Never Again

There are a lot of Christians giving unqualified support to Israel. “I stand with Israel” is being seen all over the place. But I think this needs to be challenged, because it is morally repugnant to give unqualified support to what is happening in Gaza at the moment.

Saying you stood with Israel because they were viscously attacked by terrorists was a good and decent thing to do. Virtually everyone felt that way. When the attacks happened back in early October there was an overwhelming pouring out of sympathy across the world. This is how many people feel when Islamic radical terrorists attack civilians.

Saying you condemn Hamas because of their evil and violent ideology is also a good thing to do. Hamas need to be expunged for there to be peace in Gaza, and Israel.[1]

But saying you stand with Israel while they bomb (and starve through siege warfare) civilians in their thousands to kill terrorists in their dozens is going far beyond supporting a nation that was attacked. It is to go beyond that and give license to what is happening and to take some responsibility for the deaths of those innocents and enable a terrible crime. It is to share in the responsibility and God will require an accounting for that.

This is the not the first time that we have seen something like this happen in this world. In fact, there are many famous examples. The most prominent one being 9/11. After 9/11 many of us were emotionally triggered by the horror of the attacks and many in the West blindly supported whatever the US wanted to do, to get "justice" (it was really revenge) against those whom America said committed the crimes. But the disastrous wars that came about because of their response showed that the people at that time who called for calmer heads to prevail were right and should have been listened to. Most sane people condemn those wars now, and it was not bombs that got Osama Bin Laden in the end. But intelligence and police work and Navy Seal type special operations. Those who called for calm to prevail while justice was pursued were right. 100% right.

To stand with bombing civilians and say we are not responsible for what is now happening, flies in the face of many modern principles we hold dear, both secular and Christian. They teach you in the military that the one who fires the bullet is responsible for where it lands so be careful to follow the strict rules of war and engagement. But it is also true that the people who cheer on those who shoot the bullets and drop the bombs are morally accountable as well.

Being anti-war and anti-bombing civilians is unpopular when it's "our" team that is attacked. But when it's "our" team we are doubly responsible for seeking to influence them for good, not for evil, and make sure that “our” team acquit themselves according to the principles we hold dear. Otherwise, we become just like those enemies which we say that we stand against. We have a responsibility to call out our national friends when they are doing the wrong thing.

There's the kind of friend that will get drunk with you, help you cheat on your taxes or your wife and will enable you in all manner of sins and errors. He's not really a friend. This man is really an enabler.  

Then there is the kind of friend who slaps you because you even think of chatting up another woman who is not your wife, or engaging in destructive behaviour. That's a real friend.

Some of you all in the church are being the first kind of friend to Israel right now, but they need the second kind, desperately. Before they do some incredibly regrettable stuff. Before they do MORE incredibly regrettable stuff.

America needed its head pulled in way back in 2001 by a really good friend so that it took time to calm down and not lash out in a way that had the result of upending half the known world. But instead took time to slow down and take a considered approach to achieving justice against the evil doers. Instead, much of its closest friends enabled its error and this magnified the evil.

I wanted to say that I cannot believe I am seeing this happening again, but the truth is I can believe it because people are slow learners and the emotionally triggered are the slowest learners of all. Back in 2001 I was fully behind the US for whatever it wanted to do. Because I considered it a pure good vs evil fight. I was 17 and didn't know better. I did not see how our team could magnify evil so thoroughly. I did not know that the United States needed a reason to go to war in the Middle East and was hankering for an unjust fight. I did not know that our side had been add still is co-opted by an evil ideology (neo-Conservatism) which is every bit as radical as the ideologies it seeks to oppose. I did not know many things that I do now.

This time I will not be among those who support such a response. This time we should not make that same mistake. Never again should we support these foreign intervention wars. 

Hamas must be brought to justice, crushed, utterly defeated. Bombing is the dumbest way to do this.[2] Bombing civilians WILL create more radicals than it will ever stop and it’s just morally wrong. It is utopian to think that there can be no civilians casualties in war, but it is equally in error to think it is ok to annihilate thousands of civilians to attack a few terrorists. We've seen this all before, in our lifetime, not long ago. Take a moment, pause, you know I'm right.

Never again should apply to more than just one example of evil. I want it on the record this time that even if it was very little, and had no effect, I still said something. God have mercy on us all if we don’t seek to call out evil even when our own side is doing it.

List of References 

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[1] Though, so to does Israel need to stop building new settlements on the lands of the Palestinians.

[2] If you wish to understand how this war can be done very differently, check our Jocko Willink. Jocko, one of America's most respected Navy Seal officers has outlined a better strategy, and he would know because he used this successfully against a similar enemy to Hamas in Ramadi in Iraq.

In brief what Israel must do is use a multi-layer strategy: charity to the civilian population, giving them everything they need and more turning them to your side. When Hamas steals it from them, you give the civilians even more and say, tell us where they are and we will deal with them for you. You then use special forces and regular troops to take and hold one building at a time, until you have cleared large zones of people, crushing the enemies ability to use strong holds and forcing them back from their positions and you do this until you have cleared the whole city of combatants. This strategy worked in Ramadi, it will work in Gaza far better than bombing civilians refugee camps. Bombs will only achieve making Israel a pariah nation, which is happening.

Israel went from universal sympathy to now being seen by most of the world as going way too far, which will harm their nation in other ways.