In this time of Hamas’s great infamy, the church issued prayers “for the dedicated staff at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, and for all who are offering medical care in the region. We pray for their strength and safety.”
The hospital treats all people regardless of gender, race or religion. On Oct. 11, director Suhaila Tarazi, in an update to the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was dire and changing by the hour. She thanked the AFEDJ for the $150,000 in donations it provided. “At this stage, our only hope is in God for a miracle in the midst of this scenery of death,” Tarazi said.
Six days later, a massive explosion and fireball erupted in the Al-Ahli hospital’s parking lot, reportedly killing and wounding hundreds, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Hamas blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrike; Israel said it was caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which denied the assertion. President Biden and the U.S. government backed the Israeli account.
The fog of war often obscures the truth, but I’m not going to be taken in by Hamas. What can be independently verified is that the sheer devastation caused by Hamas’s assault on Israel and the Israeli response — and the vast grief, pain, suffering and anger it has produced — are unfathomable. And with Hamas embedded in Gaza, and Israeli forces poised to launch a ground offensive into the territory, the horrors of war will only worsen.
Lurking in the background is the Islamic Republic of Iran. That authoritarian, theocratic regime is the major financial backer of Hamas and Lebanon–based Hezbollah, both of which share Iran’s goal of Israel’s destruction. In Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran has two convenient proxies to carry out the regime’s treachery.
A few days before Hamas’s attack, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech that the “usurper [Zionist] regime” (meaning Israel) would eventually end. “The honorable Imam [former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini], may God be pleased with him, described, the usurper [Zionist] regime as a cancer. This cancer will definitely be eradicated, God willing, at the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces throughout the region.” And with all the rockets, guns and drones that Iranian money can buy, it’s worth noting.
After the Hamas assault, Iran’s state television showed members of parliament rising from their seats to chant “Death to Israel” and “Palestine is victorious, Israel will be destroyed.”
Perhaps the day will come when the West and Iran have a final reckoning. But that is not where we are now.
Once it was not so hard to have hope for a lasting peace. As a D.C. grade school student in 1950, I learned that the first non-White person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was a Black American and U.N. official named Ralph Bunche.
Bunche was given the Nobel for his mediation leading to armistice agreements between the new state of Israel and its four Arab neighbors: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — thus ending the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
A seasoned diplomat who was the founder and chairman of Howard University’s political science department — of which I’m a product — Bunche hammered out an agreement that brought a formal end to the fighting. But Bunche, who strove to be evenhanded, reportedly felt Palestinian Arabs got the short end of the stick, losing most of their land to Israelis who enjoyed the strong backing of President Harry S. Truman and U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie.
Bunche said in 1949, “I have a bias in favor of both Arabs and Jews in the sense that I believe that both are good, honorable and essentially peace-loving peoples, and are therefore as capable of making peace as of waging war.”
Those beliefs might be subject to dispute. Making a just peace preferable to war is not.
President Biden’s success in winning agreement for humanitarian measures that Israel must take, and his announcement of a $100 million aid package to Gaza and the West Bank, are welcome. But they fall short of what’s needed. Even if Hamas is made to pay a well-deserved price for its terrorism, it won’t end the war waging in the hearts and minds of people without full self-government and a land they can call their own. As Biden said in Israel, “As hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution.”
Brutality and warfare are stumbling blocks to a just peace.
It might take someone with Bunche’s incurable optimism, intellectual stamina, world-class achievements and a belief in people’s better nature — with rock-solid U.S. and international support — to end the plague of occupation, and bring independence, peace and stability to a Holy Land riddled for decades by false, self-aggrandizing prophets.
Where are such persons when needed now?
Perhaps, I’ll pray for that.
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