Where did all the peacemakers go? And where did all the impartial journalists go?

By Cal Samra, Editor Emeritus

In May, The Joyful Noiseletter published an article I wrote titled, “Where did all the peacemakers go?” – which was warmly received by many of our subscribers: Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and charismatics.

We mailed the article to some 100 editors, reporters, and commentators of national newspapers, magazines, wire-services, and television news programs, supposing they would welcome interviewing commentators different from the angry, militant faces they regularly interview.

Not a single news media responded to our article, not even to the remarkable story of the two bereaved fathers, an Israeli and a Palestinian, both of whose daughters had been killed by terrorists on both sides. The two bereaved fathers later became friends and helped launch a peace movement in Israel among stricken Israeli and Palestinian families.

We sent, via Priority Mail, the article to both the editor of The Detroit News, a conservative paper, and to the editor of The Detroit Free Press, a liberal newspaper, giving them permission to reprint all or parts of the article.

I identified myself as a Lebanese-American who spent many years as a Michigan and AP reporter, and who was now the editor and publisher of an ecumenical Christian newsletter, The Joyful Noiseletter.

I told them that my Jewish secretary and I, and many of our friends, feel the same horror and sorrow over Hamas' terrorist assaults on Israeli civilians and the Israeli terrorist bombings of civilians in Gaza (virtually a giant concentration camp) and Lebanon that have killed many innocent women and children.

I asked the Detroit editors: Do you have any peacemakers left in Detroit?

Neither editor ever responded to me, or even acknowledged receiving the article.

I also sadly discovered that articles by other peacemakers were also generally ignored by the news media.

Rev. Jim Barnes, National Minister of Reformed and Congregational Churches, sent me an invitation to attend the Evangelical Association's national conference titled “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” at Eden Church in Edwardsville, IL (near St. Louis) September 20-22.

The theme of the conference was “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

“The focus of this gathering is bringing the skills of peacemaking to the Evangelical Association,” Rev. Barnes said. “Our keynote speaker, workshops, and worship will speak to the desperate need for peace in today's culture. The Church is uniquely poised to bring the Gospel and its message of peace to a culture in conflict. Come and join us as we seek to
strengthen the Church and bring God's grace to a world in need.”

I have found that even in a society assaulted by an epidemic of madness and violence, few churches pray for peace every Sunday. So it was gratifying to receive an invitation to this conference.

I saw no reports on this important national conference in any of the media, major newspapers, magazines, or TV news programs.

About the same time, we received a brilliant article by Fr. Eugene Hemrick of the Yeshua Catholic Leadership Institute titled, “Resisting the Curse of Violence.”

Fr. Hemrick quoted the American author Isaac Asimov: “Violence breeds violence. Acts of violence committed in 'justice' or in affirmation of 'rights' or in defense of 'peace' do not end violence. They prepare and justify its continuation. Simply put, violence is a cancer that spreads and destroys our well-being.”

Fr. Hemrick noted: “St. Paul's letters and our Christian wisdom contain a heartfelt desire to live a peaceful Christlike life devoid of strife. Therein lies the strength to counter violence's use of strength.”

Fr. Hemrick's article was published by the Yeshua Catholic International Leadership Institute. Sadly, it was also ignored by the national news media.

A friend, Gordon Miller, a Kalamazoo attorney who subscribes to The Joyful Noiseletter, observed: “I agree wholeheartedly with JN's article on peacekeepers. Most of our country is moderate, but the news media focuses on extremists. Extreme politicians, using inflammatory language, get all the attention. Peacemakers, the children of God, are ignored.”

We also sent my article to a half-dozen TV commentators on News Nation who have been promoting themselves as balanced, unbiased, impartial, objective journalists, but who, week after week, have been interviewing the same old, tired, angry militants who haven't a clue about how to make peace, even with some of their wives.

Every one of the News Nation commentators ignored The Joyful Noiseletter's article on peacemakers.

One militant News Nation commentator then announced he was starting a new newsletter called “The War Cry.”

Peace doesn't pay.

Where did you go, Walter Cronkite? Just the facts, ma'am.

We noted in our article that, ironically, both the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Lebanese are Semites. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, was a Semite. Most of Jesus' Apostles were Semites. Semites gave the world many of its greatest religions.

None of the news media addressed that fact, even though the ugly face of anti-Semitism has emerged again in the U.S. and in Europe, reminiscent of the years before World War II, this time assaulting both Jews and Muslims.

In the article to the news media, I asked: where are the peacemakers in our society and the world? Are there so few peacemakers that we've forgotten who they are and how they think and behave?

This is not to disparage the great sacrifices made defending the U.S.A. by the valiant men and women in our military forces. My father was a World War I U.S. Army veteran. But we should also honor the peacemakers among us: peacemaking also takes great courage.

From my own journalist's perspective at age 93, many of our modern politicians, journalists, and pastors, are ignorant of the history of peacemaking in America and other countries. In a democracy, that is a tragedy.

I searched out information on the lives and views of some of the great peacemakers of modern times and past centuries. I found that they were mainly centrists who respected other people's views. They were mostly devout, forgiving folks, and they all shared one thing in common: courage.

We are re-sending this article and its list of peacemakers to the same 100 or so news media reporters and commentators in the hopes that they will reconsider and balance out their views. We have added a couple of other important peacemakers to our list.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1945)

Gandhi, a Hindu who lived an ascetic, self-sacrificing lifestyle, was a spiritual as well as a political leader who brought the squabbling and hostile religious and secular factions of India together, leading to India's independence from England. It was Gandhi who famously said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

It is not generally known that Gandhi was strongly influenced by the pacifist writings of the Russian Orthodox writer Leo Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy (1869-1910)

Tolstoy, as a young man, was an artillery officer in the Czar's Russian army during the Crimean War.

He was appalled by the brutality and deaths in the war and left the army. He developed a concept of nonviolence and became one of the greatest authors of all time. He had a profound influence on Gandhi.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

During the American Civil War, President Lincoln was respected as a war-time leader, though a reluctant one. But historian John Avalon in his book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace, observes that in the last six weeks of Lincoln's life, he excelled as a peacemaker.

Discussing the terms of surrender with his generals, Lincoln urged them to allow the Confederate soldiers to “go home with the most liberal and honest terms.” Avalon extols the final paragraph in Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address as a model for peace in our times, as well:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)

This American Republican conservative was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe who defeated the Nazis in World War II. But he became a famous peacemaker afterwards, as the 34th President of the United States, who valued his Christian faith.

In 1952, campaigning for President, Ike went to Korea to see whether he could find the key to ending the savage and frustrating war between North and South Korea. The United States had entered the war in support of South Korea. “I shall go to Korea,” Ike pledged.

Eisenhower concluded: “We cannot stand forever on a static front and continue to accept casualties without any visible results.”

Eisenhower was elected President in 1953, and an armistice was signed, putting an end to the war.

Later in his political career, Eisenhower warned Americans of the influence of “the military-industrial complex.”

I was drafted and served stateside in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, and at one time was given orders to join an Army combat unit in Korea. I was, of course, overjoyed when Eisenhower put an end to the war before I got there. Thank you, Ike.

Notwithstanding President Eisenhower's warning about the influence of the “military-industrial complex,” the United States later found itself involved in an extensive and deadly war in Vietnam that divided our nation.

When was the last time you heard one of our modern erudite journalists even mention “the military-industrial complex?”

President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

Another Republican conservative, Reagan faced down the hostile politicians of the Russian communist regime. He presided over a massive buildup of the U.S. military.

But at heart, this devout Christian was a peacemaker. He sought closer relations with Soviet leaders like Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and charmed them with his keen sense of humor. He got Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall, and signed a major arms control agreement with Gorbachev, easing the worldwide anxiety over a possible nuclear war.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1963)

Dr. King sought heroically to build bridges between the races and guide them to a peaceful resolution of their differences. He was the heart and soul of the civil rights movement. "We must live together as brothers or parish together as fools," he declared. He also served as president of the Gandhi Society for Human Rights.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)
This American boxer was regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.

In 1966, he refused to be drafted in the U.S. Army because of his religious beliefs as a Muslim minister and his ethical opposition as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. He said his Muslim faith instructed him not to kill other people.

He was found guilty as a draft evader and stripped of all his boxing titles. Ali's example inspired many African-Americans and others. His conviction was overturned in 1971.

Israeli Rami Elhanan and Palestinian Bassam Aaramin

Both are bereaved fathers of young daughters killed during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elhanan lost his 14-year-old daughter Amadar when she was killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 1997.

Aramin's 10-year-old daughter was shot in the head and killed in 2007 by an Israeli soldier as she stood outside her school.

Once united by their anger and grief, both men have resisted the urge for vengeance. Now both men are close friends, refer to each other as “my brother,” and share the belief that no amount of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians will lead to peace, just more killing in a “circle of blood,” USA Today reported recently.

Elhanan and Aramin are active in the Parents Circle, a community for families from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who have lost close relatives to violence and who have sought to turn their personal tragedies into a grassroots peace movement.

“We have the moral authority to tell people this is not the way,” said Elhanan, a former soldier in the Israeli military whose father survived Auschwitz.

Aramin, who was imprisoned by Israel for seven years when he was 17 for hurling a grenade at a group of Israelis, tells both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Parents Circle:

“You will never heal. It's up to you to make a choice. Invest in hatred and revenge and suffer again from the sad circumstances. Or look forward to the future and try to use this pain as a power to create more bridges instead of more graves.”

Surprisingly, this remarkable story was ignored by most of the news media, who seem to be reluctant to report the views of anyone other than hot-headed militants who believe that force solves everything. If Jesus, the Prince of Peace, returned, I doubt if there would be a stampede of journalists to interview Him.

President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) & Rosalynn Carter

President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Democrats and devout Christians, championed peacemaking and human rights via the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.

The Carters vigorously sought peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and promoted a two-state solution as a path to peace. Since then, a few American politicians have given lipservice to a two-state solution, but have made little effort in that direction. Instead, they seem to be content that the U.S. has spent $17.9 billion on Israel military aid since the war in Gaza began.

At Rosalynn Carter's passing in 2023, Carter School Dean Alpaslan Ozerdem said: “We mourn her loss less and celebrate her life. She was an inspirational humanitarian and peacemaker.” The school is located near Washington D.C.

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

My all-time favorite journalist was Will Rogers, the great Native-American humorist who was loved by both conservatives and liberals. This grinning, biracial, Cherokee Indian cowboy from Oklahoma kept our nation laughing through the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "Will Rogers held the secret of banishing gloom, of making tears give way to laughter, of supplanting desolation and despair with hope and courage."

Politicians from both parties invited Rogers to run for President on their ticket, but he refused.

Raised a Methodist, he was ecumenical in his respect for all faith traditions. He advised: "Hunt out and talk about the good that is in the other fellow's church, and you will do away with all the religious hatred you hear so much of today." Rogers was a peacemaker, a healer.

When Rogers died in 1935 in an airplane crash, the entire nation mourned. Over 100,000 mourners walked by Roger's casket at his ecumenical funeral, His memorial service was presided over by a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish singer who sang a Hebrew mourning chant. Mexican-Americans nearby placed a memorial wreath in their neighborhood. An African-American group joined a parade in Rogers' honor. In Oklahoma,
Cherokee Indians performed a death dance in his honor.

Will Rogers had a loving heart, He was fair-minded, He never became obsessed with the bad news of his times. He had credibility with the American people. "We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others," Rogers said.

Rogers requested that the following epitaph appear on his gravestone: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like."

In these tumultuous times, we could all learn from Will Rogers. He was a sane and believable voice who had a talent for bringing people together.

Hunter “Patch” Adams, M.D. (1945-)

The movie Patch Adams made Patch Adams, “the clown prince of physicians,” famous.

Dr. Adams is a remarkable man with an extraordinary story, but the movie told his story only in part. When he became a doctor, Patch added humor and clowning to his medical practice.

He believes that humor, laughter, play, celebration, joy, faith, compassion, creativity, and good nutrition are integral parts of the healing process. He has traveled extensively with his clown troupe and medical doctors to 70 countries, including refugee camps, with that message.

He was recently photographed playing with a 5-year-old abused girl in an Ecuador hospital.

Patch can be contacted at the Gesundheit Institute, 122 Franklin St., Urbana, IL 61801.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American poet, was born in Lebanon, a Maronite Catholic. His Lebanese Semitic parents set an example for Gibran by refusing to perpetuate prejudice and bigotry in their daily lives.

Gibran came to the United States in 1911, about the same time my own Lebanese father – an Eastern Orthodox Christian Semite – came to the U.S. and both were happy to become U.S. citizens. My father remembers Gibran telling some newly arrived Lebanese immigrants: "Ask not what your country can for do you; rather, ask what you can do for your country." Decades later, President John F. Kennedy used that line in one of his campaign speeches.

In 1923, Gibran published his famous book of poetry, The Prophet, which became one of the best-selling books of all time. Both Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash were great fans of Gibran.

Gibran was a gentle, soft-spoken man who also had been influenced by the Islamic Sufis and the Bahai faith, and had a strong belief in the fundamental unity of all religions, though he remained a Christian.

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)

One of the most venerated figures in Christianity, Francis lived a wild and self-indulgent life as a rich young man. He joined a military expedition and was taken captive for a year.

A mental vision of Jesus transformed his life, and he determined to live a life of poverty as an itinerant preacher. He was a peacemaker, a healer, a patron and protector of animals, and a nature lover.

Loyal to the Catholic Church, he nonetheless was disturbed by the battles and slaughters during the Crusades. In 1219, he went to Egypt, where a Christian army was encamped, to see the Muslim Caliph with the hope of putting an end to the conflicts of the Fifth Crusade.

He preached to the Caliph, who received him graciously, and gave the Franciscans access to the Christian holy sites in the Middle East. Francis was the founder of the order of Franciscans.

St. Francis and St. Catherine of Siena were designated the patron saints of Italy.

There have been many other extraordinary peacemakers, men and women, in American history and in the history of other countries down through the centuries.

We all know that Moses led the Jews from bondage in Egypt to the Holy Land, but if you read Exodus in the Old Testament carefully, you will also see that Moses was bringing, in the Ten Commandments, a message of peace, sanity, health, and healing to the Israelis. Moses was also a peacemaker and a healer.

A lot of people know the Ten Commandments. A lot of people don't know them.

Here they are (Exodus 20:2-l7):

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall make no idols.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

4. Keep the sabbath day holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land.

6. You shall not kill.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

In my long lifetime, I have been blessed with many dear Jewish friends, and Palestinian Muslim friends, and Russian and Ukrainian friends, all of whom I cherish and pray for their safety and well-being.

I often pray the Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon,

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are

born to eternal life."

During this coming year, perhaps it would bring some sanity to these troubled and violent times if ALL houses of worship of ALL faith traditions recited at their services the Ten Commandments and the Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

Can you imagine the spiritual power that would generate worldwide? It might even send a message to all of our ferocious and uncompromising politicians that we poor, little folks cherish peace in our country and in the world.

Our weak political leaders still haven't learned the lesson that violence and wars only plant the seeds for more violence and wars in future generations.
We still haven't learned that our problems are spiritual and moral failings, not
psychological. It's all about how people treat other people, and how they treat themselves.

Nonagenarian Cal Samra has been the editor and publisher of The Joyful Noiseletter, an ecumenical humor newsletter for the past 39 years. He is a former staffer for The New York Herald Tribune, The Newark (NJ) Evening News, The Associated Press, The Ann Arbor News, and The Battle Creek Enquirer. Anyone may access some of The Joyful Noiseletter's humor, cartoons, and inspirational articles on its Facebook, or the Good Noise Blog at joyfulnoiseletter.com.