Thursday, July 1, 2010
[The following, by Will Spotts, is crossposted from The PC(USA) on Israel and Palestine.]
The Rev. Ronald Shive, chair of the Presbyterian Church's Middle East Study Committee has finally cleared up the MESC's stance on Israel as a Jewish state:
We have reaffirmed time and time again, and this report reaffirms emphatically, the right of Israel to Jewish nation, as a homeland for Jewish people. We are emphatic there. We did not state as the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. This is nuanced. The question is, do you have to be Jewish to have full rights. If you say 'Jewish state,' it can imply that and you can have second class citizens. We never attempt to delegitimize Israel...I love America. I love Israel. Everybody on the committee would say 'we love Israel.'
If you don't find that clear and forthcoming, it is no doubt because you fail to understand Presbyterian nuance.
Apparently, Rev. Shive differentiates between a Jewish nation and a Jewish state. Although I suspect that was most likely a slip of the tongue. I think ... my best translation of Presbyterian nuance would be: the Middle East Study Committee emphatically reaffirms the right of Israel to exist as a homeland for Jewish people.
Though, in the actual MESC Report the writers included a footnote that seems to undermine the emphatic nature of even that commitment:
The phrase "the right of Israel to exist" is a source of pain for some members of the 2009-2010 Middle East Study Committee, who are in solidarity with Palestinians who feel that the state of Israel has denied them their inalienable human rights.]
What Rev. Shive acknowledges that the MESC refuses to say is that the PC(USA) supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state - i.e. the PC(USA) supports the right of the current State of Israel to continue to exist.
Apparently, the Middle East Study Committee graciously grants permission for some Jewish people to live in the geographic region currently called Israel. The MESC does, however, unequivocally support the existence of a Palestinian state. So ... here's the nuance: Palestinian state, yes; Jewish state, no. The MESC does not indicate whether or not it thinks Jews should be permitted in its envisioned Palestinian state.
Will Spotts
