Justice for Africa and Middle East on Agenda of Ecumenical Meeting in Washington

Episcopal News Service. March 13, 2003 [2003-056-A]

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.