The Convivencia Alliance for a Just Peace in Palestine

JVL Introduction

Convivencia describes itself as a cross-faith, international initiative for a just peace in the Middle East.

It is convened by Prof. Haim Bresheeth (Jewish Network for Palestine), Mr. Massoud Shadjareh (Islamic Human Rights Commission and Revd. Dr. Stephen Sizer (Peacemaker Trust)

In opposition to the current militarised ‘solutions’ on offer – based on racist oppression, brute force, denial of rights and colonial dispossession – it sets out to develop a proposal based on a history of shared values of the monotheistic faiths and on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In this article Haim Bresheeth-Žabner draws on the historical experience of coexistence, particularly in the Al-Andalus Golden Age and the Balkans, to point the way to an alternative today.

Haim Bresheeth-Žabner writes:

Anyone viewing Biden’s vacuous newspeak about a “Two-States solution” during the recent visit to the Middle East, must be aware of the unease which even he is experiencing while mouthing such meaningless dross. But this mantra has served Israel well – it allowed continuation of its unrelenting expansion of illegal settlements and land confiscation in the West Bank, with total impunity.  Only recently, during his speech at the UN, Israeli PM Lapid had claimed to be supportive of the very ‘solution’ Israel has so methodically made impossible. Merchants of doom like Biden arrive to support their local agents, and prepare for a war on Iran, part of the greater move against Russia, China and their partners, as seen from Washington. Biden excels at starting wars, as most US Presidents do. What they are less expert in is ending such wars. Destruction is easier than building and also more lucrative. Our epoch seems adept at destruction – from various conflicts being expertly inflamed, to the unrelenting devastation wreaked upon the planet by climate change.

But history tells us of other eras and their dramatically different ethos – one of collaboration and coexistence.

Earlier this year, Passover coincided with Easter and Middle of Ramadan, a rare Calendar event happening once in a lifetime. Such temporal confluences had provided welcome opportunities for community sharing – exchanges of food, gifts and blessings; Crucial events of monotheistic kinship.

The three sacred festivals are celebrations of peace, rebirth and devotion to the moral traditions in the sister religions; this formed part of daily life in Palestine for fourteen centuries, as life between Muslims, Jews and Christians did not suffer from either Judeophobia or Islamophobia – the Crusades period excepted, of course. On arrival in Jerusalem, the Crusaders have massacred Jews, Muslims and Christians in an orgy of  bloodshed lasting three days and said to have flooded the streets of the city.

Such peaceful co-existence was impossible in Europe where most Jews lived, and where Christian festivals marked habitual Judeophobic incidents – opportunities for blood libels and pogroms – events the Arab and Islamic world did not experience.

Such coexistence was rare – the main examples being the Al Andalus Golden Age and the Balkans. Without exception, this happened under Muslim rule. In Andalucía, people of the three faiths lived in relative harmony during centuries of Moorish rule, until the Christian Reconquista and the 1492 expulsions of Jews and Muslims. That period is retrospectively described as Convivencia, Spanish for coexistence. Today, Convivencia is used to describe co-existence of various faiths and immigrant groups. In particular, ‘Days of Integration and Convivencia’ are regularly held in Spain.[1] Such celebrations may be read as either a cover-up of the shameful history of Spanish Judeophobia and Islamophobia, or as mindful social contrition for such events. In reality, it may be a bit of both[2].

During the Moorish period, Al Andalus enjoyed a great flowering of the arts and sciences, philosophy, literature and poetry. The Caliphate encouraged cultural exchanges[3], supporting common heritage – the Old Testament and the centrality of social justice. The younger faiths recognised a historical debt to Judaism, underwritten by court ideology. Thus, Christian and Jewish societies enjoyed great social and political benefits; some are still with us.

The Al Andalus cities became vibrant centres of the arts, crafts and architecture, enabling rediscovery and preservation of classical texts lost to Europe due to Church persecution of pre-Christian heritage. Much of classical Greek literature and drama, suppressed by Christian hostility, survived in Arabic versions – then re-translated into Latin and ‘vulgar tongues’ – the local European languages, becoming an integral part of ‘European history’.

Thus, Al-Andalus became an intellectual sanctuary, not only preserving classical learning, but also serving as foundation for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; An explosion of knowledge – in mathematics, algebra, geography, astronomy, philosophy, literature, poetry, physics, chemistry and the arts – was fueled by the Islamic capitals in Asia and Africa. Indeed, the Al Andalus expulsions have driven some Muslims and Jews back to such capitals, mainly Istanbul, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Cairo and Alexandria. Some Palestinian families kept their Al Andalus home keys with those of the lost Palestine home. This reinforced shared communal history as many Jewish families also kept their Spanish house keys.

Other examples of interfaith coexistence took place in other Muslim societies – in the Balkans and the Middle East under the Ottoman empire, in India under the Mughals, and in the Safavid empire, for example.

The overwhelmingly European Zionist colonisation, occupation and ethnic cleansing shattered such shared traditions in Palestine, which even the crusaders failed to eradicate. Such lost sharing is evident in the most sacred space in Palestine – where once stood both temples, now stands Al Aqsa. This iconic space is sacred to all three religions, but periodically closed to Muslims during Jewish holidays, banning them from the most sacred prayer space in Palestine; this year, 200,000 people prayed there without incident on the night of Laylat al-Qadr[4], a few days after repeated brutal attacks by the IDF on Muslims praying in the mosque, injuring hundreds of believers. The Christian locations in Jerusalem and Bethlehem were also closed for some days.

Great anger was caused by the widely-publicised intention by settlers to ‘renew animal sacrifices on the temple Mount’, part of the plan to replace the Al Aqsa mosque with a (Third) Jewish Temple. Despite the project exhibiting criminal insanity, it is seriously considered by a wide strata of Jewish Israel – its supporters understand it may start an apocalyptic war well beyond Palestine, but some intend this to happen; it is also supported by great numbers of Christian fundamentalists in the US as realisation of the ‘end of days’ prophesies.

And herein lies the rub. Both Messianic Zionists and born-again US Christians are building up to a cataclysmic series of events of the ‘second coming’. The destruction of Al Aqsa fits the frenzied Apocalyptic Armageddon scenarios. While the religious texts describe acts of God, the Jewish zealots plan destruction fueled by political racist prejudices. To dismiss this as flights of fancy misses the point – this is not driven by Jewish religious zealotry, but by extreme politics abusing religion.

Most people are surprised to learn that the Jewish tradition forbids Jews to visit the Al Aqsa, not to mention sacrificing animals there. The reason is simple – both temples included the ‘holy of holies’ – where only the High Priest was allowed, once a year. Its current location is unknown, so the whole area is taboo for Jews. The sacrificing of animals was outlawed in Judaism since the fall of the second temple, so for both reasons this plan of reviving the temple is deeply opposed by the ultra-Orthodox; it is a Zionist provocation by racist zealots – the settlers. To them, bringing about a massive clash with 2 billion Muslims only makes this more urgent.

So, Al Quds, the city of heavenly peace, has become a locus of brutal conflict, of denial of freedom and human rights to the Palestinians – who before Zionist colonisation included Jews, Christians and Muslims. Islam recognises the connections between these religious communities, declaring itself a community of peace – its name relates to peace and completeness in Arabic and Hebrew. Indeed, one of the markers of cultural and political intimacy during the Al Andalus centuries was the common practice of writing one language with the script of another – Arabic in Hebrew script or vice versa, making it accessible to both communities – Maimonides’ work is a famous example. As much a sign of political intimacy, it marked affinity and common attraction between the communities and their sister tongues. A linguistic and symbolic mark of Convivencia, if you like.

Such historic intimacy should remain before us as we witness Israeli brutalities at the Dome of the Rock and elsewhere. Palestinians are denied not just normative human rights but also the right to pray in peace at this sacred spot during Ramadan – the right to submit to Allah and purge themselves. That large parts of the Israeli Zionist public support the replacement of the Al Aqsa mosque with a Jewish temple should terrify us all.  For such extremists, Zionism delivers desecration, denial of rights and further ethnic cleansing, annulling the wishes and hopes of believers in the three faith communities.

If Biden and his ilk, willing prisoners of the Israeli positioning, are unable or unwilling to think of and support a real, just solution to the Settler-colonial devastation of Palestine – others are actively doing so.  In Palestine, many have started to return to the original PLO plan of single democratic state in the whole of the country, abandoned by Arafat in 1988, under US pressure.

A single, secular, democratic state of all its citizens, in the whole of Palestine is a simple, logical and just solution. This campaign is now spreading fast on both sides of the Apartheid Wall, argued by the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), a Palestinian campaign which also includes anti-Zionist Israeli Jews and UK Jewish organisations such as Jewish Network for Palestine, with its innovative Convivencia Alliance, supported by most Palestinian faith leaders. The Alliance also includes the Islamic Human Rights Commission, (IHRC) and the Christian Peacemaker Trust, and sees the Convivencia programme as offering a sound foundation for resolving tensions in other regions too; this is apposite in the UK and Europe, as well as US, where Islamophobia and antisemitism were fanned and aided by allies of Zionism. Such programmes for just peace are anathema for Biden – they are, after all, democratic, anti-Zionist, and essentially also anti-imperialist, requiring equal rights for all, an end to racism of all kinds, Apartheid, and support the return of the refugees.

No, we can’t have that, he would claim… But why can’t we?

To struggle for the rights of the Palestinians and the end of the brutal occupation regime, Muslims, Jews and Christians have united to form the Convivencia Alliance – combining to oppose Zionist occupation, oppression and Apartheid. Supported by Jewish, Muslim and Christian organisations in Palestine and in the UK and inspired by the redolent memory of historical Convivencia, it calls on believers and atheists alike to unite against the Zionist colonial project and replace it with a single democratic state offering and guaranteeing equal rights for people of all faiths and none and returning Palestine’s refugees from their exile. We see this as the first move towards creating a foundation for Just Peace in Palestine, and in the larger Middle East.

Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, SOAS and Jewish Network for Palestine

The Convivencia Alliance was launched in London on May 8, 2022. It will present three introductory webinars, On Christian, Jewish and Muslim perspectives on the Convivencia Declaration. The first one took place on Zoom on October 25th. To view the meeting online, please use use this link: Christian Perspectives on The Convivencia Declaration

Notes

[1].  https://www.psoe.es/media-content/2019/04/PSOE-programa-electoral-elecciones-generales-28-de-abril-de-2019.pdf,  and https://www.europapress.es/epsocial/igualdad/noticia-psoe-apuesta-reforzar-integracion-convivencia-voto-dia-internacional-migrante-20101217193558.html

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/12/25/371866778/after-522-years-spain-seeks-to-make-amends-for-expulsion-of-jews?t=1651402685405

[3]. María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Brown & Little, 2002.

[4] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-200-000-attend-al-aqsa-prayers-as-islam-s-holy-night-passes-in-quiet-1.10768016