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T Towards a New Liberation Theology: Reflections on Palestine Edited by Arzu Merali and Javad Sharbaf Towards a New Liberation Theology: Reflections on Palestine Edited by Arzu Merali and Javad Sharbaf 2009 Published by Islamic Human Rights Commission www.ihrc.org.uk 1 First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Islamic Human Rights Commission PO Box 598, Wembley, HA9 7XH © 2009 Islamic Human Rights Commission Design & Typeset: Ibrahim Sadikovic Cover photo: Nir Landau/Activestills.org All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN 978-1-903718-346 2 Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ 6 Notes on Contributors and Editors ...................................................................... 7 Forward ............................................................................................................... 10 Introduction: Palestine, Liberation and Theology Arzu Merali and Barirah Limbada ....................................................................... 11 PART ONE: Why a New Liberation Theology? ..................................................................... 14 Universality of Liberation Theology: One is Equal to All and All are Equal to One Saied R. Ameli ........................................................................................ 16 Liberation Theology and The Palestinian Struggle for Self Determination Joe McVeigh ........................................................................................... 33 Presentation Dr llan Pappe .......................................................................................... 45 PART TWO: The Right to Return, Universality and Liberation .......................................... 51 Judaism, Zionism and The Right of Return Rabbi Yisroel Weiss ................................................................................. 52 The Common Denominator: Humanitarian Approaches to Palestine from Jewish and other Faith Traditions Rabbi Cohen ......................................................................................... 58 The Most Egregious Crime in Modern History: Palestinian Displacement May El-Khansa ....................................................................................... 64 3 4 PART THREE: The Right to Resist ............................................................................................ 69 Towards a New Theology for Freedom: The Effects on Palestine Rima Fakhry ........................................................................................... 70 Who Gives the Right to Resist? Dr. Ghada M. Ramahi ............................................................................ 79 The Meaning of Peace and Making a Meaningful Peace Archmandrite Attallah Hanna as translated by Imam Muhammad Al-Asi .............................................. 83 PART FOUR: Conceptualising the Methods of Liberation .................................................... 85 Message to the Conference Leah Tsemel ............................................................................................ 86 Palestine: Resistance to Liberation Imam Achmad Cassiem .......................................................................... 88 The Right of Resistance: A Christian Palestinian Perspective Rev Stephen Sizer ................................................................................... 96 The Dismantling of Israel via an Islamic Theology of Justice and Liberation Imam Muhammad Al-Asi ..................................................................... 102 Concluding Thoughts .................................................................................... 116 5 Acknowledgements The editors would like to thank: Aisha Abbasi, Musthak Ahmed, Selina Akhtar, Abdulnasser Baston, Abidah Merchant, Raza Kazim, George Robertson, Massoud Shadjareh, Jon Catherall, Barirah Limbada, Faisal Bodi, Samira Quraishy, Sara Khorshid, Sheikh Saeed Bahmanpour, Imam Muhammad al-Asi, Professor Saied Reza Ameli, Imam Achmad Cassiem, Rabbi Ahron Cohen, May Sobhi El-Khansa, Rima Fakhry, Archimandrite Attalla Hanna, Barirah Limbada, Fr. Joe McVeigh, Dr. Ilan Pappe, Dr. Ghada Ramahi, Dr Javad Sharbaf, Rev. Stephen Sizer, Leah Tsemel, Rabbi Yisroel Weiss, Mohammed Nasrin Nasir, Beena Faridi, Amir Zaidi, Shazia Ramzan, Sadia Ramzan, Sabiha Hanif, Sofia Dewji, Sanjida Akhter, Fahad Ansari, Muhammad Dharas, Seyfeddin Kara, Fatemeh Rezavie and Muhammad Kamali. 6 Notes on Contributors & Editors Imam Muhammad Al-Asi is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (www.islamicthought.org). He is also the elected Imam of the Islamic Centre in Washington DC and an advisor to the Islamic Human Rights Commission. He is a well-known Islamic scholar and has recently completed an exegesis of the Holy Qur’an. Professor Saied Reza Ameli is a professor of sociology and mass communications and is the Director of the Institute for North American and European Studies at the University of Tehran and assistant professor for Media and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences. He is also a member of the international committee of the Global Studies Association, UK. He is an honorary research fellow in the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham. He is one of the founders of the Islamic Human rights Commission. Imam Achmad Cassiem is the Chair of the Islamic Unity Convention, an umbrella body for over 250 organisations in South Africa. Imam Achmad Cassiem is a well- known figure from the anti-apartheid struggle and spent a total of 11 years imprisoned during the apartheid era, 9 of which he spent on Robben Island. He has held various senior positions in the Pan African Congress, including that of Secretary- General. He is an advisor to the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Rabbi Ahron Cohen is a member of Neturei Karta; a group actively involved in spreading the message regarding the absolute opposition to Zionism held by authentic Orthodox Jewry. Rabbi Cohen stresses that Judaism and Zionism are totally different concepts and are in fact diametrically opposed. He is one of many Orthodox Jews who sympathise with the cause of the Palestinians in their struggle against the Zionist State. May Sobhi El-Khansa holds a B.A. in law from the Lebanese University in 1984- 1985, and is awaiting her PHD from the international law from the American university. Amongst her many positions she has been a member of Beirut Bar Association since 1985; she is Chair of the Philantrophic Association of Rehabilitation; a participating member of the Arab Lawyers’ Union (ALU); an activist in all issues related to Human Rights and other modern cases; a member of the World Media Association - Universal Human Rights; and a member of the Amnesty International; a member of the ASF (Avocats Sans Frontieres). She is also the first person to bring a lawsuit against the Israeli leadership for the massacres perpetrated against the Lebanese and the Palestinian people, concerning their displacement and the violation of their lands, and calling for the return of the refugees to their homelands before the Lebanese and the Spanish judiciary. She is the author of Return Back is a Right , published in 2004 (in Arabic), and The Birth of the Foundling , published in 2007. She is also the chair of association “Marsad” for Human Rights in Beirut. 7 Rima Fakhry is a Lebanese activist based in Beirut. She is a member of the political council of Hizbullah. An agricultural engineer by profession, she has been active in the educational field particularly that is related with Muslim women in Lebanon. She has a keen interest in social and political studies, and has been vociferous in her opposition to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon that ended in 2000. She continues her political activism in Lebanon today. Archimandrite Attalla Hanna is the spokesman of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, based in Jerusalem. Born in 1965, he was ordained in 1991 and has courted controversy with his statements calling for joint Christian & Muslim action against Israeli forces, as well as being part of the procedure that saw George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld and Jack Straw banned from the Church of the Nativity and excommunicated in 2003. Barirah Limbada graduated in Modern History & Politics from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her particular areas of academic interests are identity politics, more specifically ethnic, national and political identities as well as the socio-political and legal development of Islam. Fr. Joe McVeigh is from Fermanagh, Ireland and is the author of A Wounded Church: Religion, Politics and Justice in Ireland (1989) , Renewing the Irish Church: Towards and Irish Liberation Theology (1993) and Crying Out for Justice (1997). Ordained in 1971, Fr. McVeigh has been active in his opposition to British involvement in Ireland and Irish affairs. He has suffered persecution by British security forces and disapproval from the hierarchy of the Irish church. Father McVeigh has studied Conflict Resolution and works with the Belfast Human Rights Centre. He is editor of ‘Irish Witness’. Arzu Merali heads the research section at the Islamic Human