Carol Rittner's Blog

by Carol Rittner, R.S.M.

For as long as I can remember, I have supported the State of Israel and its right to exist within safe and secure borders. Likewise, I have supported a “two-state solution,” the right of Palestinians to have their own independent state within safe and secure borders. 

I have written about the Holocaust and interreligious dialogue between Christians and Jews. I have led groups of Christians to Israel to meet with Jews and Arabs, including Palestinians, but I have not spoken or written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I must do so now because of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded southern Israel. They raped and murdered Jews and took more than two hundred hostages. 

Israel is now engaged in an all-out war with Hamas in Gaza. As a result of the IDF’s land, sea, and aerial bombardment, nearly 30,000 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed. Hundreds of thousands more have been injured. Infrastructure – water, electricity, gas, food markets, homes, hospitals, mosques – has been destroyed. 1.5 million people have been displaced, forced to squeeze into a small corner of Gaza. In Israel, more than 1400 Israelis have been killed, 1300 injured, and somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 Israelis internally displaced. 

I am contributing to Stress Test because I support Israel and the Jewish people, but I also want to be free to criticize the government of Israel. I am contributing to Stress Test because I support the right of Palestinians to have their own state with safe and secure borders, but I also want to be free to criticize any terrorist group whose aim is to wipe out Israel, annihilate the Jewish people, and establish a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.” 

I believe I cannot credibly engage in Christian-Jewish dialogue without engaging the tragedy – political, religious, moral – experienced by Palestinians in Gaza and Jews in Israel because of the Israel-Hamas war. Nor can I engage in Christian-Jewish dialogue without considering that my American government supports the government of Israel in this war but does not support, at least not sufficiently, the right of Palestinians to defend themselves. If we are to have credible Christian-Jewish dialogue, it must be honest dialogue, not diplomatic-speak. We cannot evade difficult questions.