Four Hundred Turn Out for Interfaith "Call on Congress"

By Jerri Bird

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Nov. 15 call on President Bush was countered on the same day with a "Call on Congress" by some 400 people of Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths who kept appointments with 247 congressional offices. (See photographs on inside back cover.) "Why are you here?" was the question most frequently asked by congressional representatives. They expected Jewish Americans and Arab Americans to lobby on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but for many it was the first visit by such a broad-based group.

Participants in the unprecedented interfaith "Call on Congress" included Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, Catholics and Protestants. The latter included Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Quakers, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians and members of the Armenian Orthodox Church and the United Church of Christ. It was coordinated by James Riordan-Anderson of the Episcopal Church, assisted by Eugene Bird, Mary Neznek and Kathy Riordan-Anderson.

The sponsoring organizations provided each of the 247 congressional offices visited with a packet of materials which included the official resolutions adopted by each group on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All called for Palestinian self-determination and in some cases for a sovereign Palestinian state. The official statement of the coalition called for concrete action by the United States toward a three-part goal: a secure Israel, a Palestinian state and an end to human rights abuses in the area.

The Nov. 15 "Call on Congress" was the second such effort to change the climate in Congress undertaken in 1989. The Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC, led by the late Bishop John T. Walker, made a similar call in June in which about 100 people participated. In both efforts, participants were divided into teams of three to six persons ' and each team called on a minimum of three offices during the afternoon.

Participants reported a certain amount of lingering unquestioning support for any Israeli policy. More important, however, was a growing concern over human rights violations and the apparent tyranny of Israeli occupation policy, such as the closing of Palestinian schools.

There remains great ignorance in some cases, participants noted, especially where congressional assignments do not involve participation in this issue. Although the impact of 247 visits in one afternoon is difficult to measure, participants agreed that the effort was worthwhile, and should be repeated.

A computerized database has now been set up by the Interfaith Call on Congress to follow the voting records of elected officials on this issue. Equally important, it will also include names of individuals nationwide, listed by congressional district, to deliver messages directly to members of congress from their own constituents.

Local radio stations covered the Call on Congress, as did the Washington Times with a half-page spread. The Washington Post did not mention the event.

Jerri Bird, who lived many years in the Middle East as the wife of a foreign service officer, is vice chair of the Committee on Israeli-Palestinian Peace (CIPP) of the Peace Commission of the Washington Diocese of the Episcopal Church. She is completing a book on the changing role of Saudi women.