idea magazine

The way of peace

March / April 2007

General Director Joel Edwards was deeply moved by his recent visit to Israel...

Half an hour before landing at Israel's Ben Gurion airport, I ask a busy flight attendant for a landing card. Approaching passport control I realise she never came back; I have no landing card. Astonishingly, as I go to confess to an immigration officer, I'm waved away and told I don't need one. This has never happened to me before.

Speeding towards the conference centre in the back of a minibus for my World Evangelical Alliance meeting, I wonder how much has changed since I was last here 10 years ago.

The WEA represents more than 420 million people in 128 nations, and is visibly going from strength to strength. Our time together is exhilarating. We talk about strengthening our presence at the United Nations and deepening our commitment to Micah Challenge. We eagerly anticipate the General Assembly in 2008. During our four days together we take a trip to the West Bank; it is an experience that is to affect me profoundly.

Our first stop is on the hills of Beit Jala, where we meet a Palestinian Christian whose family has owned land there for generations. With deep anguish he tells us how the approaching Israeli wall will deliberately separate his family from the fields of their livelihood. All appeals have failed. Once the wall goes up they will need permission to enter their own fields. Is this possible? Tragically, yes.

Similarly, at Bethlehem Bible College we are told of the plight of the region's Christians: once a vibrant community they now form under 2 per cent of the population. The principal, Dr Bishara Awad, a Palestinian evangelical whose name means "good news", reminds us, "In Bethlehem the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." But he also reminds us of the urgent need to pray for and stand with the 1.5 million Palestinian Christians whose presence, he says, remains crucial to Israel's stability.

We sense profound pain at a border control where we meet with the deputy mayor, an active Christian whose daughter was killed in an Israeli attack. He has decided to forgive, but perhaps the most poignant scene is that of a Palestinian businessman weeping as he stands by the ugly wall and explains how it has shattered his business and peace of mind.

That wall, raised in the name of security, snakes its way deliberately deep within Palestinian areas. It means pregnant women cannot get to hospitals in a hurry, and children sometimes miss their exams.

And then the contrast hits me. Days earlier I, as a Westerner, had walked through an Israeli airport passport control without a landing card.

At the end of the trip we all experience a sense of numbness. Back at the airport I exorcise my recollections by writing the Christmas message for the Alliance website.

Security and justice

Palestine is challenging. As our consultation on the Middle East in 2003 highlighted, there are persuasively strong arguments on both sides. All of us must wrestle to seek a way forward which combines security for Israelis with justice for Palestinians.

Evangelicals must learn to mingle revelation, prophecy and political integrity. We are not permitted to be uncritical friends of Israel, turning a blind eye to injustice, any more than Amos or Micah were. "Evangelical" should never be a synonym for unqualified friendship. Indeed, our very commitment to God's purposes for His people insists we urge them into righteousness.

Trips to Israel can be immensely beneficial, but no evangelical should visit without listening to a Palestinian Christian. That is a serious neglect.

None of this underestimates the terrible pain Israel has suffered from hostile neighbours bent on its destruction. This is no apology for the suicide bomber; if you are an Israeli, security is an ever-present concern.

But the way of peace is never the way of neglect. It is always the way of justice.