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Elusive and Difficult - Peace in the Middle East, page 4
by S.K.
In The Mosque
While these issues may be elusive for people who are not religiously oriented, they are among the central reasons for the breakdown of major peace talks and remain one of the major obstacles to peace. These realizations dont make it any easier to have hope for a lasting peace in this region.
What is impressive though, is to see people from all sides appear to talk with each other and work towards a solution for this age old pain. One evening even a member of the Palestinian government and a close personal advisor to Arafat spoke to us about his view on the situation of the Palestinians. At other times we met Christian, Muslim and Jewish figures.
At the day of our visit of the Al Aksa mosque we were also personally greeted by the two leading imams of the mosque. Of course, they took the opportunity to describe the reprisals through the Jewish government in friendly but none the less descriptive ways and urged a solution on Muslim terms. But there was the feeling that the simple fact that this meeting can take place is a small victory in itself or at least a small step.
I heard that Sun Myung Moon Father Moon has the vision that 20 million should visit here and gain the same impressions that we had, impressions that make it lastingly difficult to take sides, but nevertheless or just because of that instill a desire for peace. This reflection was heard often.
Our delegation was small four hundred people from 22 Asian countries. Our peace march through the old city of Jerusalem and the following rally at the Wailing Wall went largely unnoticed and received no media coverage. Still, the fact that the stakeholders receive a worldwide exposure, can help to drive the peace process forward.
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