Methodist Building Hosts Anti-Israel Event

on February 6, 2009

Rebekah Sharpe
February 6, 2009

 

Earlier this week, the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace held their commemoration of the Nakba—the chaotic creation of the modern Israeli state that forced some Palestinians out of territory they had controlled prior to the 1948 event—in the Methodist Building, the historic headquarters of the Methodist Board of Church and Society, on Capitol Hill. The Palestinian advocacy group, Friends of Sabeel Canada, sponsored an accompanying photo exhibit that showed pictures of Palestinians beside bombed-out buildings, or being carried to receive medical treatment on war wounds, or holding protest signs against Israeli settlement.

An accompanying photo exhibit showed pictures of Palestinians beside bombed-out buildings, or being carried to receive medical treatment on war wounds, or holding protest signs against Israeli settlement.

The Nakba event showcased the frequent hostility towards Israel by Mainline Protestant groups like the United Methodist lobby office. Speakers portrayed Israel’s founding as a disaster without citing Arab/Palestinian actions that have created suffering for the Palestians.

General-Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), Jim Winkler, was the first speaker to address the event. He drew a comparison between those who deny that there was a Holocaust and those who deny that there was a Nakba: “The notion of the Nakba is disputed by some [just as some people deny the Holocaust], there was and is a Nakba, and there was a Holocaust.” Consequently, explained Winkler, “Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived in refugee camps lo, these many years.”

The Nakba, or in Arabic “the catastrophe,” is the name given to the 1948 war that Arabs declared on Israelis when Arab Palestinians rejected the United Nations’ 1947 plan two establish both an Arab/Palestinian and an Israeli state.  The war ended in the defeat, death, and displacement of many Palestinian families, some of the descendents of whom reside in refugee camps to this day.

Winkler addressed the concerns of some that GBCS is demonstrating its partiality towards Palestinians by hosting the Nakba exhibit, which only addresses the suffering of the Palestinians in the 60 year struggle between Israelis and Arabs. The exhibit was compiled by the pro-Palestinian liberation theology group, Canadian Friends of Sabeel. Confronting the accusations of partiality, Winkler replied: “Each and every exhibit need not be comprehensive and all-encompassing,” and that it is acceptable that this exhibit has chosen to exclusively relay the Palestinian experience.

Winkler reaffirmed the legitimacy of the GBCS’ frequent criticisms of Israel, saying, “We are friends of Israel and Palestine, but we are not uncritical friends. Uncritical friends are not true friends.” Pointing to his most recent reason for displeasure with Israel, he noted that the February 3rd edition of the New York Times reported an Israeli bombing raid that Israeli President Olmert threatened would be “sharp” and “disproportionate” in response to Hamas’ rocket fire. He described GBCS’s continued commitment to a “safe, secure, viable, and contiguous” Israeli and Palestinian states.

“The [Israeli] occupation [of Palestinian territories confiscated after the 1967 War] must end,” Winkler said, “The right of return must be addressed” because “occupation never works anywhere, anytime.” He prayed for “a vision that moves beyond killing fields and tanks” to one of peace.

Ms. Laila Al-Arian, an English language producer at the Arab news network, Al-Jazeera, and co-author with Chris Hedges of Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians, described her family’s experience.

But seemingly, not everyone shared Winkler’s enthusiasm about a two-state solution. Imam Shaker al-Sayed, Imam of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, in Falls Church, VA, read the passage in Genesis chapter 18 where God makes a covenant with Abraham, saying that he will establish Abraham’s descendants in what is now Israel. God also charges Abraham and his descendents to remain righteous before God; a condition that Imam Sayed maintained that Israel has not fulfilled. Thus, he argued, even by Judeo-Christian standards, Israel may not have a right to the land their people currently inhabit.   “So long as Israel fails that condition, Israel can have all the might to exist, but not the right to exist,” he suggested. He also recited Sura five from the Quran for those gathered.

Mrs. Farideh Fanaian, a member of the East Fairfax Baha’i Community, offered a prayer saying, “Thou kind lord, thou has created humanity from the same stock… overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind.”

Dr. Philip Farah is a member of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. His Arab Christian family was forced to leave their home when Israelis took that territory in their 1948 victory. He says that the recent Hamas- Israel war in Gaza was one part of a “continuum at a process of destroying the viability of Palestinian people-hood.”  Dr. Farah remarked, “Israel cannot continue this process. It has actually already failed. The Palestinians will never submit to being herded from their homelands.”

As attendees viewed Sabeel’s photography exhibit, Farah requested that they “try to imagine what it was like for the people who were forced out of their homes in 1948, and forced to walk to towns where Israelis didn’t live.” He expressed frustration at the “U.S. media, which views this conflict largely from a Judeo-Christian perspective [of Israeli] forces fending off Islamic aggression.” He called on his audience to “understand the deep frustration, and yes, rage” of Palestinians who see Westerners supporting the Israeli state.

But the Western tendency to see Muslims as intolerant is unjust, according to Farah. He contended, “It is a historical distortion to juxtapose Judeo-Christian civilization against Islamic intolerance,” explaining that “Christians and Jews lived under conditions far better [in Andalucía, a province of Spain ruled by Muslims during the Middle Ages] than Jews [lived] under Europeans.”

Thomas Neu, Executive Director of Friends of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

Mrs. Afaf Zalatimo Ayish, who was 14 at the time of the Nakba, recalled that prior to 1948 “everybody used to live together and have a good time until the Israelis started the war… they started shooting everyplace… they killed millions of people.” When her family fled to Jordan, she described, “We saw the people who came, refugees, by the hundreds… no food, no water, nothing, just the clothes on them… we didn’t have anything to help with; we didn’t have enough food for ourselves.”

Ms. Laila Al-Arian, an English language producer at the Arab news network, Al-Jazeera, and co-author with Chris Hedges of Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians, described her family’s experience. Her grandfather, who moved to Saudi Arabia to teach Arabic following one of the wars, was not allowed to return to his home territory of Gaza until he became an American citizen five years ago. “With Israel’s draconian blockade,” said Al-Arian, “It was difficult to buy medicine to treat his diabetes.”

Al-Arian gave accounts of some civilians’ deaths from the past months’ war in Gaza. She spoke of that struggle, saying, “Israel was attacking a people that were poor, starving, and defenseless.”  If there is anything to be learned from the skirmishes of the past months, she observed, it is that “the [Palestinian] people are resilient; they will persevere.”  Some aid groups had difficulty reaching wounded Palestinians, said Al-Arian, because “Israelis would not let them in.” On one building, she asserted that Israeli soldiers were responsible for hateful “graffiti saying, ‘Arabs need to die; make war, not peace.’”

Thomas Neu, Executive Director of Friends of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said: “I can certainly believe that there was a Nakba because it’s still going on.  The people in Gaza—they feel the danger all the time.” He said that, while casualties of war were significant, a body count is not the sole measure of Gazans’ suffering. “It’s not just the foods they need, it’s freedom. It’s a humanitarian crisis when people cannot even flee their own houses,” said Neu, alluding to the Israeli wall and checkpoints that cordon off the Gaza strip.  “The people of Gaza feel more trapped than ever,” he added. Like Al-Arian, Neu cited the resilience of Palestinians, saying that theirs was “the greatest profile in courage that I’ve seen myself.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) was also invited to speak at the event, but was unable to attend.

 


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