A high-ranking Hamas leader has declared their intentions to attempt to repeat the October 7 massacres in Israel again and again and again until the state of Israel no longer exists. It makes a ceasefire almost impossible for Israel to accept, as doing so would only advantage Hamas’ ongoing plans to literally destroy the Israeli state.
Ghazi Hamad stated, “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this. We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The al-Aqsa Deluge is just the first time.”
This writer supports Israel’s right to exist and defend itself against the Hamas assault. This writer prefers the nation-state of Israel exists over the potential of a Hamas-led nation-state, pragmatically and spiritually, but what is occurring in Israel points to an underlying problem the whole world experiences, the existence of the nation-state as our primary means of governance.
Hamas represents a people that desire to have a state that can be, for them, a vehicle of power through which they can live out their lives through their beliefs and preferences, something even we Americans seek, have, and hope to preserve. Their state is highly coercive and intolerant of others to the point of death, as are most all nation states, to varying degrees, including (increasingly) our own.
Israel itself is also intolerant of others to the point of death, as can be witnessed in their decision to choose to unleash a war campaign that they know will lead (has led) to the deaths of thousands of civilians, including children. It is a decision that must be made by almost all nation-states at some point in their history if they are to continue to exist as a state at all.
What the nation-state uses to influence the action of others is a threat of death, and Hamas is just doing the same thing most other nations do, even if their methodology is far more naked than it is for most nation-states, even in current year. This is not a defense of Hamas’ actions, or of Israel’s actions, for that matter, just a statement of fact that illustrates the true underlying problem in the land called Israel by some and Palestine by others.
Whenever your belief leads you to conclude you have a right to murder dissent, and that belief is adopted by the state, you will also choose to conduct military actions against others that you know in advance will lead to the deaths of children, as Hamas has done, and Israel also has done, and we have done as well. It is the nature of the nation-state.
Christ came to earth in the form of a man while He was yet God, and he conquered death, and called on his disciples to do the same. It is this power, to no longer fear death, that empowers us to be able to love our enemies, even as they are assaulting us.
Unless and until the people of this world, whether they be Palestinian, Israeli, American, or otherwise, adopt the law of God in their hearts, a law whose letter kills, but whose spirit makes alive, we will continue to choose to engage in action that we know will lead to the deaths of children, for we fear death more than we fear God.
The tragedy of the Israel-Hamas war is that Israel as a nation-state has little choice but to do what it is doing and Hamas, as a nation-state wannabe, has little choice but to do what it is doing. The two peoples cannot co-exist when the state is defined by their particular beliefs. They can only exist where the nation-state lacks the power to conquer dissent through death.
This writer is no anarchist, though in spirit I hope for such a time that the state will either no longer exist or have little reason to govern, a hope that can only be fulfilled when all make Christ their King and not the many false gods who are but avatars of their own self-godness, such as we see in both the people of Israel, who overwhelmingly reject Christ (as we now do as well) and the Palestinians, who also overwhelmingly reject Christ.
Only through Christ can peace reign.
Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, though he was an atheist, yet articulated the unrighteousness that war demands of us when we support our nation’s vengeful wrath being carried by others in his famous War Prayer, which I add here for context.
The War Prayer
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams – visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor – and also you in your hearts – fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
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