Bishop Samir Kafiti
Transciption of speech at the Shadow Signing of the Geneva Accords
December 1, 2003

Good evening everybody. This is a family. We want to become a family. One day we are going to have this family reunion right in Jerusalem with Israelis and Palestinians as equal citizens who will share in shaping future of the peace of the world.

This is serious business, a serious occasion. Tonight we have witnessed a group of Palestinian scholars and Israeli scholars with excellent professional service in their respective countries. Some of them were ministers in cabinets, members of Kenesset or parliament or some legislative body. They have come together spontaneously, sitting at a table for a number of months and working together--working together at the issues that prevented peace, justice, equality and freedom in the holy land.

I am reminded today of words by one of our ex-presidents, Woodrow Wilson, who said that it must be peace without a victory. Peace without a victory is the victory of peace.

What we witnessed today in Geneva is the assertion that the only option to come to a final resolution to the conflict in the holy land of Israel and Palestine is the peaceful way. We have tied many other ways and methods--a long history a bloodshed, fifty-five years of conflict and occupation. Both people feel victimized here and there, in Europe and in Palestine. The matter of peace is at hand now. We want peace. We want to stand together at the table, to arrive at the conclusive, comprehensive peace. Solving these issues by wars, by all kinds of violence has failed. No one nation can continue forever to subjugate another nation. No one nation can dominate the other forever. Nations are meant to coexist, not to exist one on top of the other.

No third party can play the broker of peace if it seems to be one-sided, or if it seems to understand only one side of issue and disregard the other side. The role of the broker of peace is to come to the middle, to be even-handed, to see both sides with two eyes and not see one at the expense of the other.

There are people who I know personally, a number of them on both sides, who have come to Switzerland, to a neutral place, to a country that thrives on being non-aligned, a country full of education, full of hope, for the European continent and all other continents. They came and they sat together for a number of months and they have arrived at what they call the peace accords of Geneva.

Let me tell you, I have not read them yet in detail. I have read about them. But I don't care, I will read them later. All I care about is an atmosphere, an attitude of equality, of people at the same table, at the same level, talking to each other. No games. They are going to face the issues, the agendas. This is the beginning. It is not the end. It is not final.

They have signed it today in the presence of giants of peace. Nelson Mandela who went from prison to president. President Carter who was able to achieve the first Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel. These are giants of history. They were there witnessing yesterday in Geneva, witnessing young Palestinians and young Israelis--the new leadership who are coming together.

It is a new phase. You are going to see new faces in Israel and new faces in Palestine--a fresh look at the situation which will come to a peaceful solution. You can only appreciate this when you remember right here in this church, in this Good Samaritan Church. We had two coffins, a Jewish coffin and a Palestinian coffin. We had death and it shook us because women in grief had lost their children. They lost them eternally because of our obstinacy and unwillingness to be flexible. Today we come here without coffins. We come here with hope, hope for the future, hope for a new beginning, hope for Palestine, hope for Israel, and hope for the world. Because if Jerusalem will not enjoy peace ,the whole world will not enjoy peace.

Rabbi Alexis Roberts
Remarks at the Shadow Signing of the Geneva Accords
December 1, 2003

From Nightmare to Dream
What are the Jewish people doing on earth? We get so involved in our survival that we forget we are here for a specific stated purpose. As I have learned from my teacher Richard Elliot Friedman, we read in the Torah that each time God first speaks to our patriarchs and makes promises about land and progeny, it is for the express purpose of blessing all the nations of the earth.

To Abraham, God says, "all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you." (Gen 12:3)

To Isaac, God says, "I will assign to your heirs all these lands so that all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your heirs." (Gen 26:4)

To Jacob, God says, "All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendents. Remember I am with you, I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land." (Gen 28:14-15)

In other words, the gift of a land to call home was always connected with our express charge to live in a godly way, creating the society designed by God to be a haven of justice, holiness, compassion, responsibility, and faith. We are given hundreds of laws in the Torah to bring about respect for God and for one another, on the basis of being divine creations, of owing everything finally to God.

And we are never up to the task. Abraham endures many severe and lengthy tests before God permits him to become the father of this people, and still his grandsons feud and his great grandsons all but kill each other. The sojourn in slavery should have created in us an everlasting compassion for the oppressed, a visceral understanding of the extreme sanctity of being fair even when we could easily take advantage. We were set free mainly so we could create a society that worshipped God, not Pharoah-- governed by the rule of law, showing compassion and reverence. But it too soon degenerated into feuds, violence, oppression, and finally exile.

Then the dream of Return arose, and continued to suffuse our religious imagination for almost 2000 years. The dream of Return was braided together with the dream of the end of exile, the end of injustice, the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Temple that had been destroyed. We understood that our own failings had led to our exile, and we prayed to be forgiven, redeemed, and gathered back.

I want my Palestinian friends to understand this: that the dream of return has been in our hearts and on our lips everyday all this time. Every day, three times a day, we ask God to bless Israel with peace, to rebuild Jerusalem, and to let us deserve to live to see it. We still break a glass at every wedding to remember that no joy can be complete until we are home again. The hope in this dream helped us survive exile, and helped us keep faith through incredible tortures.

When we approached the question of creating a modern Jewish state, it was to make this dream come true. It was to have a place to be free and proud in the land of our ancestors, the one place we could call home.

It was supposed to be this dream. No one signed on for this nightmare. The brutality Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians has corrupted and brutalized all of Israel. We have been complicit in the deep injustice and cruelty of removing people from their ancestral land. We have exhibited criminal selfishness in believing only our own pain and suffering mattered. We have been blinded by the trauma of the holocaust so that we feel and act vulnerable even though we have become strong.

I believe that the Jewish people and the nation of Israel can be a blessing to all the families of the earth; in many ways it has accomplished amazing things. But it must accept responsibility and act decently regarding the Palestinians. Peace and justice are possible. A majority of all Israelis and Palestinians accept the principles of these accords. So now, will they empower governments that will boldly enact them?

We are here to encourage them to do so, and to press our American government to support it. We are also here to testify to the power of dialogue-- to people on both sides refusing to be constrained by their leaders’ shortcomings. These are people who have the courage to turn from their fear and pain long enough to see that the "enemy" is a brother, a sister, a human being created in the image of God that we are responsible for.

These accords are practical and realistic. This is an incredible document before us: a final, comprehensive peace plan. May we be witnessing a true end to the violence and injustice of the last century in the middle east. May every people take responsibility for the well being of every other people, and let the nightmare become a dream again, a dream that leads to blessings for us all.