c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Yes, Israel and its peoples have a right to live in peace. Yes, Hezbollah should stop firing rockets into Israeli civilian communities.

Yes, nearly every site of conflict today is complex, marked by ambiguities that make taking sides too simplistic. Denunciations of one side as wrong, the other right, often fuel cycles of violence.

Sometimes, however, daring to point out a deep-running wrong that one stronger party perpetuates on the other can open up space for new negotiations. Naming the wrong can be like lancing a boil for a skin surface to heal.

U.S. churches _ in the context of American support for Israel’s attack on Lebanon _ must dare to pronounce the American/Israeli current attack policies as wrong. Consider the words of Martin Accad, dean of Beirut’s Arab Christian Theological Seminary: he calls Israel’s policy “murderous aggression.”

As workers pull children’s bodies from rubble left by continuing Israeli bombing of Lebanese villages, let us hear U.S. churches name these attacks as the slaughter that they are.

With few exceptions (a statement from the United Church of Christ, and occasional notes about Israel’s “disproportionate” response from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and others), U.S. churches concentrate on general laments about escalating violence. Such laments that grieve for the men, women and children on all sides are surely the right place to start, but it cannot be the place to stop.

Stopping at lament will not expose some powerful truths that need airing in U.S. church statements:

_ First, Israel’s attack policy is brutally aggressive and wildly “disproportionate” to the precipitating offenses of Hezbollah and its continued unjustified rocket attacks against Israel. Israel’s response has subjected Lebanon to thousands of attacks, wrecked thousands of Lebanese homes, displaced 600,000 people, killed nearly 900 Lebanese civilians (probably more) and damaged Lebanon’s environment.

_ Second, Hezbollah’s murderous and unjustified attacks are the vengeful, desperate and often counter-productive tactics deployed by subordinated peoples against occupying powers. Hezbollah formed in 1982 to resist Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000. Hezbollah’s ongoing attacks are the sinister outgrowth of Lebanese struggle against Israel’s past military occupation. Their attacks are fueled by Israel’s other occupations in Palestine and, now, by its aggressive bombing of Lebanon.

_ Third, international law and United Nations judgments continue to weigh against Israel, as the 2004 ruling against Israel’s partition wall showed. Israel escapes enforcement of this worldwide moral censure not because it is right but because it has U.S. might behind it.

Outside the U.S., there are Christians who offer up lament for all sides, but with more pointed critique of Israel. Twelve patriarchs in Jerusalem proclaim that “the core of the conflict” is “the deprivation of the Palestinian people of his (sic) freedom.”

Similarly, a Vatican statement holds that Israel’s right to self-defense “does not exempt it from respecting the norms of international law, especially as regards the protection of civilian populations.” Such pointed critiques are harder to find with the U.S.

Where are the U.S. churches? They are often silent. Too many churches are in lockstep with growing Christian Zionist movements, exchanging faith in the God of Jesus Christ for a nationalist loyalty to an imperial Pax Americana/Israelica, thus giving a blank check to U.S. and Israeli governments’ attack policies.

Too many U.S. Christian Zionists imitate Islamist fundamentalists, seizing upon sacred texts to justify a messianic apocalypticism, leading them to welcome wars as prelude to their fantasies of end-times salvation and damnation.

And too many other U.S. Christians seem silent from fear that their criticism of Israel will bring charges of anti-Semitism. Yes, anti-Semitism is a destructive force that often gives birth to other racist bigotries, and it must be resisted. But criticizing Israel’s attack policies, or U.S. support of Israel, is not anti-Semitism. Yes, churches, we can and must say this.

It is time for U.S. churches, of whatever stripe, to find a place amid their general lament over violence to say bravely, creatively and with a love for the good of all, that Israel’s murderous aggression with U.S. backing _ is wrong.

(Mark Lewis Taylor is professor of theology and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA). His most recent book is “Religion, Politics and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire” (Fortress Press, 2005))

KRE/JL END TAYLOR

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