‘Be peacemakers; not partisans’
Slanted GA report sparks early July 4 fireworks
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, July 4, 2010
MINNEAPOLIS – “The report of the Middle East Study Committee represents a regression from the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s historic stand for peace,” said Katherine Henderson, president of Auburn Seminary at a July 4 breakfast sponsored by Presbyterians for Middle East Peace.
“This unbalanced report will do nothing to strengthen our role as peacemakers,” she said. “It will render us impotent.”
Katherine Henderson
Henderson told her audience that as the daughter of a Hebrew scholar and frequent visitor to the Holy Land, she harbors a deep desire for peace among the people of that region. That intention, she said, is reflected in several peacemaking programs that are sponsored by Auburn’s seminary community. Peacemaking is hard work, she said. “It is very hard to see beyond the prism of our own pain and through the eyes of the other person. But that hard work is what we must do for the sake of our children and their children.”
‘From peacemaking to partisanship’
While applauding the pacific intentions of the GA’s study committee, Henderson faulted its composition, methodology and work product, arguing that the adoption of this report would achieve the opposite of its intention. The committee, she said, moved from “peacemaking to partisanship.”
Henderson said that the study group was heavily weighted with persons who represent exclusively the Palestinian perspective. Adding to that compositional slant, she observed was the crafting of an uneven itinerary for the group’s Middle East study tour. At home, she said, “there was no conversation with the American Jewish community.”
The committee suggested that it had conducted conversations with J Street, a prominent Jewish American group that is heavily engaged in Middle East peace initiatives. But Henderson charged that “no one on the committee even spoke with J Street.” Instead, she said, they employed the J Street name “as political cover.”
Regarding the report itself, Henderson charged that the report failed to recognize Israel’s vulnerability; the fact that it is surrounded by countries officially committed to Israel’s annihilation, including the nuclear threat of Iran, and that without strong U.S. support, Israel could not exist.
She said that in naming Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as the cause of Middle Eastern violence, the report proved false and unbalanced. The committee turned its focus on Israel’s attempts to defend itself from attack while “speaking euphemistically of Palestinian ‘resistance’ activity,” she said.
Henderson castigated recommendations in the report that would unconditionally lift the embargo of Gaza without imposing enforceable restrictions on the flow of weapons into that area. She also took issue with recommendations that call for the reduction or cessation of economic and military aid to Israel.
Choose hard work over ‘preachments and pronouncements’
“This may be the time for the Presbyterian Church (USA) to cease making pronouncements … to avoid preachments, words that do more harm than good … It is time for actions that can have a measurable effect for the cause of peace,” she said.
Among the peacemaking actions that Henderson suggested were: (1) Political action – concrete and practical activities “that can help build a viable Palestinian state from the ground up.” (2) Economic action – investments in businesses in the West Bank that can strengthen the region. (3) Civil society action – Groups like Rabbis for Human Rights are literally laying their lives on the ground for peace. Numerous such groups are developing bridge building programs that bring Israelis and Palestinians together. (4) Multi-faith engagement – frank discussions among Muslims, Jews and Christians, “no easy assurances, but painful exchanges on key issues.”
In these and other ways, Henderson said, the PCUSA can be an agent of peace. Its actions can help create the context in which its words can be heard by both sides.
On the contrary, she said, “if this report is adopted, we will have exchanged the role of peacemaker for that of partisan, and we will lose the respect of people in the region. We must be pro-Palestinian, pro-Israeli, pro-justice and pro-peace.”
The Middle East Study Committee report is slated for hearings by Commissioners’ Committee #14, beginning Monday. Committee #14’s subsequent recommendations will go to the floor of the GA later in the week.