Telos at Seven
By Todd Deatherage
Seven years ago — after months of dreaming, seeking wise counsel, and planning — my friend and colleague Greg Khalil filed the necessary paperwork to create a new Washington-based nonprofit. As if there weren’t enough of those already. But this one would have its own unique mission, and a bold one at that: to bring together a new pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace community of Americans fully committed to the security, dignity, and freedom of all the people of the modern Holy Land. This amounted to an audacious attempt to create a new paradigm of American engagement, one focused on conflict resolution and mutual flourishing.
Sadly, an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is more distant than it was when we started. Attempts at U.S.-led peace negotiations have failed, and the two sides are further apart on the core issues of the conflict than they were seven years ago. And as a domestic American political issue, this conflict is more polarizing than ever.
On the ground, revenge and bloody violence — timeless elements of the human story — have continued to drive the two sides further apart. The most hard-line voices are dominating the conversation. Yet, at the same time some incredibly good and brave Palestinians and Israelis keep getting up every day and working for the things that seem the most elusive: peace, reconciliation, justice, and understanding of the other.
And at Telos we’re deeply grateful for the way so many Americans have proven themselves open to, and even thirsty for, the pro/pro/pro peacemaking approach. Our dream of a diverse community of informed and engaged Americans is not just possible, it’s happening. Paradigm shifts don’t always occur quickly, and significant resources and energies are being expended to shore up and strengthen the old approach, the one we’re rejecting. But we believe that change is possible. Hundreds of Americans have gotten to know Israelis and Palestinians and found room in their hearts to embrace them both. And in the process they themselves have been changed. As I reflect on this deeply personal phenomenon, I’m reminded of the quote from the Catholic priest Henri Nouwen, “Every time in history that men and women have been able to respond to the events of their world as an occasion to change their hearts, an inexhaustible source of generosity and new life has been opened, offering hope far beyond the limits of human prediction.”
These are, without question, difficult times for Palestinians and Israelis. But when good people, with good will, open themselves up in a spirit of compassion and generosity, they are in effect shining a light into the darkness. When brave and faithful women and men in the Holy Land and here in the U.S. refuse to be enemies, reject violence and revenge, and pursue peace and justice for themselves and, most powerfully, for “the other,” unexpected transformation can happen.
At Telos, we are grateful for the things we’ve learned, the work we’ve been allowed to do and, most of all, the friends we’ve made these past seven years. We believe the community we’re building together is in its own way transforming each of us and in turn has the potential to not just strengthen the peacemakers in the Holy Land but to help lead us all to a point beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
