Israel & Palestine

Welcome back folks :)

I've made it clear that i think interfaith dialogue has the power to change the world, and I've talked about a few places I think it would be most important. The biggest one is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In case you haven't noticed it, there are a lot of people fighting over in the Middle East about a few sections of land, and a lot of people are dying cuz of it... Slight understatement. Point is, it's a horrible thing to see so many die over these small tracts of land.

This conflict also has a lot to do with religion, because most Jews are on Israel's side and most Muslims are on Palestine's side (for the most part), and we have a big interfaith issue. Because religion figures so heavily into the conflict, interfaith dialogue seems to be a natural avenue for the solution. I know certain organizations have been working on this, and one guy I've gotten to know recently used to work in the area. Bart Campolo (the aforementioned guy) used to work with Abraham's Path, an organization that now focuses mostly on religious tourism in the Middle East, but that used to (according to Bart) have a hand in encouraging interfaith cooperation in the area. He described people sitting around tables conversing and trying to convert each other (as many of these passionately fundamentalists often do), but ultimately discussing their ideas possibly for the first time. Communication and cooperation began in these little meetings, and Bart certainly thought the experience made an impact!

I guess I've always thought this work can be really impactful, and Bart agrees, but I've never really studied it before. So... I went searching for more scholarly information and came across:

Abu-Nimer, Mohammed. "Religion, Dialogue and Non-Violent Actions in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 17.3 (2004): 491-511. JSTOR. Web.

Using small samples and case studies, Abu-Nimer gives the case for implementing interfaith programs on a larger scale, and provides a framework for doing so. Through his examinations, he has determined that the most effective interfaith programs are the ones that best change participants' viewpoints from what he calls "religiocentric" to "religiorelative." Basically, this means changing from understanding your religion as the only valid one and seeing others as invalid in every way to understanding people's beliefs as valid to them personally (if not true). It's the idea that religion is more RELATIVE and not necessarily CENTRAL. He discusses how to establish groups which effectively do this, and suggests that even the extremely fundamentalist can change their way of thinking.

The reason this is so important is cuz in the diplomacy over this religiously motivated conflict, no religious leaders are present. Instead, politicians discuss the political issues, and peacemakers have tried to remove religion from the discussion, seeing it as only a destructive force. However, this has only prevented diplomats from discussing the issues motivating the violence, and the ones who are condoning and encouraging the violence (often religious leaders) aren't discussing the issues. If, as the author suggests, they can turn the destructive forces of religion into tools for peace and healing, then perhaps there can be an end to the conflict.

But what if bringing more religion just bring more conflict into the mix? Can people who so vehemently disagree on such a fundamental level ever come to an agreement, or would their biases prevent cooperation? Should we leave the discussion to politicians and diplomats? Are there even answers to these questions?