Does God "intend" rape?

I was - and remain - outraged at the suggestion by  US Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who in a debate said this:

"The only exception I have to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

I expressed my outrage on facebook, linking to an article and providing this highly witty comment (I'll admit that I do say lots of things on facebook - where I've met almost every single one of my 1300+ friends in real life, that I wouldn't actually say if I was posting it on this blog as a first-instance): "Seriously? If you think rape is a gift from God, (a) you don't understand the Bible, and (b) you don't understand how to be a politician. So, either way, you should've just stayed home and STFU." 

A Christian friend challenged me and said that what Mourdock said was Biblically accurate. I disagreed, pointing out that evil is the antithesis of God and therefore God cannot intend for it to happen.  First, the friend said, that Mourdock wasn't saying the rape was intended, but just the conception. This is nonsense to me.  You cannot intend the conception of a child through rape without intending the rape itself.  For God's intention to be for conception through rape to occur, then God must intend the rape.  My friend again said Mourdock's position was biblical - that God is sovereign and therefore intends all that happens in the world, including things we perceive as evil.

The challenges came with a reference to Genesis 50:20, in which Joseph - yes, the one of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - was addressing his brothers, who had thrown him into a pit to die. Joseph was rescued from the pit and through a series of circular twists and turns ended up in a position of great power in Egypt. After his father's death, Joseph's brothers wrote to him begging forgiveness.  According to Genesis 50, starting at verse 19, They went to him and "threw themselves down before him. 'We are your slaves,' they said. But Joseph said to them, 'Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them."

When I've previously studied this passage, I have always thought of it as a foreshadowing of the type of forgiveness lavished on mankind for our own sinfulness.  It resembles the crucifixion of Christ and the forgiveness that is redeemed through that. 

My friend must make similar connections because he also pointed to the crucifixion of Christ as evidence that God sometimes "intends" what we would call evil to happen.  My friend said, in part, "Genesis 50:20 says God INTENDED. It doesn't say that God fixed the problem that Joseph's brothers caused. God also INTENDED for Jesus to be murdered. It was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Man is not sovereign, God is."  He then challenged me - and others I had tagged into the conversation who are trained ministers or who work in ministries - to explain how we could say God doesn't intend for rape to happen with this one, very clear verse. 

Now, I will set aside the idea that Jesus was "murdered" - because I think that's such a rare and unique thing that any comparison to what happens to us human beings is out of line.  But also no where in the Bible is the word "intended" used in context of Jesus's crucifixion.  How do I know this?  Because after this friend's challenge, I went through every instance of the Bible - using the New International Version as my text - to determine what it meant in Genesis 50:20 that God "intended" what happened to Joseph.  My friend wanted a Biblically based discussion and I wanted to know the actual answer - was I wrong? Did God intend rapes?  What does it mean when we say God "intends" something?  I started writing this initially as a facebook comment, but realized that that was insane and it is way too long to even try to be included on facebook.  So even though I don't intend for this blog to be all about my religious beliefs, I am going to use this space now for a little biblically exegesis on the question of "Does God intend rape?"

When I read the very verse that was pointed to - Genesis 50:20 - I did so only after praying for a while and thinking about what my assumptions were. Because even though I'm relatively certain the inverse is not true, when this friend raises an issue of Biblical interpretation, I do tend to sit and pray about it to determine what I feel the Holy Spirit is telling me.  And on this, when I opened Bible Gateway and read the verse, I felt an immediate sense that the two "intendeds" were not the same, and that within the God "intended" was a Romans 8:28 understanding, not that God required it or ordered it, but rather than he used it and utilized it.  I then went and read the entire passage in context and felt this even more clearly.  Then I took the NIV Study Bible from my shelf to see what it says and it says this as the note to this verse: "God intended it for good. Their act, out of personal animosity toward a brother, had been used by God to save life -- the life of the Israelites, the Egyptians and all the nations that came to Egypt to buy food in the face of a famine that threatened the known world. At the same time, God showed by these events that his purpose for the nations is life and that this purpose would be effected through the descendants of Abraham."  Within the note, I see that the learned scholars who put together the study Bible also found a difference in the "intended" of mankind and the "intended" of God. 

But I was having difficult pinning down exactly what that difference was that I felt - at least with just one verse.  I was still unsatisfied and went back to Bible Gateway and did a search for "intended."  Many of the results appeared irrelevant (i.e., Numbers 35:23; Deuteronomy 19:19; 1 Samuel 14:4), and I initially dismissed them.  But I did come back to them as I was writing this very long comment.  And when I thought about what they say about "intended."  What does the word mean?  It is clear it is the thing that is desired but not necessarily the thing that is to come.  Intended does not mean ordered; it means a desired outcome.  Numbers 35:23 is in the context of handling problems and crimes within the community. It starts at 22 and continues through 25: "But if without enmity someone suddenly pushes another or throws something at them unintentionally or, without seeing them, drops on them a stone heavy enough to kill them, and they die, then since that other person was not an enemy and no harm was intended, the assembly must judge between the accused and the avenger of blood according to these regulations. The assembly must protect the one accused of murder from the avenger of blood and send the accused back to the city of refuge to which they fled. The accused must stay there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil." So clearly in this context, "intended" means something desired or planned with a desire of its realization. Because something occurred that was not intended to occur, it is not as abominable as the very same result with a different planning or desire.

Deuteronomy 19:19 comes in the context of the settlement of disputes within the community.  The Word says "If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime . . . [t]he judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother." Clearly, in this context, "intended" is not "ordained" or "ordered."  It could be said that "intended" here means to have a desire and to take actions to realize that desire, or to "plan" based on contingent factors, perhaps while taking actual steps to realize that plan.  We know this first because it was by a human and second because the very thing desired is not the thing the witness receives. 

And in 1 Samuel 14:4, it says "On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a cliff; one was called Bozez and the other Seneh."  But then it goes on to discuss the conversation between Jonathan and his armor-bearer. In it, Jonathan says "we will cross over toward them and let them see us. If they say to us, 'wait there until we come to you,' we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, 'come up to us,' we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.'"  So even though Jonathan intended - or desired and took actions to ensure - to cross over the cliff, He did not fully do it until He had received a signal from God.  Had he not received that, Jonathan would have stayed on the other side of the cliff.  His intention was not an order.  This has a similar understanding in 1 Samuel 20:33 "Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David." 

When just the previews came up, I thought there might be an outlier. 2 Chronicles 32:2-3: "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to wage war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him."  When you read it in context, though, it is clear that Sennacherib had not yet gotten to Jerusalem and was not yet waging war.  He was fighting in other places and so Hezekiah and the men of Jerusalem took actions to make it harder for Sennacherib to wage war. Before Sennacherib was able to really wage the war he intended against Jerusalem - he had laid seige but had not waged war - Hezekiah and Isaiah son of Amoz prayed to heaven. "And the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the commanders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king."  So, again intended was not ordered or required or forced into happening, but was akin to desiring while taking steps to realize those desires.

And Acts 12:4, "Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover." The "him" was Peter, but of course the Angel of the Lord came and broke the chains the night before Herod intended for the trial. And 2 Corinthians 1:17 "Was I fickle when I intended to do this? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say both 'yes, yes' and 'no, no'?" Again, intended means planned or an expressed desire. Similarly, Acts 20:7 and John 6:15 and John 12:7 discuss intentions as plans that humans make.

The reason I originally thought these verses did not apply was that they referred to men and not God.  And again, when I read Genesis 50:20, I felt an immediate difference in the purpose of the words when used to describe Joseph's brothers and when used to describe God. So I started off initially looking just for verses that related to times when God "intended" things.

Hosea 2:9: "'Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body."  Hosea is a bit confusing, and it was more confusing when I went to the introductory note and found that one of the debates over Hosea comes in Chapters 1-3 as to whether the story of Gomer is literal or allegorical. So I was a little concerned that this particular verse again wasn't about God's intentions. But Hosea 1:10-2:1 is an introduction to the section titled 'Israel Punished and Restored' and it says this: "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called sons of the living God.' The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great was the ay of Jazeel. Say to your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'  And then it goes on to talking about the rebuke of Israel.  So, Hosea 2:9 comes in that context of rebuking of Israel's ways.  And after discussing Israel as an adulterer, Hosea 2:7-8 says "She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.' She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold-- which they used for Baal."  Now clearly the reference to Baal means that this is about Israel's turning away from God and then attempting to turn back not out of love for God but out of dissatisfaction with the other things she had found. Perhaps a bit of boredom but also a bit of 'eh, this isn't really working out for me, so I might as well try it again with that other guy.'  And that's where Hosea 2:9 comes in, with the relevant "I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness."  So God had intended for Israel to be protected and covered, and yet in response to her wickedness, he was not going to give her that protection. He had planned and desired for her protection, but in response to the daily goings on, he was withdrawing that protection and was not following through on his own intentions.

Jeremiah 18:5-10: "Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, 'Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?' declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if a another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it." So in this chapter, it is clear that the word "intended" is not used as a synonym for "ordered" or "required" or "forced."  The good God provides is contingent upon the choices of man.  And the destruction God could order is contingent upon the choices of man.  According to these verses, God allows for his relationship with mankind - with Israel specifically in this chapter - to develop with some give-and-take, some back-and-forth between them.  God does not force a particular avenue on man and may intend or desire or plan the realization of one thing but ultimately responds to human actions with another.

And Romans 2:1-6: You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forebearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God 'will repay each person according to what they have done.'"  Again, the word "intended" here is clearly not a synonym for ordered or forced.  Rather it is referring to the way in which God uses things for His good purposes. There is an interplay between God's desires and the free will of mankind. 

Romans 7:7-12: "What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "you shall not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but the commandment cam, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful." So, again, intended is used here as the thing from God that is supposed to bring about good but that we can allow to bring about evil.  It is the good that was desired by and planned by God but not the evil that resulted.

2 Corinthians 7:8-9:  Paul was writing to the church at Corinth, discussing previous communications they had had (at least the letter in 1 Corinthians) and their response to his rebuke for their wayward actions. "Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it -- I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while -- yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us."  Again, God intended for something and used things around to realize it, but he did not force them to repent.  

That's every instance in which the word "intended" is used in the Bible. 17 uses of the word in 16 verses, starting with Genesis 50:20 and ending with 2 Corinthians 7:9. Ten verses referring to human intentions and 7 referring to times in which God "intended" something (as noted above, Genesis 50:20 includes the word "intended" as something from both man and God). I also looked up the word "intend" and "intention" to see if there was anything that would add to what is outlined above - either changing my beliefs or altering them. I found nothing. And after prayerfully considering what they mean, these are my conclusions:

When man intends something, it is a planning and desire to bring it about, that may or may not be successful.  Man's intentions can be for good or for evil.  They may or may not come into being, and they won't know what occurs until after it is done.  When God intends something, though, it is only for good.  It is also not an ordering or a forcing, but the word "intended" throughout the Bible is used as an expression for His wish for goodness.  His actions, however, work in conjunction in a give-and-take with mankind.  He responds to our responses to Him and His callings.

Taking it back to Joseph, God did not require or force Joseph's brothers to throw him in a pit to die.  It's not even clear that God wanted that.  It is clear, however, that God's intention for good was to use any evil done against Joseph to realize a greater plan.

Now, I have to address an additional two points.  First, I realize that this very discussion elicits a distinction between Calvinist and Arminian beliefs within Christian doctrine.  For those unfamiliar with Christian splits, consider the difference between Calvins and Arminians to be similar to the difference between Shiia and Sunnis: the basic tenants and scriptures are the same, but their interpretation over the years has led to some doctrinal splits on what exactly is meant by God's word. Calvinists believe in predestination; Arminians do not. My friend is a Calvinist and I am an Arminian.  But I am an Arminian because when I go through the Bible, I see all sorts of verses like those outlined above that point me regularly to the position that God is good and gives us free will. Our relationship with Him is one that involves His calling us to goodness, but not forcing us on a path, and responding regularly to what do.  It's a relationship of give-and-take, not one of forcefulness and pain.

So does God intend rape?  I again answer, unequivocally, no. 

Rape is, by its nature, a forceful imposition and a denial of choice or consent. It is the stripping away of love and security. It is the opposite of God. And God does not intend the opposite of himself. God intends evil things to be used for good - this is the promise of Romans 8:28 ("And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.") - but that is substantially and unalterably different from God intending the evil thing itself. Evil exists in this world.  God gives us free will and a knowledge of sin, but that does not mean that God intends for sinfulness and evil to exist or to occur. 

I believe that God can use even the most evil of evils - rape, murder, oppression, genocide - for good, but I don't think that means He ever wanted, desired or intended for those things to happen. I have known women who set up counseling centers and grief or crisis hotlines as a response to their sexual assault. I've known war veterans who come back and reinvest in their community in reaction to losing a friend overseas. And I've known a few hundred human rights activists who have responded to evil in their lives with compassion and a dedication to fighting for the underdogs of our world. These are the good that comes out of evil. 

But, that does not mean that every consequence of evil is intended and good, and no where in the Bible have I found any support that the consequences of evil are always good.  So sometimes, I think, a child conceived will be a good that comes out of it, but not every child conceived is something God intends to come about - either before or during or after the rape. And we should not assume to know the thoughts of God for each individual case; there does not seem to be a blanket rule on this issue - at least no where that I've found in the Bible.

Now, I have a final question to be posed to those who would simultaneously agree with Mourdock's assertion that God intends rape - and the conception that sometimes occurs thereafter - but who still fight against abortion.  This is a serious question, not just a rhetorical one to win the argument: how do you reconcile a belief that God intends the evil of rape while still fighting against abortion as some special evil that needs to be eliminated?  If you believe God is sovereign over all - and therefore anything that is done is something God intends to do be done - would that not also include abortion?  Would God's sovereignty not also include sovereignty over when abortion occurs and why and in what circumstances and by whom?  Why must you fight against abortion if it is part of God's intention and sovereignty?

Seriously, it was 'malarkey': on the need for intelligent diplomacy

I am not watching the US debates. They come on too late here in the UK and I already know whose values I really actually believe in, so I don't feel the need to watch.  But, Joe Biden's getting a lot of attention for saying Paul Ryan's answer to a question on foreign policy was "malarkey."

(Tellingly, the CNN video doesn't carry Biden's full answer because why would CNN actually feel the need to show an *exchange* from the debate when they can just show soundbites? It's not like the *exchange* is newsworthy, right? It's just the soundbite... that's what news is, isn't it?)

Ryan criticized President Obama's response to the Iranian Green Revolution in 2009.  He said that the Obama administration should've been out front criticizing Iran.  For me, this is personal.  I have friends who were part of that revolution and I know human rights defenders whose lives are threatened by the Iranian regime.  During 2009, I followed the unfolding news from Iran more closely than any other event since 9/11.  I was consumed with it, and with the hope that with each new news story I would learn the fate of friends who could not communicate with the outside world.

During that time, I wrote on facebook that I felt Obama was handling the Iranian issue in the right way. And three years later, I just want to be even more clear: there is no question.  Obama handled it exactly right.  Here's what I wrote in 2009, and with only a few modern updates and grammatical corrections it still stands:

Sometimes US foreign policy is based on our egos, rather than on what’s right and wrong, and it shouldn’t be. We need to stop making ego-based decisions and start making brain-based ones.

Too often, we in the US make every international event about us. Sometimes it's a good thing. If you’re Kosovar, you might appreciate US-led interference a decade ago. If you’re Kuwaiti, you are likely relieved we nosed around in 1991. If you’re Kurdish, you’re probably like the guy in the Kebab shop in town who thanked me for what my country had done for his people (you know, after ignoring the gassing by Hussein). And if you’re South Korean or Japanese, you might resent the presence of certain troops who rape young girls and ignore your laws and cultures, but you probably appreciate the fact that we’ve been willing to stand on the 38th parallel for over 50 years. These were times when our “it’s all about me”-ness benefited not just us but the rights of those we sought to protect.

And when the American people believe a situation is about them – that they need to make a difference or that they have a primary duty to provide relief – amazing acts of goodness and kindness can happen. The US people's response to the 2004 tsunami, the calls for involvement on Darfur, or responses to cyclones in Burma and earthquakes in Haiti, nuclear crises in Japan and floods in India are good examples of what calling on US egos can do.

But, sometimes it's important for us to remember that not *every* event is about us and not every democracy/freedom initiative would benefit from our involvement. Sometimes it’s good for us to have a little ego check and make sure that we’re not just getting involved in a situation because we want to remind everyone of how powerful we are, or we want to make sure everyone knows which side we’re on. For starters, the US doesn't always have the best track record of standing on the right side of things. Pinochet (Chile). Cambodia. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Rhodesia, South Africa and Iraq's Hussein are all prime examples of when the US has kind of (or majorly) screwed up. And when we do get it right, we don’t always have the best follow-through so the international community may doubt our commitment (Afghanistan circa 2008, anyone?).

When we're confronted with a new international situation, it would be good if our leadership stepped back and ask intelligently: what will our involvement accomplish, both for us and for them? We should be like doctors and "do no harm" in the international arena (or, at least, do as little harm as is needed, which is actually a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law). If it turns out that our involvement is just about making sure our voice is heard – regardless the consequences – or an attempt to stretch our egos by being the loudest and most frequent orator on the international stage, we should stop ourselves. If on the whole it stacks up that our involvement may benefit goodness, democracy and freedom, it might be worth putting our two-cents on the international table. It is the former situation we found ourselves in in 2009. It’s the ego-stroking that Paul Ryan wants the US to engage in, not the beneficial freedom-loving work that we should limit ourselves to.

Before I continue, I want to take a moment and address Iran and the Iranian people generally. No one in the world doubts now - or doubted then - how the US feels about the current Iranian leadership. If you do, you've been watching FOX News for too long and need to change the channel. Because outside of Glenn Beck no one really doubts this (oh, and that crazy lady on Morning Joe but I’m convinced that's just because she's stupid and makes things up on air... no one who is really smart really doubts this). Yes, there are some benefits to the US having Ahmadinejad in office - the man's batshit crazy so we look sane and measured when we tell him no nukes, and his resistance to Obama's willingness to talk only isolates him further and makes us look strong, confident and engaged. But, even with those benefits, the US - and the Obama administration - stood with the protesters and the international community does not doubt that. The Iranian people did not doubt that. Additionally, no one doubts the US position on the legitimacy of the election. There's no one in the *world* - sans ardent Ahmadinejad supporters in Iran and a few people who don't know anything about the election outside of Iran - who can look at this election and honestly say it's credible. Just because Barack isn't speaking out doesn't mean anyone thinks he's confused about this issue.

Now the Iranian people are a proud people. They have a right to be. If you’ve studied Persian art (it’s more than just rugs) or history, you know that Persia and Iran have a long and deep history of standing for human rights, of engaging with the Western state, of education, and of strength. They aren’t a nation to be bullied. And, for the most part, Iranians love their Islamic Republic. Our two countries have very different versions of what went down in ’79, so let me clarify what I’ve heard and read from the Iranian side so that we Americans can understand what we’re looking at: the ’79 Revolution proved to the Iranians that an unarmed but united people with truth and freedom on their side can defeat an armed oppressive regime. Their Shah, a brutal regime if ever there was one, was supported by the military and economic might of the US, which is how we earned out beloved nickname, the Great Statan. When they wanted him out, they were able to do it despite being over-matched in size and might. This was the Arab Spring before the Arab Spring ever came to be.  That's how the Iranians viewed '79.

Just like we have pride in our crazy state-federal divisions and our non-democratic electoral college (that makes us a Republic, just like a certain other country is a Republic), the Iranians feel pride in the structure they have. They believe the religious clerics are to act for justice and protect the people, while the democratic process allows people to vote for the President. Not everyone agrees with this regime or structure, but on the whole, mainstream Iranians have been satisfied with this. Attempts within Iran to undermine the structure and foundation of the Islamic Republic would be viewed as treason, just as would attempts to undermine the structure of the US government would be viewed here. They also have a general resistance to international interference, even to international aid. Iranians are sceptical and resistant to seeking non-Persian aid. It’s a lot like the US, as our government refused international aid and assistance following Hurricane Katrina.

With this background, let’s consider Barack’s options: (1) do what McCain attempted to bully him to do in 2009 - and what Ryan's telling us a Romney administration would do - and yell at the world about the corrupt election, call for new elections and greater freedom in the world, and insert ourselves into a tense situation for the benefit of our collective ego; or (2) decry the violence without intervening on the issue of the legitimacy of the elections at this time, letting Iran work its position out and then confronting the issue later after protesters are no longer on the street.

For the protesters, the first option would be disastrous. The Iranian regime is already making it sound like the protesters are puppets in the hands of western governments. For once, it's not *our* Western government - it's the British who were blamed for this one (for that fact alone, you have to know Barack is doing something right because if he *could* blame the US for the protests, he would. How often do you hear reports of Iranians shouting "Death to Britain?" If it happens, it's not nearly as frequent as the much more common chants "Death to America.")

But if Barack had taken the Romney / Ryan stance and called for nullifying the election, suddenly those accusations would shift from British interference to US interference. Iranian state television would continuously run clips of Barack calling for the nullification, pointing out that this is exactly what the opposition leaders have said. The proud Iranian people would pull back from any internal attempts to challenge the legitimacy of the election. The patriotism of the demonstrators would be called into question, and shouts of "Death to America" would thoroughly replace the current cries of "Death to the Dictator."

We can scream and shout all we want about how we just came in after the fact, but history would be on their side: the US has often intervened in the internal affairs of other states and it’s not far-fetched to imagine the US funding opposition campaigns. Identical calls from US leadership and the opposition forces would undermine the latter's credibility and suggest the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad were right. The protesters would be easily blamed and dismissed as people who want to undermine the Islamic Republic, giving in to the demands and will of the Great Satan. Those arrested and beaten would face far worse treatment than they are already being subjected to. The "Green Revolution" would die out quickly and the government would point to US involvement as justification for its actions this past week. A semblance of legitimacy would be restored to a thoroughly illegitimate government, if not internationally than domestically. This prediction is not mine alone, but one consistent with those expressed by Iranian opposition leaders and those “in the know.” The son of one of the leading mullahs in the opposition was on the Daily Show and said that the best course of action would be for the American people to write and demonstrate but for the American administration to stay out of it.

If Obama sticks to the current course – calling on the government to honour the human rights of the protesters while not addressing the issue of the election until after this whole series of events is concluded – who we are or what we’ve done in the past is a non-issue. We would allow the demonstrators to retain their rightful place in the dialogue. They are the ones who stand for Iran. They are the ones fighting for its reality and its protection against corruption and impunity. They are the ones relying on centuries of great Persian values of democracy and human rights and they represent the very embodiment of the spirit of the Revolution of '79. They have legitimacy in their efforts right now and should be allowed to handle the post-election process the way they see fit. And from what I’ve heard, the opposition may want the world to watch, but they don't want the world to *act.* Quite honestly, in addition to undermining the opposition, US interference through too harsh or loud a stand may actually alienate the opposition. They do not want to be perceived as a puppet administration, and they want the respect of legitimacy that comes from within their country - not from having an outside force declare their legitimacy.

So, if Barack followed the Romney / Ryan policy, we would have undermined the legitimacy of the “Green Revolution” and we would likely have alienated the very people we say we want to stand with. All for the sake of our egos. I'm not suggesting the US should sit by and say nothing.

But, “doing no harm”  in 2009 meant watching and keeping focus on the activities in Iran, decrying the violence and calling on Iran to abide by human rights, and waiting out the ongoing internal process. Once this was done, we could (and did) denounce the election as a fraud publicly and repeatedly. No one doubts we knew this and felt this from the start, but by waiting we weren't endangering the Green Revolution or the people of Iran. I know it's a hard feat for American egos - we like to be right and we like everyone to know we're right long before they have to admit it out loud - but on this occasion, our egos would be writing checks the bodies of Green Revolutionaries shouldn't have to cash.

Those sentiments remain today. If the Ryan position was around in 2009, we would be in a much worse position than we are now - as would the Iranian people.  Ryan's position reminds me of the young 20-something Western human rights activists who often go in and lecture local victims about what they should want and what they need to demand and how the Western human rights activist is going to save them. But in doing so, they drown out the voices of the people who actually know what's going on.  They start from a position of telling and never get around to listening, and in doing so they seriously harm the very people they proclaim they are going to save. Standing for democracy and human rights doesn't always require you to be the loudest protestor; sometimes it requires you to sit quietly but resolutely and ensure the voices of those who should be speaking are heard.  That's intelligent diplomacy.  And that's exactly what Ryan railed against last night because he is, in fact, full of malarkey.

On free speech, Islamophobia, and that movie (Or: Part of why I love the US)

You want free speech? 

Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, 

who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs 

that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. 

- The American President

I've been a little disturbed by the number of my facebook friends suggesting the makers of the Islamophobic film "Innocence of Muslims" are to blame for the violent attacks around the world. One suggested that an attack by a female suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan, was the consequence of "so-called freedom" of speech. The movie was called an "abuse" of freedom. 

This doesn't really make sense to me. A probably-Afghan, definitely Muslim woman blows up Afghan, probably-Muslim citizens, including children, as a way to "protest" a film that wasn't made by Afghans and is insulting to Islam?  And that is the consequence of protesting freedom of speech in the US?  I think not. If that is your concept of "protest" you really don't understand the word.  Because where I'm from, that's called murder and it doesn't fall under protected speech, protected protest, or protected assembly.

I was therefore grateful to see a headline come up on CNN declaring "Sunni Islam leader calls for peace, urges Muslims to have 'patience and wisdom'. In it, Egypt's Grand Mufti, an active member of the Coexist Foundation (which I generally love!) denounces the violence. But the article continues in a trend that I have found disturbing:

Egypt's grand mufti questioned whether in the United States, for example, the inflammatory film "Innocence of Muslims" was not illegal under laws prohibiting the spread of hatred. And he also challenged if laws protecting freedom of speech were applicable.

"This is not freedom of speech, this is an attack on humanity, (an) attack on religions, and (an) attack on human rights," he said.

This is the refrain I want to discuss: that the movie attacks human rights and religions and does or should violate free speech. That it should fall under some special categorization of speech - "defamation of religion" - that the international community should now recognize as violating human rights.
 
I haven't watched the film all the way through but I did glimpsed through a few seconds so I would sort of know what the fuss was about it. Is it insulting? Yes. It is repugnant? Yes. Is it some of the worst acting and worst filmography ever? Absolutely. Was it made specifically to insult Muslims? Probably - I mean, you really couldn't come up with worse dialogue and worse acting if you tried, so there's really no other reason to make the film than to insult others' belief systems.

But, does it violate free speech?  In Europe, perhaps. In the US, no.

The US has some of the most extreme free speech laws in the world. Unless your speech is actually calling on people to engage in violence and you can anticipate they will do so - in response to your call, not as a consequence of hating what you say - it's protected in the US. Unless it falls in that very narrow category of speech intended to, and likely to, incite violence, or unless you're selling a product that is chemically harmful to the human body, you can pretty much make any statement you want in the US. I want to make "your momma" jokes all day long? Protected. I want to burn a flag? Protected. I want to walk down the street singing "kum ba ya"? Protected. And if I want to tell you that you are genetically or intellectually inferior because of your race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or just because I think you're ugly? Protected.


There are limits as to where and when you can say things, but not really what you can say. So the government might say you can't sing "kum ba ya" at 3:30am in a residential area, but they can't prevent you from singing kum ba ya at all. A school can ban a student from wearing a t-shirt to class, but the government can't ban that child from leaving the classroom, stepping off school grounds, and changing right into that very same t-shirt. And while the law doesn't protect your right to go into an black church in the South in the middle of a worship service to say blacks are genetically inferior to whites, if you want to stand outside of the Town Hall on publicly-owned property during the middle of the day and do it, it becomes protected speech. And if you want to burn a flag in the middle of that rant, it is also protected.

Because it's not just people in other countries that burn our flags; sometimes it's Americans themselves. Even though it's a flag that many hold dear and sacred, burning it in protest is a recognized right.

From:  http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/316658.shtml

 
I know this is extreme for people from other countries. In most countries in the world, there is some prohibition on speech aimed at speech that incites religious and ethnic hatred. It's an obligation in international treaties - for which the US has reservations saying (essentially) it will not abide.  Suggesting otherwise - suggesting the government has a right or a place in defining what is acceptable speech and what isn't sends a message that the US government could but isn't willing to do something about the video.

The exact opposite is true: the government may want to, but it does not have the authority or power to do so. This is a fundamentally important point because if you suggest that the video could violate free speech laws in the US, you are suggesting the government has a role and responsibility to intervene. But if you understand that the US law protects this speech absolutely - because, to my knowledge, it never includes a direct call to violence that could be interpreted as trying to and obviously leading to such violence - then you have to understand why it is not and cannot do more to stop such speech.

Living in a land of extreme speech has its drawbacks. We're currently at a stage where our democracy is threatened not by religious fundamentalism but by ideological fervor that encourages people to think it's acceptable to lie about pretty much anything in order to win an election. It's dangerous. But it's also protected.

And I like that about my homeland.  Good and bad, I like that when some idiot makes a film, (a) the majority of Americans won't actually watch it (seriously, no one would have watched it but for the outcry), but (b) it falls not on the government to regulate it and say it's inappropriate, but on the citizens to do so.  Hated speech - and hateful speech - cannot result in a prison sentence that intensifies someone's martyrdom, but it can result in social ostracism, which only strengthens the cultural understanding of what's acceptable and what is not.  If that determination of acceptability comes from the government, rather than from friends, family, and community members, it never takes a firm root in the hearts and minds of those targeted, or those observing.

That's not to say that the guys who made this film, or the likes of Terry Jones, will ever be persuaded by the response of thousands of other Christians in the US who have protested their acts, but those responses do impact societal understandings of their underlying messages.  As a young child, I remember someone standing up to racism.  It wasn't some big bad way of handling it - there was no violence, there was no punching. It was a simple statement: "That's racist."  And when the offender continued to protest that it wasn't, the response remained the same: "No. That's racist and it's unacceptable. Here's why..." with a brief explanation of the premise it was built on.  I honestly don't know who the person was who stood up in that way - I can see their face briefly in my memory, but I was young and short so mostly I remember their hands as they talked.  But that memory - that willingness to call someone out when the speech they were advocating was both insulting and based on premises that were fundamentally racist... that has stayed with me.

I don't always handle racism that well, but I want to. I've always wanted to.  Because in that moment, there was a societal recognition of those around that someone had just stepped beyond the bounds of social acceptability. There were no police to enforce this, there were no arrests made. But, I, as a young child, learned what was right and wrong in that moment.

As I got older, I heard blatantly racist things a lot less, but as more people were willing to call out the blatantly racist things, the multi-cultural community I grew up in found it's own code words to hide the racism. You would hear a white man at a table over from you say, "Well, when they - you know, they - moved in ..." And you wouldn't be certain that he was talking about a whole community - the black population in our community - or if he was referring to a specific neighbour, who may or may not be black (which is possible because everyone in my city is pretty much related to each other so lots of people don't use names when they're in public).  That kind of racism is much harder to call out.  Had he just said, "Well, when the black people moved in ..." I could casually lean over and tell him what he just said was insulting, not just to black people but to me. When he says, "they" and I can't tell who "they" are, it's much harder to casually point out to someone that they're not actually the good person t hey pretend to be, but they are actually racist whether they want to admit that word or not.

And that's the thing about racism and religious bigotry: it doesn't go away simply because it is prohibited. It just goes underground.  But while I can't call people at a table over out for their underground speech (unless I hear the whole conversation), when I'm at a party and someone uses the code words around me, I can - and have - called them out for it.  That kind of rebuke is, I think, more powerful than government pronouncements, arrests and denunciations.  It may not give full satisfaction to everyone who is insulted by the speech, but it does alter the discourse in the community and it does encourage the speaker to actually reconsider what they just said, even if that doesn't occur in the immediate period but only later.

The international community has already debated the defamation of religion concept and decided it was an inappropriate impingement on human rights. To revive that debate again is to move backwards in our understanding of human rights.  Human rights necessarily cause friction with one another, and that is no more more prominent than in the four freedoms found in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, articles 18, 19, 21 and 22:  freedom of religion, expression, assembly and association.

The freedom of religion includes the right to change one's religion. This suggests an opportunity to both share and receive information about your religion.  And yet, the very idea that someone would change their religion violates the underlying belief systems of the religions; it is, by many religious standards, the leaving of God's word. It threatens the tenets of faith of many. And if it requires the ability to share and receive information about religion, it means that my right to retain my religion comes into direct conflict with the right of others to share about their religion.

This is what human rights is; it's the recognition that we are not all fundamentally entitled to everything we individually want, but that we live in a community whose goal and obligation is to realize the inherent dignity of every person. Sometimes that will mean that our rights come into conflict, and we have to learn to balance them appropriately.

The freedom of speech means the right to say things that others despise.  And sometimes, we need to have those conversations. If we were to denounce and ban every speech deemed insulting to a religion, we really would still believe the Sun revolved around the Earth. Because for a very long time, Catholics (back when all Christians were Catholics) found that to be a denigration of their religious beliefs.  It turned out to be truth and the entirety of Christianity now accepts that as a reality and not contradictory to the Bible, but for a while it was deemed to not just be sacrilegious but to be an attack on the foundation of religious belief.

Someone - I think a commenter to an al Jazeera article - said that Christians in the US would never stand for this kind of insult to their own religion. My response? Bullshit.

The first time I watched The Life of Brian I wasn't a Christian. I thought it was hilarious.  The second time I watched it, I was not only a practicing Christian but one who taught Sunday school and lead Bible Studies.  I was shocked at my younger self for embracing such a sacrilegious movie. It is, in many ways, fundamentally insulting to the Christian faith. It suggests that Christians are kind of stupid and wish-washy and Christ may or may not be who he claimed to be. But, as I have watched it again (yes, despite being scandalized the first time), I've found that it engages in questions I, as a Christian, need to be able to address. What is it that I think makes Christ unique? Why am I willing to follow Him wherever He calls me (and He's called me to go to places I really didn't want to go to, like Cincinnati, Ohio)?  Why do I think He is who He claimed to be?

These are fundamentally important question. They are questions I need to be able to answer if I profess to have a faith in Christ.  Was that the motive behind the movie - to call me to a closer relationship with God?  Doubtful.  But how I respond to the movie is not determined by the motive of the movie-maker; it's determined by my relationship with God.

The Life of Brian isn't the only movie that has scandalized Christians in the the US.  We also have The Last Temptation of Christ on our Blockbuster bookshelves; we had an artist dip a crucifix in urine at a performance in New York; and the movie Dogma is based on the premise that God can make mistakes. And yes, our Bibles have been burned at times. These all directly attack central foundations of Christianity and do so intentionally.

And, for that matter, so does Islam to an extent, as Christianity attacks the foundations of Judaism. For Christianity to be true, then portions of Jewish teaching must be false. There was be a denouncing of it - the idea that the Savior is still to come; the idea that Jewish people retain a special covenant with God. For Islam to be true, then portions of Christianity (and Judaism!) must be false. We (Christians) believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the Saviour, who died and was resurrected. Islam suggests that Jesus was a prophet, which is axiomatic to the fundamental tenants of Christian doctrine. The very suggestion is a grievous offense to Christians, not that substantially different than The Last Temptation of Christ, The Life of Brian, or Dogma.  And Christianity rejects the concept of Mohammad being a Prophet.  Yet, under Islamic teaching I am a protected person of the Book, despite my rejection of Mohammad as the greatest Prophet.

The point is that we cannot outlaw speech simply because they offend someone's religious sensibilities.  Sometimes, those offenses are necessary as we develop in our scientific and cultural understandings. Sometimes they must be protected in order to respect the religious rights of others. And sometimes there is no greater good that comes of them other than the protection of speech itself and the benefit that comes from free and robust dialogue.

It is this premise that is behind the robust protection of free speech.  It is not easy to live responsibly with such freedom - it takes commitment and a willingness to stand in front of someone to protect their right to say the very things you have fought against your entire life.  But there is a deep and real benefit to that level of freedom, and it is one that is misunderstood and under-appreciated by those who would blame the response and violence on the freedom of speech recognized in the US.

I don't like the video or the distributors' intentions. I think they're disgusting. They're manipulative. And they're outrageous. But the way you fight that is not through government intervention (or through rioting and suicide bombings).  It is through a dialogue that educates those around you.  It is through using the very freedom of speech you see them using and it is through standing and screaming at the top of your lungs against the very thing they would scream at the top of their lungs to defend.

That is what freedom looks like. And that is worth fighting to preserve.

Israeli Settlements and the Plight of Palestinian Christians

The Israeli news agency Hareetz is carrying a story today about the door of a Christian monastery being lit on fire. Some of my friends would expect this to be from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Egypt.  It's not.  It's from Latrun on the border of Israel and Palestine, land claimed by Israel as a result of the '67 war between it and most of its neighbors.

The arsonists left "graffiti tags" - markings similar to what a gang does - linking the attack and the recent eviction of an illegal Israeli settlement in Migron, West Bank. In essence, those tags were used to indicate to the community that breaking down illegal Israeli settlements will end up in retribution to the civilian society.

According to Hareetz, the settlement was "established through deceit, without a permit, and on privately-owned Palestinian land," without the owner's permission, "dispossess[ing] the land's rightful owners for more than a decade." The tags can be seen below and Hareetz says they translate to "Jesus is a pig" and "Migron."

From AFP at Hareetz

The government of Israel apparently went through a period of dissociative identity disorder (sometimes called multiple personalities) where the justice branch ordered the eviction and restoration of rights for about a decade while the executive branch provided "generous assistance" to the settlers.

For Migron, it took intervention by an Israeli NGO, Peace Now, to help restore the rights of the landowners.

The graffiti alone might not be enough to tie Migron to the attacks on the Latrun Monastery - Google maps tells me Latrun is about 25.5km to the west of Jerusalem while The National tells me Migron is 15km north of Jerusalem, but thankfully there's an asshat who was willing to tie it all together. According to the Hareetz article on the attack, "Baruch Marzel, a right-wing activist, connected the attack to the evacuation of Migron. 'We said that evacuating Migron could fan the flames. There’s an entire community that feels very bitter,' said Marzel."

It's not the first "price tag" attack against Christian churches, either. "‎'In February, similar anti-Christian graffiti was found sprayed on the walls of the Greek church at a monastery in Jerusalem’s Valley of the Cross, and a Baptist Church in central Jerusalem. In both incidents, the graffiti included phrases such as 'Jesus is dead,' 'Death to Christians,' 'Mary is a prostitute,' and 'price tag.'"

Yes, in response to being forced to comply with the law, the response has apparently been to threaten death to Christians.  It's been to desecrate the walls of Christian holy sites and to set them on fire. As I said on facebook when I first saw this story, "I know Jesus would forgive but I just want to say f*** off."  I know it's not very Christian of me, but sometimes my not-very-Christian self wins. But, I'll get back to the Christian-ness of it all in a second. I'm going to handle the legal part first. 

In response to the Migron eviction, Bejanmin Netanyahu echoed these multiple personalities of the Israeli government for the last ten years: "We are committed to respecting the rule of law and we are committed to strengthening the settlement enterprise."

To which I have to ask: how can you be committed to the rule of law and simultaneously committed to perpetuating illegal actions?

Now I tend to tread carefully when I wade into Israel-Palestine publicly because experience tells me that no matter what I say I can simultaneously be labelled pro-Israel and anti-Semitic, pro-Palestine and anti-Arab. Let's be clear: criticizing the government policies of Israel is not anti-Semitic.  If I can be pro-American (and I am; I love my homeland) and criticize both the Bush and Obama administrations, I can criticize the Israeli government without being anti-Israel or anti-Semitic (and I do disagree with MLK, Jr., as to whether being anti-Israel is the same thing as being anti-Semitic; as it happens, I'm neither, but I don't think the two are tied as much as people like to make them). But, literally having one conversation and being called both anti-Palestinian and anti-Semitic can sting a person - particularly a white American woman who likes to be culturally sensitive - almost into submission.

But I know that's what they want - and by "they" I mean everyone who has a stake in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.  This includes leaders and religious / nationalistic zealots on both sides of the line.  So, I'm going to wade anyhow.

The Israeli settlements in the OPT are illegal.  There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.  Israel (as a government) likes to play a little international law loophole-ing - think G. W. Bush administration's classification of waterboarding as something other than torture - and claim that since the OPT did not have a "sovereign" before the 1967 conflict, then it's not actual "occupation" and therefore the settlements aren't illegal.

To explain a little further, international law forbids an occupying force from establishing settlements, permanently altering the borders or permanently taking land from the occupied territory.  There are a slew of other protections for those in occupations, mostly contained in the Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a party. But, the definition of occupied land is land that previously belonged to another state.  As Israel is fond of pointing out, Palestine was never a state. It was a territory of the British government, who in the half-assed manner in which they left countries during their "decolonization period,"  left Palestine when the 1948 agreement became too complicated.  In doing so, they had followed through on the establishment of Israel but not on the establishment of the other state, Palestine. So, in the Israeli government's reasoning, no previous sovereign = no occupation = no illegality to the settlements.

Except here's the rub, Israel. It doesn't really matter if the OPT had a previous sovereign.  Successive UN Security Council resolutions have, in various ways, ordered Israel to stop building the settlements. Those resolutions are often invoked in subsequent resolutions and it's pretty much settled by the UN Security Council that settlements are illegal and must stop.  That they violate the 4th Geneva Convention, even taking into account Israel's legal arguments. As a member of the UN, Israel has "agree[d] to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter" (article 25).  That means even the ones they don't like.

More importantly - and thankfully something the Hareetz editorial on this issue points out - Israel itself has agreed to stop the settlements through the '93 Oslo Accords. Yes, it's true that the question of Israeli settlements - meaning those already established in 1993 - was to be decided by subsequent agreement. But, Israel recognized the right of Palestine to self-governance over the OPT. It agreed to withdraw its troops and to cede jurisdiction over the area.  In recognizing sovereignty and self-government of OPT, it means that Israel has no further justification or legal claim to establishing settlements without the agreement of the Palestinian government. None.  And, of course, Migron was, along with 23 other settlements, established after Sharon's election in 2001, well after the '93 accords.

Of course, Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down by a fanatic, and the Second Intifada started, and Oslo fell out of favor with both Palestinians and Israelis. but falling out of favor is not the same thing as the government repudiating or suspending the agreements.  You don't get to say "we're not abiding by the law" just because it's unpopular.  Otherwise, there's no point to having a law.

So, Netanyahu cannot simultaneously be committed to settlements and to the rule of law.  He has to choose one or the other.

Now, turning back to that Monastery in Latrun... It appears those responsible decided that since they were criminals (or supporting criminals), they'd go ahead and take it a step further and become terrorists. And yes, I intentionally used the word because that's what it is: terrorism.  It's the intentional targeting of a civilian place of worship in an attempt to manipulate the government or society into doing what you want through intimidation and fear. It's terrorism. Plain and simple.

And Baruch Marzel, the right-wing guy Hareetz quoted, is encouraging that terrorism.  He is, quite literally, a terrorist-lover (as opposed to those of us who think even terrorists get the right not to be tortured, which I think is being a law-lover, not a terrorist-lover).

I do feel the need here to put in an aside pointing out that I know many Israelis who do not condone these acts, and others who do not condone the settlements at all. Just like Christians and Muslims have terrorists who claim to be acting on behalf of the faith but are really acting on behalf of their own egos and political aspirations, so does Judaism and these are is.  Not all Israelis and not all Jews should be considered responsible for these acts.  But Baruch Marzel and his ilk should be.
 And this is what drives me insane about the evangelical movement in the US (let me say that I am a born-again, evangelical Christian so it's not an indictment of all evangelical Christians; just the movement as a movement).  For some unexplainable reason - which, according to multiple news reports about 5 years ago is actually explainable in that people think they're helping the Second Coming of Christ (as if someone who is omnipotent and all-powerful needs that kind of assistance) - the evangelical Christian community in the US regularly supports the concept of Israeli settlements.

They take little trips once a year with 20 people on a bus and go and visit an Israeli "outpost" and learn about the religiousness of the settlers and about the plight they have (i.e., having to fight off mean, scary Arabs who want their land back and want to push them from the land God Himself offered the settlers. And live without malls or entertainment venues. I don't know why but every time I see settlements discussed on US TV and by US evangelicals, the distance between the settlement and the nearest shopping / entertainment venue is discussed. It's really bizarre.).

They go to the church at Bethlehem to pray and maybe they meet a single Palestinian there, but mostly they just shuffle on and shuffle off their tourist buses. They don't really meet Palestinians and they definitely don't meet the Palestinian landowners who were dispossessed from their land for the settlements. In doing so, they miss out on actually meeting their Christian brothers and sisters who are harmed by the occupation and the settlements.

Yet, Christian Palestinians do suffer from the occupation, and not just as a consequence of other disputes, like the retribution at Latrun or the threat to kill Christians left at the Greek and bapitist churches and the Valley of the Cross monastery.

Christians do not have a "right of return" to Israel.  Neither do Palestinians. Only Jewish people have a "right of return" to Israel. This is a legal reality. So the Christians present in Israel and Palestine are those who predate 1948. There are likely also Christian converts, but this appears to make up a small percentage of Christians present in the two areas.

Principally, Palestinian Christians are of Arab ethnicity and face the same restraints and problems as other Palestinians. This means, amongst other things, that their travel is limited, and as a result many Christians in the area can't visit Jerusalem to see the holy sites there.  So if you're an American Christian, you have greater rights of pilgrimage to visit a site thousands of miles away than if that of a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem. Think about it: from my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, it is 5983 miles (9626.65 km). From my friend's hometown of Bethlehem to Jerusalem it is only 5 miles (8.05 km). Yet, I am more entitled - and somewhat more likely! - to celebrate Easter at a holy site in Jerusalem than my brothers and sisters from Bethlehem.

60 Minutes recently highlighted this on a news segment (I've only read the transcript of the segment; I haven't watched it).  But the 60 Minutes story was a bit naive and factually wrong.  It claimed:

Christianity may have been born in the Middle East, but Arab Christians have never had it easy there, especially not today. In Iraq and Egypt, scores of churches have been attacked, hundreds murdered. In Syria, revolution seriously threatens Christian communities. The one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy Land: but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for years.

Christians aren't immune from the violence being perpetrated in Israel and Palestine.  And Palestinian Christians aren't immune from the violence being directed at their Palestinian Muslim neighbors. Their land is being taken for settlement. They are being detained, tortured and killed for protesting the occupation or settlements. They suffer for the same reason: their claimed nationality and ethnicity. And, apparently, when someone wants to lash out at the Palestinians, it's easy to go ahead and burn the door of a Monastery in response.

Even with a rather light touch on the problems of Palestinian Christians, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren called the 60 Minutes' piece was a hatchet job, without having ever seen it because he made the complaint before it even aired! Subsequent to his complaint - and still before the story aired - he was interviewed and said something I still don't understand:

It seemed to me outrageous. Completely incomprehensible that at a time when these communities, Christian communities throughout the Middle East are being oppressed and massacred, when churches are being burnt, when one of the great stories in history is unfolding? I think it's-- I think it's-- I think you got me a little bit mystified.

So, the argument is that since churches are being threatened and burned in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere we should care about a little discrimination against our brothers and sisters in Palestine?  Do we get to care now that the Monastery at Latrun was burned?

The truth is our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ are being discriminated against. They suffer every day under the occupation, while those in the US who claim to know and love Christ - who claim to feel a special connection to Bethlehem every year at Christmas - ignore their suffering.  We praise the Israeli government for actions we should be condemning, and we encourage settlements that simply thrust our brothers and sisters into poverty and physical harm.

I don't think we should cherish one human being over another simply because of their religion, but Christians are admonished to pray for the persecuted in our faith. We are supposed to love them and support them and encourage their faith and their development. Instead, too many evangelical Christians in the US unthinkingly support the occupation and Israel's expansion into the territory, which is not just causing individual harm to individual Christians, but it's actually forcing Christians to flee the area, diminishing the Church's presence in its very holiest of lands.

It makes me sick and angry.



Now, I have to say this, which is a bit unrelated: I learned of this incident because I am very fortunate to be friends with Ziya Meral, a Turkish writer and researcher based in London, who fills my newsfeed up every day with stories like this. Much like how I let Jon Stewart find interesting and under-discussed US news for me, and then supplement the Daily Show with online newspapers, I pretty much do the same thing on the Middle East and freedom of religion issues by following Ziya's tweets and then supplementing that.

If you're interested in the Middle East - its politics, its people, its stories - or in issues relating to freedom of religion ("FOR"), I highly encourage you to like Ziya on facebook and follow him on twitter (yes, I linked to his twitter again in case you were too lazy to go back!).  He also shares up sometimes hilarious, non-Mid-East / FOR stuff, too, so if you don't care about the Middle East / FOR, you may still want to follow him.

On Obama's "Socialist" Healthcare

A friend asked me on facebook if I could name a single "socialist" enterprise that functioned. Technically he "defied any liberal" to name a single time socialism has worked.  I'm a liberal, though, and it was on one of my wall posts, so, I took it as a personal challenge.

He was, like many GOP-ers, lambasting "Obamacare" and equating it with socialism.

Of course, I could actually name socialist things that worked: health care in Sweden, Germany, France and Japan, for starters.   The US doesn't like to talk about those examples of strong, robust, respected and appreciated forms of universal health care because the GOP would prefer to have Americans believe the only places with universal health care are Castro's Cuba, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia.  They like to equate universal health care and communism, so no one wants to discuss the fact that the US is the last industrialized country to adopt a universal system and most of the other industrialized countries are capitalistic democracies. 

So even though I could have gone on and on about socialist enterprises in the world that do actually function, I realized I don't actually need to.  Because the Affordable Care Act - or "Obamacare" - is no more socialistic in nature than the Ohio-GOP led bill that requires all car owners to have car insurance. 

We recognize at times that privileges come with responsibilities.  That's why the Ohio car insurance obligation was never assailed as "communism" - it's a privilege to drive and that privilege requires responsibility.  It's way my parents' were able to impose an 10:00pm curfew on me at 16 years old that could only be broken with advanced permission.  It was a privilege to stay out that late; it was a privilege to stay out even later; and with both of those privileges it was a responsibility to call home.  They weren't being socialists.  It's a privilege to get treated at America's health centres, even when you don't have health insurance, because you need the treatment.  With that comes the responsibility to participate in the system that pays for that privilege when you can (there are poverty exemptions, of course, because contrary to the GOP mantra, Obama isn't actually heartless.  His doctor even says his heart is normal and fit.).

Socialism isn't about forcing people to purchase things they don't think they want.  Socialism is about collecting the ownership of assets into the hands of the state.  And Obamacare does anything but that.  The concept that you would call something that requires you to purchase health insurance from a private company in a capitalist market a socialist endeavor suggests you don't actually understand the word - or care enough about the American public to have an honest conversation about it.

Now, I don't fault my friend - he works in politics.  He's a GOP party man and attended the RNC.  He might even believe that Obamacare is a socialist endeavor.  But it's not.  The assets of health care are not in the hands of the state - they remain, now and for the foreseeable future - in the hands of private individuals.  First, you as an individual buying, and then your health insurance or as a (legal, fictional) individual selling.  You can say many things about that, but you can't call it socialism.

Photo by Huji

Some photos

A few friends have said I need a picture or two on the page.  I don't want to add my own picture, though - at least not yet - so I'm adding Pearl Buck's instead.  She's pretty freaking awesome and is one of my newest heroines (I only really learned of her recently).  Buck was a Nobel Laureate for her body of literature and the picture is from the Nobel Prize Committee's website.

And I figured I'd add a few pictures of my travels in Istanbul:

 So... there are some pictures to satisfy my friends. I'm not sure this is what they had in mind, but ...

Why the "rape exception" is not about "punishing the child"

This week, I listened to the GOP - and my GOP friends - defend a prohibition on abortion even in cases of rape or incest (and some, even in the case of threat to the life or health of the mother). Often, this defense involves, "Why would you punish the child just because of how it was conceived?"  I want to respond to that here, publicly, because it says a lot about the worldviews of people when it comes to abortion.

The reason people believe there should be exception in the case of rape - even if you outlaw (most) other abortions - has nothing to do with the child.  It has everything to do with the mother. And this is where the worldview comes in.  If you believe that a woman's life and health and viability all become irrelevant at the time of pregnancy - that it all must become secondary to the needs and desires of a child - then of course you think that abortion shouldn't be allowed in the case of rape.

But if you believe that women are autonomous human beings who are in the best position to understand their own physical and mental health, then you have to recognize an exception for rape and incest. The reason for a rape or incest exception is because of the toll that can be had on a woman who has to carry a fetus to term.  It is about recognizing that the woman is in the best place to understand that toll on her and about ensuring she gets to control and decide what is necessary to help her recover from the rape.

I don't think a lot of men really understand the mental or physical consequences of rape. It's clear that people like Todd Akin don't, but even other men who think of themselves as compassionate and understanding don't really fully understand it.  So, I want to explain some of the consequences that I've seen in people I've known.

Below are the consequences I have found most common amongst my friends, colleagues and mentorees who have confided in me - sometimes immediately after, sometimes years after. They were not true for every one of my friends, but they were the ones that were most frequently true.  To respect their privacy, I am not using identifying details and I won't use any details that were discussed by only one rape victims; these are the details that have been consistent in their stories.

I want to be clear that while people may want to make gradations of what constitutes a 'serious' mental or physical reaction and what doesn't, such attempts are simultaneously useless and insulting.  There's no such thing as an 'easy' trigger reaction to PTSD. We would never tell a soldier the PTSD from war is "easy" because we think we should get to 'rate' PTSD responses.  Women respond differently to rape and sexual assaults, and each reaction from a woman is "normal" and severe.  There is help available for women around the world (various links are for various countries based on where my most frequent traffic comes from, with general links at 'for' 'women' and 'world'), but it is a process.

• Nightly replaying of the rape while they sleep. I can't call it a nightmare because that suggests something your mind has created or conjured up; this isn't their brain playing tricks on them. This is their brain reliving the actual rape. For months, they don't sleep soundly.  The sleep deprivation clouds their brains, and that makes them feel more crazy.
• Unlike a nightmare, which you can shake off within minutes of waking up, the nightly replaying of a real-life rape stays with the victim throughout the day. It plays in your head throughout the day. You end up not feeling safe and on edge. The entire day.  Then you go to sleep, and it happens again.
• When you see someone from across the street that resembles the man who raped you, you react.  This reaction can vary depending on the person, and even with a single person depending on the day. There's no "degree" of acceptability to these reactions, and all are equally bad even if from an external perspective there seem to be degrees. It is a trigger. It is the long-lasting presence of the rape that no one on the outside can see but that you can feel each time you see someone with a similar build, a similar haircut, a similar skin tone, a similar eye color. It can involve freezing while your heart quickens and you have difficulty breathing while you wait to know it's not him, or it can involve freezing and being unable to move even long after you know it's not him. It can render you speechless or it can result in screaming. You can regain your composure somewhat quickly, or you can end up crying hysterically in a bathroom, calling me to calm you down, or to come get you. It's not physical and mental strength you need. That's not what's preventing you from continuing your walk down the street, from breathing normally, or from getting up and leaving the bathroom. What you need is for the fear to stop. It's for you to know that you can continue on your day and not face a man who will again throw you against a wall, or a bed, or the floor, and violate your bodily integrity without your consent. It's to know you won't have to come face to face with him and have him act like everything's normal.
• You sit through a movie with your friends not knowing there's a rape scene coming up, or sit through a comedy show not knowing rape would be laughed at.  You're in shock listening to details you feel come from your most shameful**, horrific moment of your life while everyone else finds it entertainment. You fake not feeling well, excuse yourself, go home and lie on the floor in the fetal position.  You decide whether you need to call off work for the next day. Maybe you do; maybe you don't, but that night will be another sleepless one. (**Please note this this is a feeling and not a reality. If you are the victim of rape, you do not need to feel shame. Your attacker(s) is the one who should be ashamed.)
• The first time you go on a date with a guy you like, you are fine and having fun until he touches something on your face or your hand.  It triggers a memory - because it is PTSD you're suffering from - and you suddenly look at your would-be boyfriend or lover and realize you're pretty sure he's a rapist.  Not because of anything he's done but because you're pretty sure most men are rapist. Or maybe you realize in the intellectual side of your brain that that's not true, but you also realize you don't trust any man anymore.  You don't have normal relationships with them and you suspect they are all simply assholes.
• You might not tell anyone at first.  Particularly if you know - or are fairly certain - that telling will result in negative attention and reactions at work, in your classroom, or by your friends and family.  Yet, by not telling, you are forced to interact with your rapist - your boss, your teacher, your colleague / coworker / classmate - every day.  Each time he looks at you, you know what he's thinking and you feel the power he has exercised over you.  And he acts so naturally that you start to think you might be crazy - or maybe it really was your fault.  Because how could he act so normally around you after what he did to you? You shrink and he stands taller. 
• If - if - you tell the police, or the doctors and nurses, or a psychologist, you get a sympathetic ear. It gives you hope that others will be understanding. Until you meet with the prosecutor who will handle the case. He tells you there's nothing that can be done; it's your word against his and no jury will convict. He's very sorry, but your pain isn't real enough to warrant the effort. What was the most horrific crime you could imagine won't be recognized by anyone. And you feel embarrassed that you hoped someone would believe you. You feel ashamed because they didn't. And then you start to doubt yourself again.  Maybe you are crazy?  Maybe you should "just get over it"?  But how do you "just get over it" when the person who did this to you is still out there?  Still threatening to do this to other women?
• If - if - you've told people, only some will understand. Many - even your close friends and family - will question what you did to "cause" it. Many women - even your close friends and family - will assume it couldn't have happened to them, and therefore they feel safe and smug. They expect you to take responsibility for something you know somewhere inside of you you are not responsible for.  But that expectation seeps into your brain and you are starting to wonder what were you responsible for?
• If - if - you've told people, most will understand your shock and its effects for about a week to a month, maybe two.  At two months, people stop understanding the PTSD.  They stop understanding the fear.  They stop understanding the nightmares, or the way in which you discuss the issue.  You are left feeling alone, misunderstood, and at times you are made to feel crazy that this is still an issue.  Let me be clear: if this is something you're going through, you are not crazy.
• And most of these reactions leave you feeling a little less of yourself, if not a growing hatred of yourself.

How long those symptoms lasted depended for my friends. Some only suffered for a few weeks or months; some suffered for years.  The constant fear, the constant PTSD, the constant crying, the depression, and the feelings that you are crazy. The self-loathing and hatred that comes when you think maybe you were responsible, and then afterwards again for ever thinking that maybe you were responsible.  There's no real way to put into words what it really feels like.  I've described above symptoms of a deeper trauma.  That trauma is significant and real and long-term.

Now add to that trauma a daily physical consequence and it becomes so much more.  I tried to think of an equivalency for a war PTSD victim, but I can't.  The closest I could come up with is having a war victim with a lost limb and then telling them you're not willing to give them a prosthesis for almost a year later because you don't feel their entitled to it.  It's not a perfect analogy though, and that's because there really isn't an analogy to rape.  It's a unique form of torture (and it is actually used as torture around the world).

The reason for a rape / incest exception has nothing to do with punishment; it has everything to do with empowering the victim to choose for herself what she can handle mentally and physically, what she is able to deal with on a daily basis as the consequence of her rape.  Those who would suggest women can just give the baby up for adoption at the end don't understand that those 9 months of pregnancy may cause an irreparable delay in the woman's healing process.  It may cause more psychological damage as she faces each day the consequences, and with each kick of the baby remembers what his hands felt like on her skin.

Whether a woman is in a place to psychologically and physically handle the stress of pregnancy - and the minute-by-minute reminder of what happened to her - is a personal issue. It's a singular experience and cannot be the subject of a blanket determination. It is not for someone else to decide whether she's "mentally healthy" enough to deal with this repercussion.  It is not for a bureaucrat, or even her doctor, to say what she can and should handle as a consequence of her rape.

People who talk about abortions in the case of rape and incest as an issue of "punishing the child" don't fully understand what rape does to a woman, or the need for women to regain a semblance of control over their own autonomy and personal dignity.

Perhaps those individuals who oppose a rape exception will never understand the reality of rape victims, and I don't fault them for not understanding what it means. I fault them for assuming they understand what it means, and for assuming that simply because carrying a baby to term is right for one rape victim, then it should be right for all rape victims.

I don't usually screen my posts before putting them up, but on this one I did ask a few friends for their thoughts on an earlier draft.  Since I'm not a rape victim, I wanted to give a voice for others, not a voice to them, so I asked friends who either were survivors or who I knew were sensitive to the issues to comment. One of my friends wrote back and agreed to let me include the following from her email: 

"Forget the 9 months (not really, but for the purpose of my point) - If every time I see someone who resembles him I freak out, I would be terrified to see him in my child and whether I'd be able to handle that. I'm sure I'd love the child, but I'd be so scared that seeing the child would cause flashbacks and fear. I'd be terrified he would find out about the child and want to have contact - thus, meaning contact with me. I'd be terrified of how I and my child would feel if I didn't let him meet his child and was therefore taking my child's "father" away."

My friend will, insha'allah, one day make a wonderful mother, but I can't imagine the pain and dread, the long-term psychological toll, that would have played out had her rape resulted in a pregnancy. She doesn't believe in having an abortion otherwise, but said she would likely have one in this case because of the toll that such a pregnancy would have on her.  It's not about the child - it's not a punishment to the child - it's about her.  It's about what she could and could not handle.

There is no "right" way to handle this for a rape victim.  Some rape victims would find the idea of aborting a fetus conceived through rape repugnant. Some would find the idea of carrying to term too damaging. Both are acceptable decisions if they are the decisions of the rape victim, and that victim understands her decision is appropriate for her and her alone. Because ultimately, that's why people support an exception for rape and incest: it's an attempt to give a little power back to the woman to make decisions that are best for her mental and physical health.  It's a recognition of a woman as an autonomous individual entitled to human dignity, including mental health, and the right to control, influence and make medical decisions for herself.

Suggesting that abortion following a rape is about punishment - of anyone, father or baby - rather than about a woman making the best choices for herself in the face of unimaginable pain... that's cruel. It's inhuman.  It's degrading. 

And it shows you have no respect for a woman as an autonomous human being; you only respect her for what she carries in her womb.