There’s a letter circulating through Congress by Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN) and James Risch (R-ID) that has gotten the National Council of Churches affiliate Churches for Middle East Peace all hot and bothered. Complaining that the letter isn’t “balanced,” they are urging mainliners to write their congresscritters asking them to not sign it. The reason why it isn’t “balanced,” of course, is that it doesn’t ask the president to pressure Israel for concessions, probably because the president is already doing that. According to CMEP:
Senators Bayh (D-IN) and Risch (R-ID) are asking their colleagues to join them in signing a letter to President Obama that urges Arab states to make “dramatic gestures toward Israel” without mentioning any obligation of Israel to stop the expansion of settlements in Palestinian territories. This old and unbalanced approach compromises a key element in negotiations and undercuts the President’s efforts to get comprehensive talks started. Only policies of holding both sides accountable, as now pursued by the President, hold out hope for a lasting peace.
The reason for the letter, if I were guessing, is that the senators have seen that Obama’s policy is basically to demand various concessions from Israel (for instance, a halt to all “settlement expansion,” even simply adding new units to existing developments, in any territory the Palestinians claim, including the heart of Jerusalem itself, or lifting of the restrictions on movement in and out of Gaza, despite the continuing flow of weapons into the Strip) without asking anything in return from the Palestinians except that they stop terrorist activities (i.e., behave like civilized people and not barbarians). Bayh and Risch are asking Obama to balance his demands on Israel with some substantive concessions from the Arab states:
We write in support of your efforts to encourage Arab states to normalize relations with the State of Israel.In your June 4th address to the Muslim world, you highlighted the key role that Arab states can play in furthering the peace process and called on them to openly recognize Israel’s legitimacy. Secretary Clinton underscored these remarks when she stated that Arab countries “have a responsibility to support the Palestinian Authority with words and deeds, to take steps to improve relations with Israel and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region.” We applaud these comments and agree with you and Secretary Clinton that Arab states must do more to end their isolation of Israel.
Over the past few months Israel has taken concrete measures to reaffirm its commitment to advancing the peace process. Notably, Prime Minister Netanyahu has publically [sic] expressed support for the two-state solution and called for the immediate resumption of peace negotiations. We have also been encouraged by Israeli efforts to improve the daily lives of Palestinians, through measures such as removing roadbloacks, assisting with economic development in the West Bank, and supporting the training of professional Palestinian Authority security personnel. These actions have demonstrated that Israel is willing to back up its word with concrete actions, even in the face of continuing threats to its security.
We encourage Arab leaders to take similar tangible steps to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process. Such steps could include ending the Arab League boycott of Israel, meeting openly with Israeli officials, establishing open trade relations with Israel, issuing visas to Israeli citizens, and inviting Israelis to participate in academic and professional conferences and sporting events. We also believe Arab states must immediately and permanently end official propaganda campaigns which demonize Israel and Jews.
Given these facts, we would like to understand what steps you are urging Arab states to take and what your expectations are from Arab states in the coming weeks and months. We also hope you will continue to press Arab leaders to consider dramatic gestures toward Israel similar to those taken previously by brave leaders like King Hussein of Jordan and Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt. Such gestures would send a powerful signal that Arab nations are committed to the peace process and could help usher in a new a new era of peace and security in the Middle East.
Truth be told, what Bayh and Risch are asking for are actions that are either 1) in the interest of the Arab states themselves, such as normalizing trade relations; 2) symbolic gestures that can easily be ignored down the road, such as meeting with Israeli officials; 3) what nations that acknowledge they are dealing with fellow nations do; or 4) simply civilized, such as stopping the daily outpouring of anti-Semitism in the Arab press. They wouldn’t even need to do all of these things, but could hold some in reserve as future bargaining chips. All in all, it’s a pretty moderate letter, simply asking the president to do to the Arabs what he has already done to the Israelis.
And yet CMEP (and many of the usual suspects on the anti-Israel left and its Muslim allies) have with concerted hysteria gone ballistic over a letter that asks for balance by claiming that it is unbalanced! Apparently it is OK for the United States to make demands for unilateral concessions from its one democratic ally in the Middle East, but it cannot even be suggested by members of Congress that the Administration ask for any balancing concessions from the various authoritarian and anti-Semitic regimes unless they reiterate, ad infinitum, the demands on Israel.
An Oregon television station reports on a women in Eugene who got a letter from the state health plan, in which she was informed that the state wouldn’t pay for her chemotherapy but would pay for her assisted suicide. Check out the report, which is a chilling view of one possible future for American health care.
(Via Hot Air.)
UPDATE: I’ve found out two things from the Tacoma (WA) News-Tribune since posting this item (which was, as Alan Wilkerson points out in his comment, not a new story–it was first reported in June of 2008). First, Ms. Wagner got the drug in question from the pharmaceutical company that makes it. Second, she died in October of 2008.
Well, I got back from Mexico late last night, worn out and yet inspired from a week of ministry among the poor of Monterrey. Unfortunately, the Internet connection at the hotel was so erratic that I wasn’t able to post all week long. Hopefully my Tonstant Weaders (as Harlan Ellison liked to call the fans of his 1970s TV column) will come back now that I have.
I’ll be producing a video about the trip that I’ll be presenting at Redeemer, and will post it at YouTube as soon as we’ve used it locally. For now, here are some photos of the week:
This is the full team–Christians from Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee; doctors, nurses, a physical therapist, a physician’s assistant, a lab tech, two pastors, and several lay people. That’s me in the lime green polo shirt on the right. We are standing in front of the Mountain of the Saddle, one of many mountains that surround Monterrey.
I was privileged to preach at Iglesia Bethel Presbiteriana, our host church, on Sunday. I preached from Matthew 16:13-20, and my colleague Pastor Francis Smith from Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Winston-Salem, a former missionary to Chile, translated.
Monterrey is as much a city of cars as any American city. It’s also a combination of Mexican and American businesses. And while you can’t see much through the haze, the seemingly omnipresent mountains are in the background, several miles from where this was taken.
We went to two nursing homes, which are fairly rare in Mexico because aged parents are typically kept in their families’ homes–as a result, those in nursing home usually have little if any family, and few visitors. This shot is of Dr. Mike from Pensacola, translator Lisa from Faith EPC in Kingstowne, a resident (sitting) and a staff member from the home.
The second nursing home was much smaller than the first (15 as opposed to 45). At both, the staff did a terrific job taking care of their patients, especially considering their limited resources. Here, Nurse Helen from Tennessee is taking a patient’s blood pressure.
We set up the clinic at Iglesia Bethel on Wednesday. Five doctors and a physical therapist saw patients, nurses helped doctors as well as doing lab work and triage (which in this case simply meant taking vital signs and determining symptomology, to see if there were any serious cases).
We also had a local dentist whose services were much appreciated, but the most popular doctor was Optometrist Arturo, who came from a city five hours away to be with us for five days, as did his wife, Nurse Alma. Arturo didn’t have the kind of complicated machinery that we’re used to seeing in an optometrist’s office, of course, so he had to carry his tools in his case, swapping out lenses until he could pinpoint a prescription.
For the first three days, I had the privilege of working with and getting to know Pastor Rafael, a Mexican Presbyterian pastor and church planter who is now on the staff of Team Northern Mexico, the permanent cohort working for the PCA’s Mission to the World agency. He’s a former stated clerk and moderator of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico, but mostly he’s a gentle pastor with a loving heart and a passion to win people to Christ. The young lady in the photo, standing in front of her mother, Blanca, is Fanny, who is 21 years old, but because of birth and childhood illness problems only looks 13 or 14. She captured me with her ready smile and charm, even though she’s in pain much of the time.
Everyone on the team agreed that the medical aspect of the mission, as important as it is, was secondary to the mission of bringing the gospel. One of those we were able to do that with was Maria Theresa, who came to us ready and wanting to hear the message of Christ, and received it with great joy from Pastor Francis. I prayed for a lot of people this week, but praying with her was one of the highlights of the week.
One thing I should make clear at this point. We didn’t come to Monterrey seeking to “steal sheep” from the Catholic Church, and if someone said they were a faithful Catholic, we left it at that. What we found, however, was many people who had been baptized as Catholics, but had long since ceased to have any connection to the church at all. There were a lot of reasons for that, but one that we heard over and over was that their experience was that the church seemed unconcerned with the concerns and struggles that made up their lives. In fact, many people seemed to have no clue about what the gospel is, even at its most basic, or to have any form of relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Those folks we didn’t hesitate to speak to about their faith, and in the course of the week at least four people that I know of declared their desire to turn their lives over to Christ.
We saw marvelous spiritual fruit throughout this week, and none more gratifying than that between our team and the good people of Iglesia Bethel and Pastor Eraclio, the warm and gracious leader of the community. To a person, everyone I spoke to, Mexican and American, agreed that the relationships that come out of these kinds of trips, the support that builds for the work in the host country, and the prayer that flows from one to the other and back again, make the expense of the trips worth it. Could Iglesia Bethel use the money that was spent to give 23 Americans a week ministering in a foreign country, which I estimate to be about $30,000 in MTW fees and travel? Of course. But those I spoke to said that they would rather have the personal contact, the opportunity to pray and laugh and talk with brothers and sisters from another culture, than all the money in the world. I have to agree with them.
