Warren Clark

Statement “Working for Peace in the Holy Land”

Warren Clark, Director General
Churches for Middle East Peace
Detroit, February 21, 2009

I am grateful to the organizers of this conference, Tele Lumiere-Noursat, CAMECT, and especially to Gabriel Habib, representative of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese on my Board of Directors, for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I am the head of “Churches for Middle East Peace” (CMEP), a non-profit, non-partisan organization we call CMEP.  We are a coalition of 22 U.S. national church denominations and organizations, including Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants. We do not do relief, development, research, nor even much interfaith dialogue, important as those activities are. We are a political organization that focuses on education and advocacy with the U.S. Congress and the U.S. administration, working to advance peace in the Middle East, especially for stronger U.S. political leadership to help end to the wretched conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. 

We have a special interest in preserving and protecting the Christian communities of the Middle East. We see achievement of peace between Israel and its neighbors, especially between Israel and the Palestinians, as the best and perhaps only way to preserve the indigenous Christian communities in Holy Land. Endless ethnic and political conflict is the enemy of healthy Christian communities, and indeed all peoples, in the Middle East. 

Despite its many policy failures, the US is indispensable for Middle East peace.  The failed Oslo process in the 1990s showed that Israel and the Palestinians cannot reach an agreement on their own, in part because of the asymmetry between the overwhelming power of Israel and the far weaker Palestinians. To overcome this situation and actually reach an agreement requires the US to be a genuinly honest broker. US power and active support will also be indispensable for implementing any agreement, including making necessary security guarantees for Israel and arranging necessary compensation and regional buy-ins.

When I told friends a year ago I was taking this job they said, well, at least you will have job security.  This conflict has been around for generations and shows little sign of going away. In fact, one could argue that the political outlook for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is worse now than it has been for some time. 

I recently spoke to a Christian Palestinian leader in Bethlehem who said the Holy Land suffers from too much religion, too much politics, and too much foreign intervention – including Christian Zionism; radical settlers; suicide bombers; internal political divisions among both Palestinians and Israelis; and foreign support for various opposing groups. With such excesses he saw little opportunity for meaningful peace anytime soon.  

It also can be argued that US policies have sometimes decreased prospects for peace. To give one example, in response to intense political pressure President George W. Bush signed a letter in 2004 that was interpreted as warrant for indefinite expansion of Israeli settlements into the Palestinian territories. 

The Israeli government then continued to authorize and build settlements in the Palestinian territories, contrary to its own stated policy goals and undertakings under the so-called Road Map.  This has had the effect of undermining the possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state living in peace and security next to Israel – the two state solution -  that is the official policy of the U.S., Israel, and of the Palestinian Authority.  

The U.S. also has complicated matters by its attempts to manipulate Palestinian politics.  It pushed for Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006 over the objections of both Israel and Palestinian Authority. The consequence has been a political split that left Fatah in charge of the West Bank and Hamas in control of Gaza. No single voice can now claim effectively to represent Palestinians in both areas, complicating any negotiations.    

Now following the latest violence in Gaza, Hamas with its militant policies and practices seems to have gained influence while Israeli politics has lurched to the right with the potential for an Israeli government led by the Likud party that opposes creation of a Palestinian state.

In these grim circumstances what can we do to promote peace?   Can, in fact, peace be effectively promoted?  And are there prospects of making any headway?

We believe there is hope for real progress. Ongoing political advocacy and strong grassroots inputs by churches across the country, using the best available tools, will be and important part of bringing about the necessary and lasting changes in the Washington’s approach to peace making. 

CMEP engages in a number of activities in Washington to advance the goal of real progress towards peace. These include face to face meetings on Capitol Hill with elected representatives and staffs, help with letters from elected officials to the President and others on current policy issues, and help with support for Congressional resolutions. With CMEP’s grassroots network of advocates we send out action alerts, urging messages and calls from our advocates across the country to the Congress and White House on current issues.  We also have an annual CMEP Advocacy Conference when our advocates come to Washington for prayer, lectures and workshops with Middle East experts, and personal advocacy calls on their elected representatives in the Congress.

CMEP also seeks to take advantage of an unprecedented combination of factors that now affect the outlook for peace between Israel and its neighbors. There is a new and wider recognition of urgency for the two state project, and there is a new U.S. administration that thus far has shown serious commitment to pursuing a lasting peace.  CMEP organized a letter to President-elect Obama in December from 41 national church leaders, including our Board members as well as Evangelical and historically African-American church leaders, urging him to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians a priority in the first year of his administration.  We then asked the signers of the letter to ask their church members who are interested in Israel-Palestinian peace to sign on to the letter. 

In six weeks over 17,000 persons signed on to the letter, including over 2,100 clergy.  Signers were from every state in the union and from across the spectrum of Christian denominations and groups. This unprecedented response by church members nationwide gave a clear political message of the strong and deep support in the county for US leadership to end this conflict.  CMEP presented the letter and information about the grassroots campaign to officials at the White House’s National Security Council at a meeting in February.  

Expressions of support by citizens – that is, voters – is one way effective advocacy works in Washington.  Politicians pay attention to views on issues expressed by their constituents. They read their mail (these days it is usually email) every day to see which way opinion is running.  The more voters can be mobilized behind a policy or piece of legislation, the more likely it is to be enacted. With email and low telephone rates, it is possible to vote early and often in an issue. One of our objectives at CMEP, therefore, is to mobilize as many “votes” by interested persons via the internet as possible. CMEP can now ask some 15,000 persons to communicate with their elected representatives via the Internet. As a next step we would like to increase that number in coming months by a factor of five or ten.

Thankfully, President Obama started taking action to address the Israel-Palestinian conflict on day two of his administration by his appointment of Senator George J. Mitchell as his Special Envoy for Middle East Peace. 

In response, CMEP sent an action alert to its network, suggesting that advocates ask their Representatives in the House to co-sponsor a new Congressional resolution, H. Res. 130, welcoming the appointment of Mitchell as a way to demonstrate support for this effort by the Obama administration to start to address this conflict.

It may seem self-evident that appointing a respected mediator such as Mitchell to help with this conflict is a positive development, but that is not always the case in the political world of Washington, especially on an issue as sensitive as the Israel-Palestinian conflict. We are not pushing against an open door. For example, the head of the Anti-Defamation League complained publicly that Mitchell would be too fair and even-handed in addressing issues in the conflict rather than pro-Israel.   

I hope it is clear we believe that Christians in the United States are not without an ability to influence to national leadership and our national policies. We are blessed to live in a democracy.  We can make our voice heard. Yet the churches are a sleeping giant when it comes to using influencing in Washington and we need to be better organized for advocacy.  That is the challenge and the opportunity before us.           

This is not a political campaign that takes place every four or two years.   This is a faith-based advocacy campaign that takes place every month, every week.

I want to enlist you in that campaign. PLEASE JOIN US.  It is easy to do.  Just go the CMEP website, www.cmep.org.  It will tell you more about us and show you how you can “vote” to ask your Congressional Representative to support the mission of George Mitchell to help end this wretched conflict that so adversely impacts Christians in the Middle East.  Vote early and vote often for peace in the Holy Land.  Importantly, please get as many others as you know to do the same.  Numbers count.

We all have been given the ministry of reconciliation. There is no better time than now.  Without political change soon - and with the continued status quo of ever-expanding settlements in Palestinian territories - the two state solution may soon be unachievable. The result then will be that Christians and all the others in the Holy Land will continue to face conflict, indefinitely.