Event Highlight: Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Book Series

The 2024 book series, which ran from January to April, featured local and international scholars discussing issues of peace, justice, home, exile and diaspora across Israel/Palestine, Kenya, and the Philippines. The series drew upon core Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI) frameworks: investigating the role of religion in geopolitical conflicts; focusing on the importance of lived history; and valuing diverse narratives in the search for homeland. Taking place both online and in-person, the series attracted over 225 attendees, and three of the six events featured RCPI fellows and affiliates. Each event closed with the opportunity for participants to engage in a thought-provoking Q&A with the featured authors, and nearly each discussion brought forward questions of identity, home, and cross-disciplinary approaches to the subject.

The Religion, Conflict, and Peace Spring 2024 Book Series

"Decolonizing Religion and the Practice of Peace" with Atalia Omer, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding

The book talk highlighted the recent work of Atalia Omer, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding, and was moderated by Diane Moore, Associate Dean for Religion and Public Life. Omer's book delves into the impact of framing religion as a tool for peacebuilding , as well as the persistence of colonial legacies in contemporary interreligious peacebuilding efforts. Despite the prevalence of interreligious dialogue initiatives led by local and international organizations in the global south, their outcomes often reinforce neocolonial practices and disempower local religious figures. Drawing from empirical research in Kenya and the Philippines, Omer shared personal narratives from Filipino religious leaders involved in peacebuilding endeavors. Omer spoke about how local peacebuilding programs were often co-opted into broader global agendas which replicated colonial dynamics. She also identified moments where relationships surpassed neoliberal frameworks, revealing what she terms "decolonial openings to love" as a rejection of hate and division. In the Q&A, Omer spoke in greater depth about the way deep relationships emerged in these communities, and ended by asking what it would look like to center justice in peacebuilding efforts.

Key Quote from Omer:

“The fallacy of religion and peace praxis is that it glosses over the histories and structural forms of violence, spiritualizing, and psychologizing peacebuilding as the project of overcoming stereotyping and hatred—as if religiocultural difference is the root of the violence. This is the tension that needs to be navigated. We need to understand how religion can be constructive in this context and to what degree it's being co-opted and only deepening colonial dynamics.”  

"The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance & End of Days Ethics, Tradition, and Power in Israel" with Shaul Magid, Distinguished 2Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School and Mikhael Manekin, Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace

Moderated by Atalia Omer, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding and Senior Fellow in Conflict and Peace, this book talk brought together Shaul Magid, Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School and Mikhael Manekin, Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace, to discuss the ethics of power, ideology, and ethnonationalism in Israel/Palestine. Both speakers drew attention to different understandings of Zionism within and outside of Israel/Palestine, particularly through the construction of anti-Zionist or Zionist identity depending on one’s positionality within Israeli Jewish, Jewish diasporic, or Palestinian spaces. Drawing on his family’s history, Manekin explored how a religious ethic grounded in Jewish tradition could shape Israeli society despite the increasing influence of religious Zionism. Magid pointed to a reclamation of exile to counter Zionist ideology, while distinguishing between exile and diaspora as counter-Zionist political and spiritual frameworks. The three scholars offered distinct views on how much to center Jewish narratives and ethics in conversations about Palestinian and Jewish nationalism, self-determination, and right to land.

Key Quote from Magid:

“I think the challenge of the American Jewish left is being able to navigate a very difficult passage of being both committed to the progressive issues that are part of the American Jewish left while also maintaining an engagement with Israel/Palestine, even if that engagement is complicated. Even if that engagement is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, a lot of people in the American Jewish left must repudiate any relationship with Israel or Zionism to be admitted. That becomes the ticket of admission, a ticket I find detrimental to the progressive cause of creating a just and equitable solution to the crisis in Israel/Palestine.”

Key Quote from Manekin: 

“I, by no means, have any exclusivist relationship with the state [of Israel], and I think exclusivism in general is a very problematic position. Now, some people would call that an anti-Zionist position—at this point, most Zionists. Some people would call that a Zionist position—I imagine that many diaspora Palestinians would call that a Zionist position. So, I’m aware of the fact that where you position yourself in this conversation has to do with that.” 

"Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba" with Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, led a book talk about her work in the archives of early kibbutzim, uncovering the impact of left-wing Zionist kibbutz movements on Palestinian displacement. Sabbagh-Khoury traced the early settlement practices of socialist Zionist movement Hashomer Hatzair before and during 1948. She focused on the structural nature of settler colonialism, touching on how it manifests both materially and relationally. She mapped out early relationships between early Zionist settlers and Palestinians, bringing these interactions to life through vivid excerpts from memoirs and stories. Sabbagh-Khoury also explored the contradictions between the leftist values of Hashomer Hatzair and the movement’s participation—and expansion of—the Zionist project. Finally, Sabbagh-Khoury spoke to the methodology of her research, and the challenges faced by Palestinian scholars accessing archival material on the early kibbutz movements.    

Key Quote from Sabbagh-Khoury:

“If there’s anything I hope my book shows us, it is that just as settler colonialism is a social process with a contingent history that was far from inevitable, so too can it be undone... The sociological analysis of my book enhances our theoretical understanding of the ongoing events in Palestine. It shows us where the true zero-point of conflict lies, why violence emerged between colonizer and colonized, and some of the original discourses employed still today to dehumanize the colonized or justify colonial superiority.” 

"Stranger in My Own Land: Palestine, Israel and One Family's Story of Home" with Fida Jiryis, Palestinian writer and editor

In a book talk featuring Palestinian writer and editor Fida Jiryis, moderated by Sara Roy, Associate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Jiryis delved into the intricate narrative of her family’s journey from Fassouta—a Palestinian village located in the Galilee—to Beirut, and back again. When the 1993 Oslo Accords permitted some Palestinian families to return to their ancestral homes, Jiryis recounted her family's experience returning to Fassouta after thirteen years away. She offered both a look into her family’s history—from her father’s involvement with the PLO to his exile to Lebanon in 1970—as well as her own, recounting the profound effect of war and displacement on her own psyche. During the talk and ensuing Q&A session, Jiryis shed light on the challenges of censorship in Israel/Palestine and life as a Palestinian citizen in the Galilee. She provided perspectives on the current situation in Israel/Palestine, including dynamics in the Galilee and the West Bank between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israelis. In both the talk and memoir, Jiryis chronicled a quest for belonging across the Galilee, the West Bank, and the wider Palestinian diaspora, probing what it means to be home and be in exile.

Key Quote from Jiryis:  

“I turned around, and I asked my father, ‘What does this mean? Can we go home?’ It's interesting that I referred to it at the time as home. Can we go home? Though I'd never been to this place. That's how deeply we felt Palestinian, how deeply we felt that we belonged to a place that we had been forcibly removed from. My father, I remember, he shook his head, and then there was a slow smile. Then he said, ‘Yes. Probably yes.’” 

"Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible" with Mitri Raheb, founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem

In this book talk, Mitri Raheb, founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem, discussed the early history of Christian Zionism and Jewish Zionism, highlighting the biblical texts that build the Zionist ideology. He traced the theological pathways that led to the establishment of the state of Israel, while also examining the ideologies that fueled the expansion of Israeli-controlled territories. Raheb delineated between liberal and conservative Christian Zionism, and overviewed how Christian Zionist theology emerges through history and text. During the Q&A session, discussions examined the rhetoric surrounding exceptionalism, and the embedded cultural Zionism within American politics and institutions. Poignantly, Raheb described the “bazaar” in the way theological texts are used, in which religious actors pick and choose spiritual texts that align with their political ideology.

Key Quote from Raheb:

"For me, the Bible is like the bazaar in the Old City of Jerusalem. You can find there anything you want. So the question is "Is the Bible a tool for colonization or liberation?"

If you are looking for text of settler colonialism, very easy. Go to the book of Joshua. . . . If you are looking for texts to support justice, you go to the prophets, Jesus, and others. So what you find in the Bible says not so much about the Bible but more about you. You find what you are looking for. It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Christian, you will find there what you are looking for.

So let us decolonize the Eurocentric theologies. Dismantle our settler colonial structures and work towards a land that is shared equally, a society that is inclusive in nature, and where faith is a source for liberation and innovation." 

by Shir Lovett-Graff, MTS '24