ISRAEL’S CLAIM TO INNOCENCE: unmasking the theology of self-defence.
For most pro-Israel supporters, every heartbreaking statistic—bombed hospitals, starving children, community displacement and mass graves—is met with one universal refrain – a question disguised as an answer: “Doesn’t Israel have the right to defend itself?” When engaging the topic of self-defence, three distinct yet interwoven frameworks must be held together in thoughtful unity. Each offers a lens—legal, moral, and spiritual—that, when integrated, can guide us beyond reaction toward discernment. To separate them is to risk distortion; to unite them is to pursue justice with integrity.
ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF: The 3 laws of a just war
Many Christians, with firm convictions that Israel is acting purely out of self-defence in Gaza, are good people acting in good faith. However, most of our thinking is often, for various reasons, warped by motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, and this leads us to replace complexity with simplicity. This is just human nature. The answer is not that simple though.