War in the Mideast
“This is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.”
Genesis 17:5 In a former CBS television series Sherlock and Watson, Sherlock (Johnny Lee Miller) is brilliant at solving murders and intellectual mysteries, but the character-as-a-former-addict also acts indifferent to connecting with others. He recognizes some kind of attraction to Watson (Lucy Liu), but until the series’ end, he finds endless substitutions for expressing his feelings for her. In a favorite episode of mine, a super computer solves the crime, thereby usurping what Sherlock takes for granted is his role.1 Mesmerized by this superhuman intellect that he concedes is a “greater power” than his own, Sherlock asks the computer, “What is love?” Waiting for an answer, he becomes entranced—as the superior technological power calls again and again—endlessly–wanting “more data,” but is unable to answer the question. Reminiscent of a remark by Anderson Cooper that technology solves problems with “intelligence” but not with human feelings or consciousness,2 the episode seems to suggest that—although Sherlock is attracted to the computer’s “greater power” to solve crimes, what is of most value to most people—that which belongs to the heart and shapes human conscience–eludes the superhuman capacities of our technology. To begin with love is to recognize that for many of us, love holds greater value than anything else in life. Love is the animating spirit that bonds us mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, in intimacy and strong friendships, families, and sometimes with others more difficult to tolerate. It extends compassion and care to all who are open to it—the young, the elderly, neighbors, outcasts, ourselves, the lost. It helps us shoulder each other’s burdens, letting others know they matter to us, and also discovers joy in simple acts of giving to each other. While “sheltering at home” during Covid, songs like “He ain’t Heavy; he’s my Brother,” “Lean on Me,” and “Bridge over Troubled Water” reminded us of these shared human bonds. If we do not love, perhaps we still exist, but that existence is out of sync with whatever creative forces we draw on to live. In whatever circumstances we find ourselves, love is the most essential and defining characteristic of what it means to live as humans beings. We can be animals, spirits, AI-enhanced hybrids, or whatever, but I do not think we engage in the primary purpose of our humanity unless we choose to love.
Love enriches our humanity as it reaches outside familiar boundaries to include those who are different. Those who travel the globe report meeting people everywhere who are willing to share their humanity, offering hospitality and simple friendship even to complete strangers. It may begin with kinship, a spouse or partner, friendships and neighbors, but as love is shared with others, it expands exponentially to being one in solidarity with the human race–the synergy of which intermingles with divine love. One’s love for other human beings reflects that individual’s relationship to what it is the person holds sacred or considers a greater power. Christians believe the world has a unique and exemplary role model for divine love and selfless giving in the Eternal Father’s Son sent to re-deem—or give again—life to all of humanity: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) “God is present…offering life-redeeming love before we know our need for it.” (Psalm 143:10-11) Therefore, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) In obedience and gratitude, we pay forward that love to others: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34) Writers have drawn attention to the enduring significance of this love: “In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love” (cf. Saint John of the Cross). Whenever I have been around someone before they die, love is their primary concern: letting others know of their love for them, wondering if they loved enough, wishing they had loved more, wanting yet again for dear ones to be assured of the person’s love for them, wanting to feel love. I sometimes wonder why we save emphasis on this most important value for the end of our lives—when choices about giving and receiving love, though urgent, may also be more limited. Alua Arthur, founder of Going with Grace, suggests, “In the “very, very brief time that we’re here…living like we’re dying.”4 The pandemic, which now seems to have morphed into wars, provides ample evidence of acting both with love and without it. When we love, we care deeply for the welfare of others and are willing to sacrifice for them. But priorities can also become disordered. For example, a person can love the superpower of a computer, but act without love for human beings. When we fail to love, we disregard the needs of others or spin endless webs trying to excuse the harm inflicted upon them.
Mark Twain wryly places humans at the bottom of the evolutionary chain because humans are willing to do wrong despite having what he calls “a moral sense”—being somehow aware that what we are doing is wrong.5 Nations too can act with love, as when they offer shelter to refugees, but a nation’s love can also become “disordered,”6 due to internal conflicts as well as external threats. Love of resources, land, prestige, fear of others, or hatred of them—all can override a nation’s love for common humanity that its people might otherwise choose to uphold. Long before any declarations of war occur, the humanity of others is often dehumanized by use of non-human forms.7 In Sam Keen’s classic study of war, Faces of the Enemy, he uses caricatures to show we dehumanize a person or group we consider below our own human status by depicting them as demons, insects, or other reviled creatures. Like Keen, writer Barbara Ehrenreich finds that war consists primarily of intentional preparations for battle. In “The Ecstasy of War,” she studies complex preparations for war in early cultures, that included adopting a “warrior-like mode of being” and was often accompanied by drugs and rituals.8 These kinds of preparations alter our states of mind and help us to feed on hatred. In so doing, they invert or disorder a culture’s morality.9 If love for common humanity is intrinsic to a culture’s morality, then inverting that morality leaves distorted priorities in the ensuing vacuum. Love of prestige, one’s own nation, one’s reputation, and/or other “greater powers” fill that vacuum. We become indifferent to feelings of love for common humanity and addicted to a world bifurcated into “us versus them”: my land vs. your land, my needs vs. your needs, my power vs. your power, etc. In such a bifurcated world, love for common humanity is excluded from critical decision-making so that the de-humanization of others often achieves its purpose even before wars begin. It is only after de-humanization of fellow human beings—flattening out their humanity—that we are able to destroy life. The high or “ecstasy” of war—its frenzied madness–comes with convincing our drugged consciences that violence is the right thing to do so that all of “us” can be rid of all of “them.” Keen and Ehrenreich both demonstrate, ironically, and across cultures, that before humans kill each other, our fears and hatred first mentally destroy the very humanity of others that we purport to be fighting for on behalf of ourselves.
Aptly then, war crimes are considered “crimes against humanity.” Keen discusses another form of dehumanization—propaganda. By feeding ourselves with fears, intolerance, and hatred, this form of demonization serves much the same purpose as do caricatures—mentally destroying the humanity of others so that we become indifferent about destroying their lives even before we engage in physical warfare. Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire,” and some in Iran have depicted the United States as “the Great Satan.” George W. Bush referred to Iraq as an “axis of evil,” and Saddam Hussein was compared to Adolf Hitler. Turkey’s President Erdogan has compared Israel’s Netanyahu with Hitler. When he first ran for president, former President Trump ridiculed other people, especially women and people of different races. After winning a New Hampshire primary, almost immediately, those challenging him were labeled “evil.”10 Often, we do not recognize that dehumanization of others in this way is actually a strategic drumbeat–calling us to adopt a war-like attitude against opponents—against “bad” human beings–rather than disagreeing with ideas of which we may not approve and then challenging those ideas with better ideas. After the devastation of 9/11, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) urged Congress: “Let us not become the evil we deplore,” but she was the lone vote against going to war to solve war.11 We might also beware because this process of flattening out or de-humanizing someone else is akin to attenuation of “the infinite uniqueness and depth of each person,” by algorithms that are used to construct AI and other technologies.12 Technology has so sanitized the process of de-humanization that we are hardly aware of the numbness left in the wake of severing our sense of morality before we kill others. In some cases, digitized links replace human bonds, and human beings have become mere positions on a computer screen with automated decisions terminating them. Humans vaporized with the click of a mouse, fingertip, or voice have been reduced to “1’s” and “0’s,” and like pawns on chessboards, deemed by many to be disposable. But ironically, endless and repeated warring against what we might see as entrenched evil has never rid us of its terror nor constrained evil’s capacity to mutate. For this reason, Holocaust survivors have imprinted on generations of the young an awareness of its horror, in the hope that we might better recognize and turn away from evil…as it morphs.
Pope Francis observes, “War is always that monster that transforms itself with the change of epochs and continues to devour humanity.”13 To what extent, then, do we recognize evil as it morphs? There is an alternative to the evil or hatred that demonizes fellow human beings. Countering the evil of war “itself” –i.e., the vacuum of love once a culture’s morality has been inverted—with even greater love releases both “us” and “them,” simultaneously freeing both ourselves and other humans from being devoured in the catch-22 or jaws of war that pit people against each other. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “The most durable, lasting power in this world is the power to love.”14 And, “Love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”15 Pleading with us, Oscar Romero advocated to work for peace and find ways to love even more because “it is the force that will overcome the world.”16 Former President Reagan once recognized something that seems particularly pertinent today: “The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by…military might. The real crisis… is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.”17 All that might seem unrealistic, until one considers such choices can be and are made. When my classes wrote papers for a unit on war, many students chose as their favorite reading an obituary of Desmond Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist and WWII American Army Medic who was badgered and cursed by fellow soldiers for refusing to carry a weapon (dramatized in the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge). But during the Battle of Okinawa, Doss carried 75 wounded soldiers, one by one, down a cliff to safety. He earned respect from those who had ostracized him and later was awarded a Medal of Honor. His response was simple: “What I did was a service of love.”18 Examples of others working for peace, by choosing love over killing fellow humans, can be found in Myanmar. In early 2021, some soldiers deserted the army and fled to India when they realized they could not kill civilians the military had ordered them to kill.19 The soldiers still recognized human bonds with their fellow citizens who were protesting a government coup. The soldiers’ acts of greater love were, again, a service of love to those human beings. Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross, White Helmets, and other volunteers working in war zones provide still more instances of choosing to demonstrate greater love and deep compassion so as to bind the wounds of humanity’s inhumanity towards itself.
In December, 2023, Allan Friedman conducted a beautiful piece of music for the Duke Chorale Christmas Concert with the Durham School of the Arts in North Carolina. Composed in the 1990’s, the piece is called “Hope for Resolution” and dedicated to the two former presidents of the Republic of South Africa, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela. It combines the chant song “The Father’s Love Begotten” with a Zulu melody called “Nation, don’t’ cry. We will have freedom.”20 Much of its beauty is in both combining and then contrasting different sounds that recall efforts by both de Klerk and Mandela to resolve apartheid and its underlying fear and hatred of others, with a more complex sound, a greater love. Hatred used to dehumanize others numbs us before severing our morality or feelings of love for common humanity because we refuse to grant others the same humanity we want for and assume for ourselves. For example, we label asylum-seekers “terrorists.” At such times, it is not only the lone wolf or domestic terrorist who falls ill or is destroyed by hatred because hatred also alienates us within cultures. NY Times columnist David Brooks writes, “Today’s social fragmentation didn’t spring from shallow roots. It sprang from worldviews that amputated people from their own depths and divided them into simplistic, flattened identities.”22 Those flattened identities are the stereotypes and the profiling used to dehumanize others when love for common humanity has been inverted and priorities are thus disordered. When it receded, overcoming the havoc wreaked by the Covid pandemic’s indifference to killing humanity seemed possible. We were able to see loved ones, share music and get-togethers, and have our children return to school. We wanted to hug loved ones again—and yet again—to be sure we felt in their embraces the nuances of our personal relationships with them–before any further restrictions prevented us from doing so. In what was an inspiring and transformative change of heart, one young man said he just wanted to be around people again–even people he didn’t like! Upon seeing crowds at the site of George, his brother’s death, Terrence Floyd cried out in grief: “If I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are y’all doing? That’s not going to bring my brother back at all.”23 Terrence Floyd was able to channel his pain past hatred and community violence: “My brother was about peace,” he said.
“Channel your anger to do something positive… because we’ve been down this road already.”24 The anger, hatred, and violence within nations might also be channeled differently. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized, “We usually think that war comes from hate, but a close scrutiny of responses will reveal a different sequence of events—first fear, then hate, then war, then deeper hatred.” 25 Nobel Peace Prize-winning and Philippines journalist Maria Ressa warned that dictators exploit human fears with bullying; they use fears and fear of retaliation to sustain their power.26 Most of us do not want more bullying in schools, our communities, and/or online. When we become aware of threats, others being degraded, and the self-aggrandized images of those in power, we might beware before choosing such people to lead us. King also recognized a different and more positive response to fears that lead us into wars and eventually, the entrenched and even deeper hatred: “Only love…can cast out fear.” 27 Pope Francis suggested the crisis of the Covid pandemic would reveal what is in our hearts if we let ourselves feel the pain of others. After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the pope asked the question: “What is happening to humanity that we have had three world wars in a century?” 28 During his trip to Iraq in March, 2021, the pope commented on the interfaith efforts of many in response to the destruction inflicted by terrorists across communities: “I think of the young Muslim volunteers of Mosul, who helped to repair churches and monasteries, building fraternal friendships on the rubble of hatred, and those Christians and Muslims who today are restoring mosques and churches together.”29 This communal friendship demonstrates the kind of new normal the pope calls for: people “on the same level as the other …love being…“the great equalizer” of our common humanity.30 Likewise, many interfaith movements unite across various communities of belief to share in greater love for humanity. Such actions can be seen here in the U.S. when businesses, churches, non-profits, and civic groups such as the Red Cross, Pace E Bene, Feed America, and Samaritan Purse supply and distribute goods at food banks, generously respond to needs after natural disasters, administer vaccines globally, provide sanctuary for those fleeing oppression, and rebuild what others destroy. Prior to the 2024 election, acceptance of refugees from Ukraine by Poland, the U.S., and other countries aligned relationships between nations and strangers—in recognition of our common humanity.
Recognizing a more active love for common humanity, we might find that compassion for people in nations large and small can be a counterforce for those who suffer from the terror that is war. When we reject fear, hatred, and violence, and choose instead a greater love and compassion for the suffering around us—might that change disrupt the inherent futility of war? I intended to write on love—on what I find invaluable and most meaningful–but found it too enmeshed with vast stretches of void in the world. We are a people fractured, in pain, shrouded in darkness and often fearful of each other, in need of forgiveness from the God of Abraham and from each other, needing to salvage and repair what we know to be the best of human nature—rather than again and again choosing to replicate its worst and then expecting results other than more of the terror that is war. Assuming that we do feel the pain and suffering of others, what is it that the Covid crisis has revealed in our hearts? On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, savagely killed babies, repeatedly raped and assaulted women, murdered at least 1200 people, and took at least 240 hostages. These acts of terror left Israelis traumatized, fearful, and desperately hoping for return of their loved ones.31 The above acts of terror conducted by Hamas against the Jewish people demonstrate absence of love for common humanity. According to human logic, nations have a right to defend themselves. Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu was quick to capitalize on doing so and has insisted Israel will fight, with the goal of eliminating Hamas and achieving what he calls “absolute victory.”32 Months after the October 7 attack by Hamas, we have witnessed mass slaughter of innocent children, women, and men driven from their homes, denied access to humanitarian aid, trapped inside the horror of war, traumatized by it. What have these human beings done? They are members of the human race…and they existed. It is alleged innocent civilians have been used as shields to hide Hamas control and command centers—something that if true–they likely lacked power to refuse. Now they are treated as expendable—simply in the way of another nation’s goal—with no thought given to the value of their lives. These humans are being sacrificed to assuage Israel’s deep pain, its legitimate fear of having been insufficiently protected by its military, and its blind pursuit to wipe out terror and vengeance with even more terror and vengeance.
According to Yuval Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist with the independent and nonpartisan 972.mag.com and Hebrew language Local Call, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) “shelled extensively, destroying half of Gaza, while having little intelligence” and without a clear picture of where many of the more than 240 hostages were being held.33 Another intelligence source stated plainly, “‘There is no strategic plan … [just] statements without logic backed by a lot of irrational commanders…still acting to carry out revenge.’”34 Marc Garlasco, chief of high-value targeting at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, 1997- 2003, states, “We’re talking here about 10,080 to 15,000 unguided bombs being dropped in one of the most densely populated parts of the Earth.”36 A week after the Hamas attack, a source for 972.mag.com referenced a statement by Tzachi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security, that there would be no negotiations with Hamas for the release of hostages because “we have no way of negotiating with an enemy that we swore to wipe off the face of the earth.”35 The above comments expose hatred that blocks any chance to negotiate or engage in dialogue, until, that is, public pressure pushes back—helping advance the first hostage deal with Hamas. 36 But on December 14, the IDF still shot and killed three hostages, shirtless and waving a white flag for help.37 Three days earlier, President Biden had called out Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing.”38 Reports then aired of a large Hamas tunnel found near the border as well as the massacre of “over 20,000 human beings, with more bodies still beneath the rubble of bombings in Gaza.”39 Late in the year, around 80 unidentified bodies previously held by Israeli forces in the north were unloaded for burial in a mass grave at the Kerem Shalom border crossing.40 Another source documented the sheer horror of war: “We recently reduced the number of bombings in Gaza because there is not much left to bomb.”41 The +972 and Local Call were told emphasis was on military goals: “We didn’t start the day with an update on the status of the hostages,” said a source. “It wasn’t our top priority then—and the truth is, they aren’t today either.”42 Revenge was prioritized over the hope of a nation’s own people for the return of their loved ones held hostage. The over 20,000 dead in Gaza by mid-December means “Israel’s offensive is one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history.”43 “In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than four years of razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.
It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.”44 A more recent count of the dead is over 52,000.45 Bombing and massacring over 52,000 fellow human beings in response to the horror of a previous experience of terror exposes absence of love for common humanity multiplied. Nearly “85 percent of Gaza’s population” fled to save their lives and are now “packed into crowded shelters and tent camps.48 Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, refers to the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic”: “Some 1.9 million out of the 2.2 million Palestinians have been displaced” many times over.49 They are “being pushed into… extremely overcrowded places in Southern Gaza in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions.”50 Martin Griffiths, the UN’s top humanitarian aid official, agrees: “Every time we think things cannot get any more apocalyptic in Gaza, they do. …People are being ordered to move again, with little to survive on, forced to make one impossible choice after another.”51 Griffiths finds, “The pace of destruction in the south is as relentless as we see in the north–these are the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south.”52 Tens of thousands of Palestinians were told to go towards Rafah to escape military fighting, But Rafah, too, has been flattened by air strikes, leaving in its wake “37 million tons of debris.”53 The savagery inflicted on a civilian population with indiscriminate bombing seems less aimed to defeat a terrorist group than to eradicate a people from the land. A source from 972+mag.com said, “It was constantly stated the goal was to win the war and eradicate Hamas, not to bring back the hostages…there’s nothing we can do about it.”54 The source compared the fighting to “an earthquake that began on October 7 and never ended.”55 Displacing 85% of Gaza’s population and decimating its infrastructure to avenge previous acts of terror nets a bankruptcy of love for common humanity. Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Jagan Chapagain interrupted the COP28 summit in Dubai to warn that Gaza could “become an environmental catastrophe.”56
“A human rights group says white phosphorus–a chemical illegal under international law is being used on the environment, including the air and soil,”57 Leaders of some of the largest humanitarian groups–top U.N. agencies, Care International, Mercy Corps, and the World Health Organization (WHO) signed a joint statement condemning “calls for displaced Palestinians to head to Muwasi,” describing it as “unfit and unsafe until all sides pledge to refrain from fighting there.”58 “Seventy percent of the surface of that area is deserted,” said Danila Zizi, from Handicap International: “There are no services…no schools…no health services. There is nothing.”59 According to Human Rights Watch, “Only a trickle of humanitarian aid has even been allowed to get to the people in Gaza. There is no clean water, and shelters are unsanitary.”60 Griffiths emphasizes the roadblocks to getting aid to those in need: “Moving aid around in Gaza is, in all practical terms, impossible.”61 Apocalyptic conditions, he stated, have ended “any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.”62 “It doesn’t get any worse” —the UN says more than 1 in 4 people in Gaza are starving because of war.63 Two days before Christmas, more than half a million humans faced starvation.64 “The United Nations’ food agency estimates 56 percent of Gaza’s households are now experiencing severe hunger.”65 Human Rights Watch has also confirmed starvation is being used as a weapon of war: “People are starving.”66 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the IDF to spare civilians more suffering, adding that despite evacuation orders, there’s “nowhere safe to go in Gaza.”67 More than a million innocent civilians were forced to flee north to south… with nowhere to go. A displaced Gazan cried through an interpreter: “For the love of God, have mercy on us. For the love of God, have mercy on us.… We don’t know where to go.”68 A human being begs for mercy in the name of God, but finds none—nowhere to go, no room to shelter–this on Christmas day, 2023. Griffiths assesses the situation: “There is no justification for what’s happening.69 In May, Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program, reported, “There is famine, full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”70 Bombing Gaza and half a million human beings, including 300,000 children under age 5, when they are starving to death and have nowhere to go—attests to extreme famine of love for common humanity. Late in the year, “only 14 of 36 hospitals” were functioning, some not completely.71 Doctors without Borders reported hospitals are running “critically low on fuel and…supplies with some 200 wounded brought in every day.”72
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross says it’s an unbearably desperate situation. Dr. Mai al-Kaila, Palestinian Health Minister, says, “Al-Shifa is the main hospital in Gaza Strip; it is now threatened…it lacks oxygen, it lacks electricity, it lacks fuel.”73 As central and southern Gaza became centers of the war, Israel intensified military operations in Gaza’s second largest city, “forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee and making it even more difficult to deliver aid.”74 Avril Benoit, Executive Director of Médecins Sans Frontières in the United States (MSF-USA), says that “Gaza’s hospital system has collapsed and is on the brink of total chaos.”75 Dozens bombarded share a single room. The elderly have run out of medicines. Medical personnel face “catastrophic injuries,” and the medical community has “a sense of utter failure.”76 Dr. Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO), hoped to garner more public pushback and implored anyone listening: “We are appealing to the world to put an end to this aggression against our people and allow medical aid and supplies to enter Gaza.”77 Wounded in Gaza, Tawfik Abu Breika, cries through a translator: “The world’s conscience is dead–no humanity, or any kind of morals.”78 Returning from a UN distribution center, UNICEF spokes-person James Elder reported on the “lack of food, water, shelter and sanitation.”79 Elder said hospitals are overwhelmed with children and parents in hallways, all bearing “the ghastly wounds of war: Around 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both their legs.”80 “Over 52,000 Palestinians have been injured and…only eight of the 36 hospitals in the Strip are at least partially functional.81 Dr. Harris said her staff in Gaza were not able to walk in the emergency wards “for fear of stepping on people” lying on the floor ‘in severe pain’ and asking for food and water.”82 At a hospital in the north, a reporter finds perhaps 60,000 patients–45% dead on arrival: “A shell of a hospital with people just waiting to die.”83 These people—and these children–must wonder with fear and trembling, “What kind of creatures are we?” At the year’s end, we learn the cemeteries in central Gaza have run out of space.84 Human lives put at risk when there is nowhere to go, terrorizing tens of thousands of innocent children, and ignoring desperate need for timely humanitarian aid, excavate a massive graveyard, devoid of love for common humanity.
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon, spent time at the biggest hospital in Gaza. He describes some of what he saw: “It’s beyond what I have seen in 30 years of warfare….absolute carnage…when you go to the emergency department and just waves upon waves of the dead and the wounded come in, so many children, so many children….it was every day…you felt that this was a war on children.”85 A month later, “None of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is fully functional, and fewer than half are even operating.”86 Dr. Abu-Sittah questions if finding Hamas command-and-control centers could be a decoy: “While they were talking about Shifa, they dismantled the whole of the health system in Northern Gaza, with the aim of making Gaza an uninhabitable place to dismantle all of the components of life, water and sewage, bakeries, schools…you turn it into a death world, where life cannot exist.”87 Having worked in war zones for decades, Dr. Seema Jilani of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), laments what she saw as “death without dignity.88 She is further taken aback to find herself being used as a pediatrician in Gaza: “I just kept thinking,” she recalls, “this is one of so many of a generation of orphans that are going to be born into Gaza burnt and amputated and with no life to speak of, no access to services, no family members.”89 As Dr. Benoit had warned a few weeks earlier, the health system in Gaza fully collapsed. Around 75% of the hospitals are no longer operational. Those open lack crucial medical supplies, are overcrowded and understaffed.90 “Last week, Al-Aqsa Hospital’s generators ran out of fuel and the incubators ran only on battery.”91 With only three doctors left and fighting nearby, international organizations evacuated their staff. Griffiths says the bombing of hospitals epitomizes the crux of Gaza’s tragedy because of its “sense of absolute danger” and “uncertainty about the future: Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law and should not ever be used by military forces from wherever they come, from whichever party.”92 Griffiths notes those patients needing care are literally in the middle of a war zone, with “entry into and exit out of” hospitals both going “through fighting.93 He calls tolerating this situation a “terrible stain on our humanity,”93a Dr. Harris called the collapse of hospitals and this “death world” “unbelievable and unconscionable,” and remarked that it is “beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”94
Bombing hospitals in the middle of a war zone—and so turning a people’s habitat into a “death world, where life cannot exist” AND the world allowing it to continue—all expose a vast wasteland, barren of love for common humanity. Griffiths insists Israel’s expansion of the war into southern Gaza is “blatant disregard for basic humanity that must stop.”95 He reflects on the long-term damage being left in the wake of so much vengeance and inhumanity: “And so we’re left doing very, very little, and frankly facing the inescapable truth which is this is no longer a humanitarian operation, trying to save lives for the people of Gaza. We’ll stay. We’re not leaving…but please don’t think that the humanitarians can save the day. They can’t.”96 Arguing that violent revolution is impractical in the context of a multicultural society, Martin Luther King’s insight is just as relevant for a globalized society as when he stated it for Americans during the civil rights movement: “Non-violence…seeks to break the chain reaction of evil.”97 The current apocalypse in the Mideast is seemingly the outcome of a blind, intractable pursuit of revenge. Netanyahu tells his troops, “Nothing will stop us. We’re going all the way, until we’re victorious, and nothing less.”98 This modern-day Achilles seems incapable of grasping that the savagery, terrorism, and violent revenge he calls “victory” is precisely the way evil morphs, reinventing itself and flourishing, as chain reactions to war and terror multiply and reinforce each other. On the other hand, Griffiths does recognize and laments how vengeance plays out in the long-term picture—such as the one he fears we will leave to our children: “There’s a logic to this, which is horrific, tragic and frankly apocalyptic. And I can’t think of a better way to create a generation of anger and extremism than this.”99 Pope Francis again pleaded to end the military operations with “their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims.”100 Despite those pleas, on December 23, civilians were ordered to move to “the Maghazi refugee camp” in central Gaza.101 Israeli airstrikes then bombed into rubble the very place innocent civilians had been directed to go. Over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 250 human beings were bombed out of existence; another 500 were injured.10 Human beings bombed at sites they were ordered to go to—on days held sacred by many in the world—is evidence of “hearts of stone” (Ezekiel 36:26). This pandemic of indifference seems evidence not only of a desire to eradicate Hamas, but also desire to eradicate a people while seizing their land.
Between January and April, 2024, Israeli air strikes have bombed the people of Gaza at least seven more times after they were ordered to go to what the IDF designated as “safe zones.”103 Israel called all eight of the air strikes “mistakes.” Bombing innocent civilians deceived about sites of refuge and with “blatant disregard for basic humanity” is likely to create a “new generation of anger and extremism,” revealing a bottomless abyss in hearts hollowed of love for common humanity. After the initial October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, Pope Francis had urged all people to pray and fast for peace in the Holy Land: “‘Let us pray that the difficulties resolve themselves in dialogue and negotiation.’”104 The pope’s comments regarding civilians “crystallized growing global horror” over the loss of innocent civilian life in Gaza, which likely contributed to the initial public pushback for negotiations with Hamas and subsequently led to the first hostage release.105 As with the IDF airstrikes where civilians were sent to so-called “safe zones” only to be bombed out of existence, “by mistake,” Tal Heinrich, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, insists on a single narrative. “The IDF only targets terrorist and terror infrastructure.”106 Other reports differ: “At least 90 journalists have been killed since October 7,” and since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, “over 158 UNRWA members are reported to have died bringing food and medical aid needed by those in Gaza.”107 The US withdrew financial support from UNRWA after Israel accused 12 of its members with helping Hamas in the October 7 attack108 and a Hamas tunnel was found under UNRWA headquarters in Gaza.109 In his four years as Operations Director in Gaza, Matthias Schmale said UNRWA had been told their work was good and their services “essential.”110 These claims are unsubstantiated, as are those by Israel, but Schmale also said it was “no surprise” there are tunnels underneath many places in Gaza because “Israel had actually built the tunnels under Shifa Hospital when they occupied Gaza,” something he said former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak had acknowledged.111 In addition to journalists, UNRWA and other UN personnel, there are likely thousands of volunteers and aides—such as those for World Central Kitchen–working on behalf of First Responders, and who go largely unheralded, as they did during the pandemic, but who continue to work in harm’s way, in services of love for others. Seeking to interrupt the chain reaction of evil that is war, King wrote, “Non-violent resistance is a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”112 Consider his insight: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.”113
Spiritual leaders have tried to call us back to this light and to our roots–to seek guidance in greater love. Pope Francis calls us to the Word of God: “I have come as light into the world, that whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12; 12:46) This source of the ”light of the world” (John 9:5) offers humanity a choice other than just falling prey to evil, fears, and more hatred that suction us ever further down into whirlpools of darkness. Kentucky’s Bishop John Stowe writes the organization Pax Christi and Catholic leaders have listened carefully to the pope’s comments on war and war-making: “His ceaseless calls for an end to the weapons industry and arms dealing; his assertion that there is no such thing as a “just war; and his insistence that ‘charity and nonviolence govern how we treat each other as individuals, within society and in international life.’”114 In November, 2023, Stowe laid out four steps for rectifying the United States’ complicity with the war: immediate humanitarian ceasefire, a call for release of all hostages, more aid to the people of Gaza, and an end to the flow of military weapons.115 Pope Francis thinks that nations have a right to defend themselves, but how we defend ourselves—that is, how we use our own power—either perpetuates cycles of violence and terror that degrade and imprison our spirits…or…breaks the chain reaction of evil.116 He prays the world will engage in dialogue in order to seek a “just peace.”117 The pope says that a just peace is rooted in a deep belief in the dignity of every person and begins with recognition that all Israelis and all Palestinians have a right to live with dignity in peace and freedom.118 That is no more than what each of us might want for our own lives. It is counter-intuitive, but we can act in solidarity with each other to confront the evil that is war by turning to greater love. What human logic excuses as a political means to vent fears, hatred, and lust for revenge is antithetical to conscience and morality. Like Bishop Stowe, Myanmar’s Cardinal Maung Bo grasps the significance of the moment: “The violence and trauma being experienced in this moment by the people of Israel and Palestine, by the people of Myanmar and by so many others around the world, underscore the critical need for humanity to…shift from a paradigm of war and violence to a paradigm of just peace and nonviolence.”119
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl shows how, during the Holocaust and even in the existential void of a concentration camp where he had virtually no control over his life, healing can take place with a person’s attitude towards the hatred, terror, and torture around him.120 Frankl found he could exercise a minimal degree of individual response-ability–that is, what he held himself accountable for–even in the deathly circumstances he found himself in. In so doing, Frankl succeeded in exercising free will, in heroically finding meaning in human existence in the midst of the insanely inhumane.121 In her book The Choice, psychologist Edith Eger tells her story of surviving the death of her mother and being sent to Auschwitz when she was only 16. Eger says prayer and hope helped set her free and gave her strength so that now she helps heal the trauma of others.122 As did Frankl, Eger found there is choice–a response-ability for one’s attitude–even toward the inhumane circumstances of terror. Remarkably, she even speaks of good people doing evil. Nelson Mandela thought likewise, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”124 When nations prepare for war, any priority of morality is disregarded by inverting it. The vacuum left fills with fears, hatred, and violence that further disorder our priorities. As fear takes precedence over a nation’s common love for humanity, the grip of hatred becomes a chokehold. But if love comes more naturally to the human heart, then we have a choice to draw closer to that which sustains and deepens human love with even greater love: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) If we understand God as the oneness that bonds common humanity, then it is to God that we need to seek guidance on how to proceed. Mother Teresa once said, she loved all faiths, but was in love with her own. Interfaith meetings provide common ground for dialogue among all faiths, as each faith group also upholds its own beliefs. This mutual respect can be seen when, after only ten days of escalating violence in Israel and Gaza, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), lobbying with Quakers, joined a coalition of more than 70 interfaith and nongovernmental organizations calling for ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.125 Significantly, the coalition was led by prominent Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Arab-American groups and condemned “all violence against civilians by Hamas and the Israeli military.”126
At a local interfaith service, a Muslim Imam and Jewish Rabbi sat next to each other. Imam Oliver Muhammad called on people of all faiths to provide the “radical empathy” our world is so much in need of.127 In January, Rabbi Phil Brodsky said people “don’t have to take sides when it comes to suffering.”128 He referenced the “oneness of all being”–what connects us to each other and that many call “God.”129 Pope Francis, too, urges people in conflicts to take only the “side” that recognizes the humanity of all, the side of peace. 130 What these moral leaders, the United Nations and their humanitarian leaders, and now even some political leaders have set in motion might help us—via public pushback–to insist on more compassion and more forgiveness by turning to greater love, rather than remain staring at the earth as a mass grave for the species with whom we share common humanity. On Dec. 6, Vermont’s independent senator Bernie Sanders, spoke truth to power against “a portion of a supplemental foreign aid package that would provide an additional $10 billion in unconditional aid for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza.”131 Sanders urged then-President Biden to “support efforts at the United Nations”–such as a resolution the U.S. vetoed—demanding “immediate ceasefire, unconditional release of all hostages, and full humanitarian access.132 In a statement to The Guardian, Sen. Sanders said, “We all know Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack began this war.”133 However, “Israel’s… massive explosive ordinance in densely populated urban areas, is unconscionable, a mass atrocity. And it is being done with bombs and equipment provided by the United States and heavily subsidized by American taxpayers.” 134 Sanders’ reasoning is clear: “A just cause for war does not excuse atrocities in the conduct of that war….We need to face up to that fact…we need to end our complicity in those actions.” 135 The pope asks us to reflect further on the obvious: “How can |we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales, and trade are on the rise?” 136 Like Pope Francis, Senator Sanders examines how a nation chooses to respond even if or when there may be “just cause.” Because how we use power is also a choice, a response-ability for our own attitudes in responding to the world around us. How we choose to use power reintroduces the morality that is disregarded when, out of fear and hatred, we prepare for war. How we use power illustrates the strength of our moral will–the way individuals and nations do or do not hold themselves accountable to a higher power—hopefully wiser than mere human beings.
Eddie Glaude Jr., theologian and professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, echoes Barbara Lee’s lone vote to a previous war when he states, “If evil happens to you, does…that allow you to act…outside international law, without moral constraint?” 137 “My answer is… ‘No. period…if you lose sight of that…You can become the monsters that you despise.’”138 One’s higher power may be God, a coalition of nations that we are committed to work with, a human community, or it could be money, hubris, the madness of our own wills driven to seek revenge, a supercomputer, or just being drunk on power itself. St. Francis found that during the crusades (see 5e), beliefs could lure us to go along with “institutional evil”—by being patriotic towards the propaganda and political powers of this world, but being “unpatriotic” to the “kingdom of God.”139 When asked why he did not seem angry after being wrongfully imprisoned for 28 years, Lamar Johnson–someone who seems to have learned from Mandela–replied, “Well, holding on to anger, you just really would be—just…trading in one prison for another.”140 Trading in one prison for another mimics the chain reaction of evil that feeds off of retaliating one attack of terror “traded in” for yet another attack of terror, one war for another war—as hatred is refueled. Jesus relinquishes his own divine power in order to empower all of humanity. He states: “Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9:13) Those words echo both Isaiah 58:9: “I the Lord your God am merciful,” and Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Providing unconditional use of billions of dollars and military weapons that enable “mass atrocity” in the Gaza strip is complicity with a “death world,” exposing deep wounds in our common humanity, from which drain the blood of greater love. Christians believe we are called to this greater love: “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in darkness.” (1 John 2:9)
Former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy discussed “the war in Gaza from historical, interfaith, and geopolitical perspectives.”141 President of the U.S./Middle East Project, Levy finds, “It’s crazy we cannot be in a joint struggle…Jewish communities and Muslim communities. We need to be in that space together.”142 Pope Francis goes further, inviting even nonbelievers–all of good will–to care for common humanity. “The future is built,” he often reminds us, “by standing together, including everyone.”143 Levy also makes a critical distinction. He contends most are not against the Israeli government calling itself a Jewish state, but says, “The vast majority of what is going on is legitimately standing up for the rights of a people.” 144 Levy says the current government conflates “anti-Zionism with anti Semitism.”145 He feels “the values we held most dear when we say ‘never again’…when we were brought up with a Jewish ethic, are being totally trodden underfoot.” 146 This distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism may account for some of the unrelenting war in the Middle East and the legitimate criticism of acts of violence against human rights. There is a link between Levy’s anger–what he feels has disordered the Jewish ethics he was raised with–and key insights provided by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his book Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. Sacks illuminates as he argues that our wars misread Genesis and other Biblical texts that are “at the heart of all three Abrahamic faiths.”147 He writes, “The conclusion to which the whole of Genesis has been leading is the rejection of rejection.” 148There is no “us” and an opposing “them.” Sacks’ remarkable insight echoes what the apostle Peter tells the first Jewish followers of Christ when some Gentiles wanted to join in the faith: “God, who knows the heart, [makes] no distinction between us and them.” (Acts: 15:7-21) If this insight of no “us” and no opposing “them” is at the heart of all three Abrahamic faiths, then it seems Rabbi Sacks and the apostle Peter are addressing precisely the way our preparations for war upend moral beliefs by dehumanizing others and embracing hatred, thereby disordering the very values we are called to uphold.
Sacks also writes, “We are all children of Abraham. We are all blessed….no one has to be cursed. God’s love does not work that way.”149 If, then, we are listening to the God of Abraham, how can we act with such hatred towards each other? Sacks writes, “The real visionaries were those who realized that spiritual-cultural battles are often far more significant than military ones.”150 He explains: “When the Second Temple was destroyed, all that was salvaged was the rabbinic academy at Yavneh, and Judaism survived through its scholars, not its soldiers…the real battles are the ones that take place in the mind and the soul. They change the world because they change us. That is the wisdom the zealots do not understand.”151 This argument aligns with Reagan’s stance that the root of a crisis is not one of military might so much as one of spiritual might —a test of moral will and faith. It further aligns with the pope’s call for a just peace: “Turning the other check is…the action of one who has a greater inner strength…who opens up a breach in the heart of the enemy, unmasking the absurdity of…hatred.”152 Hatred and terror, however, do disrupt recognizing a need for forgiveness, for hearing God’s mercy and love even as the bombardment of missiles feeds our souls with the ashes of dead and destroyed lives—ashes that are literally the waste products of human time. A book by Pope Francis counters the futility of consuming more of this vacuum of ashes by seeking to have us grasp that The Name of God is Mercy:153 And to ponder yet further: “Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” (Matt. 9:13) When he knows his passion is nearing, the Lord takes his disciples along, but tells them it is “enough” to bring only two swords. When he prays to his Father to be spared suffering, he receives strength to forego whatever second thoughts he may have had: “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) Two of the Lord’s disciples with the swords respond the way we ourselves might respond: As Jesus is betrayed, one disciple strikes “the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.” But Jesus responds, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.”(Luke 22:50-51) It is not accidental that an ear is cut off. Jesus often reminds us: “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Matt. 11:15, 13:9, 13:43, 16-17) (Mark 4:8-9) He himself is the living “good news” prophesized by Isaiah: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
Healing the servant’s ear is a sign of power being present that is greater than the sword—the power of greater love, of God in our midst: “One greater than the temple is here.” (Matt 12:6) The Lord wants people to hear that God has canceled death and re-deemed life. No one need be cut off from his infinite mercy. Life is made new, and all of humanity is healed via the imminent sacrifice of himself upon the cross: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) Christ’s sacrifice offers an abundance of the “radical empathy” Imam Muhammad finds we are in such need of. Our conscience or intuitive bandwidth can be “tuned” to how much–or how little-mercy we are open to hearing, receiving, and in turn, offering to others. Pope Francis sees war as essentially a “lack of dialogue,” and draws attention to an even more visceral form of absence of dialogue: “Let us not soundproof our hearts.”154 If, as Mandela says, love comes more naturally to the human heart than does hatred, then we need to call on greater love to make possible a healing of hatred wherever it spreads. It is, rather, to the merciful and greater love of the God of Abraham that nations need turn and/or return, to seek guidance for a just peace. Our man-made weapons do not succeed in disrupting hatred nor humanity’s abuses of its own power. Rabbi Sacks prioritizes the very morality that wars disorder: “Our common humanity precedes our religious differences. That must be the basis of any Abrahamic theology capable of defeating the false god of violence and the idolatry of the pursuit of power.”155 If common humanity precedes our religious differences, then for all who claim belief in the God of Abraham, a love for humanity provides a common ground to work across our differences in attempts to reconcile them, and further provides a way to avoid serving the false gods of violence and idolatry in exercise and/or pursuits of power. “Mary Robinson, former United Nations high commissioner for human rights and chair of The Elders group, urged the United States to reconsider its military aid to Israel, calling for restraint
in the way ‘those who have power,’ use their power.”156 Reactions across the globe continue to spread among people and nations with a greater love for common humanity that might yet consolidate into more of the public’s pushback against hatred and violence so that the United Nations’ resolutions and attempts to keep us civilized under the rule of law become more difficult if not impossible to ignore.
In early December, 2023, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General of the United Nations, issued a call to the international community to address humanitarian concerns and efforts to reestablish peace, “to use all its influence to prevent further escalation and end this crisis.”157 The U.S. voted against it, but 153 nations voted in favor of it. Before Christmas, 2023, the United Kingdom and Germany joined the growing chorus of European allies calling for ceasefire. 158 Avril Benoit, executive director of Médecins sans Frontières in the United States (MSF-USA), stated, “By vetoing this resolution the U.S. stands alone in casting its vote against humanity.”159 Guterres then invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, and in a letter to the President of the UN Security Council, condemned “the physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” as well as “the ‘brutal’ Hamas attack on October 7.”160 In rejecting the harm inflicted on both sides, by both sides, Guterres is providing rare leadership for humanity to free itself from the ironclad jaws of war in which all sides in a conflict are effectively held hostage. The Security Council adopted a resolution for “immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.”161 The United States and Russia abstained.162 Guterres remained focused on the growing solidarity among nations around the world: “It is imperative that the international community speak with one voice: for peace.”163 Dr. Seema Jilani (IRC) focused attention on the cost of ignoring this crisis: “World leaders need to acknowledge the scale, magnitude and severity of the human suffering that is happening. …We cannot look away anymore…along the way…we have lost our dignity and our humanity.” 164 In January, 2024, the Norwegian Refugee Council issued an “open call to all UN member states to stop fueling the crisis in Gaza and avert further humanitarian catastrophe and loss of life.”165 The UN International Court of Justice met to hear South Africa’s claim of apartheid and genocide in Gaza.166 In February, 2024, Brazil called out genocide in Gaza.167 At a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Guterres repeated his “longstanding call for a humanitarian cease-fire”—an appeal that now has overwhelming global support. 168 He warned that the risks of wider conflicts in the Mideast are “becoming a reality,” and urged all parties “to step back from the brink and to consider the horrendous costs of a regional conflict.”169
The U.S. again vetoed the UN’s call for immediate ceasefire.170 It then abstained from a vote on March 26, 2024, so that a UN Security Council resolution passed–demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza and release of all hostages.171 But war in Gaza has not stopped, and all remaining hostages have not been released. Guterras recognizes, “A lasting end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only come through a two-state solution.”172 The United States, too, has consistently held that negotiations for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians must follow from any ceasefire, a goal now supported by countries all around the world. In a joint declaration, Jordanian King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi state, “The establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of the two-state solution…is the only way to achieve true peace.”173 Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Foreign Minister, agrees this solution is necessary for all in the region to have hope: “To talk about a sustainable pathway to stability, to security, including for Israel, we’re going to have to talk about a Palestinian situation where the Palestinians have hope.”174 Hope is nothing more than we want for ourselves. Nevertheless, Netanyahu rejects mention of a Palestinian state, and Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan calls instead to eliminate Hamas.175 Egypt and Quatar have provided help with such talks in efforts to sustain a ceasefire. The war has not stopped, but a solidarity among interfaith groups, UN leaders, humanitarians, and nations around the globe continues to push back, to amass a solidarity for peace rather than war that breeds only more hatred and therefore makes both a wider war and war for the next generation that much more likely. Ordinary citizens, volunteers, students, and others have also voiced disapproval of the war as they listen and hear the suffering of others. Blaine Griffin, President of Cleveland City Council, states, “Approximately nine out of ten commentators almost every week for the last four to six weeks” have been people who call for a ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war.176 Cleveland is only one of many city councils across the nation that have passed ceasefire resolutions. These resolutions have no legal authority, but they sound the protests of many who want their voices heard on behalf of those whose voices are not heard. Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, wants “a conversation about policies that can save lives. The days of endless wars in the Middle East have to close.”177
Eboo Patel, a Muslim Interfaith leader and founder of Interfaith Youth Core, sees Islam and Christianity as “mutually enriching and not mutually exclusive,” an understanding Pope Francis also worked to encourage.178 In April, 2024, nearly 50,000 students across a hundred campuses protested against the war in Gaza. Most, though not all, were peaceful. Some brought attention to unresolved controversies, such as students who felt targeted or others who called for their schools to divest from companies doing business with Israel.179 Notably, in both the United States and Israel, there is also a Jewish voice for peace: On the last day of the Passover holiday, protesters took to the streets in Tel Aviv, demanding a ceasefire and the immediate release of all hostages.180 But in April, 2024, seven food aid workers with World Central Kitchen were killed in Palestine. Chef Andrés reported: “The group says Israeli munitions hit an initial vehicle. Workers then moved to another vehicle that was struck, and then a third vehicle that was struck as they traveled on or next to the coastal road that Israel designated for humanitarian aid.”181 In what is now all too common of a response, Chef Andrés added, “Looks like it’s not a war against terrorism anymore. Seems this is a war against humanity itself.”182 Nor does the horror abate in response to cries of outrage. Amid reports of yet more Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that more children have been killed there in the last four months than in four years of conflict worldwide, between 2019 and 2022.183 So what does the viral pandemic of this war on human life say about love for common humanity by those seeking to uphold belief in the God of Abraham? When John Legend sang John Lennon’s song “Happy Christmas” on a program last December, rather than finish the song, Legend turned to face directly into the cameras and emphasized the line, “And what have we done?”184 Surely we are in need of forgiveness for complicity in supplying billions of dollars and weapons that sustain “blatant disregard” for basic humanity. We might say we have helped in limited ways to bring humanitarian and other forms of aid to both the Israeli and Palestinian people.
Countless UN personnel and unnamed volunteers–much as during the pandemic–quietly and reliably still engage in services of love for others. When the noise of the death world abates, humanity is not shrouded in total darkness because Good Samaritans are with us still–those who continue their work on behalf of greater love and provide flickers of light in death’s wastelands: “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5) Asked if she felt she had made a difference, Dr. Jilani of the IRC replies, “We were there to support the health care staff…on the brink of collapse…to serve people that are suffering.”185 Something similar must be true of Doctors without Borders who come to serve with love, then, beyond exhaustion and days of despair—continue sacrificing out of the depths in their hearts of greater love for humanity. As he ponders UN efforts in the Mideast, Ukraine, Sudan, Lebanon, and other places, Griffiths’ conclusion is more sobering: “We have spent the last 75 years building the new international order, norms, regulations, rules of diplomacy, efforts to keep the peace, to emphasize the need for negotiation first. And, in this last year or two, we have begun to see that disappear….War is the first instrument for many people.”186 In the United States, however, an imam and a rabbi came to a different conclusion when they shared ways to counsel their congregations about war in the Mideast. Imam Herbert, a scholar at the Islamic Center in Johnson County, Kansas, mentioned to Rabbi Brous, senior rabbi and founder of IKAR congregation in Los Angeles, something that “really stuck with” him: “The real enemies of this war are not the Jews…Israelis or Palestinians: It’s those…who have decided that violence is the only answer.”187 “Violence as the only answer” is what proliferates alongside hatred in those vacuums after morality is inverted and nations prepare for wars as their “first instrument.” But given increased global awareness of this “real enemy” and rejection of the chain reactions it perpetuates, there is also growing pushback against violence being humanity’s only answer. It is a triumph of compassion that leaders, nations, and people around the globe are choosing to vote for peace on behalf of both Israel and Palestine—on behalf of common humanity–even if the two warring governments have not themselves risen to meet the challenge of the moment.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, explains a way out of war between Israel and Hamas is “not likely at this moment” because there is “no pressure on either side to negotiate.”188 Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, remarks: “Both the Netanyahu government, especially Netanyahu, and also Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, believe they profited politically off the war. And they would both like to keep it going.”189 Statements made by Secretary of State Blinken about “no more delays, no more excuses, the time to act is now,190 were followed by seemingly only more delays and excuses that allow Netanyahu’s revenge to fester and feed on the vulnerable. Neither side of the conflict appears in a hurry to resolve a battle over 75 years long, of which this war is only the latest flare-up. Therefore, it makes sense that others might want to step away, to divest interest and energies in any nation that refuses to think beyond violence as the only answer to solving problems and that remains indifferent to the terror inflicted on other human beings: “There are 1.3 million Palestinians in Rafah, and over half of them, 610,000, are children.”191 On May 3, Turkey halted trade with Israel over Gaza’s “humanitarian tragedy.”192 Might not the United Nations send a neutral and impartial, peace-keeping body to Gaza to stop further bloodshed and monitor delivery of the desperately needed humanitarian aid? A neutral, peace-keeping body could remain indefinitely to insure international oversight and security—at least until the current governments have changed hands, which would allow for different mindsets to set up a two-state solution. Tragically, the United States seems to have abdicated the role of leadership in such a peace effort. Doctors, moral leaders, and others aiding in this crisis have cried out—not against a nation, its beliefs, or even its government, but rather against actions they perceive as absent of decency and disregard for the loss of shared humanity: A displaced Gazan cries out, “Conscience is dead, no humanity, or any kind of morals.” UN top humanitarian aid official Griffiths witnesses “blatant disregard for basic humanity” that leaves a “stain on our humanity.” Dr. Harris appeals “to the world to put an end to this aggression,” to what is “unconscionable” and she says, “It is beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”
Pope Francis pleads that we take only the side of peace in a conflict- -because all have a right to live in dignity and freedom. Dr. Benoit decries a vote against a ceasefire as “a vote against humanity.” Senator Bernie Sanders calls more unconditional aid to bomb Gaza “unconscionable, a moral atrocity.” Chef Andrés acknowledges: “Seems this is a war against humanity itself.” Dr. Jilani of the IRC urges us: “We cannot look away anymore …somewhere along the way…we have lost our dignity and our humanity.” Humanity has been calling—no, it has been begging —all who share love for common humanity to respond, to awaken conscience in each person and our individual response-abilities to act in solidarity with all others who care for our common humanity. That is, to choose greater love over lust for violence and entrenched hatred. Rabbi Sacks remarks on the virus of hatred that fuels war: “to be free, you have to let go of hatred.193 Whereas those enamored by power over others may find it difficult to get past hatred, the common people may be more inclined to follow Gandhi and be the change they want to see. Amir Hasanain, a 21-year-old student, says, “The government is now dysfunctional, but the people have stepped up.”194 Young people stepping up in efforts to get beyond the violence of war that devours not only “them” but also “us” is reason for hope. The 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature went to No Other Land. Upon accepting the award, two of the four, young co-directors, Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yval Avraham, noted, “Together, our voices are stronger.”195 Scott Pelley, of CBS News 60 Minutes, recently interviewed a Chicago surgeon and volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society, on his fifth mission to help the wounded in Gaza.196 Asked why he returns to this kind of work. Dr. Samer Attar’s response demonstrates the response-ability of great compassion and mercy— an attitude recognizable as a call to greater love: “I can’t repair the world. But I can stand next to you. I can live amongst you. I can share your grief. I can feel your fear. I can serve your community. …I can bear witness to your suffering. And then just make some noise about it. And it’s not much, but it beats burying your head in hatred and violence and ignorance.”197
Evidence of greater love is also heard in First Responder Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah’s statement: “If the destruction and death of this one is unprecedented…so is the selflessness. “Everything is being shared…and that’s what is keeping society from collapsing. Nobody turns anyone away.”198 Tragically, though, whatever might be achieved with diplomacy and negotiations down the road, might also have been achieved long before so much savagery and brutal terror was inflicted. Even now, “a child dies in Gaza every ten minutes.”199 Significantly, international law does not compare individual states with each other, but rather examines the legal obligations pertaining to a state’s conduct.200 The standard is not one side better or worse than the other, but rather the same standard used in each case: Is each side complying with its legal obligations?201 Adil Haque, professor of law at Rutgers University, explains “neither side is complying with its legal obligations, so both have to be charged and brought to justice.”202 The standard is the law itself. In late May, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced “warrants to arrest the leaders of Hamas and the elected leadership of Israel on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”203 The ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan stated, “My office charges Netanyahu and Gallant as co-perpetrators.”204 Khan accused Israel of “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population” and “starvation of civilians” as a method of warfare,” actions that “systematically deprived the civilian population of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.”205 Khan stated the ICC “seeks arrest warrants…because “there are reasonable grounds to believe that these three Hamas leaders are criminally responsible for the killing of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas…on the 7th of October, 2023.”206 (Sinwar was killed Oct. 16, 2024; in 2025 a second leader was also killed). On December 5, 2024, Amnesty International found there is sufficient evidence to hold Israel accountable for genocide in Gaza.207 In early 2025, Hungary and America gave safe cover to Netanyahu during overseas trips by disregarding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) call for his arrest on charges of war crimes committed against humanity in Gaza. The two countries claimed they did not belong to the ICC. This is a tragedy for all peoples of the world because it is pretense not to see what is going on. The ICC investigates international crimes only when national authorities fail to genuinely investigate and prosecute them as appropriate.208 Holding those the ICC finds accountable for war crimes allows a majority of countries around the world, both large and small, to have some say on an issue. In the case of Netanyahu, the United Nations Security Council turned over its information to the ICC. A majority of the world’s nations agree with the provisions of the UN Security Council. To disrespect the justice arm of the United Nations is to disrespect international law and the votes of all nations except those with the power to threaten smaller nations, i.e., more bullying.
When public sentiment comes together with so many who feel likewise, it has power to effect change by means of calling attention to a vast disparity between the many and the few. The few and powerful who do not participate in the ICC cannot be the only countries to recognize injustice, for that would itself be unjust by limiting “injustice” only to the views of those in power. In earlier attempts to negotiate, Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq remarked on how fragile–and how critical–is the good faith of all nations belonging to the United Nations: “All the resolutions of the Security Council are international law. So to that extent, they are as binding as international law is. Ultimately, implementation is a question of international will.”209 The extent to which international law is a question of international will echoes Reagan’s comment on conflict being a matter of spiritual rather than military might. International will is a test of our nation’s moral will, of the good faith we have in each other and in other nations with whom we work. We need to keep good faith in respecting international law and seeing that it is binding because currently, the United Nations offers the world an alternative to violence as the only answer, to the excessive hatred and hollowing out of our own species. Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Red Cross, provides a global context: “it is for “these intractable circumstances that neutral and impartial humanitarian action was designed….we all have something at stake.”210 Guterrez and Griffiths and other humanitarian leaders at the United Nations, Pope Francis, Rabbi Sacks, many interfaith groups, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, Bernie Sanders, Imam Oliver Muhammad, Cardinal Maung Bo, Eboo Patel, Victor Frankl, Edith Eger, Mary Robinson, the Norwegian Refugee Council: these leaders and a vast number of other nations and individuals have been willing to speak up in solidarity with those who refuse to accept evil lurking, i.e., violence as the only way human beings can resolve their conflicts. They recognize the violence of war cannot be a means for peace because counter insurgencies thrive on revenge and breed only more of the same. Weapons can destroy but cannot bring peace. Rather, they bring only temporary pauses in the pursuit of an idolatry of power. Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem Pizzaballo suggests an alternative, a peace rooted in Scripture–that Jerusalem become a house of prayer for all people: “In Jerusalem beats the heart of all nations.”211
“No longer will you be called Abram;
Your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:6) What could be more compassionate and provide more hope to a world ravaged by war than a holy city dedicated to the prayers of people from “all nations” (Isaiah 66:20) called to the temple to honor God’s covenant with Abraham and dedicated to greater love for common humanity? Now is a time for people to reckon with their individual response-abilities to hear the God of Abraham. Do we use our individual response-abilities to reinforce hatred or opt for greater love with which to care for one other? And what better “new normal” can we pay forward to our children than Cardinal Maung Bo’s call to shift from a world that sees violence as its only answer to a paradigm in which international conflicts are resolved with intentional, moral will to pursue sustained dialogue and diplomacy in order to find a just peace? Otherwise, and if, as Dr. Jilani points out: “We have lost our dignity and our humanity,” then we are merely savage creatures preparing already for the next kill. But humans are not meant to be savage creatures—emerging from a viral pandemic like the pandemic itself–indifferent to the pain and suffering of fellow human beings. Preparing for that next kill, we forfeit a response-ability to change from within—to use the distinctly human ability to hear the God of Abraham and choose to love in accord with Greater Love. a kind of long Covid that has moved inside of us indifference to love of our neighbors, who are everyone opposite of good samaratins, “banality of evil” Hannah Arendt Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pope Francis O Mother, hear our prayer. Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war. Queen of Heaven, restore God’s peace to the world. Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and teach us forgiveness. Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons. Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need to pray and to love. Queen of the Human Family, show people the path of fraternity. Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.