ISRAEL/PALESTINE

“In their haste to help the Jewish people overcome oppression, Christians have enabled Jews to fall into the very same sins from which Christians have tried to liberate themselves, by granting the rehabilitated Jews the right and means to seek their own redemption at the expense of another people.”

~Mark Braverman, A Wall in Jerusalem, Jewish American and director of Kairos USA

The history of Palestine/Israel is both a story of competing traumas that have largely been generated and sustained by western Christians due to both antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism, and modern western neo-colonialism empowering Israel and Jewish extremists to dispossess indigenous Palestinians. The Jewish people who are in need of security and safety after centuries of persecution now have a Jewish state, yet many still fear abandonment by the wider world and uprising from indigenous Palestinians. Living under Israeli laws, policies, and practices that are designed to protect and advance Jewish Israelis, Palestinians live under a cruel system of oppression and apartheid and have been left with rapidly diminished land, resources, and rights. Unhealed and ongoing trauma, as well as extremist and supremacist ideologies in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam drive continued cycles of violence.

Watch “Israeli Palestinian conflict explained: an animated introduction to Israel and Palestine” or go to our Israel/Palestine Resource Page for more in-depth resources.

“We are horrified by the refusal of some western Christians to condemn the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and, in some instances, their justification of and support for the occupation. Further, we are appalled by how some Christians have legitimized Israel’s ongoing indiscriminate attacks on Gaza … Moreover, we categorically reject the myopic and distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians over the last 75 years since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes the crime of apartheid. This is precisely the horrific context of oppression that many western Christian theologians and leaders have persistently ignored, and even worse, have occasionally legitimized using a wide range of Zionist theologies and interpretations.”

~Palestinian Christians, “A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians”

In 1917, Britain gave a proclamation of support for a Jewish national home in Palestine, which resulted in the Jewish population growing tenfold in historic Palestine, the gradual dispossession of Palestinians, and growing Jewish-Arab conflict. In 1947, the UN announced its partition plan to give the majority of Palestinian territory to a primarily immigrant Jewish minority. During the ensuing conflict Zionist militias began ethnically cleansing Palestinian towns. With the official end of the British Mandate and the declaration of Israeli independence, neighboring Arab states intervened, declaring war on Israel. By the end of the fighting in 1949, the newly established Israeli state had wiped out hundreds of Palestinian towns, taken 78% of the land of Palestine, and refused to allow more than 750,000 Palestinians to return to their homes. The new state of Israel had created a massive refugee crisis and relegated more than 100,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel to the status of second-class citizens, living under martial law for almost two decades, literally in walled-off communities. This was the Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe “ — and its impact continues until today through decades of structural injustice, occupation, restrictions on movement and rights, and the failure to address the historic dispossession of the Nakba in 1947-1949. There are now around 5 million Palestinian refugees outside of Israel who remain stateless. Contrary to international law, they have been unable to return to their homes, despite having their right to do so confirmed by the UN. Furthermore, during the Six Day war of 1967, around 300,000 additional Palestinians were driven from newly occupied territory in the West Bank and, as in 1948, refused the right of return. For Palestinians, these tragic events have been an attempt to destroy their history, identity, and dignity in their homeland. Since 1967, Israel has maintained an increasingly cruel system of control over Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who face discrimination, dispossession, and repression of dissent. Palestinians are fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and subject to a constant state of fear, insecurity, and violence.

Watch “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity” by Amnesty International, read “A Dossier on Israeli Apartheid: A Pressing Call to Churches Around the World” prepared by Kairos Palestine and Global Kairos for Justice, or go to our Israel/Palestine Resource Page for more in-depth resources.

“One of the biggest events in my life that was a turning point was my visit to the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland as part of the Bearing Witness Retreat. In there, as a Palestinian, I met the shadow of my enemy. Even while living under the oppression I realized that my enemy even in their power is driven by fear and trauma. I realized how the collective trauma of the past is inherited by the next generation and carried in every decision they make to the future. Unless we acknowledge and heal the traumas of the past, we will only move forward with mistrust, fear, and suspicion - things that do not allow for true peace.”

~Sami Awad, Palestinian activist for nonviolent resistance and trauma healing

After enduring centuries of discrimination, persecution, and genocide—often at the hands of Christians in the West—many Jewish communities began to yearn for a homeland, a place where Jewish identity, values, and traditions could be freely lived authentically and in safety. In 1948, with the help of Western countries, many of which did not want Jews within their societies, the Zionist dream was realized in the founding of the state of Israel in the land of Palestine. 

Central to the new state's Zionist ideology was a commitment to preserving a Jewish demographic majority, which is believed to be essential to assuring that the horrors of the Holocaust never happen again for the Jewish people. This commitment plays out in policies that refuse Palestinian refugees the legal right to return to their homes, continued settlement expansion, and the ongoing military occupation. 

This unhealed trauma is real and must be understood. The need for Jewish safety and human flourishing is also real and must be advocated for. As we seek to understand historic Jewish trauma and ongoing needs for safety and flourishing, we in no way believe that either justifies the historic and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.

Read “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Psychology of Trauma” by Jessica Stern and Bessel van der Kolk or go to our Israel/Palestine Resource Page for more in-depth resources.

“Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)... Our aim is twofold: (1) to strengthen the fight against antisemitism by clarifying what it is and how it is manifested, (2) to protect a space for an open debate about the vexed question of the future of Israel/Palestine.”

~Jerusalem Declaration, International scholars in antisemitism studies and related fields from Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel

As the Jerusalem Declaration articulates, antisemitism is “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).” Antisemitism has a long and horrifying history that has resulted in deep trauma and the need for safety and security for Jews. At the same time, there is an ongoing debate among Jews and Jewish antisemitism scholars about how to define antisemitism, especially because of “the difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism,” which does not help combat legitimate anti-Jewish discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence against Jews as Jews (see the Jerusalem Declaration).

At Peace Catalyst International, we find that the Jerusalem Declaration definition and guidelines for combating antisemitism most align with our peacebuilding posture and approach, and we encourage all people who aspire to contribute to a holistic and just peace for everyone in the land to read it in full. We are also grateful for the many prophetic Jewish-led organizations who are working against the harms perpetuated by the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Their work is an inspiration to us, and we look to follow the example and leadership of Jewish and Palestinian peacebuilders in their work to build a holistic and just peace for all.

Read Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic by Peter Beinart, watch Holocaust survivor and trauma therapist Gabor Maté, “From Pain to Liberation: Healing Collective Trauma,” or go to our Israel/Palestine Resource Page for more in-depth resources.

“Our word to the Churches of the world is…a call to repentance; to revisit fundamentalist theological positions that support certain unjust political options with regard to the Palestinian people. It is a call to stand alongside the oppressed and preserve the word of God as good news for all rather than to turn it into a weapon with which to slay the oppressed. The word of God is a word of love for all His creation. God is not the ally of one against the other, nor the opponent of one in the face of the other. God is the Lord of all and loves all, demanding justice from all and issuing to all of us the same commandments. We ask our sister Churches not to offer a theological cover-up for the injustice we suffer, for the sin of the occupation imposed upon us. Our question to our brothers and sisters in the Churches today is: Are you able to help us get our freedom back, for this is the only way you can help the two peoples attain justice, peace, security and love?”

~Palestinian Christian leaders, “Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth” (2009)

Christianity has a long and messy relationship to Palestine/Israel, including a sense of religious kinship with the Jews, antisemitic history and guilt, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, and theological tendencies toward binary “good-vs-evil” narratives that we associate with the “Holy Land.” These long-standing views have contributed to a zero-sum approach to the Israel/Palestine crisis and continue to create a simple, impassioned, and compelling rationale for dehumanizing people made in the image of God. The most serious threat comes from Christian Zionists who are armed with a violent theology that supports a Holy Land exclusively for the Jews and, therefore, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Some Christian Zionist support for Jews and Israel comes out of a belief in the inevitability of the battle of Armageddon – an apocalyptic war to end all wars – during which they believe a large number of Jews will suffer and perish.

Christians must repent and turn from unChristlike attitudes and theologies that perpetuate supremacy, racism, dehumanization, and violence in all their forms, toward both Jews and Palestinians. Instead, we must relearn theologies, practices, and political postures that align us with Jesus to see everyone as made in God’s image and work for holistic and just peace (shalom/salaam/eirene) for everyone.

Read:

• Palestinian Christians, “A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians”

• The Gaza Call: An Open Letter to Christian Leaders, Churches, and Theologians in the West

• See the FAQ list provided by the Telos Group, “Evangelicals & Israel/Palestine FAQs”