MCC Partner Profile - Lajee Children's Center

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

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

East Jerusalem: Urban Planning or Ethnic Cleansing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessed are the Peacemakers

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

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

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

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

Gaza

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

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

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

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

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

Ten Thousand Villages and Olive Wood

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

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

Wastewater Treatment

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

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

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

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

______________________________

So what can I do about it?

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

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

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

What is a Settlement?

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

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



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

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

Bush's Visit to the Region

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

Brief notes to conclude:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





















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

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




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












All pics in this post from Reuters.

Take up your Shovel and follow Me

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

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

Wastewater Treatment goes back to 1978

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

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

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







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

Mr Palestine

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

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

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

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











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

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

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

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

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

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

National Geographic article

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

Security or Other Reasons?

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

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

Holding a Trust

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

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

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

You Won't Miss it until you Need it

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Cup of Water and a Helping Hand

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

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

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

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

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

A Refugee camp and 'Lajee'

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

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













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












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