These excerpts are from scriptural readings appointed by my Episcopal church’s lectionary for daily meditations. (My behavior often speaks otherwise, but each day I try starting out in the right direction.) Coincidentally, Thursday’s scriptural readings appeared on the day I began writing this week’s column.
The centuries-old scriptures made me think about what’s playing out before us today. Not just the Israel-Gaza war. But also this week’s March for Israel rally on the National Mall and this month’s Free Palestine march for a cease-fire in Gaza. They made me think, too, of the war’s fallout on the campus of George Washington University, which shares space in Foggy Bottom with my St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Our 156-year-old historically Black landmark has seen wars come and go, but few have been as religiously and culturally divisive, and politically conflicted, as the one now causing strife at our doorsteps.
About two weeks after Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 invasion and Israel’s thunderous response, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SPJ) chapter at GWU screened messages on the outer wall of the school’s Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library that read, “Glory to our martyrs,” “Divestment from Zionist genocide now” and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
SPJ has now been suspended by the university for 90 days on the grounds that the projected messages were antisemitic and violated school policy.
GWU joins at least two other colleges, Brandeis University and Columbia University, that have banned or suspended SPJ chapters for similar conduct violations. Although action has yet to be taken, the administration of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered the state’s public universities to “deactivate” SPJ chapters.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel attacks, and pro-Israel backlashes and crackdowns, will soon become the order of the day. That is, if people with good sense let them.
Worse problems and challenges are ahead for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, but also for Israel, the United States and the international community.
This war is a wake-up call for the world.
Nothing ends when the guns fall silent in the Holy Land, and they will at some point.
When that time comes, the world will have a devastated Gaza and beleaguered West Bank on its hands. Recovery to any standard of human decency will be years off.
If reconstruction is to have any semblance of success, Palestinians, regional partners and the international donor community, led by the United States, must take actions to ensure it.
Which gets me back to the beginning — but not to the scriptures.
There’s more to the story than just what’s recorded in the Bible.
Builders of a post-Hamas Palestinian world must have a clearheaded understanding of what happened — and failed to happen — after the United Nations adopted the 1947 partition plan that sought to divide the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Rebuilding Gaza will also be fruitless without knowledge of all that followed among Israel, Arab nations and Palestinians when the state of Israel was established in 1948. There’s a tortured 75 years of history that should inform any attempt to bring a lasting peace and justice to a region that has experienced anything but.
That undertaking must take place among governments and political leaders, especially those capable of contributing more than running their mouths.
But similar examination is needed here at home. The United States still has a pivotal role in the region. If nothing else has been learned since Oct. 7, public opinion is evolving on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Universities such as George Washington and Columbia have a role to play, too, beyond taking to task bullies, braggarts and surrogates for opposing sides.
These institutions of higher learning should recognize the problem and do what they ought to be capable of doing: Educate.
Instead of conducting censorship, organize forums with highly qualified teachers and leaders to engage students in discussions and constructive learning about Palestinian-Israeli issues. Left misunderstood and demagogued in the halls of government and academia, as well as in grassroots America, the much-needed two-state solution will only end up in the trash.
Biblically speaking, we have been here before.
God in the Psalms was asked not to keep silent in the face of enemies. He didn’t.
A lesson for the rest of us.
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