Middle Eastern Christians in Politics: They've Loved Jesus, the French, Saddam Hussein, Bush and Anti-Imperialist Revolution

The title of my blog may sound like I'm insulting Middle Eastern Christians. I know that every Middle Eastern Christian has not been deeply religious, pro-Saddam Hussein, or supportive of the US invasion of Iraq. General statements about any group are false. My desire is to show that indigenous Christians have been active in Middle East politics. I will admit that I hope the title grabs readers' attention. I would make the title "Middle Eastern Christians in Middle East Politics," but I think many would not care to take a look. The Middle East is associated with Muslims and then Jews even though the very term "Christian" originated in Syria. The New Testament (Acts 11:26, NIV) reads, "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." It is true that currently Christians are a minority in the Middle East, yet they have played an active role in shaping the region. This blog will highlight brief notes on what may be considered unexpected roles of Middle Eastern Christians. (I plan on doing more blogs covering unexpected roles of Middle Eastern pagans, Jews, and heterodox Muslims in the future.)

Under Islamic Law (Shariah), Christians and Jews are considered "people of the Book" (Ahl al-kitab). This means Muslims view Jews and Christians as theologically linked to Islam (even if in a misguided way). When Muslims say "the Book" they mean the Torah, the Psalms and the Gospel. Due to this, both groups have been "protected peoples"(dhimmis). As any minority experiences, being a minority often results in marginalization, discrimination and outright oppression. Although, this is not always the case.

In the eighth-century the Christian Theophilus of Edessa was astrologer of the Muslim Abbasid court located in Baghdad . In the ninth-century Ḥunayn ibn Isḥaq, a Nestorian/Church of the East Christian, became one of the greatest translators of Greek texts into Syriac and Arabic. He was even appointed head of Abbasid Caliph Al-Mamun's famous "House of Wisdom". This was an institution that focused on translating Greek texts to be made accessible to scholars.

In more recent centuries Middle Eastern Christians have taken on new positions of power as the Ottoman Empire fell and European governments reshaped the political landscape. In 1989 the New York Times published an article by Youssef M. Ibrahim. He wrote about the role of France in relation to Christians in Lebanon and Syria. His history follows:

France first went into Lebanon to protect Maronite Catholics from attacks by the Druse in the latter half of the 19th century. After the First World War, France occupied the Levant, split it into Syria and Lebanon and created a republic in Lebanon with a power-sharing arrangement in which the Maronites had an edge.

Lebanese Christians hold much of the political and economic power in Lebanon. Syrian Christians (unlike the Sunni Muslims) have fared much better in Syria as well. Why?

Alexandra Zavis from the Los Angeles Times recently published an interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen entitled "Syrian Christians worry about life after Bashar Assad." She explains how, despite the horrors the international community sees taking place in Syria enacted by the Syrian government, Syrian Christians fear Sunni Muslim reprisals. She states:

Assad has portrayed himself as the defender of the nation's religious minorities, including Christians and his Alawite Muslim sect, against foreign-backed Islamic extremists. Opposition activists scoff at that notion, saying he has deliberately exploited sectarian fear to stay in power.
But warnings of a bloodbath if Assad leaves office resonate with Christians, who have seen their brethren driven away by sectarian violence since the overthrow of longtime strongmen in Iraq and in Egypt, and before that by a 15-year civil war in neighboring Lebanon.

The Syrian regime is dominated by the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party was also the party of Saddam Hussein's Iraq prior to the US invasion and occupation. Michel Aflaq (1910-1989), founder the Ba'ath Party, was not only a Syrian philosopher but he was also a Greek Antiochian Orthodox Christian. Ba'ath Party ideology is secular and has focused on "Arabism" as opposed to religious centered policies. Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq from 1979 to 2003 (currently imprisoned) is Chaldean Catholic. His birth name is Mikhail Yuhanna. He was also a close adviser to Saddam Hussein. At the same time many Assyrian Christians suffered under Saddam's rule and consider Tariq Aziz a traitor not to his religion but his ethnicity. Despite this, in US media Bush's build up to war against Iraq and now Obama's threatening Syria appears as a US government response to the Islamic World. As pointed out in this blog, Iraq and Syria have long been an Islamic-Christian World.

It is true that Christians in the Middle East live precariously. There are western groups that point out the plight of Christians in the Middle East as justification for western intervention. Some Muslim groups point out characters such as Tariq Aziz and Christan friendly Bashar Assad to show Christians as enemies of Islam. Sometimes Muslims also consider Christians as a "fifth column" in the face of US-European intervention. In other cases Muslims and Christians have tremendous solidarity. Many Palestinians actually see their plight as a Palestinian cause not a religious one (The West Bank has a significant Palestinian Christan population). In regards to my agenda, I simply want to show that the Middle East is more complex and nuanced than an oversimplification of Islam vs. "Us over here in the Christian West."

Here is a youtube video of the famous Lebanese Christian Fairuz singing her celebrated Arab nationalist song about Jerusalem (al-Quds). In this song she unifies the interests of Muslims and Christians in the battle for Arab sovereignty.

Very significant is the recent death of the Egyptian Coptic Pope Shenouda

Syria, Freedom, and Lessons In Hypocrisy

It is being reported that over 100,000 people in the Syrian town of Hama are mourning the loss of activists recently killed by government security forces. The town of Hama is no stranger to state brutality. The notoriously pro-Western Middle East historian Bernard Lewis wrote in his book The Crisis of Islam (2003)about the Syrian government's 1982 slaughter of it's citizens and the morally problematic role of the US government. He writes that the Syrian government cracked down on the town of Hama after an uprising initiated by the Muslim Brothers. The Syrian government:

Attacked the city with tanks, artillery, and bomber aircraft, and followed these with bulldozers to complete the work of destruction...The number killed was estimated, by Amnesty International, at somewhere between ten thousand and twenty five thousand...The massacre did not prevent the United States from subsequently courting Assad...Hafiz Al-Assad never became an American ally or, as others would put it, puppet, but it was certainly not for lack of trying on the part of American diplomacy (pp 108, 109)

Lewis also points out that this event got very little press compared to the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps a few months later by Israel's Lebanese Christian militia allies.

Syrians, not just from Hama, have faced the heavy hand of the authoritarian Bashar Assad,son and successor of the late dictator Hafiz Assad. Reported in HuffPost World :

A 13-year-old Syrian boy detained by government forces has been brutally killed, his wounds displayed in a shocking video. The boy, identified as Hamza al-Khateeb, was shot, burned, and had his penis cut off when his body was returned to his family.

Syrians, like Tunisians, Egyptians,Yemenis, Bahrainis, Libyans, and Palestinians (more to add), are fighting for their freedom from such barbarism. All these people deserve international solidarity (that does not necessarily mean military intervention).Humans cannot and should not endure such horrors. Freedom loving people are in awe of these incredible revolutions spreading, but I think it is important to examine the geopolitical forces at play. A brief look at how ordinary citizens are being used by these forces is needed.

Lebanon's Hezbollah helped Lebanon become free of Israeli military occupation, yet now they support Bashar Assad's oppression of his people because they get aid from Syria. Iran expresses rage at Bahrain's repression of the Shiites by the Sunni monarchy while it represses it's own people and supports dictatorship in Syria. The US has a large Navy fleet in Bahrain and watches, if not supports, the unarmed citizen protesters being slaughtered (along with medical professionals tending to the injured) by the Bahraini monarchy because it is an enemy of Iran. Yet, the US and NATO bomb Qaddafi's forces in Libya to "protect" armed civilians from Libyan government attacks. The US supports the unpopular dictator Saleh in Yemen because he claims to help repress al-Qaida. Turkey stands in solidarity with Palestinians while they treat Kurds in Turkey in a similar way Israelis treat Palestinians. Israel talks about suffering from Palestinian terrorism and brazenly oppresses Palestinians with ample military aid from the US government. I can go on and on. My point is that solidarity in support of freedom needs to mean freedom for everyone: not tied to the hypocrisy of cold narrow political ends masked in the name of humanitarianism.

Here is a video posted in honor of the Syrian Revolution.

Israel Always Wants More Palestinian Land

US President Obama was considered radical, by right-wing Israeli supporters, for merely stating the obvious conditions necessary for a viable two-state solution: two countries based on the pre-1967 borders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demands that the Jewish settlers in the West Bank--along with the territory they continue to steal--become incorporated into Israel. Mazal Mualem wrote in Haaretz:

After two days packed with meetings and peaking with his confrontation with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emerged stronger within Likud and became a uniting force for the Israeli right.

Netanyahu's adamant rejection of Obama's "1967 borders" speech restored calm to the right-wing coalition he heads; even the leftmost pole of his government, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, sent him a message of support Saturday...The rightmost poles of Netanyahu's coalition government, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, saw to it that the political front remained calm.

"Israel cannot permit itself to return to the 1967 borders, which are indefensible, or to a process in which it is giving more territory to the Palestinians," Ya'alon said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon sounded a reassuring note Saturday. Like Barak, said he did not interpret the interchange between Obama and Netanyahu as a confrontation. "Obama's speech was positive for Israel, since he remained committed to Israel as a Jewish state and even demanded that the Palestinians explain the reconciliation agreement with Hamas," Ayalon said.

What Israel wants is what it has always wanted: more and more Palestinian land. Since the beginning of the so-called "Peace Process" the settlements have continued to increase. Even when the Gaza pullout occurred,the choice portions of the West Bank were being grabbed. And who are these settlers? Many are religious fanatics that believe that God gave them the land. Some ideas by settlers were inspired by Ze'ev (Vladimir)Jabotinsky (1880-1940). He is the spiritual father of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. In 1913 he wrote an article “On Race." He stated, “We are entitled then to say that generally speaking almost every nation has a specific racial component, which is common to each individual within it. In this sense (and not, of course, in a political or juridical sense), nation and race overlap each other.” He then adds:

Let us draw for ourself the ideal “absolute nation.” It would have to posses a racial appearance of marked unique character, an appearance different from the racial nature of that nation’s neighbours. It would have to occupy from times immemorial a continuous and clearly defined piece of land; it would be highly desirable if in that area there would be no alien minorities, who would weaken national unity. It would have to maintain an original language, which is not derived from another nation…

Race relations were also inherently antagonistic in his world view and could only be resolved by one race dominating the other. Jabotinsky wrote an imaginary dialogue called Exchange of Compliments. The topic was about superior and inferior races. The colonialist mentality of Jabotinsky articulated in this work becomes more pronounced. In it is stated:

The Bushman, when he will meet a white person: ultimately, and despite everything, he will be impressed by the white man’s supremacy. Both believe in their own superiority, but in the white man’s heart it will not be impaired, while in the Bushman’s feeling it will be contested and destroyed and will finally disappear. Ultimately, the white man will rule the Bushman not only by force, but his domination will also be that of spiritual superiority.

These writings on race reflect his approach to politics and the way he interpreted Jewish colonization into Palestine. These writings also reflect the way the Israeli government operates in regards to its conflict with the Palestinians currently.

Samaritans: The Other Palestinians

In the West Bank there are more indigenous groups other than Arab Palestinians and the tiny amount of pre-Zionist settler Jews. There is another Palestinian group, less than eight hundred in the world, known as Samaritans. Others live in Israel. This small ethnic-religious community descend from ancient Israelites. They broke away from the Judea Temple cult over two thousand years ago. The Samaritan Pentateuch (The Torah/first five books of the Bible: Genesis through Deuteronomy) is written in their script and contains around 6000 differences in the text compared to the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text. The Christian New Testament tells many stories of the tensions between Jews and Samaritans in the past. In the Gospel of John Chapter 4, Jesus is recorded as having a discussion with a Samaritan women. Jesus clearly saw himself possessing the greater religion:

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem...[Jesus then states]You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ”

Despite this apparent prejudice, Jesus famous parable about the "Good Samaritan" seen in The Gospel of Luke 10:25-37 portrays a Samaritan as the best example of an exceedingly moral, caring, selfless, human being. This community is now nearly extinct and sandwiched in between the Israel/Palestine conflict (See here). Many may not know they still exist despite their iconic legacy on the theological philosophies and ethics of the Western World.

Gideon Levy: The Punishment of Gaza

"Words," Gideon Levy writes, in The Punishment of Gaza (Verso, 2010), "do not kill; but words can ease the work of killing." Any number of misnomers and euphemisms can make the casualties of war less shocking, can turn the collective punishment of an entire population into a 'just war' against Hamas, can make the temporary cessation of state belligerence into a 'humanitarian' cease-fire.

Nevertheless, this is not entirely the fault of language. It requires a  concerted campaign of misinformation to make so many euphemisms legible, so even the most recent example of the belligerence of Israeli Defense Forces will appear, in the North American media, not as deliberate tactics but as defensive tactics. Not that this is confined to North America. Bernard-Henri Levy, who we've already criticized before (here and here), manages to twist the IDF's aggression around into a tactical error, all while bemoaning the "inversion of values" and the "hijacking of meaning" by the international condemnation of Israel's attack on the Gaza flotilla. BHL knows that you've got to ease the conscience of the world's liberals to remain an intellectual media personality.

Hence the importance of voices such as Gideon Levy, a journalist and editor for Haaretz, and an outspoken critic of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories (and, incidentally, a critic of BHL). His recent book, made up of articles published in Haaretz from 2006 to 2009, is an incisive condemnation of Israel's four year long blockade of Gaza. Incisive, and, as one encounters the details of life under the blockade, infuriating. The Punishment of Gaza gives a narrative voice to the sustained collective punishment endured by the population of Gaza ever since Hamas won the majority in Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. [1]

Levy's main concern is Operation Cast Lead, which lasted from December 27, 2008 to January 17, 2009. In that short time, Israeli bombardments killed over 1,300 Palestinians, injured over 5,000, and left over 100,000 homeless. However, as many critics of United States foreign policy know, numbers alone do not make an argument; they require context. Otherwise, they can also be used to justify war under the guise of humanitarian intervention. In The Punishment of Gaza, Levy provides the context of these statistics. First, he argues that Israel's disengagement from Gaza is a method of oppression from without, that is, a blockade intended as collective punishment. Second, he argues that the casualties of the IDF's onslaught are not accidents, but tactical targets in their occupation. For example, numerous articles show how civilians, including children, are deliberate targets in military operations, not because they are singled out, but because the Israeli army does not enforce repercussions for soldiers who kill or injure civilians. 

But, he argues, none of this would be possible without a political culture that dehumanizes Palestinians when it does not ignore them. He writes that the injustices continue because 

we have trained our soldiers to think that the lives and property of Palestinians have no value whatsoever. It is part of a process of dehumanization that has endured for dozens of years--the fruits of the occupation (142).

Just as there are generations of Palestinians who have been raised in refugee camps, there are Israelis who know of no other political culture than one in which the occupation is the order of things, where even the so-called moderates push over each other on the race to start another war (recall that, while it is not directly discussed by Levy, the Second Lebanon War also takes place during the time period covered by the book).[2]

Levy dismisses equivocations between the two sources of violence. The defense of Israeli aggression rests on the spectre of terrorism and the destruction of Israel, which are woven together in Western representations of the fear of Hamas. But, Levy argues, to perpetuate the occupation due to threats to Israeli security  is to mistake the effect for the cause. Only Israel can end the blockade and the occupation, even if it shows no inclination to do so. International opinion and policy does not show much inclination to intervene, with the exception of the growing strength of the campaign for divestment in Israel. As dire (for the Palestinians) as the situation appears, Levy shows, clearly and directly, that Israel is responsible for the continued injustices of the occupation. "Israelis," Levy writes in the final chapter, in a moment of polemic, "aren't paying any price for the injustice of occupation" (144). Only when Israelis feel some degree of international pressure through divestment and boycott, and domestic pressure through self-criticism, will it end. Formulations such as these sound abstract, but in The Punishment of Gaza they are given in concrete detail.

Notes

[1] This is not to ignore the fact that 'narrative voices' ought to also include analyses of the blockade by Palestinians. Levy's book is hindered by the fact that the information is largely 'second hand,' because Israeli journalists have been prohibited from visiting Gaza since November 2006.

[2] See the chapter "No Moderates Left" (available online here), or more recently "Kahane Won," previously discussed by Joshua.

Wolf Blitzer Vs. Norman Finkelstein: 1989

Wolf Blitzer currently is an anchor on CNN. In 1989, before working for CNN, he debated the scholar Norman Finkelstein regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict. Blitzer openly advocated Zionism. His career history has involved extensive coverage of Israel. Objectively? CNN's website states, "Blitzer began his career in 1972 with the Reuters News Agency in Tel Aviv. Shortly thereafter, he became a Washington, D.C., correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. After more than 15 years of reporting from the nation's capital, Blitzer joined CNN in 1990 as the network's military-affairs correspondent at the Pentagon."

I certainly do not bring this up to imply a Jewish conspiracy within the US media. There is a pro-Israel bias. Norman Finkelstein, also Jewish, gets little media attention and often criticism. Are there any famous anchors on popular networks that have connections to pro-Palestinian media outlets?

(Notice the the way Blitzer debates compared to Finkelstein in this clip.)

Israeli Terrorism and the State of Israel

"Israeli forces have attacked the international aid convoy Freedom Flotilla en route to the besieged Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and leaving more than 50 injured." (see http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=128420§ionid=351020202.)

The Israeli government has been working very hard to pitch their piracy against the Gaza aid flotilla as an act of self defense. Watch these Youtube videos of Jewish settlers and notice how they treat Palestinians in the West Bank. Watch the Israeli soldiers do nothing as Jewish settlers terrorize Palestinians. See how even less credible current Israeli government arguments are. The Israeli military assists the settler "vigilante" violence.

Rabbi Kahane Lives

Several decades ago when the late Rabbi Meir Kahane was a member of the Knesset, Kahane debated Likud Party member Ehud Olmert on ABCs Nightline news hosted by Ted Koppel. Olmert claimed that Kahane’s call for the expulsion of Israeli Arabs was against the Zionist dream, that Israel like all states has a minority living within its borders, and that Kahane’s views discredited Israel. Kahane talked of Arabs threatening to become the Israeli majority in the future. The fundamental issue was, that since is a democracy, and Israeli Arabs have a right vote, if Arabs become the majority they will vote out laws that make the Jewish state Jewish. The very nature of this debate (by everyone in it including Ted Koppel) should be viewed as racist.

Kahane is dead but his message is not. In fact popularity for his ideas from within Israel has grown. The result of Kahane’s tolerated message of hate and terrorism is a trend in contemporary Israeli politics. This has led to blatant racism and discrimination against Israeli Arabs. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote a Haaretz article in August of 2009 titled “Kahane Won." Levy states:

Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse. If there is something that typifies Israel's current murky, hollow election campaign, which ends the day after tomorrow, it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values…. If Kahane were alive and running for the 18th Knesset, not only would his list not be banned, it would win many votes, as Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to do.

"Yisrael Beiteinu" is an Israeli political party and in English means, “Israel is our house,” referring only to Jews. Levy continues:

There's no need to refer to Haaretz's startling revelation that Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was a member of Kahane's Kach party in his youth:This campaign's dark horse was and is a Kahanist. The differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are minuscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter of morality. The differences are in tactical nuances: Lieberman calls for a fascist "test of loyalty" as a condition for granting citizenship to Israel's Arabs, while Kahane called for the unconditional annulment of their citizenship. One racist (Lieberman) calls for their transfer to the Palestinian state, the other (Kahane) called for their deportation.

Levy saw the ominous direction Israeli politics was headed in. He wrote, “Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged that Lieberman will be an "important minister" in his government.” As of December 2009, Avigdor Lieberman is the Foreign Minister in the Israeli Knesset.

Chomsky Denied Entry to West Bank

Amira Hass, writing for Haaretz, reports that Noam Chomsky was recently (the article is dated 16 May 2010) denied entry to Israel. Note that this does not correspond to the way that I referred to the situation in the title of my post. To clarify: Chomsky was scheduled to speak at the Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, but since Palestine is an occupied territory, Israel (technically their defense forces) controls who comes and goes. This is not the first time that intellectuals who are critical of Israel's occupation of Palestine have been denied entry to Israel or Occupied Palestine. Nearly two years ago, Norman Finkelstein was denied entry to the '67-borders-Israel en route to the West Bank for “security reasons.” Unlike Chomsky, he's currently subject to a decade long ban on entering Israel. His thoughts, in 2008:

Finkelstein did not intend to visit Israel, but had to pass through Israeli customs “by force of circumstance,” to visit a friend in Hebron. “Israel has the right to restrict who enters its country, but the West Bank is not its country,” said Finkelstein. “One day the Palestinian Authority may restrict my rights, but that’s an issue for the Palestinian Authority,” he continued.

Chomsky's thoughts, in 2010:

In a telephone interview with Channel 10, Chomsky said the interrogators had told him he had written things that the Israeli government did not like. “I suggested [the interrogator try to] find any government in the world that likes anything I say,” he said.

Israel/Palestine Conflict in Music

Many Palestinian activists have made March 1st the start of "Israel Apartheid Week." Some critics of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (along with horror regarding the siege of Gaza) are often uncomfortable referring to Israel as an Apartheid government. At times the South African Apartheid era is compared to what takes place within Israel against its non-Jewish citizens. However the comparison holds up, it is hard to argue that the Israeli government does not discriminate based on racial/ethnic/religious lines.

Interestingly, Israeli society produces cultural fusions that get played out in the conflict in unexpected ways. Israeli musicians consist of Jewish and Arab artists that can articulate their politcal concerns in Hebrew and Arabic. At times Jewish Israeli rappers use Arabic and Arab Israeli rappers use Hebrew. The Palestinian-Israeli hip hop artists from the group DAM grew up in Israel's town of Lod. DAM rapper Mahmoud Jreri addressed the irony of Israeli Arab life when he stated in an interview, "I speak better Hebrew than most Israelis and they [the Jewish Israeli right-wing] call to kick me out and we are native people." Jewish Israeli rapper Subliminal is known for ultra-nationalist lyrics and his total commitment to Jewish causes. He views Israel as a safe haven for Jews and feels they are under an existential threat from internal terrorism and hostile neighbors.

I am putting up two video's that are accompanied by English subtitles: One from DAM and the other from Subliminal. Both use a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. DAM's piece is titled "Born Here" written in Hebrew and Subliminal's is "My Land/Country" writtin in Arabic. These songs are mainly in the Hebrew language.