Monday, June 04, 2012

To Our Christian Supporters

From a Christian supporter of the cause of the Arabs of the former territory of the Palestine Mandate, one Lynne Habels, comes this piece (she's co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, is author of Nice Girls Don’t Change the World and a columnist for Sojourners magazine. oh, and she began (!) her "education about U.S. foreign policy, Christian/Muslim relationships, and the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Holy land" last June, 11 months ago):

...there are also minority communities of evangelical and other Christians who are caught up in the conflict. This includes Jewish followers of Jesus in Israel who call themselves Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians in the West Bank. Sadly, the chasm between Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians is deep. The end-times theology espoused by Messianic Jews can be interpreted in a way that supports the state of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. At the same time, Palestinian Christians can become so focused on the hardship of living under oppressive military occupation that they forget the justifiable fear of violence that haunts Jewish residents as well.

International Christians, even those who try to honor the dignity of both Israelis and Palestinians, tend to be labeled as siding with one or the other...(At the March 2012 “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference in Bethlehem) Several keynote sessions were presented by Messianic leaders. “I’m here to ask you to help me make the journey to reconciliation and discover what it means for us to be united,” said Richard Harvey, a Messianic Jewish theologian, church planter, and evangelist. Wayne Hilsden, senior pastor of King of Kings Community, a Messianic congregation in Jerusalem, engaged in a public dialogue with Wheaton College professor Gary Burge about their theological differences. Messianic pastor Evan Thomas and Palestinian Christian Salim Munayer gave a joint presentation about their ongoing work to bring Jewish and Arab Christians together for reconciliation and peacemaking.

I will be asking Ellen Horowitz about those names.  Besides my aversion and opposition to a supposed relationship built on proselytizing and attempts at conversion or worse, a disingenuous attempt to meld two different religions, my political senses indicate that this is an undermining subterfuge by persons professing friendship and understanding and sympathy where there is none.

For those Christians who seek to support the reconstitution of the Jewish national home in the Land of Israel, especially in the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, that should be accomplished whether motivated by faith, historical consciousness, natural justice and legal principles because that is the correct path to take.  Because Jews have sought to do right and reach out to Arab enemies even under the most illogical of situations, most often to out own detriment.  Because our return in the modern era, beginning in the mid-1700s - the continuation of what we have always been doing throughout the centuries - did not seek to uproot, destroy or displace.  Because it is fulfillment of the religious and cultural literature that has established the most moral civilization possible.

Because it is good, and just and right.

And good and just and right men and women should be engaged in that support work, reaching out to the Jews of Judea and Samaria.

^

1 comment:

Alan said...

You want to have your cake and eat it too. You're willing to give the Schneerson-was/is-the-real-Moshiach wing a Lubavitch a pass and pretend that they're still Jews; but not to do so with those who fall in love with Jesus. This is an ACTUAL - well, not "racism", but maybe undue personal nostalgia for "yiddishkeit" ? This is just another example of the problems of defining a nationality based on a religious classification.... "who is a Hebrew" is answered with a lot more objective definitiveness (and a lot less opportunity for "donation"-induced attestations by Galut-nikkim rebbes, than "who is a Jew?"

Let the current Law of Return EXPIRE in 5 years; those who re-locate Artza before then can be grandfathered in; the rest have voted with their feet to NOT be part of Klal Yisrael.

It cannot be that Golanchikkim will be asked to sacrifice their lives to protect Satmars who only show up at Ben Gurion airport ==after== the Ukranians have kicked their ass, as recently happened!