'Reconciliation Rum': On Capitol Hill Visit, Groups Emphasize People-to-People Peacemaking
By Gabe Ross, Washington Jewish Week
March 22, 2007
Just one day after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbied Capitol Hill lawmakers about the growing security threats facing Israel, another group came to Congress with a different agenda.
The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), an umbrella for 42 organizations involved in coexistence work between Arabs and Jews and Palestinians and Israelis, invited representatives from each group to mingle with each other, congressional staffers and members of the community who work toward coexistence.
Roughly 110 attendees congregated in a stately hall in the Russell Senate Office Building, where they exchanged business cards, listened to music and drank "peacetinis," "coexistence coladas" and "reconciliation rum."
"The primary objective for ALLMEP is to increase awareness and ultimately funding for Middle East coexistence objectives," said Susan Mirbach, the group's executive director. ALLMEP's members must be actively involved in coexistence work and cannot be a political organization. "Our groups don't really work on where the borders should be," said Mirbach.
The group also met with congressional representatives and their staffers, lobbying for the inclusion of $10 million in funding for programs devoted to coexistence in the upcoming 2008 appropriation bills. On Friday, the members of the group went to New York to meet with some 10 foundations in an attempt to acquire private financing.
However, the congressional reception was all about getting to know one another. "We created this event so you can meet all these great peacemakers in the Middle East, and so they can meet you," said attorney Avi Meyerstein, one of the evening's organizers. After Meyerstein welcomed the crowd, Rev. Phineas Washer of Madison Square Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, and Sayyid M. Syeed, CEO of the Islamic Society of North America, all offered their prayers for peace.
In the spirit of multiculturalism, musicians from Iran, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan performed a couple of songs for the attendees. "This is a holy struggle, one that is at the very core of our religious traditions," said Kronish, who gave the Jewish blessing.
Afterward, he defined the role played by the groups in ALLMEP as ensuring cooperation on the grassroots level. "People-to-people peace-building is bringing people together to live in peace, governments have to do the work of peacemaking; we're not directly involved in politics," he said.
"Peace is not around the corner, right now we're in a war mentality," said the rabbi, who added that such organizations are trying to prepare both Israelis and Palestinians for the day when the political situation improves. "We keep hope alive in a mood of despair, and I call that a religious imperative," he said.
"If you really care about Israel, the most important challenge is the coexistence between Israeli Jews and Palestinians," said Guy Tsfoni, who represents Givat Haviva, an educational foundation that has programs for Jews and Arabs in Israel. Regarding the emphasis AIPAC places on Israel's security at it's annual conference, Tsfoni said, "It's important, I don't want to say it's not important, but it's not enough."
The participants emphasized that the most significant work that they do is to create partnerships between individuals. "The work that we do ... really has a sustainability impact on the ground, on the region," said Deanna Armbruster, executive director of American Friends of Neve Shalom, a village where both Jews and Arabs live together in Israel.
"Each individual organization is working independently on its own interests, but all of us in the coalition are working for peace," she said.