When will the children of Abraham find their peace?

 

To answer this question honestly we must face the cold reality that Israel today is an apartheid state as divided by religion as was South Africa by colour. The only difference is that Israel remains caught in a time-warp perpetuating her apartheid system by State repression while insisting they are a democracy, the bastion of Western civilisation in the Middle East. Scenes of helicopter gunships, tanks and heavily armed Israeli soldiers firing sophisticated weapons killing and injuring hundreds of stone throwing youths in the Occupied Territories rightly arouses repugnance and condemnation the world over.

The Israeli government and those who elected them are responsible for the events of this past week, no one else. The dispute over the tunnel running through the Moslem quarter is as much an appropriation of territory as is the confiscation and demolition of Moslem and Christian homes above it. The tunnel is not primarily a tourist attraction. Men must cover their heads when walking through since it is now a Jewish holy site. Netanyahu has admitted as much. The tunnel will remain open he says, as a demonstration of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem. The incident was merely the spark that lit the fire of suspicion that even Moslem holy sites are not secure, nor, as the subsequent bloody storming of the Temple Mount by Israeli soldiers showed, are they places of sanctuary either.

Israel has consistently refused to withdraw from the Occupied Territories, talking of peace while, like their forefather King Ahab, continuing to confiscate Naboth's vineyard leaving small Bantustan homelands under nominal Palestinian local administration. The Occupied Territories today are nothing more than one giant Israeli construction site of new roads and settlements, a 20th Century version of the American "Wild West" land grab, although this time U.S. funds are wiping out the Palestinian "Indians". It is a fact that 30% of all the land confiscated from Palestinians since 1967 has been taken since the Peace Accord was signed. As Naim A'teek, Canon of St George's Cathedral, Jerusalem, said recently, "Peace cannot be built on confiscated land." Talk of disarming the Palestinian police shows the Israeli's are treating them like naughty children who must be disciplined.

Recently the Israeli government approved the building of another 900 homes moving yet more right-wing and heavily armed Jewish settlers into Arab areas. It is significant that the American government remains silent. Perhaps the Israeli's thought they could get away with it, since with the US elections a few weeks away, neither Dole nor Clinton will dare upset the Jewish lobby. And while the building of settlements continues, so too does the demolishing of Palestinian properties, such as a community centre in East Jerusalem recently. The Israeli's claim it was built without a permit. That is quite correct, but it is also correct to say that as an occupying power they rarely give permits to Palestinians to build on their own land, preferring to confiscate it for their own use instead.

Peace is less likely to come while the majority of Israeli's continue to spell it "piece" and think security can be achieved by force of arms. We must pray that Netanyahu and those who support him will be brought to realise soon that acknowledging basic human rights to the Palestinians, including autonomy on the West Bank, is more likely to lead to peace and security for both communities. For Christians to remain silent at this critical hour and not be a voice for the voiceless, especially for our Palestinian brothers and sisters of what is our mother Church is not only deeply offensive to them, it is surely a contradiction of what it means to be a Christian. It is nothing less than to perpetuate the evil of the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan who walked by on the other side. He should have known better.

Return to Index of Articles