aging By Marilyn L. Pinsky
Lesson in Co-Existence Syracuse Area Middle East Dialogue group, SAMED, has fostered dialogue for 37 years
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n this present day world where conversations with people we don’t see eye to eye with have become difficult and stressful, it is amazing that a group has been together for 37 years meeting around an issue close to their individual hearts and among the most difficult of subjects, Israel and Palestine. Their continued existence as a group is a lesson for us all as we search for a better way to co-exist. Today’s reality is that the United States has always been a diverse country and we live in a global society. While people from other countries have chosen to move here and become loyal United States citizens, their hearts have also been with parents, siblings or relatives who still lived in other parts of the world, including the Middle East. One does not just move to another country and forget their heritage, and often that heritage is one of pain. Syracuse Area Middle East Dialogue group, SAMED started meeting in 1981. Organizationally, SAMED has limited membership to insure balanced representation of the three constituent groups: Jewish Americans, Arab/Palestinian Americans and other Americans who are not Jewish nor Arab/Palestinian. Anis Obeid, a beloved cardiologist in Syracuse, and a long time SAMED steering committee member, describes the group this way: “SAMED, is a model of how we can have intensely strong feelings based on heritage, religion and historical background, but still have our hearts and minds open to hear the pain of others.” When asked ‘how has the world changed since SAMED started, a founding member, Louis Kriesberg, S y r a c u s e U n i v e r s i t y p ro f e s s o r emeritus of sociology, said, “There
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has been great progress and great setbacks. At the outset, the idea of Israeli-Palestinian peace in the form of two states seemed unrealizable and widely undesired. But when the Oslo Peace Accord was signed in D.C., in 1993, we saw a change and felt we had contributed to that change in our local communities. We spoke of declaring victory and having dinner and dissolving. But we knew realizing peace would prove difficult and our work should continue, and also we wanted to hang out with each other. Matters did not go well, but a Palestine authority was established and survives. The world context has radically changed, with the end of the Cold War, the appearance of large-scale terror attacks, major enduring U.S. military engagement in the Middle East, the Arab Spring, etc.” “Though difficult to understand,” Kriesberg continued, “it is important to know that the Israeli-Jewish relationship with Palestinians is not to be defined only as a religious conflict; the communities are ethnic or nationality-based.” Present Chairman Mark Field explains that “through the dialogue process we build friendship, trust and understanding. We support a resolution to the Israel/ Palestinian conflict that is just and acknowledges the national aspirations of both peoples in the region. We seek to help our community understand the conflict from a broader perspective and we try to encourage our elected representatives to use American
influence to help bring about a fair resolution to the conflict in an unbiased way.” As a decade long community member and past SAMED chairman, Paul Welch, who is from the other Americans category, said, “I find people in SAMED I would not normally connect with. There are people from Egypt, Lebanon and, of course, Palestine who may be Muslim, Druze or Christian Orthodox. Jewish members are from different congregations and from no institutional affiliation. The common denominator for community people is a concern for the intense suffering involved in the conflict. Years of tears and frustrated hopes yield one great lesson — somehow people in both camps must see each other as children of divine love.” “And,” he went on, “the Second Intifada sowed horrible hatreds. The building of the wall and the military occupation increases that hatred. We Americans hold the key to alleviating the suffering of millions of people caught between the cries of ‘death to Israel’ and ‘drive the Palestinians from Samaria and Judea.’ However, it means America seeing both peoples as children of God.” Because the situation is so fluid, and because the U.S. is such a major international player, the group regularly discusses, analyzes and develops consensus views on U.S. policy relating to the Middle East as issues arise. It is not easy and it is often painful. “Though coming to consensus is a goal,” Kriesberg said, “sometimes we do it easily and sometimes we fail.” Developing that statement begins with general discussion at a meeting, or more than one meeting. With some parameters agreed upon, two or three members draft a statement that is then discussed and ultimately voted on, and with the overwhelming agreement