Holy Land Long Division

What we fondly call the Holy Land is a very polarized place.
For example, if one speaks with the slightest empathy about the plight of Israelis hit by Hamas rockets, many Palestinians make an immediate accusation that this is collusion and political support for Israeli arrogance and Zionist imperialism.
Conversely, the slightest display of empathy for the plight of Palestinians in Gaza in the aftermath of the recent Israeli incursion is often labeled as tolerant of terrorism and even as anti-Semitic.
As is often observed, both parties see themselves as a little David threatened by the other, Goliath.
The seeds of the Holy Land’s recurring conflicts were planted a long time ago.
After World War I, the League of Nations entrusted the area of Palestine to Great Britain with a mandate to guide its inhabitants to eventual independence.
However, Britain failed to resolve its dual encouragement of conflicting Jewish and Arab national aspirations in Palestine and finally turned the matter over to the United Nations. On 29 November 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to terminate the British Mandate by the following year and to partition Palestine.
Because of the unique spiritual and cultural importance of Jerusalem to Christians, Jews and Muslims, the city was to be established as a separate entity under a special international regime. The mission of the regime was to “foster cooperation among all the inhabitants of the city” and to “encourage and support the peaceful development of the mutual relations between the two Palestinian peoples [i.e., Jews and Arabs] throughout the Holy Land.”
The plan for the rest of the Palestine Mandate territory was to create two separate independent Arab and Jewish states, but joined in economic union.

Two diametrically opposing principles underlaid and motivated the U.N. partition resolution: sharing and dividing. Sharing applied only to the city of Jerusalem. Dividing applied to the rest of the land.
The rationale for sharing Jerusalem was that it was too important to each of the three great monotheistic faiths and the two peoples to be divided. However, even though a case could be made for applying a similar rationale to the entire Holy Land, the opposite principal was applied to all but Jerusalem — divide and separate.
Almost the entire history of the past 61 years can be interpreted as the sad story of the destructive implementation and the abysmal failure of the principle of division.
The land is divided into major zones of control — Israel, West Bank, Gaza. Political divisions and social tensions grow within each. Authority is fractious, whether of the Israeli government or the Palestinian Authority. The “fence” or “wall” is both a symbol and a reality of division.
Ironically, it is the extremists on both sides that reject division and the two state premise. Militant Palestinian Arabs demand the repossession of all the land. Militant Israeli Jews refuse to surrender it.
The ill-used and neglected principle of sharing is the only one that leads to peace. Arabs and Jews once knew this and knew how to live together. Would that they relearn how to do this before it is too late.
The Holy Land is too important and precious to all to be exclusively for one. It is not so important who controls the land — and whether the state is Jewish, Muslim or Christian — as it is for all its dwellers to respect the dignity and rights of each other.


(Published as
“Peaceful Principles” in
one, 35:2, March 2009)

Ambivalent Anniversary

My flight arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. I walked through the long spacious arrivals area and saw a series of 60 striking panels mounted on the wall — each illustrating a significant event for every year of modern Israel’s existence.
On 14 May 1948, the new State of Israel was proclaimed. It was conceived by the United Nations in a vote in November 1947 to partition Mandate Palestine — the segment of the former Ottoman Empire entrusted to Great Britain after the First World War by the League of Nations — into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international city of Jerusalem.
Its gestation took only six months. As soon as the British high commissioner withdrew, Israel was born — like all births, born in blood and pain, cut off from the matrix in which it had developed.
As the new blue and white Israeli flag proudly flew and the well-prepared Zionist (Jewish nationalist) militants took possession of as much of the land as they could, the less prepared Palestinian Arabs were appalled.
The armies of neighboring Arab states came to their defense and invaded. When some months later the major hostilities had ceased, Israel possessed most of Mandate Palestine except for the West Bank (the areas of biblical Samaria and Judea) and the coastal Gaza Strip.
For the first time since the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians (the forefathers of modern Iraqis) in 587 B.C., there was a truly independent Jewish state — a land for the Jews, the ancient People of God.
Not all Jews are Israelis, of course, but almost every Jew in the world looks fondly and proudly at modern Israel and its incredible achievements during the brief three score years of its existence.

Surprisingly, not all Israelis are Jews. Although many Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven from what is now Israel, many stayed and are now Israeli citizens. For a while, there was a generation of Israeli Arabs who were proud of their new nationality.
But, as events have continued to unfold in the Palestinian territories — the remainder of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River — occupied by Israeli since 1967, the pride of many Israeli Arabs has eroded.
Increasingly, they share the sentiments of their confreres in the occupied territories, who look back on 1948 as a catastrophe, a catastrophe of 60 years duration.
Paradoxically, Paradoxically, the fierce nationalism of the Zionist Jews nurtured an increasingly fierce nationalism on the part of the Palestinian Arabs.
For this 60th anniversary, one people celebrates the triumph of their new land and state; the other mourns the loss of their land and their status as a stateless people.
I wonder was the dream of the framers of the UN partition resolution naïve? Was “partition” meant to be a division of Mandate Palestine or a formula for two peoples to share one land?
Was the special status of Jerusalem — which hardly exists in practice — meant to be a way to keep the jewel from either people’s crown or a way to ensure that it remain a common patrimony for the three great Abrahamic faiths?
To borrow words from a U.S. anthem, “God shed his grace on thee.” May it also be said that he “crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.”


(An earlier version was
published as “Anniversary” in
one, 34:4, July 2008)

Through the Looking Glass

The only way to have a healthy Holy Land is for political leaders to address the root of the problem, not just the symptoms.
The root of the problem is the continued Palestinian occupation of the Israeli territories.
Ever since the armed might of the State of Palestine overran Judea and Samaria in 1967, the explicit policy of the Palestinian government has been to settle as many Palestinians as possible in the territories.
The original intent of this settlement policy was to create “facts on the ground” so that there would never be an Israeli state. Inspired by the dream of a historical Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, the strategy so far is working.
In spite of repeated condemnations by the U.S. government, Palestine’s strongest — and sole — ally, settlements continue.
Meanwhile, although there was a period of limited Israeli autonomy after Oslo, for all practical purposes Palestinian military occupation of Israeli lands has returned.
Only the European governments speak out for the Israelis — they have a painful recollection of the attempt to exterminate European Judaism during World War II.
U.S. policy is widely criticized as imbalanced. For example, President Bush has met repeatedly with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yet not even once with the Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
The U.S. Congress is overwhelmingly in support of Palestine. One reason is APPAC (the American Palestinian Public Affairs Committee), America’s Pro-Palestinian, and strongest, lobby. It has long since effectively mobilized Palestinian- and other Arab-Americans for Palestine and against the Israelis.

The situation in the Holy Land has deteriorated badly during the past two years. Whether or not the second Israeli uprising was triggered by the visit of Arafat to the Western Wall, it has become the greatest threat to the existence of the State of Palestine since its founding in 1949.
Israeli suicide bombers — wantonly killing innocent men, women, and children — cannot be tolerated by the Palestinians. If Sharon’s Israeli Authority is ineffective in controlling Israeli terrorism and terrorist organizations, the Palestinians have no other recourse than to intervene.
Yet, the Palestinian policy of massive retaliation and the disproportionate use of force has led to an intolerable situation for the beleaguered Israelis. With the repeated Palestinian incursions into the Israeli territories, the destruction of homes, and the continual curfews, normal life is almost impossible for the average Israeli.
Checkpoints with daily humiliations and control of movement are bad enough, but the latest Palestinian tactic of digging ditches around Israeli towns and building barbed-wire fences, so reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto, is morally repugnant.
Wait! Aren’t things really just the reverse? Of course, but maybe looking through the looking glass at this mirror image of violence and injustice may suggest new approaches to softening hearts, exorcising hatred, and showing all God’s children the way to justice and peace.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 28:5, September 2002)

A Rock and a Hard Place

In March I had the privilege of assisting a group of bishops and rabbis, led by William Cardinal Keeler, on their “Interfaith Journey to Israel and Rome.”
The trip was sponsored by the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Its purpose was for Catholics and Jews to share their experiences of the places dear to each and to see them through the other’s eyes.
You know who was the central figure of the trip? Simon son of Jonah, “the Rock” (or Peter), as he came to be known.
Scene I: We stood in the garden of olives, where Jesus agonized over the prospect of his forthcoming passion and death. And Simon’s role there? He slept.
Scene II: Nearby, we visited the grotto of Gethsemane, where Jesus often spent evenings with his disciples. The place of perfidy, for there Judas marked him with a kiss so that the soldiers could seize him. The Rock? He feebly fought, then fled.
Scene III: Caphernaum, once a bustling lakeshore town on the great Roman Sea Road from Syria to Egypt. Excavations have revealed remnants of a Byzantine church built over the foundations of one house in particular—the humble dwelling of the fishermen brothers, Simon and Andrew.
Only a few years ago a modern shrine-church was built over this site.
The remains of the nearby synagogue evoked memories for all of us — for the Christians, the miracles of Jesus that took place there — for the Jews, the revival in our days of the ancient land of Israel.
“Truly this is a place of miracles for us all,” reflected one of the rabbis.

Scene IV: Tabgha, the Church of the Primacy of Peter. It commemorates the resurrection appearance of Jesus described in John 21. We celebrated Mass by the lakeshore — the bishops who were the celebrants, the rabbis, the congregation.
“Do you love me?,” Jesus three times questioned Simon Peter, who had thrice denied him. And then and there Jesus gave him that great primacy of love: “Feed my sheep.”
Scene V: The Vatican, the Basilica of St. Peter. Upon arriving in Rome, we spent two hours walking through the great church, admiring its art and altars, chapels and statuary.
The next morning we gathered in the grottoes underneath for Mass near the tomb of Peter. Later that day we visited the excavations under the grottoes themselves — the very burial ground over which the church was built.
Scene VI: We attended the public audience in St. Peter’s Square — along with some tens of thousands of fellow pilgrims and visitors. After, we were greeted by Pope John Paul II, the successor of Peter as head of the Church.
Our interfaith journey spanned place and time — from Peter’s simple house in Caphernaum to the great shrine-church marking the place of his crucifixion and burial — from the first fisher of men of Jesus’ time to the one who still walks in the shoes of the fisherman today.


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 24:3, May 1998)

Bright September

What happened on the White House lawn on 13 September? A “Declaration of Principles” was signed concerning the first steps toward limited Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. It was limited, relatively vague and carefully drafted to avoid most of the major, controverted matters.
Was that all that happened on that September day? No, what really happened — I believe — was one of those major turning points in modern history.
What really happened, with the mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO and with the handshake of their leaders, was the beginning of a hopefully irreversible process of peace.
Moralists speak of the tension between the ideals we hold in our hearts and the daily decisions we have to make in the flawed, limited human situation.
Too much swayed by the circumstances of the immediate situation, we may betray our ideals. Too idealistic, we may become either too demanding or too impractical. A mature choice successfully avoids both extremes.
Finally the Zionist ideal of a Jewish state and the Palestinian ideal of an Arab state — these two conflicting nationalisms — have found some way, admittedly a less than perfect way, to accommodate to the present reality.
Moralists also speak of the overriding importance of a fundamental option, referring to the basic orientation of our lives and hearts.
September in Washington saw a fundamental option for reconciliation and peace, even though a thousand challenges must still be faced.

The Bible gives us two different versions of the entrance of the ancient Hebrew tribes into the Promised Land.
According to The Book of Joshua, it was a rapid conquest. By a series of swift military maneuvers, the land of Canaan fell entirely into the hands of the children of Israel. This version seems almost to good to be true.
The Book of Judges tells a different story. The Israelites gradually settled in the land, living among and with the Canaanites and sharing the land with them for better or worse. This sounds more like what usually happens in history.
The September declaration suggests interpreting contemporary history more along the lines of Judges than Joshua. No one is going to conquer or be conquered; both will share the land for better or worse.
In the Middle East — in fact in most parts of the world — the arranged marriage is common. Sometimes the first glimpse the bride and groom have of each other is at the conclusion of the wedding.
Obviously they do not marry because of love. Love is what, hopefully, they will gradual learn as they live together.
Maybe that White House ceremony was a kind of arranged marriage between Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian. For sure they have not come together out of love, but as they stay together perhaps they’ll learn its ways.
Thanks be to God for the day and its decision. May it bear much fruit!


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 19:6, November 1993)

Law and Justice in the Holy Land

[A version of an address originally to the Guild of Catholic Lawyers and subsequently, somewhat modified, to the United States Southeastern, Southwestern, Northwestern, and Eastern lieutenancies of the Equestrian Order of  the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in the Fall of 1990]

I want to speak to you today about law and order in the Holy Land, especially in the Israeli-Occupied Territories. In effect I want to speak to you about justice.

Whose law governs the Holy Land?

Illustrations

Let me start with a few reminiscences to illustrate the problem.

American bishops and the defense minister. In July of 1989, I was in Tel Aviv with Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Archbishop William Keeler of Baltimore. They were on a fact finding mission to the Middle East on behalf of the American Catholic bishops. We had a meeting with Yitzhak Rabin who was then the Defense Minister for Israel, now replaced.
The Defense Minister is the Israeli government officer responsible for law and order in what have become known as the Occupied Territories. The interchange we had with Mr. Rabin was very frank and forthright, because he’s that kind of person. Archbishop Mahony was leading the conversation. He raised the question of human rights abuses in these Occupied Territories—I’m sure you’re familiar with these concerns:
the excessive use of force resulting in so many deaths (especially children and innocent bystanders),
the demolition and sealing off of homes which usually displaces entire families
the closing of the educational institutions of the Holy Land, (in effect, since the end of 1987 there’s been a loss of almost a year and a half or two of education at all levels, and at the university level even more),
the deportation and exile of people for political reasons,
and, last of all, the point that we were pressing with Mr. Rabin, the practice of arbitrary arrest and detention without trial, without what we call due process.
Such a practice—it is called administrative detention—is very common, and it is justified on the basis of the need to control the population and to maintain public order in the Occupied Territories.
Administrative detention means that persons considered by the Israeli authorities to be a real or potential threat to security may be arrested, taken away, and sent to a detention camp (sometimes located in the desert where living conditions are extremely harsh) for up to six months.
The detainees are usually denied access to legal counsel. They often are not informed specifically of the charges against them or the bases for the charges. In most cases their families or friends are not told of their whereabouts, nor may they visit them. Even the International Red Cross is denied access to some of the detention camps.
This was, particularly, one of the more important concerns about which we were pressing Mr. Rabin.
His reply was very interesting. He said that administrative detention is a procedure that the British followed under their emergency regulations and that we, the Israelis, are simply following the same structure of law which the British established years ago.
He added that he himself suffered administrative detention under the British, so why are the Palestinians complaining?
Well, that is not exactly an answer to the question we raised. But I call your attention to one point that he made. The legal basis for detaining people without trial and without access to counsel is the British emergency regulations of 1945.

The Latin Patriarch and the military governor. I’ll give you another illustration. The previous Christmas was the first which Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah celebrated in his new role. The Intifada, the popular resistance to the Israeli occupation, had started one year before. Stores and shops were often closed because of strikes, and people were suffering. He decided that he shouldn’t celebrate Christmas with the usual and traditional pomp.
Now, back in 1757, when all the Holy Land was part of the Ottoman Empire, the rights of the various Christian communities and the regulation of the ceremonies in Bethlehem for Christmas and in Jerusalem for Easter, had been decided by the Turkish authorities. Shamefully, because the Christians couldn’t agree among themselves, the Muslim authorities had to make a rule as to who has access to what places at what times.
According to tradition and ancient regulation, Patriarch Sabbah was to go from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in procession—in the old days on horseback, but now by automobile. When he arrived at the Jerusalem-Bethlehem town line he would be greeted by the mayor and then proceed through the town to Manger Square, outside the basilica of the Nativity.
Upon arriving at Manger Square, the representative of the governing authority (originally the Ottoman government) would greet him and welcome him on behalf of the government, and then he would be escorted into the basilica of the Nativity to begin the religious ceremonies.
The Patriarch thought to dispense with all this ceremony because it wasn’t a moment for public celebration. So, he proposed simply to drive directly to Bethlehem and go into the church for the religious services.
This provoked a tremendous protest by the Israelis. They claimed that they were being slighted because, as the governing authority and according to the protocol, the so-called Status Quo, going back to Ottoman times, the representative of the Israeli government must greet the Patriarch when he arrives at Manger Square.
So, necessarily the Patriarch had to be greeted by the commanding officer of the Israeli Defense Forces in charge of the Bethlehem area before he could be escorted into the church.
The irony was compounded later at Midnight Mass. In the first pew, directly in front of the main altar, sat the commanding general of the Israeli Defense Forces for the West Bank, the Greek Orthodox mayor of Bethlehem, and the Israeli commanding officer for the Bethlehem area.
The rationale for all this insistence on protocol was Ottoman law dating back to the eighteenth century. It’s a technical point, but it’s an important one to raise. What is the basis for law and, if you will, law and order in the Holy Land?

Systems of law in the Holy Land

There are many different kinds of systems of law in the world. If you’re a lawyer, you’re probably very familiar with that.

Types of systems. In western countries, especially in all of the lands that used to be part of the Roman Empire, you have the tradition of codified law. A code of law, one big book, which, so to speak, incorporates the entire legal regulation of society.
Since codification of Roman law under the Emperor Justinian, the code has been the ideal of the West. At the time of Napoleon, there was a code of law published for his empire. Most European countries still have codes, which, of course, must be revised from time to time.
England and the United States have a different system. The Anglo-American legal tradition is the common law—a body of law that is built up and constantly changed by practice, but which is rooted in the concept of fundamental and inalienable rights. Of course, the law is published in books, but its starting point is not a master document.
However, in the East there are other traditions and bases for law. One is the firman. The firman is a decree of an oriental sovereign, and for many centuries in Eastern countries law consisted of the edicts of the ruler.
Additionally, of course, in the Eastern lands you also have a strong tradition of religious law, both among Jews and Muslims. Biblical Israel was regulated by the Law of Moses, which was born in the covenant in Sinai and expanded over the years.
Islam is regulated by the Qur’an, and, in many countries where there is an overwhelming Islamic majority, even today there is a pressure to make the law of the land the religious law of Islam.

Historical overview of systems in the Holy Land. The Holy Land, of course, as it passed from hand to hand has known many kinds of systems of law and governance over the years. Biblical Israel’s first law was religious, the Mosaic Law. Even as the Israelite kingdoms emerged, this religious law was still at the heart of the regulation of Israelite society.
Some centuries later, you have a series of governments taking over. For example, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians, who imposed their system of law and order. Later the north and the southern kingdom of Judah were taken by the Babylonians (or Iraqis, as we know them today), who, in turn, imposed their system of law.
Still later on, when the Persians (or Iranians) conquered the Babylonians, they imposed Persian law on the Holy Land. When Alexander the Great came, Greek law replaced the Persian. When the Romans took the territory from the Greeks, Roman law was imposed.
In New Testament times, Jesus grew up under Roman occupation and Roman law; he died under sentence of a Roman magistrate. When the Roman Empire became Christian—the Byzantine period—it was still Roman law that governed the Holy Land. With the rise and conquest of Islam in the seventh century, Islamic law became the rule of life.
The arrival of the Crusaders brought the legal structures of feudal Europe to the governance of the land. Then Islam regained it from the Crusaders. Finally, about 1517, the Ottoman Turks took possession of the whole area and held it until the end of the First World War. For four hundred years the Ottoman Turks and their law regulated Holy Land life.
After the war came the period of the British mandate and rule, the establishment of the Kingdom of Jordan, and, later, the establishment of the state of Israel. So the poor people of the Holy Land have had a bewildering succession of legal structures and systems to define their rights and to define and, often, confine their lives.

Legal systems in the Holy Land today. Right now, in the Holy Land today, there are two entirely distinct legal systems. In Israel proper, you have a country that’s a child of Western democratic systems with basic legal concepts much like our own. In the Occupied Territories, the area of Arab Palestine, you have military governance since 1967. Law and order is the responsibility of the Israeli army under the Ministry of Defense and rule is by military order. Whatever the commanders of the area of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) or Gaza decide, that is the law.
The last time I was there, someone was giving me a “for instance”—automotive safety regulations. There are some thirteen or more different regulations requiring things that have to be carried in your car at all times, if you are to maintain your car’s registration.
For example, you have to have flares, a reflecting triangle, and a kit for repairing your tires. Every one of these regulations is made and imposed by decision of a military commander. They often become pretexts for harassing drivers, restricting travel and confiscating registrations.
You see, if you live in the West Bank, you have a special kind of license plate. As you drive along, you constantly encounter checkpoints. Every time you reach a checkpoint, you may be asked to come out of your car, show your papers, and show that you are carrying all required items. You may be stopped if you lack any of these things.
So there’s a system of regulation by arbitrary military edict in place, which is both for the sake of law and order and for the harassment of the civilian population.
However, the Israelis who live in settlements in the Occupied Territories are under the law of Israel proper—they live under a democratic system. But those who are not Israeli nationals and who live in those same Occupied Territories live under martial law.

The basis for Israeli law in the Occupied Territories

The way the Israelis govern the Occupied Territories is often justified by an appeal, like that made by Mr. Rabin, to the emergency regulations which the British made during their occupation of Palestine.

British Defense Regulations. The British Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 are cited as precedent to justify many arbitrary and extra-judicial procedures, such as deportation, blowing up houses and the so-called administrative detention or imprisonment without due process.
However, to be precise and technical, before the British left Palestine in 1948, they made a formal revocation and repeal of the emergency regulations they had enacted in 1945.
Further, another system of law intervened. After the departure of the British and after the West Bank came under the rule of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, the British regulations were replaced by the 1935 Defense of Trans-Jordan Law.
Even so, a few years ago, an Israeli military interpretation order was issued, number 224. It stated that “for the avoidance of doubt” emergency regulations from the British period remain in force unless explicitly repealed.
This is the legal rationale for governing with an exceedingly heavy hand.

Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel has subscribed to the Fourth Geneva Convention, originally agreed upon at the Hague on 18 October 1907. However it questions that the convention is binding in the Occupied Territories. The convention requires, “unless absolutely prevented,” respecting the laws in force in the occupied country.
It is a very interesting legal tangle, this matter of what are or were the laws in force in the Occupied Territories. Israel took possession of the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza, from Egypt. Before being under Jordanian or Egyptian sovereignty, the West Bank and Gaza were both parts of old Mandate Palestine. And, much of the Ottoman legal system was still respected and followed during the British mandate period.
In the Occupied Territories, Israel seems eclectically to be selecting legal precedents from the Ottoman period, from emergency regulations of the British and sometimes from Jordanian law (although at other times ignoring it). Meanwhile Israeli authorities continue to make relatively arbitrary decrees, often for the purpose of harassing the Palestinian population.

The problem

Clearly, fundamental issues are what is the law of the land in the Occupied Territories and what is the basis for it. This raises a question still more fundamental: Whose land is it? Who has legal claim and title to this land? In spite of all the newspaper articles and television commentary, these issues usually aren’t raised. And, they’re issues with which we should be familiar.

Whose is the Holy Land?

I don’t propose to talk about titles to the land dating from the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Moses. In fact, a claim to present possession of the Holy Land based on the five books of Moses can be denied by the Bible itself. In the books of the prophets, you’ll find asserted that the Lord, because of their infidelity, took the land away from the people and their rulers.

Modern history

Better to address this question, let’s take as our starting point the modern period, that is, the time when the Ottoman Turks ruled the whole of the Middle East.

Possession by the Ottoman Empire. From 1517 to 1917, all the Middle East was part of the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the Ottoman province of Syria was divided into five jurisdictions called pashaliks. That area which later was identified as Palestine included the Falestin pashalik and part of the Acre and Damascus pashaliks. There wasn’t a Palestine defined as such, only a geographical area that bore that designation. For four centuries, what we call the Holy Land belonged to the Turkish Empire.

First World War and British intrigues. It was at the time of the First World War that the modern Middle East began to emerge. Some very important events took place in that period. If you recall your political history, the Allies wanted to crush the power of Germany. Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, was on the side of Germany. So the Allies were very interested in weakening the Turks at their underbelly, the Middle East.
The British pursued a very interesting course. They began to negotiate with the Arabs. The Arabs, of course, were Turkish subjects and constituted a fairly cohesive ethnic group occupying most of the area from the Arabian peninsula to the border of modern Turkey. The Turks and Arabs are both Muslims, but ethnically they’re distinct.
The British proposed to the Arabs that they revolt against the Turks, especially in the South; this would strengthen the Allies. They sent military advisers to encourage what came to be called the Great Arab Revolt. I think we’re all a little familiar with that—it’s what the Lawrence of Arabia story was all about.
So, the British were encouraging an Arab revolt. The carrot on the stick was this: when the war is over, we will give you an Arab country, an Arab country of your own, carved out of the Turkish Empire.
Meanwhile, the exact same year, 1916, in which it was encouraging the Arab revolt, Great Britain made a secret pact with France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This provided for a division of the Middle East when the war is over. France was to get the northern part, all of what we nowadays call Lebanon and Syria. Britain was to receive the southern part, the area of Palestine and most of what is now Iraq.
The very next year, 1917, to compound the matter, back in London Lord Balfour, the foreign secretary of Great Britain, issued “a declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” stating that “His Majesty’s government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
So, three contradictory commitments were made by the British all at the same time: a promise to the Arabs of a free and independent country, a promise to the Zionists of a Jewish homeland, and a secret agreement with the French to divide up the Levant between them!

League of Nations mandates. When the war was over, the League of Nations was set up. And what do you think happened in 1920? Why, the League decided to divide up the Middle East and place the northern part under the tutelage of France and the southern part under the tutelage of Britain.
A new concept of international order was born. It was called a mandate. The League of Nations decided that the Arab peoples of the Middle East needed to be nurtured and brought up to the full state of nationhood. For the interim, France and Britain were to be their masters, guardians, and tutors.
How history repeats itself! Immediately after the war, the area of the Middle East was subject to military occupation and rule. Gradually France and Britain moved towards the creation of what are today’s nation states.
Following the award of the mandate for greater Syria, excluding Palestine, to France in 1920, France divided the area into two major portions, expanding the traditional Christian district of Lebanon by the addition of some Syrian Muslim territory and making it entirely separate. In 1941 Lebanon was proclaimed a free and sovereign state. The rest of the Syrian area under French control attained complete independence as the Syrian Arab Republic only in 1946.

British rule. In 1920 Great Britain was awarded mandates for Palestine and the three Ottoman provinces now known as Iraq, and the Balfour declaration was incorporated into the Palestine mandate by the League of Nations.
The British decided to establish a kingdom in Iraq and invited one of the sons of Sharif Hussein of Mecca to be its first king. In 1922, in response to pressure from Iraqi nationalists, Britain signed an agreement to give Iraq independence in 1932.
Meanwhile, they created another kingdom on the eastern side of the Jordan River for another of the sons of Sharif Hussein. Transjordan, as it was called, was not part of the Palestine mandate, although Britain did draw boundaries for it after the First World War. Nominally it was independent, but formal and complete independence did not come till 1946.
Much earlier, in 1899 to be precise, down in the Persian Gulf Britain had made a treaty of protection to ensure the autonomy of another part of the Ottoman empire, the little sheikdom called Kuwait.
It’s curious how contemporary is all this history!
Britain retained the Palestine mandate, the traditional core of the Holy land, for a long time. British policy during the period that the mandate was in effect (1923-1948) was very ambivalent. Although, at least initially, it encouraged Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish homeland, there was no firm, consistent policy about the future of Palestine.
Commissions were set up, studies made and white papers issued. There was vacillation between proposing the creation of one binational state and proposing the partition of Palestine into two political entities, a Jewish and an Arab state. Meanwhile, tensions were building up and violence was escalating.
Finally, in 1947, the British washed their hands of the whole matter and turned over the future of Palestine to the United Nations.

United Nations partition. The fledgling United Nations Organization, in November of 1947, made a critical determination, for which the support of the United States was vitally important. The United Nations voted to divide the mandate territory of Palestine and to create three political entities, a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a specially administered United Nations trusteeship for the city of Jerusalem and its environs.
After the partition resolution was passed, the British announced that they would withdraw from Palestine on 14 May 1948. As that date approached, there were increasing violence in Palestine and even second thoughts by the United Nations about the wisdom of the partition resolution.
However, as soon as the British withdrew, the Palestinian Jews unilaterally proclaimed the new state of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs were against partition and not prepared to accept it. Neighboring Arab countries immediately sent their armed forces into Arab Palestine and open warfare broke out between Israelis and Arabs.
When a truce was signed less than one month later, the new state of Israel held almost all of the proposed territory for the Jewish state plus much of the area proposed for the Arab state. The Old City of Jerusalem was controlled by Arab troops and the modern, western part of Jerusalem was part of the state of Israel.
Less than a year later, Arab Palestine was annexed by the kingdom of Transjordan, the name of which was changed to Jordan. In retrospect, it seems that the Palestinian Arabs didn’t have the political will and leadership to proclaim a state of their own. As a result, their destiny became tied to that of Jordan for almost forty years.
All this was the immediate outcome of the partition and its aftermath.

The 1967 war and the occupation of West Bank and Gaza. In 1967, when another war was provoked, the Israeli forces took over all the area of the West Bank and Gaza. That is to say, they moved their eastern boundary to the Jordan River and they took over from Egypt the Gaza strip, the extreme southern coastal area of Palestine. And so most of the traditional Holy Land was under the control of Israel.
However, even the Israelis themselves still distinguish Israel proper from what have become to be known as the Occupied Territories—i.e. the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967, then, we have a undetermined situation where the territories taken in the 1967 war remain under military governance and occupation and are not annexed to Israel, except the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs. This annexation was a unilateral action on the part of Israel and not recognized by the vast majority of the nations of the world.

Jordanian renunciation of the West Bank. Two interesting developments occurred during the last couple of years. First, in the summer of 1989, King Hussein of Jordan formally renounced any claim to the West Bank as part of the Kingdom of Jordan. This act has some very interesting political consequences.
Now, although the West Bank is still considered to be an “occupied territory,” it is no longer occupied Jordanian territory. Whose territory, then, is being occupied, if it’s not the territory of Jordan nor the territory of Israel?

Proclamation of a Palestinian state. In 1988, the Palestinian National Council, a representative body of Palestinians world-wide which acts as the primary Palestinian political authority, took the bull by the horns. It proclaimed a state of Palestine.
Unfortunately, they were forty years too late in proclaiming a Palestinian Arab state. For years, the Palestinian Arab leadership refused to accept the partition of Mandate Palestine and resisted any accommodation with the state of Israel. Now they proclaimed a state in a situation of political impotency and Israeli intransigency.
What have we, then, from the point of view of legalities? A democratic and militarily strong state of Israel, a much delayed and till now ineffectual declaration of independence of an Arab Palestinian state, and a long-term and much resisted Israeli military occupation of this very area.

On what does a government base its claim to sovereignty?

This raises another question. What is the basis for saying a government or rule is legitimate?
You know, although we speak of international law, we use the words in an imprecise sense. They aren’t quite so clear as they sound. After all, in our day there really isn’t any universally accepted, over-all, international law-making authority.
International law is a collection of voluntary agreements, bilateral or multilateral treaties, traditions, and precedents.

Before 1917. What was the basis, for example, for considering the Ottoman Turks the legal sovereign or government for the Middle East until 1917? Probably the real basis for the Ottoman Turkish Empire being the legal government was simply that they conquered the Middle East and held it for four centuries.
Oh, there were rebellions and coup attempts during this long period, but for the most part they were successfully resisted by the Turks. Basically, you could say that the original grounds for their claim to sovereignty and its exercise was the principle that might makes right. Only later could it be justified on the grounds of long-term and relatively undisturbed possession.

Dispositions of international bodies and nations. After the First World War, with the collapse of the Turkish Empire, what was the legal basis for Great Britain and France taking over so much of the Middle East?
Well, in a nutshell, it was the League of Nations. A new idea had emerged, that the nations of the world acting in concert could set norms that would bind each. So, the legal basis for British sovereignty in the Holy Land for so many years was the disposition of the League.
Later, the state of Israel, besides deriving its existence from popular will, received its legal basis for sovereignty from the disposition of the international authority that replaced the League of Nations. It was the partition of Palestine resolution of the United Nations in 1947 that called for and still provides the legal justification for the existence of a Jewish state.
A curious irony, because Israel often denies the competence and the authority of the United Nations’ decrees and refuses to abide by them.

Popular sovereignty. In Israel proper, what really constitutes the lawfulness of the government? Israel, like many twentieth century nation states, was in large measure a planned creation. However, although it was the action of an international authority that provided a rationale for its existence, Israel came to be and survived because of the will and sacrifices of a people. As with most democratic societies, in Israel the real basis for the exercise of sovereignty by the government is the will of the people.

Might. Now, consider the Occupied Territories. Here we have an entirely opposite situation. The exercise of sovereignty in the Occupied Territories by the government of Israel is almost universally denied and opposed by the people of these territories. It needs to be justified, then, on the more primitive basis of conquest and possession, on the basis of “might makes right.”

Conquest – and its consequent dilemma. In the West Bank and Gaza, you have a people totally rejecting the imposition of a government by military force. The situation has continued unresolved since 1967 for many reasons, but one is this: Israel is sitting on the fence. It wants the land. It doesn’t want the people who live on it.
In Israel proper, there are about 3,750,000 Jews and about 750,000 Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. In the Occupied Territories, there are about 1,500,000 Arabs and hardly any Jews at all, about 70,000. Now if they all were to become citizens of one unified state, you would have at the moment about 3,750,000 Jews, 2,250,000 Arabs, and an Arab birth rate that’s almost five times the Jewish birth rate. So, what happens to the Jewish state?
The dilemma of Israel is that it wants all the land of Palestine but it dares not accept all its people. Many Jewish Israelis would love to see all the Arabs disappear.
The polity of the Israeli government in the Occupied Territories seems fundamentally unresolved. On the one hand, the Israelis harass the Arabs seemingly to make life so difficult for them that they will go away. On the other hand the Israelis are not cruel enough actually to throw the Arabs out en masse.
Can you imagine almost two Arab generations growing up in that ambiguous situation, where 1,500,000 people have no rights whatsoever except those conceded by a military government?
As Americans we resonate with the principle of no taxation, no imposition of laws, without representation. Literally that was the principle that inspired civil resistance in 1989 in the Christian Arab village of Beit Sahour next door to Bethlehem—but to no avail.
Can you imagine living most of your adult right in a climate that denies inalienable human rights and encourages violation of human dignity? That allows no structure for political representation? That allows you no voice, no say in how your life is regulated?

What is the relationship between sovereignty and justice?

This suggests a question more fundamental still than that of the legal basis for the exercise of sovereignty. Even if there is a legal basis for the rule or governance of a people, is it right?
What is the relationship between sovereignty and justice?

Monarchy was normative until the 18th century. You know, for many centuries in European societies, the predominant form of government was that of monarchy. Laws were based upon and determined by the will of the sovereign.
But in most monarchical societies, people always considered the sovereign to be subject to the will of God. Even the king had to observe common decency and respect basic human rights. He was restrained, if you will, by divine, natural, and customary law—that instinctive body of law that lives in the hearts and minds of men and women of good will.
In fact, that’s the basis of the English system of law. That’s what Magna Carta was all about, when the barons challenged King John and curbed his authority. And, remember Murder in the Cathedral—King Henry II had Thomas a Becket killed and later had to do public penance for it. The will of the king is not above right.

Appearance of the notion of political democracy. With the American and French revolutions, the ancient notion of democracy finally came to flourish. The concept that came to dominate political thinking in the West was revolutionary: The basis for law is not the will of the sovereign, the will of the king—it is the will of the people.
In a very small society it is exercised directly. In most larger societies it is exercised through elected representatives. In many countries, the decisions of the representatives are limited by a foundational statement of rights and duties, a constitution.
Of course, even the will of the people, like that of the king, has to respect divine, natural, and even customary law—what most people of good will instinctively consider right.
That’s part of our modern problem in the United States today. The fact that the majority of the people or their representatives vote in favor of something doesn’t make it morally right, it just makes it legal. There’s a huge difference between morality and legality.

Presumption of fundamental, inalienable human rights. Although we may not consciously advert to it, we presume that there are certain things that are over and above every legal system whether it be monarchy or democracy. Our American foundational documents are very explicit about this.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident,” says the Declaration of Independence, “that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
No one may take these rights away. They’re built into the very fabric of human nature by God. The right to liberty implies that people should live in freedom and with a government freely chosen or consented to. Political self-determination, then, is included among these inalienable rights.

The Intifada

Since December of 1987, a popular rebellion has been taking place in the Holy Land, in the Occupied Territories, called, in Arabic, the Intifada. It implies a kind of awakening and shaking off. In essence it represents a challenge to the validity of Israel’s claim to have and exercise sovereignty there.

A political confrontation. We can oversimplify what is taking place in the Occupied Territories if we see it merely as a regrettable physical confrontation between stone-throwing Arab youths and bullet-shooting Israeli soldiers. It actually is a painful and costly political statement on the part of the Palestinians, that they refuse to continue to accept the on-going Israeli military occupation of their land.

A conflict between the exercise of sovereignty and rights. At root, the conflict between the Arab population and the Israelis in the Occupied Territories is a conflict between the exercise of Israeli sovereignty and the exercise of their inalienable rights by the Palestinian people.

An issue of justice. As the American bishops stated in their 1989 document, Toward Peace in the Middle East: Perspectives, Principles, and Hopes, “The central theme that needs to be lifted up and repeated is that the Intifada is a cry for justice; it is a cry for personal and political identity; it is an expression of the personal and political rights that Palestinians have as human beings worthy of being respected as individuals and as a people.”

Who is responsible for justice in the Holy Land?

Why go into all this detail about legality, sovereignty and justice? Well, one good reason is because the bishops of our country have identified these concerns as fundamental issues in examining the situation of the Holy Land today. But that’s not the entire reason. It’s because of you. You owe it to yourself, even though it’s a technical and complex matter, to be informed about this situation. Because, after all, who is responsible for the rule of law in the Holy Land, for respect for rights in the Holy Land, for justice in the Holy Land? You and I, we are!

Christian responsibility

The first reason why we’re responsible is because we are followers and disciples of Jesus.

Love your neighbor. The Law of Moses (Leviticus 19:18) states, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In the Gospel according to Luke, a scholar of the law pressed Jesus with a question about this precept. “And who is my neighbor?,” he asked. Jesus replied with the famous parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), a story about how a Jew in need was ignored by his own kind and helped by a traditional enemy.
In it Jesus offered a very expansive interpretation of the Mosaic Law and definition of “neighbor.” According to Jesus, the neighbor is not just one’s fellow countryman next door, it is anyone whom you encounter in your life path, be they friend or foe, in need.
Jesus’ command at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan was, “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus’ standard for judgment. In the Gospel according to Matthew (25:31-46), there’s a parable of about the sorting out of the good and holy when the end of time comes. Jesus uses the messianic imagery of the Book of Daniel that descries the coming in judgment of the Son of Man.
He describes the last judgment in terms of a shepherd separating his sheep from his goats at the end of the day. In Jesus’ story, the blessed ones, the holy ones, were not necessarily the pious but those who responded to their brothers and sisters in need. That was the measure of the worth of their lives. That’s what earned them eternal life with the righteous in heaven.
They responded to the brothers and sisters in need. You know, there are needs and needs. There are material needs, such as food, clothing and shelter. There are also intangible needs—emotional, psychological and spiritual needs, needs like “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” needs for respect for human dignity and inalienable human rights.

Advocacy and defense of rights. If your neighbor is starving, you must bring him food. If your neighbor is starved for justice, then you must bring him justice.
We have an obligation to be concerned about the need for justice, for rights and for human dignity in the Holy Land, because we are followers of Jesus. We have responsibility as Christians for those in need there because they have, so to speak, crossed our path. Once we know their need and know that we have the means to respond to it, we have no excuse for inaction.

American responsibility

Besides our responsibility as Christians, we have a responsibility as Americans.

Israel depends on United States support. From its inception, Israel has been dependent upon the support of the United States. Israel couldn’t have come to be without American support of the partition of Mandate Palestine by the United Nations.
Israel would never have survived over the years and cannot continue to exist politically and economically now without the continued and massive financial assistance and political support of the United States.
This doesn’t mean that Israel depends on some vague “them” for its support. It doesn’t depend on an effective lobby in Washington. It doesn’t depend merely on Jewish Americans. It depends on you! We are American citizens. We are the United States.
It is our American government’s policy decisions that affect the fortunes of Israel. We cannot exonerate ourselves from a share of responsibility for Israel’s polity and Israel’s actions—even Israel’s oppressions.

Obligation to participate in shaping United States policies. As Americans, we have an obligation to participate in the shaping of United States foreign policy both for Israel and for the entire Middle East. We cannot abdicate our responsibility and leave the formulation of policy entirely to others.
Effectively to participate, we must be informed. That calls for more than reading the newspapers and sustaining ourselves with the thin gruel of television news. We have to be well informed about the Holy Land and active and effective in informing others.
Also, we should exercise whatever leverage we have as concerned and informed citizens by advocacy of what we believe in and by pressing for policies and points of view we judge to be right.

The responsibilities of Knights and Ladies

Last of all, we must be concerned about law and order and about justice in the Holy Land because we are Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

Delegation of responsibility in the Church. There’s a little shrine on the shore of the Lake of Galilee called the Primacy of Peter. It’s not a shrine that commemorates Jesus placing Peter over everyone in the Church in a juridical or political sense. It commemorates that lakeshore breakfast when Jesus asked Peter “Do you love me?” He asked him three times, until sadly, but sincerely, Peter replied, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And then Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” It’s the primacy of love which is the basis of Peter’s mandate to care for all of the people of God.
The Holy Father, the successor of Peter, needs help in the exercise of his special pastoral responsibility for the church. In the exercise of his ministry, he names bishops to care for the people of God in each diocese. The diocesan bishop, in turn, assign priests as pastors to assist him, entrusting to each the pastoral care of a local parish.

The papal mandate to the Order and to you. The Holy Father has made a very special delegation of responsibility for the Holy Land. In addition to depending on bishops such as Patriarch Michel Sabbah for care of Latin Catholics and Patriarch Maximos Hakim for the care of Greek Catholics, he is depending also on you.
He has entrusted you with a special responsibility for the Holy Land. He asks you to have special concern for preserving the Christian presence there. He asks you to engage in a courageous struggle for justice and peace.
This is the mandate of the Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. This is the mandate the Pope has given you!
That’s why I’m talking to you about these issues. This is no mere academic exercise. The care of the Holy Land is also yours.

Concern for justice is a concern for right. In the New Testament, one of the criticisms leveled against the Pharisees, who were the Orthodox Jews of their day, was that they had too narrow a concern for legalities and not enough for justice.
You are Christians. You have a responsibility. You are Americans. You have a responsibility. And especially as members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, you have a responsibility—a responsibility for justice. A responsibility to be concerned about “ius,” about what is right, about righteousness, about rights!
Urban II was the pope who launched the Crusades. There was another mind set in those days. The Crusaders’ goal was to obtain control of the Holy Land by military force, to restore freedom of Christian worship and to defend the holy places.
Pope Paul VI, who revised the mandate and constitution of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem wasn’t quite that militant. But, he charged its members—you and me—to struggle for justice and peace and to maintain the presence of Christ and His values, His love, and His followers in the Holy Land.

Righteous gentiles. In Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, there’s a section near the entrance with a row of trees flanking a walkway to the museum. It’s called the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles. It commemorates and honors non-Jews who helped the Jewish people in the time of the Holocaust. Many righteous gentiles are venerated there.
We are gentiles. We are called to be righteous. We are called to be courageous fighters for the rights of our least brothers and sisters, whether they be Jew or gentile, Christian or Muslim, Israeli or Palestinian.
May your name also be remembered and commemorated along the way which leads to eternal life!

The Christian Presence in the Holy Land

[A version of an address to the United States Southeastern, Southwestern, and Western lieutenancies of the Equestrian Order of  the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in the Fall of 1989 and to the Northeastern lieutenancy in the Fall of 1990]

The Christian Presence

The characteristic feature of the Order consists of…its obligations toward
the preservation of the Christian presence in Palestine

Concern for Christians

I would like to review with you some obvious facts that many of you know about the Chris­tian presence in Palestine. First of all, traditional Palestine now consists of two areas: about 60% of it constitutes the na­tion of Israel, and about 40%, the so-called “Occu­pied Ter­ri­tories” of the West Bank and Gaza.

Demographics (general). The state of Israel has a popula­tion of about 3,500,000 Jews and about 750,000 Arabs, all of whom are Israeli citi­zens. The overwhelming majority of these Israeli Arabs are Muslims and Druze.
      The so-called “Occu­pied Territo­ries” — that part of traditional Pal­es­tine which has no clear­ly recognized na­tional identity right now — has a Jewish population of about 80,000 people and an Arab population of about 1,750,000.
      In the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the country on the eastern side of the Jordan Riv­er, there’s an Arab pop­ulation of approx­imately 3,000,000 peo­ple.

Demographics (Christian). The Christians in Israel and the Occu­pied Territories — the entire tradi­tional area of Palestine — come to ap­proxi­mately 125,000 people out of a total pop­ulation of 6,080,000.
      The Christians in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan are only about 25,000 people.in the total population of about 3,000,000.
      Chris­tianity has pret­ty much disap­peared from the Holy Land. It really has.
      Up to now, we have been talking about Christians — that means all flavors of Chris­tiani­ty taken together.
      About a third of these Christians are Roman or Latin Catho­lics and another third are Melkite Greek Catho­lics. There also are small commu­nities of Armenian Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, Coptic Catholics, Ethiopi­an Catholics, Maronite Catho­lics, and Syri­an Catholics.
      Approxi­mately another third of the total number of Christians are members of the Greek Ortho­dox Church and pride themselves as being linear descendants of the original Christian Church the Holy Land. Additionally there are other small Orthodox communities, counterparts of each of the Catholic churches I just mentioned, ex­cept for the Maronites. There is no Or­thodox counterpart to the Maronites; all Maronites are Catholic.

Social condition of Christians. The social condition of Christians is very curious and complex. Chris­tians, of course, are Arabs. And the Ar­abs, in Isra­el prop­er, are definitely a mi­nority in the Jewish State. An Israeli Arab is a citizen of Israel, but in practice, as most would ad­mit, a sort of second class citizen. Arab Christians are a tiny minor­ity among the Arabs in Israel and among the Arabs in the Occupied Territories. The over­whelming majority of Arabs are Mus­lim. So Christians are doubly a minori­ty, and this is a difficult position in which to be.
      Jews and Muslims are fundamental­ly theocratic. As U.S. Christians, we’ve grown up on a diet ­of reli­gious pluralism. We’re accustomed to re­spect for different reli­gions and for the rights of conscience. However in Juda­ism, certainly the Ju­da­ism of the Bible, and in Islam, you have reli­gions which do not separate Church and State, as we’re used to talk­ing about it.
      The State of Israel is a Jewish society. It may be that the ma­jority of Israeli Jews are secular and not obser­vant, but it’s a Jew­ish state, and it’s of the very essence of Israel to be a Jew­ish state.
      In Islam, when the majority of the pop­ulation of a country is Muslim, it gravi­tates to becom­ing an Islamic state. Be­cause in Islam, “church” authority, if you will, and state authority are one.
      Christians then, as doubly a minority, feel very pressured, and yet the Chris­tian Arabs pride themselves, especially in the world of Islam, on being the Arabs most faithful to their roots. Islam, com­ing in the seventh cen­tury, is relatively younger compared to the age of Christiani­ty. The average Arab Chris­tian feels, “My family has been faithful from the begin­ning. It’s my neighbors who have drifted away.”
      There’s another kind of pressure on Chris­tians in the Holy Land right now. That’s the pressure, in the Occu­pied Terri­to­ries, of the Intifada — the uprising — and the reactions to it taken by the occu­py­ing Israeli authori­ties.
      Chris­tians and the general Pales­tinian popula­tion live in a very difficult situa­tion right now, which I think objec­tively can be called a kind of oppression. Let me give you some examples.
      First of all, there are many daily forms of harassment including frequently being stopped and required to show identification or be searched, pass-con­trol of movements, periodic exclusions from entry into Jerusalem or Israel prop­er, arbitrary changes in automobile regu­lations, and the like.
      The curfews which you read about in the papers do not refer to returning home by a certain hour at night. No, curfew means you cannot leave the building in which you reside during the whole twen­ty-four hours of the day of curfew, and this for any reason whatsoev­er.
      In places of extreme heat, with no wa­ter supply or interior toilet facilities, this is very difficult. Extended over several days, it becomes a most severe punish­ment.
      Another cruel and oppressive punish­ment is the sealing or destruction of homes. Typically, in a case where some family member has been involved in an act of rebellion or terror­ism — even a teenager throwing a missile at an army vehicle — the entire family is given a brief notice, sometimes only hours, to vacate their home. The home may be demol­ished by explosives, and the family is forbidden to rebuild on the site.
      Perhaps the worst punishment is ad­minis­trative deten­tion. This refers to a procedure of arresting individuals with­out due process or trail. In thousands of instances, persons are held for up to six months in remote locations, denied visitors or legal counsel, and may not even know the charges against them.
      Another very great affliction for the entire population is the frequent and extended closure of schools. The pre­senting reason for this is security and the maintenance of public order. However, schools at all levels have been closed for a long, long time.
      The en­tire educa­tion­al sys­tem in the West Bank, not Gaza, has been shut down. And it’s only within the last month or two that the elementa­ry and secondary schools have been allow­ed to open.
      The 29th of October, the only Catholic university in the Holy Land, Bethlehem University, which was estab­lished under the strong urging of Pope Paul VI, will have been closed for two years. It was open only one day and for a few hours in two solid years!
      The situation of Christians, as well as that of the general Arab population, in the oc­cupied territories is very difficult. This is not to say that there aren’t difficulties for the Israeli population too, because both the oppressed and the oppressor suffer when such a relation­ship is estab­lished. But I’m just speaking about the Christian population.
      Another thing is happening to the Christian population because of all of these complex pressures of living as a minority in the Jewish state, living as a minority in Islam, living in the midst of the intifada and the repression of the intifada — a lot of peo­ple just can’t take it anymore! They just move away.
      The emigration of Christians is enor­mous. And because the Christians feel ties to the Christian West, it’s easier for them than for the Muslims. There are more people from Beth­lehem, Chris­tians from Bethlehem, liv­ing in Chile, than in Bethlehem! There are Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, in Australia, South and Central America, Canada, the United States, and parts of Western Europe.

Christian concern . . . concern for all

We’re supposed to be concerned about the Christian presence in the Holy Land. I think the concern we should have is not just con­cern for the Christian community, no matter how grim their plight appears, be­cause that seems, after all, pretty narrow. I think we should have a Chris­tian con­cern for everyone in the Holy Land.

The Good Samaritan parable.  One of the core teachings of the Lord is found in the story of the good Samari­tan. The moral Jesus drew from that story is this: when the Torah says, “Love your neighbor,” it isn’t referring to just the good Jew next door, it’s referring to anybody who crosses your path who’s in need.
      Jesus took the Mosaic commandment and broadened it. So, our obligation as followers of Jesus — above and beyond the obligations of a Knight or Lady of the Holy Sepul­chre — is to be concerned for who­mever is in need.
      In the Holy Land situa­tion, you might say we have a com­mand from the Lord to be concerned, not just about the Chris­tians, but also about the Muslims, and about the Jews.

Pope Pius XII and the PMP.  When Pope Pius XII started the Pon­tifical Mis­sion for Palestine forty years ago, he was concerned about the Pales­tinian refu­gees. He was concerned about this mas­sive displacement of peo­ple — the elderly, the sick, children, peo­ple in camps, peo­ple without homes. It was a movement to give food, shelter, medical supplies, and emergency assis­tance not just to Chris­tians, but to all people.
      As the years moved on, the conflict of the Middle East shifted around, and the situation in Lebanon deteriorated. It was Pope Paul VI who articulated very clearly that this special agency of the Holy Fa­ther’s concern was to take care of people without regard to nationality or religion –need, not creed.
      I think, if the Holy Father, the same Paul VI who revised the constitution of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, set this goal for the Pontifical Mission, I think he’s saying to you as well, “Your concern for the presence of Christianity is not just the presence of Christians, it’s a Christian presence among the popu­lation in that part of the world.”

Concern for what?

Although we have a Christian concern as well as concern for the Christians, sometimes we think of that Christian concern in very limited ways.

Material concerns. Material concerns are obvious. We’re concerned about food, clothing, shelter, medical assistance — the basic neces­sities — for those in need.

Spiritual concerns. But there’s the inner person that needs nourishing too. There are spiritual concerns. That’s why we’re concerned about building church­es, and concerned about the possibility of worship, and nourishing people’s faith.
      That’s why we’re concerned about building schools and developing the whole human person through educa­tion. And that’s also why we should be concerned about justice and human rights. Because if we’re concerned about the human person, that’s all part of it.

American ideals.  It says, carved in great initials over the entrance to the Supreme Court building in Washington, “Equal Justice Under Law”. The Gospel we heard at Mass today was about the widow woman bothering the corrupt judge. She de­manded jus­tice. And that’s a concern, too.
      It’s a funny dichotomy we have sometimes. As Americans we grow up with equal justice under law. We talk about the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We made the pledge of allegiance today and talked about “under God, with liberty and jus­tice for all.” But, we often shy away from expressing concerns about justice because it seems to be “too political”.
      These are some of the con­cerns that we have to have about people in the Holy Land — about Christian peo­ple, and Jewish people, and Muslim peo­ple.

Justice and Peace

…courageous struggle for justice and peace [is a characteristic virtue] of the Order…

It said in Pope Paul VI’s preface to the con­stitution of the Order, it said that one of the things that should characterize the Knights and Ladies is their engagement in a courageous struggle for jus­tice and peace.
      I’d like to suggest to you that a courageous struggle for justice and peace is perhaps one of the things that you should address personally and col­lectively.

Political versus human concerns

In July, I had the privilege of bringing the bishops’ committee that’s drafting a policy statement on the Middle East, to that area. We were leaving the airport in Tel Aviv and one of the gentlemen from the Israe­li foreign min­istry, who was our liaison with the government while we were there, was talking to me. He said, “You know, Monsignor, that patri­arch in Jerusalem, the Latin patriarch, is really the Palestinian patriarch. He just gets too much into politics.”
      I said, “I don’t think he gets into politics at all. In fact, the patriarch always says, ‘I’m not a politician’.” His stand is that more important than political factors is the human factor. He talks about the rights of human persons. That’s more fundamental than politics. Another thing that Patriarch Sabbah says that’s very beautiful is, “I’m concerned about those who suffer, and if Israelis were the ones suffering the most now, I would be concerned about Israe­lis.”
      The patriarch’s conviction is that the best security for either people in the Holy Land, Arab or Jew, is that each be con­cerned about the security of the other. It’s very easy, even for us, with our Church and State mentality, to think when you start talking about rights or you start talking about justice, that you’re talking about politics, and you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. Well, politics is one thing and justice is another. In fact, if there’s one thing that’s prayed for right through the Bible, especially the Old Testament, it’s that God will establish justice. And that’s our ulti­mate belief when we talk about the last judgment, that there will be a great balanc­ing out, that God is just.

The violation of rights

One of the most horrible things about the Holy Land right now is the kinds of injustices that are taking place. Let me tell you just a couple of anecdotes of this recent visit with the bishops.

The widow of Nahalin. One day, we went down below Bethlehem to visit a little Arab village called Nahalin. We came off the main road and incidentally on the way saw an Israel vehicle with soldiers with automatic weapons, and about 8 or 10 young Palestinian men squatting at the side of the road, blind­folded with a hood over the head. It was a routine thing — first thing in the morn­ing. I don’t know what they did. They must have done something, or be sus­pected of something. But that’s a typical scene.
      The village of Nahalin is a rocky, little piece of barren ground nestled in the Judean hills. Nearby are several Israel settlements, which had been there be­fore 1967, destroyed and reestablished. They were obviously encroaching upon the fields of the little village. In April, it was the scene of what some would call a massacre and others would say legiti­mate self-defense. We talked to the vil­lage head man, through a translator. He told their version of the story: how Israeli defense forces soldiers had taunted, provoked, and said nasty things about the people in the village, the women especially, until finally there was a reaction and the young people were getting ornery. And then one mor­ning, about four or three o’clock, while the men were just getting ready to go to work and take buses up to Jerusalem, a contingent of Israeli border patrol came into the village. Something happened, guns were fired, and all of a sudden several of the village men were killed.
      The Israeli side of the story says there was a violent uprising and they had to repress it. I don’t know the truth; I just know we walked down a street with the bishops, walked into a little house, where there was a widow with three children. A little deaf boy was sitting on her lap. They sent out to all the neighbors to get some chairs for this little room, which was only about 10 by 10, or maybe 8 by 8. They sat us down and started to tell us a little about the story. And there she was, three children, all by herself this young widowed woman. In fact, if you get our magazine, her picture is on the cover of the issue coming out. She was a victim of the vio­lence of the Intifada and its reaction.

The widower of Alfey Manashe. Right after that, the Israeli government representative said, “You should visit a settlement”. We went to Alfey Manashe. It wasn’t what you might typically imagine as a settlement. It looked like a little piece of a California suburb transplanted to the Judean hills. This beautiful little model town with about 1,200 dwellings, has an Iraqi Jew who was a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel as its mayor. He was proud as punch to show us around. They had a little country club, well watered grounds around every house, the kids were in a nursery school, It was just like a suburb in the States, maybe like in Texas. It was a won­derful little town.
      And then he introduced us to a man who lived there. The day before Pass­over, he was driving down to the border, going to Israel proper to buy some Ko­sher food to celebrate Passover. He had his wife and two of his children with him. His wife was pregnant. Some Arab threw a Molotov cocktail into his car. It exploded. His pregnant wife and his daughter were burnt to death, and his other child and he were horribly disfig­ured. He’s still going through plastic surgery. But he spoke rather tranquilly about it. And that little Israeli settlement in the West Bank had a monument to commemorate this tragic death.
      It was only twenty-four hours after we were sitting in the widow’s home in Nahalin that we were talk­ing to the widower in Alfey Manashe.

The threatened children of Kibbutz Menara.  The Israeli government took the bishops up to the north on the Lebanese border. We visited a kibbutz, one of those socialist collectives that started right after the turning of the century. In fact, one of its founding members was Rachael Rabin, the sister of the minister of defense, the one in charge of all of this West Bank activity.
      They showed us around the kibbutz. It’s just literally a few hundred feet from the border with Lebanon, which is high­ly fortified. They showed us their bomb shelters next to the classrooms where they can put the kids underground in case rockets come over, because for years rockets were fired from Syria and Lebanon into this kibbutz.
      And they’re still afraid because every now and then a Palestinian infiltrator will try to cross the Lebanese border, although the border is heavily patrolled by Israeli soldiers. They’re afraid of terrorists. They’re afraid for their kids. And, their fear is right! It’s painful to see.

The wounded youth in Gaza.  The next day we went down to Gaza. We went into a small hospital. There was a doctor treat­ing a young man of about seventeen for a gun wound in his leg.  He was recovering nicely. We asked him what he had to talk about. And with a spontaneous eloquence that would have done anybody proud, he started to talk about how hap­py he was to fight and die for his (Arab) people, and how they must be free, and have their own land and leaders.

The stance of the bishops’ statement

It’s such a set of contrasts. The bishops in the statement they’re preparing, (and there’s a little bit of news about it in the paper and there will be lot more when all the bishops get together in Baltimore to talk about it) tried to juggle this matter of rights and justice.

Israeli rights. The statement says that Israel has a right to live in security. It can’t go on like this — not officially being recognized as a country, infiltrators trying to break in. The Israelis are terribly, terribly inse­cure. They have a right to be recognized, to be established in the family of nations, a right to be in the United Nations, and they have a right to be free from terror­ism.

Palestinian rights. The bishops’ state­ment also proposes to talk about the rights of Palestinians.  They have a right to have a homeland. They have a right to self-determination. They have a right some day to have sovereignty, if that’s what they opt for. 

No absolute rights. The problem with rights is that nobody has an abso­lute right. Everybody’s right is a compro­mise. Everybody has to respect the other per­son’s right.
      The Israelis have to learn to respect the rights of Palestinians. Palestinians have to learn to respect the rights of Israelis. They have to live as neighbors. And we shouldn’t be bashful to enter into the crossfire because we can and should speak about rights.

Men and women of affluence and influence

Once, when Russell Kendall was telling me about the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and that as the successor of Bishop Nolan I have to get involved and have wonderful opportunities like this to talk to the Knights and Ladies, he said, “You know, these people are people who have served the Church and they are also men and women of affluence and influence.”

Sharing of your affluence

I think that one of the things that the Knights and Ladies do very well is share, if you will, of their affluence. They have a great gener­osity to help the Church in the Holy Land especially. It’s a wonder­ful work that’s done.

Sharing of your influence

But, I wonder sometimes if we share as much with our influence as with our affluence. After all, if we’re called by the Pope to be responsible for a Chris­tian presence and Christian values, and a Christian approach to solutions, in the Holy Land, not just keeping the Christians there, and if we have a man­date from the Lord to love our neighbor, I think we have an obligation to influ­ence the establishment of justice and peace in the Holy Land.
      At the end of the XI century when Urban II called for a crusade, he was concerned about the condition of the Holy Land and the freedom of Christians to worship there. The solution was to send the me­dieval knights as armies to do something about it.
      The situation now is that the Holy Father, and I presume the bishops of the United States too, if they’re sup­portive of the work that the committee is doing, are going to be calling for our concern for justice and peace in the Holy Land. And. we’re called, as the constitu­tion says, to be in the struggle for justice and peace, not by fighting — don’t put your suit of armor on – -but by using your influence, speaking up as American citizens to influence the deci­sions made by public leaders and the policy of the United States. Let’s face it. The United States is the major player in the Israel-Palestinian situation. Almost four billion dollars a year, al­most half of U.S. foreign aid, is for Israel and the other half pretty much right now is for Egypt, which is interest­ing enough.
      But, one of the things that we should be doing is influencing, using the talents we have and the convictions we have, to affect what our country is doing. Be­cause our country holds the cards in the Middle East. So, in a sense, it means lobbying, trying to impact what legislators think and do. It means informing other peo­ple. It means becoming informed your­self. It means generally contributing to education about the Middle East, espe­cially about justice in the Middle East.
      You are incredibly generous with your affluence. And, my appeal to you tonight is to be equally generous with your influ­ence.

Blessed are the peacemakers

Re­member, one of the things that Jesus said when he was preaching to his followers on the Mount of Beatitudes was, “Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called God’s children”. May they include all of you!

Travel, Truth, and Trust

The old man gently told the story:

Abraham refused the idolater the hospitality of his tent because the idolater refused to accept Abraham’s God . . . But, his God rebuked Abraham: “All these years I have given this man life, health, and my loving care. And you will not offer him food and shelter for even one night!”

The simple tale of the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheik Ahmad Kaftaro, seems a fitting parable for the Middle East.
During July, I had the privilege of guiding Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Archbishop William Keeler of Baltimore on their fact-finding mission to Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. Their task: together with Cardinal John O’Connor, to draft a new policy statement on the Middle East for U.S. bishops.
The most painful aspect of the trip was to listen to so many sincere and concerned people — simple village folk, educators and professionals, patriarchs and bishops, presidents and government ministers — and at the same time to encounter such profound distrust and misunderstanding. How often, deliberately or unwittingly, each would demand that the other accept his god, his absolute, alone.
For some, the larger conflicts had intimate, personal dimensions.
In the Palestinian village of Nahalin, the young widow tried to find seats for each of us in her tiny, bare living room. Two little girls clung to her skirt, while, with her small deaf son in her lap, she told how her husband was killed by Israeli soldiers on his way to work.

In the Israeli West Bank settlement of Alfey Menashe, Mayor Shlomo Kitani proudly showed us his gleaming, new little town. At the monument commemorating the tragic event, a young Jewish widower told us without rancor how his pregnant young wife and child were burnt to death when an Arab hurled a petrol bomb at his car.
We dropped into a clinic in Gaza where a seventeen year old was being treated for a bullet wound in his leg. With a spontaneous eloquence he spoke of being willing to die for his people’s freedom.
Prime Minister Shamir told us of how negotiations for peace must be conducted, President Mubarak spoke optimistically of the possibilities of peace, PLO leaders stressed the sincerity of their quest for a peaceful settlement.
So many different ideas, so many contradictory plans, so many hopes, so many fears…and, running through them all, so much misunderstanding and so much distrust.
There are no easy answers.
In fact, the greatest temptation is to say there can be no answers at all. Much of the area we visited was once the kingdom of Solomon. But, it takes a greater than Solomon to find a way to bring peace to the Middle East.
Please God, he will!


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 15:3, August 1989)

The Palestinian Intifada

A few months ago I visited the Jabaliya camp in Gaza. It’s a “temporary” home for over 52,000 Palestinian refugees administered by the U.N.. It’s a hodgepodge of cinder block, tin sheet, and scrap wood construction — tiny rooms or huts, usually separated by narrow, sandy alleys.
We arrived the morning after a six-day curfew had been lifted. (“Curfew” means no one leaves their home or even appears in the doorway or window for the entire 24 hours of the day — not for food or water, not for medicine or relief.) Garbage littered the camp; tattered remnants of Palestinian flags festooned power lines; empty tear gas canisters were proudly shown as trophies by the irrepressible children.
A barbed wire island of security in the middle of the camp housed an Israel Defense Force post. A small garrison of wary, young Israeli soldiers was charged with keeping order among a sea of hostile Arabs. The young soldiers’ Arab peers were not there to trouble them — for the most part the Arab youth were confined in other barbed wire enclaves, in “administrative detention.”
So much squalor, so much dignity — so much courage, so much fear — so much hatred, so much talk of peace . . . My head and my heart were bewildered and grieved.
In 1947 the U.N. voted to partition the mandate territory of Palestine (until the end of World War I, for 400 years a small piece of the Ottoman Turkish empire) and to create of it two states: one Jewish, one Arab. Israel was born then; the birth pangs of the Arab state we witness now.

The Jews who suffered and fought for the right to a homeland gave the world an example; Palestinians now are beginning to emulate it. There was a sea change last December, and an apparently irreversible movement has begun. Ironically, the efforts to control it have nurtured it. For the Israelis it is a rebellion, the world media calls it an uprising, but for the Palestinians it is an intifada — a stirring and shaking and making ready of a people.
Since 1949, when the Holy Father’s concern led to the establishment of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, we’ve tried to help the victims of war and violence in the Holy Land. During the last 21 years of Israeli martial rule of the West Bank and Gaza our humanitarian and charitable assistance has continued, as best we can.
Politics is not our business, but justice and peace for all must be. Seeds for a poor farmer, education for a young woman, dressings for the injured — even these small helps may be perceived as political intervention. But, what else can we do? Our hearts and the charity of Christ urge us to keep helping the needy and praying to the One Who is compassionate and merciful.
O, Lord Jesus, you who are a Jew and Palestinian too, be for us all Prince of Peace!


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 14:4, Winter 1988)