“The role of the Church in the face of injustice is not to remain silent but to speak truth prophetically against oppression, discrimination, human rights abuses, and to call on governments to uphold international law.
Our denomination has previously acted on its obligation to speak to injustice in a similar situation by addressing “Apartheid” in South Africa. It is time again for the Church to use it’s voice in like manner about the ongoing injustices in occupied Palestine.”
I came across this UN ESCWA Report (that is Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia) from 2017 called “Israeli Practices towards Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” 71 pages long and I read most of it.
It’s authors are Prof. of International Law, Richard Falk, UN Special Reporter and Virginia Tilley, Prof. of Political Science U of Chicago, who came to the conclusion that the State of Israel is indeed committing the now recognized crime of institutional apartheid against the Palestinian people.
Four Domains:
Domain 1: The use of laws to curtail the capacity of Palestinian citizens of Israel to obtain equal rights with Israel’s democracy.
Domain 2: Highly insecure residency laws for Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem.
Domain 3: Military Law governing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories as a permanent alien population which rejects any claim they may want to make on Israeli political representation for equal rights and conditions.
Domain 4: Policies preventing Palestinian refugees and involuntary exiles from returning to their homes in Mandate Palestine.
These domains interplay on each other to enfeeble Palestinian resistance to Israel’s apartheid oppression.
There is much more on demographic engineering, discriminatory laws, no freedom of movement and practices that cannot be contained in this brief note……we should all read it.
I found at the end of the report under General Recommendations:
“United Nations bodies, national governments and civil society actors, including religious organizations, should formally endorse the principal finding of this report that the treatment by Israel of the Palestinians is consistent with the crime of apartheid.
I don’t know what religious bodies are meant here but I do know that many churches have made resolutions or overtures on this subject.
This is a very pressing issue for us because our governments are heavily involved in this awful stuff and we are implicated in it, the USA much more so and Canada, no matter Conservative, Liberal, all our administrations have supported Israel’s immoral behavior, one just more overtly than the other. Our governments say they support a two state solution but let Israel build more settlements with $4 billion (from the USA) in aid to boot.
There are also counter arguments listed which can be accessed.
This report has yet to make it’s way to the International Court of Justice still.
I feel very sad having to present these things, it feels very heavy on my heart, we have not even talked about Gaza yet. We have been kept in the dark for too many years by a lack of honest reporting. We really do need to pray for all the parties involved and search our souls too.
I admit to you Lubbert that I or we could have listened better before taking the overture to classis a second time. You did inform us that the overture needed significant change for classis to discuss it again. We thought that we had made enough changes to merit an approval by classis but I guess we thought wrong.
What bothered us about the process though was that the advisory committees only included people that knew the one narrative of Israel/Palestine and Not both sides, while there were definitely people in the two churches on the committee that know both narratives.
In particular one person who has very intimate knowledge and heart for the subject was sidelined. This person went to great expense of her own, even lived with a family that endured hardship from the Israeli occupation.
I was told that there were educated people on the advisory committee and indeed some of them were, they have a degree or two; the problem is that they were not really informed though on the whole of the issue.
I agree with Jennifer that the churches could do more for our indigenous peoples and yes, the Anglican church in Canada (in the USA Episcopalian) is more involved here, it is through KAIROS in the Anglican church that I got involved in both our First Nations and Palestinian/Israel issues.
There remain many inequities for our indigenous and settler peoples not unlike in Israel but in our country there is some progress going on, the reconciliation process is happening.
However, for Palestinians and Israelis the situation is getting worse every year. Palestinian families are systematically and illegally dispossessed of their homes and land every week at an increasing rate.
Besides calling for more awareness for our church members the overture has an admonishing word for the Israeli government and its military. Rightly so because as an occupying power under international law there are strict laws that are to be obeyed by Israel , however they tend to ignore them.
One example, since 2000, at least 8000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic treatment and torture of Palestinian children; see Amnesty International report 2015-16.
No wonder organizations like “NoWaytoTreataChild.org” come into existence. Doug, you are a lawyer, why don’t you check them out and compare notes with their lawyer.
If Naim Ateek of Sabeel shows anger at times it is because it is a righteous anger on behalf of his people and their women and children.
Gaza:
Saturday, June 8, there was an internet conference linking eight cities in Canada, including our city of Vernon, BC, with the chief orthopedic surgeon from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza and a 3rd year dentistry student. They spoke to us and we could ask questions from them directly. We learned about the trauma and psychological harm to men, women and children. It is immensely troubling. (An eleven year old in Gaza has witnessed three conflicts in its lifetime; each of these conflicts were characterized by massive bombing raids on densely populated civilian areas. An estimated 70% of children in Gaza need psychological counseling to address the symptoms resulting from the traumas they have experienced. )
Friends of Sabeel Canada was the main convener of this event and our community’s venue was at the East Hill Community Church auditorium, where I am an elder.
We raised funds for the “Near East Council of Churches” who have a longstanding relationship with Sabeel in their work for psychological support for children and youth through established maternal and child clinics in Gaza’s poorest districts.
We in North America are implicated in all this trauma, I am afraid, as our governments help fund this open-air prison under complete siege by Israel and partially by Egypt on the south border - probably part of a peace treaty with Israel.
Listen, listen slowly to every phrase from this Christian pastor from Bethlehem:
"I am a Palestinian (Christian) living under Israeli occupation.
My captor daily seeks ways to make life harder for me. He encircles my people with barbed wire;he builds wall around us, and his army sets many boundaries around us. He succeeds in keeping thousands of us in camps and prisons. Yet in spite all these efforts, he has not succeeded in taking my dreams from me.I have a dream that one day I will wake up and see two equal peoples living next to each other, coexisting in the land of Palestine, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan."
Rev. Mitri Raheb
Does this not speak to your heart?
It is seldom that we hear from Christians of the "Holy Land" and I doubt if he cares that much what the name of the country is,
he wants to live and breath in freedom and equality.
A large group of Christian pastors sent out the KAIROS Document: a combined cry to the western Church to pay attention to their plight......look it up on the net.
Whether they are Messianic Jews or Palestinian Christians, it does not matter, we should be listening to them.
I happen to have a friend who is a Christian born and raised in Jerusalem. He has no right of return. He is very sad about that. I can go back to bike in my old country where I grew up any time I want.
So I went to check that out. I witnessed the mess over there, not a cruise or a pleasant vacation.
It was very disturbing. You should check it out. I did not go to Turkey, my niece from Aldergrove is working there and in Armenia with a Christian Mission, we gladly contribute to her work. I know what happened there, I read the latest biography about "Lawrence of Arabia "a few years ago, it explained how the whole place was divided up by the colonial powers, mostly Britain. After a while the whole thing smelled to "high heaven" and Lawrence refused to be knighted right in front of the king. In the British Mandate they gave most of the land of Palestine to the Jewish people which we all loved for the sake of the Jewish refugees, it's just that there were people living there. But now the Jewish Israelis are the colonial power. It's somewhat similar to us in Canada being the colonial power and we have to make things right with our indigenous people to be reconciled with them.....but in Israel they are continuing their colonial occupation full speed ahead. In Canada we don't put blame on the indigenous peoples for living here. Why do we want to put equal responsibility on the Palestinian peoples?? So I am doing all I can for all peoples in that area because we are all God's creatures, it is a justice and reconciliation issue that even "The Banner" can touch on. Why can we not talk about human rights issues re. Israel just like we do about Myanmar? I saw a newspaper headline from Israel sometime ago that read "Israel needs to be saved from itself!"; as if to say "we can't do" it to the world. 52 years is enough.
BDS is not the same as antisemitism, nor is criticism of the state of Israel antisemitism as Lubbert implies. The state of Texas had to back down because it impeded peoples free speech.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Overture # 6 Background:
“The role of the Church in the face of injustice is not to remain silent but to speak truth prophetically against oppression, discrimination, human rights abuses, and to call on governments to uphold international law.
Our denomination has previously acted on its obligation to speak to injustice in a similar situation by addressing “Apartheid” in South Africa. It is time again for the Church to use it’s voice in like manner about the ongoing injustices in occupied Palestine.”
I came across this UN ESCWA Report (that is Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia) from 2017 called “Israeli Practices towards Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” 71 pages long and I read most of it.
It’s authors are Prof. of International Law, Richard Falk, UN Special Reporter and Virginia Tilley, Prof. of Political Science U of Chicago, who came to the conclusion that the State of Israel is indeed committing the now recognized crime of institutional apartheid against the Palestinian people.
Four Domains:
Domain 1: The use of laws to curtail the capacity of Palestinian citizens of Israel to obtain equal rights with Israel’s democracy.
Domain 2: Highly insecure residency laws for Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem.
Domain 3: Military Law governing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories as a permanent alien population which rejects any claim they may want to make on Israeli political representation for equal rights and conditions.
Domain 4: Policies preventing Palestinian refugees and involuntary exiles from returning to their homes in Mandate Palestine.
These domains interplay on each other to enfeeble Palestinian resistance to Israel’s apartheid oppression.
There is much more on demographic engineering, discriminatory laws, no freedom of movement and practices that cannot be contained in this brief note……we should all read it.
I found at the end of the report under General Recommendations:
“United Nations bodies, national governments and civil society actors, including religious organizations, should formally endorse the principal finding of this report that the treatment by Israel of the Palestinians is consistent with the crime of apartheid.
I don’t know what religious bodies are meant here but I do know that many churches have made resolutions or overtures on this subject.
This is a very pressing issue for us because our governments are heavily involved in this awful stuff and we are implicated in it, the USA much more so and Canada, no matter Conservative, Liberal, all our administrations have supported Israel’s immoral behavior, one just more overtly than the other. Our governments say they support a two state solution but let Israel build more settlements with $4 billion (from the USA) in aid to boot.
There are also counter arguments listed which can be accessed.
This report has yet to make it’s way to the International Court of Justice still.
I feel very sad having to present these things, it feels very heavy on my heart, we have not even talked about Gaza yet. We have been kept in the dark for too many years by a lack of honest reporting. We really do need to pray for all the parties involved and search our souls too.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Lubbert:
I admit to you Lubbert that I or we could have listened better before taking the overture to classis a second time. You did inform us that the overture needed significant change for classis to discuss it again. We thought that we had made enough changes to merit an approval by classis but I guess we thought wrong.
What bothered us about the process though was that the advisory committees only included people that knew the one narrative of Israel/Palestine and Not both sides, while there were definitely people in the two churches on the committee that know both narratives.
In particular one person who has very intimate knowledge and heart for the subject was sidelined. This person went to great expense of her own, even lived with a family that endured hardship from the Israeli occupation.
I was told that there were educated people on the advisory committee and indeed some of them were, they have a degree or two; the problem is that they were not really informed though on the whole of the issue.
I agree with Jennifer that the churches could do more for our indigenous peoples and yes, the Anglican church in Canada (in the USA Episcopalian) is more involved here, it is through KAIROS in the Anglican church that I got involved in both our First Nations and Palestinian/Israel issues.
There remain many inequities for our indigenous and settler peoples not unlike in Israel but in our country there is some progress going on, the reconciliation process is happening.
However, for Palestinians and Israelis the situation is getting worse every year. Palestinian families are systematically and illegally dispossessed of their homes and land every week at an increasing rate.
Besides calling for more awareness for our church members the overture has an admonishing word for the Israeli government and its military. Rightly so because as an occupying power under international law there are strict laws that are to be obeyed by Israel , however they tend to ignore them.
One example, since 2000, at least 8000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic treatment and torture of Palestinian children; see Amnesty International report 2015-16.
No wonder organizations like “NoWaytoTreataChild.org” come into existence. Doug, you are a lawyer, why don’t you check them out and compare notes with their lawyer.
If Naim Ateek of Sabeel shows anger at times it is because it is a righteous anger on behalf of his people and their women and children.
Gaza:
Saturday, June 8, there was an internet conference linking eight cities in Canada, including our city of Vernon, BC, with the chief orthopedic surgeon from the Shifa Hospital in Gaza and a 3rd year dentistry student. They spoke to us and we could ask questions from them directly. We learned about the trauma and psychological harm to men, women and children. It is immensely troubling. (An eleven year old in Gaza has witnessed three conflicts in its lifetime; each of these conflicts were characterized by massive bombing raids on densely populated civilian areas. An estimated 70% of children in Gaza need psychological counseling to address the symptoms resulting from the traumas they have experienced. )
Friends of Sabeel Canada was the main convener of this event and our community’s venue was at the East Hill Community Church auditorium, where I am an elder.
We raised funds for the “Near East Council of Churches” who have a longstanding relationship with Sabeel in their work for psychological support for children and youth through established maternal and child clinics in Gaza’s poorest districts.
We in North America are implicated in all this trauma, I am afraid, as our governments help fund this open-air prison under complete siege by Israel and partially by Egypt on the south border - probably part of a peace treaty with Israel.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Listen, listen slowly to every phrase from this Christian pastor from Bethlehem:
"I am a Palestinian (Christian) living under Israeli occupation.
My captor daily seeks ways to make life harder for me. He encircles my people with barbed wire;he builds wall around us, and his army sets many boundaries around us. He succeeds in keeping thousands of us in camps and prisons. Yet in spite all these efforts, he has not succeeded in taking my dreams from me.I have a dream that one day I will wake up and see two equal peoples living next to each other, coexisting in the land of Palestine, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan."
Rev. Mitri Raheb
Does this not speak to your heart?
It is seldom that we hear from Christians of the "Holy Land" and I doubt if he cares that much what the name of the country is,
he wants to live and breath in freedom and equality.
A large group of Christian pastors sent out the KAIROS Document: a combined cry to the western Church to pay attention to their plight......look it up on the net.
Whether they are Messianic Jews or Palestinian Christians, it does not matter, we should be listening to them.
Both have less status in modern Israel.
Posted in: ‘Palestine’ and Overture 6: Ten Questions to Consider
Lubbert:
I happen to have a friend who is a Christian born and raised in Jerusalem. He has no right of return. He is very sad about that. I can go back to bike in my old country where I grew up any time I want.
So I went to check that out. I witnessed the mess over there, not a cruise or a pleasant vacation.
It was very disturbing. You should check it out. I did not go to Turkey, my niece from Aldergrove is working there and in Armenia with a Christian Mission, we gladly contribute to her work. I know what happened there, I read the latest biography about "Lawrence of Arabia "a few years ago, it explained how the whole place was divided up by the colonial powers, mostly Britain. After a while the whole thing smelled to "high heaven" and Lawrence refused to be knighted right in front of the king. In the British Mandate they gave most of the land of Palestine to the Jewish people which we all loved for the sake of the Jewish refugees, it's just that there were people living there. But now the Jewish Israelis are the colonial power. It's somewhat similar to us in Canada being the colonial power and we have to make things right with our indigenous people to be reconciled with them.....but in Israel they are continuing their colonial occupation full speed ahead. In Canada we don't put blame on the indigenous peoples for living here. Why do we want to put equal responsibility on the Palestinian peoples?? So I am doing all I can for all peoples in that area because we are all God's creatures, it is a justice and reconciliation issue that even "The Banner" can touch on. Why can we not talk about human rights issues re. Israel just like we do about Myanmar? I saw a newspaper headline from Israel sometime ago that read "Israel needs to be saved from itself!"; as if to say "we can't do" it to the world. 52 years is enough.
BDS is not the same as antisemitism, nor is criticism of the state of Israel antisemitism as Lubbert implies. The state of Texas had to back down because it impeded peoples free speech.