Today marks one year since Hamas launched its brutal attack in southern Israel. In response, the Israeli government has almost completely destroyed Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinian civilians in the process. The conflict has now spread to Lebanon with Israeli rockets striking Beirut. The devastating images and stories we have witnessed over the last year have been accompanied by a flood of dehumanizing rhetoric about Israeli and Palestinian lives. We have watched apologists attempt to justify atrocities and callously explain why the death of so many innocent civilians is necessary for this or that reason. We have seen the impotence of international diplomacy as negotiations fail and war, death, and destruction continue. 

Needless to say, we don’t have answers to any of this. But we can at least affirm that every innocent life that is lost, whether Palestinian, Israeli, or Lebanese, has immeasurable value. The Palestinian family huddled together in a Gaza refugee camp or bombed out school is precious in God’s sight. The same is true of Druze families in northern Israel mourning the death of their children on an athletic field and Israeli Jews praying for the safe return from Gaza of a kidnapped mother or son. For those of us who claim the core teachings of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, our faiths demand that we bear witness to the equal human dignity of all those caught in the midst of this destructive conflict, even as political and cultural pressures ask us to minimize our common humanity in a hundred different ways. It is only on the basis of this conviction that we can pray and plead for change and policies that will make a difference in the Holy Land.

A unique development that has emerged over the course of this tragic year has been the prominence of Palestinian Christian voices speaking out about their views and experiences. People like Munther Isḥāq and Khalīl Ṣāyegh  have confronted Western audiences with heartbreaking accounts and analysis of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank. In watching the way their testimony has been received by Western audiences, it has been difficult to avoid the sense that many people in the US or Europe are often happy to accept and disseminate reports about Muslims persecuting Christians in the Middle East, but become very skeptical and dismissive when Palestinian Christians make highly credible claims about oppressive Israeli actions and policies. Even so, the voices of people like Munther Isḥāq and Khalīl Ṣāyegh have been hard for Western audiences and governments to ignore. Related to this, our database editor Noha Heraiba has just completed a review of Rooted in Palestine: Palestinian Christians and the Struggle for National Liberation (1917-2004). Published in 2022 by Dār al-Kalima University Press in Bethlehem, the book provides an important account of the often neglected role of Palestinian Christians in the quest for Palestinian liberation. An excerpt of the review can be found here.

Finally, a British Muslim friend from the United Kingdom sent me this important statement from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders in that country published today. 

We know that our readers hold a diversity of strong views about what is happening in the Holy Land. We want to hear your views, especially when they are difficult to express. The idea that dialogue is easy is simply wrong, but we believe it has immense value in a moment like this. 

Matthew Anderson