An Inter-Religious Vision of Peace
for Israel/Palestine
Preliminary remark: This vision
of peace is not intended as a blueprint to be implemented literally, just as it
stands. By projecting images of a possible solution I hope to stimulate new
thinking and a complete reappraisal of the situation, because the imagination
and feelings of people on both sides need to get unstuck if the present
deadlock is to loosen up. Only once that has happened will the parties be able
to find a solution that suits both sides.
By establishing a Jewish
state within what Muslims regard as traditional Islamic territory, a conflict
was started that has resisted all attempts to find a solution and has even
escalated into something close to a new East-West-conflict.
After decades of involvement with the
religions of the Middle East I came to the conviction that political attempts
alone will never heal the conflict, because in its innermost core this conflict
is not political. It is a conflict of identities, which encompass the
entire history of peoples, along with the accompanying narratives; and thus
it runs far deeper than any ideology ever could. It is far more of a
religious issue than people think – something to consider,
especially for those who see themselves as nonreligious. Lastly,
it is an internecine conflict between competing religious filiations of the
children of Abraham, the common father of Muslims, Jews and Christians.
©“Pictorial Library of Bible Lands”, vol. 3, www.bibleplaces.com
The Holy Sites in Jerusalem
between Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif and Holy Sepulcher
This strife within the family of
Abraham finds its focal point in the ownership dispute over the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem, which seems to be the symbolic heart of the entire Middle
East conflict. As it is tied to the identities of hundreds of millions of
people, the explosive fuel in this locus of conflict is virtually
inexhaustible. And, in my eyes, as long as this dispute is not settled the
entire Middle East will not find rest.
Starting from these
insights, I found a solution that takes the value of the Temple Mount / Haram
ash-Sharif for Jewish and Muslim identities into consideration: it involves a
pan-Abrahamic sanctuary which includes a new Temple for the Jews.
Some Jews may say: we
don’t need a New Temple, we don’t even want one, to which I would reply that it
is not the Jews who need a new Jewish Temple, it is
the Muslims. Ever since the Jews returned to their Biblical homeland, Muslims
have feared for their sanctuaries at Haram ash-Sharif / the Temple Mount. They
know that Jews pray every day for a new Temple and that even many non-religious
Jews want a New Temple now. So Muslims fear, it may be
only a matter of time until their sanctuaries are taken away from them.
A New Temple could free
them of that fear.
My vision of peace
points to a way in which the longing of the Jews for a New Temple could be
fulfilled without taking anything away from the Muslims. Thus all three
Abrahamic religions can emerge victorious from the conflict.
And the world can
breathe freely again, because what the “war against terror” could not
accomplish can in this way be achieved: easing of tension and peace.
How?
The first prerequisite
is that the Jews need to make clear to themselves how they can under the
circumstances facing them, fulfill their calling to be “God’s Chosen People”. A
truly chosen people will seek to heal the world – and this task is indeed
enjoined by the Jewish tradition.
In the process of
striving to become healers, Jews will perceive and acknowledge that Muslims are
zealously laboring to meet the aim of their father Abraham and to accomplish
peace by surrendering to God. With that realization, they will recognize that
Muslims are their genuine brothers and sisters.
With Christians they
will encounter a similar experience, for they too strive to follow God’s
calling. They too are the Jews’ authentic brothers and sisters.
These deep insights will
lay a new task upon “God’s Chosen People”: they will want to bring together all
the children of Abraham.
And that opening will
lead to a total transformation of their vision of a New Temple. Since their
task will now be to mediate between the children of Abraham, they will see the
possibility of a new location for their Temple: not on the Temple Mount, as for
the previous Temples, but as a physical bridge between the sanctuaries of the
Muslims at Haram ash-Sharif and the ancient Christian sanctuary, the Holy
Sepulcher – or above the Muslim shrines – or at a
completely different location, at Mount Zion, which is still largely
undeveloped.
And once the Jews
recognize the Muslims as their true spiritual kinsmen, they will even be able
to hand over the Temple Mount as a gift to their Muslim brothers and sisters –
and with that light a beacon of hope for the whole world.
The Muslims will perhaps
be moved by this great gesture on the part of the Jews. This will lead them to
review their relationship with them and start to review their old Sharia law, which requires members of other religions to
subordinate themselves to Islam. They will look to the Qur’an and find that Sura 5,49 urges “a competition in
virtue” between the members of the religions of the book, and welcomes the
God-given diversity of three Abrahamic religions – even within traditional Islamic
territory. And that opens up a new prospect: lasting peace with Israel will
become a true option.
In their wish to
practice that competition in virtue, Muslims might even want to present the
main part of the original site of the Temple to the Jews by offering to move
the Dome of the Rock and to re-erect it South of the Al Aqsa – at the same
level of height it has now. Technically, today, this would pose no problem. The
task of the Jews in this scenario would be to honor all those places on the
Temple Mount which are of importance in the narrations of the Prophet’s Night
Journey.
If the Temple is to be
erected at any site other than the Temple Mount the Muslims will have to
fulfill another very important task: In order to restore the New Temple in its
main function, namely to have the capacity to house the Shechinah, the Divine Presence,
it needs to be linked, according to Halacha, to the previous Temples. To accomplish that
the (huge) foundation stone, which marks a certain spot under the Holy of
Holies, needs to be excavated from the Temple Mount, and precisely inserted at
the new location. – From the magnitude of that action the world will see that
the new location of the New Temple is now permanent and that the sanctuaries of
the Muslims are secure once and for all.
But the turning point
will already have been reached with the decision of the Jews to become healers.
Since the new Temple will in any case serve as a bridge between the children of
Abraham peace will be at hand. Its construction will create a great
pan-Abrahamic sanctuary, thereby confirming the spiritual unity of the three
religions and simultaneously demonstrating their wonderful diversity.
But
what about the nonreligious members of the three cultures?
Our time has only added
to the historical record of how calamitous, even murderous religiously defined
identities can become, when they regard themselves alone as valid.
But Abraham, the
forefather of all three cultures can dispel this danger: he left his family,
his country and his entire tradition to set out, entirely on his own, in search
of the truth about life in foreign territory and under utterly hazardous
circumstances. Non-religious members of the three cultures show a similar
skepticism and trust in their inner guidance. They too have lost confidence in
their tradition because they too have suffered from its deformations, and they
too are searching for the truth on their own. In this respect, they too are true
to the example of the father of the three traditions. – Of course, the
non-religious are no saints, and many of them will also build dangerous
identities. But the non-religious do play an important role in showing that
this new sanctuary must be a place of awareness, not only a place for
consolidating a tradition. The new pan-Abrahamic sanctuary will surely be such
a place of awareness, for it will bring together the different traditions of
Jews, Christians and Muslims – and will even find a place for those who have
departed from these traditions in order to discover truth on their own. This
great sanctuary will thus be a place of being fundamentally human and a source
of true salvation.
In other words, it will
correct those who come to it in the same way as a good doctor corrects his
patients – by healing them.
At present each one of
the Abrahamic traditions is in danger of becoming a narrow self-centered way
and those who follow these paths are in danger of merely indulging their pain
and their pride, blaming the members of other traditions for their own
shortcomings. But at the place where all these pathways meet, at the great new
pan-Abrahamic sanctuary, all will see their common origin and thus the way to
live together in peace.
Gottfried
Hutter, Theologian, Historian, Munich
Tel. +49-89-4471 8971
Email: gottfried.hutter@gmx.de
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