Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2002, pages 56-58

Special Report

 

Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu Calls For End to Israeli Occupation

 

By Sr. Elaine Kelley

Boston’s Old South Church, which, according to its brochure, boasts a 350-year history of dissent “proclaiming the Gospel of justice, inclusiveness, and reconciliation,” was a fitting site for an April 12-13 conference on Ending the Occupation. Equally appropriate was the participation of South Africa’s Nobel Peace Laureate and preeminent anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who delivered the keynote address.

The conference, which took place as Israel was invading the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jenin, was co-sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and Friends of Sabeel-North America. Sabeel was established by Christian churches in Palestine to inform Western Christians of the injustices of Israel’s military occupation and to involve them in programs promoting a just peace.

In addition to Archbishop Tutu, presenters included Bishop Thomas Shaw, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, who caused an outcry last October when he demonstrated in front of the Israeli consulate in Boston to protest Israel’s aggressive measures against the Palestinians; Sara Roy, senior research scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, who has conducted research in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985; Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Program of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and author of From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising; Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem and author of Justice and Only Justice; and Rev. Canon Richard Toll, national chairperson of Friends of Sabeel-North America and a 30-year veteran in the work for Palestinian rights.

The conference attracted both a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the church during Archbishop Tutu’s talk and a failed effort by area members of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League to convince the church’s pastor, Rev. Jim Crawford, to allow them to set up an information table inside the conference area. A few ADL members did stay for the presentations and participated during open mike question-and-answer sessions. In all, about 800 people attended the two-day event.

Ruy Costa, executive director of the Episcopal City Mission in the Diocese of Massachusetts and former associate director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, opened the conference with a report on a February consultation organized by the World Council of Churches in Geneva and its efforts to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—efforts, Costa said, “ignored by Israel.” The WCC, he announced, has “reaffirmed some of its policies” and “become more aggressive” in the current crisis, calling on the U.N. to develop more programs involving volunteer civilian peacekeeping monitors. Since October 2000, Costa reported, the WCC has issued over 100 statements expressing “the united message of churches around the world,” unanimous in citing Israel’s illegal occupation as the root of the violence.

Desmond Tutu, in his address “Occupation Is Oppression” (see box on facing page) again thanked the movement in America for “supporting us and supporting sanctions against the [apartheid] regime.” South Africa is free, he noted, because of “people who cared even when it looked totally impossible.”

 

Universal Nonviolence

Referring to South Africa’s achievement of a bloodless transition from apartheid to democratic rule, the archbishop shared his vision of a Middle East peace achieved through nonviolence. “If our madness could end as it did,” he insisted, “it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world.”

People in America are scared “to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful, very powerful,” Tutu said, and because they fear that to criticize Israel is “to immediately be dubbed ‘anti-Semitic.’”

Tutu’s statements over the years comparing Israel’s occupation to the policies of the former apartheid South African government are on record—as is Jewish antipathy toward him for suggesting that Jews should forgive the Germans for the Holocaust.

The Israel/South Africa analogy has its shortcomings, however, according to written statements by organizers of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation, a national effort to mobilize public support in the U.S. toward changing American foreign policy to Israel. The campaign’s interim organizing committee includes, among others, Phyllis Bennis, Prof. Edward Said of Columbia University, and Kathy Bergen of the American Friends Service Committee. Campaign materials distributed at the conference pointed out “crucial differences” between the two situations: for example, that, under international law the Palestinian case is even stronger than was South Africa’s.

The campaign’s analysis of the U.S. movement against apartheid over the past 25 years shows that the anti-apartheid movement was far more viable because of strong leadership, years of strategic planning and a focus on “university and governmental divestment, on arms embargoes” and on “economic sanctions against the apartheid regime.”

Unlike the movement for a free Palestine, moreover, the African leadership’s strategy included “plans for domestic mobilization, political education, international economic and diplomatic engagement, military activities” and more.

In her talk on “U.S. Middle East Policy: What It Has Been and What It Needs to Be,” key campaign organizer Bennis said the “U.S. is the central mechanism for allowing the occupation to continue.” Calling for increased U.S. involvement is wrong, in her view: “We don’t need more engagement,” Bennis explained. “We need a different engagement.”

Citing Washington’s failed attempts to achieve peace through the various Mitchell, Zinni and Tenet plans, Bennis argued the failures were “not because it’s the wrong messenger, but because it’s the wrong message.” Secretary of State Colin Powell has been unsuccessful so far, she added, because “he doesn’t have a mandate to end the occupation.”

Bennis, who is Jewish, cited the development of a new internationalism which, she said, urgently needs a “new diplomacy rooted in the U.N.” No new policy can succeed outside the context of international law and human rights, she said, but this context is negated by U.S. domination of the U.N.—the subject of her latest book, Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s U.N. “It’s U.S. power that makes Israel’s occupation possible,” she stated. “We have to make it impossible.”

Sara Roy said her parents, Holocaust survivors, “were remarkable and taught me to speak out against injustice.” She has spent her life doing exactly that, she said. Roy’s research has focused primarily on the economic, social, and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. She has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades. Her conference presentation addressed “Why The Oslo Process Failed.”

Roy was adamant that “Oslo formalized the occupation.” Since the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993, she noted, “conditions grew worse” in the occupied territories, with the doubling of settlements, the institutionalization of closure policy, the solidification of Israeli control over the land and water, the confiscation of 40,000 acres of land and the construction of 250 miles of settler bypass roads.

To Roy, the most striking indicator of Oslo’s failure is “the dissection of the West Bank and Gaza into non-contiguous enclaves” with 97 checkpoints in the West Bank and 32 in Gaza. Decrying the popular notion that the Palestinians are the main culprits because of their rejection of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s so-called “generous offer” at Camp David in July 2000, she pointed to the “peace” process itself which, she said, “intensified rather than mitigated Palestinian dispossession, deprivation, and oppression.”

Bishop Thomas Shaw, speaking on “Witnessing for Truth and Justice,” introduced himself as “a privileged white person living in this country in freedom my whole life.” He attributed his involvement in Palestinian rights to Bishop Edmond Browning, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and co-founder of Friends of Sabeel-North America, and whom Shaw described as his “mentor and example” in Palestinian justice work.

Bishop Shaw recounted his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, his relationship with a staff member’s Jewish family and his participation with them in prayer at their synagogue, his deep gratitude and connection to all people of the Bible, his discernment over what God was calling him to do to address war and violence in the Middle East, and his subsequent decision to demonstrate against the occupation before the Israeli consulate in Boston last Oct. 30. His action was not against the Jewish people or the Jewish faith, Bishop Shaw emphasized, but was aimed at the Israeli government and the Jewish community in Boston which supports Israel’s military actions against the Palestinian civilian population.

Outside the Park Square office building where the Israeli consulate has its Boston offices, Shaw and two assistant bishops in the Diocese held placards condemning Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and handed out fliers explaining their protest. Many Christian leaders expressed support, while other leaders in the Jewish community condemned Shaw. Since that action, however, Bishop Shaw has become a beacon to the American pro-Palestinian movement and an encouragement to those Christians who often wonder at the glaring dearth of church leaders concerned with their fellow Christians in Palestine.

Presentations also were given by Sabeel’s international director, Rev. Canon Naim Ateek of Jerusalem and the national chair, Rev. Richard Toll of Portland, Oregon. Both had just returned from an international solidarity visit in Jerusalem sponsored by Sabeel and drawing 45 people from the U.S., Britain, Canada and Scandinavia.

Speaking on “The Principles for a Just and Durable Peace Between Israel and Palestine,” Ateek challenged the media’s use of the term “war” when Palestinians have no military, no army or navy, and are singled out for condemnation by the world for doing those things that people do in a war. He proceeded to explain the principles for a just peace outlined in The Jerusalem Sabeel Document. “This is the principle, the Golden Rule,” he said. “Everything is in this document.”

Rev. Canon Richard Toll concluded the conference with a talk on “A National Campaign to End the Occupation.” Toll, a close friend of Naim Ateek, whom he met in seminary at Berkeley 30 years ago, challenged Christians in the audience to research their churches’ official policy on the occupation. While most mainstream churches claim in their church documents to support Palestinian independence and call for an end to Israel’s occupation, he noted, the people in their congregations are badly informed. “Many in your congregations don’t even know there is an occupation,” he said.

Toll reported that Palestinian Christians over the years have expressed a sense of abandonment by the rest of the Christian world. Pilgrims come in droves to the Holy Land but do not meet the indigenous Christians there. Toll referred to the large number of Christian Zionist groups that support Israel and their end-of-times theology which looks for the second coming brought about through Armageddon. “They may have their chance,” he said—adding, “Let’s hope not.”

Toll praised the World Council of Churches’ new initiative and the growing movement of civilian internationals serving on the ground in the occupied territories as witnesses and peacekeepers. “All religions, men and women from all over the world,” he told those gathered, “are waking up and giving one message: ‘End the Occupation.’”

SIDEBAR 1

 

Dr. Desmond Tutu’s Address at the “Ending the Occupation” Conference

GOD IS WEEPING over what He sees in the Middle East. God has no one except ourselves, absolutely no one. God is omnipotent, all-powerful, but also impotent. God does not dispatch lightning bolts to remove tyrants, as we might have hoped He would. God waits for you, for you to act. You are His partner. God is as weak as the weakest of His partners, or as strong as the morally strongest.

The title of my talk is “Occupation Is Oppression.” I would like to change that to “Give Peace a Chance, for Peace is Possible”; for we are bearers of hope. To God’s people, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, we want to say: our hearts go out to all who have suffered the violence of suicide bombers and of military incursions. I want to say to all: peace is possible. These two peoples are God’s chosen and beloved, with a common ancestor in Abraham.

I give thanks for what the Jews have given us. During apartheid we told our people God has heard their crying. And God will deliver us as God delivered Israel from bondage. God never abandoned us through tribulation and suffering.

In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were the Jews. Jews almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust center in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.

What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us blacks in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. They seemed to derive so much joy from our humiliation.

We know of the horrific attacks on refugee camps, towns, villages, and Palestinian institutions. We don’t know the exact truth because Israelis won’t let the media in. What are they hiding?

Perhaps more sinister is why is there no outcry in the United States about the Israeli siege in the West Bank? You see the harrowing images of what suicide bombers have done, something we all condemn, but we see no scenes of what the tanks are doing to Palestinian homes and people.

On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and their homes?

I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Israeli Jews. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Center) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: “Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews.”

My heart aches. I say, why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?

Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won’t let ambulances reach the injured.

The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred.

Israel has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all Palestinians; or—and I hope this will be the road taken—to strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with Israel, both with secure borders.

We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. South Africa is a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land.

My brother Naim Ateek has said what we used to say: “I am not pro- this people or that. I am pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti-injustice, anti-oppression.”

But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the U.S.], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic, as if the Palestinians were not Semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures?

People are scared in this country [the U.S.] to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful. Well, so what? This is God’s world. For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosovic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.

Injustice and oppression will never prevail. Those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful: What is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes judgment.

We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it is God’s dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers.—April 13, 2002

Sr. Elaine Kelley is the administrative officer of Friends of Sabeel-North America.

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