Understanding the Three Abrahamic Faiths:2017 Annual Peace Lecture
“Healing, transformation and non-violence: Peace-making in the Holy Land”
Dr Sami Awad, Holy Land Trust, Bethlehem
St David Lecture Theatre, Otago University, Dunedin, 11 September 2017
Dr Haizal Hussaini:
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Assalamu’alaikum, shalom and peace. Welcome everyone to our Dunedin Abrahamic Interfaith Group annual open peace lecture. My name is Haizal Hussaini and I am the current chairperson of the group. As you may know, our group bring people together of the three Abrahamic faiths, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Our group was created after the September 11th 2001 event and with the hope and desire to promote peace, justice, goodwill and respect for one another. Now the annual open peace lecture is the highlight of our year.
For fourteen years now, we have valued hearing peace lectures from honourable rabbis, reverends, imams and peace advocates from around the world. We are deeply grateful to all our sponsors to, ah, that have made all our wonderful events so successful. We hope to continue to host this peace lecture for many years to come. We also would like to thank our sponsors and we value support, including financial support. We also would like to thank all the hardworking people behind this event, namely Pastor Mike Tonks, Reverend Greg Hughson, the Otago Tertiary Chaplaincy Team and Board members. And also all the members of the Dunedin Abrahamic Interfaith Group.
Now before we begin, in case of emergency, we have our exit doors in front, on both sides, as well as at the back on both sides. We have toilets just in front of this lecture theatre. Now, how this lecture going to go? The lecture will break at 6.45 pm or a quarter to seven for about ten minutes to allow our Muslim brothers and sisters to offer their dusk prayers. We will be back at this lecture theatre at 6.55 pm or five minutes to seven.
After the lecture, there will be time for a questions session which Reverend Greg Hughson will moderate. After we complete our event here, we will have supper at the All Saints Anglican Church Hall. This will give everyone a chance to mingle and chat with our guest speaker as well as with everyone. Now I would like to invite our Vice Chancellor, Professor Harlene Hayne, to introduce our guest speaker, Sami Awad from Bethlehem, Palestine.
Prof Harlene Hayne:
E nga mana e nga reo e rau rangatira ma. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa. I’m extremely pleased to be here this evening to introduce the guest speaker for the University of Otago chaplaincy and the Dunedin Abrahamic Interfaith Peace Lecture. Now before I introduce our guest speaker, I think that a peace lecture provides an opportune time for each of us to take just a moment to count our blessings. So as for me, not a day goes by that I do not reflect on the privilege of being a professor and a vice-chancellor. I am blessed to lead a university that is full of gifted researchers, award-winning teachers, and a highly skilled group of professional staff including our chaplaincy team who is here with us this evening. I am also blessed to work in an environment that, although not always peaceful, is lively and extremely beautiful. I am also blessed by the students who attend the University of Otago. These bright, articulate and ambitious young people come from all over New Zealand and the rest of the world to study with us. While they are here, they have the unique opportunity to experience a residential environment that characterises all of the world great universities. But because our students not only learn here, but also live here, they have ample opportunity to meet others whose cultural practices or religious beliefs are very different from their own. We know that the interpersonal experiences that they have while studying at the University of Otago will stay with them for a lifetime. Forever changing the way they think about things like religion, community, society and peace. And finally, I am blessed because our university attracts some of the best, the brightest, and the most interesting guest speakers to our campus, which brings me to the reason that we’ve all gathered here this evening.
On behalf of the University of Otago, I would like to warmly welcome our guest speaker, Sami Awad. Sami was born in the United States and he received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas. He received a Master’s degree in International Relations from the American University in Washington, DC, and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity from the Chicago Theological Seminary. He now lives in Bethlehem. Now, inspired by his uncle, Mubarak Awad’s leadership in Palestinian non-violent resistance, Sami founded the Holy Land Trust in 1998 to promote Palestinian non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Some of the Holy Land Trust initiatives include training workshops, participation in local non-violent campaigns, and seeking decreased, or increased, media coverage for non-violent resistance. The trust also runs summer programmes in which internationals live with families in Bethlehem, study Arabic and volunteer with Palestinian organisations. Now it’s safe to say that not all of Sami’s work has been without controversy, the situation in Israel and Palestine is extremely complex and emotions always run deep whenever issues of violent and non-violent resistance in the Holy Land are discussed. By way of example, Sami’s call for a boycott of Israeli academics has drawn both support and criticism from the academic and non-academic community around the world. But in my view, this is exactly what universities are all about. Discussing and testing controversial opinions about the issues that matter most to all of us. I’m extremely proud to say that when consulted, the local Jewish community leaders in Dunedin actually underscored their belief in academic freedom. Like me, they saw Sami’s presentation as an opportunity to discuss complex issues in an intellectual and respectful way. I, for one, am looking forward to a dynamic presentation, followed by what I suspect will be some vigorous and thoughtful discussion. So please join me in inviting Sami Awad to give his presentation.
No reira tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa.
[Applause]
Good luck.
Dr Sami Awad:
Thank you.
Assalamu’alaikum. When I say assalamu’alaikum, your response is wa’alaikumsalaam. So let’s try again. Assalamu’alaikum.
Audience:
Wa’alaikumsalaam.
Dr Sami Awad:
Thank you. Which means peace be upon you, and this is the reason why we are here today. Thank you Dr Hayne for the introduction, thank you to the university for welcoming me. Thank you Greg Hughson, and all those who are part, Dr Haizal Hussaini and all those who are part of the Abrahamic Interfaith Group. And I want to especially thank my good and dear friend Mike Tonks, who, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. Mike came and visited us in one of our summer programmes three years ago and, I guess it had an effect on him. And that’s why three years later, I am with you today. It is a true honour and privilege to be with you today and to share a little bit of my story and to share a little bit of my work and the vision of peace and justice in the Holy Land that I am working with along with many others. And, yes, as you said, Vice Chancellor , this is a land of controversy, this is the land of many opinions, and I‘m sure if I ask any of you who have, um, read about, heard about, engaged with, anything about Israel and Palestine, I’m sure you will have your opinion on the conflict and you have your opinion on what needs to happen to the conflict. And especially if you have a religious, background and a faith background the conflict in the Holy Land, what is happening in Palestine and Israel, deeply touches you. And you do have concerns. And you may have a concern about all the peoples of the land, or maybe a particular group of people in the land.
But there is an emotional investment that you have there. And it’s been very interesting for me as I travel around the world and talk to people to see really how much the situation in the Holy Land, and especially for Jews, Christians and Muslims, affects them. It actually affects them so deeply that I have actually travelled in places where people from different religious groups outside the land don’t talk with each other because of what’s happening in the land. Even more, uh, surprising, is to see people from my own religion, Christians, who are needed to work together in certain areas because of poverty issues, because of economic issues, in their own communities, they don’t work together, they don’t talk with each other, because they have different, conflicting views about us, Palestinians and Israelis living in the land.
And so when people ask me why do I travel around the world and talk about the conflict, it is because we do want peace and justice in the land, and we want peace and justice between you. We want you to work together. We want you to take care of your communities together, and not make our conflict the reason why you don’t cooperate. I’m here to share my story with you. And, uh, if we know anything about the Holy Land, it is the land of stories. If you open your Bible, all you see is stories. In the Torah, in the Koran, in the Gospel, it is all about the stories of the Holy Land. And so I am here to share a little bit of my story with you and we’ll do this sort of in the first part of our presentation and out time together, and after prayer break, we’ll share more about the work that we are doing specifically to address the conflict, and the violence and the occupation that we, as Palestinians, suffer from.
When I begin to share my story, I sometimes jokingly say if anything that Palestinians and Israelis have in common, it is the opening line to their story. Well we have two very different stories, but we start with an opening line. And that opening line is “In 1948.” Many of us know what happened in 1948. A war broke in the land in 1948 after Israel declared itself a state during that time. A war that led to the independence of Israel as a state which was an event that was celebrated by many people in the world, and especially the Jewish community that lived in that land. But a war that led to, what we as Palestinians call the Nakba. This is another big word for catastrophe. It couldn’t get worse than that. When Palestinians lost their land, lost their hopes, for a future of independence that we, as well, were promised when we lived under the British mandate. When I begin by sharing the story of “in 1948”, which is a time of war, more and more I began to realise that this feeds into a narrative that many people actually believe about the Holy Land: that this a land that has historically been in conflict. And it is not just ‘conflicts’. It is one conflict that has been extending, not for hundreds, but even thousands of years. Many people actually link the conflict that we are living in today as if it is the extension of the conflict that happened between Ismail and Isaac thousands of years ago. The sons of Abraham. And they try to convince all of us that, yeah, this is just one conflict and these people have always hated each other and have always been fighting with each other and there can never be peace in this land. Until the second coming. Or until God comes. Or the first coming according to some people. That it is not in our hands to make peace. We cannot make peace in this land. One thing we forgot is that actually the two sons of Abraham reconciled and made peace as they buried their father. So that conflict actually ended around the same it started. And so for me, I began to realise that no, I will not begin my story from a time of war and conflict. I will begin my story with a different opening line. And the opening line is “Before 1948.”
What was life like for the average person in the land before 1948? Jew, Christian, or Muslim. What are the stories that we forgot, the stories we ignore, the stories maybe many of you never heard before? And especially I refer to the neighbourhood that my father was born in and grew up in in Jerusalem. A neighbourhood called Musrara. A neighbourhood, to the surprise of many of you, was a neighbourhood that actually had Jews, Christians, and Muslims, lived together as good neighbours. Nor just as neighbours. As really, really, really good neighbours. Friends. Family activities were done together. Events were celebrated together. Not only that they lived as good neighbours, because sometimes in our modern times we think that for people to get along they have to be kind of this lefty, progressive hippies. And those are the only people that can get along with each other. Conservative, religious? No no. These are the enemies. They can’t even get along with each other, we cannot even make peace with them. And in reality these people were religious, conservative, orthodox, very devout to their faith and tradition, AND they got along with each other.
My father was nine years old in 1948. And, coming from a Christian background, my father and his generation, children his age, Muslims and Christians, used to do something on a weekly basis. And the thing that they used to do was, they used to go into the Jewish homes during Sabbath. If you know Judaism, and especially very religious orthodox Jews, from Friday sunset till Saturday sunset, they do not do anything that takes labour. That takes effort. Because it is a time of rest, and resting from all work. And so these little children, their job was to go into the Jewish homes, to turn on and off the lights for their Jewish neighbours, and turn on and off the ovens for their Jewish neighbours. This is something that my father grew up doing and has been happening for many generations. This is stories we don’t know. And so for me one big question is asking “What happened?” What happened that shifted and changed that reality from a time of cooperation, and no way do I say it was perfect, it was utopian, if we look into that history we see many conflicts that also emerged between the groups that happened there.
There were even massacres that happened there. But even during that time there was never the sense of what now we see. The level of hatred and resentment. And the level of exclusivity to this land, that this belongs to us and nobody else. That never existed. Even with all the conflict that was there. And so for me it’s a big question to look into history to ask the right questions.
What happened to that time when people really got along? 1948 did come. And my father’s family suffered tremendously in the war. My grandfather was killed in the war, he was killed as a civilian, he wasn’t involved in combat. He was shot by a sniper, actually. And my grandmother and her seven children, after a few days of burying their father, their husband, in the courtyard of their house, were evicted from the house when the Jewish forces took over. They demanded that all the non-Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, leave their homes. And the family became part of the refugee population. You may have heard about the Palestinian refugees. Over eight hundred thousand Palestinians, close to 80% of the entire population, were displaced and dismissed and kicked out of or left their homes. This was, and is, actually, the biggest movement of refugees per capita recorded in modern history. Imagine 80% of a nation losing their homes.
Over 450 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed before, during, and after that war. So this is why we call it a Nakba. A catastrophe that we faced. The family ended up in Bethlehem. Because my grandmother had a brother that was living there. And the idea was, like all refugees, this will be temporary, until the war ends, and we will return to our home. The war ended, and we are approaching seventy years later. And the return hasn’t happened. I share this story because it is not a story of a tragedy for me as much as the story that has been the motivation for everything that I do today. And especially, to honour, every time I share this story, my grandmother, who I say if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am a peace activist, I am a non-violent activist because of this woman, who always insisted that as a family, we will never seek revenge and retaliation for what happened to us.
I also share this story because, also, my grandmother insisted that as a family, we will never remain silent in the face of violence and injustice. We will proactively address violence. We will proactively address injustice. We will proactively seek peace and reconciliation with those who do injustice to us. I was born in 1971. This is a few years after another major war that we experienced, called the 1967 war. In Arabic we call it Naksah, which means “the Setback”. So we had the catastrophe and then we had the setback. And in that time, what happened was Israel and its military actually won the war. I don’t think anybody can deny the fact and they actually won it in six days. This is why they call it the Six-Day War. What Israel did not do and they could have done, maybe some countries would have protested it, but they were strong enough to get it done, they could have annexed the whole land which is the occupied territories, the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, they could have said this whole thing is Israel and if you like it you could stay, if you don’t like it you could go. But the whole land is one state called Israel.
They did not do this. Israel imposed its military on us. To control us as Palestinians. And that military presence continues until this day. Every aspect of our life from 1967 has been monitored and controlled and determined by the Israeli military. Our movement, our internal policies, if you wanted to open shop, anything that you wanted to do was controlled by the Israeli military. It was the full physical presence of the army, soldiers, armed, walking in our cities and towns that we witnessed every day, but it was also all the rules and regulations that they set up that did not limit, but completely denied us basic human rights. Right to express your opinion was denied. Right to assembly was denied. Right of the press was denied. Right to elect your own representatives was denied. Right to determine where your tax money goes was denied. All the basic human rights that we so aspire for and struggle for in the rest of the world were denied for us as Palestinians. That’s the context I grew up in.
And so I grew up in a situation where honestly I can say it was justified to hate those who were doing this to us. That was my life. That was my experience. It was the narrative that I had. At the same time I grew up in this family that says “Seek peace and reconciliation with them”. And so for me it was very difficult. How do you bring two narratives that do not fit with each other together? A narrative of reality that says violence is the only thing that we are living and experiencing, there cannot be peace with them, they don’t even want to make peace with us, and a narrative that says no matter what, we need to seek peace and reconciliation with them.
My life began to change when my uncle, Mubarak Awad, opened a centre to teach non-violence to the Palestinians. As Palestinians, we are proud of a history of engaging in non-violence that goes back even as far as the British mandate in the 1930s. But what my uncle was saying, “Let us build a strategy to end this occupation.” Let non-violence not just be reaction. Let us proactively engage in non-violence. And that began to turn my life around. I began to see a bridge between the two narratives. And the narrative was called non-violent activism. And when I say, when I say non-violence, the word, if you ask me to put a parallel word next to it, it is “empowerment.” It is to say as a people, we can stand up, we can resist, we can end oppression, we can end occupation, we can end injustice without physically, emotionally, or spiritually, religiously harming those who are creating this oppression. It is a struggle against institutions of injustice. Not about the people that are in them. In 1988, my uncle was arrested, by the Israeli government, because of his work in non-violence. And because of that, he was deported. Deported means kicked out from the land, never allowed to return and live in the land. As a family we go back at least 800 years of being an indigenous family in the land itself.
Imagine any of us, imagine any of you, 170 years old for many of you, being kicked out of here because of what you believe in. And especially if it’s non-violence. And for me that was the turning point in my life where I said I want to understand what is the power of non-violence.
Many people around the world question Palestinians and ask why don’t Palestinians use non-violence? Why are they so violent? Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? Well let me tell you. Non-violence is a dangerous and powerful tool for those who want oppression and occupation to continue. Many people think non-violence is just about sitting around the table and dialoguing. And eating hummus together. Which I’ve been eating a lot here in New Zealand. [laughter from audience] But non-violence is much more. Non-violence is resisting, ending structures of power and oppression that marginalise, limit or violate human rights. And this is why my uncle was deported. This is why he was kicked out from the land in 1988. For me, that began the journey of my life. And I ended up in the United States to continue my education. It’s not the best place to study non-violence and peace work. [laughter from audience] but that’s where I ended up. I don’t have a scholarship to come here, maybe next time.
But I went back home in 1996. I went back home excited. Full of energy. Not for non-violence and not for resistance, I went back home because there was a peace process taking place. It was called the Oslo Peace Process. And for me, it was an exciting time. Many Palestinians, many Israelis, we celebrated together! The fact that finally, these two sides, Palestinians and Israelis, our leaders recognise each other, they’re sitting, they’re negotiating. And they’re going to make peace for us. The reality on the ground struck me very quick that what was happening was not peace. They were reaching an agreement, and you know very well about agreements and treaties in this land, but real peace between the people was not happening. There was actually more separation and segregation happening between the peoples than actually bringing the people together. The Israelis continued to build settlements which were illegal housing units, towns and, and cities, on Palestinian land that was promised to us to establish a state. More settlements were built during the peace process than before the peace process began. That was a shock. How can you move your people into an area that you are promising to give to the indigenous people of this land, and call it peace? And for me, the third aspect of what I began to see was a government that was created, called the Palestinian Authority, to control our life,
That sadly, I have to say and admit, had the marks of corruption and violation of human rights in it. As Palestinians, we imagined and dreamt of a democracy. We will be the first real democracy in the Middle East. Where our leaders will not win elections by 95% of the votes and celebrate that because 5% voted for somebody else. And who knows where that 5% ended up like all the Arab countries. We thought we would be the model of a real democracy in the Middle East, so the rest of the Arabs can look at us and see what we have created. The reality on the ground was this was not happening. And so in 1998, a group of us came together, and started this organisation called the Holy Land Trust.
And we will stop now, I think, for a break. Or if you’d like to make an announcement?
Dr Haizal Hussaini:
Thank you Sami. Now for the prayers, the ladies would be in Room 4. And the men will be in Room 1. Thank you.
Dr Sami Awad:
And for the rest, we’re going to continue with a different conversation. If people want to go to prayer, we can do that now? Okay.
Dr Haizal Hussaini:
The room is actually at the back of the lecture theatre. For the men, you can follow me, and the ladies, you can follow, I think… yes.
Dr Sami Awad:
So for the rest that are here, what I want to invite you to do now is to have a conversation in small groups. And from your own personal experiences, being in this land, to engage now in a question, of how do you see where peace is manifested today in your communities ? How do you see treaties that have been signed by politicians and by leaders, as making peace, and what is needed to take place at the grass-roots level so that peace can really be fully presented and manifested in New Zealand ? There are people who represent different religious groups here, different identities, different ethnic groups, and for them to share also in circles around them, people next to you, do they feel that they are actually living in peace here ? And we will have this conversation for the next ten minutes, and then after prayer we will come back together.
[break]
Thank you for the discussions you had. I listened to one conversation that was really interesting. Is peace possible? Is peace in the Holy Land possible? Is peace and justice between Palestinians and Israelis possible? Many people have given up on that possibility. Many people in the land itself have given up on that possibility. If we look into the communities of the land today, as I said before, there’s probably more hatred, more resentment, and more fear, more anger, more violence than any time we’ve experienced. We’ve seen wars happen. And not just one war or two wars. Sadly, every two years seem to be another war that happens where many innocent people are killed. And especially in Gaza, where my mother’s family comes from.
And you can imagine how worried we get for my uncles and aunts and cousins who live there every time there is a war against the people of Gaza. But I wouldn’t be here if I did not believe in peace. The question is, what is the peace that we are seeking? One of the first questions I usually get when I talk about peace or after I finish my presentation is “What is the solution?” What is the solution to the conflict, meaning, what is the political agreement to the conflict, meaning, what is the political peace that you are advocating for? Many people advocate for something called the two-state solution. This is what the Oslo Peace Process promised us. One state for the Israelis, one state for the Palestinians, yes, we get the short end of it, 20% of the land. But that was the promise, that we’ll live happily ever after based on this solution. Some people advocate for a one-state solution. Let’s just all come together and live together in one democracy and, and yeah, and make the rules, they’re very clearly set that where the rights of all these individuals and minorities and religious groups will be respected no matter what. That’s another solution out there.
Many people don’t realise there are actually twenty-three different political solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Twenty-three solutions that have been researched and studied and have people advocating for. A Norwegian professor wrote a book this thick about the seven-state solution. And he tried to convince everybody that we need a seven-state solution to the conflict. He divided the region into different ethnic groups and each one would have their state.
What I believe now is that there isn’t a political solution to this conflict. Because we are not addressing the core issues of what this conflict is about. Political agreements and treaties that do not address the real, deep grievances of the communities of the land, all of them will not last. And this is what we saw in Oslo. The smallest act of violence done by any side towards the other completely derailed that peace process off track, and that became the justification for the leaders not to continue engaging in the peace process. As if leaders were waiting for something to pull them away from negotiations. As if we were forced into these negotiations, and maybe we were, and we just needed an excuse not to continue them. And honestly, I say this, and I challenge the Israeli side in saying yes, every time a Palestinian commits an act of violence, you stop negotiations. You put negotiations on freeze. You build more settlements. You confiscate more land. As a response to the minority groups that were committing acts of violence. Was there a real commitment to make peace? And how can we have a real commitment to make peace? When the peace process collapsed, we felt that the whole peace process ended and any agreement ended with that collapse.
And so we as an organisation went into non-violent resistance and activism. We became one of the leading organisations to push for non-violence. When many Palestinians felt that armed resistance was the way, we insisted that non-violence is the way to move forward. And many people rejected us. Many people said no, we tried non-violence in the past and look what it led to. Your uncle was a leader of non-violence, and look where we are now because of this non-violence. And they promoted armed resistance. Between insistence that non-violence is the way. But at a certain point of my journey, even as a non-violent leader, I began to ask those questions of what does real peace and justice in the land looked like. Why did the peace process fail? How do we return to my grandmother’s neighbourhood where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together as good neighbours? What is preventing us from that? What derailed the whole mind-set that we actually can get along with each other?
And as I began to ask these questions, I was invited by, actually, Jewish friends of mine from the US to go with them on a retreat. A retreat that they have been holding for twenty years up to this point, now the retreat is over forty years. And the retreat is called the “Bearing Witness Retreat.” The “Bearing Witness Retreat” is a retreat that happens in the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, where many of you know very well that this is where the atrocities and the disasters happened for the Jewish people who were living in Europe, but also for other ethnic, religious and minority groups who lived in Europe as well under Nazi era.
And, actually, I want to say that in Auschwitz, I discovered a main reason why we live in conflict today. You won’t find many Palestinians who deny the Holocaust. Because we actually claim to be the victims of the most victimised people in the world. So we recognise their victimisation and we say we are their victims. That means we need more pity and more sympathy than they are receiving. Or you hear other Palestinians say they’re doing to us what happened to them. This is a statement that I reject, but within that statement there is the recognition of what happened to them. So for me it has been a real journey of discovering this core reason of this conflict. And this core reason is fear and trauma that has embedded within the Jewish community from the narratives of the Holocaust that they grow up in and also fear and trauma that is embedded in us as Palestinians from also the experiences that we have had and continue to have until this day.
When I was in Auschwitz, I witnessed the Holocaust, and what the Holocaust meant to the Jewish people and others as well. But the thing that shook me more than witnessing the Holocaust was witnessing Israeli teachers and the way they spoke to Israeli children who are taken to these death camps on trips either paid by the government or different foundations. And while I think it’s very important that people need to learn their history, but the way the Holocaust was presented was not just an historic event. It was presented as an historic event that did not end. I heard teachers telling these Israeli children, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old that the Holocaust is actually not over. That as Jews, we are forever threatened. And they used statements, they used lines from Pesach, their Passover, where they say every generation and nation rises out to destroy us. And so as Jews, every generation and nation will raise to destroy us. And one of the lines I heard one of these teachers say was “If the Palestinians, if the Arabs, have an opportunity, they’ll do to you what the Nazis did to your ancestors”.
So you can imagine these teenagers who are experiencing the history knowing some of their relatives who were actually killed in these camps, now they’re being told “You are next. And this is why we have to be strong, this is why we can never let our guard down, this is why you have to join the army”. And many of you know very well that unless you are an ultra-orthodox Jew, you join the army in Israel. Many peace activists join the army, and send their children to the army. It becomes so natural as a process, again, because of this narrative, that is embedded, the narrative of fear of the Other. How can you make peace with somebody you are afraid of? Real peace. You could sign an agreement. You could sign a treaty. But within that agreement and the treaty, you will make sure that your security issues are met before justice and human rights for “the other” are met.
And that began a turning point in my life. And for me, it connected very much with my own religious understanding. When Jesus calls us to be peace-makers. More. When Jesus calls us to love our enemy. What does He mean by this? And as a Christian, as a Palestinian, I actually want to follow this guy. Many of us who are Christian want to follow the teachings of this guy. Many Muslims follow the teachings of this guy, for them a prophet, for us the Messiah. Many Jews are actually now opened up to asking who was this Rabbi who walked and lived two thousand years ago and what was his teachings.
And one thing that I realise is when Jesus talked about loving the enemy, the first thing he was asking us to do is to break the barriers of fear from us to them. How can you love somebody if you are afraid of them? How can you make peace with somebody if you are living in fear from them? And for me it’s a big step for all of us. How do we break the barriers of fear? Of our own security? Of the walls that we have built around us? Cultural walls, privilege walls, economic, social, political privilege. Can we bring those walls down to truly make peace with “the other” through love?
The second thing I realised when Jesus talks about loving the enemy is that to engage in a conversation with them that really allows you to know who they are. Who is the enemy? I know the stories of who Israelis are. They know the stories of who Palestinians are. But who is really the enemy? And for me, part of that conversation began a process for me to ask even a deeper question. Not just the motivation of fear and trauma and how do we heal trauma. But to even begin to ask, can religion actually be a catalyst for peace and justice in the land ?
The land is a land of religious history. For the three beautiful religions. And part of what happened in the Oslo Peace Process was that our secular leaders on both sides made a decision. They decided that religion is part of the problem. You may have heard this being said, religion is the problem, take religion out of the equation, we take the problem out of the equation and we’ll be able to resolve this conflict as a secular, political conflict, actually using Western-style negotiations. Put these people in suits, have them sit around tables, and use this Western, American style, diplomatic negotiation style, and we’ll be able to resolve this conflict. And that has failed. Part of what we are doing now as an organisation is to actually engage with those religious leaders. And not the religious leaders that have sold out to the political establishment. The religious leaders that actually said no to the Oslo Peace Process. And to ask them, what is their vision of peace. And one thing that we have realised is that those religious people on both sides, especially the Jewish and the Muslim religious leaders that have been marginalised and labelled as extremists and the hardliners and the fanatics really in their heart do not oppose peace. Nobody opposes peace. They oppose a peace process that did not meet their narrative that did not meet their story, did not address what they see as important for them in the land.
I don’t know if you know this or not. 80% of Jewish historic religious sites exist in the West Bank. The land that the secular leaders were going to give to us Palestinians to establish our state on it. 80% of Jewish history exists on this land. That peace would actually never have worked because we would have limited, marginalised, and restricted the movement of people going into these sites, or the families that live around these religious sites like in Hebron and Nablus. And when I began to understand this conversation, I, I realised something as well. As a Palestinian Christian, I was limited to thinking about Bethlehem as being my only religious, political identity hub. Well Bethlehem is a beautiful city, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he didn’t even last two years there. He ran away and became a refugee and probably never came back to Bethlehem. And I began to realise that as a Palestinian Christian, 80% of my religious, historic roots exist in that secular, political entity called Israel. From Jerusalem to Nazareth to Galilee. This is where Jesus walked and taught and did his miracles. Why was I denied, by political process, to have full access and rights to these sites?
And so what we are now engaging in, in the work that we are doing as an organisation, is this question of looking into the deep roots of what this conflict is about. And what we say is that there can never be peace in the Holy Land unless we create the foundation of peace.
And it’s beautiful to look into our religious texts when we talk about foundations of peace. And I want to refer to words that for me are important in the three Abrahamic faiths when it comes to how we relate to “the other”. In the Old Testament, there are two words for the Jewish people that are very essential in moving forward and how you relate to the others. And these words are : justice and repentance. If we had time, we could talk more about these words. But you can understand the importance of these essential keywords. In the Gospel, for the Christian community, there is forgiveness and love. In Islam, in the Koran, there is mercy and surrendering to God’s will. Imagine if we just took those words in our religions and lived with them and brought them all together, those six words, and created a movement of religious leaders who understand the deep sacredness of the Holy Land to the three religions, and that through religion, we can achieve peace. What we are working on now, working with Muslims, and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, no matter how people identify themselves, is, what is the foundation that we need to create that honours all of the communities in the land and honours their indigenous rights and claims to this land ? A foundation that is based on justice, and righteousness, love and mercy, peace and forgiveness, equality for all the people, that can be the foundation that any peace agreement will stand on.
I’ll end by giving a small example. Many of you have seen paintings, right? I’m guessing. paintings in museums, or in art centres, or as you walk around people’s homes. You see paintings being hung on walls. There are two major components of every painting if you really looked carefully at them. There is the canvas that has the art on it, and there is a frame. Right? I don’t know if you’ve seen the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is made of the painting of the Mona Lisa herself, the picture of the Mona Lisa, and an amazing frame. If you google the Mona Lisa and zoom in on the frame, it is a piece of art by itself. What I say if that most of the time, as Palestinians and Israelis, as the international community, as your interest in making peace happen in our land, we have been fighting and arguing for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years on the frame. We argue should it be a wooden frame or a plastic frame? Should it be a thick frame or a thin frame? Should it be a red frame or a black frame? Or maybe it should be a frameless frame. Should it be a one-stitch, should it be a two-stitch, should it be a three-stitch frame? Should it be a confederation? We’re arguing about the framing, and we are forgetting the canvas itself.
And so my invitation to you is to engage with us in painting the canvas of peace in the Holy Land. What does real peace and justice in the land that we love so much look like ?
Thank you and may God bless you.
[applause]
Rev. Greg Hughson:
[applause]
Dr Mai Tamimi:
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity of speaking and responding to Brother Sami’s presentation today. And I am very privileged to be here amongst this crowd, very proud to be with you all here. Thank you so much for the presentation, and I as a Palestinian, I’m very proud to know you and to hear what you think from your own perspective of how peace can be achieved, and what I will take from your presentation and talk and start with you said “I wouldn’t be here if I don’t believe in peace.” And I would say that all of us here wouldn’t be here if we don’t really believe in peace and if we don’t really work together towards achieving peace around the world. Not just in Palestine, Israel, but also wherever we are around the world. Even inside our own houses, our own neighbourhoods. And I want to reflect on the short story you told about your grandmother and about your ancestors when you mentioned that they were very much getting very well with their Jewish and Muslim neighbours. My grandmother who’s still alive, she’s ninety-five years old, she always shares with us the story that she used to take care for the children of her Jewish neighbours when her neighbour went to hospital to give birth. And the same was what her Jewish neighbour used to do for her and her children when she used to go, or be sick, or go to deliver at the hospital as well. I very much appreciate what you’ve just also shared with us about the ability of having peace achieved whenever the foundations are there.
[applause]
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Thank you. So, I’d like to invite Sami back up now and we’ve got at least ten minutes for questions. So… (handing a microphone)
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Okay, there’s a question.
Dr Sami Awad:
Anger? Yes.
Technician:
Greg, could you repeat the question?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Do you feel anger is an issue in this whole situation ?
Dr Sami Awad:
Yes. I think anger is a very important emotion that all of us should feel when we see injustice, when we see violation of, of, of anything. Not just of human rights. When I see a, a pet being beaten up by their owners, I get angry. Let alone seeing this happen to human beings, how they treat each other. For me, it’s not about the question of anger, because I think if we don’t have anger, we are not human, we, we are not witness to injustices. The question is what do we do with this anger. What do we do with this fuel that is growing in us. And, and sadly, as many people take this anger, and vent it out in violent acts, and violent maybe not even just to those who are committing the atrocity. We see a lot of violence within households, Palestinians who engage in violence in the household themselves. Israelis who engage in violence between Israelis themselves, in their households, between their families. And so there is a lot of anger. The question is, how do we take this energy to prevent the things that have caused this anger from happening again? How do we achieve bigger results and really working, using this energy for peace instead of continuing the cycle of violence.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Okay, thank you. We’ll answer a question up here, yes.
Audience member:
How do political groups, such as for example the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, are they an impediment to peace that must be overcome by, err, is it grass-roots movements?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
It’s a question about political groups such as Hamas, are they political groups that must be overcome by grass-roots movements on the way to peace?
Dr Sami Awad:
Yes, so we have… the reality that we have is that we have different political groups that function on both sides now. We have political parties and political authorities that have been created. On the Palestinian side, we have the Palestinian Authority that you mentioned, that is led by Fatah. We have Hamas that is in control in Gaza, and on the Israeli side we have all the spectrum of political parties and some of them uh, are very representative of very extreme right-wing agendas. Uh, for us it is a very big question that we are now having internally within the Palestinian community. And to really ask the question, uh, has Oslo, the process that led to the establishment of, especially of the Palestinian Authority, failed to the point where we need to revisit their whole structures of the Palestinian Authority and the political parties that engage in it. And sadly what we’re seeing is that these political parties now are fighting each other over control of the Authority. For us it is not about the political parties, it is the, the institution of the Authority itself: where is it leading us as Palestinians? What has it achieved for us? And what is their vision for ending the occupation? And the reality that we live in is that the Authority itself, has, uh, been put in a place, where it’s like saying between a rock and a hard place. Because the Palestinian Authority now is monitoring and dealing with the daily lives of Palestinians. Many Palestinians are employed by the Authority. There is great dependency for many families on the income that they get from the Palestinian Authority. So to just say “Dismantle the Authority”, well, that’s not an easy solution. And so what I think we need to have as Palestinians is a real, deep conversation, an open conversation, where all these parties and groups come together in unity and say “Where do we want to go as Palestinians? What is the vision that we want to have for the future? And how can we work to make that vision happening?”
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Okay… Is that something that your trust could facilitate?
Dr Sami Awad:
Well, we, we hope to be part of that conversation. I don’t know if we could facilitate it.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
No… Okay. Questions? More questions? Yes? Up the top there? No, you up there on top.
Audience member:
You used the term Israeli occupation. I would like to know if you distinguish between Israeli occupation and the historic right of Jewish people to live in the land.
Dr Sami Awad:
There is absolutely no doubt for me about the historic right of Jews in the land, and actually I would say in the whole land. Not just in the land of what is Israel now. In the West Bank, even. As I said, 80% of Jewish religious historic sites are in the West Bank. And if I look into my own biblical tradition, which is the same as Islam, there is no denial of Jewish presence in the land. This is part of the sacred texts that we read and use.
Audience member:
So how can you occupy your own land?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Just to clarify, it’s a question about, can we talk about Israeli occupation when we’re aware of the historic presence and right of the Jewish people to the land?
Dr Sami Awad:
Yes. And if you listen to what I said, in 1967, Israel won the war. And Israel could have declared full autonomy and give full equal rights to all the people that they occupy. They could have made this all part of the state of Israel. They could have made me an Israeli citizen, like 20% of Israelis now who are Arabs are full Israeli citizens and I would be coming to New Zealand on vacation. Not to give you lectures. About peace. But they did not do that.
Audience member:
[inaudible]
Dr Sami Awad:
Wait, let me continue. As a Palestinian, when I talk about occupation, I use a “small o” occupation. Not a “big O” Occupation. I don’t talk about a political occupation. I talk about my rights as an individual living in this land who has indigenous roots that go back at least eight hundred years. And my Christian roots go back two thousand years. The fact that on every level of comparison, the Israeli citizen has more than me: water, we’re just talking about this. Israelis have access to water seven times as the Palestinians. And we pay four times as much as Israeli pay for the water. Access? I cannot go anywhere without having a special permit issued by the Israeli military. An Israeli can go and travel anywhere they want. For me to come here, I have to go through Jordan and fly out of Jordan. I cannot go from Tel Aviv and fly out of Tel Aviv like every other person. And I’m even an American citizen and I cannot use my US passport there. Violations of human rights exist at every level. So for me, occupation is as close to as discrimination that you can experience. And this what I face. And so for me, if Israel says “Yes, we recognise your full equal rights in this land and we are ready to work with you and end this occupation and create all the mechanisms that deal with those who are violent.” I’m not denying that there are voices that are violent. But what we experience as Palestinians is something called collective punishment. If somebody commits an act that is seen as violent, all of us as Palestinians suffer from it. And so for me, this is what occupation for me is. If Israel says “This whole thing is ours, we’re going to take it, equal rights for everybody.” I will be the first to celebrate it.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Okay. Thank you, yes, up the top. Yes.
Audience member:
Is dialogue like this lecture here active in Israeli universities? Or Palestinian universities?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
The question is, is dialogue similar to our event tonight happening in Israel, Palestine universities?
Dr Sami Awad:
Well, if I want to be honest, I would say I am not aware of it. To say it is happening or not happening it’s a question, it’s a good question, I strongly doubt it’s happening, I know that within Israeli universities there is a growing movement of Palestinians who live in Israel, who are Israeli citizens that are beginning to raise their voice more and more in terms of demanding for their civil, equal rights within the state of Israel as Israeli citizens. And so this is a student movement that is happening, more awareness is happening at this level, more Israelis are beginning to recognise this as an issue within Israeli society itself, but I would say that most of the dialogue that is happening now in universities and outside of universities is still in the space of the political solution. How can we reach a political agreement that is still founded on the two-state Oslo Peace Process.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Thank you. Yes.
Audience member:
First can I say how impressed I am to hear an inspiring statement of hope but the question I have is you indicated that the political attempts to reach resolution failed and there is only one solution to reach peace and that is through religion. But isn’t it the problem that you make it, uh, religious peace. But how are you ever going to keep a long-lasting solution for peace without justice and a political solution?
Dr Sami Awad:
So let me correct the statement if I said it in that way. For me, I’m not saying that religion is the only way. I’m saying that religion was marginalised and ignored from the secular, political peace process, and religion has to be included now. And so for us, we are talking to religious leaders but also saying that there has to be a, a conversation with the secular leaders as well. It has to be a joint peace process. All of us have to come together, learn each other, study each other, and find out how can we reach an agreement that really meets all our needs. From the secular to the religious. To add to this, and thank you for the question because I want to mention another group of people that have been completely marginalised from the peace process whose voice for me is key and needs to be in that conversation on the table, and that is the voice of women. That has been completely ignored and neglected actually since the peace process began. If we look into the Palestinian community, before the peace process began in 1993, and Dr Mai and others here can be a bigger witness to this, Palestinian women were leaders in the Palestinian community. In the resistance of the occupation, in organising, in leading institution within the Palestinian society. Once the peace process began, that voice did, uh, got marginalised. Pushed to the side. And part of what we are doing now is working with women. And encouraging women and training women to have that leadership voice for the future. And so that voice also needs to be present in the peace process as well.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Thank you, any more questions? Yes, Marvin.
Audience member (Marvin):
For people to work for peace and accept peace, don’t they have to have hope of fairness for everybody?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
For people to work for peace, don’t they have to have hope for fairness?
Dr Sami Awad:
Um, yes. [Chuckles] I agree. I mean, we need to have hope. As I said, I think in the first part, most people have lost hope in anything working. Most people will not even engage in, in any dialogue or sitting together. Most people will not engage in non-violent resistance work. I’m not trying to create any beautiful picture of the situation. The situation is very, very difficult and very challenging. So most people are hopeless, are resigned, have absolute apathy, err, don’t think anything works. They say violence doesn’t work. They say non-violence doesn’t work. They say negotiation doesn’t work. They say grass-roots efforts don’t work. Most people have given up on anything working. And this is the challenge that we live in today. So sometimes I look into the work we’re doing and, and sometimes I think that all what we are trying to do is just to keep hope alive for another day. And to see, from that, can we create momentum. Can a new generation of young leaders, Palestinians and Israelis, who are giving up on hope for what they’ve been promised from the past, for letting go of that, can they come up with a new idea. With an alternative. With something that is really based on building relationships of trust and respect between the communities. Not just reaching an agreement that is coming from fear from “the other” As I said, these agreements will always fail. And so, we’re, it’s very challenging and very difficult, but for us, this is the daily work that we do. Is to try to keep some sense of hope alive.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Thank you. One more question? Okay. Henrik.
Dr Sami Awad:
The best question, which is the last question.
Audience member (Henrik):
What’s his name?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Sami.
Audience member (Henrik):
Sami, could you answer just one question, will there be lasting peace in the Middle East, without the Prince of Peace ruling? Jesus Christ, I mean.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Sorry, without the Prince of Peace ruling? It’s a theological question for our Christian peace lecturer !
Dr Sami Awad:
Well, I mean I think for all of us in all our faith traditions we recognise fully that the ultimate expression of peace is the peace that God will bring to us and create for us. And that peace will be manifested by the will of God in the time of God. And for us, I think what we are doing is to say yes, how can we live in the best peace that we can create. The best expressions of justice and human rights and principles of democracy and values that are important to us until that day comes. And that it is for me a sin to actually say that we are deemed to live in war and conflict and violence with each other until that day comes in all our traditions. We are called to be peacemakers on earth today. In our Christian faith, we are called actually to manifest the Kingdom in our lives today. And not to wait for that End Day. And so, this is my encouragement to say let us work for the best possible peace and justice that we can create as we’re living on this world now.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Thank you. Let’s give him a round of applause for the answers.
[Applause]
Dr Sami Awad:
Thank you.
Rev. Greg Hughson:
Don’t go away, we are going to give you a presentation. I would like to invite Paul Gourlie to come and present a gift and just as, a card, just as Paul’s coming, I’ve been asked to announce another lecture which starts in 10 minutes if you want to go to it. It’s Islam Awareness Week and the Muslim Students Association would extend a warm welcome to anyone who’d like to go to a lecture by Sheikh Amir from Wellington entitled “Morals and Ethics”, it’s in Burns 2, starting at 7.45 and pizza will be available after the lecture.
[audience laughing]
Ah. [chuckles] I’d also remind you that we have supper at All Saints Church.
[audience laughing]
Audience member:
Is it pizza?
Rev. Greg Hughson:
So you have an option there. And freedom, total freedom of choice ! But Paul is now going to say a few words of thanks on behalf of us all.
Paul Gourlie
Kia ora tatou e kia ora te whanau whanui. Nga mihi ki a koe mo te awhina, te tautoko of all of us present. So I just want to stand and use the worst words I got put on the earth for some recognition of the tangata whenua, the people of the land, and recognise that here we are all as a family, as an extended family, and I think the night listening to you, in many respects you showed all of us we are actually all Palestinians and all Maori here tonight. That we have a deep feeling of whanau, of sense of family. And while I was listening to you and you’ve been speaking two or three days, and I was picking up the message, and when Greg honoured me by saying would I, would I give a, a, a thank you tonight, um, and I heard myself saying to him, “That’s pretty tough for an Irishman brought up by Maori to speak short.” But I promised I would. So please let me indulge very quickly. The gifts that we chose is this book which was the story of the love of the land, written by all of different people including tangata whenua and all of us who have come and immigrated into this land and been absorbed in this land. We wanted you to have that. We ask that you also have a look at this card which in some respects shows the different colonies that have come here and yet enduring always has been those things that make us New Zealanders. Piwakawaka, the birds, the lands, the waters and those things which allow us to recognise that kia ora are the only terms that we have in the land. And finally, I am privileged enough to be able to give you something that is dear to my heart. You know when you’re going to give a gift you actually have to give away something that you’d rather keep for yourself. And so this is a graduation book, sorry, bag, if you like, for people who join the University of New Zealand. Wananga o Aotearoa. And the reason that this is important to us, is that you talk about being an indigenous people in your struggle and in some respects they have done the same. And their way has been to show faith, hope and love. In Maori term they call it Manaakitanga. Mana, manaakitanga is mana, aki, tanga, which mana means that which makes you, God gave you and me. And akitanga means to the people. We can only visit, sorry, we can only host each other for one of two reasons. For good or for evil. And what you’ve demonstrated here and what we’ve heard you speak in the last few days is the constant power of love over everything else. And on behalf of everybody also, Vice-Chancellor, University, Dunedin, globally, we’d really like to say thank you very much. Kia ora.
Dr Sami Awad:
Thank you. Thank you.
Paul Gourlie
Thank you.