March 1997, pgs. 76-77

Christianity and the Middle East

Georgetown to Host June Conferences On Christian Arab Future in Jerusalem

by Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

The Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, DC is sponsoring a conference on “The Future of Christianity and Arab Christians in Jerusalem.” The conference will be held from 2-5 p.m. on June 5 in Washington, DC. Invited speakers are Karen Armstrong as plenary speaker followed by a panel of Palestinian Christians, Naim Ateek, Jonathan Kuttab and Hanan Ashrawi, with two commentators, Rosemary Ruether and Mumtaz Ahmad. For details contact Pat Gordon at the Center, Tel. (202) 687-8211, fax (202) 687-8376.

Since this conference, which is open to the public, coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Six-Day War and the subsequent Israeli occupation, the Friends of Sabeel in the United States (P.O. Box 4214, Ann Arbor, MI 48106) are sponsoring a piggyback conference with these goals:

1) To provide a venue for discussion and analysis of the current condition of Christians in Jerusalem and the prospects for their future. 2) To encourage the exploration of theological reflection on issues of justice and peace in Jerusalem. 3) To provide the opportunity for Palestinian Christians to discuss their issues with the American public. 4) To provide training and an opportunity for church members to lobby Congress and the administration for an equitable and just solution to the plight of the Palestinians. 5) To acquaint church members with various opportunities for participation in work undertaken by various organizations in the area.

The Friends of Sabeel Conference will take advantage of the speakers invited by Georgetown and supplement them with four additional Palestinian speakers, Elias Chacour, Jean Zaru, Mitri Raheb and Afif Safieh, as well as some American scholars. Their program:

Session I on “The Realities of Palestinian Life,” with Hanan Ashrawi, Marty Rosenbluth and Jonathan Kuttab.

Session II on “American Policy and the Perpetuation of Injustice,” with Yvonne Haddad, Rashid Khalidi and Sarah Roy.

Session III on “Misperceptions of U.S. Christians,” with Rosemary Ruether, Father Chacour, Mitri Raheb and Jean Zaru.

Session IV, “The Future of Jerusalem,” with Dale Bishop, Bishop Saleeba, Afif Sasieh and Mark Ellis.

Roseblath’s film on Jerusalem will be shown. Episcopal Bishop Edmund Browning will lead the concluding worship.

(For more about Friends of Sabeel see article on p. 89 of our Nov./Dec. issue or write them at Box 4214, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.)

Sabeel and Its Cornerstone

The versatile Arabic name Sabeel, which can mean either “the way” or “a waterspring,” was chosen for the ecumenical center in East Jerusalem to reflect the spirit of its founders, followers and supporters. The title of the 14-page magazine it publishes from time to time—Cornerstone—is equally metaphorical, flexible and Biblical. The New Testament applies that term both individually to Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:20) and corporately to faithful Christians (I Peter 2:6).

To give readers a sense of its scope, below are three articles from the latest Cornerstone to reach us: Sandra Ballantyne’s interview entitled “A Doctor’s Perspective on the September Clashes”; the calm, candid and hopeful thoughts of a 17-year-old Palestinian girl, Reem Khader, who had spent three days on a Sabeel traveling youth seminar and another day with comparable young peace-seekers from the threatened little town of Bethlehem; and “The Peace Process as an Instrument of Oppression” by Sabeel’s director, the Rev. Naim Ateek.

A Doctor’s Perspective on the September Clashes

An Interview by Sandra Ballantyne

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a medical doctor, is president of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and director of the Health Development Information Project.

S.B.:Dr. Barghouti, the clashes in September between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip created another medical emergency, and you were one of the doctors who responded in Ramallah. As you and your colleagues reacted, what did you see, and what could you do?

M.B.:I was called to the scene, about an hour and a half after it started. Clashes were taking place between the civilian population and the Israeli army. The Israeli soldiers were using rubber bullets and high-velocity live ammunition. I was there between 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. During this time, no Palestinian soldier or policeman shot at the Israeli side. On the contrary, they were trying to prevent people from reaching the Israeli checkpoint and from demonstrating there.

By 3:30 p.m. we had 152 injuries, 25 percent of which were from high-velocity bullets. The high-velocity bullets used are very explosive, something I was to experience later. When they hit the body they explode inside, creating something like a dumdum effect. I was shocked. There was so much blood, so many injuries, Israeli soldiers shooting at the people, and it was like a massacre.

S.B.:So you were there to give first aid in a very urgent situation.

M.B.:I remember a particular case which we transferred to the hospital. He had a bullet in the heart. It was around two o’clock. He is a student from Birzeit University. It’s a miracle he’s still alive. Doctors cut into his chest and performed direct massage to the heart in the emergency room. But many others died. By 3:30 p.m. we had lost four people who received high-velocity injuries to their brains, and died. Two others were practically brain dead. So we had six people dead, and 152 injured, before any Palestinians shot at the Israeli side.

I felt very sad because this was happening after five years of peace talks, in which I was involved for some time. Seeing the young people being killed again, in the same old manner, was very hard for me. By the end of the day, I realized we’ve finished a period and entered a whole new era. For five years Palestinians have been waiting for things to change. Obviously, with this new government, there is not a peace process anymore.

The second day was even worse. It was like a war zone. We had nine people killed that morning. I was helping to transport the injured and providing first aid, right there on the confrontation line. Then some young people called me, and told me somebody was injured, and he was stuck on the fifth floor. They could not bring him down, and he was bleeding to death. I was the only doctor there, so I went up with my assistant. We were about to reach him, when suddenly the Israeli soldiers shot at us. Snipers were shooting from the opposite mountain or the opposite building. They were definitely using telescopes, because we were inside the room. I was wearing a white coat, as was the nurse with me.

S.B.:The soldiers were aiming at the doctors who were evacuating injured and providing first aid?

M.B.:Oh yes! It was obvious that they wanted to prevent us from reaching that guy. Two bullets passed by me. One passed very close to my ear, so close that I even lost hearing for a while. Then I felt something strike me in the face and then I touched it and felt blood. The person beside me fell down—he had been hit in the head by a bullet. Later, in the ambulance, we discovered I had injuries in the back and in the shoulder from shrapnel, from the bullets which exploded—high-velocity bullets.

S.B.: And the person whom you went in to assist?

M.B.:Another team went up for him, and they finally managed to get him, to provide assistance. He’s alive.

S.B.: Was the crisis not what you had expected at this time?

M.B.:If anybody had told me that after the intifada, after participating in the peace talks, and after a five-year peace process, I would be injured by a high-velocity bullet at the age of 42, I would have told them they’re crazy. But you never know what will happen.

S.B.:The incidents were said to have been sparked by religious fervor and religious fears, specifically in Jerusalem, surrounding Muslim holy sites and Israeli actions around them. What do you think about this factor?

M.B.:Well, the religious factor is important. Nobody can ignore it. Netanyahu is trying to impose a situation where Jerusalem is a Jewish city. Jerusalem is not a Jewish city. It is also not a Muslim city. It’s for Christians, Muslims and Jews. It has to be considered as such. So in that sense he was very provocative not only to the Islamic religion, but to Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, I don’t think that religion was the only factor. I think the religious factor just triggered the problem. The problem is one of oppression and suppression, and exploitation. Palestinian workers are exploited, Palestinian society is oppressed, and we are sick of it. It’s been 30 years, 30 years of occupation.

Sandra Ballantyne, a Canadian physiotherapist living in Ramallah, works with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.

The Peace Process as an Instrument of Oppression

By Rev. Naim Ateek

During the time of the prophet Jeremiah, when Jerusalem was threatened by the Babylonians, the political and religious leaders of the day tried to insulate their people against the coming danger by assuring them of peace. The facts on the ground did not reflect the peace which the leaders predicted. They were speaking of peace, when there was no peace (Jer. 8:11). It is natural that when people are promised peace, they expect to experience and enjoy its benefits. The people were saying, “We looked for peace, but no good came, for a time of healing, but behold, terror” (Jer. 8:15).

Amazingly, this latter verse speaks directly to our situation today. After the peace process came into being many people were enthusiastic and expectant of the coming peace. As the months and years passed, the hope for peace has eroded. Now, many people’s experience echoes Jeremiah’s words, “We looked for peace, but no good came, for a long time of healing, but, behold, terror.” The achievement of peace brings with it the promise of prosperity, economic development, and a good life. People expect the healing of broken relationships and reconciliation between enemies. When they see, instead, increased violence, oppression, and bloodshed, they rightly surmise that even the semblance of peace is missing and real peace is still far off.

This is the way many people currently perceive the Middle East peace process. What started in Madrid at the end of October 1991 with great excitement as a vehicle of promise for a better future, has become today a means for the perpetuation of injustice and even its extension. The instrument called “the peace process,” was perceived as right and good because it was intended to bring about a just peace to Israelis and Palestinians. It opened the way for a peace based on United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. By the end of 1991, many people on both sides of the conflict were ready to accept the principle of a two-state solution as the best prospect for an acceptable justice that will bring about a viable peace in our region. This peace process, however, has turned out to be an instrument that is used by Israel to create new injustices whose effects will be felt for many generations to come.

It is important to remember that the international reaction to the handshake on the lawn of the White House in Washington, DC in September 1993 was electrifying. It left the impression around the globe that the apparently intractable Middle East conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has finally come to a happy end. Peace had arrived between the two arch enemies. Locally, however, the peace process did not realize its full potential under the Israeli Labor government and has certainly not done so under the Likud government. The injustice against the Palestinians has not ceased. The opposite is true. While the rest of the world slept comfortably, dreaming that Jews and Arabs are now living in peace, Israel continued and, at times, even accelerated its unjust policies. In fact, Israel used the “direct talks” to neutralize intervention by the rest of the world. It used the “peace process” as a substitute for the application of international law and the principles of human rights. In other words, under the guise of a so-called peace process, the injustice intensified.

To illustrate this, one needs only to look at some statistics regarding the confiscation of Palestinian land. Although in the Oslo accords Israel implied it was freezing the settlements, land confiscations did not halt, and the number of settlers increased by 40 percent. Since Oslo, 73,741 acres of Palestinian land were confiscated by the Israeli military, under the Labor government. The closure of Palestinian areas, along with the harassment and humiliation of Palestinians at permanent and instantly mounted Israeli army checkpoints, has disrupted Palestinian life and economy. The economic life of Palestinians has worsened as their per capita income has dropped by 30 percent and the unemployment rate has reached 50 percent in Gaza and the West Bank. The reality on the ground is that Israel is using the peace process as a convenient cover for expanding settlements and tightening its control over the Palestinians.

The peace process allows Israel to maximize its achievements and legitimize them.

One cannot imagine that the United States government is not aware of these Israeli tactics in the peace process. It is important to remember that the U.S. promised to be involved as an equal partner in the negotiating process. However, it has since insisted that peace must be negotiated directly between the two parties. In a situation where there is no symmetry of power and the dynamic is still that of occupier and occupied, the real negotiating power resides with the Israelis, who can dictate their terms or drag out the negotiations indefinitely until the agreements are to their liking. It is like leaving a tiger with a deer to negotiate their existence together. Without championing the right of the more vulnerable and weaker party, there is no guarantee that a just peace will ensue.

It is interesting to contrast this with the U.S. policy in the Arabian Gulf after Iraq occupied Kuwait. The U.S. government did not say that peace must be negotiated between Iraq and Kuwait around the negotiating table and whatever the two agreed upon, the rest of the world would accept. Rather the U.S. insisted that Iraq must implement United Nations resolutions without delay and was ready to go to great lengths to force Iraq out. It is not so in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One is reminded of the fact that there is no lack of U.N. resolutions regarding the question of Palestine and they are sufficiently clear. The problem has always been that of implementation. The Palestinians are, therefore, negotiating today under extremely excruciating circumstances without guarantees that the outcome will be, out of principle, in consonance with U.N. resolutions and the requirements of justice. If Israel extracts from the Palestinians unjust concessions, then those presumably become the binding agreement between the two parties. The peace process is perceived today by many as an instrument which furthers the oppression and consecrates the injustice. It allows Israel to maximize its achievements and legitimize them, so that which was difficult to achieve before the peace process, Israel can now accomplish through it. That is why many people today feel that the situation is more volatile and dangerous than that which existed before the peace process began.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the story of two sons who were asked by their father to go and work in the field (Matthew 21:28-32). One said “yes” to his father, but never went to work. The other one said “no,” but changed his mind and went to the field. Obviously, it was not the lip service that ultimately mattered but the doing of the work.

In many ways, this story echoes the attitudes of Israel and the Palestinians regarding peace. For many years, Israel gave the impression that it has always been genuinely seeking peace. It has said “yes” to peace, while the Palestinians have said “no.” Today, it is apparent to an increasing number of people that the Palestinians are the ones who are actively and unflinchingly endeavoring to work in the field, sowing and planting the seeds for a permanent peace based on justice.

A Utilitarian Definition

In order to fully understand the dynamics of negotiations and the current stalemate in the peace process, it is important to consider the underlying basis of the Israeli position. It seems to many of us that the Israeli government has defined the peace process in a very utilitarian way. When one considers the two concepts of right and good as foundational in ethics, their definition will determine whether justice or injustice will be done. Utilitarianism defines them separately. What is good is defined independently from what is right; and what is right is defined as that which maximizes the good. In our experience, the state of Israel began by defining what is good for the Jewish Israeli people without regard to what is right. It wanted peace and security for them only. It wanted as much land as possible in order to accommodate mass Jewish immigration from abroad. It wanted to provide Jews with a good life in a country which they considered their own without the threats of anti-Semitism or any form of prejudice or discrimination against them. This constituted the good. The right was then defined as that which can bring about the good.

The Palestinians, I believe, have been defining the right as justice, and justice as fairness. Throughout the negotiations, the Palestinians have insisted that the peace process must bring about the right so that the good can be reaped by all. This, however, is not the definition according to Israel. The Israelis have already determined what is good for them and have defined right accordingly. From a Palestinian perspective, the good cannot and should not be independent from the right, and the right should take precedence over the good. Furthermore, the “good” cannot be narrowly defined as the interest of one side only. John Rawls writes:

In justice as fairness...persons accept in advance a principle of equal liberty and they do this without a knowledge of their more particular ends. They implicitly agree, therefore, to conform their conceptions of their good to what principles of justice require, or at least not to press claims which directly violate them. An individual who finds that [s]he enjoys seeing others in positions of lesser liberty understands that [s]he has no claim whatever to this enjoyment. The pleasure [s]he takes in others’ deprivations is wrong in itself: it is a satisfaction which requires the violation of a principle to which [s]he would agree in the original position. The principles of right, and so of justice, put limits on which satisfactions have value; they impose restrictions on what are reasonable conceptions of one’s good. In drawing up plans and in deciding on aspirations [we] are to take these constraints into account. Hence in justice as fairness one does not take [our] propensities and inclinations as given, whatever they are, and then seek the best way to fulfill them. Rather, their desires and aspirations are restricted from the outset by the principles of justice which specify the boundaries that [our] systems of ends must respect. We can express this by saying that in justice as fairness the concept of right is prior to that of the good.

—A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, Cambridge, Mass, 1980, p. 31

Ultimately a peace process that is cut off from international law and any reference to universal principles is bound to be only a pragmatic ordering of reality. It will serve the strong at the expense of the weak. So long as the principles of “justice as fairness” are not accepted as the foundational basis for the negotiations, and the mechanisms which are used do not reflect the ethical demands for a just peace, the process itself will continue to be oppressive and unjust. Furthermore, any peace that will emerge will be, as in the days of Jeremiah, a false peace, and as such it cannot prevail.

Our commitment to the God of justice and peace demands of us to raise our voices, and appeal to people in power to halt the oppression and constructively use the peace process as an instrument of justice, so that a genuine peace can prevail.

Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, director of Sabeel, is Canon of St. George’s Episcopal Cathedral and pastor to its Palestinian congregation.

SIDEBAR

A Young Person’s Dream of Peace

“Blessed are those who strive for peace. They shall be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9

I joined many students from different schools at the summer youth conference organized by Sabeel in Jerusalem. We discussed the peace process, being a peacemaker and the history of Jerusalem. Each of the three days began at 9 a.m. with a time of prayer and worship led by Rev. Naim Ateek and Mrs. Samia Khoury, and ended at 4 p.m.

During the first morning we discussed the history of Jerusalem, and following lunch, we broke up into two groups. I was part of the “Peace” group. We gave our views on the meaning of peace and on living in a pluralistic society. Our opinions differed slightly, but I think that if we really want peace, we should work harder to achieve it. If we do nothing except say that we desire peace, then we will not have peace. Many Palestinians put themselves above the pursuit of peace. We should help our people to sow peace in our land, so that day after day, when we look at our land, we will see trees full of love and peace. It is my dream to have peace. I can only hope that those in power will see the people who sacrifice themselves for this Holy Land.

We discussed the issues raised by living in this pluralistic society. Some of our group had doubts, but I, along with many others, thought that we could live together. We have the same traditions, the same culture and we share in the same suffering. We talked about ways to avoid disputes.

On the second day we looked at different approaches to peace in Jerusalem. Mrs. Cedar Duaybis described a vision of peace in Jerusalem: first we need to come up to a just political solution for the city, and we must ensure that the Holy Land is open for all—Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims, Christians and Jews. In my opinion, we must bring all the Arab countries together with Israel in order to discuss the future status of Jerusalem. Our group wanted to continue the current peace process, but called for lifting of the closure to enable people from the West Bank and Gaza to come to Jerusalem without having to apply for a permit, which is difficult to obtain.

Following the break, Rev. Ateek considered the ways to make peace. I think that we need to proceed with love, stop the violence against children, and make all the governments work for peace.

The conference ended too quickly. On the final day, we visited Latrun Monastery and the Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salam community of Arabs and Jews. Although some of us had only known each other for a few days, we felt like old friends. We said our farewells, and looked forward to meeting again in the future.

A month later we met with a group of young people from the Bethlehem area who had attended a similar conference. When we were due to meet, there were many problems in the Holy Land. It began when the government of Israel opened the tunnel beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque, igniting a flame in all of Palestine. This was not the only problem, as the real reason was within the heart of all Palestinians. The bad treatment of Palestinians by Israel and the low salaries for Palestinian workers inside Israel, to name a few. In spite of all those killed, and in spite of all the pressure, Israel did not allow Palestinians from the West Bank to come to Jerusalem, or those from Jerusalem to enter the West Bank. So, when we went to meet with the Bethlehem area students in Beit Sahour, the Israeli soldiers wouldn’t allow us to drive into the West Bank. They told us to walk. I was very angry at this treatment and about what had happened.

I hope that peace will fly in the whole world and that our children will have peace and hope in their dreams.

Reem Khader, a 17-year-old Palestinian student at the Lutheran School in Ramallah, is a member of the Episcopal Church.