Peacemaking or Virtue Signaling?

In this episode of Voices 4 Peace, Pastor Todd Stavrakos, Executive Director of Pathways for Peace, and Rev. Dr. Peter Pettit, Board Member of Pathways for Peace, tackle a difficult question: are today's churches truly engaged in peacemaking, or are they simply signaling virtue? 

Drawing on their experience in Israel and Palestine, they explore trauma, solidarity, accountability, and the challenges of addressing conflict without simply taking sides. The conversation examines how faith communities can move beyond statements and slogans toward the difficult work of building peace.

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Pathways for Middle East Peace is a nonprofit educational organization that works to support collaboration between mainline churches and the Jewish community.

We advocate for peace and reconciliation through dialogue and building relationships. While the world seeks to build walls and silos, we believe that Christ has created a pathway for us through the example of His life, ministry, death and resurrection: to build community by bringing people together.

Visit Pathways4Peace.org for more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You're listening to voices for Pet Voice Repeat. So we've wanted to have this conversation for a while. A conversation centered around what is peacemaking in mainline Protestant denominations these days. And I will say from the outset that I want to distinguish right away the difference between peacemaking and uh virtue signaling. Peacemaking to me is a process in which we actually have work to do, where we don't stand off from afar, but we get our hands a little dirty, have difficult conversations, uh, engage with parties who are in conflict on both sides, and work to support those two parties in their conflict resolution. Virtue signaling, I would define as just making statements to feel good about ourselves that aren't going to do anything to bring about resolution of said conflict or concerns. So we live in a society in which I think we are all too comfortable politically doing the virtue signaling.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

And I think unfortunately And let's recognize that um the social media environment that has emerged over the last decade, decade and a half um has really um underscored that, exacerbated that. Um it is it is we see it all the time in the social media accounts where uh I can more or less anonymously say virtually um anything that I want and make it clear what uh what high standing values I have, what pirate of vision I have, um, what I understand the ideals uh of the world to be. And um I and I don't have to do anything about it. I can just put it out there and get my likes and uh and erase the haters. Um so the distinction that you make, I think, is is very helpful and particularly should be recognizable given our experience with what happens on social media.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, I there's you know, we we talked about, you know, we use terms such as silos or echo chambers, uh, and it's almost like in in many of our discussions and peace and justice issues and uh peacemaking that we're more so looking for adulation coming from within our echo chambers or silos than we are actually doing the difficult work.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I I would make another distinction that I think overlays with this one, and um, that is a distinction between peacemaking and um solidarity. Um there is there is a level of solidarity with those with whom we share faith or we share heritage or we share history um that is deeply, deeply appropriate and necessary, um, but that in some ways doesn't necessarily contribute to peacemaking. And in any conflict, I think it's natural that we're going to feel more solidarity with one actor in the conflict or with the other, just because of different histories, different familiarity, different ways in which we're related to the various actors. And I'm not suggesting that there's any way to achieve equal mutual solidarity or that we should. Um personally, as an American Lutheran with the ELCA, um, I lived in Israel for a year. I worshiped every weekend at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the old city of Jerusalem, which is the cathedral church of the Palestinian Lutheran community. I got to know those people. I worked with those people. Um, I have a felt sense of solidarity with the Palestinian Lutheran community because we share a faith, etc., etc. We speak the same theological language in many ways, and my sense of solidarity with them is of a different kind from the solidarity that I feel with Jewish Israelis who are on the other side of a conflict with the Palestinian Lutherans. Do I feel solidarity with the Jews? Yes, I do. Um I that same year I spent weekdays at a university working with Jews, etc., etc. But but there's there's and there's a way in which my solidarity with each of them can be expressed differently from the way that I engage in peacemaking, analyzing what the conflict is and how best we go about finding peace for both communities. Is that making sense as another kind of distinction?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yeah, I I think so, because what what you're really getting at is we can have solidarity with one party or the other, but we're not leaving our space as who we are either, which can be a very powerful tool that we can have as peacemaking. So we can be in solidarity with, in your example, the Palestinian Christians, um, understand and support them, but also have a slightly different perspective that we can offer, given our situation of being uh in America uh and being able to view this conflict through a slightly different lens. Doesn't mean that what we have to say is God's honest truth, but it's just a different perspective.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

And it is, and it is God's gift to the to the situation in that we feel the commitment to peacemaking, but we don't live in the teeth of the conflict in the same way that the folks on the ground there do. And therefore, we can have a somewhat more remote, somewhat different perspective, which if we don't speak for that perspective, um, we give up something that God has given us with our commitment and with our distance.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

And I think when we talk about like peacemaking, part of our role is helping in in the situation we're going to talk about Israel and Palestine, we have two highly traumatized uh communities. And how do we, through our perspective, how do we help them perhaps see something a little differently? Because they're gonna be responding, which is just human nature, out of their trauma. That's that's how they will respond to whatever happens. And and as you know, for trauma-informed, you know, work, we have to know what's a trauma response and what's not a trauma response, and how can we help them see perhaps something a little bit differently that gets beyond that trauma response?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, we also have um a situation in which both communities have deep historical, legitimate claims to a homeland connection to this same territory. Absolutely. But they developed those homeland connections centuries, millennia apart. So for the Jewish community, it goes back to biblical Israel. Um, that homeland connection was severed geographically by the Romans in the second century. Um, and since then, up until nineteen forty-eight, there was no possibility of a significant Jewish settlement in the land, and certainly not sovereignty. But the whole land connection has been carried in scripture, in liturgy, in culture, in song, in holiday celebrations, um, down through all those centuries. Um, but there were no, as we understand them, Palestinians in the land when bitwith with Israel and the Jewish people were developing that homeland sensibility. Conversely, uh the Palestinian people have a centuries-long continuous residency in the land, which they feel deeply as their homeland, legitimately so, understandably so. Tragically, they also have never had sovereignty in that land. Even though they've lived there, they've always lived under one occupation or another. And in that situation, and with the trauma background that you describe, the tendency is for each group to try to delegitimize the idea that the other one really has this as their homeland.

unknown 11:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So Palestinians will say it's not your homeland, you haven't lived here for 2,000 years, you come from Russia, you come from Eastern Europe, you come from America, you come from wherever. How can you say this is your homeland and you should be able to claim homeland affiliation with it? Israeli Jews and others, other Jews around the world will look at Palestinians and say, you weren't Palestinians until 1948 or even 1967. You're just part of the Arab world. And the Arab world has a massive homeland available to it. So why does this have to be your homeland? Why can you call why do you say this is your particular homeland as Arabs and now suddenly Palestinians when it's convenient in order to claim this space? So, and as you say, from the standpoint of the trauma and the desperate clinging to an identity and a geographical basis for existence, both of them understandably try to advance their homeland claim against the others. From the outside, I can't deny those feelings, but I can say that's not exactly what it looks like when I'm not fighting for my own place in that space. I can see how these two claims both stand with legitimacy and both need to be respected if there's going to be peace and justice in this land.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Right. Right. And and I think that gets lost in our peacemaking efforts of today.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

I I I think and and the churches, you know, we talk about the division in Israel and Palestine, but we also have the churches and the division of the churches here in the states over how we view peacemaking in that region. Right? We have uh one side of the church uh putting their thumb on the scale for Israelis, and we have another side of the church putting their thumb on the scale for the Palestinians, which only further, as we frequently say, only further emboldens the extremists who can use one against the other. Um, you know, if and it's almost then becomes whose victimhood can be elevated to sainthood in some regards, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Well, you say we want to lift up the voice of the powerless, right? Terrific, absolutely. What happens when both sides understand themselves as in some way powerless? Right. And you know, I'm I know the arguments one can make because I've heard them from uh uh from both groups um for why the other one isn't powerless. And to a certain extent that's true, but the experience of powerlessness emerging from the trauma that you talk about, experience of victimhood is deeply felt by both communities, and therefore both communities want their voice lifted up. And therefore, if we if our choice is only to lift up the voice of the powerless with their analysis, their experience, their pain in the teeth of the conflict, then really all we do is, as you say, put our finger on one side of the conflict or the other, and more deeply import the conflict into our own communities. Right.

unknown 15:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

I mean, there's there's a sense of I think the need of how we feel so deeply about those who have been impacted by this conflict over you know more than a century now. Um, that we just want to figure out what's the swiftest way to a resolution. And we assume that if we just push in one direction, we can get this resolution. But in pushing for a resolution, sometimes we just further entrench communities uh and perspectives, and I think that's what we're seeing. I I I think we're clearly seeing an entrenchment on both sides, particularly with the leaderships of both communities, Israeli and Palestinians, that they're just entrenched and have no interest in hearing the perspective of the other, um, or even offering any sort of empathy or compassion towards the other. Uh and I unfortunately think we as a church have been a part of that process of pushing entrenchment. Because if if we're saying to one side that they're right and the other side's wrong, then why would one side need the change? Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Oh, and that's where we get back to your talking about peacemaking is about getting your hands dirty. It's about imperfect solutions, it's about recognizing the complexity of all of this. Um I think in many cases maybe another distinction worth making. We tend to talk about the people on the side of the conflict that we favor or with which we feel greater solidarity, but we talk about the actions of the political leadership on the other side of the conflict without making the distinction. Right. So either the Jewish people have these uh needs and rights and and fair expectations, but those Palestinian governments or pseudo-governments or um terrorist leaders, uh, they do these horrible things uh without thinking about the Palestinian people, or vice versa, that the Palestinian people um are suffering and disenfranchised and and uh refugees and such like. But that and and that Israeli government is doing these horrible things without giving much thought to the Israeli people. Right. Um when you know there is there's the the one overture this year in the PCOSA process, um, I think it comes from Olympia, and they have a point where they say that they are have a commitment to justice and peace for both Israel and Palestine. And it's I think it's point number six in their list, but in the first five points, um, there has been no place at which Palestinians have any responsibility or accountability for their actions. They are pure victims, and there's nothing at all about Israel except its egregious offenses against the genocide convention and against humanitarian uh action and and et cetera. So here again, you know, you're you're painting it as though it's entirely one or the other when an honest assessment of the conflict says both peoples have aspirations with which we can identify, both political leaderships have done things that have advanced those aspirations, and both political leaderships have been god-awful atrocious in other ways. But if the narrative up to point six is only about Palestinian virtue and Israeli offense, Israelis are not going to hear point six about justice and peace for Israel and Palestine as anything other than disingenuous. It's just flapping your lips.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Well, it yes. I mean, and and it's it, you know, it's flapping your lips. It's it doesn't even acknowledge uh any sort of responsibility that the Palestinian community has for the ongoing conflict. For instance, uh, you know, uh even a simple statement of we condemn uh the Palestinian authorities' continued uh pay-to-slay uh mentality, where those who have committed terrorist actions get a you know a salary, a stipend from the PA. There's not an equal balance of responsibility that we're leveling. And we're not we're not being fair peacemakers if we're not demonstrating that look, you the behavior on both sides needs to change. This isn't like this isn't just okay, if Israel changes their behavior, we'll get the peace. Well, if the Palestinians don't change their behavior, we're not going to get the peace. Um you know, and there's also within these overtures as well, and I'm glad you brought up this one from Olympia, because if I there's also a statement in here that I just find sad, um comical in a way, but sad, comical, um, and and also a lot of anger. Um on one hand, in point seven, we stand against all forms of anti Semitism, anti Jewish hate, and Islamophobia, and anti Jewish. Arab racism. Perfect. They should have stopped there. We affirm that standing up for our values is not anti-Semitism. Okay. I'm sure an anti-Semite would say something like that. I'm not anti-Semitic. I'm just supporting, I'm just following what I believe.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

It's like saying, when I paint my wall blue, it doesn't mean that I hate green. No, it doesn't. But you might hate green, and that's why you're painting your wall blue. When you paint your wall blue, it doesn't say anything about it's like apples and oranges, so to speak. Red and orange, I guess, not blue and green.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Yeah. You know, and and and I have to say, given the church's history, um, Christian values um have been used to support anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism, massacres, genocide. So you can't just make a statement like that because honestly, if you're somebody in the Jewish community and you're going to read that statement, are you thinking that the church is actually concerned about us? Or do they or do they just not care about us? And if they don't care about us, then why would we listen to their criticism of us? We can listen to their criticisms if we know that you really love us and care for us.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah, and you know, the the whole argument over language, this uh, I don't want to pick on Olympia because there are other arbitraries that have their own problems. Um, but Olympia focuses so much on what we call something. We want to call it genocide, we want to call it a partake, we want to call it, and the argument over language is so it it aligns so much with what you call virtue signaling because uh, first of all, there are at least three well-respected definitions of genocide that are out there in the scholarly literature and in the public arena. And so, unless you're telling me which genocide definition you're using, the statement we have to call this genocide isn't even yet meaningful. But apart from that, given what you can hear in Israeli culture about the fact that October 7th was the worst single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. And the Holocaust was the experience that gave us the definition of genocide. So you know that the Israeli public is thinking about October 7th in genocidal terms. Whatever scope you want to say is different between, for example, October 7th and Gaza, you know that they're thinking about it in genocidal terms, as is this not 1942, not 1944, is this 1938 again, you know, with the first serious um attack against the Jewish people. Well, then to fight over whether it's genocide or not shifts the whole legitimate question about the way Israel responded in Gaza to what happened on October 7th. And there's plenty of room to criticize how Israel has responded in Gaza. Absolutely. If you start out, you say, if you start out by saying, well, we have to call it genocide before we can talk. There are a whole lot of Israelis who've made it clear they're not in that conversation. And now you've lost the opportunity to address it.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Well, and and you know, following the Holocaust and World War II, we you know, we being the you know, the allies and and and the victors set up a process to determine what is genocide and came up with a legal uh framework for genocide and even created an entity who is the one responsible for making that determination. And none of that has occurred yet. Um, we always want to jump the gun because we want to use the strongest language we possibly can to call out something that we find reprehensible. And I'm very willing to say I found Israel's response not a productive form of response.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

What happened in Gaza is just but again, they're in the teeth of the conflict and they do what they believe is necessary at this point in their history in the geopolitical map, um, in order to survive. Right.

unknown 27:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

We don't sit there with them, we sit here and can see it differently.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

I yeah, I'm uh I'm perfectly comfortable, and we've done this. You and I have traveled and sat with the Palestinian Christian community post October 7th and post-Gaza war, and they're very comfortable using the term genocide, and from their perspective, I'm not gonna argue that. But from our perspective, who are trying to be peacemakers, um, and and and come with a different background, I'm not gonna level that term because one, it's not my responsibility, right? That's the ICC's responsibility, right? But I can call out what Israel has done, and I can say we must bring this cycle of violence to an end, and I can say on Israel's side, this must stop, and I can say on the Palestinian side, this must stop. But if I'm not willing to say that, then am I a peacemaker?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Um perhaps one more example, this one from the San Francisco overture at the PC USA. Um, and that's the place where the Presbytery overtures to the GA that the United that we we advocate that the United States um as it suspends all trade, uh a complete trade embargo on Israel.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Demands the president to enact a full trade embargo on Israel.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah. And I mean, that's to me, that just it beg I mean, even the rationale that's given doesn't do any kind of economic analysis of what the impact of that is on the U.S. economy, what the impact of that would be on the Israeli economy, how Israel might respond to that in developing other trade relationships, because the fact that the U.S. embargoes all trade with Israel, is that even possible at this point? Um, I mean, we have commitments, legal commitments, national commitments to Israel that granted, they came from a different era, but we don't just toss those aside easily. And at the time when we made those commitments, those were life and death commitments for Israel. Um if we had if we had not made those commitments at the time, we wouldn't be here talking about a state of Israel in 2026 at all. Um, so uh it just strikes me in terms of that language that to talk about a full trade embargo um doesn't it doesn't operate in the real world of geopolitics.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Well um and and this is like careful what you wish for, like mentality. Right? Because I so on my last trip uh in February of this year, I took a group of clergy and and rabbis from Philadelphia um to meet with Palestinians, um, both in the territories as well as in the state of Israel. And one of them was this amazing biomedical uh company, Alpha and Omega. These are Palestinian Christians, and they've named their tech firm Alpha and Omega, and they do some fantastic stuff in terms of treating diseases and cancers. And so a trade embargo, what's that gonna do to their work? Because they're trying to break into the American market. Their whole their work, their techniques are wholly accepted in Europe, and we're seeing groundbreaking results of treating diseases and uh genetic uh diseases and cancers, and and so now they wouldn't be able to one bring their product to the states. Well, so in our attempt, you know, this is another one of my virtue signaling things. In our attempt to tell Israel you're bad, we would do something that would have ramifications for the Palestinian businesses, both into Palestinian territories, because all their trade receipts come through the state of Israel. And and yes, humanitarian aid would be allowed to get through, but those businesses would be starved as well. So how is this really helping? Because you're gonna make at least the Palestinians who are already economically disadvantaged, are gonna be in a worse situation. So this this this stuff, I I mean, it just doesn't make sense. And we're gonna hold so basically this embargo and this overture would would be held in place until the United Nations determines that the following conditions are met, which are basically until there's a Palestinian state, which I wholeheartedly support. But given the reluctance of both leaderships to actually sit down and have honest discussions about this, you're talking about the Palestinian community in this region suffering economically for at least five to ten years.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Well, it's uh to say nothing of the fact that the the profile of the society that is necessary to lift the embargo um would be a welcome improvement on what we have in the United States today. Um, and we're not saying that we have to achieve that level of society before we do this. We're just saying they have to achieve that level of society. Right. Um, we've spent a lot of time and uh talking about what we see as problematic uh with um the efforts in our mainline denominations. We focus on the PC USA because they do have their GA this year. And so there are these uh overtures um that are being actively considered and we would hope modified significantly in the direction of peacemaking. Um so we've been pretty critical through most of this. I hope we've been articulate about the positive principles on which our criticism is based. I think we need to do another podcast at some point to talk about also the significant number of on the ground activities that are happening in Israel and in Palestine, in the West Bank particularly, um, that are uh in many cases Israeli-Palestinian joint ventures or unilateral efforts on the part of one community or the other, seriously to advance peace. And the ways in which our mainline denominations might be able to get engaged with and advance that was an alternative to either just virtue signaling or engaging with solidarity actions that at the end of the day only deepen the conflict because they just add force to one side uh and embolden its aspirations for uh an ultimate win.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

And and I think it's important, uh Pierre, thank you for raising this, because I think it's important for us to notice that the leaderships of both sides right now aren't the solution. But there are a tremendous number of groups on the ground who recognize that peace is only going to start with, who are reaching across the barriers, who are really concerned, who are having the courage to be seen with the other when both communities are still very distrustful with each other. And in these conversations, uh a lot of it is definitions, as you said, is language. Uh we're we're really not doing anything to get into those conversations and to lift that work up. And maybe we don't want to lift it up too high because we don't want too many eyes on the work that's taking place because we know what extremists would do. But those people understand that, you know, it, you know, what's the the song, you know, let there be peace on earth and let it be given with me. And there are groups out there that are doing that. But we don't shine the spotlight on them.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Right. And as you said, um, at this point, it might be a little counterproductive to shine a spotlight on them there, but it doesn't mean that we can't find ways to lift up their profile within our own circles here and ask how we can be more supportive of those efforts so the day comes when they can come out into the open uh with the kind of strength that would require that their voices be heard.

unknown 37:20

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

So yeah. Thank you, Tom. Thanks, Peter. It's good chatting with you, good seeing you. Um likewise, it's always good to be able to do this, and um and let's say thanks to those who've hung with us.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

We appreciate it because this is a conversation that I think the American church really needs to take more seriously. Because I think we're trying to address the issue, but I'm not quite sure we're really addressing it in the serious fashion that needs to be. I mean, we'll look at our own country and look how divided we are right now. And it it pales in comparison to sort of what's happened in Israel, Palestine. So we know how hard it is because we're not quite sure how we're gonna bring our nation back together based on the present situation. So we we really need to better understand the totality of what it means to be a peacemaker and to and to get involved and to have difficult conversations. So I've enjoyed being a partner with you in this, and we'll continue this conversation. And we do want to thank everybody for joining us today. Uh, and look for more information coming forth from our podcast, Voices for Peace. Uh, we wish you a blessing on this day and continue the work to bring peace. Take care. Thank you for listening to Voices for Peace.