It calls for sending a high-level joint delegation (with shared costs) of Presbyterians, Jews, and Muslims to Israel-Palestine, “to identify opportunities for positive investment,” and to report back to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2012.
And it calls on the United States government “to repent of its sinful behavior throughout the Middle East, including its ongoing war in Iraq, its undermining of democratic processes in Iran and the Palestinian National Authority, its continuing support of non-democratic regimes, and its acquiescence to the ongoing Israeli Occupation.”
Altogether, the study group voted during its meeting Jan.29-30 to approve 30 recommendations covering everything from refugees to nuclear arms proliferation.
One of its members, Byron Shafer of New York City Presbytery, voted against the package of recommendations, saying, “I endorse most of the recommendations, but I have strong enough feelings about some that I cannot vote for the whole package.”
He voted, for example, against a recommendation to call on the United States government “for the strategic use of influence and the withholding of financial and military aid to enforce Israel’s compliance with international law and peacemaking efforts.”
And Shafer voted against another recommendation involving a document written by Palestinian Christians, released in December and known as the Kairos document, or “A Moment of Truth.” The committee’s recommendation states that the committee endorses the document “in its hope for liberation, non-violence, love of enemy, and reconciliation,” and asks that a study guide for the document be created.
Shafer also said that “at the present time, I have no intention of filing a minority report,” although he pointed out that part of the study group’s report has not yet been written, so it’s too soon to say for sure.
In the end, the committee voted to introduce its recommendations with language stating: “Given the complexities of the issues in the Middle East and the diversity of the members of this committee, it is inconceivable to achieve unanimity on all the details of these recommendations. However, every good-faith effort has been made to negotiate differences, honor majorities, and come to consensus, without forsaking our deepest convictions.”
The committee ended its meeting in a somewhat difficult spot. It has no more in-person meetings scheduled, and faces a March 5 deadline for submitting its work. But it still has work left to do — including writing or finding an additional historical analysis to accompany one that has already been submitted, but which some committee members said they did not consider to be balanced enough in perspective to be able to stand on its own.
That section as it’s written now includes some words that are “volatile and not helpful,” said committee member Susan Andrews, a former General Assembly moderator and now general presbyter of Hudson River Presbytery. That section, while thorough and passionate, “is through a lens,” she said. “It is not pure fact.”
The study group decided to consider another historical section to accompany that first one – either by finding someone to write a new section or by identifying an acceptable one already written.
But there is concern that the report already is too long – more than 120 pages, with some committee members suggesting that shortening it might be wise, although they also want to preserve the complexity and nuances of the material. The study group likely will use conference calls to complete its writing tasks – working against the clock and with its members geographically dispersed.
The 218th General Assembly created the committee in 2008, giving it the responsibility of preparing “a comprehensive study, with recommendations, that is focused on Israel/Palestine within the complex context of the Middle East.”
Its nine members were appointed jointly by Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of that assembly, and his two immediate predecessors as moderator, Joan Gray and Rick Ufford-Chase. The committee has met several times previously, and last August, its members traveled together on an information-gathering trip to the Middle East. Shafer replaced one of the original appointees, John Wimberly Jr., a pastor from Washington, D.C. who resigned.
The committee’s report, while still being shaped and not yet final, has other parts under consideration as well – including sections that explore the history of the region and Biblical and historical themes, and personal vignettes written by a handful of the committee members.
It also starts off with seven introductory letters, each one to a specific audience – including Presbyterians, American Jews and Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, and Christians in the Middle East.
In its discussions, the committee acknowledged that its recommendations will not satisfy everyone – including, in some instances, its own members. And the committee’s deliberations were studded with moments of tension and disagreement – representing the passions that so often swirl through discussions involving Israeli-Palestinian relations and Middle East politics.
In the letter to the Israelis, for example, the committee discussed what language would be fair and what would be too incendiary – whether, for example, to use the phrase “separation barrier” between the Israeli and Palestinian zones or whether to call what’s there a “wall/fence.” They stuck with “separation barrier.”
In that same letter, the proposed phrase “land grab” was changed to “land expropriation and settlement expansion.”
And there was prickly debate over whether to keep in or remove language referring to Israel’s right to exist.
Shafer, a Presbyterian minister, described that “right-to-exist” language as a “bottom-line” issue for him – he said he could not approve the paper overall unless it was included at least once. “I personally am not prepared to deny the right of Israel to exist,” Shafer said.
But Nahida H. Gordon, a Palestinian biostatistics professor from Case Western Reserve University, said she could not endorse any language that implied that “Palestinians don’t have a right to exist, they are an expendable people.” Gordon said of the language regarding Israel’s right to exist: ‘Every time you use the word `right,’ it negates me as a person,” and downplays the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Eventually, after much discussion, the committee chose to add language in a footnote stating, “the phrase `the right of Israel to exist’ is a source of pain for some study committee members who are in solidarity with those Palestinians who feel that the state of Israel has denied them their inalienable rights.”
Ron Shive, a pastor from Burlington, N.C., and chair of the committee, worked hard to try to keep the committee’s work rolling forward – and to find common ground where possible, as did others on the committee. Some on the study group spoke of what Shafer described as the “glory of ambiguity” – sometimes deliberately choosing language that might be read a bit differently by different audiences.
Marthame Sanders, a pastor from Atlanta who formerly served, along with his wife, as a mission volunteer in a Palestinian Christian village, urged committee members to consider saying of the report, “it’s imperfect, but I can live with it.”
Through the discussions, “we have come to moderate our language, we have taken out absolutes, we have intentionally included some ambiguity,” Andrews said. As a result, “I can sign off on it.”
But Shafer could not – asking that his dissenting vote on the package of recommendations be recorded for the record.
The study group concluded its meeting Jan. 30 with discussion of a pre-assembly event it plans to hold on July 2, the day before the 219th General Assembly convenes in Minneapolis.
