The Role of Palestinian Churches in Maintaining Social Peace and Community Development in Palestine during the period 1987 -2017. A Critical Appraisal of Visionary Approaches and Impact. رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

This research aimed at examining the role of Palestinian churches in maintaining social peace and community development in Palestine during the period 1987 – 2017. It is centered around the Palestinian churches and the efforts they did and still do in order to maintain social peace and development inside the Palestinian community and explored the church's efforts toward enhancing development in Palestine. It explained how churches understand social peace and community development from a biblical perspective and how do they practice it in the Palestinian reality. The research then went on to show the role played by the churches in bringing about social peace from a church perspective and the obstacles facing churches in engaging in social life at the national level. Finally, the research ended with conclusions that showed that the church played a humble role in bringing civil peace to the community but more within the confines of the narrow community and in rare cases within society as a whole. The methodology of the research in the collection of information was through the inspection of books and literature that examine the social peace and community development in addition to the Palestinian church's theology. Global models of church's peaceful intervention in social peace and conflict resolution were reviewed. After taking the information and comparing it with each other, the lessons and conclusions were also drawn on the basis of several interviews with church's men and officials of church institutions, scholars and community expertise. The research focused on the role of the Churches in building bridges between the Palestinian society's groups and the contributions of the Churches in linking the Palestinian case and the suffering of the Palestinian people with the peoples of the Christian and Western world and the consequent support gained by the Palestinian people in theory and practice. In the absence of dogmatic unity and historical ties in the relations between them, the Palestinian churches created a state of non-unity towered the Palestinian case. However, in the wake of the outbreak of the Intifada, there began to be unified and approximate movements among the churches that contributed to the unification of V the word and the Christian national testimony of the Palestinian cause, which facilitated the coordination of efforts and sharpened the motivation to serve national issues. The study consists of five chapters, the first of which is the introduction of the research, the methodology of the research, the objectives and the study questions, in addition to the literature of the study. Chapter Two discusses the theoretical framework of the study by expanding terminology such as the Church, nonviolent resistance, and a study of global models that succeeded in ending conflicts by peaceful means. Chapter Three discusses the historical framework, i.e., the deferent political periods in which the Church was shattered throughout the ages, since the foundation of the Church until the establishment of the State of Israel. This chapter referred to Arabism as a reaction to the silence of ecclesiastical voice toward the political events in Palestine. Chapter Four deepens in the concept of civil peace and the role of the Churches in social peace and the national role that emerged in the period after the outbreak of the first Intifada until our days. Chapter Five deals with the ecclesiastical meaning of social development and its contribution to societal development. This chapter also reviewed the churches and institutions of the active Churches in Palestine with their developmental goals on the physical, intellectual, or theological level. The research concludes by reviewing the conclusion and results, summarizing the outputs and enumerating some recommendations for churches and society in order to invest in cooperation and joint action to prevent the emergence of any impediments to social peace and exploitation of energies in sustainable development projects. It emerged from the interviews' data that churches in Palestine have contributions to the establishment of civil peace at the religion's community level rather than on the social level in general. Churches can be seen as lacking the charismatic field leaders and the best models that will be used to bring about civil peace and community development, which will be the model to be followed by young people who are a large proportion of the Palestinian society. VI Churches of Palestine need to work hard and collectively to educate their followers on the importance of social peace and the ways to deal with problems, disputes and conflicts by peaceful and moral means based on biblical religious principles and not on the basis of ruthlessness and intolerance. But the dissemination of good behaviors and examples accepted to be part of the activities of youth and parish. Churches need to train a charismatic cadre for conflict resolution and development to lead the Church's community message from a conscious and informed scientific perspective within a strategic plan. I believe that the churches must work hard to develop a strategic plan for their social mission in resolving peace, love and tolerance among people at the communal, ecclesiastical or national community level. Churches should not work individually but collectively to provide large, effective and useful projects that can provide radical solutions to start real development in Palestinian society. The hospitals, institutions and orphanages of Wyatt, as well as hospitals with special needs and other health institutions have been established. Its establishment in all governorates of the country. The researcher believes that the Christian spiritual presidencies should establish a council of priestly staff specialized in resolving conflicts in order to intervene immediately in the event of any threat to civil peace or sectarian or community conflict, which will contribute to providing solutions through peaceful means. This can be done by choosing each or every one or two groups to be taught and trained at the Arab American University to resolve conflicts and development, creating an educated and dedicated spiritual cadre with capacities and energies geared towards engaging in reconciliation and conflict resolution. He suggested to the churches to cooperate with the Ministry of religious affairs in Palestine to establish a research and monitoring center to predict any threat to civil peace and to work out strategic plans to train a cadre based on conflict resolution and development aimed at creating a cadre capable of intervening immediately before the conflict worsens.