Where is the bravery, the inner strength?

As the Israel-Hamas war drags on, there seems to be no forgiveness, no sense of servanthood, no transformative approach, writes David Nelson. We must pray and shout for justice 

I drafted a small article on 1 April, alluding to the fact that things in Israel/Palestine were so improbable that it must be a joke. But a further 30-40 days on from there, we know it is anything but a joke, and hasn’t been for any of the 200+ days of the latest conflict.

You’ll know the headlines as well as I do. The ceasefire that the world wants to see, that the world has voted for, is being ignored by Israel, and conveniently forgotten by… everyone who voted for it! The country that effectively made the ceasefire possible, has chosen to continue to supply weapons to one of the parties. Help is being given to civilians in ways that sometimes doesn't actually help them (airdrops, parcels left in the sea) and is anyway known to be pretty ineffective. The understanding reached that more aid trucks would enter through the land crossings has turned out to be almost worthless – though of course every truck that does get through is welcomed and remains absolutely vital.

I’d like to think there might actually be some positive news in the situation, one of these days, but it feels like hope against hope though, doesn’t it?

Even the announced ‘good’ news in early April of the IDF withdrawal from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after a fortnight’s siege, is misdirection, because behind it there is a terrible story of civilians in Gaza. For two weeks the extent of the Israeli operation was hidden, but a journalist writing from the hospital reported: ‘I have been working non-stop for the past 6 months covering what is happening in Gaza, but what I saw while visiting Al-Shifa hospital was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed before’. I won’t write here the details that followed in that particular testimony. Suffice to say they are incredibly distressing.

I’m not making a case for one side against another. But I am saying that today I’m really mad about what is happening. We should all be mad about it.

I spent a week in Israel at the end of February, because deep down I cannot complain that Israelis don’t recognise the majority of those around them as normal people who want normal lives, if I also cannot take the time, make the effort, to ‘see’ the Israelis. It is not a happy time to be there of course. In the length of my seven-day trip, I witnessed at very close quarters the large political demonstrations of a Saturday night, I was six miles away from the Gaza Strip when air strikes were happening on the Jabalia refugee camp, I saw the awful depth of sadness within so many in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv.

In longer conversations with people in Ashkelon, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, maybe four or five times each day I heard of the depths of the trauma felt by Israelis, the depth of their fear, the depth of their distrust. I cannot deny their lived experience, yet as possibly the only British visitor to Israel that week without family or work ties there, some of what I heard was hard to accept, to believe, it defied logic. There is always propaganda in wars, and the Israeli media seems, to me, to be hugely effective at the messaging within the country and also outside.

This is simply a failure of treating people equally. Whether that is a failure wholly propagated or enabled by governments in the region or around the world I cannot say, but certainly world leaders are not doing enough to stem the tide, let alone turn the tide.

Over Easter I reflected that at the top in Israel/Palestine there seemed no forgiveness, there is no sense of servanthood, no transformative approach. One month on I am absolutely certain that these are the things we must call for in our own leaders, because if Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t going to voluntarily show bravery or decency, then someone somewhere better get on with it or the future will be even bleaker.

It’s not a joke. We must pray, we must shout, for justice. Right now.



Image | Tel Aviv, 23 Feb 2024, outside the Museum of Art, in ‘Hostages Square’
 

David Nelson is a member of a Baptist church in West Yorkshire. He has travelled to Israel and the West Bank on 3 occasions in the past 18 months 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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