By The Very Revd Canon Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College, Jerusalem 

I arrived in Jerusalem three years ago to take up my role as Dean of St George’s (Anglican) College. Since that time, I think I have been through the full range of emotional reactions to the situation currently prevailing in Israel and Palestine. This encompasses naïve optimism, bitter despair, anger, frustration and stubborn hope. I can quite easily feel all these in one day. 

Recently my wife, JulieAnn, and I drove to Birzeit near Ramallah in the West Bank to have breakfast in a little restaurant with Palestinian friends. It’s impossible to drive through the hills and valleys of the beautiful terrain without being lifted by the wonder of the stunning landscape. Simultaneously we were both stung into rage (again) by the checkpoints, Separation Wall, barbed wire, illegal settlements on many hilltops and settler-only roads.  

The breakfast in the four-tabled, cosy restaurant in the Old Town was an example of Palestinian hospitality at its best. The now-familiar flavours of shakshuka (eggs in tomato sauce), fatteh (bread covered with yoghurt and tahini) and foule (fava beans, lemon juice and garlic) are delightful but served in such large quantities that there’s no need to plan for anything else to eat that day!  

Our conversation ranged from the mundane – the busy Friday traffic through Ramallah, to the visceral – the reality of our friends’ life travelling through the checkpoints in and out of Jerusalem twice a day. I’m sure there are days when they rage against these frustrations, but I am constantly impressed by their resilience and their refusal to allow the crushing reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to make them embittered. They both know Israeli Jews who strongly oppose their own government’s policies towards Palestinians, but they are under no illusions about the limits of these friendships. As my friend Miriam quietly reflected ‘if it comes down to it, they will still see us as an enemy’.  

Thoughts for peace in this region must contend with these realities. There is no avoiding the facts on the ground. There’s plenty of room for despair but what are the grounds for any chance for peace and dare I even mention, reconciliation?  Well, I must confess, I get a bit frustrated with the trite use of ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ when none of the conditions for that peace are anywhere near in place to enable a true peace to exist. Despite all the conditions for pervasive despondency to prevail, it is the small groups of people meeting together to listen to one another’s stories, breaking out of enclaves of the like-minded where the flickering embers of peace are nurtured. It is the little community organizations striving to swim against the tide of mutual antipathy which give me grounds for encouragement. These may seem on the surface to be an exercise in futility in the face of the sheer weight of the forces which keep Israeli Jews and Palestinians in an on-going state of mutual opposition. But it is from these small-scale efforts that ultimately anything worthwhile will have to arise.

I know Jews, Christians and Muslims who are clinging on to whatever chances they do have to forge tentative friendships and alliances. There does not seem to be a significant peace movement to speak of in any of these communities but there are just glimmers of hope so fragile, they might be snuffed out at any time. Nevertheless, they are glimmers of hope, and they should be cherished.  

The season of Advent calls us back to our vocation to be purveyors of hope. The promise of the Messiah in the first century AD did not occur when all the signs were pointing towards such a momentous and earth-shattering event. Indeed, it was quite the opposite. Christian hope is a clarion call when the evidence is disheartening.  Christian hope is not only for the days when we are feeling hopeful, but also for the times when we are feeling hopeless. Advent invites us to take time out of our busy or humdrum schedules to consider the ground of our hope. We can revisit the promise given to Mary that she will bear a son who will be called, Emmanuel meaning ‘God with us’. We draw on the promises of old, that a Messiah will come who will be called the Prince of Peace. With these promises at the core of our faith, we cannot afford to abandon hope and concede to pessimism. 

Almost two years of the pandemic has caused immense harm to the Christians of the Holy Land, dependent as so many are, on the pilgrim and tourist trade. Even this year with a little more optimism abroad, Bethlehem is lacking the excitement of the normal preparations for Advent and Christmas. But they, and we, cling on to the belief that the situation will eventually get better. The prospect for peace here feels less assured and certainly should not be the subject of trite aphorisms and sentimentality. If peace does come to the divided peoples of Palestine and Israel it will be because a few people have clung onto hope despite the opinion of so many others that they are wasting their time. Those few hope-filled people may multiply into more significant numbers who recognize the self-destructiveness of refusing to concede the humanity of the other and that their own security is ultimately bound up with the security of those who have previously been seen only as enemy.  

I cherish the friendships I have with people of good will in all communities here. I seek to ensure that the moments of frustration and anger which I have, do not become the controlling emotions for the way that I think and act in these lands. Peace may feel elusive but I do not believe it is unattainable.   

By The Very Revd Canon Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College, Jerusalem