Religious leaders needed in peacemaking

EAST MEREDITH, NY – Mutual distrust leads many Palestinians and Israelis to think of peace as a mirage. Since religion plays a significant role in justifying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, politicians need the help of religious leaders in their search for a solution.



The problem is that often the patriarchal figures of the three faiths are too focused on “protecting” the community from erosion of piety or the threat of assimilation to pay enough attention to moral empowerment. Too many leaders defend ownership of land at the expense of justice, rationalize war and its spoils, and remind their people to track the enemy vigilantly using partial interpretations of sacred texts for this purpose.



Religious leaders from outside the region oftentimes also fuel the conflict, sometimes without even being aware that they are doing so. Based outside of the area and free from the considerations of local day-to-day life, these authorities too often espouse hard-line positions. The American charismatic church, for example, supports Israel automatically, even at the risk of threatening long-term Jewish security. To become enablers of peace, religious authorities will have to shift from a preoccupation with protecting the tradition from change to becoming agents of inter-communal reconciliation.



Prophetic change must start in the region. The pulpit message must become morally transformative. Religious leaders will take their place at the peace table when Imams, priests and rabbis shift their sermons from war to peace, from blame to forgiveness. Weekly sermons of all three faiths should also shift from promoting security through land acquisition to security through friendly neighbourly relations and from defending hegemony to a willingness to accept the legitimacy of the other’s claim to land.



Good news does exist. Over thirteen years of work with a variety of Middle East communities– on the staff of the World Council of Churches- I met many courageous religious leaders who challenged the institutional norms, tested their traditions and risked their personal security in working for justice and peace across the religious divide.



I witnessed the work of Palestinian lay leaders of the church who served their refugees for decades, not through charity but through creative self-help projects. Protestant churches in the Holy Land are pioneers in interfaith dialogue; this form of Palestinian liberation theology is relevant to all churches and all religions. Such theology serves the poor and the oppressed, regardless of religious, political or ethnic identity.



Many religiously motivated Jewish leaders in Israel are active in dialogue with Muslim communities. Some take this to the next step: for example, in the 1980’s, a religious-minded peace activist and his wife, tried to return a house they owned to its original Palestinian owner whose family lives in a refugee camp in Beirut. The government refused the gesture, but with ecumenical support, the property was turned into an Open House for service and dialogue with Arab families.



Thanks to the support of some committed Muslim clerics, the leadership of the Palestinian non-violence struggle has shifted from being limited to a church-sponsored ecumenical project to nationwide civic resistance programmes, which are ongoing. Demonstrations for justice in the West Bank are part of this movement.



These are some examples of how religion can promote peace in the Middle East. Yet, these should be replicated, multiplied and developed to break new ground.



Here are a few ideas:

Leaders of all faith should advocate religious tolerance through the school curriculum. Like issues of global warming, religious tolerance deserves a spot in the classroom.



Expanding on the idea of “prayer without borders”, how about starting a Jerusalem encounter centre, where Muslims, Jews and Christians could worship and pray for peace side-by-side?



Reclaiming Jewish heritage in the Arab world is another step. Ancient synagogues, long abandoned, are being renovated in Cairo and in Beirut. This rebuilding of Jewish heritage can urge reconciliation, yet such architectural projects should be accompanied by exchange of visits between spiritual leaders in Israel and the Arab world.



Experiences in Latin America and Northern Ireland reveal that community-based expressions of forgiveness by victims of war on both side of the conflict are morally powerful. Such collective expressions of moral fortitude are helpful in creating a peace climate and must be further cultivated by religious leaders. For example, Muslim and Jewish leaders could jointly help people who lost loved ones in war in order to organise for constructive change.



Even if politicians were to succeed in reaching an agreement, the enforcement of peace requires familiarity with reconciliation and experience with forgiveness, an essential element of faith. Without prophetic religious leadership, Mideast peace will most likely remain a mirage.

Re-entering the peace talks with a collective Arab voice

East Meredith , NY

As Arabs see it, the expanding settlements are the worst aspect of the Israeli occupation. Planners of the peace talks have failed to factor-in the impact of perpetual loss of land and security on the Palestinian psyche. Peace planning without regional insight is doomed to fail.


After authorizing the continuation of settlement building, Netanyahu passionately promised to achieve peace within a year. But now we hear of a second Israeli peace proposal requiring, not a year, not a decade, but several decades. In a UN speech Tuesday September 28, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman offered a totally new idea for Arab-Israeli coexistence: removal of Israeli Arab populations from Israel to a future Palestinian state, and in return, Israel would retain the West Bank settlements.

While Netanyahu tries to justify expanding settlements as a provision for Israeli “natural population growth”, Lieberman recommends expulsion of Israel’s Arab citizens.

The peace process may be starting to crumble. Last week, by lifting the construction ban, Netanyahu dismayed Arabs; this week, by touting the pragmatism of legalized ethnic cleansing, Lieberman shocked the Arabs and the world.

The Israeli Prime Minister is aware that he may have over-taxed Arab patience. He has appealed to President Abbas to stay the course as a “partner in peace.” The Prime Minister does not seem to understand how Palestinians emotionally process the settlements. Inserting, by force and by isolation, half a million Jewish settlers among Palestinian communities, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, is tantamount to stretching the conflict of the 1967 war over 43 years.

Abbas remains un swayed by Bibi’s peace rhetoric. Abbas had firmly pledged to leave the negotiations if settlement construction resumed. But now, as he consults the Arab League, he is giving Netanyahu a few days to forge a face-saving compromise.

Abbas is seeking support from a regional political body of 22 Arab states. Two member states of the Arab League, Egypt and Jordan, have separately signed a peace treaty with Israel. Though Saudi Arabia and Syria are centers of Arab clout, Washington has not paid sufficient attention to their vital role in the facilitation of peace.

The Arab League may find it undiplomatic for Abbas to quit the dialogue at such an early stage. There is an alternative to staying in or abandoning the talks. The League could recommend to Abbas to stay in the talks and introduce sobering and constructive conditions into the negotiating process. Would the League muster the courage to challenge the way negotiations are going?

Hopefully, Abbas will return from his regional consultation to the peace table empowered by a unified Arab strategy serving Palestinian independence and Israel’s security.

His first request in this empowered strategy is to revive the Syria-Israel peace track. Without Syria’s active and positive participation, peace will remain elusive.

Second, Abbas could propose that Hamas join the talks soon. Consequently, he should declare his intention to accelerate reconciliation within the Palestinian leadership.

Third, he should state that peace talks will influence Arab-Israeli relations. He should start with the positive. Abbas should assure his Israeli negotiation partners that peace would bring normalization between Israel and all the Arab states. The Arab states would shoulder a generous portion of compensation for the refugees. It is reasonable to show flexibility on future Palestinian state borders and right of return.

However, Abbas should warn that Israel’s hard-line politics would hurt its interests in the region. Relations of Egypt and Jordan with Tel Aviv would suffer, and may become unsustainable, if the occupation drags on and settlement expansion continues.

A final point in the new Arab league strategy relates to the United States. The Arab side must start treating the US as a negotiation partner, not simply as a convener or a donor state. Washington’s paralysis in pressuring Israel to stop the illegal housing remains perturbing. If Washington continues to be reflexively partial to Israel, the Arab states may well review their open tolerance for US military bases in the Gulf and massive American arm sales.

To achieve symmetry in peace negotiation, Abbas must re-enter the peace talks with collective regional clout to claim the liberation of Arab land and offer Israel lasting security. For the sake of achieving progress in peace making, settlement building should not be treated as an Israeli birth right. Settlements are the product of the occupation.