Picture source:   Pexel / Mohammad/Abubakr

Ten Commandments and Palestine - #1

I’m just back from another weekly demonstration (40 so far) organized by Palestinian Canadian young people in the Ottawa region.  It is a ritual sign of support for people of Palestine and a challenge to Canadian political and community leaders.  My life partner Glenys and I have attended about half of these marches since October 6/7. (We are not oblivious to the horrors of those days, but we are even more aware of its aftermath and the history of horrors preceding them.)

The processions usually start at the Human Rights Monument before Ottawa’s City Hall, proceed toward the War Memorial, over to the Rideau Centre, to the USA embassy, and then to the office of the Prime Minister and/or Parliament.  At times there have been several thousand peaceful demonstrators. 

Most recently there were several hundred – summer vacations and heat, maybe some fatigue. The marches are noisy with meaningful chants, drum beats, and flags flying, with friendly companionship and mutual appreciation for the cause. They are peaceful.  

I’m amazed at the justice-based concern motivating the young organizers to persevere.  When Canadian political leaders can’t seem to hear the call for justice or understand the evil that is being perpetrated in Gaza and keep acting like Palestinians don’t matter, these young people persist.

The weekly marches continue and the call for justice continues in the face of Israel’s boundless commitment to annihilation of all Palestinian resistance (not just Hamas’) and the continuation of its colonizing ethnic cleansing, its apartheid, and “plausible” genocide – the continuing Nakba, catastrophe.

I wish my church – The United Church of Canada (UCC) – were as courageous and committed to advocating for historic truth, legal and moral justice, and peaceful co-existence for all who dwell in Palestine as these young people are. It isn’t.

I am ashamed to say that our denomination, along with too many other Christian denominations, is more concerned to appease the powerful Canadian pro-political Zionist lobby than to witness prophetically against the settler colonial agenda the State of Israel has pursued throughout the 20^th century and now nearing its deadly climax in 2024. 

Regrettably, the UCC has not come to a theological, biblical, and accurate historical understanding – TRUTH - of what has been transpiring in Palestine over the last hundred years and what Palestinian indigenous people – Christian, Muslim, and other faiths, including Jewish - have suffered under the neo-colonial occupation and militarized State of Israel.

Our church has watered down prophetic witness into safe "balanced" calls for “both sides” to cease fire, to pursue vague justice, and for generous humanitarian initiatives to assuage suffering.  But it has refused to recognize the State of Israel's settler colonialism, the ethnic cleansing, the apartheid domination, and the disproportionate massacres triggered when the subjugated people exercise their right to resist the illegal occupation and its terrors.  The International Court of Justice (ICJ) clearly said on July 19^th that the occupation of the Palestinian Territory is unlawful, must end.  Israel must pay reparations to those victimized, and settlements cleared!

Our church leadership’s considered response has too long been to play it safe.  Why? Is it because of our guilt about historic Christian oppression of Jews, because of the Shoah (the Holocaust), and Christendom’s part in the annihilating racist mania of the Nazis? 

Is it because we want to continue befriending the Jewish community – a worthy and desirable goal to which I am committed, but are afraid to speak truthfully because it might undermine this friendship, thereby indicating how flimsy it is?  Is it because of the threat of the powerful political Zionist lobby, which wants any critique of the State of Israel condemned – even criminalized – with its weaponized definition of antisemitism.

Antisemitism is evil. The Shoah (holocaust) blasphemed the Holy One and subjected Jewish people to racism’s ugliest and most costly terror. It cannot and may not be denied. Antisemitism and anti-Judaism are an "affront to the Gospel of Jesus, a Jew born in Roman-occupied Palestine." (General Council of the UCC, 2003)

At the same time, the Shoah and antisemitism’s realities do not and may not accord Jews and the State of Israel a right to impunity.  The standards and laws of international justice – whether they be religious, legal, social or simply humanitarian – must be honoured. 

No one or any group or nation may claim without penalty the right to denigrate and subject Palestinians (Arabs, Muslims, etc.) to racism’s hatred, terror, or neglect. Anti-Palestinianism, anti-Arabism, along with Islamophobia have been cultivated especially in the western world. They are equivalent to antisemitism for Arabs and Palestinians. The impacts of these “isms” are evidenced by the war on Gaza and by the one-sided biases of governments, institutions, media, religious organizations, and by the lobbying work of pro-political Zionist and State of Israel interests. Anti-Palestinianism is rampant and largely unaddressed.  Thank God that the International Criminal Court is pursuing the war criminals.

The foundational religious, better, human norm is clear: “do unto others as you would have them to you.”  Each faith brings other teaching and commitments to this divine wisdom, but none, worthy of the term “religion,” is entitled to negate this cardinal command. (Matthew 7:12)

For Jews, the Tanakh – Hebrew scriptures - teaches much about Torah, laws for living and faithfulness. For Christians, the Tanakh or First/Old Testament, along with the Second/New Testament are foundational witnesses to God’s journey with people of faith. Both religions can affirm Jesus’ summing up of the “Law and Prophet” faith heritage: “to love the Holy One above all and the neighbour as self.” (see Deuteronomy 5:4-6; Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:28-31.)

Observing this two-part commandment carries with it a divine promise of long life in a thriving context – land of promise – an eschatological vision, falsely transformed into a geographical area by biblical literalists and political Zionists. 

I’m starting this scriptural reflection on Palestine history with the core legal tradition of the Judaeo-Christian world:  The Ten Commandments or the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-7; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).  Too many books have been written about these moral imperatives, but history tells us that they have been observed far too often in the breach. Profoundly so in the case of the ongoing Nakba of Palestine.

Let me start with the Tenth Commandment since it seems to be the trigger for other breaches of commandments:

 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”  (Remember, the Moses vision is set in a patriarchal society.)

It’s a property matter. Everything in the sentence (and all that could be added) “belongs” to another (man). So, the law commands us, 20^th century folks, not to covet – a word that has slight usage today, but is the verb describing  boundless activities by the human family. Merriam-Webster defines “covet” as “to desire (what belongs to another human – male or female or gender-free) inordinately or culpably.”

The Bible gives us several examples of what is meant and their implications.  I'll offer two.

The story of King David forcing himself on Bathsheba is such a story (2 Samuel 11 & 12).  She is the faithful wife of Uriah, a courageous soldier in David’s military – by the standards of that time “she belongs to Uriah”. In a sordid tale David arranges for Uriah’s death in battle, and finally causes Bathsheba to occupy his royal bed.  In the process he breaks not just the 10th, but also the 6th (don’t murder) and the 8th (don’t steal) commands.  A case could be made for adultery (7^th) and even for the 1st (no other gods before the Holy One – i.e. sex; and certainly for the crime of rape).

David’s crimes do not go unchallenged. The courageous wise prophet Nathan tells a gentle parable about a covetous rich man, with many sheep, and a poor neighbour, with only a beloved lamb. It mirrors David with both his crime and the rage of the Holy One at injustice against the vulnerable. There is a cost to crime and sin.

Another story is that of Naboth, a simple farmer of his family’s ancestral vineyard.  He is neighbour to the royal couple, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 21).  Ahab has both the money, the power, and the desire/covetousness to acquire the beloved vineyard. Naboth, respecting the 5^th Commandment – “honour your father and mother” - declines to sell away his inheritance.

Result:  royal fury and an infantile sulk.  Jezebel comes to the rescue and they conspire. They arrange for a breach of the 9^th commandment – “bearing false witness” by two paid thugs falsely accusing Naboth of “cursing God and the king” (a sin against the 3rd Commandment - "don't take the name of God in vain.")   The assembled court convicts and Naboth is stoned to death – murder . The 10^th commandment has begotten action to breach also the 6^th (don’t kill) and the 8^th  (don’t steal) commandment and to deny Naboth his right to observe the 5^th.

The royal pair are on their way to occupy and enjoy their ill-gotten vineyard, but there is an obstacle. The prophet Elijah crosses their path. “Have you killed and also taken possession of the coveted vineyard?” Disaster looms for Ahab, Jezebel, and their clan for the evil “they committed in the sight of Adonai.” The voice of the Holy One comes through courageous inspired prophets described in the Tanakh.

Since the late 19^th century, political Zionists have coveted and planned to make Palestine a Jewish homeland. After World War I, the United Kingdom had mandate responsibilities for the well-being of Palestine taken from the defeated Ottoman Empire.

British politicians also wanted to solve their “Jewish problem” in the western world, where Canada and other countries weren’t willing to put out the welcome mat to Europe’s Jews. They came up with the idea of a homeland in Palestine for the diaspora Jews scattered widely in Europe and looking for a less dangerous place.

It took some years, but eventually the United Nations, with military support from USA, UK, France and more, approved the idea of partitioning Palestine with Israel taking the lion’s share of the land and the Palestinian people getting the left overs.

The Nakba or Catastrophe of 1948 was the result with hundreds of thousands made refugees, facing well-armed Irgun, Hagana, Stern Gang, and and the official state military units doing the crime of “ethnic cleansing” for the partition. 

Plan Dalet, well-secured in Israeli files, called for as much land as possible to be taken and controlled by the Zionist government of the new ethnically-based state to be named Israel, suggesting, but not at all proving, continuity with biblical kingdoms Judea and Israel (see 2Kings 14-16).  Massacres, theft of properties, illegal settlements, military control, and disproportionately murderous responses to Palestinian resistance became the long-term plan.

The State of Israel's current Gaza war fits into the long-term plan as a climactic opportunity to vastly expand the controlled territory of the Palestinian people.

Read Jewish scholar Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” (ISBN 978 1 851 685 555 4) for the story – very much like the biblical stories above.  Or delve into Mitri Raheb's "Decolonizing Palestine - The Land, The People, The Bible." (ISBM 978 1 62698 549 0).

  More to come as we reflect on the Ten Commandments