This book has been a collaborative effort from the beginning. Jan and Rick Janzen, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Area Directors for Europe and the Middle East, suggested this project as a follow-up to Sonia Weaver’s book, What is Palestine-Israel? Answers to Common Questions (Herald Press, 2007). Sonia Weaver, who with her husband Alain spent most of the years from 1992-2006 working in the Middle East, did initial work brainstorming what such a study might address. Tim Seidel and the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), a long-time MCC partner in agricultural development and water recycling and harvesting, developed the maps included here. Ardell Stauffer compiled the indexes. We are grateful to Calvin and Marie Shenk (formerly of Eastern Mennonite University and Mennonite Board of Missions), Harry Huebner (Canadian Mennonite University), and J. Daryl Byler (MCC Washington, D.C. office) for insightful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. All offered valuable suggestions. Any remaining errors or infelicities of style or theology are, of course, our responsibility, not theirs. Finally, we wish to express our deep gratitude and humble appreciation for the ongoing witness of MCC’s Palestinian and Israeli partner organizations, staffed by dynamic and faithful people committed to embodying the gospel and working for just and durable peace amid increasingly difficult circumstances. They never cease to inspire us, and it is to them that this book is dedicated.
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