The Tragic Spirit of Christmas 2023

Why Can’t Palestinians be Our Brethren?

A Nativity Scene in Bethlehem, where Christmas for the First Time has been ‘Cancelled’

I start by writing today simply from my perspective as a Christian and a Catholic.  Just as Saint Francis was the first to emulate the true Jesus in a long time, Pope Francis is to me the first to echo Jesus’ true message in a long time.  And my heart is in Bethlehem, “where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that … prevents him from finding room in the world.”

Whether or not you share my tradition, the basic message of all the major religions is the same: Peace.  If you think it is something else, then you may wish to consider if “the all-too-human thread that runs through history” has not affected you: “the quest for worldly power and might, fame and glory, which measures everything in terms of success, results, numbers and figures, a world obsessed with achievement.” All religions with any influence in the world have fallen into this trap.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas rampage that killed 1140 people and took 240 hostages, Israel has besieged Gaza.  20,494 Gazans are confirmed dead in the eleven weeks since the conflict began—which is approximately 1 percent of the Palestinian territory’s prewar population—and thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble.  These figures surpass the toll for any other Arab conflict with Israel since its founding in 1948.  To find a comparison of the bombings, a former Pentagon intelligence analyst said, we may “have to go back to Vietnam, or the Second World War.” Another 50,000 people have been wounded, half of the buildings are now destroyed, and the vast majority of the 2.3 million Gazans have been driven from their homes.

The World Food Programme’s most recent update says that 90 percent of people in the north have gone a full day and night without eating.  Clean water, electricity, and access to medical treatment are hard to find, and the lack of fuel and usable roads will hamper distribution of aid.  Many more deaths from famine, cold, and disease are sure to follow.

On Christmas Eve, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will continue to fight until it achieves “complete victory” over Hamas, and began intensifying his airstrikes. His overreactive aggression, after his own failure to prevent the initial attacks, echoes a former U.S. administration’s “War on Terror.” So does the need to salvage his unpopular regime through distraction.

And why are we prohibited from calling a genocide a genocide?  Raphael Lemkin’s definition simply refers to: “a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction [of groups], with the aim of annihilating the groups.”  The overt and utter lack of concern for civilian deaths, furthermore, causes one to wonder if Hamas is rather a convenient pretext for another, real purpose.  And leading up to the war—do the ghettos of Gaza resemble at all what Jews had to endure under Nazi oppression?  Former victims becoming future perpetrators is a well-known psychological phenomenon in the vicious cycle of violence.

Right now, the world seems engulfed in an insanity that is preventing us from seeing that none of this is going to make any of our societies safer, but will only increase overall violence.  Research has shown that responding to terror with even greater terror only increases terrorism, as our own response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks dramatically demonstrated.  “Shock and Awe” bombardments of Afghanistan and Iraq turned Al Qaeda into the Islamic State, and terrorism went up 40,000 percent in the span of a dozen years.

And yet, nothing seems more controversial than peace in the current drive for war.  The United Nations Security Council barely managed to pass a resolution to allow “safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access” to Gaza and mere “conditions for a sustainable cessation” of fighting.  Even so, the U.S. abstained its vote.

It was not very different thousands of years ago, when Jesus of Nazareth came with a simple message: “Love ye one another.”  The response was to crucify him.  His message had threatened to put the Pharisees—the religious leaders of the time—out of business.

If Jesus of Today and his new disciples were to gather and sit calmly in front of the White House gates, heads bowed in a prayer for peace, would they raise controversy? Would they be asked to “disperse”?  And if they refused, would they be arrested as by the Romans of old, while the Pharisees of today incite the crowds to shout out condemnations of him as an anti-Semite and a supporter of terrorism?  In our “modern civilization,” no overt crucifixions and hangings are necessary in the public square.  Those in power have other means of getting directly to people’s hearts and minds (through psychological means) to extract obedience.

I echo the words of the mayor of Gaza City: “Why can’t Palestinians be treated equally, like Israelis and all other peoples in the world?”

I recognize that it is a difficult time to speak for them. My heart also goes out for the Israelis, but there is a clear power differential. Palestinians need our voices right now, and to speak for them is not to speak against anyone else. Indeed, it is to speak for all who deserve our solidarity and compassion.

I end with the words of Martin Niemöller, a German theologian who opposed the Nazi regime, so that they may be imagined for the presently persecuted:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out

– because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out

– because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out

– because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me

– and there was no one left to speak for me.