Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
By Jonathan Kuttab
The Lord’s Prayer refers to bread as a daily necessity, for which we pray.
The Bible is full of such references to bread as an essential staple. During his desert temptation, Christ was tempted to turn stones into bread while hungry. Jesus fed the hungry masses with loaves of bread and fish; the parables speak often of bread as well. During a famine described in the book of I Kings, Ch. 17, the widow of Zarephath had only a handful of flour and drops of oil to bake a few cakes for herself and her child to eat before dying. Here, the prophet Elijah arrives and asks her first to make him a small loaf. Then, she would witness God’s miracle as the flour and oil continued to replenish and never run out until God sent rain and brough the famine to an end.
People in modern-day Palestine still use bread, a basic item in each and every meal. When food is scarce, a piece of bread at the very least is enough to sustain one for the day.
When I think of Palestinians being starved in Gaza, I think of this. As their sources of livelihood are destroyed, fishing is no longer allowed, fields are systematically razed or bombed, and cattle and sheep are systematically targeted and destroyed, each household may still rely on stored sacks of flour for baking their own bread, thus surviving. Yet as people are forced out of their homes and ordered to flee southward for safety, sometimes multiple times, any stored food is no longer accessible. Bakeries have been bombed, and cooking fuel is hard to obtain. A whole population is being starved of bread. What they need, therefore, is not the parachuting of units of prepared meals, but access to sacks of flour and cooking oil, as well as water and milk.
I think of this when I reflect upon “the flour massacre,” when starved Palestinians converged upon the location they were told they could obtain sacks of flour, only to be fired upon by the Israeli tanks “guarding” the food supplies, leaving over a hundred killed and 700 more wounded.
I think of this when other Palestinians seeking bread at a food distribution center run by UNRWA were also attacked, murdered and wounded. In fact, I think of this every day as I endeavor to enjoy God’s blessings and plenty.
For decades now, as the historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari noted, the human race had succeeded to organize itself such that famine and starvation is no longer a realistic fear or danger for most of the world’s population. The World Food Program, as well as the Christian charity Bread for the World and other international agencies, store and requisition enough grain, flour, and other food staples so that they can quickly deliver and provide them to any region in the world where there is a threat of famine or where natural disasters disrupt orderly food supplies.
These international agencies, however, are reporting that there is no other place in the world than Gaza where severe starvation is taking place on such a vast scale and in such a short period of time, with all the food available and on trucks merely a few miles away when it is desperately needed to stave off hunger and starvation.
Under International law, Israel and its occupation army is required to provide for the basic needs of the occupied population. Israel has not only failed to provide for the population under its control but is actively preventing others from doing so, installing a heartless regime as they control the amount, nature, and distribution mechanisms for providing the required sustenance. They have also declared their enmity for UNRWA, the organization best situated to distribute the needed food. They have openly declared their intent to cut off food, water and fuel, and to use food as a weapon and a negotiating tool in their vengeful response to Hamas and against the Palestinian population in Gaza. Many of the countries of the world have fallen in with this policy, pleading for more “humanitarian assistance” and easier access for the existing supplies being cruelly blocked from reaching those being starved.
As we think of those being starved in Palestine, we pray for God’s mercy on them. We also pray that God would soften the hearts of their oppressors, such that they can recognize the humanity of Palestinians and seek methods of dealing with them other than brute force in the pursuit of “total victory” and domination.
We also pray for courage and clarity for our leaders as they demand and enforce an immediate ceasefire and for clear unimpeded access to humanitarian supplies to meet the needs of ordinary people for food, water, milk for babies, medicine, anesthetics for the wounded, and ultimately for a just and lasting peace.
