Some myths

Succulent wall hanging

Sunday afternoon backyard

Some of the tempting myths relating to the bloody conflict in Gaza/Israel.

Israel has a right to exist, therefore a right to defend itself:

      The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 on already-occupied territory set the stage for the current confrontation. The “right” for it to exist doesn't refer to any moral, ethical, human-rights definition of rights, but to international laws applying to nation states; i.e. it has a right to exist and defend itself in the same way that Canada does. We can, of course, compare the establishment of Israel to the arbitrary use of force that allowed virtually every other state in the world to acquire territory and finally establish the borders of its current state. The Americas, for instance, were occupied territory before colonization; indigenous peoples were forced off their traditional lands at gunpoint.

      The upshot of sanctifying the “nation-state” as a superior and over-ruling concept has trumped, even crushed, all kinds of other sensibilities. It has forced various ethnic groups, for instance, to abandon their traditions and beliefs in the interests of the “common good,” or to wander the earth in search of a peaceful homeland. (Mennonites migrating from Canada to Paraguay makes a good case study of this.) It has spawned apartheid-style relationships in many forms and in many places, creating hot-beds for human rights violations, discontent, poverty and conditions favourable to violent conflict.

      Israel may have a nation-state right to exist, but its record by human rights principles does not favour its right to exist as a creditable and recognized nation.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people:

      This myth sounds so self-evident that the National Rifle Association and the lobby against gun registration in Canada freely use it, and many obviously embrace it without further discussion. The truth is that accessible weaponry represents a means and a temptation to violence that wouldn't exist if it wasn't there. Simply put, there are two options where serious conflicts arise: negotiate/compromise, or the zero-sum game we call war. It's easy to demonstrate that where the means for lethal force are absent, negotiation is far more attractive than it would otherwise be. Picture a Palestine where all borders, all weapons suddenly evaporated and then imagine how people would behave knowing that force would not be an option as a route to peace. Knowing that no rockets would be coming, no gunfire, no tanks, no bombs.

Israel's right to exist is embedded in prophecy and is the will of God:

      The declaration that the State of Israel is somehow predestined by the will of God is so absurd that it defies all credulity. Declaring this presupposes that there are ethnic groups whom God favours over others, sites and territories on earth that the Creator loves more than others and most deplorably, that God condones the killing or displacement of innocents so that the chosen ones may prosper and be safe. What is most astounding is that Christians who have, metaphorically, been schooled at Jesus' knee would not see the irony in holding such a position. Christ's message clearly aims toward the breaking down of gender, ethnic, racial distinctions and according to my reading, he would have been appalled to see people condoning the sacrifice of innocents for the advancement of a particular ethnic group.

Supporters of the Palestinian's rights are anti-Semitic:

      This card has been played ad nauseam and—apparently—very successfully. Israel declares itself to be a legal “state,” and the actions it has and is taking in and against Gaza and the West Bank are therefore actions of a legal state. Israel is not asked to answer on the basis of its predominant ethnicity for its atrocious behaviour, but as a state, which it purports to be. The United Nations has challenged Canada on its dealings with its indigenous population, not as European colonialists but as a state, one that has obligations under international consensus. So the state of Israel can be challenged on West Bank settlements, for instance, without drawing the accusation of antisemitism.

      The Harper government has routinely declared itself to be unequivocally in support of Israel's right to pursue its aspirations—by whatever means it finds necessary. I don't know what myths our government is primarily influenced by, but to be so unapologetically and arbitrarily one-sided on the Israel/Gaza/West Bank tensions shows a shallow and uneducated clinging to fantastical conventional “wisdom.”

      If only Harper would take the time to sit down and read a book, or call some of the Hebron CPT volunteers and ask them what they've experienced, then some of our prime minister's mythical view of the world might be illuminated by at least one, small shaft of light.

Now I See Through a Glass Darkly

Reading it ain't easy!

Gerald Gerbrandt, former president of CMU (Canadian Mennonite University), gave his first talk on “Hearing the God of Scripture” last night at the Rosthern Mennonite Church.  The first session encouraged us to think of the scriptures that have been passed down to us as “story, art and drama.” 

    Three more sessions are planned.

     I had lunch with a friend newly-returned from a week in Israel the other day, and in the course of our chatter he asked me what I considered to be the solution to the impasse in Palestine and might it come through the Christianization of the people there, which would make our role more missional than diplomatic. I said I didn't have anything to offer as a solution; for one, I've never been there, never had the opportunity to “feel” what it's like to be Israeli or Palestinian in that small part of the world in 2014.

     What's becoming clearer to me is that Christians are no more “of one accord” than anyone else on the subject of bringing peace to the Middle East. In part, their ambivalence is tied to the way in which scriptures and the historical records are read. We may be looking through the same windows, but interpreting what we see has a host of antecedents.

     Harper really did us all an injustice when he brought the word antisemitism into the dialogue on his recent visit there. There are probably numerous people for whom a hatred of Jewry figures in criticisms of Israel's behaviour, but to link such criticism—for instance of the establishment of West Bank settlements—to antisemitism tends to stifle dialogue and generosity of spirit in the ongoing efforts to broker a lasting and just peace.

     There are other trigger-words about. For instance, who could blame a casual reader of scripture for linking the Israel of the Old Testament with the name of the present state of Israel, and present-day Jerusalem with the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation? (“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” -Revelation 21:2) For many a scripture-reader, dividing the modern-day, secular, political democracy that is Israel from the Biblical chronicles doesn't come easily.

     Gerbrandt urged us to think of scripture more as artful story than as rule book. Many of the laws in the book of Leviticus, for instance, have long since been rendered obsolete by the passage of time and new experiences. Meanwhile, there is clearly an over-arching “story” in scripture, an establishment of basic principles that include, at least, justice, empathy and compassion as the birthright of every living creature. Neither Israel's treatment of Palestinians nor the Canadian treatment of Aboriginal citizens historically can pass the smell test when the principles in the scriptural story are applied: both fail on justice, empathy and compassion standards even when the behaviours in question can be rationalized legally.

     That's not being antisemitic; that's being human and, hopefully, in synch with the appeals of the whole scriptural story.

     Gerbrandt's seminars are timely—and much needed.

Long live the Democratic State of Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim

Parliament of Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim

Imagine this:

In southern Manitoba a portion of land bordered on the north by Highway #1, on the east by Highway # 12, on the west by Highways 240 & 31 and on the south by the US border is separated from the Province of Manitoba by UN declaration and declared a “Mennonite Homeland.” They are a people who have, after all, been hounded around the world – Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, Bolivia, Mexico; they are a people who have been martyred for their faith, persecuted relentlessly by both mainline Catholic and Protestant rulers of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. They deserve an ethnic homeland, don’t they? Their holy city, Winnipeg, will be shared because it is also a holy city to Grain Exchange stockholders, the ethnics of North Winnipeg, Ukrainians etc. North Kildonan will be the ethnic Mennonite allotment in the city and a corridor will be fenced off to the South Perimeter.

               Over time, Mennonites from Mexico, Uruguay, Saskatchewan and other faraway places begin trickling in to embrace the future of life with “their people,” and land becomes a factor and non-Mennonites “squatting” in this new country are irritants to the goal of homeland. They are bought out if possible, gangs of Mennonites less convinced of the efficacy of non-violence harass them until life becomes too dangerous and unpleasant for them and they leave. Their farms are handed over to the migrants and ethnic solidarity gradually builds.

               But it’s not enough. The country of Canada has always seen this ethnic cleansing as unreasonable and illegal, and launches an attack on the temporary capital of the new country— Steinbach—but the Canadian Army is easily defeated by thousands of men in overalls who know how to use pitchforks. They occupy the battleground—Sandilands Provincial Forest—and begin building settlements for Mennonites from Thompson, The Pas, Glenbush and Peace River who are partial to trees. This, of course, also requires harassing the people already living there until they leave and become refugees in North Dakota, which really doesn’t want them.

               Mennonites in Germany, Netherlands, the USA, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta continue to pour funds into this new country—Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim—in the interest of the existence and prosperity of an ethnic homeland where Low German is spoken and churches don’t have steeples. Security will, of course, always be an issue because Canada, Manitoba and the thousands of refugees who have been driven out will always continue to challenge the sovereignty of Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim, and exiles who abandoned farms that had been in the family for ten or more generations will continue to press for a right of return.

               A few days ago, the current Prime Minister of Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim, the Rt. Honourable Tchnalz Freezen met with President Obama, who urged him to stop building settlements in the Sandilands Provincial Forest and to return the area to Manitoba. Prime Minister Freezen scoffed and declared that “the reality on the ground” made that option unthinkable. President Obama also pointed out that the land the exiles had vacated had never been relinquished legally and that they should be given the right to return to live in Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim if they so desired. This proposal met with similar disdain and Freezen declared that no settlement with Manitoba would ever include the right of return. Freezen then reiterated that the Mennonites have a right to an ethnic homeland and that their existence is fragile because of the unreasonable hostility surrounding their borders and the occupation of the Sandilands Forest was vital to these interests.

               Many said Obama came out of the dialogue looking like an unreasonable idiot.

               Score one for Tchnalz. Long live the Mennonite Kingdom Democratic State of Nee-Mennogrebelmanzheim!

              

What about Palestine? - Part 3

Storm over Rosthern - June 29, 2009

Hadawi, Sami. Bitter Harvest: a modern history of Palestine. New York: Olive Branch Press, 1989. ISBN 0-940793-29-6, 346 pages.

Chomsky, Noam. Middle East Illusions. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, inc., 2003. ISBN 0-7425-2699-2, 280 pages.

Carter, Jimmy. Peace, not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. ISBN 0-7432-8502-6, 250 pages.

Here’s what should happen in the Middle East: Israel should withdraw from all occupied territory into the boundaries as they existed in 1967. Jerusalem should be declared an open city administered by its own, democratically-elected council. Palestine and Israel should be acknowledged to be sovereign, democratic states by the world community. The Palestine/Israel territory should undergo a genuine disarmament process.

Here’s what will probably happen: Israel will continue to eat up Palestinian territory by small stages, will continue to impoverish and harass Palestinians in the hope that they will take up permanent residence in Jordan and other neighbouring states. The US will continue to give lip service to the 2-state option while continuing to arm Israel and block all criticism of Israel’s actions in the UN Security Council. Desperate Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank will repeatedly resort to improvised attacks on Israel and Israel will retaliate with extremely disproportionate force. Many will die; 20 or more Palestinians for each Israeli.

Here’s what could happen: US and Israeli intransigence and shortsightedness in Palestine will increasingly frustrate the rest of the world. The Arab states surrounding Israel will coalesce against the US/Israeli unwillingness to deal justly with Palestinians. Terrorist organizations will grow and expand their activities to include states seen to support the US policies in the Middle East. Israel will find itself more and more isolated as pressure from the outside world begins to recognize that Palestine represents a flash point that could trigger worldwide conflict. A concerted attack by the united Arab states to eliminate Israel will fail because of US intervention, but will leave all of Palestine in ruins with masses of Israeli and Arab refugees. The exchange of nuclear attacks between Iran and Israel is a possibility.

Palestinian Sami Hadawi, historian Noam Chomsky and former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter differ on some of the details, but agree on almost all the essentials. Israel and the USA are playing with fire in the Middle East and may be preparing the region for an unimaginable tragedy. Although justified on the premise that security is at stake, Israel has first signed on to, then broken a series of proposals for ending the conflict in Palestine. The US has run a rear guard action to protect Israel’s backside as it proceeds to steal land, disenfranchise the former owners and generally solidify it’s hold on the entire area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

All three books have shortcomings. Hadawi’s analysis is dated, of course; much significant history has occurred since his book was republished 20 years ago. The history of the region, however, going back to the early 20th Century is enlightening. It’s difficult to grasp all the implications of Palestinian history, especially if one wishes to go back to Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, or even to the boy David’s killing of the Palestinian, Goliath. But modern voters in the USA and its allies should at least have a concept of the progression from the early days of the discussions on a Jewish state (ca. 1919) through the Holocaust to the present. Hadawi’s book leads the reader through all this—at least up to the 1980s. Hadawi worked as a land valuer through the British Mandate period and is well placed to comment authoritatively on land issues as seen through Palestinian eyes.

Noam Chomsky’s book (Middle East Illusions) is a compilation of material produced by him over many years. Eminently readable, it offers the reader a history of Palestine after the 1967 war. Chomsky proposes a socialist Palestinian state, with independent, primarily-Palestinian and primarily-Israeli provinces operating with considerable autonomy under a central government, not unlike Manitoba and Saskatchewan under Canadian federalism.

Jimmy Carter’s book is, of course, mostly about what Jimmy Carter is doing and has done about the Palestinian conundrum before, during and after his presidency. You have to give Jimmy credit; bringing about the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel was a groundbreaking achievement, and his interest in pursuing continued progress on a peace settlement goes on unabated. Like the others, he sees clearly the failure of Israel and the US to seize opportunities for a settlement.

A solution in Palestine is hindered by several key factors. Mixed motives in the region is probably the big one; the USA’s hunger for a secure energy supply means it has a vital interest in controlling Middle Eastern affairs; an Israel in the centre of it all, possessing military superiority and the threat of nuclear weapons serves this motive. Secondly, the world has somehow been kept ignorant of the enormous wrong that has been and is being done in Palestine. It’s time more people became aware of this, and reading Hadawi, Chomsky and Carter makes a good start.

What about Palestine? - Part 2

Dandelion - Weed? or Flower?

Historian Noam Chomsky writing about the Palestine/Israel conflict provides a few perspectives that are highly discouraging to those who would like to see a resolution to the struggle. As we all know, Israel has established numerous settlements in the West Bank and on the Golan Heights, in defiance of assorted resolutions at the UN and accords made over the years at Camp David, Oslo, etc. The world community has protested this expansion into what is occupied territory, but no action has been taken to cause this practice to stop. The US could have insisted and taken steps to make certain that Israel respected established borders, at least. This could easily havebeen achieved by tying aid to compliance.

There exists an often-reiterated opinion in Israel that Palestinians are not “a people” and Judea and Samaria do not constitute a country. If this is false, Israelis are invaders and plunderers; if it is true, they are simply repossessing what has always been rightfully theirs. The argument seems absurd when one considers how Arabs in the area have had vineyards and farms, homes and villages confiscated and have been driven off land that has been in their families for centuries. What does it matter if the area they inhabited as a people is or was a nation or not?

The encroachment into the West Bank particularly is not simply a natural evolution; it’s a deliberate policy to establish a fact. This fact is that as ever more settlers make a home in disputed territory, their presence there makes it ever harder to reverse the process. It could be compared to the expropriation of North America, Australia, Latin America, by colonial powers. The push to settle the prairies of Canada, for instance, made it more and more difficult for the aboriginal people to assert their rights in the land, and the argument that this was not “their nation” after all served to excuse their eviction as it does that of the Palestinians.

So who benefits from Israeli expansionism to such a degree that putting an end to it is outweighed by other interests? Well, the state of Israel, one supposes, but according to Chomsky the future of Israel has been placed in grave jeopardy by its actions. One would think that the US would benefit from peace in the Middle East, but it has to be remembered that the US is an oil importer on a large scale and Israel’s neighbours are sitting on much of the oil needed by US industry and people. Israel as it exists right now serves as a policeman in the area; it has weapons and a military machine that is unmatched by any of its neighbours. Israel has disciplined Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, in the past and the US is commercially better for it (and by extension, possibly, Canada and Europe).

Aboriginal people in North America resisted the colonialism that eventually resulted in the countries of Canada and the US. Their resistance was put down brutally, pitilessly, as if they were less than human and their lives counted for very little. Such an obscenity ripples through the centuries; it’s being repeated in Palestine, a place where it is not nearly as clear that the colonialists will prevail. Reading Chomsky, in fact, could easily lead one to believe that a catastrophe that will destroy both Israel and the Palestinians is in the making.

What about Palestine? - Part 1

I've often wondered why Christian Peacemaker Teams people are so unapologetically pro-Palestinian. I'd assumed the story was two-sided, and that they had chosen one side because of an “underdog bias,” and the fact that they were doing their work in the Palestinian enclaves, by and large. I should have read Sami Hadawi's Bitter Harvest a long time ago. First published in 1967, it's been reprinted repeatedly; the edition I'm reading was copyrighted in 1989.

To say there are two sides to the Palestinian conflict and its history is to say that when a man blatantly shoots a neighbour, drives his family off land that had represented their family's livelihood for centuries and seizes it all for his own, fairness would dictate that there are two equal but opposing parties whose stories must be weighed. There's only one side to this story; the story is one of theft, murder, deceit, prejudice, discrimination and disregard for the value of human life in order that Zionism could dispossess Palestinian Arabs of their land and cleanse the area of the "riff-raff" that lived upon it.

So says Hadawi, and he makes the case with copious statistics, documents, quotations, citations and his own experience as one born in Jerusalem and as an official land valuer during the British Mandate period and later for the Jordanian government and the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission. In 1965, he was appointed director of the Institute of Palestine Studies in Beirut and his books and pamphlets on Palestinian affairs are numerous.

Much of the West lives with an uncomfortable double standard with regard to Palestine. On the one hand, the memory of the Holocaust is still fresh enough that providing Jewry with a safe place feels like “the least we can do,” given our complicity in anti-Semitic historical events. This coupled with the enormous potential for being fingered as anti-Semitic for criticizing Israeli policies weighs heavily in our pernicious tendency to overlook Israel's transgressions and their excuses, namely that their theft and killing excesses are carried out in the interest of their security. On the other hand, we have seen the seizure of properties, the failure of Israel to carry out its commitments to the UN, the deadly overreactions and we know that these are morally very, very wrong. And yet, the former sensitivities paralyze the West and have historically allowed the Israeli state to commit atrocity after atrocity with impunity.

But I still have much to learn on the subject. I've also ordered a few books from the library that are authored by Jews. At present, I've come to some conclusions that need to be tested:

1) The state of Israel should not be confused with the “Children of Israel” of the Old Testament, nor should it be considered an extension of the stories of Abraham, Moses, Joshua and the prophets. Israel is a modern country like Liechtenstein and Canada, but one that uses the pretext of Biblical manifest destiny to excuse ethnic cleansing.

2) Judaism is not a race. There are plenty of people of the Jewish faith who are not Semitic and there are plenty of people we know as Jewish who are not adherents to Zionism's world view. We must separate our evaluation of the state of Israel's policies from our sensitivities about antisemitism.

3) There will be no redress for the degradation and disgrace Israel has heaped on Palestinian Arabs without a forceful determination by the world community that Israel will carry out its commitments to the UN to observe strict boundaries, protect property and human rights for all inhabitants and adhere to the common standards of decency in its dealings.

Hadawi has left me with these impressions. More later.

More on Gaza and Israel

At Peace with the World: Grand Canyon 2007

(GE: Copyright, 2009)

What opinions do we North American Christians hold with regard to the Israeli state today? Where do our opinions come from? Which arguments swirling around us do we credit and which do we dismiss . . . and why?


In “Does the Promise Still Hold?” in The Christian Century, January 13, 2009, Gary A. Anderson, Old Testament teacher at the University of Notre Dame, writes: “Some Christian fundamentalists have insisted that because we live on the cusp of the messianic era, anything Israel does in Palestine must be construed as part of its larger divine mandate. But even if we are witnesses to the beginning of the final messianic age—a possibility that can never be wholly dismissed—we should certainly expect that whatever God does with the Jews during this time will conform to the character of his relationship to this people as it is revealed in the Bible. A unilateral land-grab that takes no moral cognizance of the plight of Israel’s neighbors is not consistent with Israel’s foundational story (p. 24)”

(You can access this article and three responses—by Marlin Jeschke, Walter Brueggemann and Donald E. Wagner—at http://christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6095)


It’s clear that Anderson sees the reports of the Biblical relationship of the Jewish people to God as recorded in the Christian Old Testament as fundamental to understanding the relationship between God, the Jewish people and the rest of the world, and by extension, the current events in Gaza. Is the current assault on Gaza a “land-grab?” Or is it a move to increase Israeli security against a recalcitrant and belligerent Hamas? It makes a difference . . . except to the innocent citizenry of both Gaza and Israel, who pay in pain and immeasurable loss. Is Israel’s attack on Hamas moral? If it isn’t, Anderson would probably agree that invoking “manifest destiny” by God’s decree just won’t wash. God doesn’t condone immoral acts in order to secure land for his people, I hear Anderson say.


Well, then—I hear you say—what about Jericho and the slaughter of Canaanite inhabitants of Palestine in the time of Joshua? It’s hard for us to square an act of ethnic cleansing with Anderson’s assertion, unless the writers of the history of the exile got it wrong as follows: then—as now, possibly—the actions of God’s people were immoral and self serving, but the story was altered and augmented to make it appear to be an act of manifest destiny, bearing God’s approval and encouragement.


The actions of the State of Israel and Hamas must be judged by Christians on the ethics that Jesus taught, and they were clear: treat your neighbour as you wish to be treated; eschew violence; love your enemies; don’t fix your hopes on land and possessions; value and protect all life as sacred; etc. Seen in this way, understanding the events in Palestine is not that complicated.


P.S. A fundamental error that befogs all this may be the notion that the “Children of Israel” and the “State of Israel” are synonymous. Is it logical to assume that the current political leadership of the State of Israel is the vessel in which the Abrahamic promise of a peoplehood and a homeland is carried? I have doubts. What do you think?

Something for Gaza and Israel

Friends;
I received a response to my recent post on Gaza (below) from Garry Janzen, Conference Minister at Mennonite Church British Colombia and my nephew. Hope you feel led to participate in this small but important effort for the people of Palestine, I plan to participate on Wednesday, January 14:
Thank you Uncle George.
There is a growing group of people fasting for peace in Gaza and the Holy Land. To join, email Jon Nofziger (peace@mccbc.com) and give him the day you choose to fast.
Garry Janzen

What's going on in Gaza?

Have you heard this one?

A religious denomination built a hospital in a foreign country where it was having considerable success converting people to its brand of the Christian faith. It was a small hospital, but the need for medical care was enormous and so the beds filled very quickly. A policy was enacted that since the hospital couldn’t hope to deal with all the medical requirements of the area, preference would be given to converts.

Shortly thereafter, the hospital director was leaving the building after a particularly strenuous day when his attention was arrested by a commotion at the admitting counter. A woman was begging loudly and with many tears that her child be admitted. The director immediately identified her as an adherent of a rival mission, one he considered to be teaching questionable—if not false—doctrine.

“Ma’am,” he said to her, “we can’t help you. I want you to leave the building quietly.”

“But my child is really sick” she protested, “and I know you could help her!
Would you please, at least, look at her?”

“Ma’am,” the director said, “it’s not right to take the children’s food and toss it to the dogs.”

The woman was desperate. “But sir, the dogs still wander around the table, snatching up the scraps that fall!”

The director was moved by her persistence, and flattered by the confidence she had in his hospital’s ability to help her. He thought for a moment, and then directed the nurse at the counter to have a bed placed in the hallway for the child, and to tell the resident doctor to examine and treat the child.

“Excuse me for my impertinence,” said the nurse, “but you know that this will open the floodgates. What will we do then?”

The director turned back to the woman. “We’ll treat your child, but only on the condition that you tell no one about it, understand?”

The first time I heard this exact story was just now, as I wrote it.

But I have heard a version of it before, in Matthew 15: 21-28 and Mark 7: 24-30, to be specific. There, the director is Jesus—a Jew—and the supplicant is a Canaanite woman. I had occasion to revisit the story just a few days ago because it was the text for an adult Sunday school lesson and I had a contract to write teachers’ guide notes for it. At the same time, the state of Israel was bombing Hamas targets in Gaza and Palestinian militants were continuing to fire rockets into Israel. It’s no surprise that the story and the news would come to be related in my thoughts.

On its face, Jesus’ metaphor (if he, in fact, said it) is racist, and that’s troubling to anyone who has built his image of Jesus around, say, the Sermon on the Mount. As we end up doing so often, the Oxford Study Bible excuses it by attributing the words to Matthew’s pen, and saying that “The story revolves around a non-Jewish woman and the question of Jesus’ mission. Matthew thinks of a mission limited to Israel during Jesus’ human career but ultimately intended to reach out to all (p. 1285).” True, Jesus appears to say that his mission is to his people—the Jews—and then seems to “change his mind” for the sake of this one extraordinary Canaanite woman.

The Jew/Gentile consciousness haunts the world today like a canker that grows and wanes, then grows again. (It has its equivalent, of course, in North American black/white, Indian/white and in Germany—when I worked there in the ‘80s— German/Turk distinctions) Matthew’s story may have been intended to tell the people of the temple and the synagogue that the incarnation was for them—the fulfillment of their messianic hope. Unfortunately, most readers of the story are obliged to see themselves in the roles of the dogs—not the children.

That, at least, is one interpretation, and it’s troublesome.

There are plenty of references in Paul’s writing that hint at the end of these distinctions. Unfortunately, some of the Christian world has chosen a far-too legalistic approach to faith and has never fully embraced Paul’s admonition in Romans 10:12: “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. . . .” In fairness to them, it has to be said that Paul himself was unable to free himself completely from the notion that there is a difference. In Romans 1:16, he uses the terms Jew and Gentile racially: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

I suppose that when a group of people live in proximity to each other for generations, the development of a unique outlook, unique cultural markers, and a unique religious worldview is inevitable. The rest of the world will apply a name to them; that name will eventually become part of the world vocabulary, and even group members will begin to think of themselves as defined-by-their-label. And as all we recyclers know, it’s a lot easier to stick a label on a bottle than to soak/scrape it off.

Is the conflict in Gaza Jew-versus-Gentile? Is it Palestinians against Israelis? How shall we understand it? The word “Palestine” has its roots in “Philistine.” “Palestine” came to refer to the area of the world known variously as the “Levant,” or the “Holy Land,” etc. People of the area were called “Palestinians” for centuries, whether they were of Arab or Jewish descent. Are we seeing a reverse of the David and Goliath story where David is the giant (with jets and tanks) and tiny Goliath is slinging stones (rockets) into his territory with a sling, hoping he’ll eventually hit a vital organ? Or is it better described as a multi-generational feud like the Hadfields and McCoys, or the Star-bellied Sneetches?

There’s hardly any doubt about the conflict in Gaza being territorial, on top of anything else. Its rhetoric is most often about borders and land access, homelands and hinterlands and to whom this field rightfully belongs and who can say where a person can and can’t go, or work, or grow figs. It certainly hasn’t helped that the West has declared one side (on the basis of race, ethnicity) in the dispute to have a right to a certain territory and then poured in money and resources to back it up. I can’t think of a better way to create resentment, to start a feud.

Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman and the metaphor of the dogs vs the children occurred early in his ministry, according to the gospel records. From then on, we see in his parables and later, in the early church, a shifting away from ethnic consciousness to the point where Paul can write: “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. . . .”

George Bush summed up the current US policy toward the conflict when he said, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” At about that time, the death toll on the Israeli side was 4, and on the Gaza side, 500+. Since then, both numbers have risen considerably, but the proportions have remained the same. Defend itself, yes, but what about the “defend itself, how?” question. Even an inkling that there might be a prophetic destiny playing out is tremendously harmful to our commitment to a solution, and we have to exorcise that demon in North America if we’re ever going to contribute to peace in the Middle East.

God is NOT territorial; if he is at all interested in defining homelands, he is as concerned about a homeland for his “Muslim” children as he is for his “Jewish” children. Get that through your heads, Christians. I think Obama’s got that. I hope.

Jesus healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter. Take it from there.