“You look at those three verses and it says the same thing three times in three verses - share the land with the foreigners,” says Rev Dr Sizer32. He says that he prays for a solution to the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories without further bloodshed, but he believes that such a solution will only come about when Israel either gives up the West Bank and allows “an independent, sovereign Palestinian state” or embraces a one state solution “whereby everyone within Israel and the Occupied Territories has equal rights and the right to vote, the right to education, healthcare and so on.”
Rev Dr Sizer: “It’s either a one state or a two state. What we have at the moment is a no state solution [conundrum eds.] and it’s one that the present Israeli Government is happy to perpetuate,” Sizer says. “It wants the land without the people; it wants to allow the Palestinians to have autonomy but without having independent borders, without having a military, without having any sovereignty over their airspace, their water borders, their land borders. It is turning the Palestinians into the equivalent of a Bantustan in South Africa or Indian reservations in North America and that is not acceptable these days.”33
Isn’t racism anti-Semitic; anti-Christian?
Teach Me, Lord, What You Want Me to Do …
Many Evangelicals are waiting on Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh, to make peace in the region. What if God is waiting on Evangelicals, each to be a witness of His glory?
9 “Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children (Matthew 5: 9 GNT)”!
11 Teach me, Lord, what you want me to do, and I will obey you faithfully; teach me to serve you with complete devotion. (Psalm 86: 11 GNT).”
Real and sustainable peace begins in the mind and heart, in the will and soul because peace arises out of genuine appreciation and respect for the other. Peace is a conscious decision to improve relations and to do everything possible to overcome tensions and misunderstandings; and, if possible, even to become friends. Peace is the fruit of love. It is give and take, a dance with life, for life.
Footnotes and References Let's Get Radical ... Be Kind!
[1] Krista Tippet, ‘Sculptor of Memory,’ with Dario Robleto, July 24 2014, https://onbeing.org/programs/dario-robleto-sculptor-of-memory/
[2] Dario Robleto, an American trans-disciplinary artist, researcher, writer, and teacher is currently represented by Inman Gallery, Praz-Delavallade, and ACME.
[3] Rebecca Solnit is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and a regular writer for publications including The Guardian and The London Review of Books. Her books include A Paradise Built in Hell, Hope in the Dark, and a collection of essays, The Mother of All.
[4] Krista Tippet, Falling Together, with Rebecca Solnit, May 26 2016, https://onbeing.org/programs/rebecca-solnit-falling-together/
[5] Rabbi Michael Lerner is an American political activist, writer, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.
[6] Rabbi M. Lerner, ‘Embracing Israel/Palestine,’ (North Atlantic Books, November 22 2011).
[7] Krista Tippet and Pico Iyer, ‘The Mystery and Art of Living’. May 5 2016, https://onbeing.org/programs/krista-tippett-the-mystery-and-art-of-living/
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promised_Land
[9] Jack Wellman, ‘What Is Zion and The Biblical Meaning? What Is Mount Zion In The Bible?,’ Patheos, June 17 2015, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/06/17/what-is-zion-and-the-biblical-meaning-what-is-mount-zion-in-the-bible/
[10] Jihad, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
[11] Agape (Ancient Greek ἀγάπη, agápē) is a Greco-Christian term referring to love, "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God.”
[12] Anti-Semitism: real or contrived hostility toward or discrimination against Jews.
[13] Oliver Smith, ‘Mapped: ‘The world's most (and least) religious countries,’The Telegraph, January 14 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-religious-countries-in-the-world/
[14] Abraham A. van Kempen, The Biblical Abraham is key …, April 28 2017, https://buildingthebridge.eu/common-ground/general/the-biblical-abraham-is-key/186
[15] Abraham A. van Kempen, ‘Open letter to President Donald J. Trump’, January 26 2017, https://buildingthebridge.eu/world-leaders/correspondences-world-leaders/open-letter-to-president-donald-j-trump/154
[16] Ashkenazi: A Jew of central or eastern European descent. More than 80 per cent of Jews today are Ashkenazim; they preserve Palestinian rather than Babylonian Jewish traditions.
[17] Kampf:Community.
[18] The Israel Democracy Institute, https://en.idi.org.il/
[19] Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, www.pcpsr.org
[20] https://en.idi.org.il/support/approval-page/?Id=4211
[21] goo.gl/TwbDHj
[22] Krista Tippet, ‘Where Does It Hurt?’ with Ruby Sales, August 27 2017, https://onbeing.org/programs/ruby-sales-where-does-it-hurt-aug2017/
[23] Krista Tippet, Falling Together, with Rebecca Solnit, May 26 2016, https://onbeing.org/programs/rebecca-solnit-falling-together/