On the edge of the abyss
 

After recently spending eight days in Israel, Baptist church member David Nelson offers this reflection   

It’s time to STOP. It’s time for us to STOP. For us to STOP normalising the tragedy. For us to STOP accepting what is happening. For us to STOP allowing our government to get away with offering platitudes.

For us to STOP being so silent.

For us to START asking if it is simply conscionable that people can say it is ok, nay, a duty to starve another people. To START asking for some bravery and some action from our government and parliamentarians.

To START pushing back against what is clearly objectionable on every single level.

Yes, us.

Four weeks ago I came back from eight days in Israel. I’ve written before about my previous experiences of talking with people there, and also of conversations within Palestinian East Jerusalem and in parts of the West Bank. I can’t speak to people in Gaza because, well, you know...

But at the end of March I sat in boiling temperatures and looked across the border fence between Israel and Gaza - and I can only say that the heat of the day was as nothing to the intensity of the view before me.

Many people have asked me how my trip went, and to none of them can I really give an adequate answer because in even writing this, I am finding it so difficult to get the right words. I cannot find adequate emotions for the whole week away.

Yet the four hours I spent in the small, nothing-doing Israeli town of Sderot and at the border lookouts were profoundly awful. I have seen far too many images of children in white shrouds and crushed buildings and terrified festival-goers in the past 18 months. I only view these for a minute or so a day and it is therefore my good fortune not to be living in those borderlands.

But Sderot ... and particularly the lookouts over Gaza … the first hand experience is … and again I can’t easily find the words.

I took some photographs but have been extremely careful who sees them. Because they shock. Yes, it’s war and war is unpleasant and we can’t restrict where it takes place – the view here of grey destruction set just behind the lovely deep greens and yellows of the meadows in southern Israel makes a hugely uncomfortable contrast.

But what is the purpose of this war? Of course, Sderot is a place where tens of people were killed at the hands of Hamas and the other factions on 7 October 2023. But when does ‘war’ become something else, something that is a loss of reason, pure vengeance, something beyond?

Which leads me back to the ‘duty to starve’ comment. In the rush of all that happened 18 months ago, many things were said that were uncomfortable for us all to hear. This was inevitably, maybe we could say understandably, from officials in Israel, but also from politicians here and in the US and elsewhere.

Within Israel though, the abhorrent comments have continued from some government ministers. The one about starving people was two weeks ago. In the first days of this month, the aim to get hostages back was openly dropped in favour of other goals. The specific aim to remove the entire population of around 2 million people from Gaza has become mainstream in some circles and embraced within parts of Israeli society. The desire to do something similar in the West Bank is very clear.

I know it can feel hopeless. I know people feel helpless. I know we feel there’s nothing we can do from here, or we allow the sense that this will never be resolved to become part of us - especially during our own lifetimes. The media now only brings the war to our attention when something especially grim takes place, or if someone from a Western country is involved, or when it’s a quiet news day on other fronts. That’s if we can cope with listening to the diet of generally tough news anyway – many of my friends can’t.

Some people challenge why I don’t show the same level of passion for other conflicts – indeed, there are plenty to choose from. Some consider that I’m speaking from a platform that doesn’t see the Israeli pain and fear and vital need for security, and especially the over-riding certainty that God gave that nation this precious land.

The trouble is I don’t see our God wanting this dreadful war. For such vengeance. For such inhumanity. For peoples’ hopes and dreams to be crushed all the time. The sadness in Bethlehem, Ramallah and all the Palestinian towns is far more deep-seated than it was a year ago. And yes, I have also spent time in Israel talking to people there to hear their stories and learn from their perspectives – after all I don’t live there, and I cannot deny their lived experiences whether they sit comfortably with me or not.

As Christians we are called to engage with the world, to pray for the world, to pray for the people in our own communities and in others, to point to a better future. There are 100,000 Christians in the West Bank and Gaza, but let’s not forget their far more populous neighbours are suffering just as terribly. And quite simply, whoever it is, can we really accept it is ok for people to be intentionally starved or deprived of medicine or shelter or water in this way?

If we are not praying for some change, then why not? If churches are not looking to speak into the situation, to call out the injustices there (and elsewhere), and especially where they are so clearly on display, then why not? If we are not engaging with some of this alongside the people who live next door to us (secular, Muslim, Jewish) then why not?

Perhaps as we gather at Assembly this month, we should set aside time praying about this on a personal level or as community, seeking what the Lord might call each of us to do? You don’t have to go to the Gazan border fence to feel the hurt of the people in the land that we call Holy. You don’t have to be pro-Palestinian, and you definitely mustn’t be anti-Israeli.

But you do have to pray for peace, for justice and reconciliation, for hope – and it is our responsibility to call out where those things are not happening. Otherwise, what exactly is the gospel for? It’s time to pray STOP!


 
 Image | ‘On the edge of the abyss’ Taken at a protest in HaBima Square, Tel Aviv, 28 March 2025

David Nelson is a member of a Baptist church in West Yorkshire. He has travelled to Israel and the West Bank on four occasions in the past 30 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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