Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 112-115

Special Report

Third International Sabeel Conference in Bethlehem Attracts Record Number of Participants

By Elaine Kelley

As the world waited for news of Saddam Hussain’s reactions to U.S. demands, and the Arab world protested against U.S. duplicity and belligerence, some 900 local and international registrants gathered at Bethlehem University for the Third International Sabeel Conference Feb. 10 to 15. The event, entitled, “The Challenge of Jubilee: What Does God Require?” addressed the irony of Israel’s yearlong celebrations in observance of the 50th jubilee year of its nationhood, while Palestinians remember 50 years of occupation and statelessness. The conference theme of jubilee was inspired by the Hebrew Scripture (Leviticus 25:10) which calls for a year of restoration and justice in which land is returned to its original owner, freedom is given to slaves, and the poor are provided with all that they need.

Sabeel Liberation Theology Center, the sponsoring organization based in Jerusalem, emerged in 1989 from the tenets of Third World Christianity and the grassroots spiritual movements of Latin America which interpret Christian scripture from the perspective of the poor and oppressed. The center’s current steering committee includes its founder, Anglican Canon Naim Ateek, Melkite priest and author Elias Chacour, human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab, and presiding clerk of the Ramallah Society of Friends (Quakers) Jean Zaru. The center promotes bible study, workshops and conferences, youth activities and clergy gatherings, and has grown into a worldwide movement with active support networks in the U.S., Britain and Sweden.

Many attributed the record turnout for this year’s conference to the perception of imminent catastrophe in Iraq and inevitable calamity in Palestine. In the towns and villages of Palestine people talked of al harb (the war) and the signs of deteriorating relations could be seen in the changing landscape around Bethlehem, where stands of olive trees now bear witness to Israel’s bulldozers, and on the once-green mountain of Abu Ghneim, now swathed from base to crest with wide by-pass roads clearing the way for the huge Har Homa Jewish settlement. And at Rachel’s Tomb on Bethlehem Road, revered and shared for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims, Israeli soldiers stand guard around the recently built high cement walls, denying all except Jewish worshippers, pilgrims and tourists from entering the now exclusively Jewish holy place.

The Sabeel conference package included walking tours in Jerusalem, Hebron, Gaza and along the Palestinian “Via Dolorosa” of D’heisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, to give foreign visitors firsthand encounters with the realities of occupation, impoverishment, house demolitions and checkpoints, and to prepare them for an intensive five days of inspired presentations by widely admired and respected leaders and spokespersons for the Palestinian cause. These included keynote speaker Edward Said, renowned author Rev. Elias Chacour, human rights attorneys Lynda Brayer and Jonathan Kuttab, Palestinian Legislative Council Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah and many others who contributed to a conference program of 40 major presentations.

Following an optional tour of Galilee Feb. 10, attendees were welcomed by Christian Brother Vincent Malham, the vice chancellor of Bethlehem University, who announced that the theme of jubilee was of a particular consequence to Bethlehem University, paralleling its own 25th anniversary year. His remarks were followed by greetings in Arabic from the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Diodoros I, delivered by his representative, Archiman drite Atallah Hanna.

The first session of the conference provided some historical background on the colonization of Palestine with a visual presentation by Dr. Jad Isaac, director of the Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem. A photo exhibit by Hilary and Rev. Au deh Rantisi of the Friends School in Ramallah was an added feature. It aimed, in the words of its creators, to “provide a window into Palestinian lives” during the past 50 years and “to show not only the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli rule, but also their remarkable steadfastness in the face of oppression and injustice.” (After the Sabeel Conference, the traveling photo exhibit will tour the U.S., Canada and Europe.)

Simultaneous with the exhibit opening, a reception organized by Friends of Sabeel North America coordinator Elizabeth Bar low prepared participants for regional organizing sessions for residents of Europe, North America and the Arab countries. Barlow said more than 100 of the North American participants attended the meeting to discuss conference follow-up activities (see report below).

The director of Sabeel, Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, noted the Christian heritage in Palestine and announced for the sake of any Israelis who were listening that the Holocaust had been used as the most convincing argument for the establishment of the state of Israel, which was now a certain authoritative fact existing alongside the reality of the Palestinians and their Authority. “We want to give this week a prophetic voice,” he continued. “All your outward and impressive celebrations this year will not hide your nakedness of injustice. We offer you this year the Challenge of Jubilee.”

Conference organizers, who had projected a registration of 350, had to scramble to accommodate the more than 900 who had registered by the end of the third day, and yet another thousand showed up for Edward Said’s keynote presentation on the fourth day.

Singing by local choirs and an ecumenical worship service were the first order of each day, plus daily press conferences scheduled for local and international news coverage, though the mainstream Israeli media were visibly absent.

“Remembrance and Forgiveness” was the theme on Thursday with speakers who included Dr. Osvaldo Vena and Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether, both from Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Argentina and USA respectively; Professor Rashid Khalidi of the University of Chicago; Dr. Uri Davis of the Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Durham, UK; Dr. May Seikaly of Wayne State University in Detroit; and Rev. Dr. Elias Chacour, president of Prophet Elias College in Ibillin, Galilee.

Chacour, whose books Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land have become classics on the plight of the Palestinian people, recently refused an invitation to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. He explained that, “No museum of any other holocaust is made there” (in Washington).

He invited everyone to visit The Listening Post Memorial in Ibillin, which he described as having “two semi-circular walls, on each of which are words engraved in concrete, one in Hebrew and one in Arabic saying ‘This is a memorial for Palestinian martyrs’ and ‘This is a memorial for Jewish martyrs.’” For 2,000 years, he said, “we have been preaching that there is no more privilege for Jew against Gentile, man against woman, lord against slave. We still have a lot to do to get rid of that concept.” Chacour told of his conversation a few years ago with then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. He had reminded Peres that although Chacour’s childhood village of Biram had been destroyed, the inhabitants were still living and wanted the right to return. Peres insisted that that was 50 long years ago and since Chacour was only a baby at the time he should forget about it. “I answered him,” Chacour said, saying “You are making our lives miserable because you were here 2,000 years ago. Tell me, when will you start forgetting?”

Among 15 speakers addressing Friday’s “Truth and Justice” theme were Sheikh Abd El-Salaam Shkheidem of the Department of Political and National Counseling in Ramallah; Rev. Dr. Goran Gunner of the Stockholm School of Theology in Sweden; Rev. Dr. Don Wagner of North Park (IL) University; Fr. Rafik Khoury, parish priest of the Latin Church in Jifna; Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, professor emeritus of Biblical Studies at the University of California at Berkeley; Dr. Marc H. Ellis, author of nine books, including Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, who is with the Center for Middle East Understanding at Harvard University; Rev. Michael Prior of St. Mary’s University College, UK; Attorney Lynda Brayer, executive director of the human rights organization Society of St. Yves in Jerusalem and Bethlehem; Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, director of the International Center of Bethlehem and author of I Am a Palestinian Christian; and, finally, the keynote address to an overflowing crowd of 2,000 by Jerusalem-born Edward Said, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, who has authored 17 books and hundreds of articles, and who from 1977 to 1991 was an independent member of the Palestine National Council.

Canon Naim Ateek referred to Edward Said as a “prophet” who has received many honors, such as an honorary degree from Birzeit University near Jerusalem, which “proves that prophets can be honored in their own land.” Ateek praised his friend’s singular achievement as an exponent of two cultures and for his contribution to the West’s understanding of the Arab world. To that, Said, who has lived in the U.S. most of his life, expressed his admiration for “your fight here on behalf of freedom and justice” and said there are many connections between him and Ateek. Said described himself as a lapsed child of the Anglican community and said that for him Ateek represents “what so often has been left out of Christianity; namely, Christianity.”

Said, who suffers from leukemia, arrived despite illness that followed a chemotherapy treatment the week before the conference. He made the effort, he said, for his friend Naim’s sake.

“I promise you I will speak freely, so if I offend people, well it’s just too bad, I guess,” Said began. He said that Palestine had always been to him an idea of freedom and diversity, which is “what distinguishes us from Israel and Zionism.” But, Said contended, Oslo and the period since 1993 has dissipated that idea of freedom and diversity in the minds of the people.

After describing the manner in which the Monica Lewinsky revelations affected President Bill Clinton’s meetings with both Yasser Arafat and Binyamin Netanyahu the same week, Said noted that “the U.S. has been a terrible sponsor of the peace process, as it is euphemistically referred to.”

In fact, Said said, the Palestinians are dramatically worse off today than they were in 1992, with average annual incomes of less than half of what they were five years ago.

He said that more Palestinian land has been taken, more Israeli settlements exist, Palestinians are unable to move about freely, “yet the U.S. continues to subsidize this barbaric occupation.” He spoke of the “horrendously cruel sanctions” that affect millions of Iraqi people and pointed out the double standard by which the U.S. condemns Iraq for disregarding U.N. resolutions but vetoes U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Israel.

He alluded to “too much sustained damage to the Palestinian people” and asked how long such an intolerable situation can be endured by victims and how long an acknowledgment can be deferred by the victors. “By what preposterous logic can Netanyahu claim he wants the peace process to continue and say that the West Bank and Gaza are part of Israel?” Said asked. “Every closure, barricade, every gesture of arrogance simply revives the past.”

Said insisted that just as the Jews required recognition from the world, so must the Palestinians. He said the misery of Oslo is that Palestinian leaders brushed off their history and did what Zionism did, and what Britain and the U.S. have done “to conspire to our dispossession.” He said that the first challenge is to extract acknowledgment from Israel of what it did to the Palestinians. “This is a moral mission for each of us to pursue by testifying to continued injustice against us.”

Then Palestinians must hold out the possibility of some form of coexistence, free of ethnocentrism and the present poverty of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. But “the battle of opinion is the most important one to win,” he said, “and until we do we shall always be on the losing end.” He challenged Palestinians to stop relying on outside powers to come to their aid and instead to rely on themselves, stating “until we do that with a full commitment to success there is no chance we can advance to self-determination.”

Said said the failure is seen most by those who live abroad, relating that ever since he was a child Arabs have been saddled with the idea that their leaders are inadequate, yet the people support the same sort of leaders through all mistakes and disasters.

He criticized the sorry state of Palestinian schools, starved for money and desperately filled with underpaid staff, adding the observation that there is an extremely impressive group of wealthy Palestinian businessmen who have not grasped that what is needed is a massive investment in education, in a national library, and an endowment for the entire educational structure. And pointing to political infighting within the Palestinian community, he argued that the “fundamental challenge Israel poses is to ourselves.”

Said stated there must be basic principles from which Palestinians do not deviate in order to have the ability to devote all their efforts to education and competence and “to choose a leadership that is capable of this task.”

Said instructed his audience to draw support for the future from the fact that despite 50 years of oppression the Palestinians still exist as a people. He ended his presentation with an entreaty to his Palestinian audience not to succumb to the sullen silence of a defeated people, but to be “relentless in energy and hope,” believing the weak can overcome the strong because of the “human factor,” to hold onto the land by remaining in Palestine, by giving up magical thinking that relies on miracles and great leaders who do not come, and by pressing the Palestinian cause systematically in the U.S. on the grassroots level. In the U.S., Said said, 90 percent of the electorate still does not know about the plight of the Palestinians.

On Saturday the theme of “Liberation and Healing” was addressed in sessions on “Women and Jubilee,” presented by Dr. Jeanne Kattan of Bethlehem University, Dr. Ilham Abu Ghazaleh of Birzeit University, and Jean Zaru of the Sabeel Board and the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Ramallah. Then followed a presentation of the Conference Message by Canon Naim Ateek (see box below).

“International Models for Peace” offered looks into the liberation struggles of Northern Ireland, South Africa and India. The Anglican Rector of Liverpool, Canon Nicholas Frayling, spoke of the eight centuries-long conflict between Britain and Ireland.

Palestinian Legislative Council Member Hanan Ashrawi and Palestinian Knesset member Azmi Bishara made presentations on the topic of “A Vision for Peace: Thinking the Unthinkable.”

Dr. Ashrawi reiterated Edward Said’s message on the absolute necessity of demanding an admission of guilt for as long as the world refuses to admit that a deep historical collective injustice has been inflicted on the Palestinian people.

She said that to prepare the ground for genuine reconciliation the Palestinians must be careful not to do unto others what was done unto them, but must have the courage to solve central issues, to deal with the source of grievance and injustice, and to lay open issues of Jerusalem, the land, boundaries and self-determination. She said that a flaw in the current peace process is the American paradigm of excluding “complicated factors” like sovereignty and the status of Jerusalem, addressing only the simplest issues.

“Strive for democracy and human rights,” she said, adding that self-inflicted wounds are more painful than those inflicted by others. “Say no when no is needed,” she said. Ashrawi concluded by saying that the Palestinians are the source of the legitimacy of Israel, and though the whole world may recognize Israel, only Palestinians can legitimize Israel.

Dr. Azmi Bishara presented two “thinkable” options for peace, which are the national option for Palestine or the bi-national option of one state for both Jews and Palestinians. “There are no other options,” he said.

He explained his reasoning that historically “we go after what the balance of power dictates,” and that the “balance in Palestine dictates apartheid.” If there are no moral constraints on the power of Israel, he said, there will be relative justice; if there are no constraints, an apartheid system will emerge, with people eventually accepting that system while suggesting the other option built on equality, which is a bi-national state.

“If not two states then one state with equal citizenship,” he said. The presentations of Ashrawi and Bishara drew many questions from the floor.

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, speaking on “Spiritual Resources for Peace,” restated the theology of jubilee and the responsibility God has entrusted. “Peace comes from justice,” the patriarch said, and explained the historic consequences of Christianity’s persecution of the Jews, which is the current alliance of Western Christianity with the Jewish people. He said, “Our role as Christians is to strive toward unity and to the revelation of God to shed the light of divine presence on all our struggles for peace.”

The final presentation of the Sabeel Conference was given by the Most Rev. Ed mund L. Browning, retired presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church. Bishop Brown ing has visited many of the world’s trouble spots as an advocate for justice and peace, consulting with spiritual and political leaders to articulate the position of the church on issues of social justice.

“Thank God Sabeel exists,” the bishop began. “I want to pay tribute to all who have worked diligently for this meeting and say I think it’s going to have an effect far beyond the walls of this school.

“If Jesus exemplified any value, it was compassion,” he said, adding that the compassion of Jesus was complete, leading to his death. The bishop compared compassion to being at the side of a river taking persons out who seem to be drowning, while at the same time going up to the source of the river to see who is throwing them in. It is this action that tries to right the wrong, that seeks to do justice, that the Sabeel Conference has been talking about, he said.

Bishop Browning spoke as an advocate of pacifism, saying, “The spiritual power of nonviolence is a tool that can never be underestimated. The Gulf war still weighs heavily upon me,” he said. “I am no admirer of Saddam Hussain, but my heart is broken for the Iraqi people.”

With that, the conference sessions officially ended and the hundreds of attendees moved as one into the ancient, narrow streets of Bethlehem for a candlelight procession to the Church of the Nativity for an ecumenical worship service marking the end of Sabeel III. On Sunday the 15th, the Middle East Council of Churches hosted a full-day trip to Gaza, and two half-day trips to Hebron were hosted by Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Conference Message Presented by Canon Naim Ateek, Feb. 14, 1998

At the invitation of Sabeel Liberation Theology Center and its local and international partners, more than 900 people (Christians, Muslims & Jews) from diverse parts of the world gathered in Bethlehem from 10-15 February 1998 to stand in solidarity and proclaim the challenge of jubilee. They came to discern God’s call for them as peacemakers promoting justice for all people. Most participants in the conference traveled throughout the Holy Land, before and after the formal proceedings, encountering local people and places in the Galilee, Gaza, Hebron and Jerusalem. The participants were outraged and horrified at the level of oppression and brutality of the Israeli occupation as they walked the contextual “via dolorosa” of the Palestinian people. 1998 commemorates the 50th year of the dispossession of the Palestinian people on one hand, the establishment of the state of Israel on the other. While Israelis are planning festive celebrations to mark victories and accomplishments, Palestinians who continue to struggle for the cause of justice, peace and liberation, find themselves in the midst of a profoundly stalemated “peace process” with a deeply frustrated hope for liberation.

Inspired by the biblical theme of jubilee, participants worshipped and prayed together as they were inspired by the challenge of God’s word “to proclaim liberty to all the land’s inhabitants” (Leviticus 25:10). “What does God require but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8). “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...to preach good news to the poor...to let the oppressed go free...” (Luke 4:18-19).

The challenge is to practice perpetual jubilee and to articulate a new vision for peace, justice, security, and coexistence that satisfies the deepest needs of all God’s people, rather than a solution based on military might and on a “balance of power” which inevitably favors the strong and allows for racism, oppression, and discrimination against the weak.

This vision requires:

• The admission by the Israeli government that injustice has been inflicted on the Palestinian people.
  
  
• The return of all Arab and Palestinian land occupied in 1967.
  
  
• The release of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
  
  
• The return home of all refugees and those who were expelled.
  
  
• The compensation of Palestinians for all damages done during the last 50 years of their dispossession.
  
  
• The guarantee of free access for Palestinians to Jerusalem and the cessation of all measures used to empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian population.
  
  
• The guarantee of full and equal rights to the Palestinians inside Israel.
  
  
• The compliance of Israel with all relevant U.N. resolutions.
  
  
• The challenging of all governments and in particular the United States and its allies for their continuing political, economic and moral support of the Israeli occupation.
  
  
• The lifting of sanctions and the removal of the threat of military intervention against the suffering people of Iraq.
  
  
• The benefits of God’s jubilee are for all the inhabitants of this land, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims, Jews and Christans. The promise fulfilled will be for a life of true peace with lasting security for all people of the region.

Report from Friends of Sabeel North America From Betsy Barlow

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, over 100 Sabeel Conference participants from the U.S. and Canada met at Bethlehem University in the evening to discuss what might be done as follow up in their respective towns and cities to support the work of Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem and their efforts on behalf of the Palestinians.

The participants divided into 15 regional groups and talked late into the night. In fact, the Texans were still talking when the custodians came to turn off the lights and lock the doors. Several concrete ideas were discussed. A newspaper ad campaign, such as the one sponsored by Churches for Middle East Peace which appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs calling for a shared Jerusalem, will be organized for campaigns in other newspapers.

Members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, which has a community living in Hebron, asked for support for their Campaign for Secure Dwellings which attempts to prevent home demolitions. Similar to the Amnesty International program of matching people with political prisoners, this project matches CPT partners with Palestinian families by developing relationships through reciprocal letter writing, publicity and family advocacy in state legislatures, in Congress, the State Department and through other means to advertise that this particular Palestinian family has the support of citizens who are concerned and familiar with their situations.

Another opportunity for North Americans to get involved is the traveling Sabeel photo exhibit. Groups interested in sponsoring an exhibit for a public library, university, church or other location, can help tell the story of the Palestinian Experience 1948-1998.

Contact: Christian Peacemaker Teams, PO Box 6508, Chicago, IL 60680-6580

Phone (313) 455-1199; e-mail: cpt@igc.apc.org

Friends of Sabeel North America (Betsy Barlow)

PO Box 4214, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; e-mail: bbarlow@umich.edu

Information on Sabeel Exhibit Silvija Klavins-Barshnoy

Phone: (773) 244-5786