Episode 84: Stand with Gaza - Palestine, Israel and justice with peace
History does not begin when you start paying attention. And if you only start paying attention when white people get hurt, you are going to miss the root causes of the events you are seeing.
As we recorded this episode, Gaza was being bombarded, with the threat of more indiscriminate violence being made by Israeli authorities. UK politicians, including the so-called Opposition, were unwilling to denounce the killing of Palestinian civilians whose ability to leave Gaza was being controlled almost entirely by Israel.
We weren't planning on recording this week, but the appalling uniformity of media and political coverage, demanding every Palestinian denounce terrorism while asking no supporter of Israel to denounce war crimes like the bombing and starving of civilians (or crimes under international law like settling occupied land) convinced us that we had to add our small voice in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the people of Palestine.
It's not a massively planned episode, and at times we (Jonty mostly) get a bit cross. But if you cannot get cross when children are being bombed and the international community cheers (and Christians are posting 'I stand with the people doing the bombing' statuses, complete with praying hands emojis), when can you?
A few things to say up front, in case you're unfamiliar with our style or our stance, and just as a matter of clarity:
We can never celebrate the killing of civilians, children and non-combatants, whether you do so as the fourth largest military in the world or as a smaller, independent militia.
We reject Anti-Semitism as the evil it is. Jewish people are not to be blamed for the actions of a nation state, nor should they be made to feel unsafe for expressing their religious and/or ethnic identity.
We remember the significant number of Palestinian Christians who are so often forgotten by the Church in the West. But we reject the idea that Christians should only care about 'our own'. Muslims, Christians, Jewish people and people of no faith are all equally deserving of our compassion.
We do not believe it is our place to police the ways in which oppressed people resist their oppression. We will not dictate the organisations through whom they must resist in order to earn our respect or compassion.
We believe that Israel must end the Occupation of Palestine and that all people in the Israel-Palestine should have equal rights and equal access to resources, freedoms and protections. This is not the case currently and it was not the case for decades before the killing started over the last week.
We are appalled that our Government and media in Britain, like many around the world, seem to support ethnic cleansing, the killing of civilians and potential genocide, when the people suffering are Palestinian.
Malky isn't on this one because he was working and we recorded on short notice.
Don’t know where to start trying to understand the current conflict?
Jonty has been adding good videos he sees on the subject to a TikTok playlist about Palestine and the current violence, which you can access here. Neither Jonty nor Beer Christianity is suggesting that everything in every one of these videos is something we agree with, but they tend to address a question we’ve been asked this week.
For up-to date reporting on the violence, Aljazeera English is pretty good. You can find Aljazeera’s Israel-Gaza war coverage here.
For an understanding of what life under occupation is like for Palestinians, you could go to many sources, both Israeli and Palestinian (remembering that many Israelis are part of the fight for justice for Palestinians). But here’s a set of stories from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs about life in the occupied Palestinian Territories from 2017.
It is worth noting that before the brutal Hamas attacks in October and the brutal Israeli military campaign against the people of Gaza, Israeli military or settlers had killed between 38 and 51 Palestinian children. (Defense for Children International says 51, while Save the Children said 38). In 2022 it was 44 children. In 2021 it was 78. And in 2014, well over 500 Palestinian children were killed, according to DCI. This does not justify Hamas killing more children, of course. But if you are only angry about only one group of victims, it may be worth repenting for racism or a short moral attention span.
Accusations of Anti-Semitism are a favourite tool of those who wish to silence criticism of Israel. With that in mind, it is worth taking the time to listen to Jewish groups who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, often at great personal cost. Jewish Voice for Peace and Na’amod UK are worth following on Instagram for their perspective.
We encourage our listeners to engage with the history, deepen and broaden your compassion and pray for a peace that is just.
We’d like to make clear that before recording we reached out to several Palestinian Christian groups, several charities and a major campaign that supports the cause of Palestinian solidarity, but, understandably, they were petty busy with other things. We do not want to take attention or space from Palestinians in favour of white westerners at this time, but we also did not want to make demands on individuals who are under immense stress already. Please see this episode as our attempt to engage our specific mostly Christian, mostly western, audience with another way for framing what is happening in Gaza right now.
This episode opens with a clip from this video by @rathbonemakesmusic on TikTok. It's worth watching the whole thing - it starts off talkign about the American War of Independence.
Justice and peace now. Free Palestine.
You can listen to Episode 84 anywhere: perched on a fence, saying things like ‘both sides have done wrong’ and ‘it’s far too complicated to have an opinion on’; on a high horse of indignation about one set of atrocities while ignoring decades of other violence; in a sea of grief for any and all injustice and violence, or right here…
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Beer Christianity is an anti-capitalist, pro-BLM, pro-LGBTQ+, post-post-post-evangelical podcast where we drink a bit and talk a lot. Our aim is to be real, helpful and entertaining.
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We don't really want to preach at you, but some people like to know what we believe. It's this: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to teach us a better way to be while reconciling us to God and each other in a way we could never do without Him. He also changed water into wine. Nice.