How churches should engage suffering in the Mideast By Alan F.H. Wisdom Volume 35, Number 3 Posted June 3, 2002 • U.S. churches have a proper concern to alleviate Middle Eastern suffering, insofar as it lies within their power. • Churches should understand U.S. national interests in the Middle East and appeal prudently to them as they converse with U.S. policymakers. • Our objective in the Middle East should be peace – to the extent that peace is possible in that particularly troubled part of this fallen world. • As Christians, we have special fraternal ties with the Christian churches in the Middle East. We have a duty in Christ to attend to the cries of those churches. • U.S. Christians need to understand the reasons why most Arab Christians have taken a political stance hostile to Israel. But we are not obligated to take that same stance ourselves, as we have our own distinct moral accountability. • Contrary to popular assumptions, the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the largest cause of suffering in the Middle East. • The causes of Middle East misery are to be found primarily in religious, cultural, economic, and political systems that deny human freedom and dignity. • Calls to “balance” in addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict are appropriate insofar as “balance” means that we are sensitive to the sufferings on all sides and hold all sides to the same moral standards. • On the other hand, calls to “balance” are inappropriate if they imply a moral equivalence between Israel and the neighboring Arab states. • It is unreasonable to argue that Arab governments and movements deserve our support simply because their people are poorer and their armies are militarily weaker than Israel’s. • Israel is properly an ally of the United States because it is a fellow democracy that aspires to similar ideals. U.S. Christians should give unreserved support to Israel’s legitimate goal of peaceful existence within secure borders. • Both the richness of the Jews’ Biblical heritage, for which we are grateful, and the horrors of their modern experience, at which we shudder, may deepen our passion regarding modern Israel, but neither should alter our basic stance toward that state. • There is no magical historical date at which we can identify precisely fixed borders for Israel that are normative for all time. • The common formula often heard on the lips of church leaders – that “Jerusalem is equally sacred to three great religions, and therefore it should be shared equally among them” – is misleading and unhelpful. • Israel, like all states, has the divinely-appointed duty to defend its law-abiding citizens against armed aggression, by military force if necessary. • Israeli military actions should be subject to the limits of just war principles. • Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza may legitimately seek to have their human rights respected under a government of their own choosing. But they must be careful to choose only proper means toward that legitimate end. Terrorist attacks against civilians are never a proper means. • Church leaders are misguided when they point to the United Nations as the best agency for mediating and re-solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. • The United States is in a much better position to mediate the conflict. But it is naïve to imagine that the United States could impose a peace settlement against the wills of the parties in conflict. • U.S. churches can contribute to alleviating Middle East miseries, first, by supporting a continuing Christian witness in the region. Second, U.S. churches can contribute through their teaching of basic Christian doctrines to their own members. Third, the churches can stimulate an open conversation among their members about the Middle East. • There are two habits in which U.S. churches indulge that are counter-productive to Middle East peace and justice. The first is the temptation to believe that we U.S. Christians know the precise details of a just and final settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The second is the tendency to become propagandists for one party in the Arab-Israeli dispute. The writer is vice president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a Washington think-tank that brings a Christian worldview to issues of freedom and democracy. More detailed consideration of this issue is at www.ird-renew.org.

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