The Palestinian “Kairos” Document: A Behind-the-Scenes
Analysis
Published by courtesy of the New English Review
The self-styled
“Kairos Palestine” document was launched in Bethlehem on December 11,
2009 by a panel chaired by the former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Michel Sabbah. It was quickly made available in Arabic and several
European languages at the dedicated website www.kairospalestine.ps. The
secretariat of the World Council of Churches (WCC) was quick to
disseminate it, especially among Protestant churches worldwide. This
was no accident, since the WCC secretariat was heavily involved in the
gestation of this document as part of its long-term program to promote
Palestinian political aims.
The document, as we shall see,
is meant to mobilize churches worldwide in a program of boycotts,
divestment and delegitimization directed at the State of Israel. It
alludes explicitly to a similarly named document issued in South Africa
years ago, thus deliberately comparing Israel with the regime of
apartheid. It employs extreme language, such as declaring that “the
military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity.”
Before surveying the content of the document, however, its credentials
should be examined. It has been promoted on its website and by the WCC
secretariat as a statement of “Palestinian Christian leaders” that has
the “endorsement” of the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem. The reality is
different.
The Credentials
With the exception of Arab
Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan, the Heads of Churches played no role in
the origins of this document. Some of them were taken by surprise when
it appeared. They were, however, put under political pressure to toe
the line propounded by the document. Four days later, consequently,
they issued a brief statement of their own. It is worth quoting in
full:
“We, the Patriarchs and
Heads
of Churches in Jerusalem, hear the cry of hope that our children have
launched in these difficult times that we still experience in this Holy
Land. We support them and stand by them in their faith, their hope,
their love and their vision for the future. We also support the call to
all our faithful as well as to the Israeli and Palestinian Leaders, to
the International Community and to the World Churches, in order to
accelerate the achievement of justice, peace and reconciliation in this
Holy Land. We ask God to bless all our children by giving them more
power in order to contribute effectively in establishing and developing
their community, while making it a community of love, trust, justice
and peace.”
Evidently, this is anything
but an endorsement of worldwide campaigns against the State of Israel.
No alleged “sin” is denounced and indeed no blame is cast upon anyone.
On the contrary, the statement contains nothing that would offend
people of goodwill anywhere. It calls, on the one hand, for political
and religious leaders to increase their commitments to achieving peace.
On the other, it urges Palestinian Christians to focus on building up
the local Christian community. Indeed, the statement can be read as a
mild rebuke to the authors of the document: Palestinian Christians
should put their main effort into strengthening their own community
rather than engaging in worldwide political agitation.
Nevertheless, the protagonists
of “Kairos Palestine” decided to exploit that statement for their own
purposes. On the website, the statement and their document are combined
into a single PDFfile in which the statement of the Heads of
Churches is placed at the beginning, as if it were a prior endorsement
of their own views in the document. The unwary reader does not realize
that the statement is no endorsement, but rather a wary reaction that
seeks to divert the energies of the faithful into constructive activity
within the community rather than wasting them on vain political
posturing.
So the document represents the
views not of the Heads of churches but of its own authors. Let us now
examine their claim to be “Palestinian Christian leaders.” Here it must
be emphasized that the website kairospalestine has changed the claimed
authorship of the document. Originally, the document appeared on the
website with the following list of authors:
- His Beatitude Patriarch
Michel Sabbah
- His Eminence Archbishop
Atallah Hanna
- Bishop Munib Younan
- Rev. Dr. Jamal Khader
- Rev. Dr. Rafiq Khoury
- Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
- Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek
- Rev. Dr. Yohana Katanacho
- Rev. Fadi Diab
- Dr. Jiries Khoury
- Ms. Cedar Duaybis
- Ms. Nora Kort
- Ms. Lucy Thaljieh
- Mr. Nidal Abu El Zuluf
- Mr. Yusef Daher
- Mr. Rifat Kassis -
Coordinator
In the meantime, however, the
name of Bishop Younan has disappeared from the list. This is
significant because he was the only currently serving Head of Church to
appear among the authors. That is, Younan is the only signatory who
could trughfully claim to be a “Palestinian Christian leader.” Sabbah,
although the document does not trouble to tell you, retired as Latin
Patriarch early in 2008, so he spoke only for himself and not for the
Latin Patriarchate. The case of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna
is even more acute. Online one can find that back in 2007 he publicly
called for withdrawal of the official recognition of Greek Patriarch
Theophilos III. As a consequence, his salary from the Greek
Patriarchate was suspended for several months, the account says. Far
from being a leader, he is rather an opponent of the Christian
leadership.
The other signatories are
parish priests, low level officials and laypeople. For sure, some of
them are fairly well known as long-term agitators on behalf of
Palestinian political aims and echoes of their familiar views are
easily discerned in the document. A recent recruit is Yusuf Daher, whom
the WCC secretariat has set up with an office in Jerusalem in order to
mobilize Christians on behalf of the Palestinians. So the document, as
it now appears on kairospalestine, does not have any bona fide
Christian leader among its authors.
Why did Younan’s name
disappear? Simply because he asked to have it removed, so as not to be
compromised by it. Younan is as energetic a promoter of Palestinian
political aims as any of the others, but he also likes to hobnob with
Jewish religious figures and Israeli officials. He does not want to
endanger these relationships. Reportedly, he now assures anyone who
asks that he does not agree with everything in the document and that he
is committed only to the statement of the Heads of Churches, where his
name occurs near the bottom of the list. Thus, from being an author of
the document, Younan has turned into a witness contradicting the claim
that the Heads of Churches endorsed it.
The Content
The document is divided into
numbered sections and subsections. There is no need, however, to go
into all those details here, since in each main section the basic
intent can be identified, usually in one or more key sentences. In the
first section, “The Reality on the Ground,” the crucial words are
(1.4):
“Yes, there is Palestinian
resistance to the occupation. However, if there were no occupation,
there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity. This is our
understanding of the situation. Therefore, we call on the Israelis to
end the occupation. Then they will see a new world in which there is no
fear, no threat but rather security, justice and peace.”
This echoes the line
propagated by Michel Sabbah for years: end the occupation and
Palestinian terrorism, euphemistically termed “resistance,” will cease
for ever. The authors know that this is a lie. They know that
organizations such as Hamas, which command mass support among the
Palestinian population, are sworn to continue that “resistance” as long
as the State of Israel exists.
The same false message is
repeated later in the document (4.3); note how “terrorism” is placed in
inverted commas, that is, when it is named as such at all:
“We call on Israel to give
up
its injustice towards us, not to twist the truth of reality of the
occupation by pretending that it is a battle against terrorism. The
roots of ‘terrorism’ are in the human injustice committed and in the
evil of the occupation. These must be removed if there be a sincere
intention to remove ‘terrorism’.”
Yet most of the document
echoes not Sabbah but Naim Ateek and his familiar insistence on
“justice and only justice,” meaning the unconditional fulfilment of
Palestinian demands. This appears already in the second section,
entitled “A Word of Faith” and subtitled “We believe in one God, a good
and just God.” The section has two thrusts. One is to denounce
“Biblical fundamentalism,” that is, to delegitimize any kind of
sympathy for Israel among Christians (e.g., 2.2.2 and 2.3.3). The other
is expressed in the words (2.5):
“We also declare that the
Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and
humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human
rights, bestowed by God. It distorts the image of God in the Israeli
who has become an occupier just as it distorts this image in the
Palestinian living under occupation. We declare that any theology,
seemingly based on the Bible or on faith or on history, that
legitimizes the occupation, is far from Christian teachings, because it
calls for violence and holy war in the name of God Almighty,
subordinating God to temporary human interests, and distorting the
divine image in the human beings living under both political and
theological injustice.”
The authors know, of course,
that most Israelis do not subscribe to such a theology, but that the
political theology of Hamas indeed “calls for violence and holy war in
the name of God Almighty” (or at any rate in the name of Allah). But
the deception goes beyond this. Ateek’s organization Sabeel promotes
worldwide the view that the “two-state solution” is not viable, that
“justice” will be
achieved only when the State of Israel disappears into a single
binational state with an Arab majority. This message, as we shall see
shortly, is also present implicitly in a document that superficially
purports to respect legitimate aspirations for Jews and Arabs
alike.
The third and fourth sections
are entitled “Hope” and “Love.” The former details where the authors
think they can mobilize support for their aims from churches, the
international community, Israelis and Jews. The latter is about how to
combat Israel, whether by so-called “resistance” or by calling “on
individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an
economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the
occupation.”
The trio of “Faith, Hope and
Love” is a deliberate echo of a famous passage of Paul (1 Corinthians
13). The degradation of Paul’s conception for Palestinian political
purposes is reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, in which the Ministry
of Peace conducts permanent war, the Ministry of Love operates a police
state and the Ministry of Truth deals in propaganda.
The remaining sections are
directed at various named audiences. A “Word to Our Brothers and
Sisters” (chiefly Palestinian Christians, section 5) is followed by
their “Word to the Churches of the World” (section 6). Here they issue
a “message of solidarity” with their Christian supporters and a “call
to repentance” directed against “fundamentalist theological positions.”
In other words, good Christians are those who support Palestinian
political aims unconditionally, bad Christians are any who sympathize
with Israel.
Next (section 7) comes a “Word
to the International Community.” It is a call for “the beginning of a
system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel.”
Note that it is no longer to be merely a “boycott of everything
produced by the occupation” (as in section 2) but a boycott of Israel
as such.
After an address to “Jewish
and Muslim Religious Leaders” (section 8) comes a “Call to our
Palestinian People and to the Israelis” (section 9). Here they “appeal
to the international community to lend its support towards this union
and to respect the will of the Palestinian people as expressed freely”
(9.4), that is, the international community should drop its well-known
three conditions for any dealings with the elected Hamas government.
Even more revealing is the following (9.3):
“Trying to make the state
a
religious state, Jewish or Islamic, suffocates the state, confines it
within narrow limits, and transforms it into a state that practices
discrimination and exclusion, preferring one citizen over another. We
appeal to both religious Jews and Muslims: let the state be a state for
all its citizens, with a vision constructed on respect for religion but
also equality, justice, liberty and respect for pluralism and not on
domination by a religion or a numerical majority.”
A naïve reader will not notice
here what a more attentive reading reveals: the authors want to see a
single state embracing Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. Indeed,
nowhere in the document does the term “two states” occur. Likewise, the
term “occupation” is freely used, but without a clear statement of what
areas are considered to be “occupied.” Thus the document delivers
different messages to different audiences. Well-intentioned but unwary
sympathizers can imagine that the authors subscribe to “two states for
two peoples,” but insiders can be sure that the ultimate aim is the old
one of a unitary Palestine. The concluding sentences of the document
(section 10) permit the same double interpretation:
“In the absence of all
hope,
we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We
believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate
and of death that still persist in our land. We will see here ‘a new
land’ and ‘a new human being’, capable of rising up in the spirit to
love each one of his or her brothers and sisters.”
Note also how the document
alludes to the issue of the refugees of 1948 and their millions of
descendants (1.1.6):
“Refugees are also part of
our
reality. Most of them are still living in camps under difficult
circumstances. They have been waiting for their right of return,
generation after generation. What will be their fate?”
The question at the end of the
paragraph is another device to avoid alienating potential sympathizers.
Take it away and the intention of the authors is plain: those millions
have to wait on in their camps until they can pour into Israel in a
mass and create an Arab majority there.
The Aims
Whatever their ultimate
aspiration, the immediate aims of the authors are two:
- To bring about a total Israeli
withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines by means of economic sanctions.
- To neutralize the support of
Christian Zionists and any other Christians for Israel.
These aims are closely
related. The governments of the world basically agree with the claim of
the document that half a million Jews are living illegally in
Palestinian territory, including half the Jewish population of
Jerusalem. If those governments are not yet pressing for a total
withdrawal, it is merely on pragmatic grounds: an equal exchange of
territory seems a less disruptive and much less expensive solution than
uprooting that whole population. It is only certain Christian groups
that justify the Jewish presence in those areas on an ideological basis
and not merely out of political convenience.
Moreover, especially in the
US, but not only there, those Christians have been able to influence
both public opinion and political decision makers. Suppose them
suddenly removed and you can imagine the force of a unanimous wall of
hostility toward Israel.
The present Israeli prime
minister knows this as well as anyone. We heard him address a meeting
in the Knesset where he displayed a detailed awareness of how the State
of Israel emerged from alliances of Christians and Jews during the last
two centuries. It is all the more unfortunate, consequently,
that there are others in positions of power in Israel whose actions
seemed designed to alienate Israel’s only historic allies.
Malcolm Lowe is a biblical
scholar living in Jerusalem.
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