Tuesday, November 20, 2012

When Friends Disagree

From thousands of miles away, from the safety of life in California, how am I to respond to violence in Southern Israel and bombings in Gaza?  Obviously, it's my privilege simply to ask the question.  I don't have to worry about rockets hurtling through the sky and falling on my church, my school, my home.  I don't flinch with every closing door, every flipped trash can--wondering if another bomb has exploded around the corner, wondering if my crowded city will be on fire come tomorrow.  Israelis and Gazans live in that world these days, and they've been living there for a very long time.

Just the same, it's my responsibility--and my calling--to care.  As a person of conscience, I have to wonder what role I might play, what role my country might play in bringing peace with justice to the Holy Land.  As a follower of the Prince of Peace, I'm accountable to the gospel of peace, and to a vision of a future in which swords are beaten into ploughshares (and nations study war no more).

On my mind these days are folks like Nomika Zion, an Israeli activist living on a kibbutz in Sderot not far from Gaza.  I remember visiting with her in her home and hearing her describe rocket attacks and the calculations one makes caring for small children as a rocket is heading for your neighborhood.  And folks like Zoughbi Zoughbi, and his family in Bethlehem, Palestinians who have invested their lifetimes in the promise of a safe, secure and vibrant homeland.  Nomika and Zoughbi have a very different stake in what's happening there this week.  War means death, violence, shattered lives.  While I have all kinds of security and privilege here, they are almost literally on the front lines.  And they've been there all along.

This week, I've offended some friends with my decision to sign a letter to President Obama urging him to take action around the violence in Gaza and in Israel.  In particular, the letter urges the President to insist that the State of Israel adhere to international law.

I'm sensitive to my friends' criticism and respectful of their own, strongly held beliefs.  I'm especially aware of their passionate concern for Israel (and for Israelis living in harm's way).  The last thing on my mind is provoking their disappointment.  And I treasure some of these friendships about as much as any in my life.  It's my hope and my commitment to continue in conversation, in respectful disagreement, and in prayer together...for a world and a region we all love.  And for peace.

I resist, as much as I humanly can, the impulse to take sides.  I want to be on the side of justice.  I want to be on the side of peace.  I want to be on the side of generations of Palestinians and Jews, Israelis and Arabs, still to come.  The enemy, as I see it, is hatred and violence.  The future depends on courage--and two wounded peoples choosing to lay aside grievance and fear for an entirely new promise.  The two letters I've signed this week (one from Jewish Voices for Peace, another from Churches for Middle East Peace) bear witness to this hope.  I find neither to be Anti-Semitic; I find neither to be foolish or dimwitted; I find both to be determined, hopeful and urgent.  (You can read each by following the links here.)

In a study group Sunday night, several of us discussed Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan.  There are so many layers, so many dimensions to the story; but one seems especially relevant now.  Our futures depend on the collaboration and compassion of others.  In the story, a traditional Jew is protected, touched and nursed to health by a strange Samaritan.  Each is made wiser, more human by the other.  More starkly, one cannot live into the fullness of his life without the other.

Albeit from a safe and protected distance, I believe the same is true right now, in 2012, along the Mediterranean coast.  For there to be peace, for there to be wholeness and possibility and lands flowing with milk and honey, Palestinians and Israelis must acknowledge and honor one another's humanity.  For there to be justice and a future of promise, one must kneel to tend to the other's wounds, and the other must learn to be grateful and tender in return.  Every prayer I say this week, and every letter I sign, I offer in that conviction.  And in that hope.