Well said, Daniel.
Last year, a 16-year-old student from Ramallah Friends School in Ramallah, Palestine, named Shadi Khouri, was arrested, held without charge, and beaten by the Israeli military. Thankfully, he was finally released a few months ago. The Ramallah Friends School is affiliated with the Friends (Quakers), a historically pacifist Christian movement. I attend an Evangelical Friends church, myself.
When I heard about Shadi’s captivity, I wrote several letters to various Israeli politicians petitioning for his release. I made it clear that I was neither challenging Israel’s right to exist nor its right to self-preservation, but simply that the false imprisonment and torture of a 16-year-old Quaker served neither of those ends. I also appealed to the Torah’s frequently repeated charge to treat the foreigner to the same degree of justice as the Israelite, and God’s warning against dealing with foreigners unjustly.
