Hundreds of Christians gathered at Parliament Hill on Wednesday to pray for peace in the Israel-Hamas conflict and to urge Ottawa to support a ceasefire and stop arms transfers to Israel.
“It is really important for us as Christians in Canada … to speak up and act according to our Christian principles and follow the leading of Jesus Christ who supported the oppressed,” said Ruleh Odeh, chair of the board for Canadian Friends of Sabeel, a Christian charity that advocates for Palestinians.
“We should be doing that for all people. The Palestinians should not be an exception.”
The vigil was organized by Kairos, a group of churches and religious organizations focused on human rights. It was the final part of a pilgrimage where Christians across Canada walked 41 kilometres, the length of the Gaza Strip, to show support for peace in the region.
The same day as the vigil, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced intentions to formally recognize a Palestinian State on May 28. The announcement prompted a sharp rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who called the countries’ support for a Palestinian state a “reward for terror.”
Kairos has five main goals. Along with calling for a permanent ceasefire and for Ottawa to stop the transfer of arms to Israel, it wants a humanitarian corridor established to bring food and supplies to people living in Gaza, all captives to be released and for Israel to stop occupying the West Bank and Gaza.
For Odeh, who is of Palestinian heritage and lives in Montreal, the cause is personal. She has relatives in both Gaza and Israel, where Palestinian Christians make up about two per cent of the population. Palestinian Christians suffer in the same ways as all Palestinians, she says.
“We’re seeking for all people to have life, security and justice,” she said.
Many speakers at the event echoed the call for peace on both sides. Attendees, many wearing white as a symbol of peace, carried white paper doves and kite-shaped signs with messages like “End War,” “Peace Now,” and “Lord, listen to your children praying.”
At the end of the vigil, participants tied white ribbons to the kite-shaped signs, as a way of praying for the children in Israel and Gaza.
Criticism of Israel
Some attendees were more pointed in their criticism of the Israeli government.
“We do not give [Palestinians] space to allow their voices to be heard,” said the Rev. Dr. Dorcas Gordon, principal emerita of Knox College, a Presbyterian Church of Canada seminary at the University of Toronto. Churches, she says, need to speak out more about the harms Israel is committing against Palestinians.
Gordon, who visited Bethlehem two days before the vigil and has led trips to the area for 15 years, said her passion for promoting Palestinians’ rights is motivated by her reading of the Bible and her interest in feminist and post-colonial studies. She emphasizes the prophets in the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, that preached about the need to show mercy and care for people who are in need. Jesus repeats those same themes in the Gospel accounts, she says.
But churches are too hesitant to speak publicly against Israel’s actions toward Palestinians, she says, because they do not want to be accused of being antisemitic.
The federal government and six provinces have adopted the working definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The alliance has several examples of actions that can be antisemitic, including claims that the creation of the nation of Israel is a “racist endeavour,” the alliance’s website says.
Criticizing the actions or policies of the Israeli government or its leaders is not necessarily antisemitic, says Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy for B’nai Birth Canada, an organization that promotes the rights of Jews in Canada.
The definition of antisemitism “does not prevent due criticism of the State of Israel,” he said. “It permits the State of Israel to be criticized in the same manner as any other nation-state on this planet.”
Ottawa and the provinces have not implemented the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, he says. This definition helps determine if antisemitism has occurred, but governments have not mandated that it be used, he says.
Complicated relationship
Responding to the conflict between Israel and Hamas can be hard for Christians.
Christians throughout history have struggled with how to relate to the Jewish people and, later, the modern state of Israel, says Nate Wall-Bowering, a professor of the Old Testament at Providence University College and Theological Seminary in Manitoba.
In the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, God chooses the Jewish people and promises to give them the land of what is now Israel. In the New Testament, Christians are called the chosen people of God.
Christians have debated whether God still has a special relationship with Israel, and if he does, whether Christians are obligated to support the modern state of Israel, says Wall-Bowering. Some Christians believe their faith requires them to support Israel; other Christians disagree and say Christians do not have a moral obligation to support Israel.
“If you’re just paying attention to social media … you might imagine that the main Christian view, or the only Christian view, is blank check support for the State of Israel,” he said.
But historically, that is not true. For most of Christian history, Christians treated Jews as the “rejected people,” says Wall-Bowering, and at times used the Bible to support antisemitism.
This changed after the Second Vatican Council, a years-long process that ended in 1965, where the Catholic Church re-examined its relationship with other religions and broader society. There, the Catholic Church endorsed a position that said that while the God of the Bible still has a special relationship with the Jewish people, Christians do not have to endorse everything the nation of Israel does.
Regardless of their personal views, conflict in Israel and Gaza brings “conflicting emotions” for Christians. “Christians are bound to care for the oppressed and the suffering,” Wall-Bowering said. They care both about the Christians in Israel and Gaza, and should lament the pain Christians have caused for Jewish people.
“Christians [profess] the name of [Jesus], a first century Jewish rabbi that we think was God in the flesh,” he said. “Imagining ourselves cut loose from Jewish people is just not an option either. I think that many Christians are sort of torn and grieved both ways and probably don’t always know how to make sense of everything … [except] to weep and to pray.”
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