Steps toward peace in Israel and Palestine

Conference sponsored by the Office of the General Assembly, February 10-12, 2005

A special report from Arch Taylor
[3-2-05]

At the 2004 meeting in Richmond, the GA voted to initiate a process of selected and phased divestment from corporations whose business is deemed harmful to Israel and Palestine. The major commercial media publicized this action in a distorted form as if it were a firm decision to divest from all companies doing business in Israel. They failed to include the carefully worded background statement supporting the decision. Among other things, the PCUSA position affirms the right of Israel to live within safe and secure borders; calls for the Palestinians to have their own independent state side-by-side with Israel; condemns acts of terror on either side harming innocent victims; calls for Israel to end illegal actions condemned by the U.N. including occupation of the entire Palestinian territory, building Israeli settlements on land confiscated from Palestinian owners, and now constructing a separation barrier, or wall, that not only isolates the Palestinians from Israel but actually surrounds large parts of Palestinian land, making it in effect a part of Israel. The media haven=t generally paid attention to GA resolutions on this issue, but reaction was swift when it came to a question involving money!

The brief and distorted media report of the GA action stirred outrage and vehement objections from Jewish organizations and individuals. Already at the highest official level of the GA we have been meeting with Jewish leaders, and to some extent they have better understood where we are coming from, but we are also learning ways in which to frame our statements and our dialogue so as to avoid inflaming deeply held passions and make possible constructive steps toward peace.

Also some Presbyterians not familiar with the GA basic position on the matter responded very negatively to the media reports and to questions from Jewish friends. As I understand it, the purpose of this meeting was to explain to Presbyterians from all over the Church the historical background of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the GA policy, the process leading up to the official action related to the possibility of divestment, and to assist the implementation of the action. In the limited time available, the staff did an excellent job, and they gave attenders materials to provide fuller and more detailed information. They will also send us additional material as it becomes available, including resources that attenders have already found helpful and introduced at this meeting.

1.Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, from Ottoman times to the present

In the 1967 war Israel occupied all the Palestinian territories plus Golan Heights in Syria, with total control of the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River water resources. In 1973 Egypt and Syria started the Yom Kippur war, but with U. S. intelligence and material aid Israel won again and signed a truce that drew the border along the Agreen line@ that is, the line of separation at the end of the 1948 war. That means that Israel got 70% of the total territory; the Palestinians have nominal claim to 30%, but Israel has never acknowledged that claim. Since 1973 Israel has colonized parts of the West Bank and Gaza by confiscating territory, building settlements for Israelis, controlling the water supply, and building roads connecting the settlements on which Palestinians cannot travel. Palestinians now live in areas separated by Israeli settlements and access roads, and their movement even in their own territory is controlled by armed soldiers at dozens of check points.

Palestinians responded to the occupation, dispossession, settler colonization, fragmentation of land and isolation, and checkpoints by suicide attacks on Israelis. They have killed many innocent Israelis in this way, but the Israeli occupation army has killed more than twice as many Palestinians by tank and air attacks and targeted assassinations with high civilian deaths, many of them children. Israeli bulldozers have destroyed thousands of Palestinian homes to build the access roads and now to erect to Separation Barrier, or Wall. The number of suicide attacks has gone down as the wall goes up. But instead of being built along the Agreen line@ agreed on by the truce after the 1973 war, the wall intrudes into Palestinian territory, sometimes to great depth, isolating villagers from their farmlands, incorporating large Israeli settlements into the Israeli side of the barrier, and in some places surrounding larger Palestinian population areas. The International Court of Justice declares the Wall illegal where it crosses the green line into Palestinian territory, and the Israeli Supreme Court has likewise ruled illegal some parts of the wall that isolate Palestinian villages. The U. N. has condemned the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the building of the settlements, and the wall. The GA action took a similar position on these matters.

2. Testimony of Palestinian Christians

Fahed Abu Akel, a Palestinian Christian and former Moderator of the GA moderated a panel of two women and two men, all Palestinian Christians. They spoke of their own experiences, bringing a very personal and real insight into the effects of the Occupation on their life. Fahed told of being driven from his home as a child in the 1948 war. His mother refused to leave while the father took the children to safety. Therefore she could keep possession of the property, while other families who all left lost theirs.

A mother of three, Nuha Khoury, told of the humiliation and violence her son suffered when detained at a checkpoint. It is well known that people have died at checkpoints, forbidden to go to hospitals. Babies have been born and died there. People are constantly harassed and humiliated. Difficult as it is, she tries to teach her children to forgive their enemies. AIt=s not easy,@ she says.

Anis Said lives in a Christian village, Catholic Orthodox, and Anglicans, in northern occupied territories. The checkpoints are not like going from one country to another but going from one village to another or one=s home to one=s field in one=s own country. Christians in the West Bank are decreasing in number; we need to support them. AWe only want to live in peace with our neighbors. Tear down the wall,@ he says.

Sawsan Bitar is an American Palestinian born in Palestine to a Christian family that can trace its lineage back to the time of Christ. She knows what Jesus looked likeCher father! She has an American passport and a Palestinian identity card. The Israelis can=t treat her like an ordinary Palestinian, but they can restrict her visa. It=s hard to explain the constant sense of humiliation people suffer because of the checkpoints. Jesus said, ALove thine enemy@ and we have to work at it every day. Occupation brings out the worst in some people and some turn to suicide bombing, but it also brings out the best in many others. AWe were born to be free,@ she declares.

Alex Awad is a Baptist pastor who teaches in a Bible school in Bethlehem. His father was killed in 1948 when he was two years old. His mother brought up seven children. ACan you forgive?@ he is asked. Yes, one can forgive 1948, 1967, 1973Cbut it is most difficult to forgive the day to day humiliation of the check points. His mother never complained to God asking AWhy?@ but only AHow@ to bring up her children to forgive. He has become a U. S. citizen but has no Palestinian identity card. They refuse him a visa whenever they wish, but he goes back as often as he can. He wants to keep as many Christians as possible in the Holy Land.

What advice would they give Palestinians now?

1] Please try the nonviolent way.
2] Don=t wage war on Israel.
3] Don=t bank on American help; don=t expect them to be even-handed. Try to engage other nations.

3. Interfaith dynamics

Jay Rock, of the GA interfaith office, and Sara Lisherness of the Peacemaking Program, encouraged us to build on relationships we already have with Jews or to try to establish such relations if possible. Jay pointed out the great diversity of views on all sides, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, both local and worldwide. There=s no way we can get all points of view at the table at one time. Note the difference between debate and dialogue. Presbyterians tend toward debate. Understand the Jewish sense of fear built up through centuries. To them an attack on Israel is an attack on them. Anger; why is everybody picking on Jews, they wonder. Betrayal; for years they have felt their relations with Presbyterians have been among the best with Gentiles; ANow you have betrayed us.@ (This includes the GA action that failed to stop support of the Messianic Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, AAvodat Ysrael,@ but this conference did not deal with that issue.) Jews express emotionally loaded opinions: AIf you loved us you would know what causes us pain.@ AYour position is so extreme that it amounts to anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism@ etc. We must be sensitive to such emotions and try to redirect the conversation: ADo you really know what the action is?@ etc. We must recognize that our GA position has not been fully understood even among Presbyterians, so we need to work at that. Also we need to give Jewish friends some indication about possible directions of GA policies beforehand, so they are not blindsided, as it were.

Sara Lisherness reminds us as Christians we have received a gift of discernment, not to be controlled by our animal passions, our Areptilian brain,@ fight or flight reaction to conflict. We need to encourage a safe space where participants can feel accepted, try to understand the other=s view before speaking, enter dialogue with primary aim of making the others our friend, not necessarily converting them.

Jay: Know and understand the GA position and actions. Look for mutual learning. Be sure to recognize and condemn the Palestinian acts of terrorism. Work for meetings at the congregational level of church and synagogue, not leaving it to professionals at the top. Share prayer when you meet.

4. Human Rights Issues

This was a lecture by Rabbi Arik Asherman, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights. He was unable to be present in person, but we had a telephone hookup and his speech was broadcast to us. My hearing impairment and the poor quality of reception resulted in my not getting anything out of this; my brain just shut down. Some people got more out of it. Asherman stands up for Palestinian human rights and is condemned by many Jews.

Later Jay Rock said Asherman=s group and others both in Israel and U. S. calling for Palestinian rights are considered by the mainstream Jewish organization as Afringe@ groups, and they don=t want people to hear their voices. So far we have not had meeting with these progressive groups, but some of them have asked us to meet with them, and we expect to do so. Resources distributed in our packet of material conclude statements from some of them.

5. Interfaith Dynamics

A panel presented the process by which the GA action was taken and some of the reactions following.

Glenn Dickson is a member of St. Augustine Presbytery, which originated the overture that led to the GA action. His earliest knowledge of the situation was favorable to IsraelCvictory in the wars, struggle to make the desert bloom, etc. Several Palestinian Christians came to his church and gave a different picture. He joined a Christian Peacemaker Team delegation and saw the real situation. Based on this experience backed up by full research led to the Presbytery overture. Glenn was an overture advocate at the GA.

Bruce Gillette was Chair of the GA Committee on Peacemaking that dealt with the divestment question. (Support of the Messianic Christian congregation was dealt with elsewhere.) The committee consisted of 68 members randomly selected by computer to give wide diversity. They listened, questioned, learned. In formulating their proposals to go to the plenary GA, they used up more forms for revising statements than any other GA committee. After they perfected their proposal it went to the plenary where it was debated and further revised before emerging in final approved form. The full text may be read on the PCUSA web site.

Jerry Tankersley is a pastor in Laguna Beach, CA. Some members of his church heard the news on an inflammatory TV show. Other members have read the Left Behind books. Many don=t really know the long-standing GA positions and the biblical foundations for them. His congregation has sponsored dialogue with Jews, Muslims, Palestinian Christians. They have studied AWhose Land Whose Promises@ written by Gary Burge, and gradually they are getting a fuller understanding. It takes effort.

Tom Castlen is a pastor on Long Island, where there are at least thirteen religious faiths. Most rapidly growing is Islam. Presbyterians are a small minority. Be careful not to frame questions so as to imply the expected answer. We should seek a both/and dialogue in the midst of a neither/nor world. Differentiate between debate, discussion, and dialogue. Avoid debate, promote discussion that that creates space for mutuality of listening, hearing. Dialogue requires compassion. One may have to suspend, though not give up, firmly held convictions, praying God will open space for people to move together toward peace and justice. Have conversation in context of God=s grace, and begin with confession.

Peggy Thomas, former missionary to Iran, on GA staff for interfaith relations before retirement. There can be no justice without love. Love of enemies is the core of the Gospel: While we were enemies, Christ died for us. How do we frame the questions? What is it in Scripture and tradition that leads to violence? Her experience with Jews they explain it deeply and honestly but never got to the question of debate. Muslims don=t want to talk about Scripture. GA has prepared guidance for dialogue, and we must all agree on ground rules when we enter dialogue with people of other faiths. We need to show hospitality, i.e., take care to lay groundwork and prepare Jewish brothers and sisters to understand better where we=re going.

1.     Emphasis on showing hospitality. We should have done more to lay groundwork with Jews ahead of time, but the result would most probably have been the same.

2.     What got the Jewish attention was money. Emphasize the Jews= God is our God; affirm we are a covenant people, children of Abraham

3.     Note the contribution of the OT and Judaism to our Christian faith: justice for widows, orphans, aliens. Call Israel back to itself, to become the Israel it ought to be.

4.     Remember the Palestinian Christians.

5.     Our Book of Confessions is unique: The Barmen Confession named the Nazis; Confession of =67 recognized that Jesus was a Jew; Brief Statement mentioned the Holy One of Israel and our relation to Abraham and Sarah.

There were many small discussion groups; each attender went to two of them. I can=t report on all of them and won=t even try to report on the ones I attended. This is a hurried summary. I apologize for its incompleteness, and I confess that it reflects my selective judgment. Because of my hearing impairment, I may have read details into statements that weren=t there. I fully support the GA resolutions, I appreciate this effort to explain them for Presbyterians, and I hope we can implement them. Our resource packet included a 15-minute video which gives a good background look. There are many other resources available. I=ll be glad to meet with any who wish to know more.

February 13, 2005

Arch Taylor
812-284-5589
arch.taylor@iglou.com