"A Pastor's Musings + Stop the Genocide"

 

Christmas Eve 2024.  A Pastor’s Musings.

Tonight is a night like any other night this past week, month, year. Another night with rain, snow, blizzard, drought, war, famine, family violence, addictions.  On the surface, that’s true. That’s the world in which we live socially, politically, religiously, and climatically.         

    Beneath this miserable insanity, there are cries and prayers for peace. Not peace at any price. Peace that lasts in mind and heart. Peace that brings  people together even if they disagree with each other. Peace that is understood and felt by its quality. There are those who live in peace like the silence in the center of a hurricane. They are consciously aware of the turmoil around them. They have learned to be at peace, to be at home in their own skin, mind and soul. Humanity lived in a peaceful environment until someone was not satisfied with his lot in life. That charismatic negativity bloomed, and, for a period of time, darkness came over the land.               But "a light shone in the darkness." There have always been those who opened their mind and heart, door and pocketbook, risked their lives for those others deemed to be “outsiders,” “immigrants” “the enemy.” In doing so they shone a light into the darkness and gave hope and inspiration to others to follow.                                        

   It’s not easy being the first to shine a light in the darkness. We do not know what we will find or see. Sometimes it is a mirror in which we find ourselves looking at that aspect of who we are and which we do not wish to see. But there it is with a light on it.                  

  Tonight, Death will escort those who have decided to cross over into Eternity and lead them home. God will be present to those who are hurt, injured, - mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. God did not do anything to them, as a child once told her teacher: “God doesn’t do it to us. God gets us through it.”                                                                                                          Tonight is different from all other nights. Tonight, we remember a child born in a room warmed by the presence of animals, and who slept in their warm straw. Tonight, we remember that that child matured and grew into a charismatic Teacher/Rabbi who taught us by word and example how to live spiritually in our human nature. The light he shone still burns around the world and is experienced in a cup of water, a hug, a sandwich, any and all good done in his name. Tonight we “Go tell it on the Mountain, Jesus Christ is born.”                                                                      Shalome/peace.               Séamus

“My name is Amos Goldberg. I am an Israeli Professor of Holocaust Studies. For nearly 30 years I have researched and taught the Holocaust, genocide and state violence.

And I want to tell whoever is willing to listen that what’s happening now in Gaza is a genocide.

A year ago when October 7th happened, like all Israelis I was in shock. It was a war crime and a crime against humanity. 1200 people - more than 800 of them civilians - were killed in one day. Children and the elderly were among those taken hostage. Communities were destroyed. It was outrageous, traumatizing, personal. Like most Israelis, I know people who were killed, who lost loved ones or whose loved ones were taken hostage.

But immediately afterwards came Israel’s response and within weeks thousands of civilians were killed in Gaza. It took me some time to digest what was unfolding before my eyes. It was agonizing to confront that reality. I was reluctant to call it a genocide.

But if you read Raphael Lemkin – the Jewish-Polish legal scholar who coined the term ‘genocide’ and was the major driving force behind the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention – what is happening in Gaza now is exactly what he had in mind when he spoke about genocide.

It does not need to look like the Holocaust to be a genocide. Each genocide looks different and not all involve killing of millions or the entire group. The United Nations Genocide Convention explicitly asserts that genocide is the act of deliberately destroying a group in whole or in part. Those are the words.

But there does need to be a clear intent.

And indeed, there are clear indications of intent to destroy Gaza:

Israel’s leaders - including the prime minister and the minister of defence - and many high-ranking military officers, media personalities, rabbis, as well as ordinary soldiers were very open about what they wanted to achieve. There were countless documented incitements to turn the whole of Gaza into rubble and claims that there are no innocent people living there.

A radical atmosphere of dehumanization of the Palestinians prevails in Israeli society to an extent that I can’t remember in my 58 years of living here.

Now that vision has been enacted.

Tens of thousands of innocent children, women and men have been killed. Over a hundred thousand were wounded.

There is a near total destruction of infrastructure, intentional starvation and blocking of humanitarian aid.

There are mass graves and reliable testimony of summary executions. Children that were shot by snipers.

All the universities and almost all hospitals are gone. Almost all the population is displaced. There have been numerous bombings of civilians in so-called ‘safe zones’.

Gaza does not exist anymore. It is completely destroyed. Thus, the outcome fits perfectly with the stated intentions of Israel’s leadership.

Lemkin - that scholar who coined the term ‘genocide’ - described two phases of a genocide. The first is the destruction of the annihilated group and the second is what he called ‘imposition of the national pattern’ of the perpetrator. We are now witnessing the second phase as Israel prepares ethnically cleansed areas for Israeli settlements.

And therefore, I have come to the conclusion that this is exactly what a genocide looks like.

We don’t teach about genocides in order to realize it retrospectively. We teach about it in order to prevent it and to stop it. But like in every other case of genocide in history right now we have mass denial. Both here in Israel and around the world.

But reality cannot be denied.

So yes, it is a genocide.

And once you come to this conclusion you cannot remain silent.” -Amos Goldberg

Jiri Rezac

A 296 page report from Amnesty International details the evidence.

This 6 minute video summarizes their findings:

https://www.filmsforaction.org/.../israels-genocide.../

 

Pope Francis in his Christmas message said the following :

".This Christmas, at the beginning of the Jubilee Year, I invite every individual, and all peoples and nations, to find the courage needed to walk through that Door, to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions!

May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine! May there be the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation and to gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.

May the sound of arms be silenced in the Middle East! In contemplating the Crib of Bethlehem, I think of the Christian communities in Palestine and in Israel, particularly the dear community in Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave. May there be a ceasefire, may the hostages be released and aid be given to the people worn out by hunger and by war. I express my closeness to the Christian community in Lebanon, especially in the south, and to that of Syria, at this most delicate time. May the doors of dialogue and peace be flung open throughout the region, devastated by conflict. Here I also think of the Libyan people and encourage them to seek solutions that enable national reconciliation.

May the birth of the Saviour bring a new season of hope to the families of thousands of children who are dying from an outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the people of the East of that country, and of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Mozambique. The humanitarian crisis that affects them is caused mainly by armed conflicts and the scourge of terrorism, aggravated by the devastating effects of climate change, resulting in the loss of life and the displacement of millions of people. My thoughts also turn to the peoples of the nations of the Horn of Africa, for whom I implore the gifts of peace, concord and fraternity. May the Son of the Most High sustain the efforts of the international community to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population of Sudan and to initiate new negotiations for a ceasefire.

May the proclamation of Christmas bring comfort to the people of Myanmar, who, due to the ongoing clash of arms, suffer greatly and are forced to flee their homes.

May the Infant Jesus inspire the political authorities and all people of good will on the American continent to find as soon as possible effective solutions, in justice and truth, to promote social harmony, particularly in Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia and Nicaragua. May they work, particularly during this Jubilee Year, to advance the common good and respect the dignity of each person, surmounting political divisions."

Give time to listen to the attached Christmas message. ( you might need to download and to view there !!