A White House fence was vandalized Saturday night as pro-Palestinian protesters shook the gate to one entrance to the executive mansion. Some chanted obscenities about President Biden.

This was just one of many such events across the country over the weekend as protesters rallied to demand a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war. They were not alone in their sentiments: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting to allow more deliveries into Gaza of food, water, medicine, and other supplies, echoing a similar call by President Biden earlier in the week. The New York Times editorial board agreed, as have numerous US political leaders and Arab ministers in the region.

The Palestinian death toll has risen above nine thousand since the conflict began; more than 3,900 of the total, roughly 40 percent, were under the age of eighteen. A journalist, grieving the death of a fellow journalist and eleven members of his family, said, “We can’t bear this anymore. We are exhausted, we are here victims and martyrs awaiting our deaths, we are dying one after the other and no one cares about us or the large-scale catastrophe and the crime in Gaza.”

In the face of such tragic suffering, widespread calls for a ceasefire or at least a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting are understandable. But there’s more to the story.

Why the “true fight” has not yet begun

The Wall Street Journal editorial board warns that a “pause” in the conflict would only strengthen Hamas. In their view, “The way to help Palestinian civilians isn’t to slow the Israeli advance. The less control Hamas has over Gaza’s streets, the more civilians can escape the fighting and the more aid can be brought in securely.”

They note that “the ground invasion has already allowed humanitarian assistance to ramp up, with more than one hundred truckloads now arriving each day.” And they warn that “Hamas would use freedom of action to keep civilians as shields and pilfer more aid—limiting what Israel can let in.”

All this while, according to the Jerusalem Post, the “true fight” has not yet begun. It notes that most Hamas terrorists are in the southern part of Gaza, where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers have not yet advanced. The IDF’s incursion into Gaza has not killed or arrested the vast majority of Hamas’s forces, which number approximately forty thousand and prepared for Israel’s invasion by creating a vast web of fortified tunnels. Nor has the IDF’s advance slowed, much less eliminated, rocket fire by Hamas on southern Israel and the Tel Aviv area.

“If we do not defeat Hamas, we cannot survive here”

Hamas officials and soldiers are known to hide in hospitals and among civilians. For example, an Israeli airstrike on Friday hit an ambulance that the IDF claims was being used by a Hamas terrorist cell.

Hamas has also spent years stockpiling enough fuel, food, and medicine in its tunnels to keep fighting for three or four months without resupply. Meanwhile, Palestinian civilians face massive shortages amid a growing humanitarian crisis.

All this to say, if Israel continues its offensive against Hamas, things are likely to get much, much worse for civilians in Gaza. However, as I noted a few days ago, if Israel does not defeat Hamas to such an extent that Jewish citizens feel they and their families are safe in their country again, many may immigrate to other countries, imperiling the future of the nation and fulfilling Hamas’s stated goal to “obliterate” Israel from the region.

This is why one Israeli commander stated, “If we do not defeat Hamas, we cannot survive here.”

So, Israel has to defeat Hamas without incurring civilian casualties to the degree that America stops supporting the war and jihadist groups in Lebanon and the West Bank join the conflict. But incurring such casualties is a central part of Hamas’s nefarious strategy to turn world opinion and Muslims in the region against Israel.

“Peace is not the mere absence of war”

My purpose today is twofold: First, to explain briefly why the conflict between Israel and Hamas is so complicated, defying simple resolution. Second, to use this crisis to illustrate our abiding need for the only true peace humans can experience in this fallen world.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). He also stated, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (v. 9). In Gaudium et Spes (Latin for “joy and hope”), the Second Vatican Council noted:

Peace is not the mere absence of war or the simple maintenance of a balance of power between forces, nor can it be imposed at the dictate of absolute power. It is called, rightly and properly, a work of justice. It is the product of order, the order implanted in human society by its divine founder, to be realized in practice as men hunger and thirst for ever more perfect justice.

As a result, “peace” is a “fruit of the Spirit” that proceeds from “love” (Galatians 5:22). Accordingly,

If peace is to be established it is absolutely necessary to have a firm determination to respect other persons and peoples and their dignity, and to be zealous in the practice of brotherhood. Peace is therefore the fruit also of love: love goes beyond what justice can achieve.

Thus, peace ultimately depends on knowing the One who promised, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27). As a result:

Peace on earth, born of love for one’s neighbor, is the sign and the effect of the peace of Christ that flows from God the Father. In his own person the incarnate Son, the Prince of Peace, reconciled all men to God through his death on the cross.

Paul greeted his readers, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:2). Note the order: we must experience God’s grace to have true peace with him, others, and ourselves.

The old truism is true: No God, no peace. Know God, know peace.

What will you do to know God and make him known today?

Denison Forum

Halloween costumes began filling grocery store aisles in July and were sold out by the first week of October. The National Retail Federation estimated that Americans would spend a record $12.2 billion on yesterday’s festivities. Close to three-quarters of US adults planned to celebrate Halloween, with adults between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four leading the spending. If our experience last night was any indication, nearly half of those who knocked on doors in costumes were adults.

What is going on here?

A Wall Street Journal article explains one reason we enjoy being frightened on Halloween: “We are motivated to engage in activities that allow us to practice and prepare for dangerous activities in a safe way.” As Stephen King noted, “We make up imaginary horrors to help us deal with real ones.”

A welcome diversion for many

There are certainly “real” horrors in the news these days.

Antisemitic attacks in the US are up roughly 400 percent since October 7. Pogroms against the Jews in France are spreading across Europe and beyond, part of what the Wall Street Journal editorial board is calling “the global war on the Jews.”

Hamas is marshaling support in parts of the Muslim world, which is part of its strategy, as I noted yesterday, to force Israelis to abandon their country. The escalating war could cause shipping companies to decide Israel’s ports are too risky, in which case the country could soon find itself running out of food.

A cease-fire with Hamas would not only embolden the terrorists and those who support them, it would permanently displace tens of thousands of Israelis forced to flee their homes in southern Israel after the October 7 invasion. However, a long war could drain the economy as Israel continues to employ hundreds of thousands of reservists who are no longer doing their regular jobs.

In the midst of such news, yesterday’s holiday was undoubtedly a welcome diversion for many. However, I think another factor also explains the popularity of Halloween in these hard times.

“Every person deserves to be seen”

I’m old enough to remember when everyone on our street knew everyone on our street. Parents babysat for neighbors’ children; you could borrow anything you needed from someone next door. If a crisis came, the neighbors were quickly on your doorstep looking for ways to help.

That was then, this is now. How many of your neighbors can you even name?

In this context, knocking on our neighbors’ doors on Halloween is a small antidote to the isolation we feel, an antidote we need now more than ever.

According to Gallup, more than half of the world’s population is experiencing loneliness these days. The US Surgeon General recently issued an advisory on what he called “our epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks notes that the number of people who say they have no close personal friends has quadrupled.

In his new book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, he offers practical ways we can connect with each other in a time of fragmentation and hostility. His approach centers in what he calls a “humanist manifesto,” a decision to fight the “dehumanizers” of animosity and distrust by seeing others deeply and seeking to understand them and make them feel seen, heard, and understood.

Brooks is right: for our democracy to function, “we must be able to understand one another to some degree, to see one another’s viewpoints, to project respect across difference and disagreement.” All this, he claims, “requires humanistic wisdom.”

“Bleeding to be sure, but also bled for”

Brooks’ advice is biblical so far as it goes. We are taught to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (1 Peter 3:8). Scripture enjoins us to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” (Ephesians 4:32a).

But here’s the model that has been left out thus far: “as God in Christ forgave you” (v. 32b).

“Kindness” is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) and thus can ultimately be shared only in the power of the Spirit. Before we can offer genuine compassion and community to others, we must come to terms with the fact of our estrangement from ourselves, each other, and God.

In Telling the Truth, Frederick Buechner observed, “The gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy.”

Once we admit this fact to God, others, and ourselves, we are ready to confess all that is wrong in our lives and receive the forgiving grace that transforms us into “a new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). A person for whom this happens can then experience the rest of the story, according to Buechner: the gospel “is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy.”

“We become what we think about”

Today is All Saints’ Day, that day on the Christian calendar when we are invited to remember the great heroes of the faith who have gone before us. This is so we can emulate their example and thus be heroes to those who will come after us.

Let’s embrace the invitation of this day to be the change we need to see. Let’s counter the tragic news and loneliness epidemic of our time by focusing on the greatest saint and hero of all: “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Let’s seek him in his worship and word with greater depth, intimacy, and passion. Let’s make it our life purpose to know Christ and make him known.

Since “we become what we think about,” as Earl Nightingale noted, we will become more like Christ each day. Our choice is binary and simple: “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5).

On what or Whom will you set your mind today?

Denison Forum