World Vision‘s senior director of advocacy and outreach for the Middle East, Mae Cannon, and North Park Theological Seminary professor and Covenant author, Jay Phelan, join Stan Friedman of Covenant News in a conversation around how Christians can best respond to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
4 Comments
A “third way…” I deeply appreciate how this webcast approached the reality and the issues that constitute the “Israel-Palestine Conflict.” Thanks Jay and Mae – I was both blessed and affirmed by your comments. Ever since my sabbatical in Israel, and subsequent trips there, I have sought to gain a “third way” perspective, and things that you shared here encourage me that I am on the right track in my thinking and actions. Please continue the conversation!
Thanks Stan, Jay and Mae and Covchurch.tv for a wonderful conversation. Granted that all three of you are Covenanters, but oh, that we could have more of this type of respectful dialogue about a difficult topic.
Thank you for your comments. We look forward to having more of these types of discussions.
Thanks for attempting to explain this complex history in an relatively unbiased (though necessarily limited) way…
Thank you, Prof Phelan, for providing some understanding of the Jewish viewpoint – it’s not often heard in such Christian settings (certainly not from any World Vision publications & videos that I have seen, which have been exclusively and often viciously anti-Israel!).
Even though you are trying to be ‘balanced’, by choosing to use particular terminology (eg, “Palestine”, which has a far different political connotation than the Biblical term for the area -“Judea & Samaria”!), you already establish a certain bias.
And by omitting certain key facts – such as that there were an EQUAL number of Jewish refugees as Arab ones, who been totally ignored, or that no other group of “refugees” includes all their future offspring, or to downplay the persecution of Arab Christians by Muslims – you are skewing the listeners’ views.
Also, to recommend “HaAretz” as ‘balanced’- or “the best example of the Israeli side’ – is ludicrous! It is FAR LEFT and terribly critical of Israel. By the way, do you know of ANY self-critical, pro-Israel publication in the Arab world? NO! The only Muslim journalist I know of there like that (who is still alive) is Tarek Fatah, and he writes for the Jerusalem Post! Why not mention him?
Mae, regarding the ‘proof text’ in Joshua, I believe there has been a mistranslation of what the Angel of the Lord said… What He said was not “Neither” – it was “NO!” It could be taken as “Stop and listen to me!” And notice that right afterwards, God DID fight for Israel and defeat their enemies! He wasn’t neutral at all – but He wanted Joshua to realize the battle was ultimately HIS.
How ironic to draw the opposite conclusion, that God doesn’t “take sides” when it comes to those who fight against His Chosen People!
Stan Friedman, I hope you will also become more informed about the actual realities there, before you attempt to draw conclusions…
I would recommend you get a Messianic Israeli Jew on your program the next time (I can recommend Dr David Friedman! It’s a good Jewish name, isn’t it?! And you don’t want to blacken it by becoming a ‘useful idiot’ for the enemies of your own people!).
I’d also recommend Naim Khoury, the pastor of the Baptist Church in Bethlehem, who suffers as much persecution from his anti-Israel, “peace-making” fellow Arab “Christians” there as from the Palestinian Authority.
The irony of this entire presentation is that a) Christians, by their blighted history of antisemitism, have not yet earned the right to criticize the Jewish people or instruct them how to run their affairs, so should stop pontificating… and
b) there is so little actual biblical foundation for what is being said in this discussion… only a casual discarding of any possible biblical relevance!
What if the re-creation of Israel and the re-unification of Jerusalem WERE prophetic miracles?! (as many of the religious “settlers” in Judea/Samaria DO believe – but no one bothered to interview them, it seems!)…
What if you are found to be fighting AGAINST GOD in your attempts to justify the division (or eventual Islamic takeover) of the Holy Land and the Holy City – all in the name of “compassion” and “justice”?!
This is serious business… and we’d better be careful not to poke our finger into the pupil of God’s eye!