MCC Palestine Update #127
1 September 2006
“The occupation is still occupation”…
This was the title of a recent editorial found in one of Israel’s leading daily newspapers Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/752246.html) and is a telling reminder of what lies at the root of much of the problems persisting in this region. For it is in this context—of a 39-year-old Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory characterized by a 700-km long Wall cutting though the West Bank, an uninterrupted expanding colonization of Palestinian territory, collective punishment on a massive scale, daily humiliation at checkpoints obstructing free movement and access, an 80% poverty rate for the million and a half Palestinians trapped in what is essentially the world’s largest open-air prison in the Gaza Strip, and a 58-year-old denial of fundamental rights for nearly seven million Palestinian refugees—that a power imbalance is maintained that ensures a status quo of death and despair for millions of Palestinians.
“The Lebanon war has not proved the unilateral withdrawal was a failure,” the editorial reads. “Neither has it made occupation any more reasonable or moral…The occupation of the territories is still a millstone on Israel’s neck, paralyzing any attempt at normalization with the Arab states, even those who share interests with Israel against radical Islam. One cannot demand of the citizens of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to identify with Israel as long as it refuses to release its stranglehold on millions of Palestinians under its rule.”
To be sure, Lebanon is devastated. Bombing campaign that amounted to indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and population are inexcusable atrocities (“Israel accused over 'war crimes',” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5276626.stm). And the methods of war employed by Israel will have a serious impact on many future generations in Lebanon (“Inquiry Opened Into Israeli Use of U.S. Bombs,” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/world/middleeast/
25cluster.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fWorld%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fIsrael).
But in recent weeks where the world’s attention was fixed on Israel’s offensive into Lebanon, Israel had its way with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and little attention was given.
Little attention has been given to the ongoing disaster in Gaza (“Gaza Strip Situation Report: Palestinian death toll reaches 202 as 'Operation Summer Rains' extends into its tenth week,” http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/
GazaStripOCHA%20sitrep_24August06.pdf; “Israeli Siege Leaves Gaza Isolated and Desperate,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700768.html?nav=hcmodule; “A year after the pull-out, Gaza's hopes for peace and prosperity lie in ruins,” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1219281.ece).
And even less attention has been given to the concretization of Israel’s control over and exploitation of the West Bank. For example, despite the statements coming out of the Israeli government declaring that the “convergence” plan that would unilaterally draw the borders of Palestine and Israel—including the evacuation of a handful of settlements deep inside the West Bank—the Justice Ministry in Israel has planned to “launder” illegal West Bank “outposts,” making them permanent “settlements”—a distinction that hardly matters as they all are Israeli colonies and illegal under international law (“Attorney: Justice Min. plan would 'launder' illegal West Bank outposts,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/755418.html; “Realignment committee finds major problems with unilateral withdrawal,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750779.html; “West Bank pullout may be next casualty,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1851065,00.html).
How much attention has been given to the discrimination against Palestinians living both inside Israel, in occupied Jerusalem and in the Occupied Territories has escalated (“Israel's freeze of family unification in the Occupied Territories splits tens of thousands of Palestinian families,” http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20060813.asp; “Accidental emigrant,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/755375.html)?
How much attention has been given to the rising number of cases in which Israeli soldiers and Border Police in the West Bank beat, abuse, and humiliate Palestinians, thanks in part to the cover of the war in Lebanon (“B'Tselem: Beatings and abuse in the shadow of war,” http://www.btselem.org/english/Beating_and_Abuse/
20060821_Rise_in_security_forces_violence.asp)?
Global cries of condemnation over the abduction of Israeli soldiers can be heard yet how much attention has been given while the Israeli military continues its campaign of abducting democratically elected, civilian Palestinian leaders (“25% of Palestinian MPs detained by Israel,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1855202,00.html) adding to the roughly 10,000 abducted Palestinian men, women, and children sitting in Israeli jails. Only through the lenses of the U.S.- and European-led boycott of the Palestinian people and their democratically elected government can the incredibly hypocritical and double standards of these actions be
rationalized.
“Governments come and go,” the Haaretz editorial stated,” but the need to end the occupation remains.”
To learn more about how MCC is responding in both Palestine and Lebanon, please visit http://www.mcc.org/middleeastemergency/. For more resources for learning and advocacy, please visit a Mennonite Church USA website at http://peace.mennolink.org/israellebanon.html as well as MCC Washington Office website at http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/middleeastresponse/index.html. Please consider how you and your communities might get involved and engage these important issues.
MCC partners with…
Despite the difficulties experienced by so many in this region, life does go on as does the work of MCC’s partners in Palestine / Israel. And this summer has been a busy one.
MCC has long partnered with the East Jerusalem YMCA (http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/) in their Rehabilitation Program (http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/Display-Doc.cfm?DocID=33, http://www.shepherdsfieldymca.org/rehabilitation.html). MCC’s partnership with the Rehabilitation Program helps individuals like Nuh Mashaikh, a father of 4 children, who lives in Beit Jala. Nuh suffered a gunshot injury to his back from the Israeli military in 1998 when they invaded Aida refugee camp, resulting in partial paralysis. He currently works in an olive wood factory in Bethlehem. The YMCA Rehabilitation Program has worked with Nuh in the past, after he was injured during the first intifada seventeen years ago, and has recently helped him purchase a machine so he can work extra hours at home sanding olive wood handcrafts.
The YMCA’s Rehabilitation Program also helps individuals like Mu’in Al Atrash, a 23 years old young man in a family among 4 boys and 3 girls. Mu’in was shot in the back by Israeli soldiers in 2004, leaving him half paralyzed. Initially, he struggled greatly with accepting the fact that he was disabled, refusing all forms of assistance. He did not like the YMCA nor their social workers nor the disabled people he interacted with. All Mu’in wanted was to be able to walk again. After numerous attempts and persistence on the part of YMCA social workers, Mu’in started to accept his new reality and started to refocus his life on how to adjust and integrate himself into society. The YMCA Rehabilitation Program helped him start a small olive wood workshop in his home. This workshop became his passion and he started working day and night. His workshop is very successful now and Mu’in is doing a great job marketing his products. He is working on making a short video to advertise his work and raise awareness about the abilities of persons suffering from disabilities. Mu’in has already hired another worker, a friend who is also disabled, and hopes to employ more disabled persons in his workshop.
MCC also partners with the East Jerusalem YMCA in their Women’s Training Program (http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/Display-Doc.cfm?DocID=69). With six training modules per year, each module is a comprehensive training course that includes training in agriculture, farming, bee keeping, soap making, food processing, management and other topics that meet the needs of women, particularly in rural areas. MCC’s partnership with the Woman’s Training Program helps individuals like Samar Muhammad. After participating in this program in the Bethlehem area, Samar received loans to begin raising goats. She has already been able to sell some of her goats and currently has three with one pregnant. The project has helped her increase her family income, especially now that her husband, who used to be a construction worker in Israel, is unemployed.
In the Nablus area the YMCA’s Woman’s Training Program works with women all over the northern West Bank, from the Jenin district, the Nablus district, and the Ramallah district. Recently, MCC workers met in Nablus with 26 women who received training in this program. Despite the difficulties and restriction on movement due to closures and checkpoints imposed by the Israeli military in the West Bank, women came from across the northern West Bank to meet with us and share their stories. They emphasized the importance of such training and how it has affected their lives economically, socially, and culturally, increasing their financial income, improving work skills, encouraging self sufficiency, and utilizing resources available in their home as well as improving the status of women, challenging social norms, and strengthening the social fabric. In expressing their appreciation for the YMCA’s Woman’s Training Program, they pointed out the value of the training offered with its holistic approach, based on the needs of the community.
MCC partner the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/) has organized several events over the past months. In June, they organized an event “Remembering the Occupation of the Syrian Golan” (http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=432). Zochrot toured the occupied Syrian Golan together with the Golan Development Organization and the Emil Touma Institute. Signs were posted at the sites of two villages, al-Rumathniyeh and al-Khashniyeh and brochures were distributed that documented the occupation of the Golan and contained testimonies by Syrian refugees. At the end of the tour they visited the “shouting hill” in Majdal Shams where residents of the Golan speak to their family members in Syria, many of whom they have not seen in years.
In July, Zochrot organized an event remembering the Palestinian refugees from Bir es-Saba / Beersheva (http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=453). They gathered in the courtyard of what was once an active mosque for Muslims from Bir es-Seba and the surrounding area. Today the mosque is dormant, and the municipality refuses to permit its use for prayer. In the past the municipality tried to turn the mosque into a museum. Now it just stands neglected. “The struggles against the Muslim residents were carried out with typical Israeli high-handedness,” Zochrot reports. “A statue hinting of the figure of a woman was erected in the courtyard of the mosque, and when the residents intended to protest, the Deputy Mayor scattered garbage around the mosque to deter them. Actions at the mosque revealed the intention of Jewish leaders that Arabs/Muslims disappear from the public eye.”Most recently Zochrot has worked to educate Israelis about the impact of the Israeli offensives into Gaza and Lebanon on the people there. In a protest against the current military campaigns, Zochrot workers scattered flyers from the rooftops of Tel Aviv that contained translated excerpts of the actual leaflets dropped by the IDF in Lebanon that call on citizens to leave their homes. “As we enter another round in the cycle of displacement and refugeehood in our region, Zochrot calls on the Jewish public to question the aims of this war and to acknowledge the roots of the violent conflict that began with the Nakba of 1948” (http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=461).
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
_______________________________
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Amira Hass, “Can you really not see?,” Haaretz, 30 August 2006
· Statement by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches In Jerusalem, “The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism,” 22 August 2006
· Amira Hass, “The occupier defines justice,” Haaretz, 23 August 2006
· Seymour Hersh, “Watching Lebanon,” The New Yorker, 21 August 2006
· Yitzhak Laor, “You are terrorists, we are virtuous: Yitzhak Laor on the IDF,” London Review of Books, 17 August 2006
· Rami G Khouri, “Israel and the US are still focused on the wrong issues,” The Guardian, 21 August 2006
· Danny Rubinstein, “This is no way to make a deal,” Haaretz, 21 August 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Meanwhile, in Gaza,” Haaretz, 19 August 2006
· Merav Yudilovitch, “An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Lebanon: Apocalypse Near,” CounterPunch.org, 16 August 2006
· Daoud Kuttab, “Christian Zionists and False Prophets,” AMIN.org, 14 August 2006
· Meron Benvenisti, “Regressing a full generation,” Haaretz, 10 August 2006
· Andrew Gumbel, “America's one-eyed view of war: Stars, stripes, and the Star of David,” The Independent, 15 August 2006
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Haaretz
Can you really not see?
Amira Hass
30 August 2006
Let us leave aside those Israelis whose ideology supports the dispossession of the Palestinian people because "God chose us." Leave aside the judges who whitewash every military policy of killing and destruction. Leave aside the military commanders who knowingly jail an entire nation in pens surrounded by walls, fortified observation towers, machine guns, barbed wire and blinding projectors. Leave aside the ministers. All of these are not counted among the collaborators. These are the architects, the planners, the designers, the executioners.
But there are others. Historians and mathematicians, senior editors, media stars, psychologists and family doctors, lawyers who do not support Gush Emunim and Kadima, teachers and educators, lovers of hiking trails and sing-alongs, high-tech wizards. Where are you? And what about you, researchers of Nazism, the Holocaust and Soviet gulags? Could you all be in favor of systematic discriminating laws? Laws stating that the Arabs of the Galilee will not even be compensated for the damages of the war by the same sums their Jewish neighbors are entitled to (Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz , August 21).
Could it be that you are all in favor of a racist Citizenship Law that forbids an Israeli Arab from living with his family in his own home? That you side with further expropriation of lands and the demolishing of additional orchards, for another settler neighborhood and another exclusively Jewish road? That you all back the shelling and missile fire killing the old and the young in the Gaza Strip?
Could it be that you all agree that a third of the West Bank (the Jordan Valley) should be off limits to Palestinians? That you all side with an Israeli policy that prevents tens of thousands of Palestinians who have obtained foreign citizenship from returning to their families in the occupied territories?
Could your mind really be so washed with the security excuse, used to forbid Gaza students from studying occupational therapy at Bethlehem and medicine at Abu Dis, and preventing sick people from Rafah from receiving medical treatment in Ramallah? Will also you find it easy to hide behind the explanation "we had no idea": we had no idea that the discrimination practiced in the distribution of water - which is solely controlled by Israel - leaves thousands of Palestinian households without water during the hot summer months; we had no idea that when the IDF blocks the entrance to villages, it also blocks their access to springs or water tanks.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/756413.html
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The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism
Statement by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches In Jerusalem
22 August 2006
"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9)
Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today. We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of the world.
We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from the ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!
Please read more at http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=35
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Haaretz
The occupier defines justice
Amira Hass
23 August 2006
These three detainees/abducted join about 10,000 other Palestinian prisoners and detainees. As with the prisoners of the Hebrew resistance, who saw themselves as POWs regardless of their actions (killing British soldiers or Arab civilians), some Palestinians request that their prisoners be declared POWs. Others prefer the definition of political prisoners. Let's let the definitions rest. In any case, from the offense to the jailing, Israel, as an occupying force, plays around with the definitions as it sees fit…
The Palestinian detainees are led to a military court: The same military establishment that occupies and destroys and suppresses the civilian population is the one that determines that to resist occupation - even by popular demonstrations and waving flags, not only by killing and bearing arms - is a crime. It is the one to prosecute, and it is the one to judge. Its judges are loyal to the interest of defending the occupier and the settler.
Allegedly every Palestinian is tried, convicted and jailed as a private person who committed a criminal offense. But a sharp discrimination in the conditions of imprisonment proves that the Palestinian security prisoner is punished not as an individual, but as a representative of a group, as part of its overall suppression. Contrary to international law, the majority of Palestinian prisoners and detainees are not held in the occupied territory, but rather inside Israel. Contrary to popular myth, Israel does not respect the right to regular family visits…
It is no wonder that the Palestinians support every action - such as kidnapping soldiers - that tries to break the rules of this discrimination game. Every Palestinian prisoner's personal history is an expression of the freedom Israel allows itself in the implanting of an extreme subculture of double standard, discriminating blood from blood, human being from human being, nation from nation.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/753674.html
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The New Yorker
Watching Lebanon: Washington’s Interest in Israel’s War
Seymour M. Hersh
21 August 2006
In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a moment of clarification,” President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. “It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.”
The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground…
According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings. “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it”…
“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”
Please read more at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact
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London Review of Books
You are terrorists, we are virtuous: Yitzhak Laor on the IDF
Yitzhak Laor
17 August 2006
Mass psychology works best when you can pinpoint an institution or a phenomenon with which large numbers of people identify. Israelis identify with the IDF, and even after the deaths of many Lebanese children in Qana, they think that stopping the war without scoring a definitive victory would amount to defeat. This logic reveals our national psychosis, and it derives from our over-identification with Israeli military thinking.
In the melodramatic barrage fired off by the press, the army is assigned the dual role of hero and victim. And the enemy? In Hebrew broadcasts the formulations are always the same: on the one hand ‘we’, ‘ours’, ‘us’; on the other, Nasrallah and Hizbullah. There aren’t, it seems, any Lebanese in this war. So who is dying under Israeli fire? Hizbullah. And if we ask about the Lebanese? The answer is always that Israel has no quarrel with Lebanon. It’s yet another illustration of our unilateralism, the thundering Israeli battle-cry for years: no matter what happens around us, we have the power and therefore we can enforce the logic. If only Israelis could see the damage that’s been done by all these years of unilateral thinking. But we cannot, because the army – which has always been the core of the state – determines the shape of our lives and the nature of our memories, and wars like this one erase everything we thought we knew, creating a new version of history with which we can only concur. If the army wins, its success becomes part of ‘our heritage’. Israelis have assimilated the logic and the language of the IDF – and in the process, they have lost their memories. Is there a better way to understand why we have never learned from history? We have never been a match for the army, whose memory – the official Israeli memory – is hammered into place at the centre of our culture by an intelligentsia in the service of the IDF and the state.
The IDF is the most powerful institution in Israeli society, and one which we are discouraged from criticising. Few have studied the dominant role it plays in the Israeli economy. Even while they are still serving, our generals become friendly with the US companies that sell arms to Israel; they then retire, loaded with money, and become corporate executives. The IDF is the biggest customer for everything and anything in Israel. In addition, our high-tech industries are staffed by a mixture of military and ex-military who work closely with the Western military complex. The current war is the first to become a branding opportunity for one of our largest mobile phone companies, which is using it to run a huge promotional campaign. Israel’s second biggest bank, Bank Leumi, used inserts in the three largest newspapers to distribute bumper stickers saying: ‘Israel is powerful.’ The military and the universities are intimately linked too, with joint research projects and an array of army scholarships.
Please read more at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/laor01_.html
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The Guardian
Israel and the US are still focused on the wrong issues
Rami G Khouri
21 August 21, 2006
Every major political issue - Lebanon, Iraq, radicalism - links back to the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict
We have a very simple choice before us in the Middle East: we can get serious about working together to give the people of this region a chance to live normal lives in peace and security; or we can all act silly in the ways of provincial chieftains, as many public figures in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Israel and the US have done in recent days.
The chances of achieving a region-wide peace in the Middle East are slim to non existent right now, because the key non-Arab players are focusing on the wrong issues. They are trying to manage or eliminate the symptoms of our region's tensions instead of addressing the root causes. Hizbullah and Iran are among the best examples of this.
Israel and the US are obsessed with disarming Hizbullah and confronting Iran. But a quarter of a century ago neither of these issues existed. How Hizbullah and Iran became so problematic is worth recalling. Until 1979 Iran under the Shah was a close ally and friend of the US and Israel, and Hizbullah was not even born. What happened in the three decades from the mid-70s to today? Many things. The most consistent one was that we all allowed the Arab-Israeli conflict to fester unresolved. Its bitterness kept seeping out from its Palestine-Israel core to corrode many other dimensions of the region.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1854636,00.html
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Haaretz
This is no way to make a deal
Danny Rubinstein
21 August 2006
The unilateral concept now seems, after the events in Lebanon and Gaza, to be dying. No more unilateral convergence. Along with it may die its twin sibling: the separation wall. What use is there for a wall when war is fought with Katyushas, Qassams and kidnappings? When the wall's path followed the Green Line, it was one thing, but when it started to penetrate into the West Bank, and particularly into the Jerusalem area - it became a delusional annexation plan that is nearly impossible to carry out, other than with suffering, discrimination and exploitation that cannot last in the long run.
The only alternative to unilateralism has been and remains striving for an agreement. The Palestinians are requesting it and in recent days have been working toward it. Last week Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was in Gaza for three days during which he had long conversations with senior Hamas figures. For the first time Abbas convened the PA's National Security Council in Gaza, for a meeting which included Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, who is in charge of the PA's internal security apparatus…
The Israeli government acts as if the Palestinian political running around does not concern it. Business proceeds as usual with the uprooting of olive trees, lately in the village of Zbuba in the Jenin district, and the expropriation of lands for use of the wall and the settlements (last week complaints came from the areas of Susiya, Halhoul, Beit Omar and Al-Arub in Mount Hebron, and from Tul Karm and Paron in Samaria). Raids, assassinations and arrests continue, the last of which was of Deputy Prime Minister Nasser al-Shaer of Hamas, who was taken from his Ramallah home and joined the dozens of Hamas politicians, including ministers and Parliament members, who are imprisoned in Israel. Related to this or not, various organizations' cells in the West Bank are preparing for attacks, and as usual there is no end to the abuses at the checkpoints, which, apart from the women of Machsom Watch, no longer bother anyone in Israel.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/752754.html
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Haaretz
Meanwhile, in Gaza
Gideon Levy
19 August 2006
We did, however, see quite a lot of rubble, some inexplicable, such as the ruins of a once-flourishing sewing factory owned by Ahmed Abed al-Jawad, who makes garments for the Israeli fashion industry and has a "Jewish mentality," by his own definition. He employed 70 workers in the Muazi refugee camp, in the heart of the Gaza Strip. The bulldozers cruelly buried his life's work, and half a million shekels, he says, went down the drain.
Gaza looks even dirtier and more neglected than usual. Signs of the Israeli and international boycott can be seen in the piles of garbage that fill the streets: No salaries means no street cleaners. Cooking gas is difficult to come by, electricity is available only a few hours a day - after all, Israel, in its kindhearted wisdom, bombed the transformers. Generators for the rich and oil lanterns for the poor are highly sought-after commodities.
Fisherman like fish and the Israeli Air Force likes bridges: Not only did the IAF destroy the largest bridge in the Strip, in order to split the territory in half, but it also bombed a railway bridge, one over which no train has traveled for dozens of years.
Gaza does not appear to be interested in the war in Lebanon; it's not their war. Here, they are more concerned with when and where the army of tanks and bulldozers will invade tomorrow, how to find the money to buy school uniforms and bags for the school year that begins in two weeks' time, and how they'll make it through the upcoming month of Ramadan.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/751776.html
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CounterPunch.org
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Lebanon: Apocalypse Near
Merav Yudilovitch
16 August 2006
MY: You say the provocation and counter-provocation all serve as a distraction from the real issue. does the war in Lebanon is also a distraction the aims to draw the world's attention to the north of Israel while Gaza is been destroyed?
NC: I assume you are referring to John Berger's letter (which I signed, among others).
The "real issue" that is being ignored is the systematic destruction of any prospects for a viable Palestinian existence as Israel annexes valuable land and major resources (water particularly), leaving the shrinking territories assigned to Palestinians as unviable cantons, largely separated from one another and from whatever little bit of Jerusalem is to be left to Palestinians, and completely imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan valley (and of course controls air space, etc.). This program of "hitkansut," cynically disguised as "withdrawal," is of course completely illegal, in violation of Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court (including the dissenting statement of US Justice Buergenthal). If it is implemented as planned, it spells the end of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement that the US and Israel have unilaterally blocked for 30 years matters that are so well documented that I do not have to review them here.
The US and Israel do not tolerate any resistance to these plans, preferring to pretend falsely of course that "there is no partner," as they proceed with programs that go back a long way. We may recall that Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, so that if resistance to Israel's destructive and illegal progams is considered to be legitimate within the West Bank, then it is legitimate in Gaza as well, in reaction to Israeli actions in the West Bank.
To turn to your specific question, even a casual look at the Western press reveals that the crucial developments in the occupied territories are marginalized even more by the war in Lebanon. The ongoing destruction in Gaza which was rarely seriously reported in the first place -- has largely faded into the background, and the systematic takeover of the West Bank has virtually disappeared. The severe punishment of the population for "voting the wrong way" was never considered problematic, consistent with the long-standing principle that democracy is fine if and only if it accords with strategic and economic interests, documented to the heavens. However, I would not go as far as the implication in your question that this was a purpose of the war, though it clearly is the effect.
Please read more at http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky08162006.html
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AMIN.org
Christian Zionists and False Prophets
Daoud Kuttab
14 August 2006
As if we don’t have enough problems with Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists, we are now confronted with yet another -ist. Christian Zionists, mostly from the United States, are trying to throw their weight behind one of the parties, in effect calling for the continuation of the war and carnage in Lebanon.
A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I have ever heard. The latest gems come from people like Pat Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Rev. John Hagee of Christians United for Israel. Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and the Second Coming of Christ.
In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book’s publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause “a political earthquake.” With the outbreak of the war on Lebanon, he and others have called to their followers to pray for Israel, and for the continuation of the war on Lebanon. They have demanded that Israel not relent in what they call the need to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas. They seem to have completely forgotten the very core of the Christian faith…
Christian Zionists who use religious rhetoric to justify political and military actions are no better than Jewish or Islamic fundamentalists who make similar outlandish claims. Peace in the Middle East should be about the liberty, independence and freedoms of all the people of the region, and not about whose promised land the Holy Land is.
Please read more at http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=11149&CategoryId=5
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Haaretz
Regressing a full generation
Meron Benvenisti
10 August 2006
With tragic consistency, every time the public discourse has been open to discussions of a new Israeli agenda, security issues have restored the concept of "the existential threat" that has suffocated these efforts. That is what happened on the eve of the 1967 war, before the 1973 war, during the Lebanon War and during the Gulf War. Now, after a commitment to social welfare was central to the election campaign, and the present coalition was taking its first steps on the path of repairing the damage caused by the neo-liberal policy of former finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the war has come along and reinstated the security agenda for many years to come.
How will Israeli society bear the additional economic burden that will be placed on it as a result of the war? The slow and rickety process of improving relations between Israel and the moderate Arab states has been interrupted, and is being replaced by a process of radicalization, which first and foremost frightens the leaders of the countries who signed peace treaties with Israel. One need only listen to the despair of Jordan's King Abdullah II in order to understand what the destructive operations in Beirut have wrought. And under the aegis of the diversion in Lebanon, the IDF has killed almost 200 Palestinians in Gaza and imprisoned dozens of Palestinian Authority parliament members and ministers. In this situation, can we talk about evacuating outposts, convergence or the other subjects that were on the national agenda?
The war and the atmosphere that has prevailed in its wake have caused Israel to regress by a generation. It is no wonder that people see history as a cyclical process, and that this war (like its predecessors) is also seen as the "last lap of Israel's War of Independence." And with what fury we are stoning those who do not rush to fill the heroic role being forced on them, and instead counter it with a desire for normalcy. Those who began this unrestrained war want to inflate its importance, in order to justify the terrible - and steadily increasing - price that is being paid solely in order to achieve a victory for the gambler. But perhaps the fact that they are conducting a 1950s strategy with a 21st-century society and culture is cause for optimism: It will not work.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/748533.html
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The Independent
America's one-eyed view of war: Stars, stripes, and the Star of David
Andrew Gumbel
15 August 2006
There are two sides to every conflict - unless you rely on the US media for information about the battle in Lebanon. Viewers have been fed a diet of partisan coverage which treats Israel as the good guys and their Hizbollah enemy as the incarnation of evil. Andrew Gumbel reports from Los Angeles
It is not just the US media which tilts in a pro-Israeli direction. Congress, too, is remarkably unified in its support for the Israeli government, and politicians more generally understand that to criticise Israel is to risk jeopardising their future careers. When Antonio Villaraigosa, the up-and-coming Democratic Mayor of Los Angeles, was first invited to comment on the Middle East crisis, he sounded a note so pro-Israeli that he was forced to apologise to local Muslim and Arab community leaders. There is far less public debate of Israeli policy in the US, in fact, than there is in Israel itself.
This is less a reflection of American Jewish opinion - which is more diverse than is suggested in the media - than it is a commentary on the power of pro-Israeli lobby groups like Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which bankrolls pro-Israeli congressional candidates. That, in turn, is frustrating to liberal Jews like Michael Lerner, a San Francisco rabbi who heads an anti-war community called Tikkun. Rabbi Lerner has tried to argue for years that it is in Israel's best interests to reach a peaceful settlement, and that demonising Arabs as terrorists is counter-productive and against Judaism.
Lerner is probably right to assert that he speaks for a large number of American Jews, only half of whom are affiliated with pro-Israeli lobbying organisations. Certainly, dinner party conversation in heavily Jewish cities like New York suggest misgivings about Israel's strategic aims, even if there is some consensus that Hizbollah cannot be allowed to strike with impunity.
Few, if any, of those misgivings have entered the US media. "There is no major figure in American political life who has been willing to raise the issue of the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people, or even talk about them as human beings," Lerner said. "The organised Jewish community has transformed the image of Judaism into a cheering squad for the Israeli government, whatever its policies are. That is just idolatry, and goes against all the warnings in the Bible about giving too much power to the king or the state."
Please read more at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1219241.ece
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Friday, September 1
Thursday, August 10
MCC Palestine Update #126
MCC Palestine Update #126
10 August 2006
“Fear Not!” for “The Root of War Is Fear”
Every Thursday at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/), in Jerusalem, they hold a simple communion service. During this service, instead of delivering a sermon, Sabeel’s director Na’im Ateek offers a few thoughts reflecting on the texts of the day and encourages the rest of us there to do the same. Specifically, Reverend Ateek challenges us to reflect on scripture in the context of the situation that surrounds us, seeking to hear the word that God has for those suffering under the weight of violence, oppression, and injustice.
One of the texts read this past Thursday was from the gospel of Mark. In it, the story is told of Jesus going to meet his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and offering the words of comfort that are repeated time and time again in the gospels: “Do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50).
“Do not be afraid.” How appropriate right now. These words brought me immediately to another reflection that is all too relevant. It was written by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton many years ago and titled “The Root of War Is Fear” (form New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions, 1961). Merton wrote: “At the root of all war is fear: not so much the fear that men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another; they do not even trust themselves…They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to believe in God.”
The allusions to idolatry are all too clear. The implication of this conclusion for Merton means that we no longer are able to take a look at our own selves, at the evil in our own hearts, and instead project out onto those “others” all the evil that we cannot honestly deal with. Merton says that we begin to obsess with evil and drive ourselves mad to the point where “there is no outlet left but violence.” “By that time, we have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause of every wrong. He is the fomentor of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with, there will be no more war.”
All of this fear prevents us from grasping the realization that we all have sins in need of atonement, faults and limitation, greed and self-righteousness. Realizing the subjective demands that are placed squarely on our shoulders should also move us to the realization that any prayer for peace must be consistent with our actions toward peace. Again, Merton: “It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to the God of peace, the God Who told us to love one another as He had loved us, Who warned us that they who take the sword will perish by it, and at the same time planning to annihilate not thousands but millions of civilians, soldiers, men, women, and children, without discrimination, even with the almost infallible certainty of inviting the same annihilation for ourselves!”
These words are a sharp indictment, especially for those of us from the U.S. where over 520 billion dollars a year is spent on the weapons of war and destruction, and from where billion of dollars are sent to the state of Israel for the same purpose, including a recent shipment of arms from the U.S. to Israel at the height of Israel’s offensives into Gaza and Lebanon (“U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis,” http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0722-02.htm).
In this part of the world Merton’s words about the root of war take on an especially deeper meaning. The British journalist Robert Fisk, who has lived in and reported form the Middle East for over twenty years now, talks about war in a similar vein as “the total failure of the human spirit”:
“If you go to war, you realize it is not primarily about victory or defeat, it is about death and the infliction of death and suffering on as large a scale as you can make it. It is about the total failure of the human spirit. We don't show that because we don't want to. And in this sense journalists, television reporting, television cameras are lethal. They cloud with governments to allow to you have more wars because if they showed you the truth, you wouldn't allow any more wars.” (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/1411211)
The words of Jesus to “not be afraid” are always challenging. Perhaps they seem most difficult because at its core, it is a call to repentance, a call to turn away from the illusions of self-sustainability and self-righteousness, the idolatry of war and violence, and to hear the gospel’s call to conversion to a life modeled by the self-giving love of Jesus.
It is a subjective demand calling us, as Merton tells it, to a love and a humility that “can exorcise the fear which is at the root of all war.”
“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and disorders in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, than hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed—but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
Earlier this week, at an Ecumenical Service of Prayer in Jerusalem that was sponsored by Sabeel and included representatives from a number of the church traditions in Palestine, we gathered to remember and to pray for all those suffering during this difficult time. For the gospel reading we heard from the gospel of John and again I heard the challenging yet comforting words of Jesus:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
“Do not let them be afraid.” As the situation worsens in Lebanon, northern Israel, and in Gaza—a place many have forgotten (“Gaza crisis must not be forgotten, UNICEF says,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5373.shtml; “Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine,” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1202850.ece), may we examine our own lives and seek the humility and the love “that casts out fear” (1 John 4:18) and continue to pray for the displaced, the injured, and the mourning who are living in areas that are being subjected daily to heavy shelling and experiencing great fear.
At the end of this update, please find several articles and statements telling more about the impact of this situation on the people of this region, including statements from MCC partner Sabeel on the crises both in Gaza and Lebanon and statements from MCC Israeli partners the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/) and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/)
To learn more about how MCC is responding in both Palestine and Lebanon, please visit http://www.mcc.org/middleeastemergency/. Mennonite Church USA (http://peace.mennolink.org/israellebanon.html) is calling for “Days of Prayer, Fasting and Faxing for Peace in the Middle East (http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/hearourvoices.pdf). Please consider how you and your communities might get involved and engage these important issues.
Come Visit Palestine
Despite the difficult situation here, there are still many great opportunities to come and visit Palestine. In fact, here in Bethlehem, although the number of foreign tourists continues to be very low, the presence of Palestinians from northern Israel seeking safety away from the fighting has resulted in a little boost to the local economy (“Israeli Arabs Seek Refuge in Bethlehem,”http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/07/international/i021650D16.DTL).
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center has just completed their first International Young Adult Conference titled “TOGETHER: Facing Challenges … Finding Hope.” After this successful experience, Sabeel will now look forward to their 6th International Sabeel Conference titled “The Forgotten Faithful: A Window into the Life and Witness of Christians in the Holy Land.” This conference, scheduled for November 2nd to 9th, through lectures, workshops, worship and excursions in the Holy Land, will provide a unique opportunity to encounter the realities of Christians in Palestine and Israel. This will be a great opportunity to meet your Christian brothers and sisters, learn about their history and present struggle, champion their just cause and advocate for peace and reconciliation for all the people of the land. For more information, see: http://www.sabeel.org/pdfs/prelim%20Brochure%20.doc.
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) is offering another study tour opportunity in the fall scheduled for October 20th to 29th. “This is a crucial time in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,” ICAHD reports. “More than ever the active involvement of the international civil society is called for. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, working in partnership with Experience Travel Tours of the UK, has organized a ten-day study tour in October designed to educate people about the conflict, introduce key figures from both the Palestinian and Israeli peace communities and empower participants to be effective advocates for a just peace upon their return home.” This trip, now in its eighth year, will include a full-day tour with Professor Jeff Halper, director the ICAHD, of the Old City, East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adummim. “Participants will learn ‘the lay of the land:’ the Matrix of Control Israel has laid over the West Bank, the route of the Separation Wall between Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories, and the impact of settlements on any possible peace.” Additional tours take participants to the Galilee, to Ramallah, Bethelehem and Hebron in the West Bank, as well as to Tel Aviv, where they will meet with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, political figures and religious leaders, as well as with Palestinians whose homes have been demolished, Bedouin communities under siege and international activist groups in the field. To learn more about this study tour, contact studytours80@hotmail.com.
Later on this fall, another opportunity to visit will be an Olive Picking Program organized by the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA of Palestine (JAI; http://www.jai-pal.org/) and the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG; http://www.atg.ps) between October 26th and November 4th. This agricultural event is of special significance to the Palestinian economy where all energies and efforts are mobilized during this period.
“Since the beginning of the Intifada in 2000, the olive harvest has been overshadowed by the Israeli policies of repression, closure, blockage of streets, confiscation of agricultural lands, as well as repeated attacks against Palestinian farmers by Israeli settlers. Now with the construction the Apartheid Wall at the expense of the agricultural lands, many farmers are separated from their lands. Building on the experience from the previous years, the Joint Advocacy Initiative of The East Jerusalem YMCA and the YWCA of Palestine and the Alternative Tourism have planned a program for civil international solidarity with Palestinian people and farmers. The objective of this program is to mobilize as many people as possible for olive picking, especially in areas that are situated in proximity of Israeli settlements, and by-pass roads in order to help Palestinian farmers harvest their olive trees that they might be unable to harvest without international support. You are invited to participate.”
Besides picking olives, the program will feature introductory presentations about the organizing institutions, current situation in Palestine, effect of the Apartheid Wall, tours in the old city of Jerusalem and the nativity church in Bethlehem, a tour in Hebron, cultural evenings and social gatherings. For more information, see: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=298.
Please check out the websites of these organizations and think about which of these opportunities might be for you. And come Visit Palestine.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
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Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, “The Madness of War: Hizballah and Israel,” Sabeel.org, 2 August 2006
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, “Israel’s Summer Rains: The Arrogance of Power,” Sabeel.org, 18 July 2006
· Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, “ICAHD Statement on Lebanon/Gaza Wars,” ICAHD.org, 4 August 2006
· Zochrot Association, “Zochrot’s Position on the War,” NakbainHebrew.org.
· Martin Accad, “Evangelical Blindness on Lebanon,” Christianity Today, 20 July 2006
· Rev. Riad Kassis, “Qana: Turning water into blood, not wine!,” Johann Ludwig Schneller School, 1 August 2006
· Anders Strindberg, “Hizbullah’s Attacks Stem from Israeli Incursions into Lebanon,” Christian Science Monitor, 1 August 2006
· George Monbiot, “Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong,” The Guardian, 8 August 2006
· Rami Khouri, “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue,” The Observer, 6 August 2006
· Amira Hass, “Their power of endurance,” Haaretz, 9 August 2006
· Virginia Tilley, “The Case for Boycotting Israel,” CounterPunch.org, 5/6 August 2006
· Lara Deeb, “Hizballah: A Primer,” Middle East Research and Information Project,” July 31, 2006
· Ran HaCohen, “Israeli Intellectuals Love the War,” Antiwar.com, August 7, 2006
· Silvia Tennenbaum, “Why Doesn't Israel Work For Peace?: Holocaust victims would decry the slaughter of innocent children during attacks on Hezbollah,” Newsday, 4 August 2006
· Tanya Reinhart, “Israel's ‘New Middle East,’” Electronic Lebanon, 26 July 2006
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Sabeel.org
The Madness of War: Hizballah and Israel
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
2 August 2006
The pain! I can’t bear the pain!
My heart! My heart is beating wildly!
I can’t keep quiet; I hear the trumpets and the shouts of battle.
One disaster follows another; the whole country is left in ruins.
Suddenly our tents are destroyed; their curtains are torn to pieces.
How long must I see the battle raging and hear the blasts of trumpets?
The LORD says, “My people are stupid; they don’t know me.
They are like foolish children; they have no understanding.
They are experts at doing what is evil, but failures at doing what is good.” (Jeremiah 4:19-23 TEV)
The words of the prophet Jeremiah are our words as we feel the pain and the tragedy in our region. Nothing justifies the extent of the destruction and the number of human beings that have been killed, wounded, and displaced. It is insane and mad. After Israel’s forced termination of its 22 year occupation of South Lebanon in the year 2000, and having defied U.N. Resolution 425 for as many years, it still held Lebanese prisoners and maps of land mines in violation of mutual agreements. In addition, Israel continuously violates Lebanese airspace against international law.
On July 12, 2006, Hizballah crossed the border into Israel, killed 8 Israeli soldiers and took two captive, demanding to exchange them with Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. Israel’s retaliation came with a vengeance. Since July 12, the Israeli army has killed over 750 Lebanese and wounded thousands, the majority of casualties being civilians.
Please read more at http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=35
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Sabeel.org
Israel’s Summer Rains: The Arrogance of Power
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
18 July 2006
“For [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
In Palestine, rain does not fall in the summer. It falls during the rainy season between November and March. People wait with eagerness and thankfulness for the rain after the hot and dry summer months. In the Gaza Strip, rain hardly falls even in the winter. It is a parched land whose only freshwater reservoirs have been depleted by decades of Israeli occupation. The name of the Israeli army operation itself reflects a callous euphemism. By calling the invasion of the Gaza Strip “summer rains,” Israel has taken the word “rain” that stands for and represents a blessing to Palestinians and to all other people and turned it into a curse. It has taken God’s wonderful gift of nature that brings life, food, and health and instead used it to shower destruction and devastation on the people of Gaza. To name this brutal aggression “summer rains” is cruel. Since June 25, over 106 Palestinians have been killed, many of whom are young children, and more than 241 injured. During the same period, six Israelis have been killed with an unknown number of injured.
Please read more at http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=33
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ICAHD.org
ICAHD Statement on Lebanon/Gaza Wars: END THE WAR! END THE OCCUPATION! END STATE TERROR! END AMERICAN EMPIRE!
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
4 August 2006
ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, condemns all attacks on civilians, whether by Israel, the Palestinians or Hezbollah. We recognize Israel’s ever-repressive Occupation as the main source of conflict and instability in our region. Had Israel taken the many opportunities it had to secure a just peace, the peoples of the region would never have reached this point of despair and futile violence. Israel believes it can achieve “quiet” and normalcy through military power while retaining its Occupation, encouraged and protected by the US. This is the true convergence: Israel’s Occupation in return for an active Israeli role in expanding American Empire.
Israel’s disproportionate attacks on both Gaza and Lebanon on the pretext of freeing Israeli soldiers is intended to destroy any resistance to the imposition of the apartheid regime represented by Olmert’s “convergence plan.” Indeed, the democratically-elected government of Hamas which had been moving steadily towards a negotiated two-state settlement constitutes the greatest threat to the perpetuation of Israel’s Occupation, as witnessed by Israel’s delegitimization of that government and its systematic campaign to liquidate Hamas leaders. Israel’s illegal and immoral use of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza in which 3000 houses have been demolished in recent years and its months-long campaign of starving the local population into submission continues must be condemned. ICAHD will work with the international courts to bring the military and political perpetrators of these crimes against humanity to justice.
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=324
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NakbainHebrew.org
Zochrot’s Position on the War
Zochrot Association
Our region is engaged in another round of mindless violence. Thousands have abandoned their homes, many of which have been destroyed, and hundreds have been killed. As an organization working to change Jewish public consciousness, we realize that (like in the Nakba of 1948) although Israel is not solely responsible and at fault for the conflict, there is no doubt that Israel is stoking its flames by displaying violent and disproportional force and by causing most of the casualties – a majority of whom are civilians.
Nowadays, Israeli politics is driven by the desire for revenge. This desire, falsely dubbed the “restoration of deterrence capability” by some, in fact aims to restore the sense of chauvinistic, militaristic nationalism that was dealt a blow when IDF soldiers in the south and the north were taken captive. This desire for revenge drives a series of violent actions that are almost entirely without restraint. The Jewish-Israeli consensus on the street, in the political system and in the media celebrates alongside the IDF the opportunity to ‘pulverize them,’ as the news headlines cry. The nationalistic rhetoric advances the sense of victimhood and prevents any possibility for reasoned action or, heaven forbid, negotiations with the “aggressor.”
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=324
Also, learn more about Zochrot’s work to educate Israelis about the impact of the Israeli offensives into Gaza and Lebanon on the people there at http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=461. In a protest against the current military campaigns, Zochrot workers scattered flyers from the rooftops of Tel Aviv that contained translated excerpts of the actual leaflets dropped by the IDF in Lebanon that call on citizens to leave their homes. “As we enter another round in the cycle of displacement and refugeehood in our region, Zochrot calls on the Jewish public to question the aims of this war and to acknowledge the roots of the violent conflict that began with the Nakba of 1948.”
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Christianity Today
Evangelical Blindness on Lebanon
Martin Accad
20 July 2006
"Great. All we need is a nuclear-armed Iran led by a messianic president who hates Israel and believes that apocalyptic destruction is a precursor to global salvation," writes David P. Gushee in a recent Christianity Today online column, in reference to Iran's president Ahmadinejad. On the whole, Gushee's article is fairly balanced from a certain point of view, and I suppose within the limits necessary to avoid being attacked and branded by those in our churches who have but disdain for Arabs.
But how is it that he, like so many others, fails to notice that world events in the last few years—even decades—have had as their main catalyst tens of thousands of evangelical Christians with a "messianic" mentality who believe that apocalyptic destruction of all but their beloved Israel will be "a precursor to global salvation"?
"Nuclear-armed Iran"? How about the Israeli jet planes that are bombing, as I write, my country and its population, my sisters, my brothers, my fathers and mothers and grandfathers, my children and nieces and nephews? According to the Lebanese health minister, Israel is even using phosphoric bombs, which are forbidden under international conventions! Are my people to consider Iran more dangerous than this? Are we safely in good hands with such actions? Come with me to Beirut and see how inoffensive Israel is. Ask the thousands of Western nationals that are presently being evacuated by the shipload. Ask the hundreds of U.S. and other Western missionaries that are running for their lives from Lebanon as you read this, through the most dangerous routes. Ask them whether weapons of any kind are in safe hands in any bloodthirsty human hands. And if they were not bloodthirsty, why would they have them? Why would anyone have them?
Please read more at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/129/42.0.html
Also, read Martin Accad’s follow-up to this essay titled ‘Who Is My Neighbor’ in the Lebanon-Israel Conflict? at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/22.0.html
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Johann Ludwig Schneller School
Qana: Turning water into blood, not wine!
Rev. Riad Kassis
1 August 2006
Qana is about 10 miles east of the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre. According to traditions it is the village where Jesus Christ performed his first miracle by turning water into wine (John 2: 1-???). The presence and work of Jesus gave the wedding a new turn and flavor. He brought in joy, happiness and gladness to all present. This is what Jesus did when he was in Qana! The story in Qana is different in 1996 and today!
In 1996, a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village was shelled by Israeli artillery. Around 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge there to escape the fighting, of whom 106 were killed and around 116 others injured. Four UNIFIL soldiers were also seriously injured. This was the First Massacre of Qana!
Last night, was a noisy and fearful night as Israeli jet fighters were hovering the skies of Lebanon. While I was trying to sleep in the middle of the night I was thinking of what the morning will bring to Lebanon. I woke up to the news that an Israeli air strike hit a four-story residential building used as a shelter by Lebanese refugees in the southern Lebanese town of Qana Sunday morning, killing and wounding more than 65 people, 30 of them are infants and young children. This is the Second Massacre of Qana!
Enough of this nonsense! I am sick not only because of such excuses, but because many in the West believe these claims as well! There is and will never be an acceptable excuse for the killing of civilians most of them children and women. The excuse that the US is waiting for a “sustainable solution”, without calling for an immediate cease fire, is nonsense too. It is only a green light for Israel to continue it atrocities on Lebanon.
My great disappointment is with the international community, with fundamentalist evangelical community, with some Arab regimes! I have written on this elsewhere http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/12.0.html. Now as I watch the bodies of little children I am really outraged and furious! How many “Qanas massacres” are we waiting for to happen before a cease fire takes place?
As an Arab evangelical I call, at least, all Christians and particularly evangelicals who enjoy seeing the turning of water into blood in the name of end time prophecy to think seriously that their call is rather to turn water into wine of gladness, peace, and life. Are we looking for the presence of Christ in Lebanon and Israel or for the presence of US smart bombs? Are we peacemakers or angels of death?
Please read more at http://www.jlss.org/2006news/qana.htm
Also, read Rev. Riad Kassis’ essay titled The Silent Human Conscience at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/22.0.html
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Christian Science Monitor
Hizbullah’s Attacks Stem from Israeli Incursions into Lebanon
Anders Strindberg
1 August 2006
As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.
Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.
Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.
In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?
Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.
Please read more at http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html
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The Guardian
Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong
George Monbiot
8 August 2006
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board".
A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hizbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government.
Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hizbullah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hizbullah, Hizbullah could claim - also with justification - that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hizbullah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hizbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1839244,00.html
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The Observer
‘Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue’
Rami Khouri
6 August 2006
When Israeli, Arab and other journalists merely parrot their government lines, they do everyone a disservice. When they repeat the hysterical assumptions and flawed interpretations of their semi-crazed politicians - as I believe is common in Israel today - they become instruments of war, rather than purveyors of fact and dispassionate analysis. But when they cut through official spin and associated propaganda, and help their public understand the roots of the problem, and thus the path to its resolution, they rise to their highest professional and personal stature. So here's what I would say to journalists in Israel: read Deuteronomy and act on its moral and political principles.
Deuteronomy, a pivotal book of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), is supremely relevant here because it blends the three issues that I believe Israeli, Arab and international journalists must affirm in order to honour their professional dictates along with their own humanity. These are: good governance anchored in the rule of law; a moral foundation for human relations anchored in the dictate to treat others as you want others to treat you; and the towering divine commands to 'choose life' and 'pursue justice'.
Deuteronomy is an appropriate balm because it emphasises - in both human society and the divine plan - the central value of justice that is anchored in a system of codified laws that are administered fairly by compassionate and competent judges. The most beautiful and powerful part of Deuteronomy is verses 18-20, ending with: 'Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue.'
How is this relevant to the Israeli-Lebanese war today and issues beyond this round of fighting? I believe it is crucial, because the single biggest reason that Israel has found itself locked in ever more vicious wars with assorted Arab neighbours is its refusal to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians and other Arabs on the basis of the rule of law, and to resolve disputes on the basis of both parties enjoying equal rights.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1838405,00.html
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Haaretz
Their power of endurance
Amira Hass
9 August 2006
First, because the war - state cruelty - against the Palestinians is ongoing. Second, because Israel's double standard and basic contempt for anyone who isn't "us" explains better than the army's outdated equipment and faulty training why it has been receiving blows so far and will continue to receive them. Israel is convinced that in Lebanon, as in Gaza and the West Bank, its unlimited power to destroy is both a deterrent and spur to political change. It is ignoring the human factor - that the Palestinians and Lebanese' fortitude grows in lockstep with our strengthening powers of destruction.
We are justly concerned about the welfare of northern residents, proud of their fortitude, understand those who leave, are shocked by the death of each person and by every rocket hit, and identify with those suffering from anxiety. Take what the northern residents have been going through for a month, multiply it by 1,000, add an economic blockade, power and water cuts, and no wages. This is how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been "living" for the past six years.
The Israelis allow their army to continue destroying, trampling and killing in the Palestinian territories. Here, like in Lebanon, the real intelligence and security failure is Israel's ignoring the extent of our uninhibited, unrestrained devastation and their amazing power of human endurance. This is why Israel has delusions of "victories." If the homemade rockets are still being fired at Sderot despite the Palestinians' extensive suffering, it is because they have concluded, correctly, that Israel's destruction power is not intended to stop Qassam rockets - or to free Gilad Shalit. It is intended to force them to accept a surrender arrangement, which they reject not with military victories but with their power of endurance.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747999.html
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CounterPunch.org
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Virginia Tilley
5/6 August 2006
It is finally time. After years of internal arguments, confusion, and dithering, the time has come for a full-fledged international boycott of Israel. Good cause for a boycott has, of course, been in place for decades, as a raft of initiatives already attests. But Israel's war crimes are now so shocking, its extremism so clear, the suffering so great, the UN so helpless, and the international community's need to contain Israel's behavior so urgent and compelling, that the time for global action has matured. A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only Israel's aggressive acts and crimes against humanitarian law but also, as in South Africa, its founding racist logics that inspired and still drive the entire Palestinian problem.
That second goal of the boycott campaign is indeed the primary one. Calls for a boycott have long cited specific crimes: Israel's continual attacks on Palestinian civilians; its casual disdain for the Palestinian civilian lives "accidentally" destroyed in its assassinations and bombings; its deliberate ruin of the Palestinians' economic and social conditions; its continuing annexation and dismemberment of Palestinian land; its torture of prisoners; its contempt for UN resolutions and international law; and especially, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. But the boycott cannot target these practices alone. It must target their ideological source.
The true offence to the international community is the racist motivation for these practices, which violates fundamental values and norms of the post-World War II order. That racial ideology isn't subtle or obscure. Mr. Olmert himself has repeatedly thumped the public podium about the "demographic threat" facing Israel: the "threat" that too many non-Jews will - the horror - someday become citizens of Israel. It is the "demographic threat" that, in Israeli doctrine, justifies sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip as open-air prisons for millions of people whose only real crime is that they are not Jewish. It is the "demographic threat," not security (Mr. Olmert has clarified), that requires the dreadful Wall to separate Arab and Jewish communities, now juxtaposed in a fragmented landscape, who might otherwise mingle.
Please read more at http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08052006.html
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Middle East Research and Information Project
Hizballah: A Primer
Lara Deeb
July 31, 2006
Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a provider of important social services. Not a creature of Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, Hizballah arose to battle Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon’s historically disenfranchised Shi‘i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hizballah is very much of Lebanon -- a fact that Israel’s military campaign is highlighting.
Please read more at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html
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Antiwar.com
Israeli Intellectuals Love the War
Ran HaCohen
August 7, 2006
All generalizations are wrong, except this one: Israeli liberal intellectuals are against war. They have always been against it, and they even suffered greatly for their critical views, as they stress proudly. They were against the previous war, they will be against the next war, they are against all wars. There is just one minor exception, though: the present war, every present war, which they always support. Because the present war – well, that's something totally different from all those other wars! How can you even compare?! The present war is always inevitable, and necessary, and just, and worthy of support.
For those who imagine Israel's intellectual elite as a sane oasis of rational, moderate, peace-loving liberals, here are a few snapshots of Israel's intellectual cheerleaders on their current patriotic march supporting the devastation of Lebanon.
From 1984 to 1948
Rhinoceros King Ari Shavit, journalist for Ha'aretz, once a "Peace Now" activist and senior member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), writes,
"Israel is currently waging the most just war in its history. […] Therefore, anyone who yearns for Israel to withdraw in future from occupied territories to recognized permanent borders must stand by Israel in this war. Anyone who wants peace, stability, and an end to the occupation must back up Israel in its just war." (Ha'aretz, July 18, 2006)
To put it briefly, then, War is Peace and Peace is War; and Israel is devastating Lebanon just in order to give the Palestinians their freedom.
Please read more at http://antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=9486
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Newsday
Why Doesn't Israel Work For Peace?: Holocaust victims would decry the slaughter of innocent children during attacks on Hezbollah
Silvia Tennenbaum
4 August 2006
As a Jew who escaped the Holocaust by moving with my family to America in 1938, I turn on the BBC at night. And what I see are clouds of black smoke, explosions; the dead and the dying - children crying bitterly, cities in ruins. Only yesterday, these piles of rubble in Lebanon were home to thousands. Now, the cars roll out onto the highways, white flags attached to the windshields and doors. More than half a million are homeless.
The Israelis told them to leave, but then strafed one convoy from a helicopter. The military people exert their force without pity. They win their wars proudly. They are the masters of force.
Using the most modern weapons the United States can supply to search out the Hezbollah guerrillas, the Israeli soldiers destroy Lebanon. They wreck all of Gaza, seeking to murder the leaders of Hamas.
Many American Jews gather proudly to cheer them on. The face of the American president remains blank. A patter of platitudes issues from his lips. He is not interested in peace. He is happy to see Israel do the dirty war for him. Diplomacy is a word not in his dictionary…
The time is long overdue for Jews to return to their role as the world's conscience, who come to the aid of the dispossessed, the wretched of the earth. Once again, we must join those who demand the end to unjust wars - in Iraq as well as Lebanon - and an unjust occupation in Gaza. We must honor the example of American civil rights workers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, not that of the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein or Yigal Amir, killer of Yitzhak Rabin.
Please read more at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0804-27.htm
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Electronic Lebanon
Israel's "New Middle East"
Tanya Reinhart
26 July 2006
For the U.S., the Middle East is a "strategic playing field", where the game is establishing full U.S. domination. The U.S. already controls Iraq and Afghanistan, and considers Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and a few other states as friendly cooperating regimes. But even with this massive foothold, full U.S. domination is still far from established. Iran has only been strengthened by the Iraq war and refuses to accept the decrees of the master. Throughout the Arab world, including in the "friendly regimes", there is boiling anger at the U.S., at the heart of which is not only the occupation of Iraq, but the brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and the U.S. backing of Israel's policies. The new axis of the four enemies of the Bush administration (Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran) are bodies viewed by the Arab world as resisting U.S. or Israel's rule, and standing for Arab liberation. From Bush's perspective, he only has two years to consolidate his vision of complete U.S. control of the Middle East, and to do that, all seeds of resistance should be crushed in a devastating blow that will make it clear to every single Arab that obeying the master is the only way to stay alive. If Israel is willing to do the job, and crush not only the Palestinians, but also Lebanon and Hezbollah, then the U.S., torn from the inside by growing resentment over Bush's wars, and perhaps unable to send new soldiers to be killed for this cause right now, will give Israel all the backing it can. As Rice announced in her visit in Jerusalem on July 25, what is at stakes is "a new Middle East". "We will prevail", she promised Olmert.
But Israel is not sacrificing its soldiers and citizens only to please the Bush administration. The "new Middle East" has been a dream of the Israeli ruling military circles since at least 1982, when Sharon led the country to the first Lebanon war with precisely this declared goal. Hezbollah's leaders have argued for years that its real long-term role is to protect Lebanon, whose army is too weak to do this. They have said that Israel has never given up its aspirations for Lebanon and that the only reason it pulled out of Southern Lebanon in 2000 is because Hezbollah's resistance has made maintaining the occupation too costly. Lebanon's people know what every Israeli old enough to remember knows - that in the vision of Ben Gurion, Israel's founding leader, Israel's border should be "natural", that is - the Jordan river in the East, and the Litani river of Lebanon in the north. In 1967, Israel gained control over the Jordan river, in the occupied Palestinian land, but all its attempts to establish the Litani border have failed so far.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5248.shtml
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10 August 2006
“Fear Not!” for “The Root of War Is Fear”
Every Thursday at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/), in Jerusalem, they hold a simple communion service. During this service, instead of delivering a sermon, Sabeel’s director Na’im Ateek offers a few thoughts reflecting on the texts of the day and encourages the rest of us there to do the same. Specifically, Reverend Ateek challenges us to reflect on scripture in the context of the situation that surrounds us, seeking to hear the word that God has for those suffering under the weight of violence, oppression, and injustice.
One of the texts read this past Thursday was from the gospel of Mark. In it, the story is told of Jesus going to meet his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and offering the words of comfort that are repeated time and time again in the gospels: “Do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50).
“Do not be afraid.” How appropriate right now. These words brought me immediately to another reflection that is all too relevant. It was written by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton many years ago and titled “The Root of War Is Fear” (form New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions, 1961). Merton wrote: “At the root of all war is fear: not so much the fear that men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another; they do not even trust themselves…They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to believe in God.”
The allusions to idolatry are all too clear. The implication of this conclusion for Merton means that we no longer are able to take a look at our own selves, at the evil in our own hearts, and instead project out onto those “others” all the evil that we cannot honestly deal with. Merton says that we begin to obsess with evil and drive ourselves mad to the point where “there is no outlet left but violence.” “By that time, we have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause of every wrong. He is the fomentor of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with, there will be no more war.”
All of this fear prevents us from grasping the realization that we all have sins in need of atonement, faults and limitation, greed and self-righteousness. Realizing the subjective demands that are placed squarely on our shoulders should also move us to the realization that any prayer for peace must be consistent with our actions toward peace. Again, Merton: “It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to the God of peace, the God Who told us to love one another as He had loved us, Who warned us that they who take the sword will perish by it, and at the same time planning to annihilate not thousands but millions of civilians, soldiers, men, women, and children, without discrimination, even with the almost infallible certainty of inviting the same annihilation for ourselves!”
These words are a sharp indictment, especially for those of us from the U.S. where over 520 billion dollars a year is spent on the weapons of war and destruction, and from where billion of dollars are sent to the state of Israel for the same purpose, including a recent shipment of arms from the U.S. to Israel at the height of Israel’s offensives into Gaza and Lebanon (“U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis,” http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0722-02.htm).
In this part of the world Merton’s words about the root of war take on an especially deeper meaning. The British journalist Robert Fisk, who has lived in and reported form the Middle East for over twenty years now, talks about war in a similar vein as “the total failure of the human spirit”:
“If you go to war, you realize it is not primarily about victory or defeat, it is about death and the infliction of death and suffering on as large a scale as you can make it. It is about the total failure of the human spirit. We don't show that because we don't want to. And in this sense journalists, television reporting, television cameras are lethal. They cloud with governments to allow to you have more wars because if they showed you the truth, you wouldn't allow any more wars.” (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/20/1411211)
The words of Jesus to “not be afraid” are always challenging. Perhaps they seem most difficult because at its core, it is a call to repentance, a call to turn away from the illusions of self-sustainability and self-righteousness, the idolatry of war and violence, and to hear the gospel’s call to conversion to a life modeled by the self-giving love of Jesus.
It is a subjective demand calling us, as Merton tells it, to a love and a humility that “can exorcise the fear which is at the root of all war.”
“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and disorders in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, than hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed—but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
Earlier this week, at an Ecumenical Service of Prayer in Jerusalem that was sponsored by Sabeel and included representatives from a number of the church traditions in Palestine, we gathered to remember and to pray for all those suffering during this difficult time. For the gospel reading we heard from the gospel of John and again I heard the challenging yet comforting words of Jesus:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
“Do not let them be afraid.” As the situation worsens in Lebanon, northern Israel, and in Gaza—a place many have forgotten (“Gaza crisis must not be forgotten, UNICEF says,” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5373.shtml; “Israel's secret war: the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Palestine,” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article1202850.ece), may we examine our own lives and seek the humility and the love “that casts out fear” (1 John 4:18) and continue to pray for the displaced, the injured, and the mourning who are living in areas that are being subjected daily to heavy shelling and experiencing great fear.
At the end of this update, please find several articles and statements telling more about the impact of this situation on the people of this region, including statements from MCC partner Sabeel on the crises both in Gaza and Lebanon and statements from MCC Israeli partners the Zochrot Association (http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/) and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/)
To learn more about how MCC is responding in both Palestine and Lebanon, please visit http://www.mcc.org/middleeastemergency/. Mennonite Church USA (http://peace.mennolink.org/israellebanon.html) is calling for “Days of Prayer, Fasting and Faxing for Peace in the Middle East (http://peace.mennolink.org/resources/hearourvoices.pdf). Please consider how you and your communities might get involved and engage these important issues.
Come Visit Palestine
Despite the difficult situation here, there are still many great opportunities to come and visit Palestine. In fact, here in Bethlehem, although the number of foreign tourists continues to be very low, the presence of Palestinians from northern Israel seeking safety away from the fighting has resulted in a little boost to the local economy (“Israeli Arabs Seek Refuge in Bethlehem,”http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/07/international/i021650D16.DTL).
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center has just completed their first International Young Adult Conference titled “TOGETHER: Facing Challenges … Finding Hope.” After this successful experience, Sabeel will now look forward to their 6th International Sabeel Conference titled “The Forgotten Faithful: A Window into the Life and Witness of Christians in the Holy Land.” This conference, scheduled for November 2nd to 9th, through lectures, workshops, worship and excursions in the Holy Land, will provide a unique opportunity to encounter the realities of Christians in Palestine and Israel. This will be a great opportunity to meet your Christian brothers and sisters, learn about their history and present struggle, champion their just cause and advocate for peace and reconciliation for all the people of the land. For more information, see: http://www.sabeel.org/pdfs/prelim%20Brochure%20.doc.
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD; http://www.icahd.org/eng/) is offering another study tour opportunity in the fall scheduled for October 20th to 29th. “This is a crucial time in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,” ICAHD reports. “More than ever the active involvement of the international civil society is called for. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, working in partnership with Experience Travel Tours of the UK, has organized a ten-day study tour in October designed to educate people about the conflict, introduce key figures from both the Palestinian and Israeli peace communities and empower participants to be effective advocates for a just peace upon their return home.” This trip, now in its eighth year, will include a full-day tour with Professor Jeff Halper, director the ICAHD, of the Old City, East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adummim. “Participants will learn ‘the lay of the land:’ the Matrix of Control Israel has laid over the West Bank, the route of the Separation Wall between Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories, and the impact of settlements on any possible peace.” Additional tours take participants to the Galilee, to Ramallah, Bethelehem and Hebron in the West Bank, as well as to Tel Aviv, where they will meet with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, political figures and religious leaders, as well as with Palestinians whose homes have been demolished, Bedouin communities under siege and international activist groups in the field. To learn more about this study tour, contact studytours80@hotmail.com.
Later on this fall, another opportunity to visit will be an Olive Picking Program organized by the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA of Palestine (JAI; http://www.jai-pal.org/) and the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG; http://www.atg.ps) between October 26th and November 4th. This agricultural event is of special significance to the Palestinian economy where all energies and efforts are mobilized during this period.
“Since the beginning of the Intifada in 2000, the olive harvest has been overshadowed by the Israeli policies of repression, closure, blockage of streets, confiscation of agricultural lands, as well as repeated attacks against Palestinian farmers by Israeli settlers. Now with the construction the Apartheid Wall at the expense of the agricultural lands, many farmers are separated from their lands. Building on the experience from the previous years, the Joint Advocacy Initiative of The East Jerusalem YMCA and the YWCA of Palestine and the Alternative Tourism have planned a program for civil international solidarity with Palestinian people and farmers. The objective of this program is to mobilize as many people as possible for olive picking, especially in areas that are situated in proximity of Israeli settlements, and by-pass roads in order to help Palestinian farmers harvest their olive trees that they might be unable to harvest without international support. You are invited to participate.”
Besides picking olives, the program will feature introductory presentations about the organizing institutions, current situation in Palestine, effect of the Apartheid Wall, tours in the old city of Jerusalem and the nativity church in Bethlehem, a tour in Hebron, cultural evenings and social gatherings. For more information, see: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=298.
Please check out the websites of these organizations and think about which of these opportunities might be for you. And come Visit Palestine.
Peace to you all,
Timothy Seidel
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Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, “The Madness of War: Hizballah and Israel,” Sabeel.org, 2 August 2006
· Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, “Israel’s Summer Rains: The Arrogance of Power,” Sabeel.org, 18 July 2006
· Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, “ICAHD Statement on Lebanon/Gaza Wars,” ICAHD.org, 4 August 2006
· Zochrot Association, “Zochrot’s Position on the War,” NakbainHebrew.org.
· Martin Accad, “Evangelical Blindness on Lebanon,” Christianity Today, 20 July 2006
· Rev. Riad Kassis, “Qana: Turning water into blood, not wine!,” Johann Ludwig Schneller School, 1 August 2006
· Anders Strindberg, “Hizbullah’s Attacks Stem from Israeli Incursions into Lebanon,” Christian Science Monitor, 1 August 2006
· George Monbiot, “Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong,” The Guardian, 8 August 2006
· Rami Khouri, “Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue,” The Observer, 6 August 2006
· Amira Hass, “Their power of endurance,” Haaretz, 9 August 2006
· Virginia Tilley, “The Case for Boycotting Israel,” CounterPunch.org, 5/6 August 2006
· Lara Deeb, “Hizballah: A Primer,” Middle East Research and Information Project,” July 31, 2006
· Ran HaCohen, “Israeli Intellectuals Love the War,” Antiwar.com, August 7, 2006
· Silvia Tennenbaum, “Why Doesn't Israel Work For Peace?: Holocaust victims would decry the slaughter of innocent children during attacks on Hezbollah,” Newsday, 4 August 2006
· Tanya Reinhart, “Israel's ‘New Middle East,’” Electronic Lebanon, 26 July 2006
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Sabeel.org
The Madness of War: Hizballah and Israel
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
2 August 2006
The pain! I can’t bear the pain!
My heart! My heart is beating wildly!
I can’t keep quiet; I hear the trumpets and the shouts of battle.
One disaster follows another; the whole country is left in ruins.
Suddenly our tents are destroyed; their curtains are torn to pieces.
How long must I see the battle raging and hear the blasts of trumpets?
The LORD says, “My people are stupid; they don’t know me.
They are like foolish children; they have no understanding.
They are experts at doing what is evil, but failures at doing what is good.” (Jeremiah 4:19-23 TEV)
The words of the prophet Jeremiah are our words as we feel the pain and the tragedy in our region. Nothing justifies the extent of the destruction and the number of human beings that have been killed, wounded, and displaced. It is insane and mad. After Israel’s forced termination of its 22 year occupation of South Lebanon in the year 2000, and having defied U.N. Resolution 425 for as many years, it still held Lebanese prisoners and maps of land mines in violation of mutual agreements. In addition, Israel continuously violates Lebanese airspace against international law.
On July 12, 2006, Hizballah crossed the border into Israel, killed 8 Israeli soldiers and took two captive, demanding to exchange them with Lebanese prisoners held by Israel. Israel’s retaliation came with a vengeance. Since July 12, the Israeli army has killed over 750 Lebanese and wounded thousands, the majority of casualties being civilians.
Please read more at http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=35
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Sabeel.org
Israel’s Summer Rains: The Arrogance of Power
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
18 July 2006
“For [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
In Palestine, rain does not fall in the summer. It falls during the rainy season between November and March. People wait with eagerness and thankfulness for the rain after the hot and dry summer months. In the Gaza Strip, rain hardly falls even in the winter. It is a parched land whose only freshwater reservoirs have been depleted by decades of Israeli occupation. The name of the Israeli army operation itself reflects a callous euphemism. By calling the invasion of the Gaza Strip “summer rains,” Israel has taken the word “rain” that stands for and represents a blessing to Palestinians and to all other people and turned it into a curse. It has taken God’s wonderful gift of nature that brings life, food, and health and instead used it to shower destruction and devastation on the people of Gaza. To name this brutal aggression “summer rains” is cruel. Since June 25, over 106 Palestinians have been killed, many of whom are young children, and more than 241 injured. During the same period, six Israelis have been killed with an unknown number of injured.
Please read more at http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=33
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ICAHD.org
ICAHD Statement on Lebanon/Gaza Wars: END THE WAR! END THE OCCUPATION! END STATE TERROR! END AMERICAN EMPIRE!
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
4 August 2006
ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, condemns all attacks on civilians, whether by Israel, the Palestinians or Hezbollah. We recognize Israel’s ever-repressive Occupation as the main source of conflict and instability in our region. Had Israel taken the many opportunities it had to secure a just peace, the peoples of the region would never have reached this point of despair and futile violence. Israel believes it can achieve “quiet” and normalcy through military power while retaining its Occupation, encouraged and protected by the US. This is the true convergence: Israel’s Occupation in return for an active Israeli role in expanding American Empire.
Israel’s disproportionate attacks on both Gaza and Lebanon on the pretext of freeing Israeli soldiers is intended to destroy any resistance to the imposition of the apartheid regime represented by Olmert’s “convergence plan.” Indeed, the democratically-elected government of Hamas which had been moving steadily towards a negotiated two-state settlement constitutes the greatest threat to the perpetuation of Israel’s Occupation, as witnessed by Israel’s delegitimization of that government and its systematic campaign to liquidate Hamas leaders. Israel’s illegal and immoral use of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza in which 3000 houses have been demolished in recent years and its months-long campaign of starving the local population into submission continues must be condemned. ICAHD will work with the international courts to bring the military and political perpetrators of these crimes against humanity to justice.
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=324
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NakbainHebrew.org
Zochrot’s Position on the War
Zochrot Association
Our region is engaged in another round of mindless violence. Thousands have abandoned their homes, many of which have been destroyed, and hundreds have been killed. As an organization working to change Jewish public consciousness, we realize that (like in the Nakba of 1948) although Israel is not solely responsible and at fault for the conflict, there is no doubt that Israel is stoking its flames by displaying violent and disproportional force and by causing most of the casualties – a majority of whom are civilians.
Nowadays, Israeli politics is driven by the desire for revenge. This desire, falsely dubbed the “restoration of deterrence capability” by some, in fact aims to restore the sense of chauvinistic, militaristic nationalism that was dealt a blow when IDF soldiers in the south and the north were taken captive. This desire for revenge drives a series of violent actions that are almost entirely without restraint. The Jewish-Israeli consensus on the street, in the political system and in the media celebrates alongside the IDF the opportunity to ‘pulverize them,’ as the news headlines cry. The nationalistic rhetoric advances the sense of victimhood and prevents any possibility for reasoned action or, heaven forbid, negotiations with the “aggressor.”
Please read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=324
Also, learn more about Zochrot’s work to educate Israelis about the impact of the Israeli offensives into Gaza and Lebanon on the people there at http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=461. In a protest against the current military campaigns, Zochrot workers scattered flyers from the rooftops of Tel Aviv that contained translated excerpts of the actual leaflets dropped by the IDF in Lebanon that call on citizens to leave their homes. “As we enter another round in the cycle of displacement and refugeehood in our region, Zochrot calls on the Jewish public to question the aims of this war and to acknowledge the roots of the violent conflict that began with the Nakba of 1948.”
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Christianity Today
Evangelical Blindness on Lebanon
Martin Accad
20 July 2006
"Great. All we need is a nuclear-armed Iran led by a messianic president who hates Israel and believes that apocalyptic destruction is a precursor to global salvation," writes David P. Gushee in a recent Christianity Today online column, in reference to Iran's president Ahmadinejad. On the whole, Gushee's article is fairly balanced from a certain point of view, and I suppose within the limits necessary to avoid being attacked and branded by those in our churches who have but disdain for Arabs.
But how is it that he, like so many others, fails to notice that world events in the last few years—even decades—have had as their main catalyst tens of thousands of evangelical Christians with a "messianic" mentality who believe that apocalyptic destruction of all but their beloved Israel will be "a precursor to global salvation"?
"Nuclear-armed Iran"? How about the Israeli jet planes that are bombing, as I write, my country and its population, my sisters, my brothers, my fathers and mothers and grandfathers, my children and nieces and nephews? According to the Lebanese health minister, Israel is even using phosphoric bombs, which are forbidden under international conventions! Are my people to consider Iran more dangerous than this? Are we safely in good hands with such actions? Come with me to Beirut and see how inoffensive Israel is. Ask the thousands of Western nationals that are presently being evacuated by the shipload. Ask the hundreds of U.S. and other Western missionaries that are running for their lives from Lebanon as you read this, through the most dangerous routes. Ask them whether weapons of any kind are in safe hands in any bloodthirsty human hands. And if they were not bloodthirsty, why would they have them? Why would anyone have them?
Please read more at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/129/42.0.html
Also, read Martin Accad’s follow-up to this essay titled ‘Who Is My Neighbor’ in the Lebanon-Israel Conflict? at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/22.0.html
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Johann Ludwig Schneller School
Qana: Turning water into blood, not wine!
Rev. Riad Kassis
1 August 2006
Qana is about 10 miles east of the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre. According to traditions it is the village where Jesus Christ performed his first miracle by turning water into wine (John 2: 1-???). The presence and work of Jesus gave the wedding a new turn and flavor. He brought in joy, happiness and gladness to all present. This is what Jesus did when he was in Qana! The story in Qana is different in 1996 and today!
In 1996, a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village was shelled by Israeli artillery. Around 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge there to escape the fighting, of whom 106 were killed and around 116 others injured. Four UNIFIL soldiers were also seriously injured. This was the First Massacre of Qana!
Last night, was a noisy and fearful night as Israeli jet fighters were hovering the skies of Lebanon. While I was trying to sleep in the middle of the night I was thinking of what the morning will bring to Lebanon. I woke up to the news that an Israeli air strike hit a four-story residential building used as a shelter by Lebanese refugees in the southern Lebanese town of Qana Sunday morning, killing and wounding more than 65 people, 30 of them are infants and young children. This is the Second Massacre of Qana!
Enough of this nonsense! I am sick not only because of such excuses, but because many in the West believe these claims as well! There is and will never be an acceptable excuse for the killing of civilians most of them children and women. The excuse that the US is waiting for a “sustainable solution”, without calling for an immediate cease fire, is nonsense too. It is only a green light for Israel to continue it atrocities on Lebanon.
My great disappointment is with the international community, with fundamentalist evangelical community, with some Arab regimes! I have written on this elsewhere http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/12.0.html. Now as I watch the bodies of little children I am really outraged and furious! How many “Qanas massacres” are we waiting for to happen before a cease fire takes place?
As an Arab evangelical I call, at least, all Christians and particularly evangelicals who enjoy seeing the turning of water into blood in the name of end time prophecy to think seriously that their call is rather to turn water into wine of gladness, peace, and life. Are we looking for the presence of Christ in Lebanon and Israel or for the presence of US smart bombs? Are we peacemakers or angels of death?
Please read more at http://www.jlss.org/2006news/qana.htm
Also, read Rev. Riad Kassis’ essay titled The Silent Human Conscience at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/130/22.0.html
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Christian Science Monitor
Hizbullah’s Attacks Stem from Israeli Incursions into Lebanon
Anders Strindberg
1 August 2006
As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism.
Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.
Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.
In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?
Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.
Please read more at http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html
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The Guardian
Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong
George Monbiot
8 August 2006
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board".
A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hizbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government.
Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hizbullah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hizbullah, Hizbullah could claim - also with justification - that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hizbullah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hizbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1839244,00.html
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The Observer
‘Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue’
Rami Khouri
6 August 2006
When Israeli, Arab and other journalists merely parrot their government lines, they do everyone a disservice. When they repeat the hysterical assumptions and flawed interpretations of their semi-crazed politicians - as I believe is common in Israel today - they become instruments of war, rather than purveyors of fact and dispassionate analysis. But when they cut through official spin and associated propaganda, and help their public understand the roots of the problem, and thus the path to its resolution, they rise to their highest professional and personal stature. So here's what I would say to journalists in Israel: read Deuteronomy and act on its moral and political principles.
Deuteronomy, a pivotal book of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), is supremely relevant here because it blends the three issues that I believe Israeli, Arab and international journalists must affirm in order to honour their professional dictates along with their own humanity. These are: good governance anchored in the rule of law; a moral foundation for human relations anchored in the dictate to treat others as you want others to treat you; and the towering divine commands to 'choose life' and 'pursue justice'.
Deuteronomy is an appropriate balm because it emphasises - in both human society and the divine plan - the central value of justice that is anchored in a system of codified laws that are administered fairly by compassionate and competent judges. The most beautiful and powerful part of Deuteronomy is verses 18-20, ending with: 'Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue.'
How is this relevant to the Israeli-Lebanese war today and issues beyond this round of fighting? I believe it is crucial, because the single biggest reason that Israel has found itself locked in ever more vicious wars with assorted Arab neighbours is its refusal to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians and other Arabs on the basis of the rule of law, and to resolve disputes on the basis of both parties enjoying equal rights.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1838405,00.html
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Haaretz
Their power of endurance
Amira Hass
9 August 2006
First, because the war - state cruelty - against the Palestinians is ongoing. Second, because Israel's double standard and basic contempt for anyone who isn't "us" explains better than the army's outdated equipment and faulty training why it has been receiving blows so far and will continue to receive them. Israel is convinced that in Lebanon, as in Gaza and the West Bank, its unlimited power to destroy is both a deterrent and spur to political change. It is ignoring the human factor - that the Palestinians and Lebanese' fortitude grows in lockstep with our strengthening powers of destruction.
We are justly concerned about the welfare of northern residents, proud of their fortitude, understand those who leave, are shocked by the death of each person and by every rocket hit, and identify with those suffering from anxiety. Take what the northern residents have been going through for a month, multiply it by 1,000, add an economic blockade, power and water cuts, and no wages. This is how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been "living" for the past six years.
The Israelis allow their army to continue destroying, trampling and killing in the Palestinian territories. Here, like in Lebanon, the real intelligence and security failure is Israel's ignoring the extent of our uninhibited, unrestrained devastation and their amazing power of human endurance. This is why Israel has delusions of "victories." If the homemade rockets are still being fired at Sderot despite the Palestinians' extensive suffering, it is because they have concluded, correctly, that Israel's destruction power is not intended to stop Qassam rockets - or to free Gilad Shalit. It is intended to force them to accept a surrender arrangement, which they reject not with military victories but with their power of endurance.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747999.html
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CounterPunch.org
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Virginia Tilley
5/6 August 2006
It is finally time. After years of internal arguments, confusion, and dithering, the time has come for a full-fledged international boycott of Israel. Good cause for a boycott has, of course, been in place for decades, as a raft of initiatives already attests. But Israel's war crimes are now so shocking, its extremism so clear, the suffering so great, the UN so helpless, and the international community's need to contain Israel's behavior so urgent and compelling, that the time for global action has matured. A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only Israel's aggressive acts and crimes against humanitarian law but also, as in South Africa, its founding racist logics that inspired and still drive the entire Palestinian problem.
That second goal of the boycott campaign is indeed the primary one. Calls for a boycott have long cited specific crimes: Israel's continual attacks on Palestinian civilians; its casual disdain for the Palestinian civilian lives "accidentally" destroyed in its assassinations and bombings; its deliberate ruin of the Palestinians' economic and social conditions; its continuing annexation and dismemberment of Palestinian land; its torture of prisoners; its contempt for UN resolutions and international law; and especially, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. But the boycott cannot target these practices alone. It must target their ideological source.
The true offence to the international community is the racist motivation for these practices, which violates fundamental values and norms of the post-World War II order. That racial ideology isn't subtle or obscure. Mr. Olmert himself has repeatedly thumped the public podium about the "demographic threat" facing Israel: the "threat" that too many non-Jews will - the horror - someday become citizens of Israel. It is the "demographic threat" that, in Israeli doctrine, justifies sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip as open-air prisons for millions of people whose only real crime is that they are not Jewish. It is the "demographic threat," not security (Mr. Olmert has clarified), that requires the dreadful Wall to separate Arab and Jewish communities, now juxtaposed in a fragmented landscape, who might otherwise mingle.
Please read more at http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08052006.html
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Middle East Research and Information Project
Hizballah: A Primer
Lara Deeb
July 31, 2006
Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a provider of important social services. Not a creature of Iranian and Syrian sponsorship, Hizballah arose to battle Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon from 1982-2000 and, more broadly, to advocate for Lebanon’s historically disenfranchised Shi‘i Muslim community. While it has many political opponents in Lebanon, Hizballah is very much of Lebanon -- a fact that Israel’s military campaign is highlighting.
Please read more at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html
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Antiwar.com
Israeli Intellectuals Love the War
Ran HaCohen
August 7, 2006
All generalizations are wrong, except this one: Israeli liberal intellectuals are against war. They have always been against it, and they even suffered greatly for their critical views, as they stress proudly. They were against the previous war, they will be against the next war, they are against all wars. There is just one minor exception, though: the present war, every present war, which they always support. Because the present war – well, that's something totally different from all those other wars! How can you even compare?! The present war is always inevitable, and necessary, and just, and worthy of support.
For those who imagine Israel's intellectual elite as a sane oasis of rational, moderate, peace-loving liberals, here are a few snapshots of Israel's intellectual cheerleaders on their current patriotic march supporting the devastation of Lebanon.
From 1984 to 1948
Rhinoceros King Ari Shavit, journalist for Ha'aretz, once a "Peace Now" activist and senior member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), writes,
"Israel is currently waging the most just war in its history. […] Therefore, anyone who yearns for Israel to withdraw in future from occupied territories to recognized permanent borders must stand by Israel in this war. Anyone who wants peace, stability, and an end to the occupation must back up Israel in its just war." (Ha'aretz, July 18, 2006)
To put it briefly, then, War is Peace and Peace is War; and Israel is devastating Lebanon just in order to give the Palestinians their freedom.
Please read more at http://antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=9486
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Newsday
Why Doesn't Israel Work For Peace?: Holocaust victims would decry the slaughter of innocent children during attacks on Hezbollah
Silvia Tennenbaum
4 August 2006
As a Jew who escaped the Holocaust by moving with my family to America in 1938, I turn on the BBC at night. And what I see are clouds of black smoke, explosions; the dead and the dying - children crying bitterly, cities in ruins. Only yesterday, these piles of rubble in Lebanon were home to thousands. Now, the cars roll out onto the highways, white flags attached to the windshields and doors. More than half a million are homeless.
The Israelis told them to leave, but then strafed one convoy from a helicopter. The military people exert their force without pity. They win their wars proudly. They are the masters of force.
Using the most modern weapons the United States can supply to search out the Hezbollah guerrillas, the Israeli soldiers destroy Lebanon. They wreck all of Gaza, seeking to murder the leaders of Hamas.
Many American Jews gather proudly to cheer them on. The face of the American president remains blank. A patter of platitudes issues from his lips. He is not interested in peace. He is happy to see Israel do the dirty war for him. Diplomacy is a word not in his dictionary…
The time is long overdue for Jews to return to their role as the world's conscience, who come to the aid of the dispossessed, the wretched of the earth. Once again, we must join those who demand the end to unjust wars - in Iraq as well as Lebanon - and an unjust occupation in Gaza. We must honor the example of American civil rights workers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, not that of the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein or Yigal Amir, killer of Yitzhak Rabin.
Please read more at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0804-27.htm
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Electronic Lebanon
Israel's "New Middle East"
Tanya Reinhart
26 July 2006
For the U.S., the Middle East is a "strategic playing field", where the game is establishing full U.S. domination. The U.S. already controls Iraq and Afghanistan, and considers Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and a few other states as friendly cooperating regimes. But even with this massive foothold, full U.S. domination is still far from established. Iran has only been strengthened by the Iraq war and refuses to accept the decrees of the master. Throughout the Arab world, including in the "friendly regimes", there is boiling anger at the U.S., at the heart of which is not only the occupation of Iraq, but the brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and the U.S. backing of Israel's policies. The new axis of the four enemies of the Bush administration (Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran) are bodies viewed by the Arab world as resisting U.S. or Israel's rule, and standing for Arab liberation. From Bush's perspective, he only has two years to consolidate his vision of complete U.S. control of the Middle East, and to do that, all seeds of resistance should be crushed in a devastating blow that will make it clear to every single Arab that obeying the master is the only way to stay alive. If Israel is willing to do the job, and crush not only the Palestinians, but also Lebanon and Hezbollah, then the U.S., torn from the inside by growing resentment over Bush's wars, and perhaps unable to send new soldiers to be killed for this cause right now, will give Israel all the backing it can. As Rice announced in her visit in Jerusalem on July 25, what is at stakes is "a new Middle East". "We will prevail", she promised Olmert.
But Israel is not sacrificing its soldiers and citizens only to please the Bush administration. The "new Middle East" has been a dream of the Israeli ruling military circles since at least 1982, when Sharon led the country to the first Lebanon war with precisely this declared goal. Hezbollah's leaders have argued for years that its real long-term role is to protect Lebanon, whose army is too weak to do this. They have said that Israel has never given up its aspirations for Lebanon and that the only reason it pulled out of Southern Lebanon in 2000 is because Hezbollah's resistance has made maintaining the occupation too costly. Lebanon's people know what every Israeli old enough to remember knows - that in the vision of Ben Gurion, Israel's founding leader, Israel's border should be "natural", that is - the Jordan river in the East, and the Litani river of Lebanon in the north. In 1967, Israel gained control over the Jordan river, in the occupied Palestinian land, but all its attempts to establish the Litani border have failed so far.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5248.shtml
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Thursday, July 27
MCC Palestine Update #125
MCC Palestine Update #125
27 July 2006
Christianity in Palestine: Misrepresentation and Dispossession
An important focus of Mennonite Central Committee’s work across the Middle East is to support the local church. This is very much the case here in Palestine where MCC partners with local organizations such as the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/), specifically in their work supporting local clergy.
MCC also supports the Bethlehem Bible College (http://www.bethlehembiblecollege.edu/) in their “Shepherd’s Society” program, which seeks to aid families by working to fulfill immediate needs, such as food and medical care, as well as working toward longer-term development assistance, such as revolving loans and marketing products and crafts produced locally. “The name ‘Shepherd Society’ is a reference to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who told his disciple Peter to care for his sheep (John 21:16). This imagery was later used by the apostle Peter to instruct church leaders in caring for the needy when he said, ‘Shepherd the flock of God which is among you’ (1 Peter 5:2-4). Here on the hillsides of Bethlehem, we still see shepherds caring for their flocks, reminding us to continue Peter's mission.”
Another example of MCC’s work with the local church is through MCC’s support of the Latin Patriarchate (Roman Catholic) School in the northern West Bank village of Zebabdeh through MCC’s Global Family program. MCC has also placed two volunteers, Mark and Andrea Stoner-Leaman, in Zebabdeh, serving as English teachers at this school. To learn more about how you can support the Latin Patriarchate School or other Global Family projects, please visit http://www.mcc.org/globalfamily/projects/middleeast/palestine/.
Christianity in the Arab world has had a long and lively history, including in Palestine, where one still finds today communities of faith that stretch back thousands of years to the very beginnings of the church, where Arabic is spoken in liturgies and sermons, and where the church has played an integral role in the development of society, whether in terms of providing leadership in very difficult times or in pioneering valuable social services like education. Today of the roughly 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, less than two percent are Christians. Of the 1.4 million Palestinians living inside Israel, meanwhile, roughly eight percent belong to Christian communities. Though small, these communities bear witness to two millennia of continuous Christian presence in the land called “holy” by much of the rest of the world.
Palestinian Christians belong to several traditional communities of faith, communities that can be grouped into four broad categories. The first are the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox churches. These would include the Greek Orthodox communities, claiming a continuous presence in the Holy Land since the times of the apostles. The second group is made of up what is sometimes referred to as the “Oriental” Orthodox churches, such as the Syrian, Coptic, and Armenian Orthodox communities. A third category consists of those churches belonging to the Catholic family of churches. In addition to Roman Catholic communities, referred to in the Middle East as the “Latin” church, one finds “Eastern Catholic” or “Eastern Rite Catholic” churches. These churches, though in communion with Rome and recognizing the authority of the pope, have maintained their own distinctive liturgy and traditions. Members of such communities as Greek Catholic or Syrian Catholic outnumber the number of “Latin” Catholics in Palestine and have a long history of involvement in the Palestinian struggle for justice. Finally, there are various Protestant communities, including not only Anglican and Lutheran churches, present since the nineteenth century, but also independent evangelical churches, including Baptist, Pentecostal, and more.
Today in Palestine, Christianity is experiencing what many would consider a crisis. This is not due to the growth of so-called Islamic fundamentalism or the persecution of “believers” by their Muslim neighbors, misrepresentations that are unfortunately used to distract from the realities of occupation. Instead, the plight of the Palestinian Christian is very much connected to that of the Palestinian Muslim in that both, whether in the Occupied Territories or inside Israeli itself, are experiencing daily injustices at the hands of oppressive and discriminatory policies imposed on them by the Israeli government.
Palestinian Christians, like their Muslim brothers and sisters, have experienced a long history of dispossession and have not been immune to Israeli policies of occupation and discrimination. If anything, they have felt more strongly the feelings of forsakenness, knowing full well that many Christians in North America and Europe support without question the state of Israel in its oppression of their people.
Daily experiences of humiliation at checkpoints, of land confiscation to make way for the separation barrier, the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, lack of mobility and access to basic services, unemployment, poverty, and no sense of hope for a better future for their children have all contributed to this growing emigration of Palestinian Christians from the historical land of Palestine. As Christians, a basic freedom of religion is denied that prohibits Christians from traveling very short distances to worship in one of the most holy sites in Christianity—the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem, where it is believed Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the grave.
For the Palestinian Christians of Bethlehem, for example, traveling the six-mile (ten-kilometer) distance to Jerusalem’s Old City is impossible without special permission. Roughly half of Bethlehem’s residents are Christian. Church leaders estimate that over 2,000 Christians have emigrated from the Bethlehem area since September 2000, representing a decline of more than nine percent of Bethlehem’s total Christian population. (For more on these conditions in Bethlehem, see the report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Office of the Special Coordinator for the Peace Process in the Middle East (UNSCO), “Costs of Conflict: The Changing Face of Bethlehem” (December 2004); online at: http://www.mofa.gov.ps/articals/pdf_files/21-12-04.pdf).
Rev. Alex Awad, Palestinian pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church, reminds us that “Palestinian Christians have existed in the Holy Land since the day of Pentecost and have kept the torch of Christianity burning faithfully for the past two thousand years.” The erosion of Christianity in her birthplace, he poignantly observes “is a loss for the body of Christ everywhere. Can we imagine the Holy Land devoid of the Christian presence and a church which has been a faithful witness for Christ since the day the church was born?” (See Rev. Awad’s article in “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land,” MCC Peace Office Newsletter 35/3 (July-September 2005); online at: http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2005-03.pdf).
Unfortunately, various reportings of this phenomenon has revealed stereotypes in North America and Europe that continue to see the root socio-economic problem for Palestinian Christians as their Muslim neighbors. It is disconcerting that the portrayal of the Christian absence in Palestine, for example, is often played off as the fault of Muslims and not of the illegal Israeli occupation, as if Muslims are oppressing Christians and that this is the root of the problem for Palestinians. It is the occupation that has made life so difficult that many Christians have moved from Palestine. This continues to be a serious problem, ignored especially by “Christian” tour groups who while visiting the “Holy Land” seldom bother to even come to Bethlehem to see these ancient sites, let alone see these Christian communities and recognize their existence.
These attempts to frame this conflict in such anti-Muslim ways only distracts (often intentionally) from the burden of responsibility that sits squarely on the shoulders of the state of Israel and its intentional violation of international law and the U.S. for its 100 billion dollar financing of this structure of violence and death.
An example of this is a resolution that is currently being circulated around the U.S. House of Representatives claiming to be concerned about the plight of Palestinian Christians and their diminishing presence in Palestine. Yet this resolution makes no mention of the root causes of this conflict but instead blames Palestinians themselves for their own victimhood, grossly misrepresenting this situation and the Palestinian people.
Only recently, while the world watches the unfolding assault on Lebanon and Gaza and the Israeli-caused humanitarian disaster for the millions of people living there, the Israeli military has begun uprooting ancient olive trees in Bethlehem’s Cremisan area, marking out the path of the Separation Wall to be built through one of the regions most valuable heritage sites.
The Cremisan area is of significant heritage value, home to the only winery in Palestine and two monasteries. Some of the finest examples of the regions ancient terraced landscape can be found here. The Wall will carve through these terraces destroying agricultural landscapes that have survived for centuries. When the Wall is completed, Beit Jala district of the Bethlehem area will have lost access to two-thirds of its land.
It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the expropriation of more land for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-kilometer separation barrier. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the expansion of illegal settlements and the creation of “Greater Jerusalem” depopulated of its Palestinian citizens. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the checkpoints that obstruct mobility, nor the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the “one big prison” status of Gaza. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for this separation barrier that will become the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that will be responsible for, absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, the “reservation” life that will parallel the Native North American experience in the United States. No, it is the ongoing Israeli structure of occupation and dispossession that continues to devastate Palestinian livelihood.
At a time when the U.S. Congress is considering the plight of Palestinian Christians, they are witnessing the destruction of their community’s land, heritage and livelihood. The people of Bethlehem have been very clear in their message to the international community, “If you want to help us, stop the construction of Israel’s Wall.”
Anyone who lives in this society long enough is aware of tensions that might exist between Christians and Muslims. Palestinians society like any other society in the world is dealing with its own problems. But to focus on this internal tension to the exclusion of other factors is missing the mark and emptying this issue of its context.
It is indeed hard to be Palestinian Christian these days. But it is also hard being a Palestinian Muslim. The fact of the matter is that it is hard simply being a Palestinian.
Attached below is an action alert sent out by MCC’s Washington Office outlining this potential U.S. legislation and providing suggestions for actions on how to respond (which can also be found online at http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/issues/middleeast/index.html). Following this alert is also a list of links for further reading on this issue as well as a list of Church Related Organizations and their websites either working in Palestine or dealing with these issues.
In the midst of such pain and despair, we would ask that you continue to pray for all of the people of this land and that your prayers would lead you to actions of solidarity on their behalf in your home communities.
Peace,
Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· MCC Washington Office Action Alert: “Misleading Resolution about Palestinian Christians,” 26 June 2006
· Additional Background Reading
· Additional Information on Christian or Church Related Organizations working in Palestine and the Middle East
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TO: MCC Middle East Advocates
FROM: J. Daryl Byler (MCC Washington Office)
Timothy Seidel (MCC Palestine)
RE: Misleading resolution about Palestinian Christians
DATE: June 26, 2006
Issue
Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) have been circulating a “dear colleague” letter in the House of Representatives, seeking co-sponsors for a resolution that purports to be concerned about the plight of Palestinian Christians, but ignores the real causes of their suffering. This misleading bill has not yet been introduced in the House, but already has a number of co-sponsors.
Background
The resolution http://www.cmep.org/documents/
PA_Persecution_of_Christians_Resolution.pdf is based on research by Justus Weiner, an American/Israeli academic at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in Israel. It includes many factual inaccuracies and reflects little or no input from local indigenous Palestinian Christians, who do not support the bill.
Rather than focusing on the real reasons that Palestinian Christians (and Muslims) are emigrating -- e.g. daily hardships of living under Israeli occupation; Israel’s separation wall/barrier and expanding settlements, which make it difficult for Palestinians to reach schools, health care facilities, jobs and places of worship -- the resolution accuses the Palestinian Authority of systematically persecuting Palestinian Christians and claims that this is the main reason they are leaving the Holy Land. While the Palestinian Authority does not have an exemplary human rights record, it does not specifically persecute Christians.
The resolution appears to be an attempt to build on the current anti-Palestinian Authority fervor in the U.S. Congress, after Hamas won a majority of seats in Palestinian Legislative Council earlier this year. The House has overwhelmingly passed H.R.4681 – a bill that would avoid contact with and financial support for a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority until Hamas meets a long list of conditions. On June 23, the Senate passed a somewhat improved version of the House bill, but MCC still does not view the Senate bill (S.2370) as balanced or helpful. For further details on H.R.4681 and S.2370 visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type in the bill number.
Faith reflection
In her book, What is Palestine/Israel?, Sonia K. Weaver quotes Zoughbi Zoughbi, a Palestinian Christian who lives in Bethlehem. Palestinian Christians are “Christians of the cross, awaiting resurrection,” says Zoughbi. He calls for security that comes, not through vengeance, but through a future of peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he lamented that the people did not recognize the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42). In a similar way, bills like H.R. 4681, S.2370 and the Crawley-McCaul resolution do not address root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and therefore will not lead to a just and lasting peace. They will not breathe new life and hope into the Palestinian community, but will only add to its suffering.
Action
Write to your Representative and Senators. Urge them not to co-sponsor the Crowley-McCaul “dear colleague” letter http://www.cmep.org/documents/McCaul-Crowley_Dear_Colleague.htm or any similar version that crops up in the Senate. You may wish to make the following points:
• Any bill that claims to be concerned for the well-being of Palestinian Christians should include the voices of Palestinian Christians.
• Urge members of Congress to take fact-finding trips to the Occupied Territories and meet with Palestinian Christians in their local churches. (Many Palestinian Christians are calling for such trips.)
• Remind them that bills like HR 4681 and S.2370 are likely to have a harmful impact on Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
• Urge members of Congress to call upon both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to uphold human rights and to comply with long-standing U.N. resolutions aimed at transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Visits, e-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters are all good ways to contact your legislators. E-mails, phone calls and faxes are good for time-sensitive issues. Postal mail travels slowly in the Capitol, but letters have long-term impact. Be sure to include your mailing address in all correspondence to confirm your residency in a particular district and state.
For elected officials’ contact information, including the option of sending e-mails, visit the C-SPAN Directory (http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/officials).
Visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ for information about any legislation by number (H.R.____/S. ____) or name. Check the Washington Office Voting Record to find your legislators’ votes on key issues. Read the Washington Office Advocacy Handbook for advocacy tips.
We at the Washington Office would be grateful for copies of your correspondence and any responses you receive!
Senator _____
United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3121
www.senate.gov
Representative _____
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 224-3121
www.house.gov
President _____
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1111 (202) 456-1414 FAX
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Tim/Local%20Settings/Temp/notes34BEBC/president@whitehouse.gov
________________________________
Additional Background Reading
The text of some frequently asked questions or "FAQs on the McCaul/Crowley Resolution and the Situation of Christians in the Holy Land," that clarify somewhat the problems with this resolution, can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/FAQs_McCaul-Crowley_Resolution_Holy_Land_Christians.pdf.
An update on this legislation as well as the text of a letter from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem condemning this resolution and encouraging Congressional leaders to visit the “Holy Land” for themselves can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006July6.htm.
The text of a letter from the Network of Christian Organizations in Bethlehem (NCOB, a coalition of 19 Christian organizations, based in Bethlehem, working in different developmental areas and service in and represents different denominations) condemning this resolution can be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=331.
The text of an alert sent out by local organization Open Bethlehem can be found online at: http://www.openbethlehem.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=58. The text of a letter sent by Leila Sansour, director of Open Bethlehem, to Congressmen McCaul and Crowley, asking them to reconsider this resolution and inviting them to see the situation here in Bethlehem for themselves can also be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=328.
The text of a letter from Rev. Michael H. Sellors on behalf of the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem condemning this resolution can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1548.cfm
The text of a response by Salim Munayer (Academic Dean at Bethlehem Bible College and director of the organization Musalaha) on behalf of the "Local Council of Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land" (A grouping of various Evangelical churches including Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Church of God and others) to Justus Weiner's book Human Rights of Christians in the Palestinian Society can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/
Weiner_Response_Munayer_2006.pdf.
The text of an article by Robert Novak titled “Who Harms Holy Land Christians?,” (Washington Post, 3 July 2006), can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/
Who_Harms_Holy_Land_Christians.htm.
The text of an article titled “HCEF President Sir Rateb Rabie, KCHC response to Reps. McCaul and Crowley,” (HCEF, 28 June 2006), can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1550.cfm.
The text of an article titled “Nobody Speaks for Palestinian Christians except Palestinian Christians,” (Media Monitors Network, 28 June 2006), can be found online at: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/31884
The text of an article titled “Fight Erupts in D.C. Over Plight of Palestinian Christians,” (Forward, 23 June 2006), can be found online at: http://www.forward.com/articles/8003.
The text of an article by James Zogby titled “Maybe Congress Should Go Home,” (Jordan Times, 20 June 2006), can be found online at:
http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10599&CategoryId=5.
The text of a statement by Naim Ateek, director of the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem titled "Palestinian Elections: A Christian Perspective" (written for the Joint Advocacy Initiative Magazine of East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA of Palestine) can be found online at: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=24.
The text of a statement by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem on the Palestinian Elections can be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=176.
The text of the 2006 Easter Message by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1481.cfm.
The text of an article by Dr. Bernard Sabella titled "Palestinian Christians: Challenges and Hopes" can be found online at: http://www.al-bushra.org/holyland/sabella.htm.
The text of an article by Raja G. Mattar titled "Arab Christians are Arabs" can be found online at: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=8057&CategoryId=5.
The texts of two article by Robert Novak, the first titled "A Plea for Palestinian Christians" can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006May25.htm, and the second titled "Palestinian Christians Suffer Too" can be found online at: http://www.openbethlehem.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=55.
The text of an MCC Peace Office Newsletter titled "Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land," dealing with Christian theologies that, from the perspective of Palestinian Christians, are not life-giving but in fact quite the opposite as they nullify and invalidate their very existence in their homeland: http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2005-03.pdf.
________________________________
Additional Information on Christian or Church Related Organizations working in Palestine and the Middle East
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center - http://www.sabeel.org/: "Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for ‘the way‘ and also a ‘channel‘ or ‘spring‘ of life-giving water."
Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center - http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/: "Wi'am as a grassroots organization, strives alongside other democratic forces present in the larger Bethlehem community to build a democratic and just society. The Center aims to improve the quality of relationships by: addressing injustices rather than avenging them; dignifying persons on both sides of the conflict; promoting human rights and advocating for peace among all people."
Bethlehem Bible College - http://www.bethlehembiblecollege.edu/: "Bethlehem Bible College is an interdenominational Christian Bible college, located in Bethlehem, Palestine. Bethlehem Bible College seeks to train and prepare Christian servant-leaders for the churches and society within an Arab context who model Christ centeredness, Godly humility, biblical wholeness, creative mercy and justice in their jobs and ministries as life-long learners."
International Center of Bethlehem (ICB) - http://www.annadwa.org/: "The ICB is a Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institution serving the whole Palestinian community. The programs of the Center serve the entire community from “the womb to the tomb”, with an emphasis on children, youth and women. Equipping the local community to assume a proactive role in shaping their future is at the heart of the ICB’s mission. Through empowering the local community, developing human resources, cultivating artistic talents, and facilitating intercultural encounters, the ICB actively promotes the building of Palestinian civil society."
Open Bethlehem - http://www.openbethlehem.org/: "Open Bethlehem is an international project created to save the city of Bethlehem. With headquarters inside Bethlehem University, offices in London and Washington, and working hand-in-hand with all Bethlehem civil institutions, Open Bethlehem is well-placed to keep the city at the forefront of world attention. The city came to world prominence with a message of hope and peace, and brought this message to life by opening their arms to visitors for almost two millennia. In the Twenty-first century, the people of Bethlehem will not live in the shadow of a man-made wall: they will continue to be a beacon of hope."
Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation - http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/ID/2.cfm: "Founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of American Christians to inform American Christians of the plight of Palestinian Christians. It is an organization which 'We seek to replace despair with hope, fear with security, and humiliation with human dignity'"
Middle East Council of Churches - http://www.mec-churches.org/: “The Middle East Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches relating itself to the main stream of the modern ecumenical movement, the same which gave birth to the World Council and other regional ecumenical councils throughout the world. The twelve to fourteen million souls who claim Christ’s name in the Middle East are few in number when compared to the constituents of similar ecumenical associations elsewhere. But being small means that people know each other, and there is a bond of kinship that is rather special. It is no accident, therefore, that the Council chose to organize itself as a family of families—the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, the Catholic and Protestant families. Each makes its contribution to the witness of all.”
Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) - http://www.eappi.org/: “The EAPPI is an initiative of the World Council of Churches. Its mission is to accompany Palestinians and Israelis in their non-violent actions and concerted advocacy efforts to end the occupation. Participants of the programme are monitoring and reporting violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, supporting acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offering protection through non-violent presence, engaging in public policy advocacy and, in general, standing in solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the occupation.”
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) - http://www.cmep.org/index.html: "CMEP is a coalition of 21 public policy offices of national churches and agencies -- Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant. CMEP began its work in 1984 out of the conviction that the policy perspectives and long Middle East experience of our member bodies should be more widely known in the public policy arena. We therefore seek to maintain an on-going dialogue with Congress, the Administration and the diplomatic community, to advance such concerns, assessments, and advocacy positions. The work of Churches for Middle East Peace focuses on Washington in the knowledge that sound United States policy is crucial to achieving and maintaining just and stable relationships throughout the Middle East."
Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) - http://www.cnewa.org/home-us.aspx: "Founded in 1926 by Pope Pius XI, CNEWA’s mandate is: to support the pastoral mission and institutions of the Eastern Catholic churches; to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need without regard to nationality or creed; to promote Christian unity and interreligious understanding and collaboration; to educate people in the West about the history, cultures, peoples and churches of the East." They have a great survey of Eastern Churches online at http://www.cnewa.org/generalpg-verus.aspx?pageID=182.
________________________________
27 July 2006
Christianity in Palestine: Misrepresentation and Dispossession
An important focus of Mennonite Central Committee’s work across the Middle East is to support the local church. This is very much the case here in Palestine where MCC partners with local organizations such as the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (http://www.sabeel.org/), specifically in their work supporting local clergy.
MCC also supports the Bethlehem Bible College (http://www.bethlehembiblecollege.edu/) in their “Shepherd’s Society” program, which seeks to aid families by working to fulfill immediate needs, such as food and medical care, as well as working toward longer-term development assistance, such as revolving loans and marketing products and crafts produced locally. “The name ‘Shepherd Society’ is a reference to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who told his disciple Peter to care for his sheep (John 21:16). This imagery was later used by the apostle Peter to instruct church leaders in caring for the needy when he said, ‘Shepherd the flock of God which is among you’ (1 Peter 5:2-4). Here on the hillsides of Bethlehem, we still see shepherds caring for their flocks, reminding us to continue Peter's mission.”
Another example of MCC’s work with the local church is through MCC’s support of the Latin Patriarchate (Roman Catholic) School in the northern West Bank village of Zebabdeh through MCC’s Global Family program. MCC has also placed two volunteers, Mark and Andrea Stoner-Leaman, in Zebabdeh, serving as English teachers at this school. To learn more about how you can support the Latin Patriarchate School or other Global Family projects, please visit http://www.mcc.org/globalfamily/projects/middleeast/palestine/.
Christianity in the Arab world has had a long and lively history, including in Palestine, where one still finds today communities of faith that stretch back thousands of years to the very beginnings of the church, where Arabic is spoken in liturgies and sermons, and where the church has played an integral role in the development of society, whether in terms of providing leadership in very difficult times or in pioneering valuable social services like education. Today of the roughly 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, less than two percent are Christians. Of the 1.4 million Palestinians living inside Israel, meanwhile, roughly eight percent belong to Christian communities. Though small, these communities bear witness to two millennia of continuous Christian presence in the land called “holy” by much of the rest of the world.
Palestinian Christians belong to several traditional communities of faith, communities that can be grouped into four broad categories. The first are the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox churches. These would include the Greek Orthodox communities, claiming a continuous presence in the Holy Land since the times of the apostles. The second group is made of up what is sometimes referred to as the “Oriental” Orthodox churches, such as the Syrian, Coptic, and Armenian Orthodox communities. A third category consists of those churches belonging to the Catholic family of churches. In addition to Roman Catholic communities, referred to in the Middle East as the “Latin” church, one finds “Eastern Catholic” or “Eastern Rite Catholic” churches. These churches, though in communion with Rome and recognizing the authority of the pope, have maintained their own distinctive liturgy and traditions. Members of such communities as Greek Catholic or Syrian Catholic outnumber the number of “Latin” Catholics in Palestine and have a long history of involvement in the Palestinian struggle for justice. Finally, there are various Protestant communities, including not only Anglican and Lutheran churches, present since the nineteenth century, but also independent evangelical churches, including Baptist, Pentecostal, and more.
Today in Palestine, Christianity is experiencing what many would consider a crisis. This is not due to the growth of so-called Islamic fundamentalism or the persecution of “believers” by their Muslim neighbors, misrepresentations that are unfortunately used to distract from the realities of occupation. Instead, the plight of the Palestinian Christian is very much connected to that of the Palestinian Muslim in that both, whether in the Occupied Territories or inside Israeli itself, are experiencing daily injustices at the hands of oppressive and discriminatory policies imposed on them by the Israeli government.
Palestinian Christians, like their Muslim brothers and sisters, have experienced a long history of dispossession and have not been immune to Israeli policies of occupation and discrimination. If anything, they have felt more strongly the feelings of forsakenness, knowing full well that many Christians in North America and Europe support without question the state of Israel in its oppression of their people.
Daily experiences of humiliation at checkpoints, of land confiscation to make way for the separation barrier, the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, lack of mobility and access to basic services, unemployment, poverty, and no sense of hope for a better future for their children have all contributed to this growing emigration of Palestinian Christians from the historical land of Palestine. As Christians, a basic freedom of religion is denied that prohibits Christians from traveling very short distances to worship in one of the most holy sites in Christianity—the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem, where it is believed Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the grave.
For the Palestinian Christians of Bethlehem, for example, traveling the six-mile (ten-kilometer) distance to Jerusalem’s Old City is impossible without special permission. Roughly half of Bethlehem’s residents are Christian. Church leaders estimate that over 2,000 Christians have emigrated from the Bethlehem area since September 2000, representing a decline of more than nine percent of Bethlehem’s total Christian population. (For more on these conditions in Bethlehem, see the report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Office of the Special Coordinator for the Peace Process in the Middle East (UNSCO), “Costs of Conflict: The Changing Face of Bethlehem” (December 2004); online at: http://www.mofa.gov.ps/articals/pdf_files/21-12-04.pdf).
Rev. Alex Awad, Palestinian pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church, reminds us that “Palestinian Christians have existed in the Holy Land since the day of Pentecost and have kept the torch of Christianity burning faithfully for the past two thousand years.” The erosion of Christianity in her birthplace, he poignantly observes “is a loss for the body of Christ everywhere. Can we imagine the Holy Land devoid of the Christian presence and a church which has been a faithful witness for Christ since the day the church was born?” (See Rev. Awad’s article in “Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land,” MCC Peace Office Newsletter 35/3 (July-September 2005); online at: http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2005-03.pdf).
Unfortunately, various reportings of this phenomenon has revealed stereotypes in North America and Europe that continue to see the root socio-economic problem for Palestinian Christians as their Muslim neighbors. It is disconcerting that the portrayal of the Christian absence in Palestine, for example, is often played off as the fault of Muslims and not of the illegal Israeli occupation, as if Muslims are oppressing Christians and that this is the root of the problem for Palestinians. It is the occupation that has made life so difficult that many Christians have moved from Palestine. This continues to be a serious problem, ignored especially by “Christian” tour groups who while visiting the “Holy Land” seldom bother to even come to Bethlehem to see these ancient sites, let alone see these Christian communities and recognize their existence.
These attempts to frame this conflict in such anti-Muslim ways only distracts (often intentionally) from the burden of responsibility that sits squarely on the shoulders of the state of Israel and its intentional violation of international law and the U.S. for its 100 billion dollar financing of this structure of violence and death.
An example of this is a resolution that is currently being circulated around the U.S. House of Representatives claiming to be concerned about the plight of Palestinian Christians and their diminishing presence in Palestine. Yet this resolution makes no mention of the root causes of this conflict but instead blames Palestinians themselves for their own victimhood, grossly misrepresenting this situation and the Palestinian people.
Only recently, while the world watches the unfolding assault on Lebanon and Gaza and the Israeli-caused humanitarian disaster for the millions of people living there, the Israeli military has begun uprooting ancient olive trees in Bethlehem’s Cremisan area, marking out the path of the Separation Wall to be built through one of the regions most valuable heritage sites.
The Cremisan area is of significant heritage value, home to the only winery in Palestine and two monasteries. Some of the finest examples of the regions ancient terraced landscape can be found here. The Wall will carve through these terraces destroying agricultural landscapes that have survived for centuries. When the Wall is completed, Beit Jala district of the Bethlehem area will have lost access to two-thirds of its land.
It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the expropriation of more land for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-kilometer separation barrier. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the expansion of illegal settlements and the creation of “Greater Jerusalem” depopulated of its Palestinian citizens. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the checkpoints that obstruct mobility, nor the demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the “one big prison” status of Gaza. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for this separation barrier that will become the de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that will be responsible for, absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, the “reservation” life that will parallel the Native North American experience in the United States. No, it is the ongoing Israeli structure of occupation and dispossession that continues to devastate Palestinian livelihood.
At a time when the U.S. Congress is considering the plight of Palestinian Christians, they are witnessing the destruction of their community’s land, heritage and livelihood. The people of Bethlehem have been very clear in their message to the international community, “If you want to help us, stop the construction of Israel’s Wall.”
Anyone who lives in this society long enough is aware of tensions that might exist between Christians and Muslims. Palestinians society like any other society in the world is dealing with its own problems. But to focus on this internal tension to the exclusion of other factors is missing the mark and emptying this issue of its context.
It is indeed hard to be Palestinian Christian these days. But it is also hard being a Palestinian Muslim. The fact of the matter is that it is hard simply being a Palestinian.
Attached below is an action alert sent out by MCC’s Washington Office outlining this potential U.S. legislation and providing suggestions for actions on how to respond (which can also be found online at http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/issues/middleeast/index.html). Following this alert is also a list of links for further reading on this issue as well as a list of Church Related Organizations and their websites either working in Palestine or dealing with these issues.
In the midst of such pain and despair, we would ask that you continue to pray for all of the people of this land and that your prayers would lead you to actions of solidarity on their behalf in your home communities.
Peace,
Timothy Seidel
Peace Development Worker
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· MCC Washington Office Action Alert: “Misleading Resolution about Palestinian Christians,” 26 June 2006
· Additional Background Reading
· Additional Information on Christian or Church Related Organizations working in Palestine and the Middle East
________________________________
TO: MCC Middle East Advocates
FROM: J. Daryl Byler (MCC Washington Office)
Timothy Seidel (MCC Palestine)
RE: Misleading resolution about Palestinian Christians
DATE: June 26, 2006
Issue
Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) have been circulating a “dear colleague” letter in the House of Representatives, seeking co-sponsors for a resolution that purports to be concerned about the plight of Palestinian Christians, but ignores the real causes of their suffering. This misleading bill has not yet been introduced in the House, but already has a number of co-sponsors.
Background
The resolution http://www.cmep.org/documents/
PA_Persecution_of_Christians_Resolution.pdf is based on research by Justus Weiner, an American/Israeli academic at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in Israel. It includes many factual inaccuracies and reflects little or no input from local indigenous Palestinian Christians, who do not support the bill.
Rather than focusing on the real reasons that Palestinian Christians (and Muslims) are emigrating -- e.g. daily hardships of living under Israeli occupation; Israel’s separation wall/barrier and expanding settlements, which make it difficult for Palestinians to reach schools, health care facilities, jobs and places of worship -- the resolution accuses the Palestinian Authority of systematically persecuting Palestinian Christians and claims that this is the main reason they are leaving the Holy Land. While the Palestinian Authority does not have an exemplary human rights record, it does not specifically persecute Christians.
The resolution appears to be an attempt to build on the current anti-Palestinian Authority fervor in the U.S. Congress, after Hamas won a majority of seats in Palestinian Legislative Council earlier this year. The House has overwhelmingly passed H.R.4681 – a bill that would avoid contact with and financial support for a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority until Hamas meets a long list of conditions. On June 23, the Senate passed a somewhat improved version of the House bill, but MCC still does not view the Senate bill (S.2370) as balanced or helpful. For further details on H.R.4681 and S.2370 visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type in the bill number.
Faith reflection
In her book, What is Palestine/Israel?, Sonia K. Weaver quotes Zoughbi Zoughbi, a Palestinian Christian who lives in Bethlehem. Palestinian Christians are “Christians of the cross, awaiting resurrection,” says Zoughbi. He calls for security that comes, not through vengeance, but through a future of peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
When Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he lamented that the people did not recognize the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42). In a similar way, bills like H.R. 4681, S.2370 and the Crawley-McCaul resolution do not address root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and therefore will not lead to a just and lasting peace. They will not breathe new life and hope into the Palestinian community, but will only add to its suffering.
Action
Write to your Representative and Senators. Urge them not to co-sponsor the Crowley-McCaul “dear colleague” letter http://www.cmep.org/documents/McCaul-Crowley_Dear_Colleague.htm or any similar version that crops up in the Senate. You may wish to make the following points:
• Any bill that claims to be concerned for the well-being of Palestinian Christians should include the voices of Palestinian Christians.
• Urge members of Congress to take fact-finding trips to the Occupied Territories and meet with Palestinian Christians in their local churches. (Many Palestinian Christians are calling for such trips.)
• Remind them that bills like HR 4681 and S.2370 are likely to have a harmful impact on Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
• Urge members of Congress to call upon both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to uphold human rights and to comply with long-standing U.N. resolutions aimed at transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Visits, e-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters are all good ways to contact your legislators. E-mails, phone calls and faxes are good for time-sensitive issues. Postal mail travels slowly in the Capitol, but letters have long-term impact. Be sure to include your mailing address in all correspondence to confirm your residency in a particular district and state.
For elected officials’ contact information, including the option of sending e-mails, visit the C-SPAN Directory (http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/officials).
Visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ for information about any legislation by number (H.R.____/S. ____) or name. Check the Washington Office Voting Record to find your legislators’ votes on key issues. Read the Washington Office Advocacy Handbook for advocacy tips.
We at the Washington Office would be grateful for copies of your correspondence and any responses you receive!
Senator _____
United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3121
www.senate.gov
Representative _____
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 224-3121
www.house.gov
President _____
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1111 (202) 456-1414 FAX
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Tim/Local%20Settings/Temp/notes34BEBC/president@whitehouse.gov
________________________________
Additional Background Reading
The text of some frequently asked questions or "FAQs on the McCaul/Crowley Resolution and the Situation of Christians in the Holy Land," that clarify somewhat the problems with this resolution, can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/FAQs_McCaul-Crowley_Resolution_Holy_Land_Christians.pdf.
An update on this legislation as well as the text of a letter from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem condemning this resolution and encouraging Congressional leaders to visit the “Holy Land” for themselves can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006July6.htm.
The text of a letter from the Network of Christian Organizations in Bethlehem (NCOB, a coalition of 19 Christian organizations, based in Bethlehem, working in different developmental areas and service in and represents different denominations) condemning this resolution can be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=331.
The text of an alert sent out by local organization Open Bethlehem can be found online at: http://www.openbethlehem.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=58. The text of a letter sent by Leila Sansour, director of Open Bethlehem, to Congressmen McCaul and Crowley, asking them to reconsider this resolution and inviting them to see the situation here in Bethlehem for themselves can also be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=328.
The text of a letter from Rev. Michael H. Sellors on behalf of the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem condemning this resolution can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1548.cfm
The text of a response by Salim Munayer (Academic Dean at Bethlehem Bible College and director of the organization Musalaha) on behalf of the "Local Council of Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land" (A grouping of various Evangelical churches including Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Church of God and others) to Justus Weiner's book Human Rights of Christians in the Palestinian Society can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/
Weiner_Response_Munayer_2006.pdf.
The text of an article by Robert Novak titled “Who Harms Holy Land Christians?,” (Washington Post, 3 July 2006), can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/documents/
Who_Harms_Holy_Land_Christians.htm.
The text of an article titled “HCEF President Sir Rateb Rabie, KCHC response to Reps. McCaul and Crowley,” (HCEF, 28 June 2006), can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1550.cfm.
The text of an article titled “Nobody Speaks for Palestinian Christians except Palestinian Christians,” (Media Monitors Network, 28 June 2006), can be found online at: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/31884
The text of an article titled “Fight Erupts in D.C. Over Plight of Palestinian Christians,” (Forward, 23 June 2006), can be found online at: http://www.forward.com/articles/8003.
The text of an article by James Zogby titled “Maybe Congress Should Go Home,” (Jordan Times, 20 June 2006), can be found online at:
http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10599&CategoryId=5.
The text of a statement by Naim Ateek, director of the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem titled "Palestinian Elections: A Christian Perspective" (written for the Joint Advocacy Initiative Magazine of East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA of Palestine) can be found online at: http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=24.
The text of a statement by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem on the Palestinian Elections can be found online at: http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=176.
The text of the 2006 Easter Message by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem can be found online at: http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/mod/news/ID/16/
SubMod/NewsView/NewsID/1481.cfm.
The text of an article by Dr. Bernard Sabella titled "Palestinian Christians: Challenges and Hopes" can be found online at: http://www.al-bushra.org/holyland/sabella.htm.
The text of an article by Raja G. Mattar titled "Arab Christians are Arabs" can be found online at: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=8057&CategoryId=5.
The texts of two article by Robert Novak, the first titled "A Plea for Palestinian Christians" can be found online at: http://www.cmep.org/Alerts/2006May25.htm, and the second titled "Palestinian Christians Suffer Too" can be found online at: http://www.openbethlehem.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=55.
The text of an MCC Peace Office Newsletter titled "Christian Zionism and Peace in the Holy Land," dealing with Christian theologies that, from the perspective of Palestinian Christians, are not life-giving but in fact quite the opposite as they nullify and invalidate their very existence in their homeland: http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2005-03.pdf.
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Additional Information on Christian or Church Related Organizations working in Palestine and the Middle East
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center - http://www.sabeel.org/: "Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for ‘the way‘ and also a ‘channel‘ or ‘spring‘ of life-giving water."
Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center - http://www.planet.edu/~alaslah/: "Wi'am as a grassroots organization, strives alongside other democratic forces present in the larger Bethlehem community to build a democratic and just society. The Center aims to improve the quality of relationships by: addressing injustices rather than avenging them; dignifying persons on both sides of the conflict; promoting human rights and advocating for peace among all people."
Bethlehem Bible College - http://www.bethlehembiblecollege.edu/: "Bethlehem Bible College is an interdenominational Christian Bible college, located in Bethlehem, Palestine. Bethlehem Bible College seeks to train and prepare Christian servant-leaders for the churches and society within an Arab context who model Christ centeredness, Godly humility, biblical wholeness, creative mercy and justice in their jobs and ministries as life-long learners."
International Center of Bethlehem (ICB) - http://www.annadwa.org/: "The ICB is a Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institution serving the whole Palestinian community. The programs of the Center serve the entire community from “the womb to the tomb”, with an emphasis on children, youth and women. Equipping the local community to assume a proactive role in shaping their future is at the heart of the ICB’s mission. Through empowering the local community, developing human resources, cultivating artistic talents, and facilitating intercultural encounters, the ICB actively promotes the building of Palestinian civil society."
Open Bethlehem - http://www.openbethlehem.org/: "Open Bethlehem is an international project created to save the city of Bethlehem. With headquarters inside Bethlehem University, offices in London and Washington, and working hand-in-hand with all Bethlehem civil institutions, Open Bethlehem is well-placed to keep the city at the forefront of world attention. The city came to world prominence with a message of hope and peace, and brought this message to life by opening their arms to visitors for almost two millennia. In the Twenty-first century, the people of Bethlehem will not live in the shadow of a man-made wall: they will continue to be a beacon of hope."
Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation - http://www.hcef.org/hcef/index.cfm/ID/2.cfm: "Founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of American Christians to inform American Christians of the plight of Palestinian Christians. It is an organization which 'We seek to replace despair with hope, fear with security, and humiliation with human dignity'"
Middle East Council of Churches - http://www.mec-churches.org/: “The Middle East Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches relating itself to the main stream of the modern ecumenical movement, the same which gave birth to the World Council and other regional ecumenical councils throughout the world. The twelve to fourteen million souls who claim Christ’s name in the Middle East are few in number when compared to the constituents of similar ecumenical associations elsewhere. But being small means that people know each other, and there is a bond of kinship that is rather special. It is no accident, therefore, that the Council chose to organize itself as a family of families—the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, the Catholic and Protestant families. Each makes its contribution to the witness of all.”
Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) - http://www.eappi.org/: “The EAPPI is an initiative of the World Council of Churches. Its mission is to accompany Palestinians and Israelis in their non-violent actions and concerted advocacy efforts to end the occupation. Participants of the programme are monitoring and reporting violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, supporting acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offering protection through non-violent presence, engaging in public policy advocacy and, in general, standing in solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the occupation.”
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) - http://www.cmep.org/index.html: "CMEP is a coalition of 21 public policy offices of national churches and agencies -- Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant. CMEP began its work in 1984 out of the conviction that the policy perspectives and long Middle East experience of our member bodies should be more widely known in the public policy arena. We therefore seek to maintain an on-going dialogue with Congress, the Administration and the diplomatic community, to advance such concerns, assessments, and advocacy positions. The work of Churches for Middle East Peace focuses on Washington in the knowledge that sound United States policy is crucial to achieving and maintaining just and stable relationships throughout the Middle East."
Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) - http://www.cnewa.org/home-us.aspx: "Founded in 1926 by Pope Pius XI, CNEWA’s mandate is: to support the pastoral mission and institutions of the Eastern Catholic churches; to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need without regard to nationality or creed; to promote Christian unity and interreligious understanding and collaboration; to educate people in the West about the history, cultures, peoples and churches of the East." They have a great survey of Eastern Churches online at http://www.cnewa.org/generalpg-verus.aspx?pageID=182.
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