THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT - SOME MORAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR CHRISTIANS

Introduction

The Focus

No one seems to have noticed: what was once the Arab-Israeli conflict has evolved, in the course of the last 20 years, into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Arab nations surrounding Israel have largely accepted the fact of Israel's existence, even if they still consider the Jewish State to be a bone in the gullet of Arab territorial continuity. Nevertheless, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians rages on, as it has for so long that there is a growing number of people who have no idea of the original form of the conflict. At the start of the conflict, the Palestinians were merely pawns in the hands of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, who choked at the fact of Israel's existence and corporately sought her extermination.

Many conflicting considerations, interests, religious, historical and assumed contemporary facts are enlisted by the various sides in defence of their views of the present stage of the conflict. Heated positions are vehemently held by both sides as to relative historical rights to the land, the need for a Jewish or Palestinian State, and the validity of each side's claims to political, territorial and economic integrity.

Some enlist religion to support their views. Among these are those who mistakenly perceive of the conflict as having primarily religious motivations. This is not to say that there are no religious aspects to the present situation in the Middle East. But the roots of the conflict are, rather, national and political.

Islam is one of the means by which the third world, deprived by its culture of the benefits (and grave shortcomings) of the nominally Christian West, seeks to assert its dignity. Islam as a pure religion, as a spiritual motivation, is largely no longer. It has, however, become the determining factor in pan-Arab nationalism.

Arab nationalism teaches, as Osama bin Laden reminded us, that all "infidels" are ultimately to be subjected to its claims, or destroyed. It cannot accept a Jewish and therefore non-Arab, non-Muslim State in the Middle East. We ignore Islam's animosity to our peril. In this capacity, Islam has an active role in the Middle East conflict. But it is not a primary factor in the nationalistic motivations of those who are presently in conflict with Israel. On this level my kind readers need to be reminded that Israel is – for good and for evil – a bastion of Western civilisation in the Middle East. Should Israel be destroyed, Islam would then turn on the rest of the world.

Many of the Christians who mistakenly perceive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be primarily a religious issue tend to rely heavily on
eschatological assumptions in the forming of their views of the conflict
and its resolution. By so doing they are rightly affirming that inevitable spiritual aspect mentioned above. I believe they err in focusing on eschatological issues instead of the main burden of the Bible.

I affirm – hopefully as a Christian and not because of my Jewish prejudices – that the gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable. God promised a specific piece of land to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Portions of that land are now contested by the Palestinians, while others are inhabited by the citizens of other Arab nations. I do not believe, however, that such facts should serve to form political or social programs,
especially in light of the further fact that God twice thrust the
descendants of the patriarchs out of the land because of their sin. In other words, eschatology was not given to serve as a Christian substitute for fortune telling. It is not meant to serve to inform Christians about "the signs of the times" so much as to inform us how we are called to live in God's world. My primary concern lies in the moral issues raised by the present conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
I write to and for fellow Christians. Our message is ever the same to both
Jew and Palestinian: Christ is coming. There will be a judgement day.
Take care how you live and how you treat both God and your fellow human.
You have sinned. Stand in awe, repent and believe the Gospel. This conflict must end. God is to be served more than our felt needs and wants. Fear God; turn from yourselves to him. There, and only there will you find peace for your souls and that form of righteousness that the human heart rightly craves, because men were created in the image of God. The legitimate goal of our lives is to be found in God, not in the satisfaction of our desires.

In All Fairness

In all fairness, it must be stated from the outset: I am not only a Christian; I am a Jew. I can therefore claim no more than a sincere effort to view things fairly. It will be up to my readers to judge the measure of success God has granted me in this effort. I long for the glory of the Lord, for his will to be done, for his law to be upheld and for his grace to be loved and cherished by all. Though Israeli, I wish my Palestinian fellow humans all of God's blessing, no less than I wish the same for my fellow Jews and Israelis.

Finally, it needs to be very clear to my readers that I do not presume to offer solutions to this complicated, excruciating conflict. My sole desire is to bring before you some of the moral issues that, I firmly believe,
should guide both sides to the conflict.

Historical Background

In the early 1800's, Palestine was largely vacant. The population did not exceed a few hundred thousand. There had been no independent national or political entity in the land since the catastrophic failure of Bar Kochba's revolt in AD 135.

Rising nationalism, the Napoleonic emancipation of the Jews and a fascinating Napoleonic attempt to establish a Jewish autonomy ultimately led to a renewed interest on the part of the Jews in returning to Palestine. Jewish resettlement of the land began. This in turn created an influx of Arab settlers from surrounding Muslim countries, who sought to take advantage of the promise held out by a developing country.

Nationalism impacted the slumbering and slowly awakening Middle East. Western Powers engaged in a struggle for influence over the area, particularly as its importance grew due to the discovery of oil. The Western powers played the Jews against the Arabs, encouraging the national aspirations of both, hoping to enlist their support in the envisaged conflict with Turkey.

In 1919, the British informed the then-organised Jewish community in Palestine that it recognised Jewish aspirations to the land and would facilitate them. In a letter to Baron Rothschild, a prominent Jewish leader and benefactor of Jewish national hopes, the then Prime Minister of Britain, James Balfour, said:

" His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

The First World War resulted in the expulsion of the Turks from the Middle East. Britain obtained Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq; the French acquired Syria and Egypt. Anxious to secure its hold in the Middle East, Britain made conflicting promises to the Arab nations. On July 24, 1922 the League of Nations gave Britain a Mandate to rule Palestine with the
avowed intention of granting a Jewish homeland in the country, as well as taking into account the hopes and needs of the then-larger Arab
population:

The Principal Allied Powers have agreed to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and,

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country; and

ART. 2. The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country
under such political, economic and administrative conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.

In spite of the clear terms of the mandate, the British Government now considered it more advantageous to keep the Jews at bay and to respond to demands made by Arab governments within its sphere of influence. The number of Jews allowed into Palestine was restricted and their economic and national aspirations curbed.

Various compromise solutions were formulated at British and League of Nations' initiative. The Jewish people accepted them while the Arabs did
not. The plan accorded the Jewish people 5,000 out of 26,5000 square
kilometres in Palestine, divided Jerusalem, proposed indefensible borders and left Jewish settlements in Arab areas and Arab settlements in Jewish areas. Only the Emir Abdullah, king of Transjordan, supported the idea of
partition. Nevertheless, the UN and the British Government decided to
implement the plan. Just before the final decision was made, Jewish Agency representatives David Horowitz and Abba Eban made a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise in a meeting with Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha on September 16, 1947. Pasha told them bluntly:

"The Arab world is not in a compromising mood…. You won't get anything
by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but
only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions."

1948 -1967

In May 1948, the British evacuated their forces from what had become ungovernable Palestine. The armies of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, supported by other Arab nations, invaded the land and the war broke out.
The Jews fought back and what are now known as the 1967 borders were established, in the form of armistice lines.

Some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled in the course of the fighting, some at their own initiative, some because they were driven out by the Israelis and some at the initiative of the Arab nations who invited them to make way for their armies to crush the fledgling Jewish State. The West Bank and Gaza, intended by the UN to belong to the Palestinian State, were transformed by Egypt and Jordan into gigantic refugee camps. No political expression, industry, infrastructure or educational system was permitted. At the same time, some 600,000 Jews were forced to leave Arab countries where they had lived for hundreds of years, in most cases with no more than the skin on their backs.

From 1967


In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel, with the hope of bringing an end to the Jewish State. Israel drove the attackers back, taking the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan Heights as it pursued the fleeing armies. In consequence, Israel was left with control over the Golan Heights, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and all of Sinai.

Since 1967, the Palestinian Arabs have been allowed to create an industry, establish Universities and elect their own Mayors, with electoral power being accorded equally to men and women. At the same time, Israelis – often contrary to governmental policy and in physical opposition to various Governments – established settlements in various parts of the West Bank and Gaza that were ultimately ratified by Israeli Governments, often after significant public or political pressure. The residents of these settlements stuck like a bone in the throat of the Palestinians, and often conducted themselves with premeditated provocation.

Israel held the Palestinians under firm military control, creating growing frustration. Successive Israeli Prime Ministers dismissed the Palestinian problem as if it were a figment of imagination. Efforts to establish peaceful relations under such circumstances were bound to fail. When negotiations finally got under way, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

Shimon Peres, Rabin's partner in the peace overtures, lost the next election due to a wave of terrorist outrages enacted by the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, elected in his place, treated the Palestinians with disdain, under-mining their national hopes and damaging their economy. No
meaningful hope of a reasonable political settlement was held out to
them.

Throughout this period the Palestinians provided blue-collar labour for the burgeoning Israeli economy while their own economy, void of infrastructure and sufficiently educated workers, grew at a snail's pace. This further increased Palestinian frustration.

Netanyahu was then replaced by Ehud Barak, who focused all of his attentions on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Conscious of his
own remarkable intellectual abilities, Barak was incapable of
considering that there are more than merely rational issues at stake, and that a gradual process might afford opportunity to allay mutual fears and grope for mutually acceptable solutions to stubborn areas of disagreement.
The Palestinian leadership was faced with an "all or nothing" proposal, at a time when it was unripe to consider it fairly.

It must be admitted: Barak made an extremely generous offer to the
Palestinians, including a Palestinian State, rights in Jerusalem, which could serve as the Palestinian capital, and friendly economic relations with Israel. To his and President Clinton's consternation, Mr. Arafat
turned the offer down because it did not include the Right of Return.
That is to say, it would not allow many hundreds of thousands of Arabs who fled Palestine in 1948, and their descendants, the right to return to what is now Israel.

Israel refused this demand because allowing hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians to join the 1,500,000 Israeli Arabs presently living in the
land would spell the demise of the State of Israel as a Jewish State.
Israel has further insisted that a population exchange has already taken place; with almost as many Jews fleeing Arab lands as Arabs fled Palestine.

Immediately following the breakdown of the talks between Barak and Arafat, what is now known as the Second Intifada (National Uprising) began. Barak lost the Prime Ministership and Ariel Sharon was elected in his place.

Sharon has made little progress in negotiating with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have continued their wave of terrorist attacks and, in response, Sharon has waged a firm war against them. The attacks have become increasingly vicious, indicating the widespread despair that has laid hold of the Palestinian people.

On their part, the Palestinians have not extended to Israel any grounds of
hope. Contrary to the agreements achieved, according to which they were
granted extensive autonomy and large tracts of land, they have smuggled arms, broken agreements, spoken out of both sides of their mouths, arrested terrorist leaders only to protect them from Israel, and then released them.

Extremists on both sides have worked hard at radicalising their societies.
They have been all too successful. They have also negatively impacted each other's respective culture, leaving little ground for goodwill or rationalism among the people.

Such is the bloody background of the present situation in the Middle East.

Nation and Statehood

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians now claim to recognise the other's right to establish a national political entity, and to do so within the confines of the narrow stretch of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan. The moral issue at stake is to what extent the claims of either side are to be believed.

Security and Viability


May one or either of the sides be trusted to accept the continued existence of the other State if both were to coexist? If both or either of the sides are judged to be untrustworthy, the next moral issue at stake is, how may that side be limited in terms of its ability to attack the other, without severely jeopardising that side's national sovereignty?

How can a militarily restricted state deal with other threats to its existence from the nations round about? Mutual or one-sided disarmaments could well render one or both of the states vulnerable to attack by another nation. The moral issue at stake is how to create a political situation that is not fraught with dangers that will ultimately realise themselves in this complexly sinful world?

Furthermore, there is the question of economic viability. Here the issues are a bit clearer, but no more promising. Israel has already proven itself. But can a Palestinian State, situated in the West Bank and Gaza, survive economically? True, the Palestinians are the most educated of all the Arab nations. But there are no natural resources in the West Bank and Gaza. With few and paltry exceptions, there is no infrastructure and no industry in the West Bank or Gaza, only a subsistence agricultural economy. The mountainous terrain is not conducive to either agriculture or the creation of an infrastructure at reasonable cost. The two sections of the State would be divided by a landmass belonging to Israel.

True, Palestine could develop its tourist industry. But what else could it do to survive? Serving as Israel's woodcutters and water drawers is not a viable option, and is in no way attractive. The world has yet to see a Muslim country whose people are lifted above the level of every-day misery, where there are modern medical and educational services, a democratic government and a free society. Would these factors not stick in the throat of the Palestinians once they have their own State, festering the potential of renewed conflict? What is the morally acceptable solution to this dilemma?

The Means Employed

Terror


As every child knows, the Jewish and Palestinian people are locked in an
increasingly vicious struggle. I sincerely believe that the more extreme forms of violence have always been at Palestinian initiative, and that most of Israeli violence has been in response. Israel has never engaged in killing civilians as a matter of policy, although many Palestinians have indeed been killed as an inevitable and tragic consequence of military
action. Experts in propaganda, and cynical to the umpteenth degree in
abusing Western na?vet?, the Palestinian terrorist organisations have complained of civilian casualties.

By way of contrast, in the month of March 2002 alone, Palestinian bombers and shooters killed 126 Israeli civilians, including elderly, women, children and babies. In per capita ratio, that is equivalent to 5,242 American casualties. What nation on earth can absorb such murderous attacks, without taking as extreme measures as are deemed necessary to put an end to them?

Israeli Misconduct


Most regretfully, there have been many Palestinian casualties over the years, and many cases of needless and unjustified Palestinian suffering.
Israel has often been callous toward the Palestinian people, their self-respect, even their basic needs of food, water and medical care. This is inexcusable.

Haaretz, Israel's most highly respected newspaper, carried an article on Monday, April 22, titled, Building the Terror Infrastructure (written by Gideon Levy). It records a series of Israeli misconducts, which provide a fertile soil for Palestinian terrorist response. One example is quoted
below:

Fares Smaha bought a new pair of shoes for the holiday last year. At the time, he was a fatherless 14-year-old boy. His older brother Ahmed was serving time in jail in Israel for theft; his sister had been sold into marriage to an old Bedouin in the Negev, and Fares was the breadwinner for his four younger siblings. He dreamed of throwing stones on the main road near his refugee camp, being wounded, and becoming eligible for $300 a month in compensation from what are known as the "Saddam Committees".
Meanwhile, he stole Israeli cars and was able to afford new shoes for the holidays.

His late father was a refugee from Zacariyyeh, his mother was a refugee from `Ajour, and his family was among the poorest in the Deheisheh refugee camp. No refrigerator, no washing machine, no table, and no chairs; a computer or CD player was beyond the reach even of his dreams. Underneath the television set were a few sacks of sugar, rice and flour: the only food in the house. No dairy products, no fruit, no vegetables, no sweets. Thus did the widow Halima raise her seven children. The only picture on the wall was a memorial poster for the 40 Palestinian children killed in the Intifada thus far. The Smaha children knew some of them. The surrogate father, young Fares, said to me then, of his conquerors: "They want us [to live as] animals." This was after his two younger brothers were unable to return home from their Hebron boarding school after soldiers stopped the taxi in which they were riding and wouldn't let it through.

"The soldiers have to understand that we're not cattle. We only want to live, nothing else. The soldiers have to understand that we're fighting them generation after generation and if we're killed, the next generation will fight them to the death. What can we do, that's our life. We're fated to live this way."

A year and a week after the article was published the family has kept its promise. A short time after the eldest son, Ahmed, was released from jail, he was arrested again on a more serious charge: transporting the suicide bomber who blew himself up in the Beit Yisrael quarter of Jerusalem, killing 10 Israelis and wounding 50. Despairing, with nothing to hope for, the poverty-stricken Smaha family is now part of the terror infrastructure.

Such a situation is not a matter of Israeli policy. It is the product of an ongoing vicious and violent struggle between Israel and the Palestinians. It is the evidence of the effect of the methods Palestinians and Israelis have chosen to use against each other.

International public must realise that there is another side to this shameful story: Israeli soldiers have been killed because they declined to
shoot at rock-throwing children. Israeli perpetrators of unprovoked
attacks against Palestinians have been brought to trial in Israel and punished, some of them even now sitting behind bars.

Some Palestinian civilian casualties are due to carelessness – or callousness – on the Israeli side. Some are the terrible consequences of
war. But a significant number of the Palestinians killed were planners
and executors of terrorist attacks.

Palestinian Misconduct

Palestinian responses have done little to encourage Israelis to believe in
a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Contrary to the agreements that
were meant to lead to a final negotiated settlement, the Palestinians have armed themselves to the teeth and have continued to use terror as a negotiating tool. The present conflict has barbarised both nations, and threatens to have still further such effect.

Evidence of this barbarisation is already evident in Israeli society, which is an often aggressive, unruly society in which the weak, elderly, ill and handicapped are neglected or despised. One hardly needs to describe the barbarisation that has taken place in the Palestinian camp. The news is daily full of almost unbelievable examples of mothers hailing their children, who committed atrocities.

The moral issue at stake is this: may Israel use her overwhelming military and political strength to selfishly promote her own interests, at any cost to the Palestinians? And may the Palestinians use their uninhibited abandon, their lack of respect for human life, to terrorise another nation into submission to their own selfish demands?

The answer to these two last questions is a resounding, unequivocal NO!
But how to bring an end to the conflict, I do not know. One thing I do know, both the Israelis and the Palestinians will One Day have to give account before God for the way they have treated each other and for the
methods they have employed in this conflict.

Ultimately, t
he Gospel holds the only solution. When men and nations come to realise that selfishness is a divine prerogative to which no human may claim; when they come to learn from the Gospel that the image of God is in every man, and therefore all men are to be cherished and honoured; when they learn to walk in the fear of God and to love their fellow man, conflicts can find their resolution.

That is why, above all, the Gospel needs to be preached to both warring nations in the Middle East. It is also why Christians should be wary of attaching their understanding of the Gospel to the political interests of either of the two nations.

The foolish, unrealistic search for perfect justice must end. There will be none such until Messiah comes. All we can hope for is a relative justice that will satisfy only some of the hopes of both warring sides and which will involve very painful concessions on both sides.

Apparently, such a peace will not be within reach until the sides come to realise that the use of physical violence will not enable them to crush the other, or until he who is coming shall come. Then the nations will beat their swords into pruning hooks, neither shall they hurt or destroy because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Even so, come Lord Jesus! Come!