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"The
most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news
and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from
MER.
It is
indispensable!" - Robert
Silverman - Salamanca,
Spain
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CHRISTIANS in the once HOLY LAND
The Archbishop of
Canterbury should stay home
"The
Palestinian Authority (PA) is perceived...as a pitiful entity....
The
ongoing
contacts between PA officials and Israelis...have
turned the PA
officials into despicable collaborators."
23 March, Ha'aretz
Mid-East Realities - MER -
www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 3/26/2004:
Let's
start at the end here. Rather than be associated with 'despicable
collaborators', rather than make another pretend visit to the
Palestinians as did the Pope a few years ago, the sometimes outspoken
and courageous Archbishop of Canterbury should wise up, realize how he
is being used and abused by weak-minded Christian Palestinians
associated with the despised PA, and stay home rather than attend the
Sabeel conference
as keynote speaker in Jerusalem next month.
 Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, is scheduled to give the keynote address at the Sabeel
Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center Conference in
mid-April. The next evening the much-despised
and grossly corrupt Nabil Sha'ath is the featured speaker.
Now
let's backup and explain.
A few
years ago the Pope of Rome made his first visit ever to a Palestinian
refugee camp. Though the conflict had been raging for
generations, the Pope had somehow not made such a visit before, even
though the refugee camp he decided to finally visit is walking
distance
from Bethlehem.
The Pope made his visit in coordination
primarily with the Israelis and the U.S. just in advance of what was
supposed to
be the
'final agreement' with the Palestinians. Apparently the Pope
wanted to be able to say for histories sake that he had really been on
the side of the
downtrodden and dispossessed Palestinians all along, though there had
been few tangible signs of such Vatican concern over the many
years.
For those who have
forgotten, and those who are understandably confused, back then the
Israelis were working overtime to ram down the historical
throat of the Palestinians their duplicitous version of a 'final
agreement'.
And back then the Israelis and their American benefactor were quite
literally using the Pope as a prop to further their own crafty
political and strategic objectives. The Pope's brief
refugee camp visit was 'good for the peace process' said the Americans
at the time. But quite literally within minutes of his
departure the rocks and the bullets were flying again.
Then the U.S.-Israeli ploy
known as Camp
David II was soon to end in bitter recriminations rather than a 'final
settlement'. Further demoralized and embittered the Palestinian
people erupted again -- Intifada II. Then the 'war on
terrorism' was launched in the aftermath of 9/11. And now more
than ever the
helicopter gunships and battle tanks invade the helpless refugee camps
and assassinate any and all attempting to resist the
occupation. But now, pressed by the
same U.S. and
Israel in other ways, the Pope of
Rome has gone inactive again when it comes to the plight of the
Palestinians; though he did make a pointed, but in the end feeble,
attempt to put George Bush
and the neocons in their place just prior to the invasion/occupation of
Iraq.
Soon now the Archbishop of
Canterbury is scheduled to visit what we now call the once Holy
Land.
He too has tried to speak up at times in a forceful way. Indeed
the
words have
oftentimes been good and eloquent...but unfortunately rarely the deeds
and
the follow-through.
And so the Archbishop of Canterbury
could do more by saying
'no' this time, not in this way, not under these circumstances, not to
appear with the priviledged, the corrupt, the 'despised' in the very
land of Jesus Christ. And though, for 'diplomatic
reasons' he may not
want to say so in public, the
very fact that the conference organizers have put him on show one day,
and then the next the much-hated, super-despised, and miserably
self-servingly corrupt 'Foreign
Minister' of the 'Palestinian Authority', Nabil Sha'ath, should be
enough reason in itself to stay home.
Sha'ath to be sure represents more the
Americans and
the Israelis who have nurtured and VIPed him than he does the
Palestinian people. Just a few years ago the fledgling
Palestinian Legislative Assembly in Ramallah not only loudly called for
Sha'ath's dismissal, they called for his indictment! Sha'ath
himself doesn't dare even attempt to go to
the same Deheishe refugee camp as did the Pope; nor even to a
Palestinian university like Bir Zeit. For if in fact
Sha'ath
was known to be on his way he'd likely be stoned on the way
and never even allowed in.
Now even the Israelis know what the PA has
become and how Nabil Sha'ath is so negatively, and rightly, viewed by
his
own. The quote above comes from Danny Rubinstein writing in Ha'aretz.
But Edward Said and other noteable Palestinian intellectuals have
used similar words in public, and far worse in
private. So surely the time has finally come for some
of those Christians
who insist they are helping and supporting and comforting the
Palestinians to wise up and realize that they too -- because of how
they act, because of whom they invite, because of how simple-minded and
ignorant they sometimes seem to take such a false pride in being --
have allowed themselves to become
'pitiful' and in a sense maybe unwilling
collaborators with the 'collaborators'.
As for the Sabeel Ecumenical
Liberation Theology Center
and that little group of well-off
'establishment Christians' who have been organizing such little
incestuous conferences in occupied Palestine, as well as in the U.S.
and Europe, for some years now...not much hope. The
matters they say concern them are indeed important, but the way they
and
their friends go about things is grossly inadequate at best, totally
self-serving and increasingly marginal at worst. Nearly always they invite
the wrong people, handle things in the wrong way, pretend to be having
impact when they in fact do not. And never ever do they
have any
worthwhile follow-through. Thus under all the circumstances
serious and dignified people
should not be involved in such pretenses, starting with the Archbishop
of Canterbury.
If Rowan Williams truly wants to do
something within his power about the increasingly desperate realities
faced by the
Palestinian people he can convene a conference of his own in the U.K.
and invite
major Christian personalities from throughout the world to address the
really crucial and historically timely and urgent questions:
* Why has the Christian church been so weak and
impotent for so long now in dealing with the terrible injustices and
massive bloodshed in the Holy Land of our day. Some serious
introspection and self-criticism will be imperative.
* What now can be
done at this very late date to seriously help the millions of
Palestinian refugees, force the Apartheid Wall to be brought down and
the military occupation to be ended. Much more than prayer and
reflection are long overdue.
* And most of all what can be done at this critical
historical time to at least suspend the
still ongoing massive flow of money and guns from his own country,
though primarily from the United States, to Israel that make
all the injustices and all the bloodshed not only possible but
inevitable? Serious action and organization are
surely urgently called for.
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