Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1999, page 71

Pro-Israel McCarthyism

Attempt to Halt Creation of Canadian Chapter of Christian Ecumenical Friends of Sabeel Rebuffed

By Betsy Barlow

At a conference entitled “Truth and Reconciliation: Voices for Peace in the Holy Land,” held in Ottawa Nov. 8 to 10, Canadians from several different denominations and geographic locations voted to form their own Canadian chapter of Friends of Sabeel, an organization in support of the ecumenical center for Christian Liberation Theology in Jerusalem.

The conference, sponsored by Friends of Sabeel–North America and the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, was opposed by the Canadian Jewish Congress. In a letter addressed to an official at the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), Rabbi Reuven Bulka, chair of the Religious and Inter-religious Affairs Committee, and Harold Brief, chair of the Israel Affairs Committee, both of the Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote that “From our perspective...there are numerous problematic aspects to the ‘Palestinian liberation theology’ which underpins Sabeel and are reflected in the agenda of the November conference. We believe that a conference weighted against Israel does nothing to advance the cause of Palestinian Christians. In our view, a conference purporting to represent ‘voices for peace in the Holy Land’ should include a broader spectrum of panelists and speakers if it is to have any credibility....

“In the spirit of interfaith cooperation, Canadian Jewish Congress would have appreciated the opportunity to discuss this matter beforehand....We respectfully appeal to the ACC, however, not to contribute any funding for this conference. Even nominal financial support would convey a message of endorsement of this event, a step we believe would ill-serve the Anglican Church of Canada. We urge the Anglican Church of Canada to distance itself from the FOS-NA and their upcoming conference altogether.” After the letter was received, the ACC made a generous donation to the conference.

Rosemary Ruether, a widely published American Catholic feminist theologian who teaches at Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, spoke on “Christianity and the Future of Israeli-Palestinian Relations.” She pointed out that “the real meaning of the official U.S./Israel ‘peace process’ is a process of entrapment in an apartheid system that encloses Palestinians in their ghettos, denying them the possibility of real autonomous development. Yet there seems to be no way to legitimately regain a voice to protest this trap or to define an alternative that can be heard by the international community.”

The Christian community, both Palestinian Christians and Western Christians in communication with them, she argued, could play a vital role in helping regain a legitimate voice of protest for the Palestinians and a quest for genuine alternatives. But this mediating role has been largely blocked by the gullibility of most Western Christians toward the chimera of the “peace process.”

Repentance vs. Adulation

She further argued that while Christians should repent of past anti-Semitism, unfortunately this task has been “construed primarily as a Christian duty of uncritical adulation for the state of Israel....

“Christian repentence for the Holocaust and anti-Semitism has been effectively distorted into a silencing of Western Christians in regard to Palestinian human and civil rights, a view carefully nurtured and reinforced by the Jewish Zionist establishment in North America especially,” Reuther declared.

“Why are Western Christians so unable to recognize what they are doing? Why is injustice to Palestinians so invisible or unimportant to them? Why do they imagine they are rectifying an injustice to one people, the Jews, that took place in a totally different historic context of Europe, by keeping silence about the ongoing destruction of another people, the Palestinians?”

Professor Farhang Rajaee, associate professor of international relations at Carleton University in Ottawa, focused on the issue of Jerusalem, and proposed a method by which the city could be shared.

Marc Ellis, professor of American and Jewish studies at Baylor University, referred to the terrible mistreatment of Jews by Western Christians at the time of the Holocaust, but stated that this event should not be used to justify the permanent occupation (and mistreatment) by Jews of another people—the Palestinians.

A member of the Canadian Jewish Congress in the audience questioned the conferees’ right to mention the Holocaust. Professor Ellis, who is Jewish, answered that anyone who would invoke the Holocaust in order to silence consideration of the abuses of Palestinians by Israel was a thug. He told the mainly Christian audience that he could understand why Israeli apologists tried to silence them, but he could not understand why Christians supposedly concerned with issues of justice and also the well-being of their Christian brothers and sisters in Jerusalem would allow themselves to be silenced in this way.

Further panels discussed possibilities for Christian education, travel opportunities, networking with nongovernmental organizations, and organization for future work.

Canadians interested in participating can reach the Friends of Sabeel–Canada chapter by contacting the Rev. Robert Assaly, Box 516, Winchester, Ontario, Canada KOC 2K0.