VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — The head of American Baptist Churches USA said a deadly confrontation between Israel's military and a flotilla seeking to break the Gaza embargo May 31 highlights the need for a just and peaceful resolution of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Roy Medley
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"American Baptists have long been on record in support of the two-state solution," Roy Medley, general secretary of the 1.3 million-member denomination said June 4, "one that guarantees the right of both Israel to exist secure and the right of the Palestinians to a homeland and their right to security as well."
Ten pro-Palestinian activists died May 31 after Israeli commandoes boarded six ships headed for Gaza after the vessels ignored orders to turn around. Five of the six were commandeered quickly. But on the largest, a Turkish ship named the Mavi Marmara carrying 546 activists, chaos ensued. Activists responded to rubber bullets and noise grenades
meant to disperse the crowd by attacking the Israelis with clubs and knives. Commandoes retaliated by firing sidearms into the mob, turning the confrontation into a bloodbath and an international incident.
All those killed were Turkish or of Turkish origin. One, Furkan Dogan, 19, was also a United States citizen. Dogan was reportedly shot at close range, with four bullets in his head and one in his chest.
Turkey accused Israel of "state terror" and demanded lifting of the blockade imposed three years ago after Hamas, a Sunni Muslim Palestinian group designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel said the military fired in self defense.
Response to terror
Israel defends the blockade, which allows only basic humanitarian goods to cross the border into Gaza, as necessary to ensure that Hamas is unable to import long-range weapons that could be used against Israel.
Some observers, however, say the blockade has failed in its objectives. The White House described current arrangements as "unsustainable."
Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of 23 public policy offices of national Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches that lobbies Washington on Mideast policy, said the flotilla incident "underlines the necessity of pressing without delay for a comprehensive agreement for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, beginning with the indirect talks now being brokered by the United States."
CMEP — whose members include the Alliance of Baptists and partners include the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America — supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel and a shared Jerusalem by the two peoples and three faiths.
Some conservative U.S. Christians, however, say that Israel should remain an undivided Jewish state based on their literal reading of the Bible.
Richard Land
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"The Arab world — the 1.5 billion people who live in the Arab world — does not believe the Jews have a right to live in Israel," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Commission, said on his weekly radio program June 5. "Of course the Jews were there a long time before the Arabs were, and we believe as Christians that God gave that land to the Jews forever."
In a Vatican document released June 2 in Cyprus, Pope Benedict XVI said the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is creating difficulties in everyday life, inhibiting freedom of movement, the economy and access to holy sites. He said ongoing political tensions put the region's dwindling Christian population "in a particularly delicate and precarious situation."
"Moreover, certain Christian fundamentalist theologies use sacred Scripture to justify Israel's occupation of Palestine, making the position of Christian Arabs an even more sensitive issue," the pontiff observed.
Land described reports of shortages of food and medicine in the Gaza as "a ploy that's being used as a propaganda tool."
"You have too many people that have bought into this line that the Jews are oppressing the Palestinians," Land said. "This is nonsense."
"Are the Jews perfect? No, but there's no more moral equivalence between Israel and her enemies than there was between the United States and Soviet Union," he continued. "If Israel's enemies wanted peace as badly as Israel does, we would have peace."
A Gazan Baptist view
Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, managed this spring to return to Gaza for the first time since October 2007, when he left after a member of his church who managed a Christian bookstore was abducted by militant Muslims and executed because of his faith.
After rejoining his family in Jordan, Massad wrote supporters in April reporting on his visit. He said the "siege in Gaza" continues to make people's lives there "much more miserable" and leaves them "facing many challenges."
"I noticed and felt lot of desperation and hopelessness among the people because of the siege and the very difficult political situation," he wrote. "Another thing I noticed [was] that Gaza became much more expensive than it used to be. This is why there is more poverty and more suffering than before."
Medley said the unresolved Palestinian situation drives unrest in other parts of the world. For that reason he called on American Baptists to "continue to pray and work for a peaceful and just resolution to this conflict."
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Previous ABP stories:
Jimmy Carter says Palestinians in Gaza treated like animals
Religious leaders say time running out for Palestinian Christians
Interfaith leaders urge Obama to act quickly on Middle East peace
Christian leaders urge Obama to make Israeli-Palestinian peace top priority