Author: Dexter Van Zile
Publication: Israpundit.com
Date:
URL: http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2006/01/a_plea_for_sani.php
The following ia a letter sent to the President
of the United Church of Christ.
The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
I write to you both in my capacity as Christian
Outreach Director for the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership and as
a lifelong member of the United Church of Christ. As you are aware, I have
been highly critical of the stance the UCC and other mainline Protestant denominations
in the U.S. have taken in regards to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
The failure of Protestants in the U.S. to
speak honestly about problems in Arab and Muslim societies that inhibit the
prospects for peace in the Middle East, coupled with an undeniable tendency
to blame Israel - and only Israel - for the conflict's existence raises troubling
questions about Protestant attitudes toward Judaism as a religion and the
Jews as a people. For one reason or another, mainline Protestant leaders in
the U.S. are gripped by a tendency to think the worst about the Jewish State
its policies and its motives, without taking into consideration the circumstances
its leaders - and people - confront on a daily basis.
The recent outcome of the recent elections
in the Palestinian Authority has prompted me to write. Hamas, an organization
dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel, has won a large
majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Hamas' victory, though no surprise, raises
grave concerns about Israeli security, the welfare of Christians in Palestinian
society and the prospects for peace in the Middle East.
The corruption of the Palestinian Authority
under Yasser Arafat (an ongoing problem which was ignored by the peace-making
resolutions passed at the UCC's General Synod in July) and the subsequent
failure of Mahmoud Abbas to rein in this corruption is one factor in the Hamas
success.
It is not, however, the only factor. Many
Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel as a Jewish State
and for this reason, Hamas was their logical choice. Regardless of the motivations
behind the Hamas victory, it does not bode well for Israeli security or for
Palestinian welfare. Hamas' founding document calls for the destruction of
Israel and the imposition of sharia law in the Palestinian State. Such an
agenda has profound implications for the safety of Jews in Israel, for the
status of women and the welfare of Christians in areas under the jurisdiction
of the Palestinian Authority. Ominously, Hamas leaders have stated that they
will not change one word of their covenant calling for Israel's destruction
- despite their success at the polls. It does not appear that the acquisition
of power will result in Hamas' moderation as some would have hoped.
Sadly, the public pronouncements issued by
the UCC's leadership in Cleveland and by its General Synod provide little
if any context for Hamas' victory in yesterday's elections. The resolutions,
as they were written and passed, with direct input from the denomination's
leadership in Cleveland, expressed no expectations of the Palestinians to
work for peace.
In particular, the Tear Down the Wall resolution,
written with substantial input from Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology
Center in Jerusalem and professionally framed by Peter Makari, Area Executive
for Middle East and Europe Global Ministries for the UCC, demanded that Israel
take down the security fence it is building to prevent terror attacks emanating
from the West Bank, without asking the Palestinians to stop the attacks that
prompted the Israelis to build the barrier in the first place.
This is not peacemaking, but a clear effort
to place the onus for the conflict on the Israelis. It is one thing to ask
that the barrier be moved to a more acceptable location, but asking Israelis
to take it down altogether - without asking Palestinians to stop suicide attacks
- exhibits a troubling naïveté about the Arab/Israeli conflict
and an inexcusable indifference to the murder of Israeli civilians.
The Tear Down the Wall Resolution embodies
a persistent habit of mind exhibited by Protestant leaders in the U.S. - a
tendency to portray Palestinian terrorism as an unavoidable response to suffering
caused by Israeli security measures. I ask, beg and implore you to fight this
impulse. Rooting Palestinian suffering almost entirely - if not entirely -
in Israeli policies, as leaders from UCC and other denominations have done,
denies the Palestinians moral agency and ultimately undermines their motivation
to build a future for themselves and their children. It also allows leaders
in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East to continue to use the Palestinians
to promote radical and dictatorial agendas in their own countries without
so much as a rhetorical slap on the wrist.
The failure of the UCC to express any expectations
of the Palestinians to work for peace is rooted in unwillingness on the part
of the UCC to speak prophetically about problems endemic to the Middle East.
In particular, there is a taboo on discussion in mainline Protestant circles
about the religious motivation for the war against Israel. For many Muslim
scholars and their followers in the Middle East, the existence of a Jewish
state on land previously governed by Islamic rulers is a theological impossibility.
For Hamas, the thought of Jewish sovereignty and freedom in the Middle East
is intolerable. To be sure, not every Palestinian feels this way, but it must
be noted that Hamas did win a strong majority in the recent election.
If Protestant leaders in the U.S., including
those in the UCC, are going to condemn Christian Zionism as a threat to peace,
they have an obligation to acknowledge the religious motivation of violence
against Israel. Religiously-motivated hostility toward Israel, which Hamas
embodies, turns the conflict from a disagreement over borders and settlements
into a fight over its existence, an issue over which their can be no compromise.
Sadly, the UCC has remained silent about the religious hostility that motivates
many of the terror attacks against Israeli civilians.
Hamas' victory underscores problems in Palestinian
society that help to prolong the conflict and encourage violence against Israelis.
These problems include anti-Jewish incitement on Palestinian Television, hostile,
anti-Semitic passages in Palestinian textbooks, and the PA's financial support
to families of suicide bombers, who, in some instances, have official soccer
tournaments named in their honor. Sadly, the UCC and its leaders have offered
little, if any, acknowledgement of these problems.
If UCC leaders are going to call for a two-state
solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict in their efforts to promote peace and
improve the welfare of the Palestinian people, they have an obligation. They
must acknowledge those aspects of Palestinian society that represent an obstacle
to creating a state that can live in peace with Israel and secure the human
rights of its citizens. Calling for the creation of a Palestinian state while
remaining silent about collapse of civil order in Gaza encourages the creation
of nothing more than a failed state that oppresses its own people and menaces
its neighbors.
If Protestants in the U.S. are going to invoke
America's "special relationship" with Israel as justification for
the focus on its misdeeds, they have an obligation to acknowledge the support
terrorists targeting Israel have received from Syria, Iran and up until recently,
Iraq. The UCC has remained silent about this support.
At this point, I feel compelled along with
many others to ask that you rethink your unqualified support for Naim Ateek,
founder and director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. His
repeated use of deicide imagery is clearly intended to evoke feelings of contempt
for Israel as a Jewish state. It is not, as he and his defenders assert, merely
an attempt to portray Palestinian suffering in the "Language of the Cross."
It is important to note these statements were offered at the height of the
Second Intifada, which killed thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. The
use of this imagery did not calm the flames of hostility and fear, but fueled
them.
It should be noted that Ateek has, on numerous
occasions, stated that he does not acknowledge Israel's right to exist as
a Jewish state in the Middle East and has even repeated the canard that Israel
should have been created in Europe. Sadly, on this score, Ateek's words have
been echoed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who you laudably condemned
for calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. This echo should be cause
for concern amongst those who would defend Ateek and the group he leads as
peacemakers.
Dexter Van Zile, Christian Outreach Director
of David Project Center for Jewish Leadership, Boston, Mass
