“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip … we’ll own it,” President Donald Trump coldly announced while standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.[1] The shocking, chaotic, and inflammatory words are a departure from our ideal values and the leadership others have come to rely on. To a watching world, America is being revealed as a bully that only seeks to enrich itself at the expense of others.
International tensions were elevated last night. The world is now more dangerous because an idea that never should have left closed doors went into the open by two leaders who hold the power to affect economies, direct military assets, and launch nuclear weapons. Words are powerful and have the potential to disrupt the lives of millions of innocent people—for good or evil.
Whether by denial, pressure, force, decree, or war, the relocation of people from their rightful homes is a violation of their inalienable human rights. The right to live with dignity, equality, peace, and self-determination to choose one’s path is the fundamental basis for a free and just world. The denial of these rights (among many others) is an act of cruelty against the personhood and souls of others.
The right to live with dignity, equality, peace, and self-determination to choose one’s path is the fundamental basis for a free and just world.
People are not nameless consumers or commodities. When individuals or identity groups are unjustly or inaccurately labeled as enemies, criminals, terrorists, “animals,” or given a name other than the one they inherited from their ancestors, we categorize and discriminate by claiming rights for ourselves while denying them to others. We lose sight of our common humanity when we stop seeing people as created beings forged from the same biological and spiritual origins as ourselves. When connection to our shared humanity is diminished, the power of love is darkened. The meaning and outcomes of love are shaped in the context of a diverse and empowered community. According to the ancient teachings of Jesus Christ, the greatest moral aspiration of humanity is learning to love our neighbors as ourselves.[2]
The beliefs of human nature might suggest we are animalistic, territorial, aggressive beings only seeking self-survival and preservation. History and experience may appear to support these claims, but it’s not what humanity is destined to become. Evolutionary evidence and human progress tell a different story of our species learning and maturing over generations beyond primal instincts to a higher purpose and awareness. We are beings capable of love, hope, collaboration, and peaceful coexistence with each other and our environment. The pathway is often challenging and imperfect, but so are growth, trials, and experiments.
Chaos is the chosen strategy of the current political forces in America, but the people don’t have to accept it. Hope requires peace with our neighbors—locally and globally. Peace is the pursuit of goodwill for all humanity through nonaggression, empathy, and love. It’s difficult to achieve because it demands humility and sacrifice from each of us. The generous will be the first to receive the glory of a better tomorrow.
[2] Matthew 23:39, The Holy Bible.
Matt Till 