middle east peace

Herds of goats, pomegranate trees in bloom, and ancient architecture are just some of the things you might witness while walking The Abraham Path, a collection of walking trails established in the past fifteen years through parts of Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. But the trail is also engineered for human experiences. Connecting cities and villages, it offers the opportunity to make one-on-one connections in a contested region. It's a kind of subtle peace-building project, but it's also an economic development project, an education project, and more. The path's development, spurred by American peacebuilders, has been met with some skepticism by journalists. But as locals have taken ownership of the trail, a good deal of stories have been published that convey a sense of hope, including a cover story in a travel-themed issue of The New York Times Magazine in April 2022. 

Our guests for this episode are Joshua Weiss, a peacebuilder and co-founder of The Abraham Path Initiative, and Anisa Mehdi, the Executive Director of the project and a veteran broadcast journalist. 

This episode originally published in June 2022. 

Donate to help Abraham Path homestay hosts and guides rebuild in Southeast Turkey and Syria.

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Making Peace Visible is a project of War Stories Peace Stories. Our mission is to bring journalists and peacebuilders together to re-imagine the way the news media covers peace and conflict, and to facilitate expanded coverage of global peace and reconciliation efforts. Join the conversation on Twitter: @warstoriespeace

Making Peace Visible is hosted by Jamil Simon, and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Music in this episode is by One Man Book, Doyeq, and Les Portes Du Futur. 

ABOUT THE SHOW

Making Peace Visible is a project of War Stories Peace Stories. Making Peace Visible is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Learn more at warstoriespeacestories.org. 

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William Morris, the Next Century Foundation's Secretary General,  gave this New Year's message for 2022. His podcast focuses on:

1. Though there are troubles in the Middle East, in Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Afghanistan, there's hope
2. Though the great powers are predatory, there's hope
3. Though the environment is under threat, there's hope
4. Though the pandemic is killing millions, there's hope
5. Though we may be depressed, there's hope
6. That mercy is more important than justice and compassion more important than lov

Reflections and observations from William Morris, Secretary General of the Next Century Foundation

Europe will be the geopolitical force that confirm a peace agreement in the Middle East.  The EU could well become the feet of iron and clay found in Daniel 2.

The  Gaza War is over - for now. And the plus side is that Mid East Peace is back on the agenda. However, the “postponed” Palestinian elections look like they could be postponed forever; with the flimsy excuse that Israel won’t allow the elections in East Jerusalem. 

Reflections and observations from William Morris, Secretary General of the Next Century Foundation

Grace and Laura talk about the things/people that have been inspiring lately. From Laura's husband Nathanael and "Turtle Power" to excellent music and powerful testimonies, the girls have a lot to say about their faith heroes.

Israel’s fourth elections in two years held on 23rd March 2021 were yet again inconclusive. At stake was whether the electorate would give Benjamin Netanyahu the necessary 61 seats to form a government. A government that, consequently, would provide immunity from his corruption trial. This wasn’t granted, with the pro-Netanyahu bloc gaining 59 seats whilst the anti-Netanyahu bloc won 57 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. This left an unlikely kingmaker: the head of the Islamist faction, Mansour Abbas.

This leaves the Arab voter as, arguably, the biggest winner of the ensuing uncertainty. The four seats garnered by Abbas have become highly coveted by both the anti-Netanyahu and pro-Netanyahu blocs. Before the elections, he broke away from the Joint Arab List with the Ra’am faction and campaigned on a platform to join the coalition to bargain for budgets and influence policies that affect the Arab voter. Whilst his joining the coalition was ruled out by many parties during the election, realpolitik now calls.

This has led to an overnight ‘kosherising’ (hachshara), as Israel’s media pundits say, of Arab participation in coalitions; a taboo whose only precedent remains Yitzhak Rabin’s second government when two Arab parties provided parliamentary support from outside the coalition. Traditionally, the Arab parties have been marginalised in the coalition building process, being viewed as illegitimate coalition partners by Jewish Zionist parties of almost all stripes. That said, for their part they have in any case hitherto been reluctant to join a government that they view as occupying the West Bank and besieging Gaza.

The Rubicon has now been crossed with both camps’ courting of Ra’am, and Ra’am loosening its ideological objection to participation in Israel’s governments. The Arab voter stands to gain a government that funds its municipalities, deals with the rife crime impacting the Bedouin villages of the Negev, and reverses the harm done by the Nation State bill.

Netanyahu can’t be declared the loser as he may yet cobble together a coalition, should he succeed in courting Ra’am and gaining approval from his natural coalition partner to his right, the Jewish supremacist party Religious Zionism. The chances are slim, and meanwhile the witness stage of his trial has begun . . . 

Reflections and observations from William Morris, Secretary General of the Next Century Foundation

How will things be for the State of Palestine now that Biden is US President?

Reflections and observations from William Morris, Secretary General of the Next Century Foundation

Find out from former ambassador to both Israel and Egypt, Dan Kurtzer, why Bahrain and the UAE really signed agreements with Israel, the surprising reasons they’re great for Israel, and if we’ll see a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia soon.

Guests:

Galen Jackson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Williams College.

Aaron David Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Between 1978 and 2003, Miller served at the State Department as an historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process.

International Security Article:

This podcast is based on Galen Jackson, “Who Killed Détente? The Superpowers and the Cold War in the Middle East, 1969–1977,” International Security, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Winter 2019/20), pp. 129–162.

Additional Related Readings:

• Charles Glass, “Syrian Archives Add New Details to Henry Kissinger’s Disastrous Middle East Record,” Intercept, June 18, 2017.
• Missy Ryan, “After ISIS, U.S. Military Confronts Challenge from Russia, China in Middle East,” Washington Post, February 27, 2018.
• Olga Oliker, “Russia Has Been Playing a Canny Game in the Middle East, but Can It Continue?” Guardian, October 23, 2019.
• Galen Jackson, “The United States, the 1967 Lines, and the Future of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” War on the Rocks, May 26, 2020.
• Aaron David Miller, “Netanyahu Has (Almost) Nothing to Fear from a President Biden,” Haaretz, July 20, 2020.

With Greg Movesian, founder of Abrahamic Initiative
Week One – Ties to the Holy Land:  Christianity in Israel and Palestine

Using resources provided by Churches for Middle East Peace, Greg will  lead a reflection and dialogue in three sessions on the origins of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict as reflected in competing narratives, contemporary political, social and economic realities, and the effect on the lives of indigenous Christians. In this season of Epiphany, we seek understanding in order to manifest Christ’s light and love amid seemingly intractable conflicts.

 Rina Kedem, environmental peace-builder, dialogues about peace, ecology, and communities.  Rina believes in peace between people and the land and is part of an international network of projects and communities that are involved in this work. 

Rina Kedem has developed and directed cooperative projects with Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians for the past 16 years. Her work is guided by a holistic perspective that includes the social-economic and environmental well-being of communities, as well as hands-on, long term peace-building opportunities that impact policy.  She helped found a multi-cultural center for peace and ecology at the Almog- Jericho junction, an area accessible to Israelis and Palestinians, and was part of a volunteer team that has built a network of ecological villages in Israel (GEN- Israel).

Rina is currently working on her Ph.D. in Community Development and Environmental Conservation Across Borders in the Department of Geography at Hebrew University and resides with her family in the Israeli desert.  She is part of the University of San Diego’s 2019 Women PeaceMakers program. and lives with her family in the desert of Israel.

The Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church. She is the editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land and author of Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World as well as other books and publications. She joins us this week with her piece, “Blessed are the peacemakers, but what about the troublemakers?”

The Rev. Dr. Corey Fields is senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Newark, Deleware. He returns to the podcast with his essay, “Like a Parent’: Thinking critically about anit-Semitism and Isreal today.”

The Rev. John Zehring has served United Church of Christ congregations for 22 years as a pastor in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine. He is the author of more than 30 book, his most recent is “Get Your Church Ready to Grow: A Guide to Building Attendance and Participation,” and is available from JudsonPress.com, he returns to the podcast this week with his essay, “Let ruin come on them for their mean behavior.”

Our theme music is “Believable 2” by Peter Sandberg

The Christian Citizen is edited by Curtis Ramsey-Lucas and is a publication of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies. The show, website and newsletter are produced by myself, Joshua Kagi. Stories are copy edited by Hannah Estifanos. Our Art Director is Danny Ellison.

The Christian Citizen editorial board is: Dr. Jeffrey Haggray, Laura Alden, Susan Gottshall, Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, the Rev. Sarah Strosahl-Kagi, the Rev. Salvador Orellana, the Rev. Dr. Marilyn Turner-Triplett and Rev. Cassandra Carkuff Williams, and our advisors are Cherilyn Crowe, the Rev. Kimberlee Payton Jones, the Rev. Steven D. Martin, the Rev. Marvin A. McMickle and the Rev. Harold Dean.

To learn more about The Christian Citizen, visit the website ChristianCitizen.us.

We’ll be back with a new episode of Justice. Mercy. Faith. On May 21st.

What does Trump’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights mean for Israel, Syria, and the region? And what groundwork does it lay for Jared Kushner’s rumored Middle East peace plan? Jen talks to Marwan Muasher about his view on the prospects for peace, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future.