The question is, what would Newt do? He is clear that to apologize to the Muslim world is “astonishing” and embarrassing, or any other word he can think of to belittle the actions of Barack Obama. But, what would Newt do?
If apologizing to those who already see us as arrogant, at war with Islam and occupying their country will lead to one more step toward peace and understanding with Islam, then I, for one, am glad to have a president big enough to say, “I am sorry for what happened.” Being sorry does not mean that we were all wrong or that they are all right. It simply means, let’s try for a better relationship.
One thing has been demonstrated without question. Violence only produces more violence. Are we not getting tired of war after war trying to force other people to do it our way? What does it hurt to try something new? The president’s apology did not cause the death of Americans but it may have prevented more bloodshed. There is no way to know. What we do know, is that his apology strengthened the hands of those millions of moderate Muslims who are pleading for peace and a better expression of Islam.
Newt wants to come across as a military tough guy, but he sounds more like a moral mosquito. If what we want most in the next decade is more and more violence, any president can provide that, even start a war. It takes leadership to prevent one.
Thomas Are
February 28, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Is It Moral to Murder?
My lands, have we come to that? A national magazine’s cover story feature is entitled, IS IT MORAL TO KILL IRAN’S SCIENTISTS?
When Hamas does it, it is terrorism. When Hezbollah does it, it’s terrorism,” said Tod Robberson in The Dallas Morning News. So presumably, it was also an act of terrorism last week when two men on a motorcycle raced through morning rush hour traffic in the streets of Tehran and stuck a magnet bomb to a car carrying Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, deputy director of Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant. Roshan, 32 was killed, along with his bodyguard, becoming the fifth Iranian nuclear scientist to die a violent, mysterious death in recent years. No one doubts that Israel’s Mossad is behind these sophisticated assassinations, probably with U.S. help.[1]
Do we have to vote on murder? Assassinations are not only immoral, they are stupid. You can’t stop intelligence with a bomb.
Does anyone think that Iran will suddenly say, “Oh my. We would like to build nuclear capabilities such as that of our neighbors, but we must not upset the Americans or the Israelis?” Or, will killing a scientist or even bombing a reactor only increase their determination to speed up their progress? It might set them back a couple of years, but does anyone think that this is going to be the end of it? It is only a matter of time before the rage in Iran will strike back. Of course, our media will cry about the lack of Islamic morality and report the retaliation as a naked act of hostility. Killing top scientists will increase their determination to strike back at Israel and the U.S. Can you imagine the outrage if Iran started killing American scientists?
There are three reasons why the hawks are willing, or even eager to go to war with Iran. One: they will not have to do the fighting and dying. Two: they will not have to pay for it. And three: they are certain that we will win it. Let the politicians talk about imposing a universal draft, including their own sons and daughters, talk about raising taxes immediately to pay for it, and admit right up front that a war with Iran will not be a cake walk and would probably drag on for decades with no certain outcome, and suddenly we might start hearing different rhetoric coming from our leaders.
Before we allow Israel to drag us into another war, someone needs to ask whose army is going to fight it, how are we going to pay for it, and how in the world are we going to get out of it.
Thomas Are
February 9, 2012
[1] The Week, A Death in Tehran, January 27, 2012, p.4.
When Hamas does it, it is terrorism. When Hezbollah does it, it’s terrorism,” said Tod Robberson in The Dallas Morning News. So presumably, it was also an act of terrorism last week when two men on a motorcycle raced through morning rush hour traffic in the streets of Tehran and stuck a magnet bomb to a car carrying Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, deputy director of Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant. Roshan, 32 was killed, along with his bodyguard, becoming the fifth Iranian nuclear scientist to die a violent, mysterious death in recent years. No one doubts that Israel’s Mossad is behind these sophisticated assassinations, probably with U.S. help.[1]
Do we have to vote on murder? Assassinations are not only immoral, they are stupid. You can’t stop intelligence with a bomb.
Does anyone think that Iran will suddenly say, “Oh my. We would like to build nuclear capabilities such as that of our neighbors, but we must not upset the Americans or the Israelis?” Or, will killing a scientist or even bombing a reactor only increase their determination to speed up their progress? It might set them back a couple of years, but does anyone think that this is going to be the end of it? It is only a matter of time before the rage in Iran will strike back. Of course, our media will cry about the lack of Islamic morality and report the retaliation as a naked act of hostility. Killing top scientists will increase their determination to strike back at Israel and the U.S. Can you imagine the outrage if Iran started killing American scientists?
There are three reasons why the hawks are willing, or even eager to go to war with Iran. One: they will not have to do the fighting and dying. Two: they will not have to pay for it. And three: they are certain that we will win it. Let the politicians talk about imposing a universal draft, including their own sons and daughters, talk about raising taxes immediately to pay for it, and admit right up front that a war with Iran will not be a cake walk and would probably drag on for decades with no certain outcome, and suddenly we might start hearing different rhetoric coming from our leaders.
Before we allow Israel to drag us into another war, someone needs to ask whose army is going to fight it, how are we going to pay for it, and how in the world are we going to get out of it.
Thomas Are
February 9, 2012
[1] The Week, A Death in Tehran, January 27, 2012, p.4.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
The Big Lie
When I went to the movies as a kid, I always rooted for the cowboys. When I grew up I rooted for the Indians. Why? Because I read a little history and realized that the movies had lied to me.
If all we know about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is what we learn by watching The EXODUS by Leon Uris, or by listening to Fox News, or following the Republican Presidential debates, then we will root for the Jews. On the other hand, read any reliable historian and we will pull, work for, and pray for the Palestinians.
Now Newt Gingrich perpetuates the lie, portraying Israel as the victim. I wonder if he has ever read any of the many Jewish historians such as Gershom Gorenberg, Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Marc Ellis, Mark Braverman, Jeff Halper, Sarah Roy or Rachelle Marshall, among many others. If so, he would have never declared the Palestinians an “invented people.” Of course, he did not just make up this little bit of propaganda. When she was Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir declared:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine … and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[1]
Even as she said it, she knew that she was ignoring history. What she denied was exactly what Israel had done and she later admitted it. Alan Hart, one of the few reporters Golda Meir publically respected and referred to as her good friend writes that Golda had sent Lou Kaddar, her most trusted confidant to visit him with a message:
“Do you remember the TV interview in which Golda told you that there was no such thing as a Palestinian and that Palestinians did not exist?”
“My dear Lou” I replied, “not only do I remember, the whole world remembers and will never forget.”
Lou continued, “Golda told me to give you a message, but she made me promise I would not deliver it until she was dead. She told me to tell you that as soon as those words left her mouth, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she had ever said.”[2]
She was right. In writing of that time period, historian Arnold Toynbee declared:
The treatment of Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis … Though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[3]
Newt Gingrich is an historian, but he is also a politician and he knows how the system works. He knows that 76 percent of American Jewry is concentrated in six states – New York California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and Florida. These states control 181 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect the next president. Alan Hart writes, “Politicians have been mesmerized by fear of the ‘Jewish vote’ and by those who claim they can deliver the ‘swing vote’ in a hotly contested state.”[4] You just can’t be elected president without those swing votes
Of course, Mitt Romney also knows this. So we hear him saying such things as, “I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say, ‘Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do?”
Could it be that presidential candidates are willing to put aside their sense of justice and feelings of compassion for votes?
I fear that until promoting such a lie and licking the boots of Bibi Netanyahu costs them as many votes as it generates, some candidates will say anything even if it is contrary to history, morality and the teachings of their own faith.
However, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that the Republican politicians are right and that there has never been a people called Palestinians. There is one now. Does that in any way justify Israel’s aggression?
The question is:
Who is occupying whose land?
Who is stealing whose water?
Who is killing whose children and bombing their schools?
Who is assassinating whose elected leaders?
Who is pushing who into the sea?
Who, in reality, is denying whose right to exist?
Palestinians now live on 22 percent of what used to be their land and have offered peace with Israel just to allow them to survive on what is left to them. Who sabotages peace talks by increasing settlements and who gets punished with blockades and roadblocks for democratically electing their own government?
To portray Israel as the victim may get votes, but it’s a lie and any reader of history should know it, including Newt.
Thomas Are
December 18, 2011
[1] Naim Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, (Orbis Press, 1989) p.36.
[2] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume One, (Clarity Press, 2009) p. 61.
[3] Ibid. p.32.
[4] Ibid., p. 192 Hart goes on to say, “The inordinate Israelist influence over the White House, the Congress and other elected officials, stems principally from the ability to pander to the alleged ‘Jewish vote’ as well as fill the campaign coffers of both parties with timely contributions on a national as well as local level, while taking advantage of the anachronistic system by which American Presidents are elected. p. 193.
If all we know about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is what we learn by watching The EXODUS by Leon Uris, or by listening to Fox News, or following the Republican Presidential debates, then we will root for the Jews. On the other hand, read any reliable historian and we will pull, work for, and pray for the Palestinians.
Now Newt Gingrich perpetuates the lie, portraying Israel as the victim. I wonder if he has ever read any of the many Jewish historians such as Gershom Gorenberg, Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Marc Ellis, Mark Braverman, Jeff Halper, Sarah Roy or Rachelle Marshall, among many others. If so, he would have never declared the Palestinians an “invented people.” Of course, he did not just make up this little bit of propaganda. When she was Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir declared:
It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine … and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.[1]
Even as she said it, she knew that she was ignoring history. What she denied was exactly what Israel had done and she later admitted it. Alan Hart, one of the few reporters Golda Meir publically respected and referred to as her good friend writes that Golda had sent Lou Kaddar, her most trusted confidant to visit him with a message:
“Do you remember the TV interview in which Golda told you that there was no such thing as a Palestinian and that Palestinians did not exist?”
“My dear Lou” I replied, “not only do I remember, the whole world remembers and will never forget.”
Lou continued, “Golda told me to give you a message, but she made me promise I would not deliver it until she was dead. She told me to tell you that as soon as those words left her mouth, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she had ever said.”[2]
She was right. In writing of that time period, historian Arnold Toynbee declared:
The treatment of Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis … Though not comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality.[3]
Newt Gingrich is an historian, but he is also a politician and he knows how the system works. He knows that 76 percent of American Jewry is concentrated in six states – New York California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and Florida. These states control 181 of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect the next president. Alan Hart writes, “Politicians have been mesmerized by fear of the ‘Jewish vote’ and by those who claim they can deliver the ‘swing vote’ in a hotly contested state.”[4] You just can’t be elected president without those swing votes
Of course, Mitt Romney also knows this. So we hear him saying such things as, “I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say, ‘Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do?”
Could it be that presidential candidates are willing to put aside their sense of justice and feelings of compassion for votes?
I fear that until promoting such a lie and licking the boots of Bibi Netanyahu costs them as many votes as it generates, some candidates will say anything even if it is contrary to history, morality and the teachings of their own faith.
However, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that the Republican politicians are right and that there has never been a people called Palestinians. There is one now. Does that in any way justify Israel’s aggression?
The question is:
Who is occupying whose land?
Who is stealing whose water?
Who is killing whose children and bombing their schools?
Who is assassinating whose elected leaders?
Who is pushing who into the sea?
Who, in reality, is denying whose right to exist?
Palestinians now live on 22 percent of what used to be their land and have offered peace with Israel just to allow them to survive on what is left to them. Who sabotages peace talks by increasing settlements and who gets punished with blockades and roadblocks for democratically electing their own government?
To portray Israel as the victim may get votes, but it’s a lie and any reader of history should know it, including Newt.
Thomas Are
December 18, 2011
[1] Naim Ateek, Justice and Only Justice, (Orbis Press, 1989) p.36.
[2] Alan Hart, Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume One, (Clarity Press, 2009) p. 61.
[3] Ibid. p.32.
[4] Ibid., p. 192 Hart goes on to say, “The inordinate Israelist influence over the White House, the Congress and other elected officials, stems principally from the ability to pander to the alleged ‘Jewish vote’ as well as fill the campaign coffers of both parties with timely contributions on a national as well as local level, while taking advantage of the anachronistic system by which American Presidents are elected. p. 193.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Presbytery Vote - Part Three
“Are you not being hard on the Presbyterians? ” Someone challenged.
“Well, yes, I am.” I said. “You see, that my crowd. I have been a part of the Presbyterian family my whole life. I know the great works in which we are engaged and I know the benevolent and caring heart of the Presbyterian Church. That is why I am so baffled by this ‘blind spot’ when it comes to justice for the Palestinians. The issue is too serious to be side-stepped.”
When it came time to vote to support the Christian leaders of Israel/Palestine during the Presbytery meeting I attended, someone asked, “How can we vote for a people whose government, Hamas, trains kids to strap bombs on their bodies and walk into a crowd to kill people?” He was grossly concerned about the deaths caused by rockets and suicide bombers. After all, eleven Israelis were killed during the three years prior to Israel’s “deployment” from Gaza. However, he expressed no concern for the one thousand, two hundred-fifty Gazans, including two hundred twenty-two children, killed by the Israeli army during that same time.[1] Norman Finkelstein reports:
Hamas agreed to accept any peace agreement negotiated between the leaders of the PLO and Israel … Israel officials knew full well before they attacked Gaza that despite the charter a diplomatic settlement could have been reached with Hamas.”[2]
I agree with the speaker, suicide bombers and rockets are bad. They kill innocent people and that is always bad. Not only that, I don’t believe they work. For there to be peace between Israel and Palestine, both sides are going to have to compromise and reach across the table with forgiveness and respect. Suicide bombers are not going to bring down the IDF. Israel’s military is the fourth largest in the world. Suicide bombers and rockets will only make the average Israeli feel insecure. We don’t reach out with trust and respect as long as we feel insecure. Threaten me and I will trench in and come out swinging. I wish there were no bombs and rockets.
However, having said that, I can understand the frustration which drives a defenseless people, being mistreated and misrepresented for decades to strike out in any way they can. Why are we not asking, what is so bad that it would cause a young boy or girl to take their own life just to make a statement? We have one life to live. What drives these kids to sacrifice themselves?
Last week I quoted Philip Slater, as saying, “The Gaza Strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy – even deprived of hospital supplies.” He goes on to say, “It would be difficult to have any respect for them if they didn’t fire a few rockets back.”
I don’t think it is a matter of respect. It’s a matter of pain. Imagine yourself living in a refugee camp with no hope of ever gaining a better life, no matter what you do. After all, your parents have lived their entire life in these camps. They have never committed a crime, never been charged with a crime, never been to any court. They just happened to live in a village that was given to European Jews to be the State of Israel by the United Nations sixty two years ago. Bear in mind that the first suicide bombing was in 1994. That was 46 years after Israel destroyed 418 villages and drove 750,000 of your people into exile and 27 years after Israel again occupied your land and began treating you like an animal, and six weeks after Baruch Goldstein walked into a Mosque in Hebron and shot to death 29 of your neighbors as they prayed. During all this time, the world, including the church, said nothing. You are invisible and forgotten. How long before you would strike back?
Gideon Levy, award winning Israeli journalist, writes:
Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they had not behaved violently. That is a bitter truth, but the first twenty years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not lift a finger to end it.[3]
Then when the Christian leaders of Palestine begged the church in the United States to at least become informed as to what is happening to them, our Presbytery voted 37 to 65 to ignore their plea. So, yes, I will try to continue to be “hard on us.” If we are to be the church, we must do better. It’s as much for our sake as for the Palestinians.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, in his magazine Tikkun, writes about “The Violence of Not Seeing.” Think about it.
Thomas Are
November 21, 2011
[1] Norman Finkelstein, This Tine We Went Too Far, (OR Books, 2011) p.26
[2] Ibid., p. 45
[3] Gideon Levy, The Punishment of Gaza, (Verso, New York, 2010) p.21.
“Well, yes, I am.” I said. “You see, that my crowd. I have been a part of the Presbyterian family my whole life. I know the great works in which we are engaged and I know the benevolent and caring heart of the Presbyterian Church. That is why I am so baffled by this ‘blind spot’ when it comes to justice for the Palestinians. The issue is too serious to be side-stepped.”
When it came time to vote to support the Christian leaders of Israel/Palestine during the Presbytery meeting I attended, someone asked, “How can we vote for a people whose government, Hamas, trains kids to strap bombs on their bodies and walk into a crowd to kill people?” He was grossly concerned about the deaths caused by rockets and suicide bombers. After all, eleven Israelis were killed during the three years prior to Israel’s “deployment” from Gaza. However, he expressed no concern for the one thousand, two hundred-fifty Gazans, including two hundred twenty-two children, killed by the Israeli army during that same time.[1] Norman Finkelstein reports:
Hamas agreed to accept any peace agreement negotiated between the leaders of the PLO and Israel … Israel officials knew full well before they attacked Gaza that despite the charter a diplomatic settlement could have been reached with Hamas.”[2]
I agree with the speaker, suicide bombers and rockets are bad. They kill innocent people and that is always bad. Not only that, I don’t believe they work. For there to be peace between Israel and Palestine, both sides are going to have to compromise and reach across the table with forgiveness and respect. Suicide bombers are not going to bring down the IDF. Israel’s military is the fourth largest in the world. Suicide bombers and rockets will only make the average Israeli feel insecure. We don’t reach out with trust and respect as long as we feel insecure. Threaten me and I will trench in and come out swinging. I wish there were no bombs and rockets.
However, having said that, I can understand the frustration which drives a defenseless people, being mistreated and misrepresented for decades to strike out in any way they can. Why are we not asking, what is so bad that it would cause a young boy or girl to take their own life just to make a statement? We have one life to live. What drives these kids to sacrifice themselves?
Last week I quoted Philip Slater, as saying, “The Gaza Strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy – even deprived of hospital supplies.” He goes on to say, “It would be difficult to have any respect for them if they didn’t fire a few rockets back.”
I don’t think it is a matter of respect. It’s a matter of pain. Imagine yourself living in a refugee camp with no hope of ever gaining a better life, no matter what you do. After all, your parents have lived their entire life in these camps. They have never committed a crime, never been charged with a crime, never been to any court. They just happened to live in a village that was given to European Jews to be the State of Israel by the United Nations sixty two years ago. Bear in mind that the first suicide bombing was in 1994. That was 46 years after Israel destroyed 418 villages and drove 750,000 of your people into exile and 27 years after Israel again occupied your land and began treating you like an animal, and six weeks after Baruch Goldstein walked into a Mosque in Hebron and shot to death 29 of your neighbors as they prayed. During all this time, the world, including the church, said nothing. You are invisible and forgotten. How long before you would strike back?
Gideon Levy, award winning Israeli journalist, writes:
Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they had not behaved violently. That is a bitter truth, but the first twenty years of the occupation passed quietly and we did not lift a finger to end it.[3]
Then when the Christian leaders of Palestine begged the church in the United States to at least become informed as to what is happening to them, our Presbytery voted 37 to 65 to ignore their plea. So, yes, I will try to continue to be “hard on us.” If we are to be the church, we must do better. It’s as much for our sake as for the Palestinians.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, in his magazine Tikkun, writes about “The Violence of Not Seeing.” Think about it.
Thomas Are
November 21, 2011
[1] Norman Finkelstein, This Tine We Went Too Far, (OR Books, 2011) p.26
[2] Ibid., p. 45
[3] Gideon Levy, The Punishment of Gaza, (Verso, New York, 2010) p.21.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Presbytery Vote - Part Two
Historian Normal Finkelstein writes:
European Jews for a Just Peace issued a statement headlined, “German Jews Say NO to Israeli Army Killings.” In Canada eight Jewish women occupying the Israeli consulate called on “all Jews to speak out against this “massacre,” and celebrated Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti declared, “The unbelievable war crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza … make me ashamed to be a Jew.” In Australia two award winning novelists and a former federal cabinet minister signed a statement by Jews condemning Israel’s “grossly disproportionate assault.”[1]
In Georgia, the Presbytery voted to raise no objection to Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. About the same time that the Presbytery was voting to say “nothing,” NEWSWEEK Magazine quoted Ruth Dayan, the widow of Israeli military “hero” Moshe Dayan, criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians:[2]
What’s going on today is awful. They’re ruining this country. .. I am a peacemaker, but the current Israeli government does not know how to make peace. We move from war to war, and this will never stop. I think Zionism has run its course.
Today, we use foreign labor to work in Israel because Palestinians are not allowed. And this continuous expansion of the settlements everywhere – I cannot accept it. I cannot tolerate this deterioration in the territories and the road blocks everywhere. And that horrible wall! It’s not right.
For Netanyahu, peace is just a word, and that (current Foreign Minister Avigdor) Leiberman … he is the most terrible man in this country. … I reject Netanyahu’s policy; it is a recipe for disaster…. The number of settlements has increased from 60 to 200, the military checkpoints are everywhere, and freedom of movement is virtually non existent. Violence is still the only spoken word.
Avindav Begin, grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who refuses to stand during the Israeli national anthem and participates in protests against the apartheid wall, speaks with even harsher words: “Murderous blood flows in Israeli arteries.”[3]
While a 2003 poll of the European Union named Israel the biggest threat to world peace, a 2008 survey of global opinion named Israel the biggest obstacle to achieving peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the late Tony Judt asserted that “Israel today is bad news for the Jews.” Philip Slater, author of the classic sociological study The Pursuit of Loneliness declared, “The Gaza strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy – even deprived of hospital supplies." American Jews for a Just Peace, circulated a partition calling on “Israeli soldiers to Stop War Crimes” [4]
Students of Cornell University, the University of Rochester, University of Massachusetts, New York University, Columbia University, Haverford University, Bryn Mawr College and Hampton College among others have demonstrated to “divest from American corporations that directly profit from the occupation.” When historians, journalists, artists, numerous human rights organizations and even students are speaking out, where is the voice of the church?
Our Presbytery had nothing to say, 37 to 65.
Thomas Are
November 17, 2011
[1] Norman G, Finkelstein, This Time We Went Too Far, (OR Books, New York, 2011) p 120
[2] Newsweek, November 7, 2011. p. 58-63.
[3] Interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, February 13, 2010,
[4] Finkelstein, p. 111 - 124
European Jews for a Just Peace issued a statement headlined, “German Jews Say NO to Israeli Army Killings.” In Canada eight Jewish women occupying the Israeli consulate called on “all Jews to speak out against this “massacre,” and celebrated Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti declared, “The unbelievable war crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza … make me ashamed to be a Jew.” In Australia two award winning novelists and a former federal cabinet minister signed a statement by Jews condemning Israel’s “grossly disproportionate assault.”[1]
In Georgia, the Presbytery voted to raise no objection to Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. About the same time that the Presbytery was voting to say “nothing,” NEWSWEEK Magazine quoted Ruth Dayan, the widow of Israeli military “hero” Moshe Dayan, criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians:[2]
What’s going on today is awful. They’re ruining this country. .. I am a peacemaker, but the current Israeli government does not know how to make peace. We move from war to war, and this will never stop. I think Zionism has run its course.
Today, we use foreign labor to work in Israel because Palestinians are not allowed. And this continuous expansion of the settlements everywhere – I cannot accept it. I cannot tolerate this deterioration in the territories and the road blocks everywhere. And that horrible wall! It’s not right.
For Netanyahu, peace is just a word, and that (current Foreign Minister Avigdor) Leiberman … he is the most terrible man in this country. … I reject Netanyahu’s policy; it is a recipe for disaster…. The number of settlements has increased from 60 to 200, the military checkpoints are everywhere, and freedom of movement is virtually non existent. Violence is still the only spoken word.
Avindav Begin, grandson of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who refuses to stand during the Israeli national anthem and participates in protests against the apartheid wall, speaks with even harsher words: “Murderous blood flows in Israeli arteries.”[3]
While a 2003 poll of the European Union named Israel the biggest threat to world peace, a 2008 survey of global opinion named Israel the biggest obstacle to achieving peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the late Tony Judt asserted that “Israel today is bad news for the Jews.” Philip Slater, author of the classic sociological study The Pursuit of Loneliness declared, “The Gaza strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy – even deprived of hospital supplies." American Jews for a Just Peace, circulated a partition calling on “Israeli soldiers to Stop War Crimes” [4]
Students of Cornell University, the University of Rochester, University of Massachusetts, New York University, Columbia University, Haverford University, Bryn Mawr College and Hampton College among others have demonstrated to “divest from American corporations that directly profit from the occupation.” When historians, journalists, artists, numerous human rights organizations and even students are speaking out, where is the voice of the church?
Our Presbytery had nothing to say, 37 to 65.
Thomas Are
November 17, 2011
[1] Norman G, Finkelstein, This Time We Went Too Far, (OR Books, New York, 2011) p 120
[2] Newsweek, November 7, 2011. p. 58-63.
[3] Interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, February 13, 2010,
[4] Finkelstein, p. 111 - 124
Monday, November 14, 2011
Presbytery Vote - Part One
I went to bed sad. I woke up angry. Where is the church? I am not talking about the building on the corner, but the church envisioned by Jesus. The church which seeks to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus.
His very first sermon was; The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor… proclaim release to the captives … to set at liberty those who are oppressed…. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. His last sermon was; I was hungry and you fed me…when you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me. His parables almost always included the marginalized; Invite the poor to your banquet… Sell what you have and give to the poor… Whatever it cost to restore him to health, I will pay it. On and on; when you give a banquet, invite the poor and the lame. During his ministry, Jesus hung around the poor, the sick, and a large group whom he simply referred to as sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors.” There is no doubt about the focus of his heart.
Last week, I attended the meeting of a Presbytery, (a representative gathering of leaders from all the Presbyterian churches in a district). I joined the rhetoric of their worship literature. Almost every prayer, litany and song included such words as “justice” and “peace.” Those words rolled from our lips with ease. Yet, when it came time for a vote to seek “justice and peace” for the oppressed people of Palestine, there was a major disconnect.
I have never known a Presbytery to do a better job of offering its members an opportunity to be informed as to why a ‘justice for the oppressed’ motion was coming up for a vote. At its previous meeting, the JUSTPEACE Committee had arranged for the Presbytery to meet and hear Mark Braverman, a Jewish activist who is seeking to apply his Jewish faith to the policies and conduct of the State of Israel. In addition to Braverman, the Presbytery heard Dr. Fahed abu Akel, past moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and a Palestinian, tell his story of being separated when 4 years old, from his mother during the bitter displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians by the Israelis in 1948. In addition to having these eyewitnesses address the Presbytery, the JUSTPEACE committee sponsored three workshops within the Presbytery to address the motions which would support justice and peace for the Palestinians.[i]
The Presbytery had been asked to respond to THE KAIROS DOTRINE, a plea by Christian leaders in Israel and the occupied territories to the church in Americas to know what is happening to them. In the midst of pledging peace and love for their Jewish oppressors they acknowledged that they were rapidly coming to the end of their rope, saying:.
We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and exchange of opinions, cry out from within the suffering of our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land.
Why Now? Because today we have reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people.[ii]
The Presbytery voted to kill both motions. The Palestinians were left to be forgotten and on their own. I listened to the debate in astonishment:
--- The first speaker said that she was going to vote against the motion because she knew so little about the situation there. (I sat silently thinking that if she announced the first part, that she was going to vote against the motion, she did not have to confess to the second part. It would be obvious that she knew very little about the situation.
--- Several speakers described Hamas as a terrorist government that sponsored suicide bombers and had pledged to wipe Israel off the map.
--- Another said that he could not vote “against Israel” because the people there were happy and their faces were full of smiles and laughter, that we should not take anything away from the Jews who are the “Children of God.”
---Several people supporting the motions spoke from their experience of actually having seen the conditions in Israel/Palestine. They were rebutted by a pious plea that, before we do anything, we must hear “the Jewish side.” (As if we ever hear anything else on the news or from our pulpits.)
I was a “visitor” at this meeting of Presbytery and did not have the privilege of the floor or the right to speak, therefore, I sat there feeling a great disappointment for those who had worked so hard to inform the voting members of the urgency of these motions and feeling a personal frustration that ignorance so easily prevailed. Mainly, I felt deep concern for the men, women and children living in deplorable conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. Had those voting members known what is happening in the Occupied Territories, they would have been totally on the side of the oppressed.
So I will take out my frustration on you. I will address those points of debate in my next several blogs. In the meantime, I will feel frustration remembering the words of Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” That is exactly what the Presbytery did; 37 to 65.
Thomas Are
November 14, 2011
[i] JUSTPEACE made two motions
First motion:
JUSTPEACE, the Justice and Peacemaking Action Team, with the support of the Spiritual Formation and Discernment Ministry Team, requests the Presbytery to approve the following statements and actions:
We hear the cry of you, our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine, and we acknowledge the realities of why the Christian population is dwindling that you communicate to us in Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth recommended for study by the 2010 General Assembly. In response:
-- we will continue to study Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth carefully and prayerfully,
-- we repent of our own silence, indifference, and lack of communion,
-- we affirm the need of the Church to ―speak the Word of God courageously,
-- we pledge to resist evil in all its forms with methods that enter into the logic of love,
-- we will come, as we are able, to visit you, our brothers and sisters, to see for ourselves what
injustices you face,
-- we endorse JUSTPEACE‘s decision to pledge $1,000 of our Presbytery‘s portion of the
Peacemaking Offering to help underwrite the November 10-12, 2011, Friends of Sabeel--North
America (FOSNA) Regional Conference at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, to spread
your story,
-- we will pray and work that the Kingdom of God come, ―a kingdom of justice, peace and
dignity,
-- we will explore other ways in which we as a Presbytery can act on behalf of justice for you,
our Palestinian brothers and sisters in order to secure a lasting peace for you, the Israelis and all
the people of the Middle East, and
-- we will communicate these commitments to you so that your hope may be strengthened.
Vote: 37 YES, 65 NO, 1 UNDECIDED
Second motion:
JUSTPEACE also requests the Presbytery to approve the following statements
and actions:
-- we will join in the boycott of products produced in the West Bank as recommended by and
updated by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA), and
-- we support the recommendation of the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) of the PC(USA) to divest all PC(USA) funds from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard, all of whom sell products which support in significant ways the occupation of the West Bank and the oppression of Gaza and will communicate this support to the 220th General Assembly.
Vote: 40 YES, 58 NO
[ii] Kairos Palestine Doctrine
His very first sermon was; The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor… proclaim release to the captives … to set at liberty those who are oppressed…. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. His last sermon was; I was hungry and you fed me…when you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me. His parables almost always included the marginalized; Invite the poor to your banquet… Sell what you have and give to the poor… Whatever it cost to restore him to health, I will pay it. On and on; when you give a banquet, invite the poor and the lame. During his ministry, Jesus hung around the poor, the sick, and a large group whom he simply referred to as sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors.” There is no doubt about the focus of his heart.
Last week, I attended the meeting of a Presbytery, (a representative gathering of leaders from all the Presbyterian churches in a district). I joined the rhetoric of their worship literature. Almost every prayer, litany and song included such words as “justice” and “peace.” Those words rolled from our lips with ease. Yet, when it came time for a vote to seek “justice and peace” for the oppressed people of Palestine, there was a major disconnect.
I have never known a Presbytery to do a better job of offering its members an opportunity to be informed as to why a ‘justice for the oppressed’ motion was coming up for a vote. At its previous meeting, the JUSTPEACE Committee had arranged for the Presbytery to meet and hear Mark Braverman, a Jewish activist who is seeking to apply his Jewish faith to the policies and conduct of the State of Israel. In addition to Braverman, the Presbytery heard Dr. Fahed abu Akel, past moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, and a Palestinian, tell his story of being separated when 4 years old, from his mother during the bitter displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians by the Israelis in 1948. In addition to having these eyewitnesses address the Presbytery, the JUSTPEACE committee sponsored three workshops within the Presbytery to address the motions which would support justice and peace for the Palestinians.[i]
The Presbytery had been asked to respond to THE KAIROS DOTRINE, a plea by Christian leaders in Israel and the occupied territories to the church in Americas to know what is happening to them. In the midst of pledging peace and love for their Jewish oppressors they acknowledged that they were rapidly coming to the end of their rope, saying:.
We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and exchange of opinions, cry out from within the suffering of our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land.
Why Now? Because today we have reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people.[ii]
The Presbytery voted to kill both motions. The Palestinians were left to be forgotten and on their own. I listened to the debate in astonishment:
--- The first speaker said that she was going to vote against the motion because she knew so little about the situation there. (I sat silently thinking that if she announced the first part, that she was going to vote against the motion, she did not have to confess to the second part. It would be obvious that she knew very little about the situation.
--- Several speakers described Hamas as a terrorist government that sponsored suicide bombers and had pledged to wipe Israel off the map.
--- Another said that he could not vote “against Israel” because the people there were happy and their faces were full of smiles and laughter, that we should not take anything away from the Jews who are the “Children of God.”
---Several people supporting the motions spoke from their experience of actually having seen the conditions in Israel/Palestine. They were rebutted by a pious plea that, before we do anything, we must hear “the Jewish side.” (As if we ever hear anything else on the news or from our pulpits.)
I was a “visitor” at this meeting of Presbytery and did not have the privilege of the floor or the right to speak, therefore, I sat there feeling a great disappointment for those who had worked so hard to inform the voting members of the urgency of these motions and feeling a personal frustration that ignorance so easily prevailed. Mainly, I felt deep concern for the men, women and children living in deplorable conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. Had those voting members known what is happening in the Occupied Territories, they would have been totally on the side of the oppressed.
So I will take out my frustration on you. I will address those points of debate in my next several blogs. In the meantime, I will feel frustration remembering the words of Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” That is exactly what the Presbytery did; 37 to 65.
Thomas Are
November 14, 2011
[i] JUSTPEACE made two motions
First motion:
JUSTPEACE, the Justice and Peacemaking Action Team, with the support of the Spiritual Formation and Discernment Ministry Team, requests the Presbytery to approve the following statements and actions:
We hear the cry of you, our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine, and we acknowledge the realities of why the Christian population is dwindling that you communicate to us in Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth recommended for study by the 2010 General Assembly. In response:
-- we will continue to study Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth carefully and prayerfully,
-- we repent of our own silence, indifference, and lack of communion,
-- we affirm the need of the Church to ―speak the Word of God courageously,
-- we pledge to resist evil in all its forms with methods that enter into the logic of love,
-- we will come, as we are able, to visit you, our brothers and sisters, to see for ourselves what
injustices you face,
-- we endorse JUSTPEACE‘s decision to pledge $1,000 of our Presbytery‘s portion of the
Peacemaking Offering to help underwrite the November 10-12, 2011, Friends of Sabeel--North
America (FOSNA) Regional Conference at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, to spread
your story,
-- we will pray and work that the Kingdom of God come, ―a kingdom of justice, peace and
dignity,
-- we will explore other ways in which we as a Presbytery can act on behalf of justice for you,
our Palestinian brothers and sisters in order to secure a lasting peace for you, the Israelis and all
the people of the Middle East, and
-- we will communicate these commitments to you so that your hope may be strengthened.
Vote: 37 YES, 65 NO, 1 UNDECIDED
Second motion:
JUSTPEACE also requests the Presbytery to approve the following statements
and actions:
-- we will join in the boycott of products produced in the West Bank as recommended by and
updated by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA), and
-- we support the recommendation of the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) of the PC(USA) to divest all PC(USA) funds from Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard, all of whom sell products which support in significant ways the occupation of the West Bank and the oppression of Gaza and will communicate this support to the 220th General Assembly.
Vote: 40 YES, 58 NO
[ii] Kairos Palestine Doctrine
Friday, October 28, 2011
Two Letters
I have suggested to many of our fellow travelers that they write to their political leaders. Almost invariably their response is, “I wouldn’t know what to say.” Thus, below are two letters. One is a letter I sent to my Senator, Johnny Isakson, this week and the other is a letter to the Editor written by a friend in Nashville. I think it would be wonderful if each of us would write a letter to someone in Washington expressing concern for America’s ignorant support of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. .
October 18, 2009
Dear Senator,
It has just come to my attention that you have again cast votes seeking to block the Palestinian’s quest for statehood. I have in mind your letters to President Obama and to various African leaders seeking to influence their vote at the U.N. Then you voted to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless they withdraw their request to the United Nations.
The peace talks you promote are a joke. Only one side of the negotiating teams has anything with which to negotiate. Only one side has an army with tanks and bulldozers. In the last “war” with the citizens of Gaza, the kill ratio was 100 to 1. Only one side had the capacity to fight and Israel knew it.
I am sure that you want peace for Israel. However, the problem is the OCCUPATION with its settlements, road blocks, apartheid wall, the uprooting of trees and crops and the assassination of Palestinian leaders.
I agree, it may be too late for a two state solution for all the “facts on the ground” listed above. Perhaps the only route to peace is a democratic Israel for all its citizens including those living in the occupied territories, with a constitution guaranteeing equal rights to all.
I have no authority except my voice, but I am sure that you are aware that the mood toward Israel in America is changing, including and perhaps most significantly, among our younger Jewish citizens.
I urge you to learn more about what is actually happening in the West Bank and Gaza before you cut off funds.
Sincerely,
The second letter is by my friend Iley Behr to his local newspaper:
THE TENNESSEAN
Tuesday, September, 27, 2011
Gaza, West Bank conditions are overlooked in Debate .
“Dad, is the coffee you drink fair-trade coffee?”
“Isabel,” I replied, “do you even know what fair trade means?”
I didn’t expect my 10-year-old to know it, but she was pretty close. “It means a fairer price for those who are down.” So when she asked what my bumper sticker, “Free Palestine, End the Occupation” means, I didn’t get into discussions of settlements, restricted movement within one’s own country, checkpoints, and very tall walls. I simply said, “It’s a fairer way of life for those who are being put down.” She understood that.
I hope our 81 congressmen who recently visited Israel were shown the conditions in which people are forced to live in Gaza and the West Bank, but my hunch is they may not have heard a single word about Palestinian human rights.
“Dad, will ending the occupation work?” Isabel asked. I didn’t get into money and politics. I said, “Yes, in time because there can be no Israeli peace without Palestinian justice, and peace and justice are a fairer way to live.”
My goodness, what will she ask me when she turns 21?
Iley Behr
I don’t write my political leaders as often as I should. But the important thing is not that they get more letters from one or two people, but that they receive something from many different people. I wish you would write a letter to someone/anyone in Congress asking about justice for the Palestinians.
Thomas Are
October 28, 2011
October 18, 2009
Dear Senator,
It has just come to my attention that you have again cast votes seeking to block the Palestinian’s quest for statehood. I have in mind your letters to President Obama and to various African leaders seeking to influence their vote at the U.N. Then you voted to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless they withdraw their request to the United Nations.
The peace talks you promote are a joke. Only one side of the negotiating teams has anything with which to negotiate. Only one side has an army with tanks and bulldozers. In the last “war” with the citizens of Gaza, the kill ratio was 100 to 1. Only one side had the capacity to fight and Israel knew it.
I am sure that you want peace for Israel. However, the problem is the OCCUPATION with its settlements, road blocks, apartheid wall, the uprooting of trees and crops and the assassination of Palestinian leaders.
I agree, it may be too late for a two state solution for all the “facts on the ground” listed above. Perhaps the only route to peace is a democratic Israel for all its citizens including those living in the occupied territories, with a constitution guaranteeing equal rights to all.
I have no authority except my voice, but I am sure that you are aware that the mood toward Israel in America is changing, including and perhaps most significantly, among our younger Jewish citizens.
I urge you to learn more about what is actually happening in the West Bank and Gaza before you cut off funds.
Sincerely,
The second letter is by my friend Iley Behr to his local newspaper:
THE TENNESSEAN
Tuesday, September, 27, 2011
Gaza, West Bank conditions are overlooked in Debate .
“Dad, is the coffee you drink fair-trade coffee?”
“Isabel,” I replied, “do you even know what fair trade means?”
I didn’t expect my 10-year-old to know it, but she was pretty close. “It means a fairer price for those who are down.” So when she asked what my bumper sticker, “Free Palestine, End the Occupation” means, I didn’t get into discussions of settlements, restricted movement within one’s own country, checkpoints, and very tall walls. I simply said, “It’s a fairer way of life for those who are being put down.” She understood that.
I hope our 81 congressmen who recently visited Israel were shown the conditions in which people are forced to live in Gaza and the West Bank, but my hunch is they may not have heard a single word about Palestinian human rights.
“Dad, will ending the occupation work?” Isabel asked. I didn’t get into money and politics. I said, “Yes, in time because there can be no Israeli peace without Palestinian justice, and peace and justice are a fairer way to live.”
My goodness, what will she ask me when she turns 21?
Iley Behr
I don’t write my political leaders as often as I should. But the important thing is not that they get more letters from one or two people, but that they receive something from many different people. I wish you would write a letter to someone/anyone in Congress asking about justice for the Palestinians.
Thomas Are
October 28, 2011
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