Month: May 2021

A Survey of Dispossession in Sheikh Jarrah

This image below is taken from an article at The New Arab entitled “The PA Abandoned Palestinians Long Ago. Sheikh Jarrah is No Different.”

Israeli propaganda, repeated verbatim by Christian Zionist spokespeople in this country, continues to claim that the violence now occurring in Jerusalem is instigated by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

I recently explained here very briefly why this claim is not only false but absurd.

I will follow up this post in the near future with a more detailed picture of how and why the corrupt and ineffectual Mr. Abbas is being used in Israel’s ongoing propaganda campaign.

Here is a good summary of Sheikh Jarrah’s history:

Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big Lie

Chris Hedges has written an extensive article detailing Israel’s flagrant continuation of war crimes against the Palestinian people.

You can find the entire piece at SheerPost. I heartily recommend reading it in its entirety. Below is an excerpt. All emphases are mine:

Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014 attacks on Gaza, which lasted 51 days and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, are a lie.  Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising the right to defend itself. It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime. . . 

. . . The current attacks have already targeted several residential high rises

Bombing in Gaza

including buildings that housed over a dozen local and international press agencies, government buildings, roads, public facilities, agricultural lands, two schools and a mosque.

I spent seven years in the Middle East as a correspondent, four of them as The New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief. I am an Arabic speaker. I lived for weeks at a time in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison where over two million Palestinians exist on the edge of starvation, struggle to find clean water and endure constant Israeli terror. I have been in Gaza when it was pounded with Israeli artillery and air strikes. I have watched mothers and fathers, wailing in grief, cradling the bloodied bodies of their sons and daughters. I know the crimes of the occupation—the food shortages caused by the Israeli blockade, the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the near constant electrical outages due to the Israeli targeting of power plants, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair. I have witnessed the carnage. 

I also have listened from Gaza to the lies emanating from Jerusalem and Washington. Israel’s indiscriminate use of modern, industrial weapons to kill thousands of innocents, wound thousands more and make tens of thousands of families homeless is not a war: It is state-sponsored terror.  And, while I oppose the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinians into Israel, as I oppose suicide bombings, seeing them also as war crimes, I am acutely aware of a huge disparity between the industrial violence carried out by Israel against innocent Palestinians and the minimal acts of violence capable of being waged by groups such as Hamas. . . 

. . . Israel is in breach of more than 30 U.N. Security Council resolutions. It is in breach of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that defines collective punishment of a civilian population as a war crime. It is in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for settling over half a million Jewish Israelis on occupied Palestinian land and for the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians when the Israeli state was founded and another 300,000 after Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were occupied following the 1967 war. Its annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights violates international law, as does its building of a security barrier in the West Bank that annexes Palestinian land into Israel. It is in violation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 that states that Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.

This is the truth.  Any other starting point for the discussion of what is taking place between Israel and the Palestinians is a lie. . .

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Gives Powerful Speech About Palestine on the Floor of Congress

 

 

 

Dissecting Christian Zionist (and Israeli) Propaganda

Let’s begin by watching a recent CBN (Christian Broadcast Network) report on the violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine. The reporter is Chris Mitchell who lives in Israel.

As far as I can tell, all the on-screen personnel at CBN are avid Christian Zionists, meaning that they believe Israel is God’s chosen nation now preparing the way for the second coming of Christ.

Let’s start by observing the major points in this report:

  1. The current violence in Jerusalem begins with Hamas rockets launched at Israel from Gaza. Thus, Palestinians are the aggressors. Jews are only defending themselves.
  2. Netanyahu warns the Palestinian “terrorists” that Israel will respond firmly and decisively in self-defense.
  3. Mahmud Abbas (the West Bank leader of Fatah) is the instigator behind all the Palestinian “riots” in Jerusalem
  4. Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah are protesting their home evictions unreasonably because the original Jewish property owners had reached a generous compromise that was then rejected by Mr. Abbas.

Let’s take these points one at a time:

First, CBN adopts the standard storyline of explaining the issues according to something I call APR time. APR time means After Palestinians Respond. It’s as if the Palestinians simply woke up one morning and decided to riot and fire rockets in Israel, just for the fun of it. 

Actually, the current violence has its roots in Israel’s unilateral decision, made several weeks ago, to close off the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City during the Muslim period of Ramadan. The Damascus Gate is the main thoroughfare used by Palestinians going to pray at al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock during Ramadan.

Palestinians naturally took offense at this closure and challenged the decision in the streets. Events have escalated from there.

Second, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been unable to form a new government since the recent national elections. As a right-wing politician, he knows that the easiest way to gather support is to rally people by fear-mongering over an alleged, national threat. American politicians do it all the time. In Israel, Palestinians serve as the standard, cardboard cutout for the state’s ever-present boogeyman.

Third, Mahmud Abbas is the leader of the Palestinian political party known as  Fatah and the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Since the Oslo Accords, the PA has served as the West Bank wing of the Israeli security forces.

Abbas has no connection to the Hamas party in Gaza. In fact, Hamas considers the PA to be a traitorous organization given its cooperation with the Israeli military.

Mitchell’s claim that Abbas has somehow orchestrated the Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza is ludicrous. Here he reveals that he is not a journalist but a faithful propagandist for the Israeli government.

It is true that Abbas is a corrupt scoundrel who has postponed the West Bank elections. But there is no evidence that he can influence the Palestinians citizens of Israel to take up mass demonstrations to distract from his shenanigans in the West Bank.

That claim makes no sense. Palestinian Israelis cannot vote in the West Bank elections. They don’t have a dog in Abbas’s election fight. He has no influence over them and they have little to no regard for him.

Fourth, Mitchell’s attempt to explain the tensions raised by Palestinian evictions in Sheikh Jarrah is a complete fabrication. Once again, he shows that he works as a tool for the Israeli government. He is not a journalist.

Mr. Mitchell is merely repeating the public relations bulletin handed to him by the Israeli Ministry of Public Affairs.

I shared a document yesterday that explains the actual history of the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, and it has nothing to do with the foolishness repeated by Mr. Mitchell. You can read it here.

The CBN anchorman asks the question, “Why are we not hearing that story in the western media?” The implication is that this is “omission” yet another instance of the western, antisemitic conspiracy against Israel.

In fact, the reason this supposed story has not been mentioned by other western, news outlets  is because it is complete balderdash; another Zionist myth fed to gullible, ignorant devotees of Israeli apartheid who will foolishly repeat it for American, Christian Zionist consumption.

Sadly, this fallacious, inaccurate reporting on Israel/Palestine is typical of the “news” made available on Christian broadcasting.

I strongly suggest that my readers not take it seriously. It is NOT a reliable source of accurate information about the world we live in.

Reframing: It’s Not a “Conflict.” It’s Colonialism

Israel was the last successful colonial project taken on by the British Empire — THE western, colonial power par excellence. We cannot accurately understand what is happening in Israel/Palestine today until we grasp that point.

As in every project of settler colonialism throughout history, the native people must be replaced, eliminated, expelled, made to disappear.

When the natives resist, the colonizers justify their rampant land theft and brutalization of the indigenous people by labeling them as sub-human savages, blood thirsty brutes, terrorists who live only for violence.

This dehumanization of the native people frames the settlers’ ongoing attacks against the stubborn natives as justifiable acts of “self-defense.” Even ethnic cleansing is excusable as the noble act of brave pioneers paving the way for civilization.

Colonialism always creates conflict. But colonial conflicts are always asymmetrical. That is, one side is the conquering aggressor who comes with superior weapons and technology.

For my money, the colonial aggressor is always in the wrong.

The other side, the native side, is always the victim forced to act defensively, whose resistance against colonial aggression is turned against them as justification for another wave of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Remember Geronimo.

What is happening right now is Israel/Palestine is NOT another round in a long-standing “conflict” between Jews and Arabs.

That is the dominant framing chosen by Israel’s Jewish colonizers. It is the framing that gets all the air-time and publicity because Israel is the overpowering aggressor who holds all the power in a very, very asymmetrical relationship with the suppressed and occupied Palestinians.

The only accurate, historical framing for the violence occurring today in Jerusalem is to see that Israeli colonialism continues by force of arms.

Israel is still colonizing the West Bank; still working to eradicate “the natives.” Oh, how troublesome those pesky natives can be.

Palestinians, for their part, are still resisting their colonizers; still standing up against the most powerful military in the Middle East.

No, this is not a conflict. It is a bloody, grotesque anachronism.

An outpost of western colonialism in the Middle East, originally underwritten by a now defunct imperial empire, is still trying to use 19th century tactics in a 21st century world.

So far, the world has turned a blind eye to Israel’s colonial, ethnic cleansing industry. I hope and pray that that time is coming to an end.

Below is a good clip from Al Jazeera News giving a fairly balanced perspective on the recent attacks against Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque.

At the 6:47 mark, an interview begins with Ines Abdel Razek, the Advocacy Director for the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD). She does an excellent job of explaining what is happening today in Jerusalem and placing it in its proper context.

The Historical and Legal Background to the Sheikh Jarrah Evictions

Today I am writing a series of posts about the tragic stream of events unfolding in Israel.

The Israeli government is in the process of evicting numerous Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem area called Sheikh Jarrah. East Jerusalem, including the Old City of Jerusalem, is part of the occupied West Bank.

The entire West Bank was captured and occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967 — a war begun by Israel’s offensive attacks against Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Ever since, Israel has persisted in violating International Law and the

Palestinian family expelled from their Sheikh Jarrah home byby Jewish settlers
A Palestinian woman reacts as she carries a toddler, while Jewish settlers move out the belongings of a Palestinian family from a house in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009.  (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

Geneva Convention by a) forcing Palestinian residents from their homes, and b) encouraging Jewish settlers to move into Palestinian Occupied Territory.

These types of evictions have been happening for a long time all throughout Israel/Palestine. The Israeli government refers to the process as “Judaization.” That’s Israel’s term, not mine.

The Israeli government is justifying the Sheikh Jarrah evictions by claiming that these properties were originally owned by Jews prior to the war in 1948. So, they are only “reclaiming” Jewish property.

Imagine an Irish-American organization sending its “settlers” into what are now Jewish neighborhoods in New York City. They pass through the streets knocking on doors announcing, “This property used to be owned by Irish people. Get out.”

I would call that kind of behavior racist. The Jewish Defense League would call it antisemitic.

Can these displaced Palestinians return to their original homes and properties taken from them (or more likely demolished) by Jewish militias in 1948?

Of course not. They are Palestinians. They have no right of return. Only Jews can claim that “right” in Israel.

That’s what makes Israel an apartheid Jewish Supremacist State.

Several Palestinian rights organizations have submitted a  “Joint Urgent

Israeli settlers in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah mock anti-settler demonstrators from the Palestinian home they have taken over. April 16, 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures on Forced Evictions in East Jerusalem” to the UN. This proposal carefully documents the legal circumstances at play in right now in East Jerusalem.

It is important to understand this history because most US media outlets will never fill-in these blanks. I have posted an excerpt below.

I encourage you to read the entire document, complete with its abundant citations and corroborating documentation:

Since the forcible displacement of 85 per cent of the Palestinian population during the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 by Zionist settler-colonial forces,
Israel designed and issued a series of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, forming the foundation of its institutionalised regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people as a whole, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Palestinian refugees and exiles abroad.

Israel has ensured the maintenance of its apartheid regime over the Palestinian people through its policies and practices, such as the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people, including by denying Palestinian refugees and other persons displaced from their homes their inalienable right to return, and the appropriation of their homes, lands and property, coupled with the creation of a coercive environment designed to drive the ongoing transfer of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. In occupied and illegally-annexed East Jerusalem, 15 Jerusalemite families totalling 37 households of around 195 Palestinians, residing in Karm Al-Ja’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Silwan, are currently at imminent risk of forced eviction. Unlawfully applying Israeli domestic law to occupied territory, Israeli courts have ruled in favour of lawsuits undertaken by settler organisations to evict the 15 Palestinian families. Most of the families living in Karm Al-Ja’ouni area and Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood, who are facing the threat of forced eviction, are refugees. . . 

. . . To cement Palestinian dispossession and displacement in East Jerusalem, Israel enacted the Legal and Administrative Matters Law in 1970, which exclusively allows Israeli Jews to pursue claims to land and property ownership allegedly owned by Jews in East Jerusalem before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In accordance with the 1970 Law, “assets of Jews” in East Jerusalem, which were managed by the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property until 1967, were transferred to the Israeli Custodian General within the Ministry of Justice. The Custodian General has the authority to release the properties to Israeli Jews who claim ownership, or claim that they inherited properties from before the establishment of the State of Israel, upon their request. Utilising the discriminatory aforementioned law, Jewish Trusts and Jewish entities with unclear legal status have secured land ownership in Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Silwan and Karm AlJa’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah by the Custodian General. Later, these Jewish Trusts and entities sold their ownership rights or transferred their management to settler organisations, which do not
have ties to the original alleged Jewish owners. In turn, the settler organisations, which envision further settlement expansion in occupied and illegally-annexed East Jerusalem, have been filing eviction lawsuits against Palestinians in Israeli courts. 

You can read the entire document now before the United Nations here.

Thinking About (Christian) Nationalism

Following my invitation to participate in the upcoming NEME webinar, Two Chosen Peoples? Two Promised Lands?, focusing on the intersection of Christian and Jewish Nationalism in the United States and Israel, I have been expanding my horizons in the ocean of literature exploring the history and contours of modern nationalism.

You know, I always appreciate another reason to read a few more good books!

Some of you may recall that I touched on the subject of American nationalism, and the related issue of civil religion, in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans 2018).

The more I learn about the history and developments of this mind-set called “nationalism,” the more convinced I become that it is hostile to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and inevitably corrosive to faithful citizenship in the kingdom of God.

Fortunately, more and more Christian leaders are speaking out to warn God’s people against the dangers of what I consider the worst form of nationalism, that is “Christian Nationalism.”

For example, check out the resources provided by the group Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Christian nationalism insists that The Nation is bound together by a corporate commitment to the Christian religion, born of a Christian history and Christian culture. Being Christian people (however that is defined) becomes the centerpiece of national identity.

Christian nationalism goes hand in hand with a belief in the nation’s “chosenness.” The Christian nation is God’s unique, elect people with a special, divine calling to perform His will in this world.

Historically, such national callings have generally been implemented, at least in part, through warfare, colonialism, bloodshed, discrimination, and even ethnic cleansing.

Christian Nationalism creates a secularized ecclesiology [ecclesiology is the doctrine of the Church], offering a worldly, bogus doctrine of a “national church” for seriously misguided people.

It even creates alternative, secular liturgies, symbols, rituals, and vocabulary for national “devotion.” Nationalism becomes a religious exercise memorializing the nation’s holy history.

But disciples of Jesus Christ are called to find their personal identity in union with the peaceable, crucified Savior. Clinging to the idolatrous badge of identity provided by a warmongering nation-state is a betrayal of genuine Christian values.

“Christian Nations” (so called) can never embody anything other than the secularized fellowship of false identities carved out by the egotism of those who are distorted by their own peculiar ethic, regional, cultural, linguistic superiority complexes.

There ain’t nothin’ Christian about any of that.

Here is a short excerpt from a good book on nationalism entitled, National Identity (Penguin 1991) by Anthony D. Smith. (All emphases are mine):

The nation is called upon to provide a social bond between individuals and classes by providing repertoires of shared values, symbols and traditions. By the use of symbols – flags, coinage, anthems, uniforms, monuments and ceremonies – members are reminded of their common heritage and cultural kindship . . . The nation becomes a faith achievement group . . . Finally, a sense of national identity provides a powerful means of defining and locating individual selves in the world, through the prism of the collective personality and its distinctive culture. It is through a shared, unique culture that we are enabled to know ‘who we are’ in the contemporary world. By rediscovering that culture we ‘rediscover’ ourselves, the ‘authentic self’, or so it has appeared to many divided and disoriented individuals who have had to contend with the vast changes and uncertainties of the modern world. This process of self-definition and location is in many ways the key to national identity. . .

 Nationalism, the doctrine that makes the nation the object of every political endeavour and national identity the measure of every human value, has since the French Revolution challenged the whole idea of a single humanity, of a world community and its moral unity. Instead, nationalism offers a narrow, conflict-laden legitimation for political community, which inevitably pits culture-communities against each other and . . . can only drag humanity into a political Charybdis. [Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. Greek mythology turned it into a sea monster.]

True followers of Jesus Christ find their eternal community in union with the Lord Jesus and, thus, other members of the Body of Christ. That Body is an international, multi-ethnic, trans-territorial community of the faithful.

The disciple’s personal identity is developed through obedience to the Lord Jesus, becoming more and more like him as we share in the fellowship of his suffering. Self-denial, humility, mercy, including service to those who are most unlike us, form the core bundle of Christ-like character traits marking those who follow Jesus.

There is no room for the perversions of Nationalism, much less “Christian Nationalism,” among God’s people on this earth.

Join the Webinar: “Two Chosen People? Two Promised Lands? Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism Under Trump and Biden”

Not long ago I was invited to participate in an online webinar happening May 18th, 12:00 pm (Eastern Time) sponsored by the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East (NEME).

The discussion will focus on the different ways Americans and Israelis view themselves as “exceptional nations,” both fulfilling a unique, divinely ordained mission to world history.

The presidency of Donald Trump gave voice to evangelicalism’s (i.e., conservative Christianity’s) bellicose commitment to both Christian Nationalism (the belief that America is a Christian nation) and Christian Zionism (the belief that Christians must support the state of Israel).

Israel puts itself at the center of Jewish Nationalism.

How do these political beliefs relate to each other?

What does the Bible say about such things?

How should the Christian church relate to Israel and its continuing conflict with the Palestinian people?

I will share this conversation with Lisa Sharon Harper (founder and president of Freedom Road) and L. Daniel Hawk (Ashland Theological Seminary).

I hope you will join us for what, I am convinced, will be a fascinating conversation. For those who can’t make it, the webinar will be recorded and made available at the NEME website.

You can register online here.