Middle East

It’s time for mainline Protestant churches to invite mainstream Jewish organizations to sit down and figure out what we can do together to support the Israel-Palestine peace process.

A few years ago, while wandering through the Old City of Jerusalem, I stumbled upon a spray-painted sign on the side of a small factory building. It called out in English: “We need peace.”

It seemed to me like a modern-day cry of “hosanna” coming from the people of Jerusalem.

In a booklet titled Zionism Unsettled, a group of Presbyterians has issued a blanket denunciation of Zionism, terming the Jewish quest for a homeland in the ancient land of Israel inherently racist, exclusionary, and devastating for non-Jewish inhabitants. 

Jewish and Christian groups have rightly criticized the booklet for its sledgehammer one-sided approach, theologically and politically.

Christians in the United States who are committed to accompanying the churches of the Middle East are looking for help in understanding the shifting dynamics of the region after the Arab Spring. Paul Danahar’s lengthy study would seem to promise such help.

The prospects for genuine democracy in Egypt are more remote than ever. But there are other models of Islamic politics in the region.

Turkey may be a model for the rest of the Middle East, but the country faces deep problems. And religion is not at these problems' core.

The Friends of the Earth Middle East scored a victory this summer when some 9 million cubic meters of fresh water per year started flowing into the Jordan River.

Many Egyptian Christians see the military's intervention as salvation. Is this wise? Do they have a choice?

There's a broad consensus that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians depends on a two-state solution. So why doesn't it happen?

The Jordan River is too shallow for Michael to row across, and the shore is a stinking pile of sludge. But something redemptive is happening.

It is difficult to know what to say in response to Mona Eltahawy’s explosive article on the experience of women in Middle Eastern countries. She writes about a level of institutionalized brutality that demands that readers pay attention.

At the same time, she doesn’t say anything new, nothing that wasn’t already made too vividly clear during the Arab Spring.

A rabbi and strong advocate for Palestinians’ rights told me this: "When you Christians start talking about divesting from Israel, it sounds to us as if you are undermining Israel’s economy and thus Israel’s existence. We close ranks."

Palestinian parents don’t fret about drugs or drunk drivers. They worry that the Israeli soldiers will use their M-16s.

Western Chris­tians seem neither to know nor care about the catastrophe that has unfolded before them in the ancient heartlands of their faith.