Dear COA Family,
Some say Oct 7 2023 was the day that changed the world. It is difficult to believe that it had been a year since that eventful day. I remember we had our first SAV Combined Service in St Andrew’s Junior College that morning when I received news that a major incident had occurred in Israel. It came as a huge shock to me. It was to have a significant impact on our church because we had to cancel our planned visit to Israel that year.
But that inconvenience paled in comparison to what took place subsequently.
More than 1,200 men, women and children were killed by Hamas terrorists who had crossed from Gaza, in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, in the country built to guarantee their safety. Another 250 – the youngest only nine months old – were taken hostage. Though around half of them were subsequently released, many have yet to return home. Others never will.
In response, Israel retaliated on a massive scale, with non-stop incursions into Gaza to eliminate the Hamas terrorists, their command structure, weapons and means of fighting. To date, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. It did not stop there. 11 months later, the war expanded to Lebanon and is now threatening to encompass the whole of the Middle East.
What is at the root of this deep mutual antipathy? It is a phenomenon we term as antisemitism – a form of prejudice, discrimination, or hostility directed against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group. This primal hatred of the Jews without a probable cause, simply because they are identified as God’s chosen people, has resulted in attempts to exterminate them throughout history (eg. by the Roman empire and more recently in the Holocaust).
Therefore, in a sense, 7 Oct was not itself a remarkable event but an expression of a deeply-held hatred for the Jewish people that has been long existing. Hamas, as an organisation, has been founded with the aim of eradicating the nation of Israel. It had only found its opportunity to inflict harm on the Jews on a big scale on 7 Oct. A Palestinian journalist for The Guardian explained it like this:
“History did not start on 7 October 2023. While that date may mark a tragedy for Israel, every single day for the last 76 years has marked some sort of catastrophe for Palestinians. My paternal grandparents originally lived in Haifa; in 1948, during the Nakba, they were among the 700,000 Palestinians forced to flee or expelled by Israel.” Arwa Mahdawi
In other words, for her, the tragedy of 7 Oct was not an event in itself but had a context. Israel’s founding as a nation in 1948 was the catastrophic mistake. The decision by the United Nations to carve out a territory for the persecuted Jews to live in their ancient homeland was a huge error of judgment. Israel should never have existed. The solution would be to chase Israel off the land, by all means necessary. Such deep-seated hostility cannot be easily resolved through negotiations.
So how can we as Christians pray?
I believe we can pray for three things which are fully in accordance with God’s will:
1. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6). In a time where not only her enemies seek to undermine her existence, we know that the Lord’s will and word will prevail. He will not let his people be destroyed. This is ultimately not a physical battle but a spiritual one against the evil one at work through the actions of human agents.
2. Pray for the safety and God’s protection of innocent lives. Every person’s life is precious and matters to God, especially the lives of those who cannot defend themselves (Deuteronomy 10:18).
3. Pray for both the Jewish and Palestinian people to come to faith in Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:9). Only Jesus can break down the barriers that exist between people (Ephesians 2:14) and bring true forgiveness and healing. This takes place when Jesus is Lord of our lives.
Revd Ian