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Justice, Peace and Education in Rev. Naim Ateek’s

“A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation”

In his most recent book, “A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation,” Rev. Naim Ateek claims to be about the “struggle for justice and peace” between Israelis and Palestinians and that he merely seeks to “educate.” But almost every sentence in his book indicates otherwise.

Justice is not served by hurling false accusations at Jews and Israelis

• “even before the establishment of the state of Israel, Zionists were using violence and terrorism unashamedly to achieve their goals.” (p. 41)

• “This belief that Palestinians are worth less than Jews, hidden in the hearts of some Zionists, began to be put into practice over time. It has been a slow and creeping genocide.” (p. 47)

Justice is not served by accusing a people of being immoral because of their desire for nationhood and threatening that Jewish statehood will lead to world-wide disaster

• “Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which would tear the world apart.” (p. 45)

Peace is not achieved by likening suicide bombers to biblical heroes

• “Read in the light of the suicide bombers of this century, the story [of Samson in the Bible] poses a barrage of question. Was Samson a suicide bomber? Was he acting on behalf of the God of justice who wills the liberation of the oppressed? Was God pleased with the deaths of thousands of men and women of the Philistines? Are we confronted with similar stories today in the experience of suicide bombers? Is it legitimate to tell the story of Samson by substituting Ahmad for his name? Can it be said that the God of justice is active in working out the liberation of the oppressed Palestinians through the likes of Ahmad?” (p. 123)

Justice is not achieved by being blatantly dishonest about the peace process

• Rev. Ateek claims that since 1988 the Palestinians “have officially extended their hands, expressing their eagerness to make peace with Israel, yet Israel has spurned these offers.” (p. 153). Yet, he must know that the peace process ultimately failed in 2000 after Israel accepted the offer of a two-state solution under the Clinton Parameters while Chairman Yasser Arafat refused the offer, choosing instead to pursue a bloody course of suicide bombing against Israel.

Peace is not achieved by insulting another religious tradition

• Rev. Ateek wonders if “Jews today understand the . . . [Book of Jonah]. . .” (p. 75)

• And he implies that Judaism is nothing more than “an antiquated tribal theology that still insists on a special Jewish god, on the privileges of a special people of God . . .” (p. 76)

Rev. Ateek is not educating when he grossly distorts biblical and modern history and misrepresents facts

• Rev. Ateek must know that Jesus Christ was Jewish, not Palestinian, and lived in Israel years before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and renamed the area “Palastina” and probably a few centuries before any Arabs arrived in the region. Yet in an apparent attempt to wipe out the Jewish connection to Israel and deny the Jewish roots of Christianity, Rev. Ateek brazenly distorts biblical history by writing “Palestinian liberation theology focuses on the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, who was also a Palestinian living under an occupation.” (p. 11)

Rev. Ateek is not educating by repeatedly reversing the order of historical events to make Jews and Israelis appear to be the aggressors in the Arab-Israeli conflict

• Rev. Ateek says “the violence and terrorism in Palestine were initiated by the Zionists as part of their plan to expel Palestinians from the land,” (p. 42) in spite of the fact that there were massacres of Jews by Palestinian Arabs throughout the 1920s and 1930s. These massacres were provoked only by the fact of Jewish immigration into Israel/Palestine. There was severe anti-Jewish Arab rioting in 1929 and in 1936 an Arab strike led by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husayni to protest Jewish immigration quickly deteriorated into a violent rebellion which lasted three years. Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. Over the next few days every surrounding Arab nation invaded openly vowing to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

• Throughout his book, Rev. Ateek attempts to create the patently false impression that Israel was the aggressor in the 1967 war, making Arabs appear to have been the meek and passive victims of Israeli aggression. He makes statements like “once the Jordanian army retreated in the 1967 War, there was little resistance from the Palestinians . . .” (p. 43) and ignores the larger context of a war caused entirely by Arab aggression against the Jewish state. Rev. Ateek is a learned and an educated man -- why does he neglect to write in his book that on May 22, 1967 President Nasser blocked the Straits of Tiran cutting off Israel’s only oil supply. The collective armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria with assistance from Iraqi, Saudi, Algerian Kuwaiti, Sudanese, Tunisian, Libyan and Moroccan troops lined up on the borders of Israel while the surrounding Arab nations openly and jubilantly broadcasted that the final war for the extermination of Israel was imminent.

Hiding behind the verbiage of education, justice and peace, Rev. Ateek hurls hateful accusations at Jews and distorts history