Israel needs to find new prophets
The killing of aid workers in Gaza is a biblical abomination, writes George Pitcher
Perhaps it’s the chilling line, attributed to Josef Stalin, that “one death is a tragedy – a million is a statistic”. But, as the death toll builds inexorably in Gaza, it’s the individual stories of violent death that cut through the politics to sear the soul.
A couple of months ago it was six-year-old Hind Rajab, who died after making a truly heartbreaking call for help from a car under Israeli fire, among the bodies of those who had come to rescue her. There is a sort of rage of injustice that burns when one writes or reads those words.
Now, it’s the seven aid workers, three of them British, obliterated in a seemingly targeted air strike on their vehicles. God knows, it’s bad enough witnessing the suffering of innocent Gazan civilians. But there is a peculiarly dark irony when it’s those who perish in trying to bring some relief, in love and peace, to that suffering, in their quaintly named World Central Kitchen (WCK) vans.
Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “These things happen in war.”
Before the lazy whataboutery of online trolls chimes in that what I’ve just said is unconscious (at best) antisemitism, it was the same when Hamas committed its unspeakable acts last October in southern Israel, which triggered this war.
Who can forget – or would want to – the young Jewish woman, terribly traumatised by the horrors she had witnessed at the attack on the joyful music festival she had attended with her friends, sobbing on ITV News: “I don’t want revenge, I want peace.”
Abomination of biblical proportions
These are the stories of crushed and extinguished human lives that speak of an unfolding abomination in the middle east of biblical proportions. And, depressingly, with Israel’s assassination of Iranian officials in Syria, it can only get much, much worse before that young woman, Millet Ben-Haim, has any hope for what she publicly wished for on television.
In one sense, hers is a prophetic voice, as are little Hind Rajab’s on a cellphone and all those who speak of relief of human suffering, such as those at WCK. As with the prophets of old, they are voices calling out in the wilderness of cruelty, exile and war, stating not just how it is, but how it should be. They speak truth to power.
Departing from divine law
In that, they follow the tradition of the Old Testament prophets of the Hebrew bible, condemning Israel (along with Hamas), which departs in wickedness from the ways of its divine laws, from indeed the ways of peace. Jeremiah was a massive critic of Israel and warned of the destruction of Jerusalem.
Isaiah warned of the catastrophes that would greet Israel and Judah if they continued to “work in darkness.” Amos predicted “violent military action” followed by exile for Israelites if they matched the immorality of their neighbours.
And so it goes on. The Hebrew bible is packed with warnings that Israel will reap what it sows in violence. Netanyahu, meanwhile, from among all this prophetic literature, prefers to reference a moment in the first Book of Samuel when God, through his prophet Samuel, tells Saul to punish the insurgency from Egypt of the Amalekites: “Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants.”
Voices crying out for justice
No one can accuse Netanyahu and his far-right Likud party of not taking that injunction seriously. And yet the Palestinian and Jewish voices I cite above cry out, if not for vengeance, then for justice. Those are prophetic voices that echo, in their way, the consequences of violence cited by the ancients, the likes of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah.
Perhaps the ancient Israelites’ most celebrated prophet was Moses. The Jewish biblical book of law, Deuteronomy, traditionally ascribes its authorship to Moses, though modern scholars claim another, anonymous scribe. In any event, it contains the line known to Christian church congregants as the summary of the law, repeated by Jesus of Nazareth: “Hear, O Israel… you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart…”
Warning as well as commandment
That’s a warning as well as a commandment and is coupled in the Christian gospel with the Levitical injunction to “love your neighbour as yourself.” To suggest that Israel has observed that particular line of law from Leviticus is to stretch credibility.
The prophetic voice – the one that starts “Hear, O Israel” – has not been joined by western nations. Rishi Sunak’s “clearly there are questions that need to be answered” barely cuts it. President Joe Biden is late to the party with with his “outrage”.
The time for soft diplomacies in this region is long gone. As the voices of victims in Gaza are progressively silenced, we need prophetic voices, as they did of old, to warn Israel of the consequences of its actions.
It may even be that the time for politics in Gaza is over. And a time for prophecy has begun. For the moment, it’s a mystery where its voices will emerge and be heard.
George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest