“Would that my head were a spring of water, my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people. ” Jeremiah 9:1

Jeremiah lived some 600 years before the birth of Christ. He was a prophet, who heard and saw what others were unwilling to see. He knew if the nation of Israel continued on its wayward path, only death and destruction would follow.

Jeremiah’s tears are not unlike those of the people in Gaza today. Weeping for their lost children, their brothers and sisters, wives and husbands . . . Pawns in a war not of their own making,

Starvation is ever near, and the daily search for food a constant effort. Over and over and over and over again, forced to move into another area where there is no food, no shelter, and no protection. That we have allowed this travesty to continue, this genocide to go on, speaks to our own twisted interests.

Jeff Halper, an Israeli Human Rights activist points out, the war has continued long after its military objectives were met, because Netanyahu and his far-right Cabinet want to wipe out the Palestinian presence in Gaza.

We claim to be helpless in the midst of this war, but this is not so. The United States has the power to force the issue of diplomacy, if we would only take it. Instead we have given license to Netanyahu and his Cabinet, to do whatever they want to do in and with the people of Gaza, to annihilate not only the people, but their history, culture and connection to the land.

We continue to supply arms that are used for war crimes. Pretending this is not so, does not change the reality of the lived experience of the people in Gaza. International Courts name Israel’s action as Genocide.

What we forget is God is always on the side of the poor, and the oppressed. God is on the side of the war torn. God weeps with those who weep, as families are decimated, by bullets, bombs and indifference.

Of all the nations in the world, the United States has the most power to demand a truce and the return of hostages held both in Gaza and Israeli prisons. We have the power to withhold instruments of war that allow the devastation to continue. That we have not done so is to our shame, and our own complicity in Genocide.