by the Very Revd. Canon Professor Martyn Percy, Fellow at University of Edinburgh, King’s College London & Harris Manchester College Oxford
An obvious observation to make is, ‘what perspective?’ There seems to be so little on the current crisis engulfing Gaza and beyond, only noise, solidarity-signalling and fury matched by long silences and the unsaid. There are plenty of points of view, to be sure. But they’re not quite the same as perspectives.
The terms ‘perspective’ and ‘point of view’ are frequently used as though synonymous. They are not. A point of view is a space or place from which a story is told or unfolds. A perspective, however, is the analysis of the events and actors, and their motivations, beliefs and conduct. Perspectives can take account of worldviews, culture, heritage and experience. While a point of view might assert or argue the ‘when’, ‘who’ and the ‘what’ of history, a perspective should offer illumination on the ‘why’, ‘how’ and intended meanings of sources.
So when a group of prominent Jewish lawyers recently published a letter (Financial Times, 17 October) and issued a statement from the Balfour Project, it was immediately apparent that this was a perspective worthy of heeding. Lord Neuberger, Former President of the UK Supreme Court, Philippe Sands KC, Sandra Fredman, University of Oxford, with several others, argued that the laws of war must guide Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocity of October 7th:
We write as Jews, many of us with family and friends directly affected by the tragedy that has befallen Israel. Like so many others, the vile crimes perpetrated by Hamas in Israel have shaken us to our core. We also write in our capacity as lawyers. We do so because, instilled with our Jewish values, we believe that law, and the adherence to the rule of law, provide an invaluable guide to begin to make sense of what we are witnessing and to provide a path to govern responses to it. In these darkest of days, we write to emphasise the importance of international law as a guide to all.
In their published statement, they go on to say that “one war crime must not…be avenged by committing another”, and that
…nothing can justify the ‘complete siege of the Gaza Strip’ declared by the Israeli Government. Denying electricity, food, water, medicine and fuel to a civilian population is a war crime committed by a state… All human life is equal.
The authors note that Gaza is the most densely populated land on our planet and, as the occupying power, “Israel has a clear legal obligation to safeguard the welfare of the civilians” yet by an “unprecedented aerial bombardment and threatened ground offensive, Israel is inflicting horrendous loss of life on over two million civilians”. Others will claim the rules of war allow for an entirely different perspective, and may argue that action in the cause of self-defence, even proactive, is legitimate. That the ends justify the means, no matter the cost.
Where mediation may yet help all the parties out of this apocalypse, it will be the law that resolves the crisis. The Balfour Project statement was judicious in referring to Jewish law and our shared obligations under international law. At this moment, that emphasis is right and proper. Yet ancient Jewish law also offers a helpful perspective on the present conflict, not least because, at core level, this is part of our shared legal ecology across the developed world.
In the New University Library at St. Andrews, Fife, affixed to a wall, is a quotation from James Wilson, dating from Philadelphia in 1768. Wilson grew up in Fife. In the New World he became a leading legal authority who helped to frame the independence declared from 1776. His words are bold in their simplicity:
All men are by nature equal and free. No-one has a right to any authority over another without his consent…lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it.
Contemporary readers of Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet Common Sense (1776) are frequently surprised by the amount of space he devotes to scriptural reasoning. Paine, a British-born but pro-American independence politician, noted that, for the ancient Jews, monarchy was an idolatrous delusion contrary to Mosaic Law. In the Old Testament, strong, singular, entitled and unaccountable leadership was forbidden.
Instead the Israelites’ preferred form of governance was that of the Judges – Joshua, Gideon, Deborah and others – who placed themselves under the Law, clear that it was “the Lord God who rules over you”. Gideon declined to be anointed King (Judges 8), telling the Israelites that kingship was not theirs to bestow upon him. Gideon was opposed to dynastic, inherited kingship, regarding it as ‘heathen’.
The Old Testament promoted an alternative – a form of ‘positive liberty’ that was based on a just social order (c.f. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (OUP, 1969), pp. 118-172). Leviticus, for example, demands that those who lose their livelihoods are supported by their neighbours. The lives, lands, and livestock of the vulnerable are protected. The Old Testament holiness code is one that promotes interdependence.
The holiness code also limited the power of any monarch or ruler. A king must be one of your kin (Deuteronomy 17:14-20), and not above the citizens. Crucially, the only role the monarch has is to study, practice, dispense and obey the law. Please note, our leaders today – whether elected or imposed – should be upholders of the law, not lobbying the Court of Appeal trying to change law in order to secure conservative right-wing political cache.
Old Testament laws were regarded as directly mediated from God. As the covenant between God and humanity, they transformed a legal code into collective sacred duty. The covenant reminded Israel of its fate when it was denied rights and legal protection:
…remember when you were a slave in Egypt…God redeemed you from there. I, God, therefore command you to observe and protect the rights of the orphan, widow, alien and vulnerable (Deuteronomy 24: 18-22).
What was crucial to Jewish identity (and arguably remains the case) is not whether an individual believes in God, but rather, do they observe the law? The obligations to follow the law are fundamental.
Today, this attitude to law has transmuted into a much wider fundamental respect for judges, legislature and the jurisdiction of the state. We believe it is the law that is the ultimate authority, with politicians, including any President, constrained by their constitution.
Which brings us to Gaza. Since 1650 BCE it probably ranks as one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in history. In old Arabic, its name means ‘fierce, strong’. Conquered by ancient empires – Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Assyrian, Philistine, Canaanite and Persian – by the time of Jesus’ ministry, it was a model of diversity with a multi-ethnic governing assembly.
Gaza is cited by name in Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred writings. Sometimes it is just a geographical reference, and no more. The Ethiopian Eunuch – a black, African transgendered individual whose name we never learn, became the first recorded African convert to Christianity (Acts Chapter 8) while travelling in a chariot on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza.
Over the last two thousand years Gaza city has been held by the Byzantine and Mongol empires, captured by the crusaders, and conquered by Islamic and Ottoman forces. Today, around two million people live there – a mixture of Sunni Muslims and Palestinian Christians, comprising Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic. Several hundred thousand live in one of the eight refugee camps in the territory, after exile from the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948, 1967 (Six Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War). The Gaza Strip was ceded to the Palestinian Authority under the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accord, with Israel finally vacating possession in 2004.
In the wider Gaza province and suburbs, the population numbers around two million people, crammed into an area the size of Sevenoaks in Kent. Incidentally, Sevenoaks has a population of 29,000 – and one need not dwell too much on what expanding a Kentish town’s population by close to one-hundredfold might do to a sitting Conservative MP’s prospects at the next election.
So far as we know, Jesus never visited Gaza. Yet he was well-acquainted with places and peoples who had been subjected to multiple illegal occupation, exile, invasion and domination. One could say that Jesus’ entire ministry is spent among an assortment of the dispossessed, disinherited and decimated. Yet the core proclamation from this young rabbi was essentially one of peace and justice.
Jesus came from Nazareth (Galilee), but his birth was in Bethlehem, Judea. But had there been no census at Bethlehem, Jesus would have been born in Galilee. This territory was not part of the Roman Empire. Galilee was a ‘client province’ of the Empire, and under the heel of Rome, but allowed to be ruled by the Herodian Dynasty. Herod and his son, Antipas were ‘kings’ in the lifetime of Jesus, but mere puppet rulers there to keep order on the edge of an Empire, granted titles and freedoms in return for loyalty.
When it came to the trials of Jesus prior to his crucifixion, Pilate washed his hands of the affair because Jesus, as a Galilean, was not subject to Roman law or jurisdiction. Nor was Jesus subject to Judean law. The Sadducees, Scribes and Pharisees wanted Jesus tried under Jewish law, but neither Herod nor Pilate could oblige. The High Priests argued blasphemy should lead to the automatic death penalty, but the only way of achieving that end was to avoid a trial altogether, and judge and condemn Jesus without any due legal process. That is precisely what happens. Remember Caiaphas’ words: “…what need have we of witnesses?!”
Such was the vengeful hysteria, sentence was passed on Jesus before trial. He was denied due legal process, because were that to have happened, he would most likely have been acquitted.
The statement from the eminent Jewish lawyers of the Balfour Project is a reminder that the only common ground we stand on in a screaming, violent apocalyptic crisis is uncompromising practice of the law. It is the calm reasoning of human rights and due legal process that need to be heard above the cacophony of shouts for vengeance. The only way to bring about peace – and quiet – is justice.
Any thoughts?