Reflections from Mideast Delegation Participants

November 2006

A delegation of leaders from historic African American churches visited Jerusalem and the Holy Land in early November 2006. Leaders in the delegation, hosted by global humanitarian agency Church World Service, vow to work with their communions and congregations; the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faith communities; politicians; and Palestinians in diaspora to focus attention on the deteriorating situation in the Holy Land. Click through for personal reflections from several members of the delegation. (Read more about the delegation here).

Belletech Deressa, Ph.D. | Rev. Dr. Cheryl Dudley | Rev. John L. McCullough

Belletech Deressa, Ph.D.

Dr. Belletech Deressa has been the director for international development and disaster response in the Global Mission unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 1988. Dr. Deressa is a naturalized USA citizen, born in Wallega, Oromia, Ethiopia.

I have been to Israel/Palestine three times prior to 2000, but the situation has changed from bad to worse. What we have seen and heard is beyond my understanding. I have no words to describe how Palestinian people are generally treated by Israelis. I cannot call it apartheid, racism or segregation. It is beyond that. I have traveled to many countries in the world but I have never seen a country where even highways are segregated, separate highways for Jewish or Israeli and Palestinians. It is not just the wall that divides the people but everything, including usage of highways. One week prior to this trip, I visited the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. My personal observations during the visit to the Holy Land convinced me that what is happening in Israel/Palestine is worse than the apartheid system.

For most of my life, I have been an advocate for justice, and sided with the oppressed people. When I was thirteen years old and a freshman in high school in 1967, a group of university students and lecturers came to my boarding school and taught some of us about the plight of our farmers and peasants in Ethiopia. They taught me how the ruling class and those in power treated peasants, took their land and oppressed the majority of the Ethiopian people. As a result, I became more aware of social injustices and became a young, immature activist and joined high school and university students in the demonstrations against the Emperor Haile Selassie that finally led to 1974 Ethiopian Revolution. I was expelled from the university in 1972 for joining the student movement. But I never regretted my participation in the struggle for justice although the revolution was hijacked and ended in the hands of the military and later in the hands of the communist party. I am also aware that power corrupts people. Some of the students who participated in the struggle in 1970-1974 in Ethiopia are now the rulers of the country and unfortunately inherited the corruption. I see the similarities. Israeli people, given their historical struggle, should have been less oppressive to others.

My recent visit to Israel/Palestine reminded me of my life-long struggle that has not yet ended, fighting for justice regardless of where it happens. Injustice is a crime, unholy, and must be challenged. The young and old Palestinians are yearning for justice. Some church leaders, Arab and non-Arab, a few Jewish scholars, researchers and peace loving people are trying to advocate for peace and justice. Some researchers are documenting how families are affected by the current crisis by providing factual information to challenge the gruesome violation of human rights imposed on the Palestinian people. Our visit opened our eyes to the hidden “apartheid” “segregation” and “gruesome oppression” of modern time in the Holy Land. As some call it, “Palestine is one big prison” and indeed it is. Israel is also not free and they feel unsecured. They all live in fear that is unhealthy for all people living in the region.

Christians in Jerusalem play a major role in religious, social, cultural and political make-up of the city. It feels as if every Christian church has a representation in the Holy City. Bethlehem, Nazareth and many biblical sites in the country are not only a place to recite history but holy places, especially for the followers of Jesus Christ. Jerusalem is also a holy city for all the three dominant religions: Christian, Jewish and Islam. Jerusalem has to be an inclusive city, not exclusive. The concern of many church leaders in Jerusalem is the migration of Christians to other countries. It is therefore important to accompany the Christian community and to advocate maintaining a shared Jerusalem by all religious groups.

Desperation and resentment could lead to more violence. Unless the people are free of oppression and unless occupation ends, it will be difficult to have peace. Both sides must compromise for the sake of their future and future generations. I believe it is possible to have two states living side by side, but it will not be easy to reach an agreement as it stand now between Israelis and Palestinians. There is a deeper wound and animosity. The oppression cannot continue for a long time as it is now, therefore, it is in the best interest of all to come to a peaceful solution. The South African and civil rights movements in the U.S can serve as a lesson that no matter what, oppression cannot last forever. It is vitally important that religious groups continue to challenge the Israelis and Palestinians to come up with a peaceful resolution. The role of the United States government is crucial in the process. I hope the visit made by African American religious leaders is one step in challenging the U.S government to look at this issue from a civil rights perspective.

We are saddened by what we have seen and heard during our short visit. What the Israelis are doing to Palestinian people is inhumane, unjust and unacceptable. We are concerned about the violence in the Gaza strip. However, we cannot give up hope and we must continue to challenge when injustice take place.

I hope the visits by the African American church leaders will lead to a better understanding of the struggle of the Palestinian people. I also hope that the bonds between especially Palestinian Christians and historic black churches in the USA will be strengthened and that the model of the “non- violent approach” adopted by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement will take root in the Holy Land.

Rev. Dr. Cheryl Dudley

Cheryl Dudley is senior advisor to the executive director of Church World Service.

Our hearts were broken as we listened to the stories of Palestinian Christians and Jewish persons in Jerusalem and Bethlehem who have experienced or witnessed the devastating effects of the occupation. Much of what we heard was beyond our ability to understand.

As African Americans, we have known our own suffering and we have identified with the suffering of others at the hands of their oppressors in South Africa, in America and in other places around the world. Throughout the ages our faith has sustained us through the experience of prejudice and oppression and it is this enduring faith in God that has awakened in us a desire for transformation on our return from the Middle East. We have had our eyes opened and now are compelled to carry God’s message against injustice beyond the borders of our everyday lives.

What we saw at work in Israel was an odd kind of racism--for lack of a more precise term. “Ethnocentrism” or “nationalism” may more accurately describe the harsh and discriminatory actions of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians, who also are semites. Still, our vernacular of racism can be useful in describing some of the dynamics of discrimination and oppression, in which the dominant group gains ever more power because of its greater economic resources, favorable institutional structures and an inborn sense of entitlement and moral or religious superiority.

As difficult, uncomfortable and unpalatable as our experience sometimes was, it led us to a heightened recognition of the fact that the difficult work lies ahead. We must resist any temptation to allow our anger to fester into a wound poisoned by our Middle East experience and by our fuller understanding of the tactics employed by those who would perpetrate conflict, hardship and injustice against Palestinians specifically and Arabs in general. Anger or righteous indignation based on our observations and understandings would be unsatisfactory.

Instead, our response should be increased advocacy aimed at abolishing the devastating policies and practices employed to oppress Palestinian individuals and communities; policies that profoundly and negatively affect every aspect of Palestinians’ lives, such as stripping them of access to adequate education, employment, income, housing, nutrition, health care, sanitation, safety or civic services in their communities,

Our delegation’s experience of the holy places where Jesus dwelled during the years he lived among us has transformed our understanding of what it means to share in the body of Christ and to be bound to Christ and one another in partaking of the cup of the covenant. May this understanding grow further to include all suffering people who continue to hope that God’s plan includes them.

May we now seek to:

Broaden our avenues of education and advocacy of CWS constituencies and other publics.

Ascertain effective avenues through which Christian, Jewish and Muslim dialogue will happen toward bringing attitudinal and behavioral change in Israel, Palestine and the occupied territories, as well as the U.S.

Challenge traditional notions, perspectives and interpretations of racist practices or institutional discrimination.

Work through people of faith and their governments to contribute to a sound theology of God’s work and intention in the Holy Land and its Diaspora.

Be salt, light and leaven as Christians working together with others to answer the call to faithful participation in the peaceful reign of God.

Rev. John L. McCullough

The Rev. John McCullough is executive director and chief executive officer of Church World Service.

President Abbas spoke the only positive or hopeful words I heard in the region during the delegation’s visit to his Ramallah headquarters. Fueled by apparently successful meetings with American negotiators, Mr. Abbas, at least for the moment, was not overwhelmed by the general malaise within the region. Otherwise, and without exception, everyone we met expressed the sentiment that the situation is getting worse. And it is.

The contrasts between Israeli communities to one side of broad boulevards, to Palestinian communities on the other, harkens to living on the wrong side of the tracks in 20 th century Black America. Deteriorating streets, inferior housing, the lack of public services such as garbage removal, and segregated and dysfunctional schools are more than just symbolism that the Israeli government neither recognizes nor honors the humanity of the Palestinian people. I have trouble understanding how it can reconcile the legitimacy of blatant discrimination even in an age of terrorism. Humanity is not something to be earned as much as it is something to be assumed.

It has become evident that many Israeli citizens are oblivious to the larger dynamics of what is happening in their country, and if better informed likely would not approve of all the measures being taken. While we should not excuse their failure to make it their business, we should be careful to distinguish government and military policy from the people’s conscience. The controversial security barrier is more than just a wall to keep Palestinians out; it is also a wall to keep Israelis in.

Mr. Abbas told us that the Israeli’s have difficulty with the word solution, indicating their cynicism about reaching a final and lasting agreement; they prefer the word settlement. In occurs to me that the Palestinian’s should have equal difficulty with that word given the nature of the occupation and the proliferation of illegal new outposts and settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

There is no realistic potential for any healthy Palestinian referendum for peace given the strategic geographical fragmentation of Palestinian society imposed by Israel expansionism and security. With movements restricted to local communities, Palestinians simply are unable to engage each other in national political discourse, other than perhaps by Internet.

There is plenty of blame to go around in this region, and no one is exempt. Not the Israeli or the Palestinian, the religious or the non-religious, the middle class or the poor, the military or the peaceniks, not even the International community. How everyone has fallen short of the glory of God in so sacred a place is unspeakable.

The goal of Church World Service was to provide African-American religious leaders with an opportunity to analyze this crisis through the lens of their faith and their experience of the civil rights movement in the United States. We were intentional in providing a forum through which they could expand their previous knowledge of the region and in giving them sufficient space to reach to their own unbiased assessment.

The Christian community, which is mostly Palestinian, is facing a period of intense crisis because of the expanded separation wall and restrictions on the ability of Palestinians to travel from the West Bank into Jerusalem. Israeli security and defense policies seem to unfairly infringe upon the churches, including the effective conduct of their affairs, the nurturing of their members, and the fulfillment of their ministries. Already, the Christian community represents less than 1.5 percent of the population. If the current situation continues, it may well result in the extinction of the Christian presence in the Holy Land and seriously endanger continued collaboration amongst the three Abrahamic traditions represented there.

For more info, see Historic Black Churches Delegation to Holy Land Finds Pain and Hope • Back to top