October 1989, Page 27

Religion

Presbyterians Question US Aid to Israel

By the Reverend L. Humphrey Walz

"Appropriate officials" of the US, Israel, the UN and the Palestine Observer Mission at the UN should by now have received the Presbyterian (USA) General Assembly's 1989 statement on "Working Toward Israeli-Palestinian Peace." It calls again for "mutual recognition of the rights os people. . .[and] mutual renunciation of violence." It also seeks once more to stimulate the kind of dialogue that can "encourage Palestinain and Israeli states living side by side in mutual respect."

Its only modifications of previous declarations result from changes in the circumstances under which they are to be applied: A new government in Israel, a new administration in Washington, an upgraded international status for the PLO and the beginnings of US-PLO talks. Also new, it notes, is recognition by Israel's High Court that Palestinians consigned to the Ketziot desert prison, better known as Ansar 3, without due legal process are subject to "overcrowding and excessive discipline." Most importantly: "Since early December 1987, there has been the Palestinian uprising against Israel's repressive occupation on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and Israel's reaction to it, characterized by much military and Israeli settler brutality and also by Israeli popular demonstrations against the occupation."

One of the Presbyterian General Assembly's nine recommendations to the US government is that it "use financial aid to Israel in accordance with US foreign policy goals" amd express US opposition to "Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. . .[and] human rights abuses during the uprising." Another recommendation is use of "US influence to. . .close the Ketziot Military Detention Center." This follows the 1988 refusal of Israeli government offices to receive a US ecumenical delegation sent to check out reports of legal irregularities and unsanitary and inhumane living conditions imposed on Ketziot prisoners. Consisting of denominationally-designated lawyers and doctors, the team's Presbyterian member was the Hon. Bates Butler of Arizona.

The full three-page preliminary draft of the statement appeared in the July/August Church & Society, available for $4.25 postpaid, from 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202-1396. Substantively, it does not differ from the final version.

"Religion's Role in Peacemaking" Symposium

For its third annual symposium on "The Role of American Religious Leadership in the Middle East Peace Process," the Washington-based American-Arab Affairs Council picked Charleston, WV, as its site, Sept. 26 as its date. With Marshall University and the West Virginia Consortium for Faculty and Course Development in International Studies (FACDIS) as cosponsors, it invited two keynoters to address the theme. Canon Michael P. Hamilton of the Washington Cathedral and Congressman Nick J. Rahall agreed to speak on, respectively, "The Religious Need for Peace in the Middle East" and "Middle East Peace: American Political Perspectives."

Panelists from major religious traditions were signed up to present various perspectives on "Theological Issues in the Middle East Peace Process." They were Rosemary Radford Reuther, a Catholic theologian at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary; Marc H. Ellis, a Jewish professor at Maryknoll School of Theology; Yvonne Y. Haddad, a Presbyterian professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Massachusetts; and Dr. Gamal Badr, a Muslim advisor to Qatar's Mission at the UN.

New Outlook editor Hillel Schenker, Dr. James Will of the Garrett-Evangelical Justice and Peace Center, and International Studies Director John L. Esposito of Holy Cross College shared responsibility for the panel on "The Politics of Religion in the Middle East Peace Process."

AAAC's fourth such symposium is slated for mid-November 1990 in Milwaukee. Prof. Robert Ashmore of Marquette University and the Rev. Dr. Loren Wenig of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee are cochairs for the event.

More Bible Study in Iran?

The Iranian parliament has voted to allow "religious leaders to prepare Bibles and manuals in conformity with their religion and tradition, and to teach these after having received the approval of the authorities." Questions have yet to be answered as to just what getting such approval may involve. We have not heard, for instance, whether the longstanding appeal of the Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Tehran for permission to teach the Bible in Armenian has any greater chance of acknowledement under this ruling than under the Ayatollah Khomeini. Even so, the Armenian bishops of Isfahan and Tehran have voiced hopes that, now that there is relative peace with Iraq, the lot of all minorities in Iran will improve and that their emigration will decrease.

Firm statistics being unavailable, the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) "guestimates" that among the Christians still in Iran there are 150,000 Armenian Orthodox, 15,000 Assyrian Orthodox, 15,000 Chaldean Catholics, 7,000 Latin Catholics, 2,500 Anglicans, 2,000 Armenian Catholics, 1,000 Armenian Protestants and 1,000 Presbyterians.

A tentative calculation of all Christians now in their historic Middle Eastern cradle lands is 14,000,000. The divergent causes of their current emigrations will come under scrutiny at the MECC Jan. 22-29, assembly in Cyprus.

Conferences Consider Religious Themes

Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, in close collaboration with Portland, Oregon-based Mercy Corps International, held their second annual "Mission Update" at the Carter Center in Atlanta, GA, Sept. 22-23. Amidst grim reports on the devastation confronting church-related and secular relief, medical and educational institutions in Lebanon, participants cheered the news of the Sept. 11 reopening of Presbyterian-founded Beirut University College. The agenda featured three main topics: "Christianity and Islam in the Same Place," "Does the Church Have a Future in the Middle East?" and "The Quest for Peace in Israel."

At the Bismarck Hotel in its home city of Chicago, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign will hold its 12th annual conference Oct. 6-8. Under the overall banner of "Palestinian Statehood: Justice, Liberation and Democracy," one of its four panels is slated to deal with "Religious Fundamentalism in the Hold Land."

Three professors, Ghada Talhami of Lake Forest College, Rosemary Ruether of Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and Robert Freeman of the Baltimore Hebrew College are slated to cover varied aspects of this phenomenon. Keynoters are to be Israel Shahak of the Israeli League for Human Rights and President Faisal Husseini of the Arab Studies Society, both from Jerusalem.

The Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, D.D., retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in denominational and ecumenical peacemaking movements.