Working for Peace in the Middle East
by Len Bjorkman
The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has been especially interested in and active for a just peace in the Middle East since the mid-1980's. We have had speakers at the General Assembly Peace Breakfast, helped initiate and support GA policy statements dealing with Israel/Palestine and Iraq. At our booth we have had annual updates from GA staff and Middle East visitors and PPF members who have visited the region, and distributed literature and invited people to sign petitions.
We joined with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Friends Service Committee, and Voices in the Wilderness to ameliorate the disastrous effects of the economic sanctions against Iraq.
We have participated with the PCUSA Washington Office and Churches for Middle East Peace in advocating GA policy during Advocacy Days in Washington. We encourage our members to join the Advocacy Networks maintained by the Washington Office.
In 2000 when we called a 2-year Volunteer in Mission, she took the nonviolence training with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, and spent time as a Reservist in Hebron. She also led two delegations to Israel/Palestine in the fall of 2001 and 2003. These delegations visited with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, with Presbyterian staff there, and with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, and others. A special emphasis was to experience the sometimes risky conflict-reduction actions of the CPT team in Hebron. Their style of "getting in the way," that is, following the way of the nonviolent Jesus and also standing nonviolently between people in conflict, is one that PPF particularly endorses as a consistent way of being faithful to Jesus.
Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, PPF helped Presbyterians to have a visible presence at national rallies calling for alternatives to war in keeping with GA policy.
PPF supports the recent GA statements questioning the wisdom of the Iraq war, and continues to emphasize that military action in the attempt to bring about justice is totally against what we understand the ministry of Jesus to have been. Today the Resurrected One calls us to a new way of living, and empowers us for that.
As an expression of our commitment to the style of nonviolent intervention lived out by the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and Palestine, we have a special concern for those Presbyterians who join CPT as full-timers, or reservists, or members of delegations in those areas.
PPF supports the 2004 GA action calling for a process that could lead to phased, selective divestment from corporations that benefit from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. We are also sensitive to how this call has raised questions within some sectors of the Jewish communities. At the Fellowship of Reconciliation conference in Pasadena in Aug., 2004, we engaged in dialogue with the Jewish Peace Fellowship to hear their concerns, and find ways to cooperate on our shared goal of a genuine peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
In the continuing effort to build that peace, PPF supports the recent formation of the Presbyterian Israel/Palestine Mission Network, in cooperation with the Worldwide Ministries Division.
Links to church groups mentioned above:
Presbyterian Church (USA) Worldwide: Middle East
Presbyterian Israel/Palestine Mission Network
