Telling the Truth

There are three problems with telling the truth. First, we sometimes believe that the consequences of telling the truth will be worse than lying, or keeping silent. In the study of ethics the usual example given to illustrate this problem involves a Gentile hiding a Jew from Nazis during World War II, and then having to decide, when a Nazi comes searching for the Jew, whether or not to tell the truth. When considering this dilemma, many will conclude that lying is better than telling the truth, as lying seems more likely to protect the life of the Jew.

Second, we may think we know the truth, but be wrong. It is trite to say that life is complex, and all of us have had the experience of learning later that we did not understand what was true earlier, although earlier we thought we did. But although saying this is trite, it is also true. Circumstances change so rapidly that what was true a few moments ago may not be true now.

In the example of the Nazi hunting for a Jew, the person hiding the Jew may say the Jew is in his house, believing he is (and perhaps fearing the danger to himself, if he lies). But the Jew may have slipped away, believing (correctly in this example) that the Gentile might give him up to the Nazis. A search of the house will prove the Gentile was mistaken, although he thought he was telling the truth. The Nazi will think the man was lying, but lying involves deliberately telling what one believes to be false. In this case, the Gentile was merely mistaken. We, too, may easily be mistaken about what is true.

Third, we may be unsure that what we think is truth is really true. Again, using the example of hiding a Jew from Nazis, the Gentile would be most truthful, if he told the Nazi that the Jew was in his home and might still be in his home, although he is not certain of this. The lesson to be learned here is that it is often safer to say that we are stating what we think to have been true, although we cannot be sure that it is now true, or will be true in the future.

Michael Prior

I raise these questions about telling the truth, because I attended a conference this week in memory of Professor Michael Prior, a Catholic priest who taught at St. Mary’s College of the University of Surrey in the UK, but who was known primarily for his research, writing and advocacy on behalf of Palestinians.

Michael Prior wrote controversial books, such as Zionism and the State of Israel, and The Bible and Colonialism. He is celebrated for telling the truth about what the Sate of State of Israel has done to Palestinians, in the name of Zionism. He is also remembered for telling the truth about texts in the Hebrew Bible that present God commanding the Israelites to commit what today we would call ethnic cleansing and genocide.

As that telling the truth is not always so easy, even if we have good intentions, we may well imagine that there is some debate about whether or not such statements are actually true.

There can be no doubt that the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) includes texts that literally command what today we would call ethnic cleansing and genocide. This is a fact that can be verified by reading the texts, which are unchanging and are available for public scrutiny. For example, Deuteronomy 7:1-2 reads: "When the LORD your God brings you [the Israelites] into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and when the LORD your God clears away many nations before you – the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, and Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you – and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy."

In the conference remembering Michael Prior, Dr. Nur Masalha, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Holy Land Research Project at St. Mary’s College, remarked on what he thought was an ambiguity in Prior’s writings about such texts in the Torah. Masalha was uncertain whether or not Prior’s writings were only condemning the use of these texts in our modern context, or were condemning the words themselves in scripture. Clearly, Prior condemned the use of these texts to justify oppressing the Palestinians. But, Masalha asked, did his commitment to telling the truth lead him to condemn scripture itself?

To answer this question we must clarify what we mean by "scripture." In texts such as Deuteronomy 7:1-2 the words are clear, but the interpretation of these words has varied among Jews and Christians. Is scripture simply a literal reading of the words? Or is scripture an interpretative undertaking by those who read these words? No one disputes that the person (or persons) who wrote (and likely edited) the Torah understood such texts as literally the will of God. But what they took to be the truth of the text, as their scripture, may not necessarily be what we should take to be the truth of the text, whether or not we read it as our scripture.

Scripture may be understood as literally true for all time, or as true only in those who read it and discern the truth of God in it. The authors of the Torah were not lying. Certainly, they told the truth, as they understood the truth. But even if this was the truth in their time (which many would challenge), it might be a mistake to assume it is the truth for all time. This is clearly so, if we affirm God is free and continues to act in history, for a free God may have a change of heart.

Both Jews and Christians, who read the Prophets, see evidence in the prophetic writings of the Bible that must be weighed against the Torah (the first books of the Old Testament for Christians) in understanding God’s will with respect to the nations. For the Prophets present God as ruling all the nations and at times even refer to Israel as the servant of the nations. The individual prophets, who are called by God and who speak to the people for God, do not affirm that Deuteronomy 7:1-2, or other similar texts in the Torah, asserts what is true either for all time, or in their time.

Telling the truth about scripture requires stating clearly that no prophet says the LORD God wants the people chosen by God to slaughter other peoples in order to take possession of the land where the tribes of Israel became a nation. Thus, telling the truth about Deuteronomy 7:1-2, if this text is read in the context of the prophetic writings in Hebrew and Christian scripture, will lead to a different understanding of what the truth of God’s will might be for us in our time, and perhaps even in every time.

Michael Prior read the Bible this way to argue that the ethnic cleansing, which Zionist leaders promoted before and during what Jews remember as Israel’s war for independence, should not be understood as God’s will. Prior interpreted texts from the Torah in the context of the entire Hebrew Bible, which includes the Prophets and the Writings. Moreover, he argued that telling the truth about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist Jews in 1948 also means denying that the Hebrew Bible can truthfully be used to justify driving Palestinians from their land.

Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, in his comments about Michael Prior at this conference, made a similar point using evidence from the Talmud, the commentary on the Torah that Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews read as providing Jews with a truthful interpretation of the Torah. In the Talmud there are rabbinical teachings that in certain circumstances justify theft from a Gentile by a Jew, when such a theft from another Jew is considered wrong. But there are other texts that question the truth of such an understanding of God’s will.

Milgrom shared with us a story from the Talmud of a rabbi whose disciples bought him a donkey from a Gentile, and then discovered to their delight that a valuable jewel was hidden on the donkey. When they told their rabbi, he asked if the seller had known the jewel was there at the time of the sale. The disciples said that was unlikely, but argued this was simply due to his ignorance or misfortune. To their surprise the rabbi did not agree. He commanded his disciples to return the jewel to the Gentile seller. For the rabbi did not want the Gentile to think the God the rabbi worshipped was a God who sanctioned cheating a Gentile. On the contrary, the rabbi wanted the Gentile to praise the God of the rabbi, as a God who demands justice for all people.

Milgrim said that the ancient rabbis who wrote the Talmud limited the truth of biblical texts, such as Deuteronomy 7:1-2, to the specific circumstances these texts address, and rejected applying such statements to other nations in other times, as though some general or universal truth was intended by the Torah. In this way the rabbis did not assert that the Torah was wrong, or lacking in truth in any way, but taught that truth was contextual and required interpreting texts and commentaries in order to understand the truth of God’s will in any particular time.

Jerusalem

Most of the speakers at the conference remembering Michael Prior talked about Jerusalem, which was the stated topic of the gathering. The Rev. Dr. Naim S. Ateek, Director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Center in Jerusalem, which was a co-sponsor of the conference, said: "There can be no peace in Jerusalem as long as there are exclusive claims made concerning the city." Most everyone in the room agreed that this is a true statement of the situation, both now and for the future. This position challenges the status quo, however, for many Jews make exclusive claims about Jerusalem. But the Israeli government has not made these claims into policies or laws, although it has limited access to the religious sites maintained by Christians and Muslims.

Dr. Bernard Sabella, Executive Director of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees for the Middle East Council of Churches, shared the results of a poll among Palestinians that reveal support for protecting access for all three religious traditions to the holy sites in Jerusalem. He did point out one crucial difference between Christian and Muslim responses to this poll. Almost two-thirds of the Palestinian Muslims polled would prefer to have Jerusalem administered as an Arab trust, which would allow Christians and Jews access to their religious sites. Palestinian Christians, on the other hand, want Jerusalem administered under a secular legal arrangement, which allows equal access and rights for the members of all three religious traditions.

Sabella praised Michael Prior for having the courage to speak the truth, before saying that he no longer supports Christian-Jewish dialogue, unless it directly addresses the terrible injustice for Palestinians that is a result of Israeli policies and practices in Jerusalem and the West Bank. "Israel is a colonialist, racist, separatist state," he said. He added that he had only come to this conclusion with a great deal of regreet, after many years of working with Israelis for a just peace.

Professor Jeff Halper, head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), agreed with Sabella’s statement about Israel, but he explained that most Israelis do not actively support the policies of Israel that may accurately be described as colonialist and racist. "All that matters for most Israelis is their personal security," he said. "They don’t care about Palestinians, but they also don’t care about settlers. Polls show that two-thirds of the Israelis do not support the idea of a ‘greater Israeli’." Halper argued that these Israelis don’t like Prime Minister Sharon, but nonetheless they support his disengagement plan from Gaza, because they think it will help ensure their personal security.

But Halper also said his commitment to telling the truth meant he had to say most Israelis would agree with the assertion that: "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews." For the average secular Israeli, Zionism simply means Jews have a right to their Jewish State on this land. Unlike the religious settlers, the majority of Jewish Israelis do not claim a divine right to the land. But they would argue that Israel was created through the UN under international law at the end of World War II, and that Jews have fought to defend their right to have a Jewish State. And Jews will continue to do what it takes to maintain a Jewish state. Although most Jewish Israelis are not religious Zionists, who claim this is God’s purpose, they are Zionists in this sense.

In addition, Halper explained, most Jews do not think of Israel in terms of exact borders, and would trade some land on the West Bank that Israel now occupies for greater security. Yet, hardly any Jew thinks Israel should return all of the West Bank to the Palestinians. Moreover, Jews do not think of giving back any of the area around Jerusalem, which is part of the West Bank and behind the Green Line marking the 1967 border of the territory controlled by Jordan. Settlements around Jerusalem, in the eyes of most Jews, are not really settlements, Halper said, but neighborhoods of Jerusalem that will remain part of Israel and part of a united Jerusalem.

Halper believes this general attitude among Jewish Israelis is unjust, and it clearly is contrary to international human rights law and UN resolutions pertaining to the conflict. As part of his own commitment to telling the truth, he argues that this attitude toward Jerusalem by both the Israeli government and most Israeli citizens is not only unjust, but also makes a viable Palestinian state impossible.

Dr. Asad Ghanem, Chair of the Ibn Khadhun Centre in Galilee and a faculty member of the Department of Politics at Haifa University, urged Palestinian intellectuals and political leaders to propose a specific plan for the future of Jerusalem. He sees the fairly recent fact that half the population of what is called "Greater Jerusalem" is Palestinian, and half Jewish, not as a problem, but as the beginning of a solution. For this fact, he believes, could be the basis for what he describes as "a bi-national city," which he argues might make it possible to conceive of a "bi-national state" for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians (including those who are now Arab Israelis).

Ghanem’s proposal for a bi-national city and a bi-national state precipitated a vigorous debate about one state and two-state solutions, which did not result in a consensus. But this discussion did reveal that the future of Jerusalem is the key to a just peace for both Jewish Israelis and for Palestinians.

Invoking Michael Prior’s commitment to truth one last time, I suggest that we may come closer to discerning the truth, if Israeli and Palestinian leaders address issues concerning Jerusalem earlier in any peace negotiations that may take place, rather than leaving this to the end of such negotiations. For the truth is that Jerusalem must be shared by both peoples and open to both peoples, if there is to be a secure peace for Israelis and a just peace for Palestinians.

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are my own and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

Bob Traer, 28 April 2005

For other Letters from Jerusalem, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/lj.letters.2005.htm.

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