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The Victim, the Vulnerable, and the Pretender to the Throne

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  • The Victim, the Vulnerable, and the Pretender to the Throne

    US Official News
    December 30, 2013 Monday


    The Victim, the Vulnerable, and the Pretender to the Throne

    Chicago

    Chicago Theological Seminary has issued the following news release:

    Christians begin Holy Week on Sunday and will immerse themselves in
    texts that evoke the deeply contested geography of Jerusalem. Sadly,
    this is a geography often locked in time for many U.S. Christians. It
    remains First Century Common Era time, making invisible those who
    struggle for the peace of the city today. Even so-called Holy Land
    tours treat the city as a museum filled with curious artifacts of
    ancient and medieval piety. It is left to the daily press to remind us
    Jerusalem is no longer simply a Jewish city under Roman occupation,
    but a rich and volatile mosaic of Israeli Jews, native born and recent
    immigrant, Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, and small but vibrant
    communities of Armenian and Greek Christians struggling to bear
    witness not just to memory, but also to hope. To the many holy places
    recalling events in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are added
    equally holy sites for Muslims, chief among them the Dome of the Rock,
    and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

    But today, as it has always been, Jerusalem is more than holy sites.
    It is home to people caught up in the seemly endless and conflicting
    narratives of vulnerability and victimization. For Palestinians,
    Jerusalem represents the increasingly elusive symbol of a Palestinian
    state with the eastern portion of their city as a national capital.
    But life in Jerusalem for Palestinians is increasingly the life of a
    victim, successive losses to Israel in 1948 and 1967 rendering them
    stateless, a people under occupation. Home demolitions and expanding
    settlements, the building of the separation barrier and life under
    harsh border controls that bar most Palestinians from entering the
    city or even visiting their holy sites create what Palestinians
    experience as the relentless `Judaizing' of their future capital,
    eroding what little hope remains for a viable state. Is it any wonder
    in the face of all of this that Palestinians distrust the peace
    process, especially one brokered by Israel's chief foreign benefactor
    and military supplier?

    The narrative of Palestinian victimization is real but, of course, it
    is not the only one, for along with it is the narrative of Israeli
    vulnerability. Rooted in a history of anti-Semitism at times nurtured
    by the very Holy Week texts Christians cherish, and culminating in the
    Holocaust, a narrative symbolized today by Yad Vashem, this narrative
    of vulnerability is fueled by continued terrorist attacks, hostile
    neighbors and, of course, the specter of Iran as a nuclear state. West
    Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians, living under the boot of Israeli
    military occupation can be forgiven for finding this narrative of
    vulnerability bewildering, just as rockets from Lebanon or Gaza
    encourage many Israelis to view Palestinians as deserving victims.

    Along with these narratives there is a third, that of fundamentalist
    Christian Zionism, which views the geography of Jerusalem as little
    more than a stage for the end times when Christ will return as the
    pretender to a heavenly throne situated in a new Jerusalem. Because a
    restoration of Israel in its ancient land is a crucial step in this
    narrative, Christian Zionism today panders to Israel's narrative of
    vulnerability and is indifferent, not only to Palestinians' narrative
    of victimization, but often to the very presence and witness of
    Palestinian/Arab Christians. In the end, of course, both Arab and
    Israeli are vulnerable and victim to a narrative that ends in a
    Kingdom dominated by Christ, rendering Muslims and Jews ultimately
    irrelevant. This narrative might be relegated to theological debate
    were it not for the fact that its adherents wield powerful influence
    in the United States Congress, warping U.S. foreign policy in ways
    that make real peacemaking difficult if not impossible. How else can
    one explain the harsh rebuke of Secretary Clinton and President Obama
    from members of Congress for vigorously criticizing Israel's
    willingness to embarrass the vice-president of its staunchest ally
    during his recent state visit?

    Today these three narratives benefit only short term interests. For
    the long term, they support continued occupation and gradual creation
    of facts on the ground that make a Palestinian state impossible,
    privileging injustice for the sake of security. They nurture dangerous
    despair and bitter resentment in an Arab population that will
    eventually far outnumber Israeli Jews trapped as perpetual and
    increasingly insecure occupiers in their own land. They render the
    United States impotent as a useful peacemaker.

    Holy Week offers no political road map to peace. But it does call into
    question the presuppositions that trap us in these narratives. In Holy
    Week lordship is defined as servanthood. Vulnerability is embraced as
    the way to reconciliation. Victims ultimately become those graced with
    redemption. Perhaps in Holy Week we can view the competing narratives
    both compassionately and critically, reading contemporary Jerusalem as
    something more than an historical artifact or a contemporary mess.
    Perhaps we can commit ourselves to becoming acquainted with Israelis
    and Palestinians who refuse to be trapped by these deadly narratives,
    offering solidarity even in the face of intimidation by those who are
    served by the tragic status quo. Perhaps we can rekindle our own hope
    as a first step toward commitment, a commitment to follow the Way of
    Sorrows as the road to the Empty Tomb.

    For more information please visit: http://www.ctschicago.edu


    From: Baghdasarian
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