Jerusalem: A Microcosm of the Big Picture by Katherine Cunningham and Noushin Darya Framke
INTRODUCTORY NOTE FOR THIS WEEK: The 2017 General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) received a call from the Palestinian Christian community to respond to the continuing crisis in their homeland. The assembly responded with Action 55 which, among other things, states that the General Council should “undertake study and discernment, using the resources available from member churches and the ecumenical movement, regarding theology that has been employed to legitimate the oppression of the Palestinian people, recognizing that such a study might result in the need for prophetic action.”
Heeding that call, a mandate was issued to collect resources and engage in sharing those with a particular focus on how theologies are used to legitimate the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people. This new resource—Focus: Palestine—is the result. It will be excerpted in Ecclesio this week. It is a comprehensive resource, spanning three parts, an extensive appendix, and linked videos. All of it may be freely downloaded, reproduced, and distributed for non-profit use with proper attribution.
“Hear the Palestinian address to the church. Listen to their stories and struggles; see their hope and resilience. And then, ‘Go and Tell,’ and boldly act. It is our hope that this handbook will encourage you in that truth-telling. May it be a pilgrimage of the heart, but even more, a journey into solidarity and justice.” —co-authors Katherine Cunningham and Noushin Darya Framke
After the 1967 War, all of Jerusalem came under Israeli control, including the Old City (part of East Jerusalem), until then under Jordanian control. With Israel wanting to unify Jerusalem under their control, a slow but steady campaign of “Judaization” began that has been amplified as the decades have advanced. The process of Judaization includes enhancing the Jewish character of the city at the expense of the Christian and Muslim characters by developing and financing Jewish control. As far back at 20 years ago, this strategy began to spill out into the open, with the Israeli government not only not standing in the way of extremist settlers moving into Muslim and Christian quarters, but actually supporting them in every way possible, including the courts, to take over formerly non-Jewish homes and neighborhoods. By not providing any building permits to Palestinians, Israel is hoping to stem their demographic growth and advantage the growth of the Jewish population, who they are helping move in from anywhere around the globe.
Back in 1996, The New York Times ran an opinion article “Judaizing Jerusalem” by A.M. Rosenthal, who called the term “Judaization” an accusation and an epithet, asserting that Israel had every right to allow Jews to live anywhere they wanted. Unfortunately, Judaizing Jerusalem was never about just that, and in the years since, with Israel’s unrelenting push to take over Arab areas, the Judaization campaign has exploded into erasure of the indigenous character of ancient towns and neighborhoods, including replacing Arabic names with Hebrew names and even demoting Arabic as an official language in 2018 with the Nation State Law.
As the Israelis continue their settlement expansions and land appropriations, for more than a decade, Israeli human rights groups have asserted that “Palestinians face discrimination in regard to budgeting and taxation as well as essential needs like water, sewage, roads, parks, lighting, post offices, schools and other services.” (2008 quote). By 2021, the land grab in Jerusalem has become outright theft, with Palestinians being expelled from their homes in broad daylight to make way for Jewish settlers and settlements, in the larger campaign to change the facts on the ground and the demographics of the area.
And it is not just in Jerusalem, as for example, in the Naqab/Negev in the South and the Galilee in the North, Palestinians have suffered from Judaization policies, too. Israel budgets and spends on improvements for Jewish residents but not for Arabs. As seen in this 2013 editorial in an Israeli-left newspaper, the imbalance has been in place for a long time: “The Government Must Develop the Negev and the Galilee for All Its Citizens, Jews and Arabs alike.” After years of this kind of spending imbalance, which is in effect a choking of life for Palestinians, the results are coming into focus: the landscape today is one of Jewish control over a besieged population of devoted Palestinians hanging on to their homes, their olive groves, their culture and way of life with whatever they have left at their disposal.
Jerusalem’s neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah[1] and Silwan[2] are prime examples of settler colonial policies of command and control. They illustrate the advancing policies of expelling Palestinians in favor of Jewish settlers, with even the Israeli High Court giving “its seal of approval to almost any infringement of Palestinians’ rights by the Israeli authorities.”[3]
Holy sites are no exception and are prime targets for Judaization. Doron Bar, President of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Israel, has written about early policies that have changed the landscape in Journal of Historical Geography: “Between Muslim and Jewish Sanctity: Judaizing Muslim Holy Places in the State of Israel, 1948-1967.” With access to Israeli archives, his work addresses:
the roots of the Judaization of Muslim holy places during the early years of the State of Israel…; [it] examines the legal methods and various means that the Ministry of Religions used, in collaboration with other Israeli authorities, to take possession of Muslim holy places and turn them into Jewish sites…. The Judaization of these holy places is understood as part of a broader process whereby the State of Israel made every effort to develop a new symbolic landscape.
As for Christian Holy Sites and Christian thought on Jerusalem, at right is the outline and conclusion of a paper on Jerusalem by the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb,[4] who delves into the Christian statements, resolutions, and speeches regarding Jerusalem. He concludes that despite the “systematic campaign of Judaization that is led by the Israeli right-wing government… Christians in Jerusalem continue to hold on to their hope that this Holy City should be a city for two peoples and three religions who can live in peace in this, their city they call holy.”
Jerusalema:
The Whole World is dancing
The global Dance Challenge
and Palestine
Rev. Katherine Cunningham has served with numerous international and US faith-based organizations committed to justice and human rights for Palestinians, as well as wider social justice initiatives. She was the founder and executive director of a community-based counseling non-profit, has been an experienced church educator and writer, and is a retired Presbyterian minister and psychoanalyst.
Noushin Darya Framke is a writer originally from SW Asia (Middle East) and a Presbyterian elder. She has advocated for Palestinian rights since 2004 when the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) first looked at divesting its funds from Israeli human rights abuses. Ms. Framke has been on the writing teams of all the publications of the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA) as well as the BDS Toolkit of Global Kairos for Justice.
[1] Rami Ayyub, Zainah El-haroum, and Stephen Farrell, “East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah Becomes Emblem of Palestinian Struggle,” Reuters (May 10, 2021)
[2] “Israeli High Court of Justice Paves Way for Cleansing of Palestinians from Silwan,” B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (November 22, 2018)
[3] Ibid.
[4] See Appendix B for full Mitri Raheb paper