In March of this year, I was appointed archbishop of Detroit, Mich., an area that includes the largest Arab-American population in the United States, a significant majority of whom are Muslim. Southeast Michigan also has many congregations and communities of Jewish people, who have contributed tremendously to the well-being of our area. A third sizable portion of the population in our area is Arab Christian. With this diversity within our local demographic, the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,200 innocent Israeli people and the taking of 251 hostages, stirred especially powerful sentiments throughout southeastern Michigan.

I was among those horrified by those events on Oct. 7, and I expressed my solidarity with the victims. And now, as the months have unfolded and the reports and pictures of death and destruction in Gaza have emerged, I find myself just as horrified. The pressing need for aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza at the current time led me to make a fundraising plea to all Catholic parishes and communities in the Archdiocese of Detroit. While amounts continue to be sent to our chancery, the early tally is nearly $400,000 to assist with the medical, food and shelter needs of the people of Gaza. These funds will be divided evenly between the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and Catholic Relief Services, organizations that enjoy a widely respected reputation for managing catastrophic situations.

As critically important as such ongoing aid is, it does not solve the deeper issues in the region. The complicated modern history of Israel and Palestine is fraught with violence and conflict. The key players—the Israeli government, Hamas and the U.S. government—seem to be unable to achieve anything of lasting substance to end the violence and destruction. In the face of complex international and local issues, I find myself compelled to try to understand the situation, to lend a voice of hope toward ending the violence and to encourage our local communities to continue their witness to a solidarity that crosses all religious and political lines.

The current state of affairs in Gaza is nothing short of catastrophic. The eruption of violence on the part of Hamas, with random slaughter and the taking of innocent civilians as hostages, was unjust, inexcusable and a crime against humanity. Their ongoing refusal to return the hostages is a continuing abomination. Staging military activities at times from behind hospitals, schools and population centers reveals a willingness to sacrifice their own in order to achieve their strategic goal. All of this is to be condemned. Allegations of misusing humanitarian relief and emergency funding further reveal a betrayal of the Palestinian people. While some would try to blame the Palestinian people for not establishing a more just and representative government, for a people literally under siege for decades to undertake such a task is fraught with profound challenges, if not impossibilities. The Palestinian people in Gaza have been left with Hamas governance, which has perpetuated war crimes and now faces an Israeli government determined to destroy it completely.

For its part, the current Israeli government’s response has been completely disproportionate. Its military actions have resulted in the deaths of more than 65,000 Palestinians, with the vast majority being innocent civilians, including women and children, along with the razing of neighborhoods, towns and cities in Gaza. The resulting creation of famine and disease caused by the blockade of food and medicine from the international community is a crime against humanity and a horror I had not anticipated in my lifetime. I do find it hopeful that tens of thousands of Israeli citizens have risen up in a robust protest against the actions of their government. But what is the Israeli government’s endgame? If it is the displacement of Palestinians, the continuing expansion of settlements in the West Bank beyond internationally agreed upon terms and the annexation of Palestinian territory, then such an approach not only violates international law but perpetuates the conditions that encourage support among some Palestinians for Hamas.

There is also a third government directly involved in this unjust conflict, that of the United States. Despite a long history of international leaders challenging and condemning the Israeli government for its decades of expansion of settlements and the mistreatment of the Palestinian people, the United States has consistently avoided criticizing the Israeli government or changing our policies toward it. Our government has provided—and continues to provide—the weapons and military systems that support not only Israel’s legitimate security concerns but also the current unjust killing and destruction in Gaza.

U.S. leadership has been historically weak in acknowledging that the Palestinian people have an equal right to their own identity, nationality, dignity and homeland, no less than the citizens of Israel. Pope Leo XIV recently addressed this concern with his public insistence that all peoples have a right to remain in their homeland and not be forcibly relocated. Although our government gives voice to a two-state solution, it has done little in practice to influence Israel or Palestine toward this critical end. Israelis and Palestinians have an equal right to live in peace and security. Unfortunately, a host of innocent victims on both sides of this horrendous conflict have been caught in a seemingly inescapable trap.

Clearly there are no simple solutions to the current chaos, and we who have not experienced directly the violence and harm that have taken place in Israel and Gaza must be cautious in suggesting what steps should or should not be taken. (While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several Arab states appear ready to support a proposal from President Trump to end the war, Hamas has not agreed to the plan.) But equally clear is the fact that the current chaos is not sustainable and threatens the well-being of not just Israelis and Palestinians but the whole region. 

Here in southeastern Michigan, with our rich diversity of religions and peoples, we need to be a voice that speaks in solidarity with one another and with all victims of war and violence. We can be a prophetic voice that raises the hope for a just and lasting peace.

To accomplish such a task, I would suggest that a just response can begin only by opening our eyes and allowing ourselves to be confronted and even wounded by the truth. Quietly ignoring or denying the reality unfolding in Israel and Gaza today is immoral. The history of the last century should have taught us the devastating consequences of such willful ignorance. To see the truth is to begin the process of change. And so I ask people of good will everywhere—not just the communities of faith I am responsible for leading—to be willing to see the pictures, read the articles and take to heart the suffering revealed in the extensive media coverage of the situation in Gaza.

I am convinced that we need to allow that profound suffering of others to touch our minds and hearts, even if it wounds us. In fact, it may be precisely the wound we need to remind us of our shared dignity and common humanity. We can then join together in vigorously opposing any harassment, demonization or unjust treatment of our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters not only here in southeastern Michigan, and in this country, but throughout the world. Perhaps then unified voices can rise up and speak those words of challenge and constructive confrontation that might open up possibilities for peace and stability for the peoples of both states. In the end, we owe nothing less to the victims in Israel and Gaza; we owe nothing less to the rest of the world that is watching; and we owe nothing less to ourselves.