wfn.org | United Methodists join NCC group in 'urgent' Mideast trip

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 5, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{142}

NOTE: Photographs of the Rev. Bob Edgar, the Rev. Joe Hale and Jim Winkler
are available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html.

By United Methodist News Service

A delegation from the National Council of Churches will visit leaders around
the Middle East this month, listening to their concerns and promoting peace
in the face of intensifying Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The April 16-27 visit, planned for months, has become "all the more urgent,"
said the Rev. Bob Edgar, a United Methodist and top staff executive of the
NCC. Edgar, quoted in a NCC news release, spoke after an April 2 interfaith
prayer service for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

"We go at the invitation of the Middle East Council of Churches to offer
pastoral support for Christians in the Holy Land; seek ways churches in the
United States and the Holy Land can collaborate to promote a just and
lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians; encourage Christians, Jews
and Muslims working for peace, and bring our ecumenical witness for peace
and justice to U.S., Israeli and Palestinian political leaders in the
region," Edgar said.

Besides Edgar, the 15-member delegation will include two other United
Methodists: Jim Winkler, top staff executive of the denomination's Board of
Church and Society in Washington; and the Rev. Joe Hale of Waynesville,
N.C., former denominational and world Methodist executive who has had a
lifelong concern about Middle East issues.

Winkler visited the Middle East in February as part of a fact-finding
delegation of four United Methodist bishops and three general church agency
executives.

"I have a better sense of what to expect" as a result of that trip, he told
United Methodist News Service. He's familiar with many of the places the
group will be visiting, and he has met some of the same people who are lined
up for this trip.

Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian National Authority, was among
the leaders that the delegation visited in February. Now, the Israeli Army
has Arafat pinned down in his own offices. "Watching the destruction of his
compound ... on television is really quite amazing, considering (I was) just
there a few weeks ago," Winkler said.

In February, Winkler and the other United Methodists were grateful for the
ability to move around with ease, and he wonders now if the NCC group will
have access to areas such as Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Despite the escalation in violence, Winkler said he isn't overly concerned
about his physical safety, since the delegation generally will not be in the
crowded types of places that Palestinian suicide bombers tend to attack.
However, the U.S. consulate is on the list of stops, and he noted that it
could be a target.

The presence of U.S. church leaders is important to Christian clergy working
in the area, who rely on the visitors to interpret what is happening in the
Holy Land for policy makers, the media and church members back home, Winkler
said. On his last trip, he also drew a strong sense of how much Christians
in the Holy Land felt supported by the presence of the U.S. visitors at a
time when violence is a fact of everyday life. "It's an enormously stressful
situation."

The Christian leaders there emphasized to him the importance of ending the
Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. "Simply withdrawing from
the West Bank would go a heck of a long way toward making the grounds of
peace possible," Winkler said.

Hale shares that view, noting that the fundamental issue isn't that
Palestinians and Israelis dislike each other. "The basic issue is that one
side is under occupation and one side is the occupier." 

That occupation has brought humiliation, curfews, military sieges and the
destruction of homes, Hale noted. Young people are being rounded up without
charges as the Israeli forces continue their military action - despite
President Bush's call on April 4 for an end to the incursion, he said.
"There is no way that kind of activity makes for peace, just bitterness." 

He condemned the actions of the Palestinian suicide bombers, who he sees as
products of a climate in which people are asking: What do I have to live
for? "As long as there's an occupation - and a brutal occupation - there's
going to be that kind of activity, and it won't be stamped out."

Hale's concern about the Holy Land began at age 20, when his father, a State
Department employee, took him around the Middle East. "On one morning in
1955, we went from Jerusalem to Jericho, where there were 100,000
Palestinians living in tents and being fed by the United Nations," he said.
"... These (people) were the leftovers from the war that formed the state of
Israel." The refugees had lost their homes and property in what had become
Israel. In Jerusalem, young Hale saw long lines of Palestinian men waiting
to get grain from U.N. workers.

What he saw in those few hours changed him. "I've never forgotten it."

His concern encompasses people on both sides of the conflict, and he
expressed hope for a "future that will be good for everyone."

The NCC group is planning stops in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and
Israel and the Palestinian territories. Its agenda includes visits with
Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders as well as government officials.

The trip will give the delegation an opportunity to hear the concerns of
leaders and other people in the region, and discuss ways in which churches
in the United States and the Middle East can work together to strengthen the
Christian communities in the Holy Land and promote peace between Israelis
and Palestinians.

Edgar and NCC President Elenie Huszagh, a Greek Orthodox from Oregon, are
leading the group of Protestant and Orthodox members.

In an April 4 statement, Edgar praised Bush's decision to send Secretary of
State Colin Powell to the region. "We hope that it signals a more assertive
level of involvement by the Bush administration in seeking a halt to the
senseless slaughter of innocent persons on both sides, and rapid movement
toward an enduring solution to the causes of the conflict.

"Action by our government is critically needed to help break the terrible
deadlock, which has gripped the whole region in a cycle of mutual aggression
and retaliation," Edgar said. "The National Council of Churches offers its
earnest prayers for Secretary Powell and Gen. (Anthony) Zinni and the
success of their mission."

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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org