Arabic and Hebrew — Sister Languages Amid Violent Conflict
It has been thirty years since the famous Oslo I accord attempted a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Current events are casting a depressing shadow on the past, as hope for peace in the Middle East seems more and more out of reach. Humans do what humans do. We are perennially trying to enslave ourselves under sin and death. We may not admit it but we actually prefer to be enslaved by death because we like to trust in political parties and leaders and worship the false god of nationalism. In this sense we are no different than the Israelites who grumbled in the desert against God and his prophet Moses, announcing their preference for Pharaoh. No matter how much the Western media would try to deny, there is no difference between an Israeli and a Palestinian. I don’t say this to erase either party in the sense of a silly liberal “melting-pot”, but in this sense that the Jews and the Arabs are of the same Semitic stock and share a close linguistic and cultural bond.
This closeness was poetically demonstrated in the name of Yasser Arafat. Yes, I’m only referring to his name. “Yasser” comes from a common Semitic root in Arabic and Hebrew which refers to making something upright, easy, or smooth. The Hebrew version, “yashar”, is often used in the Old Testament as an alternate name for Israel in the form of “yeshurun”. In the Nebi’im we have the enigmatic mention of the book of “Jasher”, another instance of yashar being incorporated into the text. The import here has to do with scholarship looking into the linguistic source of the name Israel in Biblical literature.
In his 2021 book on Isaiah, professor Iskandar Abou-Chaar makes an interesting argument that the origin of the name Israel is from this Semitic root. This is a powerful observation because it highlights the two names of Jacob in opposite extremes. The name yaqob in Hebrew refers to a heelgrabber. Jacob’s reputation as such is so important to the Biblical text that his brother Esau even makes direct reference to it. Interestingly, yacob is from the same triliteral root as aqob which refers to uneven ground. This makes it the opposite of yashar which refers to something smooth. These two roots actually occur side by side in Isaiah 40:4 when God proclaims that he will make the crooked places (aqob) straight (yashar). In fact, the connection can be clearly seen by merely looking at the words yashar and Israel side by side.
יִשְׂרָאֵל (israel)
יָשָׁר (yashar)
Yeshurun being an alternate name for Israel cannot be a coincidence. It is coming directly from the same root! How dramatically ironic, then, for Yasser and Israel to be enemies. It’s the same word.
I’m not trying to play semantic games or to be clever. This conflict horrifies me. What makes it especially horrific is the dehumanization of Palestinians by the media. Palestinians are seen as primitive and backward — barbarians contrary to Western fantasies of progress and civility. Israel on the other hand is seen as essentially a European country in the Middle East, and therefore something to be protected on that basis. And I don’t mean protecting the lives of innocent Israeli citizens, but protecting Israeli culture and the current sociopolitical organization of its government. We make excuses for the Israeli government on the basis of “their right to protect themselves” but ignore the fact that Israel has kept the Gaza Strip as a tightly controlled open air prison for decades. They create conditions for extremists to arise and use that as an excuse to exterminate them as if they were dealing with a rodent infestation. The truth is that Israelis and Palestinians are not different. They are the same. They are both bnei adam (sons of adam). When the Israeli Defense Minister calls Palestinians “human animals” he is only implicating himself. The difference between them has only to do with the power that currently backs them. The government of Israel has NATO but the innocent victims, whatever side of the border they may be on, have God as their ally. How do I know this? Because God avenges the powerless, the forgotten, and the persecuted of this world. Where the Israeli government and NATO will boast in their might, God boasts in human weakness where his glory is able to outweigh everything in sight. That is why his locum tenens is a crucified messiah, put on display for everyone to see his shame.
Shooting missiles at hospitals and churches does not follow from a nation that is simply trying to “defend” itself. What is happening in Gaza is simply a slaughter and people need to wake up to it. American Evangelicals will decry Christian persecution after Starbucks takes “Merry Christmas” off of their holiday cups but will turn a blind eye when Arab Christians are decimated like what happened when St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church was bombed a week ago. Those Arab Christians are invisible to the American Evangelical, but they aren’t invisible to God. Neither are the Palestinian Muslims nor the Palestinian Jews. God cares for his little ones, and the punishment against those who abuse them is swift and dire.
I’m not expecting people to change, but I have to unapologetically speak up against these abuses. The worst thing is when people channel Satan himself by warping scripture to align with their ungodly Zionist politics. At a time like this, education is everything. Keep reading and keep speaking out. May the God of peace have mercy on us all. Amen.
