Author Archives: erasingborders
Land and Theologies in Conflict
| Territory | Arab and other population | % Arab and other | Jewish population | % Jewish | Total population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arab State | 725,000 | 99% | 10,000 | 1% | 735,000 | |
| Jewish State | 407,000 | 45% | 498,000 | 55% | 905,000 | |
| International | 105,000 | 51% | 100,000 | 49% | 205,000 | |
| Total | 1,237,000 | 67% | 608,000 | 33% | 1,845,000 | |
| Data from the Report of UNSCOP: 3 September 1947: CHAPTER 4: A COMMENTARY ON PARTITION | ||||||
Dating back to extensive use of “Kairos” in the New Testament, “kairos” in Christian theology refers to a time when the “kingdom of God” approaches and demands a decision from individuals and societies. In contrast with the Greek “chronos” meaning a segment of time, ordinary time, “kairos” describes a critical moment in a human context of social change. The first Kairos Document was written by an ecumenical team of South African Christian black theologians in 1985 at the height of the black population’s resistance to apartheid.
Secular media paid even less attention to the Kairos Palestine Document of 2009 than they did to the original South African Document or the other theological statements, including those in the U.S. and Europe, responding to the 1985 declaration of South African theologians. Since the Hamas attacks in October 2023 some commentators have noted how little reference to the Palestinian cause or Israel’s Palestinian occupants has been made in our media since founding of the state of Israel in 1948. So it is not surprising that outside of church circles there has been little notice of the Kairos Palestine Document.
The Document begins with an endorsement by thirteen “Patriarchs and Heads of Churches” in Jerusalem; they describe the declaration as “a word of faith, hope and love” calling on “all peoples, political leaders and decision-makers (to,ed.) put pressure on Israel and take legal measures in order to oblige its government to put an end to its oppression and disregard for the international law.” The thirteen Palestinian Christian authors advance a theological position “that the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity, and that any theology that legitimizes the occupation is far from Christian teachings because true Christian theology is a theology of love and solidarity with the oppressed”.
In its theological discussion of the land governed or occupied by the State of Israel, the authors affirm that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps 24:1) and therefore assert no land can be seen as the possession of any particular people. Exclusion and expulsion of any group or groups from the land cannot be God’s intention. “God gives us the capacity, if we have the will, to live together and establish in it justice and peace, making it in reality God’s land.” The Kairos Palestine Document avers that the promise made by God to Abraham in the Hebrew Bible was to make him father of many nations living in justice and harmony in the land where he had been led.
In the current context of Israel’s continuing its indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the 2009 Document takes on yet more urgent significance as a cry for justice to Christians and non-Christians worldwide. When issued, the conflict no longer was about a purely theological or political issue. “It is a matter of life and death” the authors and signators declared sixteen years ago and, as such, the Word of God in the Bible cannot be used to justify policies or State actions which bring death and destruction. As a living Word which addresses the Hebrew and Christian Bible’s themes of promise, chosen people, and land a literal interpretation makes the Word an instrument of death.
On the Bible’s treatment of the crucial topic of “the land” the Kairos Palestine Document was followed six years later by publication of the book From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth . Written by the young theologian and pastor Munther Isaac (see Erasing Borders blogs of September 1 and January 16, 2024), it is a sweeping study of a “Biblical theology” supporting a thesis of the universalisation of the land, indeed any land. Its lively and clear presentation of the positions of biblical scholars and theologians enables a closer reading of the texts by laypersons and their progress in shaping their own views. Although the author did not participate in creating the Kairos Palestine Document the book was written in service of its aims and concludes by asking, “Can it (the land) become a place where Jews, Muslims and Christians – while retaining their distinctive beliefs – can embrace each other as fellow human beings, and indeed as people of faith, and be reconciled in practice?”
Pope Francis’ Heart for the People
In aligning the Church with the world’s poor and marginalized and avoiding the defense of its traditional positions on LBGTQ issues, abortion and the role of women Pope Francis has made the Church an ally of the progressive forces creating a more equitable, peaceful and sustainable world. With his actions, his simple lifestyle and his words he has sought to ensure the Church’s relevance and role in responding to our global crisis.
Pope Francis’ thirteen year papacy coincided with the further degredation of the planet Earth and its species. As the threats caused by the burning of fossil fuels and overconsumption in general became more evident, the Pope’s written reflections on the ecological crisis became more pointed. Issued in 2023, his “apostolic exhortation” titled Laudate Deum or “Praise God” was addressed to “all people of good will on the climate crisis”. His much longer, didactic 2015 “encyclical letter” titled “Laudate Si” (“Praise to You, my Lord”) was sub titled “on care for our common home”.
In the Laudate Deum the former Argentine Bishop more directly addresses the world’s leaders guided by the “technocratic paradigm” he deplored in the earlier “encyclical letter”. The insights of his “exhortation” more clearly describe the threat posed by our leaders and technocrats: “We have made impressive and awesome technological advances, and we have not realized that at the same time we have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival.” The document’s warnings conclude with the words, ‘“Praise God” is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”
While Francis spares us the anger of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, his “exhortation” should be considered a firm repudiation of thinking “goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such”. Destruction of our environment results from accepting the “idea of infinite or unlimited growth which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology”.
In his travels, actions and lifestyle as Pope, Francis remained wedded to the simplicity demonstrated by his veneration of Francis of Assisi and the motto he chose for his term in office, “Miserando atque eligendo” or “lowly but chosen”. He embraced the significance of being named the first Pope born and raised outside Europe since the 8th Century. As a child of the Southern Hemisphere he represented well the aspirations and heartache of the peoples where the Church continues to grow the fastest. As a leader in the Argentine Catholic Church during the military junta’s “dirty war” of the seventies and early eighties, he shared the suffering of a population subjected to violent repression, lying and harsh deprivation of the poor. His praise of the writings of Gustavo Gutierrez, the pioneering liberation theologian, marks a radical change in the Vatican’s position on the theology that grew from the Latin American struggle against exploitation by foreigners and national collaborators.
Prior to Francis’ going to Mexico in February 2016, he shared the purpose in visiting the world’s second largest population of Catholics was to:
To be close to the people and places where there is most need:
The Indians in San Cristobal, Chiapas.
The violence in Michoacan.
The Migrants in Juarez City (on US Border)
Defense of the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide, pastoral ministry with families grieving members lost to drug cartel and state violence, and the plight of migrants preyed on in Mexico had early on become the Pope’s priority concerns. One journalist noted that Pope Benedict in his 2012 visit of Mexico’s Catholic heartland of Guanajuato failed to mention the over 100,000 dead and thousands disappeared in Mexico’s war on the cartels. Following Francis’ visit, he named Michoacan’s leading Catholic prelate to Cardinal to help protect him from the violence.
Francis’ impact seems destined to grow in the future. In his few years in office he was able to make the Church less Eurocentric and more globally oriented. In the upcoming conclave 80 per cent of the Cardinals naming the new Pope will have been appointed by Francis. A significant increase in the number of Cardinals from Asia and Africa will be there. Over half of those selecting the new Pope have served the Church in formerly colonized nations. As a prophet foresaw 2800 years ago, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven…….giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall the word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty.” (Isa 55:10-11)
In a final statement issued on Easter Sunday, Francis made an “ appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!” This appeal was preceded by his Easter affirmation of hope and encouragment, “Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.” In praying for peace his final “Orbi et Urbi” highlighted Israel’s war on the Palestinians in Gaza and the Holy Land.
Christmas on the Border, 1929
The poet Albert Rios based this poem on newspaper accounts and personal recollections of residents who were children in Nogales at the time of the event.
1929, the early days of the Great Depression.
The desert air was biting, but the spirit of the season was alive.
Despite hard times, the town of Nogales, Arizona, determined
They would host a grand Christmas party
For the children in the area—a celebration that would defy
The gloom of the year, the headlines in the paper, and winter itself.
In the heart of town, a towering Christmas tree stood,
A pine in the desert.
Its branches, they promised, would be adorned
With over 3,000 gifts. 3,000.
The thought at first was to illuminate the tree like at home,
With candles, but it was already a little dry.
Needles were beginning to contemplate jumping.
A finger along a branch made them all fall off.
People brought candles anyway. The church sent over
Some used ones, too. The grocery store sent
Some paper bags, which settled things.
Everyone knew what to do.
They filled the bags with sand from the fire station,
Put the candles in them, making a big pool of lighted luminarias.
From a distance the tree was floating in a lake of light—
Fire so normally a terror in the desert, but here so close to miracle.
For the tree itself, people brought garlands from home, garlands
Made of everything, walnuts and small gourds and flowers,
Chilies, too—the chilies themselves looking
A little like flames.
The townspeople strung them all over the beast—
It kept getting bigger, after all, with each new addition,
This curious donkey whose burden was joy.
At the end, the final touch was tinsel, tinsel everywhere, more tinsel.
Children from nearby communities were invited, and so were those
From across the border, in Nogales, Sonora, a stone’s throw away.
But there was a problem. The border.
As the festive day approached, it became painfully clear—
The children in Nogales, Sonora, would not be able to cross over.
They were, quite literally, on the wrong side of Christmas.
Determined to find a solution, the people of Nogales, Arizona,
Collaborated with Mexican authorities on the other side.
In a gesture as generous as it was bold, as happy as it was cold:
On Christmas Eve, 1929,
For a few transcendent hours,
The border movedOfficials shifted it north, past city hall, in this way bringing
The Christmas tree within reach of children from both towns.
On Christmas Day, thousands of children—
American and Mexican, Indigenous and orphaned—
Gathered around the tree, hands outstretched,
Eyes wide, with shouting and singing both.
Gifts were passed out, candy canes were licked,
And for one day, there was no border.
When the last present had been handed out,
When the last child returned home,
The border resumed its usual place,
Separating the two towns once again.
For those few hours, however, the line in the sand disappeared.
The only thing that mattered was Christmas.
Newspapers reported no incidents that day, nothing beyond
The running of children, their pockets stuffed with candy and toys,
Milling people on both sides,
The music of so many peppermint candies being unwrapped.
On that chilly December day, the people of Nogales
Gathered and did what seemed impossible:
However quietly regarding the outside world,
They simply redrew the border.
In doing so, they brought a little more warmth to the desert winter.
On the border, on this day, they had a problem and they solved it.
The poet resists any social commentary in describing his poem’s genesis. It appeared, however, as the Academy of American Poets’ “Poem of the Day on December 22, 2024 a month after the U.S. election of a viciously anti-immigrant, white supremacist President. Like other memorable poems, it celebrates the best of human nature and defies any attempts, even by the most powerful, to deny, contradict or pervert the good within each of us. We celebrate today the vision and courage of the “officials” of Nogales with the hope that we may individually and collectively open ourselves to the opportunities in these times to move borders. For the sake of the children in and around us.
Rios commented on his poem, “I didn’t live through the Christmas of 1929, but growing up in Nogales, the border was always there—constant, imposing, dividing and connecting at the same time. This poem reflects on a story from before my time, when the border wasn’t just a barrier but something that became a solution. It tells of a community that, for one Christmas, chose unity over division, moving the line in the sand to bring joy to children from both Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora. Growing up with the border always in sight, this story resonates deeply for me—proof that even in separation, people’s determination can make the impossible happen.”
From Aid to Empire
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jer 29:7)
We now know that we have not just lost an election. Those declared victorious are intent on desecrating and destroying the best values of a nation ruled by and for its people. They have dedicated themselves to creating a state ruled by and for its wealthiest citizens and crippling if not eliminating programs to further the equal opportunity of the most disadvantaged. We have not just lost an election; the victors aim to reverse all advances we have made towards becoming a multi-racial democracy. They trample on this vision. They hurl abuse on it with their decrees are intended to silence us and seize the country from us. They would exile us with their reign of lies, intimidation and fear.
The election measured for us the distance between our prophets’ vision and a nation yet gripped by degrading lies, xenophobia, racism, and rampant militarism. We have been cast back to an age of empire when most of the globe is seen as supplying the resources for the economic development of select countries. Aid for new or long impoverished nations to enhance the well being of their people was one of the first targets of the multi billionaire charged with enhancing government efficiency.
I have personal experience of some of the benefit a small U.S. AID grant can have on lives in poor nations. I administered the $10,000 grant the Disciples’ Church in Congo received in 1970 for construction of a dormitory at its farmer training center. Youth from many villages were housed there while training in animal husbandry and growing vegetables in dense rain forest. Pigs raised at the Ikengo Farm were prized in the provincial capital with the Governor visiting often to purchase a pig or two. In a visit forty years after the dorm was completed the majority of the trainees were young men of “pygmy” Batswa ethnicity formerly ostracized by Ikengo’s Bantu villagers.
Entitled solely by personal fiat, Elon Musk intends to curtail, or at least, severely cripple U.S. AID programs. Created by the Kennedy Administration to support the economic development of the new nations freed from colonial rule, the agency soon became the lead agency in U.S. contributions to fighting hunger, disease and poverty in the world. Musk and the new President’s attempt to eliminate U.S. AID’s programs carries out an aim to reverse history and return the world to a colonial era of white European domination in South Africa and the world.
Another Musk-inspired decree withdraws all forms of U.S. aid for black majority ruled South Africa. The focus on South Africa reveals the influence of Musk’s upbringing to age 18 as the heir of a white nationalist grandfather and father in the time of apartheid. These facts make difficult an escape from interpreting this important U.S. foreign policy decision as anything but an act of resentment and vengeance for South African legislation returning land seized by whites to black farmers. Withdrawal of U.S. support for the further growth of the largest economy in Africa also seeks to punish South Africa’s firm opposition to Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Presenting the case in the International Court of Justice that Israel is bent on genocide of Palestinians confirms 21st Century South Africa’s independence from its colonial masters. The new nation was one of the original members of the BRICS alliance of countries balancing U.S. and European dominance in world politics. The strength of that new alliance can be seen in South African leaders’ resolute position on the Israeli War.
We exiles need not remain discouraged by policies inspired by white nationalist ideologies of empire. We are joined in opposition by the vast majority of the world’s people who have thrown off the yoke of imperial rule and become independent nations in this ever evolving world. As British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, a Tory, noted shortly before numerous African nations declared their independence in the early 1960’s, “the winds of change” are blowing across the continent – and the world he might have added. Those winds can never be reversed.
Formation of the new BRICS alliance of nations now encourages new and the long oppressed nations of Latin America, Asia and Africa to be steadfast in their independent political and economic positions. They are our allies in our acts of resistance and opposition to policies and ideologies aiming to turn back the “winds of change” continuing to blow across our world.
Jeremiah in the 7th Century BCE foresaw the rise of other empires to challenge that of Babylonia. After 70 years of their exile in Babylon, the Jews were freed by the Kingdom of Persia from their captivity and exile. The prophet had paid attention to the “winds of change” in the world of that time and saw that in their return to Judah and Israel God would offer a new covenant to the exiles and would “write it on their hearts”. Gaining their freedom confirmed they would now know their God to be a God of justice. Jeremiah’s words were echoed by Martin Luther King when he proclaimed “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”. An abolitionist minister first spoke those words in the 1850’s.
“Make American White Again”
The U.S. economy has long relied on immigrant labor in its growth. The United States is a nation of immigrants. The 19th century transition from an economy devoted to agriculture to a modern industrial system funded by agricultural produce depended on the import of immigrants, with Germans and the Irish leading the way. Along with their essential labor for the new manufacturing sector and the expansion of farming, their arrival and that of immigrants after them brought deep political division reflecting the conflicts in work places and neighborhoods. Charismatic personalities have for two hundred plus years made political careers out of those divisions. Using the tools of distortion, lies, religious differences and buffonery, nation-wide political movements have been created and the nation’s ethnic divisions deepened.
The U.S. Civil War resulted from decades of simmering conflict over the proper role for the African immigrant brought to these shores as slave labor. Sacred texts dated as two millenia and more in origin were interpreted as assigning back breaking labor in fields and estates to the African sold as a slave. Low to no wages producing lucrative crops, cotton especially, for the world made the southern U.S. the supplier of much of the capital for the new nation’s financiers of south and north.
Angry debate over the causes and meaning of the Civil War continues today. Our most hallowed symbol of the United States as a welcoming refuge, the Statue of Liberty, was subjected to controversy and opposition in its creation one hundred fifty years ago. The Frenchman who created the original design saw the Statue as a celebration of the abolition of slavery with broken shackles to be draped from Liberty’s left hand. But to avoid the protests of former slaveholders and their supporters, who portray slavery as an idyllic era, the shackles now are partially hidden by her gown’s layers of folds and are barely visible from the ground level promenade.
America’s long history of anti-black racism and professed white superiority makes the nation’s response to the rise in the world’s immigrant population especially challenging, emotionally and politically. In the comprehensive study of world immigration by the U.S. Pew Research Center, it was found that one out of five immigrants in the world live in the U.S. While we now have far more immigrants and children of immigrants inside our borders, the majority of our more recent arrivals are persons of color, not the white adults and children from Europe and Scandanavia of the 19th century. As late as 1920, most of the newly arrived came from Italy and Germany, with Canada a distant third. Much of the shift to the immigration of persons of color has occurred since passage of the 1965 immigration reform. In 2022 the nation’s largest immigrant populations hailed from Mexico and India.
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act supported the shift in the origin of immigrants. Eliminating quota provisions favoring immigration from Europe, it gave preference to skilled workers and immigrants from anywhere with family members already settled in the U.S. The Act thus contributed to the rise in immigrants of color primarily from the earth’s southern hemisphere and a considerable increase in the numbers of immigrants in the country.
In the fifty years after passage of the 1965 law there were a total of 72 million immigrants and their children who came to the “land of freedom”. They accounted for 55% of the growth in U.S. population and Pew researchers project they will make up 88% of the growth from 2015 to 2065 when the nation will number 441 million persons and no ethnic group will constitute a majority of the population. Whereas non-Hispanic whites totaled 84% of the U.S. population in 1965, Pew studies project they will number 46 % in 2065. Continuing immigration from Latin America will make Hispanics 25% of the population and by 2065 14% of the nation will be Asian in origin.
Given voting trends in recent elections showing Hispanics favoring Democrats, the Republican party leadership has been particularly concerned by the dizzying increase in their numbers. Their current response is to support with near unanimity a candidate for U.S. President who has made the country wide settlement of immigrants of color the focus of his campaigns. His primary policy proposal, virtually his only concrete pledge, is to return two million recent immigrants to their countries of origin. The Republican candidate has repeatedly characterized Democrats’ relatively lenient response to the shift in immigration from the southern hemisphere as admitting “criminals and rapists” into our communities. In this month’s debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates for President, regardless of the question at hand Trump returned again and again to foreign nations sending their most dangerous citizens across our borders.
Trump’s history of racist rhetoric and commentary reveals the underlying message of the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” for his 2016 and 2024 campaigns for President. A Wikipedia article on the phrase reports the candidate still denies the influence of Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 campaign use of “Let’s Make America Great Again” as a slogan. Trump does outdo Reagan in disclosing the covert intent of its use as “Let’s Make America White Again”.
His outrageous claim that Haitians, migrants from one of the “shithole countries”, are eating the pets of residents of Springfield in the crucial State of Ohio may, however, have back fired. Not only did the city’s top administrator deny the report which Trump culled from an extreme racist’s social media posting, the town’s populace has been patronizing the Haitian restaurants as never before and emphasizing their new businesses and Haitian labor as vital to the growth of the local economy.
While the heavily Republican area may still vote for Trump in this year’s election, the recent affimation of the Haitian immigrants by many Springfield residents illustrates the central question raised by the candidates. Will the U.S. citizenry finally signal their embrace of the nation’s image as a haven of welcome for people of any and all ethnicities? Or will it step up its effort to hold back the migration patterns of our modern era in a futile effort to return the U.S. to a time when its white population were a majority. Representing the nation’s ideals as embedded in its history of immigration moving the economy, the culture, the community life forward, the opposition Democratic Party candidate is a woman of mixed Asian and African ancestry. If Harris’ Democratic Party is able to safeguard a victory in the upcoming election, the outcome will mark the nation’s progress to becoming a true “multi-racial democracy”.
Opposition to U.S. Christian Zionism
In a coast to coast tour of the U.S., the Palestinian Lutheran Pastor Rev. Munther Isaac, delivered the message to U.S. Christians and their leaders that our “Silence is Complicity”. Citing our unconditional official support for Israel’s War on Gaza and now on the West Bank occupied territories, Rev. Isaac appealed to all Christians to do more than pray in this time of unprecedented death and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank. Rev. Isaac told an interviewer, “I’m here to talk to faith leaders, and particularly church leaders – my own community – to speak louder, for it’s been 10 months now since this war has broken, and we’re tired of void calls for peace.”
The pastor of Bethlehem Christmas Lutheran Church reserved praise for those U.S. Christians joining rallies and demonstrations in opposition to continued sale of U.S. weapons and outright aid to Israel. Condemned most emphatically were the some 10 million members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI). The Palestinian Christian leader was encouraged by rallies held in opposition to the group during the CUFI annual convention held in Maryland this year on the banks of the Potomac River. The interfaith group demonstrating against the group’s position was around 700 people (est. of Religion News Service) with most of the leading U.S faith communities represented. Jewish organizations Jewish Voice for Peace, Rabbis for Ceasefire and If Not Now made a prominent impact during three days of rallies condemning CUFI. Jewish Voice for Peace members created a flotilla of 25 kayaks which unfurled on the Potomac a banner reading “CUFI kills”. The leader of Hindus for Human Rights summarized his organization’s intent in participating, “There is equal and inherent dignity in all of us, and so an attack on the people of Gaza is an attack” on all of humanity. (from the RNS article of July 30, 2024)
Rev. Isaac’s two week tour coincided with the CUFI convention and in interviews and sermons he called attention to the division among U.S. Christians that CUFI has deepened. In his July 30 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now he described the rapidly growing organization’s theology. “The idea was that Jews will someday be restored, using a theological term, which really means convert to Christianity, embrace Jesus as their Messiah. And for that to happen, they must be in Palestine, the biblical land.” Along with this anti-Semitic theological vision is the potent irony that Christian Zionists greatly outnumber and predate Jewish Zionists.
Before returning to Palestine Rev. Munther Isaac preached at Riverside Church in New York City where Rev. Martin Luther King called for a revolution in values in the Church and nation in his April 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” sermon. Rev. Isaac delivered two urgent messages to U.S. Christians prior to his departure. First was the plea to acknowledge that the Palestinian people had lived on the land of the State of Israel long before its creation in 1948. Contrary to the neglect and failure to mention the historic Palestinian presence by the U.S. and Israeli media since 1948, Rev. Isaac reminded audiences that “Israel was not created on an empty land”.
A second message comes from the Pastor’s surveying the response of Christians world wide to the ethnic cleansing taking place under the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. “Gaza has become the moral compass of the world” Isaac observed; it has divided even many Christians. And I think that’s a good thing, because we need to know where you stand.”
Nowhere is the division between Christians more pronounced and longstanding than in the country with the world’s largest number of Christians. Nowhere is the division deeper or the political consequences greater than in this nation. Sen. Lindsay Graham spoke for millions of CUFI members and other U.S. Christians when he stated, “As a young man in South Carolina, I was raised to understand that God blesses those who bless Israel, and that’s my foreign policy. It’s not that complicated.”
It is not complicated for Sen Graham and so many U.S. Americans because they have not given thought to the fate of the territory’s original occupants over the last one hundred years. At the beginning of the League of Nations approved British Mandate in 1920 the population of what was commonly called Palestine comprised 757,182 persons of whom 78% were Muslim Arabs, 11% Jewish and 9% Christian. As a Jewish-Arab War raged onin 1946-48, the U.N. created a partition plan of two states using figures reflecting a considerable increase in Jewish numbers. In the plan proposed by the U.N., Jews slightly outnumbered Arab Muslims and Christians in the Jewish state created by the partition plan while Arabs overwhelmed Jewish numbers in the new Arab state.
The 1946-48 War created over 700,000 Arab refugees whose land and homes were seized by Jewish armed force. Since the original “nakba” or disaster in Arabic, the Palestinians residing within the expanding borders of Israel continue their decline. In view of the impunity granted Israel in removing Palestinians by the U.S. and the West’s former colonial powers it is now unlikely the occupiers will ever agree to a “two state solution”. Nor will Palestinians who have resisted the seizure of their historic homeland for more than a century. No U.N. plan or resolution has proposed or will ever propose that Israel rule from “the River to the Sea”.
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To listen to Rev. Munther Isaac’s sermon “Your Silence is Complicity” preached at Riverside Church New York City go to minute 40 of the You Tube video at: https://www.fosna.org/videos/v/riverside
For his Christmas sermon “Christ in the Rubble” preached at his home church in Bethlehem in Palestine go to the January 16 erasing-borders blog post or to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTrmN6Dzmw&list=FLP7qpo6R2ZdZ4sLKnDwFAng The sermon transcript can also be found there.
Kansas City Haberdasher and the Founding of Israel
The 1948 announcement of Israel’s creation owed a great deal to a notable friendship. In his unqualified endorsement of the move President Harry Truman defied Secretary of State George Marshall and the U.S. foreign policy establishment. In doing so he did, however, demonstrate his loyalty to an enduring relationship.
Harry Trumans’s buddy Edward Jacobson grew up with the thirty-third U.S. President in Kansas City. After the Jewish Jacobson and the Presbyterian/Baptist Truman served together in the Army during WWI, they opened a hat and clothing store in their hometown. After the store’s failure, they remained close as Jacobson continued to sell clothing and Truman entered public service and politics. When Britain ceded to the U.N. continued rule of Palestine, Jacobson influenced Truman and and the U.S. support for the partition plan that created the State of Israel.
By then owner of a clothing store in his hometown, Jacobson was identified by Zionist stratgists as a key U.S. contact in shaping the partition plans and his nation’s approval of the agreement. The story is told in a footnote to a recent account of Palestine’s history from 1920 to 1948. “The Road to 1948 and the Roots of a Perpetual Conflict” appeared as a February 4, 2024 article in the New York Times Magazine which brought together six Jewish and Arab historians to discuss the beginning of the British Mandate in 1920 to the founding of the new State of Israel.
The partition plan which called for two states, Palestine and Jewish, to be recognized was a highly delicate, complicated issue for the powerful Allied leader and U.S. post WW II diplomacy. Drafted by a Special Committee of the new international organization, it was opposed by the Palestinians, the new Arab States – Jordan, Syria, Lebanon – created by the end of French colonialism in the Middle East and most of the rest of the Arab world.
Today it may appear to have been a grave mistake for the Palestinians to oppose the partition plan and the two state solution offered in 1947. However, as Professor Abigail Jacobsen of Jerusalem’s Hebrew Union College points out, “It’s important not to read history retrospectively. When you look at the demographic realities of 1947 and the division of the land, it was 55 percent for the Jewish state and 45 percent for the Palestinian state even though there were double the number of Palestinians as Jews at that point. If you were a Palestinian in 1947, would you accept this offer?” Prof. Jacobson seems to commend the Palestinians when she also reminds us that “the Palestinian national movement was ready to accept the Jews as a minority within an Arab state”.
Zionist defense of the new State of Israel yielded an overwhelming victory. The moderator of the Times’ discussion, Emily Bazelon, writes in her background for the academics’ commentary, “Before the war, there were around 500,000 Jews and 450,000 Palestinians on the 55 percent of the land that the U.N. designated for a Jewish state. When the Arab-Israeli war ended in July 1949, Israel controlled 78 percent of the former British Mandate and the population was mostly Jewish, with only 155,000 Palestinians.”
In response to Bazelon’s ensuing question of why the Palestinians were not permitted to return to their homeland, Harvard’s Derek Penslar responds, “As the war wore on, the Israeli government issued a decree not to allow the refugees to return.” Expulsion of Palestinian residents and seizure of their land and property is now called “the nakba” or “catastrophe” in English. Current and past Israeli administrations have encouraged the view that security of the fledging State facing the Arab threat required such defense of the diplomatic and military gains made in 1947-49.
Eddie Jacobson’s role in cementing the close ties of the U.S. with the new Jewish State did not go unrecognized. In their description of the Jacobson file at the Harry Truman Library, its archivisits wrote, “Through a variety of tributes and honors, Israelis and Americans alike recognized his contribution to the founding of the Jewish state.” As one example of his large influence, the archivists note that it was Jacobson who arranged Truman’s meeting with the Zionist leader Dr. Chaim Weizmann. Two months after their conversation in the White House, Zionist leadership proclaimed the founding of Israel and less than an hour later the U.S. became the first nation to grant diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel.
The Library’s last Jacobson letter is the former President’s 1955 handwritten note referring to plans for a visit to Israel, likely accompanied by his old friend. Shortly after the letter, Jacobson died and Truman never made the trip. As a tribute to his friend, the archivists draw our attention to President Truman’s statement that Edddie Jacobson was “as fine a man who ever walked”.
“The Road to 1948 and the Roots of a Perpetual Conflict” published in the February 1, 2024 New York Times Magazine is a fine summary of the leaders and developments in Israel-Palestine prior to May, 1948. https://www.nytimes.com/issue/magazine/2024/02/02/the-2424-issue
Palestinian Christians Call for Repentance
Raised by Christian minister parents I married a Jewish woman from a Conservative Jewish family and at age 35 did so with a commitment to Judaism. Following Jewish custom, the offspring’s religious education would be her responsibility and domain. Five years later the first of our two daughters was born and I was ordained as a pastor. My “call” to serve was thanks to a vibrant, progressive Christian Church I had joined and the rich discovery of the prophets/”nabi” of the Hebrew Bible. On visits of my wife’s family, their seder meals and shabat candle lighting deepened my honoring of the Jewish faith traditions.
Contemporary Israel and the ongoing struggle to share the land was never discussed on those visits but my wife may have informed her family of my views. They came in part from study of Africa’s colonial experience and my spending two years in the Congo which continues to suffer exploitation and oppression by the former colonizers allied with the new nation’s ruling class. My position on safeguarding Israel’s future was also shaped by my conscientious objector status and opposition to the War in Vietnam.
The leading U.S. pacifist organizer of the last century, A.J. Muste (see my former posts about Muste) originated the quote, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” The 76 year history of the wars in the Middle East are for me conclusive evidence that war is not the way to peace for Arabs or Israelis. I understand, however, how American, Soviet and their allied armies’ war on three fascist regimes in WWII have influenced U.S. and Israel’s policies on making peace with Palestinians who were forcibly expelled in 1948.
Today as a Christian minister and life-long student I have faith that the Hebrew and Greek holy writings reveal enduring truths about contemporary human societies and cultures. The truth that the Jewish-Christian authors of the New Testament proclaim Jesus as showing humanity the way to peace. The truth that we hear today false prophets and their errant rulers crying “Peace, peace when there is no peace” (Jer 6:14 and Jer 8:11). And that in the time of Ezekiel, “they have misled my people, saying ‘peace’ when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it.” (Ezek. 13:10)
My faith has led me over the years to listen to the cries of anguish coming from Palestinians and support their rights affirmed by U.N. Resolution 194 in 1948. The unity and solidarity with all oppressed people that is envisioned by holy texts requires no less. The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Center (sabeel.org), created by Palestinian Churches and based in Jerusalem, has, for four decades, helped me sympathize with the cries of Palestinians living under Israel’s unequal and exclusionary occupation of their former homeland. In reading the letter I’ve excerpted below, I believe I hear the voice of God responding to the spiraling of the Israel-Palestine conflict since October 7. Less than two weeks after the Hamas attacks and initial Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Sabeel and several other Palestinian Christian organizations appealed for solidarity of all Christians and ultimately all of humanity. It appeals to all to pray with Thomas Merton that “if today I hear the voice of God, may I not resist a softer, more compassionate heart.”
Dated the day Israel bombed the Church in the above photo, Sabeel and other Christian organizations in Israel-Palestine addressed their plea to Western church leaders and theologians. “Words fail to express our shock and horror with regards to the on-going war in our land. We deeply mourn the death and suffering of all people because it is our firm conviction that all humans are made in God’s image. We are also profoundly troubled when the name of God is invoked to promote violence and religious national ideologies” we read in the letter’s first paragraph.
The writers begin the second with “we watch with horror the way many western Christians are offering unwavering support to Israel’s war against the people of Palestine. While we recognize the numerous voices that have spoken and continue to speak for the cause of truth and justice in our land, we write to challenge western theologians and church leaders who have voiced uncritical support for Israel and to call them to repent and change.”
The Palestinian Christians then ’grieve and lament’ the Israeli military’s use of tactics that target civilians: “such as the use of white phosphorus, the cutting off of water, fuel, and electricity, and the bombardment of schools, hospitals, and places of worship—including the heinous massacre at Al-Ahli Anglican-Baptist Hospital and the bombardment of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius which wiped out entire Palestinian Christian families.”
The letter ends with resounding notes of faith “remembering that God ‘will judge the world in justice’ (Acts 17:31). We also remind ourselves and our Palestinian people that our sumud (“steadfastness”) is anchored in our just cause and our historical rootedness in this land. As Palestinian Christians, we also continue to find our courage and consolation in the God who dwells with those of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa 57:15). We find courage in the solidarity we receive from the crucified Christ, and we find hope in the empty tomb. We are also encouraged and empowered by the costly solidarity and support of many churches and grassroots faith movements around the world, challenging the dominance of ideologies of power and supremacy. We refuse to give in, even when our siblings abandon us. We are steadfast in our hope, resilient in our witness, and continue to be committed to the Gospel of faith, hope, and love, in the face of tyranny and darkness.”
When I prepared for a surgery this week, my thoughts turned to the destruction of Gaza hospitals and dearth of medical supplies. I thought of the children in Gaza undergoing amputations and other excruciating procedures without benefit of anesthesia. I tried to imagine what had enabled those children to accept and survive what was happening to them. Their example helped me in an unfathomable way to prepare for the outcome of my surgery whatever it might be. In my gratitude afterwards for its success, along with doctors, nurses and other hospital care givers, I gave thanks for the resolute courage of the children of Gaza.
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A Bethlehem Christmas Appeal for Solidarity
“We are angry…
We are broken…
This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful.”
With these words Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac began his Christmas sermon “Christ in the Rubble” in the Bethlehem Christmas Lutheran Church. A cry of anguish for the dead, the maimed, the displaced along with an appeal for solidarity issued to the world’s 300 billion plus Christians to help maintain a Christian presence in the birthplace of Christianity and across the former Palestinian homeland.
A century ago 84% of Bethlehem’s residents were Palestinian Arab Christians. Today, according to Christianity Today the leading journal of U.S. evangelical Christianity, 22% of the village’s population is Christian. The decline in the number of Christians is duplicated in Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Contrary to the myth of U.S. evangelical commentators on the Middle East, there is no biblical basis for viewing the conflict as defense against Islamic conquest. Islam did not exist when the battles of ancient Israel were described in The Bible.
There are, however, multiple appeals to universal Christian solidarity and unity in The New Testament. The letters of Christianity’s founding exponent and interpreter, the Apostle Paul, makes it a leading theme of his writing and his journeys. In II CO chapters 8 and 9 he reveals that the primary goal of his second missionary journey is to preach Christian solidarity. Christian communities in the Holy Land are suffering famine due to the Roman occupation and it is the Christian mission of that day to send offerings of relief. As St. Paul writes at the conclusion of II CO 9, “the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints (in Israel/Judea) but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ.”
The Bethlehem pastor shares with his congregation that the unconditional Western alliance with the current policies of Israel stokes his anger. Following a late November visit of the U.S., Dr. Munther Isaac reveals, “I couldn’t help but think: They send us bombs, while celebrating Christmas in their land. They sing about the prince of peace in their land, while playing the drums of war in our land.”
The Pastor laments how Christians in the West have replaced Christian solidarity and the Gospel of Peace with the theology of Empire. “The theology of the Empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes. …….It calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called the ethnic cleansing in 1948 ‘a divine miracle’. It calls for us Palestinians to go to Egypt, maybe Jordan, or why not just the sea?”
In contrast to Christians’ silence and complicity in response to the ongoing massacre of Gazans, he refers to Western Christians living as “accompaniers” in the Palestinian territories. “You have come to Bethlehem, and like the Magi, you brought gifts with, but gifts that are more precious than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You brought the gift of love and solidarity.” Those words are a quote from the Christmas sermon of the Catholic Father Rami, also from Bethlehem.
Dr. Isaac assures his congregation, “We will recover. We will rise and stand up again from the midst of destruction, as we have always done as Palestinians.” He then addresses Christians who have “not even called for a ceasefire,” saying to them “I feel sorry for you. Will you ever recover from this?” But the closing words of his message becomes a Gospel message of hope for all.
“The resilience of Jesus is in his meekness; weakness, and vulnerability. The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalized. Resilience because this very same child, rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge Empires; to speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness.” Interpreting the title of his sermon, he proclaims, “This child is our hope and inspiration. We look and see him in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble….. Jesus not only calls them his own, he is them! ”
Far from Gaza here in Kansas City, U.S.A., I pray that the horror in Gaza will result in the growing conviction among Jews and Arabs that peace is the only way to peace. As a father and Christian minister whose two beloved daughters have been raised as Jews, I have mourned the fear, the distrust, the hatred of Arabs encouraged by Israel’s reliance on overwhelming military dominance as a viable, lasting source of security and peace. Only a dramatic shift in the defense policies of Israel and the U.S. can prevent future growth of Arab opposition to the occupation of Palestine and more violent destruction and death.
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See the Bethlehem “liturgy of lament” December 23 worship when Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac preached the sermon “Christ in the Rubble” at the address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPTrmN6Dzmw&list=FLP7qpo6R2ZdZ4sLKnDwFAng
The sermon transcript also can also be accessed at the address.
Erasing Borders 
What We Need
Nov 3
Posted by erasingborders
Until the election this year, no U.S. Presidential candidate has identified so many enemies within the nation whom we should fear. The Republican Party’s candidate for President has made, as in 2016, purging of immigrants within our borders the foremost plank of his policy platform. But they are not the only group targeted for condemnation and reprisals. His opponents in 32 felony cases in which he has been convicted have now also been put on notice. Media outlets intent on lifting the veil of lying, depravity in relationships with women, violation of business contracts and attack dog strategy in multiple court cases, any persons or group publicizing the truth of his grotesque mendacity may expect reprisals.
Although he has been classified as a would be dictator. a leader in the mold of other authoritarian rulers today and in the past century, an accurate assessment of his biography of misdeeds may require a comparison with figures farther back in history. My own search for a true match has been prompted by the following poem of David Budbill:
“The emperor
His bullies and
Henchmen
every day
Terrorize the world
Which is why
Every day
We need
A little poem
Of kindness
A small song
Of peace
A brief moment
Of joy
– Written by David Budbill in 2005. Budbill was posthumously named “The People’s Poet of Vermont” by the Vermont legislature.
Contemplating the possibility of this nation elevating a depraved egotist to our highest office the Book of Psalms gave voice to what I felt. Here in Psalm 5, written over 2500 years ago, I found an apt description of the man who threatens to become the President of our formerly united States.
“There is no truth in their mouths;
their hearts are destruction;
their throats are open graves;
they flatter with their tongues.
Make them bear their guilt,
O God:
let them fall by their own
counsels
because of their many
transgressions cast them
out,
for they have rebelled against
you.
Those are verses 9 and 10 of Psalm 5, in the New Revised Standard Version translation of the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 133 suggests a source for the “brief moment of joy” for our “every day” as Budbill calls for in his poem “What We Need”.
“How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in
unity!
……..
For there the Lord ordained his
blessing
life forevermore.”
Those are verses 1 and 3b of Psalm 133 in the NRSV translation.
We in the U.S. are blessed by the presence of people from many of the world’s nations who have chosen to make this nation their home. They come in many colors. They come speaking many languages, eating a delightful variety of foods, following many different customs. We encounter them as our yard tenders, bricklayers, journalists, tree trimmers, nurses, meal servers, bus and truck drivers, long term care givers, crop harvesters, doctors, shop owners and clerks and public servants. Every day most of us have the opportunity to show gratitude for their presence and their service. Every day we can all share with them a “brief moment of joy” with a smile, with words of kindness, with words of thanks.
Posted in Global Economy, Interfaith Relations and Politics, Solidarity, Community and Citizenship, U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policies, U.S. Political Developments
6 Comments
Tags: A would be emperor of the U.S., David Budbill, Growing diversity of U.S. population, The Psalms' commentary on the 2024 U.S. election