Jim,

I've seldom read a piece that so well captures the sheer human tragedy that lies at the center of this conflict.

Millions around the world are praying for even the slightest movement forward on the road to peace.

Posted by: carl copas | November 27, 2007 5:22 PM

jesse,
chicken and egg.
Optimist view is that if Palestinians abandoned terror they would gain a state, or, that if Israel ceased it's oppression, the terror would end.
Pessimist view is that if Palestinians abandoned terror then Israel would continue to oppress them but nobody would hear about it any more, or, that if Israel ceased its oppression that the terror would escalate in the face of weakness.

The terrorism of some palestinians and the oppression orchestrated by Israel are both responsible for the current state of affairs. Realistically it is unlikely that either side in this conflict could independently take any action to create peace.

Which is why our prayers are needed for Annapolis at this time.

Be Blessed,

Posted by: Trent | November 27, 2007 6:32 PM

ds0490

I would imagine that your metaphor would work better if instead of relocating Darfur refugees to these states, you were to talk about relocating Native Americans as well as say migrant South American natives. As the argument definitely includes a sense in which Palestinians feel as if the Israel nation took their land away from them originally, and the Israeli feel as if it is their God given right to be their ( I am certain many southerners feel that it is their God given right to inhabit America).

And in the case I don't believe Americans would be tolerant, though I personally think that it is very hypocritical to be intolerant of refugees and immigrants seeing as how all white people are.

Of course, of all Americans, I have the right to being snoody about my citizenship as I can trace my ancestry into the colonies of Pennsylvania and North Carolina in the early 18th centuries--before America was a country.

Let's not be hypocrites here--if our nation is as great as we suppose it to be.

I think however that (if you are implying that the Darfur Region would become its own country) that the United States and the South especially would never settle for that.

Not only does that probably play into the apocalyptic world view of many Southerners, its a slap in the face to the CSA flag carrying students of the Civil war--Southerners which most likely would be in arms.

Posted by: Dave Bennett | November 27, 2007 8:47 PM

Gee...five posts into a discussion of Richard Cohen's excellent distillation of the situation in Israel and Palestine and some people can't seem to resist bashing "the other".

Dave Bennett and ds0490, do you think it would just be white southerners who would be upset about the Darfur example or would it have been pretty much anyone else too? Do you not think black southerners would be upset? Or northerners? Or American Indians? Or Mexicans? Or even Etheopians? You could drop hundreds of thousands of any group of people into any area of the world and the people who already lived there would be upset. You may think you're being clever by picking on American Southerners, but you're really not. Let's stick to the topic.

I'd argue the measure of people is how they deal with injustice. How do they respond? Do they blow up bombs killing innocent women and children in restaurants? Or do they follow the example given by peacemakers like Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others that are so often sited here.

Posted by: Eric | November 28, 2007 6:46 AM

I feel heartened by some of the comments. I think we all want peace in the region, and it is good to read posts like Carl's and Trent's and Jesse's that acknowledge the need for prayer. I think, generally speaking, most of us also want balance--we can condemn both Palestinian terrorism and the human rights violations by Israel, while affirming Israel's right to defend itself and Palestinians' right to live free from oppression.

But as JamesMartin points out, the situation caused by radical Islamists is not helped by so-called "Christian Zionists" who stoke the flames even further with end-times eschatology (or should I just say scatology). I wonder how many people have turned to atheistic humanism as a result of this kind of behavior.

Posted by: I and I | November 28, 2007 9:40 AM

In memory of Rachel Corrie, I pray this latest effort yields lasting results.

Posted by: canucklehead | November 28, 2007 5:52 PM

On October 27, 2007, in Boston, sponsored by FOSNA/Friends of Sabeel North America, Jeff Halper, Naim Ateek, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and scores of other justice and peace seeking citizens addressed the Apartheid Paradigm in Israel Palestine to a SRO crowd.

In his Keynote address Tutu remarked, "Between the root of human solidarity and the fruit of human wholeness, there is the hard work of telling the truth. From my experience in South Africa I know that truth-telling is hard. It has grave consequences for one's life and reputation. It stretches one's faith, tests one's capacity to love, and pushes hope to the limit. No one takes up this work on a do-gooder's whim. It is not a choice. One feels compelled into it… An acute awareness of fallibility is a constant companion in this task, but because nothing is more important in the current situation than to speak as truthfully as one can, there can be no shrinking from testifying to what one sees and hears.

"What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? ...I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa…I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the bitter days of uprooting and despoiling in my own country…I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the explosive anger that inflamed South Africa, too.

"Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change...I have seen it and heard it, and so to this truth, too, I am compelled to testify - if it can happen in South Africa, it can happen with the Israelis and Palestinians. There is not much reason to be optimistic, but there is every reason to hope." [4]

"HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine

-excerpted WAWA Blog
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
November 25, 2007:
Apartheid in Israel Palestine! Viability in Annapolis?

Posted by: Eileen Fleming | November 28, 2007 6:29 PM

Are you aware of the Christian EXODUS from the Holy land which has reduced their numbers from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% since 1948.

The reasons are many, but primarily the 40 yrs. of military occupation, The Wall which divides them from their land, families, jobs, resources, and holy sites, lack of economic opportunity and denial of basic human rights.

Mother Agapia Stephanopolous, administrator of the Orthodox School of Bethany in Jerusalem, a Russian Orthodox nun (and sister of ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos), has been a passionate advocate for the Christian cause.

She has said:

"Israel is destroying the local Christian community."

"It is only a matter of time before Christians and Muslims will be unable to survive culturally and economically."

The nun reported that Israeli slabs of concrete, 9 yards high, have "shattered" Christian communities.

"I witness the strangulation of East Jerusalem, and the deprivation of her non-Jewish residents' religious rights every day."

She would tear down the settlements and the wall "that favor one people's fundamental rights to the exclusion of others."

Mother Agapia also said, "Even the United States seems to have been taken in by Israeli spin."

I met with Mother Agapia the very first day of my first of five trips to Israel Palestine.

We spoke about our mutual feelings about The Wall and then I told her of a dream I had years before, but I remembered that very morning when i stood at the site of the Pool of Bethsaida.

In my dream I stood at the edge of a dried up pool where crumbling stone columns were overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves and pigeons nested and flew.

To my right was a large shade tree, but to my left I saw a few square squat dwellings with large satellite dishes attached to them.

I remembered thinking the moment I woke up from that dream what a strange place it was, but then I quickly forgot all about it.

That is, until the afternoon of June 12, 2005, four years later, when I found myself standing at the edge of a dried up pool where crumbling stone columns were overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves and pigeons nested and flew.

The rest of that story is in my second book.

Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor
Http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu"

Posted by: Eileen Fleming | November 28, 2007 9:41 PM

Good question, Canucklehead. Since I reject the "dispensational" interpretation that says that God has separate programmes for "natural" Israel and the "spiritual" church, and since I believe that the promises made under the Old Covenant are currently fulfilled in the Church, I don't see what part of God's will is being fulfilled over a particular city in the Middle East--except of course for the general fulfillment of God's plans for all nations, which Paul talks about in Acts 17.

The "dispensational" interpretation is a modern innovation--less than 200 years old, and it continues to be a minority, albeit an extremely vocal minority, in the church at large.

Yes, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Ps. 122). But to me that means peace among God's people--the Church. And that includes my Palestinian brothers and sisters, who so often seem to be the ones who are 'left behind' in these discussions.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | November 29, 2007 9:59 AM

Canucklehead - i have primarily been asking God for guidance as I read Zecharia 12-14, Malachai, Zephania, Haggai, Revelation 11-20.
I'm not aware of what the 'dispensational' interpretation is for the OT prophets - perhaps you could fill me in as well as what your own interpretation is to these Scriptures.

Posted by: Jeremy McKim | November 29, 2007 2:09 PM

This is for Eileen:

"November 29 is the United Nations 'International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.' It occurs on the anniversary of the 1947 date that the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. Many Palestinians and other Arabs rejected the UN partition, and started a war to exterminate the infant state of Israel a few months later. So by choosing November 29 as Palestinian day, the United Nations is in effect rewarding the aggressors who refused to comply with the UN plan. A much better date for the United Nations to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinian people would be December 8, the anniversary of the 1949 creation of the organization that, for over half a century, has done more than anyone to immiserate the Palestinian people. That organization is UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

That there is 21st-century refugee problem from a war that ended in 1949 is primarily because of UNRWA’s decision to maximize Palestinian suffering for political advantage."

posted at the Volokh Conspiracy

Posted by: Ross | November 30, 2007 7:22 AM