ANGLICANS have been called to pray during Advent that God will “soften the hearts of the oppressor”, in a pastoral letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Jerusalem which laments “a deliberate strategy of harassment and intimidation to force Palestinian families from the land”.
The letter was published on Thursday, after a five-day pilgrimage through Palestine and Israel which began three days after Archbishop Welby’s resignation. This included visits to Palestinian families battling to retain ownership of their land (News, 24 September), and to the family of Layan Nasir, a young Palestinian worshipper at St Peter’s Anglican Church, Birzeit, who has been detained since 4 April without legal proceedings (News, 1 May, 28 June).
“We thank all the families we met for their peaceful resistance and costly witness,” the letter says. “These are not isolated cases, but part of a deliberate strategy of harassment and intimidation to force Palestinian families from the land. Reducing Palestinians to a position of despondent surrender, where they must either live under the yoke of occupation or emigrate, is deeply wrong and unjust. It will bring neither peace nor security.”
The Archbishops write of being “profoundly shocked and shaken to hear from Palestinian Christians . . . about their daily struggles to survive the ongoing occupation . . .
“We heard repeatedly that many indigenous Christians of the Holy Land feel abandoned by the global Church’s response to the war and the challenges they face. This must change. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must be united in saying there can be no Gospel justification for denying people their God-given human dignity and the rights that flow from this. . . Please join together in prayer against these injustices, appealing both to God to intervene and enact justice, and to soften the hearts of the oppressor.”
The letter follows a series of increasingly strongly worded interventions by Archbishop Welby concerning the rights of Palestinians, condemning “systemic discrimination” and warning that the Israeli government is “not above the law and must stop acting otherwise” (News, 24 September).
On Tuesday, the Dean of St George’s College, Jerusalem, Canon Richard Sewell, said that this shift had been commented on during the Archbishop’s visit. “People said: ‘We have seen a change and we appreciate the turning around from some early comments which caused us . . . pain. . . Your humility in realising that and in changing to become an advocate for us and our suffering is greatly appreciated.’”
He had sensed “a shift of the centre point”, whereby the Archbishop, having tried to hold many factors in balance, had come to recognise the need to “listen first to the pain of the Christians of the Holy land and to allow that to drive everything else”.
He agreed that the visit had marked a “healing” of that relationship. “It was extraordinary that a Church in pain could receive an Archbishop in a time of difficulty for him and actually reach out to provide comfort and care for him. He was not looking for it or asking for it at all; he kept the focus relentlessly on them . . .
“Anyone who suggests he was running away . . . I would really contradict very, very strongly. What he did was to come to listen and care for them. What he found was they were caring for him.”
Christians in the region would take a strong interest in who succeeded the Archbishop, he said. “There are not very many international heads of Churches that have been speaking out strongly for us . . . For that to disappear would really leave us without an important voice of advocacy.”
On Monday, the UN deputy special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, Muhannad Hadi, told the Security Council: “As winter approaches, the horror in Gaza continues to grind on with no end in sight.” The UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, has described the scale of the conflict as unprecedented since the establishment of the State of Israel: “We have never had a conflict that has lasted for 14 months. We have never had any conflict of this intensity and with the losses and destruction we are seeing now.”
“People are not looking for the hope on the horizon, what they are looking for is what is going to sustain us through the suffering,” Canon Sewell said. “That is the grace of the presence of Christ with us in our suffering, this solidarity that comes from being together and caring for one other.”
He pointed to a statement issued by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem on Sunday, which encouraged their congregations to “fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ’s birth by giving public signs of Christian hope”. Their statement last year, which advised “foregoing any unnecessarily festive activities” (News, 1 December 2023), had been “misinterpreted” as a “cancellation of Christmas”, diminishing their witness, they wrote.
The new message spoke of the need to celebrate “in ways that are sensitive to the severe afflictions that millions in our region continue to endure”. On Saturday, Louise Wateridge, senior emergency co-ordinator for UNRWA, said that, in Gaza City, where 300,000 people remained, “as far as the eye can see, every building is damaged and destroyed.” So far this year, UN trucks have been looted 75 times, while looters have broken into UN facilities 34 times.
On Thursday of last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a former defence minister of Israel, Yoav Gallant. Judges said that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that they bore criminal responsibility for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”. A warrant was also issued for a Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes, although Israel has said that he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.
The ICC depends on its member states to implement its orders. Israel is not a member state, nor is the United States, where President Biden described the arrest warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant as “outrageous”. The Israeli Prime Minister has criticised “biased judges motivated by antisemitic sentiment against the Jewish state”.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister, when asked whether arrests would be made in the case of the individuals coming to Britain, said that the Government would not comment on “hypotheticals”, but said: “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law, and indeed international law.”