Protestant-Catholic group asks PCUSA to cease Hezbollah contacts
The Layman Online, December 13, 2005
Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East has asked the Presbyterian Church (USA) to cease sending delegations to Lebanon to meet with leaders of Hezbollah.
“It is difficult to fathom their intention in meeting with Nabil Qawuq, the commander of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon,” said Ruth Lautt, the national director of the Roman Catholic-Protestant organization that includes ministers and lay people.
“Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the European Parliament,” she added. “It is supportive of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups responsible for suicide bombings in Israel. Hezbollah has repeatedly taken credit for attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets, including one in northern Israel as recently as November 21.”
The coalition’s statement was a response to an Oct. 20 meeting of a delegation from the Presbytery of Chicago with Hezbollah’s Southern Lebanon commander. PCUSA leaders said the meeting was not sanctioned by the denomination, but arrangements for the meeting were made by the Rev. Nuhad Tomeh, who is the regional liaison for the PCUSA for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Gulf.
Another PCUSA official, Dr. Jay Rock, gave no indication that the denomination would cease meeting with Hezbollah. In a letter to Jewish officials who say the PCUSA has a biased approach to the problems in the Middle East, Rock said, “Many Presbyterians believe that peacemaking requires meeting even with those groups that are violent in their approach to a problem (as, in former times, with the PLO). This is felt even more strongly in the case of a group such as Hezbollah, which has de facto control of territory in which fellow Christians live.”
Fair Witness, which includes members of the United Church of Christ and Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, said meeting with Hezbollah could be interpreted as a sign of support for those who seek Israel’s destruction and advocate murder.
Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College and Fair Witness Executive Committee member, warned, “When Christians act for peace on behalf of Christ, they need to know the people and circumstances they are dealing with, as Jesus did. Good intentions do not suffice, and can actually turn to harm. This meeting represents a serious lapse in judgment, a confusion of the hard work of mediation with easy advocacy. I see no way in which aligning with rejectionist factions will promote a peaceful solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict.”
During the meeting in Lebanon on Oct. 20, Robert Worley, a retired professor at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and spokesman for the Chicago delegation, responded to Qawug’s castigation of the U.S. policy in the Middle East.
“We do not wish to defend the U.S. administration,” Worley said. “We all elected the Democratic Party against the Republican Party. Rest assured that we will return to the U.S. in order to continue our activity for peace, and we want to hear about the charity activities and the cultural and social activities organized by Hezbollah in south [Lebanon]. The Americans hear in the Western media that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and they do not hear any other opinion. They know nothing about the party’s concern for the people of the south. We have suffered much pressure on the part of Jewish organizations in the U.S. because [of our help in] divesting corporations working with Israel. We want Jerusalem to be a united city, just as we encouraged the Palestinians and the Jews to work for peace, and we demanded that our administration adheres to this position.”
But Peter Pettit, director of the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding of Muhlenberg College and a Fair Witness executive committee member, says a church group can become a pawn in the propaganda. “If a church group is not actively engaged in negotiating a peace agreement, its presence will likely be used as a public relations ploy. That does not contribute substantively to the peace we all desire.”