Viewpoint: Choose life, Rep. Yakym, and support ceasefire
Recently the two of us delivered a petition to Rep. Rudy Yakym’s Mishawaka office, signed by over 5,000 U.S. Mennonite Christians, including hundreds of Yakym’s constituents, calling for Yakym to support a ceasefire resolution for Israel/Palestine. On Jan. 16, we also visited his office in Washington with hundreds of fellow Mennonite Christians, where this same letter was delivered. We previously visited Yakym’s Mishawaka office on Dec. 19 with around 150 Mennonite Christians to ask him to support this resolution.
Our persistence in appealing to him to support a ceasefire is based not on a political ideology but on our Christian convictions regarding the sanctity of human life, which we believe he shares. Along with these commitments comes the responsibility to act when innocent human lives are being destroyed, as is happening right now in Gaza with the support of U.S. Congress-approved funding. Yet, according to Yakym’s staffer, Yakym maintains “unequivocal support” for Israel’s military campaign, despite the mounting deaths and displacement of innocent Palestinians.
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In his parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus states that whatever we do (or don’t do) for the least of God’s children, we do (or don’t do) for Jesus himself; and Jesus states that we will be judged accordingly (Matthew 25:31–46). Likewise, Jesus’s brother James writes, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:15–17).
As we write this, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians not only are without daily food and fresh water but also have been displaced from their homes and are under constant threat of death at the hands of Israel’s military. According to Palestinian health authorities, the death toll has risen to over 30,000, the majority of whom are women and children.
After living in Palestine/Israel and working with Christian relief organizations there for seven years, Anna has Palestinian friends in Gaza who contact her regularly with reports of the deaths of friends and family members and of the ongoing threat to their own lives. One friend wrote of the death of his father, sister and brother in November, and he now fears for his wife and children who are sheltering with him in a tent in Rafah, along with one million other Palestinians displaced from their homes.
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This week he messaged Anna: “The war continues. There is no safe place in Gaza.” He asked Anna to relay this message to U.S. officials: “Tell them we are tired. Ask them to help me and my children come out of death. My children are very tired and afraid. They do not sleep because of the bombing and the sound of planes.” It is on behalf of friends in Gaza that we plead with Yakym to join the call for a ceasefire before thousands more die in Israel’s assault on Rafah.
With Yakym, we mourn the 1,163 Israeli lives lost in the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath, and we pray for the release of hostages and for the safety and well being of all people living in Israel/Palestine. At the same time, Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate military response will not bring lasting peace to the region but will only breed more violence and resentment, making Israelis themselves less safe.
Yakym’s “unequivocal support” for Israel’s military campaign as a member of Congress makes him personally complicit in this destruction of human life. We call on him to repent of his complicity and to break from the status quo of both political parties by standing up for the sanctity of life — for the lives of Palestinians and Israelis; hostages and civilians; men, women and children; Christians, Muslims and Jews. As our representative, he has the power and the responsibility to act in a way that can save countless innocent lives, including Anna’s friends and those experiencing similarly dire conditions. Our plea to Yakym is this: Choose life.
The Rev. David Cramer is pastor at Keller Park Church in South Bend. Anna Johnson is a PhD candidate in peace studies and sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a member of Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Viewpoint: Sanctity of life includes Palestinians
