A Walk on the West Side

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Dear family and friends,

Jerusalem was divided in 1948, when Jewish – later Israeli – troops laid hold of the western part of the city in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. The old, walled city of Jerusalem, also known simply as the Old City, became part of Jordan. Jerusalem would remain a divided city, until June of 1967, when Israel took the eastern part of the city as well in the 1967 Six Dat War. Although there are no physical barriers that divide the city today, still, most all Palestinians and Israelis know how divided the city is, politically, socially and economically.

Nowhere is this division more visible than along West Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road, the main east-west street, which displays the tell-tale signs of a country caught up in the grip of yet another chapter in what appears to be a never-ending story of conflict, division and hostility.

Lining the walls of shops are posters of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 2023. A large, Israeli flag is stretched across the front of the Jerusalem Municipality building, and the ubiquitous yellow ribbons with the slogan “Bring them Home Now” are stenciled in store front windows.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1246" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]Here, in West Jerusalem, symbols of hostages – and hasbara – are visible everywhere. Hasbara refers to the public relations efforts or propaganda to defend and positively portray the point of view and policies of the State of Israel. Here, the anger and anguish of what many, if not most, Israelis are feeling regarding the events of last October are on display for all to see. 

Yet no less real is the loss of life and the scale of destruction of what Gaza and its people have endured. No images of the victims of Israel’s relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip are visible anywhere, and that is just how Israelis want it. They do not know - and they do not want to know - what is happening in Gaza. 

Whose suffering is more intense, more visible, more genuine? Whose cause is more just?”

The Palestinian residents of Gaza have been displaced from the northern part of the strip to the southern part of the strip, south of Wadi Gaza. They have been moved again, back to the north, and also to the west, along the Mediterranean Sea. Now, they are being told once again to flee to the south. No place in Gaza is safe; not even those zones that have been declared “safe zones” by the Israeli military. Only days ago, a school where people were taking shelter was hit in the pre-dawn hours, killing at least 93 Palestinians.

The death of close to 40,000 Palestinians, including over 15,000 children has barely shocked a world that can simply turn on, and then turn off and tune out the pain and suffering that seems so alien and distant. Yet, their anguish is no less real, their torment, no less palpable, their blood, no less red.

Silence in the face of the tragedy unfolding now in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians is complicity. The events of the last 11 months will be a dark stain on the consciousness of a world that has simply sat by and watched it happen. The silence of the religious communities on all sides of this conflict is deafening. Their voices should have been louder than our own, yet they have not been.

The church should always strive to be on the side of justice. As Christians, we should want for both peoples what they cannot seem to achieve for themselves. We must seek to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem. It may require tough love, but that is what we are called to exercise “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” or so the saying goes. However, and in this case, the drunkenness has been caused by blind rage, an eagerness for blood and revenge, and a lust for power.

The disproportionate use of force by Israel, and the wholesale slaughter of women, children and the elderly in Gaza who have been caught up in the latest round of violence will serve no one well.

Were it not for the Al Jazeera network broadcasting daily images from Gaza, one would not know of the pain, the suffering, the devastation and destruction, and the immense loss of life in this tiny enclave along the Mediterranean Sea, home to 2.2 million Palestinians, 75% of whom are refugees and their descendants from the 1948 Arab-Israel War.

A walk on the west side of Jerusalem serves as a reminder to those who are still being held in Gaza by Hamas. Their families long for their return, as the families of over 9,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails, many under what is known as “administrative detention” long for their return as well.

It would be immoral to dismiss the anguish, the suffering, and the grief of either peoples in this ongoing conflict. I pray for moral clarity for leaders and politicians, and for those who have sat on the sidelines and allowed this bloodletting to go on for far too long.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently stated that “it may be just and moral” to starve two million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but “no one in the world would let us.”

Given the way this war has been waged thus far, I would not be so sure about that. God forbid!

Lord, have mercy,

Doug