I’ve been quiet about Palestine and Israel in this space. It is not for lack of caring. Rather, the concern and frustration go back decades. They go back to Blood Brothers and the impact this book had on my heart and my theology. They go back to a picture taken by the Dead Sea when I was four years old standing with my friend Lois, sandwiched between our fathers who loved that part of the world and defied the western conservative theology of their time and of our time with their steadfast upholding of the rights of Palestinians. They go back to Shabbat dinners with a family that became dear friends, the sun barely setting on a Friday night as we walked from the reformed synagogue to their apartment, where candles were lit and a beautiful meal of roasted chicken, fresh homemade bread, with so much laughter and talk about life, kids, and faith that the table rocked. They go back to a small home of a Palestinian family, packed full of people. A family unit displaced from their home for decades, but still hoping for return. They go back to visits to holy places – the Garden of Gethsemane, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the not so holy ruins of Capernaum.

My concern and frustration go back to the time when the conflict in the region began to have faces and names, no longer an abstract problem to be solved by the wealthy west in the safety of academic institutions or fireplaced living rooms. Where a breakfast of olives, fresh labneh (whipped yogurt), and hot kanafeh (a traditional Palestinian breakfast or dessert), dripping with syrup was served in Haifa along with stories of displacement and longing.

Yes – the conflict has been going on far longer than the influencers that learned about it in October. I don’t say that harshly, but more as a reminder that it is critical to remember that it was as early as December of 1948 when the UN General Assembly first called for the right to return, for property restitution and compensation, for the right to belong to the land. Years before the current war, Palestinians faced restricted movement that became a part of daily life. Years before October 7, Palestinians faced challenges that come in resource poor settings where electricity, medical care, food, and infrastructure are all compromised.

When I first heard of the horror of October 7th, and the vicious attack by Hamas against Israel, I was stunned, as was the world. When I hear of the latest body count of Palestinians I am stunned anew. An eye for an eye turned into an eye for many eyes on many bodies and made the whole world blind. The world is no longer stunned. We have become weary of the news. It is easier to scroll past it, then to feel the sense of helpless frustration.

My prayers feel hollow and empty as I reach for a seemingly silent heaven, a seemingly absent God. And yet, I know God is in the rubble and he weeps for the lives and limbs lost. I know he weeps for the evil that continues to rage through the machine of war. My faith and experience tells me that within the rubble, what Elias Chacour calls the “Living Stones of Palestine” Christians present for decades in this land, is a faith that defies war. A faith that shames and amazes me in its stubborn persistence despite the years of suffering and abuse. Within the daily horror of bombing and seeking safety is a steady song of praise and prayer, of not giving up and trusting the God who sees.

So why write about it today, on a Thursday evening as a brilliant sun is ends the daylight in my safe city of Boston. Where the fears I face are so small as I think about the moms and kids of Palestine. I’m writing about it today because a fellow TCK from Pakistan, Lynzy Billing has been sharing the stories of midwives in Palestine on her account. She wrote a feature piece called “West Bank Midwives are Facing a Maternal Health Crisis” and I’m eager for this to be read far and wide.

Using her platform, Lynzy has been sharing shorter stories from Jenin and Ramallah, from Hebron and Nablus. Stories of laboring women stopped at check points with no access to an ambulance. Stories of moms who give birth, feeling the joy of a baby’s arrival, only to have it replaced by worry about how to get their newborn safely home. These stories matter. They invite us into a greater understanding of the tragedy of this war. They invite us into empathy and action. They invite us into prayer. Dare I say, they invite us into hope?

I would love it if each one who reads this post would read the article I’ve linked, written by a gifted communicator who tells these stories not with sensationalist horror, but with the compassion and dignity that the women, the babies, and the midwives deserve.

And I pray that our eyesight will be healed, that we will do what we can to speak up and out against a war that no one is winning.

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“At the hospital, Rimawi heads over to a woman lying in the last bed on the ward and whispers comfortingly in her ear. Just a week earlier, the woman, Eman, had picked up matching outfits for the twins she was expecting: blue, with cars and clouds sprinkled across them. She had been trying for a child for nine years, and after several rounds of IVF, had become pregnant with two.

But one of the twins never wore his outfit. She shows it to me, still wrapped up in blue tissue paper in a gift bag grasped in her hands. There was a complication, and at 2 a.m. he was stillborn.

“’If she got here sooner, I believe we could have saved him,” Rimawi says. “Before October, it would have only taken her 30 minutes to reach us. Now, it’s two hours to bring an emergency patient to Ramallah for treatment from her area…and this is in an ambulance. It’s much worse if the mothers are traveling in a private car.’” excerpt from article by Lynzy Billing

[Photo Credit – Wikimedia]