If the conflict with Iran does not rise to nuclear grade next week, the politics behind it will. President Obama is expected once again to bend to the view that U. S. and Israeli interests hold all things in common. Prime Minister Netanyahu is reported to believe “there should be no space between Israel and the U. S. should Israel choose to attack Iran.” Especially true if there is—as all experts seem to believe will happen—a counter-attack by Iran and its allies. Meanwhile all the President’s political opponents are thrilled by the possibility that the President might prove uncooperative, giving them an easy target—“Obama is anti-Israel”-- and the chance to break the Democrats’ hold on the Jewish vote.
It is not too much to conjecture that while the war flags are being waved they also provide cover for one of Israel’s apparent largest objectives—to continue to build cities in the West Bank with the ultimate goal of pushing out the Palestinian population into Jordan and other near-by countries. The rhetoric of Israel far Right leader, Avigdor Lieberman, speaks of just such desire. His view lies closer than one might think to the mainstream of Israeli leadership. Every Israeli administration since the 1967 war has expanded construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.
The churches bear a measure of responsibility for why the U. S. stands today on the brink of another Middle East War. Christians of all stripes endlessly study the texts about the small world where Jesus walked two thousand years ago but seem deeply averse to studying and engaging what is happening in the same location now.
Its old news but most Christians are surprised even today to learn that nearly 500,000 Israelis already live in city-size “settlements” built on Palestinian land with more construction underway.
Principal among the enforcers of the current politics is, of course, the powerful American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) which last Spring forced a joint session of Congress to hear Netanyahu, and last summer flew two-thirds of the House of Representatives to Israel for a briefing.
The AIPAC dynamic not only pushes the President but drives the strategy of local interfaith relations among Christians and Jews. Both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, for somewhat different reasons, have been in decline for decades. It’s not just the triumph of rationalism over faith, but the loss of social status when Protestants provided a cutting edge in the Civil Rights movement and then condemned the Vietnam War (Iraq too). Pastors, under fire when issues they champion cut contributions to the budget, are glad to receive the next Jewish community relations award for being unobstreperous about Israel and its practices. AIPAC deeply knows this and guides its local minions accordingly. The least the weakened and vulnerable Christians can do is say thank you and stick to the next food drive or home construction project.
It doesn’t have to be and should not be this way. Faithful silence betrays the demands of history and truth. Consider for instance the proportionality of suffering in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Most Jews know, as do some Christians and Muslims,that Israel’s border towns have been struck by rockets over the last seven year period with thirty-three Israelis killed by this rocket fire launched by Palestinians organizations.
What most do not know is that in one three week period alone (December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009) the Israeli War in Gaza (Operation Cast Lead) killed 1,397 Palestinians. Five Israeli soldiers died.
This picture of disproportionality extends over decades. In Lebanon in 2006 Twelve hundred Lebanese died and one hundred twenty-one Israelis. The Israeli prison system holds 4,387 Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians hold 0 prisoners.
The only way you can accept this disproportionate suffering is if you believe the Palestinians are a little sub-human and the Jews a little super-human. Is there something wrong about this picture?
A very long string of books have been published in the past ten years that outline why Israel’s position in relation to the UN Promise to Palestinians of an independent state is wrong and untenable. From Jimmy Carter’s We Can Have Peace In the Holy Land to Mearsheimer and Walt’s analysis of The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy to dozens of books authored by Israelis themselves. Mearsheimer and Walt identify a simple goal:
Encourage a more open debate about these issues, in order to correct existing myths about the Middle East and to force groups in the lobby to defend their position in the face of well-formed opposition. In particular, Americans need to understand the real history of Israel’s founding and the true story of its subsequent conduct [p. 350]
No such well-informed opposition yet exists. It could still happen. That’s why faith communities could turn the nuclear direction events have taken into their faith’s finest hour by speaking truth to power, speaking out against a 40 year long occupation of the Palestinian lands by Israel. Faith communities will bear a significant measure of responsibility if war against Iran is chosen instead of peaceful solutions.
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Unfairness: Villages not connected to a water network [edited]
Per capita daily water consumption for household and municipal use in communities connected to a central running-water network in the West Bank is some 73 liters a day. In Israel, per capita daily use is 242 liters in towns and 211 liters in local councils, more than 3.5 times greater.
The principal reason for the water shortage in the West Bank is the unfair distribution of the water resources shared by Israel and the Palestinians. One of these resources is the Mountain Aquifer which is composed of a few reservoirs of groundwater that lie on both sides of the Green Line. Although this aquifer is the sole water source for residents of the West Bank, Israel uses eighty percent of it, leaving only the remaining twenty percent for the Palestinians. Israel refuses to alter this distribution…
The water shortage is especially hard on residents of Palestinian villages that are not connected to a water network. According to data from 2008, some 191,238 Palestinians live in 134 villages without a running-water network. There are an additional 190,000 Palestinians who live in communities in which the water system is very limited. In the winter and fall, these residents collect rainfall in pits next to their homes and use the water for all their needs. In the spring and summer months, when the water in the pits runs out, the residents rely on water from nearby springs and on water they purchase from owners of private water-tankers.
There are also hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in communities with a central running-water network that supplies water irregularly in limited amounts and does not reach everyone in the community. For this reason, some Palestinian authorities supply water in the summer months on a rotation basis: each neighborhood receives water once every few days, for one day or several hours at a time. To supplement the water supplied, these residents have to buy water brought to them in privately owned water-tankers. [B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights]
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