wfn.org | Faiths Prod Government For Stronger Role in Peace Process

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3-December-1998 
98399 
 
    Religious Leaders Prod Government For 
    Strong Role in Peace Process 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
WASHINGTON - With a fragile agreement in place and potentially volatile 
talks yet to come, national Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders 
convened here to show support for peace between Israelis and Palestinians 
and for continued U.S. involvement in peace negotiations. 
 
    Though there's little clarity - and even downright disagreement - among 
members of the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East 
about what peace ought to look like, there's real commitment to demonstrate 
that a carefully negotiated peace is what the majority of Middle Easterners 
and their U.S. constituencies want - not unilateral pressure or extremist 
actions. 
 
    Just to make the point, leaders from the American Muslim Council, the 
National Council of Churches, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 
the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding, the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.) and others gathered Nov. 22 at the Foundry United Methodist 
Church, the congregation where President Clinton and his family worship 
when they are in Washington. 
 
    "This administration - and other administrations before it - has been 
committed to helping the peace process proceed," said Ronald J. Young, the 
committee's executive director, citing vocal lobbies ranging from Christian 
fundamentalists to the well-established American Pro-Israel Political 
Action Committee voicing sole support for Israel.  "But there are pressures 
on the administration, pressures [from] the Congress that are almost 
overwhelming ... 
 
    "And almost all the pressure is, essentially, to adopt the position of 
the Israeli government and get the Palestinians to accept it," said Young. 
 
    Use of such  pressure is not how his committee wants to see the 
negotiations run.  Begun in 1987 to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims 
together for dialogue, education and peace advocacy, the organization 
defines itself as working to build bridges between faiths that share the 
Abrahamic tradition and to work for peace as a moral imperative. 
 
    "We've got no real political clout.  We've got a voice, a significant 
voice," said Albert Vorspan, a vice president emeritus of the Union of 
American Hebrew Congregations who is one of the committee's three national 
interfaith co-chairs.  "We've got a voice that says the U.S. has to play a 
leadership role in the peace process, no matter where we may come out 
individually on the issues ... and we come to understand each other. 
 
    "This is the only platform I've heard of where people of all religious 
faiths come together to share one commitment to peace in the Middle East. 
We never reach across bridges to the other groups." 
 
    How hard that is was exemplified by the committee's program where two 
speakers - one a retired Israeli military officer, the other a female 
Palestinian politician and activist - articulated widespread support for 
peace within their constituencies in a painful 40-year sovereignty battle. 
But on the sticky questions - such as control of Israeli settlements deep 
in Palestinian territory and on how to stop terrorism - common ground was 
harder to find, let alone, develop. 
 
    Startling some in attendance were remarks by Shlomo Lahat, mayor of Tel 
Aviv and president of the Council for Peace and Security, an organization 
with 80 percent of Israel's senior retired military officers as its 
membership. He proposed that peace, which is necessary for Israel's 
security, includes: giving the Palestinian state its 1967 borders and, in 
the Israeli-Syrian negotiations, withdrawing from the Golan Heights.  Peace 
he said, also includes a commitment from Israel, not to interfere in the 
return of refugees to the new state - ideas that go beyond what the 
Netanyahu government is offering.  Lahat insisted that the Palestinian 
government minimize terrorism, that settlements, exempting isolated ones, 
remain within Israeli hands, and that Jerusalem be the capital of the state 
of Israel, with guarantees of religious freedom for people of all faiths - 
freedoms that, Lahat said, exist now for the three faiths. 
 
    Stepping up next to the podium, former Palestinian National Authority 
minister Hanan Ashrawi countered a Jerusalem that includes two different 
capitals for two seperate states in one city is a possibility and not "a 
pipedream." 
 
    "We must find a solution to do justice to Jerusalem ... and not reduce 
it to a spiritual place where people worship," she said, arguing that the 
city - despite Israeli rhetoric -  is not open to people of all religions 
because of permits often denied to Palestinians and military checkpoints. 
"It must be a place where people can live." 
 
    Ashrawi articulated what she called a "sense of outrage" that is 
"destroying the peace process" when the international community - most 
particularly, the U.S. - overlooks how Israel not only annexed the 
historically Arab section of  Jerusalem, but continues to build settlements 
on Palestinian land.  She said violating human rights to curtail terrorists 
will not end terrorism, but further the injustices and abuses experienced 
now by Palestinians and erode trust in the new Palestinian government. 
 
    Likewise, the two leaders spoke differently about the U.S. role in 
future negotiations. Lahat said the U.S. can take several roles in the 
coming negotiations - from aiding the Palestinian state in development and 
interfering when agreements are violated, Ashrawi was more circumspect. 
"So far, the perception is that the U.S. has taken sides," she said, urging 
that what has become a dangerously slow peace process should include 
Europeans and Arabs. 
 
    "The need for an active, determined U.S. role in the coming months is 
absolutely clear," said Young. He added that whatever differences were 
articulated by the speakers, neither disagreed that a "morally logical, 
politically realistic" peace is wanted by majorities on both sides of the 
political divide.  "And, we cannot assume that the U.S. will play a role 
unless we demonstrate - as unitedly as we can - that's what we want the 
administration to do. 
 
    "Nor are we cheerleaders for one side or the other.  We are Americans," 
he said. "Our role is to push and support the administration to play an 
active [role] in helping the parties negotiate solutions ... that remain 
acceptable to majorities on both sides." 
 
     Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Interfaith Coordinator Peggy Thomas 
agreed, adding that the denomination needs to be listening to a wider 
circle of voices in the coming months, some of whom are nuancing their once 
hard positions and are broaching subjects that were once taboo.  "For a 
long time, the General Assembly has spoken about this issue ... and we've 
tended to see [it] through the eyes of our partners, the Christians with 
whom we relate. 
 
    "But ultimately," said Thomas, "if we're interested in peace, we have 
to stop listening to only one side and start listening to a multitude of 
voices ... so we hear the aspirations of various people, all of whom need 
to get enough out of this to determine if something is going to be liveable 
for them." 
 
    The errors and abuses of all three faiths were singled out during 
remarks by Atif Harden, executive director of the Washington-based American 
Muslim Council, who asked each community to look at its own record during 
the centuries each took control of Jerusalem.  "Just as individuals are 
judged for how we live our lives, I also believe communities are judged ... 
and one of the tests is: did we treat one another with justice?," he asked, 
using Jewish, Muslim and Christian history to raise questions about the 
future in what he called "holy land." 
 
    "Whose reign," he pushed, "was most just, most righteous ... and who 
kept the land and the city of Jerusalem a city of peace?" 
 
     Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Moderator the Rev. Doug Oldenburg told 
that gathering that the role of religious leaders is to "keep hope alive" 
in the midst of a process that tempts North Americans - well-insulated from 
the problems -  to be discouraged or worse, apathetic.  "We've seen history 
open with unexpected surprises," he said, citing as the foremost example 
the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  "And we must keep hoping and praying that 
the God we worship will bring about reconciliation. Our job is to keep hope 
alive." 
 
    National Council of Churches President the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, 
another of the Interreligious Committee's national co-chairs, said 
peacemakers in interfaith circles have been "slogging it out for years and 
years" on Middle East peace issues.  She told the Presbyterian News Service 
that mainstream Protestants have a strategic role to play in pushing the 
administration to stick with peace negotiations, because the Jewish 
community is so small.  "Without [our] voices," she said, "the government 
will not put as much energy into the peace process." 
 
    That energy has been Young's point - since he founded the committee 11 
years ago.  "We've got to hear each others' points of view.  We've got to 
adopt positions of advocacy that are sensitive to each others' concerns ... 
[and the government has] to help the parties work toward a solution, the 
outlines [of] which are beginning to emerge." 

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