There is an awakening…

The sweeping protests in universities in the West shows that young people are waking up to the realities of the Empire. These protests are reminiscent of the student protests in the 1960s against the US war on Vietnam.

I wrote the following piece for the Herald some weeks ago, when all hope seemed lost. But the student protests now give us hope that more people are seeing the real violence, oppression and even genocide of the Empire.

‘A voice is heard in Ramah’ weeping for the children of Rafah

The desolation is thick in the air. In Jeremiah 13:15, Yahweh says this: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly: it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

Rachel, who lived 17 centuries before Jesus, is the wife of Jacob, and she had died on the road from Bethel to Bethlehem. She was believed to be buried near Ramah, believed to be modern day al-Ram, about 25km north of Bethlehem.

Jeremiah, “the weeping prophet” who lived from 650-570 BC, was aware of the captives being held in Ramah before they were sent to exile in Babylon from 597 to 538 BC, following the destruction of Jerusalem in 587BC.

Jeremiah has Rachel ‘weeping’ in desolation, possibly as she ‘watches’ her descendants being taken into exile. In Matthew, Rachel ‘weeps’ once again over the fate of her descendants, this time victims of Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents. The sound of the ‘wailing’ was apparently so loud it could be heard from a distance.

Ramah could also mean ‘on high’ — the sound of weeping is also heard on high, in the highest heaven.

Today, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has reached the southernmost city, Rafah, about 112km southwest from where the voice of Rachel was heard weeping for her children. The UN’s top official has warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah could lead to a “slaughter”.

One analyst has described the devastation in Gaza as not just a genocide but also a domicide — the systematic destruction of infrastructure and housing to render an entire place uninhabitable. Entire apartment blocks, even universities and hospitals, have been blown to bits.

The irony is that Israel had earlier warned Gazans to move from the north to the south to escape the bombs. But not content with its destruction in the north, the blood-thirsty Israeli leaders, who stood condemned in the eyes of the world when the International Court of Justice ruled in South Africa’s favour, have moved their military south.

Of course, much blood has been spilt in other parts of the world, in places like Yemen and Myanmar as well. But what is happening in Palestine/ Israel is sacrilegious. This is a land sacred to three Abrahamic religions. This is the land where Jesus lived and proclaimed a kingdom of love and compassion. Yet it is also the land where settler colonialism has grabbed land from its existing inhabitants, resulting in the Nakba (Catastrophe) in 1948.

That was when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced to make way for Jews arriving from Europe and elsewhere. Some 15,000 Palestinians lost their lives in 70 massacres, which destroyed 500 Palestinian towns and villages.

The death toll today in Gaza is almost double that of the Nakba.

While we place ashes on our foreheads to remind us of our own mortality, the people of Gaza need no such reminder. The scent of death from dead bodies is all around them. Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents pales by comparison. About half of the 30,000 dead in Gaza are children.

Herod’s massacre towards the tail end of his rule is closely associated with the holy family fleeing into Egypt as refugees.

But in Gaza, the refugees of the destruction have nowhere to go, trapped in the “world’s largest concentration camp”. Even if they run, they are sitting ducks for Israeli snipers.

How far Israel has strayed from the path of righteousness and compassion! Who can stop this destruction, this madness? Even the International Court of Justice seems helpless in stopping the carnage despite deciding against Israel recently.

Armed to the teeth with weapons from the US and its European allies, Israel continues its settler colonialism project as it rampages through Gaza, driving the 2.3 million people of Gaza further south — to where? The border with Egypt remains closed.

If that’s not enough, 16 mostly Western nations, including the US and the UK, announced they would stop funding the UN refugee agency in Gaza, UNRWA.

One thing is for sure: the voice of the weeping mothers of Gaza, lamenting their dead children, are sure to be heard “on high’. Rachel is desolate, weeping, even today. The wails of her lamentations sweep not across several kilometres but across the world.

What can we, as Christians, do? It’s time to make our voices heard, along with others, and call for an end to the carnage. Above all, this Lent, let us pray to the Lord unceasingly to move the hearts of the callous, to stop killing people for land, money, profits and strategic interests.

Take heart, Jeremiah (13:16-17) has a happy ending: 16 Yahweh says this: Stop your lamenting dry your eyes, for your labour will have a reward, Yahweh declares, and they will return from the enemy’s country.

17 There is hope for your future after all, Yahweh declares, your children will return to their homeland.”

Let us pray that ‘Rachel’s descendants’ in Gaza too will be able to return to their homes before long.