MCC Palestine Update #34
In our last update we indicated that we would not send out another update until after the New Year. We are eating our words. Across our desks came two passionate please from Palestinians for nonviolent resistance, the first by Palestinian Christian lawyer (and former MCC volunteer) Jonathan Kuttab, the second by Dr. Eyad al- Sarraj, director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. Both, in their own ways, underscore the need for Palestinians to turn to nonviolent resistance as the means of struggle against the occupation and for justice in the land.
For Western Christians to preach nonviolence to Palestinians, while our governments pour billions of dollars worth of military aid into Israel, is hypocritical at best. More and more Palestinians, however, are realizing that Palestinians have no "military option" against Israel. Palestinians are facing perhaps the most dangerous time in their history. In an article in the Dec. 20, 2001 edition of Ha'aretz journalist Akiva Eldar sketches out the Israeli establishment's unwillingness to countenance a Palestinian state in all of the occupied territories, leaving three potential scenarios:
a) finding a Palestinian leader willing to accept a Palestinian state/bantustan in 40% of the occupied territories, with settlements, Jerusalem and refugees all indefinitely deferred;
b) continuing the apartheid rule over 3.2 million Palestinians in the occupied territories;
c) "transfer," or ethnic cleansing.
As Eldar makes clear in his article, the last scenario is not as far-fetched as one might wish. Faced with such dangerous scenarios, Palestinians have nothing to lose by following the counsel of Kuttab and al-Sarraj.
Your prayers and actions for justice and peace in Palestine/Israel are urgently needed. May God's reign of peace come quickly. Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
1. "When Sharon Gets and Inch, He Takes a Mile": Excerpts
Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz, 20 December 2001
"The prime minister [Ariel Sharon] calls it 'the people of Israel's determination' and explains how important it is to show the enemy that terror won't break us. And what happens after the enemy is convinced that we won't break? Does Ariel Sharon plan to freeze the settlements, as he gets ready to hand over territory to the irrelevant man [Israel recently declared Arafat "irrelevant."] The answer is hidden in an interview Sharon gave to The New York Times three months ago. He said that it's inconceivable that a young couple that wants to settle in the territories should need permission from Arafat. In a politics-laced lecture at the Herzilya Interdisciplinary Center, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz sid on Tuesday that the public's 'steadfastness,' combined with the IDF and Shin Bet's actions are winning the battle for us. According to Mofaz, Arafat wants to achieve in war what he couldn't get through negotiations.
And what does Arafat want? Mofaz revealed that the IDF is in a fateful conflict with a man who wants to establish a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with its capital in Jerusalem. It's interesting that Mofaz didn't say Arafat wants to go back to Jaffa. Aside from the military campaign, which will claim ever more casualties, Mofaz had nothing else to offer. But he did say that the IDF doesn't want to rule the Palestinian population. So, if on the one hand there's opposition to freezing settlements and the establishment of a genuine Palestinian state, and on the other, people want a Jewish state that doesn't rule over another people, what's the point of intensify in the friction and hatred? One possible answer is provided by Tourism Minister Benny Elon. In an interview Elon gave in the latest issue of Nekuda, the settlement movement's journal, Rehavam Ze'evi's heir in the Israeli government and Moledet leadership says that his party platform includes willing transfer, consensual transfer and transfer by war. 'Behind the term willing transfer is hidden the still-undecided great competition over 'summud.' Who's more attached to the land, and who will hold on despite all the difficulties? Us or them?' Behind the word 'difficulties' is hidden, says Elon, the policy that the Sharon government is implementing in the territories with the help of Mofaz and Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. The tourism minister points to a number of ways to help the Arabs want to get on the buses; in other words, 'forcing him until he says I want.' As far as he is concerned, 'there might be an argument, because the I want can be played with politically and morally. For example, I'll close the universities to you, I'll make your life difficult until you want to leave.' Elon admits that there's some indecision 'whether to do it as government policy or as a step by civic organizations.; But he proposes that 'once and for all they'll be in a place where they can be citizens of a real state, and not of divided cantons that lack any independent economic infrastructure or any signs of sovereignty, like the mini-state that the left is offering, as if we have given them independence, and as if anyone on their side accepted it in the short run, the long run, or ever.' As by interviewer Uri Elitzur--Benjamin Netanyahu's former bureau chief and current advisor--if Elon is proposing 'to send all the refugees from 1948 to Jordan,' Elon answers without hesitation, 'Yes, explicitly. Or to Sinai. Also to Sinai.' One wonders what the tourism ministers of Jordan and Egypt have to say about their Israeli colleague's package tours."
2. Nonviolence: A Powerful Alternative
Jonathan Kuttab
Common Ground News Service
The events of September 11 have created a new reality requiring the Palestinian Authority to abandon, and even to combat, manifestations of armed resistance to the Israeli occupation. In fact, the PNA has already announced its acceptance of a unilateral cease-fire, and President Arafat has declared that Palestinians will not shoot even if fired upon. Furthermore, he has declared the military wings of all factions to be illegal and is trying to enforce that policy in the face of blatant provocations by Israel including assassinations and incursions into Palestinian areas. If the "cease-fire" is not holding, it is not for lack of effort by the PNA.
Does this mean the end of resistance to the occupation and acquiescence in continued subjugation of the Palestinians, or is there another method for an oppressed people to continue their struggle? For those who think only in terms of armed struggle, it must be a frustrating dilemma: Either bow to the pressure and accept the occupation or continue armed resistance, which may be counterproductive and injurious to the cause.
Yet this should not be the dilemma facing Palestinians. In my opinion, the road is now wide open to engage in a massive campaign of nonviolent resistance to the occupation. The lessons of the past, as well as of the second intifada, clearly point in that direction.
To begin with, Palestinians never were, and are unlikely to be, a match for the Israelis in terms of brute violence and firepower. While this intifada has shown them capable of inflicting losses on the other side and rendering many outlying settlements insecure, they cannot (alone or even with the support of the Arab armies) hope to defeat Israel in an open military confrontation. To the
contrary, open warfare provides the justification for Israel to use the full array of its military might and unites the Israeli public behind the settlers and the right wing. It also places the
Palestinians in an impossible dilemma, since the more casualties they inflict on Israelis, the less likely their cause is to prosper internationally and, hence, the less pressure there is on Israel to accede to their just demands.
By contrast, during the first intifada, Palestinian unarmed tactics effectively neutralized the superiority of the Israeli military and split the Israeli public down the middle. Those tactics also
generated effective international pressure on behalf of the Palestinian cause, and helped reverse hateful stereotypes and images of the Palestinians.
More importantly, the use of nonviolent tactics allowed all sectors of Palestinian society to participate in the resistance rather than just the armed few, which released the creative energies of the people in a beautiful, unifying, and uplifting struggle full of hope and promise. To be sure, there were many casualties and much suffering, and the occupation did not end; yet neither did the present intifada, which also created many martyrs and much suffering. The difference was that the nonviolent struggle highlighted the justice of our cause, which rests on morality,
international solidarity, and international law rather than on brute force and overwhelming military superiority. To insist on waging the struggle only in the military sphere is, therefore, doubly foolish because it deprives us of our natural advantages and allows the conflict to play out in an arena of military violence where our enemies are vastly superior.
Why, then, does the Palestinian leadership not move into a nonviolent struggle? I believe there are several reasons for this.
First, while we as a people have often used nonviolent resistance and tactics, the language and philosophy of nonviolence have remained largely unknown in our communities and political
discourse. Although most of our struggle against the occupation has been political, such tactics as strikes, demonstrations, human rights advocacy, non-cooperation, boycotts, insistence on
national symbols, and unarmed resistance to land CONFISCATIONS have also been used. Even stone throwing, which while potentially harmful and therefore violent, was mostly utilized as a form of defiance and rejection of the occupation rather than as a serious weapon. Note, for example, how Edward Said used it in South Lebanon. Yet we have never defined these tactics accurately as methods of nonviolent resistance.
By contrast, we idolized and enshrined the language of "the gun" and made it central to our political culture despite the fact that the vast majority of the Palestinian population has never touched a weapon. The presence of the PNA, with its experience in Lebanon and structure of a traditional Arab regime, only exaggerated this trend and foolishly suggested that we now actually have a military force and a military option.
Additionally, there is a misunderstanding of how nonviolence works. Nonviolent resistance does not guarantee that the other side will refrain from violence or that there will be no casualties. It simply creates a new paradigm, and uses "moral jujitsu" to handicap the enemy and turn his superior military force against himself as he brutalizes a nonviolent opponent.
In my opinion, the main obstacle preventing the widespread adoption of a nonviolent strategy by Palestinians is the popular confusion of nonviolence with passivity, timidity, and acquiescence to injustice. In reality, nonviolence requires greater courage, more discipline, training, and sacrifice, and can be very militant and proactive. Therefore, as the Palestinian Authority responds to the new reality by suspending or combating manifestations of legitimate armed resistance, it would do well to consider the option of nonviolent resistance. If it does not, then ordinary Palestinians may well consider this as the only viable alternative, since acceptance of continued occupation is not an option.
Jonathan Kuttab is a Palestinian lawyer based in Jerusalem.
Written exclusively for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
3. {PRIVATE} Letter to President Arafat
His Excellency, President Yasser Arafat Chairman of the PLO
Head of the PNA
President of Palestine
Dear President Arafat,
The escalation of Israeli violence is a significant expression of fear from the past, and an escape from the true confrontation. Palestinian reaction in the form of overwhelming anger and vengeful bullets also escalated. The situation in deteriorating on all front on a daily basis in Palestine, Israel, and the region. We are all in danger of a scorching inferno. In addition, Palestinian society is in danger of splintering and extremism. In these critical times, the need for a leader arises. Dangerous crises are decisive and great opportunities. Israel has chosen its leader and savior. This choice is on par with suicide missions, caused by depression, hopelessness, and extremism. We cannot and should not use suicide. On the contrary, we must know how to achieve victory, not just how to die. The choices open to us are: Continuous limited warfare, as is the situation today
Expanded warfare that is more destructive and could drag the whole region in it
In these two options, the calculations of benefits and losses is not in our favor. But there is another choice that could weigh the scales in our favor. The option of peace and freedom born out of this crisis and opportunity by a leader and savior. Let this be the choice of the Palestinian people. Let us teach a world a lesson in the desire for peace. Let us teach Israel how weakness can be transmuted into power. Let us give our people the hope of achieving freedom. The crisis/opportunity requires a Palestinian leader who is a savior armed with a brave and daring peace plan directed to the Israeli people, not their government. This message of peace should uphold our right to free people from fear and destruction. It is a serious message that will revive people's pride in their Palestinian nationality. It should rejuvenate hope within the Israeli people. It is a clear message to the world that we are seeking freedom and peace. It is a message rejecting violence and blood. It is a message of prayer for the martyrs and victims on both sides. It is a message that will put the world in front of its responsibility. It is a message that will put the Israeli government to the test in front of its people and the world. It is a message that should be presented before the time passes, before the world views us as aggressors instead of liberators, and before the world forces us to stop our resistance. This initiative should be accompanied by:
A call for everybody to stop all forms of protest and military resistance and Orders to confiscate weapons
Implementation of the law
Not Sharon or anyone else will be able to maneuver around this initiative, with the whole world waiting for it. If he does try to do so, he will fail and the initiative will prevail. Extensive media and diplomatic campaigns should accompany the initiative. And before these two, there should be an internal campaign to re-establish order and improve the functioning of the PNA.
Dear President Arafat, The crisis/opportunity confronts us. In this historic moment, you could make history. The people follow you; and they believe in their rights, await your initiative, and look forward to a day of freedom under your leadership. Around you are a people anxious for a miracle. And outside the barbed wire friends and brethren who believe in our just cause. The moment and opportunity are upon us. We are poised to make victory, snatch our freedom, and establish peace.
Sincerely yours,
Eyad al-Sarraj
Friday, December 21
Saturday, December 8
MCC Palestine Update #33
MCC Palestine Update #33
Greetings to all during this Advent season. For us (Sonia and Alain Epp Weaver), a pall has been cast on this season by the death of our good friend, Radwan Isayed. We lived in an apartment above Radwan's home from 1992-1995 while teaching English in the village of Zebabdeh in the West Bank's Jenin district. Radwan and his wife Maisoon (and their five children) introduced us to the pleasures of life in a Palestinian village: drinking tea flavored with sage, the smell of freshly baked bread, picking okra in the fields. Radwan died of a heart attack while working in his fields.
Radwan was typical of most Palestinians. He was not a politically active man. He loved his family dearly and struggled to make ends meet for them. People the world over face similar struggles with health, unemployment and poverty. Unfortunately, on top of these struggles (hard enough), Palestinians must also deal with living under a violent military occupation which exacerbates all of the above problems.
Radwan was buried in Zebabdeh's Christian cemetery on Wednesday, Dec. 12. Please keep his family in your prayers.
Below you will find four pieces. The first, by Nurit Peled-Elhanan, is a passionate Israeli call for a just peace. The second, by Naim Ateek, is a Christmas letter from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. Next is a piece analyzing Sharon's aims: the author's analysis squares well with what we keep hearing from Palestinians, Israelis, and Western government officials here (albeit the latter off-the-record). The final piece, by Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper, provides an additional analysis of the present period.
Our next update will be after the new year. May each of you have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year.
1. The Dominion of Death
Nurit Peled-Elhanan (Translated by Edeet Ravel, Montreal)
Yediot Ahronot, 1 December 2001
The article below was written by Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a long-time Israeli peace activist and recent winner of a peace award from the European Parliament. Nurit was the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years old when she was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997.
Dylan Thomas wrote a war poem entitled And Death Shall Have No Dominion. In Israel, it does. Here death governs: the government of Israel rules over a dominion of death. So the most astonishing thing about yesterdays terrorist attack in Jerusalem and all similar attacks is that Israelis are astonished.
Israeli propaganda and indoctrination manage to keep coverage of these attacks detached from any Israeli reality. The story in the Israeli (and American) media is one of Arab murderers and Israeli victims, whose only sin was that they asked for seven days of grace.
But anyone who can remember back not even one year but just one week or several hours knows the story is different, that each attack is a link in a chain of horrific bloody events that extends back thirty-four years and has but one cause: a brutal occupation. An occupation that humiliates, starves, denies jobs, demolishes homes, destroys crops, murders children, imprisons minors without trial under appalling conditions, lets babies die at checkpoints, and spreads lies.
Last week, after the assassination of Abu Hanoud, a journalist from Yediot Ahronot asked me whether I felt relief. Hadnt I been frightened that a murderer like that was roaming free? No, I did not feel relief, I told her, and I will feel no relief as long as the murderers of Palestinian children continue to roam free. The murders of those children, like the murder of a suspect without trial or the murder of a ten-year-old boy yesterday, shortly before the attack, guarantee that no Israeli child can walk to school safely. Every Israeli child will pay for the deaths of the five children in Gaza and the others in Jenin, Ramallah, Hebron.
The Palestinians have learned from Israel that every victim must be avenged tenfold, a hundredfold. They have said repeatedly that until there is peace in Ramallah and Jenin there will be no peace in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. So it is not up to the Palestinians to keep seven days of quiet but up to the Israeli Occupation Force.
On Friday it was reported that politicians from both sides had reached a deal in Jerusalem to allow the reopening of the casino upon which their own livelihood depends. They did it without American intervention, without high-level committees, with just the assistance of lawyers and business people, who promised the parties what was required. What this shows is that the conflict is not between the leaders: when an issue affects them directly (unlike the deaths of children) they are quick to find a solution.
It strengthens my belief that all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, are victims of politicians who gamble the lives of our children on games of honor and prestige. To them, children are worth less than roulette chips.
But these attacks serve the interests of Israeli policypolicy designed to make us forget that the war today is about protecting the settlements and the continuation of the occupation, policy that drives young Palestinians to commit suicide and take Israeli children with them, animated by Samsons invocation let me die with the Philistines, policy contrived to make us believe that they want Tel Aviv and Jaffa too and there is no one to talk to, even as they liquidate all those who might have been able to talk.
Now that we know our leaders are capable of peace when there is an economic motive, we must demand that they make peace when lesser things, like the lives of our children, are at stake. Until all the parents of Israel and Palestine rise up against the politicians and demand they curb their lust for conquest and bloodshed, the underground realm of buried children will continue to grow. Since the beginning of time, mothers have cried out in a clear voice for life and against death. Today, we must rise up against the transformation of our children into murderers and murdered, raise our children not to support evil machinations, and force the politicianswho say, with Abner and Joab, Let the young men arise and play before usto make way for those who can sit at the negotiating table and agree to a true and just peace, who are prepared to engage in dialogue not with the aim of tricking and manipulating the other side, not to humiliate the other and force him to his knees, but to reach a decision that considers the other, a solution free of racism and lies. Otherwise death shall continue to have dominion over us.
I suggest that parents who have not yet lost their children look beneath their feet and heed the voices rising from the kingdom of death, upon which they step day by day and hour by hour, for only there does everyone understand that there is no difference between one life and another, that it matters little what is the color of your skin or the color of your ID, or which flag flies over which hill and which direction you face when you pray.
In the kingdom of death Israeli children lie beside Palestinian children, soldiers of the occupying army beside suicide bombers, and no one remembers who was David and who was Goliath, for they have faced the sober truth and realized that they were cheated and lied to, that politicians without feeling or conscience gambled away their lives as they continue to gamble with the lives of us all. We have given them the power, through democratic elections, to turn our home into an arena of never-ending murder. Only if we stop them can we return to a normal life in this place, and then death will have no dominion.
2. Sabeel Christmas Message 2001
TO OUR FRIENDS AT THIS CHRISTMAS TIME
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2).
The Sabeel family in Jerusalem and the Holy Land wishes to extend its warmest Christmas greetings to all our friends everywhere. We hope and pray that the joy, love, and peace associated with the coming of Christ will be our strength and light inthe days and months ahead as we continue to struggle for a just peace in Palestine/Israel.
As you well realize, our land and its people have been going through the most horrendous times. Israel has been stepping up its violence and state terrorism in order to maintain its occupation, while some Palestinians, in their despair, have been resorting to violence and suicide bombings. Our cry that the source of the violence is the Israeli occupation has gone unheeded. Violence has only been met with violence and terror with terror. The vicious cycle has never been worse. We are caught in such a predicament where neither side has the courage to take the high moral ground in curbing the violence.
It is important to emphasize that Sabeel has consistently condemned all forms of violence. From our perspective of faith, all killing is wrong. The killing of innocent people can never be justified, but extra judicial killing is also wrong. Suspects must be brought to justice and given a fair trial. The killing of Palestinians and Israelis is a crime whether perpetrated by the Israeli extremist government through its army and settlers or by Palestinians who are resisting the occupation of their country. We condemn both acts as evil; and simultaneously reiterate our strong conviction that the Israeli illegal occupation is the root cause of the problem. So long as it lasts, violence and terror are likely to continue.
We believe that the evil and oppressive occupation must be resisted consistently with nonviolent direct action. We at Sabeel stand for nonviolence because it stems from our understanding of the Gospel. We, therefore, call on people of good will throughout the world, who believe that justice is the true basis for peace, to employ all the nonviolent means possible to bring the Israeli occupation to an end.
Several weeks ago, many of us were encouraged with the statements of President George Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and especially that of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. In spite of the setbacks caused by the recent tragic suicide attacks and the devastation caused by Israeli shelling, there is great urgency to demand the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Without the complete withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied territories and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, no lasting peace is possible. Nothing short of that can put an end to the cycle of violence and terror.
Throughout this year, with the increase of Israel¹s repressive measures and Palestinian resistance, we have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In fact the words of the funeral service are very apt, ³In the midst of life we are in deathŠ². Human beings created in the image of the one merciful and loving God deserve a much better life. Their humanity, of which they have been stripped by grave injustice, must be restored and their dignity, trampled and denied by oppression, must be reaffirmed.
One of the great marks of Christmas is its note of hope. For in the midst of the utter darkness of a world of sin and evil, God shines on humanity with the gift of hope in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ hope for a life that can be lived with God and neighbor fully and abundantly, in peace and in love. The final words of the song of Zechariah have a special meaning for us during this Christmas season, ³Što give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace² (Luke 1:79). This is our prayer as well as our plea.
At certain times in the struggle for peace, our people were able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Many of us today see a tunnel that has no end, shrouded with gloom and utter darkness the darkness of injustice and humiliation. In the midst of such despair, our prayer to the incarnate Lord is to give us that ray of light that will restore hope and confidence for a brighter future for all the people of our land so that our feet will be guided in the way of peace.
At this Christmas, we share with you our prayer and we plead that you will do everything you can to help put an end to the occupation of our country. Our people are longing for a life of security and peace in their own state and wish the same for their Israeli neighbors.
May the joy, love, and peace of Christ reside with us all throughout the coming New Year.
Naim Ateek
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
Jerusalem
3. Divide And Conquer, Israel's Real Policy
Ahmed Bouzid
The Jordan Times, 7 December 2001
In a gripping article published in the October 2001 issue of Harper's Magazine, New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges described how every afternoon around four o'clock, nearly every single day, on the outskirts of the Khan Younis refugee camp, a voice on a loudspeaker is heard spewing out insults in Arabic, calling out, "Come on, dogs! ... Son of a ...."To his astonishment, Hedges discovered that the loud speakers were mounted on armoured Israeli vehicles parked just outside the Palestinian camp.Soon after, riled up by the invectives, young Palestinian boys, most of them no more than ten or eleven years old, would dash towards the armoured vehicles and begin throwing rocks at the soldiers. At which point, the soldiers would open fire.Here's how Hedges describes one bloody scene: "A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than 10 or 11 years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. ... there are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos." To Americans, the notion that Israel would go out of its way to provoke and incite Palestinians, let alone Palestinian children, to violence is beyond belief.And yet, evidence is abundant that Israel is not engaged in any form of self-defence - certainly not as it is understood under international law - but rather in deliberate, wilful provocation aimed at creating an unstable atmosphere within which Israel can undertake its military operations with impunity.Let's revisit the few weeks before the tragic Dec. 1 and 2 bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Nov. 7: the Red Crescent reports that IDF soldiers shoot in cold blood three wounded Palestinian gunmen under their custody after medics were unable to save the life of a wounded Israeli soldier; Nov. 13: the Israeli human rights group B'tselem uncovers that the Israeli army has established a policy of not prosecuting Israeli soldiers that have shot and killed, without provocation, Palestinian children; Nov. 22: five boys ranging in age between 6 and 14 are killed when an ordnance planted by the Israeli army deep into civilian Palestinian territory explodes; Nov. 23: four Palestinians are killed during the boys' funeral march, among them a 14-year-old boy.But what ignited this latest firestorm is of course the Nov. 23 assassination of militant Hamas leader, Mahmoud Abu Hannoud, who was killed while riding a taxi with 4 other Palestinian men. As expected, Hamas vowed revenge. "Experience has shown," Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantissi declared, "that the militant wing of Hamas reacts to the Israeli crimes and always strikes back - God willing, there will be a painful response." And so there was.And did Israel expect such a reaction? Of course it did. It knew full well that just as the taunted children of Gaza throw rocks at their tormenting soldiers, so do Hamas and Islamic Jihad, taunted by assassinations, bombings of densely populated areas, house demolitions, land confiscations, react with their weapon of choice: suicide bombings.But then we ask: why? Why would Israel engage in such provocations.As demonstrated by Camp David, the Palestinians are not willing to settle for anything less than a sovereign Palestinian state, and the Israelis are not willing to offer anything resembling a sovereign Palestinian state. The Palestinians, militarily no match for the Israelis, have time and again pleaded for an unconditional return to the negotiation table.The Israelis, holding the military upper hand, have decided that negotiations are a dead end for attaining their goal of a semi-autonomous Palestinian state, and have instead opted for the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer: spread civil strife among the Palestinians, establish a state of chaos, so that Israel is no longer faced with solving a political problem, but rather with confronting a security crisis, and then move in to further dismember, annex and tighten control over the remaining Palestinian territories.In this light, it becomes perfectly clear why the Israelis are making it virtually impossible - not only politically, but now physically - for Yasser Arafat to bring about order among his people.During the period between 1993 and 2000, about 400 Israelis were killed in militant Palestinian actions (3,000 were felled on the Palestinian side). The only period during that interval when Israeli fatalities fell to almost zero was during the last year under Barak. That was the period when Palestinians truly believed that their ordeal was at an end. Which leaves the hope alive that the cycle of violence can be broken. But it will be broken only if and when Israel abandons its grand strategy of divide and conquer and its tactics of provocation and collective punishment.Peace will become possible at long last when Israel comes to terms with the reality that there is no alternative to the establishment of a free, sovereign Palestinian state.
4. The Final Push to Defeat the Palestinians
Jeff Halper
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
The whirlwind unleashed on the Palestinians by the Israeli government following the Ze'evi assassination in October and now, in early December, on the heels of the suicide attacks in Jerusalem, Haifa, Afula and elsewhere, goes far beyond mere retaliation against terrorism. Viewed in the context of Bush's attempts to build a "coalition against terror," it is a last desperate effort to bring "industrial quiet" to what's been called the Second Front, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a precondition for building any sustained coalition that includes Arab and Muslim countries. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. Either a satisfactory political solution can be imposed on the parties with a lot of arm-twisting and sweetening, or the Palestinians can be made to submit to Israeli-American dictates.
The first, preferred by the Americans as a resolution of the conflict, have met fundamental obstacles on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. The Israelis steadfastly refuse to dismantle their occupation and relinquish control to a degree that would permit a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state to emerge. For his part, Arafat has failed to produce a coherent program for negotiations, and has squandered the opportunity given him by the Intifada to reframe the negotiations in a more equitable way. Faced with a unfocused resistance movement with no political program and fueled by ever more violent attacks against Israeli civilian targets, the American government seems to have been persuaded by Sharon and Peres to choose the second option: defeating the Palestinians outright.
Given their tight time-line for coalition-building and military actions, the Americans are looking for a quick fix, a reasonable period of industrial quiet in the Middle East. Allowing themselves to be persuaded that Israel can bring the Palestinian Authority to its knees within a matter of weeks, thereby reopening the "peace process" on terms favorable to Israel, has its attractions. It is in keeping with the long-standing American bias strongly in favor of Israel, it avoids conflicts with a solidly pro-Israeli Congress (89 senators issued a letter recently warning Bush against compromising Israel's interests), and it can be "sold" as legitimate retaliation against "Palestinian terrorism" - thus legitimizing Sharon's attempts to link Arafat and the Palestinians integrally with Bin Laden and anti-American/anti-"civilization" world terrorism. Given the weak, almost incoherent, political position of the Palestinians, this option seems the most workable in the short run.
Sharon, then, has received a "green light" from Bush to bring quiet to the region through military means, to be followed (no hurry here) by negotiations that will give the Palestinians a mini-state while leaving Israel in control of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediteranean. (It was reported on the Channel One news on Friday night, December 7, that Sharon promised Bush not to kill or harm Arafat, to which Bush replied: "Just promise me you won't kill him.")
The strategy of Sharon, Peres and the others of the "National Unity" government has five main elements:
1. Massive military actions. Besiegement, military strikes against the fragile Palestinian infrastructure and assassinations of key political and resistance figures - the kind of attacks employing heavy American weapons we are witnessing now (early December) -- are fundamental to browbeating the Palestinians into submissiveness. But overt military actions must be carefully framed in order to maintain Israel's image as a mere peace-seeking "victim" and to avert attention from its ongoing, deepening and ever more brutal Occupation. Following violent acts against Israel, they are cast as part of a "war against terrorism," indeed as part of Israel's "natural right" to defend its people. Having removed the response from its political context - a struggle against an illegal occupation - Israel is then free to unleash its entire arsenal (nuclear aside) against whatever targets it wishes for as prolonged a period as it desires. Whatever we may think of Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate political and military tool, casting its military strikes as "retaliatory," justifying its massive destruction as part of a "war" with the Palestinians and concealing its Occupation allows Israel to engage in both political repression and state terrorism without being held accountable. Indeed, the entire chain of cause-and-effect is lost as Israel presents each Palestinian attack as a new and separate incident, divorced from the Occupation or previous Israel actions. The disproportionality of the attacks in October and December show clearly how specific incidents are used for far-reaching political and military gains.
2. A campaign of attrition. Certainly military attacks are part of an Israeli campaign of attrition designed to wear down Palestinian resistance over time. But long-term policies, less visible and less dramatic, are no less effective. House demolitions, land expropriation, permanent closure and prolonged curfews, restrictions on freedom of movement, induced impoverishment, economic warfare of various kinds (such as clearing agricultural fields, uprooting thousands of olive and fruit trees, prohibiting harvests, confiscating livestock and preventing the marketing of produce), "quiet" bureaucratic deportations and a dirty war employing collaborators - all these and more undermine the fabric of Palestinian society and weaken its ability to withstand the Occupation. The campaign is designed not only to break the will of the Palestinian people but to undermine its support for the Palestinian Authority, hopefully giving rise to a more compliant leadership.
3. Creating irreversible "facts" on the ground. The grand project of expanding Israel's control over the Occupied Territories, systematically pursued according to the "master plan" presented by Sharon to Begin in 1977, is nearing completion. The Mitchell Commission's recommendations that settlement construction be frozen, which the Palestinians and others seem to think will be effective in halting the Occupation, is already irrelevant. Israel has enough land and settlements already: 60% of the West Bank and another 60% of Gaza are firmly under its control. 400,000 settlers live in some 200 settlements across the "Green Line. Now its efforts are dedicated to completing the infrastructural work needed to consolidate its hold on the Territories. Almost unnoticed is the construction of 450 kilometers of highways and "by-pass" roads which link the settlements but create massive barriers to Palestinian movement. Since these major infrastructure projects have been agreed to - and funded -- by the Americans, they fall outside the Mitchell Committee's "freeze." They constitute the last key element in the Matrix of Control Israel has laid over the Occupied Territories, and bulldozers are working ceaselessly to complete the system.
4. Delaying tactics. Sharon's demand for "seven days of quiet" before implementing the Mitchell Report has already delayed the resumption of negotiations by months. Time and again "crises" are manufactured (often following unprovoked assassinations, house demolitions or other acts on the part of Israel), which that provide a pretext for not implementing agreements or restarting negotiations. Broad hints by Israeli political leaders that they will seek only long-term "interim agreements" rather than a final status settlement will leave Israel in de facto control of the Occupied Territories - or at least in control long enough to complete its irreversible Matrix of Control.
5. Delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority. Since September 11 the Israeli government has worked tirelessly to cast the Palestinian Authority as an integral part of "world terrorism." Sharon has called Arafat "our Bin Laden," and following the attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa the Israeli government officially labeled the Palestinian Authority as a "terror-sponsoring entity" - obviously hoping to impart to the Palestinians the same international delegitimacy attached to other recognized terrorist organizations.
This is the program that unites the broad coalition of Israel's National Unity government, from the Labor party on the "left" through the Likud, the religious and the parties of the extreme right. At its base lies the rock-bottom refusal to truly share the country with the Palestinians, in either one state or in two. Yet - and this is the catch -- Israel needs a Palestinian state to "relieve it" of the three and a half million Palestinians of the Occupied Territories it can neither absorb (giving citizenship to this population would nullify a Jewish-dominated state) nor control forever by force. While the Palestinians strive for political independence in a viable state alongside Israel, Israel is striving for what is calls "autonomy-plus/independence-minus," a kind of occupation-by-consent that leaves in it in control of the entire country yet rids it of the Palestinian population. This, in a nutshell, describes what the Oslo "peace process" was all about.
Since occupation-by-consent will not be willingly accepted by the Palestinians, but a just peace based on true Palestinian independence is unacceptable to Israel, Israel must force it upon the Palestinians. For Israel, too, the time-line is tight. Bush's green light is good for a couple weeks - perhaps somewhat longer if "justified" by further attacks on Israeli civilians - but it will eventually run into major obstacles: the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee and CIA chief Tenet which await implementation, General Zinni's mission to achieve a cease-fire, and the overarching need to sustain a coalition including the Arab and Muslim countries. Hence the ferocity of Israel's attacks, the final push to defeat the Palestinians once and for all.
It is one minute to midnight. Already Israel has largely completed its physical incorporation of the West Bank into Israel proper, foreclosing any possibility of a viable Palestinian state. If the current campaign of repression succeeds, occupation will be followed by the creation of a dependent Palestinian mini-state - a permanent occupation-by-consent not of the Palestinians, but of the US and a compliant Europe. These are the fateful days of reckoning: a just peace based on two viable and sovereign states, or the emergence of a Palestinian bantustan under Israeli control, a new apartheid.
(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at icahd@zahav.net.il)
Greetings to all during this Advent season. For us (Sonia and Alain Epp Weaver), a pall has been cast on this season by the death of our good friend, Radwan Isayed. We lived in an apartment above Radwan's home from 1992-1995 while teaching English in the village of Zebabdeh in the West Bank's Jenin district. Radwan and his wife Maisoon (and their five children) introduced us to the pleasures of life in a Palestinian village: drinking tea flavored with sage, the smell of freshly baked bread, picking okra in the fields. Radwan died of a heart attack while working in his fields.
Radwan was typical of most Palestinians. He was not a politically active man. He loved his family dearly and struggled to make ends meet for them. People the world over face similar struggles with health, unemployment and poverty. Unfortunately, on top of these struggles (hard enough), Palestinians must also deal with living under a violent military occupation which exacerbates all of the above problems.
Radwan was buried in Zebabdeh's Christian cemetery on Wednesday, Dec. 12. Please keep his family in your prayers.
Below you will find four pieces. The first, by Nurit Peled-Elhanan, is a passionate Israeli call for a just peace. The second, by Naim Ateek, is a Christmas letter from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. Next is a piece analyzing Sharon's aims: the author's analysis squares well with what we keep hearing from Palestinians, Israelis, and Western government officials here (albeit the latter off-the-record). The final piece, by Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper, provides an additional analysis of the present period.
Our next update will be after the new year. May each of you have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year.
1. The Dominion of Death
Nurit Peled-Elhanan (Translated by Edeet Ravel, Montreal)
Yediot Ahronot, 1 December 2001
The article below was written by Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a long-time Israeli peace activist and recent winner of a peace award from the European Parliament. Nurit was the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years old when she was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997.
Dylan Thomas wrote a war poem entitled And Death Shall Have No Dominion. In Israel, it does. Here death governs: the government of Israel rules over a dominion of death. So the most astonishing thing about yesterdays terrorist attack in Jerusalem and all similar attacks is that Israelis are astonished.
Israeli propaganda and indoctrination manage to keep coverage of these attacks detached from any Israeli reality. The story in the Israeli (and American) media is one of Arab murderers and Israeli victims, whose only sin was that they asked for seven days of grace.
But anyone who can remember back not even one year but just one week or several hours knows the story is different, that each attack is a link in a chain of horrific bloody events that extends back thirty-four years and has but one cause: a brutal occupation. An occupation that humiliates, starves, denies jobs, demolishes homes, destroys crops, murders children, imprisons minors without trial under appalling conditions, lets babies die at checkpoints, and spreads lies.
Last week, after the assassination of Abu Hanoud, a journalist from Yediot Ahronot asked me whether I felt relief. Hadnt I been frightened that a murderer like that was roaming free? No, I did not feel relief, I told her, and I will feel no relief as long as the murderers of Palestinian children continue to roam free. The murders of those children, like the murder of a suspect without trial or the murder of a ten-year-old boy yesterday, shortly before the attack, guarantee that no Israeli child can walk to school safely. Every Israeli child will pay for the deaths of the five children in Gaza and the others in Jenin, Ramallah, Hebron.
The Palestinians have learned from Israel that every victim must be avenged tenfold, a hundredfold. They have said repeatedly that until there is peace in Ramallah and Jenin there will be no peace in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. So it is not up to the Palestinians to keep seven days of quiet but up to the Israeli Occupation Force.
On Friday it was reported that politicians from both sides had reached a deal in Jerusalem to allow the reopening of the casino upon which their own livelihood depends. They did it without American intervention, without high-level committees, with just the assistance of lawyers and business people, who promised the parties what was required. What this shows is that the conflict is not between the leaders: when an issue affects them directly (unlike the deaths of children) they are quick to find a solution.
It strengthens my belief that all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, are victims of politicians who gamble the lives of our children on games of honor and prestige. To them, children are worth less than roulette chips.
But these attacks serve the interests of Israeli policypolicy designed to make us forget that the war today is about protecting the settlements and the continuation of the occupation, policy that drives young Palestinians to commit suicide and take Israeli children with them, animated by Samsons invocation let me die with the Philistines, policy contrived to make us believe that they want Tel Aviv and Jaffa too and there is no one to talk to, even as they liquidate all those who might have been able to talk.
Now that we know our leaders are capable of peace when there is an economic motive, we must demand that they make peace when lesser things, like the lives of our children, are at stake. Until all the parents of Israel and Palestine rise up against the politicians and demand they curb their lust for conquest and bloodshed, the underground realm of buried children will continue to grow. Since the beginning of time, mothers have cried out in a clear voice for life and against death. Today, we must rise up against the transformation of our children into murderers and murdered, raise our children not to support evil machinations, and force the politicianswho say, with Abner and Joab, Let the young men arise and play before usto make way for those who can sit at the negotiating table and agree to a true and just peace, who are prepared to engage in dialogue not with the aim of tricking and manipulating the other side, not to humiliate the other and force him to his knees, but to reach a decision that considers the other, a solution free of racism and lies. Otherwise death shall continue to have dominion over us.
I suggest that parents who have not yet lost their children look beneath their feet and heed the voices rising from the kingdom of death, upon which they step day by day and hour by hour, for only there does everyone understand that there is no difference between one life and another, that it matters little what is the color of your skin or the color of your ID, or which flag flies over which hill and which direction you face when you pray.
In the kingdom of death Israeli children lie beside Palestinian children, soldiers of the occupying army beside suicide bombers, and no one remembers who was David and who was Goliath, for they have faced the sober truth and realized that they were cheated and lied to, that politicians without feeling or conscience gambled away their lives as they continue to gamble with the lives of us all. We have given them the power, through democratic elections, to turn our home into an arena of never-ending murder. Only if we stop them can we return to a normal life in this place, and then death will have no dominion.
2. Sabeel Christmas Message 2001
TO OUR FRIENDS AT THIS CHRISTMAS TIME
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2).
The Sabeel family in Jerusalem and the Holy Land wishes to extend its warmest Christmas greetings to all our friends everywhere. We hope and pray that the joy, love, and peace associated with the coming of Christ will be our strength and light inthe days and months ahead as we continue to struggle for a just peace in Palestine/Israel.
As you well realize, our land and its people have been going through the most horrendous times. Israel has been stepping up its violence and state terrorism in order to maintain its occupation, while some Palestinians, in their despair, have been resorting to violence and suicide bombings. Our cry that the source of the violence is the Israeli occupation has gone unheeded. Violence has only been met with violence and terror with terror. The vicious cycle has never been worse. We are caught in such a predicament where neither side has the courage to take the high moral ground in curbing the violence.
It is important to emphasize that Sabeel has consistently condemned all forms of violence. From our perspective of faith, all killing is wrong. The killing of innocent people can never be justified, but extra judicial killing is also wrong. Suspects must be brought to justice and given a fair trial. The killing of Palestinians and Israelis is a crime whether perpetrated by the Israeli extremist government through its army and settlers or by Palestinians who are resisting the occupation of their country. We condemn both acts as evil; and simultaneously reiterate our strong conviction that the Israeli illegal occupation is the root cause of the problem. So long as it lasts, violence and terror are likely to continue.
We believe that the evil and oppressive occupation must be resisted consistently with nonviolent direct action. We at Sabeel stand for nonviolence because it stems from our understanding of the Gospel. We, therefore, call on people of good will throughout the world, who believe that justice is the true basis for peace, to employ all the nonviolent means possible to bring the Israeli occupation to an end.
Several weeks ago, many of us were encouraged with the statements of President George Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and especially that of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. In spite of the setbacks caused by the recent tragic suicide attacks and the devastation caused by Israeli shelling, there is great urgency to demand the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Without the complete withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied territories and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, no lasting peace is possible. Nothing short of that can put an end to the cycle of violence and terror.
Throughout this year, with the increase of Israel¹s repressive measures and Palestinian resistance, we have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In fact the words of the funeral service are very apt, ³In the midst of life we are in deathŠ². Human beings created in the image of the one merciful and loving God deserve a much better life. Their humanity, of which they have been stripped by grave injustice, must be restored and their dignity, trampled and denied by oppression, must be reaffirmed.
One of the great marks of Christmas is its note of hope. For in the midst of the utter darkness of a world of sin and evil, God shines on humanity with the gift of hope in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ hope for a life that can be lived with God and neighbor fully and abundantly, in peace and in love. The final words of the song of Zechariah have a special meaning for us during this Christmas season, ³Što give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace² (Luke 1:79). This is our prayer as well as our plea.
At certain times in the struggle for peace, our people were able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Many of us today see a tunnel that has no end, shrouded with gloom and utter darkness the darkness of injustice and humiliation. In the midst of such despair, our prayer to the incarnate Lord is to give us that ray of light that will restore hope and confidence for a brighter future for all the people of our land so that our feet will be guided in the way of peace.
At this Christmas, we share with you our prayer and we plead that you will do everything you can to help put an end to the occupation of our country. Our people are longing for a life of security and peace in their own state and wish the same for their Israeli neighbors.
May the joy, love, and peace of Christ reside with us all throughout the coming New Year.
Naim Ateek
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
Jerusalem
3. Divide And Conquer, Israel's Real Policy
Ahmed Bouzid
The Jordan Times, 7 December 2001
In a gripping article published in the October 2001 issue of Harper's Magazine, New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges described how every afternoon around four o'clock, nearly every single day, on the outskirts of the Khan Younis refugee camp, a voice on a loudspeaker is heard spewing out insults in Arabic, calling out, "Come on, dogs! ... Son of a ...."To his astonishment, Hedges discovered that the loud speakers were mounted on armoured Israeli vehicles parked just outside the Palestinian camp.Soon after, riled up by the invectives, young Palestinian boys, most of them no more than ten or eleven years old, would dash towards the armoured vehicles and begin throwing rocks at the soldiers. At which point, the soldiers would open fire.Here's how Hedges describes one bloody scene: "A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than 10 or 11 years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. ... there are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos." To Americans, the notion that Israel would go out of its way to provoke and incite Palestinians, let alone Palestinian children, to violence is beyond belief.And yet, evidence is abundant that Israel is not engaged in any form of self-defence - certainly not as it is understood under international law - but rather in deliberate, wilful provocation aimed at creating an unstable atmosphere within which Israel can undertake its military operations with impunity.Let's revisit the few weeks before the tragic Dec. 1 and 2 bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Nov. 7: the Red Crescent reports that IDF soldiers shoot in cold blood three wounded Palestinian gunmen under their custody after medics were unable to save the life of a wounded Israeli soldier; Nov. 13: the Israeli human rights group B'tselem uncovers that the Israeli army has established a policy of not prosecuting Israeli soldiers that have shot and killed, without provocation, Palestinian children; Nov. 22: five boys ranging in age between 6 and 14 are killed when an ordnance planted by the Israeli army deep into civilian Palestinian territory explodes; Nov. 23: four Palestinians are killed during the boys' funeral march, among them a 14-year-old boy.But what ignited this latest firestorm is of course the Nov. 23 assassination of militant Hamas leader, Mahmoud Abu Hannoud, who was killed while riding a taxi with 4 other Palestinian men. As expected, Hamas vowed revenge. "Experience has shown," Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantissi declared, "that the militant wing of Hamas reacts to the Israeli crimes and always strikes back - God willing, there will be a painful response." And so there was.And did Israel expect such a reaction? Of course it did. It knew full well that just as the taunted children of Gaza throw rocks at their tormenting soldiers, so do Hamas and Islamic Jihad, taunted by assassinations, bombings of densely populated areas, house demolitions, land confiscations, react with their weapon of choice: suicide bombings.But then we ask: why? Why would Israel engage in such provocations.As demonstrated by Camp David, the Palestinians are not willing to settle for anything less than a sovereign Palestinian state, and the Israelis are not willing to offer anything resembling a sovereign Palestinian state. The Palestinians, militarily no match for the Israelis, have time and again pleaded for an unconditional return to the negotiation table.The Israelis, holding the military upper hand, have decided that negotiations are a dead end for attaining their goal of a semi-autonomous Palestinian state, and have instead opted for the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer: spread civil strife among the Palestinians, establish a state of chaos, so that Israel is no longer faced with solving a political problem, but rather with confronting a security crisis, and then move in to further dismember, annex and tighten control over the remaining Palestinian territories.In this light, it becomes perfectly clear why the Israelis are making it virtually impossible - not only politically, but now physically - for Yasser Arafat to bring about order among his people.During the period between 1993 and 2000, about 400 Israelis were killed in militant Palestinian actions (3,000 were felled on the Palestinian side). The only period during that interval when Israeli fatalities fell to almost zero was during the last year under Barak. That was the period when Palestinians truly believed that their ordeal was at an end. Which leaves the hope alive that the cycle of violence can be broken. But it will be broken only if and when Israel abandons its grand strategy of divide and conquer and its tactics of provocation and collective punishment.Peace will become possible at long last when Israel comes to terms with the reality that there is no alternative to the establishment of a free, sovereign Palestinian state.
4. The Final Push to Defeat the Palestinians
Jeff Halper
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
The whirlwind unleashed on the Palestinians by the Israeli government following the Ze'evi assassination in October and now, in early December, on the heels of the suicide attacks in Jerusalem, Haifa, Afula and elsewhere, goes far beyond mere retaliation against terrorism. Viewed in the context of Bush's attempts to build a "coalition against terror," it is a last desperate effort to bring "industrial quiet" to what's been called the Second Front, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a precondition for building any sustained coalition that includes Arab and Muslim countries. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. Either a satisfactory political solution can be imposed on the parties with a lot of arm-twisting and sweetening, or the Palestinians can be made to submit to Israeli-American dictates.
The first, preferred by the Americans as a resolution of the conflict, have met fundamental obstacles on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. The Israelis steadfastly refuse to dismantle their occupation and relinquish control to a degree that would permit a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state to emerge. For his part, Arafat has failed to produce a coherent program for negotiations, and has squandered the opportunity given him by the Intifada to reframe the negotiations in a more equitable way. Faced with a unfocused resistance movement with no political program and fueled by ever more violent attacks against Israeli civilian targets, the American government seems to have been persuaded by Sharon and Peres to choose the second option: defeating the Palestinians outright.
Given their tight time-line for coalition-building and military actions, the Americans are looking for a quick fix, a reasonable period of industrial quiet in the Middle East. Allowing themselves to be persuaded that Israel can bring the Palestinian Authority to its knees within a matter of weeks, thereby reopening the "peace process" on terms favorable to Israel, has its attractions. It is in keeping with the long-standing American bias strongly in favor of Israel, it avoids conflicts with a solidly pro-Israeli Congress (89 senators issued a letter recently warning Bush against compromising Israel's interests), and it can be "sold" as legitimate retaliation against "Palestinian terrorism" - thus legitimizing Sharon's attempts to link Arafat and the Palestinians integrally with Bin Laden and anti-American/anti-"civilization" world terrorism. Given the weak, almost incoherent, political position of the Palestinians, this option seems the most workable in the short run.
Sharon, then, has received a "green light" from Bush to bring quiet to the region through military means, to be followed (no hurry here) by negotiations that will give the Palestinians a mini-state while leaving Israel in control of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediteranean. (It was reported on the Channel One news on Friday night, December 7, that Sharon promised Bush not to kill or harm Arafat, to which Bush replied: "Just promise me you won't kill him.")
The strategy of Sharon, Peres and the others of the "National Unity" government has five main elements:
1. Massive military actions. Besiegement, military strikes against the fragile Palestinian infrastructure and assassinations of key political and resistance figures - the kind of attacks employing heavy American weapons we are witnessing now (early December) -- are fundamental to browbeating the Palestinians into submissiveness. But overt military actions must be carefully framed in order to maintain Israel's image as a mere peace-seeking "victim" and to avert attention from its ongoing, deepening and ever more brutal Occupation. Following violent acts against Israel, they are cast as part of a "war against terrorism," indeed as part of Israel's "natural right" to defend its people. Having removed the response from its political context - a struggle against an illegal occupation - Israel is then free to unleash its entire arsenal (nuclear aside) against whatever targets it wishes for as prolonged a period as it desires. Whatever we may think of Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate political and military tool, casting its military strikes as "retaliatory," justifying its massive destruction as part of a "war" with the Palestinians and concealing its Occupation allows Israel to engage in both political repression and state terrorism without being held accountable. Indeed, the entire chain of cause-and-effect is lost as Israel presents each Palestinian attack as a new and separate incident, divorced from the Occupation or previous Israel actions. The disproportionality of the attacks in October and December show clearly how specific incidents are used for far-reaching political and military gains.
2. A campaign of attrition. Certainly military attacks are part of an Israeli campaign of attrition designed to wear down Palestinian resistance over time. But long-term policies, less visible and less dramatic, are no less effective. House demolitions, land expropriation, permanent closure and prolonged curfews, restrictions on freedom of movement, induced impoverishment, economic warfare of various kinds (such as clearing agricultural fields, uprooting thousands of olive and fruit trees, prohibiting harvests, confiscating livestock and preventing the marketing of produce), "quiet" bureaucratic deportations and a dirty war employing collaborators - all these and more undermine the fabric of Palestinian society and weaken its ability to withstand the Occupation. The campaign is designed not only to break the will of the Palestinian people but to undermine its support for the Palestinian Authority, hopefully giving rise to a more compliant leadership.
3. Creating irreversible "facts" on the ground. The grand project of expanding Israel's control over the Occupied Territories, systematically pursued according to the "master plan" presented by Sharon to Begin in 1977, is nearing completion. The Mitchell Commission's recommendations that settlement construction be frozen, which the Palestinians and others seem to think will be effective in halting the Occupation, is already irrelevant. Israel has enough land and settlements already: 60% of the West Bank and another 60% of Gaza are firmly under its control. 400,000 settlers live in some 200 settlements across the "Green Line. Now its efforts are dedicated to completing the infrastructural work needed to consolidate its hold on the Territories. Almost unnoticed is the construction of 450 kilometers of highways and "by-pass" roads which link the settlements but create massive barriers to Palestinian movement. Since these major infrastructure projects have been agreed to - and funded -- by the Americans, they fall outside the Mitchell Committee's "freeze." They constitute the last key element in the Matrix of Control Israel has laid over the Occupied Territories, and bulldozers are working ceaselessly to complete the system.
4. Delaying tactics. Sharon's demand for "seven days of quiet" before implementing the Mitchell Report has already delayed the resumption of negotiations by months. Time and again "crises" are manufactured (often following unprovoked assassinations, house demolitions or other acts on the part of Israel), which that provide a pretext for not implementing agreements or restarting negotiations. Broad hints by Israeli political leaders that they will seek only long-term "interim agreements" rather than a final status settlement will leave Israel in de facto control of the Occupied Territories - or at least in control long enough to complete its irreversible Matrix of Control.
5. Delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority. Since September 11 the Israeli government has worked tirelessly to cast the Palestinian Authority as an integral part of "world terrorism." Sharon has called Arafat "our Bin Laden," and following the attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa the Israeli government officially labeled the Palestinian Authority as a "terror-sponsoring entity" - obviously hoping to impart to the Palestinians the same international delegitimacy attached to other recognized terrorist organizations.
This is the program that unites the broad coalition of Israel's National Unity government, from the Labor party on the "left" through the Likud, the religious and the parties of the extreme right. At its base lies the rock-bottom refusal to truly share the country with the Palestinians, in either one state or in two. Yet - and this is the catch -- Israel needs a Palestinian state to "relieve it" of the three and a half million Palestinians of the Occupied Territories it can neither absorb (giving citizenship to this population would nullify a Jewish-dominated state) nor control forever by force. While the Palestinians strive for political independence in a viable state alongside Israel, Israel is striving for what is calls "autonomy-plus/independence-minus," a kind of occupation-by-consent that leaves in it in control of the entire country yet rids it of the Palestinian population. This, in a nutshell, describes what the Oslo "peace process" was all about.
Since occupation-by-consent will not be willingly accepted by the Palestinians, but a just peace based on true Palestinian independence is unacceptable to Israel, Israel must force it upon the Palestinians. For Israel, too, the time-line is tight. Bush's green light is good for a couple weeks - perhaps somewhat longer if "justified" by further attacks on Israeli civilians - but it will eventually run into major obstacles: the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee and CIA chief Tenet which await implementation, General Zinni's mission to achieve a cease-fire, and the overarching need to sustain a coalition including the Arab and Muslim countries. Hence the ferocity of Israel's attacks, the final push to defeat the Palestinians once and for all.
It is one minute to midnight. Already Israel has largely completed its physical incorporation of the West Bank into Israel proper, foreclosing any possibility of a viable Palestinian state. If the current campaign of repression succeeds, occupation will be followed by the creation of a dependent Palestinian mini-state - a permanent occupation-by-consent not of the Palestinians, but of the US and a compliant Europe. These are the fateful days of reckoning: a just peace based on two viable and sovereign states, or the emergence of a Palestinian bantustan under Israeli control, a new apartheid.
(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at icahd@zahav.net.il)
Sunday, December 2
MCC Palestine Update #32
MCC Palestine Update #32
Once more we send out an update against a backdrop of devastation and mind-numbing, body-scarring violence. "What we are all engaged in," writes Ghassan Andoni, director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples in Beit Sahour, "is: today's revenge for yesterday's shed blood. It seems to be endless. On the eve of his trip to the United States, Mr. Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, referred to the Israeli 'targeted killing operations" which resulted in the death of 13 Palestinians, among them 5 school children, by saying, 'I think we found the way to deal with it [it being Palestinian violence].' Sadly enough tonight he was proven wrong. Today, whoever carried out the Ben-Yehuda Street attack in Jerusalem will say, 'We found the way to deal with it [it being the Israeli occupation},' and he will be proven wrong in the coming few days. And the cycle continues. Shame on us all. Are we happy with being turned into human killing machines?"
Below are three pieces. The first is an advent reflection written by a group of international Christian workers in the occupied territories. The second is a sermon preached by Susan Thomas of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City on the first Sunday of advent. The third and final piece describes the travails of schoolchildren from Jenin trying to go home after school at the Catholic school in Zebabdeh village.
1. Advent 2001
“Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
We live in a tumultuous and restless time. The post-September 11th world has left many fearful for their security and uncertain about the future. The words ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ have become routine in people’s conversations. Suspicion and doubt about others are becoming all too common.
For those of us living and working in the Holy Land (Israel/Palestine), such fears and uncertainties about the future are not new. We live in a land plagued by injustice and where terror exists in many different forms.
The acts of Palestinian suicide bombers, whether against Israeli civilians or soldiers, are publicly and swiftly identified and condemned as terror by the world community. But, unfortunately, Israeli actions inflicted upon a predominantly unarmed civilian Palestinian population; confiscating land, shelling residential areas and refugee camps, bulldozing agricultural lands, demolishing houses, assassinating political leaders and activists, expanding settlements, torturing political detainees, killing children – are too seldom acknowledged or condemned as the acts of terror they are. For Palestinians living in the Holy Land, this silence by the Israeli and international public compounds the experience of loss and destruction, creating feelings of abandonment, resentment and despair.
To begin to rid the world of violence and terror, we must be willing to name and condemn all their manifold forms. Whether Palestinian or Israeli, American or Afghani, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist, we all yearn to live in a world free of terror, suspicion, injustice, poverty, hunger, oppression and occupation. Only as we strive to lift-up the dignity of every human being and the well being of all creation can we hope to build a world of peace and security.
As we begin the season of Advent, there is no greater need than for us to create such a world. As people who are living in the midst of despair and hopelessness, we know this is no easy task. Yet, the words of Isaiah 40 quoted above provide us with courage to face the hard work ahead, reminding us that the world as we know it will one day be changed and aligned fully with God's will and purpose for all creation.
Advent is a time for Christians to reflect, prepare and anticipate, as we await the return of Christ and celebrate his birth. It is a time for us to get ‘our house in order,’ both personally and as a community. We are called to believe in and strive for God’s reign of justice, mercy and peace on earth as it is in heaven. In this first Advent of the new millennium, there may be no more important task before each of us than to wrestle with what we must do to help bring peace on earth.
In response to the uncertainty in the world following the attacks on 11 September, there appears to be an emphasis on ‘bombing’ our way to security and peace. Here in this land of Palestine/Israel, we have seen the folly of trying to obtain either through just such measures. For us, another prophet of this land calls us to a different way. Is it not through living as the Lord requires – doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God – that we bring hope and life to our broken world and obtain true peace and security for all God’s creation?
This Advent, many Palestinians, Internationals and Israelis will join together to end the occupation through acts of non-violent resistance. This Advent, many Christians in the US will join in Ecumenical Prayer Vigils for a just peace in this region. This Advent, many people the world over will ask their elected officials to move beyond empty rhetoric to real acts of solidarity with the outcast, the poor and the oppressed. It is these acts that will fulfill the call to do as the Lord requires. It is these acts that may begin to bring about Peace on Earth. We pray wherever you are in the world, you will find ways to join such movements of God’s spirit in order that ‘the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together….’
Rev. Alex & Brenda Awad
East Jerusalem Baptist Church (GBGM-UMC)
Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Partnership Liaison - Jerusalem
Nancy J. Dinsmor
Development Officer
Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem
Dean & Mrs. Ross Jones
St. George's College Jerusalem
Robert May
GBGM – United Methodist Church Worker
Kathi McDonald
Warden, St. George's College Jerusalem
Catherine Nichols,
Edward B. Nyce
Mennonite Central Committee
Rev. Sandra Olewine
United Methodist Liaison – Jerusalem
General Board of Global Ministries
Rev. Michael Thomas & Rev. Susan Thomas
Pastors, English-speaking congregation
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
Alain and Sonia Epp Weaver
Country Representatives
Mennonite Central Committee
2. Advent 1 2001
Susan Thomas
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, 2 December 2001
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 25:1-7
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him. Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps...”
Rejoice, rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear;
The evening is advancing, and darker night is near.
The bridegroom is arising and soon is drawing nigh.
Up, pray and watch and wrestle; at midnight comes the cry.
The watchers on the mountain proclaim the bridegroom near.
Go forth as he approaches with alleluias clear.
The marriage feast is waiting; the gates wide open stand.
Arise, O heirs of glory; the bridegroom is at hand.
Matthew 15:8-13
“..The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
The saints, who here in patience their cross and suffrings bore,
Shall live and reign forever when sorrow is no more.
Around the throne of glory the Lamb they shall behold;
In triumph cast before him their diadems of gold.
Our hope and expectation, O Jesus, now appear;
Arise, O Sun so longed for, O¹er this benighted sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted, we plead, O Lord, to see
The day of earth¹s redemption that sets your people free!
(Laurentius Laurentii 1660-1722)
Gracious and merciful Lord Jesus, you call us to be ready to greet you, not to slide into inattention so that we fail to notice that the oil in our lamps is running low:
Dear Lord, we want you to know that we never again want to be wakened near midnight by the sound of explosions in the midst of the people here. We never again want to join our prayers of lamentation with the wailing of sirens nor wonder whose beloved child is lying wounded or dead on the street once we have checked to see if our own are safely at home.
Dear Lord Jesus, we are tired. Not just sleepy. Tired. We are tired of trying to stay alert. Especially to danger. We are tired of thinking about what is safe, about suspicious backpacks and letters, about suspicious people, about suspicious plans for peace and security. We want to stay alert and pray with you, but we are tired of waiting for you to get here so that we can. We¹re sure that if you came now, back to the gardens of this city, we would welcome you with joy and stay awake and be your steady disciples. If you were here, maybe we could do that. As it is, we grow weary with this waiting and we aren¹t sure we¹ll have enough oil in our lamps to last the night.
Because the evening is advancing, and darker night is near. We just sang about that, in the midst of the exhortation to rejoice. It’s getting late. It’s getting darker and darker here--the evening is surely advancing--and pretty soon no one is going to be able to see a way through.
What is it we are supposed to do? Go into that night singing? How are we to rejoice? How are we to believe? Are you even talking to us when you say, ³Rejoice, rejoice believers?² Is it we who are being addressed? For we don¹t know if we can see well enough in this gathering darkness even to read the words of this song, much less sing them! And our eyes and voices are clogged with weary waiting for something to happen--a cry that you are coming, that dawn is breaking, that swords are being beaten into plowshares, even that Sharon and Arafat are talking to each other and not handing the power over to anyone with a tank, a rifle, or a homemade bomb.
Dear Lord Jesus, don¹t you know what this is like? Don’t you know what it is like to be foolish rather than wise? We surely do! Those ten bridesmaids weren’t so different from one another--the wise and foolish waited together, together they slept, together they were awakened. The parable doesn¹t say that the foolish wasted the oil that they had; they simply hadn’t expected to wait quite so long. And now, even with word that the bridegroom was definitely on his way, they weren’t sure they could trust the message. If they lit their lamps now, the lights might go out by the time he arrived. And they knew they had no store of oil in reserve to replenish their lamps.
They were foolish. Foolish not to trust the word, foolish not to have reserves, foolish even to follow the advice of the wise ones and to leave their watch to buy more oil at that moment.
Dear Lord Jesus, have mercy on us, the foolish. We come before you now wanting desperately to be lights in the darkness. We come before you now unprepared for the long wait, the longer night. We come before you now confessing our foolishness, our trusting in lesser things like last-minute shopping rather than casting ourselves upon your mercy and staying put to meet you--even with sputtering or extinguished lamps.
That was their real mistake, wasn’t it? That they left and missed the bridegroom’s arrival. That their lack of preparation and reserves--and the lack of faith in the bridegroom’s merciful
generosity on the night of his wedding--brought them to this most foolish decision with its disastrous consequences of their being shut out of the feast.
We want to be ready. We want to have plenty of reserves of faith with us. We want you to fill us up with the oil of your mercy, your forgiveness, your hope and expectation, your joy. We want you to give us companions who have extra reserves to share when our light is in danger of going out. We want to be wise as we wait, and most importantly, to be wise finally in trusting in your mercy rather than in our own “getting it right”.
Lord Jesus, your idea of “getting it right” is often different than ours, isn’t it? Your idea is like the prophet Isaiah’s that it is by the light of God that we are to walk, not our own light. Your idea is like the apostle Paul’s, that we are to live always as if in the day rather than the night, with our deeds exposed for all to see. Your idea is not that of saying the right words or performing the expected actions or claiming a non-existent prior close association with the Lord, but of being where God wants you to be.
I wonder, Jesus, if that was what was happening that night in Gethsemane, when you asked your closest disciples to wait and watch with you. In Matthew’s gospel, you told this story about the waiting bridesmaids shortly before your betrayal and arrest. Those bridesmaid disciples you chose for companions that night also slept. Not once, not twice, but three times, even with your urging for them to keep awake and to keep watch.
But unlike the foolish bridesmaids, they didn’t leave you. At least not then. Maybe in their drowsy dreaming, they remembered your warning parable. They stayed, frail human flesh that they were, and received your gentle, resigned words of merciful judgement upon their failing of the task: “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
And even when they did flee, for fear, later on--you didn’t finally abandon them, but came to them, their risen Lord, and filled them once again with your oil of mercy, forgiveness, peace and expectation.
Dear Lord Jesus, we are tired.
Not just sleepy. Tired. We are tired of trying to stay alert. Especially to danger. We are tired of thinking about what is safe, about suspicious backpacks and letters, about suspicious people, about suspicious plans for peace and security. We want to stay alert and pray with you, but we are tired of waiting for you to get here so that we can. We’re sure that if you came now, back to the gardens of this city, we would welcome you with joy and stay awake and be your steady disciples. If you were here, maybe we could do that. Or maybe we couldn’t, but we would trust you more than our own lamps. As it is, we grow weary with this waiting and we aren’t sure we’ll have enough oil in our lamps to last the night.
So come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
Rejoice, then, you sad-hearted, who sit in deepest gloom,
Who mourn your joys departed and tremble at your doom.
Despair not; he is near you, there, standing at the door,
Who best can help and cheer you and bids you weep no more.
He comes to judge the nations, a terror to his foes,
A light of consolation and blessed hope to those
Who love the Lord¹s appearing, O glorious Sun, now come,
Send forth your beams so cheering and guide us safely home.
(Paul Gerhardt 1606-1676)
3. Letter from Fr. Raed Abu Sahliah of the Latin Patriarchate, Jerusalem
Let me begin, by telling you what happened today with my colleague Fr. Aktham Hijazin, the parish priest of my village Zababdeh, which is 100 kms far from Jerusalem and 10 kms far from the nearest town of Jenin: Fr. Aktham is the director of our Latin Patriarchate school in the village in which study around 800 students who come mainly from the village but also there are 200 who come from the nearby villages even from Jenin. This morning two buses brought the boys and girls from Jenin, at the end of the school day, Jenin was invaded for the 4th time by the Israeli army and tanks and almost completely closed, people from the surrounding villages who work normally in Jenin couldn’t return back home and even the 80 of our school boys and girls were not allowed to return back home to Jenin. After coordination with the Red Cross, Fr. Aktham and some teachers accompanied the two buses full of students (who are between 6 years old to 18) and when they reached nearby by Jenin the Israeli tanks stopped them and didn’t allow them to go in and even when the priest tried to go down and negotiate with the soldiers, they began to shoot on the air for three times and didn’t want even to speak with him and ordered them to go back.
If you were at his place, what would you have done with 80 scared students who would like to go home and join their families who are under military siege? Fr. Aktham decided to return back to Zababdeh with all the kids, when they arrived, they were received by a crowd of people from the village who offered them to eat because it was almost dark and was the time to take the Ramadan breakfast because some of them were Moslems and were fasting the whole day. Then the priest distributed the students to stay over night in the houses of our parishioners instead of leaving them alone at school. Every family was happy and proud to take one kid home and let him call this family in Jenin to tell them that he is safe and sane.
Tomorrow, Fr. Aktham will have another busy day after his Sunday mass, and maybe another adventure, because he has to send the students to Jenin which is still under heavy siege, otherwise they will have to stay in Zababdeh. Of course, they are most welcome among our kids and families, but do you think that their families will not be worried until they will be back home?!
This is a very simple story from many others our people are living each day that our kids should experience at this very young age, they are lucky that they are now safe in our village, because almost 110 of their colleagues lost their lives during the last 14 months, five boys were killed last week by a bomb explosion while they were going to their school, one was killed today in Jenin while he was returning home from school, he was 10 years old.
Once more we send out an update against a backdrop of devastation and mind-numbing, body-scarring violence. "What we are all engaged in," writes Ghassan Andoni, director of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples in Beit Sahour, "is: today's revenge for yesterday's shed blood. It seems to be endless. On the eve of his trip to the United States, Mr. Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, referred to the Israeli 'targeted killing operations" which resulted in the death of 13 Palestinians, among them 5 school children, by saying, 'I think we found the way to deal with it [it being Palestinian violence].' Sadly enough tonight he was proven wrong. Today, whoever carried out the Ben-Yehuda Street attack in Jerusalem will say, 'We found the way to deal with it [it being the Israeli occupation},' and he will be proven wrong in the coming few days. And the cycle continues. Shame on us all. Are we happy with being turned into human killing machines?"
Below are three pieces. The first is an advent reflection written by a group of international Christian workers in the occupied territories. The second is a sermon preached by Susan Thomas of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City on the first Sunday of advent. The third and final piece describes the travails of schoolchildren from Jenin trying to go home after school at the Catholic school in Zebabdeh village.
1. Advent 2001
“Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
We live in a tumultuous and restless time. The post-September 11th world has left many fearful for their security and uncertain about the future. The words ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ have become routine in people’s conversations. Suspicion and doubt about others are becoming all too common.
For those of us living and working in the Holy Land (Israel/Palestine), such fears and uncertainties about the future are not new. We live in a land plagued by injustice and where terror exists in many different forms.
The acts of Palestinian suicide bombers, whether against Israeli civilians or soldiers, are publicly and swiftly identified and condemned as terror by the world community. But, unfortunately, Israeli actions inflicted upon a predominantly unarmed civilian Palestinian population; confiscating land, shelling residential areas and refugee camps, bulldozing agricultural lands, demolishing houses, assassinating political leaders and activists, expanding settlements, torturing political detainees, killing children – are too seldom acknowledged or condemned as the acts of terror they are. For Palestinians living in the Holy Land, this silence by the Israeli and international public compounds the experience of loss and destruction, creating feelings of abandonment, resentment and despair.
To begin to rid the world of violence and terror, we must be willing to name and condemn all their manifold forms. Whether Palestinian or Israeli, American or Afghani, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist, we all yearn to live in a world free of terror, suspicion, injustice, poverty, hunger, oppression and occupation. Only as we strive to lift-up the dignity of every human being and the well being of all creation can we hope to build a world of peace and security.
As we begin the season of Advent, there is no greater need than for us to create such a world. As people who are living in the midst of despair and hopelessness, we know this is no easy task. Yet, the words of Isaiah 40 quoted above provide us with courage to face the hard work ahead, reminding us that the world as we know it will one day be changed and aligned fully with God's will and purpose for all creation.
Advent is a time for Christians to reflect, prepare and anticipate, as we await the return of Christ and celebrate his birth. It is a time for us to get ‘our house in order,’ both personally and as a community. We are called to believe in and strive for God’s reign of justice, mercy and peace on earth as it is in heaven. In this first Advent of the new millennium, there may be no more important task before each of us than to wrestle with what we must do to help bring peace on earth.
In response to the uncertainty in the world following the attacks on 11 September, there appears to be an emphasis on ‘bombing’ our way to security and peace. Here in this land of Palestine/Israel, we have seen the folly of trying to obtain either through just such measures. For us, another prophet of this land calls us to a different way. Is it not through living as the Lord requires – doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God – that we bring hope and life to our broken world and obtain true peace and security for all God’s creation?
This Advent, many Palestinians, Internationals and Israelis will join together to end the occupation through acts of non-violent resistance. This Advent, many Christians in the US will join in Ecumenical Prayer Vigils for a just peace in this region. This Advent, many people the world over will ask their elected officials to move beyond empty rhetoric to real acts of solidarity with the outcast, the poor and the oppressed. It is these acts that will fulfill the call to do as the Lord requires. It is these acts that may begin to bring about Peace on Earth. We pray wherever you are in the world, you will find ways to join such movements of God’s spirit in order that ‘the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together….’
Rev. Alex & Brenda Awad
East Jerusalem Baptist Church (GBGM-UMC)
Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Partnership Liaison - Jerusalem
Nancy J. Dinsmor
Development Officer
Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem
Dean & Mrs. Ross Jones
St. George's College Jerusalem
Robert May
GBGM – United Methodist Church Worker
Kathi McDonald
Warden, St. George's College Jerusalem
Catherine Nichols,
Edward B. Nyce
Mennonite Central Committee
Rev. Sandra Olewine
United Methodist Liaison – Jerusalem
General Board of Global Ministries
Rev. Michael Thomas & Rev. Susan Thomas
Pastors, English-speaking congregation
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
Alain and Sonia Epp Weaver
Country Representatives
Mennonite Central Committee
2. Advent 1 2001
Susan Thomas
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem, 2 December 2001
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 25:1-7
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him. Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps...”
Rejoice, rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear;
The evening is advancing, and darker night is near.
The bridegroom is arising and soon is drawing nigh.
Up, pray and watch and wrestle; at midnight comes the cry.
The watchers on the mountain proclaim the bridegroom near.
Go forth as he approaches with alleluias clear.
The marriage feast is waiting; the gates wide open stand.
Arise, O heirs of glory; the bridegroom is at hand.
Matthew 15:8-13
“..The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
The saints, who here in patience their cross and suffrings bore,
Shall live and reign forever when sorrow is no more.
Around the throne of glory the Lamb they shall behold;
In triumph cast before him their diadems of gold.
Our hope and expectation, O Jesus, now appear;
Arise, O Sun so longed for, O¹er this benighted sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted, we plead, O Lord, to see
The day of earth¹s redemption that sets your people free!
(Laurentius Laurentii 1660-1722)
Gracious and merciful Lord Jesus, you call us to be ready to greet you, not to slide into inattention so that we fail to notice that the oil in our lamps is running low:
Dear Lord, we want you to know that we never again want to be wakened near midnight by the sound of explosions in the midst of the people here. We never again want to join our prayers of lamentation with the wailing of sirens nor wonder whose beloved child is lying wounded or dead on the street once we have checked to see if our own are safely at home.
Dear Lord Jesus, we are tired. Not just sleepy. Tired. We are tired of trying to stay alert. Especially to danger. We are tired of thinking about what is safe, about suspicious backpacks and letters, about suspicious people, about suspicious plans for peace and security. We want to stay alert and pray with you, but we are tired of waiting for you to get here so that we can. We¹re sure that if you came now, back to the gardens of this city, we would welcome you with joy and stay awake and be your steady disciples. If you were here, maybe we could do that. As it is, we grow weary with this waiting and we aren¹t sure we¹ll have enough oil in our lamps to last the night.
Because the evening is advancing, and darker night is near. We just sang about that, in the midst of the exhortation to rejoice. It’s getting late. It’s getting darker and darker here--the evening is surely advancing--and pretty soon no one is going to be able to see a way through.
What is it we are supposed to do? Go into that night singing? How are we to rejoice? How are we to believe? Are you even talking to us when you say, ³Rejoice, rejoice believers?² Is it we who are being addressed? For we don¹t know if we can see well enough in this gathering darkness even to read the words of this song, much less sing them! And our eyes and voices are clogged with weary waiting for something to happen--a cry that you are coming, that dawn is breaking, that swords are being beaten into plowshares, even that Sharon and Arafat are talking to each other and not handing the power over to anyone with a tank, a rifle, or a homemade bomb.
Dear Lord Jesus, don¹t you know what this is like? Don’t you know what it is like to be foolish rather than wise? We surely do! Those ten bridesmaids weren’t so different from one another--the wise and foolish waited together, together they slept, together they were awakened. The parable doesn¹t say that the foolish wasted the oil that they had; they simply hadn’t expected to wait quite so long. And now, even with word that the bridegroom was definitely on his way, they weren’t sure they could trust the message. If they lit their lamps now, the lights might go out by the time he arrived. And they knew they had no store of oil in reserve to replenish their lamps.
They were foolish. Foolish not to trust the word, foolish not to have reserves, foolish even to follow the advice of the wise ones and to leave their watch to buy more oil at that moment.
Dear Lord Jesus, have mercy on us, the foolish. We come before you now wanting desperately to be lights in the darkness. We come before you now unprepared for the long wait, the longer night. We come before you now confessing our foolishness, our trusting in lesser things like last-minute shopping rather than casting ourselves upon your mercy and staying put to meet you--even with sputtering or extinguished lamps.
That was their real mistake, wasn’t it? That they left and missed the bridegroom’s arrival. That their lack of preparation and reserves--and the lack of faith in the bridegroom’s merciful
generosity on the night of his wedding--brought them to this most foolish decision with its disastrous consequences of their being shut out of the feast.
We want to be ready. We want to have plenty of reserves of faith with us. We want you to fill us up with the oil of your mercy, your forgiveness, your hope and expectation, your joy. We want you to give us companions who have extra reserves to share when our light is in danger of going out. We want to be wise as we wait, and most importantly, to be wise finally in trusting in your mercy rather than in our own “getting it right”.
Lord Jesus, your idea of “getting it right” is often different than ours, isn’t it? Your idea is like the prophet Isaiah’s that it is by the light of God that we are to walk, not our own light. Your idea is like the apostle Paul’s, that we are to live always as if in the day rather than the night, with our deeds exposed for all to see. Your idea is not that of saying the right words or performing the expected actions or claiming a non-existent prior close association with the Lord, but of being where God wants you to be.
I wonder, Jesus, if that was what was happening that night in Gethsemane, when you asked your closest disciples to wait and watch with you. In Matthew’s gospel, you told this story about the waiting bridesmaids shortly before your betrayal and arrest. Those bridesmaid disciples you chose for companions that night also slept. Not once, not twice, but three times, even with your urging for them to keep awake and to keep watch.
But unlike the foolish bridesmaids, they didn’t leave you. At least not then. Maybe in their drowsy dreaming, they remembered your warning parable. They stayed, frail human flesh that they were, and received your gentle, resigned words of merciful judgement upon their failing of the task: “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
And even when they did flee, for fear, later on--you didn’t finally abandon them, but came to them, their risen Lord, and filled them once again with your oil of mercy, forgiveness, peace and expectation.
Dear Lord Jesus, we are tired.
Not just sleepy. Tired. We are tired of trying to stay alert. Especially to danger. We are tired of thinking about what is safe, about suspicious backpacks and letters, about suspicious people, about suspicious plans for peace and security. We want to stay alert and pray with you, but we are tired of waiting for you to get here so that we can. We’re sure that if you came now, back to the gardens of this city, we would welcome you with joy and stay awake and be your steady disciples. If you were here, maybe we could do that. Or maybe we couldn’t, but we would trust you more than our own lamps. As it is, we grow weary with this waiting and we aren’t sure we’ll have enough oil in our lamps to last the night.
So come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!
Rejoice, then, you sad-hearted, who sit in deepest gloom,
Who mourn your joys departed and tremble at your doom.
Despair not; he is near you, there, standing at the door,
Who best can help and cheer you and bids you weep no more.
He comes to judge the nations, a terror to his foes,
A light of consolation and blessed hope to those
Who love the Lord¹s appearing, O glorious Sun, now come,
Send forth your beams so cheering and guide us safely home.
(Paul Gerhardt 1606-1676)
3. Letter from Fr. Raed Abu Sahliah of the Latin Patriarchate, Jerusalem
Let me begin, by telling you what happened today with my colleague Fr. Aktham Hijazin, the parish priest of my village Zababdeh, which is 100 kms far from Jerusalem and 10 kms far from the nearest town of Jenin: Fr. Aktham is the director of our Latin Patriarchate school in the village in which study around 800 students who come mainly from the village but also there are 200 who come from the nearby villages even from Jenin. This morning two buses brought the boys and girls from Jenin, at the end of the school day, Jenin was invaded for the 4th time by the Israeli army and tanks and almost completely closed, people from the surrounding villages who work normally in Jenin couldn’t return back home and even the 80 of our school boys and girls were not allowed to return back home to Jenin. After coordination with the Red Cross, Fr. Aktham and some teachers accompanied the two buses full of students (who are between 6 years old to 18) and when they reached nearby by Jenin the Israeli tanks stopped them and didn’t allow them to go in and even when the priest tried to go down and negotiate with the soldiers, they began to shoot on the air for three times and didn’t want even to speak with him and ordered them to go back.
If you were at his place, what would you have done with 80 scared students who would like to go home and join their families who are under military siege? Fr. Aktham decided to return back to Zababdeh with all the kids, when they arrived, they were received by a crowd of people from the village who offered them to eat because it was almost dark and was the time to take the Ramadan breakfast because some of them were Moslems and were fasting the whole day. Then the priest distributed the students to stay over night in the houses of our parishioners instead of leaving them alone at school. Every family was happy and proud to take one kid home and let him call this family in Jenin to tell them that he is safe and sane.
Tomorrow, Fr. Aktham will have another busy day after his Sunday mass, and maybe another adventure, because he has to send the students to Jenin which is still under heavy siege, otherwise they will have to stay in Zababdeh. Of course, they are most welcome among our kids and families, but do you think that their families will not be worried until they will be back home?!
This is a very simple story from many others our people are living each day that our kids should experience at this very young age, they are lucky that they are now safe in our village, because almost 110 of their colleagues lost their lives during the last 14 months, five boys were killed last week by a bomb explosion while they were going to their school, one was killed today in Jenin while he was returning home from school, he was 10 years old.
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