On 13 June the Daily Friend published an article by fellow writer, Michael Morris, which commented on a letter from Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein to the Archbishop of the Anglican Church, Thabo Makgoba.
Goldstein’s letter was a response to Makgoba’s pastoral letter on ‘the tragic situation in Palestine and Israel’.
Makgoba’s and Goldstein’s letters respectively appear here. This article offers a different impression of the letters: Morris’s perspective is part drawn by his Anglican perspective and mine by a Jewish perspective, which is similarly unobservant. The scope is narrower than preferred by virtue of space constraints.
Morris writes: ‘I felt instinctively that Goldstein’s letter was ill-judged – and, on reflection, was convinced it was, perhaps chiefly for illuminating exactly the problem Makgoba’s statement sought to address…’.
Morris identifies the issue of the liberal challenge, the challenge of seeing beyond the tribal rancour, claims and enmities of nationalism, ideology and religious doctrine and perceiving the person, the fellow human being.
Morris says his Anglicanism is an indispensable ingredient of his liberalism. ‘And I recognise in the Archbishop’s statement the resonant humanism of a long line of Anglican leaders in southern Africa who had the courage and conviction to grapple publicly with the testing moral questions of the day.’ Morris notes that Reason is held to be a central pillar of Anglicanism.
Sadly, I didn’t perceive Makgoba’s statement in the same way. The Anglican Church has sometimes been described as ‘the ANC at prayer’ because Makgoba’s only real expression of sympathy is for the Palestinian people. Anti-Israel positions taken by the church in recent years have dismayed some Anglicans deeply. So, the conflict is a controversial position within the church, even if not at the decision-making level
The latest war was started on spurious grounds by Hamas, chiefly to burnish its credentials in light of the decision by the President of Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, decision to cancel, yet again, elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet still the Israelis are accused of being the guilty party. Hamas ‘won’ the most extraordinary propaganda success: it succeeded in making Israel guilty of Hamas’s war crimes. It also triggered a feeding frenzy of antisemitism in the West not seen since World War II.
In 2019 the church Synod passed a resolution which includes: ‘Anyone travelling to Israel to balance their itinerary by travelling to ‘Palestine’; the support of any non-violent action especially ‘well-directed Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions (BDS) actions against the Israeli state…’; pray the following prayer for Palestine:’“God bless Palestine, Free all from oppression; and bring justice and peace. Amen.’
This is not merely support for the Palestinians; it is symptomatic of a far-left wing view which is anti-Israel and is missing crucial facts. Does the Synod realise that BDS’s foundational position is the elimination of Israel?
Morris thinks that Goldstein is mistaken to believe that ‘calling attention to the plight of Palestinians is an endorsement of Hamas and – risibly, frankly – of Ansar al-Sunna, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and ISIS.’
Goldstein isn’t holding that Makgoba’s calling attention to the plight of Palestinians is an endorsement of Hamas. He is saying that supporting Hamas is akin to supporting Ansar al-Sunna, Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and ISIS. This arises from a failure by many sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to understand that Hamas is a Sunni radical, Islamic fundamentalist movement. It is dedicated to the removal of the Jewish state.
Ansar al-Sunna in Mozambique is a Sunni movement of Islamic fundamentalist radicals. Al-Shabaab is a Sunni jihadist fundamentalist group based in East Africa and Yemen, and Boko Haram is a Sunni terrorist group based in northeastern Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Is Goldstein wrong to suggest that if one supports Hamas, that one implicitly supports the latter three groups who share the same violent ideology?
To present a flavour of what these movements mean: on 24 June Al Jazeera reported on a report by the UN Development Programme that the 12-year insurgency of Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria has caused, directly and indirectly, the deaths of some 350 000 people, the vast majority of whom are children below the age of five.
The West doesn’t appear to understand that when Hamas (with Iran and other jihadist groups) says its aim is to destroy Israel, it genuinely means it. The conflict between the PA and Hamas, and Israel is religious, not territorial.
Morris refers to the understandable sensitivity about the term ‘apartheid’ being applied to Israel. It’s not just a matter of ‘sensitivity’ for Jews who support Israel; it’s considered libelous, because its treatment of the Palestinians is compared to apartheid, or as Makgoba says ‘’in some respects… worse than apartheid’. The term was one of Soviet propaganda’s greatest success.
The phenomenal success of applying the label “apartheid” is to be found in its extreme emotiveness, and it’s easier to apply it to Israel than, say, to China, Russia, Turkey, or Morocco.
Although Goldstein’s language was robust it was, by my reading, an expression of frustration with what Goldstein describes as facts of the situation that Makgoba hasn’t considered.
I challenge Makgoba’s view that ‘Israeli apartheid’ is worse than, or even as bad as, the cultural cleansing of the Uyghurs by the Han Chinese authorities. Or the Han Chinese ethnic cleansing of the Tibetans. Or Myanmar’s ethnic and cultural cleansing of the Rohingyas. Arguably Turkey’s treatment of the Kurds is ethnic cleansing. What about the lives of North Koreans? Calling Israel and no others an apartheid state is either dishonest or ignorant or both. What are the facts that Makgoba uses to justify saying that something is worse than apartheid?
Gaza is a small area and overcrowded, but Gaza is the same part of Palestine which existed under the Ottoman Empire, and then under Egyptian control for 19 years after the independence of Israel in 1948. Gaza is entirely in Hamas control. Jews are not allowed into Gaza. Hamas imposes a harsh brand of Islam, particularly upon women. There is no right to land beyond Gaza’s boundaries, unless such is achieved by negotiations or conquest.
Goldstein accuses Anglicans of ‘dabbling in antisemitism’, bringing to mind the Christian blood libels, charges the Archbishop of ‘moral confusion’ and being ‘on the wrong side of history and in neglect of your most basic moral duty’.
This comment was unhelpful. However, the issue of antisemitism is creating huge sensitivities. My comment on the rise of antisemitism above refers. The anguish for most Jews is profound, and seeing Israel constantly and unjustifiably attacked adds to the sense of persecution.
After the war Goldstein wrote a letter to local Muslim authorities to join him in pleading that any protest action, by either side, not become violent. The contents of the response are not as pertinent as the method of reply. It was, in my view, extremely insulting – Muslim authorities asked Makgoba to deliver the reply for them.
Makgoba mistakenly says that this is a conflict over land, as many mistakenly do. However, he blames this conflict on the fact that ‘because Israel has been declared a homeland for the Jewish people, those of Jewish descent who have no connection to the land other than that biblical Israel was the historic home of their faith have the right to settle there. Yet Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 have no right to return to their land and properties.’
The historicity is central to Zionism and was recognised by the United Nations in 1948. And harsh as this may sound, there is no legal concept of a ‘legal right of return’ anywhere and never has been. The Palestinian refugee crisis has been managed in a way by the UN that no other refugee crisis ever has. This puts Israel in an unenviable and unfair situation.
Religion aside, other more existential reasons accelerated emigration to Israel: over 1 500 years of subjugation, hatred and genocide formed the basis for the late 19th century Zionists pushing for the establishment of a country in which Jews would never be at mercy of others.
Jews have never demanded the whole of Palestine They took what they were given. In 1947 that was a smaller state than Palestine. Israel, as the Jewish state, has existed as a recognised state for 73 years. Yet now the anti-Zionists have determined that Zionism is evil and a Jewish state must cease to exist.
Israel and Palestine were separated for much the same reasons as India and Pakistan. The United Nations recognised Israel, India, and Pakistan. Palestinian statehood was not recognised because the Arab states refused to accept it. After the 1967 war, the Khartoum Resolution of the Arab States contained the ‘3 Nos’ – no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. It was only in 1993, under the Oslo Accord negations, that the first significant negotiation between Israeli and Palestinian leadership took place.
Makgoba doesn’t want to be seen to single out Israel, so calls the current state of affairs ‘evil and unjust’, and calls for an ‘arms embargo to be placed on all fighting forces in the region’. Makgoba can’t really mean that Israel, Hamas and others in Gaza, Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrians would remotely entertain the idea of disarming?
There isn’t an imbalance of power except on military terms. The ability for the Palestinians to agree to negotiate with Israel gives its leaders much power. It has the single most important power of all – to recognise or not Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state.
Makgoba ends with ‘We pray for citizens across the world as they rise up in protest. We pray for a united response from across the world and we pray that the Holy Spirit will intervene and unite us across all barriers so that what happens in the Holy Land will surprise us and that we will glorify God because of it. It is possible. We must not lose hope. We must not become cynical. Let us hold on to faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is always love.’
What exactly does he mean? When many of the world’s citizens rose up to protest after this war, the result was a genocidal antisemitism.
Morris expresses uncertainty as to the efficacy of punitive pressure on states as suggested by Makgoba. Makgoba must spell out who he thinks should suffer sanctions, because for many years sanctions have only ever been aimed at Israel – after all, that’s the whole raison d’être of BDS.
‘But perhaps we could talk about it civilly? If the contest of ideas is important – it is, after all, the only alternative to a contest of arms – it is only worth as much as the consideration and rationality invested in it,’ says Morris.
As we Jews would say: ‘From your lips to God’s ears!’ The international world could make a difference if it put pressure on the Palestinians to negotiate and not just on the Israelis. Negotiations can only happen if both parties feel they have something to gain. Most of the European states and the current US administration are putting no pressure on the Palestinian leadership currently.
Morris quotes British liberal Maajid Nawaz’s observation that debates about the Middle East become ‘hysterical, tribal and mutually nasty from the offset. The voices of those seeking a peaceful resolution to this conflict are not only drowned out (for that would be a luxury) but are actively hounded by all sides as insufficiently aware of “the truth”.’
It’s not that people are just not aware of the truth, it’s that many don’t care what the truth is in this extremely complicated conflict.
Morris notes that ‘it seems clear that not enough has changed to take the region beyond the rockets and airstrikes, death and injury, fear, mutual enmity, and continuing vituperation.’ He is right, but he doesn’t see the complexity, nuance and detail.
Sadly, one other thing that hasn’t changed is decades of antisemitic media by the Palestinian Authority, which has not prepared Palestinians at all for peace. In fact, the opposite, and the West needs to pressure the Palestinian Authority to change this.
The rest of the world has a crucial role to play; influential countries truly have to be creative about dealing with the parties and leading them to negotiations. And there must be no preconceived ideas as to what the end result will look like.
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