PLO Recognition Urged By British and Dutch Church Councils

By L. Humphrey Walz

Both the Council of Churches in the Netherlands and its British counterpart have almost simultaneously published reports filed by high-level delegations back from official visitations to the Middle East.

The British Council of Churches' paper, entitled Impressions of the Intifada, builds up to the recommendation that "as opportunity allows," the Israeli authorities should be pressed to "exercise power responsibly, to recognize the representative role of the PLO, and to accept the need for a negotiated settlement within an international context." It asks constituent congregations to support their government's stance in this matter "to break the impasse in the peace process, and to encourage it to use its influence with the US government to expedite" the international conference proposed for that purpose.

A Show of Solidarity

The Dutch report is less political in tone, the visit having been intended simply "to show solidarity with our Palestinian fellow Christians, and the Palestinians in general, and to gain a clear insight into their situation." However, the delegates did spend two full days under the supervision of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which refused to meet with them otherwise. At the end of their guided tour, they had the impression that "Jewish Israelis have a strong feeling that they have been and still are abandoned."

"Palestinians are not fundamentally hostile towards Jews."

The Hollanders' attempt to meet and check this out with the chief rabbinate was unsuccessful, but their contacts with other Jews, including some in the Israeli peace movement, made them aware of a wide range of other views within Israel which have been I causing considerable internal tensions." They also itemize examples of Israeli violations of human rights they encountered during their visit, despite which, so far as they could see, "Palestinians are not fundamentally hostile towards Jews." This fact provides hope for a possible "future peaceful coexistence of a Palestinian and a Jewish state."

The Dutch report includes two especially somber notes: "The humanitarian situation in Gaza is in crucial need of attention from Dutch NGOs and development organizations," and "...the Palestinian Christian community ... in Jerusalem ... seems strongly decreasing."

Individual members of the British delegation have added personal comments consonant with emphases in the Dutch report. Anglican Bishop Samuel Poyntz speaks warmly of the Arabs and Jews who are courageously coming together and trying to build bridges of reconciliation despite the cost, noting that "it is such people who hold the key to the future and for them we must pray."

Methodist delegate Reverend John Reardon has reinforced the Dutch indications of Israeli government obstacles to access to ordinary Israeli people. He adds that, back home in Britain, pro-Zionist voices in the Council of Christians and Jews are also handicapping open dialogue on the Palestinian issue.

Are Messianic Jews Not Jewish?

Shirley and Gary Beresford are Messianic Jews. They count themselves as no less Jewish for believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah ("Christ" in Greek) foretold in Hebrew scriptures. They were dismayed, therefore, when, on Dec. 25, 1989 the Israeli High Court ruled that, as "Nozrim" (followers of the Nazarene), they were ineligible for the right of automatic citizenship they had applied for when they moved to Israel.

Justice Elon subsequently told the press: "The Jewish people has decided during the 2000 years of its history that Messianic Jews do not belong to the Jewish nation and have no right to force themselves on it. Those who believe in Jesus are, in fact, Christians."

In the current issue of the Jews for Jesus Newsletter (60 Haight St., San Francisco, CA 94102), Rev. Moishe Rosen traces the roots of the High Court Christmas day ruling back to the first century. "In the first three decades of Christendom," he writes," virtually all Christians were Jews. Belief in Jesus was gaining ground in every Jewish community. Then, in 70 A.D., conventional Jewish worship was disastrously ended with the destruction of the Temple," in Jerusalem. There being no longer a central place for sacrifice and atonement, the churches' emphasis on atonement through Jesus as Messiah filled the void for many Jews.

Some twenty years later, a council of rabbis meeting in Yavneh (=Jabneh =Jamnia) tagged those who accepted this doctrine as "Minim" (variously translated "heretics," "defectors," or "traitors") In one of its 12 recommended prayers the council passed along these sentiments toward them: "May the apostates have no hope, may the dominion of wickedness be speedily uprooted in our day, may the Nozrim and the Minim quickly perish and not be inscribed together with the righteous."

The Anti-Missionary Law

The survival power of this mentality became evident in the "Anti-Missionary Law" passed by the Israeli Knesset in Christmas week, 1977, to take effect in Easter week, 1978. Charging unspecified church bodies with "exploiting the difficult economic situation" in Israel to "ensnare souls" into the Christian fold, it made it a criminal offense—punishable by five years in prison or a fine of 50,000 Israeli shekels—to offer any benefit that might lead anyone in Israel toward conversion. The sentence for a convert in such circumstances was rather lower: three years in prison or a 30,000 shekel fine.

A wide spectrum of Jews in Israel and abroad backed the United Christian Council in Israel (UCCI) protest against the sweepingly vague wording of the law as a threat to "the survival of freely expressed Christianity in the land of its birth." They asked for Israeli governmental rejection of the "calumny, slander, libel and incitement to hatred" expressed in the Knesset to secure passage of the law. Furthermore, they appealed for an international commission of inquiry to look into the overall situation.

Nonetheless the law is still on the books and could have been enforced against the Beresfords had their acceptance of Jesus as Messiah taken place in Israel. Inflation since 1977 has reduced the Israeli shekel to less than a thousandth of its worth then, so the designated fine is hardly a worrisome threat. However, Israeli punishment of prisoners, especially of those deemed non-Jewish, has reached agonizingly sophisticated levels and must be a significant deterrent to Israeli Jews contemplating becoming adherents of Christianity or any other faith.

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