The Sabeel conference was held at the National Presbyterian Church here. But I think peace is something which will be built. Raheb criticized mainline Christian reluctance to do much more than lament the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian standoff or to preach about nebulous visions of what a just world would look like in Jerusalem and along the West Bank. For Ateek, the most critical facet of rebuilding is within the Palestinian community itself. It leads to giving up, to extremism and violence.
People become so discouraged they lose moral values.
We see some of this. But he also means putting down concrete moorings for West Bank Palestinians in literal ways, such as creating more jobs, more suitable housing and better schools for people whose options have narrowed in the 30 years of Israeli occupation. Citing Israel's illegal expropriations of land, its repeated manipulations of zoning regulations to reduce Palestinian holdings and its relentless efforts to withdraw legal status from Palestinian residents, Palestinian attorney Jonathan Kuttab said a harder-hitting critique of Israeli policies is going to have to be delivered to the international community. The injustice of those tactics, he said, is what will ultimately capsize a peace process that seems destined to cause instability for Israelis and Palestinians. The entire peace process is in deep crisis.