[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!
