Blessing Both Jew and Palestinian

By the Reverend L. Humphrey Walz

Few delegates to the United Church of Christ General Synod in Fort Worth knew what to expect from Yezhezkel Landau, Executive Director of the Jerusalem-based Ozve Shalom peace movement, when his topic was announced as "Blessing Both Jew and Palestinian." Yet all were galvanized by his opening paragraph:

"Since the eruption of the intifada, the Palestinians have passed through an agonizing time of nation-building, testing their collective fortitude and self-discipline, and suffering an anguishing toll of human lives mostly young lives. For us Israelis, the uprising has been a time of trauma and testing, a time evoking instinctive defensiveness coupled with soul-searching. We Israelis wrestle with two fears: fear of the enemy without and fear of unleashed anger, brutality, racism and chauvinism within. Our repression will not break the Palestinians. They will grow stronger and more resolute. Who, if not Jews, oughtto understand that?"

In this setting, he cited Isaiah 1: 27: "Zion shall be redeemed through justice and those who return to her through righteousness." He commented: "It pains me that only Israelis on the secular left echo our prophetic tradition, the ethical part of the Torah, while those of the religiously observant communities are either silent on issues of justice, peace, and human rights, or worse, have actively perverted Judaism into chauvinism, territorialism, and pseudo-messianism."

Believing that Jews have certain divine claims to the "promised land," he counts himself a "religious Zionist." His accompanying beliefs, however, set him poles apart from the Zionism which the United Nations majority perceives as racism—and from the Israeli "religious" political parties which advocate such rights violations as deporting non-Jews.

"Jews," he told the General Synod, must not "forget that the covenantal promise linking the Jewish people forever to God's Holy land is conditioned by the demands of Torah ethics." He added: "For Jews, both religious and secular, the golden rule must govern Jewish rule. If we Israelis claim the right to self-determination and statehood, then we must honor the Palestinians' same right, so long as neither threatens the other's right."

Those familiar with either Prof. Marc H. Ellis' Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation or Canon Naim Ateek's Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (both Orbis books) may have been puzzled by Landau's concern lest "progressive Christians in North America, Europe and other parts of the world" be led by Exodus model liberation theology to perceive Palestinians simply as "innocent victims of greedy, militaristic Zionists." His own perspective, he declared, is that "Both the suffering and the power in this case are products of a century-long intercommunal war pitting two oppressed peoples against each other, with legitimate but opposing interests." For him, "It is not a question of retrospective blame or recrimination, but of both peoples' taking responsibility and demonstrating repentance for self-interested choices made over the years."

Regrettably, "Modern-day Israelis and Palestinians have not yet learned to share the Abrahamic blessing that promises, 'through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed... (Genesis 12:3). Still, he believes that ultimately a Palestinian and an Israeli state can establish an exemplary coexistence if each will take to heart the old Biblical summons to become "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6).

The priestly function, he emphasized in this connection, was "to mediate forgiveness through sacrifice," with peace as an expected outcome. The major sacrifice required of both parties will be to give up claims to parts of the contested land which he described as "the territorial extension of our own fearful, possessive animal bodies and human egos, both of which seek geographic guarantees ... for our very existence."

If you scrutinize his entire text (in, e.g., the Dec. 27 Christian Century) you may spot an occasional historical discrepancy or questionable Biblical interpretation. However, you will also hear his call to try to see one's "immutable enemy ... as a potential sibling and partner." And you will glimpse a vision of a new Jerusalem unified under two flags—"a heterogeneous community witnessing to a pluralistic monotheism—the greatest challenge to any devout believer of any faith, but the only healing path for Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land."

The Reverend L. Humphrey Walz, D.D., retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in denominational and ecumenical peacemaking movements.