Hope in Resisting
By Dr. Toni Pyke
It has been some time since I have been able to write a new blog on the situation in Palestine and have been wondering why I have procrastinated for so long. I think it is because I just didn’t know what more to say. Here we are more than 2 years into the siege on Gaza and the intensification of settler colonial expansion and aggression in the West Bank, and still no reprieve for the Palestinian people. Still no tangible action from global leadership. Even after an agreed ‘ceasefire’ the bombing and violence continues. As UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese (who is herself a target of oppressive states and their allies, being sanctioned globally), says, it’s a “you cease and I’ll fire” arrangement. A recent video (be sure to listen with the volume on) from Holy Family parish, the only Catholic parish in Gaza, attests to this.
I have also noticed the abrupt decline of coverage from within Gaza on my social media feeds. This can only mean 2 things – that those who I have been following have been killed, or that the censuring from Gaza and curtailment of “free speech” by those considered to have too much “empathy” who oppose genocide and crimes against humanity have removed the posts. If you are looking for answers on Google, you won’t find them on your mainstream sources, they are not there. You must dig deep to find it. And when you do, save it. The next time you go searching it may well have been removed by one of the many new employees – all former IDF soldiers – who are now working for the main social media platforms and search engines.
Another deeply disturbing response by the perpetrators of genocide, has been to rewrite the Christian narrative to justify its evil crimes. Attempts to “doublethink” the “newspeak” (as outlined in George Orwells dystopian book 1984) of your google search by serenading evangelical Christians to promote a new version of Christ’s teaching labelled as ‘Christian Zionism’ that bypasses Gospel Teaching in favour of the promotion of end times. I underestimated the impact of this reality after a conversation I had with a close friend. Despite my best efforts in raising awareness and conscientising the realities of the situation of Palestinians, it seems that this ‘fake’ narrative about “Gaza” began and ended for many of us with October 7 2023. Despite knowing of the occupation of Palestine for nearly a century, I never really understood the layers of cruelty, abuse and torture of those detained ‘just because’. Or the persistent random arrests, detainment and torture of children, women and men for offences that they were never charged or convicted of. Or, of others that languished in the catacombs of violence within Israeli prisons for many years, some never to be seen again. Some corpses that were recently returned to their homeland showed signs of extreme torture and indications of sinister surgical procedures, which left them beyond recognition for their families to reclaim. I remember feeling this very same shame and disgust when I visited the Apartheid Museum in South Africa. I couldn’t understand how and why apartheid existed and how the perpetrators continued to justify their crimes. I never understood how the Holocaust was sanctioned and facilitated and by some, denied. But here I am, living through a real-life genocide, and still I fail to comprehend the barbarity, inhumanity and widespread complicity.
This is the success of the billions of dollars spent re-writing and spinning the truth until a ‘new normal’ emerges and the masses forget, bypass or deny the reality. Many of us do not dare question or challenge this new narrative. Why would you I guess, given the aggression from those in leadership when we do?
As we near the end of 2025, a year dedicated to ‘hope’ by Pope Francis and followed through by Pope Leo, where is the hope amidst this reality? This weekend in Gaudete Sunday, a time for joy and rejoicing as we prepare for the birth of our Saviour. In the first reading (Isaiah 61:1-2A), we are reminded https://bible.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/61?1:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the broken hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
to announce a year of favour from the Lord
and a day of vindication by our God.
We all know what we are called to do to embrace our Gospel mission and to bring hope to a troubled world. We must resist the vilification of empathy. We must resist the dehumanisation of humanity. We must resist distortion and dilution of our historical experiences and the misrepresentation of the message of our Gospel faith. Not in our name.
This is how we resist (Ella Hicks):
By thinking.
By Feeling
By refusing to go numb
Empathy is resistance.
And so is critical thought.
Let neither be lost – not on your watch.
