CHURCH bells will soon ring merrily across the globe, and hosts of angelic children’s voices will proclaim in song the birth commemoration of Jesus Christ. Born on Christmas Day to Jewish parents in Israel 2,000 years ago, Jesus continues to inspire countless acts of peace – except in the Holy Land which embraces Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
It is perhaps the greatest irony in history that Jesus’ teachings never shaped the politics of the Middle East, unlike the influence of the other religious founders in West Asia, India and China. However, even in Christian nations, there is a lack of reflection on the greatest ethical lesson that Jesus has conveyed to
the world.
If this lesson had been applied, there would not be the Gaza tragedy today. Put aside the Jesus of theology and pick out from the Gospel his ethical teachings that, if followed by all contending parties, would have decades ago brought lasting peace to the Middle East.
Religious teachings can be divided into intellectual, ritualistic and ethical components, and the most important is the ethical component. The same component is taught by the luminaries of all religions, although there are variations in adaptation to socio-geographical contexts.
To engage in Mideast peace-building, Malay-sians need to develop the qualities of true inter-national statesmanship by reining in their partisan emotions (“I want only my side to win”) and offering an integrative solution.
The war proponents are trapped in a web of hatred because they are stuck together in a narrow either-you-or-me alleyway. They are shouting at each other: “Two of us cannot live together; either you die or I die.” The “either-or” mindset dictates that one side must win and the other side must lose.
Jesus teaches us how to break out of this prison of the mind. The Gospel describes a dramatic incident that could have turned into a political confrontation entangling Jesus.
The background is this: Israel, a religious nation, has been conquered and become part of the Roman Empire. All Jews must pay taxes to Caesar. Refusal means imprisonment or, perhaps, death. Among the common people, there is a feeling of hostility towards Roman rule.
A group of Jewish politico-religious scholars, known as Pharisees, who opposed Jesus laid a trap for him with the loaded question: “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus stunned them with an unexpected answer: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and God what belongs to God.”
Jesus used the loftiest comparison – between God and Caesar – to make his point: You do not have to decide on an “either-or” basis, you can
have both.
So, also today, international cheerleaders should not choose between Jews and Palestinians, they must instead demand that they co-exist to govern separate territories.
During the 77th United Nations (UN) General Assembly session in September last year, Israeli and Palestinian leaders voiced support for a two-state – Israel and Palestine – solution.
On Sept 21, at this year’s 78th session, Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, made a new appeal to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to
call an international conference on creating a Palestinian state.
A UN conference “may be the last opportunity to salvage the two-state solution and to prevent the situation from deterio-rating more seriously, and threatening the security and stability of our region and the entire world”, Abbas said.
If his call had
been heeded by all concerned, peace would finally have descended upon the Holy Land. However, ultra-nationalist hardliners in the Israeli government continued to espouse a claim to the entire Holy Land.
To push its goal of annexing the West Bank, the Israeli government encouraged 700,000 Jews to seize Palestinian lands and build settlements, triggering the Oct 7 assault by Hamas.
In an interview two months ago with 60 Minutes Australia, a television newsmagazine show, Hamas leader Dr Basem Naim blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for trying to destroy the idea of a political entity for Palestinians so that there will be only one political entity – Israel. It
is to be hoped that his statement implies Hamas is also considering the two-state solution.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, in a Bloomberg interview on Dec 7, said his preferred outcome of the conflict that started on Oct 7 would be for Hamas to become a junior partner under the broader Palestine Liberation Organisation, helping to build a new independent state that includes the West Bank, Gaza and
East Jerusalem.
Back to Jesus. Later the Pharisees posed another trick question to discredit him: “Teacher, which command in the Torah (the five books of Moses) is the most important?” It was a loaded question because the Pharisees, being legalistic-minded, had counted 613 separate laws, and they regarded them all as equally great, owing to their belief that every law came from God.
Jesus cut them to the quick with his enlightening reply: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang the entire Torah and the Neviim (accounts and writings of the Prophets).”
Note that Jesus said the two commandments – love God and love your neighbour – are equally important and jointly the greatest. Religion must focus on developing your relationship with God as well as your relationship with all humanity.
Looking for a loophole, a religious lawyer asked Jesus: “And just how would you define neighbour?”
Religions clash because ultra-conservative leaders narrowly define “neighbour” as a fellow believer who preferably also shares a common ethnicity with us.
Jesus answered the lawyer by telling a story about three men who encountered a Jewish robbery victim. The first man, a Jewish priest, ignored him. The second man, a Jewish religious devotee, also ignored him. Then a Samaritan came along and made great efforts to help the victim, including paying for his temporary accommodation. He became a neighbour to the victim.
The story is impactful because the Jews hated Samaritans who worshipped in their temple, were considered pagans, and were also of mixed ethnicity.
Jesus is teaching that a neighbour fully deserving of your kindness can be anyone regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Jews and Palestinians can and must become good neighbours in a two-state peace settlement. Can they ever, since they are bitter enemies? Here is Jesus’ remedy to end a perpetuating cycle of violence: Instead of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, tit-for-tat”, he proposed: “Do not hit back at all.”
He elaborated: “I am telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.”
Jesus, a great son of the Middle East, deserves a hearing from all warring parties as his message of true love should remind them of the same teachings in their religions.
Palestinians and Jews must learn to share as there can be no exclusive land claims – they are not the only claimants to the territory.
Canaanites have an equally valid claim as they are the indigenous occupants responsible for building the first urban centres in Canaan, including Jericho and Jerusalem, 3,500 years ago.
Canaanites never gave up the land but were subjugated by invading Jews seeking a new homeland after fleeing slavery and persecution in Egypt.
The Jews, in turn, did not voluntarily leave for Europe but after many unsuccessful rebellions were expelled from Israel by the Roman conquerors, who then renamed the territory Palestine, after the Canaanite tribe Philistines. Then came the
Arab settlers.
In reality, all lands belong to nature and can be taken back – not at all a distant possibility in times of climate change. As Britain’s King Charles III said at the opening of the UN’s COP28 climate summit on Dec 1: “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.”
The writer champions
interfaith harmony.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
