I wish there was a more poetic or less razor-sharp way to sum up the dominant experience of 2023, but the reality defies subtleties. And perhaps it should.
2023 was the year I tried to convince friends and fellow Christians that genocide is wrong.
It's been a year of watching a genocide being live-streamed through our phones. And watching a large amount of our elders and peers ignore or disbelieve it. Or even condone it.
I have seen more violence than was previously imaginable.
Children with white phosphorous burns, shrieking as the internationally outlawed chemical weapon burns its way through every layer of their skin and bones. They are burning internally. Mothers who cling to their murdered toddlers, begging to not have to place their bodies inside ice cream trucks because the morgues are overflowing with the dead. Infants covered in blood, gasping for air as the occupational forces gas their neighbourhoods.
Bakers, doctors, artists, carpenters, students stripped in the street, bound, beaten, and shot one by one as they fall into a mass grave in a pit below. I've watched as a three year old frantically screams as he's arrested and dragged away from his parents, to be held in an Israeli prison cell, without charge or end date, because “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.” And the Israeli prisons are full of children. There they are tortured, beaten, sexually abused, starved.
I've seen severed heads and limbs. Father holding up half their children, wailing for God to have mercy on them. Exhausted, starving Palestinian men working till they pass out to dig people out from under the rubble left behind by US-made bombs. I've watched Israeli leaders state their intention to exterminate the Palestinians, while Israel pretends its victimhood and friendly-faced news anchors nod along on the BBC. I've seen well-respected news outlets continue to call the genocide a war and a conflict.
I've seen a desperate Palestinian father running into a hospital with thin, blue, plastic grocery bags in each hand. Inside the blood-soaked bags are all that remains of his two children. A pool of limbs and blood and tissue. An arm protrudes from one of the bags. And he doesn't know what else to do than to bring their remains to the hospital and beg for help.
I've watched Palestinian children hold a makeshift press conference for the cameras, speaking from the concentration camp they were born in and will probably die in, pleading for their lives in English so that we in the West can understand. So that we will hear them. They don't know that they are lambs looking to demons for mercy.
I've watched as wide-eyed, innocent children shake so violently with shock that they break their teeth. Children who have their limbs amputated without anaesthesia because the anaesthesia has run out. And the only pain killers that are left are drugs similar to Paracetamol. A Palestinian girl weeps over her severed arm. She loved to draw and colour, and now she'll never do that again.
I've watched Israelis hand out guns to Israeli civilian settlers in the West Bank, telling them to go and hunt their Palestinian neighbours. There is no Hamas presence there, but then, it was never about Hamas to begin with, was it.
I've watch as the Israelis cut off water to Gaza. And Palestinians desperately drink sea water. Then the winter rains come, and the flooding, and those trapped under bombed building slowly drown. And according to Israeli, Palestinians are prohibited from collecting rain water because the rain belongs to Israel.
I've seen a 6-year-old girl die on a hospital floor as she holds the gas mask to her sister's mouth. They both needed oxygen, but she gave it all to her sister.
Meanwhile, Israeli pop stars sing jubilantly about wiping out the Palestinians, Israeli influencers flood social media with viral videos of them mocking Palestinian mothers holding their dead babies, all donning drawn-on uni-brows and towel hijabs in case there was any doubt about the racist stereotype. Israeli mothers post videos of them teach their children cute little songs about how sub-human Palestinians are. An Israeli children's choir, featuring the angelic voices of kids who don't know any better, releases a state-sanctioned musicvideo with the lyrics “we will annihilate them all” while footage of Gaza being bombed plays on the green screen in the background.
IDF soldiers share hundreds of videos of them having the time of their lives on their murder rampage through Gaza and the West Bank. The volunteers are from Tel Aviv, Brooklyn, New York. They get facials and massages and free meals donated by MacDonalds, while canons explode in the background, sending fresh bombs into the gentle flesh of Palestinian homes, where families huddle and pray “Oh God, Oh God, don't let us be buried alive.”
I have watched as The IDF soldiers freely document their own crimes, filming each other as they gleefully burn the contents of food aid trucks meant to be heading for Gaza. They giggle like schoolboys as they ride around on the bikes of Palestinian children they murdered only moments ago, and steal jewellery off the corpses of Palestinian women they've shot. They hold the jewellery proudly up to the camera, announcing they're going to bring it home to their girlfriends in Tel Aviv. “Real silver, made in Gaza” a soldier says excitedly, as he holds a necklace to his teeth.
I have watched as Israeli snipers lie in wait and shoot children on their way to buy bread, their bodies left in the street, still clutching the precious coins their parents gave them. I watched as Israeli soldiers invade a home, shoot all the men, then gather the women and children into a single room, through a grenade inside, and walk away, leaving them to bleed to death.
I have watched Israeli trucks block Palestinian ambulances. And learned how Israel bombs Gaza most fiercely at night time because that's when people will most likely be inside in their bed, and the mortality rate will be highest.
I've watched claim after claim coming from the Israeli government be proven false and a lie. But then it's unto the next lie and the next, until those who are watching with a critical mind realise that each accusation levelled at the Palestinians are, in fact, Israeli admissions. They shot their own people at the musical festival, they abandon their own hostages, they murder babies and rape women.
I've watched the head Israeli military's rabbi declares that rape of Palestinian women is a permissible sin during wartime, and that God won't hold it against them. The rape and abuse of Palestinian women isn't new. In July of this year, an Israeli military unit invaded a home in Hebron, ordered the stripping of five women in front of their children, paraded them naked around their family home, and then stole their jewellery. Palestinian women are systematically raped or threatened with rape in prison.
None of it is a random occurrence. It is systemically encouraged.
I've watched every hospital in Gaza being bombed. Not just bombed, but deliberately targeted. The official story went from “Israel would never bomb a hospital – it was Hamas” to “Israel has bombed every single hospital, but it was justified.”
I've watched hospitals in Gaza turn into testing grounds for new Israeli weapons. One such weapon looks like a bomb, but it doesn't explode upon impact. Instead, the missile is covered in blades that rotate. It's called the Hellfire R9X. Or the meat grinder. It's sole purpose is to slice up human bodies.
I've watched as the Israeli military invade Al Shifa hospital and order the doctors and nurses to leave their patients behind, at gun point. “Leave or die”. Parents too. They have to choose between staying and being shot, or leaving behind their premature infants lying helplessly inside incubators. Then the Israeli soldiers unplug and wheel out all the incubators. We watch as infants die from cold or suffocate.
Weeks later, when staff are allowed back into the hospital, they find babies and children dead in their beds, their bodies rotting, their chests squirming with maggots. The Israeli soldiers forced everyone to abandon these children and they died there, alone.
I've watched as the few survivors at Al Shifa hospital sheltered outside the building are run over by Israeli bulldozers. The bulldozers ran over their tents and bodies, killed and buried them.
I've watched as Israelis shoot the young child a Palestinian mother is carrying in her arms as she walks down the road. They order her to “throw him away” and leave his body on the road or they'll shoot her too.
I've watched as the report came in that over 90 Palestinian journalists have been systemically targeted and murdered by the Israelis so that information won't get out about what's happening. How Israel has repeatedly cut electricity and internet or phone connection to Gaza. I've listened as Gaza is bombed during the night, and people's screams are heard throughout the city like a rolling wave of terror, but they know that no-one is coming to help them.
I've watched an Israeli soldier ask his friend to film him while he throws a grenade into a mosque while a man is praying.
I've watched IDF arrest Palestinian civilians, condemning them to life in prison, without trial or hearing, because the citizen's twitter account included a Palestinian flag.
I've watched as an Israeli helicopter shoot holes in one of the last water tanks in Gaza city, waiting for children to rush to the tank to gather whatever water was left, and then drop a bomb on them.
And this isn't new.
I know now that this isn't new. I wish I'd known earlier. But I know now. I'm looking now.
It's been going on for over 75 years. The Palestinians have been screaming for us to listen. The narrative has been so controlled that only slivers could get past the embargo and propaganda. The only difference now is more of us are listening. And now the genocide can be filmed on a phone.
But on top of the Islamophobic, pro-Israeli, blatant bias of mainstream media and news, and the tidal wave of Israeli and US-funded propaganda, and the censorship of pro-Palestine content on social media platforms, and the unbelievably deep hook that Zionism has in Western ideology and politics, I have found myself grappling with a different horror too. The horror of the response of those around me. Or in many cases, the lack of response.
Over the past two months I've watched people I've known all my life side with Israel. I've heard friends regurgitate the propaganda lines they've heard on TV or from their parents. I've heard them quoting The Bible about a “chosen people” and “a God-given land”. I've come to see how deep the roots of Zionism runs through our doctrine, our biblical interpretation, our faith.
I've observed the silence of pastors, the apathy of spiritual leaders, the mental gymnastics carried out to justify this oppression and the hatred that sits in the dark corners of the heart. Churches carrying on with business as usual. People who say they follow Jesus, people who preach about the gospel of justice and grace and goodness for all humankind, suddenly falling mute. Suddenly having nothing to say. Or spewing such a concoction of “it's complicated” that it both covers their butts, and shields other's eyes from the simple truth that we're in the wrong.
I've listened to friends “both side-sing” this genocide, hiding within the safe-house of “I just want peace, war is horrible, can't they just stop fighting?”
I've heard people I know reply with: “Hamas started it”.
I've watched a Norwegian pastor post racist, Zionist cartoons to his Facebook page, blaming the Palestinians for 'starting it', and then later sulking because “no-one can say anything anymore without being attacked” when he received a small amount of backlash. He won't be fired. He won't be reprimanded. Of course he won't be. He'll carry on having the influence he had before, preaching in churches, speaking at youth events, and shaping young minds. Meanwhile, other pastor and elders, deacons and youth leaders get on with Christmas concert practices, and revival campaigns, and planning for summer camps. Business as usual.
I've implored fellow pastors and theologians to speak up and use their platform to lead in the call for Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the genocide. The most frequent response has been silence. I have personally confronted fellow pastors about their indifference. One responded with “I haven't been silent, actually”, and sent me a post he's shared where he quotes MLK and says he's praying for both sides. I read the response and wanted to tear my hair out.
Another pastor I confronted complained that it was unfair that so much be demanded of pastors, and that they be held to a higher standard than everyone else.
Another simply said he was very busy and had a lot on his plate.
I sent a letter to the General Conference. I'm still waiting for a response. It's been weeks.
I've watched as the Christian message of peace has been refashioned into a shield for the cowardly. Those who wish to seem righteous and to appear as though they're doing the right, noble thing, but whose moral courage began its descent long before October 7th. I've watched that unpracticed muscle of justice fail to even so much as twitch. It's been lying there dormant for a long, long time. It watched the Me Too and BLM movement go by, watched the fight against the South African apartheid regime and the 60s civil rights movement go by. And still, this slumbering lump of nothing makes claims to leadership.
Meanwhile – and this reality sits in my heart like a jewel of light - there are hundreds and thousands of people out there who have spent every available moment advocating for the Palestinians. Who do so at risk to their own safety, job security, reputation, friendships, family connections, popularity. Teens who have expertly researched, fact-checked, protested, learned, listened to oppressed voices, who document like historians, and report like journalists. Some of these people who risk arrest in their own countries because their government has outlawed the Palestinian flag or deemed pro-Palestinian protests to be anti-semitic or a “hate march”.
I will never be able to state enough my deep love and tenderness for these people.
I am so deeply heartbroken over the horror of the silence of most Christians I know. It is haunting, revolting, a terror. A part of me hopes that it's all because of a lack of information. “Perhaps they haven't seen,” I whisper. “Perhaps they don't know and they've been inundated by misinformation.”
I whisper this, I continue sharing and sharing and sharing information because the alternative is like a waking nightmare. The alternative is that they do know. And they don't care.
Crisis doesn't create values, it reveals them. I look in horror at the real, unveiled faces of many around me.
And I have found goodness in the most surprising places too.
In the teenager who faces suspension from school because he won't stop advocating for Palestine. In the friend who sincerely asked if I could tell her a bit about what's happening in Gaza, and truly listened. In the kind stranger who offered hand warmers as we stood outside Stortinget in Oslo and shouted for the Norwegian government to vote to acknowledge Palestine as an independent state. In those who have gone out of their way to boycott Israeli products. In those who have blocked ships from departing Western shores with weapons for Israel. In the 7-year-old girl who bravely shouted into a megaphone that children in Gaza need food. To those who wear keffiyehs in public, even though they risk being physically assaulted.
There are people who do want to listen, learn, and act. And they are found in surprising places. But then, I suppose, it's always been like that with God's kingdom. Growing up in surprising places, untamed, uncontrolled, and not by the will of man.
I sit and think on all this at the closing of the year.
It would be idiocy to force closure on the events of 2023, or attempt to tie this all up with a pretty bow. I have not made an attempt to make this blog digestible or presentable. I think, perhaps, the rawness of it suits the situation.
I look to Jesus and I look for him.
I long for his justice. I ask that his Spirit will lead anyone who wishes him to. That he will fills us with courage, honesty, compassion, and liberation.
For those who are advocating for the Palestinians, I know your hearts are tired with the burden of violence and gaslighting. It's exhausting. It's all broken. And your resistance is a miracle.
Be brave. Do what is right. Shine your little light in your little corner of the darkness. It isn't in vain. It will never be in vain.
Free Palestine.
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