A City on Fire
There was a city on fire. People in the city were unable to put the fire out. Many were burned, and many died from their burns. This alarmed people in neighboring cities. And they came to see what was happening in the city on fire. These visitors took pictures and talked about how awful the fire was. They offered comfort to the victims of the fire. They rebuilt sections of the city that had been burnt. Others went closer to the flames, wanting to touch them to see what it felt like to burn. They came and went, taking pictures, telling stories. Despite all the delegations, the fire continued to burn.
---Told by Elliott Colla, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Georgetown University, on Jadaliyya
This parable recounts what I believe is our dilemma in the US as we advocate for and stand with our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel. How many years have we been traveling to Palestine and Israel and coming home and telling the stories? For how long have we been advocating change with successive US administrations? At how many General Conventions have Episcopalians introduced prophetic resolutions calling for peace with justice in Palestine and Israel only to have them eviscerated or defeated? For how long will we continue to do good but never get to the point that we are doing justice?
The fire continues to burn.
On 3 October 2011 the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church released A Pastoral Letter on Israeli-Palestinian Peace. It was balanced. It set out The Episcopal Church’s positions on a resolution of this conflict and called on the President and the Congress to take steps neither is willing to take towards its resolution. It set out how Episcopalians can financially support the good works of those institutions which are part of the infrastructure for a Palestinian state.
The fire continues to burn.
While acknowledging that official positions of The Episcopal Church are limited by policies as passed by its governing bodies, I do not accept that these policies silence the Church’s prophetic voice on Palestine and Israel. I do not accept why it all has to be ‘balanced.’ This is not a ‘balanced’ conflict. South Africans have called the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem ‘worse than apartheid.’ USers and Canadians of African descent have seen how Palestinians are treated under Israeli military occupation and said, ‘This is racism.’
The fire continues to burn. Who will put out the fire?
In 2005 Palestinian Civil Society issued a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel ‘similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era,’ to be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies...with international law by ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall, recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their home and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.’ The 2009 KAIROS Palestine document, written by members of the Palestinian Christian community in Israel and Palestine, endorsed boycott, divestment and sanctions as a nonviolent response to the evils of the Israeli occupation. The Presbyterian Church USA and conferences of the United Methodist Church, among others, have spoken out forcefully and bravely.
While it is important to continue taking the actions set out in the pastoral letter, the Palestinian community still lives from day to day under a brutal military occupation in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and under conditions of severe inequality in Israel itself.
It will be internationals and Israelis standing with their Palestinian sisters and brothers who will put out this fire for good through their courageous support of nonviolent actions such as the BDS movement. It won’t be easy and it won’t happen quickly. Look at South Africa. But we must take action. Who will join me?
Donna Hicks
7 October 2011
Durham NC
So, my dear friends in PIN, do something about it!
Vicki
Bishop Schori's Pastoral Letter sounds to much like the same thing that has been said for the past ten years. The result has been continued construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories in violation of international law. The Israelis have taken advantage of every day to build more settlements, build more walls, with more gun towers, build more restricted roads, demolish more palestinian homes and build more check points. Its time for the Christian community to live by christian principles and stand with those who oppose appartide and speak for divestment, stop supporting Israel. It is not in Israel's best interest, Palestinde's or the United States interest to continue make the same mistakes in our foregin policies in Israel/Palestine.
The church must have the courage to do the hard thing, and stop bowing to political expediency.
It has become painfully clear that BDS will likely be required to move the actions in Israel/Palestine away from the intractible positions of the last seven decades, in striving to find "our better angels." Such advocacy and action will be criticised and misinterpreted as being insensitive to history. And Christianity's collective fingerprints are all over some of the worst evidence of human behavior in that history. Yet, here in the Twenty-First century, are we going to miss an opportunity to demonstrate the validity of the Gospel, that God loves all people and weeps over his city? Time for some tough love, folks!
Well put, Ms. Hicks.
This fire must be put out quickly and definitively, employing all appropriate nonviolent actions -- including BDS.
An appropriate critique of the Presiding Bishop's balanced pastoral letter. The latter reflects the collective minds and positions of General Conventions past where pro-Zionist and pro-Palestinian advocates have contended and have had to settle for some sort of "balance." In fact, it's a most unbalanced via media when the facts on the ground are weighed as Donna Hicks has done so aptly.
Should The Episcopal Church (TEC) do another resolution re-run of this scenario at its General Convention in 2012? If it does the fire will continue to burn. So called balanced resolves will not contribute to putting it out. But BDS will.
There are two options regarding the resolution option/route at General Convention:
1. Avoid/ignore/bypass it. It indulges good intentions but expends valuable time and energy in "convention-ese babble" that should by invested in mobilizing the BDS effort. Perhaps EPF should give Sabeel or someone like James Wall a very visible public platform to speak to this crisis.
2. Or draft/submit a resolution that clearly puts TEC on record of promoting, advocating and supporting BDS. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. No equivocating. It's the non-violent option and the only one worthy of our non-violent Gospel. It's purpose is to align TEC with the right side of history on this matter of Palestinian justice.
Personally I favor the first option. I doubt that a forthright BDS resolution would ever make it to the floors of Convention (Bishops and Deputies). Still, the Presbyterians did it but not before the pro-Zionist lobbies did everything they could to discredit and prevent it. TEC would face the same. But that's an engagement well worth having if it pertained to a straight up or down vote on BDS. That said, if such a resolution was rejected it would put TEC on the wrong side of history. That means we would be adding fuel to the fire. Sadly it wouldn't be the first time that's happened. But at least we tried and for the right reasons.