The Biden Administration approved $20 billion in arms sales to Israel this week as tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate. CBS News reported that “scores of fighter jets and advanced air-to-air missiles” are included in the deal.
Israel is preparing for a retaliatory response from Iran after the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran on July 31. Haniyeh was killed by a bomb left in his room two months before his arrival. Israel has not taken responsibility for the assassination, but several U.S. officials believe they were involved.
While the situation with Iran stands on a razor’s edge, the conditions in Gaza continue to worsen. Estimates are that over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war broke out after militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took 254 into captivity on October 7, 2023.
As the death toll of Palestinians continues to mount, the world paused in horror this week when the news broke that three-day-old twins, Aysal and Aser, and their mother, Jumana, were killed by an Israeli airstrike while their father was gathering their birth certificates.
CNN reported the twins’ death added to 16,000 children who have lost their lives since the war began. In case you glossed over that number, let me repeat it: 16,000 children have been killed in less than a year.
Let’s put this into perspective. This month, schools are opening for their fall terms across the United States. The average enrollment in a public school is 526 students, with an average class size of 24 students.
If Gaza were filled with American schools and students, that means 30 schools would be empty, and 666 classes would be eliminated because all the students were dead. For comparison, that means every student in Norman Public Schools (NPS), where I live, would be dead. NPS has an enrollment of 15,786.
Reuters reported that since the war began last year, the United States has sent more than 10,000 highly destructive bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles to the Israeli government. The Israel Defense Forces have used these bombs and missiles to attack Hamas but also to kill over 40,000 Palestinians, including 16,000 children.
The United States of America stands complicit in these deaths.
The United States must do more to be peace agents in the Middle East. Filling the region with an overabundance of weapons is not the answer— that will only bring more death.
Jesus had an opportunity to wield violent force in his battle against tyranny. The gospel of Luke suggests that Jesus even considered violence just moments before his arrest. In Luke 22, Jesus instructed his disciples to sell their cloaks and buy a sword (22:36). When they presented two swords to him, he responded, “It is enough.”
Moments later, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter took out one of those swords and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Jesus had a decision to make— the way of violence or the way of peace. He responded with peace and compassion: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26).
Instead of profiting from millions of dollars of weapons sales to Israel, leading to the deaths of more Palestinian children, the United States needs to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.
Earlier this summer, Benny Gantz resigned from Netanyahu’s three-man war cabinet. Gantz accused the Prime Minister of “mismanaging” the war and putting his “political survival” over the country’s security.
The United States should leverage the growing frustration many Israeli citizens have with Netanyahu. Instead of sending more weapons, we need to send more diplomats to the region to demand peace.
Until the United States government gets serious about demanding Israel’s reasonable participation in the peace process — which includes the departure of Netanyahu — then death and destruction will continue to follow.
The United States must stop sending weapons and start sending peacemakers. Jesus taught, “Blessed are the peacemakers” — not “blessed are the weapons dealers.”
