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Wes Granberg-Michaelson writes in this week’s SojoMail that it's hard to get past polarized rhetoric about Israel and Palestine — but we must try, for silence is complicit resignation to evil, terror, and calamity: A callous, calculating cycle of lethal violence grips the Middle East. Its momentum seems unstoppable and could engulf nations beyond the region into warring conflict, with nuclear weapons — unused in any war for 79 years — on hair triggers. Historians will dissect the complex web of events over the past century that brought us to this precipice in the Middle East. But in the U.S., particularly within the life and witness of its churches, our attitudes and actions have been afflicted with an asymmetry of empathy. The present political and religious environment is both intense and toxic, making any judgements about Israel and Palestine perilous. Anyone who dares speak is immediately subject to interrogation, often followed by indictments of antisemitism, or religious zealotry, or blind ideological bias. What can religious voices rooted in a commitment to God’s justice and peace say in this perilous moment? The answer, I believe, lies in the themes of biblical wisdom, which we know to be true in any time and in any context.
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