The state of Israel was established in 1948. I was born in 1950. For my whole life, I have watched the headlines go by, on things like “the Arab/Israeli conflict” and “the Middle East peace process.” The Oslo Accords were signed; the Nobel Prize was awarded. I listened to reports of deeply moving messages in a Friends school’s Meeting for Worship after Itzhak Rabin was assassinated – including messages from students for whom he was a hero and others whose families he drove out of Palestine in 1948-49.
None of this reached into my soul until this war on Gaza.
My first post on Gaza was on October 27, 2023. (See “On the Side of Peace.”) At its heart is an experience in a US hospital. I was deeply grateful for the tax-supported medical research and healthcare system that preserved my life that day. And at the same time, I was aware of the contrast with the daily pictures of rubble left in Gaza by bombs paid by those same taxes. Why was I safe while hospitals in Gaza were being bombed?
Once the question was asked, the answer was simple and clear. I was one of “us” and Gazans were “them.” For my whole life, I had been ignoring a set of relationships between national governments that turned me, my money, my citizenship, my country, into a force that was destroying Gaza and attacking Palestinians everywhere.
It was time to do something. Since that moment in the hospital, I have read a lot of history and some powerful novels. I have organized spaces where my fellow Quakers can share our feelings of “anguish and impotence.” I have visited, called, and emailed Congressional offices, the White House, and a powerful nearby corporation that works with the Israeli military. I have spent time on street corners with a “Food for Gaza” sign.
And today I fast, while Gazans are starving.
On the one hand, there are the official numbers: 2.1 million at critical risk of famine; one in five people facing starvation; 71,000 children suffering severe malnourishment, including 14,000 severe cases. On the other hand, the pictures say it all – desperate people climbing over each other to try to get to a few mouthfuls from the tiny food supply. Yesterday, it was reported that three were shot to death in such a crowd by the Israeli military. Add these three bodies to the more than 54,000 killed in Gaza since my first post, including more than 700 last week.
My horror is not only that this is a humanitarian disaster of mammoth proportions. It is not only that it is deliberate and cruel. It is not only because it is pushing peace with justice further away by the day, stacking hatred on hatred. My horror is that this is my disaster because my government is so deeply embedded that it is not trying to end it.
Let’s keep up the calls and messages and yard signs and posts – and let’s pray.
Finding My Place 