By: Mike Kelly
Can there be any morality in this war? Can there be any right and wrong in this war? Where can the Believer go to find some sort of truth in all this? And what is our response to what we find?
The media seems to be almost universally on the side of the Palestinians. But how can that be right morally when you know the history of their government.
Yasser Arafat was a terrorist and head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) dedicated to erasing Israel and the Jews from the face of the earth.
He was later elected President of Palestine on that same platform. Then while in office he personally stole over 1 billion dollars… BILLION …that was given by the world and Israel to help the Palestinian people. No wonder they live in poverty. Their own elected officials ripped them off.
The PA/PLO gave way to Hamas. Gazans voted Hamas into power in a landslide electoral victory in 2007.
Hamas immediately took the money donated for Palestinian relief and used it to buy weapons. Basically, Hamas burned it all to the ground, stole every penny given in sympathy and turned it into blood money for weapons and weapon’s smuggling.
It needs to be said that the Palestinians voted for this government and got about what they should have expected. Does that relieve the believer of the responsibility to care and help?
If it did, we’d be turning our backs on what Christ did for us when he bore our sins and their penalty on that cross.
And then there’s Israel and its part in all this both historically and currently. As Christians, we are told that we stand with Israel because they are forever linked with the spiritual promises of God.
We have been grafted in and our Messiah brought us closer to Israel. Maybe. I think there is another point of view on this that is called the Substitutionary. Whether you accept that or not, it doesn’t negate Israel’s government’s treatment of the Arabs.
After the 6 Day War in 1967, Israel occupied and kept a lot of land belonging to others. Eventually they gave most of it back, but they launched a large settlement effort in the West Bank to secure a permanent foothold.
There are now hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in the Palestinians territory of the West Bank. Palestinians consider them a provocation.
In addition, Israel built a wall around Gaza to control travel and commerce in Palestinian areas further deepening the humanitarian crises in The West Bank.
There is much more on how they treated the Arabs either directly or indirectly through laws, government assistance, just plain nastiness. Israeli arrogance against the Arabs is nothing God would be proud of in His people.
So where should a Believer stand? On whose side is moral right? I don’t think there is any moral right involved in this war…or, for that matter, in most any war. There is no moral high ground for either state to stand on.
And that is the crux of it for the Believer. Our role is to pray for peace, to aid the efforts for peace, and to help the victims of war regardless of which side of the border they are on.
We aren’t called to side with either for neither is free from the taint of bigotry, hatred, and greed. We are called to be the light in the darkness.
We are called to help others find the peace of God in Jesus Christ and that occurs when we care for our neighbors with gentleness and love.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.
