-one has ever ‘won’ a no-holds-barred war.

The no-holds-barred option doesn’t bear thinking about. And for certain it will result in a burning desire for revenge, which will mean the conflict will escalate and endure for many more generations, with all the pain and misery that entails for civilians, women, children and babies on both sides of the conflict.

My final point is that the United States, Iran, the EU, my own country the UK and any other entity with a vested interest in exploiting the tragedy for their own ends, should butt out of this – they can only make things worse and all have a duty to call for restraint.

If they don’t, then there is only one conclusion that can be reached.

And in that case, we shall have to pray that we don’t end up in the literally nightmarish situation of a nuclear holocaust, where there can be no winners.

Surely we’ve learned that lesson? Haven’t we?

Surely?       

Heavenly Father, breathe compassion into all those who are involved in this terrible conflict. You understand only too well the pain that has been experienced by those who’ve lost loved ones, on both sides. Help everyone to see everyone else as your beloved children. We ask this in the name of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who died amid a storm of calls to: ‘Crucify him!’

Amen