wfn.org | Unofficial church group urges action for peace in Mideast

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May 28, 2002      News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington     10-21-71B{234}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - First-person updates on the situation in the Middle East
led a subgroup of the United Methodist Federation for Social Action to issue
a call for peace and justice in the troubled region.

In the call, the Middle East Network of United Methodists expressed
"solidarity with all those who strive for peace and suffer from injustice."
The network held its semi-annual meeting May 24. Neither the network nor
MFSA are part of the United Methodist Church's official structure. MFSA is
an independent caucus of church members.

The network issued four specific calls directed at:

7	Israelis and Palestinians. "We call upon Israel to end the
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and we call upon the Palestinians to
pursue their legitimate claims for justice in nonviolent ways."
7	The U.S. government. The network called on Congress and President
Bush "to immediately enact legislation and implement any administrative
decisions that support a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict." The group also expressed support for the denomination's position
that asks the United States to stop military assistance and arms exports to
the region (2000 Book of Resolutions, page 758).
7	U.S. media. "Having concerns about the way events in the Middle East
are reported in the U.S. media, we call upon the written, spoken and visual
press to report the history and current events fairly." The network
commended The Washington Post for providing a neutral history and maps in
the newspaper's May 15 issue, and expressed regret for boycotts and other
forms of pressure being exerted on the Post and other media "to present only
the views of one side."
7	U.S. law enforcement. The group called upon law enforcement agencies
to treat all people equally, regardless of a person's ethnic origin or
religious affiliation.

"We send our deepest sympathy and prayers to the Palestinian and Israeli
people who have suffered from the recent violence and who want to have
countries with secure borders, independence and self-rule," the network
statement said.

The network cited several sources of hope, including Israeli citizens
protesting their government's actions on the West Bank and calling for a
Palestinian state; a growing expression of concern among U.S. Jewish
individuals and groups about the policies and practices of the Israeli
government; and Palestinians condemning suicide bombing and calling for
nonviolent responses amid their own suffering.

"We are heartened by the leaders of the United Methodist Church who are
responding to the Middle East crisis with calls for United Methodists to
become educated about the ongoing crisis, to speak out against all forms of
violence whether by persons or states, to send observers to the Middle East
to learn and to report back, and to stand in solidarity with the heads of
churches in Jerusalem and other religious leaders in the area in advocating
for a just and lasting peace in the region," the group said.

About 50 participants in the meeting heard briefings from several people who
live in or have recently visited the Middle East.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a religious one, said former
Ambassador Philip Wilcox Jr., president of the Foundation for Middle East
Peace. "It is a conflict between two conflicting nationalistic movements ...
over the same piece of land." Both sides see themselves as the exclusive
victims, he noted in a brief history of the area from the early 20th century
to the present.

"Violence has been a dreadful mistake" as a strategy for the Palestians,
Wilcox commented, terming the suicide bombings "a disaster" for them. But he
also observed that whenever the Palestinians have tried passive resistance,
they have been crushed by the Israeli government.

Wilcox said he thinks the solution to the conflict lies in two separate
secure states rather than a "binational" secular state, which he termed not
viable. He warned that if the terrorism continues, Israel will continue to
have right-wing governments. Wilcox urged the U.S. government to offer a
plan and push for fair resolution of the conflict.

Dianne Roe, who works with the Christian Peacemaker Team, told of
accompanying Palestinian farmers to their own fields to harvest crops and
being threatened so forcibly by Jewish settlement security and then the army
that her group could not continue. And when farmers are permitted to harvest
fresh produce, they are often blocked from taking it to market, she added.

Jim Winkler, staff head of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society,
noted that conditions have become worse for the Palestinians since the Oslo
Accords in 1993 and 1995.

He contrasted conditions between two visits this year: with four United
Methodist bishops in February and with a National Council of Churches
delegation in April. The Israeli incursions into Palestinian villages and
towns in the time between the two trips were not limited to a house-to-house
search for terrorists, Winkler said. They showed systematic destruction of
things like artwork, Bibles and the infrastructure of the society, such as
roads and community structures.  

Winkler spoke of seeing evidence that Christian facilities were targeted.
Not only were buildings destroyed, but the Israelis stole all the hard
drives from computers while leaving the shells and accessories behind. "This
took time" and expertise, Winkler asserted, and was "part of a widespread
strategy." 

He reported that the second trip, made at the invitation of religious
leaders in the area, included a visit with the president of Syria, who said
the role of the United States in the Middle East is extremely important but
that this country is looking through a security lens rather than a political
lens, as needed there. The NCC group also met with the king of Jordan and
others. All these Middle Eastern leaders, including the Orthodox Church's
patriarch, had sophisticated analyses of the Washington scene, Winkler
observed.

Noting that he is not an expert on the Middle East, Winkler said he learned
the political and church leadership in the Middle East knew more about the
workings of the U.S. government than most United Methodists know about their
own denomination, its official positions and the reasons for the positions
it has adopted.

"We need to push hard" on Congress and the Bush administration "to pursue a
fair and impartial resolution to this conflict," Winkler declared. U.S.
citizens have failed to achieve a policy on the Middle East that is fair, he
said.

He also warned, "As we raise our voices we will be attacked, and we will be
called anti-Semitic."

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United Methodist News Service
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