Category Archives: Theology

Amnesty International: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water

Amnesty International Report on Water in Palestine from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

Israeli settlers enjoy lush lawns and swimming pools while Palestinians reduced to a trickle of water

In a new report published today (27 October) Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

In this Premier Radio programme with John Pantry, Geoffrey Smith of Christian Friends of Israel and I debate the merits of the Amnesty International Report.

Amnesty’s 112-page report – Troubled Waters: Palestinians denied fair access to water – shows how Israel uses over 80% of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20%. The Mountain Aquifer is the only source of water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes all the water available from the Jordan River.

On average, Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres per person a day, while Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day – four times as much. In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended by aid organisations for domestic use in emergency situations.

Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater. In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools. Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the entire Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.

Amnesty International Israel and the OPT researcher Donatella Rovera said

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford.

“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”

As Amnesty’s report makes clear, in the Gaza Strip 90-95% of the water from its only water resource – the Coastal Aquifer – is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.

Meanwhile, stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure, have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has now reached crisis point.

To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water – of often dubious quality – from mobile water tankers at a much higher price. Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.

Troubled Waters explains that Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem it has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even when just distributing small quantities of water. Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.

In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers. In comparison, in nearby Israeli settlements, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.

In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.

Read more here

Download the Amnesty Report here

See also Donald McIntyre in the Independent

Listen here

Christ at the Checkpoint

Bethlehem Bible College in Palestine

Cordially invites you to attend an International Conference

“Christ at the Checkpoint:

Theology in the Service of Peace and Justice”

March 13– 17, 2010

Location:  The Campus of Bethlehem Bible College

And the Intercontinental Hotel, Bethlehem

Equipping the Evangelical Church to:

  • · Read scripture in the service of the Gospel in the Palestinian context
  • · Discus theology in an Evangelical context
  • · Encounter theologically the realities “on the ground” in the Holy Land

Lectures…..Workshops…..Panel…..Discussion Groups

On site visits to refugee camps, villages, settlements

Sunday worship with local congregations

Cultural events

More details

Who are God’s Chosen People?

Who are God’s Chosen People? The Bible, Israel and the Church from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

This seminar was delivered at the University of Dundee Chaplaincy on Saturday 17th October 2009.

It is not an understatement to say that what is at stake is our understanding of the gospel, the centrality of the cross, the role of the church, and the nature of our missionary mandate, not least, to the beloved Jewish people. If we don’t see Jesus at the heart of the Hebrew scriptures, and the continuity between his Old Testament and New Testament saints in the one inclusive Church, we’re not reading them correctly.

The key question is this “Was the coming of Jesus and the birth of the Church the fulfilment or the postponement of the promises God made to Abraham?”

Christian Zionists see the promises of identity, land and destiny as part of an ongoing covenant God has with the Jewish people. In this book I unpack this question and show that Christian Zionism is a recent manifestation of a heresy refuted by the New Testament.

For an outline of this seminar see http://www.cc-vw.org/articles/zcs2.pdf

Is Work your Profession or Obsession?

Is Work your Profession or Obsession? Matthew 16:24-27 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

Have you seen the film, The Devil Wears Prada? If you have, you won’t forget Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep. She is the editor of New York’s most popular fashion magazine Runway. Ruthless and cynical, she is intimidating and manipulative – the queen of the fashion industry. Andy Sachs played by Anne Hathaway is the rather naïve young graduate fresh from university who wants to be a fashion journalist. A down-to-earth girl she lands the magazine job “a million girls would die for”: junior PA to Miranda Priestly.  She is quickly sucked into all the glamour, power and ambition of the fashion world.  Andy puts up with the eccentric and humiliating requests of her boss because, she is told, if she lasts a year in the position she will get her pick of other jobs, perhaps even the journalistic position she truly craves.

In the middle of the film, there’s a poignant scene where Andy has an argument with her boyfriend, Nate, because her work is consuming all her time. They’re standing outside a restaurant late one night and Nate complains about how she has missed his birthday, how she’s constantly late for all their dates and how he hardly ever sees her any more. She replies, “But Nate, I didn’t have a choice.” He looks at her as if to say, “Of course you’ve got a choice.” And then her mobile phone goes. It’s her boss.

Miranda Priestly. As she stands there, she is faced quite clearly with a choice. Outside the restaurant with her boyfriend at 11:00pm, the choice is very clear – to answer the phone or not. There’s a pause as the phone continues to ring, and then Andy says, ‘I’m sorry Nate’ and she reaches to answer the phone. Immediately, Nate responds, “The person whose calls you always take – that’s the relationship you are in. I hope you two are very happy together.” And with that he walks away. For Andy, her career was the phone call she always took. Her career was the biggest influence on the decisions she made.

Now don’t tell me you have not been there. That you have never chosen the thrill of the out of hours phone call from your boss, that cuts into a date, or time with your spouse or your family.  Whose calls do we always take in life? Who or what are the strongest influences for us when we have a decision to make?

Read more here

Listen here

Four Habits of Highly Effective Christians: 1 Peter 2

Four Habits of Highly Effective Christians from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

What is it with lifestyle gurus? They promise significance, success, wealth, fame, efficiency, wholeness, balance, integration and promotion, peace of mind, long life and endless fulfilment. And millions believe they can deliver it.

Christians are not immune from the temptation. After all, many of us get stressed wondering how on earth we can juggle time for the family, friends and the church, achieve goals, cope with demands at work, answer the emails, please the boss, get meaningful exercise, detox the body, get enough sleep, and create a firm abdomen.

Read more here

Street Child World Cup 2010

Tom Hewitt talks about the Street Child World Cup from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

The Street Child World Cup 2010 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

Jenny Dawkins speaks about the Street Child World Cup taking place in Durban, South Africa, next year, to coincide with the FIFA World Cup.

In March 2010 the first ever Street Child World Cup will take place in Durban, South Africa. Street children from eight countries will come together to play football and find their voices through the game they love.

The Street Child World Cup will place street children centre stage, celebrating their potential and providing a platform for them to talk about their experiences, rights and ideas.

Street children will work with international coaches to express themselves on the football pitch and with specially trained artists, who will enable them to tell their stories and to be heard.

They will launch a campaign to win rights for street children all over the world.

“The Street Child World Cup will use this game, which is loved all over the world, to help give kids a fairer deal. No child should have to be on the streets.” Gary Lineker, speaking at the Street Child World Cup launch.

An interview with Garth Hewitt.

To find out more visit streetchildworldcup.org and umthombo.org

Resolving Conflict at Work

You either love it or hate it but The Office is one of the most successful TV Comedy series of the 21st Century. Called a ‘mockumentary’, its filmed as a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary and set in the offices of Wernham Hogg, a paper merchant in Slough, ironically not far from here. The faster paced US spin-off follows the mundane daily interactions of a group of idiosyncratic office employees at another paper company this time in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and starring Gervais, The Office catapulted him to stardom in 2001, winning two Golden Globes, one for his acting and one for the show itself.[1] Jago Wynne in Working without Wilting, writes,

“The humour is very simple. It comes from observations about mundane office life, humour basically at the expense of all the different types of people working in the office. In fact, just as the TV series Friends was called Friends because it is about the relationships between different friends, so The Office could just as easily have been called Colleagues, because its about all the relationships between different colleagues.[2]

Continue reading →

360 Degree Leadership

[vimeo 6668133]

60 Degree Leadership from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

A couple of weekends ago I went a delightful morning sailing on Strangford Lough, the largest inlet in the British Isles. It is a stark, beautiful, open stretch of water, surrounded by the rolling hills of County Down, in Northern Ireland. It was the first time I have been sailing since I was a teenager and learnt all about maritime navigation at school. Coming from a coastal town, I would often listen to the daily BBC shipping forecast the weather conditions around the British coastline. Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger Bank, Humber, Thames, Dover, White, St Catherine’s Head.  Now sitting in the stern of the yacht, waiting for my turn to steer, I was surprised at how sophisticated sailing has become. There was a digital compass and an impressive TV monitor displaying a real-time digital maritime map of Strangford Laugh. There was a depth gauge monitoring the river bed, and there was a speed gauge. There is a lot more to sailing these days than sticking a wet finger in the air, hoisting the sail and letting the wind take you where ever it wills. If you have a specific destination in mind, or want to come back, you have to take account of the numerous forces intent on driving you in other directions. There are the wind, the currents and the tide.  But there are also the weather conditions to consider, forecasts, the time, high tide, the current, the length of day light, the time of year, known underwater hazards, reefs, wrecks and cables. There are safety instructions, emergency procedures, maritime regulations and directions from the coastguards. You must also consider the location, speed, heading and experience of other boat users. You must employ 360 degree vision at all times. Now you may consider that all these dials, charts, regulations, hazards  and threats, take the fun out of sailing, but considering them ensure you will more likely make it to your destination alive. These days you have to be a 360 degree sailor. You need to be mindful of what is above you, what is below you and beside you, to the north, to the south, the east and the west.

Continue reading →

Edward Irving, the Albury Circle and the Origins of the Middle East Conflict

Last night I spoke at the Albury History Society. The subject was “Edward Irving, the Albury Circle and the Origins of the Middle East Conflict”. I explained how the Arab-Israeli conflict could be traced right back to the eccentric views of Edward Irving and his colleagues, who met in the home of Henry Drummond in Albury, Surrey, during Advent 1826. Irving was largely responsible for popularising the notion that God had a separate purpose for the Jewish people apart from the Church and restored to Palestine. John Darby took these ideas further and fashioned them into what became known as Dispensationalism which is now the domnant theological framework of Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals in the USA. It is this constiuency that is underwriting financial and political support for the agenda of the Zionist Lobby, and hence a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

The full text is available here. Listen to the presentation here

The feedback was encouraging. I received this letter from the chairman following the presentation:

“I have never experienced such a positive reaction to a guest speaker as came about last night, and has continued to this morning. The audience was both numerous and responsive, and as one member put it to me “it is going to be a hard act to follow”. I think that we shall be talking about Christian Zionism for some time, having long harboured suspicions of chicanery in high political circles, and now being presented with conclusive evidence of it. We could also have brought in the French pope who set off the chain of crusades for his own political preservation.

I express my gratitude to you on behalf of the Albury History Society and thank you for a superb presentation, technically faultless, and intellectually challenging. With kindest regards…”