“Drowning In Blood” in the Holy Land

INTRODUCTION

“A lasting solution for the holy land – That does not involve war or high security walls – must come with dialogue, justice, Respect and forgiveness.”

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While we were still celebrating the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who rejects violence and vengeance, there was a new outbreak of war in the Holy Land. A “refusal of dialogue” (Pope Benedict XVI) and a deep-seated hatred between Israeli and the Palestinians, in its Hamas-radical version, is the origin of this bloodshed which, as of this writing, has already caused nearly a thousand lives, more than half of them civilians.

Both sides are to blame for the conflict. Hamas stubbornly persists in not recognizing the State of Israel and decided to break the truce by restarting firing rockets and mortars into Israel which killed a few people over the past weeks. Israel, as usual, retaliated disproportionately: first, with punishing air strikes and, eventually, launching a ground offensive against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The existing humanitarian crisis – a great part due to Israel’s blockade – became so appalling that the President of the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino, remarked that the conditions in Gaza “increasingly resemble a big concentration camp.”

Israel’s assault on the densely populated and impoverished enclave has deepened the suffering of its 1.4 million inhabitants. The parish priest of Holy Family Parish in Gaza City, Monsignor Manuel Musallam, says the Strip is “drowning in blood” as hospitals overflow with patients. In a message read out at Jerusalem’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral, he said: “What you see on television cannot be compared to what is happening. The word love is choking in my throat. We are living like animals in Gaza. We cry and nobody hears us. I am asking God for mercy and pray that the light of Christianity continues to shine in Gaza.”

Israel, in spite of its impressively powerful war machine, will not win this war and ensure its own security and survival as a country by sheer military might, even reducing Gaza to a hip of rubble. The more Palestinian civilians are killed, the more the anger of the Arab world will be inflamed, and the more Israel will be isolated. Actually, the conflict is likely to boost Islamist extremism and, consequently, Hamas, making the Palestinian authority under the leadership of the moderate Fatah lose even more credibility in people’s eyes.

Violence generates more violence and desire for retaliation. As Archbishop Fouad Twal, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said during his homily at the Midnight Christmas Mass in Bethlehem, “War does not produce peace, prisons do not guarantee stability. The highest of walls do not assure security. Neither the aggressor nor the aggressed enjoy peace. Peace is a gift of God and only God can give that peace.”

War and hatred are not solutions to problems. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” according to a famous quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. It is urgent, therefore, to settle politically the controversial issues in order to have a two-state solution – a secure Israel living in peace with a viable Palestinian state – with justice and peace for both peoples. The issues at stake are: the disputed territory, the security, the statute of Jerusalem and the fate of the 4 million refugees expelled from their homes in 1948.

A lasting solution for the Holy Land – that does not involve war or high security walls – must come with dialogue, justice, respect and forgiveness. This is the only path to peace.

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