The government of Israel, as led by Benjamin Netanyahu and empowered by his right-wing coalition in the Knesset, has become an evil empire. And their chief enablers are in the United States.
This is a hard truth that must be said. And please don’t label me antisemitic for saying it. That would be a lie.
Mark Wingfield
Antisemitism is the hatred of a group of semitic people, not calling out the evil deeds of a government. If there is any antisemitism to be found here, it is from Netanyahu and his allies who carry a hatred for the Palestinian people, who also are Semitic.
And don’t reply, “But what about the Holocaust?” The Holocaust was horrible, immoral, evil, demonic and very real. It sent 6 million Jews to cruel deaths — clearly genocide — and also took the lives of 5 million others. There is no denying the evil of the Holocaust.
But two wrongs do not make a right. The Israeli government does not get a free pass on slaughtering Palestinian civilians because of the Holocaust. Yet that’s exactly the idea too many Americans — including President Joe Biden — have bought hook, line and missile.
“The Israeli government does not get a free pass on slaughtering Palestinian civilians because of the Holocaust.”
Consider this paradox: The U.S. is supplying the materiel Israel is using to bomb Gaza back to the Stone Age and then airdropping aid supplies to the Palestinian survivors as a twisted kind of “We’re sorry for your suffering” card. To riff on an old saw, we are throwing people off a bridge into a rushing river and then running downstream to throw lifelines to the few who survive the plunge.
This is cruel and immoral. But it’s nothing compared to the scorched earth policy of the Netanyahu administration. Riddle me this: How many Hamas leaders have been captured or killed amid the 31,000 Palestinian civilians murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces? And is Israel any more secure today than it was six months ago?
The tragic irony of all this struck me today while listening to radio interviews with Israeli officials trying to deflect blame for the seven relief workers killed by Israeli drones as they hauled emergency food to starving Palestinians in clearly marked vehicles that had been pre-approved to travel into the war zone.
One official called these “unintentional civilian casualties.” How is that any different from the 31,000 people already killed by bombs and Israeli troops? Are they not also “unintentional civilian casualties”?
Another said, paraphrased, “What do you expect; it’s a war zone.” Sorry, but this has happened 196 times. That’s not accidental.
Once again, it looks increasingly like the attack on the World Central Kitchen aid workers wasn’t unintentional after all. By multiple on-the-ground accounts, the convoy was targeted. And by some accounts, Israeli leaders claimed the international aid group was harboring terrorists in the convoy.
When you’re slinging bombs everywhere, everyone looks like a threat. Even people carrying food of mercy.
The explanations Israeli officials are dishing out to the media today stretch the limits of the imagination. They are nonsensical.
“It is past time for pro-Israel Americans to admit Netanyahu is a war criminal who has gone way too far.”
It is past time for pro-Israel Americans to admit Netanyahu is a war criminal who has gone way too far. His own track record in Israeli politics explains his warped thinking that does not value Palestinian lives. This is not new.
We Americans can support Israel’s right to exist while also supporting the right of Palestinians to live. We must not buy into the false narrative that Israel’s peace depends on the deaths of tens of thousands — or even millions — of innocent Palestinians. The only way to justify that is to say those Palestinian civilians are not innocent.
Wake up, America! Jesus is calling. The Prince of Peace has no part in this kind of genocide.
Here are five things we need to do as Christians who believe with God all things are possible:
- Tell our president and our elected officials to stop supplying Israel with weapons that are killing innocent Palestinians.
- Call for the citizens of Israel to remove Netanyahu and acknowledge his strongman tactics are making matters worse rather than better.
- Preach and teach a better theology of Israel and the Jewish people that does not equate a political state with God’s chosen people.
- Advocate for immediate relief for the people of Gaza, whether through a cease-fire or some other form of getting aid to those who are starving and dying right now.
- Work to imagine a better future in which both Palestinians and Jews may live safely in their homelands.
Netanyahu has led Israel into its own form of modern-day captivity to extremist ideas. The persecuted have become the persecutors. And like the message long ago when the Ark of the Covenant was taken and the law of God removed from their presence, we must declare that the glory has departed from the national government of Israel, which has forgotten the Commandments they claim to hold dear.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves and Why Churches Need to Talk About Sexuality.
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