Those of us who follow Palestine/Israel and who recognize the multifaceted reality of that situation are living in considerable tension these days as we await word about the missing yeshiva boys.

We are hoping fervently that they are safe and not harmed. There is no ambiguity in that. The tension lies in the context of their disappearance as we sort our concern about the boys with our concern about why this happened and what will happen in consequence.

At this writing, we do not know if the boys were kidnapped or by whom – maybe it was the kind of act that can happen anywhere and has nothing to do with the political situation – but we see the government of Israel react with presumed guilt with a heavy-handed implementation of collective punishment. Again.

Our tension lies in the recognition that the suffering of these boys’ families has also occurred in thousands of Palestinian families – THOUSANDS – who have been imprisoned, murdered, tortured, restricted from study and employment opportunities, and oppressed during the years of this dreadful occupation. Many of us know these Palestinian families. We have visited in their homes and shared meals with them. We know what their pain is and that their suffering is undeserved.

There is tension because the tragedies of the Palestinian families are largely unknown to the western world, unreported by a biased media, while the minutest details about the yeshiva boys are broadcast. We feel anger that Palestinian suffering is denigrated as fair punishment for “terrorist” acts against Israel.

There is tension between wanting well-being for the boys and knowing that they are residents of an illegal settlement created within a brutal, oppressive military occupation of 47 years’ duration. And tension in recognizing the recklessness of the boys’ families who let them hitchhike in an area where interactions among people are often hostile. We recognize it as the arrogance of superiority, entitlement, and failing to acknowledge the narrative history of their neighbors.

There is tension in knowing that hundreds of Palestinians will suffer in retribution for this event, regardless of its cause or outcome. We know this because we have seen it happen time and time again.

All these tensions are with us because it’s difficult to square our feelings of concern for the boys with realizing the hard truths of the context of the event.

But we needn’t feel ashamed that our concern is tempered with these understandings. Knowing what we do about the decades of injustices toward Palestinians does not mean that we cannot feel concern for the boys. Knowing about the unjust treatment of Palestinians does not mean that the boys and their families “deserved” this for the policies of their government.

And feeling concern for the boys does not mean we must abandon our stand against that injustice, for fear someone might think we are careless about the three boys.

Holding concern for the boys and concern for Palestinians at the same time is a mark of understanding the truth of what happens in this region.

This is not about eye-for-eye justice. Instead, it recognizes the price to pay for a system that mistakes military might for security; a system that seeks empire rather than justice; a system that believes peace comes from greater power. But weapons and armaments and checkpoints and occupation are not a “peace process.” For awhile, they can enable control of people and place, and for awhile they can create a feeling of “security,” a feeling that is as false as this event demonstrates.

Many people will applaud the “strength” of the Israeli response to this event. They will nod at the appropriateness of punishing those they believe responsible. Many of those people call themselves followers of Jesus. I reflect on the Garden of Gethsemane the night before Jesus’ arrest when he and his followers might have armed themselves against the Romans they knew were coming. They could have gathered clubs and stones and knives and swords. But they did not. They waited. They knew what the Empire would bring them and they waited for it. Because the way of Jesus is not the way of Empire.

As long as we continue to worship Empire and military security, there will be more yeshiva boys, more rockets fired from Gaza, more Palestinian lives punished and homes destroyed. There will be more and more until we learn to listen to the stories of our neighbors and honor their histories; until we take responsibility for our mistakes and the wrongs we’ve done; and until we stand unarmed with neighbors and find together the ways toward justice.