MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (4 of 4)
24 December 2006
Dear Friends,
For this final Sunday of Advent, here is the fourth of a series of four Advent reflection sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community. Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on MCUSA’s campaign and http://www.mcc.org/christmas/advent/ for Advent reflections and other Christmas ideas from MCC.
The Palestine Update will resume in its normal form following the holiday season. At this point, we also hope to have the Palestine Update address book tightened up. Thanks to you all who have responded to the past two updates indicating your interest in receiving these updates. Again, if you have not indicated to us by sending your name and the current email address you would like the Palestine Update sent to (or regular updates from MCC Iraq Program Coordinator Ed Nyce), please do so by responding to this email.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Advent Greetings from the Holy Land!
Experiencing Advent in a place such as this is truly unique! It carries with it incredible feelings of closeness as one visits those sites, such as the Church of the Nativity, that hold so much meaning and that played a role of their own in the Christmas story. Yet at the same time, those feelings of closeness are easily swallowed up by a sense of distance, of separation, of forsakenness as one surveys the situation here.
Not too long ago, an Israeli incursion into the town of Bethlehem very near to the Church of the Nativity saw Israeli soldiers raiding and occupying the home of the Zoughbi family. The Zoughbis are a Christian family who have been a part of the Bethlehem community for centuries. The parents were not at home when the Israeli soldiers arrived, but their four children—ages 14, 12, 11, and 9—were. Because the street to their home was blocked off, they (the parents) were not allowed to return home to be with their children. They had to wait almost seven hours before the Israeli soldiers left, all the while listening to loud explosions and gunfire and seeing tear gas fired by the Israeli soldiers. All that they could do was to talk by telephone with their children, who were sitting in their home away from all the windows and doors, feeling very frightened and alone.
About a dozen soldiers had broken into the apartment above where the Zoughbi children were, occupying it as a place from which to fire upon a home behind the Zoughbi’s house. A young man who was wanted by the Israeli military lived in this house, and the Israeli incursion was meant to find and abduct this young man. The soldiers did eventually abduct him, after a bulldozer was sent to his family’s home with the threat of demolishing it if he did not surrender—a common practice used by the Israeli military. This young man became one of the roughly 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who remain in Israeli prisons, often times without due process of law.
At around 10:00 p.m. that night, the soldiers left the Zoughbi’s building, leaving furniture in this apartment overturned, clothes and bed sheets thrown around, a broken door and the windows dismantled, and dirt and gun shell casings everywhere.
Though the Zoughbi children were not harmed, one young boy of 13, Mohammad Ali Showria, was shot by an Israeli soldier near the Church of the Nativity and died shortly afterwards of his wounds. Several other Palestinians were seriously injured.
One can imagine how traumatizing this experience was for these children. When the parents returned home, one of the first things the children said to them was “when can we move away from here?” Unfortunately, this trauma is all-too-common amongst children in the Occupied Territories and has contributed to a growing emigration.
Palestinian Christians, like their Muslim brothers and sisters, have experienced a long history of dispossession and have not been immune to Israeli policies of occupation and discrimination. If anything, they have felt more strongly the feelings of forsakenness, knowing full well that many Christians in North America and Europe support without question the State of Israel in its oppression of their people. Daily experiences of incursions such as this, of humiliation at checkpoints, of land confiscation to make way for the separation barrier, the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, unemployment, poverty, and a sense of hopelessness for a better future for their children have all contributed to this growing emigration of Palestinian Christians from the historical land of Palestine.
For the Palestinian Christians of Bethlehem, for example, traveling the six-mile distance to Jerusalem’s Old City is impossible without special permission. Roughly half of Palestinian Christians living in the Occupied Territories are residents of Bethlehem. Church leaders estimate that over 2,000 Christians have emigrated from the Bethlehem area since September 2000, representing a decline of more than nine percent of Bethlehem’s total Christian population. [1]
Rev. Alex Awad, Palestinian pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church, reminds us that “Palestinian Christians have existed in the Holy Land since the day of Pentecost and have kept the torch of Christianity burning faithfully for the past two thousand years.” The erosion of Christianity in her birthplace, he poignantly observes “is a loss for the body of Christ everywhere. Can we imagine the Holy Land devoid of the Christian presence and a church which has been a faithful witness for Christ since the day the church was born?” [2]
In this time of Advent—this time of preparation, hope, and expectation for new realities and new creations—we pray this difficult story finds each of you well, rejoicing in the Lord, and living for one another in new and creative ways. We pray that the voices of our Palestinian sisters and brothers that are so often dismissed, silenced, and dehumanized speak loudly to us this Advent season, providing both a meaning and a challenge for our celebration of the incarnational presence of “God with us” this Christmas.
The glory of the Lord has been revealed. How will we respond?
Grace and Peace,
Ecumenical Advisory Group*
*This is the final in a series of four Advent reflections lifting up the voices of people living in the land of Jesus’ birth, sent from the Ecumenical Advisory Group—a group of international church workers living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
[1] For more on these conditions in Bethlehem, see the report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Office of the Special Coordinator for the Peace Process in the Middle East (UNSCO), “Costs of Conflict: The Changing Face of Bethlehem” (December 2004); online at: http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2004/ocha-opt-20dec.pdf.
[2] Read all of Rev. Awad’s article in “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land,” MCC Peace Office Newsletter 35/3 (July-September 2005); online at: http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2005-03.pdf.
***
Sunday, December 24
Sunday, December 17
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (3 of 4)
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (3 of 4)
17 December 2006
Dear Friends,
Once again, here is another Advent reflection, for the third Sunday of Advent, sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community. Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on MCUSA’s campaign and http://www.mcc.org/christmas/advent/ for Advent reflections and other Christmas ideas from MCC.
As we mentioned in our previous email, we are trying to clean up the email address book we use to send out the MCC Palestine Update. We also want to let you know that from Amman, Jordan, Ed Nyce (former MCC Palestine peace development worker in Bethlehem) is sending out updates about the situation in Iraq. To this end, we would ask you all, if you have not already, to respond to this email by including:
1) your name and the current email address you would like the Palestine Update sent to.
2) if you are interested, your name and the current email address you would like the Iraq Update sent to.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Advent Greetings from the Holy Land!
Many students in church-run schools in the Occupied West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, and Ramallah correspond with pen pals from other countries. This past November, as students looked forward to the holiday season, many of their letters contained drawings of angels, Christmas trees, and descriptions of family traditions. Some, however, did not wish their correspondents the customary “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” Their thoughts still centered on a recent episode that had occurred in Bethlehem a week before. Two such letters appear below unedited.
Dear ____,
Hi, I’m studying well in the school and I’m getting high grades. But before two days, I couldn’t consintrate because the isralien solders get into the down town because they want to arrest 3 wanted people. They killed one of them and destroy his parents’ house, when they were destroying the house, they killed two men and one women. They hert one of the others. His friend tooke him to the hospital. They came into the town and arrested both of them. When we went to school, the wholle school was talking on the same subject but in the night it was a harebl time because we couldn’t sleep from the shooting and bumbs and the loud speaker sound.
KF, Grade 10
Dear ___,
I’m 14 years old. I’m in class 9. I have two brothers and no sister. When I was living in the old house, the Israelian people come into our home. They took me because they think that I was throwing stones. After 30 minutes when they see me little, small boy they take me back home and go. Now every time I see them I run away because I’m 14 yr. Next time they came they were looking for some people that they want.
Little boy, HH
Christian and Muslim children in these and other schools in the area have witnessed and sometimes experienced bloodshed, house demolitions, military arrests, isolation, fear and despair. Despite their best efforts, their families cannot protect them from such violence. And still the Christmas promise poignantly holds them steadfast.
Dear ____,
I’m in Grade 6, I’m 11 years old. Christmas is coming and we hope that it will come again. I live in Beit Sahour where the angel appeared to the shepherds near Bethlehem where Jesus the king was born. From the Holy land we wish you the best Christmas with Jesus’ blessing and a happy New Year. We send you our prayer for you to live in peace which we here in Palestine look for in patience.
Your friend, A
For more on the situation in some of these schools, learn about the Dar Al-Kalima school as well as the International Center of Bethlehem, ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, at http://www.annadwa.org/. To learn more about the life of children living under occupation, visit http://www.dci-pal.org/.
During this season of Advent, children in your community can remember the “little town” of Bethlehem as we imagine it “then” but also can remember the situation here “now.” Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information and educational resources for children and adults. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
Please pray that the peace on earth and good will of the Christmas promise (Luke 2:14) will come again to the children of Palestine who still wait patiently.
Grace and Peace,
Ecumenical Advisory Group*
*This is the third in a series of four Advent reflections lifting up the voices of people living in the land of Jesus’ birth, sent from the Ecumenical Advisory Group—a group of international church workers living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
17 December 2006
Dear Friends,
Once again, here is another Advent reflection, for the third Sunday of Advent, sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community. Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on MCUSA’s campaign and http://www.mcc.org/christmas/advent/ for Advent reflections and other Christmas ideas from MCC.
As we mentioned in our previous email, we are trying to clean up the email address book we use to send out the MCC Palestine Update. We also want to let you know that from Amman, Jordan, Ed Nyce (former MCC Palestine peace development worker in Bethlehem) is sending out updates about the situation in Iraq. To this end, we would ask you all, if you have not already, to respond to this email by including:
1) your name and the current email address you would like the Palestine Update sent to.
2) if you are interested, your name and the current email address you would like the Iraq Update sent to.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Advent Greetings from the Holy Land!
Many students in church-run schools in the Occupied West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, and Ramallah correspond with pen pals from other countries. This past November, as students looked forward to the holiday season, many of their letters contained drawings of angels, Christmas trees, and descriptions of family traditions. Some, however, did not wish their correspondents the customary “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” Their thoughts still centered on a recent episode that had occurred in Bethlehem a week before. Two such letters appear below unedited.
Dear ____,
Hi, I’m studying well in the school and I’m getting high grades. But before two days, I couldn’t consintrate because the isralien solders get into the down town because they want to arrest 3 wanted people. They killed one of them and destroy his parents’ house, when they were destroying the house, they killed two men and one women. They hert one of the others. His friend tooke him to the hospital. They came into the town and arrested both of them. When we went to school, the wholle school was talking on the same subject but in the night it was a harebl time because we couldn’t sleep from the shooting and bumbs and the loud speaker sound.
KF, Grade 10
Dear ___,
I’m 14 years old. I’m in class 9. I have two brothers and no sister. When I was living in the old house, the Israelian people come into our home. They took me because they think that I was throwing stones. After 30 minutes when they see me little, small boy they take me back home and go. Now every time I see them I run away because I’m 14 yr. Next time they came they were looking for some people that they want.
Little boy, HH
Christian and Muslim children in these and other schools in the area have witnessed and sometimes experienced bloodshed, house demolitions, military arrests, isolation, fear and despair. Despite their best efforts, their families cannot protect them from such violence. And still the Christmas promise poignantly holds them steadfast.
Dear ____,
I’m in Grade 6, I’m 11 years old. Christmas is coming and we hope that it will come again. I live in Beit Sahour where the angel appeared to the shepherds near Bethlehem where Jesus the king was born. From the Holy land we wish you the best Christmas with Jesus’ blessing and a happy New Year. We send you our prayer for you to live in peace which we here in Palestine look for in patience.
Your friend, A
For more on the situation in some of these schools, learn about the Dar Al-Kalima school as well as the International Center of Bethlehem, ministries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, at http://www.annadwa.org/. To learn more about the life of children living under occupation, visit http://www.dci-pal.org/.
During this season of Advent, children in your community can remember the “little town” of Bethlehem as we imagine it “then” but also can remember the situation here “now.” Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information and educational resources for children and adults. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
Please pray that the peace on earth and good will of the Christmas promise (Luke 2:14) will come again to the children of Palestine who still wait patiently.
Grace and Peace,
Ecumenical Advisory Group*
*This is the third in a series of four Advent reflections lifting up the voices of people living in the land of Jesus’ birth, sent from the Ecumenical Advisory Group—a group of international church workers living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Sunday, December 10
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (2 of 4)
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (2 of 4)
10 December 2006
Dear Friends,
Greetings again from Bethlehem. We are sending out this email for a few reasons:
First, we wanted to pass along another Advent reflection sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community.
Second, we wanted to remind you again of the Mennonite Church USA Advent advocacy campaign. Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. Also, visit http://www.mcc.org/christmas/advent/ for Advent reflections and other Christmas ideas from MCC.
Third, we are trying to clean up the email address book we use to send out the MCC Palestine Update. We also want to let you know that from Amman, Jordan, Ed Nyce (former MCC Palestine peace development worker in Bethlehem) is sending out updates about the situation in Iraq. To this end, we would ask you all to respond to this email by including:
1) your name and the current email address you would like the Palestine Update sent to.
2) if you are interested, your name and the current email address you would like the Iraq Update sent to.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Advent Greetings from the Holy Land!
Bethlehem, the city of Jesus’ birth, is surrounded by conflict, just as it was when Jesus was born. How will Bethlehem's Christians celebrate Christmas this year? What follows is one family’s story.
Today, there is a 30-foot wall surrounding Bethlehem and military checkpoints at its entrances. Ironically, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has hung a giant banner on the wall next to the checkpoint through which dignitaries and tourists can enter Bethlehem, which reads, “Peace be with you.”
Yet there is little peace with the Anastas family, a Christian family now trapped behind this wall. Claire Anastas’ three-storey home is not only within Bethlehem’s giant concrete wall, but in addition, Israel has surrounded the house with extra 30-foot tall walls. The only view on all four sides from the home’s windows is this wall of concrete a few feet away. Once prosperous merchants, their home was on the main street of Bethlehem, a few hundred feet from Rachel’s Tomb, a site held holy by Jews, Muslims and Christians. In order to make pilgrimage to this site safe for Jews, Israel banned all other visitors and built an additional wall within Bethlehem, surrounding the route to the Tomb. Many houses lining Bethlehem’s main street were destroyed, but Claire’s was instead surrounded by its own walls topped by Israeli guard towers.
Two families—including nine children—now exist there, scraping together enough to live on, barely surviving. They have been forced to close their businesses and are now struggling with huge debts. They have no money to buy a new house somewhere else and have received no compensation from the Israeli Authorities. Daniel, age 8, recently asked “Mommy why are we living in a tomb?” Claire says her children have lost all hope. “They cry at night, ‘Mommy, can’t you do something?’ But there is nothing I can do. I can’t offer them anything and this has killed me.” Claire pleads for Christians around the world to notice them behind their tomb, and help remove the wall so that they can come back to life. “My family has been left behind,” Claire cries out, “They are burying us alive.”
Their family name anastas means “resurrected one.” Jesus came to our walled world to lead us out of the tomb of our deadness into new life. The words of the Apostle Paul to the Church at Ephesus underscore this:
For he is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2:14)
Please pray that bridges of understanding between Palestinians and Israelis and Christians around the world be built so that peace can return to this Holy Land.
To learn more about this wall and the situation in Bethlehem, please visit Open Bethlehem at http://www.openbethlehem.org/.
Grace and Peace,
Ecumenical Advisory Group*
*This is the second in a series of four Advent reflections lifting up the voices of people living in the land of Jesus’ birth, sent from the Ecumenical Advisory Group—a group of international church workers living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
10 December 2006
Dear Friends,
Greetings again from Bethlehem. We are sending out this email for a few reasons:
First, we wanted to pass along another Advent reflection sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community.
Second, we wanted to remind you again of the Mennonite Church USA Advent advocacy campaign. Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. Also, visit http://www.mcc.org/christmas/advent/ for Advent reflections and other Christmas ideas from MCC.
Third, we are trying to clean up the email address book we use to send out the MCC Palestine Update. We also want to let you know that from Amman, Jordan, Ed Nyce (former MCC Palestine peace development worker in Bethlehem) is sending out updates about the situation in Iraq. To this end, we would ask you all to respond to this email by including:
1) your name and the current email address you would like the Palestine Update sent to.
2) if you are interested, your name and the current email address you would like the Iraq Update sent to.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Advent Greetings from the Holy Land!
Bethlehem, the city of Jesus’ birth, is surrounded by conflict, just as it was when Jesus was born. How will Bethlehem's Christians celebrate Christmas this year? What follows is one family’s story.
Today, there is a 30-foot wall surrounding Bethlehem and military checkpoints at its entrances. Ironically, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has hung a giant banner on the wall next to the checkpoint through which dignitaries and tourists can enter Bethlehem, which reads, “Peace be with you.”
Yet there is little peace with the Anastas family, a Christian family now trapped behind this wall. Claire Anastas’ three-storey home is not only within Bethlehem’s giant concrete wall, but in addition, Israel has surrounded the house with extra 30-foot tall walls. The only view on all four sides from the home’s windows is this wall of concrete a few feet away. Once prosperous merchants, their home was on the main street of Bethlehem, a few hundred feet from Rachel’s Tomb, a site held holy by Jews, Muslims and Christians. In order to make pilgrimage to this site safe for Jews, Israel banned all other visitors and built an additional wall within Bethlehem, surrounding the route to the Tomb. Many houses lining Bethlehem’s main street were destroyed, but Claire’s was instead surrounded by its own walls topped by Israeli guard towers.
Two families—including nine children—now exist there, scraping together enough to live on, barely surviving. They have been forced to close their businesses and are now struggling with huge debts. They have no money to buy a new house somewhere else and have received no compensation from the Israeli Authorities. Daniel, age 8, recently asked “Mommy why are we living in a tomb?” Claire says her children have lost all hope. “They cry at night, ‘Mommy, can’t you do something?’ But there is nothing I can do. I can’t offer them anything and this has killed me.” Claire pleads for Christians around the world to notice them behind their tomb, and help remove the wall so that they can come back to life. “My family has been left behind,” Claire cries out, “They are burying us alive.”
Their family name anastas means “resurrected one.” Jesus came to our walled world to lead us out of the tomb of our deadness into new life. The words of the Apostle Paul to the Church at Ephesus underscore this:
For he is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2:14)
Please pray that bridges of understanding between Palestinians and Israelis and Christians around the world be built so that peace can return to this Holy Land.
To learn more about this wall and the situation in Bethlehem, please visit Open Bethlehem at http://www.openbethlehem.org/.
Grace and Peace,
Ecumenical Advisory Group*
*This is the second in a series of four Advent reflections lifting up the voices of people living in the land of Jesus’ birth, sent from the Ecumenical Advisory Group—a group of international church workers living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Sunday, December 3
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (1 of 4)
MCC Palestine Update: Advent Greetings from the Holy Land! (1 of 4)
3 December 2006
Dear Friends,
The Advent season is upon us--a season meant to be a time of somber preparation and yet at the same time filled with joyful expectation and hope. As we enter this season of Advent, we wanted to pass along the following Advent letter sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community.
We also wanted to remind you of the Mennonite Church USA Advent advocacy campaign. During this season of Advent, MCUSA is urging us to remember the "little town" of Bethlehem. But the challenge is not only to remember this story as we imagine it "then" but to also remember the situation here "now." Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
May the voices of these Palestinian sisters and brothers that are so often dismissed, silenced, and dehumanized speak loudly to you this Advent season, providing both a meaning and a challenge for your own celebration of the incarnational presence of "God with us" this Christmas.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Greetings to you from the Holy Land, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace
During the season of Advent, we remember the words of the prophet Isaiah:
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…(Is 9:2)
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; (Is 9:6a)
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. (Is 9:7a)
He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forever. (Is 9:7b)
For Christians, these words hold the core of our faith: that God so loved the world that God came into the world in Christ to be born in our midst to embody hope and new life. During this sacred time of Advent, we wait and watch with eager anticipation for the coming of this light in Bethlehem.
Yet, even as we watch and wait, we also work with the children of Bethlehem today who still wait in deep darkness: for justice, for peace, for basic human rights, for a sign that the world hears them, trapped behind concrete walls and locked into tiny enclaves created under Israeli military occupation.
The kids can no longer look over the wall that separates them from the outside world and wonder, “will anyone remember us?”
When they hear the words of the angels: “Fear not, for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10), they wonder when this promise might include them, too.
A woman from Bethlehem speaks of life under the darkness of occupation this way:
“I think of the struggle for freedom, for an end to occupation, as a tunnel. Up ahead I see a light. I can’t tell how far that light is from me, but I do see a light. I think the end of the tunnel is a hundred-year walk from where I am today, but I keep walking, believing that every step that I take forward is an achievement of great worth and note.”
What does it mean to all these men, women and children walking in darkness, trapped behind concrete walls, that "unto us a child is born?" What does it mean to us that we call this Child "Savior?"
It means that we stand with these and all those who are oppressed and held captive to fear and occupation. It means that we remember that God once chose to come into the world as a poor, vulnerable child who came to lift the lowly, set free the oppressed and bring new light and love into the world. It means that we believe in this Word made flesh who proclaimed that every child deserved love, justice, hope and a fair share of the blessings of creation.
This Christmas, we will send you three more letters lifting up the voices of some of these Bethlehem families, and giving you resources to learn more about what is happening in the town of Our Savior's birth. We are asking that you use this season to make your church more aware of what is happening here.
Perhaps, as you begin to sing the hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem," you might stand in silent prayer instead for our sisters and brothers in that beleaguered city and all those in the Holy Land who suffer from fear, violence and oppression. Perhaps you will use an adult education hour to watch together the slide shows at http://www.openbethlehem.org/ about life in Bethlehem today.
On Christmas Eve, as we watch images of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem, remember in prayer and lament the many in the land of our Savior’s birth who will be refused permission to "come, all ye faithful," simply because they are Palestinian. We pray for a time when all people of faith who want to "come and see" might be able to, regardless of their ethnicity.
May the peace of Christ be with you all.
Advent 2006
*Pastor Alex and Brenda Awad
General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church
*Sister Sylvia Countess
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA) Regional Liaison
*Sri Mayasandra
Mennonite Central Committee
*Pastor Julie Rowe
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Christi and Timothy Seidel
Mennonite Central Committee
*Pastor Russell Siler
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Pastor Marlin and Sally Vis
Reformed Church in America
*World Vision Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza
The above are international church workers and agencies living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
A prayer petition for Christmas Eve:
Dear God, we pray for the children of Bethlehem and their families who are struggling to see your light in what should be a celebration of your coming. We pray for justice and peace in the land of your birth and an end to the occupation that keeps Palestinians and Israelis living in the darkness of fear, violence and oppression. Empower the leaders with wisdom and strength to break through the impasse and forge new paths to peace with justice and healing among Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the world. Bless Bethlehem’s children and provide them and their families with a better future filled with your love. -Amen
3 December 2006
Dear Friends,
The Advent season is upon us--a season meant to be a time of somber preparation and yet at the same time filled with joyful expectation and hope. As we enter this season of Advent, we wanted to pass along the following Advent letter sent by a group of international church workers living and working in Palestine/Israel. Attached is this letter in the form of a bulletin insert that you can feel free to use in your community.
We also wanted to remind you of the Mennonite Church USA Advent advocacy campaign. During this season of Advent, MCUSA is urging us to remember the "little town" of Bethlehem. But the challenge is not only to remember this story as we imagine it "then" but to also remember the situation here "now." Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
May the voices of these Palestinian sisters and brothers that are so often dismissed, silenced, and dehumanized speak loudly to you this Advent season, providing both a meaning and a challenge for your own celebration of the incarnational presence of "God with us" this Christmas.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Christi and Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
Greetings to you from the Holy Land, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace
During the season of Advent, we remember the words of the prophet Isaiah:
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…(Is 9:2)
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; (Is 9:6a)
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. (Is 9:7a)
He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forever. (Is 9:7b)
For Christians, these words hold the core of our faith: that God so loved the world that God came into the world in Christ to be born in our midst to embody hope and new life. During this sacred time of Advent, we wait and watch with eager anticipation for the coming of this light in Bethlehem.
Yet, even as we watch and wait, we also work with the children of Bethlehem today who still wait in deep darkness: for justice, for peace, for basic human rights, for a sign that the world hears them, trapped behind concrete walls and locked into tiny enclaves created under Israeli military occupation.
The kids can no longer look over the wall that separates them from the outside world and wonder, “will anyone remember us?”
When they hear the words of the angels: “Fear not, for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10), they wonder when this promise might include them, too.
A woman from Bethlehem speaks of life under the darkness of occupation this way:
“I think of the struggle for freedom, for an end to occupation, as a tunnel. Up ahead I see a light. I can’t tell how far that light is from me, but I do see a light. I think the end of the tunnel is a hundred-year walk from where I am today, but I keep walking, believing that every step that I take forward is an achievement of great worth and note.”
What does it mean to all these men, women and children walking in darkness, trapped behind concrete walls, that "unto us a child is born?" What does it mean to us that we call this Child "Savior?"
It means that we stand with these and all those who are oppressed and held captive to fear and occupation. It means that we remember that God once chose to come into the world as a poor, vulnerable child who came to lift the lowly, set free the oppressed and bring new light and love into the world. It means that we believe in this Word made flesh who proclaimed that every child deserved love, justice, hope and a fair share of the blessings of creation.
This Christmas, we will send you three more letters lifting up the voices of some of these Bethlehem families, and giving you resources to learn more about what is happening in the town of Our Savior's birth. We are asking that you use this season to make your church more aware of what is happening here.
Perhaps, as you begin to sing the hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem," you might stand in silent prayer instead for our sisters and brothers in that beleaguered city and all those in the Holy Land who suffer from fear, violence and oppression. Perhaps you will use an adult education hour to watch together the slide shows at http://www.openbethlehem.org/ about life in Bethlehem today.
On Christmas Eve, as we watch images of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem, remember in prayer and lament the many in the land of our Savior’s birth who will be refused permission to "come, all ye faithful," simply because they are Palestinian. We pray for a time when all people of faith who want to "come and see" might be able to, regardless of their ethnicity.
May the peace of Christ be with you all.
Advent 2006
*Pastor Alex and Brenda Awad
General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church
*Sister Sylvia Countess
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA) Regional Liaison
*Sri Mayasandra
Mennonite Central Committee
*Pastor Julie Rowe
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Christi and Timothy Seidel
Mennonite Central Committee
*Pastor Russell Siler
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
*Pastor Marlin and Sally Vis
Reformed Church in America
*World Vision Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza
The above are international church workers and agencies living and working in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
A prayer petition for Christmas Eve:
Dear God, we pray for the children of Bethlehem and their families who are struggling to see your light in what should be a celebration of your coming. We pray for justice and peace in the land of your birth and an end to the occupation that keeps Palestinians and Israelis living in the darkness of fear, violence and oppression. Empower the leaders with wisdom and strength to break through the impasse and forge new paths to peace with justice and healing among Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the world. Bless Bethlehem’s children and provide them and their families with a better future filled with your love. -Amen
Friday, December 1
MCC Palestine Update #130
MCC Palestine Update #130
1 December 2006
“The Forgotten Faithful: The Challenge and the Witness of Palestinian Christians”
In early November, MCC partner the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/) held its 6th International Conference. This year’s theme was “The Forgotten Faithful: The Challenge and the Witness of Palestinian Christians.” Most of the speakers were local Palestinian Christians including Archbishops and Bishops from the Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, Syrian, Latin, Maronite, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
This was a unique conference as it took us to several different locations in Palestine / Israel, where participants worshiped in and visited 32 churches in 13 villages, experiencing fellowship with local sisters and brothers and a taste of Palestinian hospitality in the meals they shared. The conference began in East Jerusalem and then moved to Bethlehem, Jericho, and Ramallah, all of which are in the Occupied West Bank. Several local Christian communities in villages around Ramallah and Jericho were visited including Taybeh, Birzeit, and ‘Aboud. From there we traveled to the Galilee in northern Israel, to Nazareth. In the Galilee we again visited several Christian communities in villages like Jish, Ailaboun, and Maghar. The conference ended with a communion service on the shores of the Sea of Galilee at the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter—where it is believed that Jesus commissioned Peter to “feed my sheep” following the resurrection (John 21).
This was also a commissioning service for the conference participants to commit themselves to strive for peace with justice: to establish bonds of fellowship with Palestinian Christians and to stand in solidarity with all Palestinians in their struggle for liberation; to commit ourselves to active prayer, education, and advocacy on behalf of the Palestinian people; to campaign for truth and justice with the energy and consistency of an ever-flowing stream; to work without ceasing to bring healing and reconciliation to all people with God’s joy and peace in our hearts, especially to the people of the land where the first message of peace was proclaimed.
To read more of the conference statement, please visit: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=47.
To learn more about the conference itself, please visit: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=17.
Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew
MCC Israeli partner the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/) recently organized tours to the sites of two destroyed Palestinian villages. About two hundred visitors took part in a visit to the village of Tarshiha (photos and story: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=477) in the Galilee near the Lebanon border. Last week, another one hundred people visited the village of a-Shajara (photos and story: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=477), also in the Galilee, where they posted signs in Hebrew and in Arabic marking where the mosque, the schoolhouse, and the cemetery of the village lay. Such acts of memory not only resurrect the landscape of these villages—two of the over 500 Palestinian villages destroyed and whose residents were among the 750,000 to 900,000 Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes between 1947 and 1949 in what Palestinians remember as the Nakba or “catastrophe”—but also serve as shared acts where Israelis and Palestinians come together to embody an alternative reality of coexistence. To learn more about Tarshiha and a-Shajara, please visit http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Tarshiha/ and http://www.palestineremembered.com/Tiberias/al-Shajara/index.html.
“Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall”
Over the past year, MCC along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project for “Emergency assistance to farmers affected by the separation wall.” This project has included the building of cement pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, as well as installing and maintaining irrigation pipes and well pumps in the Palestinian villages of Bardalah and ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier—a network of concrete walls up to nine meters (about thirty feet) in height, electronically-monitored, barbed-wire fences, patrol roads, and trenches—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.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
To learn more about this project, see the article by Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell attached below or read it online at http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2616.pdf. To learn more about the ongoing experience of dispossession of Palestinians due to the wall and other discriminatory Israeli policies, check out the current issue of Forced Migration Review at http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm.
“Don’t say we did not know”
MCC partner the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) occasionally sends out brief stories they title “Don’t say we did not know”, describing the ongoing experience of Palestinian dispossession in the Occupied Territories. Here is an example of one of their recent accounts:
“The village Marda is situated near the settlement Ariel. IDF patrols arrive in the village often, at night or in the evening, while throwing shock grenades and ordering shopkeepers to close their shops, and then leave. Sometimes a building is evacuated and searched; sometimes someone's arrested.
“On the 7 November 2006 at 3 AM the soldiers arrived into one of the village's houses. They threw shock grenades and damaged the front door, broke a window, and then demanded the residents to leave. There was a woman with a one-year-old baby and a child aged three years. Her husband spent the night in a nearby village due to the olive harvest. The soldiers made the mother and children sit on the ground and pointed their guns at the children's heads, and did not let their grandmother to take them away. Then they led them to another house, 50 meters away (the residents of that house aren't related to the mother and children). There they were made to sit on the ground again, while the house was surrounded by soldiers making an arrest. At the same time relatives told the husband what has been happening. He arrived immediately but the soldiers did not let him enter the village.
“At around 5 AM the soldiers left.”
Unfortunately, this is just one of many such stories in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Only last week here in Bethlehem, an Israeli military incursion into our neighborhood left us stranded in our home, listening for hours to the sounds of machine-gun fire and shock grenades. The young man the military was seeking to abduct eventually gave himself up only after a giant bulldozer rolled down our street, threatening to demolish his family’s home.
To subscribe to ICAHD’s list you can send an email to STServ@icahd.org and type “subscribe international” in the body.
Advent Advocacy: Bethlehem “Then and Now”
Experiencing the Advent season in a place such as this is truly unique. It carries with it incredible feelings of closeness, a concreteness even as one visits those sites—the Church of the Nativity, the Shepherd’s Fields—that hold so much meaning and that themselves seem to play a role of their own in the Christmas story. Yet at the same time, those feelings of closeness are easily swallowed up by a sense of distance, of separation, of forsakeness as one surveys the situation here.
As we enter this season of Advent, Mennonite Church USA is urging us to remember the “little town” of Bethlehem. But the challenge is not only to remember this story as we imagine it “then” but to also remember the situation here “now.” Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
May the voices of these Palestinian sisters and brothers that are so often dismissed, silenced, and dehumanized speak loudly to you this Advent season, providing both a meaning and a challenge for your own celebration of the incarnational presence of “God with us” this Christmas.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
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Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell, “Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall,” Forced Migration Review, September 2006
· Steven Erlanger, “Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land,” New York Times, 21 November 2006
· Jeff Halper, “The Problem with Israel,” ICAHD, 23 November 2006
· Dr. Bernard Sabella, “Peace through Equality for All,” AMIN, November 17, 2006
· Ahdaf Soueif, “A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause,” The Guardian, 17 November 2006
· Dan Murphy, “No clash of civilizations, says UN report: A UN-sponsored group says the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of global tensions,” Christian Science Monitor, 14 November 2006
· Amira Hass, “How a Beit Hanun family was destroyed,” Haaretz, 13 Novemner 2006
· Ali Abunimah, “South Africa seen as model for Palestine,” Chicago Tribune, 12 November 2006
· Gideon Levy, “No one is guilty in Israel,” Haaretz, 12 November 2006
· Christopher Brown, “Interview: Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence,” The Electronic Intifada, 1 November 2006
· Amir Tibon, “Refusenik Omri Evron: ‘Why I can't become a soldier in the IDF,’” The Electronic Intifada, 28 October 2006
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Forced Migration Review
Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall
Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell
September 2006
The Wall follows a zig-zag path, in some places deviating up to 14km from the internationally recognised Green Line which separates Israel from the OPT. The Wall comes very close to several Palestinian towns and villages. In many cases this means farmland next to or near these towns has been ‘moved’ to the Israeli side of the Wall. Many Palestinian farmers are now physically separated from both their land and water sources – and risk losing their only source of income in an already struggling economy. In the northern districts of Tulkarem and Qalqilya at least 6,000 farms have been directly affected. These districts represent some 20-25% of total Palestinian agricultural production. Many irrigation networks have been destroyed by military and Wall construction vehicles. Catholic Relief Services (CRS), in partnership with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), has initiated a project for ‘Emergency assistance to farmers affected by the separation wall’…
The Wall is a source of extreme economic, social and political tension for communities in the West Bank. While CRS is pleased with the positive impact of an initiative to provide farmers with income and incentives to remain on their land, we also recognise that the existence of the Wall has broader consequences that cannot be resolved by the programme alone. There are many complex issues that require international attention if there is to be economic and social justice in the West Bank. By reducing the negative impact of the Wall on local populations, we have only addressed one small component of the problem: the Wall itself. In the words of the late Pope John Paul II, “the Holy Land does not need walls, but bridges!”
Please read more at http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2616.pdf
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The New York Times
Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land
Steven Erlanger
21 November 2006
An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.
Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and only takes land there legally or, for security reasons, temporarily.
If big sections of those settlements are indeed privately held Palestinian land, that is bound to create embarrassment for Israel and further complicate the already distant prospect of a negotiated peace. The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that Israel plans to keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is private.
The new claims regarding Palestinian property are said to come from the 2004 database of the Civil Administration, which controls the civilian aspects of Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Peace Now, an Israeli group that advocates Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, plans to publish the information on Tuesday. An advance copy was made available to The New York Times.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
The Problem with Israel
Jeff Halper
23 November 2006
The problem is Israel in both its pre- and post-state forms, which for the past 100 years has steadfastly refused to recognize the national existence and rights of self-determination of the Palestinian people. Time and again it has said “no” to any possibility of genuine peace making, and in the clearest of terms. The latest example is the Convergence Plan (or Realignment) of Ehud Olmert, which seeks to end the conflict forever by imposing Israeli control over a “sovereign” Palestinian pseudo-state. “Israel will maintain control over the security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty,” Olmert declared at the January 2006 Herzliya Conference. “We will not allow the entry of Palestinian refugees into the State of Israel.” Olmert’s plan, which he had promised to implement just as soon as Hamas and Hezbollah were dispensed with, would have perpetuated Israeli control over the Occupied Territories. It could not possibly have given rise to a viable Palestinian state. While the “Separation Barrier,” Israel’s demographic border to the east, takes only 10-15% of the West Bank, it incorporates into Israel the major settlement blocs, carves the West Bank into small, disconnected, impoverished “cantons” (Sharon’s word), removes from the Palestinians their richest agricultural land and one of the major sources of water. It also creates a “greater” Israeli Jerusalem over the entire central portion of the West Bank, thereby cutting the economic, cultural, religious and historic heart out of any Palestinian state. It then sandwiches the Palestinians between the Wall/border and yet another “security” border, the Jordan Valley, giving Israel two eastern borders. Israel would retain control of all the resources necessary for a viable Palestinian state, and for good measure Israel would appropriate the Palestinians’ airspace, their communications sphere and even the right of a Palestinian state to conduct its own foreign policy. This plan is obviously unacceptable to the Palestinians – a fact Olmert knows full well – so it must be imposed unilaterally, with American assistance. But who cares?
The question then is, will the international community, the only force capable of putting an end to the superfluous destabilization of the global system caused by Israel’s Occupation, step in and finally impose a settlement agreeable to all the parties? So far, the answer appears to be “no,” constrained in large part by America’s view that Israel is still a valuable ally in its faltering “war on terror.” Only when the international community – led probably by Europe rather than the US, which appears to be hopeless in this regard – decides that the price is too high and adopts a more assertive policy towards the Occupation will Israel’s ability to manipulate end. Civil society’s active intervention is crucial. We – Israelis, Palestinians and internationals – can formulate precisely what the large majority of Israelis and Palestinians crave: a win-win alternative to Israel’s self-serving and failed “security” framing based on irreducible human rights. Such a campaign would contribute measurably to yet another critical project: A meta-campaign in which progressive forces throughout the world articulate a truly new world order founded on inclusiveness, justice, peace and reconciliation. If, in the end, Israel sparks such a reframing, if it generates a movement of global inclusiveness and dialogue, then it might, in spite of itself, yet be the “light unto the nations” it has always aspired to be.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Arabic Media Internet Network
Peace through Equality for All
Dr. Bernard Sabella
17 November 2006
Our experience as Palestinian Christians is closely linked to that of the Palestinian people as a whole. Historically, Christian-Muslim relations in Palestine have been based on what we call "the dialogue of life" as we work together, our children go to school together and we share the same bitter and sweet conditions of life. We are proud, as Palestinian Christians, to have contributed such leaders as the late intellectual Edward Said, spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi, and current PLO envoy to the U.S. Afif Safieh. We work with our Muslim compatriots to end Israel 's military occupation and establish a viable, geographically-contiguous, democratic and secular Palestinian state at peace with itself and with its neighbors. In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, only three percent of Palestinians support Islamic rule. The vast majority supports secular nationalism.
Our relations are periodically tested by outside developments such as His Holiness the Pope's recent comments on Islam. Acts of Church vandalism in the West Bank and Gaza followed, and troubled us all, Christians and Muslims, particularly in light of centuries of Muslim respect for Christian and Jewish communities, both here and elsewhere in the Middle East . We were supported by our Muslim neighbors, religious leaders and the Palestinian National Authority in condemning these acts and promising to pursue the perpetrators. Muslims sat side by side with Christians in churches that were vandalized.
Christians and others in America who have our true interests at heart would help us most by urging even-handed U.S. policies. The blockade of the Palestinian government that began in March must end. A cease-fire must be observed by both sides, not only by Palestinians. Negotiations must be based on international law and human rights, and if conditions are imposed for talks, they must be reciprocal on both parties.
This land belongs to no single people. Peace will come when no group dominates and excludes others. Christ's message of love and tolerance will be heard in the Holy Land when the equality of all God's children is again respected. The vital bridge that Palestinian Christians constitute between the West and the Arab world would then be preserved for the benefit of future generations.
Please read more at: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=11968&CategoryId=5
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The Guardian
A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
Ahdaf Soueif
17 November 2006
The secret rotting at the core of the state of Israel is its refusal to admit that the Zionist project in Palestine - to create a state based on the dispossession of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land - was never noble: the land it coveted was the home of another people, and the fathers of the Israeli nation killed, terrorised and displaced them to turn the project into actuality. But the Palestinian nation lives on - visibly and noisily and everywhere. To make its own denial stick, Israel has to deny and suppress Palestinian history. To impose its design on Palestine, it has to somehow make the Palestinians disappear. "Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill"; and so the ethnicide continues. The new deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, plots against the Palestinians within Israel. The Israeli army kills and terrorises the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine. Meanwhile, Israel insists it is civilised, decent, peaceable - a light unto nations. How can a society caught in such delusion thrive? And how can people living within the Zionist project as privileged Jewish citizens bewail their embattled lot or be puzzled by it? Liberal Israelis of the left should heed another couple of lines from the bard: "Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more."
Since 1988, initiatives, peace talks and road maps have aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in Jerusalem, and to do justly by the Palestinian refugees. For 12 years none of this happened, and first-hand accounts of the Camp David talks in 2000 show that Israel did not have the political will then to make the necessary minimum offer. Presumably it still doesn't; hence the "sealed envelopes". But, perhaps because the stakes are now so high, people are once again speaking of the visionary solution: the secular democratic state, a homeland for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The Palestinian social scientist Ali Abunimah and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé's recent books are the latest to make the case for this. They find hope, as Pappé puts it, in "those sections of Jewish society in Israel that have chosen to let themselves be shaped by human considerations rather than Zionist social engineering" and in "the majority of the Palestinians who have refused to let themselves be dehumanised by decades of brutal Israeli occupation and who, despite years of expulsion and oppression, still hope for reconciliation".
Please read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950034,00.html
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Christian Science Monitor
No clash of civilizations, says UN report: A UN-sponsored group says the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of global tensions
Dan Murphy
14 November 2006
A UN-sponsored group called the Alliance of Civilizations, created last year to find ways to bridge the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies, released a first report Monday that says the conflict over Israel and the Palestinian territories is the central driver in global tensions.
"Our emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not meant to imply that it is the overt cause of all tensions between Muslim and Western societies," write the report's authors, a group of academics and present and former government officials from 19 different countries. "Nevertheless, it is our view that the Israeli-Palestinian issue has taken on a symbolic value that colors cross cultural and political relations ... well beyond its limited geographic scope."
But while the authors hope their report will invigorate and create cross-cultural dialogue, its tone implies that it is unlikely to be well received by the United States and Israel, focusing as it does on allegations of double standards by those two nations while giving less time to the faults of the Palestinians or specific Muslim governments.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Haaretz
How a Beit Hanun family was destroyed
Amira Hass
13 November 2006
The first shell that struck the house sent up a big cloud of dust and smoke. The parents and older children felt around in the sudden darkness of the morning, looking for the small children - to see if anyone had been hurt, to find and hold them, to run with them into the street.
Zahar, 33, is now lying wounded in the hospital in Beit Hanun; she has undergone one operation to remove shrapnel from her abdomen and is waiting for another on her leg. She was unhurt by the first shell. So was her 9-year-old son Sa'ed. They lived on the first floor of the house, in the east wing. After the first shell, she ran to where he was sleeping under the window. The light filtered in through the cloud of dust, and she saw his blanket was covered by fragments of broken glass. She pulled it off and found him shaking. "You weren't hit," she said, urging him to run and join her other children, May, Rami and Fadi, who fled with her downstairs.
Her 14-year-old daughter May helped her find her headscarf, skirt and pants, but she had no time to cover her head. Holding 5-month-old Maha, Zahar ran to the lane below the house. She gave the baby to a sister-in-law so she could put on her scarf, and then the second shell fell on the east wing of the house.
Was Sa'ed killed by this shell or by the third one, which also struck the house dead on? She does not remember. She was hit by the fourth shell, which struck the veranda.
But at this point, Zahar was still unharmed. She bent over Sa'ed, who was lying with all the other dead and wounded in the lane. A few seconds earlier, the other family members had run panicked into the street to get out of the house after the first shell. Zahar wiped the blood from Sa'ed's mouth and ran to the main street, calling for help. She ran back to her son to try to revive him, to wake him, and then the fourth shell hit.
At first she did not notice she had been wounded, that she was bleeding and her leg was torn down to the bone. She sat down among the bodies and tried to bring Sa'ed back to life. Her second son, Fadi, was injured. She doesn't know which shell did it. Her third son, Rami, fled into the garden of his uncle and neighbor, Dr. Hussein Athamneh, but the sixth shell found him there. Rami then ran into the street, toward the house of his uncle and aunt. The seventh shell found him outside their house, where it exploded.
The seven shells killed 18 members of the Athamneh family that day.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Chicago Tribune
South Africa seen as model for Palestine
Ali Abunimah
12 November 2006
The two-state solution remains attractive and comforting in its apparent simplicity and finality. But in reality, it has proved unattainable because neither Palestinians nor Israelis are willing to give up enough of the country that they love. Faced with this impasse, a small but growing group of Israelis and Palestinians are tentatively exploring an old idea long dormant: Why not have a single state in which both peoples enjoy equal rights and protections and religious freedom? Many people dismiss this as utopian dreaming.
Allister Sparks, the legendary editor of the anti-apartheid Rand Daily Mail newspaper, observed that the conflict in South Africa most resembled those in Northern Ireland and Palestine-Israel, because each involved "two ethno-nationalisms" in a seemingly irreconcilable rivalry for the "same piece of territory." If the prospect of "one secular country shared by all" seems "unthinkable" in Palestine-Israel today, then it is possible to appreciate how unlikely such a solution once seemed in South Africa. But "that is what we did," Sparks says, "without any foreign negotiator [and] no handshakes on the White House lawn."
To be sure, Palestinians and Israelis would not simply be able to take the new South Africa as a blueprint. They would have to work out their own distinct constitution, including mechanisms for ethnic communities to have autonomy in matters that concern them, and to guarantee that no one group can dominate another. There would be hard work to heal the terrible wounds of the past. Such a solution offers the chance that Palestine-Israel could become for the first time ever the truly safe home where Israelis and Palestinians can accept each other. It may be an arduous path, but in the current impasse we cannot afford to ignore any ray of light.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Haaretz
No one is guilty in Israel
Gideon Levy
12 November 2006
Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants.
Therefore it takes considerable gall and cynicism to dare to claim that the Israel Defense Forces did not intend to kill inhabitants of Beit Hanun. Even if there was a glitch in the balancing of the aiming mechanism or in a component of the radar, a mistake in the input of the data or a human error, the overwhelming, crucial, shocking fact is that the IDF bombards helpless civilians. Even shells that are supposedly aimed 200 meters from houses, into "open areas," are intended to kill, and they do kill. In this respect, nothing new happened on Wednesday morning in Gaza: The IDF has been behaving like this for months now…
The heedless and arrogant reaction to such deeds contains a dangerous moral message. If it is possible to dismiss mass killing with a wealth of technical excuses, and not take any drastic measure against those who are truly guilty of it, then Israel is saying that, as far as it is concerned, nothing happened apart from the faulty component in the radar system or the glitch in balancing the sights. But what happened at Beit Hanun, what happened in Israel on the day after and what is continuing to happen in Gaza day after day is a far more frightening distortion than the calibrating of a gun sight.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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The Electronic Intifada
Interview: Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence
Christopher Brown
1 November 2006
Breaking the Silence (BTS) is a group of discharged soldiers who are veterans of the second Intifada, which began in September 2000. The group has tasked itself to reveal to the Israeli public the daily routine of life in the territories, a routine that gets no coverage in the media.
For Shaul and his comrades it was obvious that they were going to do something, and it was obvious that it was going to be about Hebron. Hebron is a Palestinian city in the West Bank located to the south of Jerusalem. It is considered a holy city to Jews, Muslims and Christians. This is where Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Jacob are buried in what is referred to by the Jews as The Tomb of The Patriarchs, and by the Muslims as al-Haram Ibrahimiyah. Furthermore, Abraham is an important figure in all three religions.
Out of the three years that he served in the occupied territories, 14 months were spent in Hebron. In March of 2004 Shaul was discharged. In June 2004 he and some comrades started BTS with a photo exhibition about Hebron.
The name Breaking the Silence was apt because what is going in the occupied territories is one of the biggest taboos in Israel. "It's like the thing you never talk about," says Shaul. "It's the dirt from the backyard that you do everything to keep in the backyard. The last thing you want is that this dirt will come to the front."
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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The Electronic Intifada
Refusenik Omri Evron: "Why I can't become a soldier in the IDF"
Amir Tibon
28 October 2006
Omri Evron, a 19-year-old from Tel-Aviv, is weeks away from earning his B.A. in ethical philosophy from the Tel-Aviv University (TAU). He started studying for this degree when he was still a high-school student.
Omri is known around the campus of TAU as a leading social activist. Last month, for example, he started a petition of university and high-school students from around the country, protesting the exploitation of maintenance and cleaning workers in educational institutions.
At least once a week, Omri visits the Palestinian village of Bili'in, showing his support for the local Palestinian farmers who are campaigning against the Israeli separation wall that separates them from about 50 percent of their lands. In Bili'in, just like in Tel-Aviv, Omri has earned the reputation of a respected human rights activist.
However, Omri is considered a criminal by Israeli authorities because he refuses to enlist to the Israeli military, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). National military service is compulsory for all Jewish citizens of Israel, which means every Jewish Israeli must enlist in the IDF at the age of 18.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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1 December 2006
“The Forgotten Faithful: The Challenge and the Witness of Palestinian Christians”
In early November, MCC partner the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/) held its 6th International Conference. This year’s theme was “The Forgotten Faithful: The Challenge and the Witness of Palestinian Christians.” Most of the speakers were local Palestinian Christians including Archbishops and Bishops from the Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, Syrian, Latin, Maronite, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
This was a unique conference as it took us to several different locations in Palestine / Israel, where participants worshiped in and visited 32 churches in 13 villages, experiencing fellowship with local sisters and brothers and a taste of Palestinian hospitality in the meals they shared. The conference began in East Jerusalem and then moved to Bethlehem, Jericho, and Ramallah, all of which are in the Occupied West Bank. Several local Christian communities in villages around Ramallah and Jericho were visited including Taybeh, Birzeit, and ‘Aboud. From there we traveled to the Galilee in northern Israel, to Nazareth. In the Galilee we again visited several Christian communities in villages like Jish, Ailaboun, and Maghar. The conference ended with a communion service on the shores of the Sea of Galilee at the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter—where it is believed that Jesus commissioned Peter to “feed my sheep” following the resurrection (John 21).
This was also a commissioning service for the conference participants to commit themselves to strive for peace with justice: to establish bonds of fellowship with Palestinian Christians and to stand in solidarity with all Palestinians in their struggle for liberation; to commit ourselves to active prayer, education, and advocacy on behalf of the Palestinian people; to campaign for truth and justice with the energy and consistency of an ever-flowing stream; to work without ceasing to bring healing and reconciliation to all people with God’s joy and peace in our hearts, especially to the people of the land where the first message of peace was proclaimed.
To read more of the conference statement, please visit: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=47.
To learn more about the conference itself, please visit: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=17.
Remembering the Nakba in Hebrew
MCC Israeli partner the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/) recently organized tours to the sites of two destroyed Palestinian villages. About two hundred visitors took part in a visit to the village of Tarshiha (photos and story: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=477) in the Galilee near the Lebanon border. Last week, another one hundred people visited the village of a-Shajara (photos and story: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=477), also in the Galilee, where they posted signs in Hebrew and in Arabic marking where the mosque, the schoolhouse, and the cemetery of the village lay. Such acts of memory not only resurrect the landscape of these villages—two of the over 500 Palestinian villages destroyed and whose residents were among the 750,000 to 900,000 Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes between 1947 and 1949 in what Palestinians remember as the Nakba or “catastrophe”—but also serve as shared acts where Israelis and Palestinians come together to embody an alternative reality of coexistence. To learn more about Tarshiha and a-Shajara, please visit http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Tarshiha/ and http://www.palestineremembered.com/Tiberias/al-Shajara/index.html.
“Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall”
Over the past year, MCC along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project for “Emergency assistance to farmers affected by the separation wall.” This project has included the building of cement pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, as well as installing and maintaining irrigation pipes and well pumps in the Palestinian villages of Bardalah and ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier—a network of concrete walls up to nine meters (about thirty feet) in height, electronically-monitored, barbed-wire fences, patrol roads, and trenches—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.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
To learn more about this project, see the article by Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell attached below or read it online at http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2616.pdf. To learn more about the ongoing experience of dispossession of Palestinians due to the wall and other discriminatory Israeli policies, check out the current issue of Forced Migration Review at http://www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm.
“Don’t say we did not know”
MCC partner the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) occasionally sends out brief stories they title “Don’t say we did not know”, describing the ongoing experience of Palestinian dispossession in the Occupied Territories. Here is an example of one of their recent accounts:
“The village Marda is situated near the settlement Ariel. IDF patrols arrive in the village often, at night or in the evening, while throwing shock grenades and ordering shopkeepers to close their shops, and then leave. Sometimes a building is evacuated and searched; sometimes someone's arrested.
“On the 7 November 2006 at 3 AM the soldiers arrived into one of the village's houses. They threw shock grenades and damaged the front door, broke a window, and then demanded the residents to leave. There was a woman with a one-year-old baby and a child aged three years. Her husband spent the night in a nearby village due to the olive harvest. The soldiers made the mother and children sit on the ground and pointed their guns at the children's heads, and did not let their grandmother to take them away. Then they led them to another house, 50 meters away (the residents of that house aren't related to the mother and children). There they were made to sit on the ground again, while the house was surrounded by soldiers making an arrest. At the same time relatives told the husband what has been happening. He arrived immediately but the soldiers did not let him enter the village.
“At around 5 AM the soldiers left.”
Unfortunately, this is just one of many such stories in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Only last week here in Bethlehem, an Israeli military incursion into our neighborhood left us stranded in our home, listening for hours to the sounds of machine-gun fire and shock grenades. The young man the military was seeking to abduct eventually gave himself up only after a giant bulldozer rolled down our street, threatening to demolish his family’s home.
To subscribe to ICAHD’s list you can send an email to STServ@icahd.org and type “subscribe international” in the body.
Advent Advocacy: Bethlehem “Then and Now”
Experiencing the Advent season in a place such as this is truly unique. It carries with it incredible feelings of closeness, a concreteness even as one visits those sites—the Church of the Nativity, the Shepherd’s Fields—that hold so much meaning and that themselves seem to play a role of their own in the Christmas story. Yet at the same time, those feelings of closeness are easily swallowed up by a sense of distance, of separation, of forsakeness as one surveys the situation here.
As we enter this season of Advent, Mennonite Church USA is urging us to remember the “little town” of Bethlehem. But the challenge is not only to remember this story as we imagine it “then” but to also remember the situation here “now.” Please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/ for more information on this campaign. To find out more about specific suggestions for how you can get involved, please visit http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/advent06/actions.html.
May the voices of these Palestinian sisters and brothers that are so often dismissed, silenced, and dehumanized speak loudly to you this Advent season, providing both a meaning and a challenge for your own celebration of the incarnational presence of “God with us” this Christmas.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
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Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell, “Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall,” Forced Migration Review, September 2006
· Steven Erlanger, “Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land,” New York Times, 21 November 2006
· Jeff Halper, “The Problem with Israel,” ICAHD, 23 November 2006
· Dr. Bernard Sabella, “Peace through Equality for All,” AMIN, November 17, 2006
· Ahdaf Soueif, “A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause,” The Guardian, 17 November 2006
· Dan Murphy, “No clash of civilizations, says UN report: A UN-sponsored group says the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of global tensions,” Christian Science Monitor, 14 November 2006
· Amira Hass, “How a Beit Hanun family was destroyed,” Haaretz, 13 Novemner 2006
· Ali Abunimah, “South Africa seen as model for Palestine,” Chicago Tribune, 12 November 2006
· Gideon Levy, “No one is guilty in Israel,” Haaretz, 12 November 2006
· Christopher Brown, “Interview: Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence,” The Electronic Intifada, 1 November 2006
· Amir Tibon, “Refusenik Omri Evron: ‘Why I can't become a soldier in the IDF,’” The Electronic Intifada, 28 October 2006
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Forced Migration Review
Emergency assistance for farmers affected by the Wall
Saed Essawi and Emily Ardell
September 2006
The Wall follows a zig-zag path, in some places deviating up to 14km from the internationally recognised Green Line which separates Israel from the OPT. The Wall comes very close to several Palestinian towns and villages. In many cases this means farmland next to or near these towns has been ‘moved’ to the Israeli side of the Wall. Many Palestinian farmers are now physically separated from both their land and water sources – and risk losing their only source of income in an already struggling economy. In the northern districts of Tulkarem and Qalqilya at least 6,000 farms have been directly affected. These districts represent some 20-25% of total Palestinian agricultural production. Many irrigation networks have been destroyed by military and Wall construction vehicles. Catholic Relief Services (CRS), in partnership with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), has initiated a project for ‘Emergency assistance to farmers affected by the separation wall’…
The Wall is a source of extreme economic, social and political tension for communities in the West Bank. While CRS is pleased with the positive impact of an initiative to provide farmers with income and incentives to remain on their land, we also recognise that the existence of the Wall has broader consequences that cannot be resolved by the programme alone. There are many complex issues that require international attention if there is to be economic and social justice in the West Bank. By reducing the negative impact of the Wall on local populations, we have only addressed one small component of the problem: the Wall itself. In the words of the late Pope John Paul II, “the Holy Land does not need walls, but bridges!”
Please read more at http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2616.pdf
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The New York Times
Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land
Steven Erlanger
21 November 2006
An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.
Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and only takes land there legally or, for security reasons, temporarily.
If big sections of those settlements are indeed privately held Palestinian land, that is bound to create embarrassment for Israel and further complicate the already distant prospect of a negotiated peace. The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that Israel plans to keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is private.
The new claims regarding Palestinian property are said to come from the 2004 database of the Civil Administration, which controls the civilian aspects of Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Peace Now, an Israeli group that advocates Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, plans to publish the information on Tuesday. An advance copy was made available to The New York Times.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
The Problem with Israel
Jeff Halper
23 November 2006
The problem is Israel in both its pre- and post-state forms, which for the past 100 years has steadfastly refused to recognize the national existence and rights of self-determination of the Palestinian people. Time and again it has said “no” to any possibility of genuine peace making, and in the clearest of terms. The latest example is the Convergence Plan (or Realignment) of Ehud Olmert, which seeks to end the conflict forever by imposing Israeli control over a “sovereign” Palestinian pseudo-state. “Israel will maintain control over the security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty,” Olmert declared at the January 2006 Herzliya Conference. “We will not allow the entry of Palestinian refugees into the State of Israel.” Olmert’s plan, which he had promised to implement just as soon as Hamas and Hezbollah were dispensed with, would have perpetuated Israeli control over the Occupied Territories. It could not possibly have given rise to a viable Palestinian state. While the “Separation Barrier,” Israel’s demographic border to the east, takes only 10-15% of the West Bank, it incorporates into Israel the major settlement blocs, carves the West Bank into small, disconnected, impoverished “cantons” (Sharon’s word), removes from the Palestinians their richest agricultural land and one of the major sources of water. It also creates a “greater” Israeli Jerusalem over the entire central portion of the West Bank, thereby cutting the economic, cultural, religious and historic heart out of any Palestinian state. It then sandwiches the Palestinians between the Wall/border and yet another “security” border, the Jordan Valley, giving Israel two eastern borders. Israel would retain control of all the resources necessary for a viable Palestinian state, and for good measure Israel would appropriate the Palestinians’ airspace, their communications sphere and even the right of a Palestinian state to conduct its own foreign policy. This plan is obviously unacceptable to the Palestinians – a fact Olmert knows full well – so it must be imposed unilaterally, with American assistance. But who cares?
The question then is, will the international community, the only force capable of putting an end to the superfluous destabilization of the global system caused by Israel’s Occupation, step in and finally impose a settlement agreeable to all the parties? So far, the answer appears to be “no,” constrained in large part by America’s view that Israel is still a valuable ally in its faltering “war on terror.” Only when the international community – led probably by Europe rather than the US, which appears to be hopeless in this regard – decides that the price is too high and adopts a more assertive policy towards the Occupation will Israel’s ability to manipulate end. Civil society’s active intervention is crucial. We – Israelis, Palestinians and internationals – can formulate precisely what the large majority of Israelis and Palestinians crave: a win-win alternative to Israel’s self-serving and failed “security” framing based on irreducible human rights. Such a campaign would contribute measurably to yet another critical project: A meta-campaign in which progressive forces throughout the world articulate a truly new world order founded on inclusiveness, justice, peace and reconciliation. If, in the end, Israel sparks such a reframing, if it generates a movement of global inclusiveness and dialogue, then it might, in spite of itself, yet be the “light unto the nations” it has always aspired to be.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Arabic Media Internet Network
Peace through Equality for All
Dr. Bernard Sabella
17 November 2006
Our experience as Palestinian Christians is closely linked to that of the Palestinian people as a whole. Historically, Christian-Muslim relations in Palestine have been based on what we call "the dialogue of life" as we work together, our children go to school together and we share the same bitter and sweet conditions of life. We are proud, as Palestinian Christians, to have contributed such leaders as the late intellectual Edward Said, spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi, and current PLO envoy to the U.S. Afif Safieh. We work with our Muslim compatriots to end Israel 's military occupation and establish a viable, geographically-contiguous, democratic and secular Palestinian state at peace with itself and with its neighbors. In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, only three percent of Palestinians support Islamic rule. The vast majority supports secular nationalism.
Our relations are periodically tested by outside developments such as His Holiness the Pope's recent comments on Islam. Acts of Church vandalism in the West Bank and Gaza followed, and troubled us all, Christians and Muslims, particularly in light of centuries of Muslim respect for Christian and Jewish communities, both here and elsewhere in the Middle East . We were supported by our Muslim neighbors, religious leaders and the Palestinian National Authority in condemning these acts and promising to pursue the perpetrators. Muslims sat side by side with Christians in churches that were vandalized.
Christians and others in America who have our true interests at heart would help us most by urging even-handed U.S. policies. The blockade of the Palestinian government that began in March must end. A cease-fire must be observed by both sides, not only by Palestinians. Negotiations must be based on international law and human rights, and if conditions are imposed for talks, they must be reciprocal on both parties.
This land belongs to no single people. Peace will come when no group dominates and excludes others. Christ's message of love and tolerance will be heard in the Holy Land when the equality of all God's children is again respected. The vital bridge that Palestinian Christians constitute between the West and the Arab world would then be preserved for the benefit of future generations.
Please read more at: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=11968&CategoryId=5
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The Guardian
A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
Ahdaf Soueif
17 November 2006
The secret rotting at the core of the state of Israel is its refusal to admit that the Zionist project in Palestine - to create a state based on the dispossession of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land - was never noble: the land it coveted was the home of another people, and the fathers of the Israeli nation killed, terrorised and displaced them to turn the project into actuality. But the Palestinian nation lives on - visibly and noisily and everywhere. To make its own denial stick, Israel has to deny and suppress Palestinian history. To impose its design on Palestine, it has to somehow make the Palestinians disappear. "Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill"; and so the ethnicide continues. The new deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, plots against the Palestinians within Israel. The Israeli army kills and terrorises the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine. Meanwhile, Israel insists it is civilised, decent, peaceable - a light unto nations. How can a society caught in such delusion thrive? And how can people living within the Zionist project as privileged Jewish citizens bewail their embattled lot or be puzzled by it? Liberal Israelis of the left should heed another couple of lines from the bard: "Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more."
Since 1988, initiatives, peace talks and road maps have aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in Jerusalem, and to do justly by the Palestinian refugees. For 12 years none of this happened, and first-hand accounts of the Camp David talks in 2000 show that Israel did not have the political will then to make the necessary minimum offer. Presumably it still doesn't; hence the "sealed envelopes". But, perhaps because the stakes are now so high, people are once again speaking of the visionary solution: the secular democratic state, a homeland for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The Palestinian social scientist Ali Abunimah and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé's recent books are the latest to make the case for this. They find hope, as Pappé puts it, in "those sections of Jewish society in Israel that have chosen to let themselves be shaped by human considerations rather than Zionist social engineering" and in "the majority of the Palestinians who have refused to let themselves be dehumanised by decades of brutal Israeli occupation and who, despite years of expulsion and oppression, still hope for reconciliation".
Please read more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1950034,00.html
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Christian Science Monitor
No clash of civilizations, says UN report: A UN-sponsored group says the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of global tensions
Dan Murphy
14 November 2006
A UN-sponsored group called the Alliance of Civilizations, created last year to find ways to bridge the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies, released a first report Monday that says the conflict over Israel and the Palestinian territories is the central driver in global tensions.
"Our emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not meant to imply that it is the overt cause of all tensions between Muslim and Western societies," write the report's authors, a group of academics and present and former government officials from 19 different countries. "Nevertheless, it is our view that the Israeli-Palestinian issue has taken on a symbolic value that colors cross cultural and political relations ... well beyond its limited geographic scope."
But while the authors hope their report will invigorate and create cross-cultural dialogue, its tone implies that it is unlikely to be well received by the United States and Israel, focusing as it does on allegations of double standards by those two nations while giving less time to the faults of the Palestinians or specific Muslim governments.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Haaretz
How a Beit Hanun family was destroyed
Amira Hass
13 November 2006
The first shell that struck the house sent up a big cloud of dust and smoke. The parents and older children felt around in the sudden darkness of the morning, looking for the small children - to see if anyone had been hurt, to find and hold them, to run with them into the street.
Zahar, 33, is now lying wounded in the hospital in Beit Hanun; she has undergone one operation to remove shrapnel from her abdomen and is waiting for another on her leg. She was unhurt by the first shell. So was her 9-year-old son Sa'ed. They lived on the first floor of the house, in the east wing. After the first shell, she ran to where he was sleeping under the window. The light filtered in through the cloud of dust, and she saw his blanket was covered by fragments of broken glass. She pulled it off and found him shaking. "You weren't hit," she said, urging him to run and join her other children, May, Rami and Fadi, who fled with her downstairs.
Her 14-year-old daughter May helped her find her headscarf, skirt and pants, but she had no time to cover her head. Holding 5-month-old Maha, Zahar ran to the lane below the house. She gave the baby to a sister-in-law so she could put on her scarf, and then the second shell fell on the east wing of the house.
Was Sa'ed killed by this shell or by the third one, which also struck the house dead on? She does not remember. She was hit by the fourth shell, which struck the veranda.
But at this point, Zahar was still unharmed. She bent over Sa'ed, who was lying with all the other dead and wounded in the lane. A few seconds earlier, the other family members had run panicked into the street to get out of the house after the first shell. Zahar wiped the blood from Sa'ed's mouth and ran to the main street, calling for help. She ran back to her son to try to revive him, to wake him, and then the fourth shell hit.
At first she did not notice she had been wounded, that she was bleeding and her leg was torn down to the bone. She sat down among the bodies and tried to bring Sa'ed back to life. Her second son, Fadi, was injured. She doesn't know which shell did it. Her third son, Rami, fled into the garden of his uncle and neighbor, Dr. Hussein Athamneh, but the sixth shell found him there. Rami then ran into the street, toward the house of his uncle and aunt. The seventh shell found him outside their house, where it exploded.
The seven shells killed 18 members of the Athamneh family that day.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Chicago Tribune
South Africa seen as model for Palestine
Ali Abunimah
12 November 2006
The two-state solution remains attractive and comforting in its apparent simplicity and finality. But in reality, it has proved unattainable because neither Palestinians nor Israelis are willing to give up enough of the country that they love. Faced with this impasse, a small but growing group of Israelis and Palestinians are tentatively exploring an old idea long dormant: Why not have a single state in which both peoples enjoy equal rights and protections and religious freedom? Many people dismiss this as utopian dreaming.
Allister Sparks, the legendary editor of the anti-apartheid Rand Daily Mail newspaper, observed that the conflict in South Africa most resembled those in Northern Ireland and Palestine-Israel, because each involved "two ethno-nationalisms" in a seemingly irreconcilable rivalry for the "same piece of territory." If the prospect of "one secular country shared by all" seems "unthinkable" in Palestine-Israel today, then it is possible to appreciate how unlikely such a solution once seemed in South Africa. But "that is what we did," Sparks says, "without any foreign negotiator [and] no handshakes on the White House lawn."
To be sure, Palestinians and Israelis would not simply be able to take the new South Africa as a blueprint. They would have to work out their own distinct constitution, including mechanisms for ethnic communities to have autonomy in matters that concern them, and to guarantee that no one group can dominate another. There would be hard work to heal the terrible wounds of the past. Such a solution offers the chance that Palestine-Israel could become for the first time ever the truly safe home where Israelis and Palestinians can accept each other. It may be an arduous path, but in the current impasse we cannot afford to ignore any ray of light.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Haaretz
No one is guilty in Israel
Gideon Levy
12 November 2006
Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants.
Therefore it takes considerable gall and cynicism to dare to claim that the Israel Defense Forces did not intend to kill inhabitants of Beit Hanun. Even if there was a glitch in the balancing of the aiming mechanism or in a component of the radar, a mistake in the input of the data or a human error, the overwhelming, crucial, shocking fact is that the IDF bombards helpless civilians. Even shells that are supposedly aimed 200 meters from houses, into "open areas," are intended to kill, and they do kill. In this respect, nothing new happened on Wednesday morning in Gaza: The IDF has been behaving like this for months now…
The heedless and arrogant reaction to such deeds contains a dangerous moral message. If it is possible to dismiss mass killing with a wealth of technical excuses, and not take any drastic measure against those who are truly guilty of it, then Israel is saying that, as far as it is concerned, nothing happened apart from the faulty component in the radar system or the glitch in balancing the sights. But what happened at Beit Hanun, what happened in Israel on the day after and what is continuing to happen in Gaza day after day is a far more frightening distortion than the calibrating of a gun sight.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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The Electronic Intifada
Interview: Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence
Christopher Brown
1 November 2006
Breaking the Silence (BTS) is a group of discharged soldiers who are veterans of the second Intifada, which began in September 2000. The group has tasked itself to reveal to the Israeli public the daily routine of life in the territories, a routine that gets no coverage in the media.
For Shaul and his comrades it was obvious that they were going to do something, and it was obvious that it was going to be about Hebron. Hebron is a Palestinian city in the West Bank located to the south of Jerusalem. It is considered a holy city to Jews, Muslims and Christians. This is where Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Jacob are buried in what is referred to by the Jews as The Tomb of The Patriarchs, and by the Muslims as al-Haram Ibrahimiyah. Furthermore, Abraham is an important figure in all three religions.
Out of the three years that he served in the occupied territories, 14 months were spent in Hebron. In March of 2004 Shaul was discharged. In June 2004 he and some comrades started BTS with a photo exhibition about Hebron.
The name Breaking the Silence was apt because what is going in the occupied territories is one of the biggest taboos in Israel. "It's like the thing you never talk about," says Shaul. "It's the dirt from the backyard that you do everything to keep in the backyard. The last thing you want is that this dirt will come to the front."
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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The Electronic Intifada
Refusenik Omri Evron: "Why I can't become a soldier in the IDF"
Amir Tibon
28 October 2006
Omri Evron, a 19-year-old from Tel-Aviv, is weeks away from earning his B.A. in ethical philosophy from the Tel-Aviv University (TAU). He started studying for this degree when he was still a high-school student.
Omri is known around the campus of TAU as a leading social activist. Last month, for example, he started a petition of university and high-school students from around the country, protesting the exploitation of maintenance and cleaning workers in educational institutions.
At least once a week, Omri visits the Palestinian village of Bili'in, showing his support for the local Palestinian farmers who are campaigning against the Israeli separation wall that separates them from about 50 percent of their lands. In Bili'in, just like in Tel-Aviv, Omri has earned the reputation of a respected human rights activist.
However, Omri is considered a criminal by Israeli authorities because he refuses to enlist to the Israeli military, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). National military service is compulsory for all Jewish citizens of Israel, which means every Jewish Israeli must enlist in the IDF at the age of 18.
Please read more at: http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
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Wednesday, November 15
MCC Palestine Update #129
MCC Palestine Update #129
15 November 2006
In this update, we want to share with you a few things. As the siege of Gaza continues, the people there continue to suffer. One U.N. observer noted that the collective punishment perpetrated against the people of Gaza since Israel embarked on a military operation it called “Operation Summer Rains” began in late June, has resulted “in over 300 deaths, including many civilians; over 1,000 injuries; large-scale devastation of public facilities and private homes; the destruction of agricultural lands; the disruption of hospitals, clinics and schools; the denial of access to adequate electricity, water and food; and the occupation and imprisonment of the people of Gaza” (“U.N. officials voice ‘shock and dismay’ at deadly Israeli shelling of Gaza civilians,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5997.shtml). In the past two week alone, up to 80 Palestinians have been killed as Israel has stepped up its daily shelling, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. The most heart-breaking and obscene display was the Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun last week that left at least 18 Palestinians dead and over 50 injured (“Israeli tank shells ‘kill 18 Palestinians in sleep,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1962534.ece). Unfortunately, though the United Nations Security Council entertained a resolution condemning this atrocious act, in the end the resolution was vetoed by the United States (“U.S. vetoes U.N. condemnation of Beit Hanun deaths,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786535.html). And so, the slaughter in Gaza continues.
We want to lift up the voices of two of MCC’s partners in particular, who have recently released statements regarding the current situation in Gaza. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) circulated a letter that was sent by several respected and concerned Israeli citizens to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, protesting the current Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip and demanding they cease their provocative and devastating actions there.
Another of our partners the Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA; http://www.palnet.com/~cfta/) based in the southern Gaza Strip, in the city of Khan Younis, also recently circulated an appeal, this one to the international community at large, pleading for some sort of intervention, asking: “Where is the world’s conscience?”
These letters, as well as some additional reflections, are attached below. To learn more about these events, please visit http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/442.shtml, http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/651.shtml, http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/653.shtml.
As we approach Advent, we join Lutheran Bishop Younan who, in his letter included below, implores:
“As we soon enter the Advent season, I ask our Christian sisters and brothers, and all people of good conscience and faiths, to be with us in prayer and fasting. Many are losing hope, and the relentless killing and calls for retaliation make us afraid that we are on the brink of an even bloodier season. Please, be our voices in your countries to call for an end to the violence and the beginning of dialogue. Thank you for your prayers and support, and may God bless us and bring healing peace to our land.”
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
________________________________
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 30 October 2006
· “Beit Hanoun appealing and screaming: Where is the world's conscience?” The Culture and Free Thought Association
· Patrick Seale, “Israel’s scandalous siege of Gaza,” International Herald Tribune, 28 October 2006
· Bishop Munib A. Younan, “I have come to give them life, and life abundantly,” Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), 9 November 2006
· Philip Rizk, “This is Beit Hanoun,” 9 November 2006
· Jameela al-Shanti, “We overcame our fear,” The Guardian, 9 November 2006
________________________________
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip
October 30, 2006
To: Prime Minister Mr. Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem
Minister of Defense Mr. Amir Peretz, Tel Aviv
Re: Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip
Dear Sir,
Enclosed please find a petition signed by 1,348 women and men in Israel and abroad protesting the unbearable situation ongoing in Gaza Strip.
We demand that the Government of Israel and its army put a stop to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza Strip and immediately lift the siege that is suffocating the area.
Enclosed are the first signees: Shulamit Aloni, Naomi Chazan, Ruhama Marton, Adi Ophir, Oren Yiftachel, Uri Avnery, Rachel Avnery, Ronit Matalon, Yossi Algazy, Yitzhak Laor, Anat Biletzky , Rachel Giora, Mossi Raz, Anat matar, Yehuda Shenhav, Gerardo Leibner, Nitza Yanay, Gulie Ne'eman Arad.
Sincerely,
In behalf of the petition initiators
Dr. Joseph Algazy Haia Noach
Tel: 03-5516194 08-6469029, 0524-26901
7 Mohaliver st. Bat-Yam 9 Erez st. Omer
***
We know: In recent months the IDF has killed in the Gaza strip alone 245 human beings, 62 of whom were children, and another 25 were women;
We know: Palestinian physicians complain of "Flachette" arrow wounds and other effects of banned ammunition;
We know: That the Gaza Strip is under strict siege;
We know: The sick and wounded are dying in hospitals due to lack of medicines and expert physicians, caused by the closing of the passages to Israel, Egypt and Jordan;
We know: The entire population, children, women, men, elderly and infants, suffer from malnutrition;
We know: Day by day, bombs and bulldozers destroy houses whose dwellers are rendered roofless;
We know: The Gaza Strip is in throes of a humanitarian crisis;
We know: War Crimes are perpetrated at this moment in the Gaza Strip;
We know: The IDF actions in the Gaza-strip risk the life of Gilad Shalit;
We Know!
We protest and demand from the Israeli government and the IDF:
Stop the carnage!
Stop the destruction!
Stop the siege on the Gaza strip!
We call upon all of you who honor human life and dignity - to join our protest.
Telephone and fax list:
The chief of staff bureau: Fax 03-6976218
IDF Spokesman: Fax 03-6080312, email spokesperson@mail.idf.il
The prime-minister bureau: Tel. 03-6109898, 02-6705555, Fax: 02-6705475, email pmo.heb@it.pmo.gov.il
________________________________
Culture and Free Thought Association
Beit Hanoun appealing and screaming: Where is the world's conscience?
For all of the world
For all of honorable people all over the world
For all of human consciences
Residents of Beit Hanoun awoke to the sound of explosions and screams, where the bodies were torn apart, where houses were demolished, where unarmed civilians were trapped under debris, where cries of distress resound everywhere. Ambulances were unable to handle the number of killed and injured; before Israeli forces stormed Beit Hanoun, dozens of tanks and military vehicles invaded with several bulldozers. Under air cover Israeli forces opened machine gun fire at homes and property, while bulldozers destroyed large tracts of land. Beit Hanoun has been targeted by a systematic destruction of the infrastructure and mass punishments by incursions.
No one can believe what has happened in Beit Hanoun; the massacre is above imagination. It, once again, demonstrates the brutality of the Israeli aggression. These crimes reveal the brutality of the Israeli occupation against children and defenseless civilians. These people were targeted in their homes, at night, only because they are Palestinians and want to live a life of dignity.
We appeal to you. We appeal to your conscience, on behalf of all the concepts of humanity to stop this barbaric aggression against our people and our children; to stop the killing of unarmed civilians; to stop these war crimes; to stop the flagrant violations of all international laws and conventions.
Our people are appealing to you to stand up for their rights, in order to stop Israeli massacres and crimes against women, children, and unarmed civilians in Beit Hanoun, and all of Palestine.
Are you ready to pay attention to our appeals? We hope that you are…
On behalf of the human conscientiousness.
For universal human rights.
For a just peace in all parts of the world.
For the innocent children deprived of a dignified life in Palestine.
We are calling upon you to intervene immediately to save our lives.
________________________________
International Herald Tribune
Israel’s scandalous siege of Gaza
Patrick Seale
28 October 2006
Israel has killed 2,300 Gazans over the past six years, including 300 in the four months since an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was captured in a cross-border raid by Palestinian fighters on June 25. The wounded can be counted in the tens of thousands. Most of the casualties are civilians, many of them children.
The killing continues on a daily basis - by tank and sniper fire, by air and sea bombardment, and by undercover teams in civilian clothes sent into Arab territory to ambush and murder, an Israeli specialty perfected over the past several decades.
How long will the "international community" allow the slaughter to continue? The cruel repression of the occupied territories, and of Gaza in particular, is one of the most scandalous in the world today. It is the blackest stain on Israel's patchy record as a would-be democratic state.
Some form of intervention is urgently required, perhaps in the form of an international force on the border between Israel and Gaza, to protect each side from the other, to allow some air into the moribund Gaza economy, and to bring relief to a humanitarian catastrophe.
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=1
________________________________
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)
I have come to give them life, and life abundantly
Bishop Munib A. Younan
9 November 2006
As a church, we believe that all human life is sacred. We believe that God's intent for humanity is revealed in the words of Jesus: "I have come to give them life, and life abundantly."
Accordingly, we are appalled and outraged by the indiscriminate disregard for human life exhibited by the Israeli Army in the past week in Beit Hanoun, especially the violent bombardment killing a whole family, young and old, men, women and children, as they slept in their beds. Yet this incident is only part of a week-long military campaign that killed 80 Palestinians and kept a city of 30,000 under siege and in terror. In fact, this month is just part of the recent bloodletting of almost 500 Palestinian lives in 5 months, and a siege on Gaza that included the deliberate destruction of its only power plant. This blatant disregard for innocent human life and extensive destruction of property constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention as stated in Article 147. Also, the Israeli Army has failed to fulfill its obligation to respect the special protection awarded to medical personnel and places of worship, as respectively provided in Article 15(1) of the First Additional Protocol of 1977 and Article 56 of The Hague Regulations, both reflective of customary international law.
In light of all that has occurred, we call on Israelis to immediately stop all military actions. These attacks only create more hatred, desire for revenge and growth in extremism.
Please read more at http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/id/16/subMod/
NewsView/NewsID/1643.cfm
________________________________
This is Beit Hanoun
Philip Rizk
9 November 2006
From the main road the town of Beit Hanoun looks like any other part of Gaza. Cars are driving in and out, although most of them are leaving, going far, far away, but where, I don’t know. There are only 365 km2 to this place called the Gaza Strip and over the past week 80 human beings have been killed in Beit Hanoun.
I entered the town from a back road since the main road was torn up by bulldozers and is inaccessible. At first things seems rather normal, just another bumpy road, one of many in Gaza, but then through the darkness you see, something else. Many homes remain only skeletons with gaping holes staring through walls, streets turned into mud piles, lamp posts are broken like match sticks, the whole place is covered in a semi darkness, there is no electricity in Beit Hanoun. In the midst of all the chaos an electrician is up one of the electricity poles trying to fix something. The stench of sewage fills the air, the Israeli tanks and bulldozers also broke many sewage pipes.
I got to the two homes that had been shelled that morning after the Israeli troops had pulled out of Beit Hanoun. There was an eerie silence in the area. It was dark and quiet. The first home I entered was lit up by a candle, sitting on a counter. Behind it you could see what was once a well kept kitchen, the windows looked expensive, but the huge hole in the wall and the rubble covering the floor let any visitor know something was not right here. I met Ali there. He lost relatives and neighbors. 17 people in total, 13 of them from one family. Ali’s eyes were swollen, I could see the grief in his face, his spirit was broken. A tank shell had gone through the roof of the building he lived in. He escaped unscathed, others were not so fortunate. “Life and death are the same”, Ali exclaimed. He explained to me how just days before the Israeli soldiers had occupied the very home which had been shelled that morning. They had been tired and had slept in the beds of the Palestinians who that day were killed in the very same beds. One couple was found dead, lying in their bed, with their young child sleeping in between them. The attack happened at 5:30am. Ali was among the people that fled the scene and fire followed them, to the next building where they tried to take refuge. “What religion allows this?” Why? Was the question he kept asking, and the question that goes through my mind still.
Why are we silent?
________________________________
The Guardian
We overcame our fear
Jameela al-Shanti
9 November 2006
The unarmed women of the Gaza Strip have taken the lead in resisting Israel's latest bloody assault
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week.
This is Israel's tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it announced its withdrawal from Gaza. It has turned the town into a closed military zone, collectively punishing its 28,000 residents. For days, the town has been encircled by Israeli tanks and troops and shelled. All water and electricity supplies were cut off and, as the death toll continued to mount, no ambulances were allowed in. Israeli soldiers raided houses, shut up the families and positioned their snipers on roofs, shooting at everything that moved. We still do not know what has become of our sons, husbands and brothers since all males over 15 years old were taken away last Thursday. They were ordered to strip to their underwear, handcuffed and led away.
It is not easy as a mother, sister or wife to watch those you love disappear before your eyes. Perhaps that was what helped me, and 1,500 other women, to overcome our fear and defy the Israeli curfew last Friday - and set about freeing some of our young men who were besieged in a mosque while defending us and our city against the Israeli military machine.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1942826,00.html
________________________________
15 November 2006
In this update, we want to share with you a few things. As the siege of Gaza continues, the people there continue to suffer. One U.N. observer noted that the collective punishment perpetrated against the people of Gaza since Israel embarked on a military operation it called “Operation Summer Rains” began in late June, has resulted “in over 300 deaths, including many civilians; over 1,000 injuries; large-scale devastation of public facilities and private homes; the destruction of agricultural lands; the disruption of hospitals, clinics and schools; the denial of access to adequate electricity, water and food; and the occupation and imprisonment of the people of Gaza” (“U.N. officials voice ‘shock and dismay’ at deadly Israeli shelling of Gaza civilians,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5997.shtml). In the past two week alone, up to 80 Palestinians have been killed as Israel has stepped up its daily shelling, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. The most heart-breaking and obscene display was the Israeli shelling of Beit Hanoun last week that left at least 18 Palestinians dead and over 50 injured (“Israeli tank shells ‘kill 18 Palestinians in sleep,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1962534.ece). Unfortunately, though the United Nations Security Council entertained a resolution condemning this atrocious act, in the end the resolution was vetoed by the United States (“U.S. vetoes U.N. condemnation of Beit Hanun deaths,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786535.html). And so, the slaughter in Gaza continues.
We want to lift up the voices of two of MCC’s partners in particular, who have recently released statements regarding the current situation in Gaza. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) circulated a letter that was sent by several respected and concerned Israeli citizens to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, protesting the current Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip and demanding they cease their provocative and devastating actions there.
Another of our partners the Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA; http://www.palnet.com/~cfta/) based in the southern Gaza Strip, in the city of Khan Younis, also recently circulated an appeal, this one to the international community at large, pleading for some sort of intervention, asking: “Where is the world’s conscience?”
These letters, as well as some additional reflections, are attached below. To learn more about these events, please visit http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/442.shtml, http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/651.shtml, http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/653.shtml.
As we approach Advent, we join Lutheran Bishop Younan who, in his letter included below, implores:
“As we soon enter the Advent season, I ask our Christian sisters and brothers, and all people of good conscience and faiths, to be with us in prayer and fasting. Many are losing hope, and the relentless killing and calls for retaliation make us afraid that we are on the brink of an even bloodier season. Please, be our voices in your countries to call for an end to the violence and the beginning of dialogue. Thank you for your prayers and support, and may God bless us and bring healing peace to our land.”
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
________________________________
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 30 October 2006
· “Beit Hanoun appealing and screaming: Where is the world's conscience?” The Culture and Free Thought Association
· Patrick Seale, “Israel’s scandalous siege of Gaza,” International Herald Tribune, 28 October 2006
· Bishop Munib A. Younan, “I have come to give them life, and life abundantly,” Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), 9 November 2006
· Philip Rizk, “This is Beit Hanoun,” 9 November 2006
· Jameela al-Shanti, “We overcame our fear,” The Guardian, 9 November 2006
________________________________
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip
October 30, 2006
To: Prime Minister Mr. Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem
Minister of Defense Mr. Amir Peretz, Tel Aviv
Re: Petition in protest of the unbearable situation in the Gaza Strip
Dear Sir,
Enclosed please find a petition signed by 1,348 women and men in Israel and abroad protesting the unbearable situation ongoing in Gaza Strip.
We demand that the Government of Israel and its army put a stop to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza Strip and immediately lift the siege that is suffocating the area.
Enclosed are the first signees: Shulamit Aloni, Naomi Chazan, Ruhama Marton, Adi Ophir, Oren Yiftachel, Uri Avnery, Rachel Avnery, Ronit Matalon, Yossi Algazy, Yitzhak Laor, Anat Biletzky , Rachel Giora, Mossi Raz, Anat matar, Yehuda Shenhav, Gerardo Leibner, Nitza Yanay, Gulie Ne'eman Arad.
Sincerely,
In behalf of the petition initiators
Dr. Joseph Algazy Haia Noach
Tel: 03-5516194 08-6469029, 0524-26901
7 Mohaliver st. Bat-Yam 9 Erez st. Omer
***
We know: In recent months the IDF has killed in the Gaza strip alone 245 human beings, 62 of whom were children, and another 25 were women;
We know: Palestinian physicians complain of "Flachette" arrow wounds and other effects of banned ammunition;
We know: That the Gaza Strip is under strict siege;
We know: The sick and wounded are dying in hospitals due to lack of medicines and expert physicians, caused by the closing of the passages to Israel, Egypt and Jordan;
We know: The entire population, children, women, men, elderly and infants, suffer from malnutrition;
We know: Day by day, bombs and bulldozers destroy houses whose dwellers are rendered roofless;
We know: The Gaza Strip is in throes of a humanitarian crisis;
We know: War Crimes are perpetrated at this moment in the Gaza Strip;
We know: The IDF actions in the Gaza-strip risk the life of Gilad Shalit;
We Know!
We protest and demand from the Israeli government and the IDF:
Stop the carnage!
Stop the destruction!
Stop the siege on the Gaza strip!
We call upon all of you who honor human life and dignity - to join our protest.
Telephone and fax list:
The chief of staff bureau: Fax 03-6976218
IDF Spokesman: Fax 03-6080312, email spokesperson@mail.idf.il
The prime-minister bureau: Tel. 03-6109898, 02-6705555, Fax: 02-6705475, email pmo.heb@it.pmo.gov.il
________________________________
Culture and Free Thought Association
Beit Hanoun appealing and screaming: Where is the world's conscience?
For all of the world
For all of honorable people all over the world
For all of human consciences
Residents of Beit Hanoun awoke to the sound of explosions and screams, where the bodies were torn apart, where houses were demolished, where unarmed civilians were trapped under debris, where cries of distress resound everywhere. Ambulances were unable to handle the number of killed and injured; before Israeli forces stormed Beit Hanoun, dozens of tanks and military vehicles invaded with several bulldozers. Under air cover Israeli forces opened machine gun fire at homes and property, while bulldozers destroyed large tracts of land. Beit Hanoun has been targeted by a systematic destruction of the infrastructure and mass punishments by incursions.
No one can believe what has happened in Beit Hanoun; the massacre is above imagination. It, once again, demonstrates the brutality of the Israeli aggression. These crimes reveal the brutality of the Israeli occupation against children and defenseless civilians. These people were targeted in their homes, at night, only because they are Palestinians and want to live a life of dignity.
We appeal to you. We appeal to your conscience, on behalf of all the concepts of humanity to stop this barbaric aggression against our people and our children; to stop the killing of unarmed civilians; to stop these war crimes; to stop the flagrant violations of all international laws and conventions.
Our people are appealing to you to stand up for their rights, in order to stop Israeli massacres and crimes against women, children, and unarmed civilians in Beit Hanoun, and all of Palestine.
Are you ready to pay attention to our appeals? We hope that you are…
On behalf of the human conscientiousness.
For universal human rights.
For a just peace in all parts of the world.
For the innocent children deprived of a dignified life in Palestine.
We are calling upon you to intervene immediately to save our lives.
________________________________
International Herald Tribune
Israel’s scandalous siege of Gaza
Patrick Seale
28 October 2006
Israel has killed 2,300 Gazans over the past six years, including 300 in the four months since an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was captured in a cross-border raid by Palestinian fighters on June 25. The wounded can be counted in the tens of thousands. Most of the casualties are civilians, many of them children.
The killing continues on a daily basis - by tank and sniper fire, by air and sea bombardment, and by undercover teams in civilian clothes sent into Arab territory to ambush and murder, an Israeli specialty perfected over the past several decades.
How long will the "international community" allow the slaughter to continue? The cruel repression of the occupied territories, and of Gaza in particular, is one of the most scandalous in the world today. It is the blackest stain on Israel's patchy record as a would-be democratic state.
Some form of intervention is urgently required, perhaps in the form of an international force on the border between Israel and Gaza, to protect each side from the other, to allow some air into the moribund Gaza economy, and to bring relief to a humanitarian catastrophe.
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=1
________________________________
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)
I have come to give them life, and life abundantly
Bishop Munib A. Younan
9 November 2006
As a church, we believe that all human life is sacred. We believe that God's intent for humanity is revealed in the words of Jesus: "I have come to give them life, and life abundantly."
Accordingly, we are appalled and outraged by the indiscriminate disregard for human life exhibited by the Israeli Army in the past week in Beit Hanoun, especially the violent bombardment killing a whole family, young and old, men, women and children, as they slept in their beds. Yet this incident is only part of a week-long military campaign that killed 80 Palestinians and kept a city of 30,000 under siege and in terror. In fact, this month is just part of the recent bloodletting of almost 500 Palestinian lives in 5 months, and a siege on Gaza that included the deliberate destruction of its only power plant. This blatant disregard for innocent human life and extensive destruction of property constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention as stated in Article 147. Also, the Israeli Army has failed to fulfill its obligation to respect the special protection awarded to medical personnel and places of worship, as respectively provided in Article 15(1) of the First Additional Protocol of 1977 and Article 56 of The Hague Regulations, both reflective of customary international law.
In light of all that has occurred, we call on Israelis to immediately stop all military actions. These attacks only create more hatred, desire for revenge and growth in extremism.
Please read more at http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/id/16/subMod/
NewsView/NewsID/1643.cfm
________________________________
This is Beit Hanoun
Philip Rizk
9 November 2006
From the main road the town of Beit Hanoun looks like any other part of Gaza. Cars are driving in and out, although most of them are leaving, going far, far away, but where, I don’t know. There are only 365 km2 to this place called the Gaza Strip and over the past week 80 human beings have been killed in Beit Hanoun.
I entered the town from a back road since the main road was torn up by bulldozers and is inaccessible. At first things seems rather normal, just another bumpy road, one of many in Gaza, but then through the darkness you see, something else. Many homes remain only skeletons with gaping holes staring through walls, streets turned into mud piles, lamp posts are broken like match sticks, the whole place is covered in a semi darkness, there is no electricity in Beit Hanoun. In the midst of all the chaos an electrician is up one of the electricity poles trying to fix something. The stench of sewage fills the air, the Israeli tanks and bulldozers also broke many sewage pipes.
I got to the two homes that had been shelled that morning after the Israeli troops had pulled out of Beit Hanoun. There was an eerie silence in the area. It was dark and quiet. The first home I entered was lit up by a candle, sitting on a counter. Behind it you could see what was once a well kept kitchen, the windows looked expensive, but the huge hole in the wall and the rubble covering the floor let any visitor know something was not right here. I met Ali there. He lost relatives and neighbors. 17 people in total, 13 of them from one family. Ali’s eyes were swollen, I could see the grief in his face, his spirit was broken. A tank shell had gone through the roof of the building he lived in. He escaped unscathed, others were not so fortunate. “Life and death are the same”, Ali exclaimed. He explained to me how just days before the Israeli soldiers had occupied the very home which had been shelled that morning. They had been tired and had slept in the beds of the Palestinians who that day were killed in the very same beds. One couple was found dead, lying in their bed, with their young child sleeping in between them. The attack happened at 5:30am. Ali was among the people that fled the scene and fire followed them, to the next building where they tried to take refuge. “What religion allows this?” Why? Was the question he kept asking, and the question that goes through my mind still.
Why are we silent?
________________________________
The Guardian
We overcame our fear
Jameela al-Shanti
9 November 2006
The unarmed women of the Gaza Strip have taken the lead in resisting Israel's latest bloody assault
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week.
This is Israel's tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it announced its withdrawal from Gaza. It has turned the town into a closed military zone, collectively punishing its 28,000 residents. For days, the town has been encircled by Israeli tanks and troops and shelled. All water and electricity supplies were cut off and, as the death toll continued to mount, no ambulances were allowed in. Israeli soldiers raided houses, shut up the families and positioned their snipers on roofs, shooting at everything that moved. We still do not know what has become of our sons, husbands and brothers since all males over 15 years old were taken away last Thursday. They were ordered to strip to their underwear, handcuffed and led away.
It is not easy as a mother, sister or wife to watch those you love disappear before your eyes. Perhaps that was what helped me, and 1,500 other women, to overcome our fear and defy the Israeli curfew last Friday - and set about freeing some of our young men who were besieged in a mosque while defending us and our city against the Israeli military machine.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1942826,00.html
________________________________
Wednesday, November 1
MCC Palestine Update #128
MCC Palestine Update #128
1 November 2006
Greetings to you all. We have just finished up a storytelling tour in the U.S. and Canada that had us traveling quite a bit. It is due to our absence that an MCC Palestine Update has not been sent out for two months. We apologize for this. We greatly enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to see some of you and share a little in person about the situation here and the work of MCC Palestine. And if we did not get the chance to see you, maybe next time around!
Much has happened while we were away. For both Jews and Muslims, there were important holy days that were remembered. And now with the close of Ramadan, our Palestinian Muslim neighbors are celebrating the ‘Eid al-Fitr. This ‘eid, or feast, is a celebration of the achievement of enhanced piety and is a time of forgiveness, moral victory, peace of congregation, fellowship, brotherhood and unity. Not only is the end of Ramadan fasting being celebrated, but also thanking God for the help and strength that they believe was given them throughout the previous month to help them practice self-control.
Unfortunately, Ramadan as well as the ‘eid this year has been a difficult time for Palestinians (“Bleak Ramadan in Palestine,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5827.shtml) and the situation continues to be bleak for many (“UN human rights expert reports on 'appalling' conditions for ordinary Palestinians,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5779.shtml). A recent concern for many is a stepped-up campaign to deny entry into the Occupied Territories to Palestinians with international passports, resulting in uncertainty and separation from families (please visit http://www.righttoenter.ps/ for more information as well as a B’Tselem report at http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20060815.asp, “Israel’s visa freeze,” http://www.jordantimes.com/thu/opinion/opinion4.htm and “Even Palestinian-Americans are being turned back at the border,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776037.html).
The situation in Gaza continues with Israel’s ongoing offensive there unabated (“Gaza’s poor struggling to survive in the face of an economic blockade,” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1603672.ece; “Gaza’s Darkness,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/757768.html; “Palestinian children pay price of Israel's Summer Rain offensive,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1866460,00.html).
And Palestinian dispossession due to the construction of the Wall, increased closures, and stepped up colonization shows no sign of faltering (“UN: Roadblocks in W. Bank up 40 percent in past year,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/773458.html; “Settlements grow on Arab land, despite promises made to U.S.”, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/778767.html; “Peace Now: Building in illegal outposts stepped-up during war,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769617.html).
It is in the context of such experiences of dispossession and occupation that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently delivered a speech where she voiced her “personal commitment” to the goal of a “Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel” (http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006Oct13.htm).
Yet due to these ongoing realities, it is difficult to interpret exactly what goal is being discussed here. The extent to which these words echo past commitments, especially from U.S. officials, one cannot help but feel guardedly cautious if not a little pessimistically disappointed. The first question that comes to mind is similar to the one Palestinians, upon whom demands are placed to recognize the state of Israel, voice—namely “Which Israel are we to recognize? Israel within the borders of the Green Line or Israel with a colonizing presence in and absolute control over Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?” In that same vein one might ask Secretary Rice, or any representative of the “quartet” for that matter, “Which Palestinian state are you committed to? Is it a state secure on all territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including East Jerusalem, or a cantonized joke of a state with Palestinians isolated in large open air prisons?”
A response such as this speaks to an uncertainty that affects both Israelis and Palestinians and can be posed another way: “What does the ‘two-state’ solution mean in the context of Israeli unilateralism?”
Regardless of where one stands in the “one-state solution” vs. “two-state solution” debate, what is abundantly clear and what is important to see is what the language of “two-states” has come to actually mean, realistically, on the ground, and what its consequences will be for Palestinians. Due to the dynamics of power, etc., what matters at this point in the conversation is the meaning that the state of Israel gives to the language of “two states,” and that has been articulated by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his goal to unilaterally set the borders of Israel by 2010—which will also, to speak to another language problem, essentially “end the occupation” in a manner not unlike that one used to describe the situation in Gaza post-“disengagement,” described by many as the largest prison in the world. (“One Big Prison: Freedom of Movement to and from the Gaza Strip on the Eve of the Disengagement Plan,” http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/Summaries/
200503_Gaza_Prison.asp).
In this version of the language of “two states”: “the state of Israel” essentially equals formally annexing all major colonies in the West Bank, including “greater Jerusalem” and the Jordan Valley, with control over all of historical Palestine (fulfilling the vision of Ariel Sharon, et al, of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs”) and “the state of Palestine” essentially equals several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the occupied West Bank with Palestinians confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels—completely unrealistic, completely unviable, and completely lacking any sense of human security for the people here. (For a recent report on this, see the “The Zionist Plan of Stages” at http://www.fmep.org/reports/vol16/no5/03-a_zionist_plan_of_stages.html along with the map “A Settlers’ Plan for Palestinian Autonomy – 2006” at http://www.fmep.org/maps/map_data/west_bank/
settlers_plan_for_palestinian_authority.html.)
In this context, it is difficult to find anything terribly comforting about Secretary’s Rice’s words until they are backed up by tangible actions on the part of the United States. But looking back on how the U.S. has postured itself in the past regarding moves Israel has made, there is little that indicates any movement away from a trajectory that will lead to the concretizing of apartheid in this land. It is this lack of a realistic perspective of events that clouds the language of “two states.” And language is very important here to maintaining a status quo that will continue to mean “insecurity” for Israelis and dispossession and death for Palestinians.
Recommended Resources: Websites
While we were away, the thought occurred to us that it would be a good idea to offer some suggestions on sources of news and analysis that you and your communities can access yourselves. The following is a list of websites that we regularly check and that we typically recommend to people interested in learning more about the situation here (the websites of groups that MCC has partnered with are in italics):
Middle East News:
· Al-Jazeera.net: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
· Haaretz (Israel): http://www.haaretz.com/
· International Middle East Media Center (Palestine): http://www.imemc.org/
· Jerusalem Post (Israel): http://www.jpost.com/
· Maan Independent News Agency (Palestine): http://maannews.net/english/
· Palestine News Network (Palestine): http://www.palestinenet.org/english/
· Today in Palestine (Palestine): http://www.theheadlines.org/
· YnetNews – Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel): http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
Middle East Commentary and Analysis:
· Americans for Middle East Understanding: http://www.ameu.org/index.asp
· Churches for Middle East Peace: http://www.cmep.org/index.html
· Foundation for Middle East Understanding: http://www.fmep.org/
· If Americans Knew: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
· Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): http://www.merip.org/
· U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
· UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/
· Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA): http://www.washington-report.org/
Palestinian Sites:
· Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition: http://www.al-awda.org/
· Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: http://www.stopthewall.org/
· Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem: http://www.arij.org/
· BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugees’ Rights: http://www.badil.org/
· The Electronic Intifada (ei): http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml
· Holy Land Trust: http://www.holylandtrust.org/
· MIFTAH – Palestine Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy: http://www.miftah.org/
· Open Bethlehem: http://www.openbethlehem.org/
· Palestine Chronicle Weekly Journal: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
· Palestine Monitor: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
· Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People: http://www.rapprochement.org/
· PLO Negotiations Affairs Department: http://www.nad-plo.org/index.php
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center: http://www.sabeel.org/
· Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center: http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/
Jewish Sites:
· Bat Shalom – Women with a Vision for a Just Peace: http://www.batshalom.org/
· B’tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights: http://www.btselem.org/English/
· Gush Shalom – Israeli Peace Bloc: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
· Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/eng/
· Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
· Machsom Watch: http://www.machsomwatch.org/
· New Profile: http://www.newprofile.org/
· Not in My Name: http://www.nimn.org/
· Occupation Magazine: http://www.kibush.co.il/index.asp?lang=1
· PEACE NOW: http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25
· Rabbis for Human Rights: http://www.rhr.israel.net/
· Refuse Solidarity Network: http://www.refusesolidarity.org/
· Women in Black: http://www.womeninblack.org/
· Yesh Gvul: http://www.yeshgvul.org/english
· Zochrot Association: http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/
Joint Palestinian-Israeli Sites:
· The Alternative Information Center: http://alternativenews.org/
· Bitterlemons.org – Palestinian-Israeli Crossfire: http://www.bitterlemons.org/
· Bitterlemons-international.org – Middle East Roundtable: http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/
· The Coalition of Women: http://www.coalitionofwomen.org/
· Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information: http://www.ipcri.org/
· Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salaam www.nswas.com/
· The Parents’ Circle – Families Forum: http://www.theparentscircle.com/
· Ta’ayush: http://www.taayush.org/
We hope this list may be helpful. In future updates, we also hope to share with you more resources for further learning.
MCC Palestine Online: Tools for Advocacy
Many of you have already noticed MCC’s new and improved website at http://www.mcc.org/. Perhaps you have also noticed the updated MCC Palestine website at http://www.mcc.org/palestine/, containing additional links to MCC resources such as news service pieces and other publications we have mentioned in the past such as Sonia Weaver’s What Is Palestine/Israel?: Answers to Common Questions, MCC Peace Office Newsletters, a Common Place magazine, the “Bridges Not Walls” Campaign, DVD’s like Children of the Nakba, The Dividing Wall, and more. Check out http://www.mcc.org/palestine/resources/ to access these resources to assist in education and advocacy in your home communities on behalf of the people of this land. Also, for current and back editions of the MCC Palestine Update, as well as additional links to MCC partner organizations, you can also visit http://mccpalestineupdate.blogspot.com/.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Amira Hass, “Not only the right to worship is sacred,” Haaretz, 25 October 2006
· “Christian Leaders on Status of Jerusalem: City of Two Peoples and Three Religions,” HCEF.org, 21 October 2006
· Meron Benvenisti, “Little left to save,” Haaretz, 20 October 2006
· Rima Merriman, “Denial of entry,” The Jordan Times, 19 October 2006
· Amira Hass, “What are 20 tons of explosives?,” Haaretz, 18 October 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Lieberman to power,” Haaretz, 16 October 2006
· Amira Hass, “Forbidden to settlers, not the state,” Haaretz, 11 October 2006
· Gershom Gorenberg, “Building Nowhereland,” Washington Post, 1 October 2006
· B. Michael, “No repentance, prayer or charity,” YnetNews.com, 1 October 2006
· Raja Khalidi, “It can only get worse,” The Guardian, 22 September 2006
· Patrick Cockburn, “‘Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now,’” The Independent, 8 September 2006
· “Statement of Church Related Organizations on the Current Situation in Lebanon and Palestine,” VOX Newsletter, Issue 35, July 2006
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Haaretz
Not only the right to worship is sacred
Amira Hass
25 October 2006
The collective daring of the last few Fridays illustrates the characteristic lack evident in the Palestinian struggle for liberation today: a collective defiance of the Israeli policy on restrictions of movement.
The main Israeli control method, and the most effective with respect to the occupier, is the limitation of Palestinian freedom of movement to a minimum: within the occupied territories, between district and district, between town and village, village and its lands, between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, between going abroad and coming back.
This is not just a system: This is a policy no less destructive than the bombings and the bombardments, and it preceded the current intifada and developed under the aegis of the Oslo process. Every Palestinian is injured by this policy, and many Palestinians dare to look for individual ways to defy and challenge it.
But as a collective entity, the Palestinians have not turned the demand for the restoration of freedom of movement into an exalted goal, worthy of shared and organized effort.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=778942&contrassID=2&subContrassID=
4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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HCEF.org
Christian Leaders on Status of Jerusalem: City of Two Peoples and Three Religions
21 October 2006
With the construction of the wall many of our faithful are excluded from the precincts of the holy city, and according to plans published in the local press, many more will also be excluded in the future. Surrounded by walls, Jerusalem is no longer at the center and is no longer the heart of life as she should be.
We consider it part of our duty to draw the attention of the local authorities, as well as the international community and the world Churches, to this very grave situation and call for a concerted effort to search for a common vision on the status of this holy city based on international resolutions and having regard to the rights of two peoples in her and the three faith communities.
In this city, in which God chose to speak to humanity and to reconcile peoples with himself and among themselves, we raise our voices to say that the paths, followed up till now, have not brought about the pacification of the city and have not reassured normal life for her inhabitants. Therefore they must be changed. The political leaders must search for a new vision as well as for new means.
In God's own design, two peoples and three religions have been living together in this city. Our vision is that they should continue to live together in harmony, respect, mutual acceptance and cooperation.
Please read more at http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/SubMod/
NewsView/NewsID/1629.cfm
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Haaretz
Little left to save
Meron Benvenisti
20 October 2006
No one mentions the fact that the "demographic balance" is fundamentally fictitious. It was created through a manipulation of Jerusalem's borders in 1967, based on the principle of preserving a minimum of Arabs and a maximum of land for Jews. In the name of this principle, more and more exposed or dispensable hilltops have been annexed to the city since 1967 and anointed with the holy oil of the Eternal City…
The separation fence annexes more land to the city's area (the bureaucratic-municipal definition is meaningless here) than the land that constitutes the municipal territory of Jerusalem today. There is room for more than an additional quarter of a million people in the territory within the area of the separation fence. The potential for populating the area is based on Jerusalemites who have moved and will move to "settlement blocs" in the east thanks to the generous grants supplied by the government, which make life in Jerusalem relatively expensive.
Thus does the Israeli government encourage migration from Jerusalem with the aim of taking over West Bank land, then using this negative migration ("which worsens the demographic balance") to justify the annexation of territory in the west, to attract Jewish migration. But heaven forfend that the issue of "the settlements" be mixed with the issue of preserving nature in "sovereign Israel."
Even the environmentalists hold their peace when it comes to the massive destruction that has already been caused to the desert landscape and biblical scenery in the territory beyond the Green Line. Why destroy the Coalition for the Preservation of the Jerusalem Hills by raising issues that are considered to be political? In this way, the dispute over two hilltops in western Jerusalem, which is important in its own right, overshadows the need to save what remains of the urban fabric of the capital, which has already mostly dissolved.
Soon the debate over the Safdie plan will cease being relevant; there will simply be nothing left to save.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/777210.html
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The Jordan Times
Denial of entry
Rima Merriman
19 October 2006
The good news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “wants the Israeli government to explain restrictions on Palestinian-Americans travelling on US passports in Israel and the Palestinian territories” spread like wildfire in the occupied Palestinian territories. Rice has apparently listened to something from the Palestinian side.
Maybe she saw the ads that the Palestinian grassroots Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry into the occupied lands had placed in all the local papers during her most recent visit — a photograph of her and President Mahmoud Abbas with the caption “Wish we could be there to help you!”, meaning that Americans, and Palestinian-Americans especially, are being denied entry into the occupied Palestinian territories, and so are also denied the opportunity to play a role in the peace making she was seeking.
But elation must be tempered with caution, because the experience of Palestinians with the Israeli government from whom Rice is asking “an explanation” is never straightforward. The Israeli government’s response so far is as follows: “We are aware of this issue, and we are looking into it at senior levels,” an Israeli official said yesterday. “We are waiting to receive additional information from the administration.”
Please read more at http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=11745&CategoryId=5
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Haaretz
What are 20 tons of explosives?
Amira Hass
18 October 2006
Finally, in contrast to Palestinian weaponry, which is quantifiable, it is impossible to quantify the amount of "explosives" in Israel's hands - all the different types of shells and bombs, all the weapons that Israeli soldiers use or will use. The IDF Spokesman's Office does not volunteer that information, but in any case, the quantities are enormous, and they are constantly being restocked, whether through imports or through the flourishing Israeli arms industry. Before the recent war in Lebanon, did anyone calculate how many millions of cluster bombs Israel had in its warehouses (of which 1.2 million were fired during the war, as Meron Rapoport reported in this newspaper on September 12)?
And therefore, what exists in Israelis' consciousness is not the millions of cluster bombs - that is, the flying mines - or the tens of millions of bombs and shells and lethal bullets stored in our arms warehouses and our gun barrels and the bellies of our helicopters and planes. Although the amount of such explosives is measured in the millions of tons, it is the 20 tons of explosives and the few thousand rifles that permeate the Israeli consciousness.
Israelis are convinced that we are facing an existential danger. But what has been erased from the Israeli consciousness is that Israel is a weapons superpower, and that the weapons this state has, as is the nature of all weapons, are lethal and frightening.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776076.html
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Haaretz
Lieberman to power
Gideon Levy
16 October 2006
Peace-seekers should support the move to bring Avigdor Lieberman into the government. It is impossible to understand the opposition of several Labor party ministers to having Yisrael Beitenu join the government after all, just what precisely are they afraid will happen? That Israel will embark on an unnecessary war? That the settlement enterprise will be reinforced? That the government will reject Syria's peace proposal? That racism toward Arab citizens of Israel will increase, or that the occupation army will be cruel to the Palestinians?
Indeed, the government in its current constellation is already providing all of this, abundantly, and Lieberman's participation would only remove its camouflage. An extreme right-wing government with Lieberman and without camouflage is preferable to a government without Lieberman that masquerades as center-left. As with the ridiculous struggle against the "illegal" outposts, which in effect legitimizes all of the other "legal" settlements, the struggle against bringing Lieberman into the government is also designed solely to accord a semblance of enlightenment to an extreme right-wing government and to legitimize Labor's participation in it. The opposition of Amir Peretz and some of his colleagues to Lieberman's joining the government is thus tainted with self-righteousness: They are already today members of a government that embarked on a worthless war, that says no to Syria, that is cruel to the Palestinians and fortifies the settlements.
Lieberman says what many people think. His racism and extreme nationalism are already out of the closet, while among many others, those qualities are still concealed deep within, even though they operate according to their spirit. They have no moral advantage over Lieberman. An openly racist and extreme nationalist is preferable to a closet racist and extreme nationalist.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/774651.html
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Haaretz
Forbidden to settlers, not the state
Amira Hass
11 October 2006
The Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration did well to inform the Israeli public about the steps being taken to ensure that the olive harvest is conducted properly; the season began last week. Well-trained Israeli ears are quick to locate the matrices of that well-guarded harvest: any village that might serve as the target of settlers' attacks on Palestinian farmers, their orchards or their crops.
In contrast to the limited military and police protection that Palestinian harvesters received in the previous two years, this year, the protection is expected to be especially serious, and the IDF talks of "harvesting to the very last olive." This implies that attempts by settlers to attack or intimidate the harvesters will be averted. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, is under the impression that, at least at the command level, the IDF is determined to protect the welfare of the harvesters and the harvest.
Harassment and attacks by settlers, who tried to terrify the villagers, existed even before 2000, but they grew more prevalent after the second intifada began. The army and the police turned out to be either absent, helpless or apathetic. The military commanders found an easy way out: They closed vast areas of farmland to their owners, the Palestinians, as a means of "protecting them" against the settlers.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772907.html
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Washington Post
Building Nowhereland
Gershom Gorenberg
1 October 2006
Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy is stalled. The bulldozers are not. Once again they are changing the face of the land in a way that makes life far more difficult for Palestinians while damaging Israel's own long-term interests.
As described by Israel's Defense Ministry, the fence is purely a security measure intended to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorists. Instead of running along the Green Line, the Israel-West Bank border, the route has been drawn to place major "settlement blocs" on the Israeli side -- supposedly only to defend them as well.
Yet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has publicly stated that the settlement blocs will remain part of Israel after a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. He reiterated that point in February while on a working tour of the fence route in the Etzion area. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has said, a bit coyly, that the fence "will have implications for the future border." The Defense Ministry official in charge of planning the fence told me much the same three years ago. Cut past obfuscations, and the fence is the government's assertion, drawn in concrete and barbed wire, of what land it seeks to keep.
Please read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901439.html?referrer=email
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YnetNews.com
No repentance, prayer or charity
B. Michael
1 October 2006
Sinners deal with their sins in a myriad of ways. There are those who are aware of the severity of their transgressions but they continue to pursue them defiantly. There are those who are remorseful, seeking repentance, ultimately abandoning their evil ways.
And there are some - whose numbers are growing daily- who have adopted a unique way of dealing with their transgressions: They have trained their eyes not to see. They have taught their ears not to hear and have become accustomed to turning their heads in one direction only – towards an ostentatious yet hollow worldview.
It's far from easy; not seeing, hearing and not turning your head away. But these sinners have been blessed with a unique talent. Throughout their years of experience, it has become a natural instinct.
Even if they happen to sit on an evil soldier's shoulder, even if they descend to earth on board a missile or spend a weekend aboard a bulldozer, inevitably they will not hear or see a thing, and they will not turn their heads away from their cell phones or from the latest reality show even for a moment.
And so, ostensibly blind and deaf they tell themselves over and over again in an assured voice – "we are righteous, and we have not sinned."
However, as recited in prayers, we and our forefathers have sinned. And we are continuing to sin. Yom Kippur does not atone these sins. These are sins whose severity cannot be altered by repentance, prayer or charity.
Please read more at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3309864,00.html
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The Guardian
It can only get worse
Raja Khalidi
22 September 2006
A viable Palestinian economy is a prerequisite for any meaningful two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, but that economy is barely functioning. Israel has withheld transfer of Palestinian import taxes, and most donors discontinued funding after the democratically elected Palestinian Legislative Council, dominated by Hamas, constituted a new government in March. With 160,000 civil servants on strike after six months without pay, there has been a breakdown of central government functions. Meanwhile, the Israel-Palestine economic and trade accords signed in 1993 appear to be increasingly irrelevant, if not moribund.
Any resort to temporary international funding mechanisms runs the risk of supplanting Palestinian public-sector capacity. This has been the focus of donor aid since 1994, and is one of the essential elements for the sovereign functioning of the envisaged Palestinian state. Today, that vision appears further from realisation than at any point since it was first endorsed by the international community in 2002. Outcomes such as these serve nobody's interests and will have repercussions far beyond Palestine - at a cost that no amount of subsequent aid will easily reverse.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1878487,00.html
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The Independent
‘Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now’
Patrick Cockburn
8 September 2006
Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.
Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war in Lebanon.
It was on 25 June that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately".
Please read more at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1372026.ece
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VOX Newsletter
Statement of Church Related Organizations on the Current Situation in Lebanon and Palestine
July 2006
The undersigned Church Related Organizations, appalled by the destruction and use of blatant military force by Israel in both Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, have gathered in prayer at St. Stephan's Cathedral in Jerusalem. The sadness and the sense of despair that have taken over these holy lands as hundreds have perished, homes destroyed, thousands injured and made refugees and essential service infrastructure purposely targeted, highlight the immoral logic of war and the use of military force.
The responsibilities of the international community have most disappointingly been absent as governments and the powers that have allowed the progress of destruction to go on in order to supposedly prepare the ground for a politically agreeable ceasefire. This shows the double standard of world powers and it also sends a message that evokes anger and frustration of millions of ordinary citizens across the world, thus worsening the already bad situation as there is a clear absence of leadership.
We in the Holy Land, source of divine inspiration and monotheistic beliefs, are as frustrated as our fellow world citizens with the double standards of the United States and other allegedly democratic countries when it comes to dealing with the Middle East conflict and its just and lasting resolution. Security is not exclusive nor can it be used as an excuse to justify horrendous acts of military force and abuse and continued occupation instead of subscribing to a political negotiating process that would have spared all of us in this region the pain.
Please read more at http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=368
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1 November 2006
Greetings to you all. We have just finished up a storytelling tour in the U.S. and Canada that had us traveling quite a bit. It is due to our absence that an MCC Palestine Update has not been sent out for two months. We apologize for this. We greatly enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to see some of you and share a little in person about the situation here and the work of MCC Palestine. And if we did not get the chance to see you, maybe next time around!
Much has happened while we were away. For both Jews and Muslims, there were important holy days that were remembered. And now with the close of Ramadan, our Palestinian Muslim neighbors are celebrating the ‘Eid al-Fitr. This ‘eid, or feast, is a celebration of the achievement of enhanced piety and is a time of forgiveness, moral victory, peace of congregation, fellowship, brotherhood and unity. Not only is the end of Ramadan fasting being celebrated, but also thanking God for the help and strength that they believe was given them throughout the previous month to help them practice self-control.
Unfortunately, Ramadan as well as the ‘eid this year has been a difficult time for Palestinians (“Bleak Ramadan in Palestine,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5827.shtml) and the situation continues to be bleak for many (“UN human rights expert reports on 'appalling' conditions for ordinary Palestinians,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5779.shtml). A recent concern for many is a stepped-up campaign to deny entry into the Occupied Territories to Palestinians with international passports, resulting in uncertainty and separation from families (please visit http://www.righttoenter.ps/ for more information as well as a B’Tselem report at http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20060815.asp, “Israel’s visa freeze,” http://www.jordantimes.com/thu/opinion/opinion4.htm and “Even Palestinian-Americans are being turned back at the border,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776037.html).
The situation in Gaza continues with Israel’s ongoing offensive there unabated (“Gaza’s poor struggling to survive in the face of an economic blockade,” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1603672.ece; “Gaza’s Darkness,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/757768.html; “Palestinian children pay price of Israel's Summer Rain offensive,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1866460,00.html).
And Palestinian dispossession due to the construction of the Wall, increased closures, and stepped up colonization shows no sign of faltering (“UN: Roadblocks in W. Bank up 40 percent in past year,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/773458.html; “Settlements grow on Arab land, despite promises made to U.S.”, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/778767.html; “Peace Now: Building in illegal outposts stepped-up during war,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769617.html).
It is in the context of such experiences of dispossession and occupation that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently delivered a speech where she voiced her “personal commitment” to the goal of a “Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel” (http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006Oct13.htm).
Yet due to these ongoing realities, it is difficult to interpret exactly what goal is being discussed here. The extent to which these words echo past commitments, especially from U.S. officials, one cannot help but feel guardedly cautious if not a little pessimistically disappointed. The first question that comes to mind is similar to the one Palestinians, upon whom demands are placed to recognize the state of Israel, voice—namely “Which Israel are we to recognize? Israel within the borders of the Green Line or Israel with a colonizing presence in and absolute control over Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?” In that same vein one might ask Secretary Rice, or any representative of the “quartet” for that matter, “Which Palestinian state are you committed to? Is it a state secure on all territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including East Jerusalem, or a cantonized joke of a state with Palestinians isolated in large open air prisons?”
A response such as this speaks to an uncertainty that affects both Israelis and Palestinians and can be posed another way: “What does the ‘two-state’ solution mean in the context of Israeli unilateralism?”
Regardless of where one stands in the “one-state solution” vs. “two-state solution” debate, what is abundantly clear and what is important to see is what the language of “two-states” has come to actually mean, realistically, on the ground, and what its consequences will be for Palestinians. Due to the dynamics of power, etc., what matters at this point in the conversation is the meaning that the state of Israel gives to the language of “two states,” and that has been articulated by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his goal to unilaterally set the borders of Israel by 2010—which will also, to speak to another language problem, essentially “end the occupation” in a manner not unlike that one used to describe the situation in Gaza post-“disengagement,” described by many as the largest prison in the world. (“One Big Prison: Freedom of Movement to and from the Gaza Strip on the Eve of the Disengagement Plan,” http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/Summaries/
200503_Gaza_Prison.asp).
In this version of the language of “two states”: “the state of Israel” essentially equals formally annexing all major colonies in the West Bank, including “greater Jerusalem” and the Jordan Valley, with control over all of historical Palestine (fulfilling the vision of Ariel Sharon, et al, of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs”) and “the state of Palestine” essentially equals several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the occupied West Bank with Palestinians confined to these “reservations,” which will be rendered “contiguous” by a network of tunnels—completely unrealistic, completely unviable, and completely lacking any sense of human security for the people here. (For a recent report on this, see the “The Zionist Plan of Stages” at http://www.fmep.org/reports/vol16/no5/03-a_zionist_plan_of_stages.html along with the map “A Settlers’ Plan for Palestinian Autonomy – 2006” at http://www.fmep.org/maps/map_data/west_bank/
settlers_plan_for_palestinian_authority.html.)
In this context, it is difficult to find anything terribly comforting about Secretary’s Rice’s words until they are backed up by tangible actions on the part of the United States. But looking back on how the U.S. has postured itself in the past regarding moves Israel has made, there is little that indicates any movement away from a trajectory that will lead to the concretizing of apartheid in this land. It is this lack of a realistic perspective of events that clouds the language of “two states.” And language is very important here to maintaining a status quo that will continue to mean “insecurity” for Israelis and dispossession and death for Palestinians.
Recommended Resources: Websites
While we were away, the thought occurred to us that it would be a good idea to offer some suggestions on sources of news and analysis that you and your communities can access yourselves. The following is a list of websites that we regularly check and that we typically recommend to people interested in learning more about the situation here (the websites of groups that MCC has partnered with are in italics):
Middle East News:
· Al-Jazeera.net: http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
· Haaretz (Israel): http://www.haaretz.com/
· International Middle East Media Center (Palestine): http://www.imemc.org/
· Jerusalem Post (Israel): http://www.jpost.com/
· Maan Independent News Agency (Palestine): http://maannews.net/english/
· Palestine News Network (Palestine): http://www.palestinenet.org/english/
· Today in Palestine (Palestine): http://www.theheadlines.org/
· YnetNews – Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel): http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
Middle East Commentary and Analysis:
· Americans for Middle East Understanding: http://www.ameu.org/index.asp
· Churches for Middle East Peace: http://www.cmep.org/index.html
· Foundation for Middle East Understanding: http://www.fmep.org/
· If Americans Knew: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
· Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP): http://www.merip.org/
· U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
· UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/
· Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA): http://www.washington-report.org/
Palestinian Sites:
· Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition: http://www.al-awda.org/
· Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: http://www.stopthewall.org/
· Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem: http://www.arij.org/
· BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugees’ Rights: http://www.badil.org/
· The Electronic Intifada (ei): http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml
· Holy Land Trust: http://www.holylandtrust.org/
· MIFTAH – Palestine Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy: http://www.miftah.org/
· Open Bethlehem: http://www.openbethlehem.org/
· Palestine Chronicle Weekly Journal: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
· Palestine Monitor: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
· Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People: http://www.rapprochement.org/
· PLO Negotiations Affairs Department: http://www.nad-plo.org/index.php
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center: http://www.sabeel.org/
· Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center: http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/
Jewish Sites:
· Bat Shalom – Women with a Vision for a Just Peace: http://www.batshalom.org/
· B’tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights: http://www.btselem.org/English/
· Gush Shalom – Israeli Peace Bloc: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
· Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/eng/
· Jewish Voice for Peace: http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
· Machsom Watch: http://www.machsomwatch.org/
· New Profile: http://www.newprofile.org/
· Not in My Name: http://www.nimn.org/
· Occupation Magazine: http://www.kibush.co.il/index.asp?lang=1
· PEACE NOW: http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25
· Rabbis for Human Rights: http://www.rhr.israel.net/
· Refuse Solidarity Network: http://www.refusesolidarity.org/
· Women in Black: http://www.womeninblack.org/
· Yesh Gvul: http://www.yeshgvul.org/english
· Zochrot Association: http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/
Joint Palestinian-Israeli Sites:
· The Alternative Information Center: http://alternativenews.org/
· Bitterlemons.org – Palestinian-Israeli Crossfire: http://www.bitterlemons.org/
· Bitterlemons-international.org – Middle East Roundtable: http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/
· The Coalition of Women: http://www.coalitionofwomen.org/
· Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information: http://www.ipcri.org/
· Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salaam www.nswas.com/
· The Parents’ Circle – Families Forum: http://www.theparentscircle.com/
· Ta’ayush: http://www.taayush.org/
We hope this list may be helpful. In future updates, we also hope to share with you more resources for further learning.
MCC Palestine Online: Tools for Advocacy
Many of you have already noticed MCC’s new and improved website at http://www.mcc.org/. Perhaps you have also noticed the updated MCC Palestine website at http://www.mcc.org/palestine/, containing additional links to MCC resources such as news service pieces and other publications we have mentioned in the past such as Sonia Weaver’s What Is Palestine/Israel?: Answers to Common Questions, MCC Peace Office Newsletters, a Common Place magazine, the “Bridges Not Walls” Campaign, DVD’s like Children of the Nakba, The Dividing Wall, and more. Check out http://www.mcc.org/palestine/resources/ to access these resources to assist in education and advocacy in your home communities on behalf of the people of this land. Also, for current and back editions of the MCC Palestine Update, as well as additional links to MCC partner organizations, you can also visit http://mccpalestineupdate.blogspot.com/.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
______________________________
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Amira Hass, “Not only the right to worship is sacred,” Haaretz, 25 October 2006
· “Christian Leaders on Status of Jerusalem: City of Two Peoples and Three Religions,” HCEF.org, 21 October 2006
· Meron Benvenisti, “Little left to save,” Haaretz, 20 October 2006
· Rima Merriman, “Denial of entry,” The Jordan Times, 19 October 2006
· Amira Hass, “What are 20 tons of explosives?,” Haaretz, 18 October 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Lieberman to power,” Haaretz, 16 October 2006
· Amira Hass, “Forbidden to settlers, not the state,” Haaretz, 11 October 2006
· Gershom Gorenberg, “Building Nowhereland,” Washington Post, 1 October 2006
· B. Michael, “No repentance, prayer or charity,” YnetNews.com, 1 October 2006
· Raja Khalidi, “It can only get worse,” The Guardian, 22 September 2006
· Patrick Cockburn, “‘Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now,’” The Independent, 8 September 2006
· “Statement of Church Related Organizations on the Current Situation in Lebanon and Palestine,” VOX Newsletter, Issue 35, July 2006
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Haaretz
Not only the right to worship is sacred
Amira Hass
25 October 2006
The collective daring of the last few Fridays illustrates the characteristic lack evident in the Palestinian struggle for liberation today: a collective defiance of the Israeli policy on restrictions of movement.
The main Israeli control method, and the most effective with respect to the occupier, is the limitation of Palestinian freedom of movement to a minimum: within the occupied territories, between district and district, between town and village, village and its lands, between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, between going abroad and coming back.
This is not just a system: This is a policy no less destructive than the bombings and the bombardments, and it preceded the current intifada and developed under the aegis of the Oslo process. Every Palestinian is injured by this policy, and many Palestinians dare to look for individual ways to defy and challenge it.
But as a collective entity, the Palestinians have not turned the demand for the restoration of freedom of movement into an exalted goal, worthy of shared and organized effort.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=778942&contrassID=2&subContrassID=
4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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HCEF.org
Christian Leaders on Status of Jerusalem: City of Two Peoples and Three Religions
21 October 2006
With the construction of the wall many of our faithful are excluded from the precincts of the holy city, and according to plans published in the local press, many more will also be excluded in the future. Surrounded by walls, Jerusalem is no longer at the center and is no longer the heart of life as she should be.
We consider it part of our duty to draw the attention of the local authorities, as well as the international community and the world Churches, to this very grave situation and call for a concerted effort to search for a common vision on the status of this holy city based on international resolutions and having regard to the rights of two peoples in her and the three faith communities.
In this city, in which God chose to speak to humanity and to reconcile peoples with himself and among themselves, we raise our voices to say that the paths, followed up till now, have not brought about the pacification of the city and have not reassured normal life for her inhabitants. Therefore they must be changed. The political leaders must search for a new vision as well as for new means.
In God's own design, two peoples and three religions have been living together in this city. Our vision is that they should continue to live together in harmony, respect, mutual acceptance and cooperation.
Please read more at http://www.hcef.org/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/SubMod/
NewsView/NewsID/1629.cfm
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Haaretz
Little left to save
Meron Benvenisti
20 October 2006
No one mentions the fact that the "demographic balance" is fundamentally fictitious. It was created through a manipulation of Jerusalem's borders in 1967, based on the principle of preserving a minimum of Arabs and a maximum of land for Jews. In the name of this principle, more and more exposed or dispensable hilltops have been annexed to the city since 1967 and anointed with the holy oil of the Eternal City…
The separation fence annexes more land to the city's area (the bureaucratic-municipal definition is meaningless here) than the land that constitutes the municipal territory of Jerusalem today. There is room for more than an additional quarter of a million people in the territory within the area of the separation fence. The potential for populating the area is based on Jerusalemites who have moved and will move to "settlement blocs" in the east thanks to the generous grants supplied by the government, which make life in Jerusalem relatively expensive.
Thus does the Israeli government encourage migration from Jerusalem with the aim of taking over West Bank land, then using this negative migration ("which worsens the demographic balance") to justify the annexation of territory in the west, to attract Jewish migration. But heaven forfend that the issue of "the settlements" be mixed with the issue of preserving nature in "sovereign Israel."
Even the environmentalists hold their peace when it comes to the massive destruction that has already been caused to the desert landscape and biblical scenery in the territory beyond the Green Line. Why destroy the Coalition for the Preservation of the Jerusalem Hills by raising issues that are considered to be political? In this way, the dispute over two hilltops in western Jerusalem, which is important in its own right, overshadows the need to save what remains of the urban fabric of the capital, which has already mostly dissolved.
Soon the debate over the Safdie plan will cease being relevant; there will simply be nothing left to save.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/777210.html
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The Jordan Times
Denial of entry
Rima Merriman
19 October 2006
The good news that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “wants the Israeli government to explain restrictions on Palestinian-Americans travelling on US passports in Israel and the Palestinian territories” spread like wildfire in the occupied Palestinian territories. Rice has apparently listened to something from the Palestinian side.
Maybe she saw the ads that the Palestinian grassroots Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry into the occupied lands had placed in all the local papers during her most recent visit — a photograph of her and President Mahmoud Abbas with the caption “Wish we could be there to help you!”, meaning that Americans, and Palestinian-Americans especially, are being denied entry into the occupied Palestinian territories, and so are also denied the opportunity to play a role in the peace making she was seeking.
But elation must be tempered with caution, because the experience of Palestinians with the Israeli government from whom Rice is asking “an explanation” is never straightforward. The Israeli government’s response so far is as follows: “We are aware of this issue, and we are looking into it at senior levels,” an Israeli official said yesterday. “We are waiting to receive additional information from the administration.”
Please read more at http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=11745&CategoryId=5
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Haaretz
What are 20 tons of explosives?
Amira Hass
18 October 2006
Finally, in contrast to Palestinian weaponry, which is quantifiable, it is impossible to quantify the amount of "explosives" in Israel's hands - all the different types of shells and bombs, all the weapons that Israeli soldiers use or will use. The IDF Spokesman's Office does not volunteer that information, but in any case, the quantities are enormous, and they are constantly being restocked, whether through imports or through the flourishing Israeli arms industry. Before the recent war in Lebanon, did anyone calculate how many millions of cluster bombs Israel had in its warehouses (of which 1.2 million were fired during the war, as Meron Rapoport reported in this newspaper on September 12)?
And therefore, what exists in Israelis' consciousness is not the millions of cluster bombs - that is, the flying mines - or the tens of millions of bombs and shells and lethal bullets stored in our arms warehouses and our gun barrels and the bellies of our helicopters and planes. Although the amount of such explosives is measured in the millions of tons, it is the 20 tons of explosives and the few thousand rifles that permeate the Israeli consciousness.
Israelis are convinced that we are facing an existential danger. But what has been erased from the Israeli consciousness is that Israel is a weapons superpower, and that the weapons this state has, as is the nature of all weapons, are lethal and frightening.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/776076.html
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Haaretz
Lieberman to power
Gideon Levy
16 October 2006
Peace-seekers should support the move to bring Avigdor Lieberman into the government. It is impossible to understand the opposition of several Labor party ministers to having Yisrael Beitenu join the government after all, just what precisely are they afraid will happen? That Israel will embark on an unnecessary war? That the settlement enterprise will be reinforced? That the government will reject Syria's peace proposal? That racism toward Arab citizens of Israel will increase, or that the occupation army will be cruel to the Palestinians?
Indeed, the government in its current constellation is already providing all of this, abundantly, and Lieberman's participation would only remove its camouflage. An extreme right-wing government with Lieberman and without camouflage is preferable to a government without Lieberman that masquerades as center-left. As with the ridiculous struggle against the "illegal" outposts, which in effect legitimizes all of the other "legal" settlements, the struggle against bringing Lieberman into the government is also designed solely to accord a semblance of enlightenment to an extreme right-wing government and to legitimize Labor's participation in it. The opposition of Amir Peretz and some of his colleagues to Lieberman's joining the government is thus tainted with self-righteousness: They are already today members of a government that embarked on a worthless war, that says no to Syria, that is cruel to the Palestinians and fortifies the settlements.
Lieberman says what many people think. His racism and extreme nationalism are already out of the closet, while among many others, those qualities are still concealed deep within, even though they operate according to their spirit. They have no moral advantage over Lieberman. An openly racist and extreme nationalist is preferable to a closet racist and extreme nationalist.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/774651.html
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Haaretz
Forbidden to settlers, not the state
Amira Hass
11 October 2006
The Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration did well to inform the Israeli public about the steps being taken to ensure that the olive harvest is conducted properly; the season began last week. Well-trained Israeli ears are quick to locate the matrices of that well-guarded harvest: any village that might serve as the target of settlers' attacks on Palestinian farmers, their orchards or their crops.
In contrast to the limited military and police protection that Palestinian harvesters received in the previous two years, this year, the protection is expected to be especially serious, and the IDF talks of "harvesting to the very last olive." This implies that attempts by settlers to attack or intimidate the harvesters will be averted. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, is under the impression that, at least at the command level, the IDF is determined to protect the welfare of the harvesters and the harvest.
Harassment and attacks by settlers, who tried to terrify the villagers, existed even before 2000, but they grew more prevalent after the second intifada began. The army and the police turned out to be either absent, helpless or apathetic. The military commanders found an easy way out: They closed vast areas of farmland to their owners, the Palestinians, as a means of "protecting them" against the settlers.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772907.html
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Washington Post
Building Nowhereland
Gershom Gorenberg
1 October 2006
Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy is stalled. The bulldozers are not. Once again they are changing the face of the land in a way that makes life far more difficult for Palestinians while damaging Israel's own long-term interests.
As described by Israel's Defense Ministry, the fence is purely a security measure intended to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorists. Instead of running along the Green Line, the Israel-West Bank border, the route has been drawn to place major "settlement blocs" on the Israeli side -- supposedly only to defend them as well.
Yet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has publicly stated that the settlement blocs will remain part of Israel after a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. He reiterated that point in February while on a working tour of the fence route in the Etzion area. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has said, a bit coyly, that the fence "will have implications for the future border." The Defense Ministry official in charge of planning the fence told me much the same three years ago. Cut past obfuscations, and the fence is the government's assertion, drawn in concrete and barbed wire, of what land it seeks to keep.
Please read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901439.html?referrer=email
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YnetNews.com
No repentance, prayer or charity
B. Michael
1 October 2006
Sinners deal with their sins in a myriad of ways. There are those who are aware of the severity of their transgressions but they continue to pursue them defiantly. There are those who are remorseful, seeking repentance, ultimately abandoning their evil ways.
And there are some - whose numbers are growing daily- who have adopted a unique way of dealing with their transgressions: They have trained their eyes not to see. They have taught their ears not to hear and have become accustomed to turning their heads in one direction only – towards an ostentatious yet hollow worldview.
It's far from easy; not seeing, hearing and not turning your head away. But these sinners have been blessed with a unique talent. Throughout their years of experience, it has become a natural instinct.
Even if they happen to sit on an evil soldier's shoulder, even if they descend to earth on board a missile or spend a weekend aboard a bulldozer, inevitably they will not hear or see a thing, and they will not turn their heads away from their cell phones or from the latest reality show even for a moment.
And so, ostensibly blind and deaf they tell themselves over and over again in an assured voice – "we are righteous, and we have not sinned."
However, as recited in prayers, we and our forefathers have sinned. And we are continuing to sin. Yom Kippur does not atone these sins. These are sins whose severity cannot be altered by repentance, prayer or charity.
Please read more at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3309864,00.html
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The Guardian
It can only get worse
Raja Khalidi
22 September 2006
A viable Palestinian economy is a prerequisite for any meaningful two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, but that economy is barely functioning. Israel has withheld transfer of Palestinian import taxes, and most donors discontinued funding after the democratically elected Palestinian Legislative Council, dominated by Hamas, constituted a new government in March. With 160,000 civil servants on strike after six months without pay, there has been a breakdown of central government functions. Meanwhile, the Israel-Palestine economic and trade accords signed in 1993 appear to be increasingly irrelevant, if not moribund.
Any resort to temporary international funding mechanisms runs the risk of supplanting Palestinian public-sector capacity. This has been the focus of donor aid since 1994, and is one of the essential elements for the sovereign functioning of the envisaged Palestinian state. Today, that vision appears further from realisation than at any point since it was first endorsed by the international community in 2002. Outcomes such as these serve nobody's interests and will have repercussions far beyond Palestine - at a cost that no amount of subsequent aid will easily reverse.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1878487,00.html
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The Independent
‘Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now’
Patrick Cockburn
8 September 2006
Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.
Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war in Lebanon.
It was on 25 June that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately".
Please read more at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1372026.ece
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VOX Newsletter
Statement of Church Related Organizations on the Current Situation in Lebanon and Palestine
July 2006
The undersigned Church Related Organizations, appalled by the destruction and use of blatant military force by Israel in both Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, have gathered in prayer at St. Stephan's Cathedral in Jerusalem. The sadness and the sense of despair that have taken over these holy lands as hundreds have perished, homes destroyed, thousands injured and made refugees and essential service infrastructure purposely targeted, highlight the immoral logic of war and the use of military force.
The responsibilities of the international community have most disappointingly been absent as governments and the powers that have allowed the progress of destruction to go on in order to supposedly prepare the ground for a politically agreeable ceasefire. This shows the double standard of world powers and it also sends a message that evokes anger and frustration of millions of ordinary citizens across the world, thus worsening the already bad situation as there is a clear absence of leadership.
We in the Holy Land, source of divine inspiration and monotheistic beliefs, are as frustrated as our fellow world citizens with the double standards of the United States and other allegedly democratic countries when it comes to dealing with the Middle East conflict and its just and lasting resolution. Security is not exclusive nor can it be used as an excuse to justify horrendous acts of military force and abuse and continued occupation instead of subscribing to a political negotiating process that would have spared all of us in this region the pain.
Please read more at http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=368
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