By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Is Naim Ateek worse than Hamas, as he says he has been called, or a peaceful protestor against Israeli occupation? Is the Anglican canon in favor of destruction of the state of Israel, or a promoter of two states, one Israel and the other Palestine? Is the founder of the Jerusalem-based Christian ecumenical organization Sabeel a spiritual man who sees reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians as the end goal, or a false messiah misusing scripture to twist arguments against oppression to his own ends? The answer, depending upon whom you ask, is yes.
When the Kadima Reconstructionist community asked its members to come hear Ateek speak at its Shabbat service on July 18, they cautioned that what this activist for Palestinian independence had to say might not be to their liking.
“We’re not in the business of trying to defend
him,” said Rainer Waldman Adkins, Kadima’s program director.
But they are, as Doug Brown, Kadima’s board president told JTNews, in the business of offering a safe space for people with opinions that may be unpopular elsewhere in the Jewish community, or even in their own community. And that’s why they welcomed Ateek.
“We have considered it part of our responsibility to provide a safe space in very difficult and contentious issues, which are sometimes difficult to discuss in environments that are not designed for safety, as it were, for dialogue and discourse,” Brown said.
Kadima, in accepting an offer from organizers who brought Ateek to Seattle — he also spoke at St. Mark’s Cathedral on Capital Hill and on public radio station KUOW during his visit, among other venues — saw common ground in what they understood to be Ateek’s message: The need for nonviolent solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a goal of creating two states.
“Ateek is a leading exponent of Palestinian Liberation Theology and has been involved in…actively opposing not only suicide bombing but all armed conflict and to replace it with nonviolent resistance.” Brown said. “It seems to us that this is the kind of aspect of the Palestinian community that we want most to be building toward, those folks who are trying from a religious foundation to oppose violence.”
To that end, Ateek lived up to his billing. He told the Kadima audience he supports a peaceful solution in the region with two-states, as that would be most palatable for Israelis — for now.
“One state would be wonderful, a democracy for all people in the land,” he told the group of about 30. “Maybe in other times people would say, ‘This is a small country, let us live in peace together.’”
His message, at least to this audience — one of the only synagogues he has ever addressed — was one of bringing together two factions tired of the prolonged fighting.
“Peace is not the end of the road for us, and justice is not the end of the road for us,” he said. “The end of the road for us is reconciliation.”
Kadima member Joe Demboski walked away inspired by what Ateek had to say.
“He talked in a very straightforward way about what he believes is wrong in the way Israel has treated Palestinians,” Demboski said. “He also made it very clear he believes that the violence committed by Palestinians against Israelis was equally wrong.”
A recognition of failure on both sides gave Ateek credibility, Demboski said.
“I haven’t heard of any Palestinians, or Israelis, for that matter…speak in that term of reconciliation between the two peoples,” he said. “His position is, nonviolence is the only way to do that.”
Yet critics of Ateek — and there are many — say his views, known as Palestinian Liberation Theology, cast Israel and Jews as the aggressors in all aspects of a more-than-century-old conflict, and omit any culpability on the Arab side. His most recent book, A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation, has been condemned by organizations such as the New York-based Christians for Fair Witness in the Middle East, led by Sr. Ruth Lautt, a Catholic nun, for twisting scripture to portray Jews as evil and misrepresenting the war declared on Israel upon its achieving statehood.
On KUOW’s “Weekday” show, Ateek told host Steve Scher that in the 1948 war, Israel was allotted 55 percent of the land, but took 78 percent. What he forgot to say, according to Rob Jacobs, director of the Israel advocacy group StandWithUs Northwest, was that the nascent state was “attacked by every country around it” and the land was captured “by the consequence of a defensive war.”
Though he decried suicide bombings as a tragedy for everyone, Ateek also told Scher that “Israel can be relieved from much suffering” if it would allow peace.
“Today the Jewish people are not suffering. They are the oppressors,” he said. “Israel doesn’t want peace and that is part of the problem. Israel wants to get rid of the Palestinians, and that is unfortunately what is happening.”
On Tuesday, however, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on a phone call that Jews outside of Israel should join Arabs in investing in the Palestinian economy, and outlined steps he was taking to facilitate commerce in the West Bank, according to the JTA Jewish news service.
At the Kadima event, Ateek said he couldn’t fathom why groups such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America would pressure organizations to refrain from hosting him and call him “worse than Hamas.”
“I believe that the people who are trying to disinvite me, I think they’re afraid of the truth,” he said.
Yet the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national organization that in part advises Jewish organizations in promoting the safety and security of Israel, sent notification to communities Ateek visited with information about Sabeel and Ateek’s writings. The JCPA noted Sabeel’s work in promoting divestment campaigns as a tool for pressuring the Israeli government to end its occupation over Palestinian lands, a point Ateek himself brought up at Kadima.
He described divestment as a non-violent resistance tactic in his arsenal, but did not explain how these high-profile campaigns would bring about reconciliation. It’s a tactic Kadima’s Adkins said he disagreed with.
When members of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s Israel Programming Committee sent Adkins, who sits on the committee representing both Kadima and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, a letter expressing its disappointment in extending Ateek an invitation to speak, he said he and the synagogue’s board were taken aback.
“It feels to me as if the standards of community protocol were breached and I’m very disappointed about that,” Adkins said. He referred to a document signed in 2004 by several signatories of the letter and printed in JTNews that expressed parties who disagree on the best path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians should still treat each other with respect in regard to their opinions.
Neither the Federation nor Adkins would share the signed letter with JTNews, but a draft stated: “Ateek does not present the facts of the Arab/Israeli conflict in a balanced or even-handed manner, nor does he promote peace and justice. His writings and speeches are filled with factual errors, misrepresentations, material omissions and distortions, and he portrays Jews and Israelis in the harshest light possible.
“To be clear, we are not arguing your own stance on Israel’s policies. We are writing because we believe that hosting this ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ goes too far.”
While the Federation said in a statement to JTNews that “We maintain our support for the core principles that our local Jewish community holds,” Ateek “stereotypes Jews and Israelis as inherently immoral, racist, violent and conspiratorial” and his appearance at a Jewish organization lends him credibility.
Brown, Kadima’s president, said a phone call could have cleared up any issues and allowed the congregation to explain their reason behind inviting Ateek.
“I was stunned by the suggestion that members of the Jewish community should be constrained from entering into thoughtful dialogue with others simply on the basis of expected disagreements,” said Brown. “We can never make peace if we are only prepared to talk to people who are already our friends.”