>What Christians Don't Know About Israel > >By Grace Halsell >May/June 1998, pages 112, 126 >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 U.S. policy? President >Bill Clinton as well as most members of Congress support Israel-and they >know why. U.S. 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 U.S. 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 the Second World War. >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 U.S. 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 U.S. media. Wasn't it news? Obviously, I naively thought, U.S. >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 U.S. 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 Is rael-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" U.S. 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-including the teachings of Moses, >Muhammad and Christ-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 U.N. 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 U.S. Christians is that having made an icon of >Israel, we fall into a trap of condoning whatever Israel does-even wanton >murder-as orchestrated by God. >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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 Sa beel 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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