wfn.org | Palestinian Christian Leaders Seek New Strategies

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

1-July-1997 
97252 
 
                 With Peace Process in Shambles,  
        Palestinian Christian Leaders Seek New Strategies 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Christian Palestinians are beginning to rethink 
strategies to ensure survival of Palestinian communities in Jerusalem and 
throughout the West Bank -- or at least such rethinking was hinted at 
during lectures here, June 4-6. 
 
     "Most of our emphasis has been on the bigger issue of political 
liberation.  That's still the big thing.  No one denies that," said Naim 
Ateek, an Episcopal priest who is also director of Sabeel Liberation 
Theology Center in Jerusalem.   
 
     But now, he added in a lecture at Georgetown University as part of a 
conference on "The Future of Arab Christians and of Christianity in 
Jerusalem and the Holy Land," creative thinking needs to be happening at 
all levels of the Middle East crisis, not just the political one.   
 
     He told listeners that the Palestinian community's "strongest weapons" 
now  are "moral ones" -- weeding out corruption in Palestinian circles as 
well as condemning the loss of "moral fiber" in Israel that permits its 
relentless pursuit of expansionist goals. 
 
     "Israel is an occupying and a colonizing power.  It is strong and it 
is supported by the strongest power in the world [the U.S.]," said Ateek. 
He insisted that Palestinian Christians need to be realists in this debate 
and should cling to the words of the famous Serenity Prayer: "We need the 
serenity to accept this reality that we Palestinians alone cannot change. 
 
     "But we also need to change the things we can.  If we cannot construct 
a Palestinian state [nowadays], we can build up Palestinian people and 
community," said the pastor whose parish sits near one of the gates of the 
Old City of Jerusalem.  "We can begin to work on this." 
 
     "The crisis the region finds itself in now [with the near collapse of 
peace talks] is the reason for the questioning," said the Rev. Mitri Raheb, 
the Lutheran director of the International Center of Bethlehem, just a few 
short miles outside Jerusalem's much-contested Old City.  "Some people are 
asking for a requestioning of our positions, lots of things that used to be 
a given. 
 
     "We need to rethink our history, our strategy," he told the 
Presbyterian News Service. "We need to start building everything from 
scratch."  Raheb was in Washington to speak at "Jerusalem, The Things That 
Make for Peace: An Agenda for American Christians," a gathering sponsored 
by the Friends of Sabeel -- North America. The Sabeel conference was held 
at the National Presbyterian Church here.  
 
     "The ... question is ... [liberation] for what purpose?" said Raheb, 
who believes that creating "just" social structures is a process that 
begins now instead in the far-off future.  "We used to think in terms of 
big visions, always dreaming of peace and justice coming on a white horse, 
flying in the air," he said, alluding with a wry smile to the prophetic 
dreams of another generation.  "But I think peace is something which will 
be built. 
 
     "[It will take] lots of effort ... and tasks for action. Peace is not 
just something to meditate on," said Raheb, adding that for churches it 
means revitalizing ministries in health, education and social services.  
 
     Raheb criticized mainline Christian reluctance to do much more than 
lament the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian standoff or to preach 
about nebulous visions of what a just world would look like in Jerusalem 
and along the West Bank. He said Christian witness needs to be more 
concrete, "because while we are lamenting or laying out wonderful visions 
and preaching to power, Israeli bulldozers are [confiscating land and 
building on it]. 
 
     "Are we creating anything or are we only creating words?  If the whole 
Christian witness is only creating words, then the whole battle is lost," 
said Raheb, insisting that the need is for  "concrete signs of hope on the 
ground" rather than a sweeping vision that tries to change the whole world. 
 
     For Ateek, the most critical facet of rebuilding is within the 
Palestinian community itself. "Unless we find new channels, positive 
channels to expend energy, the only alternative is to be frustrated," said 
Ateek, who argues that repeated failures in the political process only lead 
to further marginalization and isolation of all Palestinians, particularly 
the minority Christians.   
 
     "It leads to giving up, to extremism and violence.  People become so 
discouraged they lose moral values.  We see some of this.  And the question 
is, how [do we] really build community within?" 
 
     That word "build" has both figurative and literal connotations, 
according to Ateek.  Figuratively, it means creating a kind of "spiritual 
revolution" that molds religious tolerance and dignity into the Palestinian 
psyche so its people will be prepared to create a moral society when the 
current balance of power inevitably shifts.   
 
     But he also means putting down concrete moorings for West Bank 
Palestinians in literal ways, such as creating more jobs, more suitable 
housing and better schools for people whose options have narrowed in the 30 
years of Israeli occupation. 
 
     Citing Israel's illegal expropriations of land, its repeated 
manipulations of zoning regulations to reduce Palestinian holdings and its 
relentless efforts to withdraw legal status from Palestinian residents, 
Palestinian attorney Jonathan Kuttab said a harder-hitting critique of 
Israeli policies is going to have to be delivered to the international 
community.  "What has been done is very thorough and systematic," said 
Kuttab, describing a slow but persistent process of driving Palestinians 
into ethnic enclaves or out of the region altogether. 
 
     The injustice of those tactics, he said, is what will ultimately 
capsize a peace process that seems destined to cause instability for 
Israelis and Palestinians. 
 
     "The entire peace process is in deep crisis.  One could say it's being 
kept on a life-support system because it is basically dead.  The problem is 
there's no acceptable political alternative to the situation.  So everyone 
operates as if the process were alive," said Kuttab.   
 
     He insists that a faith-based response is about the only way to break 
the existing deadlock by proposing more viable alternatives that may give 
people hope.  "Crisis," he said, "allows us a new and radical look at the 
problem.  It allows us to think creatively." 
 
     At the political level, there is plenty to do as well.  And church 
leaders are not abdicating political work.  They are, in fact, stepping up 
their moral critique of not only Israel, but the complicit silence of the 
international community. 
 
     "Governments are not permitted to acquire land by forced conquest. 
There are conventions and treaties and mechanisms for resolving disputes 
between countries.  Humanity has reached the point where it rejects racism 
and ethnic cleansing," said Kuttab.  "But in Israel today we find these 
ideologies -- these patterns of behavior that do belong to a previous era 
-- in fact holding sway." 
 
     That only paves the way, according to Kuttab, for Jerusalem's 
tumultuous history to be repeated yet again -- one conquerer just having to 
make way for the next conqueror. 
 
     Ateek agrees.  "Israel can only survive as a state if it acts justly 
 ... [and] we need to do all we can without violence to stop Israel from its 
unjust and unrighteous path," he said. 
 
     Both conferences marked the 30th anniversary of the Six-Day War and 
the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. 

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