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Mideast teens practice dialogue instead of destruction

27 Jul 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday praises kindness and compassion as central to fulfilling God’s law. These qualities are central to programs sponsored by Hands of Peace (HOP), an interfaith organization headquartered in Chicago that holds summer camps to develop peace-building and leadership skills in Israeli, Palestinian, and American teens through the power of dialogue.The structured dialogue process used in the encounters, in which the Middle Eastern participants, along with American teens of various religious backgrounds, present and defend their people's narrative before learning to listen to their peers and eventually, in most cases, coming to develop empathy and understanding for them is always a difficult one, HOP administrators say. But with deadly violence raging in the Gaza Strip and incoming rockets sending Israelis running for shelter, this year the tension has been made far more acute.When HOP's programs began on July 6, it was just a few days after Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s burned body was discovered in Jerusalem, and a week after the bodies of three murdered Israeli youths were found near Hebron.“Everybody did come with a level of intensity that we haven’t seen for a long time,” says Julie Kanak, the program’s executive director. “I really thought that we might get some Middle Eastern parents calling and thinking about pulling their kids out,” she adds, but that didn’t happen. “All of the participants are worried about what’s going on at home," and they are checking "more often” with their families.“There are Palestinian kids who have relatives in Gaza, Israeli kids who have brothers who are soldiers. So far, our kids’ relatives and friends are safe, to the best of our knowledge,” says Scott Silk, the program’s site director at the Pacific Ridge School in the San Diego suburb of Carlsbad, where he is also a teacher. Last Friday, the group attended services at both a local mosque and a Reform synagogue.Homily hint: Looking at the world’s conflict zones we find scant evidence for the saying that “cooler heads will prevail.” But far from the conflict zone, teens involved in the Hands of Peace program hold the promise of a better tomorrow for today’s war-torn Mideast. May they grow to lead their peoples to peace. Source: An article by Debra Nussbaum Cohen for Haaretz

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Archaeologists not digging Mideast conflicts

31 Aug 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Do not conform yourselves to this age” Saint Paul urges in this Sunday’s reading from the Letter to the Romans. Far from conforming to the present age, archaeologists take pride in digging for secrets of past civilizations buried beneath the surface of current structures. The upheavals and conflicts sweeping the Middle East in recent years, however, have resulted in deep losses to the archaeological heritage of the region.In 2011, after three decades of working in Syria, the archaeologist Glenn M. Schwartz was unable to return to his dig at the Bronze Age city of Umm el-Marra. The intensifying civil war had made work in the country impossible.Like many archaeologists of the Middle East, Schwartz, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, is watching the news from the region with deep concern and, he said, a feeling of impotence. “It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happened in Syria in terms of cultural heritage and more so for the country at large,” he said.Scholars can do little to stop the fighting and looting, but they have created blogs, websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts to monitor the destruction and raise awareness about it. By sharing excavation records, scholars outside the Middle East have helped their counterparts in the Arab world to compile online lists of missing or stolen objects. The Middle East lost many of its ancient treasures in colonial times, when priceless artifacts were carried off to European collections and museums. It is now witnessing “a new wave of loss” associated with wars and conflicts, said Tamar Teneishvili, a program specialist for culture at the Unesco regional bureau in Cairo. Homily hint: Archaeologists are the unsung heroes who dig into our past in order to help illuminate the present. Much of what we have learned about our biblical heritage has come from the work of such researchers. Respect for our past, and its relics, is fundamental to a civilized society. Pray that such respect be universal. Source: An article by Ursula Lindsey for the Chronicle of Higher Education

antiquities mideast conflict archeology
Israel pressured to end occupation

21 Dec 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In the reading from 2 Samuel this Sunday, the Lord promises the people of Israel a secure place where they may dwell “without further disturbance.” The history of strife and territorial disputes between modern-day Israel and its Palestinian neighbors paints a different scenario. This week, increasing pressure was brought on Israel in Europe and in the United Nations to cease building settlements in Palestinian territories it has occupied for nearly 50 years, and to cease its occupation of those territories by the year 2017.In Geneva, the international community delivered a stinging rebuke to Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying the practice violates Israel's responsibilities as an occupying power.The declaration adopted by the conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the rules of war and military occupation, emphasized a prohibition on colonizing occupied land and insisted that international humanitarian law be obeyed in areas affected by the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. It called for "all serious violations" to be investigated and those responsible for breaches to be brought to justice."This is a signal and we can hope that words count," said Swiss ambassador Paul Fivat, who chaired the one-day meeting. The U.S. and Israel did not take part.Israel's U.N. Mission blasted the gathering, saying: "It confers legitimacy on terrorist organizations and dictatorial regimes wherever they are, while condemning a democratic country fighting terrorism in accordance with international law."In New York, an Arab-backed draft resolution on ending Israel's occupation of lands captured in 1967 was submitted Wednesday evening to the U.N. Security Council for a possible vote, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said.However, Mansour said the Arab-backed resolution does not close the door on further negotiations on the issue, including with the United States, "if they are ready and willing." The U.S., as a permanent council member, often has vetoed measures targeting Israel in the past.And Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki earlier said the actual vote might be put off, suggesting a compromise is in the works to avoid a clash in the council. The resolution also welcomes the idea of holding an international conference to launch negotiations on reaching a peace agreement.Homily hint: Palestinians and Israelis alike must not allow the past to dictate the future; otherwise, the cycles of animosity and violence are doomed to continue. The same holds for our own lives, where past hurts can limit future health unless we find a way to let go of the past and move on. Source: An article by the Associated Press

reconciliation mideast conflict mideast peace
For December 25: Let there be peace, Mideast

28 Dec 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Preaching the News will not be published on January 1. Look for the next issue on Thursday, January 8. Enjoy this week’s edition covering Christmas to Epiphany, and have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!The prologue to John’s gospel this Christmas Day stirs the heart with its promise that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This level of optimism is sorely needed in the Mideast at the close of a year that even by this embattled region’s standards was extreme in the level and severity of its violence and bloodshed. Another year has passed in Syria, with no end in sight for a three-year conflict that has claimed 200,000 lives, injured a million, and displaced nearly half the population. As well, the year saw the rise of ISIS, or the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group and self-proclaimed caliphate that stunned the world this summer with a quick sweep from western Syria into northern and central Iraq before its momentum was slowed by U.S. airstrikes. The first Western journalist in the world to be allowed extensive access to ISIS territories in Syria and Iraq returned from the region with a warning: The group is “much stronger and much more dangerous” than anyone in the West realizes. Jürgen Todenhöfer, 74, is a renowned German journalist and publicist who traveled through Turkey to Mosul, the largest city occupied by ISIS, after months of negotiations with the group’s leaders. Todenhöfer said his strongest impression was “that ISIS is much stronger than we think here.” He said it now has “dimensions larger than the UK” and is supported by “an almost ecstatic enthusiasm that I have never encountered in any other warzone. Each day, hundreds of willing fighters arrive from all over the world,” he said. Valerie Amos, the U.N.’s top relief official, recently told the Security Council that she had “run out of words” to fully explain the “brutality, violence, and callous disregard for human life” witnessed in Syria today. “The parties to the conflict continue to ignore the most basic principles of humanity,” Amos said. “In many parts of Syria the level of violence has worsened, with civilians continuing to pay heavily with loss of life, serious injuries, psychological trauma, ongoing and recurring displacement, and massive damage to property and infrastructure.” Add to this ongoing violence in Iraq and Lebanon, and the volatile state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. While Palestinians push for U.N. recognition of statehood, a seven-week battle erupted in Gaza this summer with rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and Israeli bombardment and ground fighting that killed more than 2,200 people, the vast majority of them Gazans. Four months later, upwards of 50,000 Gazans are still homeless, many still living in the U.N. schools in which dozens were injured and killed by tank shells and missiles during the conflict. There has been virtually no reconstruction, little by way of new jobs. And the fundamental sources of resentment between the parties continues unabated. Homily hint: Peace on earth? Not this year. Perhaps not completely in any year. But that should not stop us from hoping for it, praying for it, and working for it, locally and in far-off places. Today let us dedicate ourselves anew to serving the Prince of Peace in the coming year. Source: Cecily Hilleary for Voice of America, The Daily Star (Dhaka), and Kim Sengkupta for The Independent (UK)

mideast conflict war and peace islamic extremism
Historians negate Netanyahu’s Holocaust notion

25 Oct 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion, “we were like men dreaming” says the psalmist this Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was widely criticized for comments made at a Zionist Congress, where critics say he dreamed up the idea that a Palestinian leader convinced Hitler that Jews should be exterminated. Leading Israeli historians and survivors’ advocates on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of distorting the Holocaust when he said that Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini “had a central role in fomenting the Final Solution." Netanyahu claimed Hitler wanted to expel Jews but Husseini said he should “burn them.” Historians in Israel, Germany, and throughout the world called that a fabrication and urged Netanyahu to admit he misspoke. Homily hint: While it is important to see today’s struggles in historical context, we do history no favors when we distort or rewrite the past to serve our present agenda. Peace is never made by pointing fingers at the past. Peace today must be made on today’s terms. Give real peace a chance. For more on Netanyahu’s remarks, see: Netanyahu’s Holocaust distortion obscures Mufti’s collaboration, say historians; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu criticized for saying Holocaust was mufti's idea, not Hitler's

Peace holocaust mideast conflict history