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Issues In Perspective - December 8 & 9
December 8 & 9
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Perspective One
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Title of Article Here
The current war on terrorism that the US is waging cannot be divorced from the larger Middle Eastern situation. Last weekend, 1-2 December, carnage from suicide bombings not seen in years occurred in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Dozens are dead, hundreds wounded and Palestinians are dancing in the streets in jubilation over the bombings. The terrorist group Hamas has claimed responsibility for the acts and has promised more! How should we think about this carnage?
First, the horror of what happened last weekend says volumes about Yasir Arafat. The point is very clear: Arafat is either involved with, counseling or tolerating these attacks. If he is not involved with, counseling or tolerating these attacks, then he is irrelevant to the problem. It means that Israel is negotiating with the wrong man and the wrong organization the PLO. If Arafat and his police force cannot provide the support for the peace process and cannot arrest and deal with the Hamas organization, then he is totally irrelevant to the Palestinian-Israeli challenge. He apparently has no authority or he is behind the terrorist strikes. This is the most fundamental question the world must now ask! Is Arafat relevant? Does he have the power needed to negotiate a real peace with Israel? The only way he can demonstrate his power and his authority is to shut down the terrorists in his territories. He must arrest, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of this terrorist horror.
Second, I believe that the Bush administration has made a big mistake. Recently, it embraced the concept of a Palestinian state, the first Republican administration to do so. Bush also sent General Anthony Zinni as a special envoy to the region to get the PLO- Israeli negotiations going again. General Zinni was booed and jeered by an angry Israeli crowd when he laid a wreath at the spot of the recent carnage. The Israelis are paying for these efforts with their teenage sons and daughters. Israel is currently responding to the bloodshed by hitting hard at Arafat and showing him and the world, he must either deal with terrorism among the Palestinians or he is totally irrelevant to the solution.
Third, I believe that the United States and the world must affirm the right of Israel to exist with secure borders and in peace. If this cannot be guaranteed, then Israel should not be expected to negotiate any further with the PLO. No nation on earth should be pressured to negotiate with groups bent on its destruction. There is no nation on earth that would do this, so why should we demand this of Israel? President Bush, the European Union and the United Nations must affirm Israel's right to exist and the right to secure and peaceful borders. To do otherwise is not just, fair or reasonable. Finally, I believe as Israel is now ready to accept a Palestinian state, the Palestinians must accept Israel's right to exist. The pressure throughout the Clinton administration was on Israel but now it must be on Arafat and the Palestinians. They must accept once and for all the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.
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Perspective Two
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WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE TALIBAN COLLAPSE?
Like so many people, I am amazed at how quickly the Taliban are collapsing throughout Afghanistan. What was presumably a tight grip on the country was not really that tight!
What can we learn from this?
First, the astonishing rescue of the international relief workers, including the two Americans, is a powerful lesson in God's sovereignty and His grace. Many thought they were dead already but the rescue of them by the Northern Alliance and the subsequent American helicopter rescue, shows God's providence and care. These volunteers with Shelter Now, a German-based relief agency, were arrested in August by the Taliban for "promoting Christianity" and were put on trial for violating Islamic law, which severely limited religious expression. Had the US Special Forces not intervened, they might have been executed! The organization Shelter Now announces its mission as "to provide humanitarian help to relieve miseries of refugees."
Active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly 20 years, the organization has played a critical role in international winter-relief programs. Up to 10,000 families a month get assistance (e.g., food, medical care and temporary housing) in these two countries. The reality is, however, the workers of Shelter Now are committed Christians. That was certainly true of the two Americans Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry. Such volunteers cannot compartmentalize their faith. They are in Afghanistan to help meet need and that need includes a spiritual need. That is why, for the Taliban, such people are enemies of the state.
Second, soon after its seized power, the Taliban established the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice. It enforced dress codes, strict speech, quizzed citizens about their knowledge of the Koran and handed out beatings to those not praying at the right time, etc. It banned TV, movies, music, video cassettes. When a group like Shelter Now is in the country, people will ask questions and Shelter Now will answer them, even if they are religious questions. As Joe Loconte argues, this highlights a deep contradiction in Islam. Muslim revolutionaries make secularization as an evil force, blaming it on the Jews, the US and the West. They demand that all faiths, including other versions of Islam, be suppressed or "privatized" to the point of invisibility. The Taliban thus used a coercive state to impose a religious ideology on its people.
Third, those in the West who hate such efforts use the Taliban as an example of what religion can do to a country. Recall the dire warnings leveled at President Bush's faith- based agenda church-based assistance dare not expose people in need to religion, it was argued. There have been countless legal attacks against the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army and the church. The lesson of the Taliban is therefore twofold: (1) They remind us that the separation of church and state is a wonderful safeguard for political and religious liberty. As Christians, there are two spheres of authority in our lives the church and the state and we owe allegiance to both. But each has a different stewardship responsibility before God. We cannot confuse them. But (2) the Taliban also demonstrate that when a state tries to rigidly with draconian measures enforce one faith, all suffer. We must learn the lessons of the Taliban even in America!
See the very helpful article by Joe Loconte, "What a Relief," Wall Street Journal (29 November 2001).
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