News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 197 - Wednesday, 2 April 2003
Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters,
In front of the
atrocities that we see on the TVs we feel really wordless and sorry that human
beings reach this level of inhumanity. Everybody is losing part of his humanity
in this war. Therefore, I don’t know what to say and I will remain silent.
I leave you with
the following documents which will give you the opportunity to know what is
happening here and what we think about all this absurdities:
1) An Appeal for Peace Celebrating 40th
Anniversary Pacem in Terris Challenges for the Future by H.B. Michel Sabbah,
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, President of Pax Christi International.
2) WAITING FOR GODOT: Interview with Hania
Bitar.
3) In his Letter from Bethlehem (51), Toine
van Teeffelen is writing also about Christine.
4)
Mona
Hilal, from St Joseph School, Bethlehem, 11th grade, shows her
emotions writing immediately after Christine Sa'adeh's death.
5) Dr Harry Hagopian is writing about “A Map without a Road?”
I hope that
before the next Olive Branch I send you, the war in Iraq will be over, because
enough is enough.. We have to stop this foolishness soon.
Best wishes
from Taybeh Fr.
Raed Abusahlia
An Appeal for Peace
Celebrating 40th Anniversary
Pacem in Terris
Challenges for the Future
H.B. Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of
Jerusalem
President of Pax Christi International
On
April 11, 2003 the Catholic Church celebrates the anniversary of Pacem in
Terris or “Peace on Earth.” This letter was written 40 years ago by Pope
John XXIII after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the 1962 Cuban
missile crisis. The Berlin Wall symbolized the division between East and West.
That Wall pierced the whole of humanity and penetrated people’s hearts and
minds, creating divisions that seemed destined to last forever. Just six months
before the Encyclical, and just as the Second Vatican Council was opening in
Rome, the world had come to the brink of a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile
Crisis. The road to a world of peace, justice and freedom seemed blocked.
Humanity, many believed, was condemned to live indefinitely in that precarious
condition of “Cold War,” hoping against hope that neither an act of aggression
nor an accident would trigger the worst war in human history. The Cuban Crisis
brought the prospect of a Third World War – this time between the USA and the
Soviet Union – awfully close. With his letter, John XXIII wanted to express his
hope and belief in the possibility of peace on earth. The letter was an
expression of the Pope’s optimism for the future and a belief in progress at
the beginning of the sixties. For him, there were four pillars of peace: truth, justice, love and freedom.
Pacem
in Terris became the
Magna Charta of Pax Christi International. For many this was an inspired
document, clearly reading the ‘signs of the times’ and reminding the peoples of
the world of their responsibility to work for the common good, for human rights
and for peace and justice for all.
It said that “everyone must sincerely co-operate in the effort to
banish fear and the anxious expectation of war from our mind.” The task of
creating peace on earth is as urgent as ever, which is why Pope John Paul II
has returned to this theme for his 2003 World Peace Message. Peace on earth, he
reminds us, is a constant endeavour! Many Pax Christi sections celebrate this
anniversary in their country by studying the further consequences of this
letter for our future humankind.
When
the encyclical was published on Holy Thursday 1963, it was addressed not only
to the Catholic bishops, clergy and faithful as was customary. It was also addressed “to all men of
good will.” And Pacem in Terris was embraced by non-Catholic readers
like no previous encyclical had ever been. One reason was its refusal to be
constricted by the stalemate of superpowers or by the balance of nuclear terror
that at that time defined peace. Pope John XXIII, in a phrase not then current,
was thinking “outside the box.”
His
thinking focussed on two topics. One was a lengthy catalogue of human rights,
including economic rights that he said all people and nations had a duty to
respect. The other was a call for some new kind of global authority adequately
empowered to address what he called the “universal common good.” The United
Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been the first steps
in that evolution. John XXIII had co-drafted this historic Declaration when he
served as a diplomat. Years later,
just two months after the publication of Pacem in Terris, the good pope
died. In September 1963, Cardinal
Joseph Suenens, Archbishop of Mechelen – Brussels, presented the letter at a
meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
War creates divisions and hatred
In the Iraqi crisis a political authority de facto guaranteeing international law and peace has been lacking. The UN, NATO and European Union reveal profound divisions. Relations among the great civilisations are threatened by fundamentalism in the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and elsewhere. At the same time, persistent misunderstanding and insensitivity in the West have deepened these divisions. World leaders continue to view events through the lens of their own interests alone. Violence and acts of intolerance erupt in the multicultural cities of the Europe and America.
Let
us remind ourselves of the clear truths that war once engaged in is difficult
to disengage from, that the course of any war is altogether unpredictable, that
war leaves behind a legacy of bitterness and hatred that lasts for generations,
that in desperate situations any available weaponry will tend to be used, that
the bulk of casualties in any war will be innocent civilians and that irreparable
environmental damage will be the inevitable outcome of any modern war. We may
very well survey the results of future wars amidst the shattered wreckage of
ruined civilizations.
If
war is destruction and death, the consequences are no less tragic: divisions,
hatred and swelling numbers of refugees. The world has already witnessed the
millions of refugees coming out of Bosnia and from all over the former
Yugoslavia. It has seen the
unbearable living conditions of Palestinians, living like refugees in their own
land or in foreign lands for generations. It has viewed the horror of genocide
and a major refugee crisis due to protracted civil strife in Central
Africa. As war rains down upon the
people of Iraq, how many more refugees will be added to those who have already
been forced to leave their country, a country that was already bleeding from an
earlier war and from many years of living under a punishing embargo?
The fragility of global security has been
highlighted by the growing economic and technological interdependence of the
planet. The attacks on the Twin Towers showed the stark evil of international
terrorism, one that can strike without conscience and with immense cruelty and
facility. In a not-too-distant future, this terrorism could have at its
disposal without much difficulty biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Given these new threats, world leaders have resorted to a theory of the
"pre-emptive war," a position that raises serious moral
considerations.
Moral Order and
Public Authority
A guiding moral order has been lacking to direct
and sustain the economic, political, cultural and military order of our
day. This is the relevance of the
message of Pacem in Terris.
Without such guidance, ideological systems like Communism or unbridled
capitalism arise with a seemingly solid base, but in reality they are very weak
because they lack clear moral foundations. They are like the enormous statue in
King Nebuchadnezzar's vision: of extraordinary brilliance and terrible
countenance, his head was of pure gold, his chest and arms of silver, his
abdomen and loins of bronze, his legs of iron, but his feet were part iron and
part clay. It was enough to strike
the statue’s feet for it to crumble like sand on a windswept beach, blowing
away and leaving no trace.
Pacem in Terris instructs us that war is not an
apt means to rectify violations of international standards of conduct.
Differences that emerge among peoples and nations must be resolved through
negotiations and agreements. It states that the "universal common
good" is promoted through properly constituted public authority at an
international level, not through coercion or force but through the consent of
the community of nations. The authority must not be a super-state. It must
respect the principle of subsidiarity and respect the authority proper to each
state.
Israel – Palestine and Elsewhere
Perhaps nowhere
today is there a more obvious need for the legitimate use of political
authority than in the dramatic situation of the Middle East. Day after day,
year after year, an unending cycle of violence and retaliation has stalled
efforts to engage in serious dialogue on the real issues. Conflicting interests
within the international community itself has only contributed to the volatility
of the situation. There is a clear need for men and women with the courage to
implement policies that are firmly based on principles of respect for human
dignity and human rights. Such policies are incomparably more in everyone’s
best interest than the continuation of conflict.
In
my country, new measures are currently underway that will lead to even more
distrust, division and humiliation.
A new type of Berlin Wall is being constructed, though this time the
wall is between Israelis and Palestinians. In 2002 the Israeli government began
the construction of an 8-meter high boundary wall along 350 km of the
Palestinian West Bank. The objective is to secure the physical protection of
the Israeli population against possible Palestinian suicide attacks. We have
clearly said that all such acts of violence, what ever their source, should be
condemned. No doubt this barrier will constitute a psychological as well as a
physical obstacle between the two populations, a sort of Wall of
Apartheid. Palestinians will be
virtually locked up, as if they are in a giant open prison. Some, no doubt,
will lapse into an ever-deepening hatred for the Israelis, turning to more
suicide attacks and retaliatory strikes, hence continuing the spiral of
violence.
And yet there are many Palestinians who live in hope of a better time. They do so even in the midst of the destruction of their homes and agriculture, being treated as second-rate human beings and living under the curfews and humiliations endured at military checkpoints. They live in hope, pleading for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This is the deeper and the real cause of the violence. New negotiations are desperately needed, a real dialogue between all peoples concerned, and on all levels, in order to avert further conflict.
Of course, Israel-Palestine is not the only region of the world where we see a crisis in moral and political authority. Pax Christi International has different projects in other parts of the world as well, some of them for many years, in order to promote conflict prevention, demilitarisation, human rights and democracy. In Latin America, our movement focuses on the land problems in Brazil, the enormous level of violence in Colombia with the displaced people as a result, the culture of corruption and impunity in Guatemala, the poverty in Haiti. In El Salvador, still many light weapons are among the people and the impact of violence in the society is increasing. Our movement supports the work of Truth Commissions in order to bridge deep divisions between people, to reconcile and heal the wounds after wars and conflicts.
In Africa, we have been working on projects in a.o. Sudan, Uganda and the Central African countries. It is our aim to expand our programmes on democracy, non-violence and human rights in Africa. We foresee two regional consultations for Africa, one is focussing on Central Africa; the other is bringing our partners for the whole of Africa together. Again this year, our organisation has been submitting a written intervention on the DRCongo and the Great Lakes Region at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
Yes, war is a horrible thing. In such a world it is imperative that we ask ourselves: where are the moral foundations on which we can build a sustainable peace? The image of Nebuchadnezzar's statue has never been more relevant than it is in our day.
Role of Religions
If we are to make a successful transition
from a culture of war to a culture of justice and love, the world's religions
have a crucial role to play.
Interfaith dialogue is an essential step in the process of creating a
more just and peaceful world. Religion should never have been nor continue to
be used as a grounds for war.
Pax Christi International will continue
to promote dialogue and harmony both at the ecumenical and interfaith
level. We recognise and respect
the search for truth and wisdom that goes on beyond our own religious
tradition. We will continue to
listen to the cries of the oppressed and, in the spirit of Pacem in Terris,
work with all people of good will to create a more just and harmonious
world. We recognise that the
foundation for all these efforts must be tolerance for one another and equal
respect for religious freedom everywhere.
Pax Christi International continues to
seek effective ways of promoting active non-violence as a means of conflict
resolution. Peace education is essential at all levels if we are to halt the
xenophobia and racism that plagues many parts of our world today. Children must
be taught to live in a multi-cultural society that respects the rights of
others to be different. Religious education must promote a true spirit of
openness and tolerance.
Promise of Hope
Lent
carries with it a sense of anticipation. We prepare ourselves in this season
for the promise of Resurrection.
It never makes sense to prepare for hopelessness. Our preparations are ultimately linked
to hope. In all of our efforts, we
can help nourish this hope. We can
do this especially through a genuine solidarity with those whose hope is
challenged on a daily basis by acts of violence and death, with those who find
themselves in war zones and refugee camps around the world. Many of these
people hold fast to the vision of a world that is transformed into something
much more beautiful than it is today.
If these people do not give up, then neither must we! We can find
strength - and the courage to act
– from the acts of solidarity we see in those who refuse to be contained by
walls and barriers, those in Belfast and Bethlehem who cross barriers that are
being erected to separate Catholics and Protestants, Jews, Christians and
Muslims. These are those who refuse to let fear and suspicion diminish their
witness to God’s love and their work for justice. They are the ones who sustain
our hope. The yearning for peace is always present. John XXIII knew this when he called world peace ‘humankind’s
perpetual dream.’ He also
recognised that this vision would only be achieved when ordinary people like
you and me work together to become bearers of God’s peace to a broken world.
***
During this Lenten period, we pray that a peaceful solution will be found for the crisis with Iraq, one that secures peace with justice and one that will spare us the nightmare of countless deaths and unimaginable suffering. We also hope the world will not forget that the road to peace for the entire region passes through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps during this Lenten season we would do well to commit to a thoroughgoing examination of our own integrity to the same degree that we are doing our ‘neighbour.’ The evil of our times is terrorism, and indeed terrorism must be condemned and fought. However, at all our efforts in this struggle will not end terrorism if we do not address its root causes, including our own weaknesses in permitting injustice and the oppression of the poor.
The fortieth
anniversary of Pacem in Terris is an appropriate occasion to return to
Pope John XXIII's prophetic teaching. This year Pax Christi sections will mark
the occasion with initiatives of a mostly ecumenical and interreligious
character. They will welcome anyone who brings a heartfelt desire for justice
and peace.
I join this hope with a prayer to Merciful God, the source of all our good. May
he who calls us from oppression and violence to freedom and the good of all
creation help people everywhere in their efforts to build a world of
peace. And may that world find a
solid foundation on the four pillars of Blessed Pope John XXIII’s historic
Encyclical: truth, justice, love and freedom.
National
Congress Pax Christi France
Paris,
29 March 2003
Letter from Bethlehem (51)
Toine van Teeffelen
March 28, 2003
Christine
As a good teacher Suzy has more than two
eyes. She is used to scan, in the classroom or the school yard, the students of
St Joseph wearing their familiar blue and checquered school uniform. Until last
Tuesday she saw how a parent, George Sa'adeh, used to pick up his ten-year old
daughter Christine at the school gate. Sometimes Suzy overheard their talk, and
then she was charmed by how George always joked with Christine. Picking up a
child from school is one of those small encounters that uplift family life.
Happy that school time is over everynody goes home. When Suzy told me about
this, I had to think how I saw Mary for the first time at such a meeting point,
the university gate, hearing the murmur of departing students. Suzy knew
Christine from kindergarten on, and saw her growing up as a good and happy student.
The Institute knows George well because up until last year he used to give
computer lessons to students who were involved in exchanges with Dutch and
Flamish schools. It was Tuesday, a normal day except that everybody was talking
about the war in Iraq.
On Tuesday early evening George and his
wife, and Christine and her older sister Marianne drove in their car through
the city. Suddenly there was the sound of two gun salvos. They came from an
Israeli army unit in civilian clothes who shot at, or thought to shoot at,
Palestinian militants. They did not only shoot at the two militants but also at
another car, that of George Sa'adeh and his family. According to people in
Bethlehem the type of car in which George drove resembled the type in which the
militants drove, and local collaborators informed the army wrongly. According
to Israeli media the militants shot at soldiers and after the soldiers shot
back, George's car was hit. Bypassers heard the cries, in agony, of the two
girls after they were hit. The Sa'adeh family was brought to hospital. Shot in
her head, Christine died on the way. George and Marianne were also seriously
injured. It was early in the evening, and it was downtown Bethlehem. There were
not so many people around as usual because of the heavy weather. One of the
bystanders, at a hundred meter distance, was the Dutch Franciscan Louis Bohte
who presently resides in the Nativity Church complex. Only later he realized
that if he would have been a few steps closer to the event, he could have been
hit by a misguided bullet. When I called Suzy that same evening, her voice
choked. Next day Israeli TV showed images of the exploded passenger bus for
which the militants were apparently responsible.
What had happened is called by human
rights organizations an "extrajudicial execution." The United Nations secretary-general, Kofi
Annan, as well as many Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights
organizations strongly condemn this kind of action because people are killed
without any kind of process and also because it often happens that others are
injured or killed too, like the Sa'adeh family (as well as a third passenger in
the car who was not involved in politics at all). From the beginning of the
Intifadah in September 2000 at least 96 militants have been killed as well as
42 bystanders who happened to be nearby. Immediately that same evening
everybody in Bethlehem wondered why such an execution could take place in the
heart of Bethlehem, in a residential area. There was also no understanding of
the collaborators' behavior. Do they have so little to eat, that they do such
kind of terrible work? Or are they addicted to drugs, as a result of which they
become dependent on Israeli agents?
Christine's burial was announced for
Thursday afternoon. After the closest family – George and Marianne were still
in hospital – all the girls and teachers of St Joseph were walking in a long,
uniformed procession, flanked by scouts with drums, into the direction of the
small gate of the Church of Nativity. Just at the moment of arrival the Moslem
prayer came out of the mosque loudspeaker, a little later replaced by church
bells. The voices of some youths chanting politcal slogans died away. Silence
reigned, except for the drums. Besides a large coloured picture of Christine,
the girls carried a sea of flowers. They held banners with Arabic and English
texts like "Christine, you are our messenger in heaven," and
"Christine, you will be always in our hearts." At the end of the
procession, some carried a meters-long Palestinian flag. I estimated the
presence of some 2000 people. Most, like me, stayed outside the church because
there would not be enough place inside. After the prayer service, a group of
men held the coffin high above their heads, as is the custom here under
Christians as well as Moslems. Through my tears, I blinked into the sunlight
which suddenly after weeks of heavy weather broke through the clouds. Upset, a
friendly priest said: "Where was God, where were her angels?"
During the first three days after the
decease, so is the custom, all people who know the Sa'adeh family or who
otherwise wish to convey their sympathy, pass along the family house. Men and
women sit in separate rooms. I have recently seen it many times. Probably as a
result of the difficult circumstances more people pass away than before the
Intifada. The psychic pressure is a heavy burden for especially older people;
also, due to lack of income people are less able to take good care of
themselves. Lately the neighbor of my family in law passed away. According to
custom, my family in law had for one a day to take care of providing the
visitors with food and drinks. During that occasion kiddreh – herbed
rice with lamb meat - is served, and bitter Turkish coffee offered in small
cups - in fact a suitable means against depression. During the first day, one
sees, especially when the decease is such a great shock as in the case of
Christine, that all visitors silently sit and support the family. In the
consecutive days conversation is gradually taken up. The meeting heals and the
community comes to live again. A few days ago, Sana'a, who is the principal of
a UN school in a village near Bethlehem, showed me how during a mourning period
Moslems bake a special type of crispy bread that is broken and distributed
among family and friends.
*
* *
Suzy called off her
presentator's role during the live video exchange with the Dutch city of
Vlaardingen on coming Sunday. Also St Joseph's choir cannot join in the
"Justice and Peace" song that will be performed. It is still too
difficult. Suzy and some students of St Joseph will however be invited to join
a silent vigil on Sunday night immediately after the exchange. It concerns an
initiative of a group of Palestinians and foreigners who wish to have Bethlehem
participating in the worldwide protests against war and occupation, and in
support of justice and peace. Inspired by, among others, the women who years
ago used to walk around the Plaza de la Mayo in Buenos Aires in order to mourn
their family members who had disappeared, and to indict the authorities. And
perhaps also by the courageous Israeli "Women in Black" who since
over ten years weekly indict the occupation of Palestine on Paris Square in
West-Jerusalem, supported by groups abroad.
Silently we will
walk a round along the Church of Nativity and the nearby Mosque of Omar. The
memory of Christine will strengthen our conviction to continue this initiative.
Mona Hilal, from St Joseph School, Bethlehem, 11th grade,
shows her emotions writing immediately after Christine Sa'adeh's death.
Journal entry
Dear Diary,
It’s a scary dark sad night, suitable for ghosts to haunt and taunt. I
can hear the thunder at this very moment. The sky is black, I think it’s
because it is sad. When you look at it, you can see her tears falling down her
silky cheeks. You can see her
stars are shining no more. You can see it’s angry too; today, few hours ago, an
angel died and left the earth to go and rest beside Jesus, but she left us in
such a brutal, cruel and heartbreaking way that the whole universe announced
this night as a dark, black, miserable night. She was shot and murdered
tonight, that twelve-year-old angel, by Israeli soldiers. I can hear thunder
again. The sky is angry. It’s injustice controlling and dominating again. I can
see now tears in a thousand eyes. It’s not only heaven that’s crying but also
mothers, fathers, daughters, students, teachers and even hell itself can’t
accept this! One minute she’s alive, the next she’s a dead body! How can a glowing
candle blow off so easily?! How can a shining star fall down so easily? How can
Christine die so easily? The rain is thickening…hearts are wounded... They are
bleeding. No human being can imagine having his sister dead, his father
dangerously wounded and his mother crashed down, in a few seconds! Oh God!
My heart is screaming out of terror! The idea of loosing them makes me
go crazy. Oh God! Let those who have lost heir dearest beloved ones have
patience, faith, strength, and love. Silence remains…there’s no sound at all!
The sky that was angry has silenced now! Sadness is squeezing my heart causing
it to bleed. I hate silence, it reminds me of death. Oh Jesus! Be with those
who need you at these difficult and critical times. Embrace them with your endless
love. Never let go of them, they need you. Take care of their beloved ones,
heal them and bring them back to their houses safe and well. Let your angels
protect them from this monster called Israeli soldiers, send them at this very
moment to watch them and make sure their wounds (physically and
psychologically) heal. Silence is almost deafening me! I can hear screams even
though there is no sound at all! It’s really such a dark sad night, but now, I
can hear voices, beautiful ones, angelic ones, calling someone, repeating a
name, I can’t recognize the name, but I guess it’s their call for the innocent
beautiful Christine.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Interview with Hania Bitar
Hania
Bitar is director general of the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership
and Rights Activation (PYALARA), an organization based in Ar-Ram and among
other things known for its Arabic-English youth paper The Youth Times,
youth programmes on Palestine TV and various awareness-raising and
leadership-building projects among teenagers and university students in the
West Bank and Gaza.
What is your Palestinian
religious identity, and how would you communicate it to others?
To be a Palestinian means more to me than to be a Christian. I feel this is due to the fact that we as Palestinians are facing a big political challenge to our existence as human beings. The world has to understand that Palestinians, whether they are Muslim or Christian, are human beings. Making the West more aware of our human existence is a priority for me. Once we are recognized as human beings with rights then we can start to work on the other layers – whether it is women’s issues, religious issues or whatever.
Even
if I would stress my religious identity, the West doesn't really care about
Palestinian Christians here. The world is not showing more interest or sympathy
because there are Christians here or because Christian values are at stake. The
way things have been going make me as a Christian ashamed of what is happening.
This makes me feel that in fact I belong more to my Muslim culture than to the
Christian world. I am protected more here. People can understand me and the
challenges to my existence more than those in the Christian community of the
world.
The
same applies to the Christian symbols and holy places. The World was in uproar
when the Buddha statues were demolished. Besides the lip-service condemnations,
not much is done any time a Christian or a Muslim holy site is at stake because
of the Israeli aggression. If we look at the most sacred Christian sites – the
Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – you don’t feel
there is a real Christian adherence to these sites. As if they mean nothing to
the world. Look at the small numbers of pilgrims.
I
feel that both Muslims and Christians raise their families and their children
here on a very similar set of values. We as Christians are born and rooted
here; we are not imported or new immigrants into the country. As a Christian I
feel that both Muslims and Christians in the Palestinian Territories have come
to terms with each other. Whenever the political burden is relieved a bit, we
can work more on the issues of better understanding, building bridges of
tolerance and communication. I think we as Palestinians have stepped well in
this direction. We can in fact really become a model of religious coexistence
that can be followed by other countries around the world. Moreover, I
feel the challenges we are facing as Palestinians, whether Muslims or
Christians, make us more united, more understanding and more coherent. It is
the time to unite, to be one voice and one hand in facing the external
challenge. We have also other factors that make us more coherent as Muslims and
Christians in this country. Our political leadership is aware of the importance
of religious coexistence and tolerance. Furthermore, the Christian minority in
Palestine is very educated and powerful and has succeeded in having its
footmarks on the different levels, educational, literary, political, medical,
etc. A very important factor is also represented in some of our Muslim and
Christian religious leaders who play a major role in bridging the gap between
the two religious identities.
What
do you think about the strategy of the Palestinian Authority to emphasise
religious plurality?
The
important thing is that it is not just a strategy to show the world that we
have plurality or religious tolerance. It is practiced on the ground. It is not
just something artificial, singing to the current tune around the world. As
Christians, we don’t feel that our religious rights are confiscated by the PNA.
On the contrary, the PNA preserves those rights. Our challenge is more with the
Occupation which deprives us - Christians and Muslims - from practicing our
religious rights.
In any nation, leadership plays a very important role. If you have a wise leadership which seeks to preserve the rights of minorities, this will translate itself into daily practices. I think as Christian Palestinians we are lucky to have a leader like Yasser Arafat. At a religious level I feel that he is really very understanding – genuinely - about the rights of the Christian minorities. And I feel the leadership understands fully why it should be tolerant and allow plurality. What is good is that it doesn’t only understand this as an important strategy to reach the world and to show that it is a pluralistic authority but that it really understands it on an internal level. Christians, because of the fact that they are powerful and educated, have managed to reach influential decision-making positions. This is still needed on a higher political level or platform. For women and youth, too – as Christians and Muslims - but this is a totally different issue.
I feel we have been all the
time demonstrating that there are Palestinian Christians and Palestinian
Muslims. Nobody tries to hide who we are. On the contrary, for me I find it
really an excellent example when we have both our Christian and Muslims leaders
walking or demonstrating together and trying to show that as Muslims and
Christians we are together in refusing this or accepting that. I feel this is
something really good. It gives so many positive messages to the people. The
religious leaders are playing an excellent role in this regard and they become
role models for the population. Once you see your leaders uniting and standing
together and speaking with the same voice on many issues, the whole population
will look up to those people. And this is a very important factor in our
religious reality in Palestine.
Arafat has appointed Christian mayors to 10 West Bank cities, regardless of the proportionality of Christians to Muslims within them.
It
is not just in the Palestinian areas. It is also in Jordan and other Arab
countries where they try to keep the Christian presence visible. First they
start with a quota for Christians. However, you will find a lot of Christians
who have really proved themselves. You cannot just appoint a Christian because
he’s a Christian – he has to be qualified for such a task. I hope in the long run that this will
become our strategy – choosing the one who is really most suitable for such a
position regardless of whether he is a Christian or a Muslim. Yes, you can
start by having quotas and so on, just to ensure that this group of people are
not forgotten; but gradually and in a tolerant context, qualification becomes
the most important issue.
Have
you experienced any local problems of Muslims and Christians living together?
Of
course we have some problems. We are a real society. As a society, we might
face different problems related to having different religions. But what is
important is how we deal with these problems; how the leaders in a community
are dealing with them, addressing them, whether on an educational level or
societal level. It is natural to have problems. We are not an artificial
community.
You
can have problems on a community level, or on the level of neighbours. I
remember, for example, in Jifna village, where they live close to Jalazon
refugee camp. Jifna is a village dominated by Christians. Social drinking is
not an issue in a Christian context but alcohol abuse and getting drunk is of
course an issue of concern. You
rarely find Christians who are drunk; they are used to dealing with alcohol.
Alcohol is in their homes, their stores, restaurants. But for Muslims,
especially the youth who are growing up, alcohol is something tempting,
something they want to try. It becomes something very attractive. They want to
try alcohol; they want to consume alcohol without limitation. Now this is an
issue of concern not only to Muslims because alcohol is forbidden in Islam but
also for Christians because alcohol abuse is also forbidden in Christianity.
It
is natural to have differences and to have problems but what is important is how
one deals with the problems. Do you just leave it up to the people to make
their own laws and regulations or do you really address community leaders,
people at the mosque, in the church? Are you working on a society level to see
why young people want to drink? What is good in our society is that we really
try not to get carried away after small problems but to deal with them.
Can you tell me about
projects or initiatives for expressing a Palestinian religious identity, or
which serve to develop Muslim–Christian relations?
PYALARA is a youth organisation. What we have been trying to do until now, is to educate young people on the importance of “accepting the other”. The value of tolerance and accepting the other and believe in the right of the other to have rights is a value that people aim at reaching whether in relation to religious differences, gender issues, minority rights and other categories.
At PYALARA, we teach young people tolerance and common values through practice. Last Christmas, for example, we had a group of young Muslims and Christians together with Santa Claus who visited sick people in hospitals and gave presents. The group of young amateurs, accompanied by Santa and a guitarist sang Christmas carols, national songs and songs of [Lebanese singer] Fayruz in an attempt to bring some happiness to the hearts of people. Also last year during a Muslim feast, Christians and Muslims together worked to make a difference in the life of a poor family in Am’ari refugee camp. Together we wanted to make a very poor family happy at the end of the Ramadan feast. So a group of young Christian and Muslim members of PYALARA went and worked on improving the quality of living of this family. We managed to mobilize the community where some people donated money, tiles, cement, windows, and clothes. We even managed to get them a stove and a gas-heater. What was special is that the young people, Muslims and Christians, did all the work and managed together to work for a bigger value; helping the needy and the elderly; a value called for by both Christianity and Islam.
How do you look at
present-day relations with the West?
I
think the attitude of the world is just giving Israel a green light to do
whatever it wants. We have reached a level of existence where we, as
Palestinians, are really ‘Waiting for Godot’. We feel that our value as human
beings who have the right to live in freedom, with dignity, the right to dream,
to have a past, a present and a future have never been a priority on the
international agenda. The recent international grass-root refusal of the
American aggression against Iraq, represent a slim light of hope in the heart
of darkness we are living in. Nothing justifies injustice; neither power,
greed, nor historical or religious pretexts, nothing at all. We see some hope
in the way some individuals and groups around the world are responding to our
suffering. The US succeeded in becoming enemy number one for so many people
around the world, and even occupies the same status (pushing Israel to enemy
number two) in the Palestinian context. Rachel Corrie, the young American of
23, who refused to surrender to the Israeli aggression, paid a very heavy
price; her life. Corrie and the demonstrations by the American people and many
other nations against aggression showed us, the underdog, that there is still
some hope, that there are people whose conscious are still alive and that those
might influence the mechanisms of power one day.
In
the unprecedented deteriorating context that we as Palestinians are living
through, religious identity becomes a zero factor when compared with the value
of human life and dignity. When a nation, specially its young people stop to
see any light at the end of the tunnel, then what Shakespeare said in Henry V “Let life be short; else shame will be too
long” represents a warning. Our collective mission should be focused on
keeping a ray of hope in the hearts of people while actual and concrete steps
are taken to alleviate the tyranny and shame of occupation.
A Map without a Road?
Dr Harry Hagopian, LL.D, KOG-KSL
“The Christian will engage with passion in the world of our society and politics out of a real hunger and thirst to see God’s image, and out of a real grief and fear of what the human future will be if this does not come to light”.
The
Most Revd Dr Rowan Douglas Williams
Archbishop of
Canterbury
27 February
2003
Yet another war is being fought out in one of
the indisputable cradles of civilisation! The world watches with fear and
trepidation an episode that could well remove a tyrant from power and make the
world a somewhat safer globe or else haunt everyone with its after-effects for
many years to come. And as I follow the course of this war in Iraq, I recall a
statement by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, that ‘wars are poor chisels for carving
out peaceful tomorrows’. But today, I would like to re-focus on what many
commentators describe essentially as the ‘heart of the conflict in the Middle
East’.
Indeed, I remain convinced that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict represents the skeleton key for peace in the whole
Middle Eastern region. Everybody has said this at least once! Only as far back
as 21 February 2003, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of
Cilicia, repeated that ‘the occupation of Palestinian-claimed land by Israel is
the cause of the violence in that area. Being with the Palestinians is being
with justice.’ A week later, on 27 February 2003, HRH Prince El Hassan bin
Talal of Jordan and Cherif M Bassiouni, Professor of Law at the DePaul Catholic
University in Chicago, issued a joint statement entitled ‘Iraq Today and
Dominos Falling Sequentially Tomorrow’. The statement confirmed boldly that
‘the impending Iraq war has overshadowed the tragic Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. Yet, when all is said and done about the many issues involving the
Middle East, there is nothing more fundamental nor more compelling than the
need to address the Palestinian-Israeli dispute’. The statement further
lamented that ‘the leadership on both sides [Palestinian and Israeli] seems
unable to extricate itself from this situation, and the United States, which is
the only power that has the capacity to put an end to it, seems to have
abdicated, at least temporarily, that role’.
But physical violence by both sides apart, what
else is happening within the Palestinian disjointed lands today?
Terje Roed-Larsen is Senior United Nations Envoy
for the Middle East / Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. On
5 March 2003, he highlighted some reports from World Bank and World Food
Programme sources that are impacting Palestinians and Israelis today - since
what happens to one people inevitably also overwhelms the other:
Ø
During
the last thirty months, 2,501 Palestinians and 724 Israelis were killed by the
ongoing violence;
Ø
During
twenty-seven months of closure, where 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank
and 1 million Gaza residents have been confined by Israel to their towns and
villages, the gross national product in the Palestinian Authority declined by
$5.4 billion - the equivalent of one year’s income to Palestinians;
Ø
60%
of Palestinians now live under the poverty line of $2 a day, the number having
tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to nearly 2 million today;
Ø
Half
the workers in the Palestinian private sector have lost their livelihoods;
Ø
The
debt of the Palestinian Authority to suppliers stands now at $370 million;
Ø
Food
consumption per capita has dropped by 30%;
Ø
UNRWA
and the World Food Programme were forced to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars on storage because of delays in security checks at Israeli ports and
checkpoints. Delays can last as long as forty days;
Ø
Domestic
violence is growing at an alarming rate in the West Bank and Gaza, and so are
school dropouts;
Ø
On
19 February 2003, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,
issued an SOS appeal. He said that the eight-metre high security wall being
built by Israel around Palestinian territories will isolate the city of
Bethlehem from Jerusalem and result in the encirclement of sixty Christian
families living near Rachel’s Tomb. He added that this wall is further forcing
Palestinian Christians toward emigration.
So where does all this leave Palestinians today?
And where does it also leave the conflict between two peoples who are bloodied,
battered and traumatised almost beyond repair by the violence they have been
inflicting upon each other?
Despite the inveterate pessimism prevalent in
the region today, all hope may not be lost irretrievably! One political
alternative to further bloodshed and violence at the moment is the ‘roadmap’.
This is a plan that was drawn up by the diplomatic Quartet of the United
Nations, European Union, Russia and the United States to achieve a two-state
solution with the establishment of a Palestinian state within three years.
Going beyond the roadmap, the statement by HRH Prince Hassan and Cherif
Bassiouni called upon the United States to reconvene the Madrid Conference, or
a Madrid-like conference, in order to address in a multilateral regional
context all outstanding issues. Focusing its fulcrum on ‘anthropolitics’, the
statement carried the timely suggestion that ‘the states of the region must be
encouraged to solve their own problems and manage their own crises by coming to
the table rather than remaining on the menu’.
Overall, this holistic plan unfurled the
following proposals:
Ø
Settlement
of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
Ø
Peace
between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon
Ø
Setting
in motion mechanisms to establish a regional security regime and the elimination
of WMD
Ø
Enhancement
of security co-operation for the prevention and control of ‘terrorism’
Ø
Development
of mechanisms to eliminate anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim
materials from public education and the media
Ø
Establishment
of regional institutions for cooperation in the sharing of natural resources
and their conservation, particularly water, as well as enhancement of economic
development
Ø
Establishment
of a centralised institution to deal with issues of conflict management and resolution.
Ambitious proposals indeed! But are they
realistic today in the midst of a dense and unrelenting conflict?
Settlements are one of the most poignant manifestations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. Settlements denote land, space, contiguity, access, sovereignty, occupation and dignity. Yet today, Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands are not only illegal according to International law, they are also one of the most fundamental impediments to future peace.
When Likud came to power in 1977, the government began constructing Jewish villages and cities all over Palestinian territories. PM Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Agriculture, engineered a settlement plan with financial incentives that made the territories an attractive home for Israelis who did not feel strongly about the political ideology that drove the settlement project. The settlements grew rapidly, and there are now well over 400,000 Israelis living outside the pre-1967 borders of Israel - at least 200,000 in East Jerusalem and another 200,000 deeper in the West Bank and Gaza.
In her article entitled ‘The Unsettlers’ in the New York Times on 16 February 2003, Samantha Shapiro takes as her example the Jewish outpost at Ramat Gilad. She affirms that the distaste for occupation ‘is still shared by a majority of Israelis, as expressed in opinion poll after opinion poll. Indeed, one recent poll found that 78% of Israelis would be willing to give up the vast majority of settlements in order to strike a peace agreement with the Palestinians’.
Shapiro adds, ‘But despite those polls, and
despite international laws prohibiting settlement in occupied territories,
Jewish settlement in the West Bank has expanded continually since the land was
captured in the 1967 war’. And the more those settlements and outposts expand,
the greater the Palestinian fear, and the larger the ambit of the conflict. Dr
Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Union of
Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, encapsulates Palestinian fears by
describing Jewish outposts on Palestinian land as ‘monsters opening their
mouths very wide to eat us.’
But the building of settlements is not the only
fearsome obstacle. In an article in Le Monde Diplomatique in February
2003, the correspondent for the Israeli Ha’aretz daily Amira Hass writes
that the repugnant idea of the ‘transfer’ of the Palestinians - meaning their
total expulsion - now appeals to many Israelis. Hass claims that the Israeli
army and some settlers are already organising ‘mini-transfers’ in the West
Bank, and any serious new threat to Israel (for example, in case of missile
attacks from Iraq) could precipitate the brutally enforced expulsion of
millions. She adds that some 73% of those who live in the Jewish settlements,
euphemistically known as development towns (akin to France’s former villes nouvelles) believe that Israel
should encourage its population to leave their homelands. This rises to 76%
among Jews from the former Soviet Union and to 87% among religious Jews. But it seems that some right-wingers would
go even further. They see a link between ‘transfer’ and the Palestinian
Intifada. Effi Eitam, who heads the National Religious Party (ha-Mafdal), would
like to see Israel exert sovereignty over all territories between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean. In his view, a Palestinian state would then be
established in Jordan and the Sinai instead.
The whole Middle East stands at another critical
crossroads today. The Arab masses are seething with a sense of reborn
nationalist anger against what they perceive as multiple injustices or biases
against them. Yet, many of the Arab regimes are still speaking with dissonant
voices. Moreover, the American [and Israeli] positions remind me of one of
Cicero’s more famous political dictums! Taken from Atreus, a play by the Roman
tragic poet Lucius Accius, the motto ‘oderint dum metuant’ denotes ‘let them
hate so long as they fear’. Surely, a single-handed policy of fear through
force that keeps the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in deep political stasis
cannot sustain itself for much longer without serious backlash.
To my mind, the ‘roadmap’ remains today the most
viable document for resolving a conflict that has drained the Middle East of
life, land, hope and prosperity for far too long. But it needs to be unpacked
in a determined, consistent and honest manner. If only the Americans would
finally find the road that renders this map a viable tool of reference!
Action is
the proper fruit of knowledge!
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, Dr
Thomas Fuller, 1732
hbv-H @ 2 April 2003
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