Three faiths, one peace view
aired by Jerusalem women

by MARK STAPLES

Judith Keshet, a Jewish Israeli; Mai Nassar, a Greek Orthodox Christian; and Rawan Damen, a Palestinian Muslim, have become good friends in the short time they have been on a U.S. tour. They had not known each other back home in Israel before the organization “Partners for Peace” brought them to America for a tour involving several dozen stops in Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Once they return home to an occupied land where hundreds of checkpoints make travel difficult even over short distances for Palestinians, they say their new friendship will be hard to maintain. The trio has been delivering a unified message advocating peace even though they come from dramatically different faith perspectives. Their recent stop at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia was the first of seven in the greater Philadelphia area last week.

Rawan Damen, a filmmaker, writer and youth worker, has a bubbly personality and a quick smile. But she conveyed she feels little hope for a Middle East solution “until Palestinians are really made full partners in the peace process.”

She told the seminary gathering of students, faculty, staff and visitors, “the occupation is not a religious problem, it is a political problem.” She described more than 400 checkpoints throughout the West Bank that block people moving in both directions traveling from work to home.

The checkpoints “are dead areas with soldiers, jeeps and tanks where people are denied their basic human rights” as they are asked to produce identification. Damen says no one escapes the checkpoint consequences — not people in ambulances, not expectant mothers in the midst of delivering a child. She is a student who sometimes misses getting to class because the lengths of checkpoint delays are unpredictable. Sometimes people are beaten, she says, all in the name of security, but security, she says, will not be possible until every life in the Holy Land is valued. And Damen says she is not optimistic that day is coming soon.

In the past three years, she claimed, 2,600 Palestinians have been killed and 23,000 injured, and some 850 Israelis have also died in the Middle East bloodshed. Conditions have sharply reversed since the mid 1990s when signs seemed to be pointing toward the possibility of lasting peace in Israel, a land Damen describes as a place “where all faiths have their roots, where all faiths have holy places.”

Mai Nassar is a professor of English at Bethlehem University on the West Bank. She notes that Christians among Palestinians are a “considerable minority” with 15 denominations represented in Bethlehem, which has an active Lutheran congregation. Many of the estimated 125,000 Christians living in Israel are deciding to leave because of the stress imposed by occupation. “Every Sunday in my congregation we hear of a family who has left or is applying for a visa because of the occupation and its impact on all citizens,” she said. “There is no way to stop this kind of emigration without hope.” Nassar said that conflict in the Middle East has its impact on classes she teaches. Most students are women. “Men are either in prison, injured or have been killed. Some drop out to support their families or leave the country to seek an education elsewhere.”

Judith Keshet said she expresses a view “not shown through the whole spectrum” of Israeli thought. Identifying herself as a peace advocate working with an organization called “Checkpoint Watch,” she said her authentic but “anti-occupation” view is not reflected from any Israeli embassy or by the government in Israel.

Acknowledging that some view the clampdown of the occupation as part of a war on terror, she claimed the occupation measures are not foolproof. “The iniquity imposed by Israeli occupation does not contribute to security in the country. Rather, it generates suffering and hatred,” she said. What is sometimes perceived to be a religious conflict is really a conflict over land and water, she added. Keshet also talked about resistance movements, such as conscripted Israelis who have decided to refuse serving in the military. “Such movements are important,” she said.

During a question and answer portion of the session, Damen said a significant problem forged by the occupation is the level of poverty among Palestinians. “Sixty percent of the population is either unemployed or earning less than $2.10 a day,” she claimed.

Pressed for solutions to the Middle East occupation and conflict, the women asked for prayers for peace and urged sympathizers to write to newspapers when readers feel the peace perspective is not sufficiently addressed in an article.

The trio noted the U.S. has a pivotal role in Middle East negotiations. Expressing that she holds out little hope in the present for a “solution,” Damen said that what it will take is for “Israel as the stronger power to be willing to take a risk toward making peace and truly favor the emergence of a Palestinian state.” She said she no longer has much hope when sides in the Middle East dispute merely talk.

One questioner asked the women if mass education about possible solutions might work in the Middle East. Damen responded that she believes that mass education in the occupied territories “is not possible … what is happening on the ground at checkpoints is not normal. It doesn’t permit the kind of social interaction required for education to be effective.”