c. 2003 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Some are still praying for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi-U.S. standoff. Some are praying for victory for U.S.-aligned forces, and others for the miraculous defeat of the U.S. monolith by a defiant Saddam Hussein.

Here in the Holy Land, not so far from the Iraqi border, attitudes toward the morality of a war that now seems almost inevitable run across a spectrum as wide and diverse as the population itself _ Jew, Christian and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian.

Within Israel, polls have shown Jews as far more supportive of Bush’s war effort than Muslims, who overwhelmingly oppose an attack. But nearly half of the Israeli public would prefer to see diplomatic avenues exhausted first. On the extreme other end of the scale, fundamentalist Muslims have staged marches in West Bank towns and cities recently brandishing pictures of the Iraqi leader and calling for America’s defeat.

And at a recent Muslim-Jewish-Christian dialogue on the crisis in Iraq, Rabbi Mordechai Piron, former chief rabbi for the Israeli army, defended the U.S. initiative.

He said while Judaism abhors wars of aggression, the concept of a “pre-emptive” attack that saves lives in the long run is expressed in a Talmudic commentary that says, “He who comes to kill you, rise up to kill him first.”

Still, even though Israel was the target of Iraqi attacks in the 1991 Gulf War, and Israelis have lived under the shadow of another possible confrontation in Iraq for more than a decade, a significant sector of the public remains skeptical about the compelling need for military action.

According to one recent poll conducted for the highly regarded Ha’aretz daily, about 40 percent of Israeli Jews would prefer to give negotiations more time, or are opposed to the war under all circumstances. In comparison, 75 percent of Israeli Arab citizens, most of whom are Muslim, oppose war in any scenario.

Among Muslims, opposition to the U.S. initiative is anchored in the perception of America as a superpower seeking to impose its will on a weaker rival, rather than a defense of Saddam, a secular leader who has never been seen in religious circles as a great symbol of Islam.

“Nobody is defending the Iraqi leadership, but here we are talking about a war against the Iraqi people,” said Mohammed Abu Sway, a religious Muslim and professor of Islamic thought at Al Kuds University.

“Muslims belong to one collective body, the Muslim `umma’ or nation,” said Abu Sway. “Part of that Muslim nation lies in the Balkans, part in Kashmir, part in Chechnya, part in Palestine and part in Iraq. And everywhere in those countries that we look, Muslims find themselves under attack. So yes, there is a feeling _ why us?’

Expressing a middle path are the Christian churches of the region, which have become the ardent advocates of nonviolence in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The Christian church with its four families _ Eastern Orthodox, Oriental, Catholic and Evangelical (Protestant) _ is against any war because our church is the church that is experiencing the meaning of war,” said Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan at a late February ecumenical prayer service against an Iraq war.

“We do not need war, for war is destruction that kills innocent people. War kills the humanity of human beings and destroys the image of God in us,” said Younan.

“We do not want war against Iraq because it may be interpreted as a war between the West and the Muslim world … that may proliferate religious and political extremism,” he added.

Despite differences in emphasis, Palestinian Muslims and Christians share a key fear about the upcoming war initiative _ that it will push their issue to the back burner on the international stove.

“Worrying about chemical and biological weapons is the least of the Palestinian people’s worries,” said Nuha Khoury, director of Bethlehem’s Dar Al Kalima School, which is operated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

“We are more worried about what will happen to us in the war period. While the world media has its eye on Iraq, Israel may very well impose curfews, and carry out more home demolitions and transfers.”

Dar Al Kalima’s student body is divided equally between Muslim and Christians, Khoury added. Both share a common sense that they’re “victims” of a larger strategic power struggle in this region.

“Kids in our 10th grade world history course are talking to Chechnyans on the Internet,” said Khoury. “They are studying recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They see the injustice that is happening to the Iraqi people, the suffering among Iraqi children, and they relate it to the suffering that they have experienced,” said Khoury. “That way, they have a wider horizon, and are able to transcend their own misery.”

DEA END FLETCHER