Episcopalians Witness Ministries In Middle East
Episcopal News Service. July 6, 1989 [89121]
NEW YORK (DPS, July 6) -- In late April, Patti Browning, who, with her husband Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, has long had a deep and informed interest in the problems of the Middle East, especially in the plight of the people of the Diocese of Jerusalem, led a group of concerned Episcopalians to three troubled areas in the diocese -- Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan. The group called their journey a "Mission for Understanding and Solidarity."
The group accompanying Patti Browning represented, by design, a broad spectrum of the Episcopal Church. In addition to Browning, there were representatives of each of the Church's nine provinces and two members of the Episcopal Church Center staff -- Diane Porter, Deputy for Public Affairs, and Dr. Betty Coats of the Episcopal Church's Washington Office.
The context of the mission was the increasingly focused concern of the Episcopal Church for the Palestinians and their desire for a homeland, a concern that has quickened as many Palestinians have been caught up in the intifada, the movement of the people of the Palestinian settlements to throw off Israeli control.
The 1988 General Convention passed a resolution that affirmed Israel's right to exist within "recognized and secure borders" but also lifts up "the right of Palestinians to self-determination, including the choice of their own representatives and the establishment of their own state." The broader context for concerned Episcopalians in the United States is to lobby the government for support of a Palestinian homeland.
The Episcopal Church in the United States has not been alone in its concern for the Palestinians. The 1988 Lambeth Conference of the worldwide Anglican Communion also voted its concern for the Palestinians. In an ecumenical context, the Anglican position is reflected by a growing number of Protestant Christian bodies around the world. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has taken a strong stand in behalf of the political and human rights of the Palestinian people.
Because the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem is deeply involved with helping Palestinians, Christians and Muslims alike, who are caught up in the political turmoil of recent months, the Episcopal mission was able to see firsthand the realities of what the intifada has done to the daily lives of the people. The group visited the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, where casualties of the intifada are frequently treated, and St. Elizabeth's hospital in Nablus, on the West Bank; Nablus is at "ground zero" in the often violent conflict.
The Diocese of Jerusalem has been most keenly affected by the mandatory closing of Church schools -- in fact, all schools -- by order of the Israeli military. Young people have been perceived by the Israelis as at the center of the intifada and their schools, by extension, are viewed as hotbeds of unrest. The closings have been in effect for almost two years and no end seems to be in sight. The educational problems posed by the closings are enormous; the accompanying financial crisis precipitated in the Diocese of Jerusalem is also a matter of great concern, considering the wide ministry the diocese has developed to Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Although the diocesan-supported schools are closed and tuition payments have ceased, the diocese is still committed to paying its teachers. Israeli military authorities in Gaza and the West Bank are not at present willing to allow alternative schools -- even for primary school children.
The Episcopal mission also visited Jordan, where the Churchbacked Bishop's School in Amman has remained open. It also visited the Beka'a Refugee Camp, run by the United Nations, where the YWCA runs a school. The Beka'a camp currently has a population of some 75,000 people, primarily Palestinians.
The mission came away from the Holy Land -- and despite all conflicts and upheavals, it is a land that remains holy to three of the world's major faiths, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam -- with a sense of frustration and sorrow at what the members had seen, but also with hope; hope that they as concerned Episcopalians might find a voice in their own country to help the Palestinian people, and hope born of coming in contact with the bravery, the fidelity, and the determination of the Palestinian people to win freedom.
As Episcopalians, the people who went on the mission were not strangers to the ministry of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. The Rt. Rev. Samir Kafity, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and his wife, are familiar and admired figures to many people in the Episcopal Church, and eloquent spokespersons for the ministries that continue in Jerusalem, despite all adversity.
The members of the mission were also concerned people who could see that with the resources of the Diocese of Jerusalem increasingly stretched by the ongoing crisis of the intifada, the unique ministry and presence the Anglican Church has offered there is threatened. The open-handed concern of the Church for Christian and Muslim Arabs alike would seem irreplaceable.
There was also the awakening sense of concern for Palestinian Christians in general and for fellow Anglicans in particular, whose continuing existence in the troubled areas of the Holy Land seems threatened.
On June 7, Episcopal Bishop of Washington John T. Walker and some 85 other Episcopalians from the Washington area actively lobbied members of Congress for support of a Palestinian state. Walker was quoted in the press as saying, "We have been studying about [the crisis] for a long time. Now is the time for action." The effects of the lobby are not yet apparent, but. it would seem that the focus gained by the "Mission for Understanding and Solidarity" may have laid the groundwork for the achievement of both of those goals.