Challenging Holy Land stereotypes
Munther Isaac recently published a book that confronts a longstanding problem in Christian attitudes toward the Holy Land—ignorance, indifference and even hostility to the Palestinian church. Isaac is an Oxford-educated, Palestinian Lutheran pastor who serves as academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College. “When it comes to western Christian attitudes towards Israel,” Munther writes in his…
Mennonites prod government on Palestinian concerns
Christian Palestinians have asked the global church to stand with them, and Mennonites in Canada have now asked their government to do the same. In September, Mennonite Church Canada’s Palestine-Israel Network (PIN) sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, the minister of foreign affairs, calling the government to consistency in its…
Palestinian advocacy persists amid pandemic, Middle Eastern turmoil
Like other educational institutions around the world, the West Bank’s Bethlehem Bible College has been broadsided by the COVID-19 pandemic. Campus lockdowns, infections among staff, a greater dependence on online instruction—all have been the new reality, in addition to the ongoing political uncertainties in the region. Amid the challenges, Mennonite Church Canada, through its International…
Palestinian and Israeli share dreams for peace
Sahar Vardi and Tarek Al-Zoughbi live less than 20 kilometres away from each other—Vardi in Jerusalem, and Al-Zoughbi in the West Bank city of Bethlehem to the south. A literal wall, checkpoints and cultures of mutual hatred separate the regions each call home. The two activists, who met only recently, are pushing toward new paths…
Winnipeggers take to the street in support of Nakba survivors
Around a hundred people gathered at a busy intersection in Winnipeg on May 15, 2018, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic. The Nakba refers to the dispossession of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands that followed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.…
MC Canada working groups call for sanctions against Israel
The following letter was drafted by representatives of the Mennonite Church Canada network of regional working groups on Palestine and Israel, and sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, on May 2, 2018. It is being published in Canadian Mennonite at the request of the working groups. In July…
‘We have to begin by crying out for justice’
“We have to begin by crying out for justice. You build peace on justice.” Naim Ateek uttered this plea on April 25 2018, before more than 150 people gathered at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg to hear him speak about his new book, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation: The Bible, Justice, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict.…
A-ha moments in the Holy Land
David Chow recalls sitting in Sunday school as a child and learning about what the nation of Israel meant for Christians in a traditional Christian Missionary Alliance congregation in Calgary, Alberta. Chow grew up believing that the current state of Israel is a continuation of the biblical people of Israel, and that building up the…
A peace that ignores Jesus’ atoning work
Some years ago, in the book The Body and the Blood, reporter Charles Sennott of the Boston Globe lamented the Middle East’s vanishing Christian population, many leaving because of the bitter conflicts there. They were needed, Sennott argued, because they represented a mediating force, even those not committed to pacifism. Naim Ateek, an Anglican…
‘Let no walls divide’
Right before winter reading break, 30 university students from across Canada gathered in Ottawa to learn about the current conflict in Palestine and Israel at a seminar hosted by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada Ottawa Office. From Feb. 15–17, students attending “Palestine and Israel: Let no walls divide” explored issues of advocacy, peace and…
