Open AccessPostponing Armageddon? Christian Zionist and Palestinian Christian Responses to the Problem of Peace
Author(s) -
Paul S. Rowe
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
chronos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1608-7526
DOI - 10.31377/chr.v28i0.399
Subject(s) - peacemaking , forgiveness , land of israel , political science , miller , peaceful coexistence , law , religious studies , sociology , theology , palestine , history , ancient history , philosophy , politics , ecology , biology
Of all the problems of peacemaking and peacebuilding in the modern international system, none is as contentious a matter of religion and identity as that of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The weight of spiritual significance and history has caused more than one author to expound upon the way religion has uniquely marked this land. Foreign interest and interference in the allocation of privileges and ownership in the region have led one recent analyst to bemoan the plight of this "much too promised land." (Miller 2008) In a history of the conflict written long before its descent into the first and second intifadas and the expansion of the number of religious antagonists, David Smith noted that .the years after the 1967 [Arab-Israeli] war would defy a solution an spawn a new conflict between Arabs and Jews. In the tiny battleground of the West Bank — just 80 miles long and 26 miles wide — the two peoples would live together, contesting the same territory. Many on both sides would claim that it was granted to them by God... In the process, Arabs and Jews would be locked in a modern-day secular conflict, fuelled by age-old religious zealotry and bigotry. They would become prisoners of God. (Smith 1987: 4)