Black theology, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It contextualizes Christianity
in an attempt to help those of African descent overcome oppression. It
especially focuses on the injustices committed against African Americans
and black South Africans during American segregation and apartheid, respectively.
Black theology seeks to liberate non-white people from multiple
forms of political, social, economic, and religious subjugation and
views Christian theology
as a theology of liberation: "a rational study of the being of God in
the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed
community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the
Gospel, which is Jesus Christ", writes James H. Cone, one of the original advocates of the perspective. Black theology mixes Christianity with questions of civil rights, particularly raised by the Black Power movement, Black supremacy, and the Black Consciousness Movement.
History
Modern
American origins of contemporary black theology can be traced to July
31, 1966, when an ad hoc group of 51 concerned clergy, calling
themselves the National Committee of Negro Churchmen, bought a full page
ad in The New York Times to publish their "Black Power Statement", which proposed a more aggressive approach to combating racism using the Bible for inspiration.
Black theology arose as an affirmation of black Christians in response
to critiques from a range of sources, including black Muslims, that
claimed Christianity was a "white man's religion", white Christians that
saw black churches as inferior, black Marxists that saw religion as an
unscientific tool of the oppressor, and black power advocates who saw
being Christian as incompatible with being black.
In American history, ideas of race and slavery were supported by many Christians from particular readings of the Bible. The Southern Baptist Convention supported slavery and slaveholders; it was not until June 20, 1995, that the formal Declaration of Repentance was adopted.
This non-binding resolution declared that racism, in all its forms, is
deplorable" and "lamented on a national scale and is also repudiated in
history as an act of evil from which a continued bitter harvest
unfortunately is reaped." The convention offered an apology for
"condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our
lifetime" and repentance for "racism of which many have been guilty,
whether consciously or unconsciously.
These historic events are used to associate Christianity with racism
but the Bible stresses that race is irrelevant: "There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
Cone relates that, once upon a time it was acceptable to lynch a black
man by hanging him from the tree; but today's economics destroy him by
crowding many into a ghetto and letting filth and despair put the final
touch on a coveted death.
Black theology deals primarily with the African-American
community to make Christianity real for black people. It explains
Christianity as a matter of liberation here and now, rather than in an
afterlife. The goal of black theology is not for special treatment.
Instead, "All Black theologians are asking for is for freedom and
justice. No more, and no less. In asking for this, the black
theologians, turn to scripture as the sanction for their demand. The
Psalmist writes for instance, "If God is going to see righteousness
established in the land, he himself must be particularly active as "the
helper of the fatherless" (Psalm 10:14) to "deliver the needy when he
crieth; and the poor that hath no helper" (Psalm 72:12).
Black theology would eventually develop outside of the United
States to the United Kingdom and parts of Africa, especially addressing
apartheid in South Africa.
United States
James H. Cone first addressed this theology after Malcolm X's proclamation against Christianity being taught as "a white man's religion" in the 1950s. According to black religion expert Jonathan L. Walton:
James Cone believed that the New Testament revealed Jesus
as one who identified with those suffering under oppression, the
socially marginalized and the cultural outcasts. And since the socially
constructed categories of race in America (i.e., whiteness and
blackness) had come to culturally signify dominance (whiteness) and
oppression (blackness), from a theological perspective, Cone argued that
Jesus reveals himself as black in order to disrupt and dismantle white
oppression.
Black theology contends that dominant cultures have corrupted
Christianity, and the result is a mainstream faith-based empire that
serves its own interests, not God's interests. Black theology asks whose
side should God be on – the side of the oppressed or the side of the
oppressors. If God values justice over victimization, then God desires
that all oppressed people should be liberated. According to Cone, if God
is not just, if God does not desire justice, then God needs to be done
away with. Liberation from a false god who privileges whites, and the
realization of an alternative and true God who desires the empowerment
of the oppressed through self-definition, self-affirmation, and self-determination is the core of black theology.
Black theology largely foregoes intricate, philosophical views of
God, instead, it focuses on God as "God in action", delivering the
oppressed because of his righteousness. The central theme of African-American popular religion, as well as abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, was the Old Testament God of Moses freeing the ancient Hebrews from Egyptian rulers. Likewise, Cone based much of his liberationist theology on God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt in the Book of Exodus. He compared the United States to Egypt, predicting that oppressed people will soon be led to a promised land.
For Cone, the theme of Yahweh's concern was for "the lack of social,
economic, and political justice for those who are poor and unwanted in
society." Cone argued that the same God is working for the deliverance of oppressed black Americans.
Cone agreed with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, affirming that Jesus is "truly God and truly man". Cone argued that Jesus' role was to liberate the oppressed,
using the Gospel of Luke to illustrate this point: "the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them"
(Luke 7:22). Cone also argued that, "We cannot solve ethical questions
of the twentieth century by looking at what Jesus did in the first. Our
choices are not the same as his. Being Christians does not mean
following 'in his steps.'" Cone objected to the persistent portrayal of Jesus as white:
It's
very important because you've got a lot of white images of Christ. In
reality, Christ was not white, not European. That's important to the
psychic and to the spiritual consciousness of Black people who live in a
ghetto and in a white society in which their lord and savior looks just
like people who victimize them. God is whatever color God needs to be
in order to let people know they're not nobodies, they're somebodies.
South Africa
Black theology was popularized in southern Africa in the early 1970s by Basil Moore, a Methodist theologian in South Africa. It helped to give rise to, and developed in parallel with, the Black Consciousness Movement. Black theology was particularly influential in South Africa and Namibia for motivating resistance to apartheid. This movement would also be closely related to the South African Kairos Document. Southern African black theologians include Barney Pityana, Allan Boesak, and Itumeleng Mosala.
On the African continent, a distinction is often made between
black theology, with its emphasis on liberation in southern Africa, and African theology, with its focus on drawing on African cultural ideas towards the inculturation of Christian theology.
Britain
In the United Kingdom, Robert Beckford
is a prominent black theology practitioner. He was the first in the UK
to develop and teach a course on black theology at an academic level.
Although it is not limited to the British context, an academic journal which has been a key outlet for the discourse around black theology in Britain has been Black Theology, edited by Anthony G. Reddie.
Criticism
Anthony Bradley of The Christian Post
interprets that the language of "economic parity" and references to
"mal-distribution" as nothing more than channeling the views of Karl Marx. He believes James H. Cone and Cornel West have worked to incorporate Marxist
thought into the black church, forming an ethical framework predicated
on a system of oppressor class versus a victim much like Marxism.
However, it is known, that White Christianity was the strategy used to
justify slavery and to keep enslaved, the black population.
Stanley Kurtz of the National Review wrote about the perceived differences with "conventional American Christianity". He quoted the black theologian Obery M. Hendricks Jr.:
"According to Hendricks, 'many good church-going folk have been deluded
into behaving like modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees when they think
they're really being good Christians.' Unwittingly, Hendricks says,
these apparent Christians have actually become 'like the false prophets
of Ba'al.'" Kurtz also quotes Jeremiah Wright: "How do I tell my
children about the African Jesus who is not the guy they see in the
picture of the blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in their Bible or the figment
of white supremacists [sic] imagination that they see in Mel Gibson's movies?"
A 1930 protest in Jerusalem
against the British Mandate by Palestinian women. The sign reads "No
dialogue, no negotiations until termination [of the Mandate]".
Zachary J. Foster argued in a 2015 Foreign Affairs article that "based on hundreds of manuscripts, Islamic court records, books, magazines, and newspapers from the Ottoman period (1516–1918), it seems that the first Arab to use the term "Palestinian" was Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian." He explained further that Kassab’s 1909 book Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism
noted in passing that "the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans call
themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs", despite describing the Arabic
speakers of Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest of the book." The Palestinian Arab Christian Falastin newspaper had addressed its readers as Palestinians since its inception in 1911 during the Ottoman period.
Foster later revised his view in a 2016 piece published in Palestine Square, arguing that already in 1898 Khalil Beidas used the term "Palestinian" to describe the region's Arab inhabitants in the preface to a book he translated from Russian to Arabic. In the book, Akim Olesnitsky'sA Description of the Holy Land,
Beidas explained that the summer agricultural work in Palestine began
in May with the wheat and barley harvest. After enduring the entire
summer with no rain at all—leaving the water cisterns depleted and the
rivers and springs dry—"the Palestinian peasant waits impatiently for
winter to come, for the season's rain to moisten his fossilized fields."
Foster explained that this is the first instance in modern history
where the term 'Palestinian' or 'Filastini' appears in Arabic. He added,
though, that the term Palestinian had already been used decades earlier
in Western languages by the 1846–1863 British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn; the German Lutheran missionary Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820–1896), founder of the Syrian Orphanage; and the American James Wells.
In his 1997 book, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, historian Rashid Khalidi
notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of
Palestine—encompassing the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Fatimid,
Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods—form part of the identity
of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand
it over the last century,
but derides the efforts of some Palestinian nationalists to attempt to
"anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness
that is in fact "relatively modern." Khalidi stresses that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" playing an important role. He argues that the modern national identity of Palestinians has its roots in nationalist discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century which sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East after World War I. He acknowledges that Zionism
played a role in shaping this identity, though "it is a serious mistake
to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to
Zionism." Khalidi describes the Arab population of British Mandatory Palestine
as having "overlapping identities", with some or many expressing
loyalties to villages, regions, a projected nation of Palestine, an
alternative of inclusion in a Greater Syria, an Arab national project, as well as to Islam. He writes that, "local patriotism could not yet be described as nation-state nationalism."
Israeli historian Haim Gerber, a professor of Islamic History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, traces Arab nationalism back to a 17th-century religious leader, MuftiKhayr al-Din al-Ramli (1585–1671) who lived in Ramla. He claims that Khayr al-Din al-Ramli's religious edicts (fatwa, plural fatawa), collected into final form in 1670 under the name al-Fatawa al-Khayriyah,
attest to territorial awareness: "These fatawa are a contemporary
record of the time, and also give a complex view of agrarian relations."
The 1670 collection mentions the concepts Filastin, biladuna (our country), al-Sham (Syria), Misr (Egypt), and diyar (country),
in senses that appear to go beyond objective geography. Gerber
describes this as "embryonic territorial awareness, though the reference
is to social awareness rather than to a political one."
In his book The Israel–Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War, James L. Gelvin states that "Palestinian nationalism emerged during the interwar period in response to Zionist immigration and settlement."
However, this does not make Palestinian identity any less legitimate:
"The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and
indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of
Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All
nationalisms arise in opposition to some "other." Why else would there
be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by
what they oppose."
Bernard Lewis
argues it was not as a Palestinian nation that the Palestinian Arabs of
the Ottoman Empire objected to Zionists, since the very concept of such
a nation was unknown to the Arabs of the area at the time and did not
come into being until later. Even the concept of Arab nationalism in the
Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire "had not reached significant
proportions before the outbreak of World War I."
Daniel Pipes
asserts that "No 'Palestinian Arab people' existed at the start of 1920
but by December it took shape in a form recognizably similar to
today's." Pipes argues that with the carving of the British Mandate of Palestine out of Greater Syria,
the Arabs of the new Mandate were forced to make the best they could of
their situation, and therefore began to define themselves as Palestinian.
Late Ottoman context
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was accompanied by an increasing sense of Arab identity in the Empire's Arab provinces, most notably Syria, considered to include both northern Palestine and Lebanon. This development is often seen as connected to the wider reformist trend known as al-Nahda ("awakening", sometimes called "the Arab renaissance"),
which in the late 19th century brought about a redefinition of Arab
cultural and political identities with the unifying feature of Arabic.
Under the Ottomans, Palestine's Arab population mostly saw
themselves as Ottoman subjects. In the 1830s however, Palestine was
occupied by the Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, Muhammad Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha. The Palestinian Arab revolt
was precipitated by popular resistance against heavy demands for
conscripts, as peasants were well aware that conscription was little
more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many
cities, among them Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus. In response, Ibrahim Pasha sent in an army, finally defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.
While Arab nationalism, at least in an early form, and Syrian nationalism
were the dominant tendencies along with continuing loyalty to the
Ottoman state, Palestinian politics were marked by a reaction to foreign
predominance and the growth of foreign immigration, particularly Zionist.
The Egyptian occupation of Palestine in the 1830s resulted in the destruction of Acre
and thus, the political importance of Nablus increased. The Ottomans
wrested back control of Palestine from the Egyptians in 1840-41. As a
result, the Abd al-Hadi clan, who originated in Arrabah in the Sahl Arraba region in northern Samaria, rose to prominence. Loyal allies of Jezzar Pasha and the Tuqans, they gained the governorship of Jabal Nablus and other sanjaqs.
In 1887 the Mutassariflik (Mutasarrifate) of Jerusalem was constituted as part of an Ottoman government policy dividing the vilayet of Greater Syria into smaller administrative units. The administration of the mutasarrifate took on a distinctly local appearance.
Michelle Compos records that "Later, after the founding of Tel Aviv in 1909, conflicts over land grew in the direction of explicit national rivalry."
Zionist ambitions were increasingly identified as a threat by
Palestinian leaders, while cases of purchase of lands by Zionist
settlers and the subsequent eviction of Palestinian peasants aggravated
the issue.
The programmes of four Palestinian nationalist societies jamyyat al-Ikha’ wal-‘Afaf (Brotherhood and Purity), al-jam’iyya al-Khayriyya al-Islamiyya (Islamic Charitable Society), Shirkat al-Iqtissad al-Falastini al-Arabi (lit. Arab Palestinian Economic Association) and Shirkat al-Tijara al-Wataniyya al-Iqtisadiyya (lit. National Economic Trade Association) were reported in the newspaper Filastin
in June 1914 by letter from R. Abu al-Sal’ud. The four societies has
similarities in function and ideals; the promotion of patriotism,
educational aspirations and support for national industries.
British Mandate period
Nationalist groups built around notables
Palestinian Arab A’ayan ("Notables") were a group of urban
elites at the apex of the Palestinian socio-economic pyramid where the
combination of economic and political power dominated Palestinian Arab
politics throughout the British Mandate period. The dominance of the
A’ayan had been encouraged and utilised during the Ottoman period and
later, by the British during the Mandate period, to act as
intermediaries between the authority and the people to administer the
local affairs of Palestine.
Al-Husseini
The al-Husayni family were a major force in rebelling against Muhammad Ali who governed Egypt and Palestine in defiance of the Ottoman Empire. This solidified a cooperative relationship with the returning Ottoman authority. The family took part in fighting the Qaisi family in an alliance with a rural lord of the Jerusalem area Mustafa Abu Ghosh,
who clashed with the tribe frequently. The feuds gradually occurred in
the city between the clan and the Khalidis that led the Qaisis however
these conflicts dealt with city positions and not Qaisi-Yamani rivalry.
The Husaynis later led resistance and propaganda movements against the Young Turks who controlled the Ottoman Empire and more so against the British Mandate government and early Zionist immigration. Jamal al-Husayni was the founder and chairman of the Palestine Arab Party (PAP) in 1935. Emil Ghoury was elected as General Secretary, a post he held until the end of the British Mandate in 1948. In 1948, after Jordan had occupied Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan removed Hajj Amīn al-Husayni from the post of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and banned him from entering Jerusalem.
Nashashibi
The Nashashibi family had particularly strong influence in Palestine during the British Mandate Period from 1920 until 1948. Throughout this period, they competed with the Husaynis, for dominance of the Palestinian Arab political scene.
As with other A’ayan their lack of identification with the Palestinian
Arab population allowed them to rise as leaders but not as
representatives of the Palestinian Arab community. The Nashashibi family was led by Raghib Nashashibi, who was appointed as Mayor of Jerusalem in 1920. Raghib was an influential political figure throughout the British Mandate period, and helped form the National Defence Party in 1934.
He also served as a minister in the Jordanian government, governor of
the West Bank, member of the Jordanian Senate, and the first military
governor in Palestine.
Tuqan
The Tuqan family, originally from northern Syria, was led by Hajj Salih Pasha Tuqan in the early eighteenth century and were the competitors of the Nimr family in the Jabal Nablus (the sub-district of Nablus and Jenin). Members of the Tuqan family held the post of mutasallim
(sub-district governor) longer than did any other family in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.The rivalry between the Tuqans and
Nimr family continued until the 1820s.
Abd al-Hadi
Awni Abd al-Hadi of the ‘Abd al Hadi family. The Abd al-Hadis were a leading landowning family in the Palestinian districts of Afula, Baysan, Jenin, and Nablus. Awni established the Hizb al-Istiqlal (Independence Party) as a branch of the pan-Arab party. Rushdi Abd al-Hadi joined the British administrative service in 1921. Amin Abd al-Hadi
joined the SMC in 1929, and Tahsin Abd al-Hadi was mayor of Jenin. Some
family members secretly sold their shares of Zirʿin village to the
Jewish National Fund in July 1930 despite nationalist opposition to such
land sales. Tarab ‘Abd al Hadi feminist and activist was the wife of Awni ‘Abd al Hadi, Abd al-Hadi Palace built by Mahmud ‘Abd al Hadi in Nablus stands testament to the power and prestige of the family.
Khalidiy, al-Dajjani, al-Shanti
Other A’ayan were the Khalidi family, al-Dajjani family, and the
al-Shanti family. The views of the A’ayan and their allies largely
shaped the divergent political stances of Palestinian Arabs at the time.
In 1918, as the Palestinian Arab national movements gained strength in
Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre and Nablus, Aref al-Aref joined Hajj Amīn, his brother Fakhri Al Husseini, Ishaaq Darweesh, Ibrahim Darweesh, Jamal al-Husayni, Kamel Al Budeiri, and Sheikh Hassan Abu Al-So’oud in establishing the Arab Club.
1918–1920 nationalist activity
Following the arrival of the British a number of Muslim-Christian Associations were established in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined together to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem. Its main platforms were a call for representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration.
The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement
led the Palestinian Arab population to reject the
Syrian-Arab-Nationalist movement led by Faisal (in which many previously
placed their hopes) and instead to agitate for Palestine to become a
separate state, with an Arab majority. To further that objective, they
demanded an elected assembly. In 1919, in response to Palestinian Arab fears of the inclusion of the Balfour declaration to process the secret society al-Kaff al-Sawada’ (the Black-hand, its name soon changed to al-Fida’iyya,
The Self-Sacrificers) was founded, it later played an important role in
clandestine anti-British and anti-Zionist activities. The society was
run by the al-Dajjani and al-Shanti families, with Ibrahim
Hammani in charge of training and ‘Isa al-Sifri developed a secret code
for correspondence. The society was initially based in Jaffa but moved
its headquarters to Nablus, the Jerusalem branch was run by Mahmud Aziz al-Khalidi.
After the April riots an event took place that turned the traditional
rivalry between the Husayni and Nashashibi clans into a serious rift, with long-term consequences for al-Husayni and Palestinian nationalism. According to Sir Louis Bols,
great pressure was brought to bear on the military administration from
Zionist leaders and officials such as David Yellin, to have the Mayor of
Jerusalem, Mousa Kazzim al-Husayni, dismissed, given his presence in the Nabi Musa riots of the previous March. Colonel Storrs,
the Military Governor of Jerusalem, removed him without further
inquiry, replacing him with Raghib. This, according to the Palin report,
'had a profound effect on his co-religionists, definitely confirming
the conviction they had already formed from other evidence that the
Civil Administration was the mere puppet of the Zionist Organization.'
Supreme Muslim Council under Hajj Amin (1921–1937)
The High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel,
as a counterbalance the Nashashibis gaining the position of Mayor of
Jerusalem, pardoned Hajj Amīn and Aref al-Aref and established a Supreme Muslim Council (SMC), or Supreme Muslim Sharia Council, on 20 December 1921. The SMC was to have authority over all the Muslim Waqfs (religious endowments) and Sharia
(religious law) Courts in Palestine. The members of the Council were to
be elected by an electoral college and appointed Hajj Amīn as president
of the Council with the powers of employment over all Muslim officials
throughout Palestine. The Anglo American committee termed it a powerful political machine.
The Hajj Amin rarely delegated authority, consequently most of the council's executive work was carried out by Hajj Amīn.
Nepotism and favoritism played a central part to Hajj Amīn's tenure as
president of the SMC, Amīn al-Tamīmī was appointed as acting president
when the Hajj Amīn was abroad, The secretaries appointed were ‘Abdallah
Shafĩq and Muhammad al’Afĩfĩ and from 1928 to 1930 the secretary was
Hajj Amīn's relative Jamāl al-Husaynī, Sa’d al Dīn al-Khaţīb and later another of the Hajj Amīn's relatives ‘Alī al-Husaynī and ‘Ajaj Nuwayhid, a Druze was an adviser.
Politicisation of the Wailing Wall
It was during the British mandate period that politicisation of the Wailing Wall occurred. The disturbances at the Wailing wall in 1928 were repeated in 1929, however the violence in the riots that followed, that left 116 Palestinian Arabs, 133 Jews dead and 339 wounded, were surprising in their intensity.
Black Hand gang
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam established the Black Hand gang in 1935. Izz ad-Din died in a shootout against the British forces. He has been popularised in Palestinian nationalist folklore for his fight against Zionism.
1936–1939 Arab revolt
The Great revolt 1936–1939 was an uprising by Palestinian Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine in protest against mass Jewish immigration.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, a leader of the revolt, was a member of the Palestine Arab Party who had served as its Secretary-General and had become editor-in-chief of the party's paper Al-Liwa’ as well as of other newspapers, including Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiyya. In 1938, Abd al-Qadir was exiled and in 1939 fled to Iraq where he took part in the Rashid Ali al-Gaylani coup.
Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari, who had started his career as a devoted follower of Hajj Amin, broke with the influential Husayni family in the early 1940s. The British estimated the strength of the al-Najjada paramilitary scout movement, led by Al-Hawari, at 8,000 prior to 1947.
The split in the ranks of the Arab High Committee
(this was nothing more than a group of "traditional notables") between
rejectionists and pro Partitionists led to Hajj Amin taking control of
the AHC and with the support of the Arab League, rejected the plan,
however many Palestinians, principally Nashashibi clan and the Arab Palestinian Communist Party, accepted the plan.
Results
The revolt of 1936–1939 led to an imbalance of power between the
Jewish community and the Palestinian Arab community, as the latter had
been substantially disarmed.
1947–1948 war
Al-Qadir moved to Egypt in 1946, but secretly returned to Palestine to lead the Army of the Holy War (AHW) in January 1948, and was killed during hand-to-hand fighting against Haganah; where AHW captured Qastal Hill on the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road, on 8 April 1948.
al-Qadir's death was a factor in the loss of morale among his forces,
Ghuri, who had no experience of military command was appointed as
commander of the AHW. Fawzi al-Qawuqji, at the head of the Arab Liberation Army remained as the only prominent military commander.
1948–1964
Haj Amin al-Husseini meeting with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the future Egyptian president, in 1948
In September 1948, the All-Palestine Government
was proclaimed in Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip, and immediately won
the support of Arab League members except Jordan. Though jurisdiction of
the Government was declared to cover the whole of the former Mandatory Palestine, its effective jurisdiction was limited to the Gaza Strip. The Prime Minister of the Gaza-seated administration was named Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, and the President was named Hajj Amin al-Husseini, former chairman of the Arab Higher Committee.
The All-Palestine Government however lacked any significant
authority and was in fact seated in Cairo. In 1959 it was officially
merged into the United Arab Republic by the decree of Nasser, crippling any Palestinian hope for self governance. With the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel, along with the migration of the Palestinian exodus, the common experience of the Palestinian refugee Arabs was mirrored in a fading of Palestinian identity. The institutions of a Palestinian nationality emerged slowly in the Palestinian refugee diaspora. In 1950 Yasser Arafat founded Ittihad Talabat Filastin. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most of the Husseini clan relocated to Jordan and the Gulf States. Many family heads that remained in the Old City and the northern neighborhoods of East Jerusalem fled due to hostility with the Jordanian government, which controlled that part of the city; King Abdullah's assassin was a member of an underground Palestinian organization led by Daoud al-Husayni.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation was founded by a meeting of 422 Palestinian national figures in Jerusalem in May 1964, following an earlier decision of the Arab League, its goal was the "liberation" of "Palestine" with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate. The original PLO Charter (issued on 28 May 1964) stated that "Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit" and sought to "prohibit... the existence and activity" of Zionism. The charter also called for a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians.
Yasser Arafat, claimed the Battle of Karameh (May 1968) as a victory (in Arabic,
"karameh" means "dignity") and quickly became a Palestinian national
hero; portrayed as one who dared to confront Israel. Masses of young
Arabs joined the ranks of his group Fatah. Under pressure, Ahmad Shukeiri
resigned from the PLO leadership and in July 1969, Fatah joined and
soon controlled the PLO. The fierce Palestinian guerrilla fighting and
the Jordanian Artillery bombardment forced the IDF withdrawal and gave
the Palestinian Arabs an important morale boost. Israel was calling
their army the indomitable army but this was the first chance for Arabs
to claim victory after defeat in 1948, 1953, and 1967. After the battle,
Fatah began to engage in communal projects to achieve popular
affiliation. After the Battle of Karameh there was a subsequent increase in the PLO's strength.In 1974 the PLO called for an independent state in the territory of Mandate Palestine. The group used guerilla tactics to attack Israel from their bases in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as from within the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
In 1988, the PLO officially endorsed a two-state solution, with
Israel and Palestine living side by side contingent on specific terms
such as making East Jerusalem capital of the Palestinian state and giving Palestinians the right of return to land occupied by Palestinians prior to the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel.
First Intifada (1987–1993)
Local leadership vs. the PLO
The First Intifada
(1987–1993) would prove another watershed in Palestinian nationalism,
as it brought the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza to the
forefront of the struggle. The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU; Arabic al-Qiyada al Muwhhada) mobilised grassroots support for the uprising.
In 1987 The Intifada caught the (PLO) by surprise, the leadership abroad could only indirectly influence the events.,
A new local leadership, the UNLU, emerged, comprising many leading
Palestinian factions. The disturbances initially spontaneous soon came
under local leadership from groups and organizations loyal to the PLO
that operated within the Occupied Territories; Fatah, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the Palestine Communist Party. The UNLU was the focus of the social cohesion that sustained the persistent disturbances.
After King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the administrative and legal separation of the West Bank from Jordan in 1988, the UNLU organised to fill the political vacuum.
Emergence of Hamas
During the intifada Hamas replaced the monopoly of the PLO as sole representative of the Palestinian people.
Peace process
Some Israelis had become tired of the constant violence of the First Intifada, and many were willing to take risks for peace. Some wanted to realize the economic benefits in the new global economy. The Gulf War (1990–1991) did much to persuade Israelis that the defensive value of territory had been overstated, and that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait psychologically reduced their sense of security.
A renewal of the Israeli–Palestinian quest for peace began at the end of the Cold War as the United States took the lead in international affairs. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western observers were optimistic, as Francis Fukuyama wrote in an article, titled "The End of History". The hope was that the end of the Cold War heralded the beginning of a new international order. President George H. W. Bush, in a speech on 11 September 1990, spoke of a "rare opportunity" to move toward a "New world order"
in which "the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can
prosper and live in harmony," adding that "today the new world is
struggling to be born".
1993 Oslo Agreement
The demands of the local Palestinian and Israeli populations were
somewhat differing from those of the Palestinian diaspora, which had
constituted the main base of the PLO until then, in that they were
primarily interested in independence, rather than refugee return. The resulting 1993 Oslo Agreement cemented the belief in a two-state solution in the mainstream Palestinian movement, as opposed to the PLO's original goal, a one-state solution
which entailed the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a
secular, democratic Palestinian state. The idea had first been seriously
discussed in the 1970s, and gradually become the unofficial negotiating
stance of the PLO leadership under Arafat, but it had still remained a taboo
subject for most, until Arafat officially recognized Israel in 1988,
under strong pressure from the United States. However, the belief in the
ultimate necessity of Israel's destruction and/or its Zionist
foundation (i.e., its existence as specifically Jewish state) is still advocated by many, such as the religiously motivated Hamas movement, although no longer by the PLO leadership.
Palestinian National Authority (1993)
In 1993, with the transfer of increased control of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem from Israel to the Palestinians, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat appointed Sulaiman Ja'abari as Grand Mufti. When he died in 1994, Arafat appointed Ekrima Sa'id Sabri. Sabri was removed in 2006 by Palestinian National AuthoritypresidentMahmoud Abbas, who was concerned that Sabri was involved too heavily in political matters. Abbas appointed Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who was perceived as a political moderate.
"From the river to the sea" is, and forms part of, a popular
Palestinian political slogan. It references the land which lies between
the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea and has been frequently used in statements by Arab leaders. It is also chanted at pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrations, where it is often followed or preceded by the phrase "Palestine will be free".
"Palestine from the river to the sea" was claimed as Palestine by the PLO from its establishment in 1964 until the signing of the Oslo Accords. The PLO claim was originally set on areas, controlled by the State of Israel prior to 1967 War, meaning the combined Coastal Plain, Galilee, Yizrael Valley, Arava Valley, and Negev Desert but excluding West Bank (controlled then by Jordan) and Gaza Strip (occupied between 1959 and 1967 by Egypt). In a slightly different fashion, "Palestine from the river to the sea" is still claimed by Hamas referring to all areas of former Mandatory Palestine.
Competing national, political, and religious loyalties
Pan-Arabism
A PFLP patrol in Jordan, 1969
Some groups within the PLO hold a more pan-Arabist view than Fatah, and Fatah itself has never renounced Arab nationalism
in favour of a strictly Palestinian nationalist ideology. Some of the
pan-Arabist members justifying their views by claiming that the
Palestinian struggle must be the spearhead of a wider, pan-Arab
movement. For example, the Marxist PFLP viewed the "Palestinian revolution" as the first step to Arab unity as well as inseparable from a global anti-imperialist
struggle. This said, however, there seems to be a general consensus
among the main Palestinian factions that national liberation takes
precedence over other loyalties, including Pan-Arabism, Islamism and proletarian internationalism.
In a later repetition of these developments, the pan-Islamic sentiments embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious movements, would similarly provoke conflict with Palestinian nationalism. About 90% of Palestinians are Sunni Muslims, and while never absent from the rhetoric and thinking of the secularist PLO factions, Islamic political doctrines, or Islamism, did not become a large part of the Palestinian movement until the 1980s rise of Hamas.
By early Islamic thinkers, nationalism had been viewed as an ungodly ideology, substituting "the nation" for God
as an object of worship and reverence. The struggle for Palestine was
viewed exclusively through a religious prism, as a struggle to retrieve Muslim land and the holy places of Jerusalem.
However, later developments, not least as a result of Muslim sympathy
with the Palestinian struggle, led to many Islamic movements accepting
nationalism as a legitimate ideology. In the case of Hamas, the
Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian nationalism
has almost completely fused with the ideologically pan-Islamic
sentiments originally held by the Islamists.
Christian political theology in the Middle East is a religious response by Christian leaders and scholars to political problems. Political theologians try to balance the demands of a tumultuous region with the delicate but long history of Christianity in the Middle East. This has yielded a diversity of political theology disproportionate to the small size of Middle Eastern Christian minorities. The region's importance to Christians worldwide – both for history and doctrinal authority for many denominations – also shapes the political theologies of the Middle East.
Background
For many Christian leaders, the dominant approach to political theology is one of survival. Many Arab Christians
see themselves as the heirs of a rich Christian heritage whose
existence is threatened by regional unrest and religious persecution.
Their chief political goal is survival, which sets their political
theology apart.
At times, Arab Christian leaders have appealed to Christians outside the region through both denominational
challenges and broader calls to Christian unity for humanitarian or
political aid. In other cases, Christian politicians downplay their
faith in the public sphere to avoid conflict with their Muslim neighbours.
In the mid-20th century, many Christians in the Middle East saw secular politics as a way out of their traditional status as a minority community in the Islamic world. Christians played prominent roles throughout the pan-Arabnationalist
movement in the mid-20th century, where their experience with Western
politics and generally high educational attainments made their
contributions valuable to nationalist governments around the region. One prominent example was Michel Aflaq, an Eastern Orthodox Christian, who formed the first Ba'ath group from students in Damascus in the 1940s. His belief was that Christians should embrace Islam as part of their cultural identity because nationalism was the best way for Christians to be successful in the Middle East.
Approaches to political theology
With
the shift from pan-Arab nationalist movements into Islam-oriented
politics, Christians have changed their approach. They have also lost
influence because their numbers have declined due to birthrate,
emigration, and sometimes overt persecution. Some Christians seek to
emphasize the historic Christian presence as a sign of their commitment
to the homeland. This ties the Christian minority to the national
identity. These Christians often point to the presence of shrines and
holy sites nearby to justify the importance of remaining in the Middle East.
They emphasize their homeland as the birthplace of Christianity, even
at the sacrifice of some religious duties such as evangelical work, as
conversion from Islam is illegal in most Middle Eastern countries.
Other Christians who live in nations with governments less
friendly to them emphasize their ties as Christians with political power
in Europe and the United States. They sometimes call on these ties
through the corresponding religious leaders in Western nations in the
hope that foreign governments will aid their causes from the outside.
Israel/Palestine
Palestinian Christians make up two per cent of the population in Israel and the West Bank / Gaza, and Christians generally emphasize their Palestinian
identity over their religious identity in political affairs. Their
generally high educational attainments made them key leaders causes for Palestinian nationalism, where they emphasized their historic ties to the Holy Land and religious bonds with Muslims and Jews,
but the rise of Islamist groups, and their own declining numbers, has
changed the Christian approach to one of influence rather than direct
wielding of power.
Palestinian liberation theology was developed during the first Palestinian Intifada in the 1980s. It was an effort to reconcile the Christian duties of love and forgiveness, as well as the role of the Bible in Christian and Jewish Zionism, with the struggles of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Like Latin American liberation theology, it emphasizes justice for Palestinians while insisting on the need for Christian love.
Key figures
Naim Ateek,
an Anglican priest whose family settled in Jerusalem after expulsion
from the Galilee, founded Palestinian Liberation Theology and published a
book in 1989 called Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation.
Elias Chacour, a former archbishop in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church,
has worked to create a liberation theology that emphasizes love and
support for both Jews and Palestinians. He has used educational activism
and non-violent political protest to call for Palestinian equality in
Israel.
Mitri Raheb,
an Evangelical Lutheran priest in Bethlehem, writes that the people of
the Holy Land have lived under an occupying power since the time of
Jesus. His writings use the Bible to establish a place for Palestinians
in the Christian narrative.
Jordan
Christians in Jordan are either descendants of the native Bedouin tribes or of Palestinian refugees, and they point to their historic presence in the area, which predates Islam, as a way of proving their loyalty to Jordan's sympathetic monarchy. Christian politicians formed a surprising political alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood during the 2016 campaign
season. Christians justify this by pointing to the need to maintain
their historic presence for family and religious reasons, given their
proximity to many holy sites.
Key documents
Christian leaders in the Middle East garner support from fellow
Christians in other nations, sometimes by issuing direct calls to act on
the demands made by their political theology.
Kairos Palestine document
The Kairos document
is a call from Palestinian Christian leaders for peaceful co-existence
in the Holy Land, beginning with a re-negotiation of rights in Jerusalem
for "two peoples" and "three religions". The document's theology begins
with an insistence on God's love for all people and for Christian love
for others, which sometimes requires strong action. The Kairos document
argues against theologians who use the Bible to justify a religious
state in the Holy Land, where Palestinian Christians and Muslims have a
"natural right" to live. The authors place their hope for peace in God
rather than political action, saying "resistance with love" is "a right
and a duty for the Christian". The document references the Apostle
Paul's statement to not resist evil with evil, but it stops short of
condemning terrorism, calling instead for a removal of the "roots of
'terrorism'".
From the Nile to the Euphrates
The Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World released the region's first "public theology" in 2014, titled From the Nile to the Euphrates: The Call of Faith and Citizenship. The document's authors are scholars from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq, and it critically analyzes the role of
religion in helping with the region's educational, social, and
structurally political problems. The document stresses religion's
potential for harm in political life multiple times and repeatedly
emphasizes the need for Christians and Muslims to work together using
principles of equality and freedom.
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