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Thursday, April 10, 2025

Reaction to Christ in the Rubble

I have now finished Munther Isaac's book Christ in the Rubble, which I mentioned earlier. Should you read it? Hmm, it depends on what you want from a book on Palestine. This book should probably not be your introduction to the situation in Gaza; I think you'd be confused because Isaac is not explaining things for complete newbies, and also Isaac is not attempting to represent the opposing viewpoints. In his mind, there is the right viewpoint and the pro-genocide viewpoint. 

The book is like an extended sermon. There is no bibliography at the end, no index; the book just ends. There is an epilogue, brief acknowledgments, and then the back cover. There are footnotes along the way, almost always to news articles or YouTube videos from the past couple years.

It's an advocacy book. It's not an attempt to give an objective account of the situation, a dispassionate run down of both sides. Munther mentions many times that he is writing from anger. He is not in the mood to give Israel credit for much of anything, or to heap much blame on Palestinians, whether the people or their leaders. Whereas many people who talk about Israel and Palestine use the word "complexity," Isaac insists that what he wants to talk about is not complex at all; it's simple and obvious. Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people in broad daylight, caught on video and in the mouths of their leaders. Israel is an apartheid state. For 76 years, Israel has been committing crimes against the Palestinian people. All of this is obvious to Isaac, and, he thinks, to anyone who is not a racist. 

I'll provide some more content from Isaac below, but let me go ahead and point you to a couple of podcast episodes that I found helpful and balanced, both featuring a Palestinian American activist interviewed by an American here (here and here). I think it gives a nice Palestinian complement—or contrast—to Isaac.

Now for my own priors. I don't have a personal stake in the issue of Israel and Palestine, meaning I don't know people in the region and I've never been there. I have not been a part of a group—a church or a political group—that is known for prizing its support for Israel or for Palestinians. I am mostly ignorant about the situation and the issue. I probably know more than the average American, but that's not a high bar when it comes to international affairs.  Since the latest round of the conflict began in October 2023—no, not the conflict itself, but the American reaction to the conflict—I have wanted to try to gain at least a layman's understanding of how these matters (better than "issue"? maybe worse) should be perceived politically and theologically. 

To be more specific about myself: in terms of religion, for all my life I have been a part of a group called the Churches of Christ. In my experience, this has entailed zero attention to conflicts in the Middle East. People at church do not talk about Jews as God's chosen people. They are not Christian Zionists. They do not think that the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with God's plan. They are vaguely aware that some Christians could be characterized in these ways. I have not perceived at church much antisemitism, either—at least, not directed at modern Jews. Plenty of biblical interpretation that I have encountered could be considered antisemitic in relation to those bad ole Pharisees or whatever. Perhaps my co-religionists have transported these negative thoughts about ancient Jews to the modern people, but I don't recall that such a transposition was ever made overt. 

For all of my life, I have been basically politically conservative. My main news source these days is The Dispatch, which I highly recommend. In the conflict between Israel and Palestine, The Dispatch has been definitely in the pro-Israel camp. I think they (the authors and administrators of The Dispatch) would agree with that characterization. They consider Hamas to be evil terrorists (as opposed to, ya know, the other kind of terrorists). They seem to think it's a reasonable and moral aim for Israel to use military force to destroy Hamas. They seem to think that while Israel has perhaps not been as careful in executing their legitimate war aims as they should have been, much of the blame for civilian deaths in Gaza lands on Hamas, who has intentionally embedded themselves in civilian populations specifically to increase civilian casualties in a cynical ploy to win the hearts of western liberals. I'm not telling you that this is the right way to look at the war, but I am saying that it is my impression of my main news source's take on the war. So I come to Isaac's book without already being convinced that Israel is committing genocide. 

By the way, on the issue of Hamas using human shields, I mentioned last time something that Isaac said about that; he's not convinced. 

Isaac's book begins in medias res, in the middle of things—meaning, again, that this is not an introduction to the issue. Isaac starts in the middle of a conversation, no doubt one that he's been having all of his adult life. He assumes that the reader is familiar with the basic facts, at least as they have been reported in western media. He assumes that the reader is a Christian who at least leans toward Israel's side in the war and has accepted or at least heard many of the pro-Israel talking points. What Isaac provides is the pro-Palestinian position, the pro-Palestinian take on the history of the region over the last century, the pro-Palestinian take on the current situation in Israel. What I'm saying is that Isaac does not provide a balanced portrait, and he's not trying to. He assumes you know one side of the issue, so he's giving you the other side. So, again, it's not a good introduction to the conversation, and I kept wondering how an Israeli Jew might respond to some of Isaac's points, especially in regard to Israel as an apartheid state, for instance. 

And, as I critique this Palestinian pastor from the comfort of my American ivory tower, I know what Isaac would say about me: "He writes from a noticeable distance, and from a place not just of comfort but of superiority and power" (p. 148). Here Isaac is criticizing the editor of Christianity Today, but of course the same characterization is relevant to me. On the other hand, even Isaac himself is writing from a place (Bethlehem) of relative safety, at least in relation to Gaza, as he acknowledges. 

I do not claim to even come close to the experience of those in Gaza, or those who experienced October 7. I do not claim to know what it is like to live in the midst of a genocide. I cannot imagine being in the shoes of those in Auschwitz, Namibia, Armenia, Syria and Iraq, or Rwanda. (p. 220)

Isaac, in the West Bank, does say that he lives in an apartheid state and is a member of the oppressed class, but only Gaza has experienced the genocide. But he voices a fear that it's coming to the West Bank. 

Will this book convince you that Israel is committing genocide? Or is a settler colonialist or apartheid state? Well, Isaac does make an argument for each of these propositions, but if you're not convinced of these points already, Isaac probably won't convince you, and there are probably better places to go to encounter a more robust and tightly-argued case. 

He repeatedly criticizes Christian Zionism. That's what chapter 5 is about, "Theology of Genocide." He also criticizes Zionism (without the "Christian" modifier). On p. 244, he summarizes his critique that Zionism is all about settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide. A couple pages later, he repeats: "Israel has committed war crimes, indeed, a genocide. Its military occupation of Palestine is apartheid. Zionism is racism. Israel is a settler-colonial entity. We must call things by name" (p. 246). 

He gives different dates for the term of Palestine's suffering. Often he mentions 76 years, for which the reference point is 1948, the Nakba that accompanied the creation of the modern state of Israel. But the catastrophe has become more severe in recent decades, apparently, so that he asserts: "Gaza has cried out to the world for the last seventeen years, and in particular for the last twelve months, for justice and compassion" (p. 231). The reference to twelve months obviously refers to the recent war in the wake of October 7, 2023, but what about the reference to seventeen years? Here Isaac is calling to mind the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which began in June 2007 in response to the election of Hamas.

The election of Hamas took place a couple years after the so-called "disengagement," in which Israel dismantled Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and gave control of the region over to the Palestinians. Israel considers this act to be the end of its occupation of the Gaza Strip, though the UN says that Israel still effectively occupies the territory (see here). Even in this instance, Isaac is not willing to credit Israel with a positive move in respect to Palestinians. He talks about it in terms of "a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli security forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip. ... Israel and its allies continue to present this disengagement as a positive gesture whereby Israel handed over land to the Palestinians, claiming that since 2005 Gaza is no longer occupied" (p. 78). Of course, Isaac and others believe that Gaza is still occupied, but also he cites this analysis from the PLO that argues that the disengagement was part of an Israeli plan to thwart the peace process (with a damning statement quoted from Dov Weisglass; see here).

In his discussion of the "Theology of Genocide," Isaac quotes from this SBC resolution and comments, "This resolution manifests appalling racism" (p. 150). A couple thoughts on this charge of racism. First, like in the case of Biden's statement mentioned last time, I am not convinced that racism is the right category. I mean, sure, yes, it could be racism, but I don't think racism is the inevitable explanation for the wording of the resolution. So, sometimes Isaac's arguments fall flat—on me, at least—because I feel like he overreaches. He uses these very broad terms, or what might strike some readers as "liberal speak," when a more restrained critique of his opponents would have been more persuasive (I think). Secondly, on this resolution, once again the critique from Isaac—the very fact that he sees racism here—demonstrates that if you're writing a resolution, it would be valuable to show a draft of it to all parties involved (i.e., Palestinians and Israelis) just to see what a reaction would be. (Maybe the SBC did this?)

In the later chapters of the book, there is a lot of repetition of his basic point: Israel is committing genocide; the Palestinian people are suffering in front of the eyes of the world. Much of these later chapters is taken up with quotations of Isaac's sermons and speeches from late 2023 and 2024. The sermon that gave its title to the book was preached on December 23, 2023, and is available at YouTube.

Another example: in February 2024, Isaac went to London and preached at the Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.


In chapter 6 of his book, Isaac quotes a long section of this London sermon (p. 182, beginning at the 12:40 of the video). Near the end of the quoted section of the sermon, Isaac has a few paragraphs which provide a good synopsis for the entire argument of the book.

Dear friends: Gaza is indeed today the moral compass of the world. This war, I truly believe, has clearly divided the world; and maybe this is a good thing. Gaza is the moral compass of the world. Either you side with power and ruthlessness, with the lords of war, and with those who justify and rationalize the killing of children; or you side with the victims of oppression and injustice, and those who are besieged and dehumanized by the forces of empire and colonization. It is really a simple choice: you either support a genocide, turn a blind eye or justify a genocide, or you cry out: No! Not in our name. 

I call the church in the United Kingdom: as churches that seek justice and righteousness, in obedience to the commandment of Christ, we must have the courage to speak out and call things by name! This is not a conflict; Israel is not exercising its right of self-defense. Rather, Israel is the colonizer; Israel is a settler-colonial entity. We live under apartheid. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide and ethnic cleansing. Continuing to repeat the empires's narrative only serves to empower the aggressors. 

On the basis of the foregoing, we must no longer speak in our churches of "peace," or even of the resolution of conflict—but of an end to tyranny and injustice. Vocabulary is important. We are not talking about a struggle between equal forces. This is not simply about a ceasefire; but putting an end to seventy-six years of ethnic cleansing. And today, ending a genocide in Gaza. (p. 188)  

Is there a solution? This is not a major emphasis of Isaac in this book; he definitely majors in indictment, of Israel, America, and the western church. But he does spend a few pages near the end of the book on a possible path forward (pp. 253–58). The basic idea is a two-state solution, preceded by the acknowledgement of the major crimes of Israel: apartheid, settler colonialism, genocide. 

At the beginning of this section (pp. 253–54), Isaac mentions the vote in the Israeli Knesset in July 2024 rejecting the formation of a Palestinian state, so that a two-state solution is not in the cards at the moment. This is another time that Isaac seems to me a little unfair to Israel, because he seems to lay the blame for the failure of the two-state solution on this vote from Israel in 2024, as if there haven't been decades of talks about this issue. Maybe since he lives in Bethlehem and this situation has been a constant feature of international news for decades, he expects his readers will know this history. But he does not mention the waffling on the two-state solution that both sides have engaged in over the decades (see wikipedia for a rundown). There have been times that Arabs and/or specifically Palestinians have rejected a two-state solution. There have been times that Israel was willing to entertain the possibility of a two-state solution—especially, I believe, in the year of its own formation (1948). If Israel is now opposed to the two-state solution, and if the evidence for this opposition is a vote taken in the Knesset last summer, then it would seem to be a very recent phenomenon and not a long-standing policy, and it would probably behoove us to ask why the Knesset decided to take that vote and why the vote turned out the way it did. The answer cannot be that Israel has been a racist and settler colonialist and apartheid government for 76 years (even if all of those things are true), because there have been times in those 76 years that Israel has been willing to talk about a two-state solution. Maybe the reason for the current Israeli opposition to that solution is Netanyahu, or a rightward turn in Israeli politics, or the ongoing war, or something else. I don't know enough about the situation to say. But what I can say from reading the book is that I feel like I'm not getting the full story. 

What Isaac does succeed in driving home is that the fate of the Palestinians is a major moral issue of our time (as has been true for decades), and that Israel is killing too many of them right now—and, as Isaac would say, for decades past. He does not convince me that the right term for this is genocide, and I think that focusing so heavily on that particular term distracts from his argument. It may have been better to talk about reckless or indiscriminate killing, a charge that is still disputable (I have heard it disputed) but less so. Of course, saying it as I have done—that Israel is killing too many Palestinians—provokes the question, what is the right number of Palestinians to kill?—certainly a cynical and cruel question. But it is also a question that arises when one considers what a proper response to October 7 would have been, a point that Isaac doesn't really address, except to say that October 7 was itself a response to previous Israeli crimes. Isaac also succeeds in arguing that Christians should not voice support for the indiscriminate killing (or genocide) or Palestinians. If there are simple issues in the struggle between Israel and Palestine, these are the ones. But that leaves a lot of room for complexity. 

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