When Rami Ayyad locked up his shop and offices in Gaza city just three weeks ago he knew something was wrong.  But he didn’t think it especially strange that someone was watching him.  After all, this is the Gaza strip and there had been several threats or attacks on Rami’s workplace, owned by the Bible Society of Palestine, during the last six months.  

The next day Rami returned to work hoping for the best.  Sometime during the day he was abducted and interrogated by a group who have not yet identified themselves.  Surprisingly, friends eventually managed to reach him on his cell phone and he said that he’d either be home in a couple of hours or he wouldn’t be back for ‘a very, very long time’.

Colleagues searched for him during Saturday and his body was eventually found dumped on the street.  Rami had been stabbed and shot.  Aged 31 he leaves a wife, two small children and another on the way. 
I was in Gaza in May, just as the latest troubles flaired up and Hamas took control of the territory.  This week I am back in the West Bank with three British MPs seeking to understand the religious and political situation there and to offer support and encouragement to our brothers and sisters at the Bible Society. 

To be clear, all the evidence suggests that Hamas is opposed to the taking of hostages in Gaza.  Once the militia was in control the BBC journalist Alan Johnston was relased and allowed to leave.  And after a bomb blasted out the front of the offices managed by Rami back in April, the local people took to the streets.  Not in protest against Bible Society but in favour of it staying and ministering in the name of love and reconciliation. 

We will miss Rami.  A big man with a big heart and a towering example of someone who believed passionately in peacemaking.  Labib Madanat, my counterpart at the Palestinian Bible Society said ‘Rami was the most gentle member of the team in Gaza, the ever-smiling one.  He was the face of our Bible shop, always receiving visitors as Jesus would’. 

It’s strange for me to see photos that I took earlier this year being used around the world in press releases and reports about Rami’s murder.  When I signed up five years ago to the job I do now, the situation was not nearly as tense in the Middle East and the work of the Bible there was less troublesom. 

Post 9/11 and the war in Iraq things are very different.  I find myself increasingly thinking about the safety and security of Christian workers around the world.  Policy documents about not paying rasom to hostage takers, that were once of only academic interest, are now being dusted off by many Christian agencies in Britain and elsewhere.  Rami is one too many martyrs for us to remain complacent.

Every death is an outrage, but violent ones all the more so.  What can we say in response?

Another martyr from another part of the world has given me the words to offer to the wife and collegues of Rami Ayyad.  They are full of tears over the loss of one more friend of Jesus.  Martin Luther King Jr said much about peacemaking and the need to resist retaliating against hatred and violent attack.  In August 1967 he said:

“Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder
Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth
Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate
Darkness cannot put out darkness.  Only light can do that.”

Martin Luther King also gave some crucial words in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail in April 1963.  Before we are in a position to respond to violence appropriately we are to first gather the facts and then seek to negotiate, as best we can, with those in positions of power.  But, most importantly, we are to enter a period of what he calls ‘self-purification’. 

For the human rights campaigners in the United States the questions were: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?  Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?”  For followers of Christ in the Middle East and elsewhere the question is whether we are willing to die for the peace that Christ sought to bring? 

Such words are easy to say from the comfort of Britain.  But Palestine is only three hours away by plane and there are injustices and persecutions towards Christians (and others) in other places much closer to home.

As well as dusting off our policies not to pay ransoms to hostage takers, perhaps we should follow Martin Luther King and start up our own workshops and seminars on non-violence and self-purification.  After all, if you follow a crucified Saviour you’re bound to get hurt.

James Catford is Chair or Renovaré Britain & Ireland.  This article first appeared in the Church of England Newspaper in November 2007 as a report on recent events