Slaughter-House Five

This is another reflection I wrote almost two years ago, for my Modern Novel class.

The book, Slaughterhouse-Five, is rather indescribable. It's part autobiography (based on Vonnegut's experiences in WWII, particularly during the Dresden firebombing), and part fantastical science fiction. The book's main character, Billy Pilgrim, is unstuck in time and abducted by aliens. Juxtaposed with these events, however, is the more intense absurdity of humans' actions against each other - death marches, death camps, and cities boiled in flame.
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Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children’s Crusade: a Duty-Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is less of a novel than a parable. A parable marked by its dreamlike attention to detail, and complete absence of any traditional plot. A parable that is not story, but interwoven bursts of history, nonsense, and character study. Bursts that are strung together into an overarching commentary on the presence, or absence, of meaning.

And that, it seems, is the book’s ultimate question, for itself and for the world — is there a point, or isn’t there? Is Slaughterhouse-Five a commentary on the deep significance of life, or the ultimate absurdity of it all? Is Vonnegut combining these fragments of truth and fantasy into a collage that celebrates meaning, even amidst the madness, or a shattered mural that undermines it? He tells us that the Trafalmadores believe that individual moments, seen all at one time, can “produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep” (84). Is this what Slaughterhouse-Five accomplishes (or attempts), or does Vonnegut intentionally fall short? Is the moral of the parable that meaning can be wrested from the ashes, or simply that it cannot? — and no amount of artful deception will ever turn the Dresden firebombing beautiful. This is a question for which there are no simple answers.

Slaughterhouse-Five is heavy with its recognition of humanity’s attempts to trivialize life and death. To minimize atrocity by building walls between “us” and “them". The good guys and the bad. Those who deserve to die, and those who don’t. But as Vonnegut writes in his preface, “the corpses could have been anybody, including me” (xii). His book cuts through the lines of separation, and presents humans as simply that, human. In all of their odd frailty. Creatures, who, if shown in the right light, make less sense than Billy Pilgrim’s aliens from Tralfamadore. Aliens who understand that death is irrelevant, not because people are irrelevant, but because time is. And in this way, the book is laced with irony. A calm, self-aware absurdity (in the form of flying saucers, time travel, and other fantastical non-events) that calls the reader’s attention to the more hysterical absurdity of actual reality. Firebombings. Girls boiled to death in water towers. Candles made from human fat. A man shot for stealing a teapot. British POWs performing Cinderella. Billy crying for a horse in pain, amidst the wreckage that once was Dresden. All so much more unbelievably ridiculous than time travel, and green Martians. Vonnegut writes (once again, in his preface) that Slaughterhouse-Five is meant to be a “nonjudgmental expression of astonishment” at what he experienced in Dresden (xii). And that it is. An astonishment that is mirrored through science fiction and the recounting of the fantastical.

But none of this really answers the question of meaning. Of hope. Billy recounts that the Tralfamadorians believe every moment to always exist — in the past, present, and future. And if every moment exists, always, then there is no potential for change. Billy sees his death, but never tries to stop it, just as the Tralfamadorians will never try to stop destroying the universe. It has already happened, always has happened, and always will happen. This fatalistic attitude is hardly heartwarming. Hardly conducive to transformation. So the question becomes, is Vonnegut’s work a tribute to that view (at least its power, if not its morality), or a violent mockery of it? Far from condoning this attitude of detached acceptance, Slaughterhouse-Five may be placing judgment on all who embrace it by viewing war as a necessary evil. Something that is hardly worth striving to abolish. Or Vonnegut may simply be recounting what he saw. What he experienced. And what, realistically, the world may always be — the absurd process of destruction. Us, against them. A truly “nonjudgmental” account (xii).

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I wrote this reflection for my Modern Novel class in university. The book was highly engrossing, thought provoking, and — perhaps — profound.

The story is about Oskar, a precocious child who lost his father in the Twin Towers. The message, however, is about unity, healing, and the possibility of a wholeness that transcends hate.

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Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a beautiful book. It is a book to be experienced, rather than just read. Blank space, color, photos, and small black words all combine to create a holistic picture that is greater than the sum of its parts. A metaphor for life. It is a book about pain, and loss, and the distance between people. But it is also a book about hope, and the journey back to wholeness. Back together.

By combining the story of 9-11 with Hiroshima and Dresden, Foer takes an American event and makes it universal. Rather than allowing his story to become a political or national commentary, he writes about the human experience. And by so doing, he demonstrates the power of art to bring healing. I would argue that Foer, by writing this book, allows us to see the events of September 11th with a new clarity. Perhaps not the clarity George Bush would have us posses. Not "us" versus "them". Not division. Not enmity. But unity. Pain and loss and death. The great levelers. The horrible monster under the bed that leaves us all equal. All human. All broken.

And in this way, I think that Foer’s book is truly profound. He has written about something horrible and real. A turning point in American history. A tragedy. A landmark. A rallying cry. But he has done so in a way that brings cosmos out of chaos (as Madeleine L’Engle might put it). A way that helps us be more human. Helps us feel more. Helps us see more. Replaces destruction with creativity. Focuses on love, rather than hate.

I love that Oskar’s journey passes through so many people’s lives. As he struggles to stay connected to his father, to feel and not feel, to make some sense out of anything at all, he touches and touches and touches. All the Blacks with all of their individual pains and joys. His grandmother. His grandfather. His doorman. The cab driver. The limo driver. His mother. The child, with all of his quirky habits, brilliance, and pain, is so very much alive. And without knowing he is doing it—without really trying to do it—he brings that life to others.

And this is why Foer’s narrator must be a child. For the overabundance of life. Of feeling. For the honesty of pain. Oskar’s “heavy boots.” Foer contrasts this perspective, and the new pain, with Oskar’s grandparents, and their old pain. Oskar believes the world can somehow be alright again if he can just find a lock that matches a key. Or dig up an empty grave. For his grandparents, life is more complex. They live in a world where nothing will every be alright again. Where words have run out. Or the space in which to write them. And without the words, how can gaps be bridged? And yet, they too journey with Oskar towards hope. Towards healing. Towards each other.

Peace Studies

I was recently awarded the Hazel Steinfeldt Peace Studies Scholarship at George Fox University. This is the essay I wrote for the application:

Peace and Justice
1 February 2008

Peace. It’s a simple word. Five letters, one syllable. And yet, it’s probably the most complex concept I’ve ever encountered. And one of the most controversial.

I’ve been a pacifist for as long as I can remember. Why, exactly, I’m not sure. None of my family members share this conviction, and I was not raised to be a Quaker. And yet, the aggressive pursuit of non-violent justice has always made sense to me—always seemed an intricate part of being a Christian, and following Christ. From the time I was a child I have not been able to read the Sermon on the Mount without believing that Christ was, and is, calling us to a different way of living—a different form of existence. Calling us to selfless sacrifice, and costly, uncalculating, love. And no matter how hard I’ve tried, I have never been able to reconcile these values with war, violence, or force. I believed, and still do, that Christ was giving us the right (and perhaps the imperative) to lay down our own lives for others, but never to take their lives from them.

In tenth grade I was faced with the challenge, and privilege, of grappling with the pursuit of peace and justice in the context of a very specific conflict: the Palestinian-Israeli issue. My parents are anthropologists, and my whole pre-college life was spent in the Arab world, from North Africa (Tunisia) to the Middle East (Egypt and Lebanon). Because of this, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has always loomed very close on the horizon, casting its shadow over much of life. However, it was not until the middle of high school that I truly encountered the issue head on. That year, my father, a professor at Bethel University, created a curriculum for me to study the conflict in depth. And I did, reading books from every perspective imaginable: Christian and non-Christian Zionists, liberal and conservative Jews, Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and Arab Israelis. I was thoroughly confused, thoroughly frustrated, and thoroughly ready to grant apathy my soul.

But then I met the children. I went to Lebanon to volunteer in a refugee camp for two weeks, and I found my passion. I looked into the face of Palestinian children—children who would not cry or laugh or dance or be children—and I saw Christ looking back. By the end of my time there my heart was utterly broken—torn for a people most of the world, and most of Christianity, seemed to have rejected. My family moved to Lebanon the next year, in part so I would have greater access to the camps, and I spent most of my time working with the Inma Center—an NGO created to help restore hope to a desperate people. I returned to my studies, but this time with purpose, seeking to understand the people behind the conflict, and through understanding to somehow restore justice to a broken land. I wrote papers about Christ’s love for Palestinians, and chose to attend George Fox University because of its Peace Studies minor, Quaker heritage, and heart for the oppressed—a heart that I passionately believed mirrored God’s.

And that is why I am here, studying writing and literature, and preparing to return to the Middle East to pursue reconciliation and peace. It is the calling I have felt on my life since I was fifteen-years-old—a calling I do not believe God has released me from. I have no expectations that it will be easy, and I know it will not be simple. But I do believe that love is powerful, and that sacrifice is God’s calling on the lives of believers. And so I go forward in faith, to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. My life is Christ’s, may He do with it as He pleases.

A Rant Against Apathy

I warn you, this is a rant. A rant driven by deep anguish, but a rant nonetheless. I wrote it during my senior year of high school, while applying to colleges. Westmont (in California) asked me to write an essay about something I was passionate about. This is what they got.

It may seem over-the-top. After three years in America, with distance and language between me and those children, I may agree. But at the time I wrote this, after six months of centering my life around that camp, these emotions were burned into my skin. It's hard to explain now, with essays due and finals looming, exactly what it was like then. When a harsh word against Palestinians, or a careless remark about the greatness of Israel, would send me into racking sobs. Have you ever looked at a child, and realized that they've experienced more pain than you can imagine? That they have no hope? I don't think heartbreak is ever more real than in that moment.

I wish I could revive this passion. Feel it as more than a memory. But America is deadly to real conviction. Of this I am convinced. What is it about this place that breeds apathy? Is it because we are so far removed? Because we are too comfortable? Too rich? We are so blind to misery -- and that, I think, is killing us. We take our own lives, not because we feel pain too strongly, but because we can't feel any anguish but our own. And that was never Christ's intent.

Karith A. Magnuson
Westmont College Application
Essay 2 (a)

Introductory note: I have grown up in the Arab world my entire life and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has always been a major issue of discussion. In tenth grade I studied the conflict intensively and read many books and arguments from both sides. I also did two short term service trips to the Bourj al-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon to work in a preschool/kindergarten there. Last year (in eleventh grade) we moved to Lebanon (spring ’04) and I worked weekly in the same camp, a major part of which was still in the preschool. I know that there are two sides to this story, but this paper was not written for the purpose of arguing those sides. It is simply my response to what I have seen with my own eyes, and is meant to be nothing more, and nothing less.

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Heavy drops of tears run down my cheeks. Life isn’t fair and don’t just say it’s true. I’ve seen the eyes filled with tears, I’ve kissed the faces that won’t smile. Don’t tell me God intended it to be this way. Don’t say that He just loves some people more, and others less. They’re beautiful, they’re perfect, the tiny hands, the tiny feet. God made us all and yet we get things with our birth that they can never have. Why do we learn to love when they must learn to hate? Why are we born with hope, when there isn’t any left for them? Must it always be this way? Must childhood be stolen along with heritage and dreams? My soul cries, “No!” My heart bleeds, “No!” And I long to scream, “Oh Lord! How long must it go on?”

Aren’t we all children of God? Weren’t we all created in His image, with the ability to think and reason, the capacity to love, and a soul to long for greater things? Why must one people always strive to destroy another? Why do they succeed? Why have we learned to look the other way? I was always raised to believe that there were certain things that every person had a right to, things like education, liberty, and hope. Why didn’t someone tell me that it was all a myth? Why didn’t anyone explain that the colors of one’s flag are seared into one’s skin, and that the faster one withers and dies the sooner one need not feel the pain?

Over forty thousand people live in one square kilometer, unable to work and denied education. They have no citizenship and yet the name of their nation has branded them forever inferior, dangerous, and hateful. They have no electricity or running water, or even streets on which to play the greatest sport in the world [1], and so they play marbles instead. A whole generation has grown up in this camp, with no hope, no identity, no voice, no future and no way out. Their children and grandchildren are now learning the lesson too—learning what it means to be associated with their history and their pain. By three years old many of them have forgotten how to smile, or maybe it’s simply that they never learned. And what about the rest? Those few children who refuse to give up, who still laugh and play and fight for their right to a childhood. What of them? What will become of them when they discover that the world will not have them, whatever their potential and their dreams? What will they say when they realize that they, just because they are different, have been denied what others are born with? How will they say it? What if it’s with rocks and hate, guns and bombs? I suppose then we will know that we were right.

In the gathering darkness I see the silhouette of a cross and the wood is drenched with blood, and every precious drop was shed for them. What would He say to us if He saw what we, the world, have done? What will He say to us? I don’t think He will say a thing. I think He will just weep, a silent drop for every moment of their pain. They are His children, whatever we have let ourselves believe. They don’t belong to us, or to hate, or to terrorism, or to despair, or even to Palestine. They are His alone, and I fear the cost for the pain they have suffered will be dreadful indeed.

[1] All Arabs everywhere play soccer, or real football, no matter how poor they are. If they don’t have a court they play on the street, if they don’t have a ball they make one with tape. Not being able to play football is a huge blow to Palestinian boys

A Letter to Terrorists

Ooh . . . so, I found Naomi Shihab Nye's letter "To Any Would-Be Terrorists." READ IT.

Here's a portion of her powerful conclusion:

We will all die soon enough. Why not take the short time we have on this delicate planet and figure out some really interesting things we might do together? I promise you, God would be happier.

I beg you, as your distant Arab cousin, as your American neighbor, listen to me. Our hearts are broken, as yours may also feel broken in some ways we can't understand, unless you tell us in words. Killing people won't tell us. We can't read that message. Find another way to live. Don't expect others to be like you. Read Rumi. Read Arabic poetry. Poetry humanizes us in a way that news, or even religion, has a harder time doing. A great Arab scholar, Dr. Salma Jayyusi, said, "If we read one another, we won't kill one another." Read American poetry. Plant mint. Find a friend who is so different from you, you can't believe how much you have in common. Love them. Let them love you. Surprise people in gentle ways, as friends do. The rest of us will try harder too. Make our family proud.

And here are some more of her comments on creativity vs. violence. They may not all make sense out of context, so like I said before, read the original!

We believe in the power of the word and we keep using it, even when it seems no one large enough is listening.

And it will be peace, not violence, that fixes things.

When people asked [my 106-year-old Palestinian grandmother] how she felt about the peace talks that were happening right before she died, she puffed up like a proud little bird and said, in Arabic, "I never lost my peace inside."

A Jewish professor tracked me down a few years ago in Jerusalem to tell me [that my grandmother] changed his life after he went to her village to do an oral history project on Arabs. "Don't think she only mattered to you!" he said. "She gave me a whole different reality to imagine."

We would like to stop the terrifying wheel of violence, just stop it, right on the road, and find something more creative to do to fix these huge problems we have. Violence is not creative, it is stupid and scary and many of us hate all those terrible movies and TV shows made in our own country that try to pretend otherwise.

Megan's Writing

If you've enjoyed the reflections, poems, and fiction written by Megan Buff that I've posted, I'd encourage you to check out her new blogsite (Reflections of an Odd Duck).
If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this selection of her work:
The Other One
Standard of Measure
My Jesus Wears a Hejab
Adhan
Settlement
The Beauty of Religion

Hejab Pt. 2: Another Thought on Hair

Here is a somewhat-companion to Megan's piece. This one I did write—last semester, for a class on writing for publication. Why do I put it here, amidst reflections on peace, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and writing? Because, as I've mentioned before, there are many kinds of peace, and many kinds of conflict. Christ came to set us free from it all. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1). And I think, through this, I was trying to touch on the issue of pain . . . devastation . . . war . . . and the way our society hides from those things. From the reality of sweat and blood, behind the facade of perfection. I believe in beauty, but it is a very different type of beauty than the ideal my culture is trying to force down my throat. It is a beauty that comes through the ashes—the marks of living—rather than by denying them.

Bare—An Ode to Beauty Bald

I want to shave my head. It’s one of those crazy ideas that terrify my parents. They interpret it, I think, as a sign of my slowly dissolving faculties. The warping of my brain by too much study and feminist theology. After all, why would anyone want to destroy all sign of womanly beauty? The golden ringlets that grew into longer curls. Shear them off in humiliation and shame.

I try to explain. How a boy I liked, once told me that he liked my hair. Liked it down. Said it made me beautiful, those strands of tarnished gold. Strands that are not me.

And I rebel. I will not be my hair. I will reclaim my womanhood from a Bible that proclaims me, and my head, to be man’s glory.

I want to be known for the mind that lies beneath the hair. For the part of me that thinks and yearns and ponders. For the passion and the life, under the meaningless wisps that grow and die, without my consent or say-so. That require nothing of me. Reflect nothing on me.

I want to shave my head in honor of those who never had the choice. In solidarity with the broken. The women at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Those who survived, and those who didn’t. To honor a humanity that was not taken, cannot be taken, with our hair.

To celebrate survival. From cancer. Leukemia. Radiation and chemo. The women who wear headscarves, and wigs. Afraid to show the scars of battle. The sign of loss, and life. Proof that they’re still here.

I want to join the ranks of men like Yule Brynner and Michael Jordan. Of human beauty unadorned. Skin, and sweat, and age. Unafraid to expose the blue veins that pump life, blood and oxygen, through membrane and golden tissue. The sandpaper texture. The shape of their skulls.

I want to demonstrate a different kind of beauty. Sleek and sexy elegance that denies hairspray and color dyes, styling products and curling irons. Proclaim freedom from magazine images and picturesque perfection. From Barbie dolls and Disney princesses, long silken tendrils, hair to their knees. Coiffured and flowing expectations. Stop hiding beneath the mask of color.

I want to wear henna on my head. Make patterns of tribal beauty. Declare myself at home with earth and sky.

I want to stop running from the feel of my own skin. I want to be myself, free of pins and clips and rubber-bands. And I want to love it.

I want to inhale wind and rain through the pores on my skull. To taste life and pain. To deny the acceptability of pretence, to destroy the masquerade, the papier-mâchéd perfection. To mourn injustice with the women of Beowulf—heads bare, weeping to high heaven. Sackcloth and ashes, and shorn hair.

And most of all, I want to be a nun. Set apart for unreserved worship. To return to child-like innocence, and feel nothing between my head and God, but air and sunlight. To be uncovered before my maker, not in shame, but in the humility of a newborn, and beloved, child. To remember my humanity in the presence of a genderless God. A God who created my soul before she created my hair.

I want to feel my prayers rise out of the top of my skull. Float along air currents. Be breathed in by the Almighty (hairless) God.

Jesus and the hejab . . . ?

Hmm . . . it's been a while since I've posted.
Here's something a little different. It was written by a good friend. See what you think, but more importantly, ask yourself why. Whether this resonates with you, or you find yourself hating it, confused by it, offended . . . I don't really care. I just care that you think.

My Jesus Wears a Hejab
by Megan Buff

I am not a Muslim. I am a Christian, though I do sometimes distance myself from mainline and evangelical Christianity. Occasionally, I wear a hejab. This symbol of Muslim femininity sets me apart from the women who run about in immodest clothing, who worry incessantly about what others think about their appearance, who spend twenty minutes in front of the mirror in the mornings. It is a symbol of modesty, in part – but more so, it is a reminder to both myself and others that my appearance is not what defines me.

Hair is crucial to our society. A person’s haircut says much about them. Buzz cuts for the military men, dreadlocks for the anarchist hippie rebels, long flowing hair for the women (unless you’re a butch lesbian, in which case you must cut your hair very short). This is how we are supposed to look. Hairstyles can make or break a “look.” I cover my hair; my hair does not matter to who I am.

When I first wrapped the hejab around my head, I felt an unexpected change. I felt like a real person. Cares, worries, the awkwardness of life slid off my shoulders, ousted by the folds of fabric. I felt peaceful, as I rarely ever do. I saw the beauty of the world when the hejab slipped into my peripheral vision. Somehow, without realizing it, my body acknowledged that covering my hair meant one less un-necessary stressor in my life. It no longer mattered what others thought of me. I could be myself – and when I allowed myself to be myself, I allowed myself to be a person again.

. . .

A large painting of Jesus sits in the prayer chapel. He is pale white, his long black hair matted into his face, his beard covering his chin and some of his neck. Red and blue streaks mark his face – Blood? Tears? He is suffering yet noble. His eyes may bleed, but his face holds loving dignity. He looks off to the side, his face in profile to the viewer, as though looking elsewhere. He wants to show off the blood and tears, the scars of the trials on his face, but he does not want to see. He does not want to accept, to acknowledge, to understand.

This is not my Jesus. My Jesus is loving. My Jesus is kind. My Jesus wears a hejab.

Is The Church Bound to Support the Modern Nation of Israel?

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote in 12th grade. Once again, it's a little strong, but I think it brings up some valid issues. The main portion I removed was an explanation on why I think the Church has replaced Israel as the chosen people. While I still believe that to be true, the point is irrelevant to the paper as a whole:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to be spiraling out of control. Suicide bombers attack and kill innocent civilians and Israel retaliates by leveling harsh collective punishment on the Palestinian population. Palestinian refugees, scattered throughout the Arab world, grow old in countries not their own, and eventually lose sight of all hope for a better tomorrow. Every day more land is confiscated in the West Bank and Gaza strip and article after article of U.N. resolutions are ignored, while the Palestinians respond with more hate and more suicide bombings. The cycle is deadly, with far reaching effects, shaping American policies, impacting West-East relations, destroying peace, and ravaging human lives. As followers of Jesus, called to be peacemakers, it is time for the church to take a stand, to align ourselves with Christ, and to strive to bring justice and mercy back to the Middle East. Looking around, however, I am shocked to find that instead of doing all we can to bring about peace and tear down the walls of hostility, we have actually joined in this war, whole-heartedly choosing sides, and adding to the carnage. Somehow the people of Jesus seem to have stumbled over verses like Zechariah 2:8 (1) and Genesis 12:3 (2), and used them to justify, or even mandate, the giving of unrestrained support (including American military aid) to Israel, and with it has come a correlating condemnation of the Palestinian people. Is this the heart of God, I wonder, and if so, where is the mercy and the justice? Or is it possible that we have become so caught up in the future fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the will of God for the end-times, that we have lost sight of the will of God for the present?

. . .

[E]ven if Israel is still under the covenantal promises, we should be very careful in assuming that this fact automatically guarantees that the Lord’s favor is with them. Indeed, if Israel has committed atrocities by a worldly standard (3), how much more if judged by the standards of God? God’s calling for His people has always been very high, and in Deuteronomy, along with blessings for obedience, are heavy curses for disobedience (4). We do not need to look any farther than the Ten Commandments to find laws against stealing, coveting, and murder (5). It is also clear that God calls His people to uphold justice for the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow, and the alien (Leviticus 24:22 states very clearly that laws must be the same when regarding an alien as when regarding an Israelite, and Deuteronomy 27:19 has a specific curse for any who withhold justice from an alien) (6). In I Kings, God destroys Ahab’s whole household because he takes possession of a vineyard not his own (7)—how much more will God avenge the unlawful seizure of forty-two percent of the Palestinian land in the West Bank (8)? If we are to view Israel solely in the light of the covenant God made with Abraham and Moses, then we must judge it by this same covenant, and by such passages as Micah 2:12—“Woe to those who plan iniquity . . . because it is in their power to do it. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance.” The modern day nation of Israel is a secular state different from the Biblical nation rooted in the laws of God, and the covenant was given based on an obedience that is very absent from the present day country.

When it comes down to the point, whether Israel is still the nation of prophecy or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that God calls all humans, as beings created in His image, to love justice and to pursue mercy (9). As His children, who claim to know Him and walk with Him, we, as Christians, are called to an even higher standard because we have seen the truth and we walk in the light (10). Therefore whatever we believe about the place of Israel in the history of the end times we, as the salt of the world, should be calling them to a higher standard of living (11). Indeed, those who believe Israel to be the people of God should be even more vocal in this active calling to repentance. Throughout the Bible it is those who love Israel the most passionately who call it to repentance the most vocally. If we believe the Jews are still standing in the shadow of the covenantal blessings and curses then we should be doing our utmost to stand in the gap on their behalf and call them back to the standards and glory of God.

In the end I think that the greatest danger of unduly focusing on Israel as the chosen, and blindly supporting them is that we lose sight of Christ’s love for all peoples. As children of God we are called to walk in love and to spread the name of Jesus to the ends of the earth. In Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Muslim, Israeli nor Palestinian, for Jesus died for all alike (12). This is the kingdom of heaven, the heart of the gospel, the good news, and the center of God’s work throughout the ages. Anything that takes us away from this, takes our eyes off Christ, and is wrong, unbiblical, and even sinful. This is where our focus should be as we strive to usher in the kingdom of God, not on end-time prophecies or revelations (13). When we search the scriptures it should be to find God’s heart for all peoples, not just the Israelites, lest we, like the Pharisees, be condemned for pouring our souls into the details of the law and missing the heart of God (14).

So when we, as Christians, view Israel, it should be with the eyes of Christ, and the same way that we view Palestine and the world. We should offer it our support, yes, but not the frail, cheap support that comes by blindly accepting its political agenda and swallowing its propaganda. Instead we need to stand aloof from our nation’s policies and offer Israel something real—the love of God and the chance to repent. We must not allow our political, cultural or even theological background to blind us to the need for justice, and we must stop using unequal scales to judge the conflict in the Middle East, for God is a god who hates favoritism (15). Above all we should seek to shine the love of Christ and to bring God’s peace to those whose lives are being torn apart by hate and violence—only then can there be true peace in Jerusalem.

(1) Zech. 2:8, “. . . For whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye.”
(2) Gen. 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.”
(3) A few examples of the atrocities Israel has committed in regards to the Palestinian people are the common around-the-clock, shoot to kill curfews; the thousands of acres of Palestinian land (in the West Bank and Gaza strip) that have been confiscated or destroyed; the continual violence and abuse suffered by Palestinians at Israeli checkpoints throughout the occupied territories; the numerous schools that have been shut down, denying education to thousands; and the staggering number of deaths and injuries the Palestinian people have suffered at the hands of the Israeli military (every day since the year 2000, two Palestinians have been killed and more than thirty injured—a third of whom have been women and children). It is in condemnation for acts such as these that Amnesty International, in Nov. 2000, declared that the Israeli army’s policies in the occupied territories are “a pattern of gross human rights violations that may well amount to war crimes,” and B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, in a study titled “Injustice in the Holy city,” called Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in East Jerusalem “a history of dispossession, systematic and deliberated discrimination, and a consistent assault on the dignity and basic rights of the Palestinian residents of the city . . .” These facts are referred to in “An Open Letter Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” an unpublished letter by several evangelical Christian workers serving in the Arab world, and can be verified by a search of B’Tselem documents (www.btselem.org) and other sources (including, for example, The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, Rabbis for Human Rights, Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Jews Against Zionism, Jews for Justice in the Middle East, and Jews for Justice for Palestinians [www.jfjfp.org, which includes links to other sites]).
(4) Deut. 28
(5) Deut. 5:6-21
(6) Exodus 22:21-22, Psalm 72:4
(7) I Kings 21:17-24
(8) May 2002 report by B’Tselem, referred to by Mark Harlan (a Dallas Seminary graduate) in “Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Palestinian Human Rights and Chosen People Theology – Can They be Harmonized?” (unpublished paper) and in “An Open Letter Regarding The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (unpublished letter written by a number of evangelical Christians serving in the Arab World).
(9) Micah 6:8
(10) Luke 12:47-48
(11) Eph. 5:11
(12) Col. 3:11
(13) Acts 1:7-8
(14) Matthew 23:23-24
(15) Deut. 25:13-16

Israeli Terrorism

Here's a link to something I wrote a while ago. It's perhaps a little overly passionate, but I think it still brings up some important, overlooked issues.
Terrorism: It's not just the Palestinians