Report on the ecumenical visit in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories promoted by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (7-13 June 2002)
From 7 to 13 June of this year an ecumenical delegation promoted by the Federation of Protestant Churches visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories of West Bank and the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967 (from now on referred to as "Territories"). The delegation was made up of Pastor Gianni Genre, Moderator of the Tavola Valdese; Pastor Anna Maffei, Vice President of the Union of Italian Baptist Churches; Doctor Renato Maiocchi, Executive Secretary of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy; Professors Paolo Ricca and Daniele Garrone of the Waldensian Theological Seminary; Pastor Eugenio Bernardini, Director of the Protestant weekly newspaper Riforma; Professor Brunetto Salvarani, Catholic theologian and Director of the magazine QOL; the reporter Luigi Sandri, Italian correspondent of the international ecumenical press agency ENI and editor of the magazine Confronti; Doctor Paolo Naso, Director of the magazine Confronti and of the television program Protestantesimo (Raidue) and Doctor Lucia Cuocci of the programming staff of the magazine Confronti. The delegation was accompanied by a crew of the television program Protestantesimo.
The visit was ecumenical in a double way: because in the group there were two Catholics, but mainly because we intentionally wanted to meet with different Christian Communities in Israel and in the Territories, convinced that in the face of such a tragic situation like the one they are living through in that area of the world, the confessional differences are secondary with respect to the common vocation for peace, justice and reconciliation. In this way, thankful for the attention given us from the World Council of Churches regarding our ecumenical visit, in its autonomy and specific scope we feel it to be a contribution to the overall initiative of the World Council of Churches for the Middle East. The objectives of the visit were expressed in a letter that the leadership of the Italian Protestant Churches sent to the various local communities last April 5th: "showing solidarity with Israeli and Palestinian victims; to support the efforts of those actively committed to peace both in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories; to plead for an immediate and complete cease-fire that should at the same time stop terrorist actions and military interventions; to express our fraternal solidarity in Christ to the Christian minorities that live in Israel and in the Palestinian Territories". To realize these objectives the delegation met with various political and religious personalities, both Israeli and Palestinian; made visits to the families of the victims on both sides; went to see not only the territory of the State of Israel, but also Gaza and West Bank; met with groups and associations actively committed in the peace effort; listened to dozens of witnesses "in the field".
The meetings were with:
- David Cassuto, member of Likud, already vice mayor of Jerusalem and ex president of the Italian Jewish Community of Jerusalem;
- Yehezkel and Dalia Landau, peace educators at the Open House of Ramle;
- Naomi Chazan, member of the Knesset, Meretz party (pacifist opposition);
- Zeev Boim, member of the Knesset, president of the Likud group;
- Yehuda Stolov, already director of the Israeli Interreligious Association and presently responsible for the Interfaith Encounter Association;
- S.B. Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem;
- H. G. Riah Abu El Assal, Anglican bishop of Jerusalem;
- R. R. Munib Younan, Lutheran bishop of Jerusalem;
- S. E. Swerios Malki Murad, Siro-Orthodox bishop of Jerusalem;
- Prof. Bernard Sabella, responsible for the refugee office of the Middle East Council of Churches;
- Dr. Claudette Habbesh, director of the Caritas of Jerusalem;
- Prof. Manuel Hassasian, vice president of the University of Bethlehem and member of the Palestinian negotiation delegation nominated by the PNA (Palestinian National Authority).
The delegation also met:
- Yetzhak Frankental of the Parent's Circle Association (parents of victims), father of a girl killed in a Palestinian suicide attack in Jerusalem;
- The parents of Malki Roth, killed during a Palestinian suicide attack in Jerusalem;
- The wife of Abu Halib, a young deaf and dumb pastor killed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers for not having stopped at a halt;
- Rauhijneed, a 24 year old Palestinian of Gaza who lost a leg after the explosion of an Israeli shell;
- The leaders of the Society of Remedial Education Center of Gaza, a non profit association that works with children suffering from shock;
The delegation also visited:
- The Lutheran Church of Jerusalem, participating at worship with the Lord's Supper on Sunday, June 8;
- The Catholic parish of Gaza, meeting the parish priest Emanuel Musallam;
- The Lutheran Church and International Center of Bethlehem, meeting with its director Pastor Mitri Raheb;
- The Catholic parish of Saint Catherine of Bethlehem, meeting the parish priest, the Franciscan Amjad Sabbara;
- The refugee camp of Aida, Bethlehem;
- Yad Vashem;
- The settlement of Efrat (near Bethlehem).
The delegation spent its last day in Galilee dedicating its time to retreat, prayer and biblical reflections. In particular, where tradition indicates the place of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus would have spoken the "Beatitudes", Professor Paolo Ricca and Pastor Anna Maffei commented on the text of Matthew 5, 3-11.
Everywhere we were greeted with great warmth and with the maximum desire to answer our most difficult and direct questions. We're convinced that this eagerness to meet and talk with interest and participation was aided by the common acknowledgment and appreciation for the activity of Confronti that, in these years, has established important channels of dialogue on the Israeli as well as on the Palestinian side, thanks to the itinerant seminars "On the frontier of the most difficult peace" and the exchange program "Seeds of peace" realized in Italy with the participation of educators from both sides. We also had the impression as if, on one side as on the other, there were a great desire to speak, to "let out" fears and hopes, to break the feeling of isolation that the one and the other are covered by. In particular, visiting Israel and the Territories, it struck us to visit cities at times deserted, suffering and marked by a palpable tension, absolutely empty of pilgrims and tourists: a fact that has not only economic, but also human and social consequences. It came to mind the verse of Lamentations were it says: "How lonely lies Jerusalem, once so full of people! Once honored by the world, she is now like a widow… All night long she cries; tears run down her cheeks." (Lamentations 1, 1-2)
The experience made in Israel and in the Territories opened to us important horizons for reflection; it increased our consciousness of the seriousness of the conflict and of the dangerous repercussions that further escalation could have even outside the Middle East; it enabled us to gain a lot of first hand information which will then help us to find a possible working plan both for us and for our Churches.
Let there be peace in Jerusalem
In all of our talks we felt in the people a great sense of reciprocal distrust and fear. The Israeli Jews live under the nightmare of new suicide attacks by the hands of the Palestinians, who in a flash would destroy their own family and their own children. The Palestinians fear for their homes, as has happened in the past to their neighbors, with the arrival of Israeli soldiers, with shooting, and the destruction of the houses, and often without having tried to find out if there was an effective involvement in terrorist activities. Among our Palestinian interlocutors their accusation against continuous and daily humiliation imposed on the population of the Territories was unanimous and of which, after the agreements of Oslo (1993) there had been a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops. The Palestinians, for example, must wait hours before being able to pass one of the hundreds of Israeli road blocks that hinder the normal circulation of the population; often, furthermore, the criteria for passing appears arbitrary and oppressive.
The causes of violence
The causes and the responsibility for violence are object of opposing interpretations. The Israeli government, but also an important part of public opinion in Israel, holds that the cause of the explosion of violence is the political position of the National Palestinian Authority (NPA) and, in particular, of its President Arafat. The NPA, in other words, on the one hand pretends that it wants to open diplomatic negotiations to reach a peace agreement while on the other hand encourages the extremist movements and those ready to make suicide attacks. The Palestinians hold instead that the mother of all the violence is the Israeli military occupation in the Territories. Among the Palestinians, on this matter, we registered different points of view: according to some it's the desperation not to see a future that pushes the youth to consider it their duty to "sacrifice themselves for their country"; others instead, although not excluding this interpretation, have repeated to us many times that the suicide attempts cause a serious and irreparable damage not only to themselves and to their victims, but to the same Palestinian cause. Those holding this position made us aware, in fact, that every attack causes the Palestinian population suffering because of the frequent Israeli military reprisals; on the political level, furthermore, every attack finishes with strengthening the policies of Premier Sharon and to alienate international solidarity from the Palestinians. Still others express a firm political and moral criticism against terrorist attacks holding that they offend the dignity of the Palestinian cause. In this picture, for many Israelis, all or almost all of the Palestinians are terrorists, potential terrorists or their accomplices; in any case the great majority of them have arrived, according to many Israelis, at accepting terrorism as a legitimate weapon in the struggle against the military occupation. However we have gathered some testimony on the Israeli side according to which the logic of indiscriminate military retaliation, attacks against the Palestinian civil population, the lengthening of the military occupation offend "the Israeli soul" and the democratic nature of the State; at the same time it forces them into isolation in the area while its policy should be aimed at consolidating relations of friendship and partnership with the surrounding countries. In the Palestinian camp, instead, even those who do not criticize the political and religious support that some extremist movements guarantee to the human bombs, reveal how the policies of the Israeli government is as much and more terrorist, who, with the pretext of vindicating the attacks, relentlessly go against the civil population, killing, destroying houses and buildings, uprooting thousand of fruit trees and putting the economy of the Territories on its knees.
The use of stereotypes
We noticed a schematic and at times provocative use of stereotypes or at any rate improper definitions to "label" the contending parties. Thus, for example, some Palestinians say "Jews", meaning "Israeli", coming almost to an identification in which all Jews in the world would be Israelis. On the Israeli side, instead, we noted the tendency to consider all Palestinians "Muslims", thus ignoring the small but important Christian minority, and almost considering all Muslims as potential terrorists. Many Palestinian interlocutors, not only Muslims, have reported against the risk that this leads to a real "Islamophobia", among the Israelis as well as in the international public opinion. All of our interlocutors told us of the unrealized expectations regarding the Peace Process started September 13th in Washington, with the signing of the agreements prepared at Oslo between Israel and the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine (PLO). The Israelis, except for some rare cases, attribute to the Palestinians the responsibility for the failure of these agreements; the Palestinians give the fault to the Israelis. Notwithstanding these speculative accusations, various interlocutors have pronounced hard words against their own political leaders, accusing them of being responsible for the failure of the agreements and the end of so many hopes. We have noticed that reference to the Scriptures, Hebrew, Christian and Islamic, is important for many; for some it is the essential point of reference for their lives. In such a context we have received greater awareness of the scandal constituted by references to the name of God to bless war or violence. But at the same time in various talks we have also noticed the awareness of this scandal and the explicit knowledge that the name of God may be called upon only to promote peace, justice and reconciliation. If for some the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is religion, for others this is seen only as a mantle used by many to cover the real knots of the conflict, and that is, a division of the same land claimed by the two peoples and the ways to arrive at a possible compromise.
Jerusalem
In the Christian camp, then, we have seen how complex is the relationship that Christian Arabs have with the Old Testament, and that is, with its books that are used by many Jews for claiming, in the name of the divine promise, all the land of Israel (and non only the actual State of Israel but also the Territories). More in general, thinking of our experiences in the Western churches, we have verified how it's important to deepen the ties between the churches and Israel and therefore between the Christian experience and its Hebrew roots. Symbolic city for Jews, Christians and Muslims, Jerusalem appeared to us as a place of the bitter, dramatic conflict almost without a solution. Many church leaders, but also simple Christians, have expressed to us a feeling of bitterness that fills them because they live a time of great solitude. "We are the mother church, but we are the forgotten church", the leader of a Christian church in Jerusalem told us. But right in Jerusalem we met testimonies and experiences of reconciliation and of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians that gave us reason for hope in the future.
The weight of memory
In many meetings we noticed the weight of memory. Without the awareness of what has happened in the past to peoples in conflict in the Middle East it's impossible to understand the fundamental aspects of the bitter situation today. On the other hand, we have gathered the impression of an often rhetorical and ideological use of history ("we have different and irreconcilable stories of what has happened" an Israeli congressperson told us) that ends up being a cage that blocks confrontation and dialogue with the positions of the adversary. Visiting Yad Vashem, memorial of the Shoah, we were invited to reflect on the devastation that it's possible to bring about when you lose sight of fundamental human values becoming blind victims of racism, of ethnic hate or anti-Semitism. The memory of the past must be translated in constant commitment to be alert because anti-Semitism doesn't rise again and to suffocate at the start any temptation to racism, of presumed cultural or ethnic superiority, of despite for others. In conclusion it seems that we can say that the situation is always dramatic. However, from one side or the other, the number of those who hold that the conflict can be solved only through a strong intervention of the international community is growing; one that springs toward the realization of principles by now acknowledged by many, at least along general lines, and that is:
To follow through successfully with these objectives, we reaffirm that any type of violence, terrorism or oppression will not solve any of the problems on the carpet but will aggravate all of them. Israelis and Palestinians, therefore, must understand that the only path that can be followed is that of diplomatic and political negotiations. Our desire to find the ways of peace in justice has been strengthened by small but important signs that we found, both in Israel as in the Territories: initiatives for dialogue, of reciprocal listening, of moral, spiritual and material help between men and women of the two sides. These young shoots, at times very tender, to grow need our solidarity and our attention.
What can we do
Starting from these considerations we hope that our churches take on the peace between Israelis and Palestinians as an important aspect of their vocation and of their witness. This commitment can express itself in various ways that each community is called upon to define on the base of its talents, of the context in which it works, of its specific sensibilities. It seems to us useful, however, to indicate some of the ways that can be taken:
In following through on these objectives the promise of God inspires us and guides us: "The land will become fertile, and fields will produce rich crops. Everywhere in the land righteousness and justice will be done. Because everyone will do what is right, there will be peace and security forever" (Isaiah 32, 15-17).
Jerusalem, 13 June 2002