Gaza: our voices can make a difference

The news is indeed dreadful, writes David Nelson - but showing solidarity does have an impact

Noreen Gilhespy replied to my article in The Baptist Times recently, wondering how we can raise our voices about the situation in Israel/Palestine, and particularly in Gaza.

The news is indeed dreadful, such that we are all becoming a bit worn down. Some would say they don’t even listen to the news now because it’s all too grim. We have hit the mark of 100,000 Palestinians who have either been killed or injured since 7 October, and we all know there are others yet to be found under the rubble.

Among my own circles both in and out of church, I do hear voices of helplessness. I feel the same too, when I receive exactly the same pre-scripted letter of reply from the Foreign Office to every letter I write.

However I do think that it makes a difference. Two examples.

In the coming weeks I will have a conversation with a local MP. He has graciously agreed to have this chat after just one email I sent to him, and he’s not even my constituency MP at the moment and in that sense, an unlikely respondent. I don’t know where the conversation will go, but it’s an opening, after more than 50 letters to politicians of all flavours in the past year.

Similarly, I know that people in the West Bank and Gaza, who feel desperately alone, are absolutely aware that many in the UK and other countries are standing with them.

I met two Palestinian Christians at a meeting here in Yorkshire just before Christmas. They live and work in Bethlehem and had been able to travel out as part of a special tour. In the meeting, they spoke of their loss of hope on the morning of 7 October – and we should recognise that their hope is not one that is imminent, it is more of a 20-40 year project, or longer!

However, the following weekend, on 14 October when I attended a small protest in Dundee supporting the Palestinians, and others would have attended marches in London or Birmingham or Leeds.. the pictures from Dundee and London were sent out to those friends in Bethlehem who recognised that they were not alone, that people were standing in solidarity with them, that their cause was not being ignored, that they could indeed still have hope.

Does it make enough difference, or enough effective difference? I guess that’s hard to judge, but it is indeed not a time for staying quiet. So, church leaders and members, there is a place and a time for expressing dissent, and we’re are certainly called to do what we can right now and to speak truth into this particular situation, in the media, in conversations with politicians, in our churches and with our friends.

Last week I travel out to Israel/Palestine to listen, absorb and learn more. The weekend I come back, I put that into action through the Amos Trust Run (or Walk!) the Wall initiative.

And the week after I will continue to write to my MP and others, wondering how they can have failed to vote for a ceasefire on 15 November and here we are, a further 13 weeks on, with 18000 more dead and about 40000 more injured.
 

 
David Nelson is a member of a Baptist church in West Yorkshire. He has travelled to Israel and the West Bank twice in the past year and was due to go again on Monday 9 October until the flight was cancelled the day before.

He is a supporter of Amos Trust, a small creative human rights organisation based in the UK and registered as a charity. Their principal area of work is supporting partners in the West Bank and Gaza. 

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