Of the various divestment initiatives being considered or passed by various Protestant denominations, the one recently released by the Anglican Church stands out as singularly one-sided and ill-informed -- and that's saying a lot, believe me.
As an indicator of how ill-considered it was, note that the Anglican hierarchy failed even to consult their own co-denominationalists in Israel! (Emphasis is mine.)
The following press release was issued by the Israel Trust of the Anglican Church Amutah in response to the Anglican Peace and Justice statement on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. ITAC is the oldest Anglican ministry functioning in the Holy Land.
In its biased and unjust statement, the Anglican Peace and Justice Network does not speak for the Israel Trust of the Anglican Church (ITAC), the oldest Anglican organisation in Israel, based at Christ Church, Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem. Nor did they afford us the courtesy of including us in their hurried consultation. Yet ITAC began work in Jerusalem in 1823 and is officially recognised by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England.
How can the visitors on the APJN Commission, however well-meaning, hope to be taken seriously when they spend a mere eight days in the country, without proper consultation on the Israeli side, then produce a statement implying they understand the complexities of the conflict and making pronouncements about it? For example, how do they think Israelis and Palestinians, with their strong but conflicting theologies of the land, will respond to such Christian intervention? Also, what right do they have to make demands of either side, let alone only Israel?
The sad thing is, however, that much of the church is predisposed, on the basis of inadequate information, to accept anti-Israel statements such as this one (although many Anglicans throughout the world would reject them)...
There should be no argument that the church should show compassion to all innocent sufferers, whether Israeli or Palestinian and should recognise that many Palestinians have lost their ancestral homes and continue to experience military occupation. Sometimes they suffer unjustified oppression, humiliation, violence and the destruction of their homes.
But, by contrast with the APJN Statement, the church should also recognise that Israelis, after 2000 years of anti-Semitism and a current resurgence of anti-Semitism, now face a military threat from various nations, Palestinian terrorism and a threat to the stability of their safe homeland through demographic factors. The APJN Statement loses credibility because it contains very inadequate references to terrorism and its effects, and no reference to the need of the Israelis to defend themselves.
Furthermore, the church should recognise that the Palestinians experience economic disaster and lack of infrastructure, partly through corruption, injustice and oppression on the part of some of their own leaders.
If the APJN feels it right to make strong criticisms of Israel’s perceived failings why does it feel no obligation to make similar criticisms of the failings of the Palestinian leadership?
The APJN Statement, based as it is on inadequate research by the visitors involved, is biased and unjust. If it really wants peace, the church should pray about and act upon the needs and failings of both sides in the conflict, without bias. It should be an agent of reconciliation, but that role is undermined by negative or biased criticism, which only fuels the fire. Prayer is vital because there is no obvious human solution to this conflict.
ITAC calls and works for true reconciliation by seeking to feel the pain of both sides in the conflict and by encouraging Arab and Jewish people to live and work together as they do at Christ Church Center and at our Anglican International School in Jerusalem.
