Toward An Abrahamic Peace: In the broader Middle East & in U.S. Grass-Roots Action
Dear fellow seekers of peace, justice, and healing for the earth, This essay looks at two levels of Abrahamic peacemaking: intergovernmental action in the broader Middle East, with a special focus on change in US policy; and building an alliance among Jews, Muslims, and Christians inside the US to change American policy.
An earlier version of this essay appeared in the on-line editions of Sojourners (progressive evangelical Christian) magazine) and The American Muslim and in Jewish Currents (print) as well as in The Shalom Report — an Abrahamic trifecta! So far as I know, it’s the first time any such article has appeared in journals of all three communities. It will also be appearing as a paper of the progressive secular “Foreign Policy in Focus.”
At the end of this essay is also a note about a tri-authored book – The Tent of Abraham – that will be useful in any Abrahamic peacemaking you want to organize. – Feel free to share this essay with others who also seek peace. Shalom, salaam, peace == Arthur
TOWARD AN ABRAHAMIC PEACE
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *
In what some world strategists call “the arc of instability” from Pakistan to Israel and Palestine – what others call the central pool of oil as a crucial fuel for current industrialism, and others call the heart of Islam — there are several sets of overlapping wars, military occupations, and semi-military sanctions in process between the US and its allies and various Muslim-majority countries. Within that cauldron, there seems to be both a more intense danger of metastasized war and terrorism, between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors and their allies, and a glimmer of more chance for peace for Israel and Palestine than at any time in the last dozen years.
This essay will examine in particular how US policy might be changed in the direction of achieving a just and stable peace in the region.
The Gaza War of December 2008, climaxing years of hostility , violence, and misery, changed the ethical and political balance of forces in regard to peacemaking among Israel, Palestine, and the Arab states. In the most immediate vicinity of time and space, that war made peace-making harder. It brought about massive death and destruction in Gaza, moved the Israeli government far to the right, and strengthened Hamas in Gaza and in other regions pf Palestine. A “ceasefire” that left in place the Israeli blockade of Gaza pointed nowhere.
Outside Israel and Palestine, the war itself, the absence of any resolution arising from it, and the strengthening of right-wing rejectionist elements in both societies brought the beginnings –- only the beginnings -– of a stronger pro-active search for peace especially in the American public and from the US government.
Why? Because Gaza and its aftermath made even clearer that movement for a two-state peace will have to include strong pushes and pulls from outside – that is, from the United States, which is the only force able to muster enough clout and (perhaps) enough moral authority to make a difference. It also reinforced the sense of urgency – that if a peace settlement is not achieved soon, it may take another generation to move forward, while meanwhile the conflict is likely to intensify and give birth to even greater dangers of violence in and beyond the immediate region.
In response to these factors, the President of the United States and the Secretary of State intensified previous hints at a more even-handed effort to make peace, including making demands that the Israeli government stop all forms of increasing settlers and settlements on the occupied West Bank.
At the same time, Gaza and its aftermath created signs of fracture in what had been the monolithic stance of the official “mainstream” American Jewish community. Independent-minded “pro-Israel, pro-peace” groups that predated the Gaza War grew considerably stronger in its wake, and began to cooperate in ways they had avoided before. And the rabbis of Reform Judaism directly and explicitly supported the President’s call to halt settlements, despite opposition from the Israeli government.
These two developments — Jewish and Presidential — strengthened each other: An Administration that might have quailed from facing unified hostility from American Jews moved forward as it saw that there was a chance to win some serious measure of Jewish support for (and even more acquiescence in) a peace policy that insisted on Israeli restraint. Pro-peace elements in the Jewish community took new heart and hope from the prospect of Presidential commitment to peacemaking.
Let us look more deeply at these developments.
First, what is happening inside the Obama Administration?
In its rhetorical breadth and depth, the President’s Cairo speech was an extraordinary opening to the Muslim world — making clear that the new US government understands the Arab and Muslim view of the world and takes seriously even the Arab and Muslim critiques of US behavior and policy.
The Cairo speech not only set the basic tone of seeking to build a world community rather than an American empire, but also covered all the key specific outstanding issues with a basic outlook of community rather than domination.
In that speech and in official statements since, Obama came closer than ever before to saying the US would insist on —not merely urge — a settlement freeze and reversal, and an end to the blockade of civilian goods from entering Gaza..
These were encoded in the speech, but even clearer language – as the President himself said, what diplomats say in private we must all now say in public – is probably necessary to build a public up-swell of commitment to this effort.
The Cairo speech needs to be given again in Los Angeles, Detroit, the Bronx, Miami, Northeast Philadelphia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi – aimed at Jews and evangelical Christians as well as Muslims.
What could the US government do, were it so minded?
· The Obama Administration could start by insisting that the Israeli and Egyptian governments open the borders and ports of Gaza to shipments of food, medicine, fuel, and other civilian goods, while taking the strongest possible steps to prevent importation of weapons into Gaza.
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· The US could give strong diplomatic support to the United Nations special commission under international jurist Goldstone to investigate charges that both sides in the Gaza War violated international law. (The commission has been denied permission by the Israeli government to investigate in Israel the charges that Palestinian rockets attacked Israeli civilian neighborhoods. The refusal is most easily explained as an effort to obscure the legitimacy of whatever conclusions the commission comes to about Israeli actions, by pointing to its one-sidedness if it does not challenge Palestinian actions as well as Israeli ones.)
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· The US could do its own independent investigation of charges that Israel illegally used white phosphorus, supplied by the US, against the civilian population of Gaza, or simply decide with no fanfare not to deliver any more white phosphorus, cluster bombs, or similar weapons to the Israeli government.
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· The US could make clear its willingness to negotiate with an all-Palestinian government that includes Hamas, or a de facto government of Gaza in which Hamas is central.
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These are not easy changes in US policy to make. They will take not only Presidential action but popular pressure and support to back it up, and to insist on it. We will take up below how this might happen.)
Besides Gaza, there are two other ‘fronts” on which US policy would have to take vigorous action in order to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. One is the issue of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank and Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; the other is the wider question of peace between Israel and other Arab states – especially though not only Syria.
To make peace, it will be necessary to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the settlement of hundreds of thousands of Israelis there.
By now, so many Israeli Jews and American Jews have gotten so used to the sense of control and the economic benefits of occupation and settlement that many will think that dismantling the occupation is an attack on Israel. They may react that way even if part of the proposed peaceful solution is a great advance in Israeli security through a full peace treaty between Israel, a new Palestine, and all Arab states.
Obama is extraordinarily adept at changing atmospherics in foreign affairs; but it is not so clear he will carry through with policy change if the going gets rough and the opposition gets rancorous. For example, to persuade the Israeli government to dismantle Israeli settlements on Palestinian land it might be necessary for the US to threaten to cancel military aid equal in dollars to the amount the Israeli government spends in supporting and subsidizing the settlements. Even if the US offered to redirect that money to subsidize the actual return of settlers onto the soil of Israel proper, would such action spark a political firestorm?
Hot opposition might well come not only from the Israeli government, some American Jews, and “Christian Zionists.” Almost all US military aid to Israel is actually spent in the US – by purchases from US military suppliers. Money to bring the settlers home would not end up in the pockets of US military contractors or the lunch buckets of US workers. Would those companies and workers remain silent? If not, would Obama be willing to take on the political firestorm?
At the same time as the US is pursuing such efforts to deal directly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would need to try healing the broader wounds of the Middle East. Arab governments and the Arab League are not likely to make peace with Israel if a Palestinian state does not become part of the bargain. Conversely, the offer of a clear peace agreement between Israel and the other Arab states is probably the only “carrot” that the Israeli public would accept in order to take the chances involved in making peace with Palestine.
For years, the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, has proposed a regional peace settlement that would bring peace to Israel in exchange for the recognition of a new and viable Palestinian state. The Saudi draft of the plan has some problems (notably some provisions on the “return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel proper), but the Saudis have made clear their willingness to negotiate. The Israeli government, with past support from the US government, has ignored the proposal. But for many Israelis, this would actually be the fulfillment of the dream of a secure and peaceful life. Serious US support of the proposal might empower many Israelis to begin working for it, and might lead to an internal political crisis for any Israeli government that tried to keep ignoring the possibility of regional peace..
The issue is what actions would bring an Israeli government to say: “We are ready to join in these negotiations. We are ready to deal with a new Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas, since it obviously has considerable strength among the Palestinian community. Although the Saudi proposal has left the issue of Palestinian refugees unclear, we need to be clear that for us, the deal must include only very small symbolic numbers of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel itself. It must include Israeli control of the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.”
Perhaps now, after the Gaza invasion, any Israeli government — even one as right-wing as the one that emerged from the elections — can do this and say that they have not rewarded terrorism, are not negotiating from weakness, have shown they can be bloody. But would they want to? That would require a deep rethinking, because it would mean a serious commitment to ending the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the blockade of Gaza. Settlers and other opponents of doing this, though fewer in numbers than those who will support it, will be much more intense in their opposition. So the government is likely to be paralyzed, refusing to do what is necessary for peace, resorting to old slogans and the institutional and cultural power of the military to justify paralysis.
The necessary counterweight for this domestic paralysis will have to come from outside — that is, the United States. We have already seen that the US government would have to transform almost its whole traditional policy in the Middle East.
Only the biggest response can meet the need. Half-measures, the normal response of governments facing complex conflict, will not work.
What might make such a break with past US policy possible?
There are three possible pressure points for change in US policy. One of these is a public nonviolent campaign to break and to end the Israeli blockade of Gaza. In the weeks just before the invasion of Gaza, small boatloads of people were bringing food and medical supplies across the Mediterranean from Europe, ignoring or violating the Israeli blockade. After the invasion began, two more such boats were forced to turn back by the Israeli Navy. After a hiatus, another ship sailed in the summer of 2009, with a humanitarian cargo certified by Cypriot authorities to include no weapons. This time, the ship was boarded by the Israeli navy, its crew and activists – including an Nobel peace prize laureate and a former US congresswoman — were arrested and jailed in Israel.
These voyages are an extraordinary example of nonviolent direct action in the mode of the civil-rights sit-ins in American history. This form of direct action takes the desired future as an action to embody in the present. (In the 1960s, this meant that the sit-in movement did not petition for restaurants, drug-stores, or buses to be desegregated; they integrated the restaurants themselves and forced the legal authorities to respond.) Thus, if what the activists desire is a Gaza open to all civilian commerce, these “ship-ins” enact that future in the present – and force the Iusraeli government to respond.
In the fall of 2008, these “ship-ins” had begun to build support in much of the world, pointing out the injustice and violence of the blockade. Instead of firing rockets in December 2008, Hamas could have turned those boats into a multitude. They might have built an enormous popular pressure in Europe and the US for an end to the blockade and negotiations between Israel, the various powers, and Hamas.
Now, with the added stimulus of the increased postwar need for humanitarian aid and reconstruction money and supplies for the people of Gaza, Hamas, European and American doctors, academics, clergy, political leaders, and peace activists are beginning to sponsor what imaginably could become a flotilla of “ship-ins.” If the movement were to grow as the sit-ins did, perhaps drawing support groups from far way as the Southern sit-ins did in Northern cities, and especially if Palestinians who live in Israel and in the allegedly “annexed” East Jerusalem, joined by some Israeli Jews, were to start blockading Israeli roads in a strictly nonviolent way — not even stone-throwing — this form of nonviolent direct action could make a great difference to US as well as European policy.
If the movement were to grow as the sit-ins did, perhaps drawing support groups from far away as the Southern sit-ins did in Northern cities, and especially if Palestinians who live in Israel and in the allegedly “annexed” East Jerusalem, joined by some Israeli Jews, were to start blockading Israeli roads in a strictly nonviolent way — not even stone-throwing — this form of nonviolent direct action could make a great difference to US as well as European policy.
There have been reports (e.g. in the NY Times) that Hamas may have decided that the rockets are a dead end and that public relations/ propaganda efforts to explain the reality of Gaza’s suffering and the legitimacy of Gaza’s political case may be far more effective. These reports may be an index to what could become an important change of heart – or at least of mind.
Meanwhile, just as the Southern sit-in movement called forth vigorous support groups in the North that did not go as far as the sit-inners themselves did to “embody the future in the present,” so Jewish initiatives to create the interfaith Fast for Gaza may represent an important step in growing a support group outside the region. Just as Northern support groups for the sit-in movement later flowered into the direct involvement of white Northerners in Southern action like Freedom Summer of 1964, it is imaginable that the Fast and actions like it could bring some rabbis, other American Jews, and Americans of other religious communities to take part in more direct “future–in-the-present” actions to break through the Gaza blockade.
Some have argued that another avenue for efforts to change US policy might be the “boycott/ divest/ sanction” movement being pursued by some pro-Palestinian groups. I am concerned that this effort may carry with it three serious problems — one ethical, one strategic, and one tactical.
• Ethically, unless done with great care and aimed not at Israel as a whole but at very specific targets of special military oppressiveness, BDS could deliver a message of hostility to Israel rather than affirmation of peace between Israel and Palestine. It risks appealing more to rage and disgust than to hope and compassion. It risks ignoring ethical failures of parts of the Palestinian resistance and demonizing Israeli society as a whole (or even Jews in general) rather than targeting specific destructive policies of the Israeli government –— a stance not only ethically suspect but likely to create a backlash against itself.
• Strategically, it sidesteps the process of bringing power to bear on changing US governmental policy, without (unlike the ship-in movement) having a direct and positive effect on world opinion of the Palestinians.
Tactically, the BDS campaign is operating in a world of far more fluid ebbs and flows of globalized capital than was the world during the successful efforts to boycott apartheid South Africa, and therefore is far less likely to have a powerful impact on Israeli business. Indeed, the greatest discretionary capital input from the West into Israel is the governmental aid from the US, rather than private capital – a circumstance quite different from the South African case.
The third avenue for changing US policy toward the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the more conventional one of organizing to affect the US Congress, especially in the light of what seems to be the Obama Administration’s greater willingness to pursue major changes and the “traditional” pattern that Congress usually defers to the desires and plans of the Israeli government.
Given the strong commitment to the status quo of most American Jewish “officialdom” and its influence among many Congressional Democrats, the “Christian Zionist” component of right-wing Christianity and its influence on much of the Republican Party, and the power of conventional strategists and business in the ‘military industrial complex,” from where could emerge a political base for new directions of the kind outlined above?
There are only two clusters of power in the US with enough passion about the Middle East to matter.
One is Big Oil. So far, it seems to value and trust the mixture of corruption and conquest with which it has addressed the great oil pools of the region, and it is not likely to seek major change.
The other is the ethnic and religious passion of American Christians, Jews, and Muslims. If sizeable parts of these groups could work together for such a policy, it might build enough public support to make Presidential action workable.
For some Jews and Muslims, the bloodshed in Gaza made it even harder than it was before to move past the blood and the desire for revenge or victory, to making peace instead. But for others, the shock of so much blood on the sands of Gaza brought about unexpected alliances at the grass roots.
The building blocks for such a coalition now exist. Can they be mortared together? They include:
· An aroused Muslim-American community, not yet fully organized for political action but speedily getting more so;
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· The beginnings of an independent base in the Jewish community — made up of J Street, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, Americans for Peace Now, The Shalom Center, the Israel Policy Forum, Meretz USA, Tikkun, and (from a different political perspective) Jewish Voice for Peace. These groups could draw strength from the majority of real live American Jews — who support such a result but whose politics are unvoiced by the big American Jewish organizations;
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· Mainstream Protestant groups that are raring to go, and will be effective if they can focus on changing US policy, not on parading their own personal purity as in the divestment campaigns; and if they have Jewish allies so as not to be accused (or accuse themselves) of anti-Semitism;
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· A vague Roman Catholic support for the same result, which might be stimulated into action;
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· Large parts of the Black community, pro-peace and ready to affirm Palestinian self-determination on paper, but so far not focused on this issue because there are other urgencies and because they feel the need for allies to address those urgencies— especially allies among the domestic liberal Jewish organizations;
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· And secular progressives, IF they can get over their habit of treating the word “Zionist” as a curse word and can start clearly condemning terrorist attacks on civilians by the underdogs, as well as military attacks, occupation, and blockade by the uber-dogs.
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If such an Abrahamic Grand Alliance came together within the US in support of an Abrahamic peace in the broader Middle East, the means would point directly toward the ends; the present would embody the future. That is one of the most deeply spiritual forms of action to change society. The effort to shape such a Grand Abrahamic Alliance should begin now.
Most Muslim organizations are probably ready to join in such an effort (though the likeliest difficulty is over the refugee issue) and many American Christian organizations (not including some right-wing evangelicals and “Christian Zionists”) are as well. The most ambivalent element in the necessary tripod is the American Jewish community. It may be headed for a deep internal split over its values and commitments if the US and Israeli governments collide over whether to be serious about a two-state peace settlement.
The Jewish community is not alone among Americans in feeling ambivalent about taking steps necessary to achieve peace. The Israeli-Palestinian collision has become both a special case of the collision between some elements of Islam and some elements of the West — – and a burning source of anger on both sides that makes harder any peaceful resolution of issues between the West (especially the US) and some Muslim states and organizations.
On both sides of these divides, there are some who itch for outright war, and some who seek peaceful relationships. The US was attacked on its own soil by a group claiming legitimacy as Muslim, though the overwhelming majority of Muslim teachers and leaders in the world have rejected that claim. The US government is now militarily occupying two majority-Muslim states (Iraq and Afghanistan), is openly attacking villages and regions in another (Pakistan), is constantly hinting at both war and diplomacy with a fourth (Iran), and is closely allied with a state – Israel—that is militarily occupying and blockading a fifth mostly-Muslim people — Palestine.
It is not hard to see why many Americans view Muslims and Islam as “the enemy,” and why many Muslims view the US government as “the enemy.” Whether to press forward to expand and “win” this war or to change direction in order to make peace is dividing not only some people from each other but many people inside their own minds and hearts.
In this situation, the Israel-Palestine relationship is a source of great danger to the US as well as to both colliding peoples. The new American president has asserted a strong American interest in peacefully resolving that conflict. But he, and all of us, face deep intransigence and a propensity to violence both in the Israeli government and in the leadership of the Palestinian people.
Most Americans and most Israelis have gotten used to a relationship in which the US government mouths a wish for peace but does almost nothing to press Israeli policy toward necessary steps for making peace. US policy has been carrots for Israel, sticks for Palestine. Neither has worked.
It is not yet clear whether President Obama is ready to use pressure against Israeli policies of occupation and blockade. If he does, there may be not merely a deep political crisis within the American Jewish community, but a deep identity crisis: can American Jews whose values seek peace and who admire Obama break with an Israeli government that refuses to take the crucial steps for peace? What would such a collision mean for the comfortable assumption of most American Jews that there is no conflict between their commitment to liberal values and American interests, and their commitment to Israel?
But the deepest issues are not just about responding to divergences between US government policy and Israeli government policy. In the past, many American Jews have chosen their ethical commitments to peace and justice even when the US government was acting against those values. But many will feel this choice harsher if the Israeli government’s behavior and policy diverge further and further from the values of peace and justice rooted in prophetic and rabbinic teaching. If that happens, will American Jews choose to support Israeli government policy anyway, or pursue their ethical commitments? Or will many – especially among the young – tune out Israel, and perhaps Jewish connection altogether, from their sense of their own identity?
To most Americans and most dispassionate analysts, it seems clear that no American policy will abandon support and protection for Israel as a society, even in times of deep divergence from is=the policies of its government. But among many Jews, there is endemic fear that what seems strong US support for Israel is brittle, ready to crack in a crisis.
So it will be important for some American Jews who are committed to Jewish vitality and values to take public independent positions despite the bitter attacks upon them that would be likely to come from the right and center of “established” American Jewish life.
Already some rabbis, professors, and other people have been bitterly attacked for expressing such views as calling for an independent investigation of charges that both Israelis and Palestinians committed war crimes during the battle over Gaza. Those attacks have intensified because some in established Jewish organizations see that a crisis is looming, and are fearfully trying to circle the wagons before it erupts.
That is why it is important to build support for the five “pro-peace, pro-Israel” organizations and the one rabbinic Israel-connected human-rights group that have already built a solid base in the American Jewish community, among Jews who take seriously their commitment to Israel. It is not at all clear that these organizations do or would support strong US governmental pressure on the Israeli government. But they come with an independent mind-set that will be crucial in a crisis.
The six are:
1. J Street, a lobbying group that has in one year built a strong base of contributors and a strong network of connections on Capitol Hill. Its emergence and swift creation of a strong Email constituency has rattled the established Jewish organizations more than any of the other groups, since it poses a direct challenge to AIPAC. http://www.jstreet.org/
2. Brit Tzedek v’Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace). Grass-roots organization with a number of chapters, a rabbinic cabinet, and a program for bringing members to lobby Congress on special occasions. http://www.btvshalom.org/
3. Americans for Peace Now. Grew out of and mostly beyond connections to Shalom Achshav, which used to be the strongest of Israeli peace groups. APN does not sponsor chapters, has focused on educational work around the constant growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and has some connections with Obama administration foreign-policy staff. http://www.peacenow.org/
4. Israel Policy Forum, a think tank that grew out of the Israeli Labor Party while it was still committed to peacemaking. IPF now has a more explicit, forceful, and iconoclastic position than the others in urging US insistence that Israel move toward peace. http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/
5. Meretz USA, closely connected to the small Israeli political party that remains peace-oriented. Meretz in Israel approved the invasion of Gaza; Meretz USA criticized it. http://www.meretzusa.org/
6. Rabbis for Human Rights/ North America. RHR/NA both supports the human-rights work of RHR in Israel and carries out its own work for human rights in America, focused on ending the use of torture. It is constrained by its narrow focus on the violation of specific human rights rather than a broader opposition to the occupation as a whole and its connections to RHR in Israel. http://www.rhr-na.org
(I have not included Jewish Voice for Peace in this list because it is much more ambivalent toward Israel, the Jewish character of most Israeli institutions, and the possibility of a two-state peace. It has, therefore, far less traction in most of the American Jewish community. It does appeal to some younger Jews who have felt marginalized by most Jewish organizations, including synagogues that seem spiritually vapid to many of them. JVP is far more likely to support efforts toward boycotts, divestments, and sanctions directed against Israel.)
Two vigorously progressive American Jewish organizations, The Shalom Center and Tikkun, have pursued a two-state peace settlement and a broad regional peacemaking agreement as part of a larger religio-political framework that includes other issues as well.
Of these organizations, only The Shalom Center and Tikkun have yet worked out political cooperation with Muslim or Christian groups. Among the fruitful results have been the work of The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah and of the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership, both drawing on efforts of The Shalom Center, and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, arising from Tikkun. Most other efforts at Abrahamic “dialogue” in the US have proceeded in a religious or cultural context without any immediate policy thrust.
Looking toward the future, we might ask these questions:
1. Will Jewish disaffection from Israeli government policy continue to grow, and will it support more US government confrontation with Israeli policy?
2. Can interreligious Abrahamic “dialogue” take on a more direct “political” thrust, including peacemaking in the broader Middle East?
3. Can the “ship-in” movement and related forms of nonviolent direct action grow in numbers and breadth to embody in the present a commitment to the future of a free Palestine at peace with Israel?
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* Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center and co-author with a Sufi teacher and a Benedictine nun of The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Beacon). The Shalom Center at www.shalomctr.org voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. To receive the weekly on-line Shalom Report, click on —
http://www.shalomctr.org/subscribe
If such an Abrahamic Grand Alliance came together within the US in support of an Abrahamic peace in the broader Middle East, the means would point directly toward the ends; the present would embody the future. That is one of the most deeply spiritual forms of action to change society. The effort to shape such a Grand Abrahamic Alliance should begin now.
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* To begin this work, you may find useful a book I co-authored with a Sufi teacher and a Benedictine nun – The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Beacon). This book is being used for adult study of the three traditions through the lenses of their different family stories about the Abrahamic saga.
The book also explains how to “pitch the Tent” of Abrahamic retreat groups to create the levels of trust and understanding for Abrahamic interaction leading not just to intellectual sharing but to joint action in the world. “The Palestinian/Israeli conflict has elicited many books exhorting political and religious peace in the Middle East, but none has appealed to individual minds and hearts quite like this one.” -Library Journal, starred review.
You can order the book with a 10% discount and free shipping by clicking to
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1866
and writing in “tent” (with no quote marks) in the box that asks for a code.