Naught for your comfort

The Very Rev. Richard Sewell, dean of St. George’s College, Jerusalem, gave the Snell Lecture at St. James Cathedral on Sept. 29. The lectures honour the Rt. Rev. George Snell, the eighth Bishop of Toronto, and are intended to further his desire for deepening the Church’s teaching and preaching ministry for both the laity and the clergy.

In 1955, Anglican priest/monk (and later bishop) Trevor Huddleston was recalled to England by his order after having served for 15 years as a priest in apartheid-era South Africa. He was a much-loved priest who had mostly served in a township parish. His experience at the grassroots, community level had caused him to become increasingly critical of the minority Afrikaans government and their evil apartheid policies. He left reluctantly, having felt himself deeply committed to the plight of black South Africa, and his anti-apartheid activism had connected him forever with their just cause and struggle for freedom.

On his return he published a book which is still recognized as being of historical significance. The title resonated with me as I reflected on the course of events since I arrived in Jerusalem almost six years ago. His famous book is called Naught for Your Comfort. The title is a quote from a G.K. Chesterton poem, and the stanza from which it comes is:

I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

Huddleston left South Africa aware that the struggle for freedom had only just begun. “The sin of racial pride, the evil of the doctrine of apartheid, must be condemned by the Church and the consequences of apartheid must be clearly and unmistakenly proclaimed. This is prophecy: it is also politics,” he wrote. But it is sobering to think that when Huddleston left South Africa condemning the sins of apartheid, it was another 40 years before the apartheid infrastructure fell and an election was held in which every single South African – Black, Coloured and White people – exercised their right to vote. Huddleston was right about South Africa in 1955: it is going to be a long struggle for freedom – the sky grows darker yet – but freedom did come, in time.

I write this now not to make the case that apartheid South Africa and the state of Israel are the same thing; that is an argument case for another time. Rather, I seek to make the point, which was Huddleston’s point, that the struggle for freedom is almost always longer and harder than we imagine. Those who hope that there is a fast track to a solution for an intractable problem such as the Israel/Palestine question, may relent and give up long before the goal can be achieved. Standing as we do now, almost a year into a terrible war in Gaza and 58 years into Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is still a very long way to go before all the peoples of Israel and Palestine will be able to live alongside one another in freedom, equality and security.

In my view, a reflection on the present situation in this ongoing conflict should be founded on some fundamental principles. Firstly, that Israel has a right to exist on the basis of the UN Resolution 181 dating from 1947. Secondly, that Palestinians suffered multiple grievous injustices which resulted from the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, which Palestinians know as the Nakba, the Catastrophe. This left millions of Palestinians dispossessed of their homes, their land and their fundamental freedoms.

It must also be understood that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank from 1967 and the blockade of Gaza since 2007 is an intolerable injustice which has compounded the previous dispossessions.

It should also be clearly stated that Israel has the right to self-defence and it has the power to achieve it. Surely it must be accepted that Palestinians also have the right to self-defence and have no such means.

Finally, it is necessary to continue to acknowledge that Hamas conducted a terrifying terrorist atrocity against some military forces and many civilians in the border areas of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 and this must be unreservedly condemned.

All of these statements underpin the way in which I approach the present conflict (and there are so many more which could be stated but time does not permit). They form part of the essential idea that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023. Those who simply state that Hamas initiated all this on the fateful day have shamefully missed all that went before it. There is a long and complicated history which must be understood. To detach the present bloody conflict from its historical context makes it impossible to engage coherently with present events and to consider future pathways towards any kind of resolution which is not simply an end to the Gaza War. The problems are far wider and deeper than that one devastating killing zone.

I arrived in Jerusalem six years ago to take up the role of dean of St. George’s College. The college is neither a school nor a university but rather, the Anglican centre for pilgrimage in the Holy Land. We serve the whole Anglican Communion and run approximately 22 study pilgrimages each year (in normal times). When I accepted the role, I knew I was coming to serve in a part of the world which was riven with conflict, and I knew that the conflict would inevitably feature in my ministry. I have always seen it as part of St. George’s purposes in running pilgrimages, to present the current political realities of Israel/Palestine. For myself, I believed I was well informed of the complex history and realities of the land, having first travelled there in 1981 to work in a church-run hostel for six months and having taken a close interest in the region ever since. It has been a shock to realize how little I truly understood until I fully rooted myself in the land and shared closely in the experiences of the people.

St. George’s College has a long history, which has always sought to bridge the divide between Israelis and Palestinians, between Jews, Muslims and Christians. I fully committed to that vocation, although I felt my primary loyalty to be with Palestinians. As time has gone on, that lack of impartiality has become increasingly marked. The war in Gaza and its many ramifications strengthened my convictions in the just cause of Palestinian liberation and the essential goal of statehood. I uphold the right of the State of Israel to exist but the maintenance of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the blockade of Gaza, which became a more or less accepted part of the political terrain, are deep and intolerable wounds on the land and damages all its people. These are wounds which, lacking treatment, have turned septic. The way in which Israel’s occupation became accepted in international perspective, too, is well illustrated by the number of Christian pilgrims from all over the world, who glibly describe their “pilgrimage to Israel” without being in the least bit aware of all the times they have passed in and out of Palestine or, if you prefer, the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Their tour guides either obscure these facts or are happy to go along with their pilgrims’ willing indifference to it. Still, far too many Christian pilgrim groups hide behind the fig leaf description of “The Holy Land” to avoid having to engage in complex and possibly uncomfortable realities. Holy Land pilgrimage too easily hovers a few inches above the brutal facts on the ground in an attempt at a holy avoidance of uncomfortable truths.

The catastrophic events of Oct. 7, 2023 and the ensuing brutal and merciless devastation of Gaza by Israel has at least put paid to all that avoidance. No one can honestly believe now that the status quo in Israel/Palestine as it existed on Oct. 6, 2023 was sustainable or desirable, nor that a return to that state of affairs is achievable in the future. Everything has changed and to some extent that is good, but the cost of removing the veil of ignorance is so very high and contains multiple tragedies that are going to take generations to process and heal. There is no going back; we have to go forward, and the deep challenge of these days is to seek to ensure that the steps forward we take must be onwards to a future in which everyone who lives in the land between the river and the sea is enabled to live as an equal citizen, and that future plans must not institutionalize a system of first class, second class and non-citizens.

The present situation in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel almost defies adequate description. Many people around the world, at least those who have not entirely given up on following international news, have been exposed to this mass destruction more than any other recent foreign war; however there is so much more occurring than is being reported. In the absence of the world’s media in Gaza because Israel will not permit them, there are multiple realities and stories that will only emerge in time. Hamas and Israel have locked themselves into positions where neither is prepared to retreat even one inch. Both are seeking the vital sense of decisive victory that will enable them to move into the next phase of the conflict from a position of strength. The civilian population of Gaza is paying the price, and it is catastrophic.

The Anglican Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City is one of our diocesan institutions. It gives us a reliable perspective into the conflict from ground level. There are multiple horrific stories (similar to the hundreds that have been seen in news reports) which we have heard directly from our staff there. A few months ago, the hospital was evacuated because of a general instruction by the Israeli army to flee to a supposed safe zone. But under a significant international outcry, Israel assured us that our staff and patients would be safe. Thus, several days after a traumatic departure, the hospital reopened. It is still the only functioning hospital in the north of Gaza. It has taken hits during the war, but unlike other hospitals it has not been flattened. It is operating way over capacity with new seriously injured patients arriving every day. There are insufficient medical supplies to do the necessary operations that are required. Women giving birth often do not have pain-killing relief. Our staff are exhausted on their feet and they are going hungry. Most are getting no more than one meal a day and at most, three hot meals per week. Patients are getting less than this, and ill patients will not recover without nutritious food.

The statistics alone are terrifying. Despite Israel’s assurance to the contrary, they are still not permitting sufficient food and water into the Gaza Strip. There is continuing danger of famine, which would be an irreversible disaster of starvation and disease. Polio has reappeared for the first time in 50 years, and if the current attempt at an inoculation program does not succeed, there will be another avoidable disaster. Maximum suffering seems to have been part of the strategy. Senior politicians and generals declared their intent at the start and they have pursued those policies with conviction despite latterly denying the intent and often declaring that there is no lack of food and no danger of starvation.

I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

The harsh and brutal reality is that whenever the war in Gaza ends, it will not in any sense be the end of the conflict. You might say, to employ a well-known phrase, that it would be “the end of the beginning.” It is so hard to imagine how Israelis and Palestinians will be able to live together in future, such is the deepening of division and the intensification of hatred that has developed. We neither know where we are going nor how we will get there. Of course, the whole region has been significantly destabilized over the past six months and the danger of the war spreading into Lebanon and involving Iran and their proxies in more significant ways, is a very a real prospect, some arguing that it is inevitable. Recent events have made this prospect perilously likely.

All of this paints a very bleak picture before even describing the devastating impact which the war is having on the 2.7 million Palestinians who live in the Occupied West Bank. Whole neighbourhoods, hospitals and universities are not being flattened as in Gaza, but there is very significant military activity there too, which has escalated in recent weeks. Israel will say that they are rooting out Hamas terror cells (and inevitably there is some of that) but it is impacting the wider community in devastating and frightening ways. Freedom of movement is seriously curtailed. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, poverty is growing and hunger is becoming a reality. There are multiple effects which are impacting the day to day lives of Palestinians and making life intolerable for many. There are multiple elements of Israel’s occupation which long predate Oct. 7, 2023, such as home demolitions, forced removal of people from their long-established communities, arrest and detention without charge or trial, and refusal of permits to build new housing and tight control and limitation of the water and electricity supply. When all of these brutal and unjust practices are considered, it is not hard to imagine that many Palestinians, including significant numbers of Christians, have left the land or are planning to in order to seek a better life elsewhere, despite their deep attachment to and love of the land.

Where does all of this put us right now? There is enough violence, hatred and division in Israel and Palestine to last more than a lifetime. It’s made all the more painful because of the place that Jerusalem, and all the land, holds for the people of the Abrahamic faiths. Jews, Christians and Muslims revere the land. They feel spiritually rooted in it because of the events of salvation history for each faith that have taken place there. We call Jerusalem the City of Peace but in recent times it has been anything but that; in fact, it rarely if ever has been peaceful. There is enough religious fervour and competition over the ownership of the land to sustain this conflict for generations to come. We can all use our holy scriptures to demonstrate that we should take precedence. But Jerusalem has had to be shared for millennia. Every attempt to claim the city for one faith has failed. No one will surrender the special place Jerusalem has for them, and none of the competing groups will give up the claim to their homeland. Instead of using our religion to beat each other, people of faith should dig deep to find the best of our spiritual wisdom and resources to discover the ways to live together in tolerance and equality. To adapt a phrase from the economic sphere, regarding the land, here there is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed. Christians are now a tiny minority throughout the land and perhaps they appear marginal or even irrelevant in the context of the whole conflict. But I believe Christians individually and the Church corporately have an important role to play. It is one that the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem is trying to exercise through all of our ministries – our schools, our hospitals and our care centres. Living together means serving one another. Ultimately, we will discover a better way when the peoples of the land can say “I belong to Jerusalem” rather than “Jerusalem belongs to me.”

Trevor Huddleston gave to his readers “naught for your comfort” and my message is essentially the same. The hopeful outcome for us is somewhere over the horizon. Right now, we must concentrate on the next good thing we can do and the next good thing we can say. We must oppose and stop this war. The release of hostages held in Gaza and the release of Palestinians unjustly held in Israel is a necessary precondition for the establishment of a ceasefire which is such an urgent need. The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take specific provisional measures to prevent the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. It is hard to see how their actions since that ruling have complied with that requirement. Despite inevitable war fatigue in Europe and North America, it is still vital that people do not avert their eyes from this conflict. It is hard to watch, it feels intractable, and resolution still feels a long way off, but simply turning away from it is not a viable option. Of course it is far, far harder for those actually living through it. Do not forget, this war, this entire conflict, has everything to do with the populations of Western countries for multiple historical and current political reasons. It is certainly going to take years, not months, to make a difference, but the world cannot afford to avoid this situation any more. Huddleston concluded his book saying that he was unable to predict the future for Black South Africa, but he wrote a simple and powerful affirmation on which the way forward would have to be founded. It holds true for Israel/Palestine too:

He said that the gospel message relies on “the simple recognition that all people are made in the image and likeness of God; that in consequence each person is of infinite and eternal value; the state exits to protect the person but the state is always of inferior value to the person.”

That seems to me to be an important conviction on which to establish a foundation and from there to build a path forwards. It will take the best of minds and hearts to rescue all the people of Israel and Palestine from slipping further towards mutual destruction. Huddleston had to wait 40 years from writing Naught for Your Comfort before he was able to celebrate the end of the apartheid regime, but he did at least live to see that joyful day. The prospect for a joyful outcome for Israelis and Palestinians also seems to be decades away, but as with the South African anti-apartheid movement, it will require massive international effort and mobilization to bring an end to the conflict in the Holy Land. To give up on the struggle and to step back again (as has occurred since the failure of the Oslo Process in 2000) would be disastrous for all communities in the land. Indeed, it would only cause more trouble for the international community and would lead to a further downward spiral in Palestine/Israel and way beyond their borders too. It is in everyone’s best interests to continue grappling with the intractable issues and to seek peaceful pathways towards a just solution.