I am grateful to two people I have never met.
The first is Ali Khan, a physician in Little Rock, Ark. I became acquainted with his advocacy for Palestinians, which has helped draw attention to their genocide at the hands of Israel.
The second is Peter Beinart, whom I have seen a few times on YouTube and once on The Daily Show. He is a practicing Jew who is deeply rooted in his faith, the history of his faith and the history of his people.
I just finished reading his short, compelling book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. It has taught and enlightened me, and it has encouraged me to speak out about the genocide in Gaza.
Michael Chancellor
Attempting to understand the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine has been fraught with challenges, making it easy to fall into traps and misinterpretations when trying to get to the truth. I want to avoid antisemitism because I never want to give the impression that I have hatred for any group of people or nation.
As a believer, I also want to respect theological positions that I do not share, as long as I believe they are held in good faith by people of goodwill. I am not a premillennial dispensationalist, nor do I believe I have a hardwired loyalty to the nation of Israel because it somehow embodies the chosen people of Abraham.
My faith is Christocentric, viewing Jesus as both the Messiah promised throughout the Old Testament and the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.
Beinart, whose identity is deeply rooted in his Jewish faith, has helped me find a clarity and a peace that is congruent with my biblical understanding and moral values.
Israel cannot be covered in the ancient garb of “chosen” when it is a secular state today.
Here is what I have learned: Israel cannot be covered in the ancient garb of “chosen” when it is a secular state today. For me, that just doesn’t work. I have a deep respect for those Jews whose families came through the Holocaust; I cannot fathom the terror visited upon Jews during the Third Reich.
However, Beinart helped me see something I should have picked up on a long time ago. I have spent years working with both pseudo victims and real victims. Part of my work has been helping people move past the real traumas in their lives and emerge with hope and a sense of agency about their lives and decisions.
Beinart asserts the modern state of Israel plays the victim card without ever acknowledging it can also be the oppressor. In the current war, which began Oct. 7, 2023, the Hamas attack was cruel, but what followed at the hands of Israel has gone beyond cruel.
This is rooted in a false narrative that Israel will never be safe until it has defeated all its enemies. In his research, Beinart notes radicalism is the result of oppressed people being shut out of the process of shaping their own futures and well-being.
I know there are huge gaps in my understanding of movements and radicalism, but Beinart has given me a clarity and an understanding I could not grasp on my own, simply because I have never been oppressed.
Frankly, I am part of the oppressing class in America. Allowing that insight to settle in has helped me turn away from the fantasy narrative of good cowboys and bad Indians.
Some people today will call such an insight “woke,” but it is true.
Some people today will call such an insight “woke,” but it is true.
What Beinart suggests could have rewritten the bloody history of many nations — if, instead of war, different groups were brought together into institutions of power.
The plight of the Palestinians today, and since 1948, has been one of being pushed off their historic lands, shut out of a new government and a new nation that never included them. They lost their historic lands, their way of life and their voice, and over a very short period of time, they became victims of oppression at the hands of Israel.
One of the key concepts I gleaned from Beinart is his teaching about the festivals deeply rooted in the Jewish faith. He contends their purpose was to help Jews remember. In remembering, they were meant to remember being victims of oppression. God wanted them to take this lesson and never be the oppressor.
Like so many other lessons Israel failed to learn, this one has brought us to this genocide.
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, six years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison and now is a therapist in private practice in Taylor, Texas.
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