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Netanyahu, Faith, and Forgiveness
― Margaret Atwood (Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash)
Like most of you, I have anxiety over the tragic Israel-Hamas conflict. For decades my brain has wrestled with this ongoing struggle between peoples who live and work in a region that is steep with a complex entanglement of history, race, religion, and power. Power being defined as land ownership, and a people without a land are powerless. Can they coexist?
This war, which started on October 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, has created great concern across the globe as the repercussions could easily lead to World War III. That is scary enough to consider, and yet I can’t stop reflecting on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s recent words of “We’ll never forget the atrocities that our enemies carried out, and we’ll never forgive.” As an ever-evolving Christian (and former visitor to this beautiful country), this statement makes me cringe and think that quite possibly, there is very little hope for love and healing in such a sacred territory. The Middle East, albeit a political and social construct by name, is the birthplace of the world’s three largest Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Netanyahu’s stern proclamation makes me examine my own internal battles with forgiveness.
