Untying the settlements knot

Israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu broke new ground in his June 14 speech by voicing for the first time his support for a Palestinian state. He did, however, make that support conditional on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and on the continued presence and growth of Jewish settlements in areas Palestinians claim for their future state and capital (the West Bank and East Jerusalem).

In the Gordian knot that is the Middle East peace process, the settlements represent one of the most difficult issues to disentangle. They are inhabited by Jewish Israelis in Arab territory that has been occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967. International law considers them illegal because the land was gained through the use of force. Palestinians argue that continued expansion of settlements represents an attempt to preempt the creation of a Palestinian state with contiguous borders. Besides religious justification, some Israelis say that settlements are a necessary strategic buffer in areas susceptible to attack. As the population of the settlements grows (at a rate three times higher than that of the general Israeli population), the political voice of the settlers also grows, bringing heightened domestic pressure within Israel to continue their expansion.

There are immense political pressures on all sides—and on the US, Israel's main ally—in addition to issues of national identity and historical legacies that date back centuries, even millennia. It's also clear that the population is larger than the land can hold. Considering these problems collectively, the situation could appear to be unsolvable.

PALESTINE. A Palestinian worker walks at a construction site in the West Bank Jewish settlement Maaleh Adumim. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says new homes must go up to accommodate settlers' growing families. But the Central Bureau of Statistics figures show 40 percent of the population growth in settlements came from people who moved there and not from growing families. In the last three years more than 5,000 new apartments have been completed. June 22, 2009.

A NEW DWELLILNG PLACE

Do itinerancy and intractable conflict really characterize the place God has prepared for Israel, the Palestinians—us? Biblical concepts of home suggest another approach to these issues and illuminate ways prayer can support constructive progress.

Beyond merely a physical place to live, the Psalmist describes another kind of dwelling place available to everyone. It is the "secret place of the most High" (Ps. 91:1 ). This "secret place" can be likened to a conscious awareness of being in God's tender presence, inseparable from one's Creator. To actually dwell in that space, in that consciousness, is not a blind refusal to acknowledge difficulties. Rather, it is a grounded awareness that no matter where one is or how challenging the circumstances, all the goodness and power of God are right there, directing and protecting. The place the Psalmist describes isn't a magical corner of prime real estate available to only small number of people. It is an awareness of divine Love, which is always operating on everyone's behalf.

And dwelling in that place has transformative potential. The Psalmist describes it as delivering us from snares, from pestilence, from terrors and destructions. In fact, when God is our very habitation, the Psalmist says it is impossible for any evil to come upon us.

Beginning with the original covenant between God and Abraham, the consciousness of God's presence is linked throughout the Bible with tangibly met human needs and a fertile living space. God's desire and power to bring us to the Promised Land are reiterated when He renews the covenant with Isaac: "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of" (Gen. 28:15 ).

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

I've often wondered why the children of Israel had to wander 40 years in the wilderness before they could enter and inhabit the Promised Land. The physical journey was only a short distance, but the mental distance they had to travel was quite lengthy. Years of enslavement had so constricted their thought that living out from their true heritage of freedom—an understanding of and an ability to accept all the good God intended them to have—required a different kind of journey.

The meeting of their daily needs for food and water over a sustained period, for example, was necessary to alleviate entrenched fear and establish confidence in God's power and provision. This in turn prepared them to actually occupy the Promised Land. But home isn't merely a material place, as Mary Baker Eddy made clear when she said: "Home is not a place but a power. We find home when we arrive at the full understanding of God. Home! Think of it! Where sense has no claims and Soul [God] satisfies" (Irving Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy, Boston, The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1996, p. 211).

In describing his Father's house as having "many mansions" (John 14:2 ), Jesus made it clear that the promise of God's provision is not limited to only one ethnic or religious group, but rather is available to all who see and claim that space as their own. One group's claims don't prevent another from entry, but rather illuminate and open up the way. As each of us—individually and collectively—more fully understands divine Love, and sees our inseparability from it, we are free to experience its blessings, and we help free others to do so as well.

CHANGE IS POSSIBLE

The statement, "It's always been this way," implies that it always will be that way. In God's eternal now, what He provides to individuals is ever new and fresh, unhampered by a weighty past, unhindered by predictions of future intractability. God's kingdom is here and now. A misguided sense of historical legacy—good or bad—disappears in the conscious awareness of that truth.

One definition of home is "an environment offering affection and security." Then a resolution of the settlements issue is not about "losing" home, but about having a more expansive understanding of it, one where affection and security are available to all. There is abundant room and love in God's kingdom for all His children. So His ideas don't need to compete with each other for their Father's attention or His love and protection. This sense of home doesn't require displacing someone else's sense of home. In fact, it renders that displacement impossible.

In long-standing conflicts, constructive change often requires people to change their views and to challenge their own communities and even families. They are asked to risk isolation (or worse) from those closest to them. Prayer reveals that the connection to each other comes from, and is strengthened by, our relation to God. Divine Love speaks to each one directly, and it is our nature to hear that voice. This truth supports the mental independence that is part of our spiritual heritage and necessary for genuine human progress.

Prayer for those in leadership, and those on the ground, will support the courage and compassion that come from an understanding of God's presence with them. This is part of their—and our—spiritual heritage as God's loved children. As we are God's image and likeness, our true nature must include the humility, creativity, strength, and unselfish love that characterize the divine presence.

Our prayer in support of solutions to the issue of housing settlements is sustained by the harmonizing and universal nature of God's promise. "All things work together for good to them that love God," notes St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (8:28 ). Under that law, one heir of God's promise can't be made to work against another. We can actively pray to see that harmonizing principle at work right where the argument of entrenched opposition argues most loudly. Then we're participating in the proof of God's promise, illuminating the divine heritage for all, and helping untie even the most tangled knots of destructive conflict. css