Gaza Pull Out

It makes me sad whenever the news turns to the Gaza pullout. I know I would feel terrible to be forced to leave my home. I was a sentimental soul as a child. I can imagine the torture of knowing they were going to bulldoze the house of my childhood.

Is it the right move on Israel's part. It's really hard for me to say because I can't tell you the future. It's possible that it will only whet the appetite of something that's insatiable. Will it feed a lust for Palestinian land that will not accept anything but everything? Will it provide a launching and planning point for attacks on Israel? I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

But I'm hoping it won't. I'm hoping it is the best thing to happen in Israeli-Palestinan relationships in a long time. In fact, why not make it the Palestinian state? Well, I know why... because the West Bank is primarily Palestinian as well. It's just such an awkward situation, with the two pockets of Palestinian territory being disconnected from each other. Not at all what you'd want in a country--easily isolated from each other in a war because... they're isolated already.

Whatever the uncertainties of the future, it seems the right thing to do from my comfortable living room. From a practical standpoint, there are so many more Palestinians in Gaza than Israelis that they are an extreme minority anyway and only going to become a smaller and smaller percentage as time goes by. From the standpoint of Israeli-Palestinian relationships, it seems a logical part of the give and take necessary to reach peace.

The level-headed on both sides have long believed that a two-state solution was the only real solution to the problem. This step is a necessary part of reaching that goal, unless the settlers want to become Palestinian citizens some day.

What I don't buy is the manifest destiny argument: "this land is biblically promised to Israel, therefore Israel must have it." Religious arguments of this sort have been used throughout the centuries to justify all kinds of insane things. History pushes me to make a hard conclusion--that religion shouldn't be a motivating factor in secular law and politics. In that world it should be the cold hard logic of utilitarianism with a core of individual rights thrown in.

This is a hard conclusion to come to, because it may mean that my theology is inconsistent. But there have far too many harmful and oppressive, theologically motivated laws associated with one religion or another for us to allow it. Law and politics should be the realm of concrete consequences, because too often we look back at the way our forebears processed religion--or the way some other religion like Islam is affecting government--and conclude that the religious element in an equation was the most harmful part.

And after all, who is to say what God's will for Israel is right now? God has taken away Israel's land before in punishment, so you can't say it's God's will for Israel to have all its land at every moment in history. Don't get me wrong, I wish there was one big state with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

And I am not saying that God is punishing Israel right now--not at all. I nervously write right now afraid that someone will draw a wrong conclusion on any number of fronts. For example, I don't think God is punishing Israel right now for not accepting Christ... when I say that Israel has not accepted Christ. But the last comment means that there scarcely seems a Christian argument for some current manifest destiny.

In point of fact, I am not making an argument on the basis of theology at all here. I am arguing for concrete politics in the light of certain core values shared by all civilized humanity. And while I hate to see it, I suspect that means a Gaza withdrawal.