The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding

- Today, I'd like to examine with you a very simple question, which is what role can religion play in building peace? What role can religion play in building peace in Israel-Palestine? And to do that, I'd like to invite you to join me on a journey which will begin at, in the Old City, at the Damascus Gate. Damascus Gate is, you can see here, just at the north part of the Old City. It's been the location of a site of protests and demonstrations over the recent years. It's a site of stabbings, shootings, fights and arrests. And once again, this year, this Ramadan, the Damascus Gate has become a flashpoint for fights between Palestinian and Israeli forces and people. The United Nations has warned that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is again reaching a boiling point. According to the BBC, this year, since the beginning of the year, over 140 Palestinians have been killed and over 30 Israelis. On the Gate, this was, just to go back to the Gate, it was built under Suleiman the Magnificent in 1537. It's built on top of a Roman gate from the Emperor Hadrian's time, and it takes you into the Muslim Quarter. You can see it's one of seven of the largest accessible gates leading into Jerusalem's Old City. It has a long history of tension there. You can go back to 1938 and you can see here British forces searching for weapons. It's known in Arabic as the Gate of the Column, and the Jews know it as Nablus Gate. The Crusaders knew it as St. Stephen's Gate. Recently, it's been called Martyr's Gate. According to one Palestinian scholar, it has become a symbol for the Palestinian national struggle because of its accessibility to Palestinians, and the main connecting point for both worshipers and for markets. This is a photo from earlier this year, and you can see here a fight between Palestinian and Jewish youths on a very controversial holiday that is celebrated by some Israelis, on celebrating the capture of the Old City during the 1967 Six-Day War. Now, when we look at this photo, we could do all sorts of things with it as we reflect on it. And we could think about, we could step back for a moment and think about different theories about violence and religion. For example, this theory about the Myth of Redemptive Violence. That's the myth that believes, that enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right. And it's one of the oldest, continuously repeated stories in the world. Some people argue it, it's deep in many people's bones. In other words, you crush the opposition, and that's how we bring peace. Another way of looking at that picture, thinking about it is what we can think about different relationships between religions and violence. Some people argue that religion is inherently violent. It drives violence, particularly monotheistic religions. There are other people who say, no, religion is peaceful and violence is an aberration. Or others suggest that religion contributes to mimetic conflict. What's meant by that is there's an imitated, you want something and we go for that and we desire that. And that leads to mimetic conflict, rivalry, and then finally, sort of scapegoating. So, we scapegoat another individuals who are not necessarily in our group. And there are some who even argue that religion does not exist. Sorry, religious violence does not exist, the myth of religious violence. And there are those who also argue that religion can both incite violence and promote peace. Different approaches, different theories. For example, Marc Gopin, who's worked a lot in Israel-Palestine, suggests that religion can bring peace to the Middle East. Now, I am not going to spend this whole lecture examining those theories. I just want to put them there and let you think about them because I want to go on a journey round the Old City, and I'd like to meet with you a number of the different religious leaders. So, bear the theories in mind, but just come with me for a moment. Before we go to Jerusalem, let's go to Washington. This is the Council of Religious Institutions, the Holy Land meeting, the then-Vice President Joe Biden. And this was the council that employed me, I worked with, for a number of months just before COVID. And what they wanted us to do was to bring together Jewish, Christian, Muslim religious leaders, and Israeli and Palestinian journalists. So, we got together in different places, and particularly memorably, because it was easiest, we actually went to the Netherlands together and talked there for a week. And I'll never forget, at the end of the week, we had, you know, sometimes you get together and you say,"Okay, how was the week? How was the conversation together?" And we went round the entire room and people said,"Oh, it was very good because I've never met a Palestinian properly before, except for someone I'm scared about, scared of." These were some leading Israeli journalists who said,"It's changing the way I'm going to cover this story." And others said, "Well, I've never met a Jewish journalist before or Jewish rabbi before, and this is going to change how I think about it." So, I was thinking, this is great, this is the end of this week's conversations. And then someone said, "Hang on a sec." And he stood up and he spoke in Hebrew and then in Arabic. And he said, "I am just tired of these conversations. We go on talking, it normalizes things and nothing changes." And he was furious. And then someone from the Israeli side stood up and said something similar back, sort of shouting and I thought, oh no. This was the last hour of a week of conversations. I thought, this is a disaster. Then this six-foot guy from Bethlehem stood up and said, "I'm feeling terrible about this." And I thought, well, I'm feeling terrible about this as well. He brought us down from about a 10 to a seven in terms of the sort of anger in the room. But that was how it ended. And I remember cycling round, it was all round, sort of the new part of Amsterdam, thinking, that was a disaster, a complete disaster. All that bridge-building, all that peacebuilding, it was a failure. So, after that, went back to the occupied West Bank, went back to East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, to Ramallah, to Tel Aviv, and talked to all the different individuals. And I said, "How did you find the week?" They said, "It was great. We learned so much. I was really pleased to do it. But you know, Jolyon, the best part, the very best part for me, you know when it was? It was the last hour when we started telling the truth." And that stopped me. I thought, wow. Because I like things tidy. I like things tidying up, I like them tidy, and that's why I put the theories up. You know, theories can tidy things up. But this is really messy. This is really, really ugly at times. And I am very much a learner there. I'm a guest there, I haven't lived there. I don't speak Arabic or Hebrew and therefore, I'm aware that I have a huge amount to learn. So as you listen to me, be aware of that. I'm not claiming some amazing knowledge of this situation. This is based on a project and research that I've done there, and my work there. So, it's limited and I really don't want to over-claim, and that's why I'd like to invite you with me to revisit the Old City. And the Old City, I really like. I go through the Damascus Gate, I went through the Damascus Gate lots of times, and whilst it felt tense, I never saw any violence there. Instead, you go through and you can smell fresh bread. It's delicious, and you can smell spices, pick up some spices. And you just maybe catch a little glimpse of everyday life there,'cause it's easy to dramatize, to think it's all violence. It's not. These are traders, people walking, selling, working. And this is looking back towards the Damascus Gate. And you can see there, and you see what's going on in the Damascus Gate. It's a place that you can buy both relics and also stuff, stuff that you might need in everyday, trousers or scarfs or skirts or so on. If you walk down, you can come to the Via Dolorosa, and if you go on a Friday night to the Via Dolorosa, you could see people in, Jews dressed formally, going to prayers at the Western Wall. You can see Muslims going to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and you can see Christians going towards the Holy Sepulchre Church. And they sometimes look at each other and sometimes, they don't. It's not surprising that many people see Jerusalem as the center of the world. This is a 16th-century picture based on sort of a shamrock here. You can see Jerusalem at the top there, Europe, Asia and Africa. You can maybe actually see a foretaste of Brexit. You can maybe just make out that England is there, just off Europe.(audience laughs) Which I only just noticed. It's kind of funny, to. I can't actually see Scotland,'cause I come from, it's a bit of a disappointment there. And of course, it's not just Jerusalem at the center, because some maps, this is a 17th century map, puts Mecca at the center of the world. I'm struck by how often Jerusalem is, but this is the famous Mappa Mundi. You can see, there we are. You can see Jerusalem. Well, you can just about make out Jerusalem is at the center of the Mappa Mundi. And for some people, the reason for that is because of the Holy Sepulchre, because the Holy Sepulchre is the place where two, many Christians believe, two very significant things happened. You've got there the site, perhaps, of the crucifixion and the empty tomb. You can see the Holy Sepulchre Church. This photograph that I'm about to show you demonstrates the international nature, this is a group of Russian pilgrims visiting there. But I don't want to stay in the Holy Sepulchre Church. I want to instead go travel just, like, about 200 yards away to this church, symbol of sort of colonial 19th-century German church. It's the German Church of the Redeemer. And I'd like to introduce you to, if you don't already know, Bishop Munib Younan. He's a Palestinian. And the picture I'm showing you here is very historic because this is, he was the leader of the Lutheran Church, with the leader of the Catholic Church. If you think about that, in the 16th century, of course, Europe was divided by religious wars. And yet here, for the first time in history since then, were the Pope and the leader of the Lutheran Federation, praying together. Let's listen to Bishop Munib.- You have one minute, far from my home is the Holy Sepulchre, and my Lutheran church. Two minutes is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Haram al-Sharif. Three minutes is the Wailing Wall. So if you grow in Jerusalem, you grow in a diverse society where you think why we are different, and how can we live together in our difference?- And that's a question, isn't it? That's a very profound question. How do we live together in our difference? Jerusalem is a city for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And it's dear for them. And we have to respect the historical status quo of the holy places of these faiths. Now, as he spoke, he gave me a history lesson. I find it really useful to be reminded and taught by him. He reminded me about the Balfour Declaration. So, he took me back to 1917. This, you can maybe just see here is the only existing example of where it was written on a piece of note paper from the Imperial Hotel. And you'll remember what is said in the Balfour Declaration."His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object." That's 1917. But notice also, what's said, it's often forgotten what's said. It's, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done, which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Some people argue that the first half has been followed, the second half has been ignored. That's certainly what Bishop Munib told me as well. But he also, listening to him talking to me, he reminded me not just of the Balfour Declaration. We could spend a long time talking about that. He also, we talked also about this, this secret correspondence between the British and the Arabs, between McMahon and bin Ali, where the Arabs were promised, if they fought on the side of the British, they were promised Palestine. And then also, backstage, behind closed doors, Sykes and Picot were promising at the same time, in the First World War, they're promising that, well, they weren't promising, they were agreeing that the Middle East would be divided between France and Britain. So in other words, Britain, in a war of perceived national survival, was making three promises, to the Zionists, to the Arabs, and to themselves, of who's going to own. And of course, that was going to be impossible to deliver upon. For me, it's striking how this raises questions not just about fighting words, but about scarcity. About scarce, not just texts, scarce groups or privileged groups and scarce salvation, but about scarce spaces. And it's here that, of course, you can see this, because of the religious significance of this space, particularly the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif. This is a picture here, you can see Bishop Munib visiting the Imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and also the head of the Islamic Waqf of Jerusalem, as well amongst a number of others. So he was visiting and he talked about that. On this journey, I'd like to imagine we go from the Church of the Redeemer and we'll go there now. We will visit this area. One of the things that strikes me when I visited there, visit there, is how often it's calm and peaceful. It's often represented on the news as a place of fighting, but often, it's actually quite a quiet and prayerful place. And then there, we're going to meet someone from the Palestinian Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs, Saleh Zuheikah. And he, I never forget, he didn't want to be filmed. So, this is a radio interview. And he said to me,"When I grew up, my dad kept taking me to the mosque, to the Al-Aqsa, to pray there, especially on Fridays. So, in my childhood, when I got conscious about life, I got to know the Al-Aqsa. I know the mosque. So from the point of view, you can't just separate this place from your life, from your heart. So, I can't see Jerusalem without the Al-Aqsa Mosque." So there we are, of course, it's the mosque, but also the Dome of the Rock as well. And I want you to imagine for a moment that we are there in this compound and in front of the Dome of the Rock. And we are there going to meet Mahmoud al-Habbash. He is, al-Habbash is, the supreme Sharia judge in the Palestinian Authority, and is President Mahmoud Abbas' advisor on religious and Islamic affairs. Actually, I met him for the first time in Ramallah. Notice here this phrase,"We don't see Jews as enemies, the enemy is the occupation." Now, talking to him, he reminded me of some really important things that it's easy to forget about, for example, about the Oslo Peace Accords and the result there of what happened to the Palestinian Territories. Some people calls this the Swiss cheese map, because the way in which the Palestinian groups are, lands are separated by settler land. He also reminded me of all the settlements and the increased number of settlers and settlements that are being established all over the West Bank and occupied territories."We don't hate the Israelis, we hate the occupation." But he also emphasized again and again in the conversation, without justice, there can be no peace. There can be no peace without justice. He also reminded me how often, even though it is a place of prayer, there are demonstration, fights and protests around the Dome of the Rock, around the mosque. I find it interesting, studying not just his conversation afterwards, but also listening to his sermons afterwards. And he's very gracious in his conversation, but very different in some of his sermons, which are very determined, very robust. Here is one, for example, where he says very clearly that,"We cannot possibly relinquish a single millimeter, a single stone, a single micromillimeter of the Al-Buraq Wall and of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. And there in the sermon, in the conversation, he reminded me one of the reasons why it's so significant. It's just not historical precedent because, but of course it's because of Muhammad, peace be upon him, the night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. So there, this is the place of great significance, in the same way that it's significant for millions of Muslims around the world. Now below the Noble Sanctuary, below the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is the Western Wall. This is from the Second Temple. If you've been there, the thing that strikes you is just how large the stones are. These are huge, coming back of course from the very bottom part, is from Herod the Great's time. It's sometimes known, derogatorily, I'd say as the Wailing Wall, but more commonly known as the Western Wall. I'd like you to imagine there, we're going to meet someone else. This time, we're going to meet Shlomo Moshe Amar. He's the current Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. And I had a translator when I spoke with him. He's spoken Hebrew, and he gave me a history lesson about this particular area as well. He went back over 2,000 years. He took me to, "This is Jerusalem," he said,"The city of peace, city of prayer, city of the temple." This is the Second Temple, a huge, some people say it's the wonder of the world. You can see, at the center there, the Holy of Holies, a very significant site. He reminded me also, this is what he said, that for the Lord had chosen Zion, he quoted the Psalms at me as well. And he pointed out how it was the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. And then he surprised me in the conversation because he said, "There's also a small minority of Jewish extremists that go to the Temple Mount, even though we've determined, according to Halakha, that this is forbidden because it's a holy place. But the Jewish extremists worry that if they do not get there and make their presence known, it will be taken from us." So, he said that this is something that shouldn't be happened. He argued that we should be patient, and patient for God, rather than going and doing what some of the settlers are currently doing. He has argued very strongly they shouldn't be praying there and making claims upon that because it's up to God. He also reminded me, and his assistants reminded me about Yad Vashem, the Memorial and Museum just outside the Old City in Jerusalem. And they encouraged me to visit again this memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Because of course, that's another part of the story that he was keen to remind me of, to understand the background. Now, this is a picture of one other person I'd like you to imagine. We are meeting here, by the Western Wall, Rabbi David Rosen. He was the Chief Rabbi in Ireland for a number of years. He now lives in Jerusalem and works for a number of interfaith groups. Let's listen to Rabbi David Rosen.- Religion should be synonymous with building peace. Every single religion aspires for that, and therefore they should be, all religions should be in the forefront of peacebuilding in the world. The problem is that religion is wrapped up with human identity. And when human identities are under threat, they turn to the religious resources in order to give them succor and strength, and very often manipulate them in terms of even not only providing self-justification, but of delegitimizing the other. And then religion, actually, if you like, turns on itself and becomes a pathology instead of the agent of healing that it should be. But because religion relates to the deepest dimensions of our spiritual, psychological identities, it is critical for any kind of process of healing between communities in conflict. And therefore, failure on the part of political or diplomatic agents to engage the religious dimension as a resource and its leadership as partners in that healing process is totally self-destructive and undermining their own interests.- David Rosen is a passionate advocate of the importance of inter-religious dialogue. Like a number of people, he claims that one of the reasons for the failure of the Oslo Accords was because religious leaders, both the top leaders and the mid-range leaders, were not included in the conversation. He travels the world arguing that,"Inter-religious dialogue is an essential component in facilitating peaceful reconciliation in international relations." And he claims, "For the wellbeing of our world as a whole." This is him in Assisi here, with the presidents of Israel and Palestine territory, Abbas there, the Palestinian authority, leading a prayer with Pope Francis. Now let's move, shall we? Let's move from the Noble Sanctuary, from the Temple Mountain area, to go towards another church, another historic church, the Greek Orthodox Church. And let's meet Theophilus III. He is the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. Let's hear what he's got to say about peace.- With peace, we pray to God for peace. First of all, we start asking God to give us peace in order to start our prayers. And then we pray for the peace of the whole world. This is fundamental. In peace, let us pray to the Lord. This is how our liturgy start. Yes, and then we are asking for peace of the local area, for peace of the broader area and for the peace for the whole world.- So that's the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church. If you walk a few yards, you can then visit the headquarters of the Catholic Church, and here, you have a chance to meet the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. Now, have a listen to, because he's putting a critique perhaps on all this talk about peace. Some people, you might be thinking, are you just peace-washing the situation here? Because peace can be used as a very problematic term, can't it?'Cause you can say let's have peace, but if there's no justice there, then it's a way of controlling. And that's a point that came out in a number of discussions. But let's just have a hear of Pizzaballa's reflections.- I don't know if I should confess here, in front of the camera, but for long time my life, I was tired of these word, justice and peace. Not because I don't want justice and peace, Don't misunderstand me. I want justice and peace. I pray for this, but it become a kind of a slogan. And also, I think it was hijacked by some groups in the church, and society. I don't want to be associated with all these groups and so on. And now I pray in justice and peace, I pray first for me, in my heart, to be just and peaceful to all people I meet. This is the first thing. I need to start for myself, and to ask also my communities. Now, I am bishop in the communities that belong to our church to be just and peaceful in our communities. We cannot teach others justice and peace if we don't have justice and peace in our everyday life, with our relation with the workers, our relations among us, with the priests, with all the flock, all the different communities, there, first of all, to be a place where justice and peace are not just slogans that we say for others, but a life we live first, in the first person. And then to, I pray for this and I pray the Lord to bring, to know people, people with whom we can talk and build something just and peaceful in everyday relations. I don't go beyond this.- So, not just a slogan. And here's a challenge, isn't it? Because it's easy to talk about peace and justice, but without thinking about how is it changing the situation on the ground? Now, have you noticed so far, all I've done is I've shown blokes, men, religious leaders, and that is the reality of the situation in Jerusalem. I'd like now to, with the permission of the filmmaker, to show a short clip reflecting perhaps on everyday experience from a very different perspective. I'll let you make your own judgments about this short film.(sad music playing)(foreign language) And I was reminded both by Palestinian and Jewish journalists of the reality of this, the separation barrier, as it's known, and lots of different, and that's a reality. I was also encouraged to go through checkpoints to experience what it's like to go through a checkpoint and have to wait for two or three hours in order to get to work each morning. I was also reminded by the journalists, but also by the religious leaders, of a visit, a visit by Pope Francis just before COVID time. He visited a number of places. This is actually visiting the Death Wall in Auschwitz. This, and praying there in silence. This is him visiting the Western Wall, in Jerusalem. And this is him stopping unexpectedly, unplanned, just outside Bethlehem at the separation barrier there, and praying there. This is not the Pope walking over the wall, just if you're wondering what's happened. This is a photograph, but I like the quote, you show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder. Now, I think I am going to show this. I've been debating whether to show this clip'cause it's slightly off topic, but it's by a filmmaker who thought that you might enjoy seeing it. So, see what you think. And it does reflect on the barrier as well. It is actually on topic, but it takes us outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of course, has many walls in, just outside.(soulful music plays)- A wall represents a failure of politics. You can't love your neighbor if you can't see them, if you can't talk to them. A Lady Who Brings Down Walls is probably my most famous work. By putting an icon, something of incredible beauty, onto something which is itself so ugly, it's a way to challenge it and to break it. It's invoking the powers of heaven, the powers of reconciliation, the powers of love into a chasm of despair and hopelessness. A lot of people just don't understand, and feel frustrated at the inhumanity that they see and they don't know what to do. So, they come to this image and pray, and they just pray that somehow, all these walls that people have built can crumble, can fade away, and something beautiful can be reborn. Bethlehem is the town of birth, of rebirth. And here, it's the wall just positioned on the edge of Bethlehem and the edge of Jerusalem. So, it's this, sort of transition point where you've got all this despair, but then also this hope breaking through.(soulful music continues)- Of course, this is a famous picture of another artist, Banksy, who painted on the wall, A View to a Peace. That's the claim, it was by Banksy. Some people say there's a famous story of him painting there and somebody coming and saying, saying, saying,"How dare you make this ugly thing beautiful? You shouldn't be painting, like we hate this wall" So, there's a question to reflect on. Now, you may be feeling a little like this at this moment. We're back in the Old City. Little bit tired, in need of lunch or a break. Because I know this has been fast and intense. I really like this picture, right? So, we're going to go to a place called the Austrian Hospice, which is actually amongst other things, a cafe. And I want you to imagine that we're going to sit there and you can have what you like. I'll buy, you know, coffee, lunch, you know, we're going to have a chat now about, we've done a very quick walk around the Old City and we're going to have a few books that I'm going to bring out, and we'll talk about those and then we can reflect on. And so the the the first book, this is The Moral Imagination by John Paul Lederach. John Paul Lederach is one of the leaders in the field of peacebuilding and religious peacebuilding. And he talks very persuasively about the importance of stepping empathetically into the world of the other. The moral imagination for him,"Requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity." There's quite a lot in that, and we could spend a whole hour reflecting on it. But I think the point is, it's stepping into these relationships with people, perhaps we really dislike or hate or disagree with, but also not going towards (indistinct), going to, between them and us. So, this is worth reflecting on in terms of how we explore this ongoing, intractable, apparently intractable conflict. I've been reading a lot of both Palestinian and Israeli authors. One, for example, Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Listen to, and this is a book we're going to have at the table. We can maybe read one or two extracts out of."Out there in the world, all the walls

'Yids, go back to Palestine,' so we came back to Palestine and now the world at large shouts at us,'Yids, get out of Palestine.'" He also wrote memorably, "This city," this is Jerusalem."So much has happened here, this city has been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt again. Conqueror after conqueror has come, ruled for a while, left behind a few walls and towers, some cracks in the stone, a handful of potsherds and documents, and disappeared, vanished like the morning mist down the hilly slopes," offering the historical perspective on this city. So, that's Amos Oz. He has very vivid memories of being there as a child and returning as an adult. Now, let's listen to a Palestinian author. I Saw Ramallah, who was 30 years away and then returned. And I'm going to read this out because it stayed with me, this quote. So imagine you're just eating your strudel or you're having your coffee as I read it."All that the world knows of Jerusalem is the power of the symbol. The Dome of the Rock is what the eyes see, and so it sees Jerusalem and is satisfied. The Jerusalem of religions, the Jerusalem of politics, the Jerusalem of conflict is the Jerusalem of the world, but the world does not care for our Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of the people, the Jerusalem of houses and cobbled streets and spice markets. The terminals of the buses that trundle in every morning from all the villages with peasants come to buy and to sell, the Jerusalem of the white cheese, of oil and olives and thyme, of baskets of figs and necklaces and leather and Salah al-Din Street, our neighbor, the nun, and her neighbor, the muezzin who is always in a hurry." This, for me, brings us back, doesn't it? To walking through, this is an everyday city where people live and love and die. So, let's go back to the Damascus Gate. Let's return as we begin to finish this journey, perhaps as if for the first time, we return to it. And there, we'll meet Trond Bakkevig. He's worked for 30 or 40 years in Jerusalem as a peacebuilder, working with religious leaders from all sides of the conflict. He's written this diary in Norwegian. I don't speak Norwegian either, but he gave me a English summary of the key of it. And he argues that,"Religious dialogue can clear the way for political decisions." He makes a passionate case for the importance of inter-religious dialogue as part of what's fixing, not fixing, but helping to try and repair the situation. But when I listened to him, I was struck by not Jerusalem for a moment, but just outside Edinburgh. This is the third Forth Bridge. And it has taken millions and millions and millions of pounds to build and years to make. Bridge-building is a very difficult exercise, even when you're making a real bridge, let alone between communities, divided communities. And that becomes very apparent. We're still, by the way, Damascus Gate, not think about bridges. But perhaps, there's one other book that we brought out. And this is, I mentioned it earlier, by Marc Gopin on Holy War, Holy Peace. He argues that religion really can contribute to peacebuilding. It doesn't necessarily have to drive towards violence. And it can lead towards emphasis upon justice, remorse for all the trauma that's been, and also forgiveness, but not a cheap kind of forgiveness. He argues for separate, alongside political track, also a religious track, a parallel to the political one, That focuses on religion, culture, symbolic gestures, moral commitments, justice and transformations of relationships. Now, that may sound all a bit dense. He's a rabbi who's worked a lot with different groups. But I think it is, it's persuasive when you think about how some people suggest that religious involvement of religious leaders has actually deescalated some of the conflict at times, not always, but sometimes. For example, I think of the Bereaved Families Forum, who created display with dozens of coffins. And the coffins were covered by Palestinian flags and Israeli flags, and they were placed as a memorial to all those killed during the Second Intifada. And above was this quote,"Better have the pains of peace than the agonies of war," a quote that I think goes back to Begin, but has been used in different contexts. So, the Bereaved Familes Forum, drawing back together, emphasizing that in a way, in a conflict, there potentially are no winners but many losers. Number of people have talked about the importance perhaps of developing hierarchies of holiness. In other words, you can have holy places, but more important, surely, is places that sanctify human lives above the holy land and holy places. So, it's worth thinking about that further, isn't it? Thinking about are there things that are more important than the land? I have a friend who says very simply,"It would be sold if the land was given back." But, then they stopped and said, "Well, is that true?" This is a Muslim scholar who said,"But maybe there's been such history of hurt, there also needs to be other kinds of healing and restoration as well." You'll notice on this journey we've met a number of religious leaders, but we were also confronted by the story of that young girl, whose story has stayed with me because it's a story of constraint and of hurt as well. But it, part of why I put this slide up as we are finishing this journey is to think about the next generation as well. Many of the religious leaders are, how should we say? Are mature, are older, but it's about thinking about the next generation. Will there be a time when both sides will say simply, we cannot have the kind of fighting that goes on. We need to work towards a just peace? I believe it's important to finish things, not perhaps with despair and agony, but with something more hopeful. And so perhaps I'd like to finish with this image. This is just outside the Old City in Jerusalem, and you can maybe see this Tree of Hope. It's in a hospital, and can you make out, it's not leaves, but these are swallows. And the great thing, of course, about swallows is what they do, is they're not constrained by barriers or walls, but they can fly above them. So in many ways, what I've been trying to argue is for the vitality and the vitalness of religious peacebuilding, of not leaving religion out of the peacebuilding process. I've been arguing for the importance of bearing witness for the injustice and the trauma that has gone on, and the injustice that is going on at this time. And I've been arguing for the importance of searching for the truth because there's a lot of distortion of truth, what is happening at the moment. But also to think very hopefully about this Tree of Hope, because I think it's vital to hold on to hope in this situation. And I believe that many of the people we've met do hold out, not encouragements towards violence, but towards a difficult road, towards a just peace. Thank you so much for listening.(audience claps)- Thank you very much for a absolutely fantastic lecture. I really enjoyed it. Can I just present you with a problem, as I see it, sitting in the West and watching this stunning countryside, wonderful people, when we have move in Israel where, a move dramatically to the right, and a huge threat, I would argue, to the people who you've demonstrated and who show great optimism and the Tree of Hope. How do they live through an escalating threat, rather than one which they feel that they ought to have, by now, have made some contribution to?- Recently, two weeks ago, I met a settler, and I don't want a platform or celebrate that, but it struck me as he said his experience of meeting Palestinians had changed his mind. And he now argues passionately that it is an occupation. This is a settler who is saying, this is an occupation and it's wrong, and we need to stop it. So, even within some of the, as you described, sort of right wing groups, there are internal dialogues and critiques of the situation as well. So, and what struck me about listening to this settler is that he was theologically driven. It was a theological vision. So, he still believes that God gave the land to the Jews, and yet he's also saying what's happened is unjust. So, I was confused. He said, "The more I speak, the less popular I become in my own community." And he was speaking with a Palestinian who was also speaking publicly, and he, and the Palestinian was saying,"I also completely disagree with the settlements. I completely disagree with what's happening. And yet, I think it's vital that we talk to the settlers." And yet, he is hated by his community as well. He's vilified by his, for normalizing the situation. So, there you can see the difficulties of peacebuilding. So, I think your question is absolutely spot-on, because it's actually very difficult to articulate now, for example, the Israeli side, if you like, a more pro two-state solution, because of the move to the right because it's a very difficult, dangerous place to be because you're arguing against the move of society. So, I think you're spot-on. It's, in a way, I think it perhaps being hopeful is also being realistic, it's difficult.- Lord Peter Ricketts, who spoke at one of the Gresham lectures recently on British foreign policy since the War was emphasizing how important it was to have dialogue with your enemies.- Yeah.- With no dialogue, you have no diplomacy, and sustaining that is critical. I think you've made that point very clearly. Is there any questions from the audience, please?- [Person Off-Camera] Thank you very much. I belong to the Interfaith in Milton Keynes, and so I'm quite familiar with some of the ideas that were beautifully expressed. Can I just say something? You've talked about the two-state solution. Now, that's not worked. Don't you think one should work for a one-state solution, where there'll be equality between all communities in a secular state?- I think I want to underline here what I said at the beginning, that I am a guest and a learner and I hesitate to make a statement about political science and the political realities. However, I am good to say, because you asked the question, I want to honor your question. So, do hear I'm trying to just be realistic, that I am no expert here. But you're right, the two-state solution is not working at the moment. Is there a more just, I mean, let's talk about Jerusalem specifically. I was actually just reading a really interesting account today, was arguing that if only Jerusalem could be shared, not seen as a scarce thing, but shared generously. So, if you see as one Jerusalem, not East, West Jerusalem, not Jerusalem owned by the Jews or by the Muslims, but something that is shared, then that would be, the argument was that would be honoring to God for both Jews and Muslims. So, I'd say perhaps one Jerusalem. I'm hesitating to say one state, because the danger is the power relations currently are so unfair that if you have have a one-state solution, then the superpower will be able to exert their will on the less powerful. So, I suppose that's my hesitation. And again, I'd want to hear not just, I mean I left out a lot of voices here. You could imagine, there are lots of other people we could have heard from. But many still hold onto a hope for two-state solution, but they're beginning to wonder whether, how realistic that is. So, thank you for that important question.- [Person Off-Camera] It's the role of America in all this I find puzzling, there are roughly five, or is it 7 million Jews in America? And we've got 300 million or more Gentiles. And yet, the role of America seems so considerable. How do the Gentiles of America explain to themselves the enormous persistence and involvement that their state, that the American state has in the Middle East? How does it serve the Gentiles of America, have this involvement that America has in the Middle East? It's puzzling to me, why they are allowed to go on.- Again, I'm not an American expert. What strikes me is, listening to a number of American scholars who've done a lot of work on Zionism in the USA, and why certain groups, particularly Conservative Christian groups, are drawn towards very strong articulations of Zionist positions. And they've often pointed me to thinking historically about that, to think back not just to now, but to the 19th century and even earlier as well, to belief that it's vital for Christianity that there is a strong Jewish presence. And you can see that also affecting, arguably, British foreign policy as well. However, that's only one group within a very diverse American society. So, I think it's a fair question to wonder, why is there support for Israel across the States? And I would hesitate to make a blanket observation. But nevertheless, I think there are some American scholars who've pointed to the fact, the belief is that Israel provides both politically and religiously almost like a safe space for American interests to be in the Middle East. So, that's another position to, do you see what I mean? In terms of it will provide a secure base, because there's not threat to the Christian churches in the way that there are perhaps in other nations.- [Person Off-Camera] Thank you, if we were here 100 years ago, I guess the Tree of Hope or the sort of utopia was United Nations because there was a recognition, I suppose, that justice at the end of the day, and then who's the arbiter of making decisions, such as the irreconcilable decision in Israel-Palestine? And I guess my question is, unless one gets an acceptance of a body that is the arbiter of what is right and what is wrong, you can have any number of religious factions and zealots that you wish for. It will not be reconciled unless somebody accepts that you need to make a decision on justice. And it's interesting that we're in here, in the Courts of Law and Temples. I just wonder how you see that being resolved.- For me, that's important point because it raises for me questions about different levels of peacebuilding. So, you have the elite, sort of top level, and that's obviously very important. And you could say, well, to your question, it's vital that there's a just, a League of Nations, a United Nations, which actually would be able to exert some control. But you can see something flying around the room there, sort of imaginatively, hopefully, you think, well, that's hasn't worked. How on earth is that going to work? Then I think it's worth think about mid-level and grassroots peacebuilding. You've got mid-level, that often is left out, which might be religious leaders, which I think sometimes you can see, if you look at history of peacebuilding, of conflicts that seem so intractable, sometimes the real, lasting peace emerges not necessarily from the elite, but from mid-range and grassroots. So, if you think about grassroots people saying,"This has got to stop," at the moment, that's not happening because both grassroots are saying,"This has got to change, and the way we change it is through the myth of redemptive violence. We do it through violence," or many people are saying that. But if there was a significant (indistinct), a massive change towards saying, and the grassroots, then you'd hope, you'd hope that there might be a change at the top range or mid-range. But thank you, I think that those are worth, I mean, it's complex, but again, I think it actually strengthens what I'm trying to argue here is the vital importance of involving religious leaders, not just in the elite conversations, but also in the acts of mid-range and grassroots levels as well.- Jolyon, the Lucy Lyons film is so graphic about the impact, the inhuman aspect of imprisonment, if you like, and imposition of somebody else's will on individuals who don't have the power to alter what's happening around them, that one wonders how your group of religious leaders, who are very articulate and very clearly make a statement, how they can actually influence something which is locking away significant proportions of the population, irrespective of where they are in the world. For example, many other examples one could choose, but just take that film, that poor little girl queuing up to do something important to her and her family, may be separated from her olive trees, who knows? But how can the religious leaders impact in a practical sense what is being done to that little girl in the next six years of her life?- I mean, I think sometimes, they can't. They actually recognize their powerlessness. They can't do anything. They can do practical things in terms of food, but in terms of policy, they can't. But maybe that senses, the sort of the local leaders, what I've noticed is they would put emphasize of not doing to, fixing things, but being with, in the first instance, of being alongside and bearing witness to what's happening, in the hope that it might change. Because the thing that struck me again and again by these religious leaders is you sort of felt that they wanted to have a magic wand to sort things out their way, but they realized they didn't, they couldn't, they wouldn't, it wasn't possible. So then, you'll push back to, well, if you can't change it, what do you do with it? Do you give up and despair? Do you blow all the candles out and just say, well, we live in the darkness? Or, do we light a candle and say, well, let's try and do something small here? So, some of the, I mean even the symbolic act of stopping Pope Francis, for example, stopping by a barrier and praying against it, even though it wasn't on the schedule. And you can see those symbolic moments are significant. However, some of these religious leaders, I'm very aware that I've selected more, inverted commas, peaceful articulations. Some of them, I could also present where actually, they could be seen as pushing people towards violence as well. So there is, you remember this phrase of the ambivalence of the sacred, there is an ambivalence of the sacred here. I don't want to turn this all religious, all the religious leaders and groups into these sort of saintly figures who are pushing peace all the time. They may not be, and there is an ambivalence of the sacred.- Thank you very much. I was struck one point in in your talk by a message that I took from it myself, which was basically there's only one behavior you can change and that's your own. And maybe that's the message we should take away today, that we have to behave well and look after other people, and then perhaps we can avoid some of these things, with the help of our religious leaders. Jolyon Mitchell, thank you very much for a wonderful lecture, a very stimulating conversation.(audience claps)