WGME Joins "No Way to Treat a Child Campaign" - Congressional Meetings Set for March 18

Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy:
"Israeli Military Detention – No Way to Treat a Child."

The Chicago Faith Coalition on Middle East Policy has created a campaign entitled "Israeli Military Detention – No Way to Treat a Child."

Many Palestinian children in the Occupied Territories live in fear that they will be snatched and detained by Israeli authorities. Their fear is more than a child’s nightmare: Children aged 12-17 in Israeli military detention are often subjected to physical, emotional and psychological harm. The 47-year-long Israeli occupation has developed a systematic and sustained pattern in which abuse of children is the norm.

(Check out "Alone" - a 9 minute You Tube video - to get a feel for the Israeli military practices associated with child detention.)

The aims of the campaign are to:

* Stop night arrests
* Stop blindfolds and restraints
* Stop separation from parents
* Stop physical abuse and verbal threats
* Stop isolation and coerced confessions

The WGME is a coalition partner for this campaign.

The Chicago Faith Coalition plans to hold a Congressional Briefing in Washington, D.C., later in 2015.

TAKE ACTION:

Sign up to receive
email updates on the campaign.

Contact Ed Thompson
(ethompson@dpfinc.com)

 to become one of the WGME

coordinators for this campaign.

October 22 Lettter from ELCA Presiding Bishop Eaton to President Obama on Israel

On October 22, 2014, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton issued a letter to President Barack Obama on concerns related to peace and justice in the Middle East. The letter can be retrieved on the ELCA website and the full text is shown below.

October 22, 2014

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

As the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a church which calls for a cessation of all settlement activities and withdrawal from settlements on Palestinian territory to the 1967 boundaries, I commend your Administration for urging the Israeli Government to reverse its recent declaration as “state land” the estimated 988 acres in the Gush Etzion Jewish settlement bloc in the occupied West Bank. We hope your Administration will continue to pursue this reversal.

Similarly, we share your Administration’s concern regarding the Israeli Government’s reportedly recent move to advance the settlement planning process in the sensitive area of Givat Hamatos in East Jerusalem. This plan for a new neighborhood, comprising 2,610 housing units, would cut the territorial continuity between the Palestinian neighborhoods in South Jerusalem and the future Palestinian state.

We also share your Administration’s assessment that the recent occupation of six residential buildings, consisting of approximately 20 housing units in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, is a provocative act that only serves to escalate tensions at a moment when those tensions already have been high. This new occupation, the largest since 1991, could expand the settler presence by about 35% from the number of settlers currently in the area.

It is deeply distressing to us that these kinds of actions, which seek to create new “facts on the ground,” continue unabated. Along with Jewish organizations like Peace Now and B’Tselem, we fully agree with your Administration that such actions are counter-productive to achieving a comprehensive and sustainable peace based upon a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, where international human rights and humanitarian law are respected and upheld. Moreover, such actions reinforce despondency among the Palestinian people, limiting optimism that a political solution will be found.

Therefore, we urge you to call upon all parties to the conflict to refrain from violent or provocative actions that could lead to more casualties and further exacerbate the existing barriers toward a return to negotiations and a just final status agreement that results in two viable, secure states living side-by-side in peace.

Yet, as a church grounded in hope (1 Peter 3:15), we pray that the current truce, following the recent war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, will hold so that hope might begin to be restored. It is imperative that, with the help of the international community, both Palestinian and Israeli leaders return to negotiations to identify and constructively address the underlying causes of continued tension, so that God’s peace and justice will prevail.

We re-commit ourselves to this vision, and continue to pray for you and all people of good will for their efforts to this end.

Your Sister in Christ,


Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop

Cc: The Honorable John F. Kerry, Secretary of State; The Honorable Anne Patterson, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs; The Honorable Michael Ratney, Consul General and Chief of Mission, Jerusalem; Mr. Denis McDonough, Chief of Staff, Executive Office of the President; Mr. Philip Gordon, Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region, National Security Council


Related posts

In August, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton was interviewed on the Al Mayadeen TV network, based in Beirut, Lebanon. Al Mayadeen claims a viewership of about 20 million in the Middle East and beyond.

(See Sunday, Aug. 10 - Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton interviewed on the Al Mayadeen TV network )




Other related links

On November 26, 2012, then-Presiding Bishop of the ELCA Mark Hanson joined other religious leaders in calling for the U.S. to stop arms sales to Israel that are contributing to violence against Palestinians. (See "Christian Leaders call for end to unconditional US military aid to Israel") "Accordingly, we urge an immediate investigation into possible violations by Israel of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act and the U.S. Arms Export Control Act which respectively prohibit assistance to any country which engages in a consistent pattern of human rights violations and limit the use of U.S. weapons to “internal security” or “legitimate self-defense.” . . . (While this letter focuses on US-Israel relations and the Israel-Palestine conflict, these are laws that we believe should be enforced in all instances regardless of location. All allegations regarding the misuse of US supplied arms should be investigated.) . . . More broadly, we urge Congress to undertake careful scrutiny to ensure that our aid is not supporting actions by the government of Israel that undermine prospects for peace. We urge Congress to hold hearings to examine Israel’s compliance, and we request regular reporting on compliance and the withholding of military aid for non-compliance."

Chicago Lutherans' Advocacy for Palestinians Featured in "The Lutheran"

This month, Chicago area readers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) publication The Lutheran will see an an article about the Working Group on the Middle East's advocacy for Palestinians.  The full-page article profiles the WGME participation in the 8th Day Center Good Friday Justice Walk in April. (See Palestine: The Women Weep (34th Annual 8th Day Good Friday Justice Walk) )

The Lutheran is distributed monthly to all ELCA congregations, and the Chicago insert will be seen by recipients in over 200 Metropolitan Chicago Synod ELCA congregations and worshiping communities.

Related posts

"Inhumane treatment of young men and boys, arrests under cover of night, unjust torture while in police custody, missing husbands and brothers and sons, children stripped of internationally agreed upon human rights. For these Palestinian boys and men, we weep with the women."

(See Palestine: The Women Weep (34th Annual 8th Day Good Friday Justice Walk) )

Israel's Ground Invasion of Gaza: Responses and Resources for Justice Advocates

The following information was provided today by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Peace Not Walls project. The members of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod Working Group on the Middle East (WGME) encourage everyone in our member congregations to consider the actions proposed, and to use the resources provided to learn more about the current developments in Israel/Palestine.

An Israeli rocket is fired into the Gaza Strip after Binyamin Netanyahu instructed
the military to begin a ground offensive. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

Israel began a ground invasion of Gaza yesterday. Taking the time to help keep your friends and family informed and ready to do advocacy is very critical at this time. Please share this with your friends and family.


Action steps

Stand with our companions and write and call your members of Congress today:

Call on Congress: Stop Gaza Assault


Share this ELCA statement with others in your congregation:


ELCA presiding bishop joins call for peace in the Holy Land



Additional resources / articles to share


July 17, 2014 - The Times of Israel: "Netanyahu finally speaks his mind" by David Horovitz

"At his Friday press conference, the prime minister ruled out full Palestinian sovereignty, derided the US approach to Israeli security, and set out his Middle East overview with unprecedented candor. His remarks were not widely reported; they should be."

July 16, 2014 - The New York Times: "The Toll in Gaza and Israel, Day by Day" by Karen Yourish and Josh Keller

Photos, maps, and data - day by day.

July 11, 2014 - Mondoweiss: "Palestinian rockets: The conversation no one is having" by Pam Bailey

"In the shorter term, the question of “who started it first” depends greatly on when you start the clock. Take any rocket attack from Gaza, and go back in time a few weeks or months. You’ll quickly find an Israeli act of aggression –raids, shootings or abductions. . . . "

July 17, 2014 - The New York Times op-ed: "How the West Chose War in Gaza -- Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West" by Nathan Thrall

“The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.”

July 18, 2014 - Haaretz: "Why the West Bank isn’t erupting against Israel" by Amira Hass

"The Palestinian public lost its faith in its leadership's schizophrenic discourse, which denounces the occupation on one hand, and abides by its dictates on the other."

July 18, 2014 - The Independent: "Israel-Gaza conflict: Medical charity official likens job to ‘patching up torture victims in an open-air prison’" by Robert Fisk

"Comments by senior Médecins Sans Frontières official expose ethical dilemma of humanitarian work in conflict zones."

July 17, 2014 - The Washington Post: "When Israel raised the heat on Gaza before, civilian casualties soared" by Ishaan Tharoor

"Israel's past offensives against [Hamas], which has ruled Gaza since 2007, have led to considerable loss of civilian life with few lasting strategic gains against Hamas, which while cornered, is deeply entrenched in Gaza, an impoverished territory of 1.7 million people crammed into a space just twice the size of Washington D.C."