Exploring Peacebuilding in the Holy Land | Community Call Notes 7.6.2022

Our July Community Call focused on peacebuilding in the Holy Land with Elias D'eis, Executive Director of Holy Land Trust. Euphrates' Founder, Janessa Wilder hosted an inspired conversation that explored Elias' journey as a Palestinian Christian living in the West Bank, a true testament to practicing peace and building community in the midst of extreme division, adversity, and conflict. With the heart of a peacemaker, Elias has an assuring presence and an inspired vision.

For those of you unable to attend, we're happy to share the call recording. The following are excerpts from our conversation with Janessa and Elias.

Janessa - This issue is one of the world’s longest standing conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians with a ripple effect that impacts the whole world. It’s always helpful to keep it in thought and  stay engaged. Elias has been the tour leader for all of our trips to the Middle East.  Talk about a peace leader! Elias, you come onto a call or into a room and everyone takes a deep breath, a big sigh, and everyone feels like a weight has been lifted. Your presence is so incredibly peaceful which I don’t understand given where you live and what you’ve endured in your life. Your very presence, Elias, is a testament to the power of peace and overcoming adversity and we have so much to learn from you.

Elias is an Arab Christian Palestinian from Bethlehem which is in the West Bank, Palestine. Now Palestine is not an actual state or country. Some people think it is, but it is within Israel, and some people may not even know that Bethlehem is part of Palestine.

You were born into a Christian family with a long history of nonviolent resistance in the town of Bates, over which is right next to Bethlehem. Elias’ life was shaped during the first Intifada, watching his father and his community find the path towards justice. He joined Holy Land Trust in 2007 as a travel coordinator and put together our first trip in 2011. You'd already been there several years.

It's amazing how well you know the area and how well you put trips together that are truly transformative learning experiences. And now you've taken over as the executive Director at Holy Land Trust, an organization dedicated to fostering peace, justice, healing, and transformation. Also serving on the Beit Sahour City Council, he's in politics as a community servant and leader.

The theme for this year’s calls is community peacebuilding and there's so much to say about how you do that not only with a fractured Palestinian community, but all the fractured communities in the holy land that make up that area. So I want to get to that but to lead into that let's talk about your personal story. I'd love to know your background, and how you came to the work of peacebuilding. You mentioned your father and watching him in the first Intifada, so could you [share more about that]? And that will also help ground people who maybe don't know much about the history of Palestine and Israel in that geographic area, too.

Elias - I’m here sitting in my office just overseeing the Church of Nativity, where Jesus was born in the old city of Bethlehem. I was born in the town called Beit Sahour where the shepherds, according to the Bible, were living when they received the good news from the angels when Jesus was born. So we were the first witnesses of Jesus’ birth in this land and in the world. I can say we are the people, the first missionaries that converted people from Judaism to Christianity. So we converted you guys. So when you ask me when did I convert? I converted 2,000 years ago. 

We are the indigenous of this land. We belong to this land. I can name my grandfathers for eight to nine generations according to my family tree. I was born and raised here in this geographical area in Beit Sahour, which is located in the West Bank. The time when I was born it was under what is called the Israeli military occupation. Everything was under the Israeli military control. There was no Palestinian authority, no Palestinian police.

It's all under the Israeli's full control, education, system, service, provider. Anything that we have to get in our daily life is related to the Israeli military system - even our telephone lines. I remember when I was a child we never had any telephones in our neighborhood, for security reasons. I used to go to a school where the education system was enforced by the Israeli Ministry of Education.

I grew up [in 1981] witnessing all these Israeli soldiers in the street going to the school every morning with their weapons and guns, and speaking in Hebrew wearing their Jewish kippah. This actually created some internal conflict as a Palestinian Christian child, committed to the church, going to the church of every Sunday, and opening the Bible, and reading, praying for Israel, reading testimony like some verses from the Old Testament, that say, God bless Israel, God bless those who bless Israel. This actually creates a lot of confusion and questions as a Palestinian Christian - why do we pray to Israel, why do we pray to our enemies; we are praying for those who are killing us, for those who are arresting my father for being active in a nonviolent civil disobedience.

I was around 8 years old when the Palestinian Christians, mainly in my town, decided to go into civil disobedience as a as kind of a nonviolence resistance using the American slogan - “no taxation without representation.” Palestinians who've been living in the West Bank, where we were fully under the Israeli military control, without any representation in the government, without getting any equal services or equal rights to the Jewish citizens in Israel. So the Palestians decided to go into civil disobedience to disobey the Israeli military orders, and not to pay tax for the Israeli government until we get equal rights. My father in that time was one of these leaders in the community who refused to pay tax and even burn their IDs which classified them as a second class citizen with orange cards.

The Israeli military in that time reacted in a very aggressive and very violent way. There was collective punishment; they confiscated most of the belongings for those who refuse to pay tax. My father [was] arrested several times, and I witnessed all this as a child…many of my fellows and people being killed during these invasions. 

…why do we pray to Israel, why do we pray to our enemies? We are praying for those who are killing us, for those who are arresting my father for being active in a nonviolent civil disobedience.

I grew up having this background and questions in my mind - why we are praying for the enemies, and why we are praying for the Jewish people, and for Israel and that's a question I never understood. I got to know what community means. During this collective punishment being implemented in my town, there was a forty day curfew where no one was allowed to leave the house. The leaders in the town started to create communities in the neighborhood like agricultural communities were responsible to cultivate the lands and produce vegetables and give it to the people. Education committee was establishing a neighborhood school where teachers were teaching us in our homes because we were not allowed to go to school at that time. Everybody is taking action and taking responsibility and taking care of others. And this is where I started. I mean to get to know. What is community I belong to, and what is my action? What is my responsibility as a child, and as a teenager, to take care and to be part of my community, and to feel the pain of others, and not to just be by myself.

[00:22:15]  After seven years of civil disobedience and clashes, we got a peace treaty. The first peace agreement that was signed between the Palestinian leaders and the Israeli government. [We had] this hope that peace will come finally, and we will live in peace, no more violence, but we found out that the base agreement brought more separation. We're much worse than before. They replaced the orange color ID to a green color ID. The green color ID means that you are not allowed to leave the West Bank; you are not allowed to go to Jerusalem anymore. You are not allowed to go to Israel without a military permit that you need to cross a checkpoint to go to Jerusalem.

They categorized the West Bank into area A, B and C. Area A is fully under the Palestinian control; this represents around the 12 to 15% of the West bank. Most of the West Bank is area C which is fully under Israeli military control which is around 65% of the land. So more restrictions of movement, more discrimination, more separation between Israel and Palestine implemented on the ground after the peace agreement which actually motivates more fear and more hatred. I’ve been traumatized by the Israeli military occupation, and I've been traumatized not only from the Israeli military, but from the Jewish community, and this is how I used to label every Jew as an enemy. I used to fear every Jewish symbol because all these symbols remind me of the occupation. Now I distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Israel as an is a political apartheid system, and as a as you know, a political entity. Judaism is not occupation. Judaism is not discrimination. Through my transformation journey with Holy Land Trust I got to see it's all about distinguishing, building your eyes and seeing the reality from a different perspective. Not all Americans are my enemy. We have an issue with the American system, with the American policy, with the American government, but this does not mean that I have an issue with the American citizen.

I admire the work that Euphrates does because they highlight this with the West and East relationship, the Arabs and the American relationship. After 9/11 we label each other as an enemy, and labeling others as an enemy will trigger fear, lack of trust and motivated violence. There was a rejection -  I reject you as a human or as a friend. It's all about seeing reality from different points, perspectives and understanding things from a different way.

My dream was to study political science because I want to be active in politics and to engage more in peacemaking, but unfortunately I did not study political science for many reasons. I ended up studying travel agent management in Bethlehem University in 1998 just 2 years before the second uprising, the second Intifada. I graduated in 2001 and everything collapsed at that time. There was no tourism at all; so I decided to dedicate my life for the community and for peacemaking by joining several youth groups. I was part of the youth group; they were doing a lot of nonviolence and education and awareness. We believe the media does not show everything. The international community knows part of the story and my responsibility is to show the reality here.

[00:28:27]  I found out about Holy Land Trust in 2007. I joined them in the travel program as a travel consultant and travel coordinator. This was my first time I got to meet American Jewish people. I remember planning to receive a group of American Jews coming to Bethlehem to meet Palestinians, and for me this was a shock. This actually was the beginning of my transformation journey, distinguishing between the American Jewish group and Israeli military and Israeli Jewish people.. It was actually a wake up call for me just to see things from a different way. The second part of my transformation journey was when I took a trip to Auschwitz, to the concentration camps in in Poland just to understand the roots of the violence and the roots of this trauma that we inherited as a Palestinian and Israeli. I always ask the question, “What has happened in history that shifted the relationship between the Jewish people and the Arabs?” Before 1948 Arabs and Jews used to live side by side in many countries in the Middle East - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan. There were a lot of Jewish families in Palestine living here side by side with Christians and Muslims. And then something happened in the history that shifted this relationship from a loving relationship to hate. 

We as an organization tried to focus on understanding the roots of this violence and hate. I personally believe that what happened in the Holocaust in 1940 before 1948 has traumatized the Jewish people that created this fear and lack of trust, and other people that they feel they are the victim, and no one is accepting them. And this feeling of being a victim will motivate the fear and motivate the violence and you feel that you want to protect yourself? You want to use all kinds of power to protect yourself. And this is how the state of Israel now is built upon fear. They want protection, they want safety, and they see the Palestinian as a threat to their national identity and to their existence.

And as a Palestinian, we see that the Jewish people are our main enemy, because we are traumatized from what happened in 1948 when the Israeli Jewish group destroyed and expelled more than 520 villages, Palestinian villages, and killing Palestinian. More than 700,000 Palestinian refugees left their homes. We label the Jewish people as the main threat for our existence. This collective trauma that we are talking about motivates the fear and lack of trust that is leading us to the violence that we are living in today. Without healing our trauma and transforming our life to see the reality in the different level, different way, we cannot live together.

[00:33:08] Janessa  - I just wanna clarify for folks because you brought up Oslo, and we think “well, there were peace accords.” What people don't realize is that at the time of Olso that was supposed to be a first step towards the eventual complete Palestinian state that's independent and free.

Without healing our trauma and transforming our life to see the reality in the different level, different way, we cannot live together.

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated and basically Olso fell apart and yet the initial structure that it put in place is still in place with these areas A, B, and C and the Palestinians limited authority, and the ID Cards and all this structure has basically been frozen in time since the nineties. Every time I go back it seems like it's getting worse - the feeling of people, and the hope for any kind of peaceful resolution, the sense that there is a way forward that there's progress happening. It's the opposite, it’s getting worse and more stagnant and more broken because we're still living in this structure from 30 years ago. Somehow, especially on the Israeli side, it's as if this is sustainable, that this is working, but it's not working for Palestinians. And so I just want to clarify for folks that it's still this strange middle ground where there was a peace accord, it was not enacted, there hasn't been anything new, no breakthroughs. And we're still living under this archaic system that's just getting worse and worse.

The other thing you said about you wanting to do political science. You're a political leader in your community, and just the act of the travel and encounter programs that you do is a political act bringing people on the ground to see an experience for themselves.

I think the unique lens of Holy Land Trust is this idea of healing and deep, deep transformation. It's not just bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to see their humanity, although even that is a radical thing, because you're hit on both sides from Palestinians accusing you of normalizing relations before there's any kind of equality or peace agreement and the Israelis who don't want these peaceful meetings between their citizens and the other side. That is such a courageous and difficult thing. But you all are taking it to a whole other level, and really looking at what is healing, what is at the root of this conflict and what does healing look like. I'd love to go into more of that and a question I'd wanted to ask, and I don't know if there's time, but leading into that is who are your mentors and inspirations that you have looked to over your life, or spiritually that guides you in this work and in your day to day? So if you could answer that somehow, also talking about the Holy Land Trust work in healing and trauma.

[00:37:51] Elias - As I mentioned, Holy Land Trust is actually trying to address this question of what is missing to really build a real peace. The peace that you’re talking about is actually creating more pieces on the land, dividing the land, dividing the communities, no interaction. Palestinians are not allowed to meet Israelis anymore. Israeli’s are not allowed to come to Palestinian areas anymore. These kinds of restrictions are creating more pieces, not peace. Our main mission here is just to heal and transform individual and collective communities -  to heal themselves from the past. We are not talking about ignoring the past, or rejecting the past. How can we honor our past and learn from our past to transform ourselves to the future by looking at the present and creating the possibility from the impossible? How can you make it impossible possible from the possibilities that you have today?

So we are here today. We respect what has  been done in the past. We learn from our mistakes. But how can we move on? How can we heal and move on to the future by honoring the dignity of all the communities who are living on this land. We believe that every individual and community has the full right to live in this land. Everyone who is calling this land Holy Land has the right to live here - Jewish people, Christians and Muslim, Bedouins, etc. All these communities are living here. If you ask them the one question, What do you call this land? They will get the same answer. This is the Holy Land. We believe this land was given by God to Abraham and his children, and we are the children of God. We are the trustees of this land. How can we protect it? How can we honor it? How can we flourish it to become a model for all the international community of living in peace and justice?

What we do is bring an Israeli and Palestinian to come into a healing retreat by honoring the past. But how can we accept and respect others from different backgrounds? We have to accept and respect everybody's needs and everybody's connection here. We cannot deny the rights of the Jewish people in this land. We cannot deny the rights of the Muslim and the Christian in this land. And how can they get their freedom - freedom of worship without fear, freedom of movement without fear?

This retreat that we focus on is bringing them together to understand the connection, our connection, our identity to this land and our relationship together, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish relation. What is different between us? - and the answer, no there's no difference. We bring religious leaders into the retreat to talk about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the similarities between our beliefs. We believe that we worship the same God. So there's no difference and we belong to the same land.

[00:41:36]  We use a lot of mindfulness and meditation to connect with yourself and to find your inner conflict and your own fear. How can you bring it up to the surface and face it? How can you face your own fear and overcome your fear and heal it and move on? Most of the Israeli Palestinian meetings that many NGOs are doing, just bring Israeli and Palestinian teenagers. They go together to five star hotels in Greece. They sit next to the beach. They play basketball together. They dance together, they become friends on social media. They come back to Palestine and Israel with zero connection. There are no meetings; there is no action.

These are really nice programs, but we do  not do that here at Holy Land Trust. What we do is create a core group of Israeli Palestinian activists who are dedicating their life to change. We are working when they are taking actions and resisting the occupation, shaking the system in Israel. Really we are recruiting. They join the Palestinian resistance in the occupation in the West Bank, like. Currently we are working with a core group of Israeli Palestinian environmental activists working in South Hebron Hills to provide Bedouin communities who don't have electricity or water access just because they are Palestinian and live in the West Bank, while the settlement next to them has 24 hour water, 24 hour electricity. They have taken action to install a solar system for this Bedouin community to have at least electricity, and they are providing them with a grey water system where they can recycle and use it for agriculture. This kind of program is building a community, a movement that can stand in front of injustice and decides to make a change and to shake the system that we are living in.

The challenge that we have is the Israeli government doesn’t like what we’re doing. We are showing the reality on the ground. At the same time the Palestinian and the are criticizing us for the word normalization. Normalization is a term that was created after the peace agreement in 1993. No Palestinian has the right to meet or talk and create a normal relationship with the enemy which Israel. So Palestinians are not allowed to have any relationship with the Israeli citizens without getting approval from the government. They are trying to cut the grassroots relationship; they are trying to keep it only on a political governmental level. There is only one channel to talk - the government. They see our kind of work as normalization; the Palestinian are criticizing us and kind of attacking us. 

It's very challenging. This is why we try to keep our work on a low profile. If you visit our website, you will never see these programs on our website…neither in our social media. If you come here you will see this kind of action that is taking place in the West Bank. We are trying to create this movement of Israeli and Palestinian, who are being transformed to see the future and to carry the vision of Holy Land Trust that we are all equal. Despite all these political separations and challenges that we are living in. We can live together and we can honor this land. We are living in this land that is holding us and holding all this negative energy. How can we create a balance between the negative energy we are living in and the positive energy? And this is where I get hope. Having an Israeli partner in the work we are doing is giving me hope. 

When I see an Israeli young people my age from Tel Aviv driving all the way to the West Bank to join the resistance in the West Bank it gives me hope that we are not alone. We have what I call the light force, it is increasing in this land among this darkness that we are living in. 

[00:47:43] Janessa - As you're describing both the internal pressures to community building that you face within Palestinian society, and then external with Israelis I was thinking about Gandhi with the importance that he placed on fortifying his community. The term is satyagraha

and it was sort of loosely translated as inner strength, or that non-violence is complete and total. It's not just an act that you do but it's a way of being. It's a way of strengthening yourself in your community. At one point he told his community we're not ready to take action until we have done the inner work, and they had to. It was rigorous, you know the inner transformation that he was really insisting that the community have and the moral fabric and strength that they had to have before they would be strong enough to take this kind of action. So my final question before we go into everyone else's questions is - From the outside it seems impossible to develop that kind of inner strength and patience and humility and commitment to nonviolence in a very violent environment and all the obstacles that you face to Palestinian community building. Do you have principles of community building as Holy Land Trust that you are putting into the work and how are you grounding yourself in the community peace? What are the tenets that you hold to to enable you to do that work?

[00:50:04] Elias - It's all about community - building communities and working with the community in a way to have a movement. Most of our projects are actually in the community and on the ground with Palestinians and Israelis. 

Each individual in this life has a call and has a mission that we have to fulfill. Do we want to remain silent and not take any action or do you want to take action for change, for positive change?

Janessa -  You're bringing together people who have like mindedness, and who want to be advocates for peace. How are you strengthening them to be able to do this work, and to withstand this work? And how are you creating unity within these very disparate communities - Israelis and Palestinians, and even within Palestinians?

Elias - After we recruit them and we bring them into our programs we try to go into the personal level. What are our personal traumas and what does it mean to be a Palestinian? What is your connection in this land? What is your mission? What is the meaning of life? What is your call? Each individual in this life has a call and has a mission that we have to fulfill. Do we want to remain silent and not take any action or do you want to take action for change, for positive change? Using our techniques of mindfulness, meditation, group circles, we come together to share using nonviolent communication as one of the tools, to listen without judgment to listen with an open heart. 

What does it mean to love your enemy? Does it mean to go to the checkpoint, and hug the soldiers and give them flowers? Or does it mean that you have to be part of the transformation of your enemy? You need to put yourself in the others, in your enemy's shoes to understand the pain to understand the traumas that your enemy is passing through. In a way, to heal them, and to be part of that.

So when I have an Israeli hearing my pain and seeing my suffering, this is healing for me. This is why we try to bring people together just to understand the meaning of lives - the human values like relationships and what does loving your enemy mean? We also see Jesus as a model. I'm a Christian, but we have Muslim fellows, and Jewish people. We always use Jesus as a real life model who was oppressed and living in an unjust situation during the Roman occupation. He was the first revolutionary in this land. So we always use Jesus as a model. 

Q & A

[00:54:43] Melissa -  Elias it's really a privilege to be listening to you. I'm American but I live in South Africa and have for 26 years. I covered the first in Intifata and my heart is very much with the Palestinian struggle. My question is what do you think is ultimately going to shift the politics in the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians? People are losing hope and on many levels. I know when I went there in 1988 there was such a small contingent of Israelis who really supported the Palestinian cause. I don't know if that's expanded substantially. It sounds like you have to meet in secret almost to collaborate. I'm just curious to know who are your Israeli counterparts these days? Is there a solid base of Israelis, or a growing base of Israelis that you think you can eventually liberate and reestablish Palestine on some level? And then I asked another question: have you ever reached out to the settlers?

[00:56:38] Elias - In a way actually to to shift the politics and the relationship between Israeli Palestinian it's all about awarenesses because both side Palestinian and Israelis are living in the bubbles. Palestinians in the West Bank under the Israeli military control are suffering every day. They are actually holding a lot of anger against the Israeli and the Jewish people. And at the same time the Israeli were living in their bubbles in Tel Aviv and Haifa. They think they live in the only democratic state in the Middle East; they don't have any idea what their government is doing on the other side of the world in the West Bank.

Without creating a shift, an awareness and to reach these people, to show reality for both sides and to share our vision, nothing will change because our governments will keep controlling us. And actually, both governments are using fear as the main tools for control. The work we do actually is slowly changing the community. At least we are reaching to the Israeli people, and we are changing the Palestinian mindset of meeting the others, distinguish between Jewish people and Israeli political and military system. 

It's growing slowly. We have Israeli partners like Rossing Center in Jerusalem; we have Arava Institute. We work a lot with Rabbis for Human Rights, ICAHD, Israeli Committee Against Home Demolition. All these organizations in Israel are aware of the problem and aware of what their system, what their government is doing, and they are trying to educate.

I have a lot of Israeli friends who are talking about the Israeli and Palenstinian cause more than me. I feel they are more Palestinian than me. They are trained to educate their communities in Israel, and they say we are a Palestinian Jew, we are not an Israeli Jew. They are trying to shake the system.

As for the settlers it's something that is taboo for Palestinian to meet settlers, because the Palestinian settlers are the most radical group we have no chance to meet them. They are the enemies; they are the one who have taken our land. They are the main obstacle for peace. But through our connections, through our Israeli partners, they are trying to reach these settlers by speaking in public to the settlers in the West Bank to at least to raise a question that they are living in a place which is occupied. They are living in a place where they are taking the right of others to be here. So we actually have a lot of Israeli activists that are trying to do their part. We are not allowed as a Palestinian to do that work, but we have Israeli activists that are doing this job. We do reach settlers indirectly.

[01:01:23] Victor - I see  reasons why the war is still raging. One is that Christians are still supporting Israel. And the other is that Muslims are supporting Palestine. But what if we see the Israelis and Palestinians as brothers. We need to give support to all the brothers. What areas do you see as the greatest area of improvement for us on the outside?

[01:-5:11] Elias - The condition between Israel and Palestine being shifted. Before 1988 my father used to have a Jewish business partner in Jerusalem. Palestinian and Israeli Jewish used to live together. There was the apartheid system with [Palestinians] being classified as second class citizens. Before the the Oslo agreement, Palestinian used to travel freely in the land and meet Israelis on the other side without restrictions. And then this relation began shifting in a different level from 1988 until 2000 until today. Even the Arabs who are living in Israel they are called a Palestinian Israeli. Some of these Arabs are trying to use their Israeli identity and Israeli citizenship as a privilege. So during the past years there is a lot of shift between the relationship of Palestinians and Israeli, Palestinians and Arab in Israel. And the Palestinians now don't care about peace solution, what they care about is having a decent life, having a business running, having a decent income to feed their families and children, and good lives.

[01:07:12] Janessa - I want to add one thing that struck me from what Victor said. The tendency is for Christians to support Israel and Muslims to support Palestinians, but here you are a Palestinian Christian. So what about supporting the Christians who are there in the West Bank, who are Palestinian? It just shows how reductive it is to try to make it black and white. It's good guys are this bad guys are this instead of acknowledging more and more the diversity - that all voices belong in the Holy Land. I love how Holy Land [Trust] is so inclusive. Everyone who finds this land holy belongs and can be here, and is special instead of trying to narrow.

 [01:08:39] Sally - I so appreciate the depth of your work. The question is, in what ways are you finding help? People connect in deeper ways to the land itself. Where does the love and care for the land come from in people? Is it just in the history of the different religious groups or are you finding something more to help bond people?

[01:09:15] Elias - I think the land is part of our identities. And this is actually where many of their communities here identify themselves from certain geographical areas. And our connection with the land here is really very strong that even in our culture land is part of our identity. You cannot give up your land. The land I am living in now my father inherited from his father, and my grandfather inherited the land from my great grandfather, so we feel like the land is part of the family, part of the identity. Losing your land is actually a disaster in our community here. So I think it's actually by our culture, by our religion that there is a very strong connection. The land is our mother. And we feel very much connected to her.

 [01:10:58] Teke - I'm thinking of the inner character of human beings and what part does it play in the work that you do? Do you have to seek courage? Do you find it? Are you just born with it? Do you have it? And if courage is important, and I feel it is, how do you not, then make the other feel less courageous? How do you have a meeting of your courage? 

[01:11:37] Elias - I think you create your own courage through your personal journey that you go through. The courage comes with your personality. I'm a very shy, very soft person, but I gain courage from the work I’m doing. The deeper I go into my work and the more courage I get the more I believe. When you believe in something, when you see things changing you get more courage. I always say it's an addiction. The work we are doing here is really an addiction. Once you get in, you cannot get out of the peacebuilding industry. Holy Land Trust became my call, my vision at a personal level. This is where I got courage - coming to the office every day, having new programs, meeting new people. And going to the field, seeing the change in the families. We are building homes destroyed by Israeli military for Palestinian families. When I see the tears of the mothers and the children, it gives me courage that I have a responsibility to do. I have an action to do. This is where we invite the Israelis to come to be part of this process, and they actually get courage from the stories and the action. This is where I get courage from.

[01:14:12] Raa - I listen to you and thank you for your good work. I just wanted to get into political questions. I'm Muslim and I'm obviously saturated in a pro-Palestinian discourse which has become increasingly uncomfortable in the context of peace because of its unpeace. Two things have become very controversial for me. One is the two-states solution and the emerging discourse of it being no longer an option and it seems like it's a shifting the goal post for me. I mean I just reject that for no practical political reason, simply that to me it is the only option, the only viable option. So how is that going forward at all as an option in this day and age? The other thing is have things really moved forward? There’s no going back. And another key issue for me is the Temple Mount, you know stemming from the uncomfortable and also controversial resolution by Unesco that the Jews have no claim to that compound at all. This emerging discourse which is already building, how can it be reconciled, how is it being dealt with, being grappled with? Because those are the things moving forward now… there's no turning back. How are those things being grappled with? Or is it just an elephant in the room?

[01:16:52] Elias - The Oslo Agreement, the two-state solution is not viable anymore. The idea of a two-state solution is dead because on the ground there's no viable Palestinian state in the West Bank with half a million settlers living and many settlement restrictions of movement. Every aspect of our life is controlled by the Israeli military still. So the idea of two-state solution is dead; so now we're trying to think about another alternative political solution which is not our role as an organization. We don't have any political solution. It doesn't matter for us, if it's 5 or 6 or 7 state solution in the land, what matters is actually the equal rights and justice for all, freedom of worship. Now with this Israel is becoming a Jewish democratic and apartheid state. Israel is declaring that it's a Jewish state which means that the Christians and the Muslims they have less right or even no right  to live here. They have no control or right in Jerusalem. They are trying to build a third temple which is actually giving no rights for Muslim to have freedom to pray in the Temple Mount as well, and for Christians we have no right to go to Jerusalem and to pray as before. So becoming a Jewish state means that they are apartheid Sstate, and the same time they are saying that we are the only democratic state in the Middle East, having an apartheid system. It's actually contradicting - Israel acting in a way that they want to have a pure Jewish state using the power to implement their forces on the ground. And so the only solution, I say, is one bi-national state where Palestinian and Israeli can come together where they can share this power, share this authority and control to the land by having clear responsibilities and task for both parties. It doesn't matter if we call it Israel or Palestine? But what matters is, how can we share it, and give rights for all these indigenous communities to live in equal rights. Israel is not only for the Jewish people; they need to understand that Muslim have the full right to go and pray every Friday. Christians have the full right to go and pray every Sunday to the church, and to go to Galilee where Jesus spent His ministry. We are forbidden to get this right as a Christian living in the West Bank. So this is not democracy. This is not equal rights. The way Israel is thinking is built on a conservative, very radical thinking of having a pure Jewish state which cannot be democratic and cannot be equal for everyone.

[01:20:34] Janessa - Thank you for the question Raa and also Elias for the vision of everyone having equal rights, and everyone believing that this land is holy, and it's just such a good principle to keep going back to even in the midst of all of this.

Closing Remarks  [01:21:09]

Janessa - Do you have a blessing from the holy land that you would like to offer this community or any kind of parting words? We are all peacebuilders in this community. We are really brothers and sisters with you in peace, and just so supportive and so grateful for this amazing conversation, and would love to let you have the last word.

Elias - I believe there are many questions that I didn't get to. So please, email me and I'll be happy to answer any questions. I want to share that the conflict that we are living here today in Israel and Palestine, it's political, it's something related to this land, but I think it's everybody's conflict. The conflict that we are living in is a reflection of all human conflicts that we are living in in this world. It's all about greed. It's all about power. It's all about the monopoly. This is actually a reflection of human action and human behaviors. We really need to stop for a moment and think, how can we change it? What is my conflict, the conflict within the families, the conflict within communities we're living in? So I think we should actually look at these conflicts around the world, in Africa, in Israel, Palestine, in Europe, in Ukraine and Russia. It's not a problem with the people - Russians and Ukrainians live together, Israeli and Palestinians live together. We are born equal and if you brought two children together, an Israeli and Palestinian child together, they will start playing together without any problem. But then we labeled them. We put these fears and labels in our life. It's all about human greed and power of control. We should just go back and think what is our purpose in this life? What is our value, our value as a human value toward each other, our responsibility? And I wish that we can learn from these conflicts to transform our personal life - the way we deal with our friends, with our family, with our community in the US, South Africa. It’s actually a lesson, watching these conflicts in the world. For example, when I see the people who are dying in hunger, in Somalia or in Africa. I thank God like we live in this conflict here, like our conflict is not comparative to other conflicts. We have a lot of privilege in this land here.  What can you do and in your own community to change to do a positive change. I really appreciate that you actually are interested. You are interested in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but also I also invite you to take a moment to think about your own conflict, your own responsibility as a human in your community. What's your action? What is your responsibility? What is your call for positive change? This is my last word I can share with you.