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Scarcely a day passes without violent headlines from Israel. The world’s television screens and newspapers are filled with conflicting reports. Occasional background pieces and human-interest stories appear, but one story has rarely been told-the relationship between Jewish believers in Jesus (Messianic Jews) in Israel and Arab Palestinian Christians in the Palestinian Authority.

Despite the current climate of conflict and violence, Messianic Jews and Arab Christians have maintained contact, largely based on individual initiatives. However, congregations of Messianic Jews and Arab evangelical churches in northern Israel have developed relationships over the years. Pastors exchange pulpits and congregations participate in joint events. Other initiatives continue to prove that the Messiah’s peace is a real possibility for believers in the here and now.

Desert encounters. In the early 1990s Salim Mun-ayer, an Arab Christian from central Israel, was teaching at the Bethlehem Bible College (the only evangelical Bible College in the area for Arab Christians). Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians had little to no knowledge of one another at the time.

Munayer founded “Musalaha” (“reconciliation” in Arabic), aiming to encourage relationships between the two ethnic groups. When an initial attempt to get both groups to talk and pray together failed, he decided that another approach was necessary. He hit upon the desert as the ideal destination for a mixed group of Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians.

The desert is neutral ground where all travelers leave their comfort zones and must rely on God and their companions to survive the harsh climate. Five days of crossing the Sinai or Negev Desert, sharing camels and water bottles, sleeping under the stars, preparing fires and food, and holding Bible studies stripped away participants’ superficial differences. Believers met as individuals and brothers in Jesus, discovering the strength of their similarities. Friendships begun then have since stood the tests of time and escalating conflict between the two people groups.

Prayer breaks down prejudice. Relationships between Christians in the Palestinian territories and Messianic Jews have taken longer to develop and have been significantly more difficult to achieve and maintain. Since the late 1970s Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews have gathered occasionally. The events of the first intifada rendered these meetings much more difficult both logistically and psychologically; by the late 1980s they had almost completely ceased.

Seven years ago Musalaha sponsored its first Women’s Conference. The first year less than fifteen women attended, but this February 150 women took part in the annual conference. The women united to pray for common burdens-for the leadership of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and for an end to the cycle of violence and retaliation. They prayed for repentance among the area’s peoples, for the believers in Jesus in both communities and more.

When Messianic Jewish women who lived in Gilo met with Palestinian Christian women from Beit Jalla they discovered that they had each been praying for the other community when the two sides were shooting at each other. Together they learned that praying together breaks down walls and prejudice. In an atmosphere of love and prayer relationships began that continue today.

“That they may be one.” In April 2002 a mixed group (Messianic Jewish and Palestinian Arab Christians) of ninety leaders and their families traveled together to Holland for a week. Away from the conflict and tension of Israel and the Palestinian territories, people met one another in a relaxed environment. There were joint times of rest, relaxation, fun, sharing and prayer. They played, prayed, listened to one another’s stories, shared about their ministries and even wept together. Their children played together and they came to know that this-rather than the conflict, hatred, and division of the world-is the reality for which Jesus prayed: “That they may be one…”

Relationships between Arab Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews are still not the norm in either community, but the understanding that believers in Jesus, regardless of their ethnic background, are one in the Messiah is gaining ground. Since the Holland trip, Jewish and Arab pastors have exchanged pulpits, entire congregations have visited one another, Messianic Jews have sent financial aid and food supplies to Bethlehem believers, and numerous telephone calls and e-mails have been exchanged.

It is never an easy task to embrace those who are different from you. In the atmosphere of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, this task might seem impossible. In Messiah, however, all things are possible.

“In this world that preaches revenge, we must stand in radical opposition to the sin of hatred that separates us from God and from each other,” Munayer said. “Above all, love each other deeply, for love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).

Lisa Loden is managing director of the Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

September 20, 2002