c. 2003 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ When Israeli and Palestinian officials shook hands recently in Aqaba, Jordan, over a new cease-fire accord _ dubbed a “hudna” by the media after the classical Arabic term _ Elias Jabbour was elated that an ancient Arab concept in conflict resolution had suddenly become part of the lingua franca of modern Middle East peacemaking.

But the deeper meaning of the Arab concept of hudna _ and of the more complete reconciliation that is supposed to follow, known as “sulha” _ has not yet been fully digested by modern politicians or the media, Jabbour said. As a result, a little more than a month after the June 4 agreement, each side is already accusing the other of violating the accord.

Jabbour, an Arab Israeli resident of Galilee, is a traditional sulha and hudna negotiator who has been trying for decades to expose Israelis and Palestinians to this ancient Middle Eastern process of conflict resolution.

Jabbour’s grass-roots work among Jews and Arabs in northern Israel can be credited with helping to introduce the concepts of hudna and sulha into the lexicon of Arab-Israeli peacemaking _ from Galilee, Gaza and Tel Aviv all the way to Washington, D.C.

“I am proud. I am elated that the thing that I was preaching and lecturing about _ this old ancient way of peacemaking _ has been adopted now by the great politicians who never heard of such a thing 10 years ago,” says Jabbour, 68. “Even (U.S. National Security Adviser) Condoleezza Rice is now talking about hudna.”

Jabbour said despite some perceptions, the process of hudna and sulha is not exclusively Islamic. While the Prophet Muhammad and successive Islamic sages and rulers integrated the practice into Muslim belief, hudna and sulha rituals have their origins in the pre-Islamic era of Arabia. In the centuries since, the process has been used by Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims, said Jabbour, who is himself Christian.

Traditionally, there is no contact between the two enemies in the hudna stage of peace negotiations. But in the ritual of sulha, interaction between rivals becomes highly important, when the mediator _ known in Arabic as “jaha” _ invites the two rivals for coffee. The coffee is usually prepared by the stronger party and offered to the weaker, in order to restore his injured sense of honor.

During the course of the unfolding deal, three cups of coffee are drunk, each of which represents a stage in the progress of the developing peace arrangement. The handshake at the conclusion of the third cup of coffee symbolizes the end of the conflict.

“The handshake has a lot of meaning. We have to touch the body of each other,” Jabbour said. “If I am able to put my hand into the hands of the killer of my son, it means my stomach is clean of hatred.”

A sulha ceremony is then signed and sealed by a big feast _ signifying that the time has come where rivals and enemies can not only speak, but even celebrate together.

“There is a beautiful proverb in Arabic that says `the holiest place on earth is the place where an ancient hatred becomes a present love,”’ Jabbour said.

Last month, shortly after the Aqaba summit, Jabbour’s Sulha Project hosted a grass-roots sulha encounter among some 1,500 Jews and Arabs in Israel’s Galilee region. The gathering also drew participants from neighboring Jordan, as well as religious peace figures from places as far-flung as South Africa, Tibet and Senegal.

The participants shared meals, organized small and intimate “talking circles,” prayed and played music together _ re-enacting the traditional aspects of a sulha in a modern context.

Jabbour co-founded the Sulha Project in 2001 with a Jewish Israeli colleague, Gabriel Meyer, an Argentine-born musician and peace activist. The two men want to stage a gigantic sulha event in 2005 _ the same year an independent Palestinian state would be created under the U.S.-sponsored “road map” plan _ in Jerusalem.

“What we are trying to do is create a new language for peace which goes beyond the political language,” said Meyer, 36, whose father, Rabbi Marshall Meyer, founded Manhattan’s prominent Congregation B’nai Jeshurun synagogue.

“Our vision of sulha includes individual, collective, cultural, social and spiritual dimensions,” Meyer said. “Our goal is not to just get stuck in a secular mode of just trying to figure out the conflict through papers and lawyers only, but to make the circle bigger, to bring traditional Middle Eastern culture into the picture, and traditional healing and conflict resolution techniques.”

Two years ago, Jabbour conducted a giant sulha ceremony in a Galilee Arab village that was attended by Israeli President Moshe Katsav. The president was so impressed by the ritual that he began talking about how Israel and the Palestinians should attempt to reach a hudna or sulha agreement. The talk eventually helped fire the imagination of the media _ and captured the attention of policymakers in Washington.

When Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas met with with President Bush in Aqaba, the so-called hudna accord, in which a range of Palestinian militant groups declared a three-month halt to attacks against Israel, was a linchpin of the proceedings.

Israel, however, never formally acknowledged the militants’ declarations, and the most extreme militant groups, such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, refrained from using the word “hudna” because they did not want to imply any sort of lasting, permanent peace with Israel.

Jabbour said the bickering between Israelis and Palestinians over alleged violations of the recent hudna shows that modern-day politicians still have much to learn about the deeper cultural and spiritual meaning of hudna and sulha, Jabbour adds.

“In fact, hudna means a bit more than the political agreements of today would indicate,” said Jabbour, who wrote a book on the subject. “It is not supposed to be just a temporary cease-fire, but the first step towards a real and full reconciliation and peace, part of the process called sulha.”

A more exact translation of the term hudna would be a period of “calm, quiet or relaxation,” such as a cessation of all hostilities, he says.

Violations of the hudna, if and when they happen, cannot be avenged by one side or the other unilaterally, he stressed. Instead, the offended party must appeal to the mediators or mediation committee who helped organize the hudna in the first place _ in this situation the U.S. administration.

The word sulha, in Arabic, means, in fact, reconciliation. It is closely associated with the Hebrew word “slicha,” which means forgiveness. The linguistic relationship shows just how deeply the process is embedded in the language and culture of the Semitic cultures of this region.

“In the jargon of sulha, the hudna is preparing the bed for peace,” Jabbour said. “And the uniqueness of sulha is that it puts an end to the conflict. It never leaves a conflict open.”

KRE END FLETCHER