December 1995, Pages 10, 92

Christianity and the Middle East

“Bulldozed on the West Bank, Self-Help Project Is Leveled”

By Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

The headline above was the title of a three-column, full-page editorial in the Oct. 11 Christian Century by James Wall. It read in part:

"Thirteen Palestinian turkey farmers and their families in the village of Hizma may be among the final victims of the 28-year Israeli occupation of the West Bank. A farm cooperative funded in part by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was destroyed by Israel Defense Forces on Sept. 12, just two weeks before Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres reached an agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories. Two buildings housing 500 turkeys were bulldozed by IDF troops led by Major Moshe Muther, who told the director of the farm project, Mohammad Sbeih, an agricultural engineer, to 'get the turkeys out in five minutes.'

"'All that is left of the Hizma project,' according to Robert Hannum, a United Methodist church worker in Jerusalem, 'is a pile of twisted metal roofing, broken concrete wall, and the floor.' Of the 500 turkeys, 100 have been sold, and the remaining 400 are being kept in a villager's basement...

"The total cost of the self-help project was $43,500. Diaconia, a Swedish organization, originated the project as a chicken cooperative. Profits from the sale of the chickens, plus the Presbyterians' support, along with $300 from each of the 13 families, helped establish the buildings, dig a cistern, and purchase the turkeys...

"Church workers in the area speculate that the IDF major who carried out the bulldozing was responding to pressure from three Jewish settlements surrounding the village...

"The juxtaposition of Jewish settlements—most of which resemble U.S. suburban housing developments with schools, stores and swimming pools—and old Palestinian villages and farms is expected to be a constant source of friction between the new Palestinian government and Israel. Conflict over the use of water, for example, already has emerged as a central point of contention. The settlements have dug modern wells that tap into aquifers that take water away from local farm wells, many of which are 50 to 100 years old. New roads that link Jewish settlements to one another and to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are designed to separate the two populations, but their construction has come at the cost of valuable Palestinian farm land. Indeed, it's possible that the Israelis decided the land on which the Hizma turkey project is located is 'needed' for road construction.

"In any event, the Hizma incident ought to be an embarrassment to the U.S. government and Israel, both of which are basking in international acclaim following the signing of the latest peace accords at the White House. Thus far, however, U.S. media have ignored Hizma.

"Of course, the bulldozing of buildings has been a familiar military tactic in the West Bank since 1967. But the involvement of U.S. church funds in the turkey project could prompt more than the usual perfunctory investigation by the State Department."

Such an outcome would, in fact, accord with the Presbyterians' official hopes. On Oct. 18, after on-the-spot investigation by Margaret Orr Thomas of the Presbyterian World-Wide Ministry Division, Rev. James E. Andrews, their Stated Clerk (as that denomination designates its chief executive officer), wrote President Clinton about the matter. His letter, a copy of which went to the Israeli embassy in Washington, includes these details:

"A contingent of six or seven armed Israeli soldiers entered the village with the intention of bulldozing the building housing the turkey farm" just after 4 p.m., "when all official offices close and no one can be officially summoned to negotiate." Sbeih showed the officer in charge the building permit the villagers had paid the Israeli planning department for, and reminded him that Israeli law requires military officers to give 48-hour written notice before demolishing a building. His evidence and pleas were ineffective.

"The families involved in the project," Andrews' letter continues, "no longer have a source of income, as the project is in ruins. As you know, unemployment in the occupied territories is around 60 percent because of the Israeli policy of border closures and replacement of Palestinian laborers with imported labor from abroad.

"We beseech you to urge the Israeli government to investigate this unwarranted attack on the people of Hizma and to provide restitution for the project which their agents destroyed and for the income lost to these families as a result. Small incidents like this one can destroy months of patient negotiations in search of peace."

Serb Bishops Host European Leaders

Serbian Orthodox bishops welcomed a delegation of West European church leaders to Belgrade for the five last days of October. Hosts and guests exchanged "on-the-spot" insights and perspectives on the causes—and possible cures—of the devastating, sometimes genocidal, aspects of turmoil currently afflicting the fragments of former Yugoslavia.

They met in the wake of related reports and questions at the September meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee. Bishop Lavrentije, who represents Serbian Orthodoxy on that committee, had called attention to how more than half a century under Communism had left the churches seriously depleted in every way. Some 90 percent of church property was confiscated by the Communist government in 1947. Christian participation in, and influence on, education and public affairs were eliminated.

That era, almost half a century long, has ended, but civil war and shortages stemming from international embargoes continue to complicate all of life, including church life, Lavrentije said. Symbolic is the inability of worshippers to have votive candles because of the embargo on paraffin.

The Serbian Orthodox Church also is unable to get paper for printing books, periodicals or study materials. Lavrentije added that his present allotment of 20 liters of gasoline a month is too little to permit him to maintain adequate touch with the 204 parishes of Saba-Valjevo, his diocese. Other day-to-day resources are similarly, or totally, restricted.

Saba-Valjevo, bordering on Bosnia, Lavrentije told Ecumenical News International's Edmund Doogue after the Geneva meeting, had had some 100,000 Bosnian refugees fleeing through it in that single week. Some 80,000 such refugees, he stated, are resident now in Saba-Valjevo, and 80 percent of his time is required for their care.

No effective Christian response is possible to any aspect of the region-plaguing problems, he stressed, without cooperation, hitherto lacking, between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic bodies, both locally and internationally. He had spoken similarly, he declared, at an earlier consultation in Italy with Catholic bishops from Croatia and Slovenia.

The fact that Serbian Patriarch Pable was one of 12 key bishops from around the world who produced the "Patmos Message," released Sept. 26, has made even clearer where the Serbian Orthodox Church's officialdom stands on the military record of its country's present government. Condemning "nationalistic fanaticism," that message insists that the Orthodox understanding of nationhood contains "no elements of aggression or conflict among peoples."

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I selected the island of Patmos off the Aegean coast of Turkey as the meeting's site to honor the 19th centennial of the writing there of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, the last book of the New Testament.

WCC Laments Undermining of Christian Presence in Jerusalem

Another development at the nine-day September meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches was the statement that the policies of the state of Israel have created a situation of political and economic insecurity for the indigenous Christian population of Jerusalem, resulting in continued emigration and decline of the Christian presence there. The 151-member committee called on the state of Israel to halt its "continuing systematic policies of confiscation of buildings and land, destruction of buildings and establishment of new Jewish settlements in and around East Jerusalem."

As reported by Stephen Brown of Ecumenical News International, it also criticized constraints on the freedom of movement by Christians and Muslims within Jerusalem, and asked the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority to start negotiating on the future status of the city. Member churches were requested to be "constant in prayer and in acts of solidarity with the Christian communities in Jerusalem in order to ensure a continuing, vital Christian presence in the Holy City."

Member churches were requested to be "constant in prayer."

Further, the Central Committee endorsed last December's unprecedented call by the leaders of the main Christian communities in Jerusalem, most of them Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, demanding a special "judicial and political statute for Jerusalem which reflects the universal importance and significance of the city."

In their statement, those leaders called for the Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities to be given full and equal access to their holy places, freedom of movement, the right to carry out pilgrimages, freedom of worship and conscience, and the right to organize and carry out religious, educational, medical and other charitable duties.

New Middle East Studies Center

On Nov. 8, 1995, the Middle East Studies Center at North Park College in Chicago opened with Fr. Elias Chacour, the noted Palestinian Christian author and educator, delivering the inaugural lecture. The center at North Park is the first evangelically oriented Middle East studies center in North America. Its long-studied creation received final, unanimous authorization by the college's board on Oct. 28.

In addition to developing an academic program at North Park College and its seminary, the center will relate to the 90-member Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities, which features a semester of study in Cairo. It will offer consulting services to colleges, mission agencies, the religious media, churches and tour groups on various Middle East political and religious subjects. A special focus of research and consultation will be on Middle Eastern Christianity. Interfaith dialogue with the Muslim and Jewish communities in Chicago will be an ongoing feature of Center activities.

The North Park Middle East Studies Center will function as a full partner with Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU), a nine-year-old movement of U.S. evangelical leaders, institutions and agencies. EMEU has held annual conferences in the U.S. or the Middle East since 1987. In March 1996, it will convene conferences in Istanbul, Turkey, and Beirut, Lebanon, with an added "Pilgrimage in the Footsteps of St. Paul." The U.S. conference for 1996 will be on the North Park campus the weekend of Sept. 13-14, 1996.

The director of the new North Park Middle East Studies Center is the Rev. Dr. Donald E. Wagner, assisted by Susanne Coalson Donoghue. North Park College enrolls 1,700 students in 40 areas of study and has been recognized as one of the top 10 small colleges in the Midwest by U.S. News and World Report.

The Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, D.D., retired Associate Executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in denominational and ecumenical peacemaking activities.