Recent U.N. reports about extensive starvation and incipient famine in Gaza spurred me to write this article about the current crisis there and to suggest how we should respond.
Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian journalist and
political commentator. Last week, I
happened to come across her August 14 newsletter with the heading that I have
used for the title of this blog post.**
A year earlier (on 8/18/24), Johnstone boldly posted
this statement with which most USAmericans will strongly disagree:
The US is the single most murderous and tyrannical regime on the planet and retains its power by creating a mind-controlled dystopia where the public is brainwashed with propaganda, and its politicians fearmonger about the nation falling to "communism" or "fascism" if you cast the wrong vote.
Granted, Johnstone’s statement is somewhat
exaggerated, but Israel’s war against Hamas occurring in Gaza, which has led to
the worsening of the chronic hunger/malnutrition situation there, is due partly
to the multifaceted U.S. support of Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.
The U.S. has provided substantial financial assistance to the State of Israel since its formation in 1948, as well as additional funding and
military support since October 2023. In contrast to most current issues, especially
on the U.S. funding of Israel’s warfare in Gaza, I stand in opposition to both
political Parties.
Perhaps now Johnstone’s 2024 statement could/should
be updated to refer to fearmongering about the U.S. falling to radical Islam (such
as is seen in Hamas).
The famine in Gaza is due to genocide, not war. Some news sources, such as BBC and Al Jazeera,
refer to what is currently going on as the “Israel-Gaza war.” But that term has
been rightly rejected by theologian Miguel De La Torre in “This is Not a “War,”
his perceptive August 14 essay.
The designation which should be used is genocide,
for as De La Torre asserts, “Israel, with the military backing of the United
States, is engaged in the genocide of the Palestinian people—wiping out those
who refuse to self-deport so settler colonialists can complete the full
occupation of Palestine.”
A week after De La Torre’s essay, “The
Conversation” posted, “Israel’s plan for massive new West Bank settlement would
make a Palestinian state impossible,” (see
here).
“Israel’s razing of Gaza is … about the erasure of a people, a culture and a history that expose the lies used to justify the Israeli state.” This is the sub-headline of Chris Hedges’s hard-hitting article in opposition to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people from 1948 until the present.
Reflecting on the way the Palestinians have been mistreated by Israel for more than 75 years now, Hedges expresses the type of anger that Johnstone calls for in her lament, and at the head of his August 22 “report,” Hedges uses the following image of “Beelzebibi” by Mr. Fish (cartoonist Dwayne Booth).
“Be angry but do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Yes, the New Testament
admonishes us to be angry, and the genocide-induced famine in Gaza is an
appropriate target for our anger as Johnstone asserts.
As a pacifist, I do not agree with the concept of
just war, for I don’t think one can participate in war without sinning.
How can killing people be sinless when Jesus commanded us to love our enemies?
But I think there can and should be what can be called just anger.
Many of us want to show concern,
sympathy/empathy, compassion, and so on to people in need. But in many cases,
anger is more appropriate than merely expressing shared grief and shedding tears.
Sympathetic tears are appropriate when there are
natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, droughts, and the like.
But when widespread suffering is deliberately caused by humans, anger is the
better response.
That is Johnstone’s point: the death and
destruction in Gaza is entirely human-made. That is the reason the dire
situation there elicits our anger rather than our tears.
If there is any hope for Gaza, it will come by increasing
numbers of people heeding the words of theologian Augustine of Hippo: “Hope
has two beautiful daughters, their names are Anger and Courage. Anger that
things are the way they are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they
are.”
_____
** Here
is information about the three articles I cite in this blog post:
Gaza
Doesn't Need Our Tears, It Needs Our Anger (Aug. 14) by Caitlin
Johnstone (b. 1974), an Australian journalist and activist.
This
is Not a “War”: Israel and Hamas by the Numbers - Good Faith Media (Aug.
14) by Miguel De La Torre (b. 1958), a Cuban American who is a professor at
Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. (I am pleased that he is also one
of my Thinking Friends.)
Israel’s
Assassination of Memory - The Chris Hedges Report (Aug.
22) by Chris Hedges (b. 1956), a USAmerican journalist, author, and commentator.
