Sabeel

Our next stop was Sabeel, an organization whose stated mission, according to its official website, is "to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities." We met with the founder, a Palestinian-Anglican priest, Naim Ateek, who spoke about his longing for justice in Palestine. The PC(USA) supports Sabeel and many of our members were looking forward to this meeting, which we had specially requested. I confess, however, that I was very disappointed with Rev. Ateek's presentation, which used the right words, but was so angry in tone and unwilling to hear any viewpoint other than his own. We've met so many people during this trip who are looking for a win/win situation, but Rev. Ateek did not strike me as one of them. He seemed only able to hear about "justice" in relation to his side of the story and unable to see or hear anyone else's point of view. He is the only person that I've met in my time here (including those not on the official docket) that is still imagining a "one-state solution" - an answer whose time, I believe, is past. I kept remembering one of our presenters during the past week remarking that the Israelis and the Palestinians are both peoples who are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. While I do not have credentials to make a diagnosis, this certainly seems to me to be the case with Rev. Ateek's perspective.