Peace in Gaza

I invite my readers to respond to the situation in Gaza by going to the Churches for Middle East Peace website, learning all you can about the issues surrounding the ongoing fighting, and advocating with our government to broker a cease fire. The Bush administration offered an international summit in 2007 in Anapolis, MD to move closer to a two-state solution. They never reached agreement.
Today, civillian Palestinian casualties in Gaza have overloaded the medical community's ability to assist. A an attack near a UN school left 40 dead and many more wounded.
I wonder how the excessive nature of Israel's vengeful assault on Gaza can go unchecked by the U.S. The random act of terror that disrupts Israeli community and kills, injures, and maims Israelis is often met with excessive military retaliation. Rather than a police action that punishes the people groups responsible for terrorist attacks, a general war offensive is launched that impacts civillians and essental infrastructure. This, I believe, only fuels the malcontented extremists.
This is a religious matter. it cannot be separated form politics and economics. Christians, Jews and Muslims must find a way to live peaceably without comprising core beliefs. I see no core belief within Christianity that calls us to exclude, hate, villify, demonize, or destroy the other. They are created in the image of God. Jews are God's chosen people, from whom and for whom Jesus came. Islam cannot exist to become the only religion on the planet. Extremists in all three camps must now be marginalized and silenced by thoughtful and faithful moderates, who might see an alternative that is neither secular/pluralist, nor fundamentalist/extremist. Brian McLaren's blog and some articles on Sojourners offer some compelling thoughts.
I have always believed that moderate Christians, perhaps even Lutherans and anabaptists together, are essential to the brokering of a truce because we are called by Jesus to a radical turning away from vengeance and retaliation to a willful act of submission as a servant of the neighbor. When a people group surrenders their will to power and claims of authority, while also providing for the needs of the enemy, then we might begin to see a way forward.
Today, we cannot resolve the entrenched conflict expressed by Arabs and Israeli's toward the other. But we can be people of peace, offering in some way to create the capacity for peace among neighbors and we can support those with power to seek a peaceful solution. So, write to President-Elect Obama and compel him to get in the game in order to broker a lasting truce through real conversation.
Also, please pray for the 90 + Lutheran Bishops and their spouses who are travelling to the region this week. May the Prince of Peace guide their steps and give them words of hope to share.