taking the words of Jesus seriously

The Red Letter Christian answer to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict addresses the basic problems that people say are irresolvable and will necessitate an ongoing war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The problem is that the Israeli’s will not allow the Palestinians who are refugees in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to return from Israeli proper where these people once had their homes.

Israeli’s main reason for stopping the return is that the number of refugees that would be returning is so great that, once all the returnees became citizens, they would outnumber the Israelis in their own country and would be able to vote the current Israeli government out of existence.

On the other hand Palestinians will not talk about peace so long as the Israelis are living in the settlements that Israel constructed on the Palestinian territory. This territory was assigned to Palestine by the UN resolution that created the state of Israel. Palestine maintains that peace cannot be reached until all those Israelis who are currently living in this territory must be removed and sent back to Israel proper. Needless to say the 500, 000 Israelis that are living in these illegally constructed settlements are not about to pick up and move.

Most recently, a plan came out of Princeton University that addressed all the problems on both sides. It’s the first new idea of dealing with this problem that has come down the pike in years. If you’re looking for a good answer for what has deemed to be an impasse read the article that was published in Tikkun Magazine which analyzed this plan set forth by those at Princeton.

About The Author

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Tony Campolo is Professor of Sociology at Eastern University, and was formerly on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. For 40 years, he founded and led the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that created and supported programs serving needy communities in the Third World as well as in “at risk” neighborhoods across North America. More recently, Dr. Campolo has provided leadership for the Red Letter Christians movement. He blogs regularly at his own website. Tony and his wife Peggy live near Philadelphia, and have two children and four grandchildren.

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