John Buttrick lived for three months in Jayyous, Palestine, as an ecumenical accompanier for the World Council of Churches. For two years he was media coordinator and communication strategist for Kairos Palestine. He lives in Concord and can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com

As we begin a new year, we endure many jokes about failing to keep New Year’s resolutions. Also, the hopes for the coming year are often dashed with a rash of pessimism that saturates the news and fills the conversations with neighbors.

However, there are some who choose to ignore all the skeptics and hope beyond hope that the brutality of the Israeli and Gazan/Palestinian war will end in 2024. Some of the hope is very personal. I have memories of people I met while living in Israel and Palestine and I’m acquainted with people who have relatives living there. Every day we fear for their lives and well-being.

In the occupied Palestinian territory on the West Bank, Israeli settlers have taken the cue from Netanyahu’s words and Israel’s brutal military action in Gaza to threaten and sometimes kill Palestinians and take their land. In the Gaza Strip, our worst fears have been corroborated — 1.9 million of the 2.2 million residents are currently displaced from their homes. The army has leveled entire neighborhoods, damaging or destroying approximately 70% of Gaza’s homes. It has destroyed libraries and archives, municipal buildings, schools, mosques, and churches.1.

Therefore, in spite of what Secretary of State Antony Blinken is saying, there is no option to return to their homes or villages. Also, more than 22,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began and more than 57,000 have been injured.

The Jan. 8 edition of The New Yorker magazine caught my attention. It carries a personal account of the efforts of Mosab Abu Toha and his family to flee Gaza. Their three-story family home was destroyed. They moved from place to place, failing to find safety anywhere in Gaza. In spite of the fact that his young son is an American citizen and Toha was in the United States during the Hamas attack on Israel, they encountered many barriers against leaving Gaza.

Toha was taken from his family and accused of being with Hamas. He and other Palestinian men were stripped naked during questioning. Then his clothes were returned and he was blindfolded and moved from place to place. His shoes were taken as he was moved around. He was beaten and threatened with rifles before he was finally released and able to travel with his family into Egypt.

This is war, in this case causing great injustice and pain to the Palestinian people and to the Israelis who were victims of the Hamas invasion on Oct. 7. However, an ancillary result is the war’s effect on friends of Israelis and Palestinians and upon the psyche of the Israeli soldiers, who participate in the collective punishment of children and civilians in retaliation for the actions of Hamas. Although Israel’s goal is to eradicate Hamas and become a Jewish state, its actions are in contradiction to Jewish ethic. It becomes evident that this war is not for the security of Judaism but for the securing of a nation state.

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As for me, I’ve become sad and angry, moved to condemning Israel for its brutality. These feeling are most painful because I have Jewish friends and the memory of the rabbi who participated in my 1971 ordination into the Christian ministry. I know that their faith does not lead them toward the genocide of Palestinians. We stand together that Israel’s brutal war must end immediately. I detest my feeling toward Israel, as well as my distress with the leaders of the United States that are supporting Israel’s formula for war with military aid given to Israel. What New Year’s resolution can we make that contains real hope for peace in 2024?

First, the United States must renounce unqualified loyalty to Israel and seek out the truth behind the disinformation, equivocation, and opaque goals emanating from Israeli leadership. U.S. Congress must become familiar with the Israeli military’s unjust administration and violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank and Gaza. The accuracy of Israel’s reports about the laws and living conditions in Israel and the Palestinian territory must be examined. The U.S. must free itself from the pressure to believe that no evil can come from its friend, Israel. The U.S. must analyze the reality of Israel’s form of democracy and discern which aspiring values the United States really shares in common with Israel.

The conclusion leads to a New Year’s resolution to urge the withholding of all military aid to Israel until the war ends and until there is solution to the occupation of the Palestinian territory. Some may tell jokes about a perceived futility in such a resolution. But there is an old Arabic saying, “A tiny date stone can steady the water jar.”

That is, great matters can turn with the smallest support. I count on this spark of hope.