It was one of the most memorable meals I’ve ever had. The location was a hilltop west of Bethlehem about a month ago, and my fellow dinner guests were 30 pastors and church leaders from the United States. That night, our bus parked at a cement-and-barbed-wire barricade, and we hiked about half a mile over two such barricades to have dinner at the top of the hill — in a cave!
The prominent sign at the end of our hike proclaimed the slogan: “We refuse to be enemies.”
The parcel of land west of Bethlehem is only about 100 acres. It is owned by the Nassar family, a Palestinian Christian family who have lived on and farmed the land since 1916. It is squarely in the West Bank, and according to international law, belongs to the Nassar family and is not part of Israel. But today, it is surrounded by 50,000 Israeli settlers, living on similar land confiscated from other Palestinian families.
Why did we eat in a cave? Because despite their legal title, the family that owns the land has been forbidden by the Israeli government to build any structures on the land. We hiked over barricades because the government has closed the only access road this family has to their own land. They have also cut off electricity and water to the family, so they must use generators and solar panels for power — and they now occupy the caves on the land as their only recourse.
In 1991, the Israeli government served notice that they planned to annex the Nassar land in order to expand the Israeli Gush Etzion settlement. Under Israeli law, Palestinian land that cannot be legally documented back to the Ottoman Empire (pre-1917), can be taken. Most West Bank families, though their families may have lived on the land for centuries, do not have the official documentation now required to prove ownership of their land, let alone the resources to be able to fight lengthy court battles.
But the Nassars have the rare documents that establish their ownership and the will to fight back, so for the last 20 years, they have struggled to retain their property in Israeli courts.
The stalwart resistance of this one family taking a stand against the confiscation of their land has become symbolic for Palestinian families of their 60-plus-year struggle to keep their ancestral land and be recognized as legitimate inhabitants of the Holy Land. And the Nassars’ slogan, “we refuse to be enemies,” captures their desire to live peacefully and share the land with both their Jewish and Muslim neighbors.
Many in the United States, and especially within the Church, have taken sides in this conflict without ever having been to the Middle East or having met any of the real people at the center of the conflict. Palestinians are stereotyped as Islamic terrorists, when most are just trying to raise families and earn a living in the face of daunting obstacles.
All too often, isolated Bible verses about the Promised Land are quoted, and blanket rationalizations about fighting terror and ensuring security are made as though they somehow justify terrible injustices committed against Palestinian families. When we let the ends justify the means, we open the door for terrible moral consequences.
Many of the Palestinians our group met were Christians, despairing over the dwindling Christian population in the land of the Bible, and wondering why the American Church has turned a blind eye to their persecution.
Whatever your theology or your political views about the conflict in the Middle East, I ask you to put yourself in the shoes of this Christian family, the Nassars, and ask yourself three questions:
How would you feel if someone tried to confiscate your family home, rendering you and your children homeless?
Would the Jesus you worship cut off a family’s electricity and water, barricade their road, and confiscate their land?
Would He use this kind of force to accomplish His political goals — or would Jesus, like the Nassar family, also “refuse to be enemies”?
For more information on the Nassar land dispute, visit www.tentofnations.org.
Note: World Vision’s position on the Middle East conflict is to oppose any and all human- and civil-rights abuses and violence of any kind by either side. We hope for a peaceful solution that recognizes the legitimate rights of both sides to live securely and with human dignity.
How would you feel if the small strip of land you had was completely surrounded by enemies. Who wanted you destroyed and taken off the face of the earth. God gave this land to the Jews and will one day give them all they were promised thru Abraham. However I think I do not know that God will save those who are muslim converts to Christ. And those Jews he has chosen. We can not force people together only Jesus can bring the peace the world needs.
Mr. Haber, thanks so much for your thoughtful, well-reasoned response. We’re thankful for your compassionate perspective on this complex issue, and we’d echo your sentiment about the just, merciful nature of the One God who loves all people and pursues justice without regard for nationality, ethnicity, or otherwise. Blessings, -Peter, WV staff
I was just referred by a friend to this beautiful post. As an American Israeli, whose four Israeli children have served in the IDF, as a modern orthodox Jew, and as a soon-to-be director of a Jewish Studies program at a major US research university, I commend you for it. And I think Kevin Morrow is spot on. At the end of the day, only one side has ruled over the other for the last forty years.
Mr. Lapides quotes the Hamas charter — while I certainly detest that charter and its hateful ideology, it is entirely irrelevant to the continuing injustice of the illegal expropriation of land and resources on the West Bank. Wishing to drive Israelis into the sea, as horrible as it is, is not nearly as bad as actually driving Palestinians off their land, which my adopted country, Israel has been doing since 1948, within and without the green line, always with the sanction of “law” (And Mr. Lapides errs when he says that the land Mr. Nassar belongs to Israel. In fact, none of the West Bank belongs to Israel in the eyes of anybody but some fundamentalist Christians and some fundamentalist Jews. The UN, the US, the ICC, the Israeli Supreme Court, and most Israelis see the West Bank as occupied territories. Only the Israeli rightwing parties, and their American apologists like Mitchell Bard, still view the territories as “disputed”. Even Sharon called the West Bank “occupied”.
Readers of this blog would do well to read an excellent webzine edited by young Israelis, at http://www.972mag.com. Mr Nassar’s slogan, “We Refuse to be Enemies” is changed in Arabic and Hebrew every week at the Sheikh Jarrah protests.
And a final word — as an orthodox Jew, I believe all of the Land of Israel, which includes much of Syria and Southern Lebanon, as well as the Eastern Bank of the Jordan, was given by God in perpetuity to the People Israel, and their are Jewish legal consequences for that. But that promise cannot be translated into a simplistic political program that denies Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Jordanians, their individual and collective rights. My God is not just the God of the Land of Israel, or the God of the Hebrews, but the One God, Who is Just and Merciful. When people say to me, “How can you, an orthodox Jew, be willing not to claim political sovereignty over the Land of Israel,” my reply is “The Earth is the Lord’s” — not mine, and certainly not mine to do injustice with. The founding of Israel in the way it was founded — though answering the prayers of many —
was at the expense of many others. The God I believe in doesn’t endorse the creation of a state that involves the Nakba of another people. He commands us to pursue justice for all people.
Heidi, you do not know what you are talking about. The covenant with the Jews, which you quote in Genesis, IS OVER! What part of “done, finished, over, kaput, finito” do you not understand? You are supporting a nation that built their land on the confiscation of lands which were already owned by others. That is THEFT in the Bible the last time I looked. The Jews have NO RIGHT to the land whatsoever.
Get Ray Sutton’s book on covenant principles and read it, please. It is called THAT YOU MAY PROSPER. One of the principles of covenant is that you can break a covenant. The Jews did this when they killed the Divine Bridegroom Who came and offered Himself to them. Without a bridegroom, there is no longer a wedding covenant (an analogy from scripture) and therefore, no longer any covenant.
The New Covenant has taken place of the Old Covenant (Heb. 8:13) and the New Covenant is with a larger congregation than the Jewish Nation. It is with the whole world — all ethnic races of peoples, including the Jews. For Jews to be saved, they must now enter the Church.
Austin, I wanted to present a contrasting viewpoint based on my personal experience of spending time in Israel. Also to point readers to God’s unconditional promise of the land to the Jewish people: Genesis 12 and 15 (to Abraham and his offspring Isaac), reiterated in Gen. 28:13-15 to Jacob and expressed in other passages as well. There are conditional promises to the Jewish people based on obedience but the land promise is unconditional. I do not defend everything Israel does, because I know that most of them are not believers. (But I do pray for the Jewish people resting on what the Lord has said in Zech. 12:10 and Romans 9-11 about their spiritual restoration. There are numerous passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah also which speak of how Israel will be restored as they return to God.) Loving their neighbor is a commandment Israel exhibits sometimes (for example in treating Palestinians in their excellent hospitals) and fails at often (just as I do). I would urge you to visit Israel, if you can and see what a small place it is and imagine what it would feel like to live there when your neighbors vow that they want to wipe you off the map. That is Satan’s plan(think Ahmidenijad and Hamas) and personally I don’t want to aid him, either by word or action. The Palestinian people have been kept as refugees and used by other Arab nations to keep this conflict alive. The root of this conflict is ultimately hatred of the Jews. If you are interested I can give you a long list of books to read by mostly secular writers. O Jerusalem! by Collins and LaPierre is one.