Mission
to IsraelMission
to Israel
Report from Fr. Kevin Dance CP
Fr. Kevin Dance CP at the Monastery Oct. 2002
From January 2 - 10th, 2003, Kevin Dance was in Israel with a group of other Non Government Observers to the United Nations.. The purpose of the study mission was to meet with as many people as possible in an effort to fully appreciate the complexity of the situation there. His report to the worldwide Passionist Family follows below.
This briefing report is a summary of a Study Mission to Israel, which I, along with a number of other NGOs at the United Nations, was invited to be part of at the beginning of January 2003. The purpose of the study mission was to meet with as many people as possible in an effort to fully appreciate the complexity of the situation there.
Our Study Mission, under the auspices of the American- Israel Friendship league and Americans for Peace Now, was an attempt to dialogue with and meet all sections involved in the conflict, so that we might be constructive agents of reconciliation and peace.
Where our journey took us:
Meetings were held with Israelis and Palestinians, with government officials, academics, peace activists, educators, medical personnel, as well as ordinary Jews, Christians and Muslims committed to working for peace.
Naturally it did not provide insight into the whole picture of the suffering of two peoples. Most of our contacts were with Jewish men and women covering the whole spectrum of political and religious positions.
There was no chance to visit the occupied territories and only limited chances to speak with Palestinian people. We heard statements where one side attempted to demonise the other. We heard statements that tried to look at the plight of the other with understanding. That being said, it was a valuable and informative experience.
One of the concepts to which we were introduced early in the visit was that of two narratives. Two peoples, one experience that each endures; two opposing interpretations of and understanding of events and their meaning. The existence of a Jewish and a Palestinian narrative is not new. Indeed it is as old as Abraham our common father in faith. Force and counter-force, violence and retaliation can never lead to peace. A
telling statement we heard was that this land has "too much history and too little geography". What is sorely needed is the opportunity for each to hear the other's narrative or story as a non-negotiable first step.
Perhaps they can then begin to appreciate and respect the other's narrative, which tries to make sense of and attribute meaning to their experience.
A Jewish woman teaching coexistence (which is the word used for peace in these parts) through studying the Holocaust gave us a helpful comment:
"Don't try to compare and compete with your pain. It is useless to say my suffering is greater than yours. Each side has its own trauma, for the Palestinians their Dispossession, for the Jews the Holocaust. As partners in dialogue we must listen to the trauma /pain of the other side"
Ingredients of the Tragedy:
Without a doubt the Middle East lost its best chance in 1977, when President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem. The visit by this Arab leader showed courage, decisiveness and extraordinary insight. To go to Jerusalem, into the Israeli Knesset and declare to the Israeli people:
"we welcome you among us with full security and safety" was a leap of faith and imagination, which has not been matched since. He must have known the risk he was taking and, like Yitzhak Rabin fourteen years later, he paid with his life. If only these two deaths had brought Peace to this beleaguered region of the earth! Sadly, over three thousand deaths later, Israelis and Palestinians are still locked in bitter
conflict.
So, in 2003 we see:
Terrible suffering and loss of life that touches both Palestinian and Israeli people.
There has been a terrible negative impact on the state of nutrition, health, employment, access to education and health services for most Palestinian people over the lifetime of the Intifada.
The number of illegal Israeli settlements has increased by 59 since the start of the Intifada. (Settlement Watch's Director Dror Itkins) Suicide bombings by Islamic radicals against Israeli civilians have created an insupportable atmosphere of fear and anxiety among the Israeli people.
The economies of both peoples are suffering badly.
Today a new anti-Semitism has emerged. This is a dangerous situation and the question must be asked: What has caused this present wave of hatred and strongly worded expressions against Jews and the state of Israel, reflected in the media, in street demonstrations, with expressions within intellectual circles and in the failure of authorities in countries to condemn what is taking place?
The Palestinian people or their elected leadership are not the greatest threat to the Jewish people in Israel, but rather groups of Radical Islam. We were told that the Israeli Army, by locking Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, has allowed extremist groups to increase suicide bombing against civilians and with intemperate rhetoric to demonise the Jewish people. This, in turn, has brought from the IDF even more vicious retaliation against Palestine.
Signs of Hope:
In the midst of our journey we found ourselves asking the question, "Is there hope?"
We were privileged to meet men and women from both communities who, in spite of the oppression and violence and in many cases personal suffering, are searching for other ways to learn about and co-exist with the 'other'.
We met Professor Sami Adwan, from Bethlehem University and Professor Dan Bar-on from Ben Gurion University. As Co-Directors of PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East) they are an excellent example of individuals on the ground helping teachers from both sides develop education materials to help in understanding the 'other'.
We met Raya Kalisman, Director of the Center for Humanistic Education, a center bringing together Israeli Jewish, Christian and Arab Students. We also visited Kibbutz Metzer. It sits cheek by jowl with Palestinian villages on the "Green Line". Both communities have lived in peace for many years. The director said that after the slaying of a mother and two children at the Kibbutz, hundreds of their Palestinian neighbors came to offer their condolences. Now a "Security" Wall will soon separate the
two communities.
We met families - Palestinian and Israeli - who have lost members in the violence working together to build a just peace between the two peoples.
We visited the Childrens' Medical Centre of Israel, a "bridge to peace", where politics are left at the door and sick children are treated with love and skill because they are children.
What can I/ We do?
This visit to the Middle East made one thing very clear. Somehow, someone has to restore hope to both these peoples, by patiently building their trust for each other. The Christian community must play a constructive role which promotes peach with justice. This process must be hope-driven as well as process-driven.
It is most important that in trying to right one injustice another is not perpetrated. Concern for the worsening plight of the Palestinian people must not be used as an excuse to fan the flames of anti-Semitism against Jewish people. Hateful slogans by groups of Radical Islam deepen the fear of many Jewish people in Israel that they are in grave danger as a tiny nation in a sea of Muslim states. This only makes real negotiation much harder. The rhetoric of such radical groups must be countered by encouraging the moderate voice of Islam to speak out.
If there is to be a move towards peace, so desperately needed by both sides, action must happen from the top down and from the bottom up. The Leaders of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must show some political will. A necessary first step is to cease hostilities and begin a cooling off period. At the same time cooperative action among Palestinian and Israeli peers is critical to begin to dissipate the fog of pain, mistrust, suspicion, demonisation and hate.
Time and time again we were told that the polls rate 70% or more of both Palestinians and Israelis wanting peace and prepared to make the concessions needed for this to follow. These signs of hope (which already are numerous) must also be written about and communicated both to their own people and to a world, which looks on with sadness and
consternation.
I would want to be fair in presenting both the suffering and the hopes of the people who live on both sides of this terrible cauldron of fear and violence.
I would stress the right of both Jewish people and Palestinian people to a homeland where they can live without fear. The gravest obstacles to a peaceful solution are the illegal occupation of and building of settlements on Palestinian territory, the targeting of non-combatant Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists and inordinate use of force against the Palestinian people by the Israeli Defence Force.
When we asked how we as outsiders coming from USA and elsewhere might help the tragic situation of the Middle East, there was a common response from many of the people: "Help people to see beyond the biased reporting, past the propaganda which simplifies and demonises one side of the conflict and absolves the other side, to the complexity of the situation. We need people to believe that peace is possible. Be agents
of peace; keep on believing. Encourage one more step. You must believe in peace".
While we were in Israel a suicide bomb exploded in Tel Aviv killing 23 people and injuring over 80. This was followed by an attack by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into a refugee camp. These bloody deeds must be condemned. The international community must condemn violence in all its forms in Israel and the Palestinian territories, especially violence which targets innocent civilians.
Work for human rights must ensure dignity, equality and security for every human person. These are surely values on which we can all agree.
"We must help both Israelis and Palestinians to break through the barrier of which Sadat spoke: 'a barrier of suspicion, of rejection, a barrier of fear, of deception, a barrier of hallucination...a barrier of distorted interpretation of every event and statement.' (Kofi Anan, 13/11/02)
I end by quoting from a recent message of delegates of Catholic Bishops' Conferences of Europe and North America meeting in Jerusalem.
"Last year we said, 'The present cycle of violence is a tragedy for everyone. It is profoundly wrong to keep a people under occupation; it is abhorrent to hold millions of men, women and children confined in one enormous jail. It is likewise morally reprehensible to take vengeance or undertake resistance with random attacks on innocent people' The continuing violence indicates to us something is profoundly wrong....
No one can remain indifferent to the injustice of which the Palestinian people have been victims.. No one can contest the right of the Israeli people to live in security. However, neither can anyone forget the innocent victims, on both sides, who fall day after day under the blows of violence. Weapons and bloody attacks will never be the right means".
Kevin Dance, C.P.
Passionist Representative at the United Nations
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