Jim Coppoc.

Sometimes I bury the lede. I’m famous for a slow-burning, long setup that tries to make everything come together in a grand revelation at the end, or that leaves a question hanging for the reader to gnaw on.

But this is a time for clarity, so let me say it clearly. Terrorism is not the answer to genocide. Genocide is not the answer to terrorism.

As I write this column, men, women and children of all faiths are suffering and dying, shedding oceans of blood on the sands of what all Abrahamic traditions call the “Holy Land.” Hostages die slowly, in isolation and fear. Refugees are herded into camps, then attacked from the air. Schools, hospitals and places of worship are destroyed. Mothers send their children to war, then sleep to the sound of bombs and guns.

In Gaza City, six-year-old Hind Rajab lay wounded from an attack on civilians by the Israeli military. Her aunt, uncle and cousins lay dead all around her. Hind called for help, as she was taught to do, but the help did not come. The helpers were blocked and targeted by the same forces that killed Hind’s family, even after being told they would be allowed through. Hind’s broken body was found many days later, after troops withdrew.

Just a few miles away, Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were held hostage by Hamas for weeks on end, shuffled from place to place. Food and medicine were scarce. Other hostages suffered and died around them. Ariel, 4, and Kfir, less than a year old, were among the youngest hostages taken in the October 7 attacks. They witnessed atrocities their young brains could not possibly have been equipped to process. And then they died, violently, casualties of a senseless war. Although Hamas has reported the Bibas family’s deaths, they have not produced the bodies so that what’s left of the community can grieve.

Imagine the children in your life. The mothers. The fathers. The communities where you live. Imagine what it would do to you to see them suffer in the same way.

I don’t have the answer to the Israel/Palestine crisis. I don’t know if anyone does. But I do know that every Israeli and Palestinian who dies at the hands of violent extremists is an affront to the God of Abraham, from whom both peoples descend. And every time this sin is repeated, the forces of cruelty and retribution on both sides dig in a little deeper.

So let us pray. Then let us hold accountable every leader of every nation that allows this horror to continue.

Jim Coppoc serves the Ripley United Church of Christ at 400 S. Main St. in Traer. He lives in Ames and Traer, and also holds a “day job” as Director of Integrated Health Services for Center Associates in Marshalltown and Toledo. Jim can be found online at www.facebook.com/jim.at.ripley.