Saturday, July 2, 2005
Roger L. Simon points to this most excellent column by Martin Peretz in The New Republic on a topic that seems to have become a main-stay of this blog -- anti-Israel divestment. (The link requires free registration, as many linked news items do these days. If you don't want to register, remember there's always BugMeNot.) I post a lengthy bite from the beginning and the end, but I recommend reading what's in between, too.
Anglicans And Israel: Bad English
...In any event, both of these armed doctrines tried hard to delude their followers with the lure of high ideals, some rooted in one or another version of the Christian ethic. But what vision of a good society do the ideologists of Palestine proffer to their boosters all over the world? Really nothing, except another miserable state like the others in the Arab Middle East. The new fellow-travelers lack even the feeble extenuations of the old ones.
Indeed, anyone who envisions a future Palestinian polity must wrestle with the grim and ongoing realities of a stagnant class structure, unproductive economic habits, an uncurious and increasingly reactionary culture, deeply cruel relationships between the sexes and toward gays, no notion of an independent judiciary, and a primitive religious mentality that gains prestige in society even as it emphasizes the promise of sexual rewards in paradise for martyrs--a crude myth that has served successfully as an incentive for suicide bombings not only in Israel but also in Iraq and throughout the Arab world. And no real challenge to any of these backward actualities has arisen in all of the turmoil the movement has sown.
Which takes us back to the church deleriants for Palestine. What kindles the fire in their hearts for Palestine? There is little or nothing in Palestinian society that would fill a progressive with enthusiasm. And these churches do not generally exult in the promise of yet one more nation-state. In fact, these churches are against the nation-state, especially the U.S. nation-state. (In Nottingham last week, the Anglicans demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.) And, even if you take to the harshest reading of Israeli behavior in their ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, dozens and dozens of other peoples in the world, some of whom have a much sounder claim to be a real nation than those for whom the official Anglicans and Presbyterians shed so many tears, suffer infinitely more deprivation and indignity than they do. But tears are not shed for those people at Canterbury Cathedral in England or, for that matter, at Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose rectors have for years been virtual street agitators against Israel. So I come to an unavoidable conclusion. The obsession here is not positive, for one side, but rather negative, against the other side. The clerics and the lay leaders on this indefensible crusade are so fixated on Palestine because their obsession, which can be buttressed by various Christian sources and traditions, is really with the Jews. A close look at this morbid passion makes one realize that its roots include an ancient hostility for the House of Israel, an ugly survival of a hoary intolerance into some of the allegedly enlightened precincts of modern Christendom.
To the spiritual leaders of the United Church of Christ:
What would Jesus say about you the leaders of a church that carry his name being in league with the enemies of his people? As a Jew, he would be appalled by your imbalance, your hypocrisy, and malice towards the Jewish State, and his people.
Your synod has joined in an Arab/Palestinian conspiracy to deligitimize and isolate the Jewish State. You have followed the other mainline Protestant churches, led by the umbrella organizations of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, in issuing unilateral condemnations of Israel. Your actions are driven by a 2000 year old instinct to persecute the Jew, albeit, it is the Jewish State not an individual Jew or Judaism that you
seek to destroy.
If it is peace that you hope to bring about between Palestinians and Israelis, you are going about it the wrong way. Moreover, the conflict in the Middle East is much larger. It is between the forces of progress, modernity, democracy and civility that America and Israel represent, and the dark forces of intolerance, hates, fanaticism, oppression, and backwardness that the Arab world represents.
The Palestinians have been used as a tool in the hands of the Arab States and, by Egypt, in particular. It is Egypt’s President Nasser who founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, long before there was an Israeli “occupation.†The aim of the PLO then as now was to liquidate the Jewish State. The Arab community in Palestine in conjunction with five Arab armies failed to do it 1948 and in subsequent wars, and the Arab League left it to the Palestinian (who did not demand a State when Egypt and Jordan occupied the Gaza and the West Bank respectively) to destroy the Jews through endless terrorism.
You have relied to a large extent on your Arab co-religionists to define the realities of the Middle East. Unfortunately, as dhimmis or second class “protected people†they know all too well that in order to survive in that neighborhood they need to appease their Muslim overlords. European powers brought western thought and modern concepts, including anti-Semitism, to the Middle East and, much of theArab-Christian clergy has been infected by it.
Divesting from Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East, while ignoring the oppression of minorities and women in the Arab world, is downright hypocritical. Condemning Israel for erecting a security barrier against terrorist incursions intent on murdering innocent civilians, especially women and children, while overlooking the lack of fundamental human rights of freedom and religion in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Arab Muslim world, shows an imbalance of gargantuan proportions.
Canon Andrew White, who until recently served as the Director of the Peace Centre at Coventry Cathedral, is the Church of England’s principal peacemaker in the Middle East and was the first prominent churchman to sound the alarm about the revival of replacement theology and the resurgence of anti-Jewish hatred within the church. This is what he had to say about the Anglican Consultative Council’s moves to divest from Israel: “I spent much of my life in Israel and Palestine…I know the pain and hurt of both communities. I know it is not possible to undermine the pain and suffering of the Palestinians and know too the pain and fear of living under the threat of terrorism that Israelis have experienced.â€
Canon White goes on to say: “Making peace is hard work. It is not for the faint-hearted, and requires working with both sides. If the Anglican Consultative Council is really about peace why did they not even bother to see someone from the Israeli government? Or are they like so many others so called peace groups who only talk to those they like? If the leader of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen was prepared to sit down with Ariel Sharon, why was ACC not prepared to meet with the government of Israel?â€
“This is not a prophetic action but the corporate action of a group of people who are too scared to take seriously the challenge to be true peace makers. This action will be seen as being not only anti-Zionist but also anti-Semitic and I know for certain I will never be a party to such action. All too often delegations come out for a few days and write definitive reports, I have spent years in the land and even now do not understand many of its complexities…â€
Jesus, the prince of peace and lover of humanity would look unfavorably at your anti-Jewish actions. He would command you to be true peacemakers in the Middle East. First and foremost he would encourage you to comfort his besieged people who suffered a Holocaust at the hands of those who professed to be Christians. He would admonish you for your anti-Jewish bias that serves the interests of those who seek the destruction of the Jewish State. He would say to you - the spiritual leaders of the United Church of Christ: “INVEST in Israel, INVEST in peace, seek justice for the oppressed minorities and women in the Arab world, and INVEST in tolerance. INVEST in teaching the Palestinians and Arabs in general, to end their hatred of Jews, and build a democratic society with noble values where humanity could truly flourish in the troubled region of the Middle East.
Joseph Puder, Executive Director
Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel (ITAI)
Philadelphia, PA
A relapsed Catholic, I began going to Episcopal services that preserved the ancient chant and glorious hymns. I think I was searching for beauty to bring me closer to God. Behind that beautiful facade, I've been appalled to learn that most believe in nothing much at all.
Believing in nothing makes it easy to adopt the most pernicious tropes and the anti-semitism grows.
It took the death of Pope John Paul II and the travesty of the Anglicans with its pro Palestinian bias, now its anti-Israeli divestment policites to drive me back to the Catholic Church.
Shame on them.
I'm still waiting to see how the UCC actually decides on divestment. (This vote should occur today. 7/5)
I'm fairly certain they'll adopt a stance critical of Israel, but whether they jump on the divestment bandwagon remains to be seen.