The Gulf, American Indians, and the History of Middle East Peace-Making

By The Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

Three factors offered new perspectives for dealing with Middle East issues at the 203rd Presbyterian General Assembly held in Baltimore from June 4 to 13. The first was the challenge posed by Desert Storm for innovative, cooperative church study, stewardship and action at home and abroad. The second factor was interest by Native Americans in the Palestinians' plight, signified by the decision of the Indian Nations Presbytery to press for intensification of the denomination's related studies and programs. The third new perspective was contained in Paul Hopkins' compact, engaging 23-page essay (with 101 footnotes!) on "American Presbyterians and the Middle East Conflict." Made available to all comers at the Historical Society booth, it offered insights from the past on how a depth of friendship for both Jews and Arabs can either facilitate or complicate efforts to foster good will between the parties.

The following condensations and excerpts will suggest how that essay can be helpful for future planning and programming within and beyond Presbyterian circles.

Relations with Jews

Much beside their common roots in Hebrew scripture underlies the favorable predisposition toward Jews among US Presbyterians. Major national Presbyterian offices (including Hopkins' successive Africa and Middle East desks) are situated in New York City, which is also the locus of the world's largest Jewish concentration. There and elsewhere, Presbyterian and Jewish agencies and individuals have found it natural to work with each other on projects involving social justice, state-church relations and international affairs. During and after the Hitler years, the requisite expansion of traditional Presbyterian involvement in civil rights and also refugee aid made for even stronger Jewish-Presbyterian ties.

Presbyterians were prominent among the 1,200 Protestant clergy who, in 1933—the year the Nazis liquidated the German Republic—published their manifesto of "indignant and sorrowful protest against the pitiless persecution the Jews are subjected to under Hitler's rule." Persistent joint proclamations, prayers and appeals led to interchurch cooperation in fund-raising and organizing to rescue and resettle as many refugees, as possible from the rising German-Italian-Japanese Axis tide. When, in 1939, stymied by an anti-alien Congress, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to open our doors to emergency refugee immigration, it was to key religious leaders—Rabbi Stephen Wise, Archbishop Michael Ready and Presbyterian Rev. Dr. Samuel Calvert, Secretary of the Federal (now National) Council of Churches—that he turned for counsel and cooperation.

For another decade, the refugee efforts of many religious bodies in many nations continued to give top priority to the tormented Jews of Europe. Then, in 1948, the creation of the state of Israel reduced the pressures to gain Jewish refugees sanctuary elsewhere. At the same time, Hopkins notes, " Presbyterians faced a new challenge that would eventually bring friction into their warm and close relations with the Jewish community. " It involved, ironically, more refugees—this time Palestinian.

Relations with Arabs

Like most Americans, everyday Presbyterians knew virtually nothing about the swelling Arab exodus from Israel, except what was filtered through the news media by reporters unacquainted with the realities of the hastily prepared refugee camps or of pre-Israel Palestine. Like many other denominations, however, their church had, over a long period, maintained educational, medical and ecclesiastical missions in the Mideast. In Syria, Lebanon and Egypt—three of the five countries to which the newly displaced were fleeing for sanctuary—Presbyterian fraternal workers were among those who wrote home about the overpowering needs of these Palestinian refugees. Their Board of Foreign Missions summary to the 1949 Assembly included these consequent observations:

"One of the most acute areas of need for relief in the world lies in the Near East in connection with Palestinian Arab refugees, both Moslem and Christian. In making a home for displaced Jews, the Israelis have displaced an equal or larger number of Arabs from their ancestral homes, too often by highhanded methods. Relief work is being carried out by our missionaries ... but the problem of rehabilitation remains almost untouched. Strong feelings of injustices and bitterness remain in Arab lands, making missionary work more difficult, but Christian service is helping to remedy the situation. . . . "

Increased cooperation with and between the church, United Nations, governmental and other relief agencies did help bring available food, clothing, first aid, shelter and schooling up to tolerable levels. However, the unfulfilled need for an all-embracing political answer to the festering Arab-Israeli questions loomed over every related conference. It was not until their 1972 Assembly that Presbyterians could muster the solidarity of leadership and the informed supportive membership to permit taking their first public step in that direction.

The Struggle for Consensus

The special Middle East Task Force assigned to hammer out unanimous recommendations to that Assembly would have had little credibility if it had not included partisans of all stripes. Among these were Board of National Missions staff, whom the complexities of trying to end racial segregation and the Vietnam War had drawn ever closer to their counterparts in Jewish organizations. Their consequent obliviousness to Palestinian-related turmoil is reflected in the Dec. 19, 1968 statement by one BNM staffer (not on the Task Force) to the National Council of Churches Office of International Affairs:

"It has become abundantly clear that the Arabs hate the West, which to them means British and French colonialism ... Therefore the Arabs hate Israel ... Since the Arabs have made it their primary object in life to eject the West from their midst, they are determined to destroy Israel ... Egypt's President Nasser and the leaders of the USSR... have identical motives: the expulsion of the West from Arab lands. Hence they are allies and the Israelis are their common enemy."

Also on the Task Force were those who held to the 1950 conviction of the Syria-Lebanon Mission that "the struggle over Palestine has aroused the bitterness and resentment of the people and governments against the Zionist determination to change Palestine from a predominantly Arab to a strictly Jewish country. Much of the resentment has been directed against the US, which they hold to be largely responsible for the present situation."

Intense listening, individually and collectively, to a host of voices at home and abroad (all of them recognizing that "the 1967 war was a watershed in Jewish-Christian relations") produced a report on schedule. However, the 1972 Assembly felt that, while it had fairly interwoven contrasting viewpoints, it had inadequately harmonized them. So it sent the task force back to its task and distributed the report-bound in with relevant UN resolutions, World Council of Churches statements and a spectrum of essays to every congregation for local study and feedback.

The consequent mellower and more comprehensive statement, submitted to—and refined and passed—by the 1974 Assembly, spelled out an across-the-board understanding of the equal applicability of civil rights, self-determination, security needs and international law to all parties in all situations, including boundary drawing and protecting the varied religious interests in Jerusalem. Its standards have continued to be basic to Presbyterian pronouncements on new developments in and around the Middle East.

This "healthy convergence of the two streams of concern" Hopkins sees in the light of the Reformed faith and the long record of Presbyterian involvement with the people of the area rather than with "government, colonialist or nationalist. " Credit also goes to the recognition within the task force that "he who knows only one side of an argument does not even know that. " These attitudes led to appreciation of previously unrecognized factors like "the dissent within the Israeli community over treatment of Palestinians under Israel's rule. "

One unscheduled episode in October 1973 had been especially enlightening: the whole task force had landed in Cairo just before the Egyptian military attempt to dislodge the Israeli forces which had occupied Sinai since 1967. Amidst concurrent delays, "they had the opportunity to obtain in-depth exposure to the spirit of the Egyptian people. They began to understand something of the Egyptian desire for peace despite their involvement in the current war, and learned of the pre-war attempts ... rebuffed by Israeli leaders ... to involve Israel in negotiations for a settlement."

Eyes also were opened as individuals discussed their observations with "the organized American Jewish leadership" and found a seeming unwillingness "to consider opportunities and options which might lead toward peace."

The need for dialogue became increasingly apparent. So did the importance of the prophetic Hebrew faith with which Hopkins closes his slice of history: "Neither by force of arms nor by brute strength, but by my spirit! says the Lord."

(His entire text has been incorporated into Vol. 68, No. 3 of the quarterly American Presbyterians, 425 Lombard St., Philadelphia, PA 19147; $6.25 postpaid. Rabbis who read it reportedly become more amenable to dialogue with Presbyterians on Middle East issues.)

The Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, D. D., is a retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast.