“In so little room as the state of Israel and the Palestinian territories, there is entirely too much hatred,” said Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. “Notice that I call all three of these territories the Holy Land. We must keep in mind that all three of these territorial divisions are holy for Jews, holy for Christians, and holy for Muslims, but holy for each faith community in a different way.”

The history of religious ties to the area and how they impact the present-day conflicts were the central themes of the fall McGinley lecture titled, “Faith and Conflict in the Holy Land: Peacemaking Among Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

The lecture and panel discussion, which took place on Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 at the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses, respectively, featured a keynote speech from Father Ryan followed by two respondents—Ebru Turan, Ph.D., history professor at Fordham, and Abraham Unger, Ph.D., GSAS ’92, ’07, campus rabbi and associate professor of government and politics at Wagner College.

‘Perpetual Migrants’

Father Ryan highlighted in his lecture that “nobody comes from nowhere” and that “all of us are both native and immigrant.”

Unger, who delivered the Jewish response, emphasized the fact that Jewish people, in particular, have been considered “perpetual migrants” and that this view of their history needs to be taken into account when thinking about present-day Israel and Palestine.

“I suggest the conflict reaches into the existential nature of the Jewish people itself, both for Jews and for the rest of the world when thinking about Jews,” Unger said.

The Jewish identity, according to Unger, has always included a sense of being a “marginalized outsider” or watching for the next wave of oppression. That’s why the desire for a homeland is so essential, he said.

If the conflict is looked at under that lens, Unger said, it can be seen as bigger than simply “how much area Jews and Arabs ought to respectively get out of the Holy Land.”

Sacred Sites of Significance

For Christians, the Holy Land is not “a major theme in Christian scriptural sources,” Father Ryan said, although Christians as early as the second century took an interest in the area, and that interest grew following the reign of Constantine.

“To Constantine we owe the location of the place in Jerusalem where Jesus died, was buried, and rose again—now the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,” Ryan said, noting that the Roman emperor commissioned the church. “Helena [Constantine’s mother] is said to have built the original Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem and an oratory on the Mount of Olives, marking the locale where the disciples witnessed the ascension of Jesus.”

In the Islamic tradition, the “sanctity of the Holy Land in Islam is concentrated in one particular spot in Jerusalem called the Noble Sanctuary,” said Turan, who delivered the Islamic response.

“The Noble Sanctuary houses two of the most sanctified and majestic monuments of Islam—the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque,” she said, identified by Islamic authorities as the site of the Prophet Mohammad’s night journey and heavenly ascension.

Present-Day Challenges

Understanding these diverse religious ties to the Holy Land can help people better understand the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, according to the speakers. Still, they said there were no easy solutions.

“How can we have a safe Israel within its borders? On the other hand, how can we have a sovereign Palestine state with its own government and arms—these two are not compatible.” Turan said, stating that she still wished for peace. “That’s why it is not that easy, because the space is very, very tight.”

Unger highlighted another challenge: The area has seen its Christian population, which had oftentimes eased tensions between the Jewish and Muslim populations, decrease rapidly.

“There’s a tremendous Palestinian-Christian diaspora emerging,” he said. “This is a great loss for the majority Jewish population because the Christian-Arab population sometimes has been and also can be a bridge between the Muslim majority within the Arab sector…as well as a bridge to the West itself and to the Jewish majority.”

A Dream of Peace

Father Ryan, however, encouraged the next generation to look to history and then try to find a way forward.

“I have shared with you this evening my dream—an old man’s dream—in the hope that some young people here will see visions, visions of peacemaking in the Holy Land, peacemaking in every land,” Father Ryan said.

The rabbi is Hanan Schlesinger, a Zionist settler who once viewed Palestinians as less than human; the young activist is Shadi Abu Awwad, a Palestinian who grew up hating Israelis. For decades, their countries have claimed ownership to the same land, leading to hostility, hatred, and hundreds of deaths on both sides. But after these two men forced themselves to get to know their neighbors, they reached a simple, yet striking realization—their “enemies” are humans who live, love, and bleed, just like them, they said.

“How could it be that I have lived my life in an area where there are probably nine Palestinians for each Israeli, and for 33 years, I never really met even one Palestinian?” Rabbi Schlesinger admitted to Fordham students, faculty, and guests at the Rose Hill campus last week. “I want to tell the story of how I think that happened … and how that can change.”

The two men shared their stories in a lecture called “A Painful Hope: Seeing the Humanity of Your Enemy,” hosted by Fordham’s peace and justice minor program and Chief Diversity Officer Rafael Zapata, at Keating Hall on Nov. 1. They also spoke about Roots, their organization that has facilitated conversations between Israelis and Palestinians since 2014. Rabbi Schlesinger is Roots’ international director; Abu Awwad is a youth group leader.

Roots is the only organization of its kind in their region, said Samuel Muli Peleg, Ph.D., a longtime peace activist and faculty member in Fordham’s peace and justice studies program.

“Because they are from the West Bank, the most contested area where the friction between Israelis and Palestinians is the biggest,” explained Peleg, “they are the most genuine [peacebuilders].”

“I see it again and again—Palestinians and Israelis coming to our center with hesitancy, with fear, like there’s a red line in the sand,” Rabbi Schlesinger said, his voice rising in a crescendo. “But when the meeting takes place, I often see a sense of liberation on people’s faces, as the fear dissipates, and the disease begins to be healed, and people become, in my mind, whole … and a little bit more human.”

Rabbi Schlesinger’s Story

Rabbi Schlesinger lives in a Zionist settlement in the West Bank, a territory to the east of Israel. In 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank, along with its 2.6 million Palestinian residents. To the Palestinians, the West Bank is stolen Palestinian land. But to Rabbi Schlesinger and his kin, the West Bank is “Judea and Samaria”—the homeland of the ancient Jewish state, he said. It’s the home of many sacred sites, burial areas, and, ultimately, Jewish heritage. If you scrape away the dirt outside his home, he added, you might unearth ancient potshards from his ancestors thousands of years ago.

“When I drive on the roads of Judea, when I walk in the fields, I see the return of the Jewish people to our ancient homeland after 2,000 years of exile. It was only in 1948—three years after the Holocaust ended—that we finally created one little dot [Israel] on the map,” Rabbi Schlesinger added. “What could be more just than that?”

For 33 years, he had viewed Palestinians as background noise, “the gray, drab scenery that passes in the background of a movie, but is not part of the plot,” he said. Four years ago, that narrative changed.

He met Jamaal, a Palestinian man from the town of Beit Ummar. Jamaal told him how Israeli soldiers had made his childhood miserable; how, after shaking hands with an Israeli man, he had run to the bathroom to wash away “the filth of touching an Israeli”; and how he had considered Palestinians who attended interfaith meetings to be traitors. But after hours of meaningful conversations with other Israelis—after “seeing that there’s a human being and a partner on the other side,” Rabbi Schlesinger recalled him saying—Jamaal’s perspective changed.

Rabbi Schlesinger met more Palestinians, and listened to many more stories: a man whose mother was beaten before his eyes by an Israeli, a Palestinian whose brother was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, a group of Israeli and Palestinian mothers who mourned their murdered sons together. He came to a conclusion.

“In living out my life on the basis of only one truth—my truth, and ignoring theirs—I was trampling their rights,” Rabbi Schlesinger told the audience. “Both sides in this conflict are living out identities at expense to the other side, causing injustice, pain, suffering, and death.”

“Neither side is gonna get up and leave. We have to get beyond what I call the ‘hubris of exclusivity,’ as if it’s only us. It’s both of us—together.”

Abu Awwad’s Story

Abu Awwad’s childhood taught him two things: Fear is not an option. And, once you leave home in the morning, there’s no guarantee that you’ll return home alive.

“That was more than enough for me as a child to start to hate Israelis,” said 27-year-old Abu Awwad, who grew up amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2004, an Israeli soldier shot his brother in the leg. Hours later, an Israeli doctor saved the brother’s life. But when Abu Awwad visited his brother in the hospital, he ignored the doctor. His brother stared at him. “You can’t say hi to the one who saved my life?” he asked.

When Abu Awwad returned home, he was angry and disoriented. He despised Israelis, he said, but how could he extend that hatred to the woman who had helped his family? As time passed, his animosity began to dissipate. He visited peace camps, befriended Israelis, and came to a realization: “They [Israelis and Palestinians] are killing each other because they are afraid of each other,” he said. “Now what’s controlling the conflict is fear.”

Abu Awwad recalled a day when he was driving across a junction. He had spotted an Israeli woman who wanted to cross the street, and slowed his car down. But when she saw his Palestinian license plate, she stopped in her tracks. She’s afraid that I will hit her, he thought. Then a nearby Israeli soldier cocked his gun. If I continue driving, Abu Awwad wondered, will he shoot me? If I don’t move, will he think I have a bomb in my car—and still shoot me?

“I’m afraid. He’s afraid. She’s afraid. The three of us could be killed for nothing—just because we are afraid of each other,” he said. “Is this the life that we want?”

Today, he is a youth leader and peace activist at Roots. Every month, he facilitates meetings between teenagers from both sides of the conflict, ages 15 to 18. At this age, he said, the young Palestinians gather in the streets and throw stones at Israeli vehicles and are shot and killed; meanwhile, the Israelis enlist in the army and stand against the Palestinians.

“How can we let them do that without even knowing anything about each other?” he asked. “Talk to him before he has a weapon in his hand. Tell him who you are. Tell him why you have to be in the army. Let him think about it from your eyes.”

He said the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will come from the people—not the government. Therefore, he added, nonviolence and organizations like Roots are key.

“I don’t think that I will see peace in my life,” Abu Awwad admitted. “But I’m sure that what we are doing, one day, will help the people who are gonna live in that land. We never know when. But it’s enough to believe in what we are doing right now.”

The event, “The Roadmap for A Shared Society, or How Jews and Arabs Can Live and Prosper Together ” will feature conversations on how Israeli Jews and Palestinians can successfully create an inclusive society.

It will be held on March 30 in the Flom Auditorium at the Rose Hill campus at 12 p.m., and is part of a series of lectures and workshops at Fordham focused on the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The event is free and open to the public.

“It is an event of vital importance,” said John Davenport, Ph.D., an associate professor of philosophy and director of the Peace and Justice Studies program. “It feels as if real dialogue and negotiation toward a two-state peace deal has almost stopped in recent years, despite many rounds of effort to get it restarted.”

“The Givat Haviva group represents a different side of the story and showcases Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, working together.”

Yaniv Sagee, executive director of Givat Haviva, and Mohammad Darawshe, director of the Center for Equality and Shared Society, will discuss Givat Haviva’s programming. The organization is working with Jews and Arabs to build an inclusive society in Israel based on mutual responsibility, civic equality, and a shared vision of the future.

“This is a golden opportunity to really witness a current-affairs issue in real time, with a protagonist who is leading major conflict resolution efforts in Israel,” said Samuel Peleg, Ph.D., a visiting professor of political science who will be moderating the discussion.

According to Peleg, an expert in conflict resolution, previous attempts to resolve the conflict in the Middle East have largely used a top-down approach, which involved politicians, officials, generals and other decision makers working to create a “forced” solution for the people. He said Givat Haviva, which was awarded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Prize for Peace Education, is instead tackling the issue from the bottom-up by working directly with people on the grounds of the conflict.

“Givat Haviva is bringing together Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians to get to know one another as people first, to get rid of categorical thinking,” he said. “This breaks down the barriers.”

Though the road to reconciliation has been difficult, Peleg said Givat Haviva’s efforts to reduce mistrust among Arabs and Jews through a common identity could help both groups look beyond their national, religious, and cultural differences.

“There is a message here that every conflict—even those that seem difficult to tackle— can be resolved,” he said.