Well… I don’t write about news here. But I’m going to write something.
Like many of you, I imagine, I have been reading the news from Israel and Gaza since October 7th with distress and horror. The details of the violence against Israeli civilians have nearly caused me to throw up at times. The details of what is happening to Gazan civilians fill me with sorrow and helplessness.
It’s not my opinion that one of these groups of sufferings outweighs the other. A dead child is a dead child. It is always wrong to kill civilians. I’m not interested in saying “but” about the death of a child because that child is Israeli or Palestinian.
It doesn’t help, in forming opinions, that stories that emerge from war zones often change or conflict with each other and figuring out the truth of what happened in any given incident is not easy to do. For this reason, along with others, I’ve felt like the most responsible thing I can do is not say anything.
However.
Right now, it is very difficult to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Even if you donate money to organizations like the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund or Doctors Without Borders or any of the many excellent charities listed here (that list includes charities helping the wounded on both sides of this conflict) it’s not going to do much if the medical workers can’t reach people in need. And they can’t do that without a ceasefire.
So I believe that supporting a ceasefire in Gaza is the right thing to do.
If you are an average US citizen, as I imagine many of you are, there’s not a lot you can do about a ceasefire one way or another. In that sense it doesn’t really matter what I think. But you can write to your representative. And if you pray, you can pray. I am going to pray for a ceasefire, for the safe return of hostages, and for true and real peace. And for no more dead children. I hope those of you who pray are willing to pray with me for these things.
There are friends of mine who are going to be disappointed by this post, either because it’s not pro-Israel enough for them, or because it’s not anti-Israel enough. But I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t say something.
Even if I don’t think somebody’s going to forward this newsletter to Joe Biden and get him to support a ceasefire. Feel free to try, though.