MCC Palestine Update

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2010-08-05T06:03:00.001-07:00

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Christ at the Checkpoint

2010-02-02T04:33:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Bethlehem,

Last summer we sent general invitations to all our friends around the world to welcome them to attend a conference we are holding in Bethlehem under the title: Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Peace and Justice. The purpose of the conference is to study and discuss biblical perspectives relating to the land in the shadow of the current political and religious realities in the Holy Land.

As a special friend of Bethlehem Bible College, we send this letter to remind you of the conference or to introduce the conference to you in case you did not get our general invitation.

The conference will be held March 12-17 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bethlehem which is within walking distance of Bethlehem Bible College.

For more details about the conference and for registration, please look at our website, www.bethbc.org. Please do not consider the deadline that we set in our general invitation. We have now extended the registration deadline to March 1.

Your presence at our conference will bring encouragement to us and will be a blessing to all who will attend.

I wish to warmly extend to you a personal invitation to attend this first conference of its kind in Bethlehem.

In His Name,

Bishara Awad

2009-10-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we had the opportunity to accompany MCC partner Zochrot on a visit to a village that had been destroyed in 1948. We’ve written about Zochrot in the past on the MCC blog.

This village was called ‘Kfar Inan’ and was located in what today is part of Israel proper (on the Israeli side of the Green Line). Zochrot was able to find our guide for the visit, Abu Marwan, when one of their employees was visiting the destroyed village and was taking pictures. Abu Marwan approached her and asked, “Do you know where you’re standing?” “No,” she replied. “In my house!”

Abu Marwan was delighted when Zochrot asked him if he would guide our group around his old village. He remembered everything as it was and told the story of how all the homes in village had tied white flags to their doors and windows because they hadn’t wanted to be part of the war in 1948. Initially the army passed by their village, but then the army returned and told everyone they had to leave and could come back in a few days; when they came back they found the buildings and homes destroyed.

He and his family live about 15 kilometers/10 miles away. He remembers the village so well that he even hand drew a map of where all the homes and buildings were before the village was destroyed! It was touching when he explained that he still visits the village at least twice a week just to walk through the stones and remember what it was like. He was 14 years old when Kfar Inan was destroyed.

I wonder what kind of pain he must carry with him that he still visits these old stones regularly. What hope sustains him? That the residents of the village will one day come back and start anew? Is the remembering what drives him? Seeing what he knows to be the home of an old friend, or the bakery, or the pool where he used to swim? I’m not sure but I like to think that as he led a group of Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals around what used to be his village that his pain was perhaps slightly lessened and his hope fed just a little bit. I think peace comes in small steps: as we remember a village, as we meet a person, as we hear a story. I hope that some small part of Abu Marwan was restored as he led us through his home of 60 years ago and that his future visits to the village have less pain and more hope.

Cactus with the remains of one of Kfar Inan's buildings in the background. Palestinian villages would use cacti as a kind of fence, and seeing cacti growing like this often indicates that one can find the remains of a village nearby.

Abu Marwan standing on the corner of a home as he tells us about the history of Kfar Inan.

Posting a Zochrot sign, indicating the name of the village, 'Kfar Inan', in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
Abu Marwan and his wife.

A boy was wearing this shirt, which his mother said he was wearing by chance: History never looks like history when you are living through it.

The view from the remains of Kfar Inan.

How do you say 'Nakba' in Hebrew?

2009-09-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

MCC partner Zochrot recently had an exhibition highlighting the erasure of the Arabic language from Israeli society. Hebrew, which is spoken throughout Israel, and Arabic, which is spoken by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, have many similarities linguistically. Zochrot’s exhibition consisted of putting up words in Arabic with both their transliteration and their Hebrew equivalent throughout a popular shopping area.

This is significant because it exposed Israelis to some of the similarities they perhaps weren’t familiar with. In addition to the linguistic connection, Zochrot emphasized the history of 1948 and what Israelis refer to as their Independence Day and Palestinians refer to as ‘al Nakba’, or ‘the Catastrophe’.

There were pictures with explanations in both Hebrew and Arabic about certain events; for example, immediately following the war, a Jewish shop owner moved in and changed this formerly Palestinian flower shop into a Jewish store. You can see ‘Jasmin Flowers’ written on the store sign in English, and on the left side of the picture, in Hebrew, the words ‘Jewish store’. Zochrot uses pictures and stories such as these to highlight the connection between what was a disaster for the Palestinians and what the Israelis see as a day of celebration.

In Israeli society questioning Independence Day is extremely threatening; to Israelis, it feels as if one is questioning the existence of the Jewish state. The term ‘Nakba’ is almost never heard, and if it is, it comes with negative connotations. That is why the following moment was so significant.

Because the exhibit was spread throughout a shopping area there were people who had come specifically for the exhibit as well as people who had happened to come shopping on this particular day. One such family was passing by when a small boy of maybe 5 years old turned to his father:

Dad, do you know how to say ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic? ‘Nakba’.

Here was a young boy being exposed to the idea of the Nakba at a young age, and without being told that the word itself was dirty or a threat to his existence. He saw the pictures around him, and even if he didn’t understand everything that was being explained, he was exposed to what is considered a dangerous idea in Israeli society in a safe, comfortable, mundane environment.

Will that boy grow up to understand the connection between the founding of the state of Israel and the pain of the Palestinian people? Will he see the Nakba as a threat to his existence or an expression of another people’s grief? These are questions that we aren’t able to answer now and will probably never know the answer to, but we know that if MCC partners like Zochrot weren’t doing the hard work of preparing the ground for peace we’d find it more difficult to hold out hope that one day the peoples of this region will live in peace.

'Nakba' in Arabic with its transliteration in Hebrew as well as its translation, 'ason'.

Different Perspectives

2009-07-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

This article, from the New York Times, discusses Israeli settlements in the West Bank. One of the settlements highlighted, Beitar Illit, is not too far from Bethlehem. It's a large city and is made up of mostly ultra-orthodox Jews. Ultra-orthodox Jews are Jews who are strictly observant in following their interpretation of Jewish law. There are also segments of ultra-orthodox society that do not support the modern state of Israel, arguing that only when the Messiah comes and establishes his kingdom will a state such as modern Israel be valid.

The residents of Beitar Illit and Modiin Illit, its sister city, represent one side of the settler population. They generally tend to move to these cities because housing is cheap and affordable and the neighborhoods safe and quiet. Often these types of settlers are referred to as 'quality of life' settlers; they aren't specifically moving somewhere based on a certain ideology, but rather because of ease of life or other similar circumstances. Their main goal isn't to push out non-Jews.

This article, from Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, discusses the other type of settler, 'ideological settlers'. These are people who choose to live in a place based on the fact that they believe God has given a certain piece of territory exclusively to Jews, and that the territory is more important than any non-Jew living on it. The article points out how the Israeli army, which is largely supposed to be responsible for law and order in the West Bank (excluding areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which are few and far between), allows Israeli citizens to begin construction and erect buildings in places they know are likely to cause conflict.

Each perspective is correct: there are 'settlers' who would willingly leave the West Bank provided they had adequate compensation and new housing to move to, and there are 'settlers' who wouldn't leave regardless of the compensation offered and would even fight the Israeli government should the state of Israel decide to leave the West Bank. This is just one of the many issues that can be interpreted different ways. Some settlers are willing to leave and live in peace, other settlers are determined to remain on the land regardless of the consequences or cost. In our work here we try to continue to find the courage to challenge the latter and the grace to encourage the former.

YMCA Graduation at Um Solomona

2009-07-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

MCC workers were able to visit the village of Um Solomona with the YMCA, one of MCC's partners in Palestine Israel. The Women's Training Program offers 6 month training courses in rural villages to help educate participants about animal husbandry and care, crop production and farming, and economics and environment. We visited on the day of graduation and were able to take some photographs with some of the participants. Not wanting to merely photograph the women and not see them again, we returned a few weeks later in order to pass out some of the pictures we had taken. We didn't know the names of any of the women, but with the population of Um Solomona being less than 1,000 people, we were confident we could show some pictures and ask around a bit. Sure enough, the first person we stopped and asked knew the woman in the first picture, and when we got closer to the house and asked a group of children which house we should go to, they were falling over themselves to help us find it.

We're always blessed when we're able to enter someone's home or village that doesn't usually have foreign guests, and on a personal level we almost always end up 'getting' more than we 'give'. These visits are our opportunity to be the face of MCC to people that otherwise wouldn't know about the work that people from home support.

YMCA WTP Graduation

Recognizing Partners

2009-06-23T23:16:00.000-07:00

MCC works with a variety of partners here in Palestine Israel. Our three main areas of focus are peace work, community development, and relief. Some of our partners do incredibly interesting and effective work, and we want to recognize and highlight two of them in this post.

One of our partners, The Lajee Center, works in Aida refugee camp, which is located directly next to Bethlehem in the West Bank. Lajee means ‘refugee.’ The center works with children from Aida to help provide them with opportunities they normally wouldn’t have. Lajee has a library, computers, and provides an outlet for the children’s creativity through various art programs. One such program is their photography program. Through volunteers, the children are taught about photography and how this can be a means for expressing themselves and telling their stories. Recently one of the children from Lajee won first prize in the Al-Awda Awards festival in the category of ‘Photograph (photographer under 18)’. You can find MCC’s previous profile about the Lajee Center here.

Another of MCC’s partners is Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ), headed by Dr. Jad Isaac. ARIJ works in community development through water conservation and geopolitical research. MCC is proud to partner with ARIJ and would like to note that ARIJ was recently recognized as winning an award from UN-HABITAT and the Dubai Municipality in the category ‘Best Practices’ for ‘outstanding contribution towards improving the living environment.’ You can read about the project, ‘Wastewater Management on Household level in Palestine,’ here. Some of MCC’s work with ARIJ can be viewed here, where MCC and ARIJ helped the village of Nahalin build a wastewater treatment plant.

MCC is incredibly proud to be working with so many Israeli and Palestinian partners who do such meaningful work. These are just two examples of some of the many organizations MCC partners with that are working towards the realization of God’s Kingdom for the people that live here.

An Article about MCC Partner 'Zochrot'

2009-06-04T01:33:00.000-07:00

An article about MCC partner Zochrot and some of the advocacy work they're doing in Israeli schools.

More than Empty Words

2009-06-01T04:43:00.000-07:00

It’s been four months since the Israeli offensive began on the Gaza strip; this military invasion following weeks of aerial bombing left more than a thousand dead, thousands injured, thousands of homes and offices demolished, and thousands living in tents. We at MCC Palestine kept posting entries day after day with facts, figures, personal stories and thoughts related by our partners in Gaza. Then, once the Israeli troops departed from the Gaza Strip, and Hamas rockets towards Israel decreased, it seemed that Gaza would once again return to the shadows of the media, with its infrastructure ruined and its social structure in shambles.

At the Shepherd Society at Bethlehem Bible College, though, relief to Gaza became an enormous project, which I realized would be an ongoing task for months to come if not years. We have received pledges and donations of almost $200,000 to be used in Gaza, even though our work was before the war concentrated mainly in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns. This is a miraculous accomplishment that we thank God for, and pray for guidance in distributing, but it raises additional questions, such as, how can we put to use the money in a way that leads to further development among Palestinians in Gaza? It has been impossible to buy any supplies that would be useful for fixing up homes with damage, due to the Israeli blockade on construction materials, so families still live in squalid conditions and businesses cannot be repaired or reopened.

Surprisingly to me, and contrary to my expectations, Gaza and the Palestinians in general have remained prominent in the news lately—it seems that Obama’s interest in the region has brought the whole world’s eye on the situation here. The effects of the war on Gaza, inter-Palestinian factionalism, and Israeli settlement expansion are top stories. Talking politics is now the order of the day around Bethlehem and people I rarely heard discussing such remote subjects as final status negotiations are debating whether there will be some new approach under the leadership of the current US administration which is seen as being somewhat more favorable to the Palestinians. Still, with not much to show for the international aid promised to Gaza (see ‘effects of the war’ link above), and with settlements expanding daily as discussions continue, it is easy to see how many Palestinians are just fed up with these seemingly empty words.

Israelis too, have reason to be very cynical with the supposed peace talks and negotiations. After all, it has been the same year after year as newly appointed leaders continually promise to bring their insights to this conflict which is in its 61st official year (not including pre-statehood conflict between Jewish immigrants and Palestinian Arabs). So maybe it’s the spring weather, or the fresh vigor of Barack Obama, or maybe it’s the stirring of the Spirit that has brought some vitality and hope into our conversations these days.

As the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem said on Sunday, good communication is hard to come by in leaders and in relationships, but on Pentecost, we see an example that should serve to inspire us. Suddenly people heard the Good News in every tongue and God’s Spirit arrived to advocate for truth, peace, justice, and mercy. The pastor asked: do we truly believe that such miracles can happen today, here? I do believe that with all the attention and efforts focused on us here and now, we have a chance to work for change in the Holy Land—if we can seize it. Please be praying for the leaders who are working and discussing ways to bring peace and an end to occupation here in Israel-Palestine. Pray for those who daily live in Gaza and the West Bank, struggling to survive in the meantime, that they would receive provision and strength. Pray that we all may be filled with the Spirit of all wisdom and truth to act for mercy and justice.

Wherever you live you have some power to support the work of peace in this land. Contact your representatives in government and tell them they must formulate plans that promote a just peace in the Middle East. Continue supporting the work of MCC, the Shepherd Society, and other groups that seek to be a witness in these times and who provide humanitarian relief even when it is forgotten by other agencies. At this juncture of despair and hope, where there is so much opportunity and yet so much need and lives in the balance, let us strive towards spirit-led solutions that will be more than empty words.

By Kimberly MacVaugh, SALT worker at the Bethlehem Bible College's Shepherd Society

Normal, like Everyone Else

2009-05-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's hot today in Bethlehem; really hot. It's not even 9am and we're already dreading the afternoon heat. Things don't open in Bethlehem until around 10am or so, so running errands this early isn't an option. We decide to go out and visit some friends.

We stop by to visit Tarik and his wife, Yasmine. They have 3 children. As we pull up, Tarik comes out to greet us. "Where have you been?" This is the question you're asked whether it's been 2 days or 2 months since you've last seen him. "Remember, this is the house of your brother," he says to me, "come visit whenever you like." After having soda and tea with him and Yasmine inside the house, we're invited outside to see their fruit tree.

"Eat, eat," we're told. We don't know what kind of berries these are, but Tarik's father and mother are there eating, as well as several neighbors. We sit down in the shade of the tree. Tarik's father has been sitting here all morning and jumps right in with his insights into life. "The land will always be here. Look at what happened before, with the Herodian," he says, gesturing to the mountain a few kilometers away that's roughly 2,000 years old, named after the kind so famous for the construction he oversaw in this land. "Herod gave speeches from there, and he's gone, and all the soldiers and people that were with him. The British were here for years, and they're gone. The Ottomans too."

I tell him he's right; they are gone. "The land will always be here. Life is life. Whether you live in China, America, or here, you'll eventually die." A slighly grim observation considering it's not afternoon yet, but I hear him out. "Life is life. Look at this little guy," he says as he gestures to one of his grandsons, not yet 2 years old. "He'll be here, inshallah (God willing), long after I'm gone, but the land will be here even longer than him."

We sit and talk like this for a while, me waiting for Tarik's father to make some grand point, him enjoying the shade of the fruit tree. Finally, we decide that it's time to go.

"Thanks so much for having us," we tell them. As we stand to leave, Tarik's father tells me again, "Life is the same for everyone. Only the land stays here. It doesn't matter where you're from."

I wonder why he's so insistent on relaying this message..."Life is life." "The land will always be here." I'm not sure...

A few weeks ago we met with a group from Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Virginia. Aya, a Palestinian friend of ours, came with us. The group enjoyed having the chance to talk with her, and one of the questions they asked was, "What's one thing you wish people in North America could know about what's happening here?" Aya answered, "I want people to know that we're normal, like everyone else. I know that on TV and in movies Palestinians and Arabs are portrayed as violent or terrorists, but I want people to know that we enjoy life like everyone else, that we're mostly like everyone else."

"Life is life, the land will always be here," Tarik's father tells us.

"We're normal, like everyone else," says our neighbor Aya.

This is one of the things that we believe that allows us to keep advocating for peace here. The people that live here - Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims - are more alike than they even realize; when we see people walking with their children, eating in restaurants, visiting friends, we are reminded of the hope we have that instead of being treated as one of 'them', as a representative of the 'other', people here will be treated as fellow human beings, as fellow residents of the same place.

Independence Day in Israel

2009-04-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

As seen through the eyes of Amaya Galil, Israeli Peace Activist with
MCC Partner Organization Zochrot.

Zochrot was started in 2002 with the support of a small grant from MCC. Eitan Bronstein and fifteen friends founded Zochrot, an Israeli organization committed to promoting discussion of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 within Israeli society. Zochrot organizes visits by Israelis to the sites of destroyed Palestinian villages, where they hear from refugees about the history of the village and how its residents where expelled. Zochrot then places signs in Hebrew and Arabic at the site, bringing an erased past momentarily back to life. “I believe that the right of return [for Palestinian refugees] is a condition for reconciliation,” Bronstein says. Bronstein and Zochrot challenge members of Israeli society, both students and adults, to learn about the erased history of Palestine.

While Israelis celebrate Independence Day this month, Palestinians will remember their own narrative by commemorating the Nakba, which means "catastrophe.” Palestinians see the Nakba as the event that dispossessed hundreds of thousands of their people while Israel was born.

The thoughts offered below by an Israeli show empathy toward Palestinians. Amaya questions whether Israel’s Independence Day should be a day of celebration or instead a day for reflection and accountability to the future of Israel/Palestine and its entire people.

By Amaya Galil, Zochrot Translation to English:Charles Kamen

“Where will you be for the holiday? Are you going to the celebrations in town? To a picnic in the Carmel Forest? It’s really beautiful there! Won’t you come? Everyone’s going.” A few years ago I would have joined them; a picnic out in the country – what could be wrong with that? But something changed. People around me are celebrating, but I’m not.

Once, at one of the picnics, I came across the remains of an old building with a blue dome. I discovered that it had belonged to the village of Ein Ghazal. IDF soldiers expelled its Palestinian residents on July 26,1948, Israel prevented them from returning, and planted the Carmel Coast Forest among the ruins of the buildings it demolished. It was difficult to see the remains, but once I did I could no longer ignore them - the ruins of villages where people lived until 1948.

The Nakba (which means “great catastrophe” in Arabic) began in 1948, when the Zionists began to expel most of the Palestinian inhabitants, to demolish their homes and erase the rich Palestinian culture. The Nakba continues today with destruction of Palestinian buildings, mosques and cemeteries, expropriation of land for the benefit of Israeli Jews, institutionalized discrimination, refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return home, military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, systematic killings in Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees, and more. We don’t want to see or hear any of this, and certainly not on Independence Day.

As I spoke with people about the Nakba, and learned more about it, I began to ask myself questions and began to get worried. A crack opened in what I had known, and in my identity. The crack made me continue questioning. This educational process allows me to rethink my life here. The Nakba isn’t only the Palestinian’s memory and history. It’s also an event that is a part of my individual and collective memory and identity as an Israeli.

The Israeli collective memory emphasizes the Jewish-national history of the country, and mostly denies its Palestinian past. We, as a society and as individuals, are unwilling to accept responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians, which allows us to continue living here. But who decided that’s the only way we can live here? The society we’re creating is saturated with violence and racism. Is this the society in which we want to live? What good does it do to avoid responsibility? What does that prevent us from doing?

Learning about the Nakba gives me back a central part of my being, one that has been erased from Israeli identity, from our surroundings, from Israeli education and memory. Learning about the Nakba allows me to live here with open eyes, and develop a different set of future relationships in the country, a future of mutual recognition and reconciliation between all those connected to this place.

Accepting responsibility for the Nakba and its ongoing consequences obligates me to ask hard questions about the establishment of Israeli society, particularly about how we live today. I want to accept responsibility, to correct this reality, to change it. Not say, “There’s no choice. This is how we’ve survived for 61 years, and that’s how we’ll keep surviving.” It’s not enough for me just to “survive.” I want to live in a society that is aware of its past, and uses it to build a future that can include all the inhabitants of the country and all its refugees.

Recognizing and implementing the right of return are necessary conditions for creating that future. The refugees’ right of return is both individual and collective. Return does not mean more injustice and the expulsion of the country’s Jewish inhabitants. As has occurred elsewhere in the world, ways can be found to implement the return of the refugees without expelling the country’s current residents. That’s what should happen here, and it’s possible. Implementing the right of return will allow us, Jewish Israelis, to end our tragic role of occupiers.

Life doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. There are other alternatives. Palestinians and Jews can together build a society that is just and egalitarian. People will live sanely, not perpetually anxious and in fear of war. And then? Then we’ll really have a happy holiday.

Submitted by Ryan and Heather Lehman, MCC Jerusalem Reps. Pictures taken during a recent Zochrot tour of the village of Simsim.

Knocking Down the Wall(s)

2009-04-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

We were recently out at a Jerusalem restaurant with some friends visiting us from the States. Jerusalem is socially, though not legally, separated between Palestinians and Jews. East Jerusalem is where the vast majority of Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents dwell, and West Jerusalem where most of the Jewish residents dwell. We were out in West Jerusalem.

Everything here is political; where you live, where you shop, what you do for a living, whether you call people ‘Palestinians’ or ‘Arabs’…everything. We’ve long since given up trying to guess how someone will react before we tell them what we do here. “Well, we work for an NGO. We do community development.” Vague statements such as this are usually followed with questions such as, “You work with Arabs? Or Jews?”

The waitress asked us if we were tourists. We seized the opportunity. Pointing to our visiting friends, “They are tourists. We live in Bethlehem and work for an NGO. We do community development in the West Bank and work towards peace with both Palestinians and Israelis.” The reaction is always different. Sometimes we get a, “Good luck. It’s a good idea but there will never be peace.” Sometimes we get supportive comments, “I wish there could be peace. I used to visit Bethlehem all the time before the Intifada.” Other times we get a look of pity that says, “How sad. If only you really knew how much they hate us…” We’ve taken to looking at these as opportunities to show people that the ‘other side’ isn’t a homogonous group that views the other as an enemy. We generally talk about our friends, the things we enjoy in either respective culture or society, the things we like to do in different places, whether Jewish or Palestinian. But we often see how our preconceptions of something can trump the reality we see around us.

The waitress looked at us in slight wonder. “Wow. Bethlehem. But it’s very dangerous there.” Polite silence for a moment. “We really enjoy it. There are a lot of things about Bethlehem that we like.” “But you live with the Arabs?” “Yes,” we reply, “we work with Palestinians in the Bethlehem area as well as working with Palestinians and Jews towards peace.” “But it’s so dangerous. You feel safe there?”
We’ve been through this before, explaining that we feel safe, that we enjoy Bethlehem, that we actually feel safer in our Bethlehem neighborhood than we do with all the checkpoints and guards and guns we see in Jerusalem, so we interrupt the questioning with one of our own, one designed to challenge the preconceptions we all hold.

“Have you ever been to Bethlehem?” we ask.
“Yes. I love it. I used to go there all the time. I feel like it’s a different country when I go there. It’s great.” Of course we have to point out this inconsistency to her. “You just said it’s dangerous…but you really like going there?” A pause and a moment of thought. “Well,” she says, “it’s dangerous for people that don’t know what they’re doing.”

And that’s it. The end of our conversation. I wonder if she’ll think again about the Americans she met that live in Bethlehem and say they enjoy it. I wonder if she’ll think about the fact that she enjoys Bethlehem, but she also believes that it’s ‘dangerous.’ I wonder if she’ll think about the fact that the reality she sees every day around her contradicts the categories we often place people in: Jew, Israeli, Arab, enemy, other.

There’s a concrete wall and a barbed wire fence up between Israel proper and most of the West Bank. West Bank Palestinians aren’t allowed to go into Israel without permission from the Israeli government, but Israeli citizens are free to live in most of the West Bank and cross the separation barrier at will. This wall must be brought down, but so must the unseen walls we place between ourselves. Each time we interact with someone and can challenge the reality that they accept, each time we explain that we like Bethlehem, that we feel safe here, that we have Israeli friends who are working to end the occupation at a cost to themselves, we hope we help to break down the walls between people here. We hope people are encouraged to open their eyes and see the reality around them, to see that the labels and categories we apply to the ‘conflict’ here don’t work, and that ‘Jews’ and ‘Arabs’ are actually the people we pass every day and not faceless, impersonal groups on the other side.

Passover and 'Khametz'

2009-04-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's Passover, or Pesach, here in Israel; Jews around the world celebrate the time when God led the biblical people of Israel out of Egypt and into freedom. I've received emails from Israeli friends wishing me a happy Easter and inviting me to share with them in their holiday of freedom, when they remember the mighty acts God did for them as a people thousands of years ago.

And yet today I look around and I feel that I am in Egypt. The Jews were kept apart and treated as slaves in Egypt. Today, Israel has a systematic policy of separation between Jews and Arabs. There is a separation fence/barrier/wall that physically divides the people. Driving through Jerusalem, one can often see soldiers or police stopping anyone that looks Palestinian and asking to see their ID as they're walking on the road; the same doesn't happen to our Jewish friends and neighbors. The Palestinians aren't slaves to the Israelis, but the Israeli military has the final word on what goes in or out of the Palestinian Territories. Not slaves, but the Palestinian economy certainly lives or dies at the whims of Israel.

In light of this, and as the Passover holiday is celebrated, I invite you to read some Passover thoughts from Rabbi Arik Ascherman. Arik is head of Rabbis for Human Rights, an MCC partner here in Jerusalem. A link to his article is below, and following that are excerpts from a supplement. The hagaddah is the liturgy of the Passover service, and here Arik has included some common questions with some uncommon answers; he offers a chance to remember the poor and oppressed that are with us today as we remember the acts of God that brought freedom to the biblical Israelites. May we remember that freedom from oppression is something that God desires for all peoples.

Ridding ourselves of the Khametz of Arrogance, by Rabbi Arik Ascherman.

Excerpts from the Passover Hagaddah are below.

RABBIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS HAGADDA SUPPLEMENTS 5769

WHO SITS WITH US AT OUR SEDER?

Eloheinu v`Elohei Kadmoneinu (Avoteinu, Avoteinu vEmoteinu), our God and God of our ancestors, we are gathered around this seder table as b`nei khorin, free people commanded to remember our dark nights of oppression. We have vowed never to become oppressors ourselves. Yet, particularly because we remain deeply aware of those who continue to threaten us and those who deny our right to a homeland, it is easy to harden our hearts to those who have paid an excessive price for our people`s prosperity and security. Our experience as victims blinds us to the possibility that we can be both victims and victimizers at the same time. To be truly free we must banish Pharaoh from our hearts and reaffirm our commitment to honor God's Image in every human being. Recalling the midwives of old, we know that the seeds of redemption are planted when we oppose Pharaoh's command.

Tonight we leave a place at our table for victims of oppression. We renew our commitment to winning their freedom, thereby insuring ours. We particularly remember: (Choose one or more)

A. Civilians in Gaza, Sderot, and the Western Negev. "Otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies," (Exodus 1:10) Pharaoh invoked "security" to justify his oppression of the Israelites. Today, Gazans and Israelis all live in fear and suffering as each side justifies its actions against civilians in the name of self-defense. A cease fire this year ended with the plagues of fear, death and destruction after Israel failed to honor her commitments to allow the free passage of basic goods, and Hamas renewed rocket fire on Israelis. Seven year old Or'el Iliezrov hung between life and death for weeks after a Grad rocket slammed into the family car. Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish mourns the death of three daughters from Israeli tank fire. Hatred grows as it feasts on the blood of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians, but remains un-satiated.

This night we remove ten drops of wine from our cup of joy, remembering the innocent Egyptians who suffered and died from the ten plagues. We vow to defend ourselves without punishing the innocent.

C. Um Kamel El-Kurd. Newly widowed after police evicted her and her sick husband at 4:00 am from their home in E. Jerusalem's Sheikh Neighborhood as part of a thirty five year campaign to evict 28 refugee families, Um-Kamel has been residing since then in a tent on a dirt lot not far from her home of 50 years. Even the tent is torn down by the police from time to time. Every night is a night of watching for the Ghawi and Hannun families. Evicted at midnight in 2002, they managed to return. Served with new eviction orders, they spend sleepless nights fearing a knock at the door.

Our ancestor was a wandering Aramean. This night we remember that all have the right to a home.

D. Silwan Tonight, 88 families in El-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, E. Jerusalem live in fear of having their homes demolished to make way for an archaeological park. Above in the Wadi-Hilweh neighborhood, archaeological excavations have caused roads to collapse, cracks in the homes and buckling floors. In Issawiyah, the Dari family faces a third demolition.

Celebrating the seder in the security of our homes, we commit ourselves to work in the coming year so that our National Home rests on a foundation of justice.

Hurshiya Family. After settlers used their guns to prevent the Hurshiya family from farming or grazing their land, the settlers claimed it was theirs because they had been farming it. While RHR helped them to win most of their land back, a settler vineyard still remains, they are often denied the army protection needed to safely enter their land and are now being sued by settlers because the government returned their land to them.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsh taught that the sin of the Egyptians was thinking that their might gave them the right to oppress the stranger. This night may we remember that, instead of whips or guns, our outstreached hands must hold scales of justice.

NEXT YEAR IN A JERUSALEM REDEEMED THROUGH JUSTICE AND THOSE RETURNING TO HER THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS

2009-03-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

In search of the 1948/1967 connection, I began to search for the thread connecting the demolition of Salim and Arabiya's home to the Israeli ideology and policies that caused it. I began casting around for the overarching concept, and came up with nishul, dispossession, the operative part of exclusive national claims and the natural extension of ethnocracy.

So writes Jeff Halper in his recent book An Israeli in Palestine (for more on Jeff's organization, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, visit here). Nishul, or dispossession, is an operative part of what is happening here in Israel/Palestine. An exclusive national claim, that the Land of Israel, in its largest geographic sense, is for Jews only. Any other people group cannot be allowed to have a claim to live in this Jewish-only space. This process claims that the land must be redeemed through being settled by Jews, and Jews alone. Much of what happened in May 1948, al-Nakba for the Palestinians, and Independence Day for Israelis, stems from the process of nishul. Much of what is done in the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza) and Israel proper today is part of the same process.

In 1948 many Palestinians were driven from their homes through violence or the fear of violence. Some Palestinians left voluntarily at the behest of surrounding Arab governments with promises of a quick victory over the newly formed 'Zionist entity', but there were plenty of Palestinians who would have chosen to remain in their villages but were forced out by Israeli militia or military. MCC workers here in Israel/Palestine recently visited one such village, Simsim, which means 'sesame seed' in Arabic. We visited this village with MCC's partner in Tel Aviv, Zochrot, which is an Israeli organization that does advocacy and tries to raise awareness among the Israeli population about the events of 1948.

As part of their advocacy, Zochrot tours Palestinian villages that were destroyed or whose residents were expelled in 1948. Lots of international visitors usually join the tours, as well as many Israeli citizens. Usually Zochrot is able to find some of the orginial inhabitants of the village. For this tour they brought with them a man who was 10 years old when he was forced from his home. He brought with him his sons and grandchildren, and led us on a tour of Simsim. We saw where the town well used to be, the town cemetery, the mosque, and the remains of some of the homes in the village. A photo essay (below) documents our visit and reveals how impactful such visits can be; we were able to watch as his children and grandchildren showed us land that used to belong to their grandfather, or the village square where a travelling circus used to perform once a year.

As part of their advocacy, Zochrot brings signs in Arabic and Hebrew identifying the remains of the buildings. Below is the sign that marks the village's well. The man's grandson nailed the sign to the remains of the well. With each swing of the hammer, even in a small way, he affirms that not everyone will participate in nishul, in the dispossession of the land from some of its residents. Palestinians were there to witness that this land used to belong to someone; internationals, among them MCC workers, were there to witness that this used to be a Palestinian village; Israelis were there to testify to the fact that not all of Israel is willing to participate in the process of dispossession and that there are Israeli Jews who today are willing to participate in a genuine process of redeeming the land, of living together with all the land's residents in peace and justice.

Visit to SimSim

People make Peace, Not Nations

2009-03-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

We just had a learning tour here from Alberta, Canada. Our group ranged in age from 18-68, and came from all over Alberta. They were able to spend almost two weeks here visiting Israel/Palestine. While here they met with Muslims, Christians, and Jews; Israelis and Palestinians; those who want peace and those who don't; people who can't move freely from place to place to visit friends and family, who live in fear of violence on a daily basis; we learned about Muslim-Christian relations, met with former soldiers and those willing to carry out violence who now agree that talking to each other is the only way forward, and heard stories from people who have lost family members to violence but still believe that talking to each other is a better way than repaying the 'enemy'. We walked in places where Jesus, David, and Abraham walked, and saw how some of the people who call this place home are unable to do so because of what is written in their identity card...

One of these places is Hebron, the 'City of the Patriarchs'. It is in Hebron that Abraham, the first Jew, bought the first piece of land to be owned by a Jew in this region. It holds special significance for the Jewish community here. It also holds special significance for the Muslim community. Hebron is home to about 120,000 Palestinians; at the same time, roughly 500 Jewish citizens of Israel live there. The Israeli military has set up checkpoints throughout Hebron and limited the movement of its non-Jewish residents. The division in the city is a kind of shrunk-down version of the conflict here, a microcosm of what the Palestinians see as occupation and what some Israeli Jews see as necessary security measures.

In Hebron there is a building that as once a mosque; now, it is both a mosque and a synagogue, the building having been divided between the Muslim and Jewish worshippers. While visiting Hebron on our tour, we visited this building. On our way into the mosque we had to go through three separate Israeli checkpoints.

Empty your pockets.

Take off your belt.

Where are you from?

What's in your bag?

You're Christians? Muslims? Not Jews.

On the way into the mosque each Muslim visitor must go through the same process, often more difficult for them considering the fact that they're not part of a group of Westerners with foreign passports. As we entered the mosque, the women were given shawls to use to cover their heads; everyone removed their shoes, something done by all worshippers and visitors to the mosque out of respect.
This is the same mosque where, in 1994, a right-wing member of an extreme Zionist political movement opened fire and killed 30 Muslim worshippers. It's a very politically charged place, where your religion matters, how you dress matters, which language you speak matters. Everything carries a message heard loudly by the local communities.

As we entered the prayer hall of the mosque, on the Muslim side of the building (we visited the synagogue afterwards), there was a group of Israeli soldiers standing there. They were beginning their military service and were dressed accordingly: military green uniforms, escorted by two armed guards. One thing that stood out was the fact that they were all wearing their boots; visitors must remove their shoes, but as part of their orientation to the city they would be patrolling, they were entering the mosque not as visitors, but as part of a military. There was a Palestinian Muslim man there who was laying down a mat specifically for the soldiers to walk on. Their orientation was in Hebrew, and while their guide was speaking there was a Muslim guide in the next room giving a lesson in Arabic. And then I noticed something interesting...

One of the soldiers had his camera with him; here we were, a group of tourists, and I felt like we stood out. Yet here was an Israeli soldier, escorted by other soldiers who had brought their weapons in with them, boots on, trying to snap a photo of what for him was a new experience: a lesson on Islam, kind of 'Sunday school' for Muslims. As he leaned over to get his shot, his friend quickly cautioned him, "Careful, careful. Don't step on the carpet." "I know, I know," he shot back. Absent was a sense of arrogance, a sense of, "I'm part of this group and can do what I want, and besides, I'll only have one foot off the mat." This Israeli soldier was willing to be respectful of the place he was in, respectful of the customs and traditions of the Muslim mosque, run by Palestinians, he was visiting. As part of a group, he's one of many bringing weapons into a sanctuary, disrespectfully having his shoes on so that special arrangements have to be made for the group he is with to move through the mosque. At the same time, as an individual, he's respectful of the fact that shoes should be off, respectful of the Palestinian Muslims around him.

How desparately there is a need in this place for us living here to stop being part of groups; how significant the fact that we as people still have the capacity to see each other as people, not only as 'them' or 'us'. Continue to pray that those living here will see the humanness of their neighbors, whether they worship in synagogues, churches or mosques, regardless of what language they speak, where they are born, or how they dress. The groups people here are divided into will never make peace with each other; the individuals who make up those groups are the ones that will one day say 'Enough!' and decide that the price of peace is less costly that continuing to live lives of violence and the misuse of power.

Aftermath of the Gaza Bombardment: A View from Inside the Wall

2009-02-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

MCC has been applying to visit partners since just after the War on Gaza ended on January 18^th, 2009. We heard various excuses from the Israeli military ranging from "our internet was down," to "we never received them," to "we aren't allowing foreigners in." We waited for almost a month to enter Gaza. Three out of our four applicants received permission to enter: Daryl and Cindy Byler and Ryan Lehman were approved for the February 16, 2009 to February 19, 2009 visit. But, local MCC worker, Bassem Thabet was denied a permit to Gaza. We asked for an explanation and the military said they were not granting any Jerusalem ID holders a permit.

Once we received our permits, Bassem arranged our schedules and even lined up a translator for us since none of us speak fluent Arabic. Bassem’s friend, Hossam, a local Christian in Gaza served as our translator. He was able to do this since he has been virtually unemployed since June of 2007 when Hamas took over and Israel stiffened its blockade on the Gaza Strip. Hossam’s profession is a construction engineer and since Israel will not allow sufficient cement quantities for building, he is without work.

Devastation and Destruction

As we were taken around Gaza by our MCC partners, we were shocked at the level of devastation. It looked as if a natural disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake had hit the Gaza Strip. The cease-fire that commenced on January 18th followed twenty-two days of bombardment by land, air, and sea and left over 1,300 Palestinians dead and over 5,300 injured. Along with the damage to people, approximately 5000 homes were completely destroyed and about 20,000 homes had some form of damage. In addition, extensive destruction was caused to commercial industry and to public infrastructure: according to Palestinian industrialists, 219 factories were destroyed or severely damaged during the Israeli military operation. Of the three per cent of industrial capacity that was still operating after the 18-month Israeli blockade, much has now been destroyed.

This became visible to us as we were taken to the North by our partner Al Najd. We met some of the brothers from the family of Abu Eida in Jabalia. This family had established four cement factories all around Gaza and were the primary providers of cement in Gaza. We learned that these factories were targeted in an Israeli airstrike in the final days of the war on Gaza. Not only were the factories producing cement, but it meant sustained jobs for more than 70 workers. Along with losing the business, the Abu Eida family lost all nine homes of the extended family. The one brother pictured, explained that he was educated in San Diego, California and returned to Gaza to establish the business. This business took many years of negotiations with the Israelis to allow him a permit to build the newest factory. If fact, he said it took over 42 months. With little cement being or part being allowed to enter Gaza, we wondered how rebuilding will begin. It took pressure from Senator John Kerry on the Israeli Defense Minister to gain approval for a shipment of pasta into the Gaza Strip last week. According to local media reports it was not allowed since it was not identified as a humanitarian need. How much harder, then, will it be to obtain the items needed to rebuild Gaza?

Resiliency

We were able to meet Subha Abed, a refugee of 1948, who lost her husband who was in their home when it collapsed during an Israeli airstrike. We met her outside her white numbered tent where she now lives along with 750 people from her area who are mostly farmers. She loudly expressed her feelings of frustration over what had happened. "We are civilians. We are humans. No one deserves this. What did we do? What do we have? We are just simple farmers, 'We are not terrorists!' The U.S. government allows Israelis to do this." This lady is a survivor. She has been a refugee all her life, but yet maintains she has to move on in-spite of the circumstances.

We recognized that same spirit, in a taxi driver whose home was destroyed during the bombardment. When asked whether he will move away from his home which lies in a regularly targeted area close to the separation wall, he passionately stated, "If the Israelis destroy my home 100 times, I will rebuilt it 100 times."

Hope for the Future

We met many young adults in Gaza who want the same thing most young adults want anywhere in the world: an education, citizenship, freedom to travel, good paying jobs, and a family. We learned the importance of service through these young adults who volunteer their time to help strengthen their society and unite their communities. We were encouraged by these hopeful youth, the future leaders of Gaza, who currently represent a significant population of Gazans. Approximately 50% of Gaza's population or about 750,000 are under the age of 21.

While these youth would have every reason to complain about their terrible situation, or the fact that their human rights have been violated, or that Israel, America, Hamas and the world are responsible for the massacre, we instead saw youth who pulled together for the common cause of improving the desperate situation in Gaza. During and after the airstrikes, many of the young people courageously delivered relief packages containing food and vital supplies to families in need. Although the youth indicated that they had never witnessed violence on this scale, they have become familiar with a regular level of violence while living under the Occupation, including regular assassinations and shortages of necessities like electricity, fuel and food.

Over and over the people within Gaza thanked us for standing with them during such a difficult period. More than money, our partners appreciated daily contact during the war with MCCs local staffperson, Bassem Thabet. We left Gaza confident in the partners we support and their work to help children, youth and communities cope with the effects of the recent bombardment and on-going violence. We ask that you continue to pray for healing for the people of Gaza and for a just and peaceful solution to the conflict.

Ryan Lehman, MCC Jerusalem Representative

Access Denied

2009-02-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

It has been three weeks since Israel pulled its troops out of the Gaza Strip. But all is not well. Sporadic fighting continues. Palestinian militants occasionally fire rockets into Israel. And Israel continues to bomb selected sites, including the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza.

Perhaps the bigger story is the flow – or lack of flow – of humanitarian aid and workers into Gaza.

MCC has been trying to get into Gaza since January 20, but to no avail. The process requires getting permission from Israeli authorities, who control the border crossings. So far they have rejected MCC’s request to visit partners and assess the damage in the Gaza Strip.

MCC is not alone. Many other international organizations like World Vision are facing the same problems. The Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem was recently denied entry to Gaza to visit Al Ahli – an Anglican-run hospital.

Last week the United Nations briefly suspended its shipments of aid to Gaza after Hamas took items from a UN warehouse. UN deliveries have resumed, but other groups have not been as fortunate in getting aid into Gaza. A week ago, the Israeli navy prevented a Lebanese ship carrying food, medicine, clothing and children’s toys from docking at Gaza’s seaport.

The Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) – of which MCC is a member – has issued a press statement calling for better access to Gaza.

“We need constant and consistent, unfettered humanitarian access in order to better help the desperate civilian families of Gaza who have lost their homes and businesses and are struggling amid shortages of food, supplies, cash, healthcare and fuel,” said Charles Clayton, AIDA chair and regional director for World Vision’s programs. “It is unacceptable that staff of international aid agencies with expertise in emergency response are still not given full access into Gaza, and that the crossings are not fully operational for humanitarian and commercial flows of goods and people."

For the time being, MCC’s money is able to travel where MCC personnel are not. MCC has been able to wire $45,000 to partner agencies who work in the Gaza Strip. MCC plans to send another $20,000 later this month. In the mean time, MCC staff members eagerly wait for the opportunity for face-to-face visits with partners who have endured the trauma of war.

Something new.....

2009-01-30T06:32:00.000-08:00

Currently, the new U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is visiting the Middle East. It’s a chance for a new start, with a new administration, which hopefully will bring a new perspective. Mitchell comes to his position with experience, as he helped brokered the peace process in Northern Ireland.

According to an article in Haaretz , on Thursday, Mitchell said that opening the Gaza Strip to commercial goods would help to choke off the smuggling that Israel fears could replenish Hamas's weapons stocks. Hopefully he will continue on this path to bring about positive change in this region.

The New York Times talks about how Mr. Mitchell planned to meet Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian Authority leaders on Thursday. Mr. Mitchell had no plans to meet with any representatives of Hamas, which the United States, like Israel, Canada and the European Union, classifies as a terrorist organization.

The longer I live here, the more the situation becomes complex and almost blurry. There are so many different layers to this conflict. One thing that I do understand is that it doesn’t seem very feasible for a peace agreement to happen if the U.S. isn’t willing to meet with Hamas officials. They, along with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, are a critical party in the peace process. Mitchell has met with both Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials. When the U.S. government neglects to talk to Hamas, there is a large piece of the already blurry puzzle, missing.

There have been many encouragements on the MCC blog over this past month to write your elected officials. The tragic events in Gaza during the past month are a reminder why the Canadian and U.S. governments need to invest more energy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Let’s encourage them to make this a priority.

2009-01-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

As one of the first steps in the struggle to return a sense of normalcy to their existence, the residents of Gaza sent their children back to school this week. Recognizing the impact of the psychological trauma suffered by children who had lost family and friends during the attacks, many teachers and counselors opened the school doors prepared to first address psychological needs. "These children have suffered a lot, we have seen many cases, many psychological disorders ... aggressive behavior, many nightmares, dreams.
We are here to let the children act out their stress and relive what has passed during the Israeli invasion," said one teacher.

But “Back to School” also presents other challenges for teachers and administrators in the wake of the bombardment. According to Al-Jeezera, students from the Dar al-Fadila school attended lessons in tents set up near the rubble of their destroyed building. The reopening of the schools also means that some administrators must now find somewhere else to house many of the thousands of Palestinians who took shelter in them during the Israeli bombardment. Furthermore, damage to buildings and equipment continually reminds children of the violence that occurred in spaces that should be “safe havens.”

It is important to recognize that the children of Gaza have experienced an exceptionally high level of violence for a prolonged period of time. This is a situation that has been underreported and not taken seriously enough. To live in an environment of fear, chaos, and violence can ultimately lead to a sense of hopelessness. The lack of protection for children of Gaza from this environment should be challenged especially now and particularly by those of us in North America who have the power to do so. Apathetic responses, such as the U.S. decision to abstain from the U.N. call for a ceasefire, are measures that risk leaving debilitating scars of abandonment, betrayal, insecurity, and helplessness on an entire generation. These experiences will determine Gaza’s children’s outlook on the world and the values they will hold sacred for themselves and their families in the future. We must begin to view children as more than just victims of war, but as valuable participants of society. The importance and implementation of a viable peace process must also be recognized, because it gives children hope for the future and reinforces the belief that life is worth living and thriving in. Preparation, anticipation, and expectation of positive future events are all experiences that are vital to positive human development. To be able to plan for a future with hope and fulfillment is a necessity for all human beings.

There are several ways you can advocate for the children of Gaza:

• Help to move this information from the unknown reaches of the North American collective consciousness to general public awareness by writing an article in your local newspaper or church magazine or send a letter to the editor with your opinion on the situation in Gaza.

• Contact your government officials and challenge U.S. military and economic support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and ask for justice and protection of the rights of children. Call on President Obama and Prime Minister Harper to strengthen U.S. and Canadian engagement in the peace process.

• Pray as individuals, families and communities for the healing of the children of Gaza who have been physically and emotionally traumatized. Pray that the leaders of this region would make decisions that would bring hope to young lives.

Heather Lehman, co-MCC Jerusalem Representative, lives in East Jerusalem, along with her spouse, Ryan, and their three children. Before serving with MCC, Heather was employed as a teacher and a children’s behavioral health specialist.

Long Road Ahead

2009-01-26T05:42:00.000-08:00

The fragile ceasefire continues to hold in Gaza and both Hamas and Israel have submitted proposals for a longer-term ceasefire, in ongoing talks brokered by Egypt.

Israel has proposed an 18-month ceasefire with partial opening of borders into Gaza. It also demands an end to weapons smuggling and the release of captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Hamas has proposed a 12-month ceasefire with complete opening of all border crossings, which would be monitored by Turkey and the European Union.

Meanwhile, MCC has joined other aid organizations in pressing Israeli and Hamas officials to grant “full and unhindered access humanitarian access to Gaza.”

“It is unacceptable that staff of international aid agencies with expertise in emergency response are still not given full access into Gaza and that the crossings are not fully operational for humanitarian and commercial flow of goods and people,” said Charles Clayton, chair of the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), in a Jan. 24 press release.

A handful of international humanitarian workers were allowed into Gaza, Jan. 22, for the first time in months. MCC staff hopes to visit Gaza, Feb. 1-5, to meet with partners and assess the damage from 23 days of war.

Early estimates place physical damage at nearly $2.0 billion, including some 20,000 Palestinian homes damaged or destroyed. According to the United Nations, 100,000 Gazans have been left homeless by the war.

But Father Manuel Musallam, long-time MCC friend and pastor of the Holy Family Church in Gaza, says that physical needs are only part of the challenge that lies ahead. “As well as the destruction and physical injuries the mental trauma of our people is incalculable,” Musallam reflected in a recent letter. “They will need help and support for years to come.”

Yesterday, children in Gaza returned to school. But teachers report that the trauma of war is not far from their minds.

The road to re-building will be long and difficult. A more permanent ceasefire; trauma counseling; unrestricted access for humanitarian agencies; and a steady flow of food, medicines, and supplies for rebuilding are good next steps.

J. Daryl Byler, lives in Amman, Jordan. He and his spouse, Cindy, are MCC Representatives for Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Iran. They have young adult three children living in the United States.

What are the Issues?

2009-01-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

This article, written over a year ago, notes that some representatives of Hamas are ready to talk to with the intention of getting to a peace agreement.
For those not familiar with Israel/Palestine, there are four major areas that need to be agreed upon for a final status peace agreement to be reached.
1) Israel's security; Israel won't agree to any deal that it doesn't feel adequately addresses its security concerns and needs.
2) Borders and settlements; how much of the West Bank will be part of a future Palestinian state? If Israel won't dismantle all of its settlements, will the Palestinian state be compensated for the land that Israel keeps, which is inside the West Bank? Will it be a 1/1 swap or something else?
3) Jerusalem; both Israelis and Palestinians have a claim to Jerusalem. Israel calls it the 'eternal, undivided capital of Israel' and the Palestinians claim it as well. Will Jerusalem be shared, and how? If a Palestinian state has Jerusalem as its capital, will it be anything more than a token part of the city, or will it reflect the reality of the demographics of Jerusalem, which counts over a quarter of its residents as Palestinians?
4) The right of return for Palestinian refugees; Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 and 1967 demand the right to return to the towns and villages they used to call home. Will both sides be able to find a way to reach a compromise on this issue? Will the state of Israel ever agree to a meaningful gesture of accepting as citizens a large number of refugees who still wish to return to their historic homes? Will Palestinians be able to accept anything less than a full return for all who claim status as refugees?

With regard to these four points, the current situation seems to favor Israel.
1) Israel seemingly controls its own security needs now. They set up checkpoints as they feel necessary, and control all airports and border crossings into both Israel and Palestinian territories.
2) In violation of international law, the West Bank is dotted with settlements that Israeli citizens call home. But if things continue as they are, it seems that borders won't need to be decided; Israeli citizens will continue moving around the West Bank on a special network of settler bypass roads, unimpeded by the same checkpoints set up to control the movement of Palestinians.
3) Israel controls Jerusalem now. They've annexed the city and much of the land surrounding it, creating a large ring of Jewish communities around the city itself. A quarter of Jerusalem's residents are Palestinians, but Israel is seemingly willing to absorb this population in exchange for retaining control of Jerusalem.
4) While well-established international law gives refugees a right to return to their homes, Israel at the moment has refused to accept the return of Palestinian refugees, as this would threaten the demographic of being a Jewish state.

For all of the major issues that are points of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, if the current situation doesn't change, and international law is not enforced, it seems that Israel will continue to gain. Yet we as followers of Jesus have a different perspective.
We acknowledge what taking on the role of oppressor can do to us, and know that is in the best interests of both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace rather than a state of war. We believe that until injustices done and wrongs committed are acknowledged there won't truly be security for either people here. We hold out hope that peace will one day be the norm here instead of a dream, and that in a place so many call refer to as 'the Holy Land' the Kingdom of God will one day reign.

Trey Hulsey is an MCC Peace Development Worker in Israel/Palestine and lives there with his wife Jessie.

Same report, different day

2009-01-22T04:04:00.000-08:00

“A report sponsored by eight British-based aid agencies and human rights groups has described the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as the worst in 40 years. And a senior UN official has warned that the entire infrastructure there is close to collapse.”

“The report …also describes the terrible situation in hospitals where power cuts can last up to 12 hours a day.”

“[T]he water and sewage systems are close to collapse, with 40-50 million liters of sewage pouring into the sea every day.”

“The report comes hot on the heels of the Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip…The incursion was a response to the escalation in rocket attacks fired by militants at Israel…The Israeli response was condemned by many international observers as disproportionate.”

“Israel's Defense Ministry rejected the report, saying Hamas, the militant Islamist rulers in Gaza, was to blame for the hardships.”

John Ging, director of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, told Reuters: "The whole infrastructure is in a state of collapse, whether it's water, sanitation or just the medical services."

The above excerpts were taken from an article in Der Spiegel and sound a lot like many articles I have read in the past week since both the Israeli military and Hamas declared unilateral cease-fires. What is remarkable about this article is that it was published on March 6, 2008—nine months before this latest round of violence in Gaza.

What happened in Gaza in the past month has happened before. And it happens in smaller ways everyday, even when truces are in place. Why, then, have we repeated history?

I think that Sabeel, a Jerusalem based MCC partner, identified a key reason why we have yet to see stability in Gaza. In their weekly prayer that was distributed today, they included the following: “We hope that the world remembers that Gaza is not simply a humanitarian crisis, it is also a crisis of justice. For a lasting peace, Israel must end its siege and occupation of Gaza.”

When examining Gaza from the outside, it is all too easy to view the situation as one of two things—a humanitarian crisis or an intractable cycle of rocket attacks and “defensive” actions. But these two perspectives miss the larger point. Gazans—like all Palestinians—live under occupation. Even if Gaza was rebuilt tomorrow and not another rocket was fired (in either direction), Palestine and Israel would still not have true peace. A just and lasting peace requires much more than food and a lack of violence. It requires dignity, self-determinism, and legitimacy.

MCC Signs on to Advocacy Statement for Gaza

2009-01-22T01:55:00.000-08:00

MCC is part of the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA) and has signed on to the following advocacy statement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JERUSALEM, 20 January 2009 –The following is a statement by the Association of
International Development Agencies regarding the crisis in Gaza. Quotes are attributable to
Charles Clayton, chairman of AIDA and national director of World Vision Jerusalem, on behalf
of the non-governmental and non-profit humanitarian organizations named below:

"We continue to press for a permanent ceasefire, in the wake of the January 18th unilateral
ceasefire declarations by Israel and Hamas.

"After 22 days of bombardment of Gaza, a ceasefire is clearly long overdue. However, a
unilateral cease-fire does not guarantee the safety and protection of civilians in the Gaza Strip
and southern Israel. What is needed is full compliance with UNSCR 1860 including a
complete cessation to violence on both sides.

“This ceasefire should allow unhindered humanitarian assistance to the desperate civilian
families of Gaza who have lost their homes and businesses and are struggling amid
shortages of food, supplies, cash, healthcare and fuel.

“We call on world leaders to take seriously their responsibility to protect children and non-
combatants before more lives are put at risk by the collapse of basic services and destruction
of infrastructure, which severely constrain meeting the population’s immediate humanitarian
needs.

“All parties must refrain from further violence and actively protect civilians from additional
harm, especially children, who make up half of Gaza’s population. Resolving outstanding
differences through diplomatic means is the only way to ease humanitarian distress and
assure durable peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.

“The 18-month blockade of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza must end. It has devastated
the economy, halted services and rendered the people of Gaza entirely dependent on
humanitarian aid.

“Urgent efforts need to be made to ensure that cash flows into Gaza to purchase basic
necessities. According to UNRWA, at least 95,000 people have not been paid over the last
few weeks, including aid workers and those who have are not able to access funds because
of bank closures.”

This statement is made on behalf of the following AIDA members:
ANERA Merlin
Austcare Norwegian Church Aid
Campaign for the Children of Palestine Oxfam International
CARE International Save the Children Alliance
Center for Environmental Diplomacy The Swedish Organization for
Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Individual Relief (SOIR)
Popoli- C.I.S.P. Terre des Hommes – Lausanne
EAPPI War Child Holland
Japan International Volunteer Center Welfare Association
Medical Aid for Palestinians World Vision International
Mennonite Central Committee

# # # END # # #

For interviews or more information please contact:
Allyn Dhynes, World Vision, +972 (0) 547 749 509
Michael Robin Bailey, Oxfam, +972 (0) 57 223 30 14

The Aftermath

2009-01-20T22:51:00.000-08:00

Now that Israel and Hamas have declared their separate ceasefires and explosions have stopped, at least for now, perhaps news networks will tire of broadcasting the less sensational work of cleaning up. With or without the tremendous media attention of the last three weeks, the Palestinians of Gaza still have to pick up the pieces, literally, of their lives, of their homes, of their land. It has been estimated that thousands of houses have been destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. Bodies continue to be pulled from the rubble and some seriously wounded Gazans are also perishing, raising the death toll even when the troops have left. Assessing the damage is only possible now, when residents can emerge from the dark, cold waiting and see in the light what has become of their neighborhoods, and when journalists who have been camped out on the border counting airstrikes are permitted to enter and see the stricken.
I believe it is the uncountable losses that will be most devastating to the people of Gaza. When funerals are finished and buildings are rebuilt and after flesh heals and when life goes on, what kind of life is going to go on? I find the pain unimaginable. Children especially, who have no frame of reference but bombs and rockets---what will their future be? Undoubtedly, people there will pick up and begin again their lives as best they can to survive, but this war will forever alter them. I find myself wondering about the psychological damage, the unquantifiable ache and the immeasurable scar that will be left on the people of Gaza young and old, as it is on survivors of all warfare. The words of our MCC partner Majeda in Khan Younis, Gaza, have haunted me. Even the birds have suffered from the relentless fighting.
"What's wrong with your rooster?" my friend shouts down the phone line.
"It’s 9 pm and he's crowing as if it's dawn!"
"Suffering jetlag," I explain.
"They didn't sleep all night because of the explosions.
"They're hungry because there's no feed for them in the market.
"And an Apache just lit up the whole Khan Younis skyline with their flares.
"They think it’s the morning.
"But don't worry, they'll go back to sleep," I assure her.
A rooster’s confusion is somewhat comical, given the seriousness of the situation Majeda and her fellow Gazans were in. But the lack of sleep, the hunger, the fear that lingered for those chickens was much more real for the families that owned them. Maybe now the people and the animals can sleep again in this relative calm, but mental recovery will not be easy. How many nightmares, how many behavioral problems, how many bullies will this war produce? Will young people be able to see a future beyond the rising clouds of smoke from the artillery? Beyond the blockades and the crossings? Or will there be a surge of volunteers for a fanatical group bent on violent revenge?
As we read or watch the unfolding story of tragic loss and devastation, hearing those never-ending facts and figures that Peter reflected on last week, the physical dimensions, let us remember the incalculable, sometimes invisible, but very real aspects of this disaster as well. Pray for those who suffer internally who likely don’t have access to therapy or counseling and for the fragile children who don’t ever feel safe anymore.

Kimberly MacVaugh is an MCC SALT worker, serving her one year term in Israel/Palestine. She is a recent graduate of Messiah College in Pennsylvania.

History did not begin with the Qassams

2009-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Israel has ended the shelling for now. Gaza residents surely welcome the chance to sleep through the night without the noise of explosions. However, it needs to be pointed out that this is another unilateral decision; Israel has, for their part, decided to stop dropping bombs. They have done this without what would seem like important gestures or steps for peace: without talking to Hamas, without withdrawing troops, and without promising to end the economic blockade and closures of borders that have been imposed on Gaza. Ceasing to drop bombs is a step, but it seems just one of several that need to be taken as people here move toward peace. The continued refusal of one power to talk to another seems unlikely to lead to long-term security for either Israelis or Palestinians.

This is an article from an Israeli newspaper about what's happening in Gaza. The title itself, "History did not begin with the Qassams," is perhaps a challenge to start thinking about the conflict here in a new way.

-------------by Amira Hass, the full article below and linked here.

History did not begin with the Qassam rockets. But for us, the Israelis, history always begins when the Palestinians hurt us, and then the pain is completely decontextualized. We think that if we cause the Palestinians much greater pain, they will finally learn their lesson. Some term this "achievement."

Nevertheless, the "lesson" remains abstract for most Israelis. The Israeli media prescribes a strict low-information, low-truth diet for its consumers, one rich in generals and their ilk. It is modest, and does not boast of our achievements: the slain children and the bodies rotting under the ruins, the wounded who bleed to death because our soldiers shoot at the ambulance crews, the little girls whose legs were amputated due to horrible wounds caused by various types of weaponry, the devastated fathers shedding bitter tears, the residential neighborhoods that have been obliterated, the terrible burns caused by white phosphorus, and the mini-transfer - the tens of thousands of people who have been expelled from their homes, and are still being expelled at this very minute, ordered to cram into a built-up area that is constantly growing smaller and is also under sentence of incessant bombing and shelling.

Ever since the Palestinian Authority was established, the Israeli public relations machinery has exaggerated the danger of the military threat that the Palestinians pose to us. When they moved from stones to rifles and from Molotov cocktails to suicide bombings, from roadside bombs to Qassams and from Qassams to Grads, and from the PLO to Hamas, we said with a whoop of victory, "We told you. They're anti-Semites." And therefore, we have the right to go on a rampage.
What enabled Israel's military rampage - the proper words to describe it cannot be found in my dictionary - was the step-by-step isolation of the Gaza Strip. The isolation turned Gaza's residents into abstract objects, with no names and addresses, except the addresses of the armed men, and no history, aside from the dates determined by the Shin Bet security service.

The siege of Gaza did not begin when Hamas seized control of the Strip's security organs, or when Gilad Shalit was taken captive, or when Hamas was elected in democratic elections. The siege began in 1991 - before the suicide bombings. And since then, it has only become more sophisticated, reaching its peak in 2005.

The Israeli public relations machinery happily presented the disengagement as the end of the occupation, in brazen disregard of the facts. The isolation and closure were presented as military necessities. But we are big boys and girls, and we know that "military necessities" and consistent lies serve state goals. Israel's goal was to thwart the two-state solution, which the world had expected to materialize once the Cold War ended in 1990. This was not a perfect solution, but the Palestinians were ready for it then.

Gaza is not a military power that attacked its tiny, peace-loving neighbor, Israel. Gaza is a territory that Israel occupied in 1967, along with the West Bank. Its residents are part of the Palestinian people, which lost its land and its homeland in 1948.

In 1993, Israel had a one-time golden opportunity to prove to the world that what people say about us is untrue - that it is not by nature a colonialist state. That the expulsion of a nation from its land, the expulsion of people from their houses and the robbery of Palestinian land for the sake of settling Jews are not the basis and essence of its existence.

In the 1990s, Israel had a chance to prove that 1948 is not its paradigm. But it missed this opportunity. Instead, it merely perfected its techniques for robbing land and expelling people from their houses, and forced the Palestinians into isolated enclaves. And now, during these dark days, Israel is proving that 1948 never ended.
--------------

It raises some important points and some things that MCC emphasizes in our work here. Causing the other 'much greater pain' is not the answer, regardless of who is causing the pain
and who is suffering. Understanding the perspective of people different than ourselves is one way to help people here move toward peace. Decontextualized pain explains why a lot of
what happens here happens, and is a danger in itself; seeking to know friends, neighbors, and the community around us is one way to combat our natural inclinations to protect 'ourselves'
and what's 'ours'.

This past Thursday night, MCC workers attended the launch of an educational packet by an Israeli partner, Zochrot. They discuss the 'Nakba', or 'Catastrophe' in Arabic, and try to educate
the Israeli public about the way Palestinians view the events of 1948. At the packet launch one of the Israeli teachers who was going to use the packet shared his thoughts (in paraphrase):

I believe that the Nakba is continuing, even now, with the attacks on Gaza. It's not only the destruction of a people, but the destruction of a culture as well. I am an old man, and I don't
believe that I will see the end of the Nakba in my lifetime; I don't think Israeli society will realize what it is doing while I am still alive. But, I think that the work that Zochrot is doing is
what needs to be done, and what can be done. Seeing the work of Zochrot gives me hope that one day we will live in peace, and I want to say thank you.

It's encouraging to hear such words from an Israeli, and we hope that more of the people who call this place home will come to realize that causing 'the other' pain is not the way forward.

Trey Hulsey is an MCC Peace Development Worker in Bethlehem, and loves both his wife Jessie and many of the people in Israel/Palestine.

Majdas Journal

2009-01-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

Majeda El-Saqqa, Director of Public Relations at Culture and Free Thought Association, an MCC partner organization, graciously shares the following notes of experiences over the past few weeks with us, offering a glimpse of life in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

2 January, 2009
Wael, my four-year old nephew, loves to watch birds. For the last six days, every day he looks up at the sky and wonders why the birds take so long to go to their nests. He tells me that every day birds used to go to their homes directly, only maybe once or twice would they fly around the house. Yesterday Wael was watching his birds and all of a sudden an F16 started roaming about, occupying the sky. The birds flew from right to left and then back again -- every time they found a safe area in the sky an airplane would drop another shell and the birds would flee to the other side. In the beginning, Wael was laughing and he called all his brothers to watch how the birds were dislocated. But today Wael is really angry; he feels that the birds are not safe.

Wael tells me: "Last night when I went to sleep the airplane hit my finger... I know you don't believe me, but it fell down and set fire to our garden. I could smell the fire.

"What did you do?"

"I was looking for my airplane to go up and take all the birds to their mother because they were calling me to help them."

"Did you help them?"

He gives me a very angry look and says, "Of course not!"

"Why?"

"Because you didn't buy me an airplane, so I couldn't do anything for them
and they are really angry with me."

I look at Wael:"Listen, I promise you when this war is over I will buy you a very
big airplane, with a remote control."

He asks: "What is war?"

"War is what we are living now.
Like what you saw in your dream."

"And why would any one make this war?"

I think that he's got the idea and then he continues: "Why would anyone not want the birds to go back to their nests?"

I look at Wael and say: "We will continue later..."

He is happy with my new promise and I am happy I've managed to cut the conversation short.

4 January, 2009
Yesterday was most awful day we ever lived, I think. My mother said even the
1967 War was not this bad. No electricity, very little water, freezing cold and most horrific was the cold accompanied by the live war orchestra.

Tanks bombing from the ground incursion, F16s bombing, the drone which keeps going around in circles all day and night non-stop, making this annoying sound as if there is a bee just at the edge of your ear. Added to all of this, is the sound of shelling from the sea. War melody, is what I want to call it.

Wael keeps asking: Why does the pilot want to kill the birds? Why does the pilot hate birds? Maybe he doesn’t know that they have a life like us...

I 'm shocked by his question: "Maybe he doesn’t know that birds have a life?"

I ask Wael to come inside because it's freezing cold outside. His birds are no longer in the sky. "Come let's play the Alaska game!"
"What is Alaska?"
"It's a new game we'll all play with grandmother. Each of us has her/his own blanket to cover all of the body from head to toe."
I don't know if we were trying to warm ourselves or trying to hide from all the bombing.. Whatever it was, it felt better since there was no electricity and no birds in the sky comforting us.
"Ok, Wael, you are the head of the state of Alaska, and we are the people of
Alaska. What do you order us to do?" I started the game...
"I order you to go to the shop and buy me an airplane, a cage and seeds," he said, sucking on his thumb.
"Why?" I ask. "You need to explain to me."
"I want to fly up, up, up -- till I reach god! I will bring all my birds, and put them in a cage. I'll fly again, and I'll catch the pilot. I will bring him here and give him the seeds to feed the birds."
I look at Wael as the bombing continues, he's quite anxious.
...And I thought the Alaska game could bring some kind of creative ideas to
bring warmth to our bodies and some life under this bombardment.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a very smart idea. So I just obeyed my mother's order: we all got closer to each other and created a net of hugs that really brought warmth to our life and very little security.

We kept listening to the melody coming from outside and we started to count
the bombs out loud; 1, 2, 3, ... 28, ... 32 .... The kids don’t know how to continue counting after 50, so we stopped.

Heather and Ryan Lehman live in Jerusalem and are the Program Directors for MCC Palestine. They are here on a 3 year term and are from Johnstown, PA. They have 3 children, Tayllor (12), Ellena (9) and Elijah (2).

Tipping Point

2009-01-16T06:01:00.001-08:00

We live near one of the largest mosques in Amman. At noon today hundreds of Muslims will stream to the King Abdullah Mosque for Friday prayers. Across the region, the scene will be repeated in thousands of locations. Sermons will focus on the crisis in Gaza. Later today there will be demonstrations in the streets throughout the Middle East.

This week, Osama bin Laden issued a call for holy jihad against Israel and criticized Arab leaders for their lack of response. Anger at the mounting suffering in Gaza is growing – and not just among Muslims.

According to BBC this morning, the Palestinian death toll has reached 1,105 -- with more than 5,100 wounded. Roughly a third of the casualties have been children. Thirteen Israelis have been killed and 233 soldiers wounded.

As Peter Miller pointed out in his posting several days ago, it is easy to get lost in the numbers. To get a scope of the losses in Gaza during the past three weeks, a proportionate number of deaths would be 18,415 Canadians or 220,980 Americans. (Some 3,000 persons were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.)

MCC partners in Gaza report that their offices are closed and that they are working from home – venturing out during the lulls in shelling to distribute food staples and relief kits to persons whose homes were damaged or destroyed. The conditions are extremely difficult and dangerous. Yesterday, the Israeli military shelled the UN complex in Gaza city, setting it on fire and injuring three persons. A Middle East Council of Churches health clinic was also destroyed by Israeli fire earlier this week. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to fire rockets into southern Israel.

In the past several days, diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire have increased. Leaders from Hamas and Israel shuttle in and out of Egypt for truce talks. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has been in the region meeting with Arab and Israeli leaders. Unfortunately, he does not plan to meet with leaders of Hamas, even though they are a party to the conflict.

This is day 13 of my fast for peace. At some moments it feels that – while the root issues of the conflict are far from being addressed -- the immediate fighting may be drawing to a close. At other moments I’m aware that one demonstration that turns violent, or one hostile act by a third country, or one too many egregious strikes by Israel, or one Hamas rocket that kills a large number of Israeli civilians could spread this conflict to a whole new level.

We are at a tipping point.

J. Daryl Byler, lives in Amman, Jordan. He and his spouse, Cindy, are MCC Representatives for Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Iran. They have young adult three children living in the United States.

Links to News Sources

2009-01-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Here in Jerusalem we're able to watch CNN. We're able to watch Israeli television and news. And we're able to watch Al Jazeera, a news station that gives a different perspective than what we hear from North America or in Israel.

From Al Jazeera's youtube channel, you can watch some of their video clips. These are the very same clips that are constantly on the news in the homes of our neighbors and in coffee shops around the West Bank. They show a different side to 'Operation Cast Lead', a side that when viewed should give anyone pause in their enthusiasm for Israel's right to defend itself.
The channel hosted by Israel National News has a nationalistic bent to it. They view Palestinians, or, as they're generally referred to by Israel National News, Arabs, as at best a danger to the State of Israel, and at worst as wanting to destroy the country.

The third link is to an Israeli magazine, Ha-aretz, which means 'the Land'.

The fourth is a link to a Jordanian magazine, the Jordan Times.

1. http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish

2. http://www.youtube.com/user/IsraelNationalTV

3. www.haaretz.com

4. www.jordantimes.com
Regarding the two video channels, I want to be sure that readers understand that I'm not intending to equate the two perspectives; I think Al Jazeera does a fairly good job of presenting an aspect of the situation in Gaza that native English speakers often don't hear (unless we intentionally seek out this type of coverage) and in general provides balanced reporting. I think INN reports the situation as they understand it, but they often don't present a full picture of what is happening here. They give a narrow perspective on things.

The challenge for us as MCC workers is to try to understand the feelings and perspectives of both sides here. Developing relationships is a beginning to the process of understanding the root issues of this conflict and encouraging all to look towards justice and peace as the way towards a better future for everyone who calls this land home. A few minutes perusing the links above can give you a good idea of how difficult it is to call for justice and peace in a place where each seems so far away.

Trey Hulsey is an MCC Peace Development Worker living in Israel/Palestine. He LOVES playing football (soccer) with his friends there.

Lost in the numbers

2009-01-14T02:27:00.000-08:00

"My message is simple, direct and to the point: the fighting must stop. To both sides, I say: Just stop, now. Too many people have died. There has been too much civilian suffering. Too many people, Israelis and Palestinians, live in daily fear of their lives. And in Gaza, the very foundation of society is being destroyed: people's homes; civic infrastructure; public health facilities; and schools."

-Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General, January 12, 2009

Other contributors to this blog have noted how pervasive news coverage of Gaza is within Palestine. On buses, the radio seems to constantly be tuned to the latest update from Gaza. At the grocery store, the TV behind the counter shows clips of rubble and mangled limbs and IDF spokespersons. At the internet cafe, computers display Facebook groups announcing the next demonstration. In this whirlwind of images and sounds and information, we wait for the numbers. The numbers of the dead, the numbers of the injured, the number of days that this catastrophe has continued. These numbers are always changing---always growing.

These are the numbers that I am encountering today (unless otherwise noted, figures are from the United Nations):

19 days of death and destruction

971 Palestinians dead

----311 children

----76 women

4,418 Palestinians injured

----1,549 children

----652 women

9 Israeli soldiers dead

4 Israeli civilians dead

58 Israeli civilians injured

4 UN staffers killed

6 UN staffers injured

49 UN buildings damaged or destroyed

4 aid convoys attacked

3 rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel this morning

8 shells fired back at Lebanon from Israel this morning

35,520 Gazans are displaced due to the fighting

6 pieces of bread given to each displaced person each day by the UN

38 of 47 bakeries have been closed due to shelling

28 of 58 Palestinian Ministry of Health healthcare centers have been closed due to shelling

1 Christian health clinic completely destroyed by an air strike

½ million Gazans do not have running water

170 babies born in Gaza every day

56% of Gazans are children under age 18

100,000 Spanish demonstrators demanding an end to attacks in Gaza

1.5 million people live in Gaza (similar to the population of Idaho)

139 sq. miles--the size of Gaza (twice the size of Washington, D.C.)

I have a hard time keeping track of these numbers. After a while they start to lose their strength and their meaning. After 19 days of tallies and analysis, it is easy for me to forget that every number has incalculable meaning to someone else.

The difference between 5 pieces of bread and 6 pieces of bread means something to someone in Gaza. Healthcare center number 32 used to be just down the street from a family in Gaza and now they have to take their sick and injured elsewhere. The fourth Israeli soldier killed in this conflict has a mother who's life will never be the same. The 170^th baby born later today—if she survives the coming weeks—will grow up in a devastated society. Protestor number 87,312 believed that he should skip work to march through the streets of Madrid as an act of solidarity with Gazans.

These numbers matter.

Behind every number is a story and a person.

-Peter Miller is an MCC SALT worker based in East Jerusalem. He is a recent graduate of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.

Gazan Christians Stranded in Bethlehem

2009-01-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

The Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) reopened Monday with somber reflections on the war that has transpired over the holiday/semester break. Many here have relatives living in Gaza, including Selwa, the wife of BBC's president and my Arabic tutor. She has been distraught about the ongoing military campaign and could only respond to me saying, "I have Gaza on my mind." It has been difficult to get going again with the routines of the new semester as so many are affected either personally or by the relationship between BBC and the Protestant church community in Gaza.

Bishara Awad, the President of BBC, said in devotions that we should begin our year by praying unceasingly as the Bible instructs, pointing specifically to the story about the persistent widow who continually nags an unjust judge until he submits to her requests. The evangelical church in Bethlehem is committed to praying constantly for the conflict to end and for God to help the suffering people. Also, BBC is raising funds to send to the Baptist Church in Gaza to distribute as aid. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Christians in Bethlehem will be fasting to remember and pray for Gaza.

One issue that has arisen is that many families, particularly elderly Christians from Gaza, were able to receive permission this Christmas time to visit Bethlehem. As the war broke out on December 27th, they have been stranded in the West Bank and their permissions have expired. To get home again will be quite a challenge due to the border problems—expired permissions—and also, clearly, because the war has devastated Gaza's infrastructure. Meanwhile dozens of families remain in Bethlehem at hotels and with relatives, unable to contact their families in Gaza to see how they are fairing. One woman was at the BBC yesterday and told me she did get to call her relatives in Gaza but that their living situation was grim without running water, electricity or heat. Their food has spoiled in the refrigerator, which cannot run.

The Church in Gaza is very small—around 2,500 of 1.5 million Gazan Palestinians are part of Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant groups. Three Christians are known to have been killed as a result of the war.

Please join Bethlehem Bible College in praying and fasting for peace in Gaza.

Kimberly MacVaugh is an MCC SALT worker, serving her one year term in Israel/Palestine. She is a recent graduate of Messiah College in Pennsylvania, and she hopes her experiences here will lead to long-term work for peace and justice in the Middle East.

The Children of Gaza

2009-01-12T02:52:00.001-08:00

As I talk or watch the news with neighbors and friends in Palestine, the subject of children and how they have been killed, injured or are frightened is the topic that we talk about most. I am not yet a parent so it’s hard for me to imagine exactly what my feelings would be, but I can easily picture our neighborhood kids, my Monday afternoon girls craft club, our friends’ children and young relatives. As I sat with a woman originally from Gaza who now lives in the West Bank, we talked about her family still living in Gaza. Tears ran down her eyes as we talked about the children suffering from this terrible event. We talked about both the children in Gaza and children living in surrounding Israeli towns. “They are children. They need food, milk and their parents,” she said. “I saw one little girl on the television who was in the hospital and now has suffered injury to her legs, saying ‘mama, mama’. I wanted to go get her, adopt her and give her clothing. What should we do? They are just children.”

Soccer practice, ballet, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, swimming, riding bicycles and playing outdoors. These are all things that remind me of my childhood. In my mind, the children of Gaza and the surrounding Israeli cities are being robbed of their childhood. Each day, they live in fear that a rocket or bomb will hit them.

So often you hear quotes like, “Today’s Children, Tomorrow’s Future”. What kind of future is being created in Israel and Palestine by using violence as a way to solve conflicts? This area already has a population of adults who have suffered terrible trauma during their childhood from the Holocaust and the war in 1948, referred to by Israel as ‘Independence Day’ and by Palestinians as ‘the Nakba’ or ‘the Catastrophe’. Gaza is creating the same situation.

I found an interesting article that was written by a woman named Avigail Abarbanel. Although it was written back in 2003, I believe that it still applies:

“Although the traumatized individual might think that they have succeeded in moving on, in reality their whole existence is shaped and dominated by their trauma. There is a real risk that they will then transmit the trauma to the next generation without being aware of it. I believe that it is this dynamic that lies behind the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people in Israel. The story of Israel and the Palestinian people is the story of trauma being transmitted from one generation to the next. Trauma sufferers believe that the way they see the world is accurate but what they see is often interpreted through the eyes of their trauma.” To read the full article, click here.

This situation is creating another generation of Palestinian and Israeli children that will be traumatized by their memories of this horrible situation. Attached are some articles about the children of Palestine and Israel that are suffering trauma due to these horrific events.

Article 1:

Article 2:

Article 3:

In the spring, we had an MCC learning tour here. We took the group to a controversial area in the West Bank where Israeli settlers live near a Palestinian village. The children from this village need to be accompanied to school by internationals because adult settlers throw stones at them periodically. One evening, in a debriefing session, one member of our learning tour asked the group a question, not expecting an answer in return. "How can a grown adult throw stones at any child, no matter what the situation might be?"

Perhaps only by not thinking of the actual people that we inflict pain on as “people” but as our enemies. If we would think of these children as our own, or our neighbors, or our family, we might not be so quick to perform such troubling actions. We need to start thinking about the population living here as humans and treat them as so.

I pray that the people dropping bombs from aircraft into Gaza or shooting rockets into Israel would think about the long term ramifications of these events and the trauma they are creating on the children of Israel and Palestine.

Jessica Hulsey is a Peace Development Worker for MCC in Palestine. She has been married to her husband Trey for over 4 years and are in the middle of a 3-year MCC term. She is originally from the Philadelphia area. She graduated from Gordon College in Massachusetts. Before moving to Palestine, she worked as an event/conference planner.

Day 16

2009-01-11T03:31:00.000-08:00

Today is Day 16 of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which began Dec. 27 with the stated goal of ending Hamas rocket-fire into southern Israel.

Code named “Operation Cast Lead” -- after a Hanukkah song about cast lead dreidels (toys that looks like spinning tops) – the war is now responsible for 875 Palestinian deaths, including some 235 children. Thirteen Israelis have been killed in the fighting.

Today Israeli troops are in a fierce gun battle with Hamas near Gaza City, which may signal the beginning of “phase three” of Israel’s military campaign. Analysts fear this stage will involve high casualties as troops penetrate deeper into urban settings and refugee camps.

Yesterday, Khaled Meshaal, chairman of Hamas’ political wing, called Israel’s attack “a holocaust” in Gaza” and said Israel has ruined the chance for peace. Meshaal demanded that Israel immediately end its aggression in Gaza, withdraw its troops, lift the economic siege and open all crossings into Gaza. He called for Arab nations and all Palestinians to unite in resisting Israel’s actions in Gaza.

In Amman, Cindy and I worship with an Anglican congregation. In our service last evening, the priest read a letter from Rev. Suheil Dawani, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem. Bishop Dawani described the dire conditions at an Anglican-run hospital in the Gaza Strip:

“Our Diocese has one of 11 hospitals serving a population of 1.5 million residents in the Gaza Strip. The Al Ahli Arab (Anglican) Hospital has been in operation for over 100 years and has a very dedicated medical staff. . . .
During the best of times they are stretched to their maximum meeting the medical needs of this populous community. Now, during the current military conflict with its heavy toll on human life and material, the hospital faces even greater responsibilities and challenges. . . . Every day since the beginning of military operations, the hospital has received 20-40 injured or wounded patients. A large proportion of them require hospitalization and surgery. . . .
In addition, the conflict has brought new types of medical and surgical conditions. For example, patients with burns and acute, crippling psychological trauma are being seen more frequently. Because it is not possible for aid workers to enter Gaza at this time, the hospital’s staff is working around the clock, struggling with the effects of exhaustion and against limited resources in a conflicted area of ongoing military operations. . . .
The hospital’s windows have all been blown out or shattered from rocket and missile concussion and cold permeates the entire premises. Plastic sheeting to cover the windows could alleviate some of the cold but is unavailable now. Food supplies are scant throughout the Gaza strip and maintaining patients’ nutritional needs at the hospital has been difficult, especially for the most vulnerable. . . .
Efforts to help alleviate some of the shortages are underway and we hope that the shipments will arrive quickly. Through the ICRC limited amounts of diesel fuel are being delivered to keep the electrical generators functional for life saving and other essential equipment. We are working with a number of related governmental and international voluntary agencies to speed up the delivery and steady supply of needed medicines and food. . . .
On a “normal” day, approximately 600 life line trucks a day bring supplies to the Gaza Strip. Many are under the auspices of UNRWA and international relief agencies because about two-thirds of Gaza’s residents are Refugees and living in UNRWA Camps. During this time of conflict, that number of trucks is not seen in a week or more. Because of the reduced deliveries, medical items, nutritional food, and other basic supplies are now scarce items, if available at all, for our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
As we continue to pray for communal Palestinian and Israeli PEACE, we especially remember these dedicated individuals who cannot leave, but most importantly do not want to leave, but continue to do all they can to help.”

Bishop Dawani’s depiction of Gaza matches those reported by three MCC partners in Gaza. The situation is chaotic and fearful.
Today I am in the 8th day of a liquids-only fast for peace, which began at the time of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza. While truce talks continue in Egypt, neither Israel nor Hamas seem ready to make the first move to meet the other’s demands. In my gut, I fear that this conflict will escalate further.
It may be some days before I eat again. More importantly, it may be many days yet before the children of Gaza have enough to eat, a warm place to sleep and a safe place to play.

J. Daryl Byler, lives in Amman, Jordan. He and his spouse, Cindy, are MCC Representatives for Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Iran. They have three young adult children living in the United States.

How Do We Let This Happen?

2009-01-10T00:34:00.000-08:00

There's a war in Sri Lanka. Something about Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government.

In Zimbabwe, the man in power rigged an election through power and violence. People were beaten on the premise that they might vote the wrong way.

In Gaza, a military is flying airplanes and helicopters over populated areas and dropping bombs and firing missiles.

All three of these things are wrong. I try to make sense of how we (the world, people in general, North America, anywhere that's a center of power) let these things happen. And I kind of understand. I don't know anyone from Sri Lanka and don't know the ins and outs of what's happening there. I don't come across Zimbabweans in my daily life, so I tend to think of the situation there when it comes across the news, or occasionally when something randomly reminds me of that part of the world. So I understand why the people with power let these things happen; they're not 'on our radar' on a daily basis. MCC has people in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, and I'm sure they confront some of the same questions about why the world watches while injustice continues.

For me, though, and the rest of the people here in Palestine, what's happening in Gaza is a part of our day. Two nights ago we went out for coffee with some international friends, intentionally looking for a break from the news of the killing and destruction being rained down on Gaza. Our favorite place, one we go to often, had the news on instead of the usual Arabic television show or the latest football game. Over coffee we kept hearing updates about how many dead, how many wounded, and the latest on the Israeli military's plans.

Last night I went to a Palestinian friend's house for dinner. He's a single guy and lives with two of his brothers. We had the news on and were watching updates about Gaza and what's happening there. His brother mentioned that there had been a protest in Bethlehem against the airstrikes in Gaza. Palestinian security forces showed up to disperse the crowds and children started throwing stones at them. "It's sport," the brother said. "They're just getting in some exercise." I don't think he was emotionally ready to talk about why people would gather in protest, or why they feel frustrated and helpless and choose to express that through throwing stones. It was easier to make a joke.

I went to a barber here in Bethlehem. He's from Gaza and lives in the West Bank as an undocumented resident. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, doesn't mind that he's here. If Israel caught him living in the West Bank with a Gaza ID they would send him back. His extended family still lives in Gaza. I asked how his family was. "Ok, thank God. Ok." Nothing else. I wonder if he's worried to say more since he doesn't know what could happen tomorrow, or even tonight.

We were talking with a close friend from home in the United States. "Israel has a right to defend itself." What to say? If she could see what we saw, I don't think this would be the first reaction. I read a book that talked about the end of civilization being when the Allied powers during WWII decided to bomb German cities, full of people. The premise doesn't seem wrong to me: watching helicopters and airplanes launch missiles into populated areas seems barbaric to me. What is Israel defending? Hamas firing rockets at Israeli towns isn't ok; it's even less justifiable that a state that calls itself Western, progressive, and democratic forces a closure on an entire geographical area and launches a military campaign there. Israeli leaders say they've been forced into this war and that they're not targeting civilians. It sounds right to North American ears, but I don't think it's any comfort when buildings are exploding around you. Can a bomb or missile tell the difference between a militant and a civilian?

I'm glad I don't live in Gaza. I'm glad I was born in the United States into a position of privilege. But with that privilege there is a haunting responsibility. People often ask us why we're here, and depending on who's asking the answer is slightly different. I explain to other Christians that this is what I think Jesus meant when he talked about loving our enemies and caring for the poor. I tell other people who work for humanitarian aid organizations that I like what MCC does and how they do it. For people that I can't find much common ground with, I answer that we don't choose where we're born, and that if I was born in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, or the Gaza Strip, I'm sure I would want others to understand my situation and help me change it. I'd want her or him to care about the fact that I had never left the Gaza Strip, never carried a weapon, and wanted a good life for me and my children. I'd want her to care that there were airplanes flying over my house dropping ordinance designed to kill, maim, and destroy.

Trey Hulsey is a Peace Development Worker in Palestine for MCC. He has been married to his wife, Jessica for 4 years. They plan to live in Palestine for 3 years.

A Message from Christians in Gaza

2009-01-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, January 4, four hundred Palestinian Christians and Muslims gathered with Christian internationals at St. Stephen's Dominican Basilica in Jerusalem for a prayer service on behalf of the people of Gaza. At the service, Rev. Naim Ateek (an MCC partner and director of Sabeel) read a message from Father Manuel Musallam of the Roman Catholic Church of Gaza. The following is translated and adapted from Father Musallam's message:

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

From the valley of tears, from Gaza which is drowning in its own blood, I send you a word of faith and hope. The word "love" is choked in our throats. We cannot, even as Christians, dare to speak it to ourselves. As priests, we lift up the virtue of hope so God may have mercy on us and allow the light of Christ—which was first lit by Phillip, the deacon of this city—not to be extinguished but to keep shining in the midst of the remnant Christian community in Gaza.

I share with you the sad news about our young daughter—a student at our Holy Family School and the first Christian girl to die in this war—Kristine Wade Attork. She was in the tenth grade and she died on Saturday morning, January 3, 2009 as a result of fear and the cold [Kristine died of a heart attack]. She could not bear the sound of missiles and bombs and she went to God seeking a better home and refuge where there is no weeping or wailing but joy and happiness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what you see on TV is nothing compared to the terrible reality in Gaza. The siege and the war on Gaza have become a crime against humanity. It is only the just and righteous judgment of God that can give a fair trial of what is happening here.

The human trauma for the children is unbearable. People are sleeping in the corridors of their homes to avoid the bombings. The density of the population makes it difficult to hide because the people live so close to each other. This is why the toll of human life—including that of women and children and the destruction of homes—has been so extensive.The conditions in the hospitals, the lack of utilities, and the shortage of medicine are all tragic. Flour is scarce and some of the bread this is baked is not healthy because it lacks pure ingredients.

I implore you to pray without ceasing for the people of Gaza every time you hold a mass. Continue to sing—O God of peace, shower your peace upon us. Your prayers will move the world because nothing can stand in the way of true Christian love. This love makes us all feel that we are a part of the one holy and catholic church; and our Muslim brothers and sisters are our family with whom we share a common destiny, for we are one Palestinian people.

In the midst of all this, our people in Gaza reject war as a means for peace; and we emphasize that the way of peace is peace. We choose to live in order to give praise to God and to witness for Christ. We want to live for Palestine and not die for Palestine. However, if we have to die, we will die strong, brave, and with honor.

We join you in your prayer so that Christ may give us his true peace. So the wolves and the sheep can live together in peace, the leopards and goats can lie together, and babies can place their hands in the mouths of snakes and not be harmed.

The peace of Christ, which has called you to be one body, be with you and protect you. Amen.

There are 2500 Gazan Christians. The majority are Greek Orthodox although there are Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant congregations as well. For more on Palestinian Christians, click here and here.

-Peter Miller is an MCC SALT worker based in East Jerusalem. He is a recent graduate of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.

Christmas Canceled in Bethlehem

2009-01-08T03:45:00.000-08:00

The biggest holiday of the year in Bethlehem is obviously Christmas. In the Holy Land, the town of Jesus’s birth, this is the height of the tourist season as well as a time of great joy for local Christians. Because every denomination and sect of Christianity reveres the Incarnation, there are three periods of celebrations every winter in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity: for the western churches, December 24th and 25th, for the eastern churches January 6th and 7th, and for the Armenian Orthodox, January 18th and 19th. This year, however, after the western Christians (Catholics and Protestants) had their festivities, Israel began its bombing campaign of Gaza, December 27th. In a show of support for the Palestinians in Gaza, the Bethlehem municipality (and all of the West Bank) canceled most parties and celebrations, including those for the New Year and for the remaining two Christmases.

Lights were turned off, decorations taken down, and the mood around Manger Square has been quiet and somber. This January 6th, Christmas eve for Eastern Orthodox churches, there was no fanfare and pomp in the streets. Usually, as on December 24th for western Christians, there is a huge parade with boy and girl scout troops and bands playing triumphant music; and choirs from around the world sing carols in front of the church. This year, the city merely welcomed the Patriarchs of the various Christian communities such as Syrian, Greek Orthodox, and Ethiopian Churches into the Nativity Church. Services were held as normal but the season’s typical public cheer was absent.

I had personally looked forward to enjoying the holidays here in Palestine, in the place where it all began. I saw the fanfare of the Catholic Christmas and was excited to see what the Orthodox holiday had in store. But canceling the celebration seemed one small way in which residents of Bethlehem could stand in solidarity with the population of Gaza, at a time when we all feel so helpless in the face of such violence. The continued war will dampen more than just spirits here. Tourists have already fled what they feel is an insecure situation and take with them much of the business that keeps Bethlehem running. Quietly though, we Christians still take hope in this Christmas time, having faith that Christ is still present, amidst the pain and suffering, and that ultimately peace will reign on earth.

--Kimberly MacVaugh is an MCC SALT worker, serving her one year term in Israel/Palestine. She is a recent graduate of Messiah College in Pennsylvania, and she hopes her experiences here will lead to long-term work for peace and justice in the Middle East.

What can I do to help?

2009-01-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

The Gaza Strip situation brings great concern to all of us as we follow the news. As we talk to our neighbors and friends here in Palestine, they desire to take action for those in need, yet feel so helpless. I spoke with my neighbor about the situation in Gaza. They said “If the people in Gaza could stop the fighting, they would. Israel is killing the regular people….where is Hamas? There is nothing we can do from the West Bank. I hope I can help the people in Gaza to get out. They should open the checkpoints for all those people who don’t like situations like this. Nobody would stay in Gaza. Nobody can do anything….only America.”

We have also received many emails from friends and family back in North America asking if there is anything they can do to help. This seems to be the big question. What can I do to help those suffering?

We would like to highlight some options on how you can advocate for the people and situation that is taking place in Gaza and the surrounding Israeli towns.

What is advocacy and where do I begin?

Advocacy:

Can promote positive change to structures and policies, which will be of benefit to people who are being treated unjustly.

It can change a community's attitudes and misconceptions about a particular situation.

It ensures that you have a voice and that it will be heard.

What do I advocate for?

Call for an immediate cease-fire: The fighting will not bring about security for either Palestinians or Israeli's. Israel needs to stop the bombing, air strikes and other military activity that is killing hundreds and injuring thousands of innocent civilians. Hamas must stop the rocket attacks that continue to hurt Israelis and bring about fear.

Humanitarian aid into Gaza: Humanitarian aid must reach the most vulnerable people. A humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip is in no one's best interest.

Encourage them to join others in pursing a peaceful solution that will bring an end to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

There are many ways in which we can all be advocates. Outlined below are a few suggestions.

1. Contact your governmental officials:

This is extremely important! Make your voice heard to your representative or Member of Parliament. Send them a letter, fax or email. For helpful information on how to do this, please visit the following MCC advocacy office websites:

In Canada: http://www.mcc.org/canada/ottawa/
In the United States: http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/

To find your local Member of Parliament or congressional official, please go to the following links:

In Canada: http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/index.asp?Language=E
In the United States: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

MCC has sent letters to the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States. To find these letters, please go to:

http://www.mcc.org/news/

2. Write an article for a newspaper or magazine

Draw the attention of many people through an article in your local newspaper or church magazine. Many readers are inundated with the media, which continues to portray a one-sided story.

Perhaps you have read a news story that you might not agree with. Send a letter to the editor with your opinion on the situation in Gaza.

If you have visited the West Bank in the past, relate to them on a personal level with a story about your visit.

3. Prayer

Pray for the civilians who are physically and emotionally traumatized due to the situation in Gaza.

Pray for the families who have had a member killed or injured in the fighting.

Pray for doctors that they would have wisdom as they treat patients and work under tense conditions. There is a lack of supplies, overcrowded hospitals and emotions are extremely high.

Pray for those in leadership, that they would work towards a peaceful solution that is in the best interest for everybody.

Pray that humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza.

We encourage you to take action.

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." -Helen Keller

Jessica Hulsey lives in Palestine. She and her husband Trey are Peace Development Workers for MCC. They have been married for 4 years and plan to live in Palestine for a total of 3 years. She is originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia but has also lived in Boston, MA and Durham, NC. She enjoys event planning, hosting people and cooking.

2009-01-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here is an excerpt from an article written on the website of Israel National News (IsraelNN.com) with some commentary from MCC. You can read the full article here.

Rabbi Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, the number four man on the National Union's Knesset list [a political party in Israel], thinks the leaders of Israel should follow King David's advice from the Eighteenth Psalm regarding Gaza: "I will chase my enemies and catch up to them and I shall not return until I annihilate them."

"This should be the slogan of every leader and IDF commander," he said. "The enemy must know that whoever raises his hand against Israel, we will teach him a lesson and annihilate him as well as all his helpers and supporters, and only thus will we take out their will to fire missiles at us."

As followers of Jesus, we think that violence will never secure peace. This statement from an aspiring politician reflects the grossness of the state of Israel's misjudgment as to how to achieve peace. Yes, rockets have been fired at Israeli citizens. Will dropping more bombs change the situation? From here in Israel/Palestine, it seems that there is not much difference between the goals of Hamas and the goals of the Israeli military. Hamas thinks that with enough violence, they will be able to push Jews out of what was historical Palestine and reclaim the land for themselves. Violence is a means to their goal. For the Israeli military, the stated goal of the current military action is the cessation of rocket fire from Gaza. As the Gaza Strip was being bombed by Israeli aircraft, rockets were still being fired. If Hamas is still finding a way to launch rockets while under aerial bombardment, does the Israeli military really think that after the cessation of military action there won't be people willing to launch rockets?

It's difficult to understand the situation in the Gaza Strip. The average Israeli views the situation differently than the average Palestinian.

The average Israeli hears about the constant rocket fire towards Israeli towns and cities. They see images of demonstrations against Israel, demonstrations with guns and men calling themselves 'martyrs', swearing their readiness to die in defense of Palestine.

The average Palestinian hears about the siege of the Gaza Strip, and friends or family members explain that they're largely unable to cross borders to go to university abroad, visit family in the West Bank, or leave Gaza for medical treatment. They feel the humiliation and frustration of living under and occupying power, and having that power decide who can go where, and when, and how long it will take. They know the frustration of being stopped on a daily basis simply because they are Palestinian.

No one can say for certain what will happen when the Israeli military has finished its actions in Gaza. No one knows if popular support for Hamas will be stronger (which Hamas expects) or weakened (which Israel expects). No one knows how long the Israeli military will continue to occupy Gaza in an attempt to stop rocket fire from Hamas. There are things that can be said for sure though:

Dropping missiles and bombs on a population is not a way to bring peace. Hamas launching rockets at Israeli towns hasn't convinced Israel to acknowledge the wrong done in 1948 or 1967, when Israel forced Palestinians from their homes. Previous Israeli military action in Gaza, the closing of the Gazan borders, not allowing people to leave or people to enter, hasn't stopped the rocket fire. This military action won't stop the rocket fire.

Over 500 are dead and 2500 wounded. Hamas will claim victory if, when Israeli military action has ceased, they are able to launch even one rocket. Israel continues to tell the media that this war is not against civilians. And yet civilians continue to die. Should we judge our actions based on our intentions or on the results of our actions? Dropping bombs and missiles from the air into cities and towns is safe for Israelis and poses little risk to soldiers. But bombs and missiles don't have eyes; they can't tell who is and who isn't in a building. Israel says it was 'forced' into this war. Is it forced to deal with rockets in this way, by dropping bombs from airplanes?
Yes, Hamas uses civilians as human shields. Yes, they hide rockets and ammunitions in schools. Does Hamas also force Israel to drop bombs?

There is a better way. For every person killed in Gaza, it's likely that the attitude of the people in Gaza hardens. Regardless of what you're told, if missiles are falling on your neighborhood, you're going to have a hard time believing you're not the target. Gazans feel abandoned. In their eyes, Hamas is one of the only parties to stand up for the rights of the people living in Gaza. While the rest of the world pleads with Israel to stop military actions, Hamas is the only group actually doing something about it. This doesn't make it right, but it helps explain the popular support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, while Israelis weren't dying on a large scale, there was no international outcry for Hamas to stop launching rockets at Israel. Israel feels that the international community doesn't understand it's situation and that it must act unilaterally in order to take action to protect Israeli Jews living in the south.
The better way involves speaking to one another, seeking to understand what the other wants. Not all Gazans support Hamas, and if the population there saw a viable solution to their current situation, one that acknowledged the wrongs done to them and provided them with a material, civic, and emotional way to move forward, most likely a majority of them would support it. Not all Israelis think the best way to deal with extremists is to bomb the towns and cities they live in, and if they were able to overcome their fear and believed that a majority of Palestinians wanted peace, they'd be willing to encourage their government to find such a solution. The problem is that both sides play on the anger, fear, and distrust of the other. The extremists on both sides are loud enough that moderates and others willing to pursue peace are pushed out. Each side has in the extrememists of the other a ready excuse as to why they the ones responsible for peace.

The quote with which this post opened was from an Israeli Jewish rabbi running for office in Israel. We in North America often hear such things from Hamas, but it is because people on both sides speak in such ways that peace will be difficult to find here.
The enemy must know that whoever raises his hand against Israel, we will teach him a lesson and annihilate him as well as all his helpers and supporters, and only thus will we take out their will to fire missiles at us.
Hamas firing rockets hasn't convinced Israelis to leave the country. The Israeli military attempting to 'annihilate' the enemy hasn't convinced Hamas to stop launching missiles. Violence is not the way. There is not a path to peace; peace is the path. Acknowledging the absurdity of continuing to expect violence, whether from the Israeli military or Hamas, to bring peace and security, is one of the first steps that needs to be taken. Seeking to actively live peace, even at a great cost to oneself, instead of waiting for it to come, is another.

2009-01-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

This article seems to support a just war perspective, which MCC doesn't agree with. However, he raises some interesting points about what each side might be more willing to accept and actually carry out. His suggestions would require some optimism, but after decades of pessimism and pragmatism, and with little or no improvement after all that time, perhaps optimism is an option that needs to be tried.

His main point, that domination is not the way to security, is one that desperately needs to be taken to heart here in the Middle East.

Making Sense of Jesus

2008-12-30T08:30:00.001-08:00

As I write, Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip. Israel says the goal of the bombing is to stop a stream of rockets being fired from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities. Hamas says the rockets are a response to Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza.

There are several things that are difficult about this bombing. I've just walked home from speaking with neighbors about why the bombing of Gaza and why firing rockets at Israel are both wrong. People are dying. Numbers start to become meaningless and leave you numb: Israeli news tells us that hundreds of rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip in the past six months. Our Palestinian neighbor's TV tells us that 350 people have been killed, 1500 wounded. Do these things even matter? There's no way we can know the names of all the people who have been killed. There's no way we will ever understand what it's like to live in an Israeli town close to the border and have seconds to get to cover because another rocket has been fired from Gaza.

Both of these issues lead us to a different set of questions: how should we respond to these things? What do we say to Israelis that point out what it's like for residents of those Israeli towns? What do we say to Palestinians in Gaza who have had homes come crashing down on them as a result of missiles fired from airplanes? In such a heated atmosphere as this, people are quick to dismiss you if you seem to support either 'side'. One thing we try to do is to help those around us see what we see; when I talk with Mohammed, Ahmed, Noora, Moshe, Jacob, or Ronit, I'm not talking with 'one of them', I'm talking with neighbors, acquaintances, friends. We wish those militants launching rockets or the pilots dropping bombs could see the same. PEOPLE live there, not Jews or Arabs; people.

At home, in North America, we feel so helpless. We can raise our voice in protest but we alone can't change the fact that people here are committing violent acts against one another. We can't help that Israel begins bombing the Gaza Strip, treating all the men, women, children, all the families there, as if they are the very same people committing the horrible acts of launching rockets towards Israeli towns.

Sitting here, in Israel/Palestine, we still feel helpless. We can speak to friends and neighbors and explain why not all 'Jews want to take over all of Palestine' or why not all 'Arabs want to kill Israelis.' It's something, but it feels like so little when rockets are being fired, bombs are being dropped, and entire people groups have made each other the 'enemy'. So what can we do? One small but (we think) significant thing, is to love the people around us well. We can live what it means to be in the Kingdom of God and provide an example of what it looks like to follow Jesus in a world that is fallen. 'Love your enemies and do good to those that persecute you' seems easy enough, until you actually have enemies and are suffering persecution. It's not easy to live in God's Kingdom and physically be in a different place, but this is what God asks of his followers. Because we are not Palestinian or Israeli, we aren't invested in the conflict here in the same way. And yet we love those around us, who are invested in it. We can touch their lives and speak to them as close friends. Living in a place like this, Jesus suddenly starts to make more sense. This is why Jesus talked so much about loving 'others' and our 'enemies' and there being a 'narrow gate'. He makes more sense when we have to fight through our natural reaction to protect ourselves and what's ours and start the striving required to truly love other people that are different than us. We live in God's Kingdom, while residing in a different place.

Please pray for the people of Gaza. Pray for those who are trapped in homes or have missiles being shot at them and haven't done anything wrong. Pray for those who live in Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon who have had rockets shot at them. Pray for those firing missiles from helicopters and airplanes and those launching rockets, that they will see the humanity of those they view as enemies. Pray that this place of long-standing conflict will know peace and that all people here, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim, can live with equal rights in a place free of war, suspicion, and hatred.

A Modern Christmas Story

2008-12-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

(A little tough to follow, but so are the realities of this place...)

In Luke chapter 2 we are told of Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth. It’s a familiar story this time of year, the travel of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to Jesus. Thousands of travelers will come to Bethlehem this year to celebrate Christmas in the place where Christ was born some 2,000 years ago. However, the people who live here in Israel/Palestine who would be able to follow the same path that Jesus’ parents took so long ago are few in number.

There are two major groups of Israeli citizens in Israel; there are Israeli Jews, and there are Israeli Palestinians. Israeli Jews aren’t allowed to enter ‘Area A’. Israeli Palestinians are at the moment. The West Bank is currently divided into three separate ‘Areas’ as a result of the Oslo agreements from 1993. Area A is where the Palestinian government has full security and civil (water, electric, utilities, etc.) control. Area B, where Palestinians have civil control and Israel has ultimate security control. And Area C, where Israel has civil and security control. Driving through the West Bank there are signs indicating Area A as being illegal for entry by Israeli citizens. This is generally only applied to Israeli Jewish citizens, and Palestinians that have Israeli IDs are allowed to cross checkpoints and enter Area A. Looking at a map, one can see that the West Bank is far from being mainly Area A. In fact, the West Bank currently looks like Swiss cheese, with large Palestinian population centers, like Ramallah, Nablus, and Bethlehem designated as Area A, and most of the rest of the land Areas B or C.

So, Israeli Palestinians would be able to go from Nazareth (an Israeli town whose population is mainly ethnically Palestinian) to Bethlehem (‘Area A’, a Palestinian town whose population is almost exclusively ethnically Palestinian). Who else would be able to make the trip? Well, Palestinians born in the West Bank are issued West Bank IDs by the Israeli government. Palestinians with West Bank IDs aren’t allowed to enter into Israel proper (Tel Aviv, Nazareth, anywhere in the Galilee, or Jerusalem) without special permission. Often our Christian friends and neighbors are given this permission from the Israeli government at Christmas or Easter; it’s rare for our Muslim friends and neighbors to get this permission. So any Palestinian born in the West Bank is out, unless they’re granted special permission.

There’s a third type of ID that some Palestinians have (Just to review, so far we’ve got Israeli Palestinians, who are Israeli citizens, and West Bank Palestinians. In Area A, West Bank Palestinians live under Palestinian law. In Areas B and C, they are governed by an Israeli military authority, but have no vote in Israeli elections or any chance of getting Israeli citizenship.). The third type of ID that some Palestinians have is called a ‘Jerusalem ID.’ Palestinians born in Jerusalem have the option of taking Israeli citizenship or taking a Jerusalem ID. A Jerusalem ID is different from a West Bank ID. Palestinians with a Jerusalem ID have freedom of movement both in Israel and in the West Bank. Generally, Palestinians from Jerusalem don’t want to take Israeli citizenship as a way of protesting what they view to be Israeli occupation of east Jerusalem. That’s three possible IDs that a Palestinian born in Israel/Palestine could carry: an Israeli ID (if s/he holds Israeli citizenship), a West Bank ID, or a Jerusalem ID.

So who would be able to make the same trip today that Joseph and Mary made over 2,000 years ago? Well, Israeli Jews wouldn’t be allowed to enter Bethlehem today (being forbidden by the Israeli government out of concern for individuals’ safety). Israeli Palestinians are currently allowed to enter Area A. Palestinians with West Bank IDs could get to Bethlehem, but they’re not allowed to places like Nazareth unless they’re granted permission from the Israeli government. Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs could make the trip since they’re allowed to live in Israel and allowed to enter the West Bank. There’s a whole other category of people we haven’t talked about yet though, one that Jesus himself would be included in: Jews born in the West Bank.

Jews born in Areas B or C qualify as Israeli citizens (since Bethlehem is Area A, I don’t know how Jesus would be categorized today). This is one of the biggest problems we have with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Israeli Jewish citizens live in the West Bank and live under Israeli civil law. They can vote in Israeli elections and use the Israeli airport in Tel Aviv. Palestinians born in the same place are ruled by Israeli military instead of civil law and have to travel to Amman when they want to fly.

Seeking justice in this part of the world often involves working not for something extreme, liberal, or radical. Often it involves asking for basic, simple things: the application of law equally to all people regardless of race or religion. Asking Israel to take practical steps as regards the West Bank: make Israeli citizens leave and pull out of the area militarily, or annex the land and make all the people living there citizens, regardless of their ethnicity. Calling for an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank is often viewed as radical or extreme, but looking at modern day conditions in light of the Christmas story helps us see the situation for what it really is: an absurd arrangement that in the end isn’t really good for anyone, be they Jew, Christian, or Muslim.

YMCA Women's Training Program

2008-11-21T03:06:00.001-08:00

The YMCA Women's Training Program (WTP) is one of MCC's partners here in Israel/Palestine. The YMCA works with women and their families in small villages and partners with them by giving loans for animal production and agriculture. They provide 6-9 month training sessions where they teach about economic development and marketing, as well as agriculture and animal husbandry.

One man who works part-time with the YMCA recently told us that the reason he likes working there is because they deliberately seek out the poorest of the poor and try to help them change their lives. In their training sessions, trainers look for responses in the women depending on the topic; for example, if they begin talking about raising chickens and notice that some women are suddenly more interested, trainers make a note of it, and if those women ask for loans regarding chickens, they're usually approved. The YMCA tries to provide a means of earning income that beneficiaries are passionate about.

When beneficiaries have paid back their loans, they're given a certificate from the YMCA showing that they've paid the loan back in full. This woman showed us her certificate on a recent visit. She was extremely proud of the fact that she and her family were able to earn enough income from their grape arbors that they could pay back their loan. This system allows people a chance to improve their financial situation with help from an outside organization, but allows them to do so with dignity and a sense of pride in their accomplishment.

PHOTO ESSAY: Wells Near the Dead Sea

2008-11-04T22:35:00.000-08:00

This week MCC workers were able to visit Bedouin and other rural communities near the Dead Sea. One of our local partners, the Bethlehem YMCA, is working with these communities to rehabilitate old wells to help provide these often-marginalized communities with water. They would use this water for agriculture and livestock, the two staples of their communities and their only source of any type of income.

One Palestinian man that accompanied us on the trip told us that he really appreciated working with the Bethlehem YMCA (link to the right). As he explained, "They're not like most large organizations that look for projects that will promote their name. They specifically seek out the poorest of the poor and look for ways to actively help them." We're proud of our partners here in Israel/Palestine, and this is just one example of why...

Photo Essay

The Heart of the Conflict

2008-10-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

There is no issue in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict that is more explosive than the status of Jerusalem. Although the topic is often set aside during negotiations because of its contentious nature, there are some who believe that the city which represents “the heart of the conflict" must be the starting point for negotiations. Ir Amim (which means "city of peoples" in Hebrew) is a local Israeli organization that promotes this belief and is working towards creating a stable reality for all the peoples of Jerusalem. Today, I had the opportunity to join Ir Amim on a tour of Jerusalem, revisit the wall which surrounds much of the eastern part of the city, and more closely examine the current realities "on the ground" that are working against a shared future and hopes for a viable Palestinian state. Because most of the tour's participants were Israelis who had never or perhaps infrequently visited this part of the city, it was also an opportunity for me to gain a better understanding of the Israeli perspective.
Following the Second Intifada that occurred in 2002, construction on the "separation barrier" began for the alleged purpose of providing security to the Israeli population. Yet the current route of the wall grabs undeveloped West Bank territory for the purpose of Israeli development, includes the major settlement blocks of Gush Etzion, Maale Adumiim, and Pisgat Ze'ev (some of which are quite some distance from the city center) and excludes Palestinian neighborhoods like Abu Dis and Azaryia which had traditionally been considered suburbs of the city.
The Wall as a Tool for Land Confiscation. Hailed as Jerusalem's fastest growing neighborhood, Har Homa offers Israelis "all the staples anyone could ask for: health services, supermarket (with many American foods), pizza, and falafel stores plus regular bus service throughout the day are easily available. Residents are friendly and eager to welcome newcomers. Sitting atop a mountain overlooking Ramat Rachel and Bethlehem, residents enjoy breathtaking views and breathe fresh mountain air daily. There are playgrounds and greenery scattered throughout and many more on the way. All the homes are new and more are planned to meet the growing demand." Subsidized housing makes this settlement appealing to many Israeli Jerusalemites. What developers don't mention is the fact that this land was once West Bank territory--a forested area that provided an open recreational space to the residents of the crowded city of Bethlehem. Confiscation of the area by the Israeli government, development and now adoption into the city of the Jerusalem as a result of the wall insures that Palestinians of Bethlehem and the West Bank will never again be able use the area to hike and picnic.
The Wall as a Tool for Exclusion of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and from One Another. In the Shofat Refugee Camp, an area clearly within the municipal boundary, residents maintain Jerusalem ID status, but the path of the wall now limits access to the city and essentially declares a new municipal boundary. Many Palestinians are moving inside the wall to hold on to their Jerusalem ID card, but this has only added to the East Jerusalem housing shortage, and contributed to overcrowding and economic decline. A similar situation has occured in fringe Palestinian neighborhoods which surround the city like Abu Dis, Azaryia, and Kafr 'Aqb; half of the residents are included in the city and half are cut off. From a security standpoint, there has been no evidence to suggest that those living outside of the wall have engaged in more violent activity than those living on Jerusalem's side of the wall. There is evidence to suggest ulterior motives for the path of the wall.
The Wall as a Tool to Shape Future Borders and Create Irreversible Facts on the Ground. In Abu Dis the wall not only cuts through the community but also runs just in front of the Palestinian Authority's Parliament Building which was to serve as the Palestinian seat of authority of East Jerusalem. Was the path of the wall in this place chosen as a way to prohibit a future Palestinian capitol in East Jerusalem? The question must be asked.
The development of Maale Adumiim, the large settlement block to the east of the city, essentially divides the Northern part of the West Bank from the Southern part making a viable Palestinian state increasingly difficult.
Although these tours are often difficult for anyone, I was encouraged this time by the reactions of some of the tour's participants. Many were disturbed by the obvious lack of social services provided to the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem who pay the same taxes as residents of the Western side of the city. Garbage pickup is clearly less frequent, antiquated water and sewage lines are in desperate need of repair, streets are in need of paving, lights and sidewalks are infrequent, and few playgrounds exist. Education is a huge problem as well. Approximately 1500 classrooms are needed in East Jerusalem and although the Ministry of Education has promised to provide these facilities, they have been slow to act. Many Palestinians are forced to provide private educations for their children, yet Israeli children in West Jerusalem receive these services free. Further, the municipality has refused to zone portions of East Jerusalem, making construction for Palestinians on this side of town illegal. Obviously there is a huge disparity between the city's treatment of its Israeli and Palestinian residents. Many of the tour's participants acknowledged that this could not be morally justified.
Some questioned why so many decisions are made between private individuals and the municipality without public debate. "After all, these decisions affect us all," said one participant. A few recognized that the current realities only aggravate strained Palestinian-Israeli relationships and will not lead to a more secure Israeli State. Perhaps tours like this will encourage more Israelis to become better educated about the realities of the current situation and call their own government to accountability for its actions.

Jonah's Lessons for Today

2008-10-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

Today is the celebration of the end of Ramadan, the nearly month-long Muslim holiday where Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. They refrain from eating or drinking, and the end of the month is marked by a feast when people exchange presents.

This week begins a series of Jewish Holidays. Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, and then Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance.

During the holiday season, both observant Jews and Muslims turn their attention to spiritual matters. Both mark their holidays by fasting. Observant Jews specifically get themselves ready for Yom Kippur by taking stock of their lives over the past year.

On the holiday of Yom Kippur, to be celebrated a week from Thursday, many texts from the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, are read. One of those texts is the book of Jonah. There are deep implications regarding peace between Israelis and Palestinians from the book of Jonah. Jonah is told to go to the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, and warn them to repent. Assyria was an empire that had invaded Israel and deported many of its citizens. When God tells Jonah to go his enemies so that they have the opportunity to repent, he refuses and runs from God's call. And when the Assyrians finally do repent, "...It displeased Jonah, and he was very angry." (Jonah 4.1).

How similar a situation we see ourselves in now. There are a people here who are being oppressed. There are many Palestinians living outside the land that would like to return but are not allowed. Where is the Jonah of today, the one who would be willing to go to Ramallah and speak to the Palestinians about how to work with Israel in an effective way? Not only to the leadership, but to the people on the other side that are willing to do what's necessary for the hard work of pursuing peace. Even after hearing God's call, Jonah still resisted. No wonder then that we so often too shun the work of pursuing peace with our enemies; it's human nature that we want to see them 'get what they deserve' rather than receive the grace and forgiveness God offers.

As we work with MCC in Israel/Palestine we are often reminded that we are outsiders to the conflict here. Ultimately, the people here have to move forward themselves. But as we try to learn from the people we build relationships with, one thing we begin to understand is how each side sees the 'other'. For us, soldiers at checkpoints represent an inconvenience and a frustration; for our Palestinian friends who have experienced them as an immovable part of their lives, they represent something else. Settlers represent injustice to me, but I've never lost a home because of one. In the same way, when militant Palestinian groups speak of destroying the Jewish state, or call Jews pigs and thieves, it doesn't resonate with our identity in the same way it would if we were Israelis or Jews. When leaders rail against the Zionist regime, we don't immediately think about how that will affect our future lives in our current home. But, despite the fact that we are outsiders, we're beginning to understand. Through the relationships we're building we're learning of the pain, frustration, and misunderstanding that is found so often on both sides. We're learing to see the 'other' as our friends see them. And as we understand these things we're able to enter into some of that frustration with our friends, and by doing so, we legitimize something inside them. Suddenly our encouragements to work towards peace and to love our enemies begin to mean something. Here is someone who is learning their language, listening to their story, hearing their pain. So when we talk about loving our enemies, our words carry weight. Recently we've come to understand the grace God has shown us on a deeper level. Perhaps if I had been born in Tel Aviv I would be standing at a checkpoint. Perhaps if I'd been born in Gaza I would march in parades for martyrs. Either way, understanding that grace has kept us from these things is a move towards understanding those on either side who have legitimate grievances. By not cheapening the pain felt on both sides we're able to speak with integrity about the necessity of working towards peace. We realize that as outsiders it's not up to us, but we can often fill the gap that people from here aren't able to. One afternoon we can be in Ramallah helping to train young people to see themselves from others' perspectives and think about the responsibility they have towards their society, and that evening we can sit down with rabbis in Jerusalem to talk about ways to educate the Israeli public about the injustices being carried out by their government.

One of the most significant aspects of Jonah's stories is that not only does he see his enemies redeemed, he actually plays a role in bringing them to that redemption. We look to inspirations like these as we work with partners and friends, urging them to play a role in the redemption of the other side. As outsiders it's not up to us, but we can encourage and support those on both sides who will decide when peace and justice will come to this land.

Partner Profile: Palestinian Hydrology Group

2008-09-16T02:31:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian Hydrology Group is one of MCC's partner organizations in Israel/Palestine. MCC supports PHG with an annual financial contribution and frequent visits to their projects throughout the West Bank. PHG works to provide local communities with water for drinking and agriculture.

On visits to PHG's projects, MCCers meet with beneficiaries who have been given access to more water resources. These farmers and families are always happy to share what they have with MCC staff. We often leave these visits with armfuls of whatever happens to be in season. As you can see in these pictures, these families benefit from the extra water. This helps not only in food production in these communities, but often farmers are able to begin marketing produce as well as a result of PHG's work.

This is one of the wells PHG helped renovate. Most of the wells PHG works with are in poor condition, leak water, and are inefficient. PHG's work with local communities to upgrade wells helps conserve the scarce natural water resources in the West Bank.

A familiar sight to anyone who's visited Palestine, we were immediately offered coffee and tea when we visited the committee that helps choose wells to renovate. This committee is made up of local farmers who themselves have benefited from PHG's work. The committee searches for communities that are in need, but also that will benefit from the type of small-scale community development projects that PHG specializes in.

Of course, due to the traditional hospitality here, we never leave empty-handed. MCC is able to give through its partnershp with PHG, but it's also given to...

SHALOM: A Matter of Perspective

2008-09-02T00:33:00.000-07:00

My first real encounter with the word 'shalom' was as a biblical studies major in college. Most of you are probably familiar with 'shalom' as meaning 'peace'. In my studies I learned that it does indeed mean peace, but goes beyond that to encompass a sort of 'wholeness', connoting a way of living that bears out what God originally intended his creation to look like. 'Shalom', the sort of thing that would have been found in Eden before the Fall.

When I lived in Jerusalem to continue with graduate studies, the word 'shalom' lost some of its mystical feel. I was learning modern Hebrew at the time, and in modern Hebrew 'shalom' is used as a typical greeting, the way we would use the word 'hello' or the phrase 'how are you?' in English. At first I was impressed with Israelis. "Wow," I thought, "everyone here walks around greeting each other with 'peace'. What a great concept." It quickly became routine and was just a way to start conversation. It wasn't so much greeting someone with the word 'peace' as it was what you said to a friend before you started talking. 'Shalom' became just another word from a choice of possible greetings, something said so often during the week that it didn't have any significance except as a way to open a conversation or greet someone passing by.

Now, Jessie and I live in Bethlehem and work as MCC's Peace Development Workers. Lots of our friends are here with us in Bethlehem, and we cross checkpoints pretty often as we move back and forth for work between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. 'Shalom' has started to mean something different for us. Apart from when we visit MCC's Israeli partners, the only time we hear it is at those checkpoints. it's the first thing you hear when you pull up and are greeted by armed soldiers. "Shalom, show us your passports please." "Shalom, may we see your ID." Now it feels like a reminder of the fact that many of our Palestinian friends aren't allowed to come to Jerusalem with us. A friend's son recently told her, "Mom, I know what shalom means. It means show me your passport." My heart broke when I heard this; instead of knowing 'shalom' as the wholeness that God intended his creation to live in, this little boy's first exposure to the concept was as a symbol of the dynamics of power and oppression at play in the world. "Shalom, show me your passport." "Shalom, I need to see your ID." "Shalom, you're not allowed to cross here."

When we originally started as Peace Development Workers for MCC, there were certain aspects of the job we were excited about, and certain aspects of the job that we were curious about. What does it mean to be a 'peace development worker'? How does that play out in real life? And is it really 'work'? After over a year in the position, we've come to understand that it is indeed work, and can often be the hardest kind of work there is. There's a reason Jesus tells his followers in Luke 13 to "strive to enter at the narrow gate." It's not an easy thing to live out the way God has called us to live in the world. It's something we must strive for. Psalm 34 reminds us as well to "seek peace and pursue it." Not only are we to look for peace, to look for ways to move ourselves and those around us towards peace, but the 'work' part of the job for us is right there in the verse. 'Pursue' it as well, because as long as we live here in the world peace will not come easily. For us, we're learning that walking the way of Jesus and living in God's Kingdom is part of the reward, the goal. I don't know if the ultimate goal is for us to actually 'attain' peace, but for now the 'striving' and 'pursuing' parts of God's instruction for our lives is keeping us busy enough. Thankfully there are lots of other believers here trying to live out the way of peace alongside us. Together we're learning what it means to 'enter at the narrow gate'. It's not easy, but the process, the striving, the pursuing of peace, is beginning to become a reward in itself.

MCC Partner Profile - Lajee Children's Center

2008-08-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

Lajee Children's Center is one of MCC's partners here in Israel/Palestine. They run after school programs for children, and work mainly with children from Aida refugee camp. Here, Palestinians are considered refugees if any of their ancestors left their homes during the war of 1948. Generally, those who fled their homes were not allowed to return. It's not uncommon to meet a child who will tell you he's from Jaffa or Lod, even though he himself may have never even seen the city.

Lajee provides under-privileged children with a small library, a place to learn about and use computers, and a summer camp which provides them with new experiences and gets them out of the crowded conditions of the refugee camp. As part of their summer camps, Lajee brings international volunteers to work with the children. One such volunteer, a young Jewish woman from America, was the first Jewish person that many of the children have encountered that wasn't wearing a uniform of the Israeli military. The story is related in the video. It's encounters such as this, building bridges and breaking down walls among those that are different, that encourage MCC's work with partners such as Lajee.

East Jerusalem: Urban Planning or Ethnic Cleansing?

2008-08-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

As a part of urban planning and land use development in communities around the world, building permits are required to ensure public safety, health, and welfare as they are affected by building construction. In East Jerusalem, however, building permits appear to have a different purpose.

A complicated and lengthy application process along with fees as high as $25,000 make obtaining a building permit almost out of reach for many Palestinians and very few permits are actually issued. In addition, Palestinians are only permitted to build one- or two-storey buildings, while adjacent Israeli housing units may have up to eight floors. With a housing density double that of Israeli’s, 11.9 square meters per person in Palestinian neighborhoods compared to 23.8 in Israeli neighborhoods, Palestinians are often forced to build “illegally” without permits. The Jerusalem Municipality enforces the building laws by issuing demolition orders for all houses built without a permit. In recent months we have seen a significant increase in home demolitions among Palestinians in East Jerusalem for this reason.

Just two months ago, a nearby house owned by the Ibrahim Ghazlan Al Abbasi family was demolished because they did not have a permit. One month following the demolition Al Abbasi died of a heart attack and shortly thereafter the family decided to come together to rebuild the home. We watched the four walls of the new structure go up over the past month, but this past week the backhoes returned and the new structure was again demolished. Also within the last week, a five-story building in the nearby neighborhood of Beit Hanina was demolished leaving 70 Palestinians homeless. It is important to underscore the fact that these are not isolated incidents. Nearly 80 businesses and homes have been demolished since the beginning of this year and earlier this summer the municipality announced plans to demolish 47 of the 88 homes in the neighborhood of Silwan.

At the same time, illegal Israeli settlements continue to be built and expanded in East Jerusalem. In January 2008, just two months after Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in Annapolis, the Israeli government announced plans to build 300 new apartments at the Har Homa settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. Settlement expansion is also being encouraged in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where a court order threatens the evacuation of 27 homes.

Yet Palestinians and internationals are not the only critics of the municipality’s ethnic cleansing program. In protest of the destruction of property and confiscation of homes, Rabbi Meir Hirsh, a leading rabbinical figure, issued the following statement: “Torah Jewry condemns the illegitimate occupation of Palestinian land and the subjugation of Palestinians throughout the Holy Land…What a very different world it would be if all Jews would seek to emulate the traits of Abraham our forefather. Then respect would begat respect and love would yield love and peoples would once again live as true neighbors as we did in the decades before Zionism sought the dispossession of people…We all hope and pray for the day to come, that we all may yet live in peace in the land of our mutual forefather Abraham, under the moral laws of the Almighty.”

As Christians, as messengers of life, healing, and peace between peoples, we must oppose violence in all forms, whether suicide bombings or ethnic cleansing which destroys homes, tears away the hope of a people, and hinders peace. As Americans whose tax dollars support Israel, it is our duty to call upon our government to hold the nation of Israel accountable for actions that contradict the democratic principles we value.

"I'll choose to live every time..."

2008-08-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

As soon as you get off the plane, literally, stepping off of the plane onto the little foot bridge that lets you get from the plane to the terminal, it starts. There's a family, Muslim judging by the young woman's head covering, standing off to the side. Airport security wants to speak to them and has asked them to wait.

I get to the end of the bridge and turn to start walking toward passport control. A woman steps forward, "Hello, sir. Airport security. Can I see your passport please?" Jessie, my wife, has already stepped onto the escalator, "Sure. She has it." She's on her way up. The woman gives me a look and tells me I can go.

We're waiting in line at passport control. They've already told two different families to step aside, both of which look very Arab to me. The girl in front of us looks Arab as well. "Wait over there," she's told. "Where?" "Over there. Someone will come to you in a minute." Security wants to talk to her more before they allow her into the country.

Waiting for our bags to come around on the carousel, a Palestinian man passes. He has a luggage trolley with his bags on it. Two security guards are escorting him out of the airport, one on either side. They walk him around the corner all the way out to the taxi stand. I wonder if they wait for a taxi with him?

Driving home we pass a bus. It's blue and white, a typical Palestinian bus. Two Israeli soldiers have asked everyone to step off and are writing down the names and ID numbers of people on board. It's 5:00 on Saturday afternoon.

All of these things happened within 2 hours of us touching down in Israel as we returned back to work. Small things, seemingly insignificant things. "There are terrorists around. We do these things for the security of the country. You don't know what it's like to have someone want to kill you." These are common explanations for what we see, and are all true statements. But I can't help but wonder how many normal people are inconvenienced by "security measures." I don't know what happens every single day, but I imagine that the day we got off the plane was pretty typical. Here's a family stopped getting off the plane; I'm asked for my passport before I even get close to passport control (and I don't think she was trying to help speed up my entry into the country); families that look Arab are asked to wait to the side; buses are stopped and people are asked to get off. These are all security measures taken by Israel. They're little, daily inconveniences.

An Israeli friend recently told me, "If it's a choice between inconveniencing them, and me living, I'll choose to live every time." I wonder if I would choose the same thing if I were in his position? Is there any number of people I'd consider too many to stop at checkpoints or pull out of line before I thought it wasn't worth the chance? If 100 people wait at a checkpoint so that a terrorist is caught, that seems fair to me. What about 500? 1,000? 10,000? More? When does the law of 'diminishing returns' kick in, and the anger and frustration that are caused not make up for the number of terrorists that are actually caught this way? I can't honestly answer these questions; sure, I live here now, but I don't have to think about raising a family long-term in this environment. If things get too hot, we can always leave. Would I choose to support a society that said that no matter how many normal people are 'inconvenienced', we're going to keep dealing with this certain problem in this certain way?

2008-06-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

We had a group here recently on a learning tour. A learning tour is different than a historical tour. The first time I ever came here to Israel/Palestine, I did a historical tour. I visited all of the biblical sites (yes, ALL of them, we didn't stop moving for 3 weeks). We didn't discuss politics very much. On the learning tours that we do, we do our best to allow the participants to hear from people that are representative of all different perspectives here. We talk to Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims on both sides of the wall. We meet with Jewish settlers living in the West Bank who say the blame at the moment is entirely on the Palestinian side and with Jewish Israelis living in Tel Aviv who say that Israeli society needs to wake to up to the great wrong that it is doing; Palestinian farmers living in villages where they're attacked by Jewish settlers; Jewish settlers who've been attacked by Palestinians; foreigners living here, some of whom sleep in villages without running water in solidarity with Palestinians, and some who argue that Israel has a divine right to the entire land of Israel and think the Palestinians need to leave. We had a non-observant Jewish tour guide show us the religious and historical history of Jerusalem from David to Jesus' time, and we had a Palestinian Christian man from Nazareth who drove us around during our tour. We sat with a Palestinian Muslim woman whose brother was killed by an Israeli soldier approaching a checkpoint and a secular Jewish Israeli woman whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper while working at a checkpoint.

Why do I bother to mention all of these things? If you go back and read through that list again, and then try to imagine developing relationships with ALL the people from the list, you start to get a sense of what life is like for us here; we don't have relationships with all of those people, but we have relationships with people that represent all of those viewpoints (those of you who've been reading for a while also know that I'm encouraging you to visit). This is part of what peacebuilding is: we're trying to help people that would normally only see each other as enemies see each other as people. Lots of Palestinians only experience Israelis as unfriendly soldiers at checkpoints behind guns, barriers, and fences. Lots of Israelis only see Palestinians on the news carrying weapons and bombs. We're trying to help them see each other as mothers, parents, carpenters, soccer players. As people.

So why should we care? Well, driving around Bethlehem the other day we came across this picture spray-painted on the wall.
That 'Made in USA' stencil makes me feel invested in what's going on here. Whoever wrote that there is making a deeper point: this wall that restricts the rights of a lot of Palestinians couldn't have been made without the political support of the United States. Then, there's the question for Israel: have you become the evil you deplored? For me, the USA stencil and the question for Israel are intertwined. Has Israel, as a 'Jewish state', become evil? It's a legitimate question, and I think that there are lots of people that would read that question and stop reading right there simply because I asked it. I think that's what the 'Made in USA' thing is getting at. Are we at a place where we aren't able to even ask the question about whether what the State of Israel is doing is right or not? Lots of people are of the opinion that since Israel is God's chosen nation (I'm not of that opinion and can get into it deeper if you'd like, but 'Israelis' are not the same thing as 'Israelites' and Tel Aviv is not the same thing that Solomon's Jerusalem was) we shouldn't challenge them or confront them. "Those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you cursed" is thrown out there pretty often. One response to that, and one I think can connect with those who argue that we should support the State of Israel out of a biblical basis, is that if the State should be supported because it's made up of God's chosen people, then we should hold the modern state to the same standard God held his people to when he made all those promises; one of the biggest injunctions for the biblical Israelites was that they 'love the alien in the land' since they were once aliens themselves. How do we miss this? Those things seem pretty logically connected to me.

The Church should be speaking out about these things. However, the problem with the Church is that we either don't see these things or don't take them seriously. We are looking to the global Church to be a prophetic voice about these things, expecting it to be willing to speak truth to power and calling it to work to make this world look more like God's Kingdom (isn't that what we're asking for when we pray 'Your kingdom come, your will be done..'?) but it isn't responding to the situation here. Like this picture, the Church's complacency only leads to another wall for Palestinians and a dead end for peace.
Hopefully you're starting to feel a sense of what it's like to work here and try to figure out how to live as a citizen of God's Kingdom while all around us absurd injustices are going on. One of the passages we read Sunday in church was from John 20:19. The verse was printed in the bulletin, "Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you..." When the reader got to the words 'fear of the Jews' he started to say them, realized what he was saying, and said instead 'for fear of Jesus' enemies'. I started thinking about media and how what we say matters. Here, it'd be pretty offensive if there was a Jewish person sitting in the church and the reader talked about disciples hiding for fear of the Jews; don't we do something like that when we say 'the Palestinians' launched rockets from Gaza? Are they all launching rockets? What if the news called them 'enemies of Israel' instead? Would that change the way we see things?

(Still with me? We'll tie it all together in a second here.) Earlier I mentioned the Palestinian woman whose brother was killed and the Jewish woman who lost her son. I sat with a group of pastors, listening to a Muslim woman and a secular Jew tell me about losing loved ones, knowing that their respective societies view the other as 'the enemy'. Seeing them interact with each other as friends, as humans, taught me more about grace than anything I've ever heard someone say from a pulpit. Someone asked the Muslim woman if it's difficult for her to travel because of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement, and if she'd been able to accompany her Israeli colleague on any of the speaking trips the Israeli woman had taken to North America. She reached out and put her hand on the woman sitting next to her. "Not yet. I'd love to travel with my friend, but not yet." I never expected a Muslim woman and a secular Jewish woman to so clearly demonstrate to me the grace, forgiveness, and love my Christian savior so often talks about in a book that neither of them have probably ever bothered to read, much less claim to believe.

Finally, while showing a friend around here, we stopped by the Church of the Nativity, the church built to commemorate Jesus' birth here in Bethlehem. Inside the church is a poor box, a place for parishioners and visitors to leave donations for the poor. It's just off to the side, out of the way but not inconspicuous, just large enough to be noticed by anyone who's been in the church more than once. The Greek Orthodox Church does a large part of the upkeep around the church, and there are signs of that all over the place. One of them is the fact that most of the writing around the poor box is in Greek, the original language of the New Testament. Seeking God's Kingdom is something that has to be actively pursued. I don't think God's Kingdom looks like what I see most of the time: a huge concrete wall, people treating each other with no dignity, intentionally humiliating or demonizing each other, seeing each other as enemies rather than neighbors, oppressing each other, full of fear, hatred, and violence. Most of the time these are things that we encounter in our daily life as we try to connect with the normal people on either side, as we sit with people here we know genuinely want peace and are trying to figure out ways to help the greater publics understand it. Occasionally, we'll have moments like with the two women I mentioned above, who show us what God's Kingdom looks like here in this part of the world, and those are the moments when it all kind of comes together and relieves a lot of the frustration, pressure, and tension we feel living here as citizens of a different place. That's when what's written on the side of the poor box starts to take on a more immediate meaning for us. I start to understand why Jesus tells us to go out and love our enemies and care for the poor; we usually think we're supposed to do those things to benefit them, but I think they're actually for our benefit, so that we can hurry up and live in the world that God intended for us to live in. "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is well pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the poor." (Luke 12:32-33) We all meet people that are poor and that we can give to, and not just materially.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

2008-04-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

Former President Jimmy Carter is meeting with Hamas officials this week. Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli Prime Minister, could not find time to meet with him. Another Israeli official, Shimon Peres, met with Carter but made it clear that he 'reprimanded' Carter for meeting with Hamas officials. The US government considers Hamas a terrorist organization and refuses to speak with them officially. I do wonder though: what has ignoring Hamas accomplished? There are different schools of thought when it comes to dealing with rogue governments or parties; some argue that they shouldn't be awarded the privilege of speaking with Western, democratic governments, arguing that meeting with their representatives somehow validates their actions. Others think that speaking with them is the only way to involve them in the political process, which can be used as a tool to help moderate them. The thinking is that if they are involved in the process, they have more to lose by not 'playing by the rules' of the process.

Either way, these can be secondary concerns for us as citizens of a different kingdom. Jesus told us to love our enemies; I think that Carter is doing that now. He told us to work for peace; I think Carter is doing that as well. It seems that there is a much better chance of bringing peace to this place if we involve all the actors. Anyone familiar with Middle East politics will acknowledge that without involving Hamas, no lasting peace can be forged. Here, views of Carter are drastically different depending on who you ask. Some skew him for being willing to even talk to Hamas; others applaud him for recognizing that Hamas needs to be included in any lasting agreement.

From here, we continue to hope and pray for peace. Speaking with your enemies seems to us closer to Jesus' teachings than ignoring them, and we hope that as we follow his teachings we can bring his kingdom in to the world.

2008-03-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

Friends, Thursday night a Palestinian from East Jerusalem entered a yeshiva in the Western (Jewish) part of Jerusalem. People were killed as he opened fire on students that were studying. Speculating, it seems that this attack was carried out in response to the deaths of Palestinians as a result of the Israeli military's operation in Gaza.
That same night, in response to the attack, the Israeli military entered Bethlehem, which under agreements with Israel is supposed to be sovereign Palestinian territory. It seems that the military was setting off bombs, and there was lots of gunfire, we believe from the Israeli military.
Earlier this week, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, agreed to resume negotiations with Israel towards achieving a lasting peace here. He had called them off in response to what he viewed as Israel's disproportional military response in Gaza to the firing of rockets from parts of Gaza.
Wednesday, Israeli 'border police' were in Bethlehem and killed 4 men. The Israeli military claims the 4 were "terrorists". People in Bethlehem agree that some of them were radical militants, but not all. Regardless, using the legal system to bring to justice those accused of the killings would seem to be a more appropriate and less inflammatory response.
This is not a new cycle and I don't expect that it will end any time soon. It's so easy to see how extremists from either side are able to inflame tensions here or elicit a response from the 'other side'. When we initially came here, we had trouble understanding what 'peacebuilding', our official job title, was. We now have a better understanding of some of what that means. When people are working so hard to kill and destroy, it's much clearer that there should be those that are working harder to build and encourage people towards peaceful, non-violent responses to injustices they see all around them.

Gaza

2008-03-05T04:45:00.000-08:00

Friends, below is an update on Gaza as we see the situation from here. Please continue to pray for innocent people on both sides, and especially for innocent residents of Gaza who are unable to even flee the violence. If bullets are indiscriminate, missiles dropped from aircraft are even more so.

-------------------------------

Over the weekend, we heard from a personal contact who assists in the
hospitals and clinics in Gaza. The writer describes the Israeli
offensive as as "organized destruction". The following is a brief
excerpt from that letter: "Over the previous 48 hours 35 killed and
around 75 injured. Last night to now in one hospital in Jabbalayeh a
further 28 killed including 3 women and 10 under 16 the youngest being
one week old. Less than 10% would be classed as 'fighters' the
majority are civilians with varying injuries... Again most of the
injured are from within houses demolished by the missiles. One man has
lost both lower limbs with an injury to one shoulder whilst feeding
his goats. His father requests his photograph is sent to US as the
chances, when he is ready for getting out for appropriate prosthetic
limb fitting, are slim to nil at present and getting any kind of
prosthesis in, let alone fitted, is costly. He is 20 years old with a
new wife and baby on the way. Whilst he may well become mobile again
on prostheses the way ahead for him will be long and difficult to
regain any degree of independence in any society let alone one that is
being systematically destroyed. He is one of many just in these last
few days."

Gaza's hospitals and emergency workers are stretched beyond their
capabilities and on the verge of collapse. Today, Egypt allowed
approximately 200 patients to be transferred to Egypt. As a result of
the death toll and violence in Gaza, Palestinian President Abbas has
cut off talks with Israel.

Please pray for the situation here, the leaders, and if willing
contact your congressman or senators. Remind them that violence only
begets violence and that the seige of Gaza and the collective
punishment of innocent civilians must end.

Ten Thousand Villages and Olive Wood

2008-03-03T11:13:00.000-08:00

As part of a semester abroad a group of EMU students came to visit MCC Israel/Palestine. We met with some of the artisans who supply Ten Thousand Villages with olive wood products from here in Bethlehem. By getting to meet with the artisans, people are able to put faces to the conflict here; it becomes not the 'other' who is experiencing difficulties as a result of the conflict, but people with names and stories.

If you'd like to link to a slightly larger screen, click here.

Wastewater Treatment

2008-01-28T03:46:00.000-08:00

You may have read an earlier post about wastewater treatment in a village called 'Naha'lin'. Well, a MCC delegation from Canada recently came to visit some of the water projects MCC is working on here in Israel/Palestine. From that visit we were able to put together a short video of some of the work MCC does here.

2008-01-25T07:55:00.000-08:00

In case you didn't know, Israel has imposed a blockade on the residents on Gaza for a LONG time. The Israeli military strictly controls who and what is allowed in and out of Gaza. It's been like this for quite a while. Recently, militants from Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, blew holes in the wall separating the Gaza/Egypt border (there is a wall there put up by the Israeli government to prevent people from crossing directly into Egypt; first they pass Israeli checkpoints, then they come to the Egyptian border). You can read about it here and here as well, and how residents there bought everything from gas to livestock. There's a video of things here, and this is what the fallen wall looked like.

I can't even imagine what I would do in a similar situation. 1.5 million people live in the Gaza strip, an area of about 360 square miles. A foreign government determines that since some of the people from the Gaza strip fire rockets at its citizens, none of the people that live there are allowed freedom of movement. I think that if I lived there I'd be happy to get out for a while too. The linked article mentions how some people just wanted to be somewhere else for a little while; I think we don't appreciate how important it is to be able to travel when we'd like until the privilege is taken away.

One thing that I think about often when thinking of Gaza is a conversation I had with an Israeli friend here. He told me that the border between Gaza and Egypt is open, and that the Egyptians are the ones who won't allow Palestinians to cross the border. The Washington Post article seems to say differently; does he not know the reality of the situation there? Is the Israeli media not reporting this accurately, or is he just unaware? I wonder if most Israelis have any idea of what life is like for residents of Gaza. I understand the Israeli government's desire to protect its citizens, but even if you believe force is the answer, do you really think the best response is to punish 1.5 million people for the actions of a few? Even if we're not pacifists, I don't see how it's possible to rationalize collective punishment, especially on such a grand scale.

______________________________

So what can I do about it?

We can contact our representatives in Congress and ask for two things:
1) Pressure Hamas to stop those carrying out rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, and,
2) Pressure Israel to respond to rocket attacks in ways that don't punish innocent civilians.

You can find your representative here. There's a tab on the right hand side where you can enter your zip and find out who your reps are and how to contact them.

2008-01-21T06:10:00.000-08:00

President Bush is currently here on a tour of the Middle East. You can read a great intro. to what he hopes to accomplish here. One of his main goals while here is to try to move the peace process forward. Remember Annapolis? Not much has happened since then. One of the most significant elements holding the peace talks back are the issue of settlements (more on that below). The President is here to hopefully try to get things moving again and get some kind of action on the settlement issue.

What is a Settlement?

A settlement is any house or building that's built on land that belongs to Palestinians. Some Palestinians, Hamas, for example, would say that the entire state of Israel is built on Palestinian land. Most Palestinians -- in addition to the UN and the International Court of Justice -- would argue that anything built on the Palestinian side of the Green Line (there's a link explaining the Green Line to the right) is a settlement. The Israeli government annexed certain parts of Jerusalem, which it captured from Jordan in 1967. Then, they started building all around the edges of Jerusalem and moved Israeli citizens into those homes. There are other settlements as well, built inside the West Bank. For example, Ariel and Karnei Shomron are
two of the larger settlements there. Their location geographically makes it extremely difficult for any future Palestinian state to be contiguous; these are just some of the settlements that are right in the middle of the West Bank. And as you can see, these aren't just a few houses that can be demolished and the families relocated...

Sometimes settlements look like Ariel, and sometimes they look like Har Homa, one of the settlements built in a ring around the city both sides claim as a capital. As you can see in these pictures, construction on Har Homa continues today.

Often settlements start out like this, with just a few trailers and some water supplies. Eventually electricity is brought in and real homes start to be built. When they're in this stage they're considered 'outposts', but outposts usually turn into towns and then cities.

Now, officially the Israeli government is against the construction of illegal outposts, like the one pictured above. The government claims that it does its best to remove them. However, many still exist. With outposts and settlements come soldiers for the protection of the (illegal) settlers, and then checkpoints, etc. The situation becomes very difficult, and it would seem that if the Israeli government truly wanted peace or the establishment of a Palestinian state, they would stop the building of settlements. On the other hand, Palestinian leaders should denounce and seek to stop the minority of Palestinians who are choosing violence (e.g. rockets and suicide bombings) as a means to resolve the conflict.

Bush's Visit to the Region

Yesterday we watched a live press conference held by President Bush and the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert. The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, held a press conference with Bush today. When Bush and Olmert spoke, both said that they were committed to peace, but there were some things that pointed to difficulties down the road. For his part, Bush said the goals of this trip for him were that there would be a clear vision of what a future Palestinian state would look like, that the road map issues for both sides would begin to be dealt with (see the 'educate yourself' part of this earlier post), and that the Palestinians would begin to organize their security forces to stop terror attacks. PM Olmert said some things as well. He mentioned previous agreements with the Palestinians, wherein the Palestinians are supposed to put a stop to terror (which hasn't happened). At the same time, Israel has previously agreed to stop settlement expansion (also hasn't happened). With neither side having lived up to their part of the bargain, both sides have an excuse to continue doing what they want to do. Who will take the first step?

Brief notes to conclude:

1) the Israeli Prime Minister promised there would be no new settlements. Sounds good, but note that 'no new settlements' doesn't mean existing ones won't be expanded. An important distinction.

2) A Palestinian reporter asked President Bush about UN resolutions which say that Israel should withdraw to the Green Line in exchange for peace. Bush responded, "The UN deal didn't work." He suggested we try something new. Perhaps we shouldn't be so flippant about what the body representing most of the countries in the world says.

3) What about Hamas? They were democratically elected and represent a significant portion of the population. Any agreement made not involving them most likely won't hold up, since it will be an agreement with only part of the Palestinian representatives and not all of them. Hopefully the Bush administration can find ways to get Hamas invested in the process.

4) The President did surprise us when he explained that a future Palestinian state must be viable. He told the room full of reporters, "Swiss cheese ain't going to work." Territorial contiguity is a pretty important thing to consider when trying to establish a state.

5) President Bush, the Optimist, hopes to leave here having established a 'firm vision of what a future Palestinian state would look like'. However unlikely that there will be a viable Palestinian state in 2009, we really, really, really hope that he's able to accomplish what he's trying to do. Life here will be better for everyone if Israeli occupation and the Palestinians carrying out terrorism both stop, and there's a just solution to the conflict here.

Shout Louder!! The World doesn't hear you yet!

2008-01-04T15:19:00.001-08:00

Have you been keeping up with events here? Probably not as much as you should with the holidays going on, right? Besides, people are dying for democracy in Kenya, the primaries in the States are underway, and the NFL playoffs are on. So we're not paying that much attention to what's happening here.

Well, after the Annapolis summit, some people were talking about possible movement on the peace efforts between the two sides. Ummm....after recent events, probably not. In case you didn't know, militants from Gaza have been firing rockets at Israel for a LONG time. It was happening before Annapolis, during Annapolis, and after Annapolis. Well, Israel chose to start dealing with the rockets AFTER Annapolis. Can you fault a country for defending itself or its citizens? Absolutely not. But, Israel is definitely not making efforts to endear the civilian population to itself. Eleven people died on Thursday. They weren't all militants. You can read about it here, from the BBC , which is pretty balanced. In case you're not going to take the time to read it, I just want to point out that the article mentioned that the Israeli military used air strikes. Seriously? We're going to go into a populated area and call in planes and helicopters to start shooting up the place and drop bombs? I only took an introductory psych. course in college, but I'm pretty sure that airstrikes aren't how you start winning over a hostile population.

Now, the timing of what's happening here is important. Since Annapolis, the Israeli military has been making regular incursions into Gaza. 4 Palestinians are killed one week, 6 the next, 11 Thursday, etc. They're small enough numbers that ABC News isn't going to run them on its nightly lead. So maybe we don't hear a ton about it. Yet at the same time we aren't rushing to point out that the Israeli government doesn't want to be 'a partner for peace'. Settlements are still going up (look for a blog about settlements soon), Palestinians are dying daily, and the Palestinian government should be looking at how they can be partners for peace?

Another significant action this week was the Israeli military going into Nablus in the West Bank. Rockets have been being shot from Gaza, so it's understandable why the military wants to get in there. Militants shouldn't be firing rockets at anybody (and we want to point out that not all Palestinians that live in Gaza are militants). Why Nablus in the West Bank though? I don't know. The Palestinian Prime Minister thinks it's a bad idea and harms the peace process.
I don't think he's too far off from the truth.

If we can remove some of the distance, let's imagine that we live in Nablus. We're not allowed to travel very far, and while we're driving to the towns we are allowed to visit, we're often stopped by soldiers, have to get out of our cars, and wait while they check our IDs. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. We're not told what they're checking for or why it takes so long. Sometimes the person next to us is told that he has to go home without an explanation of why. Sometimes we're told we have to go home. Meanwhile, a government that doesn't consider us citizens is building an enormous barrier around our town. We're not allowed to travel to places that we used to be able to go to. We don't have criminal records or any ties to terrorists, it's just that we hold IDs that say that we are Palestinian. Because of this, we're not allowed to leave the West Bank and enter Israel. The United Nations has said that the barrier is illegal. The International Court of Justice has said that it's illegal. Our daily reality doesn't change. The barrier is still being built. Soldiers come into our neighborhood with guns and tear gas, and there's no one to complain to. Reporters and cameramen are around, so we know that people outside see what's happening, but our daily reality doesn't change. Every day the barrier gets a little bit bigger, and the places we're allowed to go get a little bit smaller. Every day.

If this was us, don't you think we'd be pretty upset? I would. If these guys were outside my house, or if this guy was yelling at my dad, I'd have a problem with it too most likely.

So what do we do? I don't think it helps things that these guys are picking up stones and throwing them.

At the same time, I don't think I'd want to see this guy, anywhere, ever, pointing that gun at me.

So what are we supposed to do if we're regular
Palestinians? Not the militants, not the guys shooting rockets, but people who happen to have been born in places like Nablus, or Gaza, or Bethlehem? We're not citizens of Israel, but the Israeli government controls where we go and tells us when we can leave our houses and when we can't. How loud does this lady have to shout before she'll be heard?

All pics in this post from Reuters.

Take up your Shovel and follow Me

2007-12-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

We were putting up Christmas decorations with some of our neighbors and their children recently; one of their parents is from the States, and one from here, so they speak English well, but occasionally they get things mixed up. At dinner one of their sons spoke up and said, "Didn't someone famous say, 'Take up your shovel and follow me.'?" I think he's getting the "take up your cross" thing a little confused. But, later, I was thinking about what he had said. What if Jesus had told us to take up our shovels? Would the world be any different? C.S. Lewis writes about how we've confused the modern notion of what Christian love should be about. We think of ourselves sacrificing something, and think that that's what Jesus would have us do; after all, we're taking up our cross by denying ourselves. 'Love', though, hasn't always been thought of as denying ourselves. It used to be that showing someone love was helping them get the good things that we are able to enjoy. It's not so much about me doing without as it is me helping someone else get. It's definitely a difference; it means that instead of not eating out and saving myself some money, I take someone else out. Instead of feeling guilty about the good things I have, I try to help the people around me get those same good things.

As we were putting our 'Bethlehem star' on the tree, I wondered how different things would be if we took up shovels instead of bearing crosses. There is definitely a lot of work to be done around us. People are hurting, hungry, lonely. Does it really matter that I "bear my cross" when there is so much I could be doing to build God's Kingdom? I recognize more every day that just because I was born in America, into a place where I know I'll have food, healthcare, and education, doesn't mean I can ignore the people that weren't born into the same situation. I don't remember asking to be born in America, and I'm pretty sure the people dying in Darfur, or living in terror in Iraq, or being oppressed in Afghanistan didn't ask to be born there, either. The Palestinian man here, a modern representative of the same people that the angels appeared to to announce the birth of Jesus, didn't ask to be born into a situation where he and his family are treated unjustly. People can debate what it means to take up our cross and how that should affect the way we live our lives. I think I'll just grab my shovel and get to work building God's Kingdom.

Wastewater Treatment goes back to 1978

2007-12-12T00:21:00.000-08:00

MCC recently opened a wastewater treatment plant in a small village in the West Bank in cooperation with one of our partners. The village's water supply is being threatened by an Israeli settlement nearby; sewage from the settlement is dumped near the village's spring, and the spring is in danger of becoming polluted. The wastewater treatment plant helps the village in several ways: it gives the village some control over their own water source (as opposed to Israeli control), it promotes food security since more water is provided for irrigation, and it saves the village money by treating sewage that would normally have to be removed. The village council, some of whom are here, were the ones that had to give the OK to allow the treatment plant to be installed. They initially weren't excited about the idea of wastewater being used for anything, but they eventually came around. Now, there's a pump up and running in the village. It treats 50 cubic meters of water a day (a tenth of what the entire village produces). Best of all, this village now serves as an example to the entire West Bank that it's ok to use treated wastewater. There are a lot of people that will directly benefit from this project; it's great to see people's actual physical needs being met. I think the only way we could get closer to Jesus' statement about giving a cup of water in his name would be if we put a tap in at the pump.

One of the great parts of this project is how it connects people that wouldn't normally work together. It brought together ARIJ, our local partner in the area, with the people of Naha'lin, which politically leans toward Hamas. After the dedication ceremony they hosted us for lunch. It was good
to be able to interact with people that we normally wouldn't have contact with. And, MCC's logo was everywhere. In fact, we met someone who remembers MCC from 30 years ago.

This man, Mustafa, remembered when MCC came to his village in 1978. MCC workers helped bring pipes and running water to his village. He remembers that each family had to lay pipe from their house to the main one in the street. He's currently part of the village council and here is giving MCC Jerusalem rep. Ryan Lehman a plaque in thanks for MCC's work in the village. Meeting him and listening to his stories reinforced the fact that past workers are still connected to the things we do here today. The dedication of the plant was a big event in the town and we were privileged to be a part of it while representing MCC both past and present.

Here you can see the MCC logo on the truck used to gather wastewater.

Mr Palestine

2007-12-03T00:21:00.000-08:00

This is the cover of the most recent issue of The Economist. It covers the Annapolis summit that was recently hosted by the White House and involved representatives from Israel, Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and numerous other countries. Local hopes weren't very high; no one expected much besides rhetoric, and it seems that those expectations were met. Of course, the current US administration hasn't done much to move things forward...

In 2001 President Bush officially announced that the US supported the establishment of a Palestinian state. He also said that he would like this to happen by 2005. Three years later, he announced that it could probably happen by 2009. Yet, for most of his time in office, his administration has largely ignored the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (though the US has been quite busy elsewhere in the Middle East). In light of these deadlines, and how they pass and things here only get worse for Palestinians, it's easy to understand why local people don't hold much hope for summits and talks.

Why would President Bush be 'Mr Palestine'? It seems that neither Israeli nor Palestinian leaders, even when they want to, are able to make peace. The majority of people on both sides want peace, but there are extremist elements that are able to make it extremely difficult to get to any kind of peace agreement (and sometimes they make it extremely difficult for traffic to move, as we can attest to). On the Palestinian side, if a couple of men fire rockets, the entire population is punished by the Israeli government; on the Israeli side, people intentionally move into areas they know they shouldn't to provoke responses. Not good stuff...so the Economist argues that only a settlement pushed by outsiders (which imposes parameters on the sides, since they're too far apart to get together without outsiders) will bring the sides close enough together to actually talk. Hence, President Bush is "Mr Palestine, the only man who could make it happen."

We saw some protesters in Jerusalem. This lady has a picture of the Third Temple, which by implication means the Dome of the Rock would have to be knocked down first. I love learning about the Jewishness of Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, but should I support this kind of thinking? I wonder. Would Jesus call for destroying the things around him to set up his kingdom? At the Western Wall they held a prayer vigil to pray that the Annapolis summit would fail. The worst part is that a lot of people showed up. What are we to think then? Obviously the extremists on either side don't want to give up anything. And, it seems they got their wish with Annapolis; it was a chance for leaders to get together, but that was about it. The extremists on the Palestinian side will keep shooting rockets, the extremists on the Israeli side will keep demanding that anyone not Jewish leave Israel and the West Bank, and people in Bethlehem (the ones that are allowed) will keep walking through this to go see friends in Jerusalem.

So Annapolis didn't seem to do much for anyone.
If you want to educate yourself, keep going. If you read for the fun of it, skip the rest of this post.

The big issues involved in any peace discussion are as follows:
1) Jerusalem. Will it be only Israel's capital, or the capital of both Israel and an independent Palestinian state? Prior to 1967, when Israel captured he Old City from Jordan, Israelis weren't allowed to visit the old city (this was prior to the Jordan-Israel peace treaty which exists now). Most of the protesters on the Israeli side refuse to consider giving up any part of Jerusalem, and generally are against any concessions of land that Israel has acquired through war. Palestinians say that without some kind of autonomy over a significant portion of Jerusalem, no deal will be acceptable.

2) Refugees. Palestinians insist that anyone who fled or was forced from their home (and there are both kinds) because of war in 1948 or 1967 is a refugee (as a slight aside, this makes sense to me. If tanks were rolling through the street outside my front door, and planes were dropping bombs on neighbors, I'd probably go visit my parents or sister or something too). The Palestinians also claim that all descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) of those people are refugees as well (I believe this goes against UN standards for all other refugees, but that's another post). In any negotiation, what to do with refugees has to be decided. The Palestinian side argues for a 'right of return', though they know this is unrealistic. If Palestinian refugees were allowed to return to their homes they would immediately outnumber Jews in Israel. This was part of Olmert's (the Israeli PM) demand that the Palestinian side recognize Israel as a Jewish state prior to the start of Annapolis. That would in effect be renouncing the Palestinian claim to the right of return. So, both sides are kind of stuck on this issue a bit; one step the Israeli government could take that would help would be to acknowledge Israel's role in causing refugees, but the government has traditionally been reluctant to do that.

3) Borders. Where will the borders of a Palestinian state be? The Green Line is often cited as the default border (the Green Line was basically the border between Israel and Jordan before Jordan lost the West Bank in 1967; as noted, Israel has yet to annex the West Bank, meaning they officially make it Israeli territory and extend citizenship to the people living there). However, the current separation barrier/wall that Israel has put up doesn't follow the Green Line. In fact, the route wanders deep into what would be Palestinian territory, at times ignoring the route that would be much more convenient (and more easily defensible, particularly when you look at 'Qalqilya' on the map) for Israel to take what would be Palestinian land if a deal were ever worked out. The issue of borders lead directly to the fourth main component in negotiations.

4) Security. The state of Israel has valid security claims regarding the safety of its citizens. They left the Gaza strip in 2005 (unilaterally, which means they did it without really coordinating with any Palestinian security) and rockets are now being shot from the places they previously left. Some guys shoot rockets, the Israelis blow them up, and the cycle keeps going. Not so good. Security and borders are linked more than anything else. Israel wants to keep a military presence on the borders of a Palestinian state so that they feel safe, but the Palestinians argue that that means they'd have no sovereignty over their own borders.

These are the four main issues that the two sides aren't able to resolve, and they are incredibly complex when you start to look at the details. This is a good introduction, but if you want to learn more and have the time, find Dennis Ross's book The Missing Peace. Remember too that there are lots of normal people on both sides that aren't able to live normal lives because of the actions of a few.

National Geographic article

2007-11-28T01:17:00.001-08:00

A great article from National Geographic on what life is like here and why. Good reading! Enjoy!

Security or Other Reasons?

2007-11-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to point out this clip I saw on the website of one of the large Israeli newspapers. I'm not as concerned with this specific incident as I am with the principle of things.

When the Israeli government does things to protect its citizens I think that that's absolutely fair (and necessary). When they do things that are extraneous to this, it's hard to watch. When I fly out of Tel Aviv and go through 2 hours of being asked questions and having my luggage looked through (and I'm not exaggerating, sometimes it is 120 minutes) that's ok, because they want to make sure no one is going to harm people on the plane. When they do things like the clip talks about, or won't let people travel from one place to another to farm a field or see Jerusalem, those are the things that I think are unjust and ultimately hurt Israel as a country. What purpose is served by not allowing them into Jerusalem? These are just a few of the people we know from Bethlehem that aren't allowed to pass through the checkpoint and go to Jerusalem. Do you think they're a security risk to the state of Israel? I don't, but maybe I don't know enough yet.
Sure, search their cars or make sure they aren't bringing knives, guns, or explosives into Jerusalem (terrorists have used children to smuggle explosives in the past her e; just as an aside, if you have the time to read this article, make sure you read the whole thing; it brings up the whole issue of lack of credibility and distrust on both sides and how that affects the situation, and both sides distort facts on a regular basis), but to completely deny them entry at all seems to be serving an entirely different purpose than ensuring the safety and security of Israeli citizens. What do you think?

Holding a Trust

2007-11-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

This week we held a workshop with all of our local partners. We wanted to gather everyone so we could talk about more efficient ways to use MCC's resources here and find better ways to network among partners. Things went really well. Lots of both our Muslim and Christian partners showed up, and everyone offered a lot of helpful insights into how MCC can better work here in Israel and Palestine.

One of the projects MCC has been funding is wastewater treatment. ARIJ, one of our local partners, has developed units to treat wastewater that can be put on the roofs of houses; they have one at their facility and they water their garden with it. Water as a resource in general, and access to water in light of the policies of the Israeli government, are both issues on the minds of a lot of people here. Being able to assist in providing water to communities meets a direct need.

One of the biggest impressions we left the workshop with was the sense that we are taking care of a trust here as MCC's representatives. We broke into working groups to discuss MCC's strengths and weaknesses working with the partners. One of the main themes that came out of the working groups was that MCC's workers here always interact with others with humility and kind-heartedness. Since we've only been here two months, I'm sure they weren't talking about us; we understand that we are enjoying the reputation of those that have worked here before us, and we're laying a foundation for whoever will come after us. It's one of the most beautiful things to be told that one of MCC's greatest strengths here is that representatives always come with humility and a willingness to follow the lead of the local partners. Multiple times it was mentioned that the people here appreciate the transparency of MCC and the fact that we don't send workers with an agenda, but rather with instructions to help wherever we are able; it's powerful to see the affects a mutual exchange of knowledge has as opposed to imposing our values and methods on our partners.

You Won't Miss it until you Need it

2007-11-06T00:06:00.001-08:00

We had a great opportunity this past week; we were able to host a couple of people from the States who are working for an organization called Cure International. They do great work; they locate places around the world that aren't able to provide adequate healthcare and build hospitals in those places that specifically target children with disabilities. For example, here in the West Bank, children with disabilities often aren't able to receive treatment for conditions that are easily curable like club foot or cleft palette, even though adequate healthcare is available in Israel (the children aren't able to cross into Israel).

While Dale, the man from Cure, was here, we were able to help connect him with the type of people that would benefit from a Cure hospital here in the West Bank. We connected him with the local YMCA, which works with children with disabilities. While speaking with the YMCA director, Dale shared an impactful story. "Cure currently has a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. While there, one of Cure's surgeons was able to perform a procedure to fix the son of a tribal leader who had cleft palette. The boy was four years old. The procedure took 45 minutes and went well, and when the son came out of the operating room with his corrected palette, the tribal leader walked over to the surgeon, hugged him, and began crying. He told the surgeon that until now he had never accepted his son, and that at that moment the surgeon had given him his son back." Dale went on, "These are things that are easy to fix if they are caught at birth, and after Cure builds this hospital here in Bethlehem, club foot and cleft palette will cease to exist in the West Bank." Needless to say, we were happy to help him get whatever he needed as he looked to connect with people here who would benefit from Cure's hospital.

Another problem here in the West Bank is lack of adequate health care in general. We took Dale to interview one woman who lost a son at birth. She was 7 months pregnant with twins one night when Israeli troops entered Bethlehem. As they were conducting operations she heard a gunshot, started running, and tripped and fell. The resulting trauma induced labor, and her twin sons being premature, one of them was not able to survive on his own. She left one at home and began going from hospital to hospital, trying to find an available incubator. At one hospital in Bethlehem she was turned away because they only had one incubator and it was already in use. She tried to take him to Jerusalem but he died before she was able to cross the security checkpoint. This is the son that survived. While Dale was interviewing them this boy told Dale, "I hate the Jews. My brother is dead because of them.His mother turned and told him that he shouldn't hate anyone.

Obviously, sometimes things here are very complicated. This boy is too young to figure out hate on his own. Who's teaching him to hate Jews? Who's telling him the story in a way that makes him feel that way? At the same time, sometimes things here can be pretty simple: if there had been adequate healthcare, this story wouldn't have had such a tragic ending. That's why Jess and I were glad to help Dale while he was here; so that the chance of families like this one experiencing similar things becomes less likely...

A hospital in Bethlehem won't make the checkpoint go away; it won't give the Palestinians Israeli citizenship or their own viable state; it won't force the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement; and it won't solve the economic problems that plague the West Bank. It will help more than a few people though, and bring direct relief to the physical and resulting emotional suffering that some families in this part of the world experience. We're glad to be able to help Cure move forward with this project. Check out some of the other things they're doing around the world.

(Both photo credits in this post go to the photographer that was here with Cure, Bryce Alan Flurie.)

A Cup of Water and a Helping Hand

2007-11-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

"For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ’s, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. " Mark 9.41

We had a chance to do a different version of passing out water here; we were able to pick olives for people that usually aren't able to.

As you probably know, the Israeli government has built a 'separation barrier' between Israel and the West Bank. More often than not Palestinians are not allowed to cross this barrier. They have to apply for permits to be allowed to cross the separation barrier. Well, lots of Palestinians own olive orchards, and often this is a major source of income for the entire family. What happens when families aren't allowed to cross? They lose their harvest for the season. Not good.

The local YMCA here has an Advocacy Office that tries to help remedy the situation (for more on the olive picking program click here; it's pretty interesting and worth reading about. You can also visit the homepage for MCC's partner, the Beit Sahour YMCA). For one week during the harvest season people from all over the world come to help pick olives for the families that usually aren't allowed across. The problem is that generally the entire extended family will come help pick olives, turning a job that would take one family a week into a kind of family reunion for the day. The day we went some of the family members received permission to cross with us. As you can see, they lead a pretty different lifestyle than we do...

Overall it was a great experience. At the end of the day we were a little tired, but it was great to be able to actually DO something for people that are so in need. A lot of times it's frustrating to be here and see all of the injustice and indignity that Palestinians are forced to deal with every day and not be able to do anything about it. It's great to be able to meet a need in such a tangible way for this one family. At the end of the day, there were plenty of olives off of the trees and in the family's buckets. That was the main goal for the day. But it was also great to be able to connect with people and let them see that the situation they live in every day isn't being completely ignored by the rest of the world. Often people tell us that if the world really knew what was happening here, the international outcry against the situation would put a stop to it in a matter of months or even weeks. Keep track of what's happening here and we have no doubt that God's Spirit will move you to concern (and eventually action) for the regular people here who would just like to live a normal life in such an abnormal situation.

A Refugee camp and 'Lajee'

2007-10-19T03:02:00.000-07:00

Jess and I visited an organization called Lajee this past week. They do some really good work there.

'Lajee' means 'refugee', and the organization is a youth center for children and grandchildren of refugees (who are still considered refugees themselves according to the UN). The center has books and computers for the kids to use, which is pretty important. For one thing, a lot of the children here don't have access to a computer at all; simple things like having email, learning your way around a keyboard, and not being afraid of knowing how to turn a computer on or open a Word document are all pretty important things when it comes time to get a job, even here in the West Bank. Simple things like computers are really important and provide a valuable service to the community. And, we really got to see the contrast between Lajee, where kids have computers to use and books to read, and what normal life was like, without the opportunity to have an after-school program; not so good; kids shouldn't be playing in the street near dumpsters, no matter where they live.

Lajee invited us to a photo exhibition they were having. Palestinian adults aren't allowed to cross certain lines here; for example, lots of Palestinians aren't allowed to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Most of the adults who are refugees now, meaning they aren't allowed to return to the homes they owned before 1948 or 1967, aren't allowed to go visit the sites of their former villages and towns. Children, however, are allowed to move with (somewhat) more impunity. So, Lajee gave the grandchildren of these refugees cameras, took them to their grandparents' old towns and villages, and had them take photos of where the grandparents villages used to be. In some places there are Israelis living there, in some places there are still the remains of buildings or you can see the edges of where a garden used to be, and in some places there is nothing and it looks as if no one has ever lived there. Lajee then put on a photo exhibition of the children's work. It was quite the community event. Grandparents and children were all there, and it got pretty difficult to find a seat.

It's great to be able to see direct ways that MCC impacts these people's lives. The photo exhibition was a huge event. A lot of the children that were there attend the summer camp that MCC largely funds. It's so important that we're able to help the youth of the community have something constructive to do. It provides an outlet for the children that are old enough to understand the current situation and helps provide hope that not everyone will have to grow up knowing what it's like to live in a refugee camp.

Applied Research Insitute Jerusalem (ARIJ)

2007-10-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

We visited ARIJ this past week. It's based in Bethlehem even though 'Jerusalem' is in the name. It's an organization that researches the actions of the Israeli government and then reports on them; a simple mission statement with a complicated mission.

The presentation at ARIJ was powerful. The head of ARIJ, Dr. Jad Isaac, has a powerpoint presentation that goes through a timeline and visually shows the affects of Israeli settler expansion on the West Bank. (Anyone that's planning to come visit Israel and wants to try to get a balanced approach needs to set up a visit. www.arij.org. You'll hear a lot of things from them that you won't hear other places. And, by the way, because of how complex things are here, and how often things happen that we lack the social context to explain coming from the States, a visit really helps puts things in perspective.)

There need to be more organizations like this on both sides; ones that are willing to deal with facts without exaggerating and without inflammatory language. As bad as things are, no one needs to inflate what's happening; you and I just need to be made aware of the situation so that we're willing to promote change in the region.

Jayyus; Poor Bureaucracy or Intentional Injustice?

2007-10-08T02:15:00.000-07:00

We recently visited the town of Jayyus. It's in the northern West Bank and is mainly an agricultural town. MCC would like to provide funding for farmers in Jayyus to upgrade their current wells. The machinery they have is extremely inefficient and very expensive to run. MCC has been working with the Palestinian Hydrology Group to fund this project and help make water accessible to people that need it. Imagine not having easy access to water...and then imagine you have a whole farm to take care of! It's easy to see how MCC, through this project, has the opportunity to improve the quality of life for a lot of people.
Another aspect of the situation here which we were exposed to was the difficulty in moving from place to place. Israel has built a separation barrier around much of the West Bank. In some places it's a huge concrete wall, and in others, like near Jayyus, it's an electrified fence with barbed wire. To cross this barrier into farmland that they once had free access to, residents of Jayyus must get permits from the Israeli government. Often permits are simply not given or are given only to old men who are unable to work the land (for example, of the 3,500 inhabitants of Jayyus only 150 have permits that allow them through the fence onto their farmland). So is the Israeli government just really bad at judging character and really believes all those people they deny permits to are a security threat? Or are they intentionally denying permits for other reasons?

Another aspect of the conflict here involves ownership of land. Near Jayyus, the Green Line (provide a link) and the separation barrier are extremely far apart. The location of the barrier as it pertains to Jayyus was done without consulting the citizens of Jayyus. Imagine if your neighbor built his fence partly on your yard without checking to see if you minded; it would certainly make being ‘neighborly’ difficult (If you're able, blow up the picture. You can see the Green Line because it's actually green on the map, and the separation barrier is the bright dirt road that winds it's way through the picture.). Under certain laws, land that is left dormant for a specified amount of time may be taken by the government.

Currently, farmers from Jayyus that would like to work their land are unable to because of a lack of permits; their land is lying fallow and is in possible danger of being seized.

Those that are allowed onto their land seem to be doing a good job.

If you are one of the people who happen to have been born in Jayyus or live there and have always been a farmer, what are you to do now that you are not allowed to get to your farm? Where do you go to get a job or make a better life for your family? Options are extremely limited, even for those that are educated. This is just one of the ways MCC is working in Israel/Palestine to build God's kingdom and bring relief to people that are suffering.

How did the current situation in Israel/Palestine come to be?

2007-10-07T05:41:00.000-07:00

This is intended to be an objective introduction, which is an extremely difficult thing to do. At the outset I would like to acknowledge that both sides have suffered much, both sides have done things that are wrong, and I believe it is in the best interest of both sides to peacefully resolve the current conflict.

BEGINNINGS
In the 1880s Zionism began to become a significant political movement. Jews from different parts of the world began to immigrate to what was then referred to as Palestine. The Ottoman Empire, which was based in present-day Turkey, controlled Palestine at this time. As more Jews moved to Palestine, they began to legally purchase land.

During World War I, France and Britain were two of the countries involved in trying to prevent the spread of the Ottoman Empire. In 1918, when the war ended, Britain took control of Palestine (at that time still its name). During this time, Jews were continuing to move to Palestine and purchase land. Additionally, Zionist political activists were working to secure pledges from different countries committing assistance to the establishment of a Jewish state in historical Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, signed in 1917, was a commitment from the British government to work toward such a state. Tensions between the Jews and Palestinians continued to rise from 1918 (when the British took control of the area) until 1947 (when the UN issued a resolution intending to establish a Jewish state). There were various periods of intense violence, with both sides suffering injustices. The Jews felt that their physical safety was being threatened (and indeed it often was), and the Palestinians felt that their legitimate concerns about a future Jewish state on their land were being ignored (at the time of the UN declaration Jews owned only about 6% of historical Palestine); they wished to have a say in controlling the territory they lived on.

THE DECLARATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
In 1947, with the UN declaring a Jewish homeland on about 55% of what was historical Palestine, the British Mandate (meaning British rule over that part of the world) came to an end. The British decided they were going to withdraw from the area and cease being the ruling power there. They withdrew on May 13, 1948. On May 14, Israel declared itself a state. The Palestinians and Arabs living there were aware that this was going to happen and decided to attack the state of Israel when it was declared. They lost that war, and at the end of it Israel controlled more territory than the UN had mandated. During the war Israel had gone through and told people (Palestinians and Jews) to leave their towns because war was approaching. Generally the people were told they would be able to return soon; unfortunately, in the territory that Israel now controlled, non-Jews were not allowed to come back to what had previously been their homes.

THE SIX DAY/JUNE WAR OF 1967
In June 1967, conflict again engulfed the region. In this war, Israel took the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Similarly to 1948, people were told they needed to leave the region because war was approaching. Prior to 1967, the West Bank was part of the country of Jordan. When Israel took control of this region, they again refused to allow many non-Jews to come back to villages they had left. Neighboring countries took in some of the refugees, but not all. Many were farmers and lacked professional or technical skills that would have made the prospect of providing citizenship to them attractive to neighboring countries; skilled workers were able to emigrate, unskilled workers were not.

THE CURRENT SITUAITON
Currently, Israel is largely in control of the West Bank. They have almost complete military control over the entire area. They administer much of the municipal control as well (water, electricity, etc.). The problem is that Palestinians are literally citizens of no country. Israel has not annexed the West Bank, meaning they have not declared it Israeli territory and made everyone living in it citizens. Nor have they decided to return the West Bank to Jordan; Palestinians aren’t Israeli citizens, and they aren’t Jordanian citizens. They aren’t allowed freedom of movement from one town to another depending on which side of the separation barrier they are on. Now, if every Palestinian were a terrorist, this would be understandable. But, clearly, not every person I walk past every day is a terrorist. So, what are they to do? If you were told that you couldn’t drive to the next town 20 minutes away because you didn’t have the right permit, how would you feel? Adding to the difficulty of the situation, there are Palestinians that are willing to leave the West Bank and go to another country. However, there are not many governments, understandably, that are willing to take in unskilled workers as refugees and assist them in starting new lives in other countries.

CONCLUSIONS
Regardless of how one feels about the Jewish right to the land and God’s promises, one must deal with the reality that there are plenty of innocent Palestinians that are not being treated fairly and not being respected as people. What Israel is currently doing is not ok, and there needs to be a change of policy from the Israeli government. Either give Palestinians Israeli citizenship (which Israel won’t do because it would mean a Palestinian majority in Israel) and treat them like the Jews who literally live next door, or allow the Palestinians to form their own state. It is not right to treat people who are Palestinian completely differently than others who live in the same area. Yes, Israel has legitimate security concerns, but discriminating against ordinary people who want their children to do well in school and have happy lives is an unacceptable way of handling those concerns. Citizenship or a state need to be the answers, not walls and guns.

MCC Palestine Update #138

2007-06-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

MCC Palestine Update #138

5 June 2007

A Summer of Transitions

This summer is indeed a new season for MCC Palestine. And with the change in season there are both greetings and farewells to be made. Sri Mayasandra, who has been the Jerusalem Representative for the past three years, has finished his assignment with MCC in Palestine. However, Sri has not said goodbye to MCC and will continue to serve with MCC in the Middle East.

Arriving in July, the Lehman family will move to Jerusalem where Heather and Ryan Lehman will assume the role of Jerusalem Representatives. Along with Heather and Ryan are their three children, two girls aged 11 and 8 and a 1-year-old boy—Tayllor, Elena, and Elijah. They are members of Kaufman Mennonite Church in Davidsville, PA.

Mark and Andrea Stoner Leaman are finishing up their time with MCC as English teachers in the Latin Patriarchate school in the northern West Bank village of Zebabdeh. Mark and Andrea, along with their baby Henry will be moving back to the Lancaster area in Pennsylvania later this month.

Christi and Timothy Seidel are also finishing up their time with MCC as peace development workers. They, along with their baby Kai, will be heading back to the U.S. this month as well. Jessica and Trey Hulsey will move to Bethlehem later this summer in August to take on the role of peace development workers. The Hulseys are most recently from North Carolina where they are attending a Presbyterian Church.

To Sri, Mark, Andrea, and Henry, know that you will all be missed. And to the Lehmans and Hulseys, Welcome! Ahlan wa-sahlan!

40 Years of Naksa / 60 Years of Nakba

This week marks 40 years of Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights. This anniversary comes on the heels of 60 years of Nakba, which will be marked next May in 2008.

Nakba is the Arabic word for “catastrophe” and is used by Palestinians to refer to what happened to them in 1948 when between 750,000 and 900, 000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and over 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Today, this refugee population numbers close to 7 million. Naksa is the Arabic word referring to the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza during the 1967 war. It also marks the beginning of Israel’s illegal military occupation of these territories, another stage in a continuing catastrophe with daily military attacks, house demolitions, land confiscation, expanding Israeli colonies, and the Wall. This week, many are marking 40 years since the beginning of the occupation with events and declarations calling for the respect of human rights and rule of law in Palestine-Israel.

For more information on how you and your community can respond during this time, visit the MCC Washington Office website at http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/ for worship and advocacy resources and read a reflection by the Washington Office Director Daryl Byler at http://www.thirdway.com/wv/article.asp?ID=597.

Also, on June 10-11, the US Campaign to End the Occupation and United for Peace and Justice are sponsoring a two-day mobilization in Washington, DC to protest this 40th anniversary. Under the banner, “The World Says No to Israeli Occupation,” the US Campaign and UFPJ will hold a massive rally, teach-in, and grassroots lobbying day. Read more about how to get involved at http://www.endtheoccupation.org/.

To highlight the urgent need for peace in Palestine-Israel, the World Council of Churches, member churches and related organizations have organized a week of prayer and advocacy, June 3-9. According to the World Council of Churches, the goal is “to raise awareness in churches and civil society and to impress upon governments the need for new efforts to end the conflict and negotiate a just settlement.” Read more at http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=3627

Church leaders in Jerusalem are calling for worldwide support of this initiative. “This year marks the 40th anniversary of the occupation by the Israelis of land previously held by Palestinians,” said the Christian leaders. “It is totally unacceptable for the situation to continue where the Palestinians endure daily hardships and humiliations with deprivations of international human rights, allegedly to ensure the safety and security of the Israelis, whereas we believe the security of Israel is dependent on the freedom and justice of the Palestinians.”

In their statement they go on to say, “Now we sincerely believe it is time to intensify action, particularly through negotiation, to end occupation, establish an independent Palestinian State” consistent with UN resolutions and with clearly defined borders, “thus giving both peoples, Israelis and Palestinians alike, human dignity, security and equal opportunities”…“Many injustices have to be reversed not least the restoration of land to lawful indigenous owners and the so-called security wall demolished. For us as Christians, this land is unique since God chose to reveal his love for human beings here when he gave his Son to be born in Bethlehem; to die on the Cross.” Read more at “Jerusalem church leaders back Israeli-Palestinian peace action,” http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5307.

Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: Supporting Alternative Forms of Resistance – An Ongoing Discussion

Last month, a delegation of representatives from Mennonite Church USA and church-related agencies visited Palestine-Israel. This delegation was formed “to have common experience around issues that relate to investment policies.”

In 2005, MCC produced a discussion paper called “Peacebuilding in Palestine / Israel: A Discussion Paper” meant to contribute to this conversation in communities back in North America about stewardship, morally responsible investment / divestment, and economic justice. This paper (available online at http://www.mcc.org/papers/2005-05_Peacebuilding_in_Palestine-Israel.pdf) points out:

“Palestinians and Israelis working for a just resolution of the conflict lamented that decades of appeal to international law and resolutions have failed to end this story of dispossession, with Israeli power routinely trumping appeals to the power of law. Palestinian Christian partners, in particular, urged Christians in the West to take a stand for justice, peace, and reconciliation for Palestinians and Israelis alike, a stand that markedly differs from Christian Zionist theologies that deny Palestinians a secure place in the land. These trusted partner organizations urged MCC to consider ways in which Christians from Canada and the United States might invest in a future of justice and peace for both peoples and to examine ways in which our money either promotes justice, peace, and reconciliation in Palestine/Israel or contributes to the ongoing dispossession.”

Throughout this tour, this group met with many of MCC’s Palestinian and Israeli partners, including the Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center (http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/), the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/), the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (http://www.arij.org/), the Badil Resource Center for Residency and Refugee Rights (http://www.badil.org/), the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/), the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (http://www.icahd.org/eng/), as well as meeting with people from Open Bethlehem (http://www.openbethlehem.org/) and Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron (http://www.cpt.org/). In these meetings, we heard their perspectives on the current realities on the ground and on how they see the role of churches in the Global North in this situation here in Palestine-Israel—particularly how it relates to the call from both Palestinians and Israelis for “morally responsible investment.”

In addition to this, the group made several field visits to see first-hand the reality on the ground, such as: the impact of the Wall and of Israeli colonization of Palestinian territory all around Jerusalem and in places like Hebron; the situation in Palestinian refugee camps; the remains of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 and 1967, learning more about the importance of the refugee issue to a durable solution for a just and lasting peace.

An important element of this tour was to hear the voices of Palestinian Christian as it relates to these issues. For example, in our meeting with our friends at Sabeel we heard about their work and about how Sabeel is involved with the call for “morally responsible investment” (learn more at http://www.sabeel.org/documents/A%20nonviolence%20sabeel%20second%20revision.pdf).

As a follow-up to this experience, delegation participants have written an “open letter” to present at the Mennonite convention in San Jose this summer in which several action points are presented. Also, MCUSA will post a news release discussing the trip itself as well as the initiative of the open letter (http://www.mennoniteusa.org/news/news.html), and MCUSA is also going to produce a resource list to go along with the open letter and news release (http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/palestineletter/index.html).

We would ask that as you continue to keep the people of this land in your thoughts and prayers that you would prayerfully discuss these important issues in your communities, reflecting on how MCC and Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches should respond in our pursuit of a peace born of justice for all, where everyone will sit securely under vine and fig tree with no one to make them afraid (Micah 4:4).

MCC Palestine Online: Tools for Advocacy

Because of this time of transition, this will be the last MCC Palestine Update for a while. When the Lehmans and Hulseys get settled in to their new homes in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, we will look forward to continuing to receive these regular updates about the work of MCC and other news in Palestine-Israel. If you know anyone who might be interested in receiving these updates, please feel free to send their email to this same address: pwopt@mennonitecc.ca.

To stay updated on happenings in this region as well as the work of MCC’s partners, we would recommend you check out the MCC Palestine Update website at http://mccpalestineupdate.blogspot.com/ where you will find a list of links for “News and Analysis” as well as “MCC Palestine Partners” on the right-hand column of the webpage. For a more extended list, check out MCC Palestine Update #128 at http://mccpalestineupdate.blogspot.com/2006/11/mcc-palestine-update-128.html.

And as always, you can visit the MCC Palestine website at http://www.mcc.org/palestine/, where you will find additional links to MCC resources such as news service pieces and other publications we have mentioned in the past like 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, you can also visit http://mccpalestineupdate.blogspot.com/.

With all of these transitions, we should make a special note to say how thankful we are for the presence of our friend and colleague Bassem Thabet, who is the Director of Administration for MCC Palestine. And we are thankful for all of the wonderful people that contribute to the work of MCC here. It has truly been a pleasure and a privilege.

Allah ma’akum.

Peace to you all,

Timothy Seidel

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

Attachments and Links:

· Editorial, “Endless Occupation?,” The Nation, 18 June 2007
· Meron Benveisti, “The Case for Shared Sovereignty,” The Nation, 18 June 2007
· Saree Makdisi, “For a Secular Democratic State,” The Nation, 18 June 2007
· Brian Klug, “The State of Zionism,” The Nation, 18 June 2007
· Press Release, “Israel/OPT: Forty years of occupation -- no security without basic rights,” Amnesty International, 4 June 2007
· Donald Macintyre, “Secret memo shows Israel knew Six Day War was illegal,” The Independent, 26 May 2007
· Donald Macintyre, “The Six-Day War: Forty years on,” The Independent, 26 May 2007
· Mazin Qumsiyeh, “40 Year of Occupation and 60 Years of Wars: Enough,” AMIN, 2 June 2007

______________________________

The Nation
Endless Occupation?
Editorial
18 June 2007

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. It will not escape readers' notice that the three writers who reflect on the occasion in this issue, although coming from widely different backgrounds and perspectives--Meron Benvenisti is a native-born Israeli and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Saree Makdisi is a Palestinian-American academic and Brian Klug is a British (and Jewish) Oxford philosopher--express a similar pessimism regarding the two-state solution. Each of them favorably discusses some form of binational or democratic state in all of Israel-Palestine, whose citizens would have equal rights or shared sovereignty.

Nation editors didn't seek out these conclusions, nor do they represent a change in our policy. For many years this magazine has supported a two-state solution in which Israel would fully withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967, in accordance with UN resolutions, and a State of Palestine would be formed in those territories, with its capital in East Jerusalem. But we recognize that as realities on the ground shift, so must our thinking. Many have begun to wonder whether partition is still possible, given the growing settlements in the West Bank; the collapse of the peace process; the hardening of Israeli attitudes in the face of a second, bloody intifada; the descent of the Palestinian national camp into fratricide; and the unwillingness or inability of the Bush Administration to re-engage in serious peace talks or even to recognize the democratically elected Palestinian government…

All Americans, whatever their ethnicity or religion, are deeply implicated in what happens in Israel/Palestine, given our government's identification with and massive aid to Israel. The conflict is a Middle East crisis, but whether we like it or not, it is very much an American dilemma. No issue inflames opinion against the United States more than its support for Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, which has put us on a collision course with the Arab and Muslim world. We must therefore continually rethink our assumptions. We at The Nation see it as our task to further the debate by providing a forum for it and by exploring all creative solutions. As in the past, we adhere to a general principle that's more important than any particular state formation: The two peoples must be afforded the right to live in peace and dignity, on fully equal terms, whether in one state or two.

Please read more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/editors2

______________________________

The Nation
The Case for Shared Sovereignty
Meron Benveisti
18 June 2007

One must therefore seek a different paradigm to describe the state of affairs forty years after Israel/Palestine became one geopolitical unit again, after nineteen years of partition. The term `de facto binational state` is preferable to the occupier/occupied paradigm, because it describes the mutual dependence of both societies, as well as the physical, economic, symbolic and cultural ties that cannot be severed except at an intolerable cost. Describing the situation as de facto binational is not prescriptive but descriptive, and it does not indicate parity between Israelis and Palestinians--on the contrary, it stresses the total dominance of the Jewish-Israeli nation, which controls a Palestinian nation that is fragmented both territorially and socially. No paradigm of military occupation can reflect the bantustans created in the occupied territories, which separate a free and flourishing population that enjoys a gross domestic product of $26,000 per capita from a dominated population that is unable to shape its own future and whose GDP is $1,500 per capita. No paradigm of military occupation can explain how half the occupied areas have essentially been annexed, leaving the occupied population with disconnected lands and no viable existence. Only a strategy of annexation and permanent rule can explain the vast settlement enterprise and the enormous investment in infrastructure, estimated at more than $10 billion.

The 1967 war brought more than a million Palestinians under Israeli rule and gave new meaning to the Israeli mode of intimate disregard. The right wing stressed contempt for the Palestinian masses and believed they could be controlled through trickery and violence; the left wing dwelled futilely on theoretical peace plans and for the most part recoiled from any involvement in the unbearably harsh daily lives of the Palestinian population. Everyone amused themselves with `separation` proposals meant to externalize the `others,` and united around the slogan `Us here and them there,` whose physical manifest is the wall known as `the security fence,` built to conceal the Palestinians and erase them from awareness…

The process of mental disengagement is a continual one, but there is no doubt that the emergence of suicide bombers has hastened it. There could not be any intimate regard for a culture that nurtures such a monstrous phenomenon, and the Palestinians were thereby complicit in bringing about the divorce imposed upon them. Racist right-wing circles exploit the situation and turn diffuse emotions into a practical plan for `transfer` (i.e., expulsion) and denial of civil rights; human rights activists beg for resistance to the injustices and meet with indifference; political movements thrive on erasing the Arabs from Israeli awareness; and those who caution that it is all an illusion, that millions of human beings cannot be erased, are treated with hostility. Other conflicts have shown that after the erasure comes reconciliation, then appeals for forgiveness. But a preliminary stage in dealing with this problem that will not disappear is to expunge outmoded code words from the dictionary and deal bravely with the reality created by forty years of Israeli control over the entirety of Israel/Palestine. This land has witnessed the emergence of a geography, an economy and demographic, and social processes that no longer enable a division into two separate sovereignties. The alternatives are simple and cruel: Either one people controls the other, dooming them both to eternal violence, or else a way must be found to live in a partnership based on shared sovereignty.

Please read more at http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20070618&s=benvenisti or http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=20330

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The Nation
For a Secular Democratic State
Saree Makdisi
18 June 2007

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Four decades of control established and maintained by force of arms--in defiance of international law, countless UN Security Council resolutions and, most recently, the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Hague--have enabled Israel to impose its will on the occupied territories and, in effect, to remake them in its own image.

The result is a continuous political space now encompassing all of historic Palestine, albeit a space as sharply divided as the colonial world ("a world cut in two") famously described by Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. Indeed, Fanon's 1961 classic still enables an analysis of Israel and the occupied territories as fresh, insightful and relevant in 2007 as the readings of Cape Town or Algiers that it made available when it was first published…

Although some people claim there are fundamental differences between the disposition of the territories Israel captured in 1967 and the territories it captured during its creation in 1948--or even that there are important moral and political differences between Israel pre- and post-1967--such sentiments of entitlement, and the use of force that necessarily accompanies them, reveal the seamless continuity of the Zionist project in Palestine from 1948 to our own time. "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing," argues Israeli historian Benny Morris, with reference to the creation of Israel. "A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

Israel's post-1967 occupation policies are demonstrably driven by the same dispossessive logic. If hundreds of thousands have not literally been forced into flight, their existence has been reduced to penury. Just as Israel could have come into being in 1948 only by sweeping aside hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Israel's ongoing colonization of Palestinian territory--its imposition of itself and its desires on the land's indigenous population--requires, and will always require, the use of force and the continual brutalization of an entire people.

Indeed, the discriminatory practices in the occupied territories replicate, albeit in a harsher and more direct form, those inside Israel, where the remnant of the Palestinian population that was not driven into flight in 1948--today more than a million people--continues to endure the systematic inequalities built into the laws and institutions of a country that explicitly claims to be the state of the Jewish people rather than that of its own actual citizens, about a fifth of whom are not Jewish. Recognizing the contradiction inherent in such a formulation, various Israeli politicians, including Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have explicitly called for the territorial transfer--if not the outright expulsion--of as much as possible of Israel's non-Jewish (that is, Palestinian) minority. Although it would be intended to mark the ultimate triumph of the dispossessing settler over the dispossessed native (Lieberman is an immigrant from Moldova who enjoys rights denied to indigenous Palestinians simply because he happens to be Jewish), such a gesture would actually amount to a last-ditch measure, an attempt to forestall what has become the most likely conclusion to the conflict.

For, having unified all of what used to be Palestine (albeit into one profoundly divided space) without having overcome the Palestinian people's will to resist, Zionism has run its course. And in so doing, it has terminated any possibility of a two-state solution. There remains but one possibility for peace with justice: truth, reconciliation--and a single democratic and secular state, a state in which there will be no "natives" and "settlers" and all will be equal; a state for all its citizens irrespective of their religious affiliation. Such a state has always, by definition, been anathema for Zionism. But for the people of Israel and Palestine, it is the only way out.

Please read more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/makdisi or http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6994.shtml

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The Nation
The State of Zionism
Brian Klug
18 June 2007

Zionism is not all of a piece. There are Zionists strongly opposed to the settlers and the occupation. But the momentum of the movement has brought it to this pass; the line that began in Basel has led to Nablus. It is time to cut the cord and begin anew. For the sake of everyone concerned, whether there are two states or three states or one, Israel needs to shed the burden of Jewish fears and hopes and become its own state pursuing its own good for its own people--all of them equally.

Jews around the world need Israel to do this too. They certainly do not need the kind of "protection" given by Olmert, who during the Lebanon war last summer said, "I believe that this is a war that is fought by all the Jews." He implicated the whole of Jewry in a military campaign that inflamed the opinion of millions of people around the world. Is this the "solution" to "the Jewish question"? Is this Israel coming to the rescue of Jews in distress?

The Zionist doctrine that the State of Israel must be the "center" of Jewish life, or that "every Jew in the world" (as Olmert said to the World Zionist Congress) must make aliyah, or that Jews are self-hating if they do not show "solidarity" with the Jewish state, or that Jewish identity in the Diaspora is incomplete--all of this prevents a normal conception of life, as a Jew, outside Israel. The very term "diaspora" is misleading. Israel certainly has one: At least 350,000 Israelis living in the New York area are part of it. But I (a British Jew or Jewish Brit), for example, am not.

At the heart of the crisis of Zionism is the axiom that Israel and the Jewish people are central to each other's identity. How do you pry apart a knot as closely knit as this--a Gordian knot that has no ends? Partly by remembering the venerable idea of the Jewish people as centered on a book--the Torah--and not a state; partly by observing how Jewish life, secular and religious, is flourishing in ways that are not focused on Israel; and partly by looking in an unexpected place: The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, where the principle of equality, like a shining light, burns a hole through the middle of the document.

The text proclaims "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants." If someone wants to say that this is what they mean by Zionism, they are welcome to the word. To adapt a remark of Wittgenstein's: Say what you choose, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing the light. But on the whole, it is better to let go of the word along with the illusion. Jewish ethnic nationalism is no solution to the problems we face today, while the name "Zionism" evokes as much fear and loathing as love and pride. We cannot formulate today's questions in yesterday's language.

It is time to move on. I like to think that forty years from now, under the aegis of full civil equality, Arab and Hebrew cultures will thrive and mingle together in the area currently called Israel and Palestine. It seems like a pipe dream. But a phrase of Herzl's comes to mind: "Wenn ihr vollt, Ist es kein Märchen"--If you will it, it is not a dream. His motto gives us hope.

Please read more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/klug

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Amnesty International
Israel/OPT: Forty years of occupation -- no security without basic rights
Press Release
4 June 2007

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Amnesty International today called on the Israeli authorities to end the land-grabbing, blockades and other violations of international law carried out under the occupation. These have resulted in widespread human rights abuses and have also failed to bring security to the Israeli and Palestinian civilian populations.

A 45-page report published today, Enduring Occupation: Palestinian under siege in the West Bank, illustrates the devastating impact of four decades of Israeli military occupation. The report documents the relentless expansion of unlawful settlements on occupied land that deprives the Palestinian population of crucial resources and documents a plethora of measures that confine Palestinians to fragmented enclaves and hinder their access to work, health and education facilities. These measures include a 700km fence/wall, more than 500 checkpoints and blockades, and a complicated system of permits.

"Palestinians living in the West Bank are blocked at every turn. This is not simply an inconvenience -- it can be a matter of life or death. It is unacceptable that women in labour, sick children, or victims of accidents on their way to hospital should be forced to take long detours and face delays which can cost them their lives," said Malcolm Smart, Director for Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"International action is urgently needed to address the widespread human rights abuses being committed under the occupation, and which are fuelling resentment and despair among a predominantly young and increasingly radicalized Palestinian population," said Malcolm Smart. "For forty years, the international community has failed adequately to address the Israeli-Palestinian problem; it cannot, must not, wait another forty years to do so"…

Amnesty International is calling on the Israeli authorities to:
· lift the regime of blockades and restrictions on Palestinians in the OPT, which constitute collective punishment, and ensure that restrictions imposed in response to specific security threats only target the individuals concerned -- not entire communities.
· halt the construction of the fence/wall inside the West Bank, and remove the sections already built there;
· cease the construction or expansion of Israeli settlements and related infrastructure in the OPT as a first step towards removing Israeli settlements and "outposts";
· cancel all demolition orders on homes in the OPT, and provide reparation to Palestinians whose homes and properties have already been destroyed.

Please read more at http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE150382007 or http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6992.shtml and for a full copy of the report see http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde150332007

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The Independent
Secret memo shows Israel knew Six Day War was illegal
Donald Macintyre
26 May 2007

A senior legal official who secretly warned the government of Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 that it would be illegal to build Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has said, for the first time, that he still believes that he was right.

The declaration by Theodor Meron, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser at the time and today one of the world's leading international jurists, is a serious blow to Israel's persistent argument that the settlements do not violate international law, particularly as Israel prepares to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the war in June 1967.

The legal opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent, was marked "Top Secret" and "Extremely Urgent" and reached the unequivocal conclusion, in the words of its author's summary, "that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

Judge Meron, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia until 2005, said that, after 40 years of Jewish settlement growth in the West Bank - one of the main problems to be solved in any peace deal: "I believe that I would have given the same opinion today."

Please read more at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/

article2584164.ece

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The Independent
The Six-Day War: Forty years on
Donald Macintyre
26 May 2007

Forty years ago, Israel launched what is known as the Six-Day war. The fighting was short, sharp and bloody. But its poisonous legacy has lasted far longer. For this special report, Donald Macintyre visits the heart of the conflict

Less than a kilometre past the hillside olive groves of the sprawling Palestinian village of Sinjil, Dror Etkes turns left off route 60 as it dips and winds north through the terraced West Bank hills halfway between Ramallah and Nablus. He drives his white Mazda pick-up at alarming speed up a bumpy dirt road to the panoramic summit of what has been known for centuries in Arabic as Jebel Betin Halaweh but which is designated by the Israeli military the clinical name of Hill 804. A slight figure in his blue shirt, dark grey jeans, sunglasses and sandals, he parks the vehicle by the Army antenna, breathes in and announces with all the emphasis of the tour guide he once was: "We are now really in the heart of the ideological, religious, settlement movement."

It's easy to see what he means. We are in occupied Palestinian territory 21 kilometres east of the green line, which until the Six-Day War exactly 40 years ago denoted Israel's eastern border and in international law still does. On the windswept hilltops along a wide three-quarter circle to the west, north and east, the ridges are dominated by four Jewish settlements, the houses easily distinguishable from those in Palestinian villages by their red roofs, and eight of the satellite outposts, mainly consisting of up to 20 grey and functional container/caravans. Due west is Ma'ale Levona; to the north is Eli; to the east, just across Route 60, Shilo; and beyond it Shevut Rahel, founded in 1991 and named after a woman shot by Palestinian militants. And just south in the Shilo Valley is the open "industrial zone" with not a single factory on it, which along with the large municipal "jurisdictions" under their control mean that settlement-controlled land (including land previously cultivated by Palestinians) now accounts for 40 per cent of the West Bank.

Please read more at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/

article2582180.ece

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AMIN
40 Year of Occupation and 60 Years of Wars: Enough
Mazin Qumsiyeh
2 June 2007

Those who planned the 1967 "six day war" (Al-Naksa in Arabic) 40 years ago and we the people who lived there could not foresee its ramifications on lives of Israelis and Palestinians let alone Americans and Iraqis today. I was a 10-year old kid growing up in the Shepherd's field at the time the occupation began and my memories of the initial onslaught are vivid. After I immigrated to the US in 1979, I still go almost every year and still maintain residency there. I saw it get worse and worse every year from 1967 (and I dread my trip this summer). What can be said after 40 years of illegal occupation, after over 250,000 Israeli Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, after over 18,000 of our homes demolished, after causing massive economic dislocation (unemployment is at twice what it was for Americans during the Great depression), after over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners now in Israeli jails, after over 10,000 fellow Palestinian civilians killed? What can be said after the remaining Palestinians are squeezed into shrinking ghettos after much of their best lands was confiscated? Should we focus on the price the occupiers also paid (especially since the introduction of the phenomenon of suicide bombings 10 years ago). Should we focus on the price the world has paid including the unfolding tragedy in Iraq (and now the Israel lobby is pushing for a war on Iran)? How about the over $1 trillion that Israel cost the US in these 40 years?

Please read more at http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=13768&CategoryId=5 or http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdPublication=7&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3&NrArticle=

40756&IdLanguage=1style=text-decoration:

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