AR Israeli Programs Director Abed Alsalam Manasra was interviewed in this article about peacemakers in the Holy Land, those who risk their lives to carry the flame of hope from heart to heart.
Excerpts from the Article & Interview by Cerys Jones, September 4th, 2024:
These are the Arab and Israeli activists you do not hear about in the headlines, which, I think we can agree, are rather bleak at this time. This is the story of how peacemakers are working towards a better future for the Holy Land. They know firsthand that conflict and injustice in this region are all too real, but they believe that so too, is the possibility of peace.
“The Abrahamic Reunion’s Israeli director, Sheikh Abd al-Salam Manasra, talks about the community Iftar meals they host. “We welcome 200, 300 people sometimes, we’ve been doing that for more than 15 years. It’s in different locations, in one Ramadan we always have four or five Iftars, and all the people are coming from everywhere in Israel and Palestine.”
–> Read the Whole Article: https://jonescerys.wixsite.com/…/feature-meet-the…
I realise that peace is passed on; it is cultivated at a young age. It is learnt and it is taught, whether like this through family bonds and an inherited calling, or through formal education.
Sheikh Abd al-Salam Manasra explains, “In the Quran it says he (Allah) created us to meet each other. This is the point, to meet each other. I can learn so much from you, and you can learn so much from me.”
Manasra’s desire for mutual learning and understanding shines through The Abrahamic Reunion’s youth education programmes: “We are creating four to five events monthly in Israel and Palestine. With the youth we are dealing with more sensitive things. For example, we visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, and then we visit Ein Karem, an occupied village near Jerusalem, so we are talking about more political stories and how we can face these challenges together.”
‘Alhamdullilah’ translates to ‘praise be to Allah’. Many peacemakers explain that rather than being what drives them apart, faith is the motivation behind loving their neighbours.
In the words of Sheikh Abd al-Salam Manasra, “There are a lots of things we (Jews, Christians and Muslims) have in common, why are why focusing on our differences? In the period of the Prophet Muhammad, they had the Christians, the Jews in the Medina, even in Mecca, they called them the people of the book, and the prophet said ‘if you hurt one of these people of the book, it is like hurting me directly’”.
Sheikh Abd al-Salam Manasra’s family were evicted from their ancestral home during the 1948 Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war.
“We lost land, we lost homes, we lost everything (during the Nakba). But I am now the third generation working for peace, because we believe in peace. What happened, happened, but now we have to create this relationship” Manasra explains.”
#peacemakers #Israel #palestine #interfaith #hope #peaceispossible #abrahamicreunion
Read the Whole Article: https://jonescerys.wixsite.com/…/feature-meet-the…
(Sketch of an AR peacemaking event by Cerys Jones, as featured on the link above.)
