Bishop Philip Huggins shares reflections on the inter-religious talks of Israeli and Muslims of the Friends of Roots. Many chant ‘from the river to the sea!” And this, where one side alone claims belonging to the land between the river and the sea to a place where it is recognised, not only that both Israelis and Palestinians are deeply connected to the same land, but that the historical borders are the same!
These two people addressed us with Two Truths One Heart, Two Peoples One Land – a free zoom presentation by Friends of Roots
Friends of Roots: We are a unique network of local Palestinians and Israelis who have come to see each other as the partners we both need to make changes to end our conflict. Based on a mutual recognition of each People’s connection to the Land, we are developing understanding and solidarity despite our ideological differences. Roots is a place where local peoples can take responsibility. Our work is aimed at challenging the assumptions our communities hold about each other, building trust and creating a new discourse around the conflict in our respective societies. This is a grassroots and local model for making change — from the bottom up.
We mentioned the tombs of Abraham and Sarah:
The Tombs of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron is the burial place of three biblical couples — Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.
The second holiest site in Judaism (after the Western Wall in Jerusalem), it is also sacred to the other two Abrahamic faiths, Christianity and Islam.
It was the patriarch Abraham who bought the property when his wife Sarah died, around 2000 years before Christ was born. Genesis 23 tells how Abraham, then living nearby at Mamre, bought the land containing the Cave of Machpelah to use as a burial place. He paid Ephron the Hittite the full market price — 400 shekels of silver.
We listened as news came through of an even further escalation in the hate, violence and suffering in and around the land called ‘holy’.
As it happens, I helped host this immediately after co-leading our Retreat on ‘Inner Peace and Outer Peace’- how to better integrate our meditation and prayer with resilient peacemaking .
Thankfully, we were able to record Wednesday’s conversation between the Roots leaders. One was Rabbi Hanan who is an Israeli Jew. The other was Halid Abu who is a Palestinian Muslim.
Listening to how Roots started ten and a half years back is riveting. The establishment of their Dignity Centre tells us what it takes to move from a Hubris of Exclusivity to a Humility of Pluralism.
That is, from where one side alone claims belonging to the land between the river and the sea to a place where it is recognised, not only that both Israelis and Palestinians are deeply connected to the same land, but that the historical borders are the same!
As was said, “The land between the River and the Sea gave birth to two peoples.
We have to learn to hold this…In Roots, we try to bring people together …
We believe we are doing the groundwork for living well together …”
These two leaders of Roots told how the personal stories, the courage and the grace of those from the other side woke them up to our common humanity and to the deepest truths of our respective faiths.
Jews, Muslims and Christians are the obvious focus here, but all major world religions convey that, as Halid said with anguish, “We have no permission to kill … to kill innocent people.”
To stop this suffering, we must meet each other.
We must listen, listen and listen again.
We must know each other’s story as well as we know our own.
We must be patient.
We must interpret our sacred texts in a way that leads to peace.
We must give no room for extremism to fester.
Let alone for extreme violence to become the murdering modality of so-called leaders.
But tragically, as we have seen since October 7, this is what has happened.
Extreme violence has become normative and is what defines leadership on both sides.
As a result, and as we were informed, ‘the peace movement has collapsed since October 7 …’
Hence the inspiration we felt as we listened to these real leaders. The truth from which they live is hard won. Its genesis is the stories they shared of the innocents, from the other side, who suffered and who died because of a failure to recognise their Roots in the same land and as a matter of our common humanity.
On a personal note, my inspiration for initiating this gathering on Wednesday with my Buddhist friend Ian Roberts was listening, unexpectedly, to the Roots leaders at the Parliament of World Religions last August in Chicago.
Our gathering on Wednesday is an initiative for understanding, non-violence and transformation.
With some family, I visited the grave of Abraham and Sarah in Hebron, as it turns out, about the time Roots was beginning.
It is one of the saddest places I have ever been … So tense with the possibility, it felt, of further hate and violence at any moment.
It’s a long road from where we are now to a blessed peacefulness.
But, as we have as our motto,
“Peace is every step…there is no way to peace,
peace is the way.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Remembering the contemplative wisdom of 4th century
St. Anthony in the nearby Egyptian desert,
“Today we begin again.”
We simply must persist. We must live from the highest we can conceive and from nothing less.
Bishop Philip Huggins
© Bishop Philip Huggins
