Israel vs. Hamas—an Effort at Lazy Reductionism
I concede, it’s hard to be thoughtful when people are cutting off the heads of babies.
The Christian ought to see all things with a biblical worldview, through a biblical lens. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes, not so much. Emotionalism, nationalistic passions, tradition, misunderstandings, misinformation, ignorance, presuppositions, and countless other contributing factors cloud our judgement, skewing our perceptions.
On some subjects, dialogue is impossible.
I’m reminded of Colin Kaepernick.
His 2016 protests against police brutality toward people of color set off a firestorm of condemnation or praise. He was polarizing, galvanizing the nation into two clearly defined camps. You were either a Black Lives Matter liberal socialist or a Right-wing nazi fascist. No middle ground could exist.
I’d like to remind you of the facts, something few seemed particularly interested in at the time or even now. In the third preseason game, Kaepernick sat during the national anthem. When asked about it, he responded, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”
Nate Boyer, an NFL football player and former Green Beret who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, reached out to Kaepernick and advised him to kneel rather than sit for the anthem, as it would be more respectful. Kaepernick agreed and did exactly that for the 4th preseason game…with Boyer standing right beside him, hand over his heart. He kneeled, as a sign of respect, for a country that had strayed, in his mind, from what it ought to be.
You see, they met, talked, and sought mutual ground. Boyer commented, “I was showing that I support his right to do that, I support the message behind what he’s demonstrating for.” He didn’t agree with everything, “but there’s nothing wrong with feeling differently and believing different things. We can still work together to make this place better.”
Our Commander-in-Chief was not as compassionate. As the protests spread, President Trump weighed in. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b***h off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” Later, he ordered Vice President Pence to leave an NFL game if they protested. They did. He did.
Again, no dialogue was possible. Well, does Kaepernick have a point…shut your mouth you liberal ****! Support the troops! Support the troops!
But what if…
What if President Trump had invited Kaepernick, maybe some others, to the White House and said, “You know, I don’t understand your perspective, I don’t see the issue the same as you, but you’re a fellow American citizen and I love you and if you have an issue, I have an issue. Let’s talk about it and figure this thing out.” Listen, it wasn’t until I had a black son that I finally began to see things from a different racial perspective. How do I know there are racial issues in America? I have a brother-in-Christ, in an interracial marriage, who assures me there are lingering racial issues in America, and, because I love him, I believe him.
But none of that generates any political capital and I understand this. Dialogue is simply not possible. It’s the same with a litany of issues. Issues like gun control. Or like Israel.
Whose side are you on?
Listen, we ought to support Israel.
Israel is a sovereign nation. We ought to support and defend the rights of every sovereign nation to exist free from threat. Israel is an island of representative democracy in the sea of autocracy that is the Middle East. Surrounded by tyrants and outright dictators, Israel reminds us of us, embodying Western culture and values. We share a common Judeo-Christian ethic, from our common religious heritage to our present liberal values, in the apolitical sense. The continued existence of Israel is inextricably intertwined with the existence and future of this nation.
We ought to condemn the evil deeds of Hamas.
And the assault on October 7th was clearly evil, outright wicked. Even President Biden got it right in naming it. Though the details of the assault are still coming out, what is clear is that Hamas gunmen breached the barrier around the Gaza Strip and went on a killing spree, targeting civilians and military alike, killing hundreds of Jewish citizens and taking dozens hostage. They attacked a music festival.
They cut the heads off babies.
Do I need to say that again? I can hardly fathom the hatred in the heart of a man to do such a deed. They raped. They killed. They terrorized. Mission accomplished. The assault was well-planned and audacious. Yet, after only a handful of days, Israel had retaken all territory and pushed the assaulters back into Gaza. Clearly, Hamas never had intentions of occupying Israeli land knowing they could never hold it. This was a sheer act of terror though Hamas’ desired end-state, other than the destruction of Israel, is unclear at this point.
Israel ought to defend itself. God ordained government to bear the sword on His behalf and Israel must respond with overwhelming force, which they’ve already initiated. They’ve begun bombing Gaza, toppling entire buildings, and by the latest count, have killed nearly a thousand Hamas fighters.
They’ve also killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians, children too.
Hamas utilizes civilians as human shields thereby forfeiting whatever laws of land warfare protections they may have had. Hamas does not play by the rules. Palestinian non-combatant blood is clearly on the hands of Hamas.
Even so, to suggest that the lens might be slightly askew is to risk widespread ire. Is it possible that the lens of “Israel good, Hamas bad” might be a bit too simplistic to adequately capture the necessary nuance of this highly complex situation?
Pray for Israel.
“Ways to pray for and help Israel,” came the email from Randy Davis, the President and Executive Director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. “Urgent need for Israel,” came the email from the local Baptist association. The Southern Baptists quickly mobilized their disaster relief apparatus as, according to them, “There is an urgent need for items for children in ISRAEL” including, “New or VERY gently used clothes for babies, infants & toddlers, diapers, and small toys for babies and children.”
Israel is a modern nation and though the Hamas assault was as surprising as it was vicious, it was also over after a few days, completely repelled, with Hamas not occupying any new territory, having retreated to the Gaza strip. It’s not like the German siege of Stalingrad that lasted months, decimated an entire large city, and killed tens of the thousands. Call me skeptical, but I’d think that the Israeli economy would still be able to generate the listed items.
The appeal had all the necessary ingredients to generate emotion. Babies had needs. Israeli babies had needs. Send what you can and pray for them. Another local ministry organized a prayer event for Israel. Social Media echoed the sentiments. Pray for Israel. Pray for the children of Israel.
I didn’t receive a single email or see a single post about praying for the people of Palestine, who are just as much image-bearers of God as the next man or woman, as any citizen of Israel.
Theology matters.
In our bastardized and sacralistic blend of politics and religion, particularly with the Republican party, we see a marriage between American exceptionalism and Christian Zionism. We’ll overlook for now the fact that the moment anything happens in Israel or the Middle East, even the heathen start harping about Armageddon. American Christianity has so swallowed the dispensationalism of Darby and Scofield that it bleeds Israeli blue and white.
As a former dyed-in-the-wool dispensationalist, I understand the appeal. I understand the biblical case. Once I learned to read the Bible like a Christian, to read the Old Testament through the lens of the New, I began to see what was there all along.
The nail in the coffin for my dispensationalism was Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, particularly Ephesians 2:11-22 and texts such as Romans 9:6. For Paul, there are exactly three groups of people: Jewish unbelievers, Gentile unbelievers, and the church. The church does not replace Israel. The church is Israel, in a newer and more fully developed way and any Old Testament promise that Israel could previously point to, the church must now claim, including the land promises, which find their fulfillment in the new heavens and new earth, established following the Second Coming of Christ. Even the Old Testament patriarchs looked beyond the land of Israel to a greater land.
The free pass afforded Israel is a direct result of the infusion of dispensational theology into the lifeblood of America. Again. Theology matters. As such, we must resolutely support Israel’s right, as a sovereign nation and our ally, to defend itself as we simultaneously deny Israel’s covenantal claim to the land. We ought to demand accountability for their wartime conduct, just like we would any other nation.
Is it possible?
Have you ever asked the question, how did we get here?
Why and how could people hold pro-Palestinian rallies and celebrate the slaughter of children and civilians? Why do Muslims across the globe rally in support of Hamas and Palestine?
When was the last time you read Al Jazeera? It’s interesting that over half of the world doesn’t necessarily see the issue through the same lens. Not that their lens is the correct lens, but it is certainly wise to seek to understand the ways of one’s adversaries. Again, the paradigm of “Israel good, Hamas bad” might just not capture the breadth of the issue.
Is it possible that Israel has acted unjustly toward Palestine on occasion or maybe even consistently? I’m not proposing that Israel is an apartheid state as many do, but I am proposing that they deal with the Palestinians, understandably so, in a heavy-handed manner. As of this writing, they’ve blockaded all of Gaza’s 2 million residents, informed them that an invasion is imminent and that they should leave, though they cannot because of the blockade. They’ve cut electricity and water to the strip. The healthcare system is collapsing, and thousands will likely perish in the coming invasion.
In Palestine and indeed, in the eyes of the Muslim world, this is just the latest string of injustices committed against the Palestinians since the creation of the state of Israel. Is there any validity to the claims? I don’t know, but what I do know is to even ask that question is to risk being branded an antisemite or even a terrorist sympathizer.
Are we any different?
Do you really think these men from Hamas are any different than you or me?
The stratification of sin is one of the primary indicators that one is NOT of Christ, that one is unredeemed, or is, in some way, struggling in the flesh. How natural it is, how easy, to look at the sins of another and to rank them, establish a sin Order of Merit list (OML), and then insert self into the appropriate place in the OML. “Well, I’m not as righteous as so-and-so, but I certainly am not as wicked as this other man. I’m not as righteous as say***checks notes***Donald Trump, but I am certainly not as wicked as Hamas, nor could I be.”
Paul, as he grew closer to Christ, referred to himself in increasingly humble terms, first as “the least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:9), then as “the least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3:8), and then as the chief of all sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul understood better than most the capacity for wickedness in the hearts of men, that all men possess the capacity for cruelty, to kill, to rape. He writes, “But by the grace of God I am what I am,” meaning, it is only by God’s grace that he was of Christ, redeemed from his previous life of sin.
Do you really think that there is no Hamas-level wickedness in our nation?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve had men murder schoolchildren. Kermit Gosnell ran an actual slaughterhouse, where he systematically, unsafely, and inhumanely murdered hundreds of children in the womb and even after birth. Our nation has systematically slaughtered over 60 million unborn children. We cater to perverted and disturbed men masquerading as women while suppressing the collective protesting voices of actual women—it’s instructive that I must stipulate. This is not to justify Hamas, only to cage our gyros.
The only thing missing in America is incorporation. Angry young men in the Gaza Strip with a 50% unemployment rate and no hope of progress or a future are systematically empowered by the false religion of Islam. Islam is the ultimate expression of the legalism in the hearts of men. Obey these rules or else, but Muhammed added the carrot in addition to the stick, offering the most faithful of Muslim men, the martyr, a heavenly expectation of infinite sexual pleasure. It is a demonically effective system. Wicked Americans are no less wicked than wicked Palestinians. It is the collectivization, the systemization of evil that is Islam that amplifies its effectiveness exponentially.
Wicked Americans find themselves restrained by the common grace of God. The widespread preaching of the Gospel, our collective Judeo-Christian ethic, and our biblically based laws all serve to restrain sin in a more effective manner than in the Gaza Strip. These restraints are weakening, fading.
Can Israel even “win”?
Hamas is Palestine. Palestine is Hamas.
Israel’s stated goal is to “destroy” Hamas. Members of Congress are calling for Hamas to be “dismantled”. Hamas must be “eradicated”. “It’s not the Palestinian people, it’s Hamas,” we’re told. It’s the same strategy George W. Bush ran with following 9/11, that of “Islam is a religion of peace” and our war is not against Muslims, but against those who’ve “high-jacked” this religion of peace. How did that work out in Afghanistan?
This sort of intellectual dishonesty may seem unavoidable, but it is also unhelpful.
The U.S. never had a chance to defeat the Taliban. The Taliban is Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the Taliban. The idea that we could separate the Taliban from the people of Afghanistan, impose Western ideals and democracy, and we would prevail was a fantasy. Western ideals run contrary to Islamic thought, and though the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of Muslims at least tacitly, if not outright, support groups like the Taliban, even Hamas, or at least their objectives if not their methods.
Palestinians elected Hamas to power in 2007, replacing the Palestinian Authority. They see, in Hamas, freedom fighters, their defenders. Hamas provides for them, offering services, all while painting Israel and the West as the wicked source of all Palestinian suffering. How on earth would you ever eradicate the advanced-stage cancer of Hamas without killing the host? I’m just not sure it’s possible. Mitigation maybe, but destruction? Again, how? This is the ever-present dilemma for Israel.
Is there any hope?
Biblically speaking, there will never be peace in the Middle East this side of the Second Coming of Christ. We should pray for peace, work for peace, elect politicians who will further these goals while defending and protecting innocent lives, all with the understanding that peace will elude us.
Biblically speaking, Israel is a lost nation, secular and godless. Irreligious, it is no more and no less lost than the Palestinian people, though some see in Scripture a mass salvation of the Jews prior to the return of Christ. I do not. Interestingly enough, the practicing Jews, the religious Jews share a legalistic burden with the Muslims, that of works-based salvation. In pre-conversion Saul, we see a perfect example of the religious zealotry exhibited by Hamas, the slaughter of the infidel.
The reality before us is a nation of unbelieving Jews battling a nation of unbelieving Gentiles.
Maybe no one will read this or maybe I’ll be branded a liberal, an anti-Semite. Please consider that I fought Hamas, well, not Hamas literally, but ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban for much of my adult life, who are all cut from the same Islamic fundamentalist cloth. If I weren’t so old with bad knees and blurry vision, I’d gladly suit up again to fight Hamas (not really, I’m done, but it sounded nice). These enemies of righteousness ought to be engaged and killed.
But maybe a more tempered approach from the Christian is in order. By all means, pray for Israel and their victory over the wickedness of Hamas. Pray for God’s justice upon wicked men who would commit such heinous atrocity. But most of all, pray for the salvation of Israel, the salvation of Palestine. The only hope for the situation, as with any context, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is one thing we can be sure of, but let us, above all, be more thoughtful in our consideration to truly see things from a biblical perspective.
