Meeting for Sufferings: Friends develop dialogue
The decision to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories continues to prompt challenging questions for Friends
The decision made in April 2011 to boycott goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories continues to prompt challenging questions for Friends in Britain, Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) heard on Saturday 5 October. Quakers in Britain were asked, earlier this year, to recommit to ‘developing dialogue and understanding with Jewish groups’ in their areas. Feedback was given at MfS and it reflected the difficulty, as well as the rewards, that Friends had experienced.
Several Area Meetings had made submissions on the subject and Helen Drewery, general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), talked of positive progress and interesting new initiatives in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).
A Friend said that at her local dialogue group it had been, at times, ‘very difficult’ to talk about the decision to Jewish representatives ‘without being defensive’.
There was a negative reaction to the boycott and the EAPPI programme, a Friend explained, in Manchester by some Jewish people involved in a dialogue group. However, he also spoke of positive steps being made and the help received from Jews who had a connection with the Kindertransport.
A former EAPPI representative talked of the links made between her Meeting and the local liberal synagogue. She described a ‘quiet protest’ that Friends had engaged in outside a local shop. It sold a product made in the occupied territories. There had been both support for and criticism of the action.
The situation for Friends in Britain is affected by the strength of the Jewish community in their area. Quakers in Tottenham, for example, have very close and long-standing links with the local Jewish community. The Meeting house is near Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, where there has been controversy over chants on match days.
A Friend spoke, passionately, of the need to acknowledge hurt. ‘I am tasked to convey to you the “bitterness and division” of our meetings’. She said the subject, for some, was ‘unbelievably painful’ and explained that she had not got the words to express ‘how difficult it was to raise the matter of an “extension to the boycott”.’
In the south-east, a Friend talked of hearing strong, intransigent, views held by some local Jewish people on the status of Palestine.
A Friend, involved with a local Palestine Friendship Association, spoke of a visit they had hosted recently of Palestinian teenagers, who highlighted the issue of child prisoners. She stressed the need to confront injustice in the occupied territories.
A Friend described how his local dialogue group, which included Muslims, Jews and Christians, had discussed the meaning of peace in the Koran, the Torah and the Bible and how enriching this was.
No extension of the boycott was considered and Friends were encouraged to continue to promote dialogue and understanding.
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