I had the chance to talk with Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, AR International Director, over Zoom last week, to catch up on some of his intensive efforts in the Holy Land. He recently came back from a trip where he was busy responding to community needs, organizing projects, and meeting with community and political leaders almost nonstop. (When he is in Florida, also, he is constantly meeting with leaders in Israel and Palestine to de-escalate and bridge situations, as well.) – Chris Miller, January 2021
AR: You have been working heavily on community-building, leadership outreach, and diplomatic efforts to calm tensions during these last months, can you tell us about your current focus in the Holy Land right now and these efforts?
We are very busy at this time – we are working more than usual. Usually this is our life, we cannot differentiate between our life and our path – our work for peace – because we’re raised as peacemakers. A peacemaker needs to be a peacemaker even when asleep.
But these days we duplicate, make even more than normal, to create more ways and more tools to connect with more people and reduce tension amongst the people. Why? Because most of the people in Israel today are nervous – hidden or visibly – from the situation. Many people ask us – why are they nervous? We know all the countries surrounding us are in trouble, changes, rebellions, revolutions, and all these things influence the people in Israel because they spread fear and hatred to Israel and the Palestinians.
And we know that the Palestinian-Israeli relation is in tension, it’s not so stable or quiet. The people in Israel they are nervous and especially the Arab society – the Arab society is suffering from lots of radicalism, criminalism, and the crime waves grew more and more because of the economic situation, political situation, social situation, even the religious situation. They are suffering in these dimensions in their lives, and for that, our responsibility in the Abrahamic Reunion, we need to run to work. Abdelsalam Manasra the Israeli Director and Mohamad Jamous the Palestinian Director, they are running with me to create more and more oases for all these people in this path to be safe and survive, to be in touch and not to be in fear from the hard people and the radical people.
Unfortunately, we know that sometimes when you go to solve the problems with the people there, you cannot find the formal security people, you cannot find them with you, because they say they are very busy, but we have lots of connection with the government in Israel and in Palestine and we are working to create ways for all these things. Israel will make a budget to deal with the mafias, criminals, and radicalism in Arab society. We need to be very careful and to be part of this…but we are succeeding [even now] because the people need us to be with them and work with them because they know that the AR Is a very righteous and very straight organization that can deal with the people. We (the AR) have lots of examples along the way that we did in the last period in the field of the Holy Land.
To succeed we connected most of the alternative leaders in the societies, for example the clergy and religious leaders, the social leaders, the merchants, and many leaders other than the politicians, to deal with the problems there. Sometimes the politicians are very busy to serve their own parties or their own business, but the religious leaders must deal with us because they need to heal and take care of their communities and their people. We have lots of connections with these people: the clergies are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, from the four religions in the Holy Land, and we are dealing with them and working with them to heal the situation.
We are working there, the Abrahamic Reunion staff is working there under challenges, dangers, shootings sometimes, if you see or watch the news you can see the situation there, it’s not an easy situation there at all. Also, the Israeli government is dealing with lots of challenges in Israel, they need to create a quiet situation for the country.
I think that the American Board of the AR is supporting the Israeli Board in a very great ways, in money, in physical and moral support, and all the time we are together analyzing and organizing and going step by step to create a very good and very great situation.
I think this time many clergies begin to believe that they need to be part of our path. Before they were in silence, or quiet, but now they see that the fire begins to arrive to their fields and they need to care for their fields, and they came to be with us, and many families also.
We are in touch with intellectuals and academics in Israel and they began to be part of our work, to help and to heal the societies. We are sending very great teachers to the societies to teach the students there and to avoid them from the line of hard life, from crime, radicalism, the mafias, and to teach them very clean and clear teachings.
Sometimes this work is not easy, I am here in Sarasota now, working until 3 or 4 in the morning, sleeping for 2hrs then waking up again to meet, sometimes in 24hrs we cannot sleep 6hrs to get some rest but we try to reduce all the tension and all the conflict there, it’s not so easy, but if we can succeed to create a stable situation in the Holy Land we can feel it all around the world. If we cannot and if [the Holy Land] is in chaos, then we can also feel it here. I hope that all people will come together to build bridges and live together in peace and harmony.
AR: Can you tell us a bit more of your diplomatic work with the political leaders? The
GM: From other sides I am in connection with Ambassadors, with the other politicians, local politicians, Ministers, and sometimes the Prime Minister because I have the connection with them.
We try to move the situation inside the country – it’s not easy for us to be in connection with all of these people but we must find the time to bring them to be soldiers for peace. Most of the Ambassadors that we met, they were very, very flexible and open to come and to be part of our process, and really, they advised us in great things to do through their experience in different places in the world.
By the way, we told them we will make an Iftar, a big breaking of the fast of Ramadan in Nazareth in the North. It’s a big Arab city, we will bring Jews and Druze to come to Nazareth where there are Muslims and Christians to have connection there. It’s very important to bring the people together to meet for the Iftar because you have meeting and you have food – you can taste and think and feel and create a great work together. It’s the most important thing we can do these days in the Holy Land.
The Arab Party is now part of the Government but to have them in the Government it’s very good, they can deal with some issues and points for the Arab Society to be together. But today, because it’s an intensive time, we are in a good connection. I’m active all of my [diplomatic] time to achieve more solutions, more points for the healing of the Arab Society, and the Jewish Society also, not only the Jewish Society, when I say the Jewish Society it’s including the Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
When I go to Israel I’m meeting most of these leaders and most of these communities to work together to create a different kind of connection. Because many people are in suspect of previous or past connections because we say we had a great connection but slowly the connection became worse – now we need to create a different kind of connection based on the educational dimension, this is the model for our work together. Without educating the people there’s no understanding or connection or opening the heart. To educate about the ‘other’ is very important – knowing ‘the other’ we can know ourself – sometimes knowing yourself then you will know them and they will know you. Education is the tool to bring the people together.
AR: What are you goals in the diplomatic outreach to politicians and community leaders?
GM: To bring the people to realize that we need one another, we cannot live alone, there’s no lonely lives in this world, and this is under the will of God, he created us different people and different nationalities and different colors to learn from this, to know, to create knowledge.
My goal is to realize and to understand that we need one another, to come together, to light the candles of peace in our hearts. We need to light the candles of peace in our heart because if you light the candle in your heart you can see the other in you – because we are living in a multifaith society, we have the Jew, Christian, Muslim, Druze, even others, many others went to Buddhism, go to the beach of Tel Aviv of Jaffa or Haifa, you can find many people there in meditation and yoga together in the morning or evening – it’s very important to tell them that we need one another.
You can worship your god in your way, but to create a right worshiping, the worshiping must cross the bridge of the other to get to God. Without crossing that bridge you cannot arrive to God because the connection is the worshiping, the connection with the other is the religion, it’s called the Love. Our goal is really to live together, stop all of this conflict of 73 years, many people passed away, many people were born, I think we need to learn that there’s no way for to live alone.
AR: How are the leaders responding to your efforts and outreach?
GM: Most of the alternative leaders are responding but because the politicians are very busy to serve themselves, we have part, small part of these politicians, yes, they are supporting us and they see the solution is to be together, is to plant the seeds together, and to water all of these seeds from the righteous water, and clear water, to raise very clean and clear flowers.
It’s not easy to bring the politicians to be with you, really in their life they are very busy, very busy, the important thing is to know that we have a small part of these politicians with us. But the alternative leadership are with us, responding very well many of them.
