ISRAEL/PALESTINE

+ Introduction: Competing Histories, Unhealed Trauma, and Supremacist Ideologies

“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 Israel/Palestine crisis 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 Jewish Zionist supremacists to dispossess and oppress indigenous Palestinians. The Jewish people who are in need of security and safety after centuries of persecution now have a Jewish state, yet some Jewish communities 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 increasingly diminished land, resources, and rights. Unhealed and ongoing trauma, as well as supremacist ideologies of Jewish and Christian Zionism, 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.

+ Palestinian Suffering, Power Imbalance, Oppression, and Apartheid

“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, 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 away to a primarily immigrant Jewish minority, and during the ensuing conflict Zionist militias began ethnically cleansing Palestinian towns. With the official end of the British Mandate and the declaration of the new state of Israel, neighboring Arab states intervened. 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 who remain stateless and unable to return to their homes, despite having their right to do so confirmed by the UN. Not only has the very fabric of Palestinian society been destroyed through forced displacement; the Israeli occupation maintains a cruel system of control over Palestinians, 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.

+ Jewish Trauma & Core Needs

“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 a long history of discrimination, persecution, and genocide, primarily at the hands of Christians, Jews have deeply longed for a place to call home, where they can live freely and authentically as themselves. Ongoing antisemitism and Jewish unhealed trauma have reinforced the need for a strong military to guarantee the safety of Jews and say “never again.” For Jewish Israelis in particular, fear of Palestinians is accompanied by a fear that the world may abandon them to another genocide.

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 and Combating It

“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 between the river and the sea 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.

+ Christianity: Bad Theology Kills

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