Reflections on October 7 Anniversary

Please read the whole paper before responding.

Today marks October 7, the day of Hamas’ genocidal attack on Israel, killing 1139 civilians, taking 251 hostages. It resulted in Israel’s war to exterminate Hamas in Gaza. We saw what ensued – except if you refused to see the live-streaming on social media and news outlets – the destruction and death in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in the name of self-defence.

Six months later Prof. Goldberg, specialist Holocaust and genocide researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, concluded, “Yes, it is genocide”. The title of an article he wrote on 17 April 2024 in Hebrew to Israelis, translated and published in English. He could not remain silent. For a Jewish-Israeli Holocaust researcher, publicly calling it collective genocidal punishment of Palestinians, is like a Hebrew prophet speaking truth power – to Netanyahu and his right-wing messianic government.

Giving the legal definition, he details examples of internationally recognized genocides in recent history and explains why what Israel has done (is doing) is genocide. “It is so difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that, and despite all our efforts to think otherwise, after six months of brutal war we can no longer avoid this conclusion. Jewish history will henceforth be stained with the mark of Cain for the ‘most horrible of crimes’ which cannot be erased from its forehead. As such, this is the way it will be viewed in history’s judgment for generations to come.” Very strong words. History will tell.

The IDF uses AI (artificial intelligence) systems in selecting targets and carrying out assassinations. “The fact that the military allowed, for example, the killing of 300 innocent people and the destruction of an entire residential quarter in order to take out one Hamas brigade commander shows that military targets are almost incidental targets for killing civilians and that every Palestinian in Gaza is a target for killing. This is the logic of genocide”, says Goldberg.

(That’s now happening in Beirut, Lebanon: mass civilian massacre, children included, to kill one Hezbollah leader with 2000-pound US bunker bombs. Imagine if it were the other way round: if entire Israeli residential blocks were wiped out to get one Israeli leader, if Tel Aviv was flattened like Gaza with over 40,000 dead? The outrage would’ve been deafening. The response might well have been nuclear bombs, plunging the whole world into the darkness of death.)

He goes on to say, “It is genocide because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsions, displacement, famine, executions, the wiping out of cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanisation of the Palestinians – create an overall picture of genocide, of a deliberate conscious crushing of Palestinian existence in Gaza. In the way we normally understand such concepts, Palestinian Gaza as a geographical-political-cultural-human complex no longer exists. Genocide is the deliberate annihilation of a collective or part of it – not all of its individuals.”

Goldberg rejected all the push-back in a later interview (11 July 2024), stating “this is exactly what genocide looks like”. How blind are those who will not see, he emphasises. The causes are collective Israeli trauma, a victim mindset with distorted reality (IDF censors what Israeli public sees), dehumanising Palestinians as animals in Apartheid Israel (‘the elephant in the room’), IDF officers and soldiers gloating over the destruction of “the Amalekites” (a must see documentary), the war crimes treatment of Palestinian prisoners (e.g., anal rape) in a network of torture camps, empowered by the ideology of Netanyahu’s ethno-Jewish-nationalist Zionism: “From the sea to the river will be under Israeli sovereignty” (Likud Party Charter of 1977, on which they came to power). It’s ethnic cleansing, a long-term project – now the opportunity to complete it. All enabled by the US, the UK, and EU.

Gaza has been the most widely known live-streamed genocide in history, yet the most denied. The Zionist logic is, “Nothing justifies what Hamas did on Oct 7, but Oct 7 justifies everything the IDF has done since”. This ‘logic’ is ideological immorality.

The growing number of international Jewish and Israeli commentators and citizens are speaking loud and clear. “Not in my name”. “It’s genocide”. “Don’t justify it with the holocaust, that’s an insult to holocaust survivors” (survivor Stephen Kapos). These Jews all reject with contempt the Zionist labels of ‘antisemitic’, ‘self-hating Jews’, ‘leftist terrorist supporters’. They are, in fact, loving Israel by speaking truth to power with moral clarity in the dust of (ideologically) distorted reality. They believe, one day, history will vindicate them. God sees all of it. God knows. God will judge. We will all see.

Personally, I want it to be known where I stand, for integrity of conscience.
 
A) I stand by what I said on 29 December 2023, my summary response to the crisis as a follower of Jesus. Reading this, one will see I’m not “one-sided”. I stand for justice.

B) Before and since that paper, my journey has been ongoing grief, lament, prayer and protest in the courts of heaven. More so as things have unfolded. I weep with Messiah over Jerusalem/Israel/Palestine for not knowing what brings peace (Luke 19:41-43). I weep with Jesus over the devastation of death (John 11:35), reversing it in reconciliation and resurrection, breaking down the dividing walls of hostility, making peace (Ephesians 2:14-17). I pray Jeremiah’s words daily, “My head is a spring of water, my eyes a fountain of tears! I weep day and night for the slain” (9:1). God, hear our cry! God, have mercy! God, intervene! In your judgements, remember mercy (Habakkuk 3:2).
 
C) In my search for reality (undistorted), for moral clarity (biblical truth and justice), I listened to Jewish voices – Israeli and international – from the first sparks of Zionism to the history of settlement in the land (with radically divergent narratives of conflict and conquest), to the current crisis (many say it’s not war, it’s genocide). My list of names, notes, comments, tweets, references, hyperlinks, is now numerous. I would love to quote many of them for all to read, to see what Jews/Israelis say, those who are not under the blinding spiritual power of Netanyahu’s ideological racist Zionism (whites under Apartheid in South Africa know that power). I became convinced that “yes, it is genocide”, not only by the many voices and experiences of Palestinians – with appeals from Palestinian Christians – but by the likes of Prof Goldberg. I too cannot be silent. I must speak up and stand for justice.

D) I lament the silence of my fellow Evangelical, Charismatic, Pentecostal pastors. “The issue is complex, emotive, divisive, it’s better not mentioned publicly”. But if we keep silent, false beliefs fill the void. The call of spiritual leadership is to pastor people by discipling them in following Jesus with his worldview/beliefs:  To live God’s kingdom (justice, Matthew 6:33) as Jesus did, in daily life, in all socio-political-ethical issues that arise (e.g., human sexuality, migration, etc).  How do we think through and disciple people to respond biblically to the Middle East crisis?  That’s been completely clouded by Christian Zionism (birthed by Dispensationalism in the 1840s), which amounts to uncritical support of the modern state of Israel: “the fulfilment of prophecy of God’s people”. Many books show how Christian Zionism is not biblical theology, rather an ideological legitimization of Israel in what it does. Pastors should lead and disciple their people to respond in keeping with Messiah’s kingdom ethics.

E) I cannot escape the simple truths of the King of the Jews: weep with those who weep, be peacemakers in society, seek justice, renounce violence to bring peace, do not take an eye for an eye, but love your enemy. Messiah taught what all the Hebrew prophets preached, summarised in Micah 6:8: “What does the LORD require of you (Israel)? Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Those who dismiss this as politically irrelevant and unworkable, think again. If we follow Jesus in his way of peace, which he offered to Israel under Roman oppression, things will be very different.

On this day, the anniversary of October 7, what do we see?

Sadly, we see trauma etched into the Israeli mind forever. The remaining hostages are still not free. We see Gaza reduced to rubble with over 42,000 killed, 70% of them are women and children, with untold numbers under the rubble. We see 128 journalists and over 1000 health workers murdered. In late April it was estimated Israel had dropped over 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, surpassing the combined bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London in WWII. How much more since April? Compared to Hiroshima, Gaza is 60% smaller. But Israel has dropped six times more bombs on it compared with the atomic bomb dropped by the US in WWII – that is 14.4 tons of bombs per square kilometre of Hiroshima versus 219 tons per square kilometre in Gaza!

We see the IDF operation in the occupied West Bank leaving 742 dead, 163 children included. We see ongoing periodic rockets fired on Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran, with Lebanon bombed and invaded in the south, leaving more than 2000 dead. Sites in Yemen, Syria, and Iran have been bombed. We see the world teetering on the edge of a full international conflagration, if sane heads don’t prevail. The need for de-escalation, ceasefire, negotiations, is greater than ever before.

God help us! God have mercy! God intervene!