MidEast Citizen Diplomacy

July 2002

Articles

Compassionate
Listening Shop

Special to The Trenton Times
June 23, 2002

Coming to Peace through Dialogue

by Larry Snider

As I look upon the daily violence that overwhelms all efforts to engender Middle East peace, a critical ingredient missing between the Palestinians and Israelis is a dialogue that attempts to bridge the gap between them. It is only through this kind of personal sharing that individuals here in the united States and in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza can learn to understand the feelings of the other, and with a great deal of persistence begin to see their enemy as another human being whose life and liberties must be cherished as certainly as their own.

Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener of Hartford, Conn., is a leader of the Middle Citizen diplomacy Program, which opens doors and the eyes of Americans and internationals to the realities of Palestinian and Israeli life through a process known as compassionate listening.

"There are two stories here and there is a quality of transcendence- seeing beyond the Jewish narrative or the Palestinian narrative- to a perspective that can humanize both sides and hear the other story. A transcender, after all, has abandoned the exclusive quality of his or her narrative of origin."

In America, we are caught in the aftermath of Sept.11, looking at a world grown too hostile. We wonder what we can do to put the genie back in the bottle and return to the innocent sense of security that encapsulated our lives before the attacks.

I am afraid that the new millennium has finally brought the Third World and its unpopular problems to our doorstep. The oceans that provided a buffer from the wars of 20 centuries provide no relief from the onslaught of individual terror. And thus, we must not only respond to the attacks of fanatics, but the ugly circumstances that compel millions of poor souls to endorse a vengeance and believe in a form of justice that is administered through acts of terror.

Well-known Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote in the wake of Sept.1, "Terrorism has no location or boundaries, it does not reside in a geography of its own, its homeland is disillusionment and despair."

I believe that suffering with little hope of salvation creates a breeding ground for terror, whether in the mountains of Afghanistan or the villages and refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza.

And so, it is up to us as Americans to engage in an educational process that teaches us about our neighbors, our friends and our enemies. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson stated, "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education."

In the multicultural melting pot that increasingly makes the earth a smaller place, we have no choice but to learn to listen.

A few years ago I was privileged to meet Libby and Len Traubman as they attended an interreligious conference for Middle East peace in Washington, D.C. This couple, a retired social worker and a dentist, have been sending out ripples of light and hope each day across the endless horizon that is the Internet.

They expand the depth and breadth of Middle East dialogue through their efforts as the founders of a Jewish-Palestinian living-room dialogue group that has met more than a hundred times and spawned eight additional groups in California, dozens across the United States and many more beyond. They have catalogued their experience on the Internet through continuing stories of the emergence of new groups and have connected an endless array of individuals (including yours truly) who were looking for a way to make a contribution to Middle East peace with a practical, personal methodology to engage in the most difficult and rewarding work of learning to listen with compassion to the story of another. E-mail LTraubman @igc.org for more information.

Today, I try to express the value of dialogue through a little group, New Hope For Peace, even as more groups develop and grow in and around the Delaware Valley. In Philadelphia, a Jewish-Muslim dialogue group is entering its ninth year. This group was established through the Jewish Community Relations Council and is coordinated by their associate executive director, Abby Statelman Hocky. Since Sept.11, the JCRC has responded to numerous requests and has established a Jewish-Muslim Leadership Coalition and a new Muslim-Jewish-Christian Reconciliation Program beginning in West Philadelphia. For information, call Hocky at (215) 832-0650.

Some months ago I received a call from a young man who came to Philadelphia from the West Coast. He had met Leah Green, director of MidEast Citizen Diplomacy and was inspired by her to get involved in a Jewish-Arab dialogue process here in Philadelphia. Mitch Chanin has a lot of energy and the desire to build a powerful dialogue program in Philadelphia that will help to establish future groups throughout the region. He has found like-minded individuals at the Friends Center and in congregations throughout the Philadelphia area. Chanin is working with the National Issues Forum and the National Coalition Builders Institute to offer concrete training programs that teach people of all faiths how to discuss controversial issues. You can talk to him on the Internet at jewishdialogue@yahoo.com.

Philadelphia is also home to the fourth branch of Judaism (of which I am a member) known as Reconstructionism. This branch serves more than 100 congregations across the United States and Canada and has a social action initiative that is crating a vast body of information on the Middle East conflict, including a discussion guide and Web site filled with ideas and practical resources. You can visit www.jrf.org and look in both the Israel section and the new Tikkun Olam, social action section or contact Josh Vander Velde, Tikkun Olam coordinator at (215) 782-8500.

Members of the reform movement in Judaism have collected a wide variety of information on Middle East peace that you can access by visiting www.seekpeace.org.

There exists an effort to bring the children of conflicts together and create a space for understanding in an environment of fun that prepares them to return home as young ambassadors of peace. Seeds of Peace began 10 years ago as the dream of journalist John Wallach. Today, thousands of children from Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan have been joined by others from Greece, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Croatia, Kosovo and Yugoslavia, among other war-torn nations, as alumni of a summer camp in Maine that teaches understanding and reconciliation and offers hope for the young to carry home and plant in their communities. To learn more, go to www.seedsofpeace.orgg.

There are interreligious efforts on behalf of Middle East peace here in our own back yard. Along with a Palestinian friend, Mazen Nubani, I recently spoke to the peace committee and members of the Pennington Presbyterian Church. This church continues to invite people of different faiths to share their stories and enrich the understanding of the members and their community.

The list of activities in our country and abroad that are designed to bring light to prospects for Middle East peace is long and involves the best efforts of individuals and institutions from all corners of the globe. Recently, this paper identified Nava Sonnenshein , a visitor to Princeton and a most remarkable woman who runs the School for Peace at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (the Oasis for Peace) in Israel, where Arabs and Jews live together and provide a lasting example of the opportunity for peaceful coexistence.

An important effort has been taking place for years in the small Galilean village of Shefa-Amr, where Elias Jabbour has built the House of Hope to bring together Palestinians and Israelis to talk, share coffee and consider the possibilities of peace.

I believe that it is essential to recognize and relish the relationships that tie together Israelis and Palestinians in history, in brotherhood and through their laws. One example is the parallel between the ancient Hebrew verse found in Sanhedrin 37a and the words found in the Qur'an 6:32, which state that "Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind."

The question remains, does dialogue works? For me the answer is found in the words of Harold Saunders, former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs: "There are some things only governments can do, such as negotiating blinding agreements. But there are some things that only citizens outside government can do, such as changing human relationships."

May we all listen and learn and seek peace together.

Larry Snider is founder and coordinator of New Hope For Peace, a Jewish-Muslim-Christian dialogue group and educational forum. He is social action chair of Kehilat HaNahar, the Little Schul By The River in New Hope, Pa. He traveled to Israel in January 2002 as lay leader of the first leadership mission of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. Snider is assistant director of the National Council on Aging in New Jersey and lives in Morrisville, Pa.