Slamming Israel is hopeless - we must turn on western leaders
An open letter from Christian Aid finally makes the point, writes George Pitcher
My eye is caught by a full-page ad in The Times this week, which is an open letter to the prime minister and foreign secretary, demanding that the UK government calls for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and halts its supply of arms there. It’s signed, in this order, by Christian Aid, Global Justice Now, Oxfam and War On Want.
Its language is unequivocal: “[W]e have grave concerns about the use of arms supplied by the UK to Israel, in a potential breach of international humanitarian law… Emboldened, [Israel] continues to pursue what amounts to a policy of collective punishment against the people of Gaza and has now rejected the right of statehood for the Palestinian people, the stated policy of the UK government for decades.”
It concludes: “A ceasefire was needed yesterday to stop the slaughter of civilians in Gaza. The UK’s complicity must end.”
Of the signatories, only the first one is overtly Christian. The clue is in its name, Christian Aid, though the current British government will take comfort in the assumption of many of its natural voters that it is habitually a supporter of “leftie” causes.
Global Justice Now is a secular campaigning group, whose closest brush with faith is probably the Jubilee 2000 third world debt-cancellation campaign, which coincided with the Catholic Church’s celebration of the Great Jubilee at the millennium. Oxfam needs no introduction and is secular. War On Want is a poverty-alleviation charity and is proudly pro-Palestinian as well as secular.
So the only avowedly Christian voice in this letter is Christian Aid’s. The question has to be why that voice is not more widely heard, more united in a cry, if not for vengeance, then in defence of innocent civilians being slaughtered on a daily basis in Gaza.
Bishops find their voice
To their credit, Anglican bishops have found their voice, collectively and individually, and hardened their pressures on Israel since the relatively pusillanimous statement from the House of Bishops at the start of the conflict, triggered by the terrorist atrocities of Hamas on Israeli soil in October. The Pope, too, has been firmly consistent in his demands for ceasefire.
The bulk of this effort seems to be aimed at persuading Israel to desist in its aggression against Gaza, which is reasonable enough, but in practical terms is whistling in the winds of war. Relatively little attention has been aimed at what the aforementioned charities call the UK’s (and by extension the West’s) “complicity” in their letter.
This is shameful and one wonders why it’s happening. One atmospheric reason must be fear of feeding a strong undercurrent of western antisemitism, which conflates an attack on Israel with global Jewry. A historical sensitivity to this throughout what we might, in this context, call Christendom is understandable.
Pragmatic politics
Another reason is pragmatic politics. The UK is bound to be conscious of US support for Israel and how that might develop if Donald Trump succeeds in his bid to regain the White House in November, with the support of the American Christian right.
Neither of these influences over British prime minister Rishi Sunak or his foreign secretary Lord Cameron should prevail. The slaughter of Gazans on a daily basis, which the “immediate ceasefire” open letter puts at a grotesque grand total of 26,000, the majority being non-combatant women and children, while close to two million have been forced from their homes, is an abomination of biblical proportions.
The threshold of debate over moral equivalence with the Hamas massacres of Israelis has long been passed. The killing not only has to stop, but has to be stopped. The gospel’s Beatitudes have it that peace-makers are blessed, “for they shall be called children of God”. And that holds whether the children are Jewish, Muslim or Christian.
Peace-making can be messy
But peace-making isn’t just an irenic activity, conducted in soft calls for ceasefires. Peace-making can be messy, calling political leaders to account for their lack of resolve, for their inhumanity in prioritising politics over peace and for weasel words such as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
It’s time for those who profess a religion of peace to turn on their political leaders and demand that they abandon words in favour of pro-activity that is aimed at bringing to an end the horror that is Gaza. Never has it been so true that history will be the judge of these leaders.
Calling for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to de-escalate his war is a pointless – and, it has to be said, very safe – waste of time. It’s time for those who profess peace to turn on their elected leaders to demand that peace.
Is that a duty for those of Christian faith? Is it consistent with the demands of that faith? And can it work?
To invert the three words spoken during a very civil conflict in Europe by Margaret Thatcher, who loathed terrorism in all its forms: Yes. Yes. Yes.
George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest.