Reading Mitri Raheb on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

I’m deeply self-conscious about reading this book in public today.

The air is thick with tension after the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel over the weekend. My friends and family include rabbis and the Jewish faithful, Christian Zionists, Palestinian Christians, Muslims and every kind of secular human. Reading this book would not please some of the people I care about on any given day, and now it’s worse:

The (Hamas) militants infiltrated 22 Israeli towns and army bases and took civilians and soldiers hostages, many of whom they brought back to Gaza. At least 700 Israelis had been reported dead by officials as of Sunday. Andrés R. Martínez and Emma Bubola for The New York Times 10-9-23

It happened on Simchat Torah and the Supernova Festival in the Negev desert was one of the targets killing concert goers in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Yes this is terrorism. And also there has been terrorism on every side for as long as anyone can remember. The freshness of the latest attacks do not negate the decades of attacks on the innocent.

And so I read Mitri Raheb’s book today – with its provocative title – knowing that the whole premise of the book – that there can be no justice in the Middle East as long as settler colonization exists – pierces souls in a different ways.

Terrorism can never be theologically or historically justified. And . . . and when indigenous people lose their land and heritage, they often fight back. When the vulnerable are pushed around long enough, they fight back. When injustice crushes generations of people because of their skin color or heritage or religious beliefs, they fight back.

What happened in Israel Saturday was unspeakably evil. And we who live on colonized land must acknowledge our part in this evil.

This is not exactly a colorful Columbus Day Parade blog post, is it? But it’s true. We who believe in the message of Jesus, for example, are called to repent of our participation in anything that destroys other children of God. Our Jewish siblings have Yom Kippur. Our Muslim siblings have Ashura. We Christians have Lent and Good Friday. But we need to acknowledge our complicity every day.

We American Christians are naive in our understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East. And we American Christians are naive in our understanding of what happened to the First Nations where we live. We can do better. We have to at least try to understand each other.

May God bring mercy and peace, and make us agents of that mercy and peace.

Image of Mitri Raheb’s new book. Dr. Raheb is a Lutheran Christian pastor in Bethlehem.