Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Gatestone Update :: Malcolm Lowe: Is the Lutheran World Federation Praying for Israel to Disappear?, and more



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Is the Lutheran World Federation Praying for Israel to Disappear?

by Malcolm Lowe
April 10, 2013 at 5:00 am
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It is intolerable that every Christmas, and from time to time at other events in the Christian festival year, the LWF makes participation in worship conditional upon the acceptance of a political opinion. Congregants who disagree can only walk out or stay away. No Christian should face such a choice on a Sunday, let alone at Christmas.
Palm Sunday is usually a joyful occasion in the Christian year. The church may be decked with tree branches as the worshipers mimic the jubilation of the crowds that greeted the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem two millennia ago.
So a certain Jerusalem congregation was surprised to hear that the theme of their prayers would be something else this year: "ending the occupation." Why? Because Palm Sunday fell on March 24 and "all the churches in Palestine and Israel pray for the end of the occupation on the twenty-fourth of every month." If Easter Sunday had fallen on March 24, as happens sometimes, presumably "ending the occupation" would have been the theme of the day, rather than the Resurrection.
Asking around revealed that it was far from true that "all the churches in Palestine and Israel" were involved in this scheme. Other churches were unaware of it. One would imagine that the Anglican cathedral, the erstwhile rostrum of Naim Ateek, would be the first to participate. But no, there had been a rousing celebration with the presence of an opera singer, but no focus on "the occupation." As for Ateek, he was pensioned off long ago and the terms of the pension excluded interventions in church affairs.
An Internet search revealed that the scheme emanated from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and targeted mainly Lutheran churches worldwide. For instance, on March 14 last National Bishop Susan C. Johnson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) issued an epistle with the following instructions: "I am writing today to invite you to pray for peace in the Middle East on the 24th of each month... This vigil was initiated by ACT Alliance, of which Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) is a member... This invitation to prayer has come to the ELCIC through our membership in The Lutheran World Federation..."
More specifically, the Jerusalem office of the LWF is the putative source. A page on its website is devoted to the said prayer vigil. It begins: "The Lutheran World Federation Jerusalem Program invites you to join with brothers and sisters around the world in praying for peace on the 24th of every month. On Christmas Eve 2012, the ACT Palestine Forum (APF) launched the Ecumenical Prayer Vigil for Peace in the Middle East. This global movement will continue until the Israeli occupation is dismantled, violence in the Middle East ends, and all can celebrate a just and lasting negotiated resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." There follow detailed instructions on how to "sign up" and participate.
Christmas Eve, of course, falls on December 24. Yet both the ELCIC and the aforementioned Jerusalem congregation seem to have heard about it only in March. Maybe this was some obscure pro-Palestinian scheme that was getting nowhere for months until the LWF decided to give it a push. If so, Lutherans worldwide will be expected to turn their future Christmases into feasts of "ending the occupation." Cribs and nativity plays will be out, mock Israeli checkpoints and displays of brutal soldiers will be in. Little boys who love toy guns will be easily persuaded to bring them along and use them to beat other congregants.
Now comes the $64 question. What is meant here by "ending the occupation"? When Palestinians talk of "ending he occupation," one always has to verify what "occupation" they mean: they commonly refer to the State of Israel itself, in any borders, as "occupied Palestine."
The notorious Kairos Palestine Document (KPD), for instance, is notably coy on this point, as was pointed out by various observers. An example is an article by Michael Volkmann (September 2010), writing as the pastor responsible for Christian-Jewish dialogue in the Protestant Church of Württemberg. As Volkmann says, "the two-state solution is not a theme for the authors" of the KPD; rather they advocate "the dissolution of the Jewish state instead of a two-state solution" ("Auflösung des jüdischen Staates statt Zweistaatenlösung... die Zweistaatenlösung für die Autoren kein Thema").
The following paragraph of the KPD makes that intention evident: "Trying to make the state a religious state, Jewish or Islamic, suffocates the state, confines it within narrow limits, and transforms it into a state that practices discrimination and exclusion, preferring one citizen over another. We appeal to both religious Jews and Muslims: let the state be a state for all its citizens, with a vision constructed on respect for religion but also equality, justice, liberty and respect for pluralism and not on domination by a religion or a numerical majority."
To quote from my own earlier analysis of the KPD (April 2010): "A naïve reader will not notice here what a more attentive reading reveals: the authors want to see a single state embracing Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. Indeed, nowhere in the document does the term 'two states' occur. Likewise, the term 'occupation' is freely used, but without a clear statement of what areas are considered to be 'occupied.' Thus the document delivers different messages to different audiences. Well-intentioned but unwary sympathizers can imagine that the authors subscribe to 'two states for two peoples,' but insiders can be sure that the ultimate aim is the old one of a unitary Palestine."
This is why I now ask: Is the Lutheran World Federation praying for Israel to disappear? Note that I do not ask whether the LWF wants Israel to disappear; that is another question. What has to be clarified, first of all, is whether the LWF is promoting a prayer whose authors understand it to imply the disappearance of Israel.
To seek some clarification, let us follow the link provided by the LWF: the ACT Palestine Forum (APF). The first thing to be noticed is that this is certainly not an initiative of "all the churches in Palestine and Israel." The List of Participants mentions several foreign countries, but only two Participants under "Israel" and nine under "Palestine"; the latter seem to be predominantly Lutheran or offshoots of the World Council of Churches. Indeed, the foreign Participants fall mainly into these two categories. Yet Germany, the country with the largest Lutheran population, is not listed at all.
As to what they are praying for, the relevant page offers only the ambiguous statement quoted by the LWF: "This global ecumenical prayer vigil begins on 24 December 2012 and will continue across the globe, on the 24th of every month, until the Israeli occupation is dismantled, violence in the Middle East ends, and all can celebrate a just and lasting negotiated resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Which Israeli occupation, that of 1967 or that of 1948? You are left to guess. A "just and lasting resolution" that leaves the State of Israel in existence? Again, your guess. The KPD is included among the Advocacy Resources of the site. A hint?
Another question is: Who was the initiator of the scheme? Among various possibilities, two curious coincidences stand out. On the one hand, the current LWF President (since 2010) is Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. His church in Jerusalem is given as a Participant in the scheme. Moreover, Younan was originally listed among the authors of the KPD, but asked for his name to be removed from it. Unfortunately for him, although the dedicated Kairos Palestine website deleted his name, there are still countless early Internet reports that continue to mention his authorship. Lest anyone claim that they are Zionist forgeries, we can give an example from an unquestionably pro-Palestinian website. In case it, too, gets deleted, here is another example. And there are more, too many for them all to vanish.
The other coincidence is that the LWF Jerusalem Program Senior Staff is headed by Rev. Mark Brown. Back in 1990, the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) issued a "'prayer offensive' on behalf of the Palestinian people, to take place from Palm Sunday, April 8, to the Feast of Pentecost on June 3," as the JTA records. In those days, Brown was living in Jerusalem as a human rights advocate with connections to the MECC.
The "prayer offensive" consisted of a prayer "from Jerusalem," which the MECC sent to churches throughout the region, requesting that it be read in all churches on Palm Sunday. The prayer, like the later KPD, placed blame on Israel alone for the conflict. Who truly composed the prayer, and whether it really came from Jerusalem or from Geneva, never came to light.
The 1990 prayer scheme was something of a flop. The Orthodox churches took the line that their Palm Sunday worship had been fixed centuries ago and no further prayer could be added. The prayer was read, however, by the then Latin Patriarch, Michel Sabbah, during the annual Palm Sunday procession from Bethany to Jerusalem. Later on, but as a private person after his retirement, Sabbah became one of the authors and most vigorous proponents of the KPD. Incidentally, his Wikipedia biography is another place where Younan is mentioned as a co-author.
In those days, the Jerusalem congregation that was mentioned at the outset was led by a pastor who smartly avoided the issue by composing an alternative prayer of his own, a prayer that did not obviously side with either Palestinians or Israelis. He later went on to greater things in his home country. His current successor, amiable and less ambitious, was an easier target.
The MECC at that time was remarkable for two things. A great deal of its budget, as much as 40%, was spent on the Palestinian issue and its administration was not known for effectiveness. I remember meeting a lady who had come all the way from Japan with a large donation for the MECC. After hanging around in Cyprus for several days, trying to get an appointment with the relevant person in the MECC headquarters, she gave up and went on to Jerusalem. Here she distributed the money among good causes of her own choosing. Not surprisingly, the MECC later fell somewhat into disarray and underwent various restructurings (as in 2003 and 2011).
To underline the delicacy of the issues, another piece of trickery was one I happened to witness. On March 11, 1997, all the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion participated in a worship service in Jerusalem at the beginning of a week-long meeting. Naim Ateek took the opportunity to deliver a long prayer in which he asked for the "end of the occupation" and the creation of the Palestinian state. His idea of the "end of the occupation" is well-known: the absorption of Israel into a unitary Palestinian state or a regional federation with an Arab majority. Since he spoke in Arabic, all of the visiting primates answered "Amen" without knowing what they were assenting to. So Ateek scored a minor victory on earth, though his prayer drew no response from Heaven.
Given the history, the LWF would be advised to think again about its prayer vigil. First of all, it should give clear instructions about what kind of prayer is acceptable. In particular, it should emphasize that the right of existence of the State of Israel and the wellbeing of its citizens should always be made explicit. That includes a ban on praying for the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees, which is just a euphemism for absorbing Israel into an Arab-majority state.
Second, the LWF should recommend changing the monthly date when the twenty-fourth coincides with a Christian festival or a Sunday. It is intolerable that every Christmas, and from time to time at other events in the Christian festival year, the LWF makes participation in worship conditional upon the acceptance of a political opinion. Congregants who disagree can only walk out or stay away. No Christian should face such a choice on a Sunday, let alone at Christmas.
Under those two conditions, the LWF's prayer vigil might become acceptable, although its usefulness is another matter.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Malcolm Lowe

Back to Jahiliyya

by Ali Salim
April 10, 2013 at 1:00 am
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Jahiliyya: The "state of ignorance of Divine guidance" -- how Muslims refer to the pre-Islamic era.
For years the sheiks of the Islamist movements have been promising us that "Islam is the Solution." The sad fact is that it is the sheikhs of the radical Islamist movements of the global jihad -- the Muslim Bortherhood, Al-Qaeda, Syri's al-Nusra Front, Hamas, and others -- who are dismantling the Arab-Muslim world into its ancient tribal societies.
The ministers of the Arab league called a meeting this month -- another needless, fruitless, predictable, self-congratulatory session to be held while thousands of Arabs and Muslims systematically kill one another. The food is there, but people are starving. An estimated 100,000 Syrians have been killed and well over two million displaced; the scripts for Palestine have already been played dozens of times, so the only problem left to be discussed was the guest list. The real issues, the destiny of our Islamic Ummah and Arab states, was nowhere on the agenda.
Anyone taking a good look at the tumultuous events occurring in the Arab-Muslim world can sense that a new page is being written for history books, but time, it seems, is marching backwards, not forwards.
In the 14th century the Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun wrote a sociological tract entitled Prolegomena, in which he stated that the history of empires is cyclical, that they rise and fall, and that tribal Bedouin society contained the seeds of its own destruction.
Looking at the Arab states today, some of which are disintegrating into warring tribes, you can only ask if the Arab Spring has caused this utter chaos, manifested in part by the mass slaughter of Muslim communities in the Middle East, especially in Syria; and whether it is one of Ibn Khaldun's historical cycles. Once the Arab Spring has run its course, will Islam the Islamist leaders of the global jihad take over the world, as predicted -- and preached -- or will the Arab societies change into normative entities in line with the rest of the world?
The longer you watch the Arab world, the more convinced you become that the Arab-Muslim states are gradually and irreversibly dissolving into their component tribal parts. The tribes of the Arabian Peninsula were united by the sword of the Islam in the days of Muhammad (May peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) into the ancient Islamic Ummah, the Islamic nation, which after his death became the Caliphate.
The breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to the artificial creation of most of today's Arab states, and now they are breaking up into their original warring tribes, the tribes of the jahiliyya from which Muhammad (May peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) forged the Ummah. The sad fact is that it is the sheikhs of the Islamist movements of the global jihad -- the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Syria's Al-Nusra Front. Hamas, and others -- who are dismantling the Arab-Muslim world into its ancient tribal societies.
For years the sheiks of the Islamist movements have been promising us that "Islam is the solution." Now those unsuccessful, destructive Islamist movements are worsening conditions in the countries they took over, often by force, and could bring about the failure of Islam itself. That might even lead, Allah forbid, to the weakening of the faith of despairing true believers.
The violent, terrorist activities of the extremist Islamist groups only serve to worsen the confrontation, dissension and separatism among the various ethnic and religious groups of which Arab society is composed. These regressive groups are returning us to life as it was after the death of the prophet Muhammad (May peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him), when the entire Islamic nation foundered in war against the rebel tribes which had abandoned Islam (the so-called "Ridda" Wars). They are using the same kind of violence used at that time by the Muslims to suppress the revolt.
Today, however, in view of broad Arab public exposure to the Western media and the achievements of Western society, the radical Islamists find it hard to replicate the ancient form of oppression and to present achievements in support of their propaganda, which preaches the superiority of Islam over all other religions and its right to rule the world.
The truth is that the Arab Spring has turned into an Arab Winter Desert Storm like the one which dispersed the infidels attacking Muhammad (May peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) in the Battle of the Trench (al-khandaq) in Al-Medina. But this time the winter storm is dispersing the Muslim nation and dismantling it into its original tribes.
The masses in the Arab countries understand that beyond incendiary slogans, the extremist Islamists have brought nothing to the world but slaughter, worse poverty and terrorism, and that both the truth and the future belong to Western society, which overflows with social achievements and inventions in every sphere of life.
The leaders of the radical Islamist movements are convinced that the role of Islam is to control the world, but they have not managed to present either ideological justification or success to support their illogical, immoral ambitions. They are trying to copy the ancient formula of using force to unite and rule the tribes today, and to turn the violence they use on one another toward external enemies, infidel Europe and the United States.
Clearly, the root of the problem is the radical Islamists' overwhelming jealousy of the achievements of the West. Comparing what the West has done to what contemporary Islam has done has thrown them into despair. The knowledge that Muslim countries will never be able to close the cultural, economic and technological gap between them and the West endangers the radical Islamist claim of the superiority of Islam and Muslims. Radical Islamist activists hate, fear and are jealous of the West because of its prosperity, success and progress.
The achievements of those referred to by the radical Islamists as infidels, when compared to the colossal failure of our Islam in every sphere of life -- and the fact that for centuries Islam has been incapable of making the smallest contribution to the world, concentrating instead on terrorism and bloodshed -- has created an unbearable contradiction. The frustration, jealousy and hatred radical Islamists have for the West is obvious in the Friday sermons in the mosques throughout Europe and the United States. The Imams incite their listeners to hatred and acts of terrorism against the West, where they are guests, mainly against America, which in fact supports every aspect of life in the backward Islamic countries. Some in the mosques even collect donations masquerading as "charity" (zakat) for the needy but which are instead used to finance terrorist activities against their hosts.
Hypocrisy is rife in the Arab-Muslim world. Everyone knows that what radical Islamists dismissively and angrily call the "Crusader West" is precisely the source of the security, economic and political aid received by Muslims in the Middle East, and the only thing standing between their societies and total collapse. The impossible contradiction is settled by means of lies spread about the "colonial, imperialistic West" which, they claim, has conquered, occupied and exploited the Arab-Muslim world.
The radicals are appointed by plutocratic, exploitive, hypocritical Arab dynasties, such as those ruling Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They pretend to collaborate with the West, but behind the scenes they work against it and do their best to undermine it. The Arab rulers, obsessed with intrigue, do nothing to establish the infrastructures of their own countries, do not help support failing Muslim peoples and do nothing to plan for the morning after, when other energy resources are developed and the bubble of Arab oil revenues bursts. The day is fast approaching when the Arabs will return to their camel-hide tents and go looking for water in the oases of the Arabian desert, having finally turned themselves and the noble communities of Islam into objects of hatred for the West.
Today the events of the Arab Winter indicate that the cycle described by Ibn Khaldun is irreversible and that radical Islamism is on a path to destruction. Many Muslims in the Arab world have been exposed to Western values and are not prepared to return to the anachronisms of the radical preachers who expound theories of regressive -- and repressive -- Islam. In addition, attempts to use hatred of the "Crusader West" and of the Jews as glue to bind the ranks of Islam together are no longer successful. Moreover, it is hard to convince the angry masses to overcome their historical desire for destruction and dissension, as well as their deep mutual hatred, now that the Arab Winter has given them justification for an orgy of killing.
The Arab masses are beginning to understand, by virtue of emigration, the media and the spread of the Internet, that the West is not "the heresy of the jahiliyya," as it has been represented by the radical Islamists. Many Muslims have begun to desire a Western life style, and the West has become not only a role model but a desirable new address. Many Muslims dream of obtaining a passport and emigrating to Europe or the United States.
This frustrating moral bankruptcy of radical Islamism is at the foundation of the armed movements which have chosen to use violence to dispel the gloom. For that reason, it is unfortunate but true, that at every event of mass carnage and slaughter throughout the world, Muslims are involved. These attacks represent a desperate, hopeless attempt to reconquer the separatist Middle Eastern tribes that are splitting into religious, ethnic and nationalist, and to reunite them by force into the ummah, using the outdated slogans and methods of ancient Islam.
Today the Arab tribes in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Syria are drowning in a sea of blood, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands have been killed, women in Egypt are raped in the town squares in the middle of the day and underage girls who escaped the genocide in Syria are sold to rich old men. The radical Islamists, euphoric after Al-Qaeda's attacks, while they assumed that Islamist terrorism would bring Islamic rule to the world, are now apprehensively watching in amazement as Islamic terrorism goes bankrupt despite being funded by such terror-sponsoring nations as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar.
Instead of changing, joining the modern world and condemning terrorism, the radical Islamist sheikhs, in their hypocrisy and desperation, complain about what they choose to call "Islamophobia." However, Islamophobia is not only justified, but could not have been prevented: it represents the Western world's defending itself against Islamist terrorism and violence. All one can do is quote the old Arabic saying, "First he beat me and cried, and then he preceded me and complained about me."
Trying to put together a Middle East policy, the West is confused, and in its confusion makes opportunistic, if unsuccessful, attempts to take the bull by the horns. Thus, fearing to be left with nothing, it supports the Islamist regimes which have taken over the Arab Spring, The United States, for instance, hesitates over supporting the Free Syrian Army: it realizes that instead of Bashar al-Assad, it will be faced with Al-Qaeda and the terrorist Nusrat al-Islam Front.
Apparently, the failure of radical Islamism will lead us, the Arabs, back to our ancient tribal society and the pre-Islamic jahiliyya. It is also possible that such a return will enable us to return to our roots, where we were perhaps even more advanced than the West. Not everything about the jahiliyya was bad. It had gentleness or moderation (hilm), courage, loyalty, keeping one's promises (muru'a), pluralism, knowledge and culture, the possibility of conducting disagreements and cultural debates in public, as was common in the market of U'kkaz, a popular gathering place. The jahiliyya was characterized by love of the good life, music, wine, permissiveness and songs (shi'r).
It is possible that as part of the cycle, the Arab ummah will proceed along the path to a life more like the life enjoyed in the West today. Perhaps the cycle will restore the Arabs' good ancient values, and Muslims will justify the mission imposed on them by Allah and the prophet Muhammad (May peace and the blessing of Allah be upon him) to rule the world. If the Muslim nation is rebuilt and joins reality, it will also justify Ibn Khaldun's theory of history.
Related Topics:  Ali Salim

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