Washington Report, November 1988, Page 17

Religion and the Middle East

By the Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

Presbyterian Empathy for Arabs Derided

A resolution prodding the US government to press more effectively for Palestinian-Israeli peace, adopted by the 1988 Presbyterian General Assembly, gave Kansas City Times editorial writer Steve Winn a target he seemed to relish. With a zest matching only that of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Israeli lobby in Washington, and with some of its familiar emphases, he faulted the Presbyterians for pointing out "the brutal nature of Israeli responses to Palestinian protests" while "ignoring Palestinian terrorism." He called the Presbyterian document not evenhanded in encouraging the US to restrain Israel from mounting "disproportionate retaliation upon other countries," while failing "even to mention Iraq's use of poison gas."

Whether or not Winn has since studied the abundant lack of evidence behind the Iraq gas stories and publicly modified his stance on that issue, one of our Kansas City readers might help his global education with a copy of page 51 of the October Washington Report ("Iraq and Iran: Rush to Judgment").

Regarding the tragic and costly Palestinian-Israeli hostilities, earlier Presbyterian resolutions had stressed the urgency of supporting the peace seekers who, although unsubsidized by US governmental aid, are numerous in both camps. Since, however, it is officials who set policies for nations, attempts have been made to discuss related problems with the Israeli authorities. These have generally proved unrewarding.

When, for instance, an interdenominational team of American doctors and lawyers, with Presbyterian Arizona attorney Bates Butler as spokesman, went to Jerusalem in July and August to investigate the credibility of accounts of Palestinian prisoners held illegally in unsanitary conditions at the Israeli detention camp at Keziot in the Negev, known to its thousands of Palestinian detainees as Ansar III, no appropriate Israeli official would meet with them, let alone allow them to visit that desert prison. Perhaps Mr. Winn would have better luck.

More disconcerting is Winn's use of the AIPAC formula for keeping Jews afraid for their long-range security anywhere but in Israel while, at the same time, deflecting corrective criticism of those Israelis who are leading their country to economic, political, social, and moral disaster. Quite succinctly, he stated: "Given the long and dreadful history of Christian behavior toward Jews, Christians should speak with more care when they tell Jews how to behave."

Expectedly, AIPAC was ecstatic and quoted Winn's editorial at length in its August 20 Near East Report, which then went on to suggest that the Presbyterian statement was motivated more by self-interest than moral considerations. "There are some Arab Presbyterians and some church institutions in the Middle East," said Near East Report. "The resolution might have been meant to buy them a little protection in the Arab-Islamic world at Israel's expense."

In fact, the Presbyterian statement is justified both by Christian morality and by concern for Christians and their institutions in the Middle East.

The Israeli invasion of south Lebanon in 1982 wrought some $3 million in damage to the Sidon Presbyterian Boys' School where, for a century, Muslim and Christian youth had studied and played side by side. The sister school for girls suffered less damage but had to close because of neighborhood devastation.

Further north, the Israeli navy in 1982 shelled the hospital of the American University of Beirut (founded in 1866 as the Syrian Protestant College by Congregationalists with Presbyterian backing). This was followed shortly by the 18-hour saturation bombing of West Beirut (which President Reagan called a "holocaust"), which strained other church-related institutions to the limit. Beirut University College (founded and funded by Presbyterians) turned over its dormitories and other buildings for use as emergency shelter for survivors. The nearby ecumenical (including Presbyterian) Near East School of Theology transformed its facilities into a surgical center for hundreds of casualties of all ages and both sexes. Hopefully the reader begins to see the point.

Because Winn's attack was on a single denomination, I trust that other churches—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—will forgive me for not recounting their own ordeals along the same lines. Several of them, incidentally, were represented at the national Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference, held October 17 to 20, in Montreat, NC, where the Rev. Walter Owens by led a workshop entitled "Toward Understanding US Foreign Policy in the Middle East."

Jordan Times Hails US Interfaith Peace Efforts

Rami Khouri, editor of the Jordan Times, has commended the US Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East as "novel in one sense and, in another sense, the culmination of 5,000 years of moral/ethical ideas ... The example of Jews in the US supporting the Palestinians' right of self-determination and the need for an international conference and the example of Muslims supporting Israel's right to security strengthens my voice in the Middle East to say extremism and violence are not the way."

(The committee has just recently moved from New York to Greene and Westview, Philadelphia, PA 19119.)

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