Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah
Former President of Pax Christi International
Ed. Note: This article appeared in America. Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah served as the archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first native Palestinian to hold the office for centuries. He is a co-author of the Kairos Palestine Document and a member of the Kairos Palestine board. He is the former President of Pax Christi International.
We have already seen six months of war in Gaza. Now, it seems that Israel is beginning its last phase of conquest, after ordering a million and a half people to take refuge in Rafah, a border town with Egypt. Soon, there may be almost no one left in the rest of Gaza.
There have been several wars in Gaza, but this time there are thousands of human victims, and ruins like never before, and peace does not seem to be near. More than suffering, more than the loss of men and women, children and babies, humanity is lost.
Why this new war? The immediate cause is the horrific Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. But another direct cause is the permanent siege imposed upon all Gazan territory in 2007, when the Hamas political party became the governing authority of the enclave. Since then, the entire territory—2.5 million people over an area of 141 square miles—has been under total military siege imposed by Israel and Egypt. And since Oct. 7, Israel’s military operations have limited even the most necessary humanitarian aid for Gaza, to the point that it now stands on the cusp of famine.
The real cause is the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, begun in 1948, which no peace agreement has been able to end and which the international community seems to have neglected.
Under Israeli military occupation, Gaza—and all of Palestine—has suffered thousands of deaths, thousands more taken as political prisoners, demolished houses, military checkpoints on all roads that disrupt freedom of movement and daily life, and a paralyzed, dependent Palestinian economy. In short, we are in a permanent state of war. This is the root cause of all wars in Gaza, including the one following Oct. 7. And despite the useless, inhuman violence of the present war, more will come if a just and lasting peace is not reached between the two peoples.
The war must stop without further delay because it is no longer a war. It is a massacre. But what comes after the war?…
True. Peace will only come about if there is justice for all.
Sincerely, thank you Pax Christi for sharing the above article by Patriarch Sabbah; it’s this type of communication that motivates me to continue believing in God. My parish priest won’t even utter the word “Gaza,” not to mention our USCCB that is terrified to call out what we as Americans are collaborating in: a systematic annihilation of an entire nation. Our indifference will follow us throughout history. Israel and we, in a perverse turning of the tables, have appropriated the final solution of the Third Reich. The word “Holocaust” has ceased to be the exclusive domain of Jewish history. And our government has lost its once idealistic image of “defender of the downtrodden.” Now we are the defenders of world economic dominance, no matter how many of God’s children we have to push through the human meat grinder in Gaza.
David-Ross Gerling, PhD
We might practice in our own lives the following; realize that victory is not peace. Then expose the “ eye for an eye” practice and finally “ turn the other cheek”. Our example might be noticed and practiced more widely. It might even filter up to leaders of Nation States now practicing warfare while emersed in retribution and ignorant of how to stop violence.
The real cause of war is when US and UK unilaterally decided to ” take lands from Palestinians” and give them to Israel to create a state in the Middle East as a strategic military baser for dominance in the area with the objective of controlling the resources.
Any country dare not to give full access to their oil reserves in the Middle East, they will be framed, labeled, marketed as ” Tellorlist”.
Then after getting a piece of land in 1948, israel with the military support of US, over wars, and pure bulldozing, took over 90% of the Palestinian lands, and in the process killed, starved, imprisoned millions of civilians.
And when after 75 years of pure torture and aggression, one day the oppressed dared to fight back, mass killings of civilians for ethnic cleansing such that they can take over the rest of the 10% left of lands of the Palestinians.
It has never been a war, its oppression. Palestinians don’t even have one tank against the state of art military equipment provided by the US.
Its a sugar coated world, and US and UK are sugar coated pretend righteous countries. US and UK politicians are now as corrupt as those of seen during the Babalyon times. Perhaps likely worst.
All the civilians in any countries are all innocent doing their own daily work. its the organized political criminals who control the most powerful nation in the world who are doing all the devil’s work. Except pure evil no other vocabulary can better define it.
If Jesus were here today, he would have been tried to talk to the Israeli armies , and they would without hesitation run him over with tanks.