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Waging Peace: Ecumenical Advocacy Days

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  • Waging Peace: Ecumenical Advocacy Days

    WAGING PEACE: ECUMENICAL ADVOCACY DAYS
    Matt Horton

    Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, DC
    June 13 2006

    Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the Washington, DC office of the
    Presbyterian Church USA (Staff Photo M. Horton).

    THOUSANDS OF FAITH-based activists from around the country gathered in
    Crystal City, Virginia from March 10 to 13 to discuss and lobby for
    social justice. The Saturday conference program featured in-depth
    discussion in area- and issue-specific tracks, including Africa,
    Asia Pacific, Eco-Justice, Global Security and the Nuclear Weapons
    Danger, Jubilee/Economic Justice, Latin America, USA/Domestic and
    the Middle East.

    The Middle East track, coordinated by Churches for Middle East Peace
    (CMEP), featured 10 panel discussions, including "Israeli Political
    Culture and Dynamics"; "Jerusalem-Core of the Conflict and Key to
    Peace"; "Palestinian Political and Cultural Dynamics"; "Iraq: What
    do the Warriors Think?"; "Reconstruction: The Key to True Security";
    "In Search of the Rule of Law in Iraq"; and "Iraqis Speak."

    "What's Really Going on in Iraq" featured Iraq-born Washington, DC
    businessman and political activist Andy Shallal and Chris Toensing,
    executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project
    (MERIP), who gave what panel moderator Simone Campbell, national
    coordinator of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby,
    described as "candid and disturbing accounts" of life in Iraq.

    "Educating Local Congregations About Bethlehem and the Wall" featured
    Charles Lutz, CMEP's Grassroots Advocacy Project Director in Minnesota,
    co-author of Christians and a Land Called Holy, and a participant
    in the International Solidarity Movement's 2002 Olive Harvest
    Campaign. Peter Nagle, founder of the Friends of Bethlehem ministry,
    screened his film, "Sacred Space Denied: Bethlehem and the Wall."

    "Hopes and Fears of Middle East Christians" featured Bishop Vicken
    Aykazian, representative of the Armenian Orthodox Church on the CMEP
    board and president-elect of the National Council of Churches. "There
    will never be peace in the Middle East unless there is a solution
    to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Bishop Aykazian said. "That
    conflict is the root of every problem."

    Painting a bleak future for Christians in Palestine, the bishop noted
    that "in 1926, 56 percent of the population [in historic Palestine]
    were Christians, now it's less than 3 percent." Christian Palestinians
    have traditionally had greater options for immigration to the West,
    he explained, and because of this, "you cannot stop [Christian
    immigration] unless you give them freedom and the guarantee of a
    safe life."

    This situation, he warned, is also bad for Christians throughout the
    Arab world, including in Iraq. Bishop Aykazian recalled that, at the
    recent World Council of Churches summit in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the
    Iraqi delegation challenged the American delegation on the occupation,
    stating, "Our life is like hell. What have you done to us?"

    Regarding the historic Armenian populations in the Arab world and
    refugees from the 1915 Armenian Genocide who found asylum in Arab
    Muslim countries, "where they felt at home," the bishop cited similar
    drastically decreasing numbers. "In 1967, there were 45,000 Armenians
    in Palestine," he said. "Now we have fewer than 3,000. We had 50,000
    in Iraq. Today I don't think we have more than 5,000."

    In between the day's tracked portions, denominations met together
    for lunch. The Presbyterian lunch was coordinated by Elenora
    Giddings Ivory, Catherine Gordon, and Carolynn B. Race of the
    Washington office. Rev. Jean Marie Peacock, vice moderator of the
    216th Presbyterian General Assembly and pastor of the Lake View
    Presbyterian Church in Louisiana, told her lunchtime audience about
    the ongoing struggle to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Rev. Carol
    Wickersham of Beloit, Wisconsin spoke about No To Torture, a group
    formed following the Abu Ghraib abuses, and likened the social justice
    commitment of the PCUSA to Daniel fighting the many-headed dragon. "All
    the people in this room are engaged in the same struggle," she said,
    "whether we are fighting one head or another."

    The Program continued Sunday, training participants to lobby their
    elected representatives, with Monday spent on Capitol Hill.

    For more information about Ecumenical Advocacy Days, visit their Web
    site, <www.advocacydays.org>, or call conference coordinator Michael
    Neuroth at (202) 230-2276. For more information about Churches for
    Middle East Peace, visit <www.cmep.org>.

    http://www.wrmea.com/archiv es/May-June_2006/0605060.html
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