‘If only… ' Thoughts on an unfolding tragedy in Gaza

The words of a statement in an American Jewish magazine, Tikkun, a few days after the Hamas attack caught my attention: “It is only by recognising our shared fears and our shared tears that we will find our way through this nightmare….This moment calls us to slow down, sit with the pain and complexity, and grapple with our discomfort. It is a moment for digging deep, seeing across differences, and remembering our deep yearning for peace and justice.”

It’s as though a scientist without moral compass resolved to test the limits of human compassion. He took a small container and in it he placed two related families. Then he poured into the container a mix of good intentions and demonic possibilities. He left it all to ripen in the warm Palestinian sun. Soon the families were swimming in a container filled with greed, fear, distrust, patriotic fervour, impossible hopes and an insatiable desire for revenge when wronged. For good measure he sprinkled his toxic mix with strong doses of twentieth century colonialism and of religion redesigned to justify human greed. A generous sprinkling of great power rivalry and imperial ambition and to top it all off, an irrational belief that it’s possible to build peace through violent means. The result was predictable.

On 14 May 1948, while the United Nations was still discussing a proposal to establish a Jewish state on Palestinian territory and alongside a Palestinian state, Ben Gurion, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, with himself as the first President. It was a time of jubilation for European Jewish communities bruised by the horrors of the Nazi sponsored holocaust. They would have their own nation and be free to be themselves, to make their own laws, to express their faith without being surrounded by antisemitic prejudice. On that same day Palestinians and citizens of surrounding Arab nations were fearful and strongly opposed the establishment of the new state on land belonging to another people.

The story that unfolded is a tragedy made up of a long list of ‘If only … ‘ still born possibilities and wrong turnings.

· If only, there had been meaningful consultation with Palestinian people when the idea of an Israeli state was first proposed …

· If only, earlier Jewish settlers in Palestine had respected the land and livelihood of the indigenous people, if Palestinians had not been dispossessed of their lands, their villages destroyed, their people scattered …

• If only, Palestinian land had not continued to be stolen and Jewish settlements built on it …
• If only, the founders of Zionism (a form of assertive Judaism) had heeded the warnings of Jewish intellectuals like Martin Buber who feared the new nation might descend into a form of nationalism that would obscure the ancient promise of being a people through whom humanity would be blessed …
• If only, there had been a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela, to lead non- violent Palestinian opposition to what was happening …
• If only, Palestinian leaders had been able to resist the help and advice of militant forms of Islam …
• If only, the USA, Britain, and other western nations had not manipulated events to serve their political, economic and military advantage …
• If only, armament manufacturers had not so readily provided weapons to those caught up in a mounting spiral of violence …

The list of ‘if only …’ could go on and on. Today’s tragedies are the products of choices made without sensitivity to future consequences. They are memories that imprison good people in a cycle of violence from which they feel unable to escape. We cannot change past events but perhaps we can rob them of their power to damage the present. Is it possible for nations to repent, turn and face a new direction, to claim a new beginning? If only …

As I think and pray my way into today’s pain in Gaza and throughout Palestine/Israel I am aware that on 5 November 1881, a colonial force invaded and destroyed the Māori village of Parihaka in western Taranaki. The village was a centre of non- violent opposition to settler confiscation of Māori land. The dynamics of Parihaka have rough parallels with what has unfolded in Palestine over the same 140 years – colonial ambition, disregard of the rights and dignity of tangata whenua, morality derailed by human greed. The details differ and the scale of the destruction in and around Gaza is greater, but the two events seem to me to be on the same page. The great difference is that the people of Parihaka and their leaders refused to meet violence with violence, to perpetuate a cycle of violence. If only …

The land and people of Palestine have witnessed some of the most heinous of crimes against humanity – tossed about by successive imperial powers and ravaged by the fury of Crusader warriors. But across the centuries Palestine has also been home to spiritual insights with the potential to reshape humanity, to jolt us into new ways of living. The love-soaked teaching of Jesus was first heard and heeded in this place. Muslims recognise Jerusalem as a place uniquely touched by Allah, the compassionate and merciful creator. The story of Moses who experienced God as Holy Presence who hears and feels the pain of the oppressed has a treasured place within Judaism. Celtic Christians speak of ‘thin places’ – places where the holy presence is most deeply felt. Surely Palestine is historically such a place.

In 2008 I attended a meeting in Jerusalem of the International Council of Christians and Jews. The theme was peacemaking. I was impressed by an address by Rabbi Ron Kronish, founder and director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel. He expressed his continuing disappointment that the peace- loving wisdom of the faiths in the land was disregarded by those negotiating for peace. I wonder, can the words of Micah be given a place at the negotiating table: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God … beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks … so all shall sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees. ‘If only …