Enemies at the Table
By Charles Rush
November 30, 2003
I Cor. 5: 17-20
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week, someone from town stopped me in the grocery store and said,
"I understand you preached on American foreign policy in Iraq and had a talk back session with your congregation." I said, "Yeah, it went so well, this week we are tackling the Israel/Palestinian conflict."
I trust you
had a restful reunion with family this weekend. Ours featured a Friday evening
concert with all of my nieces and nephews playing an instrument, however badly
to the raucous applause of their elders. And I taught one of my nephews to cast
a fly rod. It doesn't get much better than that.
Yet, as we
come together over a meal in gratitude for the considerable blessings that we
have known, I think it is fair to remember one of the deeper meanings of that
first meal between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. They were enemies at
a common table, seeking a way to develop a reconciled co-existence with one
another. This is the high calling entrusted to us, to be ambassadors of
reconciliation. It is not romantic work. It is not easy. It is not warm, gushy
butter or a Hallmark card. But it is the guts of the Christian faith.
Perhaps you
have recently seen the "Geneva Initiative" put forth as a proposal
for peace between the Israeli's and the Palestinians. They have been meeting in
secret for two years, sponsored by the Swiss government and their final
proposal has been set forth. It is not an official proposal from the
governments, just an agreement meted out by recognized leaders from both groups.
People such as Colonel Shaul Ariele, former commander of the Israeli forces in Gaza. He sat across from Samir Rantisi,
from Hamas. Then there was Abd-al-Qader al Husseini, whose grandfather was a
prominent Palestinian guerilla in the 48' war. He was paired with Brigadier
General Shlomo Brom, a former strategic planner for the military. David Kimche,
former senior official from Mossad sat next to Fares Kadura, a leader of
Tanzim, a militant Palestinian group. Finally, also in the group was the noted
intellectual and writer from Israel, Amos Oz.[1]
This group met
at different places in Jerusalem, on the shores of the Dead Sea. Oz says that the mood of the
conference was like the final divorce settlement in a lawyer's office. He notes
that they have had 36 years of warped intimacy with each other. "Only we…
and they" he writes, "know exactly what a roadblock looks like and
what a car-bomb sounds like and exactly what the extremists on both sides will
say about us. Because since the Six Day war, we are as close to the
Palestinians as a jailer is to the prisoner handcuffed to him. A jailer cuffing
his wrist to that off a prisoner for an hour or two is a matter of routine. But
a jailer who cuffs himself to his prisoner for 36 long years is himself no
longer a free man. The occupation has also robbed us of freedom."
So they met to
unlock the handcuffs that the land of Israel would "no longer be a prison or
a double bed. It will be a two-family house", the link between them a
shared stairwell.
And, he notes
poignantly that just like a long-married couple finalizing a divorce, those
negotiating together "can joke together, shout, mock, accuse, interrupt,
place a hand on a shoulder or a waist, throw invective at each other, and once
or twice even shed a tear."[2]
He even
mentions the rather dark humor that they all find funny in these moments.
Apparently at one point in the conference, one of the Israeli's made an
unintentional double-entendre. He said, "Could I detain you for a
moment?" All the Palestinians laughed out loud after so many years of
detention. One of them responded, "I'll blow up the meeting on this
point."
What are the
essential issues that make this so difficult to resolve? I can explain them
simply. Others of you can fill in with more detail but the most difficult ones
are not that complicated to understand, just difficult to resolve.
The two
biggest ones, present from the beginning, are linked. Right after the end of
World War 2, when the United Nations pledged with a collective voice
"Never again will we allow a holocaust", a wide consensus developed
that Jews needed their own homeland to prevent them from perennially being
subject to oppression as minorities. They carved out a section of the British
Mandate in Palestine.
The Arab
states voted against the resolution. Shortly after Jews began arriving in Haifa to this new country, 7 Arab nations
collectively attacked Israel, hoping to annihilate it from the
very beginning. Since Israel hardly had an army, the whole
situation was chaotic and resembled a protracted guerilla fracas more than a
modern war. It also engulfed literally every village and hamlet, threatening
the lives of civilians everywhere.
Many of the
Palestinians left their farms and villages, and went to Jordan to live with their neighbors until
the conflict was over. They were thinking, no doubt, that all of these nations
would make short work of the fledgling new army. They were wrong. Israel was tenacious. They won the war in
short order.
The area in
the northern part of Israel is largely composed of one rural
farming community after another. The Jews began to expand their kibbutzim after
the end of the war….All in all, of the 1,200,000 Palestinians in the area
before the War, 750,000 are driven out of their homeland or flee the fighting.
Only 160,000 remain in Israel itself. Very few are allowed to
return. By 1950, one million live in UN-supported refugee camps in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan. They become centers of militancy.
The war was a
great blow to Arab pride.
The
Six Day War 1967
Involved
President Johnson, Golda Meir, Nasser
Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon amass on the border of Israel to regain occupied territory. They also cut off shipping lanes in the Strait of Tiran (The Red Sea entrance to Elat that Israel used to import oil from Iran).
Israel stages a pre-emptive strike that
destroys 400 Egyptian aircraft;
Cold war
politic dominated the back ground of what was permissible with many ironic
outcomes.
The upshot.
350,000 citizens in the occupied territories were displaced; Israel engaged in a prolonged military
occupation that has not substantially yielded until the present.
Resolution
242- the return to the 67 borders in exchange for terms of peace.
October
War (Yom Kippur War)
Anwar Sadat,
Menachem Begin, Nixon and Kissinger
Egypt and Syria coordinated an attack on Israel with the backing of 9 Arab states
and the Soviet
Union. By
October 22 the war was over. Again Israel had a large victory and controlled
the Sinai, the Golan, with a protracted military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Incursions
into Lebanon
The
Issues for Reconciliation addressed in the Geneva Initiative
1. The
Resolution of the Refugee compensation- Israel agrees to pay fair market price for
property confiscated after the 48 war; to victims or to other countries or to
resettle in a way. Establishes a committee to oversea the claims; also, Israel agrees to withdraw from the
settlements in the occupied territories and turn over those developments; the
fair market value is deducted from the claims Israel agrees to pay out.
Furthermore,
20% of the 6.5 million citizens of Israel today are Palestinian.
2. Mutual
recognition of each other's independent right to exist
3. Jerusalem-
recognition of
the three separate quarters;
authority granted to each, access to
holy sites and control of them given jurisdiction
3 representatives from different
faiths to form committee to resolve problems
International committee to also
oversee administration
4. Water-
not addressed; largest aquifer is just below Galilee and in the West Bank; if they cede it, Israel would have no water. Come mutual
process is inevitable.
5. Palestine is a non-militarized state with
police authority
6. Access
to holy sites in Palestine (Abraham's tomb in Hebron)
Spiritual Issues
1. Ending
the cycle of retribution; like a dysfunctional family; the emotion of getting
beyond your personal loss.
2. Martyrology
- no moral respect from Israeli's for the suicide bombers.
3. Forgiveness-
the lack of religious resources in Islam and Judaism; the potential role for
Christianity.
4. Quote
from Thomas Friedman in today's paper: "We are seeing- from Bali to
Istanbul- the birth of a virulent, nihilistic form of terrorism that seeks to
kill any advocates of modernism and pluralism, be they Muslims, Christians or
Jews… It started before 9'/1 and is growing in the darkest corners of the
Muslim world. (Op-ed page, NYT Sunday, November 30, 2003)
There
is some sense in which the very real problems Palestine also become the occasion for
developing this nihilistic propaganda; the conditions for the propagation of
this weed exist and can fan the flame.
[1] What
follows is a condensation of his reflections on the process for the agreement.
For his full thought and a full copy of the proposal. Go to
www.shalomctr.org and do a search on
"amos oz".
[2] see page
4of 11 for the fuller remarks
© 2003
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved
