Love of God and Neighbour
It is a privilege to visit the Holy Land which is considered very special by Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. Given the number of adherents to these monotheistic religions throughout the world the Israeli government has an awesome responsibility when it comes to shrines and places of worship and the historical importance of these places also cannot be over estimated. The quid quo pro of course is that thousands of pilgrims flock there every year – except of course during this pandemic. Foreign currency brought by pilgrims is vitally important for Jews, Palestinians and indignant Christians as I discovered on my visit this year.
For an English citizen, checkpoints, having your coach boarded and checked out and armed security personel in the streets is unfamiliar. The wall which Pope Frances prayed at on 25th May 2014 during his visit is stark.
Christians read and pray the Jewish Scriptures contained in the Old Testament, the largest part of the Bible, everyday. The Judeo Christian legacy for Western morality and law is inescapable.
The ‘Great Commandment’ affirmed by Jesus in Mark 12. 28 – 31 and found in the Torah, (OT Deuteronomy 6.4 – 5 and Leviticus 19.18) is a central tenet of belief for Christians and Jews.
There is also the Golden Rule ‘Do to no one what you would not wish done to you,’ which is common to main world Faiths.
Edward Kessler, the Jewish founder director of the Woolf Institute and a leading thinker and writer on interfaith relations, says the following in an article published in the Tablet, (20th June)
“We are at a watershed moment in modern history of Israel. The proposal to annexe land in the West Bank would not only deepen division and threaten Israel’s security: it would undermine the moral basis upon which the state claims to sit.” Further he talks of this “trampling over the fundamental rights of Palestinians, with jaw dropping disdain for the values of equality, freedom and self-determination to which they (Netanyahu and Trump) give lip service.
So how does annexation of the West Bank square with loving your neighbour and treating others as you would like to be treated?
Boris Johnson should be congratulated for his stand on annexation. “I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead, if it does, the UK will not recognise any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.” Johnson says this and describes the plan which was to be discussed last Wednesday as illegal in the Israeli newspaper ‘Yedioth Ahronoth’
This was reported by the BBC on 1st July. The report also includes there are some 430,000 Jews living in more than 130 settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war and that these settlements are widely considered illegal under international law.