November 1989, Page 38

Religion

Evangelical Church Issues Statement on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By the Reverend L. Humphrey Walz

"The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America views. . . with increasing concern and anguish. . . this brutal conflict (that) has taken hundreds of Palestinians lives and. . . divided the citizens of Israel" while many Jews worldwide fear it may "undermine Jewish prophetic values, which are our Christian legacy as well."

The four-page, five-part statement on "The Israel-Palestinian Conflict," which provides the context of that fragment, may be secured at no charge from the Department of Studies, Evangelical Lutheran Commission on Church in Society, 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.

The statement reinforces previous declarations by other church bodies. It too recognizes the complexity and intensity of the conflict and the consequent urgency for taking prompt steps to bring it to a halt. It calls upon its members to study pertinent history and current events so as to become responsible supporters of remedial political action. It also calls for prayer for "God's gift of peace. . . so that Christians, Muslims and Jews might live. . . free from violence and fear."

It is novel only in that it forthrightly, without defensiveness or recrimination, repudiates the frequent Zionist assertion that past persecutions of Jews require Christians to remain penitently uncritical of Israeli human rights violations in the occupied territories, which it succinctly summarizes. Humbly yet boldly it declares that "prophetic failures in the past cannot lead us into silence now."

Does Halacha Demand 'Transfer' of Goyim?

Israel's "most divisive question today," according to the Jerusalem Post, is whether to "return all of the territories occupied in the Six Day War" (as required under the UN Charter) "or only some of them or none at all." An inseparable subquestion is driving further wedges between Israel and the UN as well as within Israel itself: "Should the Israeli government be allowed to continue its 'transfer' policy of evicting and deporting Goyim (non-Jews)?"

In the latest UN Security Council action on the subject, 14 of the 15 member states deplored Israel's adding of five more Palestinians to the previous 2500-plus expelled from the occupied territories. Though the US abstained from voting, Richard Boucher of the State Department declared such expulsions to be forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention which Israel has signed. Its Article 49 prohibits "individual or mass. . . deportations by military occupiers." (The Israeli High Court contends that the Gaza Strip and West Bank are "liberated," not "occupied," hence not subject to that convention.)

Internally, much of the debate revolves around contrasting understandings of Halacha (traditional interpretations of Biblical law). At the 31st annual Conference on the Oral Law at Mossad Harav Kook, Jerusalem, two former chief rabbis presented antithetical conclusions: Rabbi Shlomo Goren sanctioned 'transfer' by citing the instruction to Moses in Numbers 33:51-53: "Say to the people of Israel, When you cross over Jordan. . . you shall drive out all the inhabitants. . ." Gush Emunim settlers agree.

However, relying on other Halachic commentaries, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef asserted that, in that passage, "you shall" was introducing not a command but a forecast of what might happen when the Israelites deserved it. Further, he affirmed, no exposition of any passage should be acceptable if it contradicts the Talmudic (ancient rabbinic) teaching that "nothing supersedes the preservation of life." Goren, in rebuttal, made a 20th century application of Moses' speech in Deuteronomy 7:2 exhorting his cohorts to "utterly destroy" non-Israelites and "show no mercy to them."

As the two rabbis were debating, Rabbi Eliezer Schach, dean of Poneveh Yeshiva, was addressing the fall convocation. Thousands listened as he attributed most of the Israeli government's problems to its defiance of divine ordinances in its creation and throughout its 41 subsequent years of secular domination.

Restlessly underlying the divisive questions noted above are various conflicting assumptions regarding special territorial and residential rights for people of Abrahamic descent. Who are those people?

Genesis describes them as "a multitude of nations" and "as the dust of the earth. . . the stars of the sky. . . [and] the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitude" (Gen. 17:4; 13:16; 22:17; 32:12). (With a reverse approach, Dr. Samuel R. Berenberg's calculator told him that, mathematically speaking, we're each entitled to have had 1,267,650,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ancestors 100 generations ago-a conservative estimate of the time span back to Abraham. Since the world population then totaled by a tiny fraction of that number, he reasoned, most of the people on earth today may well be descended from most of the people on earth then, including Abraham.) Perhaps, then, the pertinent Halachic question to raise would be: "Who of us can convincingly disclaim Abrahamic ancestry and the accompanying special calling to 'be a blessing' to all (Gen. 12:2)?"

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