Change of Plans
Back in 2020, I was hoping to return to the Holy Land for another pilgrimage. Covid19 had other ideas. This year I was a mere two weeks away from returning to Israel on another spiritual adventure. As of this writing, nothing is confirmed yet, but it looks very unlikely that I will be leav- ing again for Israel. Hamas had other ideas.
The situation in the Middle East is complicated and thorny. I am not an expert. And I am sure that anything I write about this is either simplistic or has changed over the days from my writing this to when you read it. Chaos tends to favor complexity and fluidity.
So where do you want to start with the story of the prob- lems of the Israel, Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? The formation of the state of Israel after World War II? The Diaspora? Abraham? For simplicity’s sake, let’s go back to 1967 and the Six Day War.
From June 5 to June 10, 1967, Israel was fighting three of its Arab neighbors, Syria to the north, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the south. Relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors had always been strained and in 1967 it snapped. Although it was fighting on three fronts, Israel won the war with relative ease. Israel destroyed the Egyptian Air Force, forced a peace between their neighbors. (Side note: 34 Americans were killed on the USS Liberty during the conflict, including a Borgia gradu- ate, James Lenau. That’s another story for another bul- letin.) The result of the war was that Israel got three buffer zones to protect them from attack: the Golan Heights in the north, the West Bank (of the Jordan River) where Bethlehem is located to the east, and the Gaza Strip, a small piece of land that connects the Sinai Penin- sula with Israel to the south. (The Mediterranean Sea forms the western border.) Ever since, these key territo- ries have been flashpoints for trouble.
Six years later in 1973, war broke out again. This was called the Yom Kippur War since it was initiated on the Day of Atonement. Once again Sinai, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights were the battlegrounds, with Egypt and Syria attacking Israel. This time it took longer, two weeks not six days, for Israel to win. It is no secret that Hamas attacked Israel last Saturday near the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War (not to mention Is- rael’s Sabbath).
There have been incidents and problems since 1973, but things were fairly peaceful, until the rockets started flying back and forth last weekend. It was somewhat shocking that Israeli intelligence was caught off guard this time.
Militants broke through fences and attacked bordering Israeli towns. Hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed and some were taken as hostages. Israel responded with air attacks on the Gaza Strip and many Palestinian civil- ians, including children were likewise killed. In the
meantime, the internet has gone somewhat berserk with videos and rumors. Just remember that not everything you see or read may be accurate. “The first casualty of war is the truth.”
Who knows what will happen this time? One thing is clear, everybody in the region will suffer, everyone in the region will lose.
The just war doctrine of the Catholic Church found in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 2309, lists four strict conditions for “legitimate defense by military force:”
- The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and cer- tain.
- All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or
- There must be serious prospects of
- The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be
You can decide if any or all conditions were met.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the story of the Middle East is complicated and I am far from an expert on the conflict. I have only scratched the surface of what is happening. The best I can do is what I was planning to do when I traveled to the holy places of our Lord’s life: pray. Maybe this is what we all should do: pray for peace in that incredibly troubled area.
Father Kevin