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OVERVIEW:

Walk the Road to Peace is a new national multi faith campaign organized to support the Road Map to Peace in the Middle East. Initiated by American Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders united to support peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, the "Walk" is an unprecedented inter religious effort to rally religious leaders and their constituents to support the Road Map and counter the forces of violence and fundamentalism.

Organized by A Different Future (ADF), the United Religions Initiative (URI) and the US Inter-Religious Committee for Peace in the Middle East (USICPM), "Walk the Road to Peace" is a six-month campaign designed to:

  • Demonstrate to the Administration and Congress unified inter religious support for the Road Map

  • Increase knowledge of the existence and progress of Arab-Israeli coexistence efforts

  • Strengthen powerfully the voices of moderation in the international discourse on the Middle East peace process

    While Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have separately expressed support for the Road Map, this is the first time that there has been united support from the highest levels of the three religions’ national leaderships

    RATIONALE:

    Public opinion regarding prospects of peace in the Middle East conflict has been deeply influenced by media coverage, which focuses almost exclusively on violence in the region. Continual images of atrocities and the pain of both Israelis and Palestinians create a sense of irreconcilable differences and hopelessess. Yet this emphasis in the news media on violent discord, and wide pessimism with regard to the possibility of peace, are inconsistent with repeated public opinion polls that show most Palestinians and Israelis, and most Jewish and Arab Americans, endorse similar solutions to the conflict. According to research commissioned by the non-profit Common Ground in 2002, 70% of Israelis and Palestinians would accept the same peace plan if they believed the other side would also endorse it. A poll commissioned by Americans for Peace Now and the Arab American Institute in July 2003 found that over 80% of Jewish Americans and 90% of Arab Americans agreed that "Palestinians have a right to live in a secure and independent state of their own", over 95% of both Arab and Jewish Americans agreed that " Israelis have a right to live in a secure and independent state of their own" and that over 70% of both Jewish and Arab Americans support the Road Map to Peace. A poll by Birzeit University at the end of July, 2003 found that 74% of Palestinians supported a cease fire and halt of armed attacks against Israelis. This reality is rarely reported and public perception is shaped primarily by voices of fundamentalists and extremists who dominate the public idea space out of proportion to their representation in their own communities.

    In order to reclaim the public idea space, and reassert a sense of hope, voices of reason and mutual respect must make themselves heard. In the words of the Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab-Nye: "Moderate voices have to speak more loudly. We have to shout as moderates, even though it is not our style".

    "Walk the Road to Peace" is a multi-dimensional campaign to amplify the voices of cooperation among spiritual leaders of the Abrahamic faiths in the United States, and of Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs and Jews in Israel who are working together. It aims to create a broad, interfaith and bipartisan constituency to actively support the peace process.

    CAMPAIGN:

    Walking the Road to Peace: The necessity of inter religious backing for the Road Map

    In May 2003, the Israeli government and the Palestinians formally accepted the Road Map for Peace in the Middle East proposed by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The Road Map calls for a two state solution to be implemented by 2005 through a series of guidelines intended to stop the cycle of terrorism and occupation.

    Although broad international support for the Road Map was expressed at its launch, ongoing violence along with staunch criticisms from fundamentalist groups are jeopardizing the fragile peace process. Through this new coalition of leading religious figures representing the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), there is an opportunity to demonstrate powerfully and dramatically the commonality of the values for peace, and thus provide a message to each side to the conflict, that their own cultures and external environment are consistent with the difficulties of change inherent in peace.

    Through its organizers, A Different Future, United Religions Initiative (URI) and the US Inter-Religious Committee for Peace in the Middle East (USICPM), the six-month "Walk the Road to Peace" campaign aims to:

  • Establish in the United States an interfaith effort to promote peace in the Middle East that reflects the fundamental common teachings in the religious traditions and supports the difficult effort of negotiation and compromise.

  • Recognize publicly the courageous efforts and important advances toward peace that have already been made by Israelis and Palestinians.

  • Create a moral and political imperative for non-partisan support of active and determined US mediation of the conflict, recognizing that cultural differences make peace impossible without such assistance.








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