NASHVILLE (BP) – One month after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, Israel’s ground invasion into the Gaza Strip has reached a new stage with ground forces deep inside Gaza City, The Associated Press reported Nov. 7.
And as fighting intensifies in the Middle East, antisemitic sentiments appear to be rising here at home.
A statement issued by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in the days immediately following the Oct. 7 attack continues to gain signatories who agree with the statement’s call to “fully support Israel’s right and duty to defend itself against further attack, and urgently call all Christians to pray for the salvation and peace of the people of Israel and Palestine.”
Thousands have added their names to the statement since its release Oct. 11.
“Today marks the one-month anniversary since Hamas first committed its gruesome attacks on Israel,” said ERLC President Brent Leatherwood in written comments Nov. 6. “We continue to grieve the innocent lives who have died and pray for the hostages who are being held in this senseless war. We continue to support the rights of the nation of Israel to defend itself, and have been joined by more than 2,000 signatories on our Evangelical Statement in Support of Israel.”
Cultural commentator Dan Darling noted that last month’s attack on Israel saw more Jewish people killed in a single day than any day since the Holocaust.
“Forensic investigators are still piecing together the details of this savage and evil attack, and families are still trying to identify loved ones from fragments of their remains,” Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press. “The statement of support by evangelical leaders is still both timely and essential. We should be encouraged by the way many evangelical leaders have come alongside us to express their support for Israel’s right to exist and the right to defend itself.”
But, he added, Christians should remain vigilant and speak with boldness.
“We should be dismayed and horrified by the rising antisemitism on American college campuses, in many cities around the world, and even by some Christians,” Darling said. “It is clear that hatred for and violence toward the Jewish people is sadly an evil that has existed in every generation from Haman to Hitler to Hamas. It’s vital for Christians to stand against this and to work for and pray for peace in the Middle East, so that both Palestinians and Israelis might live side by side, in peace, until the Prince of Peace returns.”
Hamas militants killed 1,400 Israelis in their attack and took hundreds of hostages, most of whom have not been released.
The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry reports more than 10,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory bombings, though accurate numbers are hard to ascertain.
Christians should care about victims on both sides, Leatherwood said.
“Our concern for the vulnerable has no borders,” he said. “We care about the innocent lives that are caught in the midst of this conflict, whether it is in Israel or in Gaza, whether they are Jewish or Muslim or Christian individuals. These are people made in God’s image, and this war is not of their choosing.
“But,” he added, “we must remain clear-eyed about who is at fault in this conflict. This war was initiated by a terrorist organization. Hamas is the enemy in this, not just to Israel, but to the Palestinian people, and to everyone who desperately seeks peace in the Middle East.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Laura Erlanson is managing editor of Baptist Press.)
