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CNN Reports -- Christians To Be Jailed In Israel
Reported on Usenet, Fri Feb 13, 1998

JERUSALEM (CNN) - The dwindling number of Christians in theHoly Land are facing yet another threat. Militant Jews and Israelisare trying to force members of the religion from seeking convertsin the country.

Most alarming to Christians is a newly proposed law that wouldlet authorities jail anyone who shares Christian literature.

"It could even include the New Testament because, afterall, that is certainly a document Jesus would say, 'go out intothe world and make disciples,'" Pastor Ray Lockhart of Christ'sChurch in Jerusalem says.

The proposed legislation is aimed at those who possess, print,reproduce, distribute, import, track or publicize informationmeant as an inducement to religious conversion.

"We are a Jewish state," explains Israeli Knessetmember and bill co-sponsor Niffim Zilli. "We want to remaina Jewish state."

Much of the literature in a small Christian bookstore in Jerusalemwould be outlawed by the legislation in its present form. OrthodoxJews already visit the store to harass customers, and there arefears that if the proposed anti-missionary law passes, militantsmight try to close the shop.

"I see this as being quite contrary to human rights, particularlyto the right of religious freedom and choice of religion,"Lockhart says.

Zilli's reply: "Stop your missionary activity in Israel.Stop it!"

Christian Evangelical missions give free food to poor OrthodoxJews in Jerusalem, and indigents line up to accept it.

"Some of Israel's best friends around the world come fromthe Bible-believing Christian communities. And if it is seen asthough Israel or the government is opposing the people who havebeen the best friends of Israel, then perhaps support for it couldrun cold," Clarence Wagner of Bridges for Peace said.

The legislation has cleared its first parliamentary hurdle.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes it, but somebelieve it could pass over his objections, especially if OrthodoxJews decide to engage in muscle-flexing.

End of CNN Article

TIMEHISTORY OF ISRAEL ZIONISM TIME LINE

For the past 100 years, Jews and Arabs have claimed an ancientright to live in the Holy Land. ''History need not be man's master,''said President Bush, but no one can forget the past.

1897

The First Zionist Congress is held in Switzerland, callingfor the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine,accelerating the immigration of European Jews.

1917

British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour writes a letter toLord Rothschild informing him that Britain favors a Jewish homelandin Palestine. The Balfour Declaration also states ''that nothingwill be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rightsof existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,'' then nearly90% of the population. In 1920 the League of Nations mandate forPalestine is given to Britain.

1936

The first Palestinian uprising begins -- against British ruleand continued Jewish immigration. In 1937, Britain proposes partitioningPalestine into Arab and Jewish states. The Jews agree, the Arabssay no. Another British plan in 1939 calls for one state withan Arab majority; the Arabs indicate acceptance, but the Jewsoppose it. World War II puts an end to all political activity.

1947

Survivors of the Holocaust flee to Palestine, and the U.N.votes for the territory's partition into an Arab state, a Jewishstate and an international zone for Jerusalem. The Jews acceptthe plan, but the Arabs reject it.

1948

On May 14, the mandate ends and the state of Israel is proclaimed.Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon invade the same day. Tensof thousands of Palestinians flee to begin their own diaspora.

1949

Israel signs truces with the Arab countries, gaining more ofthe old mandate, including West Jerusalem.

1956

Acting secretly with Britain and France during the Suez Canalcrisis, Israel invades Egypt in October, occupying the Sinai peninsulaand the Gaza Strip. Under concerted U.N. pressure, Israel withdrawsin 1957.

1964

The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed in Cairo andthereafter sponsors a guerrilla war against Israel.

1967

In what becomes known as the Six-Day War, Israel launches apre-emptive strike against the Arabs on June 5. Israeli forcesoverrun the Sinai peninsula, then occupy both the West Bank andEast Jerusalem. They later seize the Golan Heights from Syria.In November the U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 242, whichcalls for Israeli withdrawal from ''territories occupied'' andthe right of all states in the area to live within secure andrecognized boundaries.

1973

Egypt and Syria attack Israeli forces in the Sinai and theGolan Heights on Yom Kippur, recapturing some territory beforeIsraeli counterattacks establish a bridgehead across the SuezCanal and push Syria out of the Golan. A U.N. cease-fire resolutionhalts the fighting, but an international peace conference endsafter a single session.

1974

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger brokers disengagementagreements between Israel, Egypt and Syria.

1977

President Anwar Sadat makes a dramatic trip to Jerusalem, thefirst Arab head of state to visit Israel, breaking the psychologicalbarrier to peace.

1978

In September, U.S., Egyptian and Israeli leaders meet for 12days at Camp David and agree on a two-part framework for peace.The first is an Israeli- Egyptian treaty returning the Sinai toEgypt and providing for normal relations between the two nations.The second calls for talks among Egypt, Israel, Jordan and thePalestinians for self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,a five-year transition period before a final settlement, and aJordanian-Israeli peace treaty. The second part never really getsunder way.

1979

Israel and Egypt sign the Camp David peace treaty in March,and Israel begins its withdrawal from the Sinai.

1982

Israel invades Lebanon to drive out the P.L.O. Syrian forcesare pushed from Beirut, and the Lebanese capital is under Israeliattack for 10 weeks. While Israeli troops look on, Lebanese Christianmilitiamen massacre hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra andShatila refugee camps. A U.S.-brokered agreement permits a P.L.O.withdrawal from Beirut.

1987

Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip begin an uprising,or intifadeh, which is still in progress. Tough Israeli countermeasuresfail to suppress the revolt, which in turn brings the Palestiniancause worldwide attention.

1991

After winning the gulf war, the U.S. pushes for a Middle Eastsettlement. Eight exhaustive visits to the region by U.S. Secretaryof State James Baker bring all the parties to the table last week,the first time that Israel and its Arab adversaries have sat downtogether.

During the past decade a group of "post-Zionist"historians have challenged as myths what Israelis generally regardto be historic accounts. The controversy has spilled out of universityhalls into popular publications, lectures, and symposia. Israel'sbehavior during the 1948 War of Independence, the ideals of theZionist pioneers and the army, and even Israel's desire for peacehave been scrutinized and found flawed by a small but neverthelessinfluential group of new historians.

Post-Zionism assumes that Israel's basic task of securing aviable state has on the whole been accomplished -- that nationbuilding is no longer necessary. A corollary of this view is thatIsrael is now strong enough to confront its myths about the state'sfounding and to voice reservations regarding events of the past,particularly in relation to the Arabs.

For a small group of radical post-Zionist historians, the goalhas been not only to present new historical interpretations butalso, ultimately, to challenge the Jewish character and purposeof the state. They reinforce the view that Israel should be astate of its citizens, rather than a Jewish state.

Prominent among the widely accepted beliefs that post-Zionisthistorians question is that Palestinians who abandoned their homesin 1948 did so either voluntarily or because their leaders urgedthem to leave, with the promise that they would return victorious.

Historian Benny Morris, a one-time journalist and now professorof Zionist history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, openeda Pandora' s box in the early '80s. Working on his doctorate atthe Hebrew University a short while after national archive documentsfrom the 1948 War of Independence became available for study,he discovered that in a number of cases Jews expelled Arabs fromtheir homes and villages during the war. His doctoral thesis waslater published as The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,1947-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Morris was born in Ein Hahoresh, a left-wing Mapam kibbutz,in 1948, the year the State of Israel was established. "Itis not a coincidence that my generation is highly critical ofthe behavior of the Zionist leaders who established the Stateof Israel," he says. "I grew up taking the existenceof the state for granted. The older generation of historians livedthrough the war of 1948 as adults. It was the [most] gloriousmoment of their lives. They couldn't be objective about it. TheZionist historians of this period had themselves been mobilizedin the cause of nation building, and they were dedicated to thepolitical agenda, mainly of Mapai [the Labor party]. It's a generationalthing. They grew up then, and I grew up on the wars of '67, '73and '82."

The Six-Day War and Israel's subsequent rule over the Palestiniansin the West Bank and Gaza raised moral dilemmas that forced manyIsraelis to confront their nation's behavior toward Palestiniansin 1948. " We realized," explains novelist Michal Guvrin,"that basic issues about the conquest of the land and ourright to Israel had been swept under the table."

Morris claims that he began his historical research with noideological baggage. He was not out to prove anything about theArab refugees. "I set out to write a history of the Palmach,the pre-State defense force that was later integrated into theIsrael Defense Forces," says Morris. "But after I hadworked on it a little, the people in charge of the Palmach archivesclosed them to me. Apparently they became wary of me, preferringthat an ex-Palmachnik, someone with loyalty to them, write it.

"In the meantime I came upon material pertaining to thePalestinian refugees. I saw orders expelling the Arabs of Lodand Ramleh, signed by then-Lieutenant Colonel Yitzhak Rabin,"Morris says, irate at the deception by earlier historians whotermed the Arab exodus from Lod and Ramleh a voluntary one. "Throughoutthe war," Morris explains, "the two towns, which satastride the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, interdicted Jewish traffic.Consequently the leaders of the Yishuv, Palestine's Jewish community,regarded Lod and Ramleh as a perpetual threat to Tel Aviv itself,a springboard from which the Arabs could attack the Jewish capital."

The Israeli action may well have been justified, Morris says,but one cannot claim, as historians of the '50s attempted to do,that expulsion orders were never given. Nevertheless, he deniesthe claim by Arab historians that there was a premeditated Zionistplan to systematically expel Arabs. He contends that in certainplaces Arab communities were intimidated, and even expelled, butthat on the whole it was war itself that caused Palestinians toflee, particularly since they felt vulnerable and lacking in militaryleaders. Morris lays the fault at the door of the wealthy Palestinianpolitical and economic leadership who abandoned the country byApril 1948 -- a month before the State of Israel was declaredand the Arab attack began -- and left the Palestinians helpless.

Another popular belief challenged by post-Zionist historiansis that Israel in 1948 was a weak David fighting an all-powerfulGoliath. The new historians, including Morris, claim that in factthe Israeli army was more professional and better trained thanthe Arabs, and that it even had more men and arms in the field.According to Morris, in mid-May 1948 the Haganah (now the IDF)fielded some 35,000 armed troops, as compared to 25,000 to 30,000invading Arab troops. By the July offensive, the Haganah had 65,000soldiers, and by December, 90,000 -- significantly outnumberingthe Arab armies.

Undermining the David-Goliath image has provoked strong reactionsfrom those who lived through the War of Independence and experiencedthe deaths of friends (6,000 of Israel's 600,000 inhabitants werekilled) and the fear of annihilation -- particularly on the heelsof the Holocaust. They argue that, whatever the facts about theforces in the field, the atmosphere of fear and confusion duringthe war and the realization of the Arab states' potential, withtheir millions of people, justifies the vulnerability Israelisfelt in 1948.

Another attack on one of Israel's articles of faith is historianEdith Zertal's recent book Zahavam Shel Yehudim (The Gold of Jews),about illegal immigration between 1945 and 1948. Zertal chargesthat Zionist leaders exploited the illegal European immigrantsby bringing them to Palestine even when they knew the refugeeswould be arrested by the British and sent to Cyprus. The Zionistsdid this, Zertal claims, in order to dramatize for the world theneed for a Jewish state. Although there has been some outcry atthis interpretation by other historians, Zertal seems intentionallyto be seeking a controversial approach to a heroic epoch. Israelisin general have become accustomed to such accusations and don'tfind them threatening anymore. Israelis also recognize that concedingZionist failings doesn't diminish the importance of the Zionistventure.

While Zertal and Morris seem to be searching for a disinterestedunderstanding of Israeli history, other, more radical historiansecho the views of Matzpen, the New Left movement of the '60s.Using a Marxist conceptual framework, they see Israel as colonialist,an extension of Western imperialism.

Avi Shlaim, one of the first new historians to attract attention,proposed the thesis that Transjordan and Israel, both creationsof British imperialism, were in collusion with colonial powersto steal land from the native Palestinians. Shlaim claims in CollusionAcross the Jordan (Oxford University Press, 1988) that the clandestinemeeting between Golda Meir and Abdullah at Naharayim on the JordanRiver on Nov. 17, 1947 was the consummation of negotiations from1946 to 1948 to thwart the emergence of a Palestinian Arab stateand to partition the area between Israel and Transjordan. He claimsthat Transjordan stuck to its nonaggressive stand to take onlywhat was agreed upon -- i.e., eastern Palestine -- leaving theYishuv alone to set up the State of Israel.

In two places Transjordan broke the November agreement. Theygave in to Palestinian pressure to destroy the Etzion bloc, whichthey saw as a foreign enclave in an Arab area, and to conquerthe Old City of Jerusalem.

Journalist-historian Shabtai Tevet counters the charge of collusion,claiming that the Palestinians could have declared themselvesa state and Israel could have done nothing to stop them. In fact,he says, the Palestinians were not psychologically prepared forit, nor strong enough to maintain themselves against the variousArab powers. In any event, it wasn't Israel's task to fight fora Palestinian state. Moreover, the Arab Legion (aka TransjordanianArmy) worked hand in hand with the British, who were entrenchedall over the region and did not need Israel's acceptance.

Although the Marxist scaffolding is no longer compelling tomost post- Zionists, the anti-Zionist corollaries of this viewcontinue to echo among radical post-Zionist historians and sociologists.Anita Shapira, professor of Zionist history at Tel Aviv University,identifies their main goal as changing the nature of the Stateof Israel -- relinquishing its ideological Zionist component tobecome a secular, democratic state without any predominant nationalcharacter.

Annulment of the Law of Return, she says, which grants automaticcitizenship to Jews coming to Israel and underscores the differencebetween their status in the country and that of Arabs, would manifestthat change.

The most controversial of the radical post-Zionist historiansis Haifa University professor Ilan Pappe. He claims that Israel"intentionally uprooted the Palestinian population and justifiedit on the basis of Jewish uniqueness as a consequence of the Holocaust."

Pappe grew up in Haifa with Arab friends and feels he was exposedto a more open approach to Arabs at an early age. But it was onlyafter he had studied history at the Hebrew University and wentto Oxford for his doctorate in 1980 that he could, he said, "lookat Zionist history from the outside. As I delved more and moreinto the documents, I was shocked to realize that not only the1948 generation of historians but also my teachers -- the supposedlyobjective historians of the second generation, like Anita Shapira-- were captives of the Zionist narrative. At the same time,"he says, "I began to be influenced by an approach to historythat is more subjective and relativist."

According to this view, historical interpretations are merely"constructs of the mind," and historians must choosewhat fits their moral ideology from among many narratives.

"We're all political," says Pappe. "There'sno historian in the world who is objective. I'm not as interestedin what happened as in how people see what's happened. The historicalnarrative is a very important part of collective identity. Onlyin Israel do historians -- even Benny Morris -- still believethey can be neutral." The question Pappe asks is "whichpolitics to embrace -- a national political approach or an internationalistone."

"Personally," Pappe says, "I think there aretwo legitimate narratives: the Palestinian one and the Israelione. And I believe that we must learn to live with both narratives.Hopefully, a third narrative that is common to both peoples willdevelop. Narratives change in relation to the needs of a peopleat a given time."

In the meantime, Pappe promotes the Palestinian narrative,believing it necessary after all the years during which "national-Zionistideological hegemony suppressed every other voice. The historicalnarrative of the Palestinians shows Zionism to be like any othernational movement, resorting to violence and power when it wasdeemed useful and necessary."

Pappe also takes pains to argue that Zionism is an extensionof Western imperialism. He says that during the '20s and '30s,Britain extended a "power umbrella" that allowed thegrowth of the Jewish population in Palestine until it would nolonger be a minority and could replace the British governmentafter the Mandate.

When the British saw that the Arabs were rebelling, and thatnot enough Jews were settling in the country to change its demographics,they attempted by their White Paper to limit Jewish immigration.

Critics of Pappe's view point out that the British could certainlyhave tipped the demography of Palestine toward a Jewish majorityby allowing Jewish refugees into Palestine during the Holocaust.In contrast to Pappe's assertions, they say the British did notfavor Jews -- even those whose lives were threatened by the Nazis-- as their colonial heirs.

Pappe insists that the Zionist narrative has been a "historyof the victors," one that claims that no alternatives toconflict with the Arabs existed. He argues that Jews would havehad opportunities to make peace if they had been willing to cedetheir nationalist demands. "After the war of 1948,"he says, "the Arabs would have accepted peace under the rightconditions. They reconsidered the UN Partition Plan and were willingto accept partition of the country, repatriation of Arab refugees,and the internationalization of Jerusalem. Ben Gurion rejectedthe offer." Therefore, according to Pappe, it was not theArabs but Ben Gurion's intransigence that led to the continuedstate of war.

Other historians have challenged Pappe's thesis, indicatingthat, in light of the Arab defeat in 1948, reconsideration ofpartition was simply a tactic by the Arabs to get back what theyhad lost by going to war. The repatriation of Arab refugees wouldhave returned a large fifth column to undermine the security andJewish character of the State of Israel.

Pappe does not deny Shapira's charge that his agenda is morepolitical than historical. A member of the leftist Israeli-ArabHadash Party, he makes no bones about his desire that Israel be"a nation of its citizens" -- a secular, democraticstate affording Jews no unique status.

Envisioning Israel as an integral part of the Middle East,Pappe sees the country as increasingly disconnected from the Jewsof the world. "The Jews of America are disappearing,"he contends. "We must turn to what's going on here and createa new democratic country of Jews and Arabs living together."

Nevertheless, Pappe rejects replacing Israel with a Palestinianstate. He believes that both Israel and a Palestinian state shouldexist, but that Israel should embrace both Moslem and Jew.

At the core of post-Zionist ideology is opposition to the ideathat Israel is a chosen people and should be accorded specialprivileges like the Law of Return. This resistance to particularismhas led post- Zionists to deny Israel the national distinctivenessthat every other national group takes for granted.

This posture may originate in the socialist vision of proletarianbrotherhood, in which all national distinctions ultimately fadeaway. But it also harbors the assumption, often utilized in Palestinianpropaganda, that the Jewish people disappeared as a nation longago; after all, goes this argument, Jews have lived in many differentcountries, spoken different languages, and have been molded bydifferent cultures. By this reasoning there is no core Jewishnational character, no sense of solidarity -- and no right tonationhood.

Post-Zionist historians of the Holocaust such as Tom Segevand Moshe Zimmerman have pointed to the Holocaust as a proof ofthis lack of solidarity, claiming that the Zionist leadershipdid not try to save the Jews in Europe except where it benefitedthe Zionist cause.

Why are Israelis flocking to hear a small number of historiansquestion their cherished beliefs, sully their beloved institutions,and undermine their national character and purpose? After all,most Israelis are far from abandoning Zionism and the Jewish characterof the State of Israel. In an Avi Chai Foundation-sponsored studyon the beliefs and observances of Israeli Jews, 89 percent ofrespondents answered affirmatively to the question, "Do youconsider yourself a Zionist?"

The intense involvement in post-Zionism can perhaps be attributedto old Jewish anxieties, internalized over 2,000 years in theDiaspora, that the Jewish people may not have a right to existas a unique nation -- to a lurking fear, that is, that perhapsthe post-Zionists are right.

Reaction to the de-"Judaizing" of Israel undoubtedlyaccounts for part of the swing back to greater religious consciousnessin the recent election, when an unexpectedly large number of voteswere cast even by nonreligious Israelis for religious parties.Many Israelis also worry that negating Israel as a Jewish statehas become a "politically correct" stance for theirchildren in universities.

Nevertheless the free discussion of Zionist tenets is a healthyphenomenon in a society where, out of the need to build a nation,those interpretations of history may have been overemphasized.This was particularly true after David Ben Gurion, Israel's firstprime minister, unified the nation around his Labor movement andsuppressed Arab, Sephardic, religious, and feminist divergences.It was inevitable that in time this emphasis on the collectivewould be resented, and new interpretations of history expounded.

Perhaps the most important aspect of post-Zionist thinkingis its challenge to Israelis to face the seeming contradictionsinherent in Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. For at the heartof the post- Zionist debate is a tension between the values ofdemocracy and Jewishness, of universalism and particularism --especially as those values apply to Palestinians.

Tova Ilan, director of the Yaakov Herzog Center of KibbutzHaDati, which holds seminars on Zionism and other Jewish issues,points out that if one pursues the concept of democracy to itsconsistent end, it might indeed contradict the concepts of a Jewishstate and the Law of Return. But she wisely observes too thatin life we are always adjusting to accommodate different values;only the madman rigidly insists on executing one value withoutconsideration of others. Post- Zionist history has prodded Israelisto reconsider events in light of new information and to pledgethemselves to more democratic values -- particularly guardingthe civil rights of citizens, Arab as well as Jew. And, as Ilansays, that doesn't mean sacrificing the Jewish constellation ofvalues. israelis continue to reaffirm Jewish peoplehood and theright to express it through a sovereign Jewish state.