wfn.org | Consultation on Israeli-Palestinian conflict decides on coordinated

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Note #6785 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

ecumenical action
09-August-2001
01269

Consultation on Israeli-Palestinian conflict decides on coordinated
ecumenical action

Be 'peace-makers,' not just 'peace-talkers,' conferees told

by Sara Speicher
World Council of Churches

GENEVA - Painfully aware of the urgent need for the churches to move from
affirmation to action in solidarity with the Palestinian people at this
critical time, 50 participants at an international ecumenical consultation
on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have identified seven potential areas
for coordinated action as a beginning of a joint process of ecumenical
planning and strategizing for a concerted international response.

	The Aug. 6?7 consultation was convened here by World Council of Churches
(WCC) general secretary Konrad Raiser and was co-chaired by His Holiness
Aram I, Orthodox Patriarch of Syria and Lebanon and moderator of the WCC
Central Committee. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was represented by the
Rev. Victor Makari, coordinator for the Middle East in the Worldwide
Ministries Division.

	Building on long-standing WCC attention to the Palestinian question, the
consultation's aim was to strengthen broad international ecumenical support
for a comprehensive peace, based on justice and security for the Palestinian
and Israeli people.

	Raiser noted at the conclusion of the meeting that the exchange of ideas
was important in "beginning to identify where the particular dynamics, urge
and competence for action lie among us."

	Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the
Middle East, the preacher at the consultation's opening worship, declared:
"Thank God Jesus said 'Blesed are the peacemakers.' He did not say 'Blessed
are the peace-talkers.'... Peace, as all of you know, is neither the absence
of war nor the cessation of hostilities. Peace is that relationship between
the so-called enemies, from which all the causes that made for war are no
more. Making peace requires greater courage than going to war."

	Following this injunction, consultation participants declined to draft a
concluding communiqui in the form of a public statement. "Action is not
another statement, no matter how dramatic," Raiser affirmed. "We need to map
out a way for us to actually work together."

	The main outcome of the consultation was the decision to form a small
consultative group to develop realistic proposals for action with local and
international partners in seven areas:

*  coordinating advocacy with governments

*  boycotting goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied
territories

*  strengthening the "chain of solidarity" through prayer vigils

*  resisting the destruction of property and uprooting of people from their
homes and land

*  encouraging and enabling the presence of ecumenical monitoring teams 

*  improving communication, interpretation and media reporting on the
conflict and its causes

*  increasing church, ecumenical, and interreligious delegations to and from
Israel and the occupied territories.

	It was also agreed that, together with the Middle East Council of Churches
(MECC) and local churches, the WCC would develop a coordination point for
ecumenical action in Jerusalem, and explore the possibility of linking it
with an international coordination center.

	The consultants also agreed to propose to the WCC Executive Committee
meeting Sept. 11-14 that it consider a special focus on "ending the violence
of occupation in Palestine" in the framework of the WCC's current Decade to
Overcome Violence program, and possibly to call for an international
conference on the subject. As Jean Zaru of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation
Theology Ceter in Jerusalem noted, "Occupation is violence, and in the
Decade to Overcome Violence, we have to expose the structural violence of
occupation."

	Summing up the value of the meeting, WCC Central Committee member Bishop
Aldo Etchegoyen of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina said: "Many
people have lost hope in this moment. Many people think peace is impossible.
Hope is necessary because this is more than a program, this is our
commitment in favor of life, justice, peace and people."
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