Saturday, April 28

MCC Palestine Update #21

MCC Palestine Update #21

"There is no escape from the solution of justice"--Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, April 2001

While Msgr. Sabbah is certainly correct in the eschatological sense that there is no escape from the solution of justice, for Palestinians in the occupied territories at present there is no escape from the Israeli siege. The siege has devastated the Palestinian economy. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics this past week announced the results of a survey which indicated that 64.2% of Palestinian households are now under the poverty level (55.7% in the West Bank, 81.4% in the Gaza Strip). 52% of households have encountered major obstacles in accessing health care because of the siege. 10.7% of households have lost all means of income, while 49.2% of households have lost 50% of their income. For the full results of the survey, look at http://www.pcbs.org/english/press_r/impact_p.htm.

Below are three pieces. The first two, by Israeli Jewish peace activist Jeff Halper and Palestinian advocate of nonviolence Ghassan Andoni (also director of MCC partner organization, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement), use sarcasm to good effect to undermine Israeli propoganda concerning the situation in the occupied territories. The final piece, by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy, tells the story of a young infant shot in the head by Israeli border police.

1. How to Start an Uprising
Jeff Halper,* April 2001

First, you create great expectations. Handshakes on the White House lawn. A rhetoric of peace ("No more war. No more bloodshed"). Elections, giving them a flag of their own. Then secret meetings, summit meetings, dinners, retreats, peace treaties, interim agreements, promises, tantalizing benefits held before hungry eyes. More handshakes, more "gestures."

Then you create a framework of peace that guarantees you negotiating superiority. Take out international law, human rights covenants, UN resolutions, and for good measure enlist your
strategically, the strongest power in the world, the one who supplies you with all your arms, as the "mediator."

Then, as you talk peace in Oslo, Washington, Paris, Cairo, the Wye Plantation, Stockholm, Amman, Camp David, Sharm, you "create facts" on the ground that ensure your continued control and prejudice the negotiations altogether. You exploit the last seven years since the signing of the Oslo Accords to:

1. Dismember the West Bank into "Areas A, B and C," giving the Palestinian Authority full control of only 18% of the land while retaining control over 61%; divide tiny Gaza into "yellow, white, blue and green areas," giving 6,000 settlers control of 40% of the territory and confining 1,000,000 Palestinians to the rest; and completely sever East Jerusalem from the wider Palestinian society;

2. Expropriate 200 square kilometers of farm and pasture land from its Palestinian owners for your own exclusive settlements, highways and infrastructure;

3. Uproot some 80,000 olive and fruit trees that are in the way of your construction projects, thereby impoverishing their owners and making them casual day workers in your labor market -provided they can get access to your labor market;

4. Add some 30 new settlements, including whole cities like Kiryat Sefer and Tel Zion, to the dozens of settlements that already exist in the Occupied Territories over which negotiations are taking place, and construct 90,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the settlements exclusively for your own population;

5. Demolish more than 1200 homes of the people with whom you are negotiating peace;

6. Double your settler population across the 1967 border to 400,000, 90% of which you have already decided will remain under your sovereignty even though you haven't negotiated that with the other side yet;

7. Begin construction of 480 kms of massive highways and "by-pass" roads serving your settlements while dissecting the future territory of your peace partner into tiny disconnected islands, thereby preventing the emergence of another viable and competing economy next door;
8. Impose a permanent "closure" to prevent those whose lands you took from finding employment in your own economy, because you have discovered that workers from Rumania and Thailand are cheaper and more docile. While you're at it, you also exclude them from entering Jerusalem, the site of their holiest places;

9. Exploit their natural resources, unilaterally and illegally drawing, for example, 25% of your country's water from your neighbors' aquifers while leaving them thirsty for months on end;

10. Vandalize their countryside and environment, burying its fragile historic landscape under your massive settlements and highways and turning it into a disposal site for your industrial and urban wastes.

Next, you wait until your occupation has become irreversible and all-encompassing, until you've integrated your two economies under your control, the electrical grids, the highway and urban
infrastructure, until you've completely absorbed your partner's economy and society into your own. Then you announce that your concept of peace is "separation," and you lock your neighbors into a few small islands, taking away any hope they have for a better future, for a real country and identity of their own. You keep tightening your control, restricting their life space, humiliating and harassing them - until the uprising finally explodes.

Then you tell your story to the world: how you tried to negotiate, how "generous" you had been, how you wanted peace, and how disappointed you feel that "they" let you down. How "they" met your good intentions with stones, how "they" are not partners for peace, how "they" are not yet ready for peace. And so, until they agree to end their violence against you and return to the same negotiating table that allowed you to construct your matrix of control in the first place, you resort to force – defensive force, of course, since "they" are the aggressors. The most up- to-date American weapon systems, snipers, closures until starvation, clearing thousands of acres of agricultural land, destruction of hundreds of houses.... Until they get the message.

* Jeff Halper teaches anthropology at Ben Gurion University in Israel. He is co-ordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and is editor of the critical Israeli-Palestinian magazine NEWS FROM WITHIN, published by the Alternative Information Center.

2. A course to overcome Violence in the Middle East
Ghassan Andoni
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement

In following what many Israelis and supporters of Israel write about the current crisis in the Middle East, I get the impression that Israel is running an intensive disciplinary course 101. The students,
against their will, are 4 million Palestinians. The course outline is:
Pragmatism: how to find for your self another road if the main road is blocked; how to find for yourself a different piece of land if yours is expropriated; how to find for yourself a different country if yours is taken for someone else; how to be thankful and hopeful if your home is bombarded, your brother is shot dead, your family is starving, and your life is controlled by a teenager in uniform and a gun; how to serve in order to live; how to accept all offers regardless.
Non-violence: how wonderful it is to be a victim; how to be able to see the good side of the solider who destroyed your home; how to blame yourself for the cold blood killing of your dears; how to die quietly and at the same time be the shield that protect the ones who killed you; how to provide the excuse for the ones who torture you; how to control your anger and pain.
Obedience: how to blindly follow military orders; how to uproot your trees if the authority decides on their removal; how to demolish your home and save the army the headache of doing so; how to
serve the masters who decided to take your home and live on your land; how to accept control and dictates without questioning them; how to stay indoors in times of curfews; how to starve silently; how to protect the ones who attack you; how to turn the left cheek; how to offer your coat as well; how to convince your self that God created men/women as masters and slaves; how to remove No
from your dictionary.
Obedience Lab: you will be provided with a wide range of examples to what will happen if you are disobedient.
Experiment 1: you will experience massive bombardment of civilian residential areas. Equipment needed: tanks, choppers, and heavy machine guns.
Experiment 2: High Tech assassinations. Smart missiles will be used to destroy people who exceeded a certain level in disobeying orders. Booby trap assassinations: exploding bombs in peoples cars, telephone boxes, and cement blocks. You need to learn how not to call it an act of terror.
Experiment 3: collective punishment. A wide variety of experiments are available: curfews, road blockades, checkpoints, economic siege, indiscriminate shooting etc.
Our labs are different from other because you will be always the subject. You will experience them all being on the recipient side.
Voluntary work: in this course you will learn how to adjust to the needs, state of mind, and reactions of your masters. How to give voluntarily before it is taken by force; how to relinquish your rights voluntarily before you are forced to do so; how to leave the country voluntarily before Zeevi (Gandhi) replaces Sharon. [NOTE: Rehavam Zeevi, nicknamed "Gandhi," is a proponent of transfer and a minister in Ariel Sharon's government.]
By passing this course successfully, and if you manage to survive then you need to take course 102 and we will make sure that you will not pass it alive. You already know the golden rule: the only
good Arab is the dead Arab.
First part of this course is offered by Prof. Ehud Barak; currently offered by prof. Sharon; to register in course 102 please check with Prof. Zeevi (Gandhi).


3. They shoot babies, don't they?
Gideon Levy
Haaretz, 27 April 2001

Nothing can bring a smile to Amani's face. Not even the three new dolls - one pink, one yellow and one green - that she got as a present from her parents, who received their baby daughter as a gift when she was released from the hospital a few days ago and brought home. Amani goes around the house wearing festive clothes, also new - a red suit and shiny sandals - providing a sharp contrast to the poverty all around.Amani doesn't cry, and she doesn't laugh. Her big blue eyes are wide open and her smooth golden tresses cascade down the right side of her head; the left side is bare and bald, furrowed by three scars - a large arc of stitches on her forehead and two smaller scars below. Most of the time, Amani clings to her mother. She makes the occasional sortie into the living room, but quickly scurries back to her mother's arms, constantly enshrouded in silence. Even when her father picks her up and gives her a hug, she stretches out her arms toward her mother; she wants to go back to her.
Maybe it's because of the memory of that day, that terrible day, on which her father took her on his shoulders and the whole family walked innocently and tranquilly to the clinic in the city. Until the soldiers shot them.
Amani Gnaim is one year and nine months old. She was shot in the head by Border Policemen, at appallingly close range, it appears. If her father, who carried Amani on his shoulders on that bitter day, is to be believed, the troops fired a few rounds at his family as they walked along the side of the road. If we believe the spokeswoman for the Border Police, her organization knows nothing about any such a shocking incident of fire being opened at short range on a family. But the scars on Amani's head tell a story, and provide crushing, painful proof that is more convincing than a thousand testimonies and denials.
The turrets of Israeli tanks concealed on the ridge threaten those who use the road that ascends from Bethlehem to the village of Al Khader. Palestinians throwing stones and hurling Molotov cocktails, as well as snipers, threaten the Tunnel Road, "the settlers' highway," which runs below, in the valley. A Palestinian youngster wearing a black shirt labeled "Labor Party Youth" shows us the way to Amani's home, at the far end of a narrow alley. His friend walks on crutches. According to the data of Abd al-Ahmar, a field worker for the Palestinian Human Rights Group, 1,350 residents of Bethlehem, nearly all of them civilians, have been wounded since the start of the current Intifada; 95 of them are under the age of 18. Amani is the youngest to be wounded so far. In the past few weeks, she has also suffered from a severe throat inflammation, probably caused by the tear gas grenades the Israeli soldiers fire here occasionally.
The photograph of a shahid - martyr - Rami Yihyeh Mussa, who was 16 when he was killed on April 17 in shelling by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), hangs at the entrance to the neighborhood grocery store. The rusting remains of an old car lie on the road leading to the house: it served as a makeshift Palestinian barrier to the IDF jeeps that hurtle through the area from the Tunnel Road in pursuit of stone-throwers. Al Khader, which lies on the outskirts of Bethlehem, is under Israeli security control, but is a hotbed of unrest and violence. The improvised roadblock of the local residents has been shunted to the side of the road; it can no longer stop the progress of any jeep.The home of the Gnaim family is on the second floor, above the village blacksmith's shop, and the way to it passes through the shop, between iron bars, soldering irons and two sooty workers. This is a house of poverty: two rooms for seven souls, the plaster on the walls peeling. The family has lived here for 17 years. Nawal the mother, Mohammed the father and their five children: Amal, 14; Yusuf, 12; Mahmoud, 10; Omar, 8; and Amani, the baby. Mohammed was a construction worker in the settlement of Beit El, but has been out of work since the Intifada erupted more than six months ago. What do they live on? "We make do." It's the same answer you get in all the poverty-stricken homes of Palestinians. Neighbor women with their children sit on the floor: they have come to congratulate Amani on her almost- healthy return home from the hospital.
On Sunday, April 8, Amani's sore throat worsened and her temperature went up. Her parents decided to take her to the clinic run by Dr. Ali in Bethlehem. They had been to see him a few times, and he has said that the little girl was suffering from the effects of the tear gas, but it was her rising temperature that worried the parents. They left the house at about 2 P.M. - Nawal, Mohammed and their two children, Mahmoud and Amani. They walked down the alley and reached the main road, which is flanked on both sides by vineyards and overlooks the Tunnel Road. It's usually dangerous here, between the flying stones and the flying bullets, but Mohammed says they thought it was quiet, as quiet as on Sunday of this week, when we walked the same road with Mohammed to reconstruct the events.
Two Border Police jeeps swooped down on them. Mohammed says they stopped a short distance from the family. There were six men in the jeeps; five emerged, and suddenly opened fire. That is what Mohammed says. Amani, whom he was carrying, began to bleed, Mahmoud and Nawal were also wounded lightly, the boy in his arm, the mother in the back. Mohammed says a few bullets whistled between his legs. They were rubber bullets, he says. His wife and son lay down on the sidewalk, he himself rushed the bleeding Amani to an ambulance that was parked below, where the Palestinian ambulances are always parked, ready for any incident that may occur - and does, in this violence-prone place.
Mohammed recalls that as he began to run with his daughter, he shouted at the Border Policemen, "Why did you do it?" - but they only smiled, perhaps in embarrassment, and sped off in their jeeps. According to Mohammed, there was no one else but them on the sidewalk at the time of the incident. "They saw that they shot a baby girl. There was no way they couldn't have seen that."
The Palestinian ambulance rushed Amani and her family to the Al-Husseini Hospital in Beit Jala, which borders on Jerusalem. That night, Amani was transferred to Al-Muqassed Hospital in East erusalem. A fractured skull, the doctors said. She underwent surgery. Her brother Mahmoud remained at Al-Husseini with his uncle. Amani was in intensive care for five days, and then spent another three days in the ward before being released. The doctors said it would be some time before it became clear whether permanent damage had been done. On May 5, her parents will take her for a follow-up examination. "I could identify them out of a million people," Mohammed says of those who shot his daughter. And an elderly woman neighbor interjects, "Who do you want to identify, and what for? There's plenty of them who do plenty of things. "Amani came home on Saturday. Says Nawal, the mother, with unabashed pride: "People ask her who shot her and she says the army. She's a smart girl." Mohammed: "Look how they treat our children. They shoot them and they laugh. In Hebron, they destroyed a whole neighborhood, the Abu Sneina neighborhood, because of a Jewish baby girl, and they refused to bury her until they avenged her death. We are simple people, we did nothing. All we did was to take our girl to the clinic. We didn't want to hurt anyone. I don't understand how the soldiers don't go crazy after they do something like that."
Here is a photograph of Amani from before the incident: a sweet little girl in the local studio, Disney figures in the background. She's holding a sweet in her hand - it looks like she has a strong grip. Here is Amani after the incident: with her head shaved and the stitches and the scars that will heal.
The spokeswoman for the Border Police, Chief Inspector Liat Perl: "The Border Police confirms the fact that there were severe disturbances that day in Al Khader, in which dozens of locals threw irebombs and stones at Border Police forces at the site. Because of the intensity of the events, the forces had to make use of means to disperse the mob. We have no knowledge of citizens who were urt and we are sorry if that in fact happened."

Tuesday, April 17

MCC Palestine Update #20

MCC Palestine Update #20

Introduction

Easter celebrations have come and gone in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the restoration of our broken, human bodies is hard to discern in Jerusalem and in Palestine/Israel generally. The violence of the occupation continues harsher than ever: most sobering were the demolitions of lines of homes in refugee camps in Khan Younis and Rafah. Palestinians, one should add, also use violence.

A day in the occupied territories, however, is enough to convince anyone that the violence is not balanced, and the contending parties are not of equal strength. Israel aims to solidify its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by force, while Palestinians desperately search for ways--and more and more Palestinians are becoming convinced that only nonviolent methods will be effective--to combat the siege under which they live. Violence clearly will not bring Israelis security; nor will it bring Palestinians the liberation they long for.

Please pray that Israelis may be graced with the wisdom to act justly and in accordance with international law and resolutions; pray that Palestinians may be graced with the strength and determination to resist the occupation nonviolently.

This update contains news about MCC projects along with an opinion piece which debunks the enduring myth that Palestinians foolishly rejected a generous offer by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti outlines Palestinian objections to Barak's proposals.

Two other opinion pieces are available upon request to the MCC Washington Office (jdb@mcc.org). The first is a reflection by MCC peace development worker Ed Nyce on a trip to Hebron. In the other, Amira Hass of Ha'aretz newspaper suggests that Israel is squandering an opportunity to have peace.

MCC Project News

An MCC partner, the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement, organized a series of nonviolent protests in Bethlehem, Atara north of Ramallah, and in the Nablus-Salfit area. The protests involved marches on checkpoints and the attempted dismantling of dirt barricades blocking the entrances to villages. In two of the demonstrations, Israeli peace activists joined Palestinians in a show of nonviolent resistance.

In 1997 MCC supported renovations to the Hope Flower (Amal al-Zuhur) kindergarten in the Aida refugee camp next to Bethlehem. This week MCC received word that Israeli shells had pierced through the kindergarten's walls, causing significant structural damage. A visit demonstrated that more than one wall will have to be replaced. The shelling occurred during the daylight hours while children were in the building; fortunately, only one girl was injured (in the abdomen). A bullet hole in the kindergarten's lone slide provided a chilling picture.


1. Why Palestinians could not accept Barak's proposal
Dr Mustafa Barghouti
Palestine Monitor, 16 April 2001

Time and again Palestinians are accused by the Israeli government of bringing the conflict of the past six months upon themselves by refusing to accept the "generous offers" made by Barak at Camp David. For some people, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David of 94 percent of the West Bank sounded more than generous, revolutionary even, and Palestinians were castigated and called "inflexible," and "unreasonable" for refusing to go that extra step and make a compromise. The fact that Barak offered more than any previous Israeli leader is unimportant but if we examine what was offered and what the reality of these offers was on the ground, a clear picture begins to emerge. The offers proposed by Barak made the possibility of a viable Palestinian state an impossibility.

The first issue we have to examine is that of the generous territorial offer. It was said that Palestinians were offered eventual control of 95 - 96% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS). However, after analysis it becomes obvious that this is far from the reality. For example if the actual territory offered was calculated, it transpires that the Palestinians would control of much less than the claimed percentages. This difference arises because Israel's "total" does not include Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley or settlements in its computations.

Furthermore, the discussion about 'this percent' versus 'that percent' does not address the main issues for the Palestinians. Most importantly, it ignores international law and the rights conferred upon the Palestinians, and effectively serves to push these legal frameworks aside. Without a commitment to these frameworks any settlement will be an Israeli dictated agreement.

The second issue overlooked in the discussion of why Palestinians rejected the Camp David proposals, can be referred to as "compromising the compromise". The 1947 United Nations General Assembly resolution 181, from which Israel derives its legitimacy, provided 45% of historical Palestine for the Palestinian state. The demands of UN Resolution 242 for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders means a Palestinian state would be founded on 22% of the area of historic Palestine. In their acceptance of Oslo, Palestinians accepted a 2 state solution. This is a compromise of over half of the area that was originally assigned to them. As Kofi Anan asked - is it acceptable by international standards to appropriate land by force?

UN resolution 242 stipulates that Israel has to withdraw from the lands it occupied, clearly indicating that no land can be illegally occupied. UN resolution 338 reaffirms this. For the sake of peace and in hope of building a state, Palestinians are accepting this initial compromise, but any further compromise would undermine the "continuing and unqualified Palestinian right to self- determination" that the European Union, Berlin declaration of March 1999 affirmed, as well as the restricting the potential for the establishment of a sovereign, viable, prosperous, contiguous and democratic state.

The third reason for the rejection by the Palestinian negotiators to of the less than "generous" offer from Barak stems from the continued illegal occupation, confiscation and expropriation of Palestinian land. Israel has already confiscated a large portion of the West Bank for its ever- growing illegal settlement blocks. This violation of international law restricts the viability of a Palestinian state. The settlements, the system of highways and by-pass roads linking the illegal settlements to Israel proper, industrial parks, the web of closed military areas, army bases and internal checkpoints all occupy large tracts of land. Passages from one area to the other are also controlled by Israel

The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been transformed into 64 clusters of townships that imprison over three million Palestinians, a people held hostage for the sake of 450,000 illegal settlers. The confiscation of Palestinian land has been a systematic pattern of Barak, Sharon and other Israeli leaders, in order to increase the number of Jewish citizens in the Occupies Territories.

Unable to successfully transfer the native Palestinian population from these areas, Israel has restricted them to tiny enclaves through a series of measures designed to restrict Arab growth. Israel has exploited Palestinian land, water, and natural resources and continues to have sovereignty over them in addition to the concerted effort made to separate the Palestinian people from their land and thereby denying Palestinians a viable state.

The illegal annexation of East Jerusalem is a perfect example of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. Instead of permitting Palestinians sovereignty over the 1967 areas, with Israel maintaining control over West Jerusalem, Israel has used various administrative measures including denial and removal of residency rights and house demolitions to once more transfer people from the area. As experts point out, "63.5 square kilometers -- 90 percent of the land annexed by Israel as "East Jerusalem" -- in fact belonged to 28 Palestinian West bank villages, which suddenly found themselves part of an "indivisible," "historic" and "sacred" Jewish city"

Israeli settlements cut East Jerusalem into clusters, huge areas land have been annexed to serve the needs of settlers and settlements, and only some civil affairs are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Accepting any Israeli control of the occupied territories negatively affects the quality of the Palestinian state and would transform areas of Palestinian Authority into clusters of Bantustans, as well as legitimize and reward Israel for illegally occupying and annexing land, and changing facts on the ground in violation of international law, in fact under international law these actions can be regarded as war crimes.

The fourth and equally important reason for the rejection of the Camp David offer can be attributed to the lack of settlement of the refugee issue. Most Palestinians are realistic about the possibility of a compromise. Nonetheless, the fate of over 3.7 million Palestinian refugees registered by the United Nations and about 2 million others unregistered is of utmost concern to Palestinians. The issue at stake is the acknowledgement of the right of return, as well as Israel's culpability in the creation of the refugee problem, and the application of the United Nations Resolution 194. Paragraph 11 states: "...the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date... compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return."

The right of every human who has been dispossessed of land and forced to flee was not even mentioned in Camp David. They did not accept to discuss the return of refugees at the level of interim agreement - they chose instead to force a full and complete acceptance of a final solution without any right of future discussion and obliterate any right these millions of Palestinians have.

The Israeli government tried to bargain away the right of refugees as well as sovereignty of Jerusalem and the Muslim Holy site of Al Aqsa mosque for an entity that is not even a feasible state. Israel wanted to achieve the termination of the conflict without tangible compromises or resolving the basic issues. Their intransigence at the negotiating table has led to the rejection of the Camp David settlement and now they accuse the Palestinians of not wanting peace. Israel must be ready to accept and acknowledge that it is illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip and must withdraw after 34 years of a long and terrible military occupation and that the settlements, illegal in international law and viewed as such by the world, must be removed. Israel must accept international legitimacy and the application of international standards. What we have witnessed in the past 6-months is the culmination of violations of international law and human rights.

When one looks at the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even without indulging in conspiracy theories, one gets the impression that Labour and Likud were alternating to practically implement a process of Judaization through the systematic transfer of an Israeli civilian population into the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Through illegal settlement, the continuing expropriation and confiscation of Palestinian land, and Bantustanisation of a peoples homeland, Israel is destroying the potential for peace, a peace that is based on international law, - a compromise, that Israel is unwilling to make.

Saturday, April 7

MCC Palestine Update #19

MCC Palestine Update #19

This week, as Christians the world over commemorate Christ's passion, we at MCC Palestine ask especially for your prayers for Palestinians on their daily Via Dolorosa under occupation. On Palm Sunday, the preacher at the local Lutheran church noted that Jesus stands at the checkpoint, seeking to enter Jerusalem but denied entry.

Please pray for all of those trapped by the siege of occupation: students denied access to their studies, those denied access to health care, those whose money is running out or has run out, and are making do on the kindness of neighbors.

Pray also for Israelis trapped in a siege mentality, a mentality which convinces that security can be bought at the price of the wholsesale oppression of an entire nation. This coming Sunday Palestinian Christians will be gathering to celebrate the miracle of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. They will greet each other, saying, "al-Masih qaam! Haqan qaam!" Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! May God grant us all the grace during these troubling times to join them in proclaiming these words in the faith that Christ has defeated the powers of death and oppression.

MCC Project News

On April 7, 1948, at least 100 Palestinian civilians were massacred by Israeli army troops in the village of Deir Yassin. This was one of over 30 massacres perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians during the 1948 war. This year on April 7, Palestinians and believers in justice worldwide held rallies calling for the internationally-recognized right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes to be upheld and implemented. MCC Palestine partner, the Badil Refugee Resource Center, was involved in planning rallies in the occupied West Bank. For more on Badil's work, see www.badil.org. For ways to get involved to promote the return of refugees in North America, visit www.al-awda.org to find out about Al-Awda (Return) groups in your area.

Action suggestion

Write to your elected officials on two points: 1) urge that your government's contribution to the United Nations Relief Works Administration (UNRWA), responsible for social services in Palestinian refugee camps, increase to help UNRWA keep pace with population increases in the camps; 2) explain that any durable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem must give priority to the principle of refugee choice, including the choice to return to their former homes; without an affirmation of the right of return and a safeguarding of the principle of refugee choice, the quest for a durable peace in Palestine/Israel will prove elusive.


1. Easter Message from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
Naim Ateek
6 April 2001

Dear friends,

As we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine. The number of innocent Palestinians and Israelis that have fallen victim to Israeli state policy is increasing.

Here in Palestine Jesus is again walking the via dolorosa. Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them. He is with them when their homes are shelled by tanks and helicopter gunships. He is with them in their towns and villages, in their pains and sorrows.

In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull.

Using the Gospel story one can put it in a different and still very poignant way. Four things are clear today. Jerusalem still does not know what makes for peace; Jesus is weeping and his tears are mixed with many other people's tears; the number of people who are carrying their crosses is multiplying phenomenally; and the women of Palestine as well as many Jewish women are weeping over the many killed and wounded innocents. This is the reality of life today.

In the midst of this hopeless and confusing situation, inundated with injustice and death, we refuse to give in to despair. We want to affirm the power of resurrection and life. With St. Paul we can say this Easter, "That I may know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings…" (Philippians 3:10). Our faith in God does not allow us to lose hope. The resurrection of Christ remains the reality that inspires and empowers us. The day will come, and we pray soon, when joy will replace grief, trust will remove fear, justice will triumph over oppression, and reconciliation will supplant alienation. The living Christ is urging us to stand firm and be assured of the inevitability of the resurrection. We will, therefore, continue in our struggle against the evil structures that dominate and oppress. Our hope is in God. The resurrection is coming, and it will bring with it the promise of a new life and liberation for all the people of our land.

We count on your prayers and solidarity. Thank you for your continued support.

HAPPY EASTER

Best wishes,

Naim Ateek
President
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
www.sabeel.org