Summary of Discussion
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem (combined since 2017 with Kairos Palestine) works for human rights, justice and equality for Palestinians (see its website https://www.sabeel-kairos.org.uk/category/about-us/about-sabeel-kairos/). After nearly twenty years’ work in Galilee, Naim Ateek came St George’s Cathedral in 1985, and when the Intifada broke out two years later, people from various churches began to meet after Sunday morning worship to ask how the Gospel related to those events. Supported by many Christians, but called antisemitic by others, it now runs weekly seminars on Tuesday evenings, and on the last Wednesday of every month leading up to their conference in November 2024.
“Sabeel” is an Arabic word meaning “way” or “path”; “Kairos” Greek for “time”, but in the sense of “the crucial time of decision”. The 2009 “Kairos Palestine” document followed “Kairos South Africa” (1985) and “Kairos Central America” (1988): https://www.kairospalestine.ps/ (In Greek mythology Kairos was a god who flew past at great speed- you had to grasp the one flowing lock of hair on his forehead. But if you missed that the rest of his head was completely bald, and there was nothing to hold on to).
Genesis chapter 21 depicts ancient Israel’s relationship with one of its neighbours- Ishmael, and Isaac are half-brothers, both sons of Abraham by different women- but Ishmael is expelled from the family and lives in the wilderness, while Isaac inherits the land. In contrast, many Biblical passages looked forward to the unity of Jews and Gentiles (eg Psalm 87, Luke 2, verse 32, Romans chapters 9 to 11), but some interpretations of Hebrew prophecies popular in 19th century Britain taught that Jews must return and reclaim Palestine as their homeland before Christ returns. In the context of the expected overthrow of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and the conquest and exploitation of the region by the Allies, this strongly influenced the 1917 Balfour Declaration’s support for “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Such thinking has faded in Britain, but is still dominant in some churches in the USA, though not in all – for example see Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter’s “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid”: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Palestine_Peace_Not_Apartheid.html?id=c5byFwiV1TEC&redir_esc=y.
Although the Balfour Declaration also said “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, since 1948 Israel has been able to evict many Palestinians from their land, and now under Likud rejects any possibility of a Palestinian state as a threat to their security, while the October Hamas attack has hardened attitudes, even though confidence in eventual military “success” is now in decline: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/25/israelis-take-no-heed-of-global-anger-but-contempt-for-benjamin-netanyahu-growing
This leaves us with two questions:
1. How do congregations who are not directly involved in Palestine begin to see through the fog of pre-conceived “certainties” and propaganda to some semblance of the truth (and resist the temptation to avoid the subject altogether out of fear of stirring up too much controversy)? And
2. What effective action is it possible for us to take to counter what has become genocide and ethnic cleansing? (see the accompanying address by Dr Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, and Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College).