Scott Appleby

Land is sign, symbol, and space — persistent elements of personal, religious, and political identity in Jerusalem, the place of origin and pilgrimage for the three great Abrahamic faiths. Now a wall knifes through the land, creating its own ominous sign and symbol of scarred space and mutual mistrust. The dynamics of exclusion, resistance, defiance, struggle, and advocacy for peace that define this “holy land” was the subject of an international conference held at Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem on March 12–14, 2006. Titled “Whence the Heavenly Jerusalem? The Politics of Sacred Space and the Pursuit of Peace,” the conference explored religious and political contestation over holy sites in Palestine and Israel from a variety of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish perspectives.

Rashied Omar and Scott Appleby, co-directors of the Kroc Institute‘s Program on Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding, organized the conference. During the planning phase David Burrell, C.S.C., served as the University of Notre Dame’s and Kroc’s representative at Tantur, a world-renowned conference center administered by Notre Dame and the Vatican. Conference participants included a cohort of faculty and officers from Notre Dame, scholars and peace practitioners from other American and Canadian universities, Kroc alumni working for peace in the Middle East, and activists, politicians, and professors from communities and universities in Israel and Palestine.

On Sunday March 12, prior to the formal opening of the conference we toured Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. Each of these contested religious sites was heavily fortified and guarded by the Israeli army, casting a pall over our pilgrimage and creating a sense of dismay in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secular pilgrims alike.

Now only Muslims may enter Al-Aqsa mosque and the shrine of the Dome of the Rock, although anyone may visit the mount itself, after passing through an Israeli security checkpoint. The mood is somber and tentative. A short walk away, the human traffic bustling in and out of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on a busy Sunday in Lent underscored the tension among its various Christian co-inhabitants. Most dispiriting, perhaps, were the sites on the Palestinian side of the wall. The now-partitioned Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham and Sarah are believed to be entombed, is entered through checkpoints, barbed wire, metal detectors, and a gauntlet of Israeli teen-soldiers sporting automatic rifles. One who would come to pray is distracted by the scene where Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish physician and irate settler, opened fire on Muslim worshippers in 1994 — 12 years to the day before we visited the site — murdering 29. Rachel’s Tomb is another heavily fortified bunker; the wall allows access for Israelis and tourists, and snakes nearby to create a space on the other side for a planned Jewish settlement.

With these site visits as a backdrop, the conference opened on Monday with the panel Myth, History, and Identity: Competing Narratives of Sacred Space. Kroc faculty fellow and anthropologist Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C., described the historical disputes among Christians, who have traditionally viewed the Holy Land as “the fifth gospel.” The millet system developed by the Ottomans, recognizing the internal Christian disputes over Jerusalem, established what came to be called “the status quo.” Under this arrangement, the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Orthodox, and the Latin Christians were granted separate religious sovereignties over the city and its holy sites, particularly the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was divided spatially and temporally among the ethnoreligious groups. Nationalism complicated and exacerbated the intra-religious tensions throughout the 20th century. Recently, the unsustainability of the situation was crystallized in the struggles to repair the dome of the church. Aware that the status quo was eroding in the 1980s and 1990s under the force of Israeli (Jewish) expansion, Palestinian (Muslim) radicalism, and the accompanying diminution of the Christian presence in the Holy Land, the main Christian groups signed an agreement of cooperation. The rebuilding of the dome became symbolic of a more profound shift toward collaboration in the face of external threats.

One such threat, Gaffney concluded, is the rise of millennial Protestantism, mostly from the United States. It views Jerusalem as the site of the endtimes drama, the fundamentalist version of which dooms Muslims to extermination, provides Jews a final opportunity to convert to Christianity or be slain, and places the erstwhile Orthodox and Latin status quo at a theological disadvantage, to say the least.

Motti Inbari, a sociologist at Jezreel Valley College in Israel, sketched the attitudes and behaviors of Israel’s religious Zionists toward Temple Mount. Internal diversity was again the theme, in this instance manifest in an intra-Jewish dispute over whether Jews might enter the Temple Mount area. While the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem has forbidden this practice as inviting sacrilege (with Jews trampling inadvertently upon the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple), the “settler rabbis” of Gush Emunim have permitted it, lest Jewish absence encourage Palestinian hegemony over the site. Inbari surveyed the corresponding spectrum of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish attitudes regarding the appropriate role of Jewish agency and activism in rebuilding the Temple. One extreme counsels passivity and study in preparation for the restoration of Jewish rule. The other extreme provides scriptural grounds for revolutionary violence, thereby “taking destiny into their own hands.”

Mustafa Abu-Sway, a professor of Islamic studies at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, examined Qur’anic and Hadith-based sources (or lack thereof) on Jerusalem, noting readings of the Qur’an that link entry to the holy lands to righteousness rather than religion or nationality. Who has kept God’s law? They shall inherit the holy lands. Of critical importance to the Qur’an, Abu-Sway noted, is the truth that genetic or biological descent is never sufficient in itself to merit such inheritance.

The status of Jerusalem itself is ambiguous in Islamic texts, barely rating a mention in some sources, but set on equal footing with Mecca and Medina in others. (Notably, Hamas’s charter follows and expands the latter tradition.) The miraculous Night Journey of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem more than 14 centuries ago forged a special relationship between the Noble Sanctuary and Muslims the world over, who are obliged by a Hadith of the Prophet to maintain Al-Aqsa Mosque both physically and spiritually. The obligation is fulfilled primarily through acts of worship, but the physical maintenance of the Mosque is also part of the responsibility of all Muslims. “The fulfillment of both duties will be impaired,” Abu-Sway noted,” as long as Al-Aqsa Mosque remains under
occupation.” Muslims who are prevented from praying there and from supporting it are denied the ability to fulfill critical religious responsibilities.

According to Islam, people may receive divine punishment for evil acts but not for evil thoughts or ill intention. The one exception to this rule exists within the sacred precincts of Mecca, where ill intentions as well as ill actions are punishable. Accordingly, many Muslim scholars shortened their stay in Mecca after performing the pilgrimage in order to avoid the possibility of being held accountable for possible negative thoughts and intentions. This issue may lay behind the decision to keep political power at a distance from the holy cities of Mecca and Jerusalem, for politics may sully the righteousness of people and therefore the sanctity of religious sites.

Many other traditions extol the special merits of Jerusalem, including the view that praying at Al-Aqsa Mosque is far more efficacious than prayers in other locations (with the exception of the two mosques of Mecca and Medina). Numerous traditions celebrate and glorify Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and the entire Holy Land and highly encourage visitations there.

Yet caliphs have shown respect for the Christian presence in Jerusalem and for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in particular. An exchange of letters about Jerusalem that took place between two prominent
companions of the Prophet provides an illustration. Abu Al-Darda’ invited Salman Al-Farisi to come to Bayt Al-Maqdis (literally, the House of the Sanctified). Salman replied by saying that the Land cannot sanctify anyone. Only one’s good deeds may bring true sanctity (as recorded in Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik).

Patrick Mason, a Notre Dame historian, raised the issue of the universal religious appeal of Jerusalem. His test case was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. When Brigham Young University, the Mormon intellectual stronghold in Utah, established an extension campus on Mount Scopus, university officials were forced to pledge not to proselytize. (The campus was closed with the onset of the second intifada.) Misunderstanding and misperception of Mormons stands behind the fear. Indeed, for Mormons, who consider themselves the second branch of the People of Israel, the actual Holy Land lies in America (Missouri), and the New Jerusalem will be established there. Jerusalem is the site of the House of Judah, the home of the Jews; America is the site of the ingathering of the lost 10 tribes of Israel. According to this sacred narrative, and by dint of their own status as a persecuted religious minority, Mormons believe themselves positioned to serve as mediators and agents of reconciliation between the Jews and the “lost tribes.” Hence their presence in Jerusalem: to bring peace, not to sow division through proselytism.

The keynote address — “Jerusalem: The Politics of Myth” — was delivered by Gershom Gorenberg, author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for Temple Mount (Free Press, 2000) and The Accidental Empire (Henry Holt, 2006), a new book on the political origins of the Israeli settlements. “The music of religion” is critical to understanding life and conflict in Israel/Palestine, Gorenberg declared, but “oddly, the politicians are tone-deaf to it.” He asked: Why is there a city here? Jerusalem has no port, no river, no clean water — only the site of a religious story, the place of Isaac’s binding, the axis mundi, Mohammed’s ascent, Jesus’ crucifixion, the place of sin and final atonement. There is no neutral term for that site: by calling it Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, one declares oneself politically. The source of Muslim power, the irredentist Jews argue, is their control of the place of divine energy (Temple Mount); only through this power did they expel Jews from the Sinai.

With this frenzied religious context established, Gorenberg examined the dance of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators around the question of the final status of Jerusalem in any viable peace settlement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was playing with symbols he did not understand, Gorenberg charged, while Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, claimed that “there is no Jewish connection to this site.” The intractability of the final status question, it is said, owes to the religious symbolism in which Jerusalem is drenched; e.g., Hamas could never abide shared sovereignty with Israel over Jerusalem because it is the Muslims’ holy city. This is nonsense, Gorenberg concluded, because symbols by their very character contain multiple meanings and readings, as Pope John Paul II demonstrated during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 2000. It takes a religiously sophisticated political leadership, however, to prepare the ground for such a transformation of exclusivist readings.

After lunch, Joyce Dalsheim, a Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Kroc Institute, chaired a panel on diverse perspectives on the land. The session featured two Jewish settler women, Hadassah Froman and Hadar Bashan, and a Palestinian woman, Terry Boullata, whose community, Abu Dis in East Jerusalem, has been divided by the wall. Dalsheim framed the discussion by tracing the connection, in the minds of the inhabitants of the land, between its cultivation and beautification, on the one hand, and its sacralization, on the other. Froman delivered a poetic/metaphysical reflection on “The Land,” envisioned as the land of all peoples who have come into mystical union with Lord of the universe. Hadar Bashan showed a home video of her family being ejected from Gaza by the Israeli military, and shared her sense of anguish and betrayal.

For her part, Boullata noted with some bitterness that, while her family has resided in Jerusalem for generations, she must renew her residency there every seven years. A checkpoint, one of 605 erected between Israel and Palestine, stands in front of her home, not far from the wall, which denies Palestinians access to the road to Jerusalem, Jericho, and Bethany. In response to questions from Israelis in the audience — “How would you prevent terrorism?” — Boullatta argued that Palestinian terrorism is a direct response to Israeli state terrorism: once the latter ends, the former will end. Palestinians would be happy to inhabit the 22 percent of the land promised Palestinians in the Camp David talks, she observed — a parcel that has been reduced to 12 percent by the wall and other expansionist moves.

In the subsequent session, Asher Kaufman, an Israeli scholar who joined the Kroc faculty and Notre Dame’s history department last fall, offered a reappraisal of the Israel/Palestine conflict based on the premise that the conflict has never really been a secular one, defined solely by a struggle over a piece of territory. In fact, Kaufman argued, from the beginning the conflict was rationalized in religious terms by both sides, even by the most secular components of the two communities. “Thus, when the two sides, Jews and Palestinian Arabs, argued about their right over the land, more often than not they have used religious arguments to strengthen their position and weaken the position of the other.” Israelis and Palestinians, to be sure, were not fighting over theological differences, but their respective religious identities were resources for mobilizing people to do violence against the other. “It is, therefore, essential to think about religion when we approach this conflict and to work on its resolution through this prism. Only then would we be able to deal with the easiest part — with territory.”

Paul Cobb, Kaufman’s colleague in the history department, deconstructed the myth of “conflict perpetual and immemorial” in the Holy Land, noting that four-fifths of Jerusalem’s history, approximately 3,200 years, were eras of peace among its various peoples. Wars resulted from unjust policies and from unjust peace settlements. Modern nationalism, Cobb argued, has increased the sense of urgency, competition, and dissatisfaction with political settlements such as “the status quo.” History is a resource in peacebuilding, he offered, but the authenticity of the history is what moves people. To complicate matters, authenticity is not the same as accuracy.

Tuesday began with a lecture on faith-based diplomacy in the Middle East by Marc Gopin, a rabbi and author who has pioneered the study of religious resources, traditional and textual, for peacebuilding within the Abrahamic traditions. Agreeing with Gorenberg that progress toward a negotiated settlement is impeded by a lack of religious vocabulary and perception on the part of the chief negotiators on all sides, Gopin provided numerous examples of how religious and popular sensibilities mirror one another. What counts for secular negotiators is outcomes alone, he argued, while religious/popular values hold a privileged place for principles and responsibilities, including behavior in wartime, proper conduct in burial rituals, the practices of communal memory and atonement, and the treatment of the religious other. Non-state religious actors on all sides, Gopin explained, bring shared sensibilities — the integrity of tradition, the priority of the sacred, respect for the dead — across ethnic and national divides. “Radical empathy,” he concluded, is a path to sustained peace. Although suffering religious communities evince this virtue, it has not informed the political sensibilities of protagonists in the region. Sadly, perhaps, but realistically, direct personal contact among religious leaders on various sides in the conflict may need to occur elsewhere, allowing these transnational religious communities to gather apart from the distractions and immediate disputes of home.

The ensuing session focused on political perceptions of Jerusalem and its history. Notre Dame political scientist emeritus Alan Dowty found reason for hope in polling data indicating that Jerusalem becomes “demystified” in Israeli eyes the closer one gets to Jerusalem itself, its inhabitants, and neighborhoods. Negotiations over the final status of the city become viable, Dowty concluded, when they become neighborhood- and site-specific, that is, when they are distanced from the “Heavenly City” mythology and rhetoric. The polling data demonstrated that the vast majority of Israelis are in favor of a two-state solution, and are even willing to cede land inhabited by Palestinians.

Bernard Sabella, a professor of political science at Bethlehem University, lamented the plight of Palestinian Christians and excoriated the Israelis for constructing the wall and choosing separation over engagement. He thrice warned the Israelis and their American patrons that inattention to the economic plight of Palestinian youth would backfire terribly. “We have no hope in occupation,” he cried. “If you do not help us, all will pay a terrible price.” Interestingly, Sabella was protective of Palestinian Christian relations with Palestinian Muslims, their solidarity the result of oppression at the same hands.

Emmanuel Sivan, a historian and scholar of radical Islam at Hebrew University, followed with an argument, drawn from a historical comparison between medieval and modern times, that contemporary inter-religious interactions in Jerusalem are marked by an unprecedented form of intolerance — i.e., “you have no right to this place because your religion is inferior.” Among the religious extremists, Jewish as well as Muslim, a self-conscious “ultraorthodoxy” has fostered the attitude that there is nothing good or holy or defensible in the faith of the other — whether “the other” is a person of a different religion, or an insufficiently orthodox co-religionist. This modern development means that an operative divide exists between the tolerant and the intolerant. Ironically, the religiously tolerant must form alliances against the religiously intolerant.

The theme of cross-religious alliances for peace
was developed in the subsequent panel by Mohammed Abu-Nimer (American University), Patrice Brodeur (University of Montreal), Ben Mollov (Bar-Ilan University), and David Neuhaus (Bethlehem University). Father Neuhaus, a biblical scholar, made the intriguing point that the bookends of the Bible—Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 — suggest that God intended all the world as sacred space. Indeed, he continued, the Bible is reticent about specifying or delimiting sacred space for fear of idolatry and internecine conflict. This point reinforces the current emphasis in religious peacebuilding on providential plentitude as opposed to scarcity. There is sufficient “holy space” for everyone.

Brodeur explained that religious peacebuilding and faith-based mediation is particularly important in regions of the world where the majority of the population self-identifies religiously and where religious organizations play an important role in the life of individuals and families. In the case of Jerusalem, Brodeur contended, the old enlightenment dichotomy between “religious” and “secular” has been modified by the rise of exclusivist nationalist-religious discourses in both Israeli and Palestinian societies. This convergence of “religious” and “secular” worldviews is exacerbated by their codependency. Therefore, Brodeur concluded, peacebuilders must work assiduously to build a kind of inter-communal dialogue that bridges the religious-secular divide.

Mollov has facilitated dialogues in Bethlehem among Palestinian and Israeli students, seeking common elements on which to base discussion. Intriguingly, he found that religious students were originally the most negative towards those of different backgrounds, but that, after the conversations, their perceptions changed. Recent restrictions on movement in the vicinity have prompted Mollov to assess the possibilities of e-mail dialogues.

Abu-Nimer presented the major findings of an empirical research project that evaluated the effectiveness of the plethora of interfaith organizations in Israel and Palestine. A main dilemma facing Palestinians engaged in interfaith discussions is the need for a dialogue of life, not a dialogue of theology. The latter, many feel, is an excuse for inaction, and a luxury that their precarious circumstances do not permit.

The Tuesday afternoon sessions were given over to reports on methods of inter-religious peacebuilding by, among others, graduates of the Kroc Institute who work in conflict management and conflict resolution in the Holy Land. A panel organized by Kroc Alumni Affairs Director Anne Hayner included Josh Vander Velde (M.A. ’04) and Zoughbi Zoughbi (M.A. ’89), the director of Wi’am, a Palestinian conflict resolution center in Bethlehem.

Vander Velde, a U.S. rabbinical student in Jerusalem, described the “encounter tours” he has organized for American Jewish students in the West Bank, with the goal of helping them get past their fear of visiting the area. He wants to expose future Jewish leaders to Palestinian personal narratives, political narratives, and human interaction. He noted that the tours had a mixed impact. Some students lost the “pure” sense of Israel they had held, while others confirmed their perception that there is no Palestinian “partner for peace.”

Zoughbi offered an analysis of Palestinian perspectives on the recent elections that avoided the temptation to romanticize or demonize Hamas. The vote for Hamas, he explained, was not a vote for violent resistance or extremism. Rather, it was a vote for political reform, and a vote of frustration against ineffective Palestinian leadership and political corruption under Fatah, and against the peace process as it has unfolded. Now the Palestinians must prevail upon Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence, Zoughbi concluded.

This bare-bones summary does not do justice to
the richness of the individual presentations, nor to the conference itself, the most interesting moments of which occurred in the discussion sessions and off-the-record conversations over dinner and tea. The staff of Tantur was wonderfully accommodating, fostering a sense of intellectual and spiritual community among us.
    

A final word about the Palestinian participation, both Muslim and Christian, in the conference. Some worried that the relative lack of such participation, owing largely to Israeli restrictions, signals Tantur’s reduced effectiveness as a site of peacebuilding in the region. Yet peacebuilding is always vulnerable, and requires sustained presence across and through the “gaps” — the walls and restrictions and bombings. I came away convinced that we need more, not less, interaction among as large a circle as we can assemble. We recognize that the size of the circle will vary according to conditions on the ground.

But if not Tantur, where?

Scott Appleby is the John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute and a professor of history. His books include The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (Rowman & Littlefield 2000).