Christian Hate

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The case of the evangelists and the Brummie Muslim policeman is ancient history by now, but I’m impelled to reopen it having come across a deeply wrongheaded reaction to it from the Telegraph’s George Pitcher.

Before I lay into Mr Pitcher, though, let me accentuate the positive. Firstly, he is one of the few journos who appear to advantage in the photo adorning their by-line (most would be well advised to remain faceless, since they contrive to look almost as hideous as I do on my driving licence). A handsome dog indeed: I bet he gets ladies’ underclothing hurled at him all the way through the sermon. And since I’m sure he runs an inclusive church, it may not only be ladies’ underclothing.

Secondly, he is to be be congratulated for bagging the name “Faithbook” for his blog. Others in the same line of business must be kicking themselves. How much trendier can a vicar get? I only hope he won’t find himself charged with a hate crime against people with speech impediments.

I digress. What’s so awful about his post? Mr Pitcher’s “scoop” is to have identified the church to which the two evangelists belong and to reproduce an excerpt from its credo. And it is, indeed, the kind of church which I would only visit whilst under heavy sedation.

But what, exactly, is Mr Pitcher’s point? “Not much evidence of tolerance there”, he comments. Well, sorry, Mr P, but I don’t see any particular evidence either of tolerance or its opposite. These folk think everyone except themselves has got it wrong and and will burn everlastingly in consequence. But there’s no sign of a desire to speed unbelievers on their way to the bonfire. I see no evidence at all that they favour the execution of apostates, something which could be a very real concern for any converts they succeeded in making in the Alum Rock Road area.

Mr P expands his point thus:-

‘Now, for those who suggest that religious trouble arises in Britain from the threat of Islam, try this test: In the Birmingham church’s web-page above, try replacing the words “Bible” with “Koran” and “God” with “Allah”.

‘Of course it doesn’t work in some of the specifically Christian passages, but I respectfully suggest that in most of it you end up with precisely the sort of statements for which we accuse Muslims of being so intractable and fundamentalist.’

I might start by pointing out that the change from “God” to “Allah” fazes me not at all, since “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for “God”, as used by millions who read their Bible in Arabic. As for changing “Bible” to “Koran”, one answer would be that you end up with something as different from the original as - well, as the Koran is from the Bible. Possibly Mr P feels that that is not a very big difference.

I take Mr P’s basic point that the theology is unappealingly crude and narrow either way. But what follows from that? That Muslims with similarly deplorable beliefs are not, or should not be, entitled to propagate them by handing out leaflets in places where Christians live? Stuff and nonsense, Mr P! Or, conversely, that the Grace Bible Fellowship Church would like to blow me to Kingdom Come next time I travel on the Tube? Stuff and nonsense again.

How many times must the point be made: fundamentalists can be accommodated in a pluralist society, just as long as they aren’t violently intolerant fundamentalists. And, however much Mr P may wish to erect neat moral/theological symmetries, and however much he may need a stick to bash the Bible-bashers with, the threat of violently intolerant fundamentalism with which our society is faced still does not come from conservative evangelicals.

And if the GBFC’s pitch is not to Mr Pitcher’s taste, can we expect to see him out and about in Alum Rock Road or Whitechapel, distributing literature that expounds the true Gospel? It seems not. In a subsequent post we read:-

‘Readers of this blog will know that I have little sympathy with aggressive or coercive campaigns to convert non-Christians.’

Well, yes, he’s certainly made it clear how little sympathy he has with the aggressive and coercive handing out of leaflets by Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65 (my goodness, don’t they look scary). Has it ever occurred to Mr P that if St Paul had taken the same attitude, and taken care to avoid offence to worshippers of perfectly adequate deities like Apollo and Pallas Athene, it is most unlikely that he (Mr P) would ever have heard of Jesus of Nazareth?

A cynic might suggest that a man who sees the holding of a decided opinion as in itself conclusive evidence of dangerous intolerance is so perfectly fitted for the liberal Anglican priesthood that he ought to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. I try very hard not to be a cynic and I wouldn’t want to be in a church without liberals, but please, Lord, let at least some of them be muscular liberals!

Last night, while walking home from the local Co-op, I got chatted up by an attractive and charming young lady. Now don’t run away with the idea that I’m telling you this because it’s a rare occurrence. Far from it. Honestly, it wears you down after a while, having to fend them off. You might think the wedding ring would provide a little protection, but no, they are utterly without shame.

What made this occasion different was partly the lady’s somewhat unorthodox technique. She wanted to draw my attention to a small beetle she had captured in a jar. Well, it beats “come up and see my etchings”, and given that Frau Grumpy is the Bumble Bee’s Friend I am certainly susceptible to such approaches. After I had admired the insect she continued in rather more conventional vein, asking where I lived and pointing out her home.

The other thing was that she was rather younger than I’m used to in these circumstances. Five at most, I’d say, probably four.

And this is where it gets dreadfully serious. Did I enjoy this brief encounter? I did not. Reason: I was torn between wanting to reciprocate her friendliness and trying to get rid of her. What if her parents appeared and accused me of having nefarious designs on her? And even if that didn’t happen, should I be encouraging her to talk to strange men? All this despite the fact that it was broad daylight and the patch of grass where she was playing was overlooked by several houses and flats - unpromising for any but the most reckless of predatory paedophiles.

This is a sick, perverted reaction to childish innocence, is it not? In, for instance, Germany it would be perceived as such. But not here in Blighty. Here it’s normal. And it leaves me feeling there is a dark stain on my soul. How did we get this way?

I’ve just seen a poster advertising the Socialist Workers Party’s annual jamboree. Guess who one of the star turns is. Yes, him again, the German neo-Nazis’ blue-eyed boy. It’s trite but so true: if you travel far enough towards one political extreme you’ll eventually meet up with the opposite one. And it underscores my point about the strange company some people keep in the name of Christianity.

The fun starts tomorrow, if you’re interested. If you’re very lucky you’ll find that, as in past years, musical relief from the heavy theoretical stuff is being provided by the SWP’s pet Holocaust denier.

Earlier today I was looking into the possibility of making a forthcoming journey by sleeper train rather than by plane. It would, after all, be good for one’s carbon footprint. I quickly abandoned the idea, however - partly because the cost was prohibitive, but also because I didn’t fancy the prospect of Frau Grumpy and self having to occupy separate ’single-gender’ compartments, the only kind on offer.

So, is this a tour of the Middle East and Central Asia we’re planning? Nothing so adventurous, actually. The train in question is the sleeper from Brussels to Berlin.

This is a classic. Communities Secretary (that’s a good joke already) Larch Blearyeyes responds to the complaint of the Church of England that the Government doesn’t take any notice of it: ‘Nonsense, we’re talking to you all the time. Though, now you come to mention it, we’d have more time for you if some of your lot were blowing up Tube trains.’

It couldn’t be made much clearer, could it? So step forward, please, volunteers for Bombers For Jesus, and we’ll get those ministers engaging with us yet! That was also a joke, by the way. But I’d find the remarks of the Rt. Hon. spokesperson more uproarious still if I were in Hizb ut Tahrir.

PS The Beeb’s obligingly toned down its quote from Ms Blearyeyes, but fortunately the money quote from the original version is enshrined here.

PPS Work is the curse of the blogging classes… Having lately re-entered the ranks of the proletariat, I’m afraid my posting time is drastically reduced. I’ll do what I can.

Anglican politics being what it is, it is probably not every day you can hear the views of a high-profile Evangelical bishop cited with approval by an Anglo-Catholic monk. So if Michael Nazir-Ali is getting this kind of accolade, as he did in the sermon I heard at High Mass this morning, it mght suggest that he’s on to something.

As also might today’s news. Two reasons for British Muslims to view their fellow-countrypeople with contempt, one of them (at least) also a reason why normal people are voting BNP. Or, is this why we believe in ourselves so little that we allow this to happen?

The Bish may not have all the answers, but at least he’s going around with his eyes open. The full article is here.

(after putting the previous post in the can)

1. Looking at the ’sending organizations’ page of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel site, I see that Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany are all well represented, but a small country in the middle has gone missing.

No great surprise there. This is from one of my posts last year:-

‘We heard about racist Jews in Israel, but not that Hamas is an organization with an overtly anti-Semitic ideology.

‘It’s not as if EAPPI haven’t had direct experience of the bigotry of some Palestinians. Last year, when the ‘Mohammed cartoons’ affair blew up, their Danish volunteers had to be sent home for their own safety, and even now, although there are several Norwegian and Swedish accompaniers, there are no Danes. But the only bigotry we heard about in church was Jewish bigotry.’

2. The Toronto Conference of the United Churches of Canada offers a page of ‘Holy Land Information’. Prospective visitors are warned against using Israeli guides:-

‘From our experience, the Israeli guides’ versions of history — ancient as well as current — support the current Israeli political agenda and should not be accepted uncritically. Expect to hear about Palestinian “terrorists”.’

Dear me, how tedious. Don’t worry, though, there is a much more appealing alternative:-

‘Witnessing Israel/Palestine with Palestinian guides will present a perspective that may be new to visitors. Palestinians will be seen as generous, kind, and courageous human beings (as opposed to abstractions).’

Unlike some other people we could name. And just to be on the safe side you can also innoculate yourself in advance against that dreadful Israeli pseudo-history. An impartial reading list is provided: it doesn’t include Benny Morris but does include Ilan Pappé, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. Yes, him.

Don’t these people love Jews?

3. While exploring the National-Zeitung, the German neo-Nazi paper to which Ilan Pappé unwittingly gave an interview, I found an article headed ‘Is Islam Germany’s enemy?’. It’s a piece where some reading between the lines is needed, remembering that Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. History shows that Germany and the Muslim world are natural allies, the article argues. It cites the fact that Germany and the Ottoman Empire fought on the same side in the First World War, and then there’s this photo caption:-

‘Tens of thousands of Muslims fought on the German side in the Second World War and millions of Muslims hoped for a German victory, as many of their leading politicians made clear even after the Second World War. Our picture shows Muslim soldiers of the Waffen-SS Division “Handschar” praying in the direction of Mecca.’

Unfortunately, though, German-Muslim relations have been poisoned by Germany’s post-war alliance with Israel. Chancellor Angela Merkel is pilloried for upholding the alliance as the fulfilment of a moral obligation. On the other hand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that Holocaust ‘researchers’ are being persecuted is quoted with approval. Here we must supply the connection that dare not speak its name: if ‘research’ should prove that the Holocaust is a myth, Germany’s moral debt to the Jewish people would of course be null and void.

There’s another reading list at the end of the article. The titles tell their own story: ‘Who is Merkel really working for?’, ‘The Network: Israel’s lobby in Germany’ and ‘Blackmail’. The Holocaust denier Gerard Menuhin makes an appearance. Oh, look, there’s our friend Norman Finkelstein again, too - entirely against his will, I’m sure, just like Pappé.

The Muslim Waffen-SS division was recruited mainly from Bosnians, but a prime mover in its formation was Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. This Palestinian nationalist leader, who spent the years 1941-5 in Berlin, has now been made the subject of a biography - in German, but hopefully it will be translated.

According to a review I’ve seen, what the book makes particularly clear is that al-Husseini’s alliance with the Nazis was no mere tactical marriage of convenience. He was a fanatical anti-Semite, well-informed about the Nazis’ plans for the extermination of the Jews and an unreserved supporter of them. Indeed he played his own part in them, as when he ensured the failure of a Red Cross initiative to exchange 5,000 Jewish children for 20,000 German prisoners of war.

It’s a standard pro-Palestinian propaganda trope to say that the Palestinians have become innocent indirect victims of the Holocaust. As ever, the truth behind the slogans is far more complex. I can’t tell you whether the biography addresses the question of how far al-Husseini’s attitudes were shared by his fellow Palestinians. Certainly he had opponents; equally certainly he was not alone. The perception of him as a hero of the anti-British and anti-Zionist resistance is doubtless what led Bishop Riah of Jerusalem to respond to a question about his Nazi connections with point-blank denial.

The posting’s been distinctly sparse and rather unfocussed of late, but here at last is a real back-to-basics piece.

It begins with an anniversary: Pentecost is not far behind us, and it called to mind my experience at Pentecost last year at the church I then belonged to. How, after the celebration of one of the Church’s great feasts, recalling the gift of the Holy Spirit, the sacred space was given over to a presentation of Israel-demonizing propaganda given by two volunteers from the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

I never did get round to finishing my write-up of this. But I did write this on the reactivation of the ancient anti-Semitic slander of well-poisoning. Also this and this.

Unfair and unbalanced criticism of Israel is a way of defaming the Jewish people. It is the way of defaming the Jewish people that is practised by many and accepted by more in the West today. It is a point of contact between anti-Semites and those who would indignantly deny anti-Semitism. And it nudges the door open for other, more ‘classical’, more blatant anti-Semitic themes. The poisoning of the wells is one example. More broadly, there is the sense that there must be some kind of conspiracy allowing Israel to ‘get away with it’; worse still, the perception of Jews as so depraved that they could quite feasibly have invented the Holocaust. That is not, of course, a respectable point of view, but the boundaries are getting blurred in a way which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. A Holocaust-denying musicians gets regular gigs courtesy of the Socialist Workers Party, whilst Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has plenty of apologists on the left despite his hosting of a Holocaust deniers’ conference.

It would be unfair to dwell on the fact that the presentation took place in the city from which the extermination of the Jews was planned and directed, but it certainly intensified my sense of a desecration taking place, and it is legitimate to mention it as being symptomatic of the lack of reflectiveness over this issue in the Church. It’s as if we’ve ticked the ‘amends for the Holocaust’ box, we can keep things ticking over by inviting a rabbi to church every so often, and can move on to fresher items on the agenda - items taken over directly from the secular left-liberal political agenda.

Others in the congregation agreed with me, but I can’t pretend that they are in the majority. My latest visit to that church happened to coincide with the Sunday on which, at the end of the service, a ‘commissioning’ prayer was said for one of the two volunteers before his departure on another ‘tour of duty’ on the the West Bank. Well, I’m happy to be asked to pray for my brother in Christ - I do, though not, I fear, in the way he would want. I’m not at all happy to be told that he has a calling from God to do what he’s doing. Sorry, but no ‘Amen’ to that from me. May it prove so - buit it will not if it results in a repeat of that Pentecost propaganda-fest. Not everyone who says ‘peace, peace’ is actually serving the cause of peace.

Soon after his presentation last year, I had a discussion/argument with Volunteer C in which he urged me to inform myself by reading the Israeli ‘New Historian’ Ilan Pappé. I had read enough about Pappé to be sceptical of this advice, and my scepticism was not diminished when I discovered that Volunteer C, though well briefed on Israeli atrocities, had never heard of the 1941 Baghdad pogrom, and when he registered surprise at my suggestion that the number of Jews displaced from Arab countries after 1947 was comparable with the number of Palestinians who lost their homes in the ‘Nakba’. It didn’t sound to me as if reading Pappé promoted a balanced view of the conflict.

Volunteer C’s companion contributed to an article for EAPPI’s magazine (PDF) listing ‘40 Ways to End the Occupation’. Item 9 is:-

‘Ask your library to order books that show the Palestinian side of the conflict, i.e., Ilan Pappe Ethnic Cleansing’

- as opposed to books attempting to give a balanced analysis of the complexities of the conflict. Spread the word, folks!

If you do, be prepared to find yourself in some very strange company. As it happens, Pappé was in Germany recently. One of the interviews he gave duly appeared… in a notorious neo-Nazi rag.
As David Hirsh of Engage observes, it’s one more in a long line of ‘whoops’ moments. I note in a comment on this that the one that sticks in my memory is when A N Wilson used his Evening Standard column (in 2002 or thereabouts) to plug an Israel-demonizing book by an American neo-Nazi. Wilson didn’t realize. Pappé didn’t realize. For both, that’s all there is to be said.

It does seem extraordinary that Pappé gave a substantial interview without inquiring which paper was going to publish it. If he did ask, you might think that the name ‘National-Zeitung’ ought to have set alarm bells ringing. A historian with German Jewish parents (they ‘emigrated from Berlin to Palestine during the National Socialist period’ says the potted biography accompanying the interview, as if they’d just fancied a change of scene) might be expected to know that in Germany the word ‘national’ carries some very heavy historical baggage. No mainstream paper would dream of including it in its name.

For Pappé’s interviewer, he was not the first left-wing ’scalp’. He’s also interviewed Luisa Morgantini, an Italian Communist and Vice-President of the European Parliament (German source). She told him that ‘Israel practises apartheid’. I don’t know what her excuse was for giving an interview to a neo-Nazi.

Well, OK, Pappé made a mistake. It happens. It doesn’t make him a Nazi. But is that really all that needs to be said before we draw a line under this unfortunate incident? Pappé fans like Volunteer C would do well to ponder the question posed by one of the commenters at Harry’s Place:-

‘“I would like to stress that my ideology and moral stance are in total contradiction to what this newspaper represent”

- I wonder why National Zeitung had the opposite opinion?’

And, believe me, the paper’s all over him. Here’s its introduction to the interview:-

‘On 14 May 1948 in the then British Mandate territory of Palestine the “Jewish National Council” unilaterally declared independence in defiance of international law. Simultaneously the expulsion of large parts of the indigenous Arab majority population was started. The same fate also befell the German minority, which had already between 1939 and 1948 been systematically and forcibly resettled in Australia by the British Mandate administration. The events of 1948, which have been comprehensively described for the first time by the Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappé, spelt the end of the era of a liberal Islam and are at the root of the still continuing Middle East conflict. In conversation with Erhard Düvel of the National-Zeitung the author expressed the view that 14 May 1948 is no cause for celebration for the international community.’

So when Pappé receives this e-mail from German journalist Gudrun Eussner (again from this article, in German but the e-mails are in English), you might think it was a challenge which he ought to take seriously:-

‘Whatever you tell now about this unauthorized interview, you don´t adress the fact, that your ideas are so much in harmony with the nazis, that they are welcomed to be published by their media. Professor, you are nazi-compatible, they do love Jews like you. Be proud of it!
‘Gudrun Eussner’

Pappé’s reply?

‘As this my last word to you, i suggest you read your own email, you make a very good Nazi yourself. In fact this is the tragedy of Zionism that it turned people like you to be nazi-compatible. thank god there are other humanist Jews in the world. Otherwise it would have been a terrible Nazi success if we were left only with people like you’

Nyaah, nyaah, nya-nyaah, nyaah, Nazi yourself! Where on earth do you start with an argument like that? Eussner questions how Pappé comes to get himself published in a Nazi newspaper and by that very act shows herself to be the Nazi.

Let us turn to something a little more adult. Courtesy of another Harry’s Place commenter, here are links to a review of Pappé’s History of Modern Palestine by fellow Israeli historian Benny Morris:-

http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/04-03-22benny-morris-The%20New%20Republic-1.pdf
http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/04-03-22benny-morris-The%20New%20Republic-2.pdf
http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/04-03-22benny-morris-The%20New%20Republic-3.pdf

Morris convicts Pappé of a string of factual errors, but sees something more than sloppiness at work. Here’s his ‘money quote’ from the book:-

‘my [pro-Palestinian] bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the ‘truth’ when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and presumptuous. This book is written by one who admits compassion for the colonized not the colonizer; who sympathizes with the occupied not the occupiers; and sides with the workers not the bosses. He feels for women in distress, and has little admiration for men in command…. Mine is a subjective approach….’

Now I’m not equipped to give any kind of definitive evaluation as to whether Benny Morris is a better historian than Ilan Pappé. But I can at least say that, by his own account, he is at least trying to do the job of a historian, which is to find out as nearly as possible ‘what happened back then’. And that he is really trying to do this is confirmed by the fact that, though he is a committed Zionist, he does not shy away from uncomfortable truths in the history of Zionism. That is to say, he can tolerate moral ambiguity. Doesn’t necessarily mean he likes it, but he can handle it (does this review read like an account of a right-wing Zionist whitewash?). Whereas Pappé gives the decided impression that he cannot, and his appeal is to others who cannot. And I suspect that his rejection of ‘objective’ history results less from the belief that it is impossible than from the fear that its findings will prove irreducibly morally ambiguous. Better therefore to turn history into a narrative that unambiguously serves the cause of those who are (somehow!) unambiguously the Good Guys.

It’s certainly what an awful lot of people want to hear. In March Pappé’s book occupied third place on the non-fiction best-seller list in Germany (source: Gudrun Eusslen, citing the publisher’s website). For Johann Hari of the Independent - backed up by a raft of readers’ letters this week - Pappé is the infallible, unassailable authority on the 1948 war - Morris, Schmorris! So when Hari comes under fire it can only mean that he is the victim of a vast, malign conspiracy to cover up the truth about Israel - putting him in the company not only of Pappé but also of Norman Finkelstein. Thank God, once again, for the sanity of fellow Indie writer Howard Jacobson.

People like Pappé and his disciples (at least the ones who aren’t neo-Nazis) can do great good or great harm. It all depends on whether the cause they embrace is as good as they have decided it is. The problem tends to be that they see their embracing of it as in itself the guarantee that it is good, and that makes reappraisals difficult.

And the interview in the National-Zeitung shows how self-defeating the Pappé approach to history is. He has shaped his historical narrative to serve an ideological cause, but, lo and behold, it turns out that it can serve more causes than one - including one he considers ‘in total contradiction’ to his own. For, after all, the Deutsche Volksunion is not fussy about historical truth either, nor is it fussy about what kind of ‘useful idiots’ it presses into service. Even a Jew - no, especially a Jew - will do nicely.

In trying to make history Palestinian-friendly, Pappé has made it Nazi-friendly. In trying to suppress moral ambiguity he has created it.

Conversely, the most reliable way for him to ensure that he doesn’t get any more unwanted overtures from this quarter would be to start writing Benny Morris-style history, narrating human affairs as the tangled, messy, warts-and-all business that experience tells us they are. And, trusting that, in the long run, truth will serve the good better than falsehood, to follow John Donne’s injunction to ‘doubt wisely’.

Back to Volunteer C, for whom my hope is also that he may learn to ‘doubt wisely’. He gave me an expensively-produced brochure published by the German branch of EAPPI (equivalent material in English can be inspected here). I could write a very long critique of the bias and distortions in the text - not least the Pappé-esque account of the 1948 war - but perhaps it’s the pictures which carry the strongest message. Palestinians appear as civilians trying to go about their peaceful business in nightmarish conditions. Israel is represented exclusively by images of violence and oppression: coils of barbed wire, a watchtower on the separation barrier, gun-toting soldiers, settler children throwing stones. Nothing to hint that Palestinians can ever be the authors of violence or Israeli Jews its innocent victims. The technique is familiar: see what I wrote here about an issue of Christian Aid News.

It does with pictures what Ilan Pappé openly admits that he is trying to do with history. If it had been produced by the Deutsche Volksunion, publishers of the ‘National-Zeitung’, how different would it look?

Here is a list of the Accompaniment Programme’s ’sending organizations’. What these bodies are doing is investing substantial sums of money into the propagation of the Ilan Pappé narrative of Palestinian victimhood and Israeli wickedness. This is not a peripheral spin-off from a worthy peacemaking enterprise; it is central to the whole operation: ‘you must commit to doing extensive advocacy on return to your home country’, prospective volunteers are advised, and anyone whose advocacy might be ‘off-message’ is unlikely to welcomed as a volunteer.

So, to round it off, a simple question to Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Christian Aid, CAFOD, Pax Christi Germany, the United Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church (USA) and all the rest: if this is a project of Christian mission, how come it is so hard to distinguish from the project of the Deutsche Volksunion?

That’s all for today, but I am working on a couple of more substantial pieces.