Jews, Palestinians, And a Divided Christian Community

Recently, The Institute of Religion and Democracy began wondering whether mainstream Protestant denominations are tilting toward anti-Semitism. Four groups in particular --- Presbyterians (USA), Episcopalians, United Methodists, and Lutherans (Evangelical) --- look suspicious to the Institute, primarily for how they criticize human rights abuses world-wide, often through the World and National Councils of Churches. What arouses the suspicion is not the clearly justified criticism itself. The issue for the Institute is the disproportionate criticism of Israel by leaders of these four denominations and two Councils, in comparison with their less frequent and softer criticisms of nations such as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and Sudan.

The Institute's concern is worth a closer look. This country has for a very long time given preferential treatment to Israel in the Middle East, through both liberal and conservative administrations, and in the process has devalued Palestinians' legitimate claims to respect, land, and opportunity there. Israel's egregious violations of the Camp David accords by building settlement after settlement in the West Bank (when you see them for yourself you'll know exactly what I mean) typically arouse very little ire from our leaders. And conservative Christian churches continue to proclaim from the steeple tops Israel's never-annulled role in the salvation process itself. If, then, there is now a credible anti-Israel sentiment building in our churches, that would constitute big and important news.

Recent polling data (more reliable than what's been coming from political pollsters) shows pretty well that (a) liberal mainstream Protestants ("liberal" by their own designation) have gradually been moving away from the view that the United States should favor Israel's cause and people over those of the Palestinians, and that (b) in the process they have been arguing for stepping up criticism of Israel's violations of Palestinian rights. All this in spite of the Palestinians' own terrorism in the form of suicide bombings and incitements to violence in general.

It is interesting that liberal Protestants may now be aligning themselves more closely with the position on Israel that Roman Catholics have maintained consistently for some time. Since conservative Protestants (again, self-designated) are likely to remain more favorable to supporting Israel, the beginning of a widening division among Christians on the Arab-Israeli conflicts in general could have a growing influence on foreign policy decisions in the next administration. How the Catholic/Liberal Protestant alliance plays out against the Conservative/Fundamentalist Protestant one may have new and major effects on more Middle East strategies than just our approach to the Palestinians.

What seems to be getting most deeply under the skin of the Institute of Religion and Democracy is the dominance of liberal leadership in the mainstream Protestant denominations. The Institute is right in noting that the rank and file members of these denominations include conservatives and moderates who are less critical of Israel than their liberal counterparts are, and that their leaders have become. But the Institute is almost certainly wrong in conjecturing that liberal Protestants might become full blown anti-Semites. A closer look at what their leaders in particular have been saying makes plain that the attacks on Israel's policies and actions toward the Palestinians does not in any way come from anything like a growing hatred of the Israeli people. It comes from an urgency to hold Israelis accountable for the shocking incongruities between their purported values and their concrete actions. In essence, liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics are holding Israel to a higher standard of behavior than they are now applying to other nations, and arguing vehemently for the appropriateness of doing so.

Why? Because Israel's place in the world requires it. A nation that has known oppression, slavery, and persecution first-hand for millennia, as part of a divine plan, simply has no business imposing any of the same on those over whom it gains power, both within and beyond its borders. From at least the eighth century B.C.E., the Hebrew peoples' greatest prophets saw this with stark clarity, as they did the divine-ordained relationship between the peoples' troubles and the peoples' apostasy. Their prophesying had less to do with predicting than with interpreting the future: bad things will continue to happen because God wills them to happen, and God wills them to happen because his people have not been faithful to their covenant obligations. Israel's right to exist is a God-given right to exist as a covenant people, not as a conquering nation belligerent toward its enemies and paranoid about the loyalty of its friends.

And what of America's "right to exist?" It should be keeping us awake at night to contemplate that America, too, has divinely-defined conditions that God expects us to meet. And that posturing too much like the ways Israel is posturing may not be the best way to meet them.