(RNS) — On Monday (March 25), the United Nations Security Council, with the United States abstaining, passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire for the month of Ramadan as the nearly 6-month-old Israel-Hamas war wages on.
A cease-fire is not enough.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli government’s genocidal war in Gaza, at least 70% of them women and children. Most of the 2.2 million people living in Gaza have been displaced, and more than a million of them are children. For six months we have watched the daily atrocities unfolding in Gaza — we are also watching the erosion of our very humanity.
How can we watch deadly assaults on desperate people as they run toward trucks with food, and not with loud voice demand the bombing stop? How is it that we can remain virtually silent while 70% of people in parts of Northern Gaza face food shortages? That’s more than triple the 20% threshold to be considered famine — and experts warn of imminent “mass death.” But we cannot in good conscience insist on feeding the children while continuing to feed the war.
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World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris reports seeing “newborn babies simply dying because of their too-low birthweight” and children on “the brink of death through starvation.” Malnutrition, she says, was “basically non-existent” prior to the war.
“For weeks people had already been reduced to eating bird seed, animal fodder, wild grass and weeds,” says United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk.
“Starvation is being used as a war arm,” says E.U. Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.
Our humanity, that which signals what it means to be created in the image of a compassionate God, is fundamentally grounded in our ability to have empathetic regard for one another — to recognize the suffering and pain of another as if it were our own. Such regard recognizes that each and every one of us is a vulnerable human being with a body that can know pain, feelings that can be hurt, and a spirit that can be crushed.
The lack of empathetic regard finds comfort behind dehumanizing biases and stereotypes so as to justify the degradation and destruction of other human beings. Empathetic disregard retreats to excuses of historical complexities and geo-political complications. Where empathetic regard is absent, so, too, is our essential humanity.
The genocidal assault on the people of Gaza should be no more tolerable to us than the Oct. 7 Hamas terroristic attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and seized more than 200 others as hostages. Why is it difficult for us to hold at once the sacredness of Palestinian and Israeli lives?
Palestinians line up for a free meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on March 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Inasmuch as we have allowed the violence of Islamophobia and antisemitism to fester within the fabric of our society, we will remain trapped in the fear of being labeled Islamophobic or antisemitic and thus rendered silent when it comes to calling for equal freedoms and human rights for both Palestinians and Israelis. In the words of Buddhist religious leader Greg Snyder, “Each and every one of us must do the work of being morally responsible for our fear and the violence that emerges out of it.”
It is time for us with loud and persistent voice to break the silence. And we as religious leaders have a particular responsibility to lead the way.
The mandate is even more acute as we begin the Holy Week journey. The cross makes clear Jesus’ solidarity with those who suffer from realities that portend their death. Jesus becomes one with the crucified classes of people of his time. As Holy Week leads us to the cross, it calls us to be one with the crucified people in this time that is ours. It calls us to demand an end to the crucifying realities of war in Gaza. It calls us to break our crucifying silence.
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Yes, we must demand an immediate cease-fire. We must demand the release of the hostages. And, we must insist on a plan to provide humanitarian aid — that is in fact humanitarian — to the people of Gaza, offering some measure of dignity even in degrading circumstances. Yet, we cannot stop there. As religious leaders we must also call for a sustained peace. This is a peace that preserves the choice and dignity of both Palestinians and Israelis. This is a peace that reflects divine justice. Divine justice does not settle for temporary cease-fires. Rather it advocates without ceasing for a lasting peace that upholds the sacred value and life of all persons, without exception.
Divine justice flows from love. It is a justice that refuses to compromise with anything that violates God’s love for God’s humanity. It never acquiesces to ideologies, systems, structures or “post-war” plans that do not foster relationships of mutuality, equality and respect.
Divine justice is never retributive. Retributive justice lends itself only to hate. It creates harm. It makes enemies of people and leads to genocidal wars.
Divine justice fiercely loves us into loving ourselves and one another. It fosters a community and world that is always pointed toward a more just future.
(The Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas is an Episcopal priest and author of “Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter.” She is the Interim president of Episcopal Divinity School and canon theologian at Washington National Cathedral. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
