Agape Community

By Brayton Shanley

Most of us watch war from the sidelines. Of the billions of humans who have lived over hundreds of thousands of years, a vast majority has never been directly engaged in taking another’s life. Some of these bystanders are serious observers, as warfare is, after all, a dark fascination, a kill or be killed drama that runs the entire course of history. Poems have been written and endless movies have been watched chronicling the great battles of history’s great wars. Tolstoy, a veteran of the military, wrote: ‘War has always interested me, not war in the sense of maneuvers devised by great generals, but the reality of war, the actual killing’and under the influence of what feelings one soldier kills another.’

If we keep the power of observation going, we can also ask just what creates the climate that makes war so consistently possible and who puts the soldiers up to the killing that so struck Tolstoy. The ‘good wars’ in history were fought to protect the homeland. Yet, even those who thought they fought nobly had a curious word for their experience. Hell. This metaphor depicts the worst living nightmare of pain one could have in life. But in hell or out, fight and protect we must, and war continued to march through history. Then came the 20th Century Wars to End War. One hundred twenty million perished in that short 100 years, almost 60 million killed in World War II alone. This century of fear, in the grip of homicidal panic stretched across all of earth’s cultures. Then in 1959, after the bloodiest of all wars, came one of history’s greatest warnings. President Dwight Eisenhower a former general and war hero spoke with uncharacteristic passion about the dark cloud that hovered over the U.S. during the cold war–’The Military Industrial Complex.’ This juggernaut, consisting of the executive branch of government working in concert with the arms industry corporations and the military, was now leading the U.S. into a new, even more dangerous era. Warfare would not only be the necessary force protecting our national security, but also war itself, and the selling of weaponry, were becoming the most profitable of economic endeavors. The U.S. came out of World War I the world’s greatest economic and military power and solidified that power after leading the Allies in World War II.

Heading into the cold war, the U.S. discovered new rationales for warfare 1) protect our newfound wealth and political power 2) increase that wealth and power by selling arms to any nation, friend or foe, which could afford them. From the 1980’s until the present we have waged and won low intensity wars especially resource wars (i.e. oil). To err on the side of waging a war also helps field test and refine new weapons systems that posture our power world-wide, perfecting our ability to position ourselves as the worlds’ only superpower.

Two telling facts unearth the human engine that drives our wars: One, we are only 4% of the world’s population controlling 50% of the world’s resources and consuming 25% of the world’s available oil. This is the economic fact that makes us so good at war, and it is why we are so quick to go to war. Two, even when the moral case for war is a fabrication, as in Iraq, even when our chances of controlling the crossfire of wars of our making appears impossible, we act with the aggression of true believers, trusting our might will convince enemy nations to concede.

Material Things and War

Underneath these wars and rumors of wars (invading Iran’) is a climate that is conducive to hiring our generals and their soldiers to commit the unthinkable atrocity of war. The force that drives their madness is precisely the 4% that we represent in the world. Because we consume not 4% but 50% of the world’s resources we live more or less in a perpetual state of frenzy– getting, spending, keeping and protecting. Our addiction to this privilege, though irrational, ferociously directs the engines of economic global control-worldwide. One of the fears our political leaders play on so masterfully in privileged classes, is the fear the loss of material power that threatens our self-ordained entitlement to ‘climb and command’ the economic class ladder. For most Americans, to lose the competitive edge is tantamount to an annihilation of our birthright, the inherent right to control the global economy.
The advantage we prize so much is our unimpeded ability to consume. More is always better. This largely unconscious desire to ‘have’ speaks directly to our most human dilemma, the fact that we must buy and consume in order to survive. It is precisely in ‘buying things’ that we strengthen forces of addictive habit. We’ve developed a fierce pattern of living that looks to money to fulfill our deepest security needs.
The visionary economist E.F. Schumacher warns in Small is Beautiful: ‘The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace. Every increase of needs tends to increase our dependence on outside forces over which one cannot have control and therefore increases existential fear.’With this ‘faith’ in wealth, our self-understanding and the sense of safety that goes with it are now under the control of forces over which we have absolutely no control.

Why Money Owns Us

We as humans are tied into everything around us and are born into a particular way of interacting with each other. We simply are not born autonomous beings, learning life from scratch. We mimic what we see, and are therefore deeply conditioned by the mores and habits of the environment in which we grow. French Theologian Rene Girard writes in his seminal work Violence and the Sacred, ‘all the grown up voices around (us) beginning with those of the father and mother’ speak for the culture with the force of established authority exclaiming”imitate me’; I bear the secret of life of true being. The more attentive the child is to these seductive words, the more earnestly he/she responds to suggestions emanating from all sides’(However), the child possesses no perspective that will allow them to see things as they are.’ We have imitated the message ‘you are what you have.’ (P 147) Our entire selves are conditioned to value the consumption of goods over quality of relationships, and we imbibe this value from parents on forward into every walk of life. In our culture ‘the bottom line’ has become a metaphorical expression for what is ‘really important.’ The origin of the term of course refers to money; for in the end, you add up the numbers and either you have it or you do without.
The value of money is most visible in the economics of the family. How many people have told me over the past twenty years that a family can survive financially only if both parents work, full time if possible. Now couples can have children but must hire others to help raise them. A dominant clich’ of our post World War II world, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is precisely the economic treadmill that these families tread. Coveting our neighbors goods, a ten-commandment warning, is one of the central seductions that runs deep in the collective psyche in American culture. Girard speaks to this foundational drive to possess, naming it ‘mimetic (mimic) desire’ that propels all humans into perpetual rivalry. ‘The rival desires the same object as the subject (the dominant one in the rivalry); in desiring the object, the rival alerts the subject to the desirability of the object. Once (our) basic needs are satisfied, (we) are subject to intense desires though they may not be precisely known. ‘ The reason is that (we) desire ‘being’, that (the rival) him/herself lacks, and some other person seems to possess (the dominant one in the rivalry).’ The rival looks to the other to inform them of what they should acquire in order to have ”that’ being.’ And when the rivalry clashes over power and dominance, we have violence.
When find ourselves in desperate want of what someone else has, we look to fulfill our human striving, which will achieve this ‘true being’. The dominant one starts out on the pedestal but this rivalry often deteriorates into the law of the jungle. To seek desperately something outside us, we sacrifice our freedom to this contest and chase the object, which, in contemporary terms is money and the things money can buy.
In the frantic attempt to keep up with the Joneses, we follow, not a true calling to authentic being, but something separate and alien to deepest selves–wealth, possessions, status and eventually the violence that procures and protects it. This ultimately reveals a poor self-image, frustrated purpose, profound insecurity, and subservience to the dominant authority (the wealthy). It is not a great leap from frustrated subservience, to anxiety, to fighting for your life or your sense of self. Our inner lives can harbor these seeds of warrior violence. We express this with our aggressive patriotic rhetoric. We observe it in the bully pulpit of those who send the young off to war and in the zealous warriors themselves.
How to Live in This World

The Joneses are rugged individuals in a tightly bound and protected nuclear family. To stay in a rivalry with them, we urgently need work, not meaningful work necessarily, but work that pays the ever increasing bills. This attitude toward work can keep us in a perpetually unfulfilled state charging up the ladders of ’success.’ Driven to compete, we are propelled to ‘get and spend.’ But first, we must ‘get’ and work will make us the money.
In 1959 my sixth grade teacher told me ‘Brayton, by the time you are an adult, you will need a graduate degree just to get a job.’ Here in a microcosmic moment, we have the whole economic scenario forecasted. First, the elder teacher tells the child about life in the adult world and imparts to the student a most serious reality: resources in the future will be scarcer than the present. We know as competitors that not everyone will earn a graduate degree, so you, Brayton, better get one. This privilege will give you a chance not just to survive but also to stay competitive.
Our political contests play on this fear of scarcity. At some point in every campaign we hear the candidate plead, ‘Vote for me and I will bring you jobs.’ Money-driven security fears, the heart of rivalry, are so easily manipulated by politicians as they pitch ‘ a good economy is a growth economy with more and more jobs.’
The quality of work is never mentioned. Money here consistently overshadows meaning. The collective expression of this competitive pride is our sense of patriotism– ‘I live in a good, hard working prosperous country. We’ve earned this privileged status with good honest, hard work.’ There is however, always an unstated assumption about the world we live in. Not everyone can be this wealthy or has equal access to wealth. Therefore, undocumented immigrants are not welcome here competing for limited resources. This is more rivalry. What is never asked in the ‘job’ equation is ‘What does work do to the worker”
Schumacher often characterizes the fact that most jobs in an industrial society are uncreative, soul deadening, regimented ‘life sentences’ that resembles Dante’s lower levels of hell. He marveled that when he confronted almost anyone from any strata of English society with this stark reality of most work, no one ever challenged him. Therefore to be promised ‘jobs’ is to be promised meaningless ‘doing’ in the slavery of the assembly line. So many centuries of unchecked capitalism have deadened the human need for meaning. Work here, is a miserable hell where we sacrifice our freedom and happiness in exchange for economic security, a most bitter but necessary pill if we truly want to possess what others have and wish to measure our true being by our wants. Mammon then becomes the true yet tragic God. And the gods of war are always ready and willing to defend the god of money. ‘The seeds of war’ American Quaker John Woodman writes, ‘are nourished in our possessions.’ Our contemporary lifestyles are book ended: War is hell. Our jobs are hell.

Getting off the Treadmill

Jesus’ teaching on Divine Providence drives an wedge into the center of the question of security: ‘You cannot serve two masters God and money.’ You must choose one or the other. What we ‘worship’ makes the fruits of our lives visible. Jesus also has a very low opinion of worry about getting enough: ‘Therefore I tell you do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or drink, nor about your body what you shall wear, is not life more than food’ the body more than clothing’ (Matt 6: 24-34). This, the most counter- cultural of all Jesus’ teaching, can only be heard if we are aware of what forces have conditioned our thinking and behavior to this point, economic insecurity propelling us into a frenzy of hoarding and consumption.
Jesus’ gospel message doesn’t so much give us an economic program for simple living as it urges us to renounce the habitual worry about our own well being. What is his financial plan that replaces economic privilege where too much is never enough’ ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all things (necessary) will be given unto you.’ Do not lay up treasures for yourself. Pour out your ‘wealth’ toward God.
If the Divine Plan were a gift of life for us to love, would that Divine Plan not include enough sustenance’ If ‘life’ is more than food and material possessions, then that same ‘life-force,’ and this teaching have a direct lifeline to the Eternal. In the effort to be faithful to this trust in Divine Providence, Jesus doesn’t disparage work. Work is among the most human and necessary endeavors. St. Paul draws the connection between the need to work so we can eat. That is the social contract. We contribute our labor, and the laborers deserve their wages (1 Tim 5:18).
The question here is how much work is too much work’ How much money is too much money’ Jesus instructs again: ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow’ (Matt 6:34). His teaching on economics is not so much ‘money is evil’, rather ‘don’t think so often about money,’ don’t hoard it for tomorrow, don’t make wealth an anxious rivalry, and this will free you up to serve the urgent needs of those in your midst today.
Here at Agape, this teaching has helped us to remain focused on ministry to others, not just to fret about revenue into the community. Reaching out to poor families in town, relating to those in prison, protesting war, offering hospitality, and raising children, all are efforts representing money spent, yet they remain the heartbeat of community life.
The idol of livelihood threatens the art of living.
Because work has also threatened worship, we at Agape look to the tradition of Sabbath as a way of slowing down the modern obsession to keep the engines of commerce in perpetual grind. Our Sabbath practice runs from mid Saturday to Monday morning during which time, we pull the plug on being busy and seek to ride on top of time–no work, planning work or even discussion of what needs to be done Monday morning. In this Sabbath mood we learn to live on less and less and feel more and more grateful and begin to practice the art of trading in our money for time. Is there any better wealth than life’ May this celebration of ’simply living’ truly end the need for all war for all time.

by Suzanne Belote Shanley

For years, I have grappled with a personal, overpowering sense of the presence of evil in George Bush, taking my cues, in part from Jesus? castigating of the devil as ?The Father of Lies. ?? and a ?murderer from the start.? I have come to regard George Bush as one ?possessed? by the Father of lies. (John 8:44). Recent writing on Bush?s ?delusional state,? ?bunker mentality?, ?living in denial,? have reinforced this perception, broadening it to the inevitable ?Hitler? in the ?bunker? parallels, with all of the attendant traps–stereotyping, scapegoating, globalizing. Yet, much of what I perceive in George Bush for six years of hearing, observing and being viscerally repulsed by him, convinces me of the existence in Bush of a force field of evil. Satan and his legions are palpable presences in Scripture, Satan having ?entered? Judas at the Last Supper and earned Jesus? ominous denunciation as betrayer of the Son of Man: ?Better for that man if he had never been born.? (Matt. 26:24)

Bush, the ?uniter,? in reality, is a betrayer, a liar, and it seems we must take the actuality of possession by demonic forces seriously as do acclaimed experts on the presence of evil in the human soul and psyche. Alice Miller, Hannah Arendt, James Gilligan, and Dostoyevsky, to mention a few writers, have all analyzed the murderous instincts that erupt in the human heart–in Hitler?s case, related to extreme abuse as a child, an accurate prognosticator of acts of extreme atrocity in adulthood.
Bush?s evil war in Iraq, with its bloody massacres, (ordinary syntax shrivels in view of the real carnage) is, in a Christian sense, clearly a betrayal of The Son of Man, whose crucifixion enshrines the nonviolent heart of Christ for all eternity. Trying to guard my own deepest nonviolent instincts as I absorb the diabolical fall-out of Bush?s Presidency of Lies, to preserve my own too frequently hate-filled heart, I have to remind myself that Bush, like Hitler, like me, is not excluded from God?s mercy.Such vigilance, nevertheless, is overcome daily by the vexing, persistent question: Do the actions of George Bush aspire to a top rank in a hierarchy of evil, not unlike those of Harry Truman in sanctioning the bombing of a civilian population in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Nowhere near 6 million Jewish brothers and sisters for scale and venality, but a haunting, palpable presence of suffocating, unrelenting savagery of intent, hovers over the hemorrhaging of Iraq. Like Truman, Bush?s maniacal self-righteousness is closely aligned with delusional thinking, massive self-deception.

I was curiously exhilarated by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?s dramatically proclaimed comments about George Bush at the UN as they confirmed my own unarticulated conviction.
The Devil himself is in their home. ? Yesterday the Devil was here, in this very place. This table from where I speak still smells like sulfur. ?The President of the United States, who I call The Devil, came here talking as if he owned the world. It would take a psychiatrist to analyze the US president?s speech from yesterday. (UN, 9/20/06)
Despite Chavez?s grandstanding and questionable credibility, his words expressed what I felt: ?It would take a psychiatrist to analyze the US President.? If the Scripture is revealed truth, then Chavez is on solid ground as he contemplates the presence of satanic forces in our contemporary scene. In Mark 9, while exorcising a demon, Jesus lashes out at the disciples, calling them ?a faithless generation,? for their inability to do the same: ?How much longer must I put up with you?? I find myself asking of our post-Vietnam generation, ?How much longer will we put up with Bush?? Are we so faithless that we cannot ?expunge? the devil in him from its full-blown savage madness? Can this familiar theme–Jesus re-crucified by American imperialist arrogance (Chavez) ever be exhausted? I think not.

Why are we Christians seemingly impotent to exorcise the demon of war, of the Bush obsession with death, revenge, egomania, and self-hate? Are we resigned to the presence of Satan in our world, devastating the planet hour by hour? Can?t we do more?
During the first Gulf War, Daniel Berrigan SJ, offered a response, after retreating Iraqi soldiers waving white flags, were shot in the back by American troops and hundreds of them buried alive by bulldozers. (NY Times, 9/14/?91:?US Army Buried Iraqi Soldiers Alive in Gulf War?). Fr. Berrigan led a rite of exorcism, the purpose of which was to banish satanic spirits from The House of God, which occurred when the architect of the debacle in Basra, General Norman Schwarzkopf, participated in a religious service at St. John the Divine in New York City. The Swarzkopf exorcism, during the reign of George the Elder, offers an eerie prelude to Hugo Chavez?s castigation of the ?scheme of domination? and ?imperial hypocrisy? of George the Younger.

When one has as a model in childhood, a father with such dark credentials, what are we to expect of the son? Such exorcisms could be held around the clock, around the planet, but even Jesus warns us that they may not work, saying that ?unclean spirits,?once gone from one man or woman, can ?multiply as they find a place to rest,? then reappear ?worse than the first.? (Matt. 12:43) Decades of demons, inhabiting scores of willing liars and betrayers, mostly Christian, many Catholic, waves of the demonic willing, now stoking up sulfurous fury in Iraq, is the Devil manifesting in our twentieth century retrogression to more efficient levels of bestiality.

With these musings as a backdrop, I read Norman Mailer?s latest novel The Castle in the Forest narrated by a devil named Dieter who had inhabits Hitler at his conception. A loosely historical tale of what NY Times reviewer, Lee Siegel, (1/21/07) calls ?a naked, wild empathy towards Hitler? who demonstrates a ?raw propinquity to evil,? Mailer analyzes the nature of ?demonic power? which is not ?acquired easily? but is located in those who are ?not able to distinguish certain lies from the truth?because the mistruth is so vital to their needs.? The need, as Mailer?s Dieter sees it, is one arising out of a ?wound,? of ?deep humiliation,? and, parental abuse (as James Gilligan posits in Violence) beyond all comprehension. ?Once we implant a deep humiliation in a proud client, we also set ourselves the task of converting such a wound into a future strength,? with ?ruthlessness indeed, a necessary passion?.? (Mailer)

Many have conjectured through the years, that Bush is delusional, unstable, psychiatrically impaired, that he suffers from a dry drunk syndrome, a learning disability, is a sociopath who only sees things in blacks and whites, so tenuous is his hold on sobriety, sanity. Nevertheless, I have yet to find a connection made between the public humiliation and ridicule Bush engenders internationally, and a pattern of shaming and disgrace, perhaps a lifetime of suffering from a pervasive sense of inadequacy. Mailer?s Dieter says of demonic power, that it is ?not acquired easily.? Rather, it is attached to those who live in a ?psychic abyss of would-be suicide?, who are turned into ?promoters of ego,? retaliating for their own pain and humiliation, with the ?power to humiliate.? Mailer?s riveting projection opens further scrutiny of what ?abuse? George W Bush may have endured as a child that has enabled him to join the ranks of The Father of Lies, some of which are still swallowed by an American populace in the thrall of Death.

Americans appear to have bought The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, title of a recent book by Frank Rich, and the ?massive lying machine? with its victims, ?the dead, maimed, the psychologically destroyed. ?? Rich views Bush?s ?power base? as propping up its ?artificial reality, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.? Lies and spin says Rich are standard fare for this presidency of a ?master-manipulator? able to blur ?once definable distinctions between truth and fiction,? truth having become ?an irrelevancy in a culture where the best story wins.? (P.222)

Mailer?s devil speaks of the ?promontories of ego? in the possessed person, referring to Hitler?s demonic initiation reinforced at his father?s savage beatings, creating a child-man, ?outrageously in need of love and damnably vulnerable,? whose life, ?paralyzed by fear,? fertilized the soil of ?violent acts? the fruition of ?humiliation?oscillating between depression?mania? an ?ineradicable melancholia? and a readiness to ?transgress laws social and Divine.? Mailer?s intention is unmistakable: to draw parallels to our current child-man, George W Bush, whose abominable acts may indeed be cut of the same Hitlerian cloth, with Dieter?s comment that his current ?duties in America are being performed impeccably.?

I have wondered since reading The Castle in the Forest, with its impressive research bibliography, whether it might hold true that George Bush, like Hitler, created a ?self-protective ego,? to ward off reality–memories of rejection and childhood pain. His mother, Barbara Bush?s callous reply to a question about the Pentagon policy of not filming returning coffins and the war wounded, offers insight into a family arrogance and angst: ?Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it?s gonna, happen. ?It?s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?? Rich, p. 76.) What would be the effect of child-rearing practices of a woman of such sentiments? A sense of entitlement, insularity, tolerance of cruelty, detachment from the suffering of others? Denial, lies, Mailer tells us are the province of the Devil?s work to ?usurp the services of a high political leader,? who are of ?considerable use? when ?they don?t even know they are lying, because the untruth is so vital to their deeds.?
Hitler?s ?artwork of lies,? and the ?scoring of his psyche into a full installation of well-layered mendacities,? leads to the ?absolute lie,? that some human beings are expendable, which parallels with Rich?s assessment of the current regime: ?The White House?s ability to create its own reality worked in tandem with its facility for vilifying and shutting out those reality-based pests of the press who kept trying to poke holes in its story line.? (p. 161) Further, Rich maintains, the invasion of Iraq, seen as ?the Top Gun way to hold onto power? is ?a piece with every other shortcut to Bush?s career, ?a hand-me-down from Dad drenched in oil to boot.? A White house ?very comfortable about lying? speaks of a progression?vicious, lying father, vicious, lying son.

Mailer?s claim that history is ?a bed of lies? which the devil accesses to ?destroy civilization as a first step to obviating God,? is not without Scriptural challenge. Evil can be overcome. Darkness will yield to Light, which can never be put out. John describes the devil as one whose works are ?undone by the Son of God? whose power is ?not to be like Cain, who was from the Evil One and murdered his brother.? Murder, John tells us, comes from hate, and those who do both have no ?eternal life remaining? in them. (1 John 3:14-15) Jesus rejects the lure of the power of the State, of empire, banishing Satan after his offer of ?all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor,? with the words: ?Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.? (Matt. 4:10)

As I continue to navigate Satan?s hold on a soul possessed and the demonic manifestations of darkness in the lie of violence, I am startled and humbled in my own professed pacifism by Dieter?s remarks at the end of The Castle in the Forest: ?Sequestered in the depths of the average pacifist as one will inwardly discover?resides a killer. That is why the person has become a pacifist in the first place.? Not content to end there, Dieter embellishes his remark with further irony, adding: ?Is it not also true that one cannot find a devil that will not work both sides of the street.? Nothing like a healthy dose of brutal truth telling or at least clarification of thought.

Traveling the terrain of my own inner demons and attempting to locate and dispel them, before projecting them onto Bush or anyone else, I am indeed, convinced that the demonic is alive and well in America, and that the words of Dieter?s Satan, the Maestro, ring true: He has moved his ?operations to America,? to see ?what we are ready to do over there.? The challenge for me is: Can I find in my heart the ?naked, wild empathy? for George Bush that Mailer apparently found for Adolf Hitler?

Will Peace Ever Come to Palestine?

Interview with Skip Schiel, Photojournalist and Quaker
On His Most Recent Trip to Palestine

Agape: Skip, what have been your experiences in Palestine?

Skip: Starting in 2003, I have made three trips on average three months apiece, the first with the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the others on my own affiliations with Birzeit University and the American Friends Service Committee. I offered my photography in exchange for hospitality. My themes were water (hydro politics), nonviolent resistance to the occupation, the condition of Palestinian youth and their political roles. A side issue is my relationship to Quakers and the Quaker school in Palestine.

Agape: How do Palestinians see their plight these days?

Skip: There is a lot of frustration and despair that more people aren?t responding to their plight. There isn?t a whole lot of Palestinian resistance struggle going on that I saw or as much activism as there was during the first Intifada from 1987-93. The morale seems low because of lack of attention and the viciousness of the Israeli occupation. Then there is this perennial problem of different Arab groups trying to work together.Agape: Have you met some Israelis? What is going on with them?

Skip: My view of Israelis is skewed toward the peace and justice movement, The Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions and Jeff Halper who has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Rabbis for Human Rights and Rabbi Arik Ascherman. They support Palestinians during the olive harvest. I have visited several settlements.

Agape: What voices aren?t heard in this struggle?

Skip: Voices that speak the need for: 1.) A more unified resistance by the Palestinians 2. ) Compromise proposals within Israel and Palestine 3.) More International attention to the problem, which could focus on the U. S. congress funding of Israel.

Agape: As one who sympathizes with the Palestinians, what do you think will move the Israelis to change?

Skip: First, both Israelis and Palestinians must see that they won?t get all they want. Understand that much of the present politics is driven by fanatics, Israeli ultra nationalists, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Powerful people are giving voice to extreme views. On the Israeli side, we have forced relocation, ethnic cleansing and making the Palestinians look invisible. There are those Palestinians who call for an annihilation of the Israeli state.

Agape: When you think of classic conflict resolution between political enemies you think of opposing parties sitting down and really listening to the other. Do you think this is happening? Do you think the Palestinians truly understand why the Israelis are treating them the way they are?

Skip: There is a fair amount of understanding on both sides, mostly among the more astute observers, ones who care to learn, not among the general populace. Illan Pappe is an Israeli intellectual whom, I think, understands the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas on the Palestinian side has a pretty good understanding of the Israeli people. Are leaders sitting down and talking? No. In the Quaker school in Ramallah, there is the stance that there should be no partnership, no exchanges with Israelis. Forget it. All the Palestinian Universities, most notably, Birzeit University, have declared a boycott of any kind of partnership between Israeli academic institutions and Palestinians.

Agape: What animosity is driving such a strong impasse?

Skip: Palestinian Quaker Activist Jean Zaru, the presiding clerk at the Meeting in Ramallah is very wary of ?normalization?, meaning, ?let?s just get together and have a partnership?. The fear is that this kind of getting together will communicate to the Palestinians that the issue is over. We have an occupation but ?look we are mixing and matching?. She thinks we need to focus the attention on ending the occupation. I tend to agree. On the Israeli side, I am not as familiar, but I think there may be less reluctance to participate with Palestinians.

Agape: One central aspect I see in this conflict is that there is no history of political struggle in either Palestinian or Israeli culture that embraces nonviolence like Gandhi in India or the Civil Rights Movement in the US, nor is there a strong central nonviolent teaching or movement within Islam or Judaism. What is your experience?

Skip: You don?t see nonviolence in the religious traditions. I think that is accurate. I talked with folks at ?New Profile?, an Israeli feminist organization. The spokeswoman agreed that there is no tradition of nonviolence in Judaism. There is the commandment ?thou shalt not kill,? but there is implicit in that, killing is OK if it is in defense. Similarly in Islam, we have the Gandhi disciple from Pakistan Badsha Khan, an Islamic pacifist, but these examples are right fielders, they are not mainstream at all. In the Koran I don?t see it. Mohammed was violent at times. Many Muslims feel it was justified. Now I don?t know the historical circumstance of Mohammed?s time so I can?t really opinionate conclusively.

Agape: Mohammed was acting in the name of Allah or as the prophet of God. I guess I have always questioned the spiritual validity of any violence under any circumstances, especially if it is done in the name of God. It appears that violence against anyone even the enemy ?violates? the law of unconditional love and doesn?t conform to the spirit of God who is love.

Skip: I would never use violence myself or directly support the use of violence, but I understand why people, especially in freedom struggles use it. And I do see how it plays a part in the overall struggle. That having been said, do I see nonviolence happening in Israeli/Palestine or is there a potential for it? I say, yes. Present efforts are smothered in the media, because the media goes for conflict and pain. In Bi?lin they experience the separation wall where farmers are cut off from their fields. For the last two years, residents have been staging very powerful, creative nonviolent demonstrations every Friday. Each protest has a different theme like starvation or exclusion. Once they built a huge tomb of canvas and carried it. It was very colorful and inspiring.
They get a lot of support form Israeli, Jewish activists and Internationals. But usually the protests turn violent, not by design, but the Israeli military often uses tear gas and stun guns directly on people and Palestinian kids throw stones and that further provokes the military. But overall, the protest activity is a good sign.
There are other organizations in Palestine that have protests such as The Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, run by a Palestinian Sami Awad, who is the nephew of Maburake Awad, a nonviolent activist, and leader of the first intifada, which was largely nonviolent. This was a massive campaign of tax resistance, nonpayment of utility bills, and all kinds of ways to resist. But it didn?t last, nor did it end the occupation. But Sami Awad is getting more youth and college students at his talks on nonviolence. Nonviolent perspectives seem to be growing.

Agape: How have your presentations on Israeli/ Palestine been received in the US?

Skip: I just completed two months of showing my slideshow on the west coast. My last show in California had a cross section, American Jews, Palestinian and American activists. The response was overwhelmingly positive. One hundred twenty people showed up in Anchorage Alaska, and during my presentation, a Jew said, ?You have left out so much!? It is true. I do concentrate principally on the struggle of the Palestinians. I gave a presentation to a group of Quakers in Napa California about Quakers working in Palestine. One woman said, ?I am very uncomfortable with your positions. My Jewish friends would be very upset at this presentation.? Her question–Why am I so focused on one side?

Agape: Some of your biggest struggles on this issue have been with Quakers. Why?

Skip: Self-silencing. There is a blanket smothering debate about Palestine Quakers and in the US generally. Something happens when an American says there is a real crisis in Palestine and much of the problem rests with the Israelis. Jimmy Carter uses the term ?Apartheid.? Then Jews cry, ?Don?t use that word.? Why the snuffing out of debate? The primary cause is the Israeli lobby. This is not a conspiracy but a tightly knit collection of some of the more influential American Jews and others who support Israel uncritically and strongly. The Anti-Defamation League is continually writing on how to spot anti-Semitism. Demonization of Israel, they say, is anti-Semitic, so is divestment of Israel. These Jewish voices are consistently saying, ?Why single out Israel?? The reason for focusing on Israel, is because the US and Israel are tied at the umbilical cord. We see it in the financial and military support of Israel. Holocaust guilt is a strong pro-Israel factor, as well, and that may be legitimate. The US performed ignobly refusing Jews asylum in the States while our military reconnaissance photos showed clearly what was going on in the camps.

Agape: In 1939 seventy-nine percent of Americans did not want increased quotas of Jews coming into the US.

Skip: It is shameful and it must be acknowledged.

Agape: How do you acknowledge that historical fact within the mix of the Palestinian Israeli conflict? Jews historically are an oppressed people they are not typically the oppressors. If anything they could be regarded historically as a gifted people. Aren?t the Israelis acting violently out of some kind of dreaded fear?

Skip: Yes, but we can?t use Holocaust guilt to justify anything Israel wants to do. What might work in Palestine today is something like South Africa?s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. First, Jews should have a right to a secure existence. They are five million Israelis surrounded by two hundred million Arab Muslims and that is pretty scary. They are very vulnerable, and they need protection. This points to the international community. The international court system and the UN must secure this protection.

Agape: The Jewish man who challenged you in Anchorage, how did you respond?

Skip: His gripe was I was ?unbalanced?. It?s true I focus on the Palestinian plight. I am photographing them because I am drawn to the plight of the oppressed. Plus the US media reports, largely, a pro Israeli side. Is that ?balanced?? Do we ever ask Jews to be balanced by presenting the Palestinian point of view? Never. Do we ever challenge Israel?s rationale for U. S. military funding? So my mission is to help correct this majority view with the story of the Palestinians as I see it.

Agape: The New York Times did a feature article on Palestinian youth, implying that youth may be a generation lost to despair.

Skip: This New York Times article on Palestinian Youth is accurate as far as it goes, but it is only one element in the state of mind. What if the Times wrote an article about the American Friends Service Committee program ?Popular Achievement? for school and college students? It is a program in the West Bank and Gaza focusing on community building techniques that will prepare them for life after occupation. This program assumes occupation will end as apartheid did. There was a time when most people couldn?t imagine the end of apartheid.

Schiel memoir is at http://teeksaphoto.org/Writing/Kaleidoscope.html