Speech by HCEF President Rateb Rabie

October 26, 2007

Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation

9th International Conference

Opening Remarks by HCEF President Rateb Rabie

Narional Presbyterian Church

     Good afternoon, dear sisters and brothers!

    It is with great pleasure that I welcome all of you to the 9th International Conference of your Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.

    This year we come together under the theme, “Walking the Path of Peace”.  

    We insist on walking the Path of Peace, not because we are unaware of the injustice and violence that torment the Holy Land, but because peace is part of the Christian vocation.

    Jesus, our Lord and our Teacher, placed us on the path of peace when He said, “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS.”  And we know that He is walking that path with us, for He told us, “My peace I leave you, my peace I give you.”  

    His companionship is our strength.  It is our hope, and it is the reason that we shall walk the Path of Peace no matter what happens around us.

    It is wonderful that our conference once again is being held in this house of peace, the National Presbyterian Church.  This is our foundation’s home.  This is where we were born 9 years ago and where we grew up.  National Presbyterian is the mother that welcomes us, inspires us, and nourishes us.  It is the “Mother Church” of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.

    So, I extend my deepest gratitude to National Presbyterian’s Pastor Ice Nogle, to Executive Pastor Douglas Learned, to the church’s Elders, and to the members of National Presbyterian’s Middle East Committee, who are our hosts and who provide such gracious hospitality.  I also extend my heartfelt thanks to all the others in the National Presbyterian family—our family—who have done so much to serve the Christians in the Holy Land. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!

    In this 9th conference of the Holy Land Ecumenical Foundation, we shall walk the Path of Peace with some very special people.  We shall hear voices from Palestine, Jordan, and the Christian Diaspora from the Holy Land. We shall visit with Christian leaders of many denominations, and with Muslim and Jewish guests.  We shall be able to interact with Jordanian and Palestinian Christian children, and many of their friends in the United States, who are participating in the Children’s Peace Project, and who attended the conference that was held this morning at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.

    I shall resist, with some difficulty, the temptation to describe in advance the events of the conference. Your conference program covers that.  However, I do want to express my delight that we have as our banquet speaker this evening his Excellency Ambassador Afif Safieh, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Mission in the United States.

    I am equally pleased that tonight we shall honor Dr. Marwan Muasher, Senior Vice President of the World Bank.  I am also very happy that we shall present awards to St. Mathew Catholic Church in Charlotte North Carolina; to Father Rob Waller, our friend and our Holy Land Priest in the Greater Cincinnati area; and to two of our most dedicated volunteers, Patricia Parma and Cindy Brewer.
    
    I would like to thank Her Excellency Mai Kaileh, the PLO representative to Chile, who just arrived from Santiago this morning to talk to us about the 350,000 Diaspora Palestinian Christian living in Chile -- more Arab Christians than in Jordan, Israel and Palestine combined.  

    Also, my special thanks to the Palestinian mayors who came all the way from Palestine to be with us this week: Dr. Victor Batarseh, the Mayor of Bethlehem; Ms. Janette Michael, the Mayor of Ramallah;  Mr. Hani Hayek, the mayor of Beit Sahour; Mr. Raji Zeidan, the Mayor of Beit Jala; and Dr. Yousef Nasser, the Mayor of Birzeit.  

    This Sunday, Ms. Kaileh and the mayors will participate in a Town Hall Meeting co-sponsored by the American Task Force on Palestine, the Ramallah Federation, and the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.  The meeting will allow our guests to exchange experiences and ideas with many Palestinian Americans, and will, we hope, facilitate cooperative action among Palestinian Americans in moving toward a just, prosperous, and peaceful Holy Land.

    On Monday, our group of distinguished visitors will conduct a briefing and discussion on Capitol Hill for members of Congress, their staffs, and other interested parties.  This event is co-sponsored by HCEF and by the American Task Force on Palestine.

    Ms. Kaileh and the mayors have a demanding program here, and we thank them for their work.  

    I want to thank all of our conference speakers, especially those who came from afar, such as Dr. Jad Isaac and Fr. Rick Van De Water.

    And I want to introduce Karen Gainor, who joined the HCEF Bethesda office staff earlier this month.  Karen, please stand.  

    Tomorrow morning we shall have a panel discussion on Christian Zionism, as we did last year.  Last year’s discussion drew much favorable comment, and we had many requests for a similar panel this time.

    One of the Christian Zionists we invited to speak last year asked that we help him prepare for the panel discussion by sending him materials about HCEF and the Christians of the Holy Land, and setting out the main arguments against Christian Zionism.  We gladly sent the requested materials, and we arranged for him to have a chat with one of our advisory Board member Dr. Gary Burge, a theologian.   Shortly after our invited speaker had read our materials and had discussed Christian Zionism with our associate, he called to say that he no longer believed that he could represent the Christian Zionist position.  

    It is not for me to tell you what conclusions to draw from this incident, but I will share one of my conclusions, which is this: many open-minded people can be persuaded that neither sound theology nor sound policy can justify denying the right of Christians and Muslims to live in safety and prosperity in the Holy Land.  

    At this point, you will be happy to hear that I shall resist the temptation to report on the accomplishments of your HCEF in 2006.  Your conference packet has HCEF’s Annual Report for 2006, which contains extensive documentation on that subject.  I hope that everyone will find the time to review it.

    We can all be proud that in 2006 HCEF increased its receipts significantly, to over $1.7 million, and consequently was able to increase its support for the education, housing, employment, and social welfare of Christians in the Holy Land.  

    In doing so, we retained the highest rating—four stars—of the Charity Navigator, an independent body that evaluates the efficiency of non-profit organizations like HCEF.  

    This year the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a prominent civil rights organization, presented its “Faith and Tolerance Award” to HCEF.  The award is given to faith-based organizations working with religious institutions to encourage cooperation and peacemaking in the region.

    Now I, Rateb Rabie, didn’t accomplish those things: you did.  

    You, the people of National Presbyterian, St. Andrew, St. Mathew, St. Jude, Lewisville Presbyterian Church, Market Square Presbyterian Church, and many other churches.

    You, the individuals who support HCEF financially as Ambassadors of the Mother Church.

    You, Cindy Brewer, Patty Parma, Gail Freeman, Monsignor McSweeney, Father Waller, Nancy Hemminger, Timothy Ross, Mary Ann Flannery, Bill and Carolyn Yontz, Eve Van Sickle, Sister Marietta Sharky, Miriam and John Jacobs, Linda Hyde, Mary Beahn, Fr. Alex Kratz , Rev. Russel Murray, Rev. Roy Enquist, HCEF Staff and the school coordinators in the USA and the Holy Land Holy Land, members of the HCEF Board of Directors and Advisory Board, and all the other volunteers who have accepted responsibility for spreading the word about the Christians of the Holy Land, and for building the foundation’s programs.  

    You, George Ghattas, Amani Juha, Ramzy Qumsieh, Manar Giacaman, Shereen Khoury, Marina, and Sulimeh who run the efficient HCEF operation in Palestine.

    You, Jonathan and Joyce and Mai and Rocio, who managed our office and programs in the Washington area during the past year.  

    All of you are pilgrims on the Path of Peace, and I thank God for the honor of walking with you.  In doing so, I ask God to send many more people like you—dedicated volunteers and supporters of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.  

    Earlier this year, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, William and Carolyn Yontz conducted extensive research into the conditions of Palestinian Christians.   They have written a report on their work, which has been edited by HCEF Director Dr. Saliba Sarsar.  HCEF has published the report under the title, “Living Under Fire: Christian Clergy and Congregations in the Holy Land.”  This document is a gold mine of information about the situation of Christians in the Holy Land, and I urge everyone to read it.   Copies are available in the hall outside this sanctuary.

  The 9th International Conference program book, which you should have received when you registered, includes information on the structures and personnel of your foundation.  I encourage you to review it, and I hope that after you do so, you will consider becoming an Ambassador of the Mother Church.

    As we all know, the Path of Peace has many obstacles.  One of them is a recent decision by the Israeli Government to place severe restrictions on the travel of Arab religious workers in and out of the occupied territories of Palestine.  As a result, one of the co-founders of the foundation, Father Emil Salayta, has not been able to travel from the Holy Land to be with us at this conference.  Fortunately, another co-founder, Father Majdi Siryani from Jerusalem, was able to travel, and is with us today.  

    It is often said that the Christians of the Holy Land have an important and special role to play in building peace in their region. I believe that, for the following reasons:

    First, no other group in the Holy Land has anything to fear from us Christians.  We are a small minority; we control no territory and do not want to do so.  We have no armies, no militia, no weapons of war.  We do not control great wealth or mass media.

    Second, our agenda is simple, transparent, and unselfish.  We want the Holy Land to be a free, open, safe, prosperous place where people of all faiths will feel at home.  We do not seek the advancement of any one religious or ethnic group at the expense of any other.

    Third, we have the great moral strength that comes from a commitment to justice and peace, not based on any desire to gain land, wealth or prestige.  We thus stand in the tradition of Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, three men of faith who are moral giants of our age.  Their great accomplishments would have been impossible if they had controlled political, military, or financial power.

    And finally, we have a mandate from our Master to forgive those who hurt us.  That means that those from whom we seek fairness and justice need not fear vengeance or retribution from us if they grant justice.  

    These are the goods that we carry on the Path of Peace as we strive to replace despair with hope, fear with security, and humiliation with human dignity. May God bless our walk together, and may God bring us safely to our destination and our destiny.