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GA06006
Israel/Palestine conflict
Panel offers three distinct views on achieving peace in region
by Toya Richards Hill
BIRMINGHAM, June 15 — Under the backdrop of a carefully controlled and structured pre-General Assembly event, the often-contentious discussion on the Israel/Palestine conflict began with ease here Thursday morning.
About 200 General Assembly (GA) participants gathered for three hours to hear three distinct views on achieving peace in the contested region, and to receive an update on the human-rights situation in Israel and Palestine (http://staging.pcusa.org/worldwide/israelpalestine/).
Official work on the multitude of overtures related to Israel/Palestine will take place when the GA’s peacemaking and international issues committee begins its work June 16. That will be the first official opportunity – via open hearings – for people to state their views on the conflict, and how they think the church should respond.
With that on the horizon, attendees of the “educational event,” organized by the Israel/Palestine Project Team of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), were cautioned not to use that venue as a bully pulpit.
Outgoing GA Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, doubling as moderator of the panel discussion, said the event objective was not to “try and lobby in one direction or another,” but “listening with a spirit of openness.”
To eliminate what Ufford-Chase called “speechifying” during the event question-and-answer period, one question was developed from each of the tables where participants were grouped, and Ufford-Chase then asked the questions of the panel.
This gathering is “the time to learn more deeply,” the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, GA stated clerk, told the audience at the opening.
Much of that learning was facilitated by a diverse panel that included Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land; Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council; and Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Prior to the panel discussion, attendees also heard a human rights update presented by Joe Stork, the deputy director for Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch.
Among other things, he stressed the need for more serious and thorough investigations carried out by the Israeli government when killings occur, an end to “collective punishment” and more monitoring by the internatio nal community.
“The any-means-necessary kind of mentality is the one that we have to be on guard against,” Stork said, adding that there must be a “rigorous” effort made to protect people.
Though each of the panelists represented different constituencies and somewhat divergent views, common issues emerged from their individual 10-minute talks, including the need to deal with violence and terrorism in the region and a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
“We denounce terrorism. … Non-violent resistance is the best instrument for change,” Al-Marayati said. “There is no military or militant solution to this conflict.”
At the same time, “Palestinians have the moral and legal right to resist,” he said, highlighting the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. “Israelis must immediately withdraw.”
Younan agreed that any form of violence, regardless of the perpetrator, should be condemned. But he added, “We also condemn occupation.”
“For us, occupation is a sin against God,” he said. “It deprives people of their human rights,” hurting both the occupied and the occupier.
Yet Pelavin said terrorism, and not occupation, is the barrier to resolving the conflict.
“Terrorism is the evil haunting the Middle East,” and the threat under which Israelis live every day, he said. “The occupation is … a result of that need to provide security for Israeli citizens.”
He also questioned discussing a vision for peace in the region without talking about Hamas, whose “ideology is not one that supports negotiation s, that supports compromise, that supports two states – peaceful and Democratic.”
As a matter of principle, Hamas, a terrorist organization that now leads the Palestinian legislature, targets non-combatants, Pelavin said.
In order for dialogue between the sides to take place, “you must have at least a sliver of common ground,” he said.
Younan said Hamas was elected “as a sign of frustration of the Palestinia n people,” yet at the same time, “they are elected in a democratic process.”
“It is not the job of any side to determine who represents the other side,” Al-Marayati said. “It’s the Palestinian people’s job to reform and to develop and to build a government that is responsible. It is the Palestinians that we must empower in the process.
“There must be dialogue between enemies. A cessation of talks is the worst thing.”
Despite the cordial back-and-forth over issues that continued through the panel discussion, the three had common ground on the necessary end result for the region — a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
The vision of two Democratic states living side by side in peace is common, Pelavin said. “The challenge is (how) to get from here to there.”
“We endorse the principle of a two-state solution … both with secure and defined borders,” Al-Marayati said.
“Muslins and Christians are included among the seeds of Abraham and they have … the same right to that land.”
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