Chapter 11 God’s Politics
Wallis does a good job of alerting many readers to the realities of life in Palestine.
BACKGROUND: Following WWI and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the League of Nations establishes the British mandate over Palestine. As the administrative and governing authority between 1920 and 1948, they attempt to pacify the conflicting self-interests of the Jewish and Arab populations. They are unsuccessful and leave the matter for the United Nations. In 1947 the United Nations votes to partition Palestine into two states. The British withdraw on May 14, 1948, and Israel declares its statehood. The first of five wars commence. A decade of peace negotiations beginning with the 1991Madrid Conference and ending with the 2001 Taba Talks is unable to bring resolution. The conflict remains at the center of international attention to this day. (source: Israeli - Palestinian ProCon)
Stop the Insanity: One of the most agonizing disputes and major sources of instability that has occurred in this century is the Israel-Palestine conflict. The dispute or conflict takes on not just a political or historical tone, but a religious tone as well. Americans are directly connected to this conflict and must play an active role in resolving the conflict.
Statistics: Every day, innocent Palestinian and Israeli people are being killed. From Sept. 29, 2000 to April 19, 2005:Israeli Dead: 963; Palestinian Dead: 3611 (source: Middle East Policy Council)
According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics there are approximately 4 million Palestinians in Palestinian territory: 2.3 million in the West Bank and 1.4 in the Gaza Strip. Unemployment is high as nearly 31%.
Distinguished Alum:I had the great pleasure of meeting Naim Ateek, an Episcopal priest and head of Sabeel the organization that Wallis mentions in Chapter 11. Naim, a very sweet, compassionate and dear man was honored as a distinguished alumnus at my seminary a few years ago. Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation movement among Palestinian Christians. It's an ecumenical center for Palestinian Liberation Theology which seeks to make the Gospel contextually relevant. In Arabic Sabeel means 'The Way' and also a 'Spring of Water'. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. Sabeel also works to promote a more accurate international awareness regarding the identity, presence, and witness of Palestinian Christians.
A Story: In his book, Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation he describes his experience as a child: "I am a Palestinian. I had just turned eleven in 1948 when the Zionist occupied my hometown, Beisan. We had no army to protect us. There was no battle, no resistance, no killing; we were simply taken over, occupied, on Wednesday, May 12, 1948. We lived under occupation for fourteen days. On May 26, the military govenor sent for the leading men of the town; at military headquarters, he informed them quite simply and coldly that Beisan must be evacuated by all its inhabitants within a few hours. My father pleaded with him, ‘I have no lace to take my large family. Let us stay in our home.’ But the blunt answer came, ‘If you do not leave we will kill you.’" Naim and his family carried what they could in their arms and made their way out of town.
"During the war of 1948, some eight hundred thousand of the approximately nine hundred thousand Palestinians who originally resided in the area that became Israel, were forced [by Jews] to leave their homes to seek refuge in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and further afield." -- Palestine Ministry of Information "Refugees" as of 02/05/04
Welcome to Naim’s world. Can you imagine what it would be like if you were faced with similar circumstances? How would you feel if you later discovered that many of your brothers and sisters in Christ were often the one’s who supported your demise? The debate continues but we must believe, pray and hope for a non-violent resolution that works for all of humanity. We are not ready to give up the good ole USA and return it to the natives of the land, are we? Dare we follow Jesus.
3 Comments:
Thanks for sharing this. A related point is that the entire Middle East has been politically unstable by desigen. In 1917, Britain and France created the Sykes-Picot agreement to put feuding princes in power throughout the Arab world, and create countries with untenable ethnic mixes (like Iraq) when they would inevitably leave the colonies.
Their goal was to keep an Arab power from developing in the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, and threatening Europe's increasing need for oil.
Does Wallis suggest what we might do about it?
I wonder why this account of history starts after the Zionist and native populations are already at odds? I think it is important for us to recoginze that Jews and the other people of that region had been living peacefully together before this particular conflict arose. The confict arose when European Zionists were promised, by Britian (1917), land that belonged to somebody else (the native people, or Palestinians). People in that region had fought with Britian so that they might also be free from Ottoman rule. Thats kind of like us winning Iraq from Saddam's tyranny and letting Christians build a state there because it was once the garden of Eden, all the while displacing Iraqis. Granted, Palestinians never had a state to begin with, yet it is their homeland.
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