Yom Ha'atzmaut and al-Nakba (by Jim Wallis)
I recently joined many prominent Christian leaders in signing a joint declaration on Israel's 60th anniversary. The signers are too many to list here but they include church leaders, theologians, and the heads of international missions agencies who have an intimate knowledge of the region's history, theological significance, and present reality. (To name just a sampling: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director/CEO, World Evangelical Alliance; Lynn Green, international chairman of YWAM; Rev. Garth Hewitt, canon of St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem; James W. Skillen, president of the Center for Public Justice; Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland church; Rev. Kathy Galloway, leader of the Iona Community; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire; Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary; Rev. Glenn R. Palmberg, president of the Evangelical Covenant Church; Arli Klassen, executive director, Mennonite Central Committee; Brother Andrew, author of God's Smuggler; Charles Clayton, national director of World Vision in Jerusalem on behalf of World Vision International; Dr. Vernon Grounds, chancellor of Denver Seminary; Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann; and author and Sojourners board chair Brian McLaren.)
The statement begins by recognizing the achievement and necessity of the state of Israel:
We recognise that today, millions of Israelis and Jews around the world will joyfully mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel (Yom Ha'atzmaut). For many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people's ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust.
But as is so often the case in human history - including U.S. history - one people's escape from persecution and tyranny resulted in the suffering of others. So the statement also says:
We also recognise that this same day, millions of Palestinians living inside Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the worldwide diaspora will mourn 60 years since over 700,000 of them were uprooted from their homes and forbidden from returning, while more than 400 villages were destroyed (al-Nakba).
The statement confesses that "To hold both of these responses together in balanced tension is not easy," and that many segments of the church - and I would add, especially U.S. evangelicals:
while extending empathy and support to the Israeli narrative of independence and struggle, many of us in the church worldwide have denied the same solidarity to the Palestinians, deaf to their cries of pain and distress.
Many Christians in the U.S. and around the world - including myself - have traveled to Israel and Palestine to learn about the geographical origins of our faith, and to meet the people whose lives are still shaped by the struggle over that Holy Land. We've heard stories of lives destroyed by terrorist violence, and lives destroyed by the violence of occupation. While it is tempting to either emphasize the suffering of one people over the other, or to impose an oversimplified narrative of false symmetry and intractable conflict, our biblical imperative remains, as the statement cites, to "seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 34:14).
Finally and most powerfully, the declaration urges
all those working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine to consider that any lasting solution must be built on the foundation of justice, which is rooted in the very character of God. After all, it is justice that "will produce lasting peace and security" (Isaiah 32:17). Let us commit ourselves in prophetic word and practical deed to a courageous settlement whose details will honour both peoples' shared love for the land, and protect the individual and collective rights of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land.
So can we authentically celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut while we mourn al-Nakba? Can we "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15)? Biblical justice demands it.
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Comments
Unfortunately different people have different ideas of what justice means. Hamas thinks "justice" means driving all the Jews out of Palestine. Some in Israel think "justice" means reclaiming all land west of the Jordan River.
Justice is what we should work for, but in the end, it's going to take concrete compromises on both sides.
Posted by: Eric | May 14, 2008 4:13 PM
Right, and what is presently on the table is a temporary peace in exchange for a permanent cession of land. Anyone interested in justice should be outraged by this insult.
Posted by: kevin s. | May 14, 2008 6:19 PM
It would be disingenuous not to admit that to many, the fate of the Palestinians ought to be either permanent removal, or extermination.
This human propensity is universal - the response to victimization is to victimize others in turn. We are unfairly wounded, so in a spirit of "enemy" thinking, we justify wounding others. We don't realize how grievously our wounding others wounds ourselves and other new victims.
This is what Europeans coming to America, often fleeing persecution, did in turn to aboriginal peoples already here.
It's what Hitler did in pursuit of "living room" (liebensraum) for a suppressed Germany in retaliation for the defeat of World War I and the Great American-made worldwide depression, against neighboring peoples and especially the Jews.
We have to acknowledge the pains inflicted unfairly on others, even those who now afflict us. And we have to agree that in the same way it was not justified to be done to us, neither is it then justified to do it to anyone else, no matter how great our loss.
Our only hope is to do as Jesus counseled - "Love your enemy, do good to those who spitefully use you."
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | May 14, 2008 9:35 PM
"Yes i don't blame the Palestinians for not takign it seriously."
So you are suggesting that, if the Palestinians gave up land, Israel would attack them anyway? Is that your understanding of the issue?
I was referring to the offer, and you may not be familiar, that Palestine made (via Jimmy Carter) to offer ten years of peace in exchange for a return to the 1969 border.
"It would be disingenuous not to admit that to many, the fate of the Palestinians ought to be either permanent removal, or extermination."
Who has called for extermination of Palestinians, or permanent removal for that matter?
What you are suggesting is that Israel is acting simply to punish someone as retribution for ills perpetrated against them. But real life doesn't square with this narrative.
Incidentally, what do you think is a fair compromise solution?
Posted by: kevin s. | May 14, 2008 10:30 PM
Thank you, Jim Wallis,
Wrong is wrong, whoever perpetuates it, of course.
The Israeli government need to act right as much as any Palestinian organisation does. America, if it is a true friend of Israel's, should not be afraid to tell them that, assertively.
What I don't understand is the tendency by some to refuse to see the injustice of the occupation. Everything else, surely, springs from this.
And what we can learn of the life of people in Gaza and the West Bank is deeply disturbing. Surely it is simplistic to blame Hamas for this.
Actually,
We could go further and say that what is happening in the Middle East is the result of centuries of Jewish persecution by, let's see, Hamas? The Palestinians ought not to be a scapegoat for the suffering of the Jews over the ages. [Scapegoat sounds like the right word].
Hamas is only a couple of decades old.
It wasn't around at the founding of the State of Israel, that's for sure. And, Americans should at least respect the fact that Hamas is legitimately elected.
I ask, what MORAL authority do you have to declare that Hamas is bad, or evil or whatever? The reality is that the past 60 years have been violent throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Before Hamas and Hezbollah the PLO and Fatah were 'terrorists' not too long ago.
So was the ANC. So was the Irish Republican Army. So were George Washington and friends. So were the Israeli guerillas who fought in Palestine some 70 years ago. And so on ...
The people with whom we must live on this planet, as our neighbours, are not always our choice, but we must make the effort to dignify them with at least the acknowledgement that we are all made in God's image.
I believe this is something that too many of us Christians pay only lip service to.
The tendency to equate the interests of the American political establishment with the interests of the kingdom of God confuses me, especially on God's Politics.
I say especially here because the posts are (in my biased opinion) generally extremely erudite, sensitive and compassionate, even if slanted.
But that 'slant' is what many of us believe to be closer to what us Chrsitians ought to be about. That is why I read God's Politics ...
Alas many comments take me aback. I predict that we will have a good number which will try to shout down everything you, Jim Wallis, have written above.
Such comments are the reason I take regular breaks from the site. If I didn't know better I would imagine that they would like you to give up Jim, haha.
God bless you!
Robert Alu
Dar es Salaam
Posted by: Robert Alu | May 15, 2008 1:50 AM
Who has called for extermination of Palestinians, or permanent removal for that matter?
That, in a nutshell, is Zionism.
Posted by: Rick Nowlin | May 15, 2008 10:13 AM
"The Palestinians ought not to be a scapegoat for the suffering of the Jews over the ages. [Scapegoat sounds like the right word]."
Sounds like it, but it isn't. But it isn't, and again you are asserting that Israel's motives here are simply to oppress people out of revenge for past wrongs.
You then ascribe a more reasonable motive to Hamas, that they are simply fighting occupation. In doing so, you overlook the fact that their own charter calls for the execution of Jews.
To say that both sides have committed wrongs (which has been disputed here) is not to say that both sides are equally culpable for the instability of the situation.
The notion that Israel would continue acts of violence, unprovoked, does not gel with history. It is part of an age old narrative of the vengeful Jew, and you are embracing it wholeheartedly.
Posted by: kevin s. | May 15, 2008 10:54 AM
Prior to 1948, the modern state of Israel did not exist. There had been no "Jewish state" for a millenium and a half.
Yet other ethnic peoples lived there, and many of their ancestors had for that same ancient length of time. A sizeable number were Christians.
Zionists lay moral claim to all the ancient land of Judea. As a nation based on mono-ethnic and religious identity, Jews must have hegemony for it to continue, because a modern democracy based on one vote, one person with full political rights conflicts with a Jewish-only nation. That's because native Palestinians, who would outnumber Jews in such a democratic state, threaten the viability of a wholly Jewish ethnic nation.
Palestinians were pushed out by force and for Israel to survive as a Jewish nation, most Israelis believe they cannot be allowed to return to the ancestral lands they have been removed from by force and are still being removed from.
Full citizenship in Israel is really only for Jews - and it can be claimed by any Jewish person without previous residence from anywhere in the world. The "right of return" is only for Jews - even if that "return" is through ancestry of millenial scope - and not for non-Jews recently driven from their homes in the same area.
The Palestinian areas are heavily guarded reservations - a modern example of concentrating unwanted peoples into camps, that Nazis similarly drew upon for inspiration from 19th century American experience when Europeans drove the native American peoples into them, where they were supposed to die out, or be driven into the far West, Mexico or Canada. At best, they can only be like the "homelands" that existed under apartheid in racially segregated South Africa. Similarly, the Palestinians are supposed to be driven into surrounding countries, which similarly don't want them. Or literally pushed into the sea.
Prominent right wing Israeli politicians have threatened the Palestinians with literal extermination from Israel, and continue to do so.
Why did Zionism succeed in establishing Israel in 1948? European Jewry had almost completely been cruelly annihilated by non-Jewish Europeans, at the behest of ethnic Germans. In the aftermath of German Nazi defeat, European sentiment now supported a homeland be re-established for Jewry. Many Jews longed for fulfillment of a homeland, subjected historically almost everywhere as they had been to persecution of varying degrees, culminating in the ultimate evils of the Holocaust.
Palestinians were sacrificed to this European support for Zionism. Moreover, Zionists were not reluctant to fight violently, to no longer be peaceful, and to even use terrorism to achieve their aims to re-establish an exclusive claim over the land after a thousand and a half years. Terrorism, through groups like the Irgun and the Stern Gang, was directed at both native populations and colonial European administration.
As Christians, if we follow Jesus, we must stand against the use of violence against our fellow human beings by anyone. Experiencing the ultimate horrors of genocide does not in turn justify victimizing others.
To reconcile, Palestinians must recognize and stand in sympathy and solidarity with a Jewish people who were subjected to the genocide of the Holocaust. Jews ought to have compassion and see the Palestinians as their fellow human beings and not harden their hearts to them.
It is simply tragic that human beings cannot find it in their hearts to listen to Jesus - "Love your enemy, and do good to those who spitefully use you."
If Christians don't make their salvation visible by following their Lord in this, what realistic example can we use to teach our Jewish and Palestinian brothers and sisters?
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | May 15, 2008 11:54 AM
Kevin S. wrote:
I was referring to the offer, and you may not be familiar, that Palestine made (via Jimmy Carter) to offer ten years of peace in exchange for a return to the 1969 border.
A good question for the Palestinians to be sure. Why only 10 years? One can't but wonder about ulterior motives here (a la destruction of Israel).
To my knowledge, wrongs have been perpetuated by both sides. Unpleasant facts probably include the following:
(1) Arabs in Israel HAVE been and continue to be discriminated against by Jewish-Israelis.
(2) The checkpoint system Israel has set up for Palestinians to enter Israel to work often results in LONG delays, not to mention harassment.
(3) Plenty of Palestinians would love to destroy Israel, and are unwilling to compromise. Hamas and its supporters tend to fall into this category. The alternative Fatah regime has proven to be corrupt.
(4) As for the proposed one-state solution, Israelis are unwilling due to demographic trends (they have on average smaller families; hence in a few generations the new state would make Jewish-Israelis a minority again).
(5) Something that compromise-desiring Israelis have noted is that Israel has the unpalatable option of keeping only two of the following three things in the long run. a) remaining Jewish, b) remaining democratic, and c) keeping all the land.
(6) A viable Palestinian state cannot resemble the Swiss-cheese proposal that Arafat rejected; however, (strangely) he did not offer a counterproposal.
(7) Palestinian unemployment is sky-high. Until there is peace, people won't invest. Without investment, the unemployment is going to stay. And the unemployed are easiest (on average - there are exceptions) to rouse toward violence.
Posted by: Ngchen | May 15, 2008 3:47 PM
As a Jew, I welcome the Rev. Wallis' statement. He asks, "So can we authentically celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut while we mourn al-Nakba?" I believe we can, and I agree with him that both are necessary.
But the discussion here troubles me. Instead of celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut, it is demonized. There is no struggle for peace and justice here, just a battle to be holier-than-though.
Posted by: Matt | May 15, 2008 3:52 PM
How can one celebrate something that has destroyed anothers life, denied their humanity, their right to exist in Palestine. Taken their homes, taken their land, denied them medical care, food, and water, built obscene walls, harassed school children, shot school children, destroyed olive groves, etc. Israel was created in Palestine in 1948, and from that day forward the goal has been to remove all Palestinians from the area. What is there to celebrate when Israel has acted without honor and integrity???As a Christian, I am appalled!
Posted by: Pat Blair | May 15, 2008 5:02 PM
"You then ascribe a more reasonable motive to Hamas, that they are simply fighting occupation. In doing so, you overlook the fact that their own charter calls for the execution of Jews.
To say that both sides have committed wrongs (which has been disputed here) is not to say that both sides are equally culpable for the instability of the situation.
The notion that Israel would continue acts of violence, unprovoked, does not gel with history. It is part of an age old narrative of the vengeful Jew, and you are embracing it wholeheartedly."
Kevin,
I like to think that I have no horse in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I also imagine that I am able to argue a little better than your interpretation of my words here suggests ...
Your comments above indicate what you think I said rather than what my re-reading of my own comments informs me ...
Well, I am not surprised. I recognise the style.
But, I'll tell you this: I am not aware of the ancient narrative of the vengeful Jew, would you enlighten me?
I am more interested in the role of Christians, especially the potentially very powerful American church, than I am of the Israeli government or Hamas or Fatah etc.
(You can read Sojourner Truth's excellent comments to see what you might wish to reply to if all your desire is to defend Israel. I pray that you will at least consider that he may be on to something).
My premise is that Christians are, more than the Jews and Muslims at the heart of the conflict, to show love to both sides.
And,
This is what I believe Christianity should be all about. Not taking sides in the interests of national, political or any other grounds. Ideally when others have conflicts they should automatically come to us, Christians, for assistance. Like when a fellow came to ask Christ to ask his bother to share the inheritance. But we all know what happens when Jimmy Carter does the honours ...
My fear is that too many Christians support one side almost blindly. It smacks of discrimination. This tendency is very easily noticeable in many comments to this blog. Where is the compassion (I always ask)? Where is the impartiality? Where is the ntegrity? Where is the justice?
I'll repeat my words:
'The tendency to equate the interests of the American political establishment with the interests of the kingdom of God confuses me, especially on God's Politics.'
And
'The people with whom we must live on this planet, as our neighbours, are not always our choice, but we must make the effort to dignify them with at least the acknowledgement that we are all made in God's image.
I believe this is something that too many of us Christians pay only lip service to.'
Certainly, if it is any help, this is nothing new, For centuries Christians persecuted Jews, Africans, Aboriginals etc.
Christians on the side of wrong is almost normal.
The Bible has always proven useful for rationalising such injustices. I just wonder, sometimes, if having the tag 'Christian' is something that pleases Jesus Christ at all, I really do.
Why would anyone, if they were respectors of the evidence of history, not make the unhappy (to you)- even if simplistic - conclusion that the western (American) church is overcompensating for its treatment of the Jews in the past?
'Scapegoat.'
The problem is the west's solution has been a pain for the Palestinians for 60 years! There must be a better way. It is spelt out in the declaration that Jim Wallis posts about above:
"all those working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine to consider that any lasting solution must be built on the foundation of justice, which is rooted in the very character of God. After all, it is justice that "will produce lasting peace and security" (Isaiah 32:17). Let us commit ourselves in prophetic word and practical deed to a courageous settlement whose details will honour both peoples' shared love for the land, and protect the individual and collective rights of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land."
Need I say more?
- Alu
Dar es Salaam
Posted by: Robert Alu | May 16, 2008 1:52 AM
Gosh, folks -- just look at a map of the Middle East. Israel is a tiny nation smaller than the size of New Jersey. It is surrounded by hostile Arab nations whose total size is larger than the entire USA! In addition, these "poor" Arabs have most of the world's oil on their land. And yet, you liberals worry about the "poor Palentinians"!
Do you mean the Palestinians who purposely fire rockets at Israeli civilians? If there's one thing the Palestinians have taught the world, it's that the lives of their children are cheap and meaningless! Sound harsh? It is the Palestinians (including their mothers) who openly applaud when their children become suicide bombers (aka, "martyrs"). So if they don't care about the lives of their own children, why should we?
Finally, Israel IS pursuing a Palestinian nation on the West Bank -- and rightfully, they are building a solid wall to keep the murderous Palestinians in their own nation -- and OUT of Israel. They do this, and then whiney USA liberals (see above, "built obscene walls") cry that the Israelis shouldn't do this! WHY should the Israelis want these murdering thugs in THEIR nation -- giving them access to blow up a few more of their innocent teenagers in drug store!
Please, liberals, don't always swallow the Louie Farrakahn/Rev. Wright liberal propaganda!
Posted by: Al N | May 16, 2008 11:38 AM
By the way, God bless President Bush for his speech in Israel, criticizing the terrorist appeasers. Did you all notice how furious Obama and his goofy liberal defenders were about this? What's funny is that Bush likely wasn't even thinking about Obama! Anyone in Israel likely knows Bush was much more thinking of the "ultimate appeaser", Jimmy Carter! It was Carter who was recently in the Middle East, and was recently talking with Israel's mortal enemy, Hamas.
That Obama thinks Bush was referring to him reveals two things about Barack H. Obama:
1. He truly IS vulnerable to the charge that he's an appeaser of terrorist nations.
2. As you showed with his "bitter" speech, Obama is a seriously arrogant person, who seems to think that everything is about him!
If Bush could sing better, he might want to sing a little Carly Simon tune to Barack:
"You're so vain, I'll bet you think this speech is about you!"
Posted by: Al N | May 16, 2008 11:46 AM
What might Al N stand for?
Al Nakba?
- Alu
Dar es Salaam
Posted by: Rukia | May 17, 2008 4:31 AM
" I am not aware of the ancient narrative of the vengeful Jew, would you enlighten me?"
Think Merchant of Venice. And that was a sympathetic portrayal.
"You can read Sojourner Truth's excellent comments to see what you might wish to reply to if all your desire is to defend Israel. "
I will take a look, though Ngchen actually offers a fair analysis.
"My premise is that Christians are, more than the Jews and Muslims at the heart of the conflict, to show love to both sides."
Yeah, I get that. But in order to do so, you have to have view the struggle in proper perspective. As I said (which you did not at all address, even though you cited it) noting that both sides have committed wrongs is not the same as equating those wrongs.
If I steal your pencil and you hit me on the head with a hammer, we have both committed wrongs, but I would expect a fair-minded Christian to intervene (or advocate intervention) on my behalf without stopping to consider the matter of the pencil.
"But we all know what happens when Jimmy Carter does the honours ..."
He garners criticism, which he promptly validates by negotiating a bogus agreement and generally acting as a PR shill for Hamas.
"My fear is that too many Christians support one side almost blindly. It smacks of discrimination. "
So don't support a side blindly.
"This tendency is very easily noticeable in many comments to this blog. "
I disagree.
"Why would anyone, if they were respectors of the evidence of history, not make the unhappy (to you)- even if simplistic - conclusion that the western (American) church is overcompensating for its treatment of the Jews in the past? "
Okay, but the goal now is to determine what is right. Whatever guilt the "western (American) church" may be attempting to assuage is irrelevant to the question of how Israel and Palestine should proceed.
"Need I say more?"
Yes, because you are saying that Israel has engaged in an immoral 60 year old occupation, implying that this needs remedy if we are to stake out God's justice. I contend that if that if you view Israel as an occupier, then you have lost your moral compass.
Posted by: kevin s. | May 17, 2008 12:27 PM
Kevin S,
Yes, I have read what Ngchen said and I mostly AGREE with him.
But, I really feel bad about getting 'entangled' with you.
I thought the whole point of the post that we are supposed to be responding to was the declaration by various clergymen calling for a just solution:
"all those working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine to consider that any lasting solution must be built on the foundation of justice, which is rooted in the very character of God. After all, it is justice that "will produce lasting peace and security" (Isaiah 32:17). Let us commit ourselves in prophetic word and practical deed to a courageous settlement whose details will honour both peoples' shared love for the land, and protect the individual and collective rights of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land."
I wholly agree with that - and everything else Jim Wallis has written. You would seem to prefer the ills of both sides put on some scales for all of us to see that the Israelis, on the balance, are not as guilty as the Palestinians, especially Hamas.
To what end I don't know ...
What you don't seem willing to do is to consider the role of Christians (whatever the word means) here. Neither do you (nor Ngchen by the way), offer a solution ...
I say that the west's solution to their Jewish problem has been painful to the Palestinians for the last 60 years. It is not working ...
From that, presumably, you make the claim that to say Israel's occupation of Palestine is immoral is to indicate a loss of moral compass. Where you get the thought (or its veracity) beats me ...
Now that could start a whole new directionless argument.
So I give up.
Once again I regret getting into an argument with you.
I'm sorry, okay?
God bless you!
- Alu
Dar es Salaam
Posted by: Robert Alu | May 19, 2008 7:41 AM
"I wholly agree with that - and everything else Jim Wallis has written. You would seem to prefer the ills of both sides put on some scales for all of us to see that the Israelis, on the balance, are not as guilty as the Palestinians, especially Hamas.
To what end I don't know ..."
To the end of advocating on behalf of just policy. In terms of weighing guilt, questions of magnitude are unimportant. But in terms of determining how a country should proceed diplomatically, they are very important.
"What you don't seem willing to do is to consider the role of Christians (whatever the word means) here. Neither do you (nor Ngchen by the way), offer a solution ..."
The solution is to work with Israel and Palestine to negotiate a permanent border that guarantees peace, with the promise of military response if that peace is violated.
Posted by: kevin s. | May 19, 2008 2:03 PM
I'd like to pick up on the phrase "This Holy Land."
holy. adj. 1 dedicated to God or a religious purpose. 2 morally and spiritually excellent and to be revered. (From the concise O.E.D)
Hmmm.
Posted by: Philip Baily | May 19, 2008 10:12 PM
Al N:
"if they don't care about the lives of their own children, why should we?"
Are you serious? Because they are lives. I have a feeling that your political bent would lead you toward the pro-life side...how would you like someone taking your above statement and using it in the context of abortion decisions?
I find it interesting that the teenagers in Israel are "innocent", yet we should not care about the children of the Palestinians.
At some point, I hope the hatred of people's actions will stop leading to hatred of people.
Posted by: Mary | May 20, 2008 7:51 PM
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