May 19, 2003
by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - Sometimes people don't know what to make of Mitri Raheb.

He's an Arab Palestinian Lutheran Christian pacifist pastor and educator from Bethlehem with a German education and a Vatican passport and an office in the River City headquarters building of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

"Whenever I introduce myself, people are shocked, or confused, to meet at Arab Palestinian Christian ... who is not a recent convert, but a person whose roots go back to the first missionary, Jesus Christ himself," Raheb said recently. "In fact, our (Palestinian) forefathers were the ones to export the gospel so successfully. ...

"For many people, this is a view of history they are not used to, because they think Arab is only a Muslim. But I always tell them: The gospel was already proclaimed in the Arabic language at Pentecost."

As an unofficial ambassador of a tiny Christian minority in the very cradle of Christianity, Raheb speaks with a tongue of flame, and serves as a beacon of hope.

He dreams of peace - and works for peace. For 15 years he has embraced and promoted a distinctly Christian vision of a non-violent rapprochement between warring parties in his despairing, peace-deprived homeland, which he calls "a country where there is no light at the end of the tunnel."

Raheb, 40, clings to a faith that Israelis and Palestinians will one day turn away from violence, having realized that it is destroying both their societies. The current situation, he said, is "basically an apartheid system."

He said he envisions "something like a two-state solution where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side-by-side, taking the 1967 border as the border." He added, characteristically, that he also can imagine a one-state solution, in which Jews, Christians and Muslims live together in "Israel/Palestine."

He is hopeful that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's "road map" will actually show the way to peace between Israel and Palestine, but isn't sure Powell and other American officials are sincere.

"They proved to be very serious about war," he said. "I hope they will be as serious about peace."

Raheb believes education - training in art, music, journalism, critical thinking and Christian principles - can redeem "the children on the street who are throwing stones" and prepare a new generation of Palestinians to imagine, then build, a peaceful society.

Raheb, the pastor since 1988 of Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Jesus' hometown, is a visiting professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and has served since the first of the year as a mission-partner-in-residence at the Presbyterian Center here. He has made dozens of appearances around the country, speaking about war and peace in the Middle East and about the plight of his ancient, uprooted people.

He also has done his best to banish stereotypes.

In America, he says, "Palestinians are only seen, unfortunately, as violent people, or as victims. I am trying to challenge these two perceptions - because part of them may be violent, but the majority are not; and while they are victims of Israeli occupation, the Palestinians have so many people with faith and creativity, visions, ambitions, goals, which is the side I would like to highlight, so there is hope."

Raheb also has spoken to many Presbyterian groups about how their mission funds are used by one of the PC(USA)'s partners in Palestine, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jerusalem.

In addition to his 220-member church (the oldest Lutheran church in Palestine, founded in 1854), Raheb also is the founder of Dar al-Kalima ("House of the Word") Model School, a Christian school attended by more than 200 children ranging in age from 3 to 14, and as general director of the Dar al-Nadwa ("House of Worldwide Encounter") International Center, a Palestinian arts-and-culture institution in Bethlehem.

After three months in the United States, Raheb admitted during an interview in March to being a little homesick.

"My heart is there," he said of Bethlehem, "but I am always a person who, wherever he is, likes to be there 100 percent. If I am here, I don't want to do like the old Israelite, to sit here on the Ohio River and think of Bethlehem and weep."

Glancing from his downtown office window at a bridge over the broad river, he added: "I see my time here exactly as this bridge. ... I'm trying to be a bridge between two regions which a war maybe is threatening to tear apart."

The war Raheb so dreaded soon came to pass. He said in a later conversation that he'd found it "very interesting" to watch events in Iraq unfold on TV.

"I saw the American media and some of the Arab media," he said. "Same war, two very different explanations, very different understandings, of this war. I'm not a fan of Al Jazeera (the Arabic-language satellite news channel funded by the Emir of Qatar), because I think it is very emotional, tries to play on the feelings of the people, and is not helpful. ...

"But the American media, for example Fox News, was even more emotional. The mainline American media didn't really have any critical things to say about the war." (Raheb said he depended on National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Company for more objective coverage.)

Even before the war, Raheb was no fan of the American media. He believes U.S. coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is wildly unbalanced in Israel's favor. He blames, in part, "ignorance on the part of many journalists, who have never visited the land and stayed to see the whole truth." (Most U.S. journalists who visit Israel, he said, do so as guests of the Israeli government and stay for only a few days.)

"The puzzling factor is that in the land where freedom of speech is guaranteed, you have the most pro-Jewish, anti-Palestinian media," he said. "If there is an attack on an Israeli bus, you will have it, it will run 24 hours non-stop. On the other hand, if you have Palestinian kids (killed), they are just numbers. They will not be mentioned by name, and no pictures. ...

"Just yesterday six people were killed in Gaza, and four others were killed three weeks ago, and on, and on, and on, and on ..."

Raheb said he is suspicious of American motives for the war on Iraq and doubts that U.S. officials are much "interested in the Iraqi people, or in human rights."

America, like Israel, is too quick to resort to force, he said: "I am so fearful for America. I see the U.S. is more and more ... trying to learn from Israel. But Israel is the worst teacher. ... I really wish the U.S. would speak tough words to Israel, speak to Israel as a father speaks to a spoiled son."

Raheb is harshly critical of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

In a February speech in Washington, DC, he asked: "How can we speak of a hopeful vision when (Israeli) Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon has just been re-elected in Israel, when settlements are expanding throughout the West Bank like mushrooms, when an eight-meter-high wall is being built, as we speak, around Bethlehem, transforming the little town into a big prison for 170,000 people?"

For Raheb, the occupation hit especially close to home in April 2002, when Israeli armored forces tore up his Dar al-Kalima School in Bethlehem, destroying its arts-and-crafts workshops and leaving many offices in shambles. Raheb himself was held at gunpoint for several hours.

A few days later, he wrote defiantly: "We are here and will remain here. Nothing will be able to stop us witnessing to the Lord of life."

Raheb's church has worship services in both English and Arabic. It also conducts Bible studies and sponsors a vibrant youth program, women's groups and a forum for students returning to Palestine from abroad - all open to people of all religious beliefs. The school, a joint project of Christmas Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Palestine and Jordan, is also involved in the community through its wellness and health centers. The International Center offers workshops in arts and crafts and trains men and women to lead "authentic" tours of the Holy Land.

Raheb has complained that many visitors "come here as if they are walking through a Christian Walt Disney land or a theme park."

He told the Presbyterian News Service that he believes "Palestine can never have a future without a class of people who are educated." He believes in what he calls "American-style" education, which values critical thinking and creativity rather than rote learning - supplemented with energetic promotion of Christian principles.

"My vision is to develop, educate, train a new generation capable of meeting all these difficult challenges - political instability, the occupation, unemployment, stereotyping and so on - so that the region can have a future," he said. "One of our biggest visions and goals for the center is that, like, 30 years down the road, we'd like to see major journalists, artists, musicians and communicators in Palestine are graduates of our academy."

Raheb described a recent event in Bethlehem that he believes demonstrated the redemptive power of art.

"Our center organized a competition for artists, on Jesus in the Palestinian context," he said. "Sixteen artists submitted paintings, and we had an international jury. ... The most impressive thing is that over half of the artists ... were Muslims. In Islam you are not allowed to paint any of the saints or prophets or holy people, and yet here 60 percent of the artists were Muslims.

"The startling thing is that all of them except one had the crucifixion of Christ as the center of their paintings. Although it is against their belief, the suffering Christ tells best the story of the Palestinian people."

Raheb said he was heartened before the war in Iraq to see "first-hand" that many Americans "were very vocal in opposing the war," and that "there was very serious opposition among churches, church leaders and church organizations." He said he was impressed "because the toughest job is always if you oppose your government - it's always easier to oppose someone else's government."

Doing exactly that, he complained that the United States has not been consistent in its policies regarding the Middle East.

"I agree with ... Colin Powell where he's saying the United Nations should be serious about their resolutions, and implement them," he said. "Amen to that; but that is not the case when it comes to Israel. There is not any other country where they have taken so many decisions (that) remain just ink on paper."

Raheb is an advocate of what he calls "contextual theology," which he said grows out of the question: "What does faith mean to people living in such circumstances?"

"The real challenge today," he has written, "for Palestinians in general and for Christian Palestinians in particular, is, how to hold to a hopeful vision in a context of despair, and to peace in times of bitter conflict and war." Partly because of this "context of despair," he said, too many young Palestinians are "leaving the Promised Land (Palestine) for the promised land (the United States)."

He said he was shocked last month to see how little attention the media paid to Holy Week and Easter observances, even though "Christianity here is like the biggest religion." What little coverage there was, he said, seemed to be about "eggs and the rabbit."

"Holy Week doesn't get much attention in a marketing-oriented society," he said. "It is very difficult to market suffering."

As his people have learned over many generations.

Raheb's wife, Najwa, and their daughters, Dana, 12, and Tala, 8, joined him in Louisville for his six-month stint in the United States. Raheb said his children, who attend a local Lutheran school, "have learned so many new things - but also they learn to value some of the things they have back home."

PCUSA News Service