Zionism Unsettled - Presbyterian Church [USA]

8/12/2019 Zionism Unsettled - Presbyterian Church [USA]

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Zionism Un settledA CO NGREGATIONAL STUDY GUIDE

ABO UT THIS PUB LICATION101 . I i>< , .W . M ,.. ,. No ' of tho P'O>bytn Ch rh


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ContentsnCTION 1TOWdrd a New f r ~ m e w o r k . 5

i l l e i l Israel. and Ihe Uniled ~ t i o o s . 10SECTION 2i'oIilit.J11ioni m 11COtlstaIOias.pofa1 48SECTION 8A ~ l H l i n i n MusJim Ei(jlf'riPnce with Zioniwn 49Memoricide . S5SECTION 9A Paleslin;"n Clvislian Po ;tscr pi 56lme


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1 .Toward a New Framework

The Zionistsolllliol to thJewish qucstiolllias ora/I'd ( lwhole new scto l O b l e l l l ~ ,whicll it I nsso far prmwiiI1OlPIl/J/C osolving.AOAM ' ~ A

T e sr.olIPa]estine ronllict i , now in il. . . . .enlh dec. d. The so-caJ led ""ace pro,, . , , h..devolved in to a (over und., whkh """1''',bl. tmitoo"1 and demographic I .e" on Iheground M. being in'plcmcnted wilh. impunity byIsrael. We .T< engaged, write. Ian lust ;,\:. inn'gli.tioM to nov.'h,,.,." 1Diplcma tic posturing in suppo,t of t",o-,Ia lesolut io n nOfuith".nding, I"ael', .'pansion inlO,.ml0l)' dassilie... d on enduring di . . imin. jionand opp1eSSion i. ultimatoly uruu,t.inable "

' Ortly I".eli Ie", r< full ( tha t la nd, Kh .lidi " plain" ' while 5 million P.t . . in ian , h " ina s t,te (>( subjugahon or exil. and 1-2 million Pale , tini.n Ar.ho Ii, . in 1" 1 s ",cond-cl . . ciHze n. :

Mainstream onedi, co, .r'ge of Ihe PaJe;;tinel1".,1 onflict is abundant, p


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akln I. tho Arabic word 'Ol Cata.trop . and nda to the m v ethnltdNIISIr.g 01 over 750,000 Pal.sUnlan" tho confiscation of P.I n l . n land,_ the de.tnJction 01 o 500 pa\eSllnlon i I I . g e , by 1 tinians live ,nd rue in Gaza and theWest Bank come a, the result of 'peCLfic poliCLes,leadcrs or parties on either side of the impaSSeTh< problem is fundamontal' Founding a modernstate on a ,ingle ethnic orreligious identlty in atemtory that i5 ethnically and reh[llo"sly dl\'ersel.ad. either to politics of eXdu5ion ...or to whole""Ie ethnic cleanSing. Put .imply, the problom i,ZIOnism.'Within the pa, few }'e


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UC C I I 01 III I SII Iis 1101 umqlll' 10Z l m l i ~ " , 111 51 '/'.$1'111 wl,en vcr

I ' X C e p l i o l l l Zn:/isiflUS neo logyis jl/5(r/ will,o/ltIrn/ POI(\,I:

politic.1ly in.l .. by ,he triumph wi thin Israe ofI'I\IOdmali., 1""';5h notionallsM. GOWn tho poliric;orNlit)' 01\ Ill. ground In J'alosIiMIl. . . .Lthe """,ing""tit bd>'IHn oell-idtntiAtd Zioni.ts ond non-Zi _ ''''''''1 [...... mQft .11rk R1tiil w. . . . . tHlod "Holy w . tno en,I ".nl Nne ' " ",w"h ioom.aU>lI .FSion. w"'I'.

1" .. r i ~ oitti('f.. In 1 . ..-1, JfWI} 'finds lI ..1f c f < , ~ . soeV )"_.1n which thr- ideal.is focal and brlu5ionKl.1I

H1ROUGH nUTH TO RE(O NClUAriONIn .... 1\169 lknt< 10 Ilk fl:tn.n unpall;al ")Ie" nll"'",";nthe Middle Ent.The US en'"rH tlul ;,..,1 h. ,

m i ~ l . u y edS."ln the ...po ....nd ,""Ii \u..- IO fundospctin".includmg I h ~ 1"""to.. of illpSOl JI' ""III.", . . .on Palnti""n land. And ftnoUy. 'he time i . ",tnI""10 "",.k th. laboo Ihll 11 ;. I"g" 81AltbouSh thi. ~ " ' U I UfOCUS< > prlmari. y on Zloni.m. ......plionali'm i> noluniquo to z;onI5f\\; rat h., il k pu"$liln f ~ b o n ' i s t beliefs and Klio;omc""lribultd to the Nui I loIor''''t.th. go-noride 0/Naliv< Amrrican", and coontlfts otht, inslan'e rontr\buled 10 grifVOUthwn..,., ligtoto IbusH h . . the . . . . . . .CrH during


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\hat is Exceptionalism?All I ~ ' AlN.IIo",1c , ." , . , . . . PK;"I ,.1Iing'0 bo I bl. . . "ll I", .11 'M o t ' ~ Roobbln1c Jud , i>inN tI>t ....... ,jUun GI, .... (, ., .iri og .... hNli"ll"'" WO 1>t1l.,.,ln';d. n .1>0.. ,ho I, w'hey Pf< ' """btli... . ou .


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I

TIle fimdam ell/a/11SSllmpiioll ofthis study is that0 t xcq,t Olalislclaimsmil be-justified ll owiutemmll(C/l dplmn/islic wo rld,

the K n I / S W ~ nllJ for an .. d o d , in


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fOCUS

I n pnnClple the U 'tN'M ' wa, Nat>-I h.d to pro;'ldo,d,plonlatl( , I t 'eto 1'>olen," tn thorelOk,tlon of confl t'In practICe, the U"ltedN a ~ o n ' oas yielded httlediplomat" benef,t for thPai"',nran poop:.

~ , e l ha; ,b,d.d by UNpre>aipt"'o, 0111, whonuseful to h ''' ' ' '9 II,mlllt,, ,, t'lliton.,l, .nddem"llraphrc go." f.fo",frequentl,. how. r. Isr'elho< ol'led UN ,utho"1)'Apar t from al'll\lthy I,'t ofresolulOOns cond.mn' g Is-,".1, n,rI,lary Uanlg ,,,on,and olal'' ' ' ' ' of humannghl', ,,,.. ha uff. ,dno p U O l t ~ ",nClIOo, forIt, lu. behal'IOI'"l'onICally, the Unll,",,,,1Dod. . . ,on of HumanR'ghts was ,dopled by Ihenel"ly created Ulj ' 19480< a ,"spo"se to tho N.Holocaust Now, I,,,el ondthe US ' ' main ob'''1(1 to I m p l e m e n ~ n 9 I t 'mandale f(ll Pal.,t,n,, sPARTITlorlPal. ,o' , reietll d thenghl of il l. Un,led N a ~ o ,to Impose a pod"tlOo to the IntornaMoal C un of lust . In

Mandat. Pol lin.populOlion d i , , ~ b u l l o nby .ubdi, ICI, 194ti

P.le'I; i,n ' : ',",wi,hr. "

adhererlCe 10 tho Ch,nerwa, unhoededDISPROPORTIONALITYTne United Natroo5 Spec,,1Comm'ttee on Pal.. ,"eUNSCOp, 1947 partitionpi"" gr.oted d p'opor(IOnat.;, "'"e of (Mltocllo il l. Z",n'l t, ,.Iatll'e (0.,lhor Iherr popul.tlon 0 'thw lond ownersh,p.1 tiletim. The fulure J .. ,;hslate w '9ra lo'd ,,0. 0 of'ho tot.1 I.nd od lh.futuro Arab mte. 45.At lIle ~ m e of p a ~ , ~ o n .P a l ~ I , n Ar.bl ownedapproXimatel,93% of theI"nd on P . I ~ n . ;

7 ~ . The Noge' r"'l''''' ofsoulhe'n Pal ',n., whereI , than I of (0. I,ndwas held 10 1"",i,h owne ,p, w., allotted to thefuture 1 ~ 1 I 1 < h ale be'ausoIt (0,1\(,000 wl(h the ZionI, Ooolut>o" l5l and GenA'wmbl)' r e ' l u ~ o n s 115J ,od 2254. oot., th 't - the adopoon of lile ,oo.e-monllon.d reso uoon, Ihas la,, further measures tMd'ng to change Ihe mof tho ('ly of Jlu",'eln, " . . . frrm5 -the tabli>hedopl. thai acqu",t,,,,, of territory by mlln,,'Y conqu tInadmmble, " "ldlepIO ., h. f.,lure of l>rael to .rowregard fO tho ,,,,"lul,on,, " , {


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I 'i011 on "".sonol qUMt wOUld l.ad to the< ,.Iion of the st.' of ,", .. ltalf antwy . 1 ~ ,In 1896 U... 1 wrOlf TIle - i l ~ Stolt. collins lorIhe n8\)(>1',. the Nui genocide,,'OUld phing 0 notion .t.ate In ' 'oI.,.tiM IS'M .,n lot lbe ]twio;h o p l ~ with Httle ,eg.ard lor Ih.Imp",,1 On tho . ,.tin3 'dll:'Slini.n ppulaU"" .ndrolllin', No colonization con ",,,,....t by Ig torin81k/='iroJo 1.w' oI .mwd rac .. lobotimJ


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'"uTi Kholar Ben jamin ~ H . I 1 . h m l $umm.ri .... b o t i ~ I position:

The L.bo, Zioni. t .ltilu< e towardslh, n' li,-",Ind thel' r e d i < m ~ n ..... one 0,"denial.1he

r l g h l ' ~ 'pprwO lotl by ' w I ' ~it,, .n' . lIi,.,.io. , 1941 (tl>t .. I

~ . . . , ... "'g."I,"ion l oelll". """,bt .the 6 .UO)'td 1 o u I ~ 1 .... . l l) . n..ylll. __

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l(eYOII of 1936.39, cou..., by ~ i n i a n ofd ~ i o n and Jewish d o m i a n c ~ , 8m Gurlo, . . Mim.k P>leotine into Olea. dtsign' -...:I It>< J.... sh . , . , nd an Alab ",.te. EMh ",. , .",.."dd ronfill of both J ... sh 000 Aub cit""n . bult"g1cl lly no p""'lsion ""as mo de 10< an in"'rimUnitod ",. ,ion. mil il.uy forr(, Ie protOpe< ted,Wut blulcc .... 1.>.1"" "" '"W, lI ULJ AId" leNeet "hoHIs,".-I dKI"N1lndependen' in May 9 ~ 8 .

1\0. 0 momllf prior 10 Indcpe,.de....." IIn GuriooInd his IdvIsold.h . s, v.getable p


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modest in dress, opposed to gender eguality, unaccustomed to the coll"tlYist approach to communallife and childreann&. and marker oriented r.th.rlban sooalJst.

Some of the M ' h; (Arab Jews) were wellknown Arabic-language poets and wmers whojoined WIth 'I>lestinian poets to form a union ofArabic writers. Early a ts for aU anticipated immigrantrefugees and cover Israel's trade deficits, he wouldneod foreign in"" ,tmen t ond oid gr.nts, At the riskof ,ubverting the planned economy of the Hls-Md", (federalion of labor unions), he launched thel.raol Bonds Campaign ond enoouraged Jew, in theDi . .pora to start up private companies in Israel. Healso recognized the n ~ e d for a unifying institutionother than the ,odoli,t Hi5ladn,j to initiate. processof cultural assimilation so that the diverse culture,of world Je"'lY could begin to form a new natiOnalidentity. The unifying institution he chose woo themilitary-infu",d as it wa, with a spirit of nationalpride, disdpline, obedience, courage, and sacrifice,Ho called 'he now p'ogmon,m""O';,m"ond b o ~ o ncre.t ing a state cult Or dYiI religJon of patnohcnationali,m to unify and mob1lize a population sodi"""e that few other unil)ing ideals exi,ted. TheintEntion was to make room for the rich divers'tr ofeconomito,;., u[ exudu> [w e>lle in Eb)'p' o"J Ll,e'onqU"'t of the land of Canaan, . :[The Btble is]the 'ingle most important book in my life/he

. 'OlneAl 0 ' ' ' ' '

declared:" From the early 1950< until hi. retirementfrom public I'fe in 19K , he oonducted B,ble studiesevery two weeks in the Prim. Moni,ter', residenceor his kiblmll in the Neg', Icrturing to a 'Yide rangeof politi,alleade" and ,chola" In his memoirsBen-Gurion noted the role of rellgious motivation mthe ""ruitment of Jewish immigrant. to I"ael ,

Without a messianic, emotional, ideoloj1;lcalimpulse, "'thout the viS]on of restoration andredemption, there is no earthly reason why e,-enoppre.,.a and underpriYileged J.ws . .shouldwander off to Iora.1 of aU places, ...The immigrant'were "' led WIth an ]mmort.1 Yi,ion of redemption, which become the primipal motlvation ofth.ir Ii,'e,."

]95G. Rom,.ron Jow, ' ovivo, of to, N i


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FO CU SConstantinianReligion

h ultima tsin is si en ein th a ce ofinjusti eEl I E WI ESEL

16

Some historians identify the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 as thedecisive date after which anti-Jewish contemptbecame systemic and pathological. JamesCarroll's influential study Constantine s Sword:The Church and the Jews explores what happened whenEuropean Christian ethnic-religious prejudice became institutionalized and invested with state power. Carroll's studyof Constantinian Christianity is also a scathing critiqueof and apology for centuries of Christian mistreatment ofthe Jewish people.Christianity is only one of several world religions to haveharnessed religious ideology to political power. And in thesame way that Carroll, a Roman Catholic, has examinedChristian history, Jews continue to examine the moral andreligious consequences for Judaism inherent in the rise ofpolitical Zionism.CRITICS OF CONSTANTINIAN JUDAISMMartin Buber (1878-1965), a Jewish religious philosopherwho profoundly influenced Protestant theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, opposed the imposition byforce of political Zionism on Palestine's diverse, multiethnic society. In the aftermath of Israel's mi litary victory in1948, Buber lamented, "The cry of victory does not havethe power of preventing the cleareyed from seeing thatthe soul of the Zionist er'1terprise has evaporated.... Hecontinued prophetically, "Yes, a goal has been reached,but it is not called Zion .... The] day will yet come whenthe victorious march of which our people is so proudtoday will seem to us like a cruel detour. 1Judah Magnes (1877-1948), a prominent US-born Reformrabbi who ~ m i g r t e d to Israel, was a committed culturalZionist who helped found both the American JewishCommittee and Hebrew University in Jerusalem . His vocalopposition to the fusing of Judaism and nationalisminherent in the establishment of a specifically Jewish statemade him the target of heckling and attacks in the press.Several branches of ultraorthodox Judaism have rejectedIsrael's legitimacy since its founding. Of all the crimes ofpolitical Zionism," writes one ultraorthodox critic of Israel,

the worst and most basic...is that from its beginningZionism has sought to separate the Jewish people fromtheir Gd, to render the divine covenant null and void,and to substitute a 'modern' statehood and fraudulentsovereignty for the lofty ideals of the Jewish people.2

Rabbi Brant Rosen, a Reconstructionist, is currentlyworking ..toward a theology of Jewish liberation 'thatreclaims the universal vision of the Prophets and providesa progressive spiritual alternative to the fusing of religionand state power."3That these voices are not widely embraced as an integralpart of the spectrum of Jewish thought is a reflection ofthe neaHotal success of mainstream Zionist institutions in

suppressing dissenting perspectives. Increasingly, hoJews are challenging the right of the old guard to dmine the limits of acceptable speech and actionATheologian Marc Ellis, himself the target of deligitimtion and intimidation campaigns by hawkish monitogroups, finds that the lewish ethical tradition is nofacing its own moral crisis as Jewish identity becomeincreasingly uncritically identified with the governmpolitics of America and Israel. Ellis's term Holocauology describes a worldview that, in our time, conas normative in the Jewish community." Jews whofrom the mainstream assumptions, Ellis writes, riskcommunication because of their failure to adheretheological prerequisite to community membershipThe modern Christian Church has learned many lesfrom its own history of antiJewish contempt. And ythese lessons are incomplete; the process of reckonwith the Church's complicity in the destruction of Ean Jewry has rendered many Christians mute in theof Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians:THE INTERFAITH ECUMENICAL DEALMarc Ellis calls this syndrome the interfaith ecumendeal or the interfaith ecumenical dialogue, the poHolocaust place where Jews and Christians have metheir relationship . Ellis writes

Israel was huge in this dialogue . Christians suppoIsrael as repentance for antiSemitism and the Hocaust. Then as Israel became more controversial w[Israeli] abuse of Palestinians, Christians remainedNonsupport and, worse, criticism of Israeli policiewas seen by the Jewish dialoguers as backtrackinantiSemitism . That's where the dialogue becamedeal: Silence on the Christian side brings no criticiantiSemitism from the Jewish side.6Carroll's work in Constantine s Sword rightly identifitransgressions of Christians and the Church towardJews over centuries. Carroll's expose is incomplete bit errs, .ike many wellintentioned partners in the emenical deal, in failing to recognize that Israeli polare also an expression of Constantinian religion.Carroll complains that Church leaders seem "interesonly in partial memory and a imited reckoning withpast, 7 one might fault him and other Christian papants in the "ecumenical deal" for exempting Israescrutiny.Carroll's book explores what happened when theof the empire became joined to the ideology of theChurch. For Church and empire both, Carroll concit led to consequences better and worse-althougfor Jews, for whom, nothing good would come . 8our time would dispute the obvious corollary: the fuof state power with Judaism has led to consequencter and worse-although decidedly worse for PalesMarc Ellis lifts up a vision of what might occur whenChurch leaders have finally learned the central lessChristian complicity in the Holocaust. The lesson, Ewrites, is not only that Christians have erred towardJewish people, but that more universally, "The ultimis silence in the face of injustice . 9

zroNrsM UNS


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JUNE 1967: THE THIRD ARAB ISRAELI WAR

From 1949 to 1967 there were three ArabIsraeli wars. The first war ended when theArmistice of 1949 left Egypt in control of theSinai and the Gaza Strip and Jordan in control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The war of1956 ended with U troops policing the separationof Egyptian and Israeli forces along the Suez Canal,with an ongoing pattern of belligerence continuingin the following years.

Tensions between Egypt and Israel reached theboiling point in early June 1967. Many in Israel andaround the world feared that Egypt, which had beenrearmed by the Soviet Union, might inflict a lethalblow on the small state of Israel. The General Staffof the Israeli military, knowing that Egypt wasn'tprepared for war, confronted the Israeli cabine t withthe demand for an immediate preemptive strikeagainst Egypt.

The Israeli strike began on June 5,1967. In sixdays the war was over, with Israel achieving anoverwhelming victory. Israeli forces destroyed themilitary capabilities of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria; tookGaza and the Sinai from Egypt; pushed Jordan outof East Jerusalem and the West Bank; and occupiedthe Syrian Golan Hi hts.

On June 8, 1967, an editorial in the liberal Israelinewspaper Haaretz declared: The glory of past agesno longer is to be seen at a distance but is, from nowon, part of the new state. The following day, Gener-al Moshe Dayan, a self-declared secularist who ledthe capture of East Jerusalem, could not repress themessianic sentiments which he shared with secular and religious Israelis: We have return ed to ourholiest places, we have returned in order not to partfrom them ever aga in . lTHE REV ISIONIST LOGIC TAKES HOLDAfter the Six- Day War Israel annexed PalestinianEast Jerusalem (6.4 square kilometers) and 28 Palestinian villages (an additiona l 64 square kilometers)on land adjacent to East Jerusalem. The annexationwas immediately condemned by United Nations

AB OUT THIS SECT IONThis sect ion is a condensed and edited version of an essay bythe Rev. Dr. Walt Davis and Dr. Pauline Coffman entitled TheTriumph of Revision ist Zion ism in Wag ner and Davis, eds.,Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy LandDr. Dav is s Professor of the Sociology of Religion emeritm) atSan Fran


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These changes had the effect of erasing Pa lestine notonly from map s but also from the minds of Israelis.At the same time, by providing biblical justifica tionfor the military conquest of Pa lestine, it demon strat ed the intentional merger of political and religiOUSZio nism.The nationalist religious settler movement tooka leap forward in 1974 with the formation of ushEmunim B loc of the Faithful), a messianic religiOUSgroup committed to the establishment of jewish religious settlements in the West Bank, Gaza, nd theGo lan Heights. The new Zion ism of Greater Israe lgained official spo nsorsh ip when the Likud Partywas elected to power in 1977 under Prime MinisterMenachem Begin, mark ing a shift to the right inIsraeli politics that continues to the present. Thegovernment began to provide financial ince ntives forthe establishment of settlements in the West Bank,now identified as judea and Samaria. The purposewas to solidify jewish control of what was claimed tohave bee n Israelite territory in biblical times and toprevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

",,a

In their recent book, Chosen Peoples Todd Gitlin

1946

Palestinianland

1947 UN Pl n

and Liel Liebovitz conclude that Israe li nationalmessiani sm, whether in its overt religiOUS form or inthe form of a civi l religion, reflects a co nscious or un conscious recognition of divine election to be God schosen people. Gitlin and Liebovitz write/'Zionism'sinability to shake the messianic ideal became manifest in the hold that the West Bank set tlers exercisedon the conscience of the whole nation . 4 In spite ofits thoroughly secular origin, Zionism flourished,especially after 1967, because of the inextricableblending of its political nd religiOUS agenda .Thisis one example of the similarities between Zionism,South African apartheid, and jim Crow segregationin the Southern US: All three ideologies are a political-religiOUS blend, providing religious justificationfor the politics of racia l or ethnic discrimination.THE CONSOLIDATION OF AMERICAN ZIONISMDuring the 1940s the American jewish Committee(AjC), the most influential jewish civic organizationof the time, comprising largely members of the Re form movem ent, remained anti-Zionist. In January1948 the AjC committee on Palestine expressedgrave concern that the Zion ists will now make anattempt to organize the community along Zioni stlines and will try to capture the com munal organiza hon s . sThis concern was prophetic. The Anti-

Israe li land Palestinianland

1949-1967

Israeli/occupied land Palest in ian land

f .,if2014

There aresimila ritiesbehveen ZionisSouth Africanapartheidand Jim Crowsegregation inthe SouthernS

2014The inexorable expansion of Israeli control over former Mandate Palestine is by now, virtua lly complete. Fully half the populat ion w ithin this laarea is not Jew ish.7 For Israelis committed to the principle of a Jewish state, the population issue poses a demographic threat to the ethno-religcharacter of the state. Pa lestin ians are faced with the prospect of, at best, second-class status in a state that classifies them as outsiders and. atworst, deprivation in isolated enclaves without autonomy or self-determination. As Palestinian population centers in the occupied West Bank hbecome isolated bantustans administered under a discriminatory. t i r legal system that privileges Jewish Israelis. an inevitable if contese comparison has been made to apartheid-era South Africa.

18 ZIONISM UNSET


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IMenachem Begin

Lifewithoutaccess tolivelihood:slIhis the legacyBegin bequea thedto Pales l ll ians

Defamation League (ADL), which until thenhad been generally aligned with the AjC, quicklyswitched sides in the months leading up to Israelistatehood. Since Israeli statehood, the ADL hasequated antiZionism with anti-Semitism.6

Right wing Revisionist Zionism and Israeli polit ical-religious nationalism found a ready audience inthe US following the Six -Day War. jewish theologianMarc Ellis writes/ Israel was not ce ntral to [Am erican] jewish identity. It only emerged as the centraljewish concern after the 1967 war.' Now most ifnot all of the 51 member groups affi liated with theConference of Presidents of Major jewish Organizations9 are Zionist, committed to the suppression ofany criticism of Israel in the mainstream Americanmedia, in American civi l society, and even withintheir own organizations. In fact, they now designateany criticism of Israe l as a dei egi timiza hon of thestate of Israel.MEN CHEM BEGIN: IRST I.IKUD PRIMEMINISTERIn October 1973, during the Mu slim holy month ofRamadan and on Yom Kippur the holiest day in thejewish calendar, Egypt and Syria launched a surpriseattack on Israel that lasted almost three weeks. Israelwas caught off guard and suffered over 10,000 casualties. This fourth Arab-Israeli war marked the political twilight of Labor Zionism. With the next electionin 1977 Menachem Begin (1913-1992) became primeminister as the Likud party soundly defeated Laborand its allies. Now the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, declared illegal repeatedly by thein terna tional co mmunity, had an arden t championas head of government.The number of settlementsand settlers grew exponential1y with governmentsponsorship and fmancing, becoming the lynchpinof Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, Eastjerusalem, and the Golan Heights. By 1981 whenBegin was elected for a second term, the consolidation of Greater Israel had become the number-onepriority of the Begin government. Since the Six-DayWar in 1967 this policy has fed the zeal of nationalistreligious settlers who have had a disproportionatelylarge influence in political Zion ism's move to theright.

Before World War I Begin had commanded theEuropean Revisionist movement s paramilitarygroup, Betar in Czechoslovakia and Poland. A devoted disciple of jabotinsky, Begin came to Palestine in1942 and qu ickly rose to commander of the Revi sionist paramilitary Irgun. He led the Irgun from 1943until 1948 in an armed revolt against the British, and,in 1947-48, planned attacks on Palestinian townsand villages. Marc Ellis notes that In his chronicleof the Irgun which Ben-Gurion and others labeleda terrorist group, Begin glorified armed revolt: Outof the blood and tears and ashes a new specimen

THE O N ~ P T AND PRACTICE OF A JEWISH STATE

Menachem Begin add resses an Irgun rally in Israel, 1948 (note/ gun emblem, lower left . Irgun terrorism targeted both Britishofficials of the Mandate and Palest inians. During the period1937 1948 Irgtm operatives carried out bombings, shoot ingskid nappings, assassil


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Binyamin Netanyahu

t is hard to findany evidencethat recent Israeligovernmentshave anyintention ofnegotiating ajust peace withPalestinians

not over their resources . 12 Israel would maintainexclusive control over the West Bank aquifers, publicland, roads and communications, immigration, andpublic order. Life without access to livelihood: suchis the legacy Begin bequeathed to Palestinians.

Begin's faU from power came quickly, tarnished ashe was by poor stewardship of the Israeli economyand the 1982 invasion-gone-awry of Lebanon toroot out th e Palestinian Liberation Organization, in cluding the tragic massacre of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese.The death of his wife in late 1982caused Begin grea t grief, and a year later he resignedfrom office and withdrew from public life.BINY MIN NETANYAHU: TOWARD A SINGLEJEW ISH APARTHEID STATEThe themes that run consistently through theleadership of the current Prime Minister of Israel,Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu (1949-) reflect a steadyhardening to the right for political Zionism. Israelipolitics are driven by actual and manipulated fear ofannihilation (another Hol ocaust), radical separationfrom Arab Palestinians, and a clear po licy of theexpansion of settlements in the occupied territoriesto encircle Jerusalem and claim as mu ch Pales tinianland as possible. It is hard to find any evidence thatrece nt Israeli governments have any intention ofn otiatin g a just peace with Palstinians.

Prime Minister Netanyahu became the standardbearer for right -wing political Zionism after joiningthe Likud party in 1993 and winning election as theleader. In 1996 he was Likud's candidate for PrimeMinister, the first Israeli election in which Israelisdirectly elected their Prime Minister. A wave of sui cide bombings in 1996 helped spread his campaignmessage: Netanyahu- making asafe peace. 13

March 2013. Netanyahu (left) poses with settler lea ders ce lebrating the official recognition ofoutpost settlements in Rechilim and Nofei Nehemia . We are facing an attack on the settlementen terprise and against our existence in the State of Israel, Netanya hu said.16 Peace Now reportsthat during the first eight months of the new Netanyahu government, there has been a non-stop settlement construction and app rova l boom . 17

20

Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister, but haform a coa lition with the ultra-orthodox partieorder to govern because his party, Likud, did na majority in th e Knesset.

[n September 1993 the Oslo Accords were sbyYasser Arafat for the Palestinian LiberationOrganization (PLO) and Yitzhak Rabin for Isragiving to the newly created Palestinian AuthoPA) limited au tonomy in Jericho and Gaza. N

anyahu mad e it clear from the start of his termPrime Minister th at h e disagreed with the Os lAccords and emphasized a policy of th ree nowithdrawal from the Golan Heights, no divisioJeru salem which Israeli had annexed in 1967/ no preconditions whatsoever for negotiations.Under pressure from the US to mak e concessiWest Bank settlem ents in order to keep momefor peace, Ne tanyahu signed two agreementsPalestinian the Hebron Protocol and the Wyer Memorandum. His supporters felt betrayedaccused him of trading land for peace. As a rof concessions and a number of scandalspersonal life he lost the next election.NETANYAHU S BACKGROUNDA look at Netanyahu's background is helpfu l. Hth e son of Benzion Netanyahu (1910-2012), wwas a professor of Jewish hi story at Cornell Unsity, edi tor of Encyclopaedia Hebraica and a senaid e to Ze'ev jabotinsky, who has been called tideological father of the Likud Party. Ne tanyahfather and grandfather were leaders in the Ziomovemen t and served in the Israeli military. Ling no room for compromise Benzion arguedJews inevitably faced discrimination that was rnot religious, and that compromising with Arawas fuhle. 7

A specialist in the history of Jews in Spain, Bon thought jewish history was a history of hocau sts and believed Arabs would choose to reon ly to fo rce and to exterminate jews if they hachance. sIn the Jewish Journal David Myers, Chair ofHistory Departme nt a t UCLA, writes,

Wemight call this the Amalekite view of Jewhistory, referring to the hated biblical foes oIsrae lites whose existence- and even memoshould be blotted out Exod us 17:14).The hrian's [Benzion 's) belief that th e jews have bsubjected to constant genocidal threats did lead him to a passive fatalism, as if there wenothing that the jews could do in the face o

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Amalek, Rather, it inspired his own militant Zion ism, which demanded a persistent willingness towage war against one's enemies,19Myers believes Netanyahu's statements about the

threat of Iran are an indication that he shares hisfather Benzion's Amalekite worldview, Iran is notjust a grave threat; Netanyahu compares it to Am a lek, the most terrifying of Jewish persecutions,20NET NY HU'S SECOND AND THIRD TERMS ASPRIME MINISTER: 2009 - 2013Netanyahu's second term began in February 2009when Likud was able to control a majority of theseats in the Knesset by fanning an alliance withAvigdor Lieberman's Israel eiteinu ( Israel is ourHome ). This political party, popular with Russianimmigrants like Lieberman, is further to the rightthan Likud and is associated with xenophobia,

During the 2009-2013 period the Knesset passedover a dozen discriminatory law s, The Associationfor Civil Rights in Israel notes that because of thistide of anti-democratic legislation,

the basic principles of the Israeli democrat-ic system are being undermined,There is anongoing infringement on issues such as freedomof expression, human dignity, and equality; onthe possibility of upholding the pluralism ofviews and thoughts; on freedom of assembly andprotest ,21

These laws illustrate the steady hardening of rightwing politics in Israel.22NETANYAHU ND THE JEW ISH STATE

l

In the last decade, Netanyahu has been demanding,as the outcome of any negotiations with Palestinians,their recognition of Israel as a Jewish sta te. GlennKessler's October 2010 Washington ost article tracesthe history of this diplomatic demand. Nine yearsago, Kessler explains,

then-Secretary of State Colin L Powell delivereda speech on the Middle East in which he brieflyca lled on Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jew ish state.' Powell doesn't recall how the phraseended up in his speech, but David Ivry, then theIsraeli ambassador to the United States, says hepersuaded an aide to Powell to slip it in. 3President George W. Bush picked up the Jewishstate concept in his speeches and used it in a con

troversial exchange of letters with Israeli Prime Min ister Ariel Sharon in 2004. Obama has also adoptedthe phrase, most recently in a speech on September23,2010 before the UN General Assemb ly.

For the Israeli government of Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian recognition ofIsrael as a Jew ish state would mean acceptancethat the Jews have existed in the Middle East for

3 THE CONCEPT ND PR CT ICE OF A JEWISH ST TEK

Israeli Settlementsin the OccupiedWest Bank nd EastJerusalemas of November 2011

A1 200,000

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For Palestinians, movement between and often within their designated reservations(brown shaded areas s limited or prevented by check points and other barriersinstalled and controlled by the Israel Defense Forces,

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thousands of years and that Palestinian refugeeshave no claim to return to property they fled or wereforced to flee when Israel was founded six and a halfdecades ago.

In addition, Palestinian and Arab officials contendthat labeling Israel a Jewish state ca lls into question the rights of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship,who comprise 20 percent of Israel's population.25

Since the Powell speech, this insistence on explicitPalestinian recognition of a Jewish state" has become almost routine, but it is relatively new languagefor negotiations and for the international commu nity. The phrase has become part of the Americanlexicon and appears to be settled American policy,if judged by US presidential campaigns and UNspeeches. This demand presents a major obstacle forpeace because, just as Jews want a "right of return"to the land, so too do the millions of Palestinianrefugees who have languished in refugee camps forthree generations. Non -Zionists point out that a"Jewish state"is an ethnocracy, not a democracy.THE JANUARY 2013 ELECTION: "TO THERIGHT, MARCH "Continuing the trend, parties on the right stillmake up about half of the new Knesset. n March30, 2013, the new Finance Minister,Yair Lapid,announced a major settlement plan to build anadditional 16,000 housing units in the illegal settlements,26 and on March 27 the new Minister ofEconomics and Trade, Naftali Bennett, ca lled thetwo -state solution "beautiful statements" but "sadlydetached from reality" and vowed to "never surrender to popular opinion . 27

Netanyahu's worldview is shaped by both theIron Wall doctrine of Revisionist Zionism and a

nationalist appropriation of the Bible as history.While he does not claim to be religious, Netanyahuhas pragmatically co-opted the Zionist belief thatemerged as the second generation of Zionists movedaway from the secular/socialist ideology of Israel'sfounding generation and adopted a religious o -namely that Jews were promised the land of Israelby God as it is described in the Torah/Bible. Here iswhere political and religious Zionism merge. Divineredemption is now seen as national redemptionthrough adversarial human struggle. In May 2012Prophecy News Watch reported that Netanyahu had'resurrected'the Bible Study Circle of Ben-Gurian.

The Bible is a parable for humanity, Netanyahusaid at the outset [of the Bible Study]' and

22

If the Jews are able to cross the river of time, andin their vast odyssey cross the chasm of annihilation and come back to their ancestral home, thatmeans there is hope for humanity ...The Bible isthe foundation of our existence. It unites the Jewish people, as it has throughout the generations. Italso serves not only as a foundation but also as amap and compass. 28Mitri Raheb refers to this practice by secular Zi

orusts as an effort to intentionally "brand" th e Stateof Israel as a biblical entity. This branding, Rahebnotes, confuses many Christians who are not ableto distinguish between biblical Israel and the newlycreated state of Isra el.29

Nourit Peled-Elhanan, Hebrew University professor of language and education and author of Pales-tine in Israeli Schools, notes that this literalist view ofthe Bible as history is taught in Israeli schools and isresponsible for a clear socia lization process" guidedby a"racist education system. 30EQUALITY R APARTHEID?The five conditions for peace that would be accept able to Palestinians and the wider Arab world are:1 an end to Jewish settlements, 2 a return to 1967

Religious Ziois dead .... It sif they are s ythat settlersexpress love oIsrael.That sgreat idiocy. 30RABBI DAVID HART

Palestinians note that the peaprocess" has been a sham.Between the 1993 signing of tOslo Accords and 2011 , 43,304new housing unitswere built iIsraeli settlements on occupiedland.

IJIXO l

~iIXI :

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Wh ile the stereotypical Israelisettler is national-religious, settlers span a spectrum of re ligioand political affiliations (left).Statistics compiled by Peace N(below) also show that the settlement enterprise has prosperunder all governments since1986 regardless of w here theyfall on the politicai spectrum.

11m ;:e.ali ....... ....... . --.. -............... ........ ............... ....... .. .............1_ 1. ' 1'i118 1_ IlIta IlISl IB IIl l ~ ~ lUIII9'l1 1191 IN lQOO 20a l m mill 11:0; 1008 2001 100_ __ __ L I . ~ _ _ .... J_

Unlty0700emmam hwrtr RIIbn NlIbm)llhu 9IlnIX I NIOO OI ntert NlheconslruCliond llaofy:M1"8 1990-20101& tomthe 0 J e I i 0 e n t r B I B \ l l I 6 U o f 8 ~ C i I . ti"edmof:n11 Bfrtlm F'e6DB

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borders with appropriate land swaps, 3) a sharedjerusalem, 4) resolution of the refugee issue, and 5)full rights for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.31When we contrast these five conditions with theworldview of Netanyahu and the rightwing consensus dominant in Isra el today, it is not surprisingthat the gulf appears to be expanding rather thannarrowing.

Despite the resumption of peace talks that USSecretary of State John Kerry initiated in Jul y 2013,there is a growing consensus except, notably, in theUS and Israel- that the existing de facto one -statesituation/solution is irreversible and that the Israe liform of apartheid (segregation and separate development) is becoming increasingly entrenched. BrantRosen, a congregational rabbi in Evanston, illinois,and co-chair of the jewish Voice for Peace RabbinicalCouncil, was recently interviewed by Mark Karlinabout his new book, Wre stling in the Daylight:A Rab -bi s Path to Palestinian Solidarity. Asked if he thoughtthat Israel is in th e process of becoming an apartheid state, he replied,

It s not just a potential risk; I think we're witnessing the cost of this apartheid process every day.Even so, most Zion ists are unable or unwillingto admit that this is what inevitably comes fromfusing Judaism and politica l nat ionalism [Ziun ism] . But if yo u really consider it, how could it beotherwise? At the end of the day, how can yo uhave a Jewish state that do es not somehow treatnon-Jews as other ? ...That does not, on someleve l. create a system of institutional racism thatprivileges Jews over non-Jews? 32

THE DREAM VS. THE REALITY"f you will it, it is no dream,Theodor Herz l, archi tect of mod ern Zionism, declared at the end of his1902 novel, Old-New Land . But in 1896 when he firstproposed a Jewish state, most people thought hewas nothing more than a dreamer

The Zio nist movement that Herz ll aunchedgained much of its support as a response to thehistory of huntiliation and shame engendered by European persecution and Christi an anti-Semitism andfrom the fear that no Jew anywhere would ever besecure without a Jewish state. The Shoah reinforcedthis fear, turning it into a cen tral Zionist doctrine.The new state of Israel acted on this fear-based doctnne in 1950 by passing the Law of Return, grantingthe right of citizenshi p to any Jew who immigrates toIsrael. Successive Israeli governm ents have ma nipulated this fear for political advantage both indomestic and foreign po licy issues.

1 . THE CONCEP T AND PRA CTI CE OF A JEW ISH STATE

The Zionist move ment, like other co lonialmovements, required co llective denial of what wasbeing done to Palesti nians a denial that may even becharacterized as sel f-inflicted blindness. The majorAmerican Jewish organizations33bear co nsiderableresponsibility for spreading this fear and blindnessby their uncritical support for Israel over the yearsespecially since 1967 .34 What I.F. Stone wrote in19 75 about Zionism's psychological act of denialseems to app ly to these organ iza tions as well:

Jewish life [in Palestine] went on as i he Arabsweren t there. In a profound sense the yishuv thejewish community had to pretend that the Arabsweren't there, or co nfront ethical problems toopainful to be faced ...35Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu chaired th e

South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissionthat helped his nation begin a process of healingafter half a century of brutal apartheid. He describedthis process of healing in his book No Future With outForgiveness. In Israel/Palestine, as a step that must beund ertaken before forgiveness can begin: No FutureWithout Moral Truth 36 Speaking moral truth willrequire both courage and compassion .The time hascome for us al l to name the Christian theologicaland ethical failure s that gave ri se to Zionism, as wellas the Jewish theological and ethical failures thatZionism has produced.

REFLECTION

At the end ofthe day how canyou have aJewish state thatdoes noLansome level createa system ofinstitutionalracism thatprivileges Jewsover non-Jews? 3RABB I BRANT ROSEN

1. What questions arise for you from reading and reflecting on thissect ion?2. In what ways do Jewish Israe lis ha ve more rights under Israel i law than Palestin ian citizens of Israe l? Given the different treatment granted its citizensbased on ethnicity, is it accu rate to ll Israel a democracy?3. Israe ls secu lar Zion ist fou nders stressed the continuity between the ancientbiblica l kingdom of Israel and the modern state of Israe l. Th ey also revivedthe use of ancie nt Bib lica l place names such as Judea andSamaria." What are the consequences of using re ligious history to just ifypo litica l and territoria l cl aims?4. Tony Ju dt, the late noted scholar and historian, wrote: The problem withIsrae l, in short, is not- as sometimes suggested - that it isa European 'enclave' in the Arab world; but rather t hat it arrived too late. It has imported acharacteristica lly late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world thathas moved on, a world of ind ividua l rig hts, open frontiers, and internat ionall aw. The very idea of a 'Jewish state a state in which Jews and theJewish re ligion have excl usive privi leges from which non-Jew ish citizens are

forever excluded-isrooted in nother time and place. Israe l, in short, isananachron ism. Do you agree with Jud t s assessment? Why or why not?5, Zionism's dream was to establish a secure homeland for a ll Jews, In light ofcurrent rea lit ies in Israe l-Palestine, discuss how Zion ism has succeeded andor failed in achi eving its goa l.6. If Israe l chooses to pursue a two-state solution, which of the Palestiniandemands be low are an obstacle?

an end to Jewish settlements in Pa lest ine a return to the 1967 borders with appropriate land swaps a shared Jerusalem reso lut ion of the refugee issue fu ll rig hts for Pa lest inians who are Israe li cit izens

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FOCUSA Tale of Two Villages

O n July 15, 1948, the Palestinian village ofAyn Hawd, 24 miles southeast of H ~ i f a wasdepopulated of its Palestinian residents ina sweeping Israeli military offensive of theregion. Most of Ayn Hawd's residents fled,ending up in Jenin (now in the occupied West Bank) andIrbid (Jordan), where many of their descendants still live.Some of Ayn Hawd's Palestinian residents fled a shortdistance and remained there in makeshift shelters on thecultivated land they owned. While most depopulated Palestinian Arab villages in the area were demolished by theIsraeli military during and after the 1948 war, Ayn Hawd sbuildings remained intact. Its Palestinian former residents,although living only a few kilometers away, were prevented at any point from reclaiming their homes.In 1954 the village was given a Hebrew name, in Hod,and established as a (Jewish) artists' colony. Today, EinHod is a popular tourist destination; the village's formermosque is the site of a restaurant-bar.Over time, the temporary structures built by Ayn Hawd'suprooted natives were replaced by more durable shelters,and, through natural population increase, the village ofAyn Hawd Aljadidah (Arabic for New Ayn Hawd) grew.Until 1992, when Ayn Hawd was granted partial recognition, the village was unrecognized under Israeli law aclassification applied to many Palestinian villages established by the scattered remnants of displaced Palestinianswho remained after the 1948 war within the borders pfthe Jewish state. s an unrecognized village, Ayn HawdAljadidah did not receive Israeli municipal services, including water, electricity, sewers, or an access road. The villagewas granted full recognition only in 2004.1

4

Jewish Israelis now live in the beautiful stonestructures abandoned by Ayn Hawd'sPalestinian residents in 1948.

A shop in the Ein Hod artists' colony.Unlike the three-quarters of a million Palestinians who fledbeyond Israel's borders in 1948 and were prevented fromreturning to their homes, the residents of Ayn Hawd whoremained in the vicinity suffered a different fate. HistorianNur Masalha describes the peculiar limbo in which suchPalestinians found and still find-themselves:

In the post-1948 period the minority of Palestinians-those who remained behind, many of them internallydisplaced-became second-class citizens, subject toa system of military administration by a governmentthat confiscated the bulk of their lands. Today almost aquarter of the 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel ...are 'internal refugees'.2

Many Palestinians living in Israel are considered absentees, a legal classification that has served Israeli stateinterests by stripping Palestinians of their rights under law.

The category of 'absentees' was originally a juridicalterm for those refugees who were 'absent' from theirhomes but 'present' within the boundaries of the stateas defined by the Armistice Agreements of 1949. Thevast majority of the Palestinians so classified werenot allowed to return to their homes, to reclaim theirproperty, or to seek compensation. Instead the statepromulgated the Law of Absentees' Properties in 1950,which legalized the plundering of their possessions. Thelooting of Arab property was given the guise of a hugeland transaction that the state had conducted withitself.3

Today, the Jewish Israelis of Ein Hod inhabit the beautifulold stone structures abandoned in 1948 by their formerPalestinian owners.lh the same way that traces of Palestinian history have been consciously erased elsewherefrom the Israeli landscape, the official in Hod townwebsite says that the town was founded in 1953 by aRomanian-born Dada artist Marcel Janco. 4

The lootingrab prop was given tguise of a hland transacthat the statconducted witself

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Christian Views of Jews and Judaism

ABOUT THIS SECTION

Zonism emerged as a European movementbecause it was there th t Christianitye ~ o l v e over the course of 2,000 years fromthe belief system of a marginal, persecuted minority to an institution invested with statepower, dominating a continent.This combinationof religious belief and political power took the toxicform of hostility nd violence toward Christian sectsconsidered heretical by those in power as well asnonbe liever s-primarily Jews, but also Muslims untiltheir expulsion from Spain after the econquista of1492. European Jews experienced the religious into lerance of the dominant Christian culture in a varietyof ways: forced conversion, exclusion, execution,humiliation, caricahrre, ghettoization, pogroms, andgenocide. Little wonder, then, that 19th-century European Zionists linked anti-Semitism to the necessity of a state in which Jews could, finally, determinetheir own fate.EARLY CHRISTIAN ANTI-JEWISH RHETORICIn the post-Holocaust world of today, Christians arealmost universally aware of the lethal consequencesof anti-Semitism. In spite of this, the seeds of anti

e m i t i s ~ both in society and in the interpretation ofscripture, are still being sown among Christians. Inan Easter homily, Mileto, the second century Bishopof Sardis in Asia Minor, proclaimed that the Law (fudaism), Nwhich was once precious is now worthlessbecause it has been replaced by the Gospel. Thismessage is still used in some contemporary Christian circles as part of the lectionary for Lent. 1 DuringWorld War II, the Nazis used homilies of St. JohnChrysostom of the late fourth century c E as well asvicious attacks by the 16th-century Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, to justify the Holocaust ndas a theological basis for anti-Jewish prejudice.'

This section draws upon three major sources: Zionism through Christian Lenses edited by CarolMonica Burnett; an essay by Dr. Carol Monica Burnett entitled Eastern Orthodox perspectives onZionism and Christian Zionism ... ; and an essay by Drs. Rosemary and Herman Reuther entitledRoman Catholicism, Zionism and the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict, both in Wagner and Davis,eds., Zionism nd the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land. Dr. Burnett is an editor with the CatholicUniversity of America Press. Dr. Rosemary Ruether is Visiting Professor of Feminist Theology atClaremont School of Theology. The Ruethers are coauthors of two earlier bOO S on the IsraelPalestine conflict.

4 CHRISTI N VIEWS OF JEWS ND JUD ISM

Christianity arose in the first century c E as areform movement within Judaism. In fact, the termsJudaism nd Christianity originated about the

same time n opposition to each other.3 Each partially shaped nd reshaped its self-identity n conflictnd contrast with the other.

Sociologists have long recognized that dissentfrom within a homogeneous group is much moredangerous than opposition from without-hereticsare treated much more harshly than infidels. Thus itis not surprising that early Christian writings depictthe conflict between Christian communities andolder Jewish communities as intense as illustratedin the Acts of the Apostles). Sometimes, the literature claims the conflict was violent, as in the caseof the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7 . More frequentlyit gave rise to demonization of the other, all in then me of justifying one's own theological doctrinesand cultic practices 'so as to maintain the unity andloyalty of members .

The Gospels depict n atmosphere of conflictbetween Jesus nd a whole range of Jewish leadersincluding scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priestsnd others whose authority he challenged and

threatened. Many of these leaders served the Judeantemple-state th t governed nd collected taxes onbehalf of the harshly oppressive Roman Empire. TheChristian-Jewish conflict expanded during the nextfew centuries as Judaism nd Christianity vied witheach other throughout the Roman Empire. Christianleaders often used virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric intheir competition with Judaism. These writings attacked differences in religious doctrine and practicend thus were theological n nature.

Many of these writings were addressed to Judaizing members of Christian congregations-membersparticipating in both Christian nd Jewish culticpractices. The writings reflect the high degree ofthreat that Christian leaders felt as they struggled toretain members nd orthodoxy of beliefs nd practices within their churches.

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These attacks were not racial or ethnic. Christianity prided itself on including women and men of allraces, classes, and cultures, declaring, as the apostlePaul put it,"there is neither Jew nor Greek, there isneither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians3:28) At the same time however, Adversus Judaeosliterature ( against t he Jews" or "against the Judeans ) created a tradition that would later becomeracial-ethnic in tone and provide a justification forthe persecution of Jews in the centuries to come.

The aggressive, hostile tone of this anti-Jewishliterature shocks us today. Scholars say it was theconventional rhetorical form known as blamerhetoric" (Greek: psogos meaning blame) and usedto vilify opponents.THE LITER RY GENRE DVERSUS JUD EOSFour writings in the dversus Judaeos tradition serveto illustrate this early Christian-Jewish conflict.Many of these accusations against Jews and Judaismhave roots in ew Testament texts.

1. The Epistle o Barnabas written y an unknownauthor 130-140 c.E., addresses Judaizing Christians insisting on a complete separation of GentileChristians and observant Jews. The central messageof the epistle is that the Christians are the only truecovenant people and that the Jewish people hadnever been in a covenant with God.

2. In his Dialogue with Trypho written 155-161CE., the Christian philosopher Justin Martyr stagesa fictitious two-day debate between himself and aJewish veteran of the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-135CE.The debate Intends to answer Jewish and pagancriticisms of Christianity and to laud the superiorqualities of Christianity while leveling the accusationof "Christ-killers"at Jews as a people. Again, theintended audience is Judaizing Christians, those par-ticipating in both Christian and Jewish cultic practices. Quoting Leviticus 26:40-41, Justin tells Trypho,the vanquished warrior, that the Jewish exile fromJerusalem and Judea is God's punishment"justlyimposed upon you, for you have murdered the JustOne, and His prophets before Him ... 4

26

3. Mileto, Bishop of Sardis in Asia Minor, levelssimilar charges against Jews in his treatise On thePassover"written between 160-170 CE.:

72. This one was murdered. And where washe murdered? In the very center of JerusalemWhy? Because he had healed their lame, and hadcleansed their lepers, and had guided their blindwith light, and had raised up their dead. For thisreason he suffered.73. Why, 0 Israel did you do this strange injustice?You dishonored the one who had honoredyou.You held in contempt the one who heldyou in esteem.You denied the one who publiclyacknowledged you.You renounced the one whoproclaimed you his own.You killed the one whomade you to live. Why did you do this, a Israel?54. The homilies of John Chrysostom from the

late fourth century (386-387) are perhaps the mostegregious of the Adversus Judaeos literature. Thesewere probably preached to Judaizing Christiansin Chrysostom's own congregation in Antioch. na series of eight anti-Jewish sermons Chrysostomdescribed the synagogues as "homes of idolatry anddevils" and declared that the Jews "do not worshipGod but devils" and that all their feasts are unclean."God hates the Jews, said Chrysostom, and has alwayshated them. But since their murder of)esus God allows them no possibility of repentance. Jews pretendthat their misfortunes are due to Rome, but

it was not by their own power that the Caesars.did what they did to you: it was done by thewrath of God, and His absolute rejection ofyou. 6Such anti -Semitic theology did not disqualify

Chrysostom from becoming Archbishop of Constantinople and, shortly after his death, a saint. In the1930s James Parkes, a British Anglican priest, scholar,

AlthoughcontemporaryChristians arenot responsiblfor the sins oour spiritualancestors weresponsible forcombating theperpetuationo hose sins inour time.

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r

Db

and activist, described Chrysostom's homilies onJews as the most horrible and violent denunciationsof Judaism to be found in the writings of a Christiantheologian.'

Although contemporary Christians are not responsible for the sins of our spiritual ancestors, weare responsible for combating the perpetuation ofthose sins in our time. Genuine reconciliation be-tween Christians and Jews requires the recognitionand vigorous renunciation of Christian anti-Jewishrhetoric and behavior. This task includes developingsensitivity to hearing some of the texts within theBible itself as examples of anti-Jewish rhetoric andbeing careful in the congregation's worship andwork to examine and correct how those texts aretaught and understood.TH VATICAN AND JUDAISMIn their essay entitled Roman Catholicism, Zion ismand the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, o ~ e m a r y andHerman Ruether show how the Vatican's relation tojudaism has changed since the 1960s, although theVatican has always and still does oppose the Zionistclaim to all of the Holy Lands At first the Vatican'sopposition to Zion ist land claims was theological.Now it is moral and humanitarian, based on theviolation of Palestinian human rights, the sufferinginflicted on Palestinians, and the Gospel ethic oflove. The change in rationale is testimony to the seachange that has taken place since World War II in inteinationallaw as well as in Jevvish -Roman Catholicrelations and the Vatican's teaching on interreligiousrelations in general. The same may be said for Eastern Orthodoxy. Contemporary opposition by RomanCatholic officialdom to the Zionist project is basedon ethical, not theological grounds.VATICAN R SPONS S TO THE ZIONISTPOLITICAL AGENDAIn 1897, a year after publishing The Jewish StateTheodor Herzl announced the convening of aZionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, to begin theimplementation of the Zionist project. In response,La Civiita Catto/ica a jesuit periodical publi shedin Italy, rejected the Zionist project reiterating thetraditional teaching

< CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF JEWS AND JUDAISM

According to the sacred Scriptures, the Jewishpeople must always live dispersed and wandering among the nations, so that they may renderwitness to Christ not only by the Scriptures butby their very existence. As for a rebuilt Jerusalem,which could become the center of a reconstitutedstate of Israel, we must add that this is contrary tothe prediction of Christ himself.10After repeated attempts to contact Vatican authorities to explain that Jewish settlement in Palestine

would not harm Christian interests in the HolyLand, Herzl finally got an audience with Pope Pius Xin january 1904. Pius X was blunt in his theologicalrejection of Jewish rule in Palestine:

Self-Determination BetrayedHaving fought alongside Britain in World War I for the mutual goal of defeating the Central Powers and ending Ottoman domination of the region, theArabs of Palestine were not granted the independence they had been promised by their wartime allies, but instead made subject to a colonial mandateadministered by Britain. Palestinians watched with justifiable alarm as BritishMandate officials tolerated a massive populat ion influx of Jews from European influx that created the demographic condition used only a few years later tjustify partition of the land.While many Jews thought of the Zionist migration to Palestine as a return toan ancient homeland or flight from European anti-Semitism, it was experienceas colonization by the indigenous Arab people of Palestine. And, like colonizepeople around the globe, they resisted their powerlessness and dispossession.As the colonial British Mandate was terminated in 1947, Palesflnians did notgain sovereignty and self-determination as did other peoples emerging fromcolonialism; rather, the UN partition plan cast the Palestinians into yet anothestage of externally-imposed subjugation.

During the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, Arabs took up arms with the goal of ending theOttoman Empire's domination of the region. As the Ottomans were allied during World WI with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), the Arab Revolt was incorporainto the larger strategic plan of the Allied Powers (Great 8ritain, France, Russia, Italy, andJapan). Arab nationalists received commitments (including. for instance, correspondencebetween the Grand Sharif Hussein and the British High Commissioner Henry McMahon) ttheir wartime military support of the Allied Powers would be rewarded with sovereigntyself-determination after the war. Those promises were not fulfilled.

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We cannot encourage this movement. We cannotpreven t the jews from going to jerusalem-butwe could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem ..has been sanctified by the life of jesusChrist. As the head of the Church I cannot tellyou otherwise. The Jews have not recognized ourLord, therefore we cannot recognize the JewishpeopleWhen the British issued the Balfour Declaration

in 1917 favoring the establishment in Palestine ofa national home for the jewish people, the Vaticanwas hostile to the idea, fearing that a jewish

Peace through Palestinian sovereigntyDecember 2012. Just weeks after the Vatican. praised Palestine's boosted statusas a nonmember observer state at the United Nations, Pope Benedict XVI metwith Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a private audience at the Vatican(below). A month earlier, 138 member states voted to enhance Palestine's statusfrom entity' to nonmember state the same status held by the Vatican.Although the Vatican praised the United Nations vote, it called also for full recognition of Palestinian sovereignty as necessary for peace in the region. Canada,Israel, and the United States were among the nine states that voted against themotion.13Since Benedict's resignation in February 2013, both the Palestinian PresidentMahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have traveledto the Vatican to meet the newly-installed Pope Francis. It is anticipated thatFrancis will travel to the Holy Land in 2014.

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national home might lead to Jewish rule over theHoly Land and undermine Christian interests. Forthe next two decades the Vatican built many churches, schools, orphanages, and hospitals in Palestineand expanded its concern to include the well-beingof local Palestinian Muslims as well as Christiansand church properties.

During the 1930s Jewish immigration to Palestineincreased dramatically as Nazi persecution intensified. Viewing this population influx as a major threatPalestinians launched a a three-year revolt in 1936.The British government created the Peel Commissioto study the matter. This o ~ m i s s i o n recommendeddividing Palestine between jews and Arabs. Palestinian leaders protested strongly, and the Vatican joinedthem in objecting to the partition of the land. AfterWorld War II theVatican again joined with Palestinians and members of the Arab League in opposingUN resolution 181 which authorized the partition oPalestine into an Arab and a jewish state.

In 1948 when war broke out between jewishand Arab forces after partition and the departu reof British forces, the Vatican began providing aidto Palestinian refugees, creating hundreds of socialwelfare centers and schools for Palestinian familiesand children. It also became a strong advocate for aright of return of the refugees and a just settlemen

to the conflict over land.12NEW INTERF ITH THEOLOGY

In a decisive shift from previous church teaching,on October 28,1965, the Second Vatican Council(1962-65) issued Noslra Aetate the Declaration onthe Relationship of the Church to Non-ChristianReligions, which altered Roman Catholic doctrineregarding other religions. Instead of mentioning thedoctrinal failures of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, anjudaism, Noslra Aetate highlighted the strengths ofeach religion

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I

:1I

I

iI

,

I,

To put it plainly, a voice that affirms claims oftheological superiority in the name of one peoplecannot be the voice o f God. A voice that assertsGod's word to humanity was vouchsafedexclusively to the children of Abraham cannot bethe voice of God. A voice that looks to the messianic day in which all nations will ultimately servethe God o srael canno t be the voice of God.This is a much more modest claim to religious

truth than has been the custom in the past. Similarly, many contemporary Christians choose tomodify our traditional theology by saying that thelife, death, and resurrection of Christ is the mostcomplete revelation of God that llli1 know and that wehave experienced. This statement affirms the revela-tion of God in Christ while at the same time recognizing the limits of our knowledge and experienceand honoring analogous claims by others whichgrow out of the knowledge and experience of theirdifferent faith traditions.

From a logical standpoint, only someone w ohad entered deeply into the faith and experienceof every other religion could claim to know froman insider's perspective that God's revelation inChrist is the most complete revelation of God.Perhaps stained-glass windows provide a metaphorto describe the conundrum of insider and outsiderperspectives on religious experience. Looking atthem from the outside, we see only a hint of theirstructure, but from the inside with light beamingthrough, we see splendid colors and ornate patterns,and are grasped by the stories they tell. Devotedfollowers of every religion are moved in this mannerby their own holy narratives.

Indeed, there is Christian theological precedentfor interfaith humility. t comes from classical Christian understandings of the relationship betweenfaith and knowledge, belief and understanding. Inthe late eleventh and early twelfth centuries c.E.,Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, developed anidea first suggested by Augustine in the late fourthcentury. Augustine had offered the following pastoral advice: crede ut intelligas believe so that you

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may understand. Anselm then described the lifeof faith as fides quaerens intellectum faith seekingunderstanding and declared credo ut intelligam

I believe in order that I may understand. In otherwords, faith precedes understanding; without faith,there is no understanding. Ludwig Wittgenstein, oneof the most important philosophers of the 20th century, said that immersion in a way of life is necessaryfor understanding its specific structures and guidingconcepts.19

With Augustine's and Anselm's perspective inmind, the traditional view (that the life, death,and resurrection of Christ is lithe most completerevelation that God has yet gr''ted to humankind )claims more than any individual can know. Oaimslike this won't attract new members or keep existingmembers from falling away: in a pluralistic worldany attempt to circle the wagons may alienate asmany as it attracts. Humility can be both more honest and more enriching if it helps move interfaithdialogue to ever deeper levels.

REFLECTION

Indeed thereis Christiantheologicalprecedent forinterfaithhumility.

1. What questions arise for you from reading and reflecting on this section2. Many New Testament texts are perceived by Jews as anti-Jewish. These tinclude Mat thew 27:25, Luke 21 :24, Acts 13:44-52, and many texts in theGospel of John that criticize the Jews. Do these texts or others in theTestament sound anti-Semitic to you when you hear them read in worsh

How should churches deal justly with biblical texts that appear to denigJews?3. When and how has the Church contributed to anti-Semitism?4. Classical Christianity saw the election of the Jews by God as having beesuperseded or replaced by the Church as the 'New Israel' (see box, pag26 . What have been the political consequences of this theological belie

Is it possible for Christians to' affirm that the Old Testament covenants hbeen fulfilled in Christ without implying that God has replaced one peo(the Jews) with another (the Christians)?5. Critics of the ideology and practices of the state of Israel have been chawith anti-Semitism. How has this charge affected attempts at interfaithdialogue between Christians and Jews76. In today's globalized pluralistic society, can any religion claim uniquenesand truth without claiming superior ity for itself and its believers? How

do we deal with Peter's words in Acts 4:12, There is salvation in no oneelse... , or with Jesus' words in John 14:6, No one comes to the Fatherexceptthrough me. 7

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FOCUSThe Covenant

Aarticu ar interpretation of the biblical Abra-hamic covenant has been instrumental inbuilding Western Christian acceptance ofthe notion that the ancient Jewish claimto land is superior to the Palestinians'present-day, ongoing claim. As American journalist I.EStone wrote in 1969,

there is a good deal of simplistic sophistry in the Zionistcase. The whole earth would have to be reshuffledif claims 2,000 years old to irredenta [i.e. a territoryhistorically or ethnically related to one political unit butunder the political control of another] were suddenly tobe allowed.l

The Covenant-based case for a modern Jewish state inPalestine has been useful even for those with little otheruse for religious belief. Historian nan Pappe observes thatthe secular Jews who founded the Zionist movementwanted paradoxically both to secularize Jewish life and touse the Bible as a justification for colonizing Palestine ...[lin other words, Pappe notes, they did not believe inGod but He nonetheless promised them Palestine. 2Zionists understood that, in an era when Europeancolonialism was beginning to wane, the secular politicalproject of establishing a Jewish colony in Palestine mightbe viewed unfavorably. By linking the Zionist political project to prophetic promises, many Jewish and Christianbelievers could be led to accept the Jewish state-buildingproject as not emerging from the human mind, but God's.Pappe explains:

[Tlhe Bible became both the justification for, and themap of, the Zionist colonization of Palestine ... [P]ortraying the dispossession of Palestine s the fulfillment ofa divine Christian scheme was priceless for galvanizingglobal Christian support behind Zionism.3In the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity, believersare granted special status. Like other communities, Jewsand Christians believe the sacred texts in which they aredescribed as partners in a special, privileged relationshipwith God (while, at the same time, unbelievers are not).Sacred texts, however, carry little weight with membersof other faiths. It is not surprising, then, that Muslims donot accept the _circular claim of Zionists that the Jews havebeen promised Palestine by God because Jewish sacredtexts say so.

THE COVEN NT

Regardless of whether one considers the creation of themodern Jewish state to be a perversion of prophecy or afulfillment of it, Israel exists. This, writes Daniel Lazare, isits present-day reality for the Jews and Palestinians whocohabit the land:In what is supposedly the only real democracy in theMiddle East, 97.5 percent of publicly held land in pre-1967 Israel is reserved exclusively for Jewish use; anda bizarre Law of Return allows any Jew immigrating toIsrael from anywhere in the world to apply for a government-subsidized apartment in East Jerusalem, therebydisplacing a Palestinian whose roots in the area go backgenerations'. For Zionists, this is perfectly compatiblewith Yahweh s supposed promise to Abraham somefour thousand years ago; but for anybody committed todemocratic principles, it is perfectly perverse.4

For many religious Zionists today, extremist and exceptiona list interpretations of Old Testament passages forma theological basis for considering Palestinians to beforeigners in the land that they and their ancestors haveinhabited for generations. For these same Zionists, it is anatural progression from considering Palestinians foreigners and aliens to promoting their expUlsion s appropriateand even necessary for the redemption of the land andrestoration to its rightful owners, the Jews.I F Stone's 1969 observation about the tragic consequences of Zionism's Jewish-centric beliefs holds true today, 44years after Stone originally wrote them:

This moral myopia makes it possible for Zionists todwell on the 1,900 years of Exile in which Jews havelonged for Palestine but dismiss as nugatory the nineteen years in which Arab refugees have also longed forit. Homelessness is the major theme of Zionism, butthis [pathos-laden] passion is denied to Arab refugees.S

Portraying thedispossessionofPalestine asthe fulfillmentofa divineChristian schemewas pricelessfor galvanizingglobal Christiansupport behindZionism

Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982) was a leader of Religious Zionism and founder of theGush Emunim settlement bloc. As head of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem,Rabbi Kook's ideology was influential in the development of the leading figures inthe Religious Zionist settlement project. Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, RabbiKook said, I have said and written that there is to be war about the fate of Judeaand Samaria, Jericho and the Golan Heights; no concession about these lands is permissible ....These lands do not belong to oyim [non-Jews); they have not been stolefrom goyim ... e must remind the government and people of the State of Israel thano concession of our land will be permitted. Gush Emunim faded in the 19805, butits ideological heirs-including members of the Israeli Knesset-continue to promota maximalist agenda that rejects territorial compromise.6

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5 . A Jewish Theologyof Liberation

Ifwe deny orremain silentabout the truth ofthese euents, pastand present, weremain complicitin this crime,

BOUT THIS SECTIONThis section is a condensedand edited version of anessay by Rabbi Brant Rosenentitled Rising to the Challenge: A Jewish Theology ofLiberation" in Wagner andDavis, eds., Zionism nd theQuest or Justice in the HolyLand. The author is a Reeonstructionist rabbi, Co-chairof the Rabbinical Council ofJewish Voice for Peace, andauthor of Wrestling in theDaylight: a Rabbi s Path toPalestinian Solidarity 2012.

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Rabbi Brant Rosen serves a Reconstructionist1 congregation in Evanston, illinois, andis co-chair of the Rabbinical Council ofJewish Voice for Peace. In his recent book,Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi s Path to PalestinianSolidarity, Rosen recounts f a powerful and sacredexperience."Jews and Palestinians met together inhis home on May 14, 2009, the 61st anniversaryof the Israeli declaration of independence. Theirpurpose was to remember the Nakba (Catastrophe),the displacement and dispossession from their landof hundreds of thousands of Palestinians before andafter the creation of the state of Israel.

Similar commemorative events took place onthe same night in four US cities, initiated by a newgroup, Rabbis Remembering the Nakba, who believe it is crucial that the Jewish community find away to honestly face the palnful truth of this eventand in particular, Israel's role in it." These eventstook place just as Israel was talking of banning thecommemoration of the Nakba in Israel. In 2011 theKnesset enacted a law cutting off funds to organizatios and institutions where the Nakba, the Palestinianday of mowning, is commemorated.

The following statement was read to the groupsassembled in each of the four cities:

Rabbis Remembering the Nakba ... are united inour common conviction that we canno t view YomHa atzmaut [Israeli Independence Day]-or whatis for Palestinians the Nakba-as an occasion forcelebration. Guided by the values of Jewish tradition, we believe that this day is more appropriatelyan occasion for zikaron (memory), cheshbonnefesh (soul searching), and teshuvah (repentance).These spiritual values compel us to .acknowledgethe following: that Israel's founding is inextricablybound up with the dispossession of hundreds ofthousands of indigenous inhabitants of the land,that a moment so many Jews consider to be theoccasion of national liberation is the occasion oftragedy and exile for another people, and that theviolence begun in 1948 continues to this day. Thisis the truth of our common history-it cannot bedenied, ignored, or wished away.

Jewish tradition teaches that peace and reconciliation can only be achieved after a process ofrepentance. And we can only repent after anhonest accounting of our responsibility in thewronging of others. While it is true that none ofthe Jews present ton ight were actively involvedin the dispossession of Palestinians from theirhomes in 1948, it is also true that if we deny orremain silent about the truth of these events, pusand present, we remain complicit in this crime. Ithe words of Rabbi Abraham Hesche , "In a ircesociety some are guilty, bu t all are responsible."Our gatherings this evening bring together Jewsand Palestinians in this act of remembrance.This coming together is an essential, courageouschoice. To choose to face this painful past togethis to begin to give shape to a vision of the futurewhere refugees go horne, when the OCCllPCltiollis ended, when walls are tom down, and wherereconciliation is underWay.2Here we have a rabbi, thoroughly immersed in

the Zionist tradition and a veteran of Israeli kibbutzlife, who comes to see the day of birth of the state oIsrael as a day of memory, soul-searching, and repeltance. It's a modem-day conversion story of a modeyet courageous rabbi wrestling with God aboLit themeaning of Zionism in light of what he calls"thctragic sto ), of Jewish political nationalism.'"

The story began with Rosen's reaction to Operution Cast Lead, Israel's 22-day war on Gaza in 20082009. On December 28 2008, he ended his blog powith these words:

So, no more rationalizations. What Israel hus beedoing to the people of Gaza is an outrage. It hasbrought neither safety nor security to the people

January 9 2009. A Palestinian woman and her child walk infront of the rubble of a building following an Israeli airstrikein the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, during Operation Cast lead.

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In October 2013 RabbiBrant Rosen (left)traveled with a delega-tion of American Jewsand Palestinians to theWest Bank and Israel. Inthe West Bank town ofBil'in. the deleg tes werehosted by Iyad Burnat(right), a leader in theBiI in Popular CommitteeAgainst the Wall. BiI inwas one of the early WestBank villages to orga-nize regular nonviolentdemonstrations againstthe wall that was cuttingthe village off from asignificant portion of itsagricultural land in orderto create a buffer aroundthe nearby settlement ofMod in II/it. By now, theweekly demonstrationshave been ongoing fornine years. An Oscar-nominated documentary,Five Broken Camerasdocuments BiI in s ongo-ing struggle.

We inevitablywitness religionat its very worstwhen faithbecomes weddedto empire whenreligion is usedy powerfulnations to justifythe subjugationofothers,

of Israel and it has wrought nothing but miseryupon the people of Gaza. There, I've said it. Nowwhat do I do7'Rosen tells of reading a book shortly after writing

this blog that shook his spiritual foundations. Thebook was entitled Justice and Only Justice: A Pal-estinian Theology ofLiberation by Anglican Can-on Nairn Ateek, founding director of Sabeel, theJerusalem-based Ecumenical Center for LiberationTheology. Rosen recounts how it touched him deep-lyas a spiritual autobiography as well as a faithfultheological statement. It caused him to look deeplyat his own inherited religious tradition. In responseto Ateek's challenge for theological dialogue, RabbiRosen began the journey of exploring what a Jewishliberation theology would look like.THE CHALLENGE OF PALESTINIAN LIBERATIONTHEOLOGYIn his important book, Justice and Only Justice, anonAteek, a Palestinian Israeli and 1948 refugee from hisancestral home in Beisan, Palestine ( now northernIsrael), identifies three ideological streams withinthe Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). First, the ribal-nationalist-separatist tradition of the conquest of

anaan and the establishment of Israelite kingshipso that Israel could become a military power likesurrounding nations; second, the Torah-oriented tra-dition of the Pharisees which evolved into RabbinicJudaism after the destruction of the Second Templein 70 c E ; and third, the prophetic tradition that rejected the idea of a tribal god in favor of Yahweh whonot only ruled over the world but would eventuallyredeem all humanity.' Ateek writes:

5 A JEWISH TH OLOGY OF LIBERATION

What is quite clear from a Palestinian Christianpoint ofview . .is that the emergence of theZionist movement in the twentieth century isa retrogression of the Jewish community intothe history of its very distant past, with its mostelementary and primitive forms of the concept ofGod. Zionism has succeeded in reanimating thenationalist tradition within Judaism. Its inspirationhas been drawn not from the profound thoughtsof the Hebrew Scriptures, bu t from those portionsthat betray a narrow and exclusive concept of atribal god.8Rosen reminds us that Ateek's criticism of Zi-

onism is not all that different from the warnings ofmany prominent Jewish leaders, both secular andreligious, long before the establishment of the stateof Israel in 1948. Hannah Arendt warned of a JewishSparta." Judah Magnes feared the rise of a terroristicnationalism patterned on Eastern E uropean models)O Nonethe1ess,Ateek's accusation that Zionismtoday represents a retrogressive primitive tribalismearned him the charge of anti-Semitism from theJewish establishment that today, says Rosen,"identifies Judaism as coterminous with Zionism.CONSTANTIN IAN VS PROPHETIC JUDAISMSince the Holocaust and the rise of the sta te of Israemost Jewish theologians have turned a blind eye tothe darker implications of the wedding of religionand state power in Israel. This marriage is nowreflecled in the liturgies of all four major AmericanJewish religious streams (Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist). Their prayer bookall include the Prayer for the State of Israel, whichbegins: Our Father Who are in Heaven, Protectorand Redeemer of Israel, bless Thou the Sta te of Israwhich marks the dawn of our deliverance 12 Rosennotes that even progressive theologians like RabbisArthur Waskow, Michael Lerner, and Arthur Green,who often criticize Israeli human rights abuses, areunwilling to deal with basic problems that arisewith what Rosen calls the"merging of Judaism withidolatrous political nationalism. 13

A rare exception to this trend is the Jewish theo-logian Marc Ellis. For Ellis, Zionism is a form ofConstantinian Judaism, mirroring the empowerment of the Church in the fourth century when theEmperor Constan tine established Christianity as thofficial religion of empire.14 Rosen sees Ellis framework as a reminder that

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religion has historically been at its best whenit acts prophetically, when it holds power toaccount, and when it is leveraged on behalf ofthe powerless, the oppressed, and the voiceless.Conversely, we inevitably witness religion at itsvery worst when faith becomes wedded to empire-when religion is used by powerful nationsto justify the subjugation of others.15For Rosen and Ellis, the state of Israel has become

the living embodiment of judaism as empire. 16For centuries Rabbinic Judaism served as a spiritualalternative to the venerat ion of human power. Tragically, says Rosen, Zionism has traded this uniquespiritual vision in favor of idolatrous nation-statismand militarism. A jewish theology of liberationwould recover the insight of I Samuel 8-that thehunger for national power

is in itself a kind of idolatry and a turning awayfrom God ... [And] it would affirm that when weput our faith in the power of empire, we may wellbe sowing the seeds of our own destruction.17

THE BIBLE ND LIBER TIONRosen recognizes that the Bible contains texts thatliberate and texts that oppress. A jewish theologyof liberation must lift up those texts that help us to

understand Jewish values as universal values andconnect jewish liberation with the liberation of all nations. Conversely, he asserts, we mus t recognize that

.. .those aspects of biblical and religious traditionthat espouse triumphalism, xenophobia, and theextermination of indigenous peoples are not thevoice of God at all, but are, as Rabbi Michael Lerner has suggested, the voice of pain and crueltymasquerading as God. lSThis means, among other things, that biblical

texts cannot e used to justify claims for the expropriation of Palestinian land. s Rabbi MordecaiKaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist judaism,has written

We cannot fall to recognize in the claims of jewishsuperiority a kinship and resemblance to thesimilar claims of other national and racial groupswhich have been advanced to justify oppressionand exploitation.

In the past colonialism, slavery, European persecution of jewry, as well as the Israelite conquest andexpropriation of the Canaanites, all used similarjustification.All claims to the superiority of the onerace, nation or caste .. [are] essentiallyvicious. 2o

Israeli Rabbis Stand in Solidarity with Palestinians

We must beprepared to readthe story o theExodus throughthe eyes o theIsraelites andthe story o theEisodus throughthe eyes o theCanaanites

October 2001, Haris, northern West Bank. Rabbi Arik Ascherman (left) co-founded the Israeli human rights organization, Rabbis

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for Human Rights (RHR), In 1988. Here, Ascherman joins a small group of Israelis providing the Palestinian residents of Haris witJewish huma n shield against violence from settlers during their olive harvest. RHR s positions are not popular with the Israeli puand the group has limited Impact on Israeli public opin ion. Nei ther the public nor the religious community are receptive to themessages, observes Menachem Klein, a political scientist at Bar Uan University in Tel Aviv. 19 The non-Orthodox streams of Judafrom which most of RHR s members are drawn have small followings in Israel and are widely viewed as foreign imports.

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.{

Referring to the concept of jews as The ChosenPeople, Rosen writes

To put it plainly, a voice that affinns claims oftheological superiority in the name of one peoplecannot be the voice of God. A voice that assertsGod's word to humanity was vouchsafed exclu-sively to the children of Abraham cannot be thevoice of God. A voice that looks to the messianicday in which all nations will ultimately serve theGod ofIsrael cannot be the voice of God.2

EXODUS (JOURNEY OUT), NOT ElS

Documents

Zionism Unsettled - Presbyterian Church [USA]