Wednesday, September 21

MCC Palestine Update #114

MCC Palestine Update #114

21 September 2005

Prayer and Resistance

Today, September 21, marks the International Day of Prayer for Peace. In 2001, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring September 21 of each year as the International Day of Peace. For the second year, the World Council of Churches invites member churches around the globe to pray for peace on September 21. MCC is also encouraging churches, groups and individuals to mark September 21 with special prayers for peace (learn more about this at http://www.mcc.org/canada/peace/events/2005dayofprayer/).

Here in Bethlehem, some of our Palestinian friends and partners marked this event this past Sunday. Meeting at a monastery that has been threatened by the construction of the “separation barrier” or “apartheid wall,” friends from MCC partners the Wi’am Conflict Resolution Center (http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/), the East Jerusalem YMCA – Beit Sahour branch (http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/), as well as a number of other organizations joined together to remember this day.

Following the meeting, we all gathered for a prayer vigil. We left the monastery grounds and proceeded toward the wall. Towering above us at around 26 feet or 8 meters, some of the most valuable land in the “little town” of Bethlehem has been expropriated by the state of Israel to make room for this monstrosity of concrete. This monastery itself was in danger, but through the efforts of both local and international advocacy, the path of the wall was rerouted so as to not infringe on the church’s property “too much”—for now.

It has been over a year since International Court of Justice in the Hague ruled that this wall was illegal. But it was only this past week that the Israeli supreme court, hearing a petition from five Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank devastated by this wall, ruled that the construction of this wall beyond the internationally recognized boundary known as the “Green Line” was legal, disregarding the voice of international law (“High Court: Construction of West Bank fence is legal,” Haaretz, 16 September 2005; http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/625034.html).

This only reinforces the point that the construction of this wall is a unilateral move by an occupying power in violation of international law. Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated in the process as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile or 700-kilometer barrier that has little to do with security and terrorism, built not on the internationally recognized boundary referred to as the “Green Line” but instead on Palestinian land, cutting deeply into the West Bank.

The wall continues to have a very destructive impact on Palestinians living under occupation. Palestinian farmers are cut off from their land with some forced to watch their harvest rot on their trees while others watch their trees uprooted to make way for the wall. Where we live, in Bethlehem, the completed wall will make this community a virtual prison, with only three points of entry or exit. This adds more stress to an already devastated economic situation for Palestinians where unemployment figures are higher than 60 percent across the West Bank.

Unfortunately, though the state of Israel denies it, this wall will become the de facto border of a Palestinian “state” composed of several isolated islands of land or “reservations” on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank.

I (Tim) kept coming back to these thoughts as we began walking along the path of the wall. I looked up to see what was happening on the faces of those around me. It would have been a beautiful sight if not for the ugliness of this visually and physically imposing structure. I saw a mixture of Palestinians and internationals, joined in solidarity. But what was more beautiful was the mixture of Palestinian Christians around me—Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. And even more beautiful was the sight of Palestinian Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters together, defying all of the dehumanizing stereotypes of “Muslim vs. Christian” used to create internal conflict among Palestinians and distract the world form the role the illegal Israeli occupation plays in the suffering of these people.

At one point we stopped in front of a gate in the wall which will serve as one of Bethlehem’s only entrances /exits when the wall is finished, and somebody offered a prayer. When we began to walk again, we all started to pray, singing the words of the Christian liturgy in Arabic:

Ya Rabbana salami imnah biladina assalam
Ya Rabbana salami imter ‘alyna assalam
Ya Rabbana salami imla’ kulubana assalam

Oh Lord of peace grant our land peace
Oh Lord of peace shower us with peace
Oh Lord of peace give our hearts peace

I had heard this liturgy so many times before, sung beautifully in the Palestinian Christian churches I have attended, but it carried with it so much power here, against this wall. For here, it was a tangible, voiced protest against a tangible, concrete injustice. This simple prayer presented a loud “yes” to life and a resolute “no” to the death-dealing status quo of occupation, a reminder of what the late Dutch priest Henri Nouwen has told us:

"Only a loving heart, a heart that continues to affirm the life at all times and places, can say “No” to death without being corrupted by it…the first and foremost task of the peacemaker is not to fight death but to call forth, affirm, and nurture the signs of life wherever they become manifest." (Road to Peace, Orbis, 1998, p.42)

So often in my own faith experience back in the United States, I struggled with the sense of an irrelevance that faith and religion held in the face of the injustices of this world. But distanced and disinterested religious practices that serve little function in the larger context of global poverty, environmental degradation, or war (except perhaps as a means for some to distract, control, or even maintain structures of violence) have no place here.

Indeed, in this place, something so mundane as offering a prayer becomes a powerful form of resistance. It becomes a means by which the very essence of our faith takes on human form and “dwells among us” (John 1:14).

Advocacy: Our Active Engagement with the “Burning Issues of Our Time”

As we mentioned in our previous update, MCC has just released a new documentary, Children of the Nakba, that takes a look at the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” that led to the Palestinian refugee crisis in which 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands. Also available on this new DVD is the award-winning MCC documentary The Dividing Wall. The documentary should soon be available in MCC’s Online Resource Catalog: http://www.thenovgroup.com/MCC/catalog/. For more information on these refugee issues, please visit MCC’s partners the Badil Resource Center at http://www.sabeel.org/ and the Zochrot Association at http://www.sabeel.org/.

And as another reminder, the July-September 2005 edition of the MCC Peace Office Newsletter titled “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land” is now available online at http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/PON_2005-07-01.pdf as well as the MCC discussion paper “Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: A Discussion Paper” meant to help facilitate a conversation in communities back in North America about stewardship, divestment, and economic justice, online at http://www.mcc.org/papers.

Advocacy—our active engagement with the “burning issues of our time”—continues to be so important, and not simply an option for the life of the Christian. For as the writer of Micah asks us still “What does the Lord require?”

But to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. (6:8)

Raising our voices against injustice is inseparable to our faith witness. And just like with the monastery in Bethlehem, our actions can make a difference. MCC’s U.S. Washington Office has worked hard on an advocacy campaign called “Bridges Not Walls” (http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/bridges/index.html). MCC workers in Palestine have worked to contribute first-hand accounts of the wall’s effects on Palestinians with the hope that these stories and this campaign would move Mennonites and other people of faith across the United States to take action in advocating for a just peace in this land.

As we take time to pray for peace in this and in other lands, may our prayers lead us in action to heed the call of Micah to pursue justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Bethlehem is the place where we claim the incarnational presence of “God with us” was first made known to humanity. Still today, this divine contextualization continues. How will we respond?


Peace to you all,

Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine


Attachments and Links:

· Amos Gvirtz, “Non-violence needs to be supported,” Haaretz, 20 September 2005
· David J. Forman, “Identifying God's politics,” The Jerusalem Post, 3 September 2005
· Meron Benvenisti, “Is Israel preserving the mosques?” Haaretz, 8 September 2005
· Gideon Levy, “The real uprooting is taking place in Hebron,” Haaretz, 11 September 2005
· Daoud Kuttab, “So, Gaza was occupied,” Jordan Times, 9 September 2005
· Amira Hass, “Where will the water come from?” Haaretz, 1 September 2005
· B'Tselem report: “Barrier Route was Planned to Enable Settlement Expansion,” 15 September 2005
· Shad Saleem Faruqi, “The Forgotten Horror of Sabra and Shatila,” PalestineChronicle.com, 15 September 2005
· Gideon Levy, “Sitting on the fence,” Haaretz, 18 September 2005
· Jeff Halper, “Paralysis over Palestine: Questions of Strategy,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 2005

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Haaretz
Non-violence needs to be supported
Amos Gvirtz

20 September 2005

The terror employed by the Palestinians against civilians is criminal. The question is what alternatives do the Palestinians have at their disposal to struggle for their rights and against the ceaseless damage caused by the IDF and the settlers. At Bil'in and a number of other villages before it, a pattern of popular, primarily non-violent struggle, has emerged with cooperation from Israelis and human rights activists from abroad. This struggle offers an alternative to terror.

Broad circles in Palestinian society, including the heads of the Palestinian Authority, think that terror is harmful to the Palestinians, and support a transition to a popular non-violent struggle. It is clear that a non-violent Palestinian struggle is also in the security interest of Israel's citizens. To our surprise, however, the security forces are acting harshly against the entire village and against non-violent demonstrators, including Israelis. Many have been beaten, injured, arrested and jailed. However, none of those who are calling the human rights organizations traitors has demanded a halt to the injuries and suppression of the non-violent struggle. Would they prefer that Palestinians pursue a violent struggle?

Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/626751.html

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The Jerusalem Post
Identifying God's politics
David J. Forman

3 September 2005

“We play a dangerous game when we use God as a religious pawn to serve a nationalistic dogma fueled by self-righteousness and superiority.”

Now that our physical return has been realized, we must contend with our spiritual renewal.
In the Sinai wilderness, at the historical beginning of our Jewish self-identification, we were mandated to become a "holy nation" (Exodus 19:6), not a "holy land." The substance of a holy nation is clearly delineated: "You shall be holy" by treating "the stranger who resides with you as one of your citizens... for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (from the Holiness Code, Leviticus 19:1-37).

How do Orthodox settlers reconcile this biblical directive with their interpretation of God's Will that we should occupy the entire land of Israel; unless it is their intention, as noted in the biblical text, to grant citizenship to the Palestinians – something not in their theological cards?

To expect that God will wave a magic wand and physically intercede on our behalf is false piety. The most we can pray for is to learn some historical lessons from God.

Lesson No. 1: not to keep the "stranger who resides with you" under occupation. To do that would be a negation of divine equality and antithetical to the Jewish historical experience.

Lesson No. 2: Just as no one during our 2,000 years of statelessness could suppress our will to gain our national expression in our own homeland, so too we must not deny another people their right to gain their national expression in their homeland.


Please read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1125717507418

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Haaretz
Is Israel preserving the mosques?
Meron Benvenisti

8 September 2005

This whole issue is debated among the Israelis, as usual, without considering the Palestinians, whom the debaters want to be responsible for the synagogues or to be held to blame. The High Court of Justice does not make do with the Palestinians' categorical refusal to take responsibility for keeping the synagogues, and instructed the prime minister on Tuesday to consider asking them "officially to look after the synagogues."

But this does not end the unilateral move: the history of the struggle on the holy sites is not about the war of the Jewish sons of light against the Palestinian sons of darkness, but the story of a war in which both sides have committed barbaric acts to the other's holy sites.

The Palestinians may wonder whether the principle that one must not harm holy sites applies only to synagogues, or to abandoned mosques and churches as well. Does the demand that the Palestinians - or an international body - take responsibility for the synagogues apply also to the Israeli government vis-a-vis the abandoned mosques in Israel? And if we are in such a hurry to expose the Palestinians' shame to the world, are we ready to expose Israel's shameful behavior vis-a-vis the Moslem holy sites as well?

Out of some 140 village mosques that were abandoned due to the war in 1948, some 100 were totally torn down. The rest, about 40, are in advanced stages of collapse and neglect, or are used by the Jewish residents for other purposes.


Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/622332.html

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Haaretz
The real uprooting is taking place in Hebron
Gideon Levy

11 September 2005

“Israel cannot be considered a state ruled by law, or a democracy, as long as the pogroms continue in Hebron.”

It is a bit difficult to believe that the reality in Hebron is hidden from the eyes of most Israelis and is not rocking Israel to its very core. During the past five years, some 25,000 residents have been transferred from their homes, less than an hour's drive from Israel's capital. And daily harassment continues under the auspices of the IDF and Israel Police, disregarded by the media. This harassment is aimed at expelling the remaining Palestinian residents from an area that until recently had a population of about 35,000 Palestinians and 500 Jews.

Those who have not visited the city in recent years would not believe their eyes. In the territory under Israeli control - H2, or Israeli territory, according to the Hebron accord - they will discover a ghost town. Hundreds of abandoned homes, like after a war, dozens of destroyed stores, burned or shuttered, their gates welded closed by the settlers, and an all-pervasive, deadly silence. According to unofficial assessments, no more than 10,000 residents remain in this place. The rest have left their homes and property after no longer being able to bear the harassment from the settlers and their children. This is the largest disengagement in recent years; this is the real expulsion.


Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/623227.html

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Jordan Times
So, Gaza was occupied
Daoud Kuttab

9 September 2005

For 37 years, Israel has consistently rejected Palestinians' and the world view that the status of the areas its military took in 1967 was occupied. When Israel was not using the biblical terms of Judea and Samaria (to refer to the West Bank) they used the terms “administered territories” or “disputed territories”. That is until now.

After the evacuation of the illegal Jewish settlers and before the resolution of the international crossings, the Israelis want Palestinians to say the “O” word.

Despite Israel's refusal to allow the reopening of Yasser Arafat International Airport in Gaza and the Rafah crossing point between Palestinian Gaza and Egypt, the Israelis want Palestinians to publicly proclaim that the occupation of Gaza is over. Well, to be exact, some in the Israeli government (mostly those in the National Security Council) want this statement, while Israeli officials in the foreign ministry are simply interested in a Palestinian statement saying that the Palestinian Authority and not Israel will (after the Israeli army leaves most of Gaza) be the party overall responsible for the strip.

Israeli officials and columnists are surprised that Palestinians are not too enthusiastic about rushing to make a declaration which they have been hoping to make for some time.

The official Palestinian reluctance is understandable as long as the airport and the land crossings (with all that means in security, customs and administrative responsibility) are not fully and permanently in Palestinian hands. Partial control means partial sovereignty and therefore partial end of occupation. Ending occupation is like pregnancy. You can't be half pregnant.


Please read more at http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2005/sept/sept9-1.html or http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=8128

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Haaretz
Where will the water come from?
Amira Hass

1 September 2005

Thus a situation of VIP vegetables may be created. The experience of the Oslo years taught us well: Israel grants senior PA officials, their associates, friends of key Israelis (including entrepreneurs and architects of the Oslo Accords) and well-connected merchants who are close to senior members of the security services, relative freedom of movement, which it denied to the rest of the Palestinian people. Therefore, it is very reasonable to fear that the massive international and Israeli involvement in the hothouse transaction will accelerate the transfer of their produce at the Gaza Strip border crossings, while other produce will be stuck.

Another guava season has already been lost, causing tremendous additional losses to several hundred families in Muasi and in Khan Yunis. During the disengagement, no foreign donor came to the aid of the Muasi farmers, two meters from the hothouses, so that they could market their guavas in the Strip and outside it.

It is impossible to quantify the tremendous social damage caused by the VIP system at the crossings. But probably the economists will come and calculate the social damage that will be caused by VIP vegetables and weigh it against the financial gain promised by the settlers' hothouses.

Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619642.html

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B'Tselem
Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable Israeli
Settlement Expansion in the West Bank

15 September 2005

Executive Summary

The fact that the Separation Barrier cuts into the West Bank was and remains the main cause of human rights violations of Palestinians living near the Barrier. Israel contends that the Barrier's route is based solely on security considerations. This report disputes that contention and proves that one of the primary reasons for choosing the route of many sections of the Barrier was to place certain areas intended for settlement expansion on the "Israeli" side of the Barrier. In some of the cases, for all intents and purposes the expansion constituted the establishment of a new settlement.

The report provides an in-depth analysis of the expansion plans of four settlements – Zufin, Alfe Menashe, Modi'in Illit, and Geva Benyamin-Neve Ya'akov – and the connection between the plans and the route of the Separation Barrier. The report also presents the principal findings in eight other cases in which the settlement's expansion plans significantly affected the Barrier's route: Rehan, Sal'it, Oranit, Ofarim, Ari'el, Qedumim, Gevaot, and Eshkolot. Construction of the Barrier around five of the twelve settlements discussed in the report ended some two years ago, in two cases the construction is near completion, and in the remaining four cases, the construction work has only recently begun.

Please read more at http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20050915.asp and
http://www.btselem.org/Download/200509_Guise_of_Security_Summary_Eng.doc

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PalestineChronicle.com
The Forgotten Horror of Sabra and Shatila
Shad Saleem Faruqi

15 September 2005

"In January 2002, criminal complaints were filed against Sharon in Belgian courts for war crimes. Several key witnesses, including Phalangist militiaman Elie Hobeika and his associates, who agreed to give evidence against Sharon were mysteriously assassinated."

The world has just commemorated the tragedy of Sept 11, 2001. But there is another significant anniversary this month that will not attract the same sort of attention.

On Sept 16, 1982, Tel Aviv-trained Lebanese Christian militias were sent by Israel to "cleanse" the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps of all "PLO militants". In the three-day slaughter that followed, 3,500 were tortured, raped and murdered. The world just stood by.


Please read more at http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=200509152328564

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Haaretz
Sitting on the fence
Gideon Levy

18 September 2005

The High Court of Justice has again proved it is unworthy of all the garlands customarily heaped upon it. Its ruling on the separation fence is a typical decision: concern for the rights of a handful of residents, while blatantly fleeing from addressing the truly large injustices.

The court deserves a certain amount of praise for accepting the petition of the 1,200 Palestinians trapped in the Alfei Menashe enclave and ruling that the fence should be moved in this area. However, in determining - contrary to the International Court of Justice in The Hague - that it is permissible to build the fence beyond the Green Line, it is again averting its eyes from the overall picture. This is its way of preserving its enlightened appearance without having to risk establishing bold principles.

The fate of the enclave's residents will improve as a result of the decision, but the Israeli occupation has concurrently won another dose of silent legitimization. These silences by the High Court are like adding fuel to the fire of the occupation, sometimes even more than the intentional actions Israel takes, because the fight against the injustices becomes more difficult when they are cloaked by the honorable robe of the High Court of Justice.


Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/625925.html

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Journal of Palestine Studies
Paralysis over Palestine: Questions of Strategy
Jeff Halper

Winter 2005

This essay by a prominent Israeli activist grows out of concern that advocacy efforts in support of the Palestinian cause have remained stuck at the protest-informational stage of combating disparate manifestations of the occupation. What is needed, the author argues, is a strategy to mobilize the vast range of civil society groups-Palestinian, Israeli, and international-to forge an effective lobbying and advocacy force that can lend the Palestinian leadership public support and a measure of parity with Israel. Intended as a starting point for debate, the essay explores the possibilities of a "middle range" strategy that would articulate the essential "red line" elements crucial to any just and sustainable settlement, provide a coordinated strategy of advocacy, and explore a range of "endgames," including a regional approach to resolving the conflict if the "two-state solution" is found to be impossible because of irreversible "facts on the ground."


Please read more at http://www.palestine-studies.org/final/en/journals/content.php?aid=6368&jid=1&iid=134&vid=XXXIV&vol=194

Thursday, September 1

MCC Palestine Update #113

MCC Palestine Update #113

1 September 2005

Welcoming new colleagues

Greetings from Bethlehem! MCC Palestine is excited about the growth of our program, in more ways than one. This month, we are welcoming Andrea and Mark Stoner-Leaman of Pennsylvania who have accepted a teaching position at the Latin Patriarchate school in the northern West Bank village of Zababdeh. MCC has had a long relationship with this school in Zababdeh, both by placing North American volunteers there as well as by offering support through MCC’s Global Family program.

This past month another new MCC worker has been getting used to his new “home.” Darren Birch of Vancouver, British Columbia has been working full-time with one of our Israeli partners, the Zochrot Association in Tel Aviv. This is a very new and different move for this program. MCC Palestine, as its name portrays, has been very intentional about its position of advocacy for Palestinians as an oppressed people, working here since responding to the refugee crisis in 1949. But we are excited about this opportunity and are already seeing how this can contribute to the work of MCC here.

We are looking forward to the growth that MCC Palestine is experiencing. And to our new colleagues, welcome!

Disengagement from Justice

The disengagement process continues as does the ubiquitous media coverage of it. If only the situation here in the West Bank or those not-so-nice parts of Gaza like the shelled-out refugee camps received the same amount of media coverage.

It is difficult to communicate the frustration of seeing all of the coverage of tears shed for the removal of individuals who knowingly decided to oppose the international community and participated in decades of oppression and murder of a whole people (most of whom are refugees). But when four Palestinian day laborers are murdered by a settler in the West Bank or when four Palestinians are murdered on a bus by an Israeli soldier in northern Israel—the victims’ families of whom will not be recognized and therefore will not be compensated as victims of terrorism—very little coverage is given (“Four killed in Shilo terrorist attack, four injured,” 18 Aug. 2005, http://www.imemc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13373&Itemid=1; “Shfaram victims won't be recognized by terror law,” 30 Aug. 2005, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/618627.html). It is nothing but blatant racism, the devaluing of darker skin and anything that sounds Arabic. We should be so ashamed of ourselves.

Unfortunately, though there are definitely some positive elements to this “disengagement” scenario, things do not look different from where we are standing here in Bethlehem. Still the same checkpoints, the same “settler-only” roads, and the same Separation Wall imprisoning this community and closing off Palestinians’ hopes for their children's future.

Whatever optimism that could have been salvaged has been duly shattered by last week’s news of the order handed down by the Israeli courts to expropriate more Palestinian land to make room for the construction of this Wall, expanding to accommodate the expansion of illegal colonies such as Ma’aleh Adumim, the largest in the West Bank. (“Israel to expand Ma’aleh Adumim barrier,” Aug. 25, 2005, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124850018436; “Israel to seize land for barrier,” Aug. 25, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4180050.stm; “Livni: Israel can expand Ma'ale Adumim,” Aug. 22, 2005, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1112754019224; “Settlers from Gaza going to Ariel in West Bank,” Aug. 23, 2005, http://www.palestinenet.org/english/archive2005/aug/week4/230805/23augariel.htm)

Not to mention recent reports about the potential humanitarian disaster in Gaza. (“Palestinians’ ongoing humanitarian crisis deepening in Gaza,” Aug. 19, 2005; http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-6FH3BK?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR)

It unfortunately appears that instead of reviving a peace process, this praise that Israel is receiving for their unilateral action is only emboldening them to continue on the path they choose, intransigent in the face of international law, and irrespective of basic Palestinian rights. (“Olmert to Rice: No peace moves for now,” Aug. 25, 2005; http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1124850021438)

Moving toward action: New resources for advocacy

Many of you may remember the video project MCC Palestine was working on last year. Well, this new documentary, Children of the Nakba, has been released. In it, a look is taken at the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” that led to the Palestinian refugee crisis in which 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands. The ongoing dispossession that defines so much of Palestinian life today is also examined as well as the efforts of those Palestinians and Israelis who believe that a peace in this land built on justice requires an honest grappling with that history. The documentary should soon be available in MCC’s Online Resource Catalog: http://www.thenovgroup.com/MCC/catalog/. For more information on these refugee issues, please visit MCC’s partners the Badil Resource Center at http://www.sabeel.org/ and the Zochrot Association at http://www.sabeel.org/.

As we mentioned in our last update, the July-September 2005 edition of the MCC Peace Office Newsletter titled “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land” is now available online at http://www.mcc.org/respub/pon/PON_2005-07-01.pdf.

And as another reminder, the MCC discussion paper “Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: A Discussion Paper” meant to help facilitate a conversation in communities back in North America about stewardship, divestment, and economic justice can be found online at http://www.mcc.org/papers (as well as a paper titled “Frequently Asked Questions: Economic Pressure as a Tool for Establishing a Just Peace in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”).

Always a good source of theological reflection on the situation here is our partner the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/). The summer edition of their quarterly newsletter Cornerstone is available: “Morally Responsible Investment: You Were Faithful in Little Things...” (http://www.fosna.org/pdf/Cornerstone%20Issue%2037.pdf). Also, for a perspective on the Gaza pullout from a Palestinian Christian perspective, see their “Reflections on the Gaza Disengagement” at http://www.palestinemonitor.org/nueva_web/updates_news/pngo/
gaza_disengagement_reflections.htm.

Attentiveness and Hope…

Something as simple and mundane as home repair can be a risky undertaking in a place like this. For here, even the routine cannot be separated from other realities of daily life. For example, our neighbor is fixing up their home for their son and future daughter-in-law. A few weeks ago, our neighborhood was pretty “active”—the Israeli military came into Bethlehem during the day to detain a local man. There was much shooting and explosions into the night. A friend of ours who is painting for our neighbors (who has not had consistent work over the past year) painted throughout the whole incident. He did not skip a beat and just kept on working—and out on their balcony nonetheless! As I talked with him he laughed and said, “this is not bad; this is normal.”

In the midst of such distress, we continue to struggle to affirm the notion, described by LeRoy Friesen in his Mennonite Witness in the Middle East (MBM, 2000), that “the restorative, salvific activity of God is operative throughout creation,” seeking to discover how to bear witness to “God’s drawing up together in Christ of all parts of creation,” a movement that, as Christians, we “hopefully and joyfully declare to be en route” (105). Maintaining an attentiveness to the “evidences that God always and everywhere is working to make all things new” (111; Revelation 21:5) is our challenge and our hope.

We are looking forward to the coming months and the changing season here when the barren, sandy hills of this desert landscape will miraculously turn green. What a wonderful witness to the beauty and persistence of life—green and verdant—breaking through an oppressive and cruel climate. How apropos for this place.


Peace to you all,

Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine


Attachments and Links:

· “State: W. Bank settler population grew by 12,800 in past year,” Haaretz, 27 August 2005
· Scott Wilson, “In West Bank, Israel Sees Room to Grow: Government Moves Swiftly to Capitalize On Pullout From Gaza Despite Criticism,” Washington Post, 28 August 2005
· Dr. Azmi Bishara, “Deconstructing disengagement,” Arabic Media Internet Network, 25 August 2005
· Amira Hass, “The remaining 99.5 percent,” Haaretz, 24 August 2005
· Tanya Reinhart, “How We Left Gaza,” DissidentVoice.org, 19 August 2005
· Amira Hass, “Cheap labor, cheap deal,” Haaretz, 17 August 2005
· Paul Beran, “On Divestment, Even Failure Breeds Success,” MIFTAH, 9 August 2005
· Amira Hass, “What business is it of Chirac?” Haaretz, 3 August 2005
· International Crisis Group, “The Jerusalem Powder Keg,” 2 August 2005

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Haaretz
State: W. Bank settler population grew by 12,800 in past year
By News Agencies

27 August 2005

The population of West Bank settlements grew by 12,800 people over the past year, a government official said Friday.

Thousands of Israelis have streamed into West Bank settlements from June of 2004 to June of this year, increasing the number of Jews living in the West Bank to 246,000, said Gilad Heiman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Heiman said that even after factoring in Israel's evacuation of 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank this week, the overall number now living in the West Bank has grown by about 12,800 Jews.

"When you factor in the removal of settlers and take into account about 10,000 newcomers, mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews, you arrive at a figure of about 246,000 settlers. This is correct as of June 2005," he said.

Read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/617643.html

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Washington Post
In West Bank, Israel Sees Room to Grow: Government Moves Swiftly to Capitalize On Pullout From Gaza Despite Criticism
Scott Wilson

28 August 2005

MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank -- In the tan hills a few miles east of Jerusalem, construction cranes dangle over a string of red-roofed neighborhoods that make up the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank. It is here that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is reengaging with his electoral base following Israel's efficient but divisive exit from the Gaza Strip.

Enjoying a moment of international sympathy, Sharon's government is moving swiftly to capitalize on its unilateral withdrawal and ongoing demolition of 25 Jewish settlements. The government's efforts are focused largely in the West Bank, land of far more religious and strategic importance to Israel than the remote slice of coastline it has left behind.

A little more than 31,000 Israelis live in Maale Adumim, a suburban settlement built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli officials say it will grow to more than 50,000 people and eventually touch the edge of East Jerusalem, even though the U.S. government and Palestinian leaders have said that such growth would severely complicate efforts to establish a viable Palestinian state.

Last week, as the world watched settlers being hauled from their homes in Gaza, government officials ordered the confiscation of 400 acres of West Bank land for a barrier that will separate Maale Adumim from Palestinian-populated territory. Just east of the main settlement, where construction plans had been frozen because of U.S. opposition, Israel will soon break ground on a new police headquarters serving the entire West Bank.

Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082701113.html?referrer=emailarticle

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Arabic Media Internet Network
Deconstructing disengagement
Dr. Azmi Bishara

25 August 2005

Sharon's disengagement plan opens as follows: "The State of Israel is committed to the peace process and aspires to reach an agreed resolution of the conflict based upon the vision of US President George Bush. The State of Israel believes that it must act to improve the current situation. The State of Israel has come to the conclusion that there is currently no reliable Palestinian partner with which it can make progress in a two-sided peace process.

Accordingly, it has developed a plan of revised disengagement, based on the following considerations: "One: The stalemate dictated by the current situation is harmful. In order to break out of this stalemate, the State of Israel is required to initiate moves not dependent on Palestinian cooperation.

"Two: The purpose of the plan is to lead to a better security, political, economic and demographic situation.

"Three: In any future permanent settlement, there will be no Israeli towns and villages in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, it is clear that in the West Bank, there are areas which will be part of the State of Israel, including major Israeli population centers, cities, towns and villages, security areas and other places of special interest to Israel." (Disengagement Plan of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- revised, 28 May 2004).

I cite the foregoing passage because with all the fanfare surrounding the withdrawal people may have forgotten what it is really about. Let me clarify.

Sharon's disengagement plan is a bid to sideline the roadmap. It is an attempt to pre-empt anyone else from taking the initiative to break the "stalemate" -- a product of Israeli intransigence or, otherwise put, of the non-existence of a Palestinian partner prepared to accept Israeli dictates for a permanent settlement -- and compel the US, if only to improve its PR in the region following the occupation of Iraq, to pursue the roadmap as it was originally devised.

Read more at http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2005/aug/aug25-2.html

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Haaretz
The remaining 99.5 percent
Amira Hass

24 August 2005

What talent it takes to live for 35 years in a flourishing park and splendid villas just 20 meters from overcrowded, suffocated refugee camps. What talent it takes to turn on the sprinklers on the lawns, while just across the way, 20,000 other people are dependent on the distribution of drinking water in tankers; to know that you deserve it, that your government will pave magnificent roads for you and neglect (prior to Oslo, before 1994) to the point of destruction the Palestinian infrastructure. What skill it takes to step out of your well-cared-for greenhouse and walk unmoved past 60-year-old fruit-bearing date trees that are uprooted for you, roads that are blocked for you, homes that are demolished for you, the children who are shelled from helicopters and tanks and buried alongside you, for the sake of the safety of your children and the preservation of your super-rights.

For the sake of about half a percent of the population of the Gaza Strip, a Jewish half-percent, the lives of the remaining 99.5 percent were totally disrupted and destroyed - worthy of wonderment indeed. And also amazing is how most of the other Israelis, who did not go themselves to settle the homeland, suffered this reality and did not demand that their government put an end to it - before the Qassams.

A big, well-fed goat was removed from the Gaza Strip this week. And therefore, the sense of relief felt by many of the 99.5 percent is understandable - although it is a far cry from the reality emerging from the so-superficial media reports that are focusing on the celebrations of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. In the words last week in the Khan Yunis refugee camp of a former worker at one of the settlements: "The settlements divided the Strip into three or four prisons. Now, we will live in one big prison - a more comfortable one, but a prison nevertheless."

Read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/616309.html

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DissidentVoice.org
How We Left Gaza
Tanya Reinhart

19 August 2005

We will never know with certainty what took place in the mind of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February 2004, when he first declared, without consulting anyone, that he is ready to evacuate the Jewish settlements in Gaza. But if we try to put together the pieces of the disengagement puzzle, the scenario that makes the most sense is that Sharon believed that this time, as before, he would find a way of evading the plan. This would explain, for example, why the Gaza settlers have not yet received compensation money and why, as the Saturday Supplement of Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot revealed on August 5, almost no steps have been taken to prepare for their absorption into Israel. (1)

Sharon had good reason to believe that he would succeed in his avoidance tactics. In the previous round, when confronted with the Bush administration’s “Road Map”, he committed himself to a cease-fire, during which Israel was to revert to the status quo of pre-September 2000, freeze settlement construction and remove outposts. None of this was carried out. Sharon and the army claimed that Mahmud Abbas (in the previous round) was not trustworthy and had failed to rein in Hamas. The army continued its assassination policy and succeeded in bringing the Occupied Territories to an unprecedented boiling point, followed by the inevitable Palestinian terror attacks that shattered the cease-fire. During the entire time, the first-term Bush administration stood by Sharon’s side and dutifully echoed all his complaints against Abbas.

Read more at http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=7241

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Haaretz
Cheap labor, cheap deal
Amira Hass

17 August 2005

Omar had a reason to laugh: Good people from Tel Aviv are agitated that the Evacuation Compensation Law passed by the Knesset discriminates against Palestinian and foreign workers, on the one hand, compared to Israeli workers. The good people are the Kav La'Oved organization and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which gave up on the idea of petitioning the High Court of Justice because it expected the court would not get involved in this piece of legislation.

Omar is a 28-year-old resident of Khan Yunis who has worked for an Israeli employer in the hothouses in Gush Katif since 1996. ACRI and Kav La'Oved are troubled by the fact that he, as a Palestinian, won't receive the "acclimation payment" the law assures to workers who lose the source of their livelihood as a result of the evacuation. But Omar is laughing because he never even received his basic rights: His last salary was NIS 50 for a full workday - slightly more than a third of minimum wage, which is NIS 145 a day. And he didn't get vacation or sick leave. According to Omar, the most workers could earn in Gush Katif was NIS 60 for a full workday. But even if it is NIS 80, as Israeli inspectors in Gush Katif reported, it is still a lot less than minimum wage.

The Evacuation Compensation Law, without shame, explicitly states that only Israeli workers have the right to the acclimation payments, up to six months worth, based on the average monthly salary for every year worked. Neither the Palestinians nor foreign workers (Thais, Chinese, Nepalese) have the right to acclimation payments. The same law also gives Israeli workers the right to quit and be considered laid off for the purposes of severance pay. Omar, on the other hand, is going home, after nine years of labor, without any severance pay.

Read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/613498.html

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MIFTAH
On Divestment, Even Failure Breeds Success
Paul Beran

9 August 2005

In the last six months, civic groups and churches in the United States have independently launched campaigns to divest financially from companies profiting from the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian lands. These groups have targeted town governments, university boards and religious bodies in an effort to publicly spotlight the low standards that human rights have been accorded in the U.S.-dominated "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians. The American Presbyterian Church, a body of some 2.5 million followers, last summer decided to selectively divest its pension funds from companies profiting from the Israeli military occupation. The church has paid a price for daring to criticize Israel's human rights record. In November, church leaders were threatened with violence, called anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli for their stance. One hate message the church received said: "I promise violence against Presbyterian churches, they will go up in flames - that's a terrorist threat." Beside these words was a hand-drawn swastika. In addition to these attacks, the church has been publicly rebuked by such ardent pro-Israel supporters as high-profile law professor Alan Dershowitz.

In addition to the Presbyterian churches' activities, the first municipality in the U.S. to publicly be asked to divest its funds from Israel was Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston. In November, a local group,
with over 1,000 citizen signatures in hand, asked the town council to divest their pension funds from companies benefiting from the Israeli occupation. Passage of the resolution, which is non-binding, should have been easy: Somerville has a tradition of using its pension funds to uphold human rights, for example when it banned investment in Burma due to its human rights abuses.

Read more at http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=8148&CategoryId=5

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Haaretz
What business is it of Chirac?
Amira Hass

3 August 2005

Why should Chirac and the other European leaders take an interest in the millions of trifles of the calculated dispossession, which dictate the lives of the Palestinian people? Trifles that add up to a clear picture: Sharon is determinedly striving to realize the master plan - integrating most of the West Bank into the sovereign State of Israel.

The Jordan Valley, the settlement blocs that continue to merge into each other, the monumental Jews-only roads, the demilitarized zone long since annexed to Israel, the area annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, the de facto annexations of the fence - these already cover most of the West Bank. They will call the densely populated Palestinian pockets that will remain a state, and the world will applaud.

Reasons abound for not taking an interest in the trifles of this dispossession: a mere three and a half million people are at stake, with no oil and no support from any international power; their brethren in the Diaspora and in Israel do not constitute a lobby. There are places in the world where tens of millions are being wronged far more cruelly, and nobody makes a peep. And, after all, Israeli colonialism doesn't even come close to the murderousness of the European variety.

But Europe does take an interest. The billions of dollars it's pouring in here prove that it knows that this "little" usurpation is being perpetrated at a highly sensitive juncture. Perhaps European leaders are hoping that the money being showered on the Palestinian Authority - and effectively on Israel, which thus escapes its responsibility as the occupying power - will compensate for their impotence. It was they, after all, who failed to implement international decisions regarding the illegality of the settlements.


Read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/607926.html

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International Crisis Group
The Jerusalem Powder Keg

2 August 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

While the world focuses on Gaza, the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations in fact may be playing itself out away from the spotlight, in Jerusalem. With recent steps, Israel is attempting to solidify its hold over a wide area in and around the city, creating a far broader Jerusalem. If the international community and specifically the U.S. are serious about preserving and promoting a viable two-state solution, they need to speak far more clearly and insistently to halt actions that directly and immediately jeopardise that goal. And if that solution is ever to be reached, they will need to be clear that changes that have occurred since Israelis and Palestinians last sat down to negotiate in 2000-2001 will have to be reversed.

Since the onset of the Arab-Israeli conflict, control over Jerusalem has fluctuated, as have the city's contours. Speaking of the city today, one refers to substantial areas, some Jewish, others Arab, that were part of the West Bank and that no one would have recognised as Jerusalem prior to 1967. Stretching municipal boundaries, annexing Palestinian land and building new Jewish neighbourhoods/settlements, Israel gradually created a municipal area several times its earlier size. It also established new urban settlements outside the municipal boundary to surround the city, break contiguity between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and strengthen links between these settlements, West Jerusalem and the rest of Israel.

Settlement expansion has been pursued by Labour and Likud governments alike and has always been highly problematic and deemed unlawful by the international community. But Prime Minister Sharon appears to be implementing a more focused and systematic plan that, if carried out, risks choking off Arab East Jerusalem by further fragmenting it and surrounding it with Jewish neighbourhoods/settlements:

Read more at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3588