This blog post responds to John Kampen’s article An Earnest Effort Falls Short from Anabaptist Witness 11.2. The author also has a piece in the same issue detailing his own perspective on the 2017 resolution discussed by Kampen. Note that Kampen comments on this response below.
I want to respond to key matters John Kampen addresses in a recent article in Anabaptist Witness about the 2017 Mennonite Church USA Israel/Palestine resolution: first which Jewish partners were engaged and how in the writing the 2017 Israel/Palestine resolution and second his claim that the resolution seeks balance but results in a “false equivalence.”
Jewish Partners in the Writing Process
I am puzzled by John’s claim that Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was “the only Jewish voice consulted” in the process of writing the resolution. There were many conversations with diverse Jewish partners. John himself facilitated an extended meeting and email exchange between the writing team and the Director of Interfaith Engagement at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Written records document that at least six substantive thematic edits were made to the resolution as a result of this exchange.
John finds fault that writers of a Mennonite Church USA resolution would find greater affinity with a group like JVP than the ADL. While listening carefully to voices from groups like the ADL, there are good reasons Mennonites consulted closely with rabbis and leaders from JVP and were more likely to trust their guidance and counsel in drafting the 2017 resolution.
Mennonites are a minority voice within the broader Christian church, long committed to the separation of church and state and with a deep commitment to justice and peacemaking. Likewise, Jewish Voice for Peace rejects the coupling of Jewish faith with state power, and thus rejects a nationalist version of Zionism. JVP has a strong and courageous commitment to justice seeking and peacemaking even as it is a minority voice and maligned by establishment American Jewish organizations.
The Anti-Defamation League, on the other hand, has for years been an ardent defender of the use of state violence. Its efforts to redefine anti-semitism to include criticism of Israel have only intensified since the 2017 resolution. The ADL CEO has placed opposition to Israel on a par with white supremacy as a source of antisemitism and the organization has led campaigns and surveillance against Israel critics. This year the ADL is on track to spend $1.6 million on pro-Israel lobbying. In a stunning rebuke, Wikipedia editors have recently declared that the ADL is unreliable on Israel-Palestine and is an unreliable source on antisemitism.
For John Kampen, it seems that a measure of the success of the MC USA resolution was whether mainstream establishment groups like the ADL responded favorably to the statement. Groups like JVP are dismissed as not “representative” of the Jewish community. The situation, though, would appear to be far more fluid than what John might acknowledge. It should be noted that JVP is one of the fastest growing Jewish organizations in the US. Further, currently one-third of American Jews believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and there is an increasing generational divide in the American Jewish community. It is promising that Mennonite organizers and leaders are building strong and abiding personal and professional relationships with a new generation of Jewish leaders committed to social justice.
The Charge of “False Equivalence”
While writing about the 2017 resolution, John speaks of attempted “balance,” “even-handedness” or “false equivalence” half a dozen times. John suggests that this is the organizing principle of the resolution.
Never did the writers see “balance” as the goal of the resolution. This was not how we talked or wrote about the resolution. And it was not how we approached the drafting of the resolution. After significant conversation and reflection, we felt that it was important to address both anti-semitism and the injustices of occupation. But this was not to try to achieve some kind of balance.
There was no effort to compare or weigh the traumas and injustices experienced by either Jews or Palestinians. That would have been a false equivalence. (John wants to suggest this was the goal by using the image of a “scale”). Instead the resolution laid out ways in which the suffering of Jewish people and Palestinians are intertwined.
The structure of the two parts of the resolution is in fact parallel, but this was not in an effort to somehow be balanced. The resolution confessed and lamented the way we as Mennonites, Christians and US Americans have been involved in the suffering of both peoples. And it laid out next steps in addressing those wrongs—not equal or somehow artificially balanced next steps, but substantive, concrete, achievable actions in both arenas.
The writers were encouraged by both Jewish and Palestinian interlocutors to stop making Palestinians pay for the history of European Christian antisemitism. We were encouraged, rather, to confront the ongoing legacy of antisemitism even as we address our complicity in the oppression of Palestinians.
While John says he is opposed to “false equivalence,” this is a strawman. What he is actually opposed to is addressing both Jewish and Palestinian suffering. During the writing process, John argued that it was wrong to address issues of Palestinian suffering without first spending much more time understanding the Jewish experience. The work on antisemitism and the relationship with the Jewish community had to happen before the work related to Palestinian suffering could commence. John repeats this argument in his Anabaptist Witness essay: “considerably more effort should have been expended to understand the history and significance of Israel throughout Jewish history and contemporary Jewish life before attempting to create a resolution on the matter for the church as a whole” (emphasis added).
When, one might ask, will the matter of antisemitism have been adequately addressed? How long, one might ask, must Palestinians wait for us to do that work? Is 57 years of occupation long enough? How many dead children in Gaza is enough? John charges false equivalence, but in fact he is setting up roadblocks to addressing Palestinian suffering in substantive, timely and consequential ways.
The Impact of the Resolution
Finally, John seems conflicted about the impact of the resolution. He repeatedly speaks of the failures of the resolution, but then in his closing paragraph says the resolution “made a significant positive contribution” with regard to Jewish-Mennonite relations.
In the arena of seeking right relationship with Jewish communities, the 2017 resolution, in fact, precipitated the first academic historical conference in the US on Mennonites and the Holocaust, which contributed to a host of further interest, research and writing; it contributed to a Jewish-Mennonite conference on reading scripture after the Holocaust; it facilitated development of an extensive bibliography on Jewish-Mennonite relations, led to the establishment of the Mennonite-Jewish Relations working group, which is still active today; and affirmed and encouraged deep relationship and collaboration between Mennonite and Jews committed to peace with justice. Not just a piece of paper, not some shallow and disingenuous exercise in superficial balance, the 2017 resolution made multiple significant positive contributions that a new generation of scholars, organizers and leaders will hopefully continue to build on.
Comments on this Blog entry
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
I thought that André’s and my articles gave readers two good perspectives on the resolution that could inform subsequent discussion and work on this important topic. André’s response suggests that I was not clear on some points so I will attempt to clarify.
I was somewhat confused by the discussion of the ADL in Andre’s response since I never mentioned the organization in the article. So the suggestion that I want Mennonite statements to align with that of the ADL has no foundation. As André states I did bring the Director of Interfaith Engagement for ADL into conversation with the writing team but that was because he has an entire career of substantive interfaith engagement that is much more extensive than the limited number of years he was employed by ADL. I proposed him as a conversation partner because of his broad interfaith experience and not merely as a representative of ADL positions. Nor was that the nature of his contributions in discussions with the writing team. As chair of the international Jewish committee for interfaith relations he had the ability to represent and speak for a wide diversity of Jewish perspectives. He offered to bring a wider perspective of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish voices into a conversation with the writing team and selected participants. That offer was rejected. I proposed a workshop on this question for the convention of 2015 and offered to sponsor other Jewish perspectives for the convention of 2017. These offers were not accepted. My point is to emphasize the lack of willingness of MC USA at a variety of levels to engage a wider representation of Jewish voices in the development of and conversations about Israel-Palestine. Most significant was the fact that only JVP speakers and representatives of Palestinian viewpoints were engaged in the informational and educational efforts associated with the resolution throughout the denomination.
I find André’s argument that JVP’s place in the Jewish world as equivalent to the Mennonite world within Christendom is strange, since the Jewish world itself is a distinct minority when compared with both the Christian and the Muslim worlds. The reluctance to develop a deep understanding of the challenges facing the welfare and survival of this minority group, the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, seems strange. He denigrates mainstream Jewish organizations as “establishment groups” failing to recognize that MC USA is an “establishment group” for Mennonites. I assume that the best among Mennonites would want to develop a deep understanding of other minority groups and their organizations with whom they share some aspects of a similar experience and engage in efforts to support their well-being.
In his response André misunderstands my argument about false equivalence. He agrees that the problem of antisemitism is different from the issue of establishing a peaceful coexistence in Israel/Palestine so that all people can thrive. The failure of Mennonites and other Christian denominations on the progressive side of the political spectrum to understand the place of Israel and Zionism in Jewish life, thought, and belief, and to appreciate its significance in post-Holocaust Jewish history is a major obstacle to supporting efforts that might lead to peace and security for all in the region. In Israel/Palestine we have two bodies disenfranchised on the world stage fighting over a small piece of land, necessary for the survival of each. I never said, as suggested by André, that we had to come to terms with our antisemitism before we could speak to the issues of the Palestinians. My intent rather is to indicate that in a statement on Israel/Palestine we should understand both Israel and Palestine. Many Jewish leaders have major concerns with the Mennonite position because Mennonites feel free to make statements on Israel/Palestine without developing an understanding of Israel. Our statements talk about antisemitism, a different issue. The false equivalence is to propose that addressing antisemitism alleviates Mennonites of the responsibility to develop an understanding of both Israel and Palestine before making statements related to the welfare of peoples in the region.
There is also the suggestion that “John seems to be conflicted about the impact of the resolution.” I am not conflicted. I rejoice in the good things that have come about since the resolution and because of the resolution. But they are very limited. And they do not address the major issue which lies behind the formation of the resolution, the Mennonite position on Israel/Palestine. On that issue the Mennonite church and associated agencies such as MCC continue on the path developed prior to the resolution and supported by it. The one-sided approach to the question continues, uninformed by a more comprehensive understanding that leaves us at odds with the larger portion of the Jewish world.