Faithful Democrats
Today, there are
shepherds of Christian flocks in America for whom even the appearance of angels
would not persuade them that the returning Christ will not set His brogans
right down on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – and soon.
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July 10, 2008
From: Bethlehem
I stood yesterday at the
edge of Shepherd's Field in Bethlehem
– that place where we are told that an angel appeared before a group of
shepherds tending their flocks in the darkness of night. The Scriptures tell us that these shepherds
were "living" in those fields – likely nomadic Bedouin tribesmen.
The American Christian
account – the New International Version of the Bible – suggests that these
shepherds were Jews raising sheep for temple sacrifice (annotation: Luke 2:8).
Perhaps so; nevertheless, I prefer my version, as it adds a global flair
to the story, the birth of the Christ child being first witnessed by 3 Arabian
kings and a small group of Palestinian shepherds. Who but outsiders and enemies of God's people
could more effectively announce the coming of a Messiah who "…came to His own,
but His own received Him not"? (Romans 8:16, 17).
I conjecture, however, from
my room, a quarter mile from Manger
Square, without benefit of biblical commentary or
reference. The notion that the Jewish
Messiah could be born anywhere other than to royalty in Jerusalem would seem to
me to have become so entrenched in ancient Israel that even angels could not
persuade otherwise. Today, there are
shepherds of Christian flocks in America for whom even the appearance of angels
would not persuade them that the returning Christ will not set His brogans
right down on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – and soon.
The angel and an
accompanying host of others, however, are reported to have had something more
important to say:
Don't be afraid.
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the
people…Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor
rests (Luke 2:10-14, NIV).
This news was inclusive –
for all the people. Furthermore, for those living in slavery to Rome, accustomed as they
were to violence and death, peace was announced and restricted to "…men on whom
his (God's) favor rests."
The Hope of Shepherd's Field:
What once was Shepherd's
Field is today a demilitarized zone (DMZ) of formerly green pastures
increasingly covered with concrete settlements illegally approved and
encouraged by the government of Israel. These settlements enjoy the implicit support
of the government of the United States
and often are funded by Christian Zionists of the religious right in America.
Down through the middle
of this DMZ runs a paved highway accessible only to settlers and Israeli
citizens, though Shepherd's Field lies within the designated Palestinian Territory.
It may well be those
settlements that will lead to the fulfillment of the proclamation heard there
some 2,000 years ago: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those
on whom his favor rests."
Walled off from the rest
of the world by a concrete curtain and by the daily reminder of the fruits of
Democracy – progress and affluence, Palestinians none-the-less can see through
the hypocrisy of equating affluence with freedom. They can see this from their own poverty (72%
earn less than $2.00 per day) that has forced them to find hope in family,
community and their religious beliefs.
The Cultural Revolution in China resulted in the exile of some
5M Christians to remote villages, where community is the mother's milk of
survival. It is estimated that today
there are upwards of 100M Christians in China.
Only as a matter of time
will that hypocrisy of Israel
and the West be seen by those of us who enjoy the benefits of an affluent
society but who find ourselves enslaved by the greedy, narcissistic culture in
which we have become trapped.
Where is this "…peace to
men on whom his (God's) favor rests?"
The answer lay then and lies now in the definition of the word "peace." If peace is defined as Rodney King's vision,
"Can't we all just get-get-get along?" we have missed the significance of the
Messianic hope and have turned, instead, to the ability of politicians and
governments to promote the common good.
The scene is no more
peaceful today than it was then, other than for the missing sheep and the
recently-denuded green spaces leveled to make way for stone and concrete. Yet, those of us who believe that peace is
less about land and more about liberation of the human spirit can wonder if this
illusive peace remains extended to those today on whom God's favor rests.
Mysteriously, the history
and current story of Palestine
is one of peace where there is no apparent peace, love where there is no apparent
love and hope where there is no apparent hope – the Messianic mystery of which
the angels sang over Shepherd's Field.
Prophet of Hope:
There are many "living
stones" – prophets of peace in Bethlehem. Lutheran pastor, Mitri Raheb, stands out as
such a prophet. You can read his story
in his missive (Bethlehem Besieged, Augsburg
Fortress Publishers, Minneapolis, 2002), the account
of the April 2, 2002 bombardment of Bethlehem
by the Israeli Defense Forces and the terrorism of his family over several
days. He is pastor, entrepreneur and
prophet of hope where there is no apparent hope.
I spent time with Mitri
during my stay at Dar Annadwa, formerly the International Center of Bethlehem,
which suffered $1M in structural damages during the bombing siege. Israel,
the aggressor, is the recipient of nearly $5B yearly in undesignated US foreign aid,
available for such unimaginable projects as wall building, settlements declared
illegal by the International Court of Justice and the UN, and the building of
weapons of mass destruction.
His is the phrase, "The
big lie of peace."
"Peace in the Middle East" has become a sound bite and a smoke screen
that strikes terror in the hearts of Palestinians. The Oslo Peace Agreement, signed in 1995,
committed the region to a process of peaceful resolution of the conflict. It was, in effect, diplomatic eye wash that,
by failing to set down boundaries and conditions, rendered the solution as a
process with no teeth. The "what" was
covered with self-congratulations; the "how" was left undone.
Since Oslo,
the West Bank and Gaza
have been totally isolated from each other and within. Jewish settlements have since been removed
from Gaza in
favor of a military state of siege instigated through the collaboration of US
and Israeli pressure. One hundred-twenty
new permanent checkpoints have been erected, with temporary checkpoints
springing up as needed. Today, there are
some 650 security checkpoints within Palestine,
manned by the all-powerful Israeli Defense Force. This has left the Palestinian population
isolated in some three hundred separate enclaves.[1]
Twelve thousand
Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967. Nearly five thousand of those were bulldozed
by Israel since September
2000, the beginning of the Second Intifada of Palestinian uprising that was triggered
by Ariel Sharon's yr-2000 symbolic taking of the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem. Thirty mosques and twelve churches have been
destroyed; one hundred thirty-four aquifers have been sealed and one hundred
eighty-thousand olive and fruit trees uprooted or cleared.[2]
A concrete wall 27ft high
and meandering for nearly 500 miles is hastily being constructed to cut off Palestine from the world
as the peace talks monopolize the western news.
Strangely, the wall that I call the "Concrete Curtain" is not a symbol
of Israeli victory but an act of surrender.
By erecting the wall, Israel
admits defeat of its dream of pushing all Palestinians into the Jordan and Egypt.
The Mixed-Blessing of the Wall and the
Settlements:
The borders of Israel,
previously undefined, will have been settled by the wall and not one inch
further, to the dismay of Christian Zionists of the Christian Right in America
who refer to the wall as "the fence," rendering
this permanent structure as temporary.
Israel is in the process
of imprisoning itself by radical Islam in Lebanon,
Gaza, Syria,
Iraq, Iran and its
own wall, a strategic blunder of monumental proportions. Fear builds the wall; hope scales the wall.
America has unwittingly been complicit in this
imprisonment by removing the counter-balancing force in Iraq, the Sunni regime, thereby granting global
significance to Iran, at 70M
people the largest nation in the Middle East.
The American
administration, ideologically sympathetic with Zionist Christians, is complicit
in preparing Israel for the imminent return of Christ and the looming Battle of
Armageddon, considered by many to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. By paying mere
lip service to a peaceful settlement of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, we
Americans have trapped Israel
as the bull's-eye of a worldwide terrorist target.
Meanwhile, Palestine, a land of
remarkably peaceful response to American and Israeli terror, has, in the event
of statehood, been extended a ray of hope – a wall to protect itself from
Israeli terrorism.
Israel is not the gateway to freedom for Palestine. The gateway to freedom for Palestine is the human spirit that must be drawn
out and cultivated. Socially and
culturally, Palestinians are experts in hospitality and diplomacy. Terrorism is foreign to the Palestinian
nature – a tactic of last resort.
As I gazed over what once
was Shepherd's Field, hope sprang alive in my own heart. "What Jewish mother," I was asked by Lisa
deWolfe of our church who was accompanying me that day, "could possibly sit in
affluence overlooking an enterprising and vitally-alive people surviving on
less than $2.00 a day?"
The peace of Palestine may very well come
out of the Occupation and a Jewish sensitivity to social justice that has been carved
out of a long history of its own oppression.
The answer, upon settling the matter of statehood and the Occupation,
may well be something as radical as to celebrate the wall and cultivate
dialogue with the settlers, many of whom have no political or religious ax to
grind.
Leave the illegal wall in
place for the near future, and Palestinians may one day enjoy peaceful travel,
perhaps even taking credit for walling off Israel in this world of revisionist
history. If this dream can be realized, Palestinians,
who even now enjoy the highest educational standards in the Arab world, will
have achieved an open back door to freedom.
The justification for any
of this conflict and oppression can be argued indefinitely. Certainly, Palestinians have contributed to
the process in their past refusal to recognize Israel. Since Oslo
1 in 1993, however, that has not been the case.[3] Historically, it has been Israel's policy to reject the right of return of
Palestinians to their homeland, confirming the continued victim mentality of the
nation-state of Israel and the
complicity of its partner, the United
States of America.
For Israel, there
can be no peace until all Palestinians, Christian and Moslem, are driven from
their impoverished ghettos. History may
well conclude that this was accomplished through the wall and the
settlements. The path to peace for Palestine may well have shifted from Israel to the
settlements within Shepherd's Field.
Shepherd's Field, then,
may once more become the gateway to "…peace on earth to men on whom his (God's)
favor rests."
My vote would be to shift
the emphasis away from tearing down the wall (thereby revisiting the chaos of
the past), toward international pressure to establish the nation-state of
Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem, withdraw the troops over a period
of years, withdraw settlements in those places like Hebron where settlers tend
to be religious zealots, and seek out and cultivate reason among settlers who
have no political or religious ax to grind.
But then, who is asking
for my vote – other than, of course,
those of our elected representatives who honor Israeli lobbyists and fear the
Christian Right more than they value the welfare of their constituents?
I have no right, however,
to design political theories or armchair solutions for a place in which I am
not obligated to live and for a people unable or unwilling to leave. Yet, as a Christian, I do have an obligation
to learn from my brothers and sisters in Palestine
what it means to be free when imprisoned by ideology and circumstances. I have as yet another obligation to take that
newly-acquired knowledge back to America, introducing to my brothers
and sisters there through the Palestinian story what it means to live the
victorious life in the context of suffering.
Let us pray, then, that
there will be more here in Palestine and there
in America
of those "…on whom his (God's) favor rests," and that they may be found.
[1] Halper, Obstacles to Peace, (Jerusalem: PalMap, 2005, 3rd
Edition), p. 13.
[2] Ibid.,
p. 17.
[3] Carter,
p. 8.
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