The seal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.

Representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, both based here, met Feb. 29 to discuss one another’s understanding of the “Arab Spring” developments, especially concerns for minority religious groups in the Middle East, and the official Israeli-government position regarding the situation in Syria.

The request for the meeting came from Bahij Mansour, who directs the inter-religious affairs division of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mansour is the former Israeli ambassador to Angola and will soon become ambassador to Nigeria.

They also discussed recognition of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and the issuance of permits for the Mt. of Olives Housing project, a key initiative by the Lutheran World Federation, the ELCJHL, the ELCA and other international partners to build 84 affordable housing units in East Jerusalem.

“The urgency of this meeting is that we believe that the government of Israel should give formal recognition to the ELCJHL” the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, said in an interview.      He said the recognition would be “a tangible sign of Israel’s concern for and commitment to religious minorities, because Christians are a numerical minority among Palestinian people.”

“I felt it was very important today to hold the government of Israel to the promise made to the Rev. Munib Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and to me when I served as president of The Lutheran World Federation. That recognition has not happened and is of deep concern,” said Hanson.

Mansour responded that he was supportive of the request for recognition, but that complex relationships within the present coalition government of Israel were delaying the request.

Hanson also cited that the Israeli government has yet to grant necessary permits to support the Mount of Olives Housing Project — an effort to build affordable homes on Lutheran World Federation-owned property on the Mount of Olives. Homes would be leased to Palestinian families and individuals, many of them Christians, which would enable them to maintain their Jerusalem residency and keep the right to work, live and move freely within the city.      Hanson said the granting of the housing permits can “become a concrete sign that even seemingly small steps can contribute towards a movement for peace.”

Read full ELCA news story

httpv://youtu.be/Se7RWVK93qE

A delegation of the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land visited Washington to speak with administration officials and congressional leaders about the role religious leaders can play in Middle East peace-making. Here Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and Patriarch Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of the Holy Land and Jordan, talk with Churches for Middle East Peace Executive Director Warren Clark about the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the role of the Council in the Holy Land. Bishop Younan outlines 4 things people can do to help: 1) strengthen Christian institutions in the Holy Land; 2) build community-based education; 3) create jobs; 4) build affordable housing.

Peace in the Holy Land is a necessity – and possible.  So said the delegation from the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land  who visited Washington DC this week to speak to high level administration officials, congressional leaders and interested lay people.  The group, made up of top Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in the Holy Land, have been working together since 2005 toward mutual understanding and ultimately to bring a just peace to their beloved land.

They spoke to Vice President Joe Biden for an hour and a half, and spoke Tuesday at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, stressing the role of education in peace-making.  I have asked for a transcript of the panel to be put up at http://www.usip.org/events/preventing-incitement-and-promoting-peace, but don’t know if that is possible.

A written statement from their delegation states that their goals for this visit include advocating for equal, free access to all holy sites and for respecting all three narratives of Jerusalem, Jewish, Christian and Muslim.  The council speaks out regularly against incitement and has commissioned a study of Palestinian and Israeli textbooks to monitor and hopefully lead to change of material deemed to incite hatred and racism.  The council is also working to launch a project to prepare emerging religious leaders to enable them to also work cooperatively toward a just peace.

They say that religious leaders can and should be a great help to address entrenched issues that touch on both religion and politics, and are ready and eager to be of service.

Read their full statement of goals and a message from this delegation.

Religions for Peace Middle East/ North Africa (MENA) Council, an international and independent NGO committed to peace, convened a meeting of Muslim Ulemas and Christian Clergy, in addition to a number of researchers and concerned persons from Syria and other countries, in Larnaca, Cyprus, on 22-23 February 2012.  The meeting built on the Religions for Peace MENA Marrakesh Declaration (16-17 November 2011) that rejected violence, the misuse of religions, and acknowledged religious diversity and respect for human dignity.  The group released a statement that contained these conclusions: 

Given the recent bloody developments (in Syria) that stir conscience, and based on their religious and human responsibility as well as their belief in God Almighty, the participants agreed on the following:

Our faith in the Lord inspires us:
1. To support the quest for a peaceful solution, mainly based on national dialogue and the rejection of all forms of violence regardless of its sources.
2. To reject the use of military and security measures by all parties after they proved inefficient and exacerbated the problem.
3.To call upon the authorities to the immediate release of prisoners of opinion to respect human dignity.
4.To refuse all forms of foreign interference given that the Syrian crisis is an internal issue which should be solved only by Syrians with the support of others.
5.To call Syria to embrace all its citizens, with no distinction or discrimination, as a mother nurtures its children within its territory and abroad.
6.To reject absolutely the violation of the territorial integrity of Syria or its ethnic, religious and denomination diversity.
7.To reaffirm that Christians and Muslims are historical components of the Syrian social fabric that should be preserved to guarantee the future, prosperity and coexistence in this country.
8.To acknowledge that the values of justice, freedom, dignity and equality are the basis of citizenship. Citizenship is not a grant but a right for every Syrian citizen.
9.To reaffirm the responsibility of religious, political and cultural elites to face all forms of religious incitement, and cooperate in disseminating a message of moderation, tolerance and rejection of hatred.
10.To call upon all countries involved in economic sanctions imposed on Syria to reconsider these sanctions, which have affected the Syrian people, exacerbated the crisis and undermined stability and growth.

ELCJHL Pastor Mitri Raheb, Director of DIYAR Consortium, was recently awarded the 2011 “Deutscher Medienpreis” (German Media Prize) for his organizations' efforts for peace.

The Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas Lutheran Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL),  received the 2011 “Deutscher Medienpreis” (German Media Prize) to recognize his individual and the Palestinian Lutheran church’s peace efforts. Pastor Raheb is also Director of DIYAR Consortium, which operates an international cultural center, a health and wellness center and a college. He is among four recipients of the prestigious prize to be awarded in Baden-Baden, Germany.

In his speech receiving the award, Pastor Raheb said:

We said, firstly, that the Holy land does not need walls but bridges. That is why we called our centre “Dar annadwa”, Centre for International Encounter. Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, whose thinking is very significant for me, was right when he wrote, “All true life is encounter.” The “thou” of the other person gets a face and a name through encounter. Dialogue can only be true dialogue if it is a dialogue between people with equal rights, if the “thou” and the “I” stand face to face. If each person can have their narrative, their history and identity, but also listen to the narratives of the others. A monopoly of truth, of certainty or the role of the victim are not part of genuine dialogue.

Then we said we must not just become peace chatterers. In a context where so many destructive factors are created every day and, at the same time, there is constant talk about peace processes, we must work continuously to create spaces for life: spaces where people can breathe, where children in refugee camps can make music; where women from distant villages can learn a profession in artistic handwork; where Christian and Muslim children attend school together, where young men who cannot find jobs on the labour market receive further training; where people in leadership receive political education; where young Palestinian women play football and compete at the world level, where senior citizens can lead a life in fullness and where Jewish and Palestinian academics and activists together seek a better future. What we put into practice with them is the belief that the sky and not the wall should be the limit of our thinking and creativity. That may sound good but in our region (and not only there) it is very dangerous. It is dangerous to think; demands for freedom of opinion are not welcome and challenging myths frequently costs one one’s life. But life is only genuine if it is lived in freedom.

Pastor Raheb is known world-wide for his peace and creativity work with media, education and culture.  Find out how you can help with Raheb’s work for children at Bright Stars of Bethlehem.org.

In a congratulatory letter, the Lutheran World Federation’s General Secretary Martin Junge wrote:

“The Deutscher Medienpreis is a recognition of not only your hard work and passion for justice, it is an affirmation of your approach, and that of the ELCJHL, to the complicated challenges of building institutions that change lives and of building relationships that strengthen prospects for a lasting peace.  Your efforts exemplify the ELCJHL’s nonviolent opposition to the Occupation, its uncompromising commitment to finding peaceful solutions, and its rigorous promotion of tolerance and mutual respect among Jews, Christians and Muslims, and between Palestinians and Israelis.”

To mark the 20th anniversary of the prize this year, it honors individuals who, in their work for peace, have quietly carried on without much media attention. The Deutscher Medienpreis jury said Raheb was being honored for building the Bethlehem congregation’s education, health care and dialogue programs.

Read Pastor Raheb’s entire speech   |  See German video of award presentation

The Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Christians (FMEEC) released their final communique  after their symposium on Evangelical and Christian Presence in the Middle East in Beirut, Lebanon.  The group explored ways in which they could remain faithful to their universal Reformation legacy while properly responding to the challenges they currently face in the various countries in which they live (Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Sudan, North Africa and the Gulf region).

Among other things, the communique calls for a Middle East that: 

“enjoys peace based on justice, freedom and the respect and preservation of human rights. They called upon all their Muslim compatriots, but especially those authorities now in power, to work for the establishment of civic states in the region; states founded on a modernized understanding of democracy which is not based merely on numbers and vote counts, but rather on equality in the rights of all to equal citizenship under the just rule of law; states that offer equal opportunities for work and prosperity to all the inhabitants of the Middle East without discrimination. It is only in such a Middle East that all communities, evangelical and non-evangelical, but especially the youth amongst us, shall enjoy safety and wellbeing, and therefore shall no more live in frustration and fear, or be subjected to the temptation to emigrate.

A plea was put forth to all those concerned with the question of Christian presence and witness in the Middle East (be they regional or world governments, church leaders and congregations or partner organizations across the globe) to become more aware of the dangers currently besetting all Middle Eastern Christian minorities, but especially the evangelicals amongst them (who are a minority within a minority).

An invitation was issued to all our regional and international partners and friends, inviting them to conduct a serious investigation into the truth of what is in fact happening in the different countries of the Middle East; and which differ from one country to another. Having done so, it becomes incumbent on all to inform the international community of these facts and to respond accordingly. It is our hope that this response shall be inspired by the Biblical principles upon which the Evangelical Reformation was based centuries ago. To us this means to uphold justice and truth and repudiate the violence that now so sadly prevails in the Middle East region – violence that comes all sides and parties involved.

The communique also said the group held workshops and discussion about how to “reach a definitive strategy that contributes to rebuilding Middle Eastern Evangelical communities on the basis of a new and indigenous theology of public issues; a theology inspired by a unified Christian evangelical vision that calls for freedom and equality before the law in the context of a just understanding of citizenship for all ethnic, religious and national identities, and that contributes to the further development of human resources. In this regard, the participants emphasized that a final, just and fair solution to the Palestinian crisis is necessary for any future progress on all these fronts.”

Preventing Incitement and Promoting Peace: Obstacles and Opportunities for Religious Peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:  Feb 28, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm EST (Stay tuned for webcast information)

CRIHL members met with then Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in 2008 to present a united call against violence of all kinds.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is pleased to host a distinguished delegation from the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL): the consultative body that comprises the most senior official Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders. CRIHL was established as the implementing body of the historic declaration signed in Alexandria, Egypt in 2002 in which Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders pledged to work together to end the violence and promote peace. Since the signing of the Alexandria Declaration, USIP has provided strong support to ongoing efforts to implement the document’s goals.

This event will feature the following speakers:

• Rabbi Shlomo Amar
  Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
• Canon Trond Bakkevig
  Convener, CRIHL
• Sheikh Yousef Ed’ees
  Chief Judge of the Sharia Courts, Palestinian Authority
• Dr. Mahmoud Habash
  Minister of Religious Affairs, Palestinian Authority
• Rabbi Yona Metzger
  Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
• His Beatitude Fouad Twal
  Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
• Bishop Dr. Munib Younan
  Head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
• Dr. Richard Solomon, Introductory Remarks
  President, USIP
• Dr. David Smock, Moderator
  Senior Vice President of the Religion and Peacemaking Center, USIP

“Death to the Arabs,” “Death to the Christians,” and “Kahane was right” (a right-wing rabbi whose organization was labeled as a terrorist group by the US) were scrawled in Hebrew on a monastery in Jerusalem and an Arab-Jewish school operated by the Greek Orthodox church on Tuesday.  The police suspect they are “price tag” events, a name given to attacks by right-wing settler groups who oppose any peace movements toward the Palestinians.

Both the Council of Religious Institutions and the Holy Land and the Anti-Defamation League condemned the attacks.

The people of Syria are in our thoughts and prayers as the violence intensifies following lack of action by the UN Security Council.  China and Russia vetoed a Western-Arab U.N. Security Council resolution backing an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside and end the government’s violence against its people.  The changes proposed by Russia, seen by Reuters, would have introduced language assigning blame to Syria’s opposition, as well as the government, for violence in which the United Nations says more than 5,000 people have died.

Western nations reject the idea of equal blame, saying the government is mainly responsible.

Russia had also insisted on dropping a demand that the Syrian government withdraw its security forces from cities, but U.S. and European delegations refuse to include that change.

Please pray for an end to the violence and an outcome that will bring freedom and prosperity for the Syrian people.

For more information and analysis, see:

• Syria crisis: Fear and abandonment in under-fire Homs
• William Hague says UN veto a ‘betrayal’ of Syrian people
• Syria Comment blog by Joshua Landis 
• China and Russia Act To Block a New Precedent for Intervention

The rate of growth for illegal settlers in the West Bank is growing at a faster pace than growth within Israel itself, according to a January, 2012, report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA).   While the fenced or developed areas of settlements cover only 3% of the West Bank, 43% of the West Bank is off-limits to Palestinian use because it is allocated for settlements and their growth.  About one third of the land reserved for settlement growth is privately owned by Palestinians, the report said.

In addition, five Palestinians were killed (including 2 children) and over 1000 injured (one-fifth of whom were children) by Israeli settlers or soldiers in incidents related to the settlements. 

While the Israeli rationale for the wall is always given as security, this report concludes that “the location of the settlements was “the major consideration behind the deviation of the Barrier’s route away from the Green Line; once complete, about 80% of the settler population wil live in settlements located on the “Israeli” side of the Barrier.”

 Settlements are illegal under international law as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory.  This illegality has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the United Nations Security Council.  Some in Israel justify settlements because they say it is “disputed” land and not occupied.    Read full report.

While the world focuses on whether Palestinians and Israelis are or are not talking at the peace table, the realties on the ground continue unabated.  Illegal settlements keep growing, while Palestinian homes continue to be demolished and populations endangered and forced off their land. 

Note Areas A, B and C and the demolition numbers on the top left chart. From OCHAOPT. org

According to a new report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, the demolitions occuring in Area C, as well as other Israeli practices favoring expanding settlements, “have resulted in fragmentation of land and shrinking space for Palestinians, undermining their presence.  Israeli authorities have also indicated that they intend to transfer several Palestinian communities out of strategic parts of Area C, raising further humanitarian and legal concerns.”

The report finds that “it is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain permits (to build).  The zoning and planning regime enforced by Israel in Area C and East Jerusalem restricts Palestinian growth and development, while providing preferential treatment for unlawful Israeli settlements.  They find that “70% of Area C is “off-limits” for Palestinian construction, allocated instead for Israeli settlements or the Israeli military; and additional 29% is heavily restricted.”

During the Oslo process, the occupied Palestinian territory was divided in Areas A, B and C.  Area A was under Palestinian control (although Israeli incursions still occur there); Area B, which was under Israeli administrative control and Area C, which was under Israeli control.  All areas, however, are part of the occupied Palestinian territory, and it is illegal under international law for Israel to transfer its population onto the territory or remove the local people living there.

• Read the full report. 
  For an Ecumenical Accompanier’s perspective on seeing some of these demolitions, see Chris Cowan’s blog.  Chris served in the Southern Hebron Hills last year for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel.