Mercy Global Concern - 2004

Israel 2004 - Signs of Hope in the midst of Darkness.

When King Hussein of Jordan who made peace with Israel in 1994, left his sickbed at the Mayo Clinic to come and urge the Palestinian and Israeli leaders to make Peace during the Clinton era, he reminded the negotiators -

"History will judge us all, and that the issues now separating the parties were so small compared to the stakes. It is now time to finish, and to fulfill the responsibility you have to your peoples and especially to your children."

I had occasion to recall these words as I walked through the corridors of the Schneider Hospital for Sick Children while on a recent study mission to Israel. The trip which was organized by Dr Carol Rittner RSM, Chair of Mercy Global Concern, in conjunction with America-Israeli Friendship group and Peace NOW, is intended to help participants understand the complexity of the situation and to become partners as builders towards peace. The Schneider hospital with its dedicated Muslim and Jewish staff is committed to building bridges of understanding and cooperation among Jews, Arabs and other peoples of the Middle East.

From its inception in the 1980's, the hospital was to be part of the foundation for peace in the Middle East. When the cornerstone of the children's hospital was laid in 1988, it was inscribed with the words "this hospital.... Will stand as a bridge to peace, linking this nation to its many neighbours." The children's hospital officially opened in 1992 is recognized as one of the most innovative pediatric institutions in the world. Acknowledging that all children are equal, the hospital has evolved a policy of multidisciplinary treatment alongside integrated supportive care programmes. For the specific requirements of Muslim and Christian youngsters and their families, the hospital employs multilingual staff and is very sensitive to the delicate political balance of the region. The hospital stands as a beacon of hope in a sometime hopeless situation and the story of 7-year-old Arab girl, Yasmin Abu Rumelieh is an example. Yasmin suffered from kidney failure and she received a kidney from the body of a 19-year-old Jewish student, Yoni Jesner, a victim of a suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv. At the time, Yoni's father said, "we felt that Yoni would have wanted to help and so we extended our hands. We believed that it was a sanctification of God's name to bring something positive out of the terrible conflict." Fuas Abu Rumelieh, the father of the little girl who received the transplant said, "We are one family. They saved my daughter. Part of their son is living in her."

While in Israel as part of the study mission I heard stories like this told over and over. The people are weary of the struggle, the killing and the unnecessary loss of life. As I write this, news has just come in of a young mother of two children blowing her-self and four Israeli soldiers to bits. Coming as I do from a conflict zone in Ireland, I realized that the struggle of the people in the Middle East is my struggle and yours. Until it is settled, the senseless loss of life will continue and radicalism will overtake and silence the voices for peaceful co-existence. This last point is crucial because for decades the high birth rates in Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East and South Asia have generated more young people than their economies can absorb. The average age in the Gaza, for example is 15. A young person growing up there cannot be blamed for desperation and the search for alternative ways out of the situation. He or she cannot find work, and they live in families were many mouths compete for the one meal. The wealth of his country is enjoyed by a few and is unlikely to trickle down to him. Despite his poverty, the world of wealth is all too visible in shop windows and on television. In the mosque, he is taught that all are equal before God and if observant - he will spend eternity in paradise. He may even be taught that the Jews are to blame for his state of affairs. This new wave of anti-Semitism, which we are witnessing, is rooted in radical Islam. We were led to understand that the very success of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in containing Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, has allowed extremist groups to increase the use of the suicide bombings in Israel.

In the midst of the study mission we found ourselves in awe at human beings who, against all the odds, continue to work for peace. We were privileged to meet with women and men from both communities, who despite personal sufferings, are searching for ways to co-exist together.
We met Professor Sami Adwan, from Bethlehem University and Professor Dan Bar-On from Ben Gurion, who are co-directors of PRIME (Peace Research Institute of the Middle East). Working with Palestinians and Israeli teachers they are attempting to write history textbooks using both narratives.
We met with Raya Kalisman, Director of the Centre for Humanistic Education, a center bringing together Jewish, Christian and Muslim students. We heard students speak of how they care and try to understand the other.

As in any conflict situation, someone somewhere has to bring hope to a hopeless situation by helping to build bridges of hope. The minority Christian Community in the Middle East must take seriously this responsibility. The peace process must be hope driven as well as process driven. It is vitally important that in trying to right one injustice, that another is not perpetrated. Proper attention must be shown to the plight of the Palestinian peoples who must have a state of their own. Equally, the right of the people of Israel to exist with full security in an Arab neighborhood must be guaranteed.

If Peace is to happen in this part of the world, action needs to happen simultaneously from the top down and the bottom up. Political and Religious leaders must ask the hard questions of their followers. While there has been world condemnation of the wall and the behaviour of some IDF members, the silence from both Christian and Muslim religious leaders in relation to suicide bombings, calls into question their moral authority.

As Elie Wiesel reminds us:

"Hatred is an ancient scourge which threatens to annihilate humanity. Its origins remain hidden in darkness. It knows neither barriers nor frontiers. It strikes all people and religions, all political systems and social classes. Because it is willed by human beings, even God seems unable to stop it. No nation is immune to its poison, no society protected from its arrows....

Hatred has no mercy for those who refuse to fight it. It kills those who do not try to disarm it. To hate is to refuse to accept another person as a human being. To hate is to diminish a person, to limit one's own horizon by narrowing another's, to look at another person-and at one's self - not as a subject of pride but as an object of disdain and of fear... Religious hate makes the face of God invisible. Political hate wipes out people's liberties. In science, hate inevitably puts itself at the service of death. In literature, hate distorts truth, perverts a story's meaning, hides beauty itself... If we do nothing to vanquish indifference and hate, we shall pass on to our children the message of hate under the guise of racism, fanaticism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism."

Deirdre Mullan RSM
January 2004