OUR SHAME ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING IN GAZA

Fr Billy Swan

Almost every day for the past few weeks, news bulletins have shown images of Palestinian people in the Gaza strip jostling desperately at food distribution centers with bowls and saucepans in their hands hoping to receive something to feed themselves and their families. They are a people slowly starving to death. They are without basic healthcare, adequate food and water since a total blockade was enforced by Israel as part of its war with Hamas. On top of a lack of food, water and medicine, there is a lack of safety with no where to go to avoid being seriously injured or killed. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected. It is a human catastrophe and humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, international institutions were set up to help prevent human catastrophes caused by war, from ever happening again. These institutions were meant to transcend national interests in favour of global peace, justice and human rights. What is becoming evident is that these institutions have failed the Palestinian people. And because this is true, it leaves countries isolated in varying degrees of response to the crisis and without a concerted will to address the humanitarian disaster we see before us. To our collective shame, there is an absence of political will to help these people in desperate need. And when national interests are prioritized ahead of a humanitarian response to a starving people beyond our own borders, people die because of shameful indifference.

As I watch these disturbing images of starving people, I ask myself ‘what can we do?’ I refuse to accept that the answer to this question is ‘nothing’. This is not an option for a Christian or for the Church. There are two possible responses that we can make.

The first is to unite in a scream to heaven that the treatment of these people and our indifference towards them is ‘WRONG!’ Have we lost our ability to weep for a starving people? Are we so distracted and busy with other things that we have no time to speak up for them? The late Pope Francis once wrote that only eyes that have been cleansed by tears can see properly (Christ is Alive). If we don’t weep for the Palestinian people right now then not only is our vision distorted, but we have become blind.

The second thing we can do is to be more convinced why the treatment of these people is so horrifically wrong. These people are human beings. They are made in the image and likeness of God. They have needs. They have families. They have rights that are being shamefully ignored. They have dreams for a better life and for a future they hope to enjoy if they survive this horror. For Christians, these are our brothers and sisters. They are fellow human beings and, like the rest of humanity, we are jointly responsible for their welfare. Having seen these images of their dire situation, if we haven’t lost sleep thinking of them then we ought to. We must allow their terrible plight to impact on us. We must not turn away for if we do, we become complicit in a deafening silence that will lead to our own condemnation like the rich man who was blind to the needs of the poor Lazarus at his door.

I conclude with a reference to this Sunday’s Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. It is a scene from the Last Supper when Jesus left us the great commandment to ‘Love one another as I have loved you’ and how the love we have for each other will lead many to faith in Him: ‘By this love…everyone will know that you are my disciples’.

Do the starving people of Palestine see this love from the Christian West right now? Or do they feel abandoned and forgotten to such an extent that faith in Christ for them seems like a cruel joke?

Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that ‘Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams'. He is right. Yet what is even worse is a lack of love shown in inaction and cold indifference that has turned dreams into a living nightmare for the people of Palestine. Helping them out of this nightmare can only begin when enough of us unite in condemning the treatment of these people because of their innate human dignity that must be respected.