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4/20/2002 (9:18) |
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What Christians Don’t
Know About Israel
Friday, April 19 2002 @ 06:13 PM GMT
By Grace Halsell
American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key
positions in all areas of our government where decisions
are made regarding the Middle East.
This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing
US policy? President Bill Clinton as well as most members
of Congress support Israel-and they know why. US Jews
sympathetic to Israel donate lavishly to their campaign
coffers.
The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East
policy might lie elsewhere-among those who support
Israel but don’t really know why. This group is the vast
majority of Americans. They are well-meaning,
fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel-and
Zionism-often from atavistic feelings, in some cases
dating from childhood.
I am one of those. I grew up listening to stories of a
mystical, allegorical, spiritual Israel. This was before a
modern political entity with the same name appeared on
our maps. I attended Sunday School and watched an
instructor draw down window-type shades to show
maps of the Holy Land. I imbibed stories of a Good and
Chosen people who fought against their Bad
'unChosen' enemies.
In my early 20s, I began traveling the world, earning my
living as a writer. I came to the subject of the Middle
East rather late in my career. I was sadly lacking in
knowledge regarding the area. About all I knew was
what I had learned in Sunday School.
And typical of many US Christians, I somehow
considered a modern state created in 1948 as a
homeland for Jews persecuted under the Nazis as a
replica of the spiritual, mystical Israel I heard about as a
child. When in 1979 I initially went to Jerusalem, I
planned to write about the three great monotheistic
religions and leave out politics. 'Not write about
politics?' scoffed one Palestinian, smoking a waterpipe
in the Old Walled City. 'We eat politics, morning, noon
and night!'
As I would learn, the politics is about land, and the
co-claimants to that land: The indigenous Palestinians
who have lived there for 2,000 years and the Jews who
started arriving in large numbers after World War II. By
living among Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian
Christians and Muslims, I saw, heard, smelled,
experienced the police state tactics Israelis use against
Palestinians.
My research led to a book entitled Journey to Jerusalem.
My journey not only was enlightening to me as regards
Israel, but also I came to a deeper, and sadder,
understanding of my own country. I say sadder
understanding because I began to see that, in Middle
East politics, we the people are not making the
decisions, but rather that supporters of Israel are doing
so. And typical of most Americans, I tended to think the
US media was 'free' to print news impartially.
'It shouldn’t be published. It’s anti-Israel.'
In the late 1970s, when I first went to Jerusalem, I was
unaware that editors could and would classify 'news'
depending on who was doing what to whom. On my
initial visit to Israel-Palestine, I had interviewed dozens
of young Palestinian men. About one in four related
stories of torture.
Israeli police had come in the night, dragged them from
their beds and placed hoods over their heads. Then in
jails the Israelis had kept them in isolation, besieged
them with loud, incessant noises, hung them upside
down and had sadistically mutilated their genitals. I had
not read such stories in the US media. Wasn’t it news?
Obviously, I naively thought, US editors simply didn’t
know it was happening.
On a trip to Washington, DC, I hand-delivered a letter to
Frank Mankiewicz, then head of the public radio station
WETA. I explained I had taped interviews with
Palestinians who had been brutally tortured. And I’d
make them available to him. I got no reply. I made
several phone calls. Eventually I was put through to a
public relations person, a Ms. Cohen, who said my letter
had been lost. I wrote again. In time I began to realize
what I hadn’t known: Had it been Jews who were strung
up and tortured, it would be news. But interviews with
tortured Arabs were 'lost' at WETA.
The process of getting my book Journey to Jerusalem
published also was a learning experience. Bill Griffin,
who signed a contract with me on behalf of MacMillan
Publishing Company, was a former Roman Catholic
priest. He assured me that no one other than himself
would edit the book. As I researched the book, making
several trips to Israel and Palestine, I met frequently
with Griffin, showing him sample chapters. 'Terrific,' he
said of my material.
The day the book was scheduled to be published, I went
to visit MacMillan’s. Checking in at a reception desk, I
spotted Griffin across a room, cleaning out his desk. His
secretary Margie came to greet me. In tears, she
whispered for me to meet her in the ladies room. When
we were alone, she confided, 'He’s been fired.' She
indicated it was because he had signed a contract for a
book that was sympathetic to Palestinians. Griffin, she
said, had no time to see me.
Later, I met with another MacMillan official, William Curry.
'I was told to take your manuscript to the Israeli
Embassy, to let them read it for mistakes,' he told me.
'They were not pleased. They asked me, ‘You are not
going to publish this book, are you?’ I asked, ‘Were
there mistakes?’ ‘Not mistakes as such. But it shouldn’t
be published. It’s anti-Israel.’'
Somehow, despite obstacles to prevent it, the presses
had started rolling. After its publication in 1980, I was
invited to speak in a number of churches. Christians
generally reacted with disbelief. Back then, there was
little or no coverage of Israeli land confiscation,
demolition of Palestinian homes, wanton arrests and
torture of Palestinian civilians.
The Same Question
Speaking of these injustices, I invariably heard the same
question, 'How come I didn’t know this?' Or someone
might ask, 'But I haven’t read about that in my
newspaper.' To these church audiences, I related my
own learning experience, that of seeing hordes of US
correspondents covering a relatively tiny state. I pointed
out that I had not seen so many reporters in world
capitals such as Beijing, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Paris.
Why, I asked, did a small state with a 1980 population
of only four million warrant more reporters than China,
with a billion people?
I also linked this query with my findings that The New
York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington
Post — and most of our nation’s print media — are
owned and/or controlled by Jews supportive of Israel. It
was for this reason, I deduced, that they sent so many
reporters to cover Israel — and to do so largely from the
Israeli point of view.
My learning experiences also included coming to realize
how easily I could lose a Jewish friend if I criticized the
Jewish state. I could with impunity criticize France,
England, Russia, even the United States. And any aspect
of life in America. But not the Jewish state. I lost more
Jewish friends than one after the publication of Journey
to Jerusalem — all sad losses for me and one, perhaps,
saddest of all.
In the 1960s and 1970s, before going to the Middle
East, I had written about the plight of blacks in a book
entitled Soul Sister, and the plight of American Indians in
a book entitled Bessie Yellowhair, and the problems
endured by undocumented workers crossing from Mexico
in The Illegals. These books had come to the attention of
the 'mother' of The New York Times, Mrs. Arthur Hays
Sulzberger.
Her father had started the newspaper, then her
husband ran it, and in the years that I knew her, her
son was the publisher. She invited me to her fashionable
apartment on Fifth Avenue for lunches and dinner
parties. And, on many occasions, I was a weekend guest
at her Greenwich, Conn. home.
She was liberal-minded and praised my efforts to speak
for the underdog, even going so far in one letter to say,
'You are the most remarkable woman I ever knew.' I
had little concept that from being buoyed so high I could
be dropped so suddenly when I discovered — from her
point of view — the 'wrong' underdog.
As it happened, I was a weekend guest in her spacious
Connecticut home when she read bound galleys of
Journey to Jerusalem. As I was leaving, she handed the
galleys back with a saddened look: 'My dear, have you
forgotten the Holocaust?' She felt that what happened
in Nazi Germany to Jews several decades earlier should
silence any criticism of the Jewish state. She could focus
on a holocaust of Jews while negating a modern day
holocaust of Palestinians.
I realized, quite painfully, that our friendship was
ending. Iphigene Sulzberger had not only invited me to
her home to meet her famous friends but, also at her
suggestion, The Times had requested articles. I wrote
op-ed articles on various subjects including American
blacks, American Indians as well as undocumented
workers. Since Mrs. Sulzberger and other Jewish officials
at the Times highly praised my efforts to help these
groups of oppressed peoples, the dichotomy became
apparent: Most 'liberal' US Jews stand on the side of all
poor and oppressed peoples save one — the
Palestinians.
How handily these liberal Jewish opinion-molders tend to
diminish the Palestinians, to make them invisible, or to
categorize them all as 'terrorists.' Interestingly,
Iphigene Sulzberger had talked to me a great deal
about her father, Adolph S. Ochs. She told me that he
was not one of the early Zionists. He had not favored
the creation of a Jewish state.
Yet, increasingly, American Jews have fallen victim to
Zionism, a nationalistic movement that passes for many
as a religion. While the ethical instructions of all great
religions stress that all human beings are equal, militant
Zionists take the position that the killing of a non-Jew
does not count.
Over five decades now, Zionists have killed Palestinians
with impunity. And in the 1996 shelling of a UN base in
Qana, Lebanon, the Israelis killed more than 100
civilians sheltered there. As an Israeli journalist, Arieh
Shavit, explains of the massacre, 'We believe with
absolute certitude that right now, with the White House
in our hands, the Senate in our hands and The New York
Times in our hands, the lives of others do not count the
same way as our own.'
Israelis today, explains the anti-Zionist Jew Israel
Shahak, 'are not basing their religion on the ethics of
justice. They do not accept the Old Testament as it is
written. Rather, religious Jews turn to the Talmud. For
them, the Talmudic Jewish laws become ‘the Bible.’ And
the Talmud teaches that a Jew can kill a non-Jew with
impunity.'
In the teachings of Christ, there was a break from such
Talmudic teachings. He sought to heal the wounded, to
comfort the downtrodden. The danger, of course, for US
Christians is that having made an icon of Israel, we fall
into a trap of condoning whatever Israel does.
Yet, I am not alone in suggesting that the churches in
the United States represent the last major organized
support for Palestinian rights. This imperative is due in
part to our historic links to the Land of Christ and in part
to the moral issues involved with having our tax dollars
fund Israeli-government-approved violations of human
rights.
While Israel and its dedicated US Jewish supporters
know they have the president and most of Congress in
their hands, they worry about grassroots America — the
well-meaning Christians who care for justice. Thus far,
most Christians were unaware of what it was they didn’t
know about Israel. They were indoctrinated by US
supporters of Israel in their own country and when they
traveled to the Land of Christ most all did so under
Israeli sponsorship. That being the case, it was unlikely
a Christian ever met a Palestinian or learned what
caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is gradually changing, however. And this change
disturbs the Israelis. As an example, delegates
attending a Christian Sabeel conference in Bethlehem
earlier this year said they were harassed by Israeli
security at the Tel Aviv airport.
'They asked us,' said one delegate, '‘Why did you use a
Palestinian travel agency? Why didn’t you use an Israeli
agency?’' The interrogation was so extensive and
hostile that Sabeel leaders called a special session to
brief the delegates on how to handle the harassment.
Obviously, said one delegate, 'The Israelis have a policy
to discourage us from visiting the Holy Land except
under their sponsorship. They don’t want Christians to
start learning all they have never known about Israel.'
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