Avraham Burg: US Churches Must Stop Following Israel Down the Trauma Trail

Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, has concluded that Israel and the West must change course, and challenges American Christians: “American churches are filled with “otherwise rational, compassionate people” who remain oblivious to the reality that they are sponsors of Israel’s Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. They are a people who are living in the darkness of their ignorance.”

From Friends of Sabeel--North America, Voice of the Palestinian Christians

US Churches Must Stop Following Israel Down the Trauma Trail
by James M. Wall

Avraham Burg , former Israeli Chairman of the Jewish Agency and former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, has written a book with the provocative title, The Holocaust is Over; We must Rise from Its Ashes.

In a PBS interview with Charlie Rose, Burg told Rose why he wrote the book.

"I realized that we must deal with the psyche of the place. And the psyche of the place goes back to the trauma. We're a traumatized society. My suggestion in the book is a suggestion for a new strategy for the Jewish people, and maybe a new strategy for the West in general, and this is to move from trauma to trust."

Rose: Traumatized by?

Burg: By everything, but mainly the Holocaust. It goes like this. Whenever there is a victim in Israel, whenever somebody is killed in a terror activity or whatever it is, that's one victim on top of seven wars, on top of 6 million, on top of 2,000 years of problems. So it always the history, nothing is just contemporary state of affairs.

In his book and in his conversation with Rose, Burg, a well-known figure in Jewish political life, offers his explanation as to what leads otherwise rational, compassionate people to cling tightly to the certainty that the 1948 "invasion of Arab armies" grants permission to the state of Israel to use whatever methods are at hand to defend their "newborn Jewish state".

American churches are filled with "otherwise rational, compassionate people" who remain oblivious to the reality that they are sponsors of Israel's Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. They are a people who are living in the darkness of their ignorance. (To continue reading, click here.)

Friends of Sabeel--North America
PO Box 9186, Portland, OR 97207
fosna.org; friends@fosna.org





Friends of Sabeel--North America PO Box 9186 Portland OR 97207