As followers of Jesus, we remember at this time of year the Wise Men who followed the nativity star of Jesus. But their visit turned into a slaughter of innocents by Herod, the reigning king of Israel. Later St. Paul, in sorrow, asked, 'where are the wise men of our age,' as those in the know, from both Israel and the Empire had not recognized the Savior.

Today, Hamas rockets land in Israel and Israeli bombs obliterate the civilians of Gaza. This must stop, unless we wish to repeat the Slaughter of the Innocents.

I feel a similar sadness as we start 2009 as I hear and see what is happening in Israel with the Palestinian crisis. Where are the Wise Men of our age? Why is wisdom being replaced by slaughter?

Why has the militant wing of Hamas gone wild, when the vast majority of Palestinians want to live in peace and get on with their lives? Why are all three Israeli political candidates using bombing raids as campaigns for upcoming political office? Why is the president of the United States still in hiding over this issue after more than a week? Is this what was meant by a negotiated settlement by the end of his administration? This is a dearth of leadership on all sides.

Our political leaders have failed us on this key issue that lies at the heart of the Middle East and America's foreign policy. Our religious leaders have failed us also, by misusing end-time scripts from the Bible to support Israel unconditionally; and by using Jihad as a call to overcome oppression. God calls us to do justice, walk humbly with our God, and that call extends to all, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

The bombs which are falling into Gaza are American made. I grieve over the loss of life. Pray for peace, work for peace, and let's end the nightmare that cripples both Israel and Palestine. Together we can stop the slaughter of innocents, both in Gaza and in Israel.

The words of the late Edward Said (August, 2002), should be heard at this time.   

"Every Palestinian has become a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified fence on three sides: imprisoned like animals, Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. They are exposed from the air to Israeli planes and helicopters and are gunned down like turkeys on the ground by tanks and machine guns. Impoverished and starved, Gaza is a human nightmare. Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains. Palestinians must die a slow death so that Israel can have its security, which is just around the corner but cannot be realized because of the special Israeli "insecurity." The whole world must sympathize, while the cries of Palestinian orphans, sick old women, bereaved communities, and tortured prisoners simply go unheard and unrecorded. Doubtless, we will be told, these horrors serve a larger purpose than mere sadistic cruelty. After all, "the two sides" are engaged in a "cycle of violence" that has to be stopped, sometime, somewhere. Once in a while we ought to pause and declare indignantly that there is only one side with an army and a country: the other is a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them. The language of suffering and concrete daily life has been either hijacked or so perverted as, in my opinion, to be useless except as pure fiction deployed as a screen for the purpose of more killing and painstaking torture -  slowly, fastidiously, inexorably. That is the truth of what Palestinians suffer."

I've walked the streets of Gaza, I've walked the streets of Tel Aviv. Both Palestinians and Israelis want the same thing, to live, to raise families and see their children inherit a better world than they had. Let's stop the slaughter of the innocents now, to insure that they have a future, together.