Dr. Mitri Raheb

Dr. Mitri Raheb

Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem

Actually it is indeed not easy for me to speak now after hearing our sister and after a time of silence. But also at this time back home it is now time for siesta, and I have noticed that for some of you it was also a time for siesta. But according to our timing the time for siesta is over and I hope you are with me now. We still have 20 minutes or half an hour to go and then we will finish. I really admire your being able to stay so long. But I feel a little bit uneasy also because you know hearing that religion has so many beautiful values to offer. I ask myself where does this evil in the world come from? Especially that I come from a country where religion is considered to be part of the problem and not part of a solution. Coming from the Holy Land does not make my task easier because it is the unholy Holy Land. Often I wish that our land was less holy and more oily, for really coming from the Holy Land means that religion is often misused, because religion is also connected with nationalism on both sides. And the most dangerous thing is when religion is compared with nationalism.

I come from a region where the peace process is and was launched mainly by secular people, not by religious people. There were some religious people who were involved in that - I include here also myself - but mainly there were secular people. And the people who are now interested in destroying the peace process are religious, at least they call themselves religious people. It is in our country that we see Jews confiscating land; in the one hand they have the bible and in the other the gun. And it is in our land that we see people going into buses, exploding themselves on the buses in the name of God. So it is really not easy to speak about a positive role of religion when you come from the Holy Land. Especially here it is the issue of identity at task, and religion is very much connected to identity. And we all are still searching for our identity, Isrealis and Palestinians, Jewish, Christians and Muslims. We haven't reached our goal yet. Now, during the last ten years we tried to develop several ways of how to help this dialogue come forward. Because if we just keep talking about how nice every religion is I think we will not come forward. And so we were able to develop several methods. Let me share with you some of these methods.

The first method is that we as religious people are called to see things from other people's perspective. It is so important. The chief rabbi of France was saying how important the story of exodus for Jews is. And it is an important story, but you know I think it is good for Jewish people to see and to hear the story from the Palestian perspective - because the promised land is but the confiscated land from our perspective. So what is so beautiful in one's own religion is so cruel from the perspective of the other. So changing the perspective is so important.
The second important method is what we call horizontal understanding; because I believe that many of the issues are very similar at least in the three monotheistic traditions. If we talk about the situation of women we have lots in common. Women were often not well treated - to put it in a nice way - by some religious traditions. And in the three traditions we see also a very liberating women's movement. So creating networking between these horizontal movements is something very important. Or for example next year we are planning a conference on the issue of minority. Now in order to have a nice preaching about minority in the bible or minority in the Thora or minority in the Koran, I think it is so boring in the end, if it is not treated contextually. And so next year we are planning a conference with women from the Philippines and from Palestine. Now in the Philippines the Christians are in the majority and the muslims are in the minority. And in Palestine it is the other way round. Speaking about minority from such a perspective will change the whole outlook.

The third important method is to see the pluralism in each community. Judaism is not a monoculture. This is very important for us Palestinians to realise. The same is true for Christians. Christianity has so many branches, and again in Islam we have so many branches. I don't consider all forms of Christianity to be nice, and I don't consider all forms of Judaism to be nice. We have some forms in Christianity, Judaism and Islam which are racist; and we have to name it. It is part of our tradition. I think it is so important to go beyond just citing the beautiful passages in our holy scriptures. For me all our holy scriptures are like an oriental bazar. You can find everything you want there. If you want to find something to fight the Jews with you can find it, and if you want to find something to love the Jews you also can find it. So just citing the bible doesn't change really a lot. And this is why I think we are outrageous people calling for repentance. We are patient about repentance, but we are not doing it ourselves. Repenting about some of the very dangerous traditions in all of our religions and heritages. Last but not least it is so important to give religion a face. We did a study at our centre, and it was very interesting. Whenever people were asked what do you think about Muslims they felt somehow fated if they were Jews or Chistians. And if you asked the other way round. But if you asked what do you feel about Zaki Badawi - ah he is a nice fellow. You don't even notice that he is a Muslim, or you don't even notice that he is a Christian. So giving the religions face is so important I think for ourselves. Otherwise we are speaking about collectives which very often seem to be threatening.

So what is the difference between a religious approach and a political approach? I can't answer this in a very theoretical way, but let me just share from my own experience what and why faith is important for me and where I see that faith is providing me with something which politicians can't give me. First of all faith gives me the power to speak out when nobody dares to speak. And secondly faith gives me the power to build bridges when politicians are in the process of building walls and fences. Faith gives me the power to overcome hatred, and last but not least faith gives me the power not to give up, especially not to give up hope when everyone seems to give up hope. Or to cite Martin Luther who said: even if I knew that the world is coming to an end tomorrow - and this is a feeling we have in the Middle East that the world is coming to an end tomorrow - even if we knew that the world is coming to an end tomorrow we will not resignate, we will not give up, but we will go into the garden and plant olive trees, trees of hope, hoping for a time when these trees will bear fruit. And let me conclude by a very practical suggestion, I still have two minutes. It was some months ago that you heard for sure that the Nethanjahu government, the current Israeli government is now in the process of building a settlement on a mountain near Bethlehem called in Arabic (or Harhama?). And it is really the only green mountain in the whole area. Now it is not green any more, because the building has destroyed all the trees there. They have finished building actually. And this was one cause for many of the problems we had in the last weeks.
Palestinians got frustrated and saying what is the sense of having this peace process? It was at that time that I made a suggestion and I still think it was an important suggestion that we should have on that mountain an academy for interreligious and intercultural status. So turning this sign of frustration and hopelessness into a sign of hope and mutual cooperation. I still hope that it is not too late for this suggestion, and I hope that we will have enough courageous and religious leaders to carry out this idea.
We are not supposed just to preach with words but we have to create concrete signs of hope. This is our role as religious people. Thank you very much.

« Events to promote Peace », Brussels, the 13-14.09.1997 Organization : Non Profit Association Ouvertures a.s.b.l., Annelie Löhr-Campion, Belgium ouverturesforpeace.eu