Article
Comment
Easter
Middle East
Resurrection
War & peace
7 min read

The Friday world of the Middle East at Easter

Violence begets violence in a zero sum world.

Todd  is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Telos Group. It forms communities of American peacemakers across lines of difference and conflict, including Israel/Palestine. 

A family look at the concrete shell and remains of a bombed building.
Christian Aid.

What do the events of Holy Week and Easter---these seminal events in Christianity-- have to say in a time of slaughter and now starvation in the Middle East? The closer we get to Easter Sunday, the most sacred day in Christianity, the more I’ve wrestled with that question.  

I’m neither Palestinian nor Israeli, and so my connection to the historic tragedy continuing to unfold is not as visceral or as obvious as some.  But as an American and a Christian, I’m deeply bound up in all of this.  The realization of my own implication led me back in 2009 to co-found a nonprofit whose mission is to help Americans better understand the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American role in it, and to learn about the difficult work of honest peacemaking.  These past five months are a nightmare I can’t wake up from, and of course they’re more than a nightmare for the people in the south of Israel and the West Bank, and they’re an absolute hell on earth for the people in Gaza today.   

For more than 20 years I’ve lived in a set of deep relationships with both Palestinians and Israelis.  The horror and barbarity of the Hamas attacks on October 7th and the horror and devastation of the slaughter and starvation taking place unabated in Gaza even this Holy Week have left me begging God to intervene and begging our leaders to do whatever we can to stop the madness.  

Sometimes there’s a lot more of the darkness of Thursday and Friday than the joy and light of Easter Sunday morning.

In most of the 65 trips I’ve led to the Holy Land over the years, after we’ve had our heart broken by the stories we’ve heard and the experiences we’ve shared with people on all sides, we visit the place on the Mount of Olives looking at the Old City of Jerusalem where Jesus stopped, looked at the city, and wept. It is here, just as he entered what we call his Passion Week, that he said “Jerusalem, Jerusalem if only you’d known the things that make for peace.”  If only you’d known.  If only we’d known.  If only we knew.   

I need this story to be in the Bible. Many times I’ve had to fall back on Jesus weeping for the mess we’ve made of our lives, the way we allow our fears and our hatreds or our indifference to guide how we treat our neighbors, how often we use violence and power to deny the way they too bear the image of God.  

This is one of those times. The worst of those times in all the years I’ve been involved in Israel and Palestine.  I’ve found myself weeping privately, in conversations, and sometimes in public places.  And I’ve spent so much time asking God to intervene. To comfort the terrorized and afraid, to feed the starving, to silence the guns of war, to rescue and deliver those who are dying.  

And the answer I keep getting has felt like silence.  Deafening silence.  

At times like this, the Christian life feels like a Thursday night in a garden when your friends can't’ stay awake to help you and even God is not answering your prayer. Or it feels like a Friday afternoon in Jerusalem when all hope has died and you can’t imagine how the world will ever be better. Sometimes there’s a lot more of the darkness of Thursday and Friday than the joy and light of Easter Sunday morning.  

The work of justice and mercy make for peace. Revenge and violence do not. 

But Lent and Holy Week have given me another answer, beyond God’s silence--the reminder that the people in Israel and In Gaza, even those this very night who are displaced and starving, are not alone.  God is with them. And he weeps for them. And he weeps for us. If only we knew the things that make for peace.  If only we knew how to love God and to love our neighbor and to love our enemies. If only we knew the limits of violence to achieve good ends. If only we knew the connection between peace and justice.  

And the fullness of this Holy Week also brings me to this reminder that if God does not seem active maybe it’s because we are not listening to his call.  My friend Bill Haley says this:  

“The actual invitation of the Christian faith is not just to believe in Jesus or be like Jesus or tell others about Jesus (as right as these thing are), but actually to be the presence of Jesus in the world, our hands his hands, our feet his feet, our heart his heart, our bodies his very body...  By this does the reality of the risen, living Jesus continue to be displayed, visibly and tangibly, in and around the world (and yours and mine), day after day.” 

To do this we first seek to know the things that make for peace (and equally important is to know the things that don’t make for peace). The work of justice and mercy make for peace. Revenge and violence do not. The embrace of our mutuality and interconnectedness make for peace. Tribalism and dehumanization of our neighbors do not.  Justice and respect make for peace. Systems of domination and ideologies of hatred do not. Respect for the sacredness of life and the inherent dignity of all as made in the image of God make for peace. Brutality, murder, and starvation do not.  Acts of love and service make for peace. Fear and self-centeredness do not.  

The Friday world is zero sum.  Justice and peace are separate things.  Some lives are more important than others.

In a Good Friday world, to live as if these “things that make for peace” are actually true is a costly endeavor.  Jesus paid with his life.  Others like Martin Luther King have also. For most of us, it may just be the way our reputation suffers, or how certain relationships are strained.  There may be some economic cost or sacrifice of our time and attention required. But if it says anything, Holy Week teaches us that incarnational living is costly.  Reconciliation comes at a price. The crucifixion wasn’t just something that happened to Jesus on the way to resurrection.  It is central to it.  

And yet, believers in Jesus know that Holy Week and the shame, humiliation, brutality and injustice of the crucifixion were not the last word.  To borrow from the legendary Black preacher S.M. Lockridge, we live in a Friday world, but we know that Sunday’s coming.  

In a world of Fridays, violence begets violence.  The Friday world is zero sum.  Justice and peace are separate things.  Some lives are more important than others. There is minimal cost to looking away from people who are hungry and imprisoned.  Religion is used to baptize injustice.  We live in a Friday world.  But we are Sunday people.  And we are called to live as best we can as reminders that in a Sunday world we are responsible for what we know, responsible to each other, and responsible before God. To quote Dr. King again, in a Sunday world, "darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."   

Sunday people are Easter people.  And Easter people have a mandate to live as peacemakers in a world riven by conflict. To be purveyors of light and hope in a time of devastation and despair.  Frederick Douglass said “I prayed for freedom for 20 years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”  As we pray for peace, and we have to be people who pray for peace, let us also be agents of God’s peace.  Let us be those incarnational Easter people who pray for peace with our legs.  Let us do the urgent work for a lasting ceasefire, for a release of all hostages, and for food for hungry people.  And when the guns are silenced and the hungry are at last being fed and the wounded and traumatized are given space to heal, then the greater work begins.  Let us learn the lessons of how we got here and let us commit ourselves to a different path forward, one grounded in the sacred dignity of all the people of the land, Palestinians and Israelis alike.  Let us support all those who seek justice and peace and security through the path of mutual flourishing.  These are the things that make for peace. 

 

Review
Books
Culture
Leading
Politics
5 min read

Blair’s revelatory sermon to Starmer

What can the former Prime Minister teach about leadership?

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Tony Blair rests on the edge of a desk.
Tony Blair at rest.

The 1990s are enjoying a revival—from the return of baggy jeans and bucket hats to the reunion of Oasis, and, perhaps most significantly, a Labour government in power once again. Unlike the fervent optimism of 1997, when Tony Blair swept to victory with D: ream’s hit song Things Can Only Get Better as an anthem, today’s Labour government faces criticism for a perceived lack of vision. Luckily, Tony Blair has just released his new book: On Leadership—perhaps a timely read for the current Prime Minister. 

Blair's leadership credentials are, at one level at least, pretty impressive: he won three consecutive elections and was the first Labour Prime Minister to do so. His achievements include playing a crucial role in the Northern Ireland Peace Process, reducing NHS wait times, and making a substantial investment in public services. Blair also took a courageous stance with U.S. President Bill Clinton by intervening in the Kosovo conflict against the advice of the UN.  He remains however indelibly associated with the controversial 2003 invasion of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 179 British personnel, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.  

In this climate of scepticism toward political leaders, Blair's reflections on leadership invite critical questions: Who is this book for? Where is the vision? And even, intriguingly, do we now 'do God'? 

Who's it for? 

Blair’s book is not a typical guide to general leadership principles; rather, it’s an insider’s view on leading a country. For the average reader, it’s like overhearing a high-level seminar on statecraft—a glimpse into the “room where it happens.”  

Maybe there’s a bit of an audience reality check going on in the same way that a TV documentary on what-it’s-really-like-to-be-the-England-football-manager might deliver. Many football fans are happy to shout at our televisions when most have not got even the remotest clue of the challenges and pressures national coaches are under. So perhaps if Blair can tell us how hard it is to handle the myriads of competing challenges as the leader of a nation, readers might better understand the weight of leadership and approach politics – and politicians -with greater humility. 

One of the most helpful reflections the book offers was Blair’s self-analysis on three stages of leadership. The first is the new leader listening eagerly; the second comes when they think they know everything, and finally, there’s a third stage of maturity when “once again, with more humility, they listen and learn”.  He argues that his book’s purpose is to shorten the learning curve and get leaders to the third stage more quickly. 
This a noble cause, but there are times when this book feels like a sermon preached by a slightly unscrupulous vicar, in a church where everyone knows there’s only one person the preacher has in mind. This can make everyone else feel they are there just to fill up the pews so that the message gets delivered. For Blair, his message and his book seem to be very much for Sir Keir Starmer; a plea to him to listen and learn from others.  

Where’s the vision? 

Blair encourages leaders to make a meaningful impact with their time in office. Recalling a conversation with Shimon Peres, he writes, “Do you want to be in the history books or the visitors’ book?” For Blair, leadership is about pushing boundaries, meeting resistance with persistence, and making difficult choices when others hesitate. He writes, “If you, as a leader, are not a changemaker in this world, it is you who will be changed.” His words on taking risks and demonstrating resilience are certainly inspiring. However, he often focuses on how to lead effectively, with limited exploration of what motivates us to seek positions of leadership in the first place — a disappointing missing focus on moral purpose. 

This emphasis on strategy over ideology is evident in chapter titles: The Supreme Importance of Strategy versus The Plague of Ideology. Blair is critical of rigid ideologies, advocating instead for flexibility and pragmatism. He contrasts ideological rigidity with a more agile and pragmatic approach, which could sound like its own simply going-with-the-flow ideology, - a situational ethical approach. This feels very different to the Tony Blair that took on the United Nations over the Serbian genocide in Kosovo. He appeared to take a moral stance driven by a commitment to human rights rather than going with a more pragmatic laissez-faire solution. Blair’s emphasis on pragmatism, while useful, may leave readers wanting more on the values that shape a visionary leader. 

Blair includes a joke, a very good one, that feels accidentally pertinent: some people die and the Devil appears and asks them, before they settle for Heaven, to take a look at Hell, because it’s not as bad as they’ve heard. When they see the “drinking and debauchery” in Hell, they ask to be damned. But then they wake up in the real Hell – “cold, miserable and horrible” – and demand to know why it looks nothing like what the Devil showed them. “Ah well,” says the Devil, “back then I was campaigning.” 

He meant it as a joke, but the lack of moral clarity in the book made me feel he was sharing more than he intended about the state of political leadership right now. Perhaps sharing to many more than just those he wrote this sermon for. It certainly encapsulates the growing chasm between political promises and reality, as well as illustrating the reason why many people feel disdain, distrust and disappointment in all politicians who say whatever they need to say to get elected.  

Are we doing God now? 

Famously, when asked about his faith while Prime Minister, Blair was interrupted by his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, who declared, “We don’t do God.” Yet in this book, Blair invokes Moses as an example of leadership under difficult circumstances: “Never underestimate the degree to which people crave leadership. Back to Moses again. The Israelites simultaneously hated and craved his leadership. If you remember, they reached the promised land (though, yes, I know, he didn't).” 

Blair sees in Moses a leader who maintained strength and conviction, even in the face of public criticism—a relatable comparison for politicians navigating the pressures of modern social media. Whether or not Blair is “doing God” in this book, he draws inspiration from Moses as a model of resilience and substance, inviting readers to consider leadership as a balance between staying grounded in one’s values and withstanding external pressure. 

In the end, On Leadership is a reflective, sometimes provocative take on leading a nation, full of insights that swing from the practical to the idealistic. But it also raises important questions about the ultimate purpose of leadership and the need for a clear moral compass. For a public that remains sceptical of political motives, Blair’s leadership lessons may provide timely, if imperfect, revelation.