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.