Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice. But the how sometimes elusive that Makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Hey, everybody. I am back today with May Cannon. She is here for the second time. I will link her first episode where we talked about her book Beyond Hashtag Activism, and because of her position as Executive Director of Churches for Middle East Peace, I have asked her back to talk about that subject in particular.
And I will say, May, this was a selfish ask because this is something that I enjoy having conversation about. But from the moment that I started to become more politically aware, probably in my early 20s, that things were happening in Israel, Palestine and I didn't understand them, I have felt honestly, the truth is I have felt just kind of not quite smart enough to kind of understand the history and the context. And I know it's one of the most I think last time you were here, you said it was one of the most studied conflicts in history and in the world right now, at least. So thank you for studying that and for being so willing to break it down for us and talk about this with compassion.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I am happy to. And I have to say as well that even though I have my doctorate in the history of American Protestant engagement in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I am a learner. And we learn as we go and we learn together. So that's my posture as we come to this conversation. Not that I have all the answers, but I can tell you things that I've learned along the way.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much. And I know that as your role as Executive Director for Churches for Middle East Peace, this is part of what you do is go around and engage church groups and talk with them and have conversations with them about this topic. And so one of the things I wanted to ask you is, beyond the advocacy work that you do and your organization does, I want to ask you why specifically do you feel like education for American church people is an important part of this conversation?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I love that question, and some of it really goes to my personal narrative and story.
I was not as aware you said you first started to become introduced to the geopolitics of the Holy Land or the Israeli Palestinian conflict in your 20s. Mine actually happened much later than that. And I was educated, I had several master's degrees. I was getting my doctorate, and it had been my dream to go to Israel from the time I graduated from high school. And in fact, my parents gave me the gift of going to Israel after high school. And every time I was supposed to go, something happened. My grandfather got very ill or there was an escalation in conflict and we couldn't go because of a war.
And so it really took I didn't end up going for decades after I graduated from high school. And when I first went, I really went to be exposed to the history of the place related to the Jewish people. I had been raised in a home that was not a Christian home. It was largely secular, but it was Zionist. It was a home that really lauded the ingenuity of the Jewish people and the rebuilding of this nation state, not only because of World War II, but coming out of the Holocaust, the Shoah, the great tragedies of the Jewish people. And so I grew up reading books by Jewish authors. I really wanted to see this incredible place from that perspective.
But of course, the real reason I wanted to go was because it was where Jesus lived and breathed and did ministry. And so I wanted to see the holy sites and I had no idea about the people and the current realities of the place. So I went on the spiritual pilgrimage and in preparing for our time together, I pulled up some slides and things of like pictures and I can just remember the first time I was in Jerusalem touching my hands along the walls, which are know, they've been rebuilt several times and all of that. But I can remember the verses in Scripture that talk about Jesus's triumphant entry. And it says that if the people did not cry out to worship him, the very stones would cry out. And I feel like that's an encapsulation of the sacredness of the space. And that's what I had gone to experience, the spiritual reality of this holy city of Jerusalem and these holy sites throughout Israel. And then I saw these signs that said Free Palestine.
And I didn't even know what Palestine was. I literally thought that it was a map in the back of my Bible. And so I ended up being introduced to a gentleman who was the founder of Bethlehem Bible College. His name is Bashara Awad and he told the story as a Christian, an Arab Christian, a Palestinian Christian, of being a refugee in 1948. And I literally have this picture above my desk, Alexis, where there's a picture of me standing next to him. And you can see the tears in my eyes where he told this story of being a Palestinian refugee and the story of the Palestinian people. And my heart was utterly broken because I had absolutely no idea. And I feel like God gave me a heart for Israel, and God gave me a heart for the Jewish people. And that day I was like the grinch whose heart grew several sizes, where that day my heart was broken for the Palestinian people as well. And so my story, I feel like, is an example that's so relevant to so many Christians who here I was studying global issues, I was engaged in global justice. How could I not know so much of these realities? And how could I not know anything about this people group that are Palestinian, many of whom are Palestinian Christians who are brothers and sisters in Christ? So that's a bit of why I think it's so important.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. Thank you. I could feel myself cheering up when you were talking about the stones, because it is I mean, it is a sacred space. My husband and I have been a few times, I think my count is something along the lines of seven, but it's been a decade since I've been and so I've traveled with toddler, twins, and I have traveled pregnant, and I've traveled as a single and a married.
And it's an incredible space. It is a sacred space.
And I think that for me, and this is going to lead into the next question, but for me, that sacred space always had a name, and the name was Israel, right? And so even in the map in the back of my Bible made me feel uncomfortable, if I'm honest.
One of the things that I have, and I think that at least in some circles where I've seen the name, is sometimes a stamp of which side of the binary you fall on when someone's writing on this. Do we use the name Israel and say the name Israel when we're writing on this? Do we use the name Palestine? Do we say the name Palestine? And one of the things I noticed as I was prepping for our time together in some of the articles and writings that you sent me, it's a slash, usually Israel slash Palestine. So I feel like that's probably more than logistical. Will you talk about why that is your choice?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Well, and sometimes it depends on where things are being published, what language you use. So I just did a meeting that was a gathering of the Islamic Society of New England with a Jewish group in and you know, sometimes if you're talking the political space, you might talk about Israel and then you have to clarify. Are you talking about Israel proper? Are you talking about Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank? And, you know, do you identify East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories, which, according to international law, they are occupied Palestinian territories? And then you could get into the question of the Golan Heights, which was occupied territory, but under the Trump administration, the US acknowledged it as being annexed by Israel. So all of these, like, we could go through the map of, like, what do you call what place? And there's never a right answer to some little better, by the way.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: But I struggle with it, right?
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I mean, in Israel proper, depending on Israeli politicians, many will call the West Bank Judea. And, you know, for those of us who are Christian, that's very familiar, the words and acts from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria. And it's interesting also to note that some of the most sacred sites in Judaism are not in Israel proper, they're in the West Bank. And so part of the Judea and Samaria has to do with the theological significance for Jewish people of so sometimes we try to use words that would be considered neutral. So for Christians, the Holy Land, which could apply to the Sinai, which could apply to Damascus, it could apply to broader regions beyond just Israel, might be considered neutral. And I use the term Holy Land in this meeting with these Muslims and Jewish leaders. And somebody that was participating made a comment and said, I find that very offensive that you're calling it the Holy Land because you're not calling it what it actually is.
And so I think legal definitions, what do we mean by boundaries and the current geopolitics?
Often when I'm giving talks, I'll use three different words for the same thing. So you might be familiar. There is a wall that exists between Israel proper and the West Bank and a neutral term for that is the separation barrier. Sometimes it's a fence, sometimes it's a wall in the walled portion, it is twice as tall and three times as long as the Berlin Wall. But many Israelis call that the security fence or the security barrier because for them that's what it represents. And then if you talk to many Palestinians, they will call that same separation barrier the apartheid wall. And so the naming and identification of place and space and maps in large part says so much about people's perspectives or whether or not you acknowledge multimerative approaches. And so we try to use language that is descriptive but as neutral as possible.
But depending on the audience, there's lots of opinions about what that might mean.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Right.
I want to get into some of the more recent conflict and kind of elevated conflicts that we've seen in the last year or so. But before we dig into that.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Which.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Can kind of get us in, I don't mean this speaking of offense, I'm like I don't mean this in an offensive way to the conflict, but it kind of gets us in the weeds, right of details and what exactly went on and timing and all that kind of stuff, which is important to the conflict. But before we kind of go there, I want to see if I can ask a few kind of background questions that before we even go there, I feel like there are probably some things that might get us to a baseline as an audience that might help us understand those things more. And so maybe my first question is in the work that you do, specifically talking to churches and to Christians in America, what are some of the questions that you hear repeated most often and or some of the misconceptions that you see or hear most often when it comes to the region and the conflict?
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Thank you, and I so appreciate that question.
There's two things immediately that come to mind.
One is the question of when did this conflict start?
And the other one is like, what is the conflict all about? What are the core issues of the conflict? And so for Christian audiences, often there's a presupposition that the modern day contemporary conflict between Israelis and Palestinians goes back to a biblical conflict that existed between the children of Abraham. So Abraham's two sons, isaac and ishmael the Jewish people are the descendants of Isaac. The Arab people. Many people believe the Arabs are descendants of Ishmael. And Isaac was blessed and Ishmael was cursed. And so there's this theological presupposition that the modern nation state of Israel, as the descendants of Isaac, must be on the side of God, and anyone who is against them is on the side of evil. And you see some of these know, even in vice President Pence was the first U. S. Vice president to speak at the Knesset. And you see these themes in his speech.
And if you look for Know, he doesn't use that exact articulation or that exact language. But these presuppositions about whose side are you on, you can see them even today. And I would point people to a conservative scholar of the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament. I believe he was at Southern Theological Seminary. His name is Tony Maloof. He wrote a book called Arabs in the Shadow of Israel, that is a biblical study of the sons of Abraham. And he actually walks through and looks know. When Hagar was rejected by Sarah and sent out into the wilderness, she cries out to God. And what was God's response? God revealed himself to her. It's considered to be the very first theophany of the Old Testament where God responded to the cries of Hagar. Well, if know the father of the Arab people is considered cursed, why would God respond to his mother when she's weeping in the wilderness? Right? And he goes through things like at some point Ishmael was called a donkey and how actually a donkey was a blessing at that time. And to understand what that means. And then you go through the story of Isaac and, you know, he makes the argument, and many, many theologians and scholars would agree with him that Isaac was blessed and Ishmael was blessed. They just were blessed differently. And how the promises of God to Abraham, which relate to the modern Jewish people, were promises not just that the Jewish people would be blessed, but that they would be blessed, that the world would be blessed for all.
So and then finally he talks about how both Isaac and Ishmael were present together side by side and buried their father. And many of us have had the privilege of traveling to where the know, to Hebron, where there is a building that is half a synagogue and half a mosque, where Jews and Muslims can be able to actually see where the father of our know, where Abraham was buried.
And so I think that whole, like, when did it begin? And is this a biblical conflict ordained by God that has been going on for thousands of years, so there will never be resolution?
I think we really need to deconstruct that. I think there's a lot of false beliefs in those assumptions. And even when we look at history, jews and Muslims have lived side by side in relative peace, certainly in Jerusalem and in this historic Palestine. I was going to say the Holy Land, and I corrected myself.
But when we look at the history, when you look at the 18 hundreds and the time of the Otoman Empire and I want to be careful, so I say relative peace, like not absolute peace, right? Not where there was never conflict, but you had Jews and Muslims and Christians that lived side by side as neighbors who spoke the same language.
It was the Muslim baker who was the Shabbat Goy, the non Jewish person that helped Jews during the Sabbath. And so the Jewish people would bring their food to the Muslim baker so that he could heat it for them on the day of the Sabbath so they wouldn't have to work.
And these are not just idealistic looking at history.
There's actually stories and pictures and testimonies and narratives that peace has existed between these peoples and that peace is possible.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Can I stop you there for a second on that first one? Just because I think Gosh, that's so important that I want to say what you said again, that it's important that we deconstruct that narrative. Like that biblical historical narrative that really that is probably the predominant narrative that I have always heard and been taught and had conversations around this. And I'm so thankful to hear you say that, that this is something that we need to deconstruct, in part because one of the things that that narrative instilled in me is a feeling of hopelessness, right? Like you kind of said, it's always been this way. It's God ordained, or It's always going to be this way. Or when we talk about the conflict, we say things that they sound kind of kitschy and cute or conflict. There won't be peace in the Middle East until the Prince of Peace comes back, right, and things like that. And so it makes it to where we gives I think it was safe for me. I feel like it gave me an excuse to kind of not even try, if that makes sense. Like, I don't have to be educated about this. I don't have to think about it, I don't have to whatever. Because this is something that's just always going to be.
And I think it's important that you point that out. And honestly, I don't know if this is like this. Kind of personally, it's, like, normalizing my experience a little bit because I think sometimes we get into where we see ourselves inside of a culture and then if maybe we're no longer a part of that culture, we kind of go, I don't know, was that niche? Or was it? But this kind of goes, okay, so this wasn't just the story that I was told. This is kind of the story for a lot of American.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: That's right. I think many people have either been taught that or I sometimes talk about, like default dispensationalism. Not many people know what dispensationalism means today, but that there are these assumptions that are inherent either in the preaching that we hear on Sunday mornings or in our Bible studies, and we carry with them. I think often we won't think about the repercussions of carrying that with us, that if we believe that Arabs are descendants of Ishmael and Ishmael was cursed, maybe that helps explain why there's so much sentiment coming out of American Christianity. Right. And so I think that's really helpful for us to be able to say, where does that come from? And is that really true? And I think when we look at the Israeli Palestinian conflict, to know this is a modern conflict, this conflict has only been going on since the beginning of the 20th century, maybe the late 19th century, but really the beginning of the 20th century. And so it's only been going on for just over 100 years or so, which I think helps give us perspective as well that this has not been going on for thousands of years. People to understand where does this come from? What are the core causes?
[00:21:29] Speaker A: I want to say two things, one unrelated and one to move us on. So the unrelated thing is it reminds me, and I would just say, like, here's a little plug.
This is just from me personally, this is not from me, but I'm saying there are things in my studies that are akin to that narrative, know Ishmael and his descendants being cursed and things like that. And so you feel like it's helpless or this kind of default dispensationalism that you're saying where when I look at this, I go, oh, there are other doctrinal things in my life that I have believed because of a narrative like that. When I look back and I go, oh, wait a minute, it's not my faith or my belief or something, but there is a narrative probably that needs to be deconstructed that goes along with that. So anyway, some of that is maybe gender related for me when it comes to ministry. But I'll just say that was kind of one of them. But that was one of the things that came to mind.
It's a similar thing going back to, again, another curse, right, in Genesis. So that's all I'll say about that.
But moving us along when you say the conflict is young, right? Like early 20th century, perhaps late 19th century, but that goes on, I think, to the second thing that you were saying comes to mind, which is like what are the core issues? What happened? I'm like may tell us what happened, right?
[00:23:01] Speaker B: And I promise I won't go through the whole history. I did pull out some slides. I do a version. Someone bet me once I couldn't do a history of the conflict in three minutes. And I won't do that right now because I speak so fast that I can't breathe. And it's not the most comprehensible. But one of the things I do really like to do with churches is to spend a Sunday morning or spend even like let's take two or 3 hours over Brunch and really look at and I really try to do a here's what you might hear from multiple Jewish perspectives. Here's what you might hear from multiple Arab perspectives. So it's really three histories or multiple histories as opposed to one line of this is what actually happened.
But I think the key things that are important to understand many people think the nation of Israel was established because of World War II and certainly the Jewish refugees that survived the Holocaust, that was a reality.
But the establishment of the State of Israel and the restoration of Jews to their historic homeland was really an agenda of the Jewish Zionist movement, which was a nationalist movement that started in the late 19 hundreds. And so when I talk about when did it start? And the Jewish nationalist movement existed long before I mean, before World War I, let alone before World War II. And the goals were for there to be a historic homeland for the Jewish people where they could be safe from pogroms, from the horrific anti Semitism. And historic Palestine was one of the supposed locations, but was not the only. And so that movement really was, aspirational know, finding a place that could be demographically Jewish, where Jewish people could be safe.
And it was nationalistic and it was not in large part it was secular. So there was a huge debate in the early Zionist movement about whether or not God should be mentioned in the Declaration of Independence at the establishment of the State of Israel. They didn't call it the Declaration, but what role God should play. And so what you had happened was from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, you had increased Jewish immigration to historic Palestine. And so the demographics of historic Palestine at that point it was primarily Arab, about 1 million Arabs or so. You had an indigenous Jewish population that had been there for millennium. Many of them spoke Arabic.
And you had this indigenous Jewish population and this Arabic population that did not self identify as Palestinian. There was not a huge nationalistic movement at that time. The territory was called historic Palestine. And as you had increased immigration, then you also had these major global political things happening. So you had World War I, where ultimately the Otoman Empire, historic Palestine was under the Otoman Empire leading into World War I. And I could go through the British Mandate period, and then you had another major war in 1967, the Six Day War, and then you had the Yom Kippur War in the early 1970s. And I could go through all of that history.
But I think without maps and trying to do it quickly and things I'm not sure that's the best use of our time. Except to say this and forgive me that. I've heard this told by many other people, and there's actually a scholar who I should attribute it to, and I don't know what the scholar's name is, but he once said that the core issues of the conflict have to do. If you look at a triangle where you have three corners of a triangle and any resolution to the conflict could have two of the edges of the triangle, but could never have all three. And so the edges of the triangle are this one is democracy, one is Jewishness and one is land. And so you could have a democracy that has all of the land, but because of the population that exists there, which is Arab, largely Arab, Arab and Jewish, it would not be a Jewish democracy. You could have a land that is Jewish, but then it would not be democratic. Or you could have a Jewish democracy, but it would be without all of the land. And so I think that's actually a really helpful large framework when you look at kind of the history of the conflict that you have these two people groups.
Ultimately, after the British Mandate period, the British left and turned the question of Palestine over to the United Nations. So in 1947 you had what was called the partition plan, which in large part the partition plan was the beginning of what we call today the two state solution. And the idea was the land should be separated. Part of it could go to the Jews, part of it could go to the Arabs. And we're very far away from that today.
And then the other thing I will say that I think is a significant historical note. And for those listening, I know these are broad, broad brushstrokes and there's so much we're missing. So I fully acknowledge that. But one of the other things I think is really significant to talk about is in 1967, after you had the establishment of the state of Israel, in large part at that point, the surrounding Arab states did not acknowledge Israel's right to exist. So you had another major war in 1967 which is hugely significant from Christian eschatological perspectives because Israel defeated their neighbors in six days. They defeated Egypt, Jordan, Syria. And that war was a turning point for many, many reasons. One, in terms of American conservative Christian support of Israel, it was hugely significant. This meant that God is on the side of Israel because they were so decisive in their victory. So there's all kinds of theological implications, but in terms of on the ground, Israel had a choice with the territory that they took control of. They took control of Sinai, they took control of East Jerusalem. So it was the first time there was a united Jerusalem. They took control of the West Bank and they took control of the Golan Heights from Syria. Ultimately, the Sinai was traded back to Egypt through a peace agreement. These other territories, including Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Golan Heights. Israel had the choice of whether or not to annex them, whether or not to give them back to the countries that they had conquered them from. Or conquered is not quite the right word. But taken control of them from or they could maintain military control of them without annexation. And what's happened is that military control. So when we hear the term occupied territories, what we mean is those territories and each territory has a different history. But what we mean is those territories were not annexed to become a part of Israel proper, nor were they given back to the country that had originally had control. So they're still in this kind of the international definition, is occupation. And the reason it's called occupation is because those territories are under Israeli military control. The people that live there don't have self determination, they don't have completely independent governments, they don't have voting rights. And we could talk about, well then what about the Palestinian Authority? Because there is a Palestinian government, but it is still under Israeli control. And so that brings us to some of these current realities of what's this conflict all about. Right now you have 2 million people living in Gaza, which is completely under blockade and completely closed off. You have more than 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, in addition to several hundred thousand Jewish settlers living in the West Bank.
And then in Israel proper, israel's demographics is roughly 8 million people, 20% of whom are not Jewish and who are Palestinians. You have 20% of Israel proper are actually Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel. And so if everyone's confused now, I've done my job to give you like a two minute summary of all kinds of things that I could parse and define. But that's a bit of a summary of. Part of the current reality is we don't have two states and we have this kind of unresolved status of what used to be called historically the question of Palestine.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Thank you. Wow.
I have all of these questions burning and I'm trying to figure out which ones would be the right ones to ask. So anyway, so you can shoot any of these down for sure and say, I don't think this is going to get us closer to where we want to be. And I'm totally legit with that.
One question I have, when you talk about kind of the options and that Sinai was kind of given back to Egypt, but these other territories were left in this Limbo situation where they weren't given back to the countries where they came from, but they also weren't annexed to become officially part of.
So this may be a really big cane of worms, but my question is why was it an international decision? Was it like can't? It seems like of all of the things, it seems like none of them were a great choice, but this seems like the messiest choice.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Great question. Yes, great question.
And I want to be sure. To be precise, some of them were annexed. So East Jerusalem was annexed and Israel considers Jerusalem to be its unified capital. No country in the world. I think maybe Honduras did early on, but there was no embassy in the world except for until the US. Embassy moved, that acknowledged that annexation. So Israel would have said East Jerusalem is a part of Israel and the rest of the world would have said, no, it's not. We don't acknowledge that as legitimate. And some of that has to do with the status of Jerusalem, UN resolutions, the right of there are several hundred thousand Palestinians that live in Jerusalem and don't they have a right to self determination, et cetera. So the why is a little complicated, but there's a few significant reasons. One of the most significant is because of the population. If Israel were to annex Gaza and the West Bank, when we go back to that triangle of the land, the democracy and Jewish, they would then have to have Jewish control of the land that is not democratic because there would be a higher percentage eventually there would be a higher percentage of Arabs than Jews.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Right?
[00:34:11] Speaker B: And so that's one of the main reasons. So then when you start to look at well, then what actually did happen, right? So you have this territory that's controlled by the Israeli military. And one of the other realities is some of the greatest resources are in the West Bank. The Jordan Valley is in the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley has abundant resources in terms of farming, in terms know, fertile land that's in the Jordan Valley, that type of thing. And so Israel has built settlements which are Jewish communities or cities that are along the Dead Sea that are using those resources for their.
So, you know, Israel as a country is saying this is in the best interest of our people of our state to be able to utilize these resources. Whereas again, if they'd annexed the land itself, they would have had to then take responsibility for the people that are in it. And what do you do? What do you do if you want to try to have a state that protects the and, you know, historically, there has been animosity I think one of the things that's really, really important for people to hear and I've lived in Jerusalem, and I've spent abundant time in the West Bank, and I've spent time in Gaza. Is the Palestinian Authority as an entity? But the Palestinian people specifically certainly in recent decades, the official position of the Palestinian Authority is to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. And that some of the issues that were in question in the or maybe even 80s have not been in question today. The vast majority of Palestinians want to have a future for their children where they're not worried about their children living under military control and they just want peace.
There certainly is extremists, but the idea that all Palestinians want to push the Jewish people into the sea is just not true in present day. I don't think that means we ignore the history. But I think it's important that we acknowledge that the vast majority of both Palestinians and Israelis, especially mothers, just want a future for their children where they can prosper and thrive and where Israeli mothers don't have to worry about their children going into the military. That's actively engaged in hostility and conflict as well.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for that May, that was helpful. And as soon as you started talking, I thought, okay, I think it was starting to click with me a little bit, moving like the needle slightly toward the present day. You mentioned it. And I'm wondering what were some of the responses from yourself and your organization when Trump decided to move the embassy? Because we know in two elections now, we have 80% of people who identify as white evangelicals in America voting for Trump and some of whom would cite position on Israel for that being a tally mark in his column as opposed to anyone else's column, for example. And I would say just kind of in some of the circles that I ran in, that was a big deal, right?
I'm having these thoughts of like, is it just some of the people I had exposure to where that kind of was an overblown deal? Or what did you guys see as an organization and kind of what was your response when that happened?
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Sure, it was a huge deal and for many people it was one of the reasons they know Trump's support of Israel was one of the reasons they voted for him. I mean, it was quite significant. And the moving of the embassy was one of the promises he had committed to prior to his election for US churches Forbiddle East Peace, which represents 30 member communions and denominations. So it represents a lot of the traditional churches of the Holy Land, orthodox Communions, a number of Protestants, including mainline Protestant groups there's, several evangelical denominations. And then peace churches would be kind of our broad demographics. So it's a broad swath of American Christianity, these 30 denominations. But our policy position is that we promote a shared Jerusalem, a sacred city for three faith traditions and two peoples. And historically, the United Nations and others have said the future status of Jerusalem should be determined between Israelis and Palestinians. And so where we acknowledge the sacredness of the city to the Jewish people, where we acknowledge the unification of Jerusalem being significant because Jews, for the first time after 1967, could go to the Western Wall, their most sacred holy site that is believed to be under the holy of holies on the Temple Mount.
So for us, we acknowledge the sacredness of that and the significance of that, but we don't support the esteeming or the protection of one religious group over the protection and religious freedom of other groups. And so for the embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, it was a unilateral decision that elevated Jewish aspirations and the sacredness of the city over Christian aspirations and over Muslim aspirations. And so for us, we were strongly opposed to it because we believe in a shared Jerusalem. Jews absolutely should have access to be able to worship freely, as should know our brothers and sisters in Christ. And as should, you know, one of the things, if people were paying close attention that was happening right at the time of the embassy celebrations, there's actually a picture of the ceremony when the embassy was moved and the plate on the embassy at the very same time that was happening. You have this population group in Gaza that are living under a blockade by the sea. They're living in this walled territory, 2 million people, some of the greatest humanitarian needs of our time. They don't have potable water. They have limited access to electricity. The economic needs are profound. There's a lack of free movement. And they were protesting and I can't remember the specific timing of Know if it was the right to return, but it was a protest where they were advocating for their freedom. Some of it is violent, some of it is nonviolent. But you saw these pictures of these people in Gaza struggling for their freedom, and there's tear gas, and it literally looks like a war zone. When you see the pictures next to this embassy being moved into Know, that was esteemed by so many Christians around the world, particularly in the United States. To the point to where I was in Jerusalem shortly thereafter. And there were signs all over Jerusalem that said, we love you, President Trump. President Trump's picture was everywhere. And they would say, blessings to you from the City of David.
Blessings to you from DC. To DC. The city of CD, from the city of David to DC. And then they had Jerusalem and the letters USA in Jerusalem were in red, white and blue.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: And so I think that juxtaposition of a people that are struggling for their very existence and the elevation of the aspirations of another people group above and beyond I think is an important picture for us to keep in mind.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Quick follow up on that.
Have there been any other states, any other international communities who have since then acknowledged Jerusalem in the same way that the US has?
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah, there were a few and a few other. I feel like they were South American countries. I don't know who they were off the top of my head, but a few others moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as right.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: So again, kind of on our path to kind of present day.
I'm wondering because you mentioned the protest and you mentioned the Palestinian Authority and the hopes and dreams of the Palestinian people.
Is this something that you encounter in your work? And if so, what is your response? And the sentiment or the idea is that the Palestinian people themselves as a group are essentially it sounds harsh, but this is how I've heard it communicated are essentially to blame because kind of in quotes, like they elected them, they are the ones who want to be governed by terrorists. Right? Like this is kind of the rhetoric that I hear and it feels harsh to me, but as someone who doesn't know enough about the conflict to really quite understand and sometimes I get the feeling that people who are saying that may not understand what they're saying either.
So if you've seen or heard that, how do you respond to that and where do you think that's coming from?
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. Unfortunately we hear that a lot. And so I'll give you an example that's a little bit anecdotal that I feel like is a bit more extreme than what you just described. But during the 2014 war, which was between Hamas, which is the political entity, it also has a military wing, it's deemed as a terrorist group by the United States and by other international communities.
In 2014, there was a war between Hamas in Gaza and Israel proper. And I was working for World Vision at the time and the message of World Vision was calling for a ceasefire from both sides because of the disproportionate effect of the hostilities on children. So at that time, World Vision had 7000 children in Gaza and it was one of the largest number of sponsored children in our programs that had been killed by a man made disaster. So we lost several children in the sponsored programs and so we were meeting, know, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Israeli government, and our entire message was just calling for a ceasefire for the sake of Israel. But specifically because of the disproportionate effect on children living in Gaza and the death toll coming out of that war in 2014 was there were more than 2000 Palestinian deaths. More than 500 of them were children. 500 of 2000 deaths, and there were less than 50 Israeli deaths, many of whom were soldiers. And each death is significant. So I'm not in any way comparing but this message of calling for a ceasefire because of the disproportionate effect of children. What we heard so often was, yes, but those children are being raised to be terrorists.
And I say that just because I think a lot of people believe that.
And I think of the verses of Jesus saying, let the little children come to know, or the people in Gaza voted in Hamas, so they deserve this destruction because they voted them in. Well, people need to realize the majority of the population in Gaza did not vote in Hamas because 70 plus percent, it might even be 80 plus percent, are so young that they didn't vote during the 2006 elections. So the idea that they're responsible because they voted couldn't be further from the truth. So that's just one idea or one response to that question.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I feel like that's an idea that needs to be deconstructed as well. That's something I hear a lot.
So I do want to bring us to the spring of this year. I think it was May ish or something like that, when we saw the conflict in the region start to escalate again.
And I'll be honest, there was a temptation for me to kind of just let the news cycle fall out, because it happens every few years. And I don't want to say I'm used to it, but I'm kind of used to it. But because I had started to engage with other voices and started to really feel my perspective being challenged and changed in a lot of ways, and this had happened probably over the last few years, maybe three to four years, I decided to intentionally not ignore this news cycle. It's probably the best way for me to put it.
And when I started to dig in a little bit and I had a few friends who were also following it, and we were exchanging text messages and exchanging podcasts and articles and things like that, I shared a couple that you had written, actually, during that time with a friend of mine.
But some of this was surrounding a neighborhood.
Right. Can you give us the Cliff's Notes on what happened in May and how that affected the conflict?
[00:48:22] Speaker B: Sure. So the neighborhood is in East Jerusalem and it's called you know, when I told the story of my first travels there and seeing signs that said Free Palestine. This is a community where there's been protests almost every you know, when we talked about some of the unresolved issues of territory and whether or not it was annexed, one of the results is the status of people there. And their access to their homes depends on is the territory a part of Israel proper? Is it a part of East Jerusalem? Is it a part of the West Bank? And so Shekshara is one of these neighborhoods where many of the Arab families are Palestinians who had been displaced and were relocated there. So they might not have been there pre 1948, or they might not have been there pre 1967. And there's a very, very strong settler movement of Jewish settlers who are ideological, they believe the land should belong to all of the Jews, and so they will actually go and force Palestinians out of their homes.
There's an excellent short video that an organization called Just Vision made about Shakshara, and it tells the story of this little eleven year old boy named Mohammed al Kurd, who was the grandson. His grandmother owned one of these homes. And you can actually see his family had built this extension on the home and it was not permitted. So they didn't have the legal protection to say, this is ours, because they didn't have permits to build it. And settlers moved in. So it was literally an extension of their home that settlers took over. And so you watch this in this film, my neighborhood, and that home is in Shekshira. So one of the most ardent voices for human rights coming out of Shekshira is this young man named Mohammed al Kurd, who's now a human rights activist. He's in his early 20s. Time magazine identified him as one of the 100, he and his sister as one of the hundred most influential people in the world.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: And essentially what happened to this part of his grandmother's home is happening to a number of families in this neighborhood. In Shekshara. There was a court case. The court came back with a compromise. The Palestinian families said, no, it's still actually unresolved. But all of this was happening in May, and it was a little bit of a spark, in addition to several other things that happened that led to the most recent escalations between Gaza and Israel, Hamas and Israel. Shekshara was one of the incidents that Palestinians were saying, enough is know, we want human rights, we want justice. And one of the things that was unique about the May hostilities is you had protests within Israel that looked very similar to Black Lives Matter in the United States. And forgive me, because regardless of what people think politically about Black Lives Matter, that's not my point. My point is the internal resistance. You have citizens of Israel who are Palestinian who were protesting in ways that we haven't seen in recent decades, which was quite significant. That was kind of one of the components of the May hostilities.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Can I just say, I think that from my perspective, part of the difficulty in understanding the history of the region, the conflict in general, and these specific conflicts is that as Americans and I would say specifically as American Christians or evangelical Christians at that.
We have to hunt to find the Palestinian perspective.
I would argue that someone who has been a tourist in Israel, someone who has spent I haven't lived there, but I've spent weeks at a know, on different trips.
What I would say is that.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: I'm.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: Trying to say this in a really humane way, but the images that are coming to my mind are not necessarily that. But it's like almost when you go even to Israel, to the touristy places, things like this, there is absolutely no exposure to the Palestinian people at all, let alone exposure to their struggle. Right? And so when you go in, it's kind of like there's this beautiful house, right? And then you have what the people of the house call like the crazy uncle kind of locked back in the closet back there where it's like nobody go back in that back room. Right?
It almost feels that way even in the land, if you can be that close in physical proximity to a people group that you don't know exists and you don't know are struggling, it's even more so in North America, I feel like. Right? It's even more so in the United States. And so we have to hunt resources and media sometimes and perspectives from people who have studied the conflict. Because the voices of the Palestinians and their advocates are not the loudest voices in the room, usually.
And so I did watch that video. I think I found it because honestly, this is the truth. And I'll just say this to the audience in general.
May did not put me up to this. But when I saw in May that there was a conflict because I had spoken with you, I immediately just Googled like May canon articles on Israel because I knew that you had written something, probably recently. And it was in one of those articles that I found a link to the My Neighborhood documentary that you were talking about. But we have to intentionally search out places and people and perspectives who will give us that Palestinian perspective, because it's just not what we hear in much. The camera is kind of pointed toward Israel.
Is that fair?
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Well, and I think part of it is this false assumption that we have in the United States that there are two sides, that there's one Israeli perspective. Right? There's multiple I mean, there's so many perspectives of Jewish Israelis who would agree with us, who would disagree with us, who would have nuanced. And so this idea that there's a Jewish side and a Palestinian side and there's only one of each is just inaccurate in terms of so we often say there's not two sides to this conflict, israeli or Palestinian. The only two sides are those who are for peace and those who are not, right? And so how do we redefine those realities? But as you were talking, it reminded me someone who I respect greatly is a human rights attorney who's Israeli. He's an expert on Jerusalem. He's a reservist in the Israeli Defense Forces. He's this Jewish human rights lawyer. His name's Danny Seideman, and he says that Israelis living in Tel Aviv, which is an hour away from Jerusalem, he says Israelis living in Tel Aviv are living on an edge of a volcano while sipping cappuccino.
And that just the isolation of you have a wall that separates these two people. You have signs before you go into Palestinian citizens that say, Enter upon threat of.
And so the separation of these two peoples, when you talk about what are the current realities, the current realities today are worse in many ways than they were 20 years ago, because 20 years ago, Jewish Israelis went into the West Bank, there wasn't a wall, and they'd shop in the Palestinian neighborhoods because it was less expensive. So you at least had people being exposed to one another. Whereas today I have dear Palestinian friends who would say, the only Israelis we ever meet are soldiers or settlers, both of whom are carrying guns. And our children have never met an Israeli Jewish child. Right, right. And so that separation, I think, makes the job of pursuing peace today much, much more challenging than in years past, where you at least had access between these two different people groups.
[00:57:00] Speaker A: Right. Wow.
May this is like I just appreciate your ability and your willingness to continually have this conversation because it's obviously important because there are human lives involved.
It's not just life and death like we would see in a conflict. It's as you say, it's water, it's daily life. It's all of these humanitarian needs that I think, honestly, I think if American Christians were exposed to, we would be shocked into action, just wanting to see the best for our neighbors in that part of the world. And so that's part of this, for me, is just realizing how much exposure I lacked for so long, even having been in close physical proximity.
The truth is, I enjoyed cappuccinos by the beach with the citizens of Tel Aviv, and it's just the truth.
And there's nothing wrong with walking on.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: The beach in Tel Aviv.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: It's nice, lovely. But at the same time, it is hard to grasp that juxtaposition that's happening in the land right now. So I'm sure we're past time, but what would you leave us with? This is, like, so much stuff and history and theology and so many things that we've covered, but just as Christians who are honestly trying to live in the way of Jesus the best we can, what would you leave us with regarding this conflict?
[00:58:52] Speaker B: Yes.
Well, I'm grateful for your willingness to have the conversation. It's never an easy one. Right. We never get it quite right.
At Churches for Middle East peace, our goal is to respect all of the narratives of all of the people of the land while still elevating these issues of responding to the needs of the poor.
[00:59:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: Matthew, Chapter 25, addressing what does it mean to love our neighbor, let alone love our enemy? And what's that look like in reality as we ask these questions about Israel and about Palestine?
And maybe I'll just close with this story, we don't have a lot of wins in our look. It looks like we're further away from peace today than we were years ago.
And so sometimes I say in terms of my recruitment speech, it's like, come work with us. We'll never win, right?
It's not the best. And I'll say it's really hard to get support. We're not a Palestinian solidarity group, right? We're a peace building advocacy group. And we're know unilaterally supportive of Israel, but we seek to love the people of so I leave with this story that this May I felt so convicted that we're doing what God wants us to do. We were in direct conversations with the White House, we were doing advocacy with the State Department. And our message was similar to the message that I shared during the 2014 war. We were calling for a ceasefire. And part of the reason we call for a ceasefire is that so children and people don't die. And over the course of the days of the hostilities, if you look at President Biden's rhetoric, it shifted. So that the days before the ceasefire, he had three different messages that he gave during the time of the conflict. And on the day that the ceasefire came out, I had a phone call with the White House and they said to us that we should know that our advocacy makes a difference.
And that was right before Egypt essentially brokered the ceasefire. But that would be my encouraging word. That actually when we elevate the narratives and when we say we're going to use our voice, we're going to engage in advocacy, we're going to tell stories or listen to stories we've never otherwise heard, that it makes a difference. And I fundamentally believe that less children in Gaza were killed because that war quickly came to an end. And that makes our work meaningful. And so the invitation would be, join us on that journey as we seek to pursue peace and to advocate for justice, because your voice can really make a difference.
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Thank you so much, May.
That is a beautiful word. And I will definitely put a link, there will probably be more than one to churches for Middle East peace. There are links inside of the website that can tell anybody how they can get involved, how they can support the work that you guys do.
Like I said, this was my go to place. I went to the website, Googled your articles, because I know that your boots on the ground, you are looking at this from a wider lens than I could on my own. And so I trust what is coming out in your advocacy work in the organization. So I just want to say thank you for what you guys do.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Thank you so much. And my hope and prayer is may God go before us in it, right?
[01:02:36] Speaker A: Amen.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: So that's my hope and prayer.
[01:02:38] Speaker A: Amen. Thanks so much.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: May good to be with you.
[01:02:43] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the Show Notes, Music and Podcast production by Seth Busetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also visit us at that makes Total sense.
