Jerusalem weeps for her children, but she weeps for all of them. It is right for us to join her grief for Israelis slaughtered, a senseless act of terror unleashed by Hamas on a civilian population. The taking of innocent hostages is deplorable. Attacks against noncombatants violate international law and run counter to the religious ethic of warfare, a consensus view in the West for fifteen hundred years. If the few thousand soldiers of Hamas make legitimate military targets, the 2.2 million civilians of Gaza do not. Half of the population there are nineteen or younger. I write to cry out on their behalf.
The 140 square miles of Gaza are cordoned off by Israel and have been since 2006. To the west lies the Mediterranean Sea, but there are no usable harbors. Across the southern border, a few miles wide, lies Egypt. For reasons of its own, Egypt keeps its border with Gaza closed and has done so for years. In ordinary times, Gaza depends on humanitarian aid for eighty percent of its food, health care, and social services. These are not ordinary times, and now there is no access to this tiny, densely populated tract of land. Electricity and water to Gaza come from Israel, and the Israeli government has cut off both supplies. Food and fuel cannot get into Gaza, and as I write on Friday, October 13, some 300,000 Gazans are homeless, their homes destroyed by Israeli arms. The situation is dire. Catastrophic collapse looms for this population of millions.
This does not have to be. Israel can open an aid corridor to Gaza, and so can Egypt. Israel can allow the flow of water and electricity. Both nations can provide for refugees who want to flee the crisis of arms, hard though it be to leave one’s place, hard though it be to welcome the stranger, even in ordinary times. Israel can take into account the large civilian population in making its military response.
The Church in the Holy Land, in Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, is a Palestinian Church. Christians, mostly Orthodox and Catholic, are a tiny minority, but the Church plays a larger role than the numbers might suggest, both in providing a voice for Palestinians, and in providing their education and health care. Anglicans are there also, in the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, 28 congregations and 7,000 believers in the Holy Land. Notable for this moment is that the Diocese runs Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, one of the remaining health-care centers in that territory. Fuel for the hospital generators is running low, as are food, water, and medical supplies.
What can we do in the face of all this? We can, first, find solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ living in the Holy Land, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem providing an obvious connection. Pray for Archbishop Hosam Naoum, our Bishop in Jerusalem. We can email or call our representatives and senators in Congress, bringing to their attention a civilian population at the point of catastrophe. We can ourselves cease all dehumanizing language and urge people in the political arena to do the same. Anti-Semitic and Anti-Muslim expressions are both out of bounds. Both deserve decrying.
And pray. Pray for peace and justice. Pray Psalm 122, which gives words to hope in the Holy Land. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Faithfully,
George Wayne Smith
Bishop Provisional
Diocese of Southern Ohio
