Dette stykket er forsåvidt gamalt no, men sidan vi har bak oss ein heilt
fersk debatt om religion, trur eg dette kan vera greitt å sjå på no om nokon
er meir interessert.
Eg deler ikkje det prosionistiske standpunktet til forfattaren av denne
artikkelen. Men eg synest han er interessant og velskriven, og verdt å
tenkja litt gjennom. Eg trur nemleg at det ligg ei motsetning her - ikkje
berre i politikken, men også i teologien. Eg trur det er noko grunnleggjande
ukristeleg med stoda i td. Gaza - der over ein million folk er trengt saman
på sveltegrensa i eit bitte lite område, medan nokre tusen busetjarar legg
beslag på store delar av området, og stoggar all ferdsel, avdi dei søkjer
"den eigentlege jødedomen". No finst det ulike meiningar om dette mellom
jødar - og godt er det. Det interessante er at det også finst kristne som av
ein eller annan grunn meiner at dette ikkje er ei ukristeleg ordning.
Kvifor? Er dette eit teikn på at kyrkja av ulike grunnar gjev slepp på eigne
dogme, og går i oppløysing som religion? Kven er kyrkja sin Gud: Jahve eller
Kristus?
Christians who hate the Jews
Melanie Phillips says the Archbishop of Wales is among Churchmen worried
that opposition to Israel is motivated by anti-Semitism rooted deep in
Christian theology
It was one of those sickening moments when an illusion is shattered and an
ominous reality laid bare. I was among a group of Jews and Christians who
met recently to discuss the Churches’ increasing public hostility to Israel.
The Jews were braced for a difficult encounter. After all, many British Jews
(of whom I am one) are themselves appalled by the destruction of Palestinian
villages, targeted assassinations and other apparent Israeli overreactions
to the Middle East conflict.
But this debate never took place. For the Christians said that the Churches’
hostility had nothing to do with Israel’s behaviour towards the
Palestinians. This was merely an excuse. The real reason for the growing
antipathy, according to the Christians at that meeting, was the ancient
hatred of Jews rooted deep in Christian theology and now on widespread
display once again.
A doctrine going back to the early Church fathers, suppressed after the
Holocaust, had been revived under the influence of the Middle East conflict.
This doctrine is called replacement theology. In essence, it says that the
Jews have been replaced by the Christians in God’s favour, and so all God’s
promises to the Jews, including the land of Israel, have been inherited by
Christianity.
Some evangelicals, by contrast, are ‘Christian Zionists’ who passionately
support the state of Israel as the fulfilment of God’s Biblical promise to
the Jews. But to the majority who have absorbed replacement theology,
Zionism is racism and the Jewish state is illegitimate.
The Jews at the meeting were incredulous and aghast. Surely the Christians
were exaggerating. Surely the Churches’ dislike of Israel was rooted instead
in the settlements, the occupied territories and Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon. But the Christians were adamant. The hostility to Israel within the
Church is rooted in a dislike of the Jews.
Church newspaper editors say that they are intimidated by the overwhelming
hostility to Israel and to the Jews from influential Christian figures,
which makes balanced coverage of the Middle East impossible. Clerics and lay
people alike are saying openly that Israel should never have been founded at
all. One Church source said that what he was hearing was a ‘throwback to the
visceral anti-Judaism of the Middle Ages’.
At this juncture, a distinction is crucial. Criticism of Israel’s behaviour
is perfectly legitimate. But a number of prominent Christians agree that a
line is being crossed into anti-Jewish hatred. This is manifested by
ascribing to every Israeli action malevolent motives, while dismissing
Palestinian terrorism and anti-Jewish diatribes; by the belief that Jews
should be denied the right to self-determination and their state dismantled;
by the conflation of Zionism and a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ of vested interests;
and by the disproportionate venom of the attacks.
‘When I hear “the Jews” used as a term, my blood runs cold — and I’ve been
hearing this far too often,’ says Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Wales
and a contender for the see of Canterbury. ‘Whenever I print anything
sympathetic to Israel, I get deluged with complaints that I am Zionist and
racist,’ says Colin Blakely, the editor of the Church of England Newspaper.
Andrew White, canon of Coventry cathedral and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
representative in the Middle East, is heavily engaged in trying to promote
dialogue and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He says of attitudes
in the Church, ‘These go beyond legitimate criticism of Israel into hatred
of the Jews. I get hate mail calling me a Jew-lover and saying my work is
evil.’
The reason, he says, is that Palestinian Christian revisionism has revived
replacement theology. ‘This doctrine was key in fanning the flames of the
Holocaust, which could not have happened without 2,000 years of anti-Jewish
polemic,’ he says. After the Holocaust the Vatican officially buried the
doctrine, the current Pope affirming the integrity of the Jewish people and
recognising the state of Israel. But, according to Andrew White, the
doctrine is ‘still vibrant’ within Roman Catholic and Anglican pews. ‘Almost
all the Churches hold to replacement theology,’ he says.
The catalyst for its re-emergence has been the attempt by Arab Christians to
reinterpret Scripture in order to delegitimise the Jews’ claim to the land
of Israel. This has had a powerful effect upon the Churches which, through
humanitarian work among the Palestinians by agencies such as Christian Aid,
have been profoundly influenced by two clerics in particular.
The first is the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, a
Palestinian who is intemperate in his attacks on Israel. ‘We interviewed
Bishop Riah after some terrorist outrage in Israel,’ says Colin Blakely,
‘and his line was that it was all the fault of the Jews. I was astounded.’
The bishop also has an astounding interpretation of the Old Testament. Last
December, he claimed of Palestinian Christians, ‘We are the true Israel
...no one can deny me the right to inherit the promises, and after all the
promises were first given to Abraham and Abraham is never spoken of in the
Bible as a Jew.... He is the father of the faithful.’
The second cleric, Father Naim Ateek, is more subtle and highly influential.
Although he says that he has come to accept Israel’s existence, his brand of
radical liberation theology undermines it by attempting to sever the special
link between God and the Jews.
In a lecture last year Andrew White observed that Palestinian politics and
Christian theology had become inextricably intertwined. The Palestinians
were viewed as oppressed and the Church had to fight their oppressor. ‘Who
is the oppressor? The state of Israel. Who is Israel? The Jews. It is they
therefore who must be put under pressure so that the oppressed may one day
be set free to enter their “Promised Land” which is being denied to them.’
This view, said Andrew White, had now influenced not only whole
denominations but also the majority of Christian pilgrimage companies and
many of the major mission and Christian aid organisations. One such outfit,
he said, had sent every UK bishop a significant document outlining Israel’s
oppression of the Palestinians, accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and of
systematically ‘Judaising’ Jerusalem.
David Ison, canon of Exeter cathedral, took a party of pilgrims to the Holy
Land in 2000 at the start of the current intifada. They had a Palestinian
guide, visited only Christian sites in Arab east Jerusalem and the West
Bank, and talked to virtually no Jews. ‘The Old Testament is a horrifying
picture of genocide committed in God’s name,’ he avers. ‘And genocide is now
being waged in a long, slow way by Zionists against the Palestinians.’
Asked what he made of Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the offers made by Israel
at Camp David and Tabah, he said that he knew nothing about that. Indeed, he
said, he knew nothing about Israel beyond what he had read in a book by an
advocate of replacement theology, with which he agreed, and what he had been
told by the Palestinians on the pilgrimage.
The Bishop of Guildford, who is consistently hostile to Israel, shares the
view that the Jews have no particular claim to the Promised Land.
Christianity and Islam, he says, can lay equal claim. And although he says
that Israel’s existence is a reality that must be accepted, his ideal is
very different. A separate Palestinian state would be merely a ‘first step’.
‘Ultimately, one shared land is the vision one would want to pursue,
although it’s unlikely that this will come about.’ As for the Churches’
hostility to Israel, his reply is chilling: ‘The problem is that all the
power lies with the Israeli state.’ So by implication, Israel would merit
sympathy for its casualties only if it had no power to defend itself.
The Bishop of Guildford, who chairs Christian Aid, says that he particularly
admires Bishop Riah and Naim Ateek. He also warmly endorses a parish priest
in his diocese, Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water.
Sizer is a leading crusader against Christian Zionism. He believes that God’
s promises to the Jews have been inherited by Christianity, including the
land of Israel. ‘A return to Jewish nationalism,’ he has written, ‘would
seem incompatible with this New Testament perspective of the international
community of Jesus.’
He acknowledges that Israel has the right to exist since it was established
by a United Nations resolution. But he also says that it is ‘fundamentally
an apartheid state because it is based on race’ and ‘even worse than South
Africa’ (this, despite the fact that Israeli Arabs have the vote, are
members of the Knesset and one is even a supreme court judge).
He therefore hopes that Israel will go the same way as South Africa under
apartheid and be ‘brought to an end internally by the rising up of the
people’. So, despite saying that he supports Israel’s existence, he appears
to want the Jewish state to be singled out for a fate afforded to no other
democracy properly constituted under international law.
But perhaps this is not surprising given his attitude towards Jews. ‘The
covenant between Jews and God,’ he states, ‘was conditional on their respect
for human rights. The reason they were expelled from the land was that they
were more interested in money and power and treated the poor and aliens with
contempt.’ Today’s Jews, it appears, are no better. ‘In the United States,
politicians dare not criticise Israel because half the funding for both the
Democrats and the Republicans comes from Jewish sources.’
A number of authoritative Christian figures are extremely concerned by the
elision between criticism of Israel and dislike of the Jews. Rowan Williams
says that after a website of the Church in Wales attracted inflammatory
language about Jews, and a meeting in Cardiff about Israel provoked similar
anti-Jewish rhetoric, he was forced to introduce some balancing material
about the Middle East into his Church periodicals.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam
and Christianity, has been addressing Christian groups up and down the
country on the implications of 11 September. When he suggests that there is
a problem with aspects of Islam, he provokes uproar. His audiences blame
Israel for Muslim anger; they want to abandon the Jewish state as a ‘dead’
part of Scripture and support ‘justice’ for the Palestinians instead. ‘What
disturbs me at the moment is the very deeply rooted anti-Semitism latent in
Britain and the West,’ he says. ‘I simply hadn’t realised how deep within
the English psyche is this fear of the power and influence of the Jews.’
Since 11 September, he says, the Palestinian issue has had a major
distorting impact on the whole of the Christian world. ‘Those who blame
Israel for everything don’t realise that for Islam the very existence of
Israel is a problem. Even a Palestinian state would not be sufficient.
Israel may be behaving illegally in a number of areas, but she is under
attack. But white liberal Christians find it deeply offensive not to blame
Israel for injustice.’
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has spoken out against
replacement theology. But unlike the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans have
never been forced to confront their Church’s role in the Holocaust and their
attitude towards the Jews.
Carey, say Church sources, is now in an invidious position. Under pressure
to make an accommodation with the Muslims, he is also hemmed in by some
highly placed enemies of Israel within the Church and is reluctant to pick a
fight with the establishment view.
Nevertheless, there are many decent Christians who don’t hold this view. The
network of councils of Christians and Jews is going strong. Archbishop
Williams preached in Cardiff’s synagogue last weekend. Christians who voice
these concerns are prepared to risk opprobrium or worse.
But for the Jews, caught between the Islamists’ blood libels on one side and
Christian replacement theology on the other, Britain is suddenly a colder
place.
Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist
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