Report Back: Sabeel Conference
Hope for the Holy Land: Toward A Just Peace in Palestine and Israel" was the theme for the 2-day Sabeel conference hosted by the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 22nd and 23rd.
Approximately 230 participants attended the conference that was sponsored, by Friends of Sabeel-North America and Pax Christi USA. Sabeel is an Arabic word that means "the way" and "springs of water giving new life."
Naim Ateek, an Anglican priest, developed the Sabeel conference in Bethlehem in order to offer a theology of liberation for the Palestinians. Jonathan Kuttab, a leading Palestinian human rights lawyer from Jerusalem and a member of the Palestinian, Israeli and New York Bar Associations, delivered the keynote address, "Power, Morality and Justice in the Quest for Peace in the Holy Land." Mr. Kuttab is the co-founder of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-violence, International Commission of Jurists (West Bank affiliate), Al-Haq, and the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners.
Other notable presenters included Mubarak Awad, founder of the Nonviolence International, The Center for the study of Non-violence in Palestine and the National Youth Advocate program; Phyllis Bennis, founder of the U. S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and two International Solidarity Movement members; Brian Avery who was shot in the face by Israeli army personnel in the West Bank city of Jenin and Flo Razowsky, who was forcibly removed from Israel.
The conference was especially honored by the presence of Cindy and Craig Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie, an ISM peace activist who was bulldozed to her death by the Israelis in Rafah in the West Bank. Macalester College student, Ismail Khaladi memorialized Rachel in his rap presentation, "Rachel's Two Tombs."
Participants hailed the conference as excellent and anticipate other Sabeel conferences across the U. S.
The conference was co-sponsored by twenty-six churches and peace organizations. |
