Church Women to Learn More About Palestinian Christians

By the Reverend L. Humphrey Walz

A major annual Christian ecumenical event is the World Day of Prayer on the first Friday of March. Each year church women of one pre-selected area—for 1994, it's Palestine—are asked to prepare the worship materials for translation into various languages for joint Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant services in many lands. The lives of the women and the work of the churches in the chosen area, in turn, are examined in appropriate periodicals and study guides.

In anticipation of the 1994 observance, Churchwoman, published by Church Women United, 475 Riverside Dr., #812, New York, NY 10115, already has initiated a related series. The current issue contains an article by Galilee-born Episcopalian Afaaf Habiby, editor of Oklahoma Church Women.

Her article addresses the question, "Who Are the Palestinian Christians?" They are, she points out, not recent converts, but "the descendants of an indigenous people who accepted Christ and professed their faith against adverse circumstances." She continues:

"The Palestinian church is living and faith-filled, seeking peace and justice for all the inhabitants of Palestine. Its members witness to their faith in Jesus Christ and Palestinian Christian women, in particular, actively participate in the volunteer work of their churches and other organizations such as the YWCA.

"They help meet the mounting spiritual and material needs of people who suffer from fear, anger, unemployment, humiliation and who are arbitrarily punished with imprisonment and even death. Palestinian Christian women have always participated in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

An adjacent article in the same issue is by Deena Hurwitz of the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, CA. She writes:

"As a progressive Jew, I have something in common with Palestinian Christians. We are both on a certain level rendered invisible. Progressive Jews are left out of the "Jewish community," our perspectives and experiences uncounted, not legitimized because of our open criticism of Israel. And since in the West, Palestinians—indeed all Arabs—are perceived as Muslims and fundamentalists (read: terrorists) Palestinian Christians are neglected in a parallel way.

"But we also share something else: a refusal to be left out. We insist on being seen and heard, and our actions will make a difference. Taking part in a complex struggle means coming to terms with responsibility, and since every one of us deserves equal justice, every one of us must ensure that the 'other' has access to it as well. Taking part in today's world requires a certain faith that whether or not we are successful, we consider the task a great personal challenge demanding thought, action and prayer."

We have an added suggestion for increasing the influence of the 1994 World Day of Prayer preparations and follow-through: Encourage your local Church Women United to subscribe to the English language MECC News Report, published by the Middle East Council of Churches, P.O. Box 4259, Limassol, Cyprus. Its ten lively, fact-packed issues a year will cost them $25.

Baptist Peace Advocate Corrects, Supplements U.S. Media

Explaining what compelled him to produce his fifth volume on the Balkans, Alex Dragnich prefaces his 1993 Serbs and Croats: The Struggle for Yugoslavia with his conviction that "journalism . . . has been not only inadequate, but also often incorrect. . . and highly misleading. . . Other writers, equally ignorant of this history [have] repeated misinformation and questionable interpretations, and thus added to the confusion."

Daniel L. Buttry, director of the American Baptist Peace Program, like many other knowledgeable observers of the Arab-Israeli scene, reflects similar compulsions to correct much of what passes in the West for news coverage of the Middle East. Now back home in Valley Forge, PA, after addressing the Baptist World Alliance leadership conference in Cyprus, Buttry brings to his denominational Peace Letter the fruits of his conversations with his Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian and [Arab] Israeli co-religionists in Cyprus and Europe. Buttry writes:

"One Lebanese pastor told me about the destruction of his church and the church school. Syrian army units had taken them over to use as a headquarters. Both buildings were totally destroyed by Israeli aircraft using rockets made in the U.S. His congregation meets in a partially reconstructed area of the ruin, but the school which once served over 200 students is still closed."

And in a single passage in his latest Peace Letter, he brings home the multiple injuries to Middle Eastern Christians that result from the politicized theologizing of certain American tel-evangelists:

"The impact of Christian Zionism in the region has made the life of Baptists there especially tenuous. Most Baptists coming from the U.S. proclaim loudly that Israel's policies are part of the unfolding of God's plan for the end times, so Arab and particularly Palestinian Baptists frequently find unsympathetic ears among those with the same denominational label.

"At Bethlehem Bible College where I spoke in chapel, I was told that when the Palestinian evangelicals tell American Christians their stories of struggle and hardship under the Israeli occupation, the reply is that their theology is wrong. Such comforters were friends of Job! The Baptist World Alliance conference and my own speaking engagements in Israel and the West Bank were attempts to give an encouraging word and a presence of solidarity for sisters and brothers who live and witness to their faith in a very difficult context."

Buttry concludes:

"The witness for justice and peace is being clearly made, but the weight of fear and hatred on both sides is depressingly heavy. Unless the opportunity for peace now is met with serious and substantial steps of good faith, the ground for compromise and conciliation will disappear as despair leads to another round of bloodshed and sorrow. Jesus still weeps over Jerusalem: 'Would that today you knew the things that make for peace."'

Buttry took time out to wear another hat: As his denomination's official non-governmental organization (NGO) representative at the U.N., he sought out members of the U.N. peacekeeping forces stationed in Cyprus. In a separate report, he describes their personal friendliness, courage, competence and effectiveness under severe budgetary limitations. (Funding is voluntary and comes from only half a dozen countries.)

Complexities stemming from the 1964 civil strife and 1974 Turkish invasion have produced many Security Council resolutions but no final solution in Cyprus. Yet the volunteer civilians, soldiers and police of the U.N. Force in Cyprus have kept things relatively stable for most of the last 39 years while they wait for a peace agreement between the Greek Cypriots in the south and the Turkish Cypriots, backed up by Turkish soldiers occupying the northern third of the Mediterranean island. Their spokesperson, Polish diplomat Wademar

Rekoszenski, and information officer Col. Richard Heaslip of Ireland gave him guides, for a half day each, from Austrian and British military personnel and police from Finland, Sweden, Australia and Ireland.

Barred Jerusalem Pastor Speaks Up in Exile

The summer issue of the international Baptist Peacemaker newspaper features a full-page article on the plight of the Palestinians. The author, United Methodist Rev. Alex Awad, is the Jerusalem-born U.S. citizen barred (as our June issue reported) by the Israelis from returning to his native city to serve its First Baptist Church as pastor. Now he informs Americans about the role their tax dollars play in financing Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

Rev. Awad writes:

"Today, the Palestinians are suffering no less than at any period in their history. All the talk about peace has not brought them any reprieve. Their land is still rapidly being confiscated to build settlements for Jewish immigrants.

"Their leaders continue to be deported without due process of law. Their water resources continue to be stolen and given to those who are robbing them of their land. Their refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be assaulted by Israeli settlers and soldiers. Innocent men, women and children in refugee camps in South Lebanon are periodically and mercilessly targeted for bombardment by the Israeli air force.

"Frequent curfews, forced closings of educational institutions, travel restrictions and economic discrimination have all been used by the Israeli military government to pressure Palestinians to abandon their homeland. Despite such cruelties, which threaten the vision of their survival as a free and independent nation, the bulk of the Palestinian people and their leaders, both in occupied Palestine and in exile, have made a definite commitment. . . in favor of nonviolent measures leading to peaceful coexistence with Israel."

Awad expressed special appreciation for those Israelis who have consistently denounced the Israeli government's abuses of Palestinian human rights. Such Israelis call for an end to military occupation, advocate dialogue with the internationally recognized representatives of the Palestinian people (the PLO), and advocate a two-state solution in which Israel shares borders with an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

However, Reverend Awad believes, "the voices of the Jewish peace camp and the Palestinians will continue to echo aimlessly...until the Christians in the West—and especially in the United States—take their moral and spiritual stand with those who still agonize and continue to struggle. . . to influence politicians and governments to achieve a peace settlement that neither side would regard as too great a compromise."

Lebanese Churches Plead for Chance for Reconstruction

For all of Lebanon's Christians, Muslims and Druze, the Israeli naval, ground and aerial bombardments of late July were frighteningly reminiscent of the 1982 invasion. The timing, however, was especially poignant for Lebanon's Synod of Catholic Bishops. The bombardment began barely a month after that body's adoption of an ambitious final "Outline for a Special Assembly on Spiritual Renewal." The study had been stimulated by Pope John Paul II and guided by Archbishop Ian Schotte, "in view of . . . the reconstruction of the country after 16 years of war."

Although the event is conceived as a Catholic one, the "Outline's" introduction recognizes the need for interfaith collaboration. Bluntly it states:

"To rediscover the profound roots of their faith and to liberate themselves from all obstacles to live Christ's message consistently and in an authentic manner is not something Catholics can do on their own. They have to walk together with the Orthodox churches and with the Protestant ecclesial communities. Together they carry the responsibility to be witnesses of the love of the Lord. Cooperation is necessary, too, with all other artisans of the reconstruction of Lebanon, in particular with the Muslims, in order to invite them to work together at the reconstruction of the country."

That reconstruction has been inestimably set back by the renewed destruction, displacements and suffering resulting from indiscriminate Israeli bombings of Lebanese towns, villages and refugee camps in "reprisal" for the growing anti-Israeli violence of Hezbollah and other militias. Meanwhile the Catholics of Lebanon, along with all other members of the Middle East Council of Churches, stand by the MECC's July 28 "call upon the international community through the United Nations to put an end once and for all to such Israeli policy, and force [Israel] to resort to constructive dialogue for peace instead of war."

Mercy Corps International, a conservative American Protestant group, adds a text from lames 3:18 ("The harvest of justice is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace") to its related plea: "We urge that all parties to this present crisis be brought to the negotiating table under the authority of U.N. Resolution 425. We pray that the devastation of southern Lebanon will call forth a renewed commitment from all governments, including our own, to work for a just, durable, impartial and internationally accepted peace."

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