Palestinians and Israelis Should Move Beyond Self-Victimization to Counter Balfour’s Historic Injustice

By Jesse Wheeler

Today, the 2^nd of November 2017, marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a British document born of war-era realpolitik, ethno-nationalist aspirations, and millenarian zeal. Understood as an historic milestone by some and a monumental betrayal by others, the Balfour Declaration called for “[t]he establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” – under the suzerainty of the British Empire – “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” As for the apparent mutual-exclusivity of such aims, or the apportionment of foreign land not yet possessed, Lord Balfour and the British War Cabinet responsible for the declaration do not explain. Britain spent the next three decades navigating the implications of this incongruity – after taking upon itself the Mandate for Palestine in the halls of Versailles – as Zionist colonization increased along with Palestinian resentment and intercommunal conflict. As we know from history, this eventually culminated in Britain’s handing off of the budding crisis to the nascent United Nations and its ill-fated Partition Plan. This led to the Israeli Declaration of Independence, as well as to the First Arab-Israeli War, and to the Palestinian Nakba resulting in the ongoing refugee crisis.

In the lead up to today, the Balfour Declaration has become once again an international and regional cause célèbre, inspiring both celebration and protest. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has officially demanded an apology from the United Kingdom for the Balfour Declaration and the historic injustice perpetrated on the Palestinian people during the mandate era – most especially its failure to protect “the civil, religious [and not to mention national] rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” The UK, for its part, refused to apologize, saying it is “proud of its role in creating the State of Israel” as a homeland for the long-suffering Jewish people. Israelis are celebrating the centennial as a key event in their national story, though the distinctly secular and imperial nature of the Balfour Declaration has had the effect in the past of bringing to the fore deep divisions within Israeli society. As to be expected, Christians are split – with some celebrating the creation of Israel as the fulfillment of God’s divine purposes and others protesting Christian Zionism as a perversion of scriptural justice in light of the ongoing displacement and pain experienced by the Palestinians.

As an institute of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, Lebanon, IMES believes it imperative to consider the voices of those often overlooked in the global discourses surrounding this conflict – the native Christians of Palestine. But we believe it is also crucial for Arab Christians, including Palestinians, to exercise an unusual and stretching level of empathy toward the Jewish narrative and its concerns. Followers of Jesus from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim backgrounds should selflessly seek to frame their understanding of this often-desperate situation in a way that centers on Christ and his Kingdom, rather than remaining locked in the quagmire of political issues.

In order to achieve this, it is helpful to frame the emergence of the State of Israel as a phenomenon that belongs within the historical movement of the emergence of modern states in lands that had been previously colonized by western powers. In the MENA region, most modern nation-states emerged during the first half of the twentieth century, with none today boasting more than a hundred years of existence. From such a perspective, 1948 need not be viewed as an anomaly of history in and of itself. It is rather the fact that such a state would have been so blatantly built at the expense of justice and the rights of Palestinians which is problematic and needs to be addressed vigorously and in a Godly manner by the church.

The desperate situation of Palestinians was described in a recent op-ed by Bethlehem Mayor (always a Christian by law) Anton Salmon, who asks for what reason Christians are “celebrating Israeli Policies Strangling Jesus’ Birthplace?” In describing the situation in Bethlehem, he writes,

We, the people of Bethlehem, have been separated from our hinterland, denied our right to control our natural resources and forced to cross Israeli checkpoints even to move within Palestine. Left with limited control over just 13 percent of its governorate, Bethlehem is an example of what 50 years of Israeli occupation have meant for Palestine and Palestinians in general, and to the Christians of the Holy Land in particular.”

But in addition to such voices, we must also listen to those of Israeli Jews who are living today as third or fourth generation citizens in a land where they often feel targeted and in danger. The survival instinct on both sides propagates a thoroughly unhealthy mentality of self-protection and exclusion.

For their part, Palestinian Christian church leaders and theologians have been increasingly vocal in the face of their lived realities of occupation and displacement. In 2009, Palestinian Christian leaders came together as part of an ecumenical movement around the development and publishing of the Kairos Palestine document, taking their inspiration from Kairos South Africa. Within the document, Christian leaders describe the lived realities “on the ground” for Palestinians, their vision for living out faith, hope and love in the context of injustice, of particular note being their theology of scripture and their theology of the land, and conclude with a call for response from the global church as well as the international community, much like their South African predecessors. Eastern Christian and Catholic leaders like Elias Chacour and others, have written extensively on their experiences and theological reflections in the face of displacement, oppression and national erasure. Mainline Protestant leaders, like Anglican Naim Ateek and Lutheran Mitri Raheb, have likewise advocated for a Palestinian theology of liberation and keeping faith in the face of empire. For their part, Evangelical Palestinians too have reflected deeply on what obedience to scripture and the Lord Jesus mean within a context of oppression and displacement. As such, we compassionately listen to the work of our Palestinian friends and colleagues associated with Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) like Yohanna Katanacho, Munther Isaac (Facilitator of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference), Salim Munayer (Director of the reconciliation ministry Musalaha), and the Awad family, among many others, who have taught, written, spoken, advocated, and ministered as deeply committed persons of faith within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much of their thinking provides a distinct and useful counterpoint to the misguided apocalyptic fervor which lay behind the Balfour Declaration and some of its aftermath.

IMES would caution against holding a single discourse that combines the two realms of politics and Bible and theology too closely in the question of Israel and Palestine – a fatal error that seems to have inspired the Balfour Declaration to begin with. When dealing with politics, we must delve into matters of justice, human rights, equal citizenship, economic parity, sharing of resources, security, violence, etc…, and we must not allow our theological predispositions to blur our vision for justice. And when dealing with theology, we must engage in courteous dialogue with those with whom we disagree, humbly acknowledging the premise that different hermeneutical visions may lead to different conclusions. The separation between these two conversations is what IMES suggests should be the primary lesson we must walk away with on this hundredth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.