wfn.org | Mideast forum brings two peoples, three religions together in search for peace

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2001-134

Mideast forum brings two peoples, three religions together in search for peace

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) While the world watches the Middle East convulse with increasing 
violence, in the face of a shattered peace process, it is sometimes impossible to 
hear the voices of moderation and their desperate call for peace.

     The experts warned last fall that something was different about the latest 
Mideast crisis, a subtle transformation of the fifty-year-old Palestinian-Israeli 
conflict from a nationalist struggle to a religious and ethnic war without 
boundaries on any side. And the solution, they said, would have to emerge, not 
from governments, but from social institutions such as churches, mosques and 
synagogues.

     An attempt to respond to that challenge was the spark behind a recent Forum 
on Religion and Conflict Resolution in the Middle East at New York's Cathedral of 
St. John the Divine. First in a series of forums on religion and public life 
sponsored jointly by the Blessing Way Foundation and the cathedral, the May 3 
forum brought together a panel of leaders from the Palestinian Christian, 
Palestinian Muslim, and Israeli Jewish communities of faith. Workshops following 
the panel allowed for more in-depth discussion and offered participants an 
opportunity to learn about the variety of groups taking action on Mideast peace 
issues.

Two peoples, three religions

     In his opening remarks, Dr. William Vendley, secretary general of the New 
York-based World Conference on Religion and Peace, told the gathering that "talk 
about peace and any approximation of peace is going to have to deal with the 
legitimate aspirations--political, cultural, and religious--of two peoples and 
three religions." 

     Religious leaders in the three communities face a tension between the charge 
to "promote the well-being of the flock, of the community, under their charge" 
and an equal obligation "to apply a moral standard that would judge their own 
communities and apply to other people with equality and evenness."

     "We have to find ways to strengthen and support and buttress the courage of 
local religious leaders as they try to stand between the enormously painful tasks 
of both representing their people's suffering on the one hand, and at the same 
time being the pioneers of peace," Vendley concluded.

God's laboratory for justice, compassion

     "I've been there for 23 years and I don't remember so difficult a time, so 
anguishing a time," said Yehezkel Landau, co-founder of Open House, a peace 
center in Ramle, Israel. "I've already been through three and a half wars, two 
intifada uprisings, but this particular moment of shattered hopes and dreams and 
expectations is the most difficult of all, because our hopes had been--I would 
add, falsely--raised by a so-called 'peace process' that has collapsed."

     Calling Israel/Palestine "God's laboratory on this earth…to practice and to 
live out justice and compassion," Landau warned that followers of all three of 
the Abrahamic traditions have been conditioned by an "implicit, if not explicit, 
triumphalism."

     "We need a new theological paradigm of pluralism…most desperately in 
Jerusalem, and the whole of the Holy Land," Landau said. "But we are heirs, in 
this third Christian millennium, of very self-centered, self-referencing, self-
serving, self-glorifying scripts based on a selective reading of scriptures, in 
which we are the only chosen people, the only people of God's grace."

     And yet the tensions aren't just between Palestinians and Israelis, or Jews, 
Muslims and Christians--they're between Palestinian and Palestinian, Israeli and 
Israeli. "How are Israel and Palestine going to live next door to each other when 
there's no consensus on either side?" Landau asked. "How do we let go and let God 
heal us? … If we can't let go of part of the land, which is to suffer willfully 
an amputation in order to prevent both bodies from dying of gangrene, and there's 
a lot of blood poisoning in the bodies politic of Israel and Palestine--then we 
won't make it. We won't make it very far into this millennium at all. God 
forbid."

Security lies in reconciliation

     "I'm afraid there can be no peace in the Middle East unless peace is 
established on truth and on justice. And I mean by truth and justice for both 
parties," began Bishop Riah Al Abu Assal, Anglican bishop of Jerusalem. "People 
prefer to speak of justice for Palestinians and security for Israel. In my 
opinion, and I say it humbly, the best of secure borders for Israel are 
reconciled neighbors, and the closest of neighbors for Israel are the Arab 
Palestinians."

      "What are the stumbling blocks to peace?" he asked. "Is it the lack of 
readiness on behalf of the government of Israel to comply with United Nations 
resolutions? Iraq was pressured to comply with United Nations resolutions, for 
the sake of the people of Iraq, for the sake of the people of Kuwait, perhaps for 
the sake of the people of many in that region. 

     "I keep wondering why Israel is not asked to comply with United Nations 
resolutions," he concluded.

Colonization by another name

     For Dr. Azza Karam of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, the Muslim 
representative on the panel, the history of globalization is one key to 
understanding the conflict in Israel/Palestine.

     "[G]lobalization is not a new phenomenon. It existed a long time ago, and I 
think colonization was one of the very first supreme examples of globalization," 
she explained. "I think there is an insufficient realization that there are a 
great many who live in the area of the Middle East today who are not quite able 
to forget the process of colonization and its aftermath. There are those of us 
who believe that the colonial power has never really gone, and that there have 
simply been new colonial powers, which have taken over the old ones, and have 
taken over in new forms. But it is still a process of colonization. What is 
happening in the Middle East is but a mirror of what is happening in many other 
parts of the world," Karam concluded.

      The media play an important role in shaping perceptions about who's right 
and who's wrong in the conflict, said Karam. "[I]f we look at the way the media 
has been portraying a great deal of what goes on in the region, we may be able to 
better understand why some people are terrorists and others are peacemakers--all 
the time."

      "We seem to understand in this part of the world that the concept of jihad 
means 'holy war' … The word jihad originated as 'the struggle.' And like so many 
other words, it has been taken out of context, it has been refurbished, 
renovated, and sometimes discarded," she reminded the group. "But please keep in 
mind that at the end of the day, everything we're doing here today, including our 
prayers, is a form of jihad."

     At the end of the evening, participants joined other houses of worship in 
New York as part of an Ecumenical Prayer Vigil, offering prayers for peace in the 
Middle East.

      The idea for the forum grew out of a conversation between the Rev. Chloe 
Breyer, recently appointed Cathedral School chaplain at the Cathedral of St. John 
the Divine, and the Rev. Susan Harriss, rector of Christ Church in Rye, New York. 
Breyer sees Religion and Public Life as a two-year long series of conferences "to 
showcase programs and practices that are working" in tackling difficult areas 
throughout society. 

Peacemaker awards

     In a related event on Sunday, May 6, Landau was among the recipients of the 
Jewish Peace Fellowship's 2001 "Peacemaker Awards" for his work with Open House. 
Among the other recipients of the award were Bat Shalom, a feminist peace 
organization in Israel; Women in Black, for their refusal to be intimidated as 
they appear regularly in public in Israel urging peace and reconciliation; and 
New Profile, for its defense of the rights of young Israelis to be treated as 
conscientious objectors. 

     Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold and Phoebe Griswold attended the dinner 
honoring the recipients, accompanied by the Rev. Brian Grieves, director of Peace 
and Justice Ministries, and Bishop Christopher Epting, the new deputy for 
ecumenical and interfaith relations.

     In an interview, Epting said that it was "a great occasion," particularly 
because "these people do speak for a constituency that is too often overlooked. 
And there are a lot of people in the Middle East who are looking for some middle 
ground in the conflict, people who are prepared to make some compromises for peace."

     The organization also presented its 2001 Abraham Joshua Heschel Award to 
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, for exceptional contributions to peacemaking in the Jewish 
tradition, and to Rabbis for Human Rights, the only organization in Israel concerned 
specifically with giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights.

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Episcopal News Service.