Some exploration of Christian Zionism

I am reposting here a link to a video about Christian Zionism and Dispensationalist Theology.

There are strong links between Christian fundamentalism and extreme Zionist views of Israel.

There are direct monetary links between the religious right in the US and funding for illegal settlements in Israel (all settlements in the West Bank are illegal under International law and the 4th Geneva Conventions.  Occupying powers are forbidden from transferring their population into occupied territories.)

The political influence of the religious right in the US and the dollars they raise for pro-Zionist organizations will influence the outcome of elections.

In Canada, although the influence of this theology is less obvious organizationally, it is apparent among some politicians.  One wonders just how much this philosophy is affecting the uncritical support of Israel in Canadian foreign policy AND domestic policy, such as recent parlimentary committee on Anti-Semitism..

The video is about a half and hour long.

Onward Christian Zionists

In the video, one commentator states that this is primarily a US phenomenon, but I beg to differ. Christian Zionism is also growing in Europe and in Scandanavian countries.  One of the folks who spoke to my EAPPI group had just completed his doctoral work studying Christian Zionism in Europe, and discussed how enormous the movement was in Finland, his home country.

Some Churches in the US are engaging in “Adopt a Settlement” practices, where they twin with an illegal settlement.  At the core of Christian Zionist belief is a deeply anti-semitic view that Jews will be either destroyed or must convert in the last days.  This seems to me to set up a highly cynical view of the current days expedience of the relationship between Jewish Zionist groups and Christian Zionist groups.  Strange bedfellows, for a purpose beyond this world.

And meanwhile Christian Palestinians suffer; Israeli and Arab Muslims suffer, and truly, Israeli Jews suffer from the ongoing hatred, misunderstanding, anger and dehumanization that grow in the so-called “Holy land”.

Halas!  Enough!  We are all created in the image of God, and God longs for us to love one another.

That which destroys and that which breeds hatred cannot be of God.

I urge you also to read “Kairos Palestine”  and  “The Bethlehem Call” and to hear the voices of Palestinian Christians speaking to the world community, to the People of Palestine and of Israel.

“We shall not be moved”

I spent time last week in the United States, in Arizona, in the desert.  Being in that landscape of rock and sand and sun brought my heart again to the days in Palestine.  The major, major difference I noted was the abundance of water used in Arizona.  Water for swimming pools, water for golf courses, water for decorative fountains.   In Palestine water is so precious and so scarce and is used as a political tool.  Used with somewhat wild abandon by the Israeli settlers, for pools, gardens and massive agricultural projects, while the villages of Palestinians have their water infrastructure demolished, unfairly and illegally restricted by the Israeli civil administration and sometimes deliberately contaminated by the settlers.

Back in Canada I read the ongoing reports of demolitions, the death of animals due to careless and brutal demolition of sheep pens, the threats of demolitions on schools, the continuing disruption of Palestinian communities by so called ‘archeological digs’.  I get so angry.

I have felt overwhelmed.  I cannot write new material for my blog, because I can find no ways to say in words what I am am seeing on line, and feeling in my soul as I imagine the peaceful, kind, hospitable people that I know being stripped of dignity and security.

And I am embarrassed, ashamed and angered that our current Canadian government seems to stand in full uncritical support of the government of Israel that continues to enact these abuses of power and humiliates the Palestinians under Occupation.  Canadians must speak out to make the Harper government take a firm, public stand against Human Rights abuses, and violations of international law. The government stands on a Human Rights record in our dealings with other nations (Libya, Syria, China), but we chose not to support the Palestinians.  Why?

The seeds of despair are being sown with every bulldozer that passes over the West Bank land; with every tree cut down or burned the roots of resistance are growing deeper.  In the villages I accompanied and in the reports I see from EAs on the ground currently, the resistance in non-violent. Sit down protests on the buses, standing in front of the demolition crews to stop bulldozers, lying under a trailer to prevent having their property confiscated.  Yet the world continues to be peppered with the images and rhetoric that paints all Palestinians as ‘terrorists’.  This week, in a bus accident outside of Ramallah, several Palestinian school children died.  Some of the commentary in Israeli websites expressed delight in the death of ‘little terrorists’.  I know that this kind of mutual disdain does nothing to build bridges of peace.

There are many many organizations in the West Bank and in israel that try to bring communities together to find common ground, to share the commitment to a peaceful future.  One such organization is The Tent of Nations, near Bethlehem.  This week, they received a demolition order from the Israeli Defence Force.  Tent of Nations

Rather than continue to write my own heartbreak and anger, I will offer some further links for you to explore and see other things that are occuring in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  May your prayers be informed, that you may pray and live for peace and justice.  May you find ways to reach out to government to express your commitment to resolutions so that both Israel and Palestine may have self-determination, peace and safety.  Please, educate others so that the international pressure to have Israel abide by International Law is increased.

Operation Dove  Is an Italian Peace and Non-violence group maintaining a presence in the South Hebron Hills.

The Villages Group (villagesgroup.wordpress.com) is based in The West Bank and brings Israeli and Palestinian activists together to report on human rights abuses and property demolitions in the West Bank.  They have recently posted about the pending demolition of the school in Susiya.  Susiya is one of the villages I spent a great deal of time in during my stay in South Hebron Hills.

Please read the stories and imagine your way into the hearts of these communities.

I am thinking of trees today.  and remembering the spiritual and protest song “We shall not be moved”  Just like a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.  The commitment to the land is firm among both Israelis and Palestinians.  If the roots that are  watered  with anger and hatred, what will be the fruits?  If  respect and fellowship and mutual understanding are lavished on the roots, the crop will be far different.

The Tent of Nations: a place for international dialogue and peace education

The Tent of Nations: a place for international dialogue and peace education

Epiphany sermon shared at Crescent Fort Rouge United Church in Winnipeg

 

I was invited to preach for Epiphany and to share some of my experiences in Palestine as part of the message.  Using power point, I incorporated many photographs from my time with EAPPI, many that I took and a few from the EAPPI library and two from Google Images.

Epiphany allowed me to focus on the Journey of the Magi and the Slaughter of the Innocents, themes that readily echoed some of my experiences. 

Here is my message with a few of the photos I shared.

 

 

Isaiah 60:1-6   

 

Matthew 2:1-12   (They left for their own country by another road.)

 

Friends,  Let us pray together.

 

“God of Abraham and Sarah, blessed in their old age by new life and promise, give us open hearts and minds to receive your renewing words from unlikely sources.   God of Ishmael  and Hagar, exiled and impoverished because of jealousy and anger, bring to us a word that challenges our sense of righteousness and still comforts us in times of suffering. God of frightened Mary and confused Joseph, help us to know that we will find angels, companions and vision as we walk through times of fear, accompanied by the faith of shepherds and Wise Ones who still reveal to us your Incarnate one.   Bless the words and stories shared today.  Bless us as we work to make your word of justice and peace real in our world.   Amen”

 

For any of you who have visited Israel, seen Jerusalem, walked in Manger Square in Bethlehem, you will know what I mean when I say that having returned from what we call “the Holy Land”  the once familiar stories from scripture  take on new meanings, and bring to mind   images, smells, sounds and emotions more vivid than before our travels. 

 

 

 Indeed it is often difficult to return in imagination to the crèche image of a stable rude and bare, once one has seen the ornate and even opulent “Church of the Nativity”  or the “Milk Grotto”.     There is such a huge distance between these two scenes.

 

 

What resonates with me about the stories we read of the Christmas manger, and the words of Isaiah that are told in Christian community as foreshadowing of the visits of kings and magi, the bringing of a new light to the people, is the backdrop of Empire, persecution, militarization and Occupation of the Roman powers.  What one sees in visiting Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Palestine today, is a community affected by occupation, controlled movement and the powers of Empire.

 

 

As the bulletin cover suggests,  if Magi were to try to come to Bethlehem today, their progress would be impeded by the huge, 9 metre concrete separation barrier that continues to grow around the edges of Bethlehem, sealing in its Palestinian population and dividing communities from agricultural land.

 

 

  I want to speak to you today about the lives of the vulnerable, the ways that the common people of Palestine in The West Bank are struggling to live in the face of Empire, terror and violence, and the fear and reactive need for security at the cost of humanity that dominates life in both Israel and Palestine.

EAPPI photo- South Hebron Hills

From mid June to the end of September this year, I volunteered with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, under the auspices of the World council of Churches and on behalf of the United Church of Canada.  I served in the South Hebron Hills, based in the town of Yatta,  a city of about 70 thousand people in an entirely Muslim area of the West Bank. 

The Hills of this region are the same hills referred to in the gospel accounts of Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth in the ‘Hill country of Judea’… and when John is born he grows up ‘strong in spirit and he was in the desert (wilderness) until the day he began to appear publicly to Israel’. These South Hebron Hills are ‘John The Baptist land’ to me.

 

The Palestinian people, of this area, in the many small villages and hamlets of the South Hebron Hills, are mostly farmers and shepherds.  They have lived by subsistence farming and by grazing their sheep and goats over the hills, for hundreds of years. 

 

As they were able to prosper, some families began to have homes in the towns and to engage in entrepreneurship, to sell some of their goods in the growing centres of the region.  But mostly, they continued to live on their lands. 

 

 

Farther south, in the real desert territories, were the Bedouin peoples who were truly nomadic.  They travelled along with their animals from oasis to oasis, grazing and moving, grazing and moving.  This was their culture and their lifestyle.

 

When the State of Israel came into being in 1948, many Palestinians living in areas of what became Israel left their homes, left quite suddenly, to avoid the warfare that erupted.  Most left, assuming that they would be able to return to their homes, when the fighting died down.  Instead, what happened was that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees.  Many of their homes were confiscated and given to the newly immigrated Jewish people, coming to a safe homeland after escaping the pogroms, and surviving the persecutions and the genocide of the Holocaust.

Yad Veshem- Holocaust Memorial Centre- Jerusalem

 

 

Many Palestinians who fled carried with them the large iron keys to the doors of homes they would never see again. These symbols of homes lost are passed down from generation to generation, along with the stories of distress and dispossession.

 

 

 

The Bedouins of the Negev desert area also soon found themselves being pressured to move.  Because the desert bordered on Egypt and Jordan, it was a huge area and hard for the new State of Israel to keep safe and secure.  The Israelis opted to move the Bedouin peoples out of the desert, and gradually to begin bringing Israelis to the desert, to ‘make the desert bloom’ and to grow food for the population of the burgeoning new state.  

 

Even though the Bedouin did not have ‘homes’, the desert land was their home.  They felt deeply connected to the land that they viewed as a gift from Allah.  Groups of Bedouin found places to settle, to buy land from Governates in the West Bank, at this time under Jordanian rule.  And so, the Bedouin began to have ‘homes’, permanent tents, animal pens, gardens, schools and the other trappings of a more settled lifestyle.  Nomads no more.

 

After the Six Day War, in 1967, Israel became an Occupying Power in the West Bank.  Today, 64 years later, the occupation continues, and the loss of homes for Palestinians and Bedouins continue at an alarming rate. 

As Israel seeks to build communities and homes for its growing population, it is confiscating land and annexing territory in the West Bank for settlements, gated enclaves for Israelis, with security forces to keep Palestinians out.  This policy of settlement is a direct violation of the Geneva conventions and has been denounced by nearly all member countries of the United Nations, including the United States.

But still they build. 

EAPPI photo- Karmel Settlement beside Umm All Kher, Bedouin village 

 

There is an undeniable need for a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people.  What has happened though in the years of defending the land and transferring their people to Palestinian land in The West Bank is that the land base for a home, ‘ a state’ for the Palestinians is become less and less viable.

 

Map from Palestine Israel Action Group, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting.

 

In the  name of security, Israel destroys homes in Palestinian villages.  Because large parts of the West Bank are under Israeli military and civil control, they will not grant building permits to Palestinian families, even when the family may need to make their homes larger to accommodate more children or a married son and his family.  If any structure is built without a permit, it is subject to a ‘demolition order’. 

So the bulldozers come, and homes are destroyed,

 

EAPPI stock photo-Dkaika, Palestine

 

And lives are disrupted, and children cry 

 

Aftermath of settler arson attack on Palestinian home in Susiya

 

and gardens are uprooted and olive trees are burned.

 

The magi were warned to not return to Herod.  They went home by another way.  Returning to the land through the desert and over the wadis into what is now Jordan and continuing east to their homelands.  I returned to Canada, by travelling through Jordan as well.  And it was indeed a safer and more simple journey than going home via Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.  From my group of EAPPI friends,  10 of the 30 who left Israel via Ben Gurion were subjected to intense airport scrutiny, due to having spent time in the West Bank.  Seven of these people were strip-searched, and had items confiscated.  The EAs were only carrying the stories of what they witnessed about the treatment of Palestinians home to their communities.  No  gold, no weapons, only stories of suffering.  Perhaps these stories of injustice are the true threat that results in the need for control which masks fear.

The Magi went home by another way…  perhaps to protect themselves, but also to protect the innocent young child in whom they saw such potential.  Herod too, perceives the child-king’s potential and it frightens him to the core.  The story we often gloss over, that is the sequel to the sweet images of Christmas, is Herod’s rampage that slaughters the innocent children under age two.  “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

There is much weeping in Palestine.  Weeping against the militarization in Israel that steals the lives of young men and women, weeping against the home demolitions and loss of life, livelihood and land for the Palestinian people,  weeping  in Israel over the rocket fire and acts of destruction committed by the desperate and the unheard and the enraged fringe of extremists in some Palestine communities, weeping for the future of children in both Palestine and Israel who grow up believing only that the other hates and wants them dead.

But there are voices of hope, and courage and comfort and solidarity as well.  And those stories refuse to be silenced.  There are many activists in the Jewish Israeli community who are challenging the exclusionary motif that God promised the land only to the Jews.  Rabbis for Human Rights has written extensively that if the Israel does not treat its neighbours with justice and righteousness, that the promises of God are not deserved.  There are many voices in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian community who believe that this land can be home to all, with justice and peace.

Women in Black demonstration in Jerusalem

 

This land is the place where God called Abraham, the forefather of Jews, Christians and Muslims,  this is the land of the Temple of Jerusalem; 

it is that land of Jesus, birth, death and resurrection; 

 it is the land where Prophet Mohammed  ascended into heaven.  

The land itself is home to the Bedouin. 

 

It is spiritual home. 

 

The ways I travelled this summer were not straight.    

 And the road to a peaceable Kin-dom will still have twists and turns. 

 

Road to Yatta from Susiya, Palestine

 

 

And I do not claim to know the final destination.  

 

The parties of the conflict, the Palestinians and the Israelis,  the Christians and Muslims and Jews of this area known as Palestine and Israel, must make a way in the desert for God’s word of peace to take root. 

Photo from google Images

This is the blooming of the desert that will be most pleasing to God; this joining of God’s children in the land called Holy, but so embroiled in unholy violence.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Church of the Nativity- Bethlehem

Children’s rights to education, even under occupation.

When school classes began in September, familiar scenes unfolded in neighbourhoods across the country .  With eager faces, newly sharpened pencils, clean blank note books, lunches packed, and bright clean clothes, children walked out the doors of houses and apartments, joining the cheery noise and bustle on the streets heading to the school.  Parents smiled (or teared up behind their hands) as their young ones moved into a world of growing independence and delightful challenge.

Classes started on September 4^th in Palestine this year: a Sunday morning, following the holiday of Eid al Fitr at the end of Ramadan.  For the children of La Seefer, of the Abu Qbeta family, this day meant having to once again face the challenge of crossing a high security checkpoint, and then walking up the long steep hill to Imneizel school. Every day after school each child is subjected to being searched physically and having their belongings rifled through, their permits checked and walking through a metal detector.  Little seven year old  Khaleel  Abu Qbeta was scared when I visited his family the week before school opened.  He looked at the ground; he trembled.  Any excitement about the learning adventure ahead was completely overshadowed by the fear he had of facing this checkpoint without his parents there to support him.

His parents are Palestinians, residents of the village of La Seefer, and they do not have permits to cross the checkpoint.  They live in what is called “the seam zone”, small pockets of territory  created when the separation barrier extends into the West Bank beyond the ‘Green Line’ (the internationally acknowledged 1967 border of Israel) to take in settlements built in the West Bank.  This then subsume any Palestinian villages  on that land into Israeli controlled area.  The Palestinians in these pockets are not given Israeli citizenship and receive no services or supports, such as water, electricity, medical care or schooling.  Their movements are severely restricted, since they are not permitted to move within Israel, and are also limited in accessing the West Bank as they need to pass through a controlled border checkpoint.  Khaleel’s parents risk harassment and questioning if they even walk with him on the road that passes by the end of their small patch of land, as this is ‘in Israel’.

Ecumenical Accompaniers  meet the children of La Seefer village on the road at 6:45 in the mornings and walk with them through the checkpoint and on to school. They ensure that the children are not unduly harassed or searched by the checkpoint staff.  In the past, the children have had guns pointed at them, or been told to stop and wait for an undefined period of time, resulting in them being very late for classes.)  EAs will also accompany them again on their return home at the end of the school day.  Each child is subjected to metal detectors, shoe removal, backpack search and permit check every single day. Some children have complained that they have been touched roughly or in humiliating ways by the checkpoint staff.  EAs will document the treatment and forward any concerns to UNICEF, who have visited the checkpoint and are very concerned about the welfare of the children.

This is not a question of security…. checking 7, 9 and 11 year old children with packed lunches and pencils.  This is an act of intimidation, designed to make life in ‘the seam zone’ intolerable so Palestinian families leave.

Meanwhile, in the village where their school is located,  the Israeli Army has recently given notice of a demolition order on the community’s solar panels, several dwelling s and also on a newly built classroom and toilets at the school.  There is no other source of electricity, so should the panels be destroyed, the school will be without lights; the village homes will be without refrigerators, electric lights or power for radio, television or cell phones.

When this news began to reach the international community, enough letters were written and enough pressure applied that there is currently a reprieve on those demolition orders, but who knows how long this will hold.

If EAPPI presence can ease the fears of Khaleel, and can help his parents feel supported and more stalwart in their resolve to stay on their land, then accompaniment is serving its purpose here in this small corner of Palestine.  The larger task is to question why Israel continues to create such hardship and misery among the people of these territories, and to do everything possible to uphold the right to dignity and self-determination for the Palestinian people.

Location,Location, Location!

Eid Suleiman is one of the quiet heroes of whom I became aware while I lived in South Hebron Hills these past months.  I have been thinking about him a great deal over recent weeks.  Eid is a poet, an artist, an educator, a shepherd, a Bedouin. He is Palestinian, although technically he has no state.  He lives in the region that the State of Israel is wanting to fully claim as part of Judea and Samaria. and has occupied since 1967, but he is not an Israeli.

He lives on the land that his parents re-located to in 1948 when they and their entire Bedouin community were made refugees because of the war out of which the State of Israel rose, and their land home in the Negev desert became part of that new state.

The Bedouin are one of the indigenous peoples of this territory, but their claim to land has always been disputed.  As in most indigenous communities the concept of land ownership is very different:  the land belongs to Allah, and is a trust that is held by the people to tend with care and to find their livelihood.  The families of Um Al Kher ‘bought land’ in 1948 from the Palestinian city of Yatta, and they have lived in their current location, rocky, hilly, arid land on the southern slopes of the South Hebron Hills, since that time.

Although they could no longer continue their nomadic ways, they still retain their traditional practices of herding sheep and goats as their primary source of livelihood. They have chickens running about everywhere; they have dove cotes and small plots of garden. When there is enough foliage, they take their sheep onto the land to forage among the rocks for grasses, and herbs.  It is a very simple life on the land.

In the aftermath of the war in 1967, Israel began its occupation of the territories of The West Bank, which had been under Jordanian control.  The control of these areas took many different forms; one of which was the transfer of Israeli citizens onto land in the region through settlements, an illegal action under The 4th Geneva Conventions.  Land right next to Um Al Kher was built up into the settlement of Karmel.  Over the years, this settlement has grown and grown, and now it comes right up against the land of the village of Um Ak Kher.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/with-the-law-on-our-side-1.395014

Eid Suleiman and his village neighbours have no dependable infrastructure for water access, as the water is controlled by the settlement next door, and its chicken barns, lawns and gardens seem to take precedence over the basic humanitarian needs for water in Um Al Kher.  The village has solar panels that supply meager electricity.  The children are often found to be studying or doing homework at night in the pools of light spewed over the fence from the settlement.  Eid Suleiman jokes that it is very gracious of the settlers to support the Bedouin students to do so well in their studies.

Many in the community have very big dreams.  Education is prized, and the children do study hard.  Many of Eid’s generation have gone on to universities. Eid has a degree in Fine Art.  One of his cousins is a lawyer; others have studied education and returned to teach others to prize education.

Eid uses his art to express hope and paradox.  He makes model vehicles from discarded objects;  a bulldozer from old tin cans, CDs and wood; a helicopter out of an old bucket.  Each of these vehicles could be used for destruction or for peaceful purposes.  A bulldozer can be seen destroying homes in a Palestinian village or it can be used to clear a site to build a hospital;  a helicopter can be a gun ship, or can carry a rescue team to a ship wreck site.  Eid reflects that humans can turn tools to peaceful uses or to dehumanize one another.

Currently,  the Israeli government is using the tools of law to relocate Bedouin communities to even less desirable locations.  The Israeli government is ignoring International Law and its many obligations under Humanitarian Law as an occupying power to move many Bedouin communities off what meager lands they have to a location very near to a major municipal garbage dump on the outskirts of Jerusalem.  Um Al Kher is not yet slated for this move, but their community has already faced the destruction of their gardens, several animal shelters, a toilet facility and several other dwellings.  Their bread oven has a demolition order on it.

Eid has said that land belongs to Allah; that there is plenty of land to be shared among neighbours.  In one encounter in early July of this year, he said that he feels pity for the Israelis who have so much fear that they must exert control over the land and the people there, and this fear eats away at their spirits.  Eid Suleiman feels that the location of his community does not need to be seen as a threat of any kind to neighbouring Carmel settlement.  The Bedouin long to live peaceably with their Israeli neighbours.  But when Carmel  located itself by Um Al Kher, it dislocated its own soul.

Amos Oz, an Israeli novelist and essayist (“How to cure a fanatic”) describes the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians as a fight between ‘right and right’.  Both communities have narratives, claims and location that speak to their rights and their belonging.

So how to resolve the issues which are so much more than the real estate question of ‘Location, location, location’?

To see the issues with a heart of openness to sharing the resource of the land, to make room for the other, to recognize that compromises will be required.  And to not, through use of force and disregard for the story of the other, dislocate the human heart in the process of working for peace.

  I hope  that the people of Um Al Kher and the other Bedouin communities will not be forced into the move that Israel seems bent on forcing.  As a Canadian, I long to point to the history of the reserve system historically forced upon first Nations peoples, and ask Israel to try to learn from the errors committed by other nations and choose a better way.  Israel chafes at comparisons to the situation of South African under Apartheid, but again the lessons of the Bantustans should be in their minds as they consider what they are planning to do to the Bedouins.

I really believe that history will judge Israel for the way it uses its power to treat the people under its control at this time.

Eid’s  use of paradox leads one to reflect on the value of things rejected.  I wonder about the gift of poetry, art and vision.  Perhaps in letting go of the fear that drives control Israel might find there is less to fear.  Land seen as limited and restricted might feel more expansive when not fenced, barricaded and subdivided.

Extending the Olive Branch….

The term ‘extending the olive branch’ is often used to indicate a gesture of peace; a willingness to engage in face-to-face conversations about reconciliation.  The dove that Noah sent out from the ark to find some sign of hope that the flood was ending, returned (Genesis 8:11) with an olive leaf in her beak.  In Israel and Palestine, olive trees are deeply important to the culture and to the peoples’ connection to the land.

Olives are among the seven species (wheat, barley, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, honey) of food and fruit that are honoured in rituals of Thanksgiving in Jewish tradition, including in Sukkot, or The Feast of Tabernacles which is being marked this week by observant Jews around the world.

Some of the trees that currently still grow and bear fruit in Israel and Palestine are thousands of years old.  There is one tree reputedly nearly 5000 years old that is currently threatened as it stands in the planned pathway of the nearby separation barrier in the community of Al Wallajah, near Bethlehem. In the Garden of Gethsemene, on the Mount of Olives, at the edge of Jerusalem, trees still grow that were there when Jesus wept.  The Quran states that the Prophet Mohammed used so much olive oil in his prayers and annointings that his shawl was often saturated with it.

Olives are preserved in various ways for eating throughout the year, or are pressed into oil for cooking, for flavouring food and for many uses in daily life.  Olives are central to many aspects of life among the people of Israel and Palestine, regardless of religion.

In many traditions, the process of pressing and preserving olives is seen as a metaphor for the spiritual maturing of the human heart.

With all this richness of symbolism, metaphor and practical use of olives and olive trees, it is horrifying to know that olive trees are wantonly destroyed, uprooted or burned as acts of war and aggression in the conflict in Palestine and Israel.  Israelis from the many illegal settlements in the West Bank 

come under cover of darkness, or even in broad daylight with the protection of the Israeli Army, and destroy trees on Palestinian lands.  In the village of Khirbet Shuweika recently 46 trees were damaged, just weeks before the potential harvest that would have been a major source of income for the community.  The damage will have both economic and emotional impact for years to come as the Palestinian villagers face  the loss of future income, and also see daily the manifestation of hatred and anger directed at them by the Israeli settlers.

Still in the face of this loss, chronic lack of water, and destruction of their homes, Palestinians remain dedicated to olive trees as their livelihood, their rootedness in the land and their legacy.  Issa Mohammed Ij’Bour of Um Nir carries water by hand to each of his trees; he knows each one’s age, and he awaits in great hope for the day in the next weeks when people will come to help him harvest his olives.

Many Israelis and Palestinians will work side by side to harvest olives all over the West Bank in the next weeks. This activity is one of the clear expressions of “extending the olive branch”  between members of these two communities who truly seek a way of peace and a non-violent way of resolving historic conflicts.  They will be joined by members of the international community who also seek to contribute to building bonds of friendship, compassion and kindness. Some come as tourists with alternative tour groups; some come with organizations like Christian Peacemaker Teams, International Solidarity Movement or perhaps  EAPPI.

As you use olives to garnish your sandwich, or with your next holiday meal, say a silent prayer for peace.  Offer the pressings of your heart as a commitment to work for reconciliation in your life, for non-violent communication, for hope for transformation and justice between peoples of faith, in the land where olives grow and where dreams for peace still take root.

A visit to a sacred site.

This may sound quite irreverent but I have been living for three months in The Holy Land and have only just today felt the awesomeness of Sacred Space created by human hands.

I have certainly felt the sacredness of ‘the land’, in its beauty and its starkness:  the power of the sea in Tel Aviv and in Haifa; the rocky, terraced lands of Hebron and the South Hebron Hills; the lush fields growing fruit trees and grapes in the Tulkarm region.  I have also sensed the dedication to the land and the intense care of the soil and the gratitude for the plant life that grows from women who harvest medicinal plants like thyme, and mirami and sage and other desert plants.

In the early days of my time in Israel, when I first arrived in Jerusalem, I visited the Garden of Gethsemene.  It was moving to walk among olive trees that may have been saplings when Jesus prayed in that garden.

In my tours through the Old City, I was often struck by the sounds of many church bells, the muffled sounds of prayer from the synagogues, the ‘regular as clockwork’ calls to prayer emanating from minarets in every direction.  Down every street one sees the religious of each religion, Muslims, Jews, Christians of every imaginable shade and level of orthodoxy.  Nuns, monks, lay people carrying crosses or walking barefooted on the Via Dolorosa, The Way of Tears, tracing the path of Jesus on the road to crucifixion.  The prayers of millions of pilgrims infuse the stones with a sense of devotion which is inspirational.   But somehow, until today, I did not feel awe.

Today, I went to the Western Wall Plaza, and then up the wooden rampart to the Gardens and plaza around the Al Aqsa Mosque and The Dome of the Rock.  At the Western Wall, Jews (and others) from around the world come to the wall believed to date from the Second Temple.  Streams of humanity bring their hearts full of prayers and petitions and praise and walk to the wall, sometimes placing words on small strips of paper and inserting these into the cracks between the stones.

There is an air of deep reverence close to the wall.  The sense of connection to their history as a people of faith and prayer is palpable here among the Jewish pilgrims.

However, just beyond the ropes that separate the Holy site from the land of tourism, one can see soldiers with machine guns, and security personnel with ear pieces and walkie-talkies. To even enter the site of the Western Wall one has to go through intense security screening similar to entering an airport.    To me, this is profane, and heart-breaking.

Interestingly,  the degree of screening is less intense to enter the wooden rampart that leads to the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa.  But at the top of the walk is evidence of the security agenda.   Riot gear belonging to Israeli police and Army is stored at the ready, should any threat appear or crowd in the Al Aqsa area get out of hand. Just the presense of this so close to a sacred site underscores the level of distrust and suspicion that exists in the current climate of Jerusalem under occupation.

Once up on the plaza, I was struck silent and reduced to tears at the beauty of the open space and of the buildings, but mostly at the groups of men reading the Koran aloud and the groups of women sitting in the shade of the mosque and praying together.  I cried for the many, many Palestinian Muslims who will never have the freedom of movement to come to pray here, whereas I, a foreigner and a Christian could simply walk up the ramp and be in one of Islam’s holiest sites.

 Aaliya, from Wadi J’hesh (see previous posts) and her husband got permits last year for the first time in ten years to come to Jerusalem o pray on a Friday during Ramadan, but when they tried to travel, there were so many military checkpoints on the roads, that they were eventually turned back and could not go.  This happened again to tens of thousands of Muslims when Qalandia checkpoint was closed during a Friday of Ramadan.

The architecture of this site is stunningly beautiful.  I wandered for nearly two hours looking at the gardens, listening to the Koran read aloud by so many voices.  I looked at the mosaics and tiles and the golden dome; I talked with several of the people here to pray.  The area is full of people praying all day long to ensure a Muslim presence and to never leave the site untended, as there is a fear that Israelis may once again try to bring even this sacred site under military control.  Serious offense was taken when Ariel Sharon came to this site with armed soldiers in September 2000; some believe that this event was part of the trigger for the second Intifada.

I also watched soldiers defy the rules of the sacred space by smoking and dropping their cigarettes nearby the ritual washing basins.

When I left the Dome of the Rock area, I ventured down into the Muslim Quarter and spoke at length with an elderly Muslim man who shared a series of stories about how Jews and Christians and Muslims had lived together in relative peace and harmony in the region of  ”Palestine”  before the partitioning of the land under the colonial British mandate and then the subsequent Zionist movements and immigration back to “Palestine” of the diaspora Jews.   The issue of “who owns the land”  was scarcely an issue before this time, and people lived, mostly, respectfully as neighbours, he said.

Surely an oversimplification of the dynamics of human relationships in this complex land, but there is also some truth to it, I am sure.

Today, I was bathed in the sacredness that comes from people praying fervently in devotion to God/Allah/Yahweh.  If only prayer led directly to peace/Salaam/Shalom. If prayer could truly transform human hearts and bring people to see the image of the holy in one another, Jerusalem would be a beacon of hope: A city on a hill that could not be hidden!

But there are also acts of will, and power and politics, and the pains of mistrust, betrayal, violence and suspicion that must be overcome.

Today, I am steeped in the desire to ponder the role of the sacred.  Tomorrow, I will again get ‘political’.  But meanwhile…. In Shallah… may it be… that prayer can begin to transform my heart and turn my tears again into a desire for understanding and respect for all who share this land.

Welcome to Wadi J’Hesh; road blocked, harassed, but firm!

The last two weekends, I have spent part of my time in the small Palestinian village of Wadi J’Hesh.  This village consists of one extended family, in two households:  one headed by Ibrihim and Aaliya, the other by Mohammed and Tamame.  Our EAPPI group tends to spend more time with Aaliya, but other internationals from the Italian group, Operation Dove, come and sleep on Friday or Saturday nights with Tameme and her family.

So it was that on Friday evening, September 10th, my team mate Jonas and I were in Wadi J’Hesh with the family.  We had taken a few trips up the hill behind the tents to oversee the valley and the illegal Israeli settlement of Suseya.  From this settlement, often a few times a week, some inhabitants come to intimidate the families of Wadi J’Hesh.  They have brought their ATV’s (traktaronas, they call them here) up onto the hill and crushed the few tender plants that the sheep need to nibble on.  They have driven their cars over the fields, spinning their tires and stirring up clouds of dust.  They have opened the cisterns and acted as if they were dropping something down.  They have shouted and yelled in the middle of the night, waking the families up and causing the young ones to be fearful, and the older ones to be fearful too, but to act angry.  But this evening,  things seemed quiet.  We could not see anybody out walking the land.  We stood enjoying the sunset, and then returned to the tent.  Tonight, Aaliya had prepared a chicken and rice dish, with a sauce made of dried yogurt reconstituted to soup, and of course, fresh bread from the taboun.

After dinner, we all sat drinking cups of Palestinian tea ( oh so sweet and flavoured with fresh mint) and eating a dessert called “kanafe”, made of angel hair type pasta, sugar syrup and sheep cheese! (Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it!!)   As we watched the news and became a bit dozy, we could hear car engines.  And this was strange because last week, the Israeli Defense Force decided that Wadi J’Hesh was a huge security risk and blocked their road with a five foot high earthen berm!  

So clearly, this car was not from the village.  Ibrihim collected the powerful flashlight and the small children stayed in the tent with Yasmin, who is six-months pregnant.  11 year old Zaarah was already asleep, as was tiny Amara.  The rest of us quietly went up the hill.  Below in the dark, two cars without their light on were driving back and forth across the fields, where in two months, the family will plant barley for their sheep.  The flashlight was just enough to show the shape of the car; we could not see the number of occupants in the cars.  Ibrihim and his sons, Yod and Hamed, looked frightened, but firm.  Sadly, they each had in their hands, their shepherding sticks for protection as needed.  On other occasions, the people in the cars have moved off the fields to the road and then come up over the hill, into the village tents.  The cars moved out of sight.  We all stood quietly, and waited…. 5 minutes… 10 minutes…. nothing.   We went back to the tent, and in a nearly surreal scene, watched a Turkish soap opera and drank tea.  The men quietly discussed who will stay awake, how they will take turns to stand guard, in case the settlers decided to return.

The next morning, we all were awake by 6:30. The men had been awake all night.  Despite their plans to share the watch, none of them could sleep.  After a quick breakfast, they all headed off to their work: Ibrihim to drive his taxi and the three sons, Dir, Hamed and Yod to temporary day jobs repairing a road in At Tuwani.

The women must do the shepherding when the men are away.  When I headed out on the land with Kawsar, Thawle and Aaliya and 26 sheep and goats, the first thing we noticed was the trail of car tracks crisscrossing the field.  We followed the tracks far across the land toward the sheep well under the distant olive trees.  We looked for shoe prints as we approached the well.  None!  A sigh of relief.  It meant that the well was safe.  In other villages, wells have been poisoned and sheep have been killed.  The family fears that one day this may happen here.  Kawsar pulled water and poured it into the trough.  The sheep seemed to know to take turns; sheep first, then the goats.  Kawsar left her cell phone on the side of the well as she pulled the water.  Her mother scolds… “Kawsar, you are going to drop that thing!”, and Aaliya moved it down to a small niche in the side of the cistern.  A few moments later, it was nudged by the nose of a curious goat and fell into the dirt.  Kawsar rolled her eyes at her mother! “That wouldn’t have happened if you had just left it!”  I giggled at the oh-so-typical mother-daughter dynamic in this context so foreign to my eyes!

Aaliya is strong!  Kawsar has her mother’s strength, and this is often a source of conflict between the two!

The next Saturday evening, I was again in Wadi J’Hesh with the family.  12 young Israeli men and 4 women came up and over the hill suddenly.  They walked boldly across the family’s land and went to the cistern and opeed it. I stood taking pictures, Jonas shots video and Narjle, Aaliya’s daughter-in-law also shots video with the B’Tselem camera.  The settlers mimiced the women and sneer at all of us.  Kawsar, strong outspoken Kawsar, stoods up on the cistern, hands on hips and stared at them.

After a few moments, her older brother Yod came up from the tent with his baby in his arms.  Settlers said to one another, “Oh, there is a man here.  Let’s go!”  And they moved slowly off down the hill, walking through the fields, back to the road on their way to synagogue in the closing hours of their Sabbath.

I try to understand what the motivation is for them to be so bold and so intimidating.  How can it be an expression of their faith to create such fear in fellow human beings?

Aaliya has said before, “They (the Israelis) want us to leave this land.  But it is my home and I will make my grave here.”

This small community of about 35 people has now had its road blockaded.  This adds more than two hours to their trips to get water, and the big tank truck won’t even make the trip anymore because it is too hard on their truck.  There is no way to have the tanker drive to the end of the road and them to meet it with their small tank and tractor because the road is patrolled by the Israeli Army who have declared it illegal for any vehicle to stop on the highway for any longer than to unload passengers.

The life is being slowly choked out of many villages along this highway.  We counted at least four villages with road closures just this week.

When villagers work to remove the earth berms themselves, there have been threats of arrests, or the erection of brick and mortar blockades.  When international have helped, they have been arrested and removed from the West Bank.

There is a need for water, for fodder for the sheep, for access to emergency vehicles. all of these lifelines are threatened by the road blocks.

There is also a need for awareness among the wider world and for pressure to be brought against the Israeli government and its policies.  If they choose to continue to act as a occupying power, they have obligations to care for the citizens under occupation, according to International Humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.

The world needs to know that Israel is NOT living up to these obligation and in fact continue to practice intimidation, and harassment.  Israel has also decided to ARM the settlers, to protect them from any possible Palestinian violence.  What I have observed, is that the villagers are trying to peacefully go about their lives.  But they are becoming frustrated and angry at the constant (and increasing) control, humiliation and intimidation of living under occupation.  If there is reaction, it will be in part because the seeds of discontent and anger have been sown over 44 years of occupation.

No one wants violence.  No one wants a third Intifada.  And surely if it begins, in the wake of the anticipated failed bid for Statehood recognition at the UN this month, we will hear a great deal about how the Palestinians are obviously ‘not ready for Statehood’.   Please, read with care between the lines, and try to understand the conditions that lead a people to stand up to tyranny.

Remember Wadi J’Hesh, and Shib Al Butum, and Qawawis.  Their roads may be blocked with dirt and stones, but they are committed to creating a road to freedom, dignity and self-determination.