Reckoning with Israel

Christian Century, May 22, 2002 by Chris Herlinger

WHEN A DELEGATION of U.S. Protestant and Orthodox representatives returned in late April from a visit to the Middle East, they immediately issued a statement "equally and unequivocally" condemning the suicide bombings against Israelis and "the violence of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories." Both types of violence, the Christian leaders said, were "counterproductive to achieving peace with justice." The statement went on to outline "a just resolution" that would include "secure borders" for Israel and an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

To Robert Edgar, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches and one of the leaders of the delegation, it was an evenhanded statement--the type that the NCC and other Protestant and Orthodox denominations have been issuing for more than 20 years. But Edgar knew the statement would land the NCC once again in trouble with U.S. Jewish leaders.

"The Jewish community is highly sensitive to any word or to any language that implies wrongdoing on the part of Israel," Edgar acknowledged, but said he hoped it was clear that he and others wanted to be evenhanded in their analysis to counter the "partial blindness" on all sides of the issue--the inability or unwillingness by Israelis, Palestinians and their respective supporters in the U.S. to see the injustice experienced by those on the other side.

The NCC statement was indeed criticized by Jewish leaders, who said the NCC continued to be blind to the realities faced by Israel. Eugene Korn, the Anti-Defamation League's director for interfaith affairs, for example, said the statement displayed "moral fuzziness" by equating the Palestinian and Israeli situations, and he said the issue of suicide bombers was "treated as if in a parenthetic way."

The NCC delegation, said Korn, "lumped everything under violence, but terrorism is something very specific, belonging to its own category." Korn called the NCC declaration a "distortion of the overall picture," and said it displayed "a deep lack of sensitivity and understanding to the situation Israel finds itself in."

Shouting matches about Israel and the Palestinians have not been uncommon when mainline Protestant and Jewish representatives have met in recent years, and there are likely to be more in the coming months. "I hate it," said Jay Rock, who directs the NCC's interfaith efforts. "The terms have all become loaded."

But what are the terms? Edgar and other mainline church leaders believe their positions have been fair because they have been grounded in a need for justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. Jewish leaders like Korn, meanwhile, have said that mainline Protestants display clear partisanship for the Palestinian cause. "Peace and justice implies fairness and balance, and that's precisely what we'd like to see, but there is no effort to hear the Israeli position," he said.

The disagreement over what constitutes "balance" stretches back decades. For much of the 1950s, support for Israel was an article of faith for mainline Protestants. Reinhold Niebuhr was among the leaders whose support for Israel was well known and often heralded by Jewish leaders.

But by the 1960s changes were under way, shaped partly by new perceptions of mission within the denominations that had a strong missionary tradition in the region, most notably among the Presbyterian, Episcopalian (Anglican), Methodist, Congregationalist and Reformed churches. Missionaries began seeing their role less as "spreaders of the gospel" and more as supporters of the churches and communities they served.

Meanwhile, the worldwide decolonization movement, the rise of liberation theology and the increasing call for "mutuality" between Western and Middle East Christians began to alter U.S. Christians' perceptions of their relationship with the region. So, too, did increased ecumenical dialogue between Western and Orthodox Christians and the creation, in 1974, of the Middle East Council of Churches, which gave new prominence and voice to the churches in the region.

J. Richard Butler, the onetime director of Church World Service, worked in what was then the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem from 1960 to `67, assisting those who were then called "Arab" refugees. Among Americans who, like him, had worked in the region, there emerged a growing awareness of the plight of Palestinians and increased personal contact with Palestinian Christians. That gave them, Butler said, a different outlook.

A trip to the region in 1969 by a group of religion reporters revealed some of the growing divisions in the church. The journalists reported on meeting Palestinian representatives and visiting Palestinian refugee camps. One of the articles that appeared in Christianity & Crisis so angered Niebuhr's wife, Ursula, that she asked that her husband's name be taken off the magazine's masthead.

Another important moment came in the late 1970s when the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, civil rights leader Andrew Young, met with a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. That controversial meeting cost Young his position but it had the effect, Butler said, of sowing doubts among some black American Christians about the direction of U.S. Middle East policy.