wfn.org | Episcopalians: Justice for Africa and Middle East on agenda of ecumenical meeting in Washing

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

March 13, 2003

2003-056

Episcopalians: Justice for Africa and Middle East on agenda of 
ecumenical meeting in Washington

by James Solheim

(ENS) While most of the world's attention was focused on an 
impending war in Iraq, an ecumenical gathering of advocates 
working for just US policies in Africa and the Middle East drew 
over 300 participants to Washington, DC, at the end of February.

The conference was sponsored by Churches for Middle East Peace, 
the Washington Office on Africa, the Africa Faith and Justice 
Network, the Stand with Africa Campaign, and Peaceful Ends 
through Peaceful Means, an ecumenical coalition working for 
peace in Palestine and Israel. 

The program ran on parallel tracks with a wide range of 
speakers, issue briefings, and advocacy training workshops, 
culminating in visits to Congressional and State Department 
offices. "At a time when Africa faces enormous challenges and 
crises, many rooted in decisions made by powerful outside forces 
and institutions, US priorities toward the continent are 
glaringly inadequate," said the Rev. Leon Spencer, an Episcopal 
priest who is executive director of the Washington Office on 
Africa.

The Africa track focused on issues such as HIV/AIDS, debt, 
economic justice, armed conflicts, and the effect of the US 
trade agenda on African development.

Participants in the Middle East track encountered a gloomy 
description of a collapsed peace process, a vicious cycle of 
violence, and very few signs that Israelis and Palestinians 
would solve their deepening conflict any time in the near 
future--especially without help from the United States.

Few signs of hope

"It is very difficult to speak of a hopeful vision at this 
time," said the Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Christmas Lutheran 
Church in Bethlehem, when Ariel Sharon has been reelected as 
prime minister of Israel and "settlements are expanding 
throughout the West Bank like mushrooms, an eight meter wall is 
being build around Bethlehem, transforming it into a big prison 
for 170,000 people. How can we speak of hope at a time when 
preemptive war is becoming a legitimate option and tool in 
international politics?"

"The first victim of the last two years is hope," he added. 
"Hope was assassinated and suddenly a vision for peace became 
something unrealistic, justice impossible, coexistence nothing 
but a myth." 

Raheb said that hope had evaporated almost completely with a 
majority on both sides losing the vision of hope. He said that 
the "suicide bombings are a sign of that hopelessness," adding 
that leaders on both sides have abandoned their vision for 
peace. Yasser Arafat has not been able to transform the 
Palestinian Liberation Organization from a military to political 
role, the conflict is not even on the agenda of the Americans, 
and the United Nations passes resolutions they can't implement, 
he noted. 

It is a particular challenge for Palestinian Christians to hold 
to a hopeful vision in a time of despair, but they must shift 
from despair to reclaim a vision that offers alternatives to the 
current dilemma, according to Raheb. "You are our hope," he told 
the conference. "We can't surrender to the forces of death."

Following the Israeli Defense Force incursion into Bethlehem a 
year ago, Raheb and church members gathered the shards of glass, 
taking them to a workshop that is part of the church's ministry 
and transforming them into art--including an angel made of beer 
and wine bottles. He said that the people gathered enough 
strength to bring together their broken hopes and lives in a 
fresh and creative way, making angels as signs of hope.

Obvious solution?

The historic outlines of the ultimate solution to the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are apparent, even if the solution 
seems no closer, according to Dr. Ziad Asali, president of the 
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. That solution 
includes Israeli and Palestinians living together in peace with 
a shared Jerusalem, "a fair and lasting solution of the refugee 
problems," an end to occupation and settlements, establishing 
peace with surrounding Arab nations and open borders, and a 
Marshall-type plan to rebuild Palestine.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, 
strengthened the role extremists and fundamentalists play and 
reinforced the image of Islam as a violent religion, he said. 
Both sides are afraid of being uprooted. "The great fear for the 
Palestinians is to be uprooted and end up without a state; the 
great fear for the Israelis is to be destroyed, uprooted, and to 
end up without a state. There are people on both sides who feed 
these fears through words and needs and we need to see to it 
that they do not speak for us," he said.

Asali added that "we must agree that occupation cannot stand and 
protestations about security cannot be used as a cover for 
annexing and expropriating Palestinian lands. We also must agree 
that suicide bombings, and any violence against civilians, is 
abhorrent, intolerable and must end now."

No solution is apparent yet because "the Israelis and 
Palestinians are too deeply hurt to work out a solution. The 
United States, anguished and angered by September 11 attacks, 
and publicly frustrated by the incompetence of the Palestinian 
leadership, yielded to the temptation to blur the distinction 
between the commitment to Israel and the commitment to Israel's 
conquest. The US seems to give the impression that it views the 
situation in Palestine as part of the global war on terror by 
granting a free hand to the Israeli government to wreak havoc on 
the lives and livelihood of all Palestinians," he said.

He warned that "the Palestinian problem is an abscess that has 
remained undrained by the necessary surgeon for too long" and 
therefore it continues to weaken the body politic of Arabs and 
Israelis--and the whole world. "It casts its shadow across the 
globe with promises of dark and sinister days ahead," feeding 
passions on all sides that "can too readily override reason. It 
has become the new last refuge of the scoundrels."

Dashed hopes

Paul Sham, a visiting scholar of Judaic studies at George 
Washington University and set up the Washington office of 
Americans for Peace Now in 1989, agreed that "hopes for a 
peaceful future have been dashed." With the rampant feelings of 
fear, hatred and betrayal, where do we go now? he asked. There 
is a "symmetry of perception," he argued, since both sides see 
themselves as righteous victims and mistrust the other side. 
Israeli and Palestinian radicals, which he estimated at 20-30 
percent on each side, reinforce each other and "moderates have 
no one to turn to." 

He is convinced that "most of the Jewish pro-Israeli members of 
Congress see settlements as disasters--but won't say so 
publicly. They don't like Sharon's tactics but see no 
alternative." He said that "the legitimate fears of both sides 
must be understood," and religion is actually ends up as part of 
the problem because it contributes to a hardening of positions. 
Yet he took hope from polls that continue to show that up to 70 
percent of Israelis, depending on how the questions are asked, 
still believe the ultimate solution is two states living in 
peace with disbanding of most settlements. "But they won't talk 
about it right now," he said.

Friends to both sides

Ambassador Philip Wilcox of the Foundation for Middle East Peace 
agreed that extremists on both sides feed off each other and, as 
a result, "moderates are frightened, in disarray and 
immobilized." He said that the Oslo Accords of 1993, hailed by 
so many as a harbinger of hope, was "fatally flawed because it 
didn't define the outcomes." It provided no way to recognize 
both sides as equals, for example, especially as long as Israel 
maintained all the power.

"Palestinians assumed that Oslo meant a state with Jerusalem as 
its capital but in the following years Israelis doubled the 
settlements, assuming that they could dictate to the 
Palestinians, and ignore their drive for a viable, independent 
state," said Wilcox, former State Department official and consul 
general in Jerusalem. The growing frustration fed the radical 
fringe and the ensuing violence led to a feeling of betrayal 
among the Israelis, he said.

"The new intifada is a terrible failure for everyone, stiffening 
the right wing opposition and the uncompromising Israelis," 
Wilcox said, adding that the Americans became disillusioned with 
the collapse of the peace talks. "President Bush now agrees with 
Sharon on conditions for the resumption of talks--an end of the 
violence and the removal of Arafat." He warned that the 
so-called "road map," which still has not been made public, is 
an attempt by the Americans, Russians, European Union and the 
United Nations to lay out a plan for cessation of hostilities 
and creation of a Palestinian state but "it's a warmed-over 
version of Oslo's process that doesn't contain any destination." 

Be on the side of peace

Wilcox expressed deep concern that "the perceived indifference 
to Palestinian suffering and partiality to Israel is creating an 
environment where terrorism grows and prospers." Israeli policy 
doesn't recognize or admit that it can't dominate a people 
willing and ready to fight for their freedom and that could, in 
the end, prove damaging to Israel's standing as a democracy, he 
said.

"Israel is a powerful and successful state in many ways," he 
added. "America should make common cause with decent moderates 
and express some empathy and support for Palestinians and their 
terrible historic struggle. Don't take sides, be on the side of 
peace." He also called on friends of both sides to "denounce 
violence as morally wrong and politically ruinous." He is 
convinced that ultimately Israel "won't side with the right wing 
but now they are traumatized. Democracy can work in 
Palestine--but not until the Israelis get out."

------

For further information and copies of some speeches go to the 
web site at www.cmep.org.

--James Solheim is director of Episcopal News Service.