Exploring the Connections

"The more I pray, the more coincidences there are …"

On Wednesday just past, I posted an article on the fast undertaken by the Archbishop of York - the Most Rev'd Dr. John Sentamu - for peace in the Middle East and beyond. Here, Stephen Bates, of The Guardian, comments on what is happening in a side chapel in York Minster.

Bates writes:

… John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, the Church of England's first black primate, has foregone his summer holiday this year - he was meant to be going to Salzburg to enjoy some Mozart with his wife - in favour of seven days of prayer and fasting for peace in the Middle East and beyond. … To ensure that his sacrifice does not go unnoticed, Sentamu is carrying out his week of prayer and fasting right in the heart of his cathedral, and in dramatic fashion: he has pitched a small mountaineering tent - green, with an Episcopal purple lining - in front of the altar in one of the minster's side chapels.

As Bates says, it is a strangely appropriate place to stage a demonstration against war. The Archbishop's tent is after all in front of the altar of the Prince of Peace. But, the chapel walls are covered with memorials to other wars, fought by Yorkshire men, in other times.

"Why did he do it?" we want to know, eager perhaps to hear of some unusual precipitant. But there is no hint of any burning bush in what the Archbishop had to say on the matter. Indeed, we all have heard and seen what moved him to do what he did.

""Early in the war, I was watching BBC television news and Jeremy Bowen came on in a hospital in Lebanon and there was an eight-year-old girl who had lost her right eye and he said her parents had been killed and she hadn't been told yet. It was like a bayonet went into my heart. It just got to me.

"Then, a week or two later, there was Jeremy Bowen again in a village wrecked by rocket fire and there was an old woman, 85 years old. Most people had left and only the elderly and infirm remained behind. She could have been my mother. I found myself so devastated. My prayers were just crying out to God. This was atrocious. I couldn't get it out of my mind.

"People were asking me what they could do and I was giving them the usual glib answers like prayer, but my prayers were getting quite difficult. I knew I wouldn't achieve much writing to the prime minister. My feeling of helplessness was getting to me. I was becoming numb and I thought I had to pray. The question was where?"

In a day or two , the answer came, and there the tent sits on that chapel floor in the city of York.

It's a great comment, that tent, pitched in the midst of the great Minster. "Tent" of course was "tabernaculum" in Latin, and "tabernacle" reminds us that it was in a tent that the Israelites housed the Ark of the Covenant during the Exodus. We've come a long way since those days, and you don't get  much sense of "tent" in our latter-day tabernacles and cathedrals. But there that tent sits for a few more days, reminding us that we are all pilgrims-on-the-move across the wilderness toward peace, and a land of plenty for all Yahweh's children.

Toward the and of his interview with Archbishop Sentamu, Stephen Bates reminds him that his fast started on Sunday, and by Monday there was a ceasefire.

"He shrugs. 'The more I pray, the more coincidences there are,' he laughs."

Archbishop Shorn and Anointed in preparation for prayer and fasting

The Archbishop of York had his head shaved and anointed with oil during the Sunday morning act of worship at York Minster.

The acts of preparation came as the Most Revd Dr John Sentamu began a seven-day fast and prayer vigil for the Middle East.

After the service the Archbishop entered the tent which he has pitched in St. John's Chapel inside the Minster where he will be sleeping for the next seven nights as part of his vigil.

The acts of preparation came as the Archbishop announced his intention to forego his seven days' holiday to Salzburg in order to camp inside York Minster where he has asked people from all over the country to join him in heart and mind to pray every hour for peace in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, and for good community relations in Britain.

"Around my neck I wear a cross which bears the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero: 'Peace will flower when love and justice pervade our environment.' The events of the past weeks show how far we are, as a world and as a nation, from that place which Romero describes.

"I have received letters and calls from people about this conflict, and people are asking 'What can I do?' They feel helpless, they feel bewildered but they want to do something in response to the suffering that they have been watching on their televisions, hearing on their radios and reading in their newspapers.

"So my call to everyone is to join me in prayer, join me in fasting join me in providing a meal for every displaced person - especially women and children, medicine for the sick; and at a future date be part of the reconstruction of the areas, in both countries, that have been destroyed.

"Will you join me in standing up against violence as an unacceptable means of trying to change one another's views and lives? Whether in our own skies or the skies above the Middle East, bombing and violence cannot be the way in which we seek to change that which we don't like in the world. There has to be another way. Each one of us has to be the change we want to see in the world.

"That is why I am asking people from all over the country to join me in our common desire for peace, and for love."

Article from The Diocese of York.

The voices of the innocent must be heard above the din of war

Rowan Williams
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer

The UN continues to deliberate about what kind of resolution might be possible to support and effect a ceasefire in Lebanon. The optimistic view is that this could be achieved 'in a few days', though the organisation of an international peacekeeping force is likely to take several weeks. Even a few days is a long time in the Middle East, not only because of the cycle of slaughter, but because of the mounting humanitarian crisis.

Voices in the region - including local Christians and the Middle East Council of Churches - are increasingly desperate for even short-term goals; a brief ceasefire; a lifting of the naval blockade to allow in humanitarian supplies; anything that might ease the pressure on overwhelmed civilian hospitals. Every hour that passes, they say, is making the post-conflict prospect more and more unbearable - to the point where even the briefest and most nominal interruption of the carnage becomes hugely significant.

Both sides in the Lebanese conflict are playing for high stakes: one for the decisive victory over what is seen as an engine of terror; the other for a decisive humiliation for Israel, with regional repercussions in the balance of power and a strengthening of certain elements in the Islamic world.

On both sides, the comprehensive ravaging of an infrastructure is seen as a price worth paying. Hizbollah deliberately targets Israeli civilians and apparently regards Lebanese civilians' lives as counters to be deployed in their strategy. Israel risks treating the Lebanese as if they were, de facto, Hizbollah collaborators.

Both act like this because the prize is so temptingly comprehensive. Yet the only clearly visible effects are the returning of Lebanon to a chaos from which it had begun to escape and the continuing exposure of Israeli civilians to indiscriminate attack. Those rightly anxious about Israel's security have to ask about the cost of so dangerously unstable a neighbour. The big prize of some really decisive solution is simply being made less attainable by the tactics used. It is a lesson that could be applied, in a different degree, to the whole rhetoric of the war on terror.

The ethical tradition that has developed around the conduct and aims of war is profoundly discouraging about definitive solutions which justify any amount of interim suffering and devastation - which is why terrorist tactics are always immoral without qualification. But even in the deployment of legitimate defence, one of the historical moral criteria is whether it has in view an attainable, limited and realistic goal. A conflict fought on an all-or-nothing basis, rather than looking to measurable advantages and negotiated adjustments of interest, is morally problematic. To create a civil vacuum in the hope that it will guarantee total victory is to court both practical and moral defeat.

So one of the middle to long-term issues for any UN intervention will be what kind of peace is expected to emerge if a ceasefire is negotiated - and who takes the responsibility for the 'common security', integrity and legitimacy of society and government in Lebanon, and for giving no possible handle to the rhetoric of groups (or nations) that challenge Israel's right to exist.

Some Middle Eastern commentators have outlined a process by which Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms territories (on a Syrian guarantee that Lebanese sovereignty is recognised) matches a 'decommissioning' of Hizbollah and its absorption into the Lebanese security forces under international monitoring. It does not look easily achievable. But only something like this will make any useful contribution to a proper strategy for a law-governed outcome in the region.

A law-governed situation is one in which interests and conflicts are argued, negotiated and balanced out, with no permanent, unassailable winners and losers. At the moment, what we see is dangerously close to lawlessness, a disregard for present chaos and pain in the name of a future that will justify everything. The Abrahamic faiths are all committed to law because none of them accepts that consequences alone justify actions. So we need to hear more from leaders of all these faiths in support of law as well as humanitarian action - in support of short-term improvements, pragmatic means of resolving injustices, civil procedures for discovering common goals, however limited, and acceptance of interests that are more than 'reasons of state'. We need to hear more from jurists of all backgrounds in the mapping out of what a ceasefire and an international presence will be seeking to make possible. And we could do worse than spend a moment listening to the most immediate pleas from those on the ground.

A statement from Hizbollah about its prisoners, an easing of the blockade to guarantee safe passage for World Food Programme convoys and supplies for the hospitals of Lebanon and Gaza - these are not huge and complex matters. But if they save even a handful of lives, they are not wasted. And they will represent just a small sign that somewhere there is a shared future to be negotiated for the ordinary people of the region ... Israeli, Palestinian or Lebanese.

• Rowan Williams is Archbishop of Canterbury

Message from the Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal

06 August 2006—in the evening

Dear Friends,               

I regret coming to you again today, again with a story of hateful behavior, but I believe that it is a story I am to tell.

I was scheduled to leave Tel Aviv on Swiss Air flight number 255D at 15:55 this afternoon. I proceeded as usual to the baggage and security clearance area.  After asking me both relevant and non-relevant security questions, the young woman security officer concluded by questioning why I did not have an Israeli visa even though I was carrying an Israeli passport!! Then she let me put my bags on the conveyor belt so that they could be screened, after decorating both bags and my passport with blue and green stickers. Then I saw her rushing to a supervisor who ordered the belt stopped. 

Approaching me he asked, “English or Hebrew?” I responded, “Please, Arabic”. Arabic is one of two official languages of the State of Israel and I knew that it was my right in this “oasis of democracy” to make that official request. Because I refused to speak other than Arabic, because I informed them that I am an Arab-Palestinian-Christian, and because down deep I knew that their behavior was designed to humiliate me, I insisted in conversing with them in the language I master which is Arabic, my mother tongue. 

At that point, Tal Vardi, the Security Duty Manager also showed up and insisted on speaking in any language other than Arabic. I refused. An Arab from Nazareth who happened to be present offered to translate when Mr. Vardi turned his back and turned toward me only to say, “You will not fly today!”

I called Mr. Caesar Marjieh, Director of the Department for Christian Communities who tried his best to assist me, but he did not succeed. I waited two hours thinking that someone with enough courtesy and good judgment would come, but to no avail. I had no alternative but to return to Jerusalem and inform my friends who were expecting me in Geneva today and London tomorrow of the situation. Later in the week I will file a suit in the High Court against the Security Duty Manager and his staff for violating my civil rights without cause.

My indignation is not for me, but it is for all people in occupied territories who face this kind of oppression and humiliation every day of their lives. This happened to an Anglican Bishop with special identification given him by the Department of the Interior and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. What do you imagine happens to others?

In, with, and through Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal
Bishop, The Diocese of Jerusalem
Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria

Fueling the Arms race

Aaron Scherb
TomPaine.com, August 01, 2006

Aaron Scherb is a legislative assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation and works on defense and foreign policy issues.

India and Pakistan both tested nuclear weapons in 1998; they fought several wars in the past decade and came to the brink of nuclear war in 2001. Nonetheless last week, as Congress learned that Pakistan is building a nuclear reactor capable of producing up to 50 nuclear weapons per year, the House approved a controversial proposal that would allow India to build nearly 50 nuclear weapons per year with U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel. The U.S. should not be aiding a nuclear arms race in one of the most unstable parts of the world.

South Asia is extremely volatile. Pakistan is believed to possess about 50 nuclear weapons, and India is thought to have a similar number. The U.S. has proposed selling to Pakistan F-16 jets capable of dropping nuclear weapons. The Pakistani scientist who sold top-secret nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, and Iran several years ago, A.Q. Khan, remains sheltered in Pakistan, and international inspectors are unable to determine the extent of his dealings. Pakistan’s construction of a huge nuclear reactor and the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal that would enable India to build up to 50 nuclear weapons per year contribute to this volatility.

Neither India nor Pakistan has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the international agreement of 188 countries that bans the export of nuclear technology to nations that don’t agree to international inspections of their nuclear programs. Nonetheless, the Bush administration is attempting to supply India with nuclear fuel and technology under the guise of energy assistance. If this agreement were truly about energy, then the United States should have more strongly encouraged India to stop producing fissile material, the main ingredient needed to produce nuclear weapons. However, when U.S. negotiators were in New Delhi and made this request, the Indians said no, and negotiations moved to the next subject. Because India has limited supplies of domestic uranium, it must decide whether to use this fissile material for civilian nuclear energy or nuclear bomb production. The U.S. supply of nuclear fuel to India would allow it to conserve its uranium to build nuclear bombs, while the U.S.-supplied fuel would then be used for civilian nuclear energy. The U.S. would be indirectly assisting India’s nuclear weapons program.

Another troubling part of this nuclear agreement with India is that it undermines the U.S. position toward Iran’s nuclear program. In brokering this proposed deal, the Bush administration is creating a double standard and providing other countries with incentives to ignore or leave the NPT. As the Bush administration tries to halt the nuclear program in Iran (a signer of the NPT), Iranians are galvanized in support of their nuclear program as the Bush administration says one thing but then does the opposite by providing a non-NPT country with nuclear know-how. The message Iran hears couldn’t be clearer: Pull out of the NPT and then you’ll get what you want from the U.S.—if you wait long enough.

When the NPT entered into force in 1970, only five countries that already had nuclear weapons were recognized as being nuclear weapons states. Since then, several other countries—North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and India—have built nuclear weapons, but by the NPT's definition, they are non-nuclear weapons states because they didn't possess nuclear weapons at the time the NPT entered into force. The five recognized nuclear weapons states—China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the U.S.—all have stopped producing fissile materials. If this deal is ultimately approved, India will receive de facto nuclear weapons status but will not have to stop producing fissile materials.

As expected, on July 26 the House overwhelmingly approved H.R. 5682 —legislation that will weaken the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and allow the U.S. to export nuclear fuel and technology to a country that hasn’t signed the NPT. Unfortunately, the House rejected several nonproliferation amendments that would have ensured the U.S. would not be triggering an arms race in South Asia. One such amendment, offered by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., would have prevented the U.S. from transferring any nuclear fuel and technology to India unless it agreed to halt its production of fissile material for nuclear weapons production. Despite having the support of 37 Republicans, the Berman amendment failed. Fortunately, the nuclear deal with India is far from finalized. The Senate will have the chance in September to modify legislation similar to what the House considered.

Curiously, the day after the House voted to advance the U.S.-India nuclear deal, the State Department released a report—which was nearly 10 months overdue—that sanctioned two Indian firms for missile-related transactions with Iran. The timing of this report is suspect, and a congressional aide predicted that one of the failed amendments dealing with Iran would have passed if the report had been issued before the House vote. The Bush administration is sacrificing nonproliferation principles to a strategic partnership with India and to nuclear energy interests.

Pakistan responded to the proposed deal by asking the U.S. for a similar nuclear cooperation agreement, which the U.S. promptly rejected. China and Pakistan, already nuclear allies, are reported to be talking about a similar deal. The damage the Bush administration has caused to the NPT is evident: A country can ignore the NPT and make bilateral agreements to serve one’s own interests.

In response to these two events, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the bipartisan House Nonproliferation Task Force, stated that, “The nuclear arms race in South Asia is about to ignite, and…the Bush administration is throwing fuel on the fire.”

As the 61st anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, has the Bush administration forgotten that the U.S. is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons? Especially at a time like this, the U.S. should do anything it can to prevent an arms race between two countries that nearly used nuclear weapons against each other.