NEWSLETTERPalestine |
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Preparatory meetings by Michele and Terry Finseth, Companionship Facilitators The New Year has brought a flurry of activity to Joining Hands for Justice Palestine Network, as we prepare for two groups of visitors simultaneously. We will be welcoming a group of first-time visitors from our sister network of Greater Atlanta early in February, and are looking forward to sharing not only the rich history of this region with them, but also the complex religious and political landscape. Additionally during this period our network is slated to undergo a training workshop to coincide with overarching programmatic changes of the PC (USA) Joining Hands Program. |
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Network gathering disrupted Early in January we met in Bethlehem to formalize the agenda and itinerary for each event, and revisit the focus we want to convey to our guests. Part-way into the meeting, Rana from the International Center of Bethlehem received an urgent phone call, that their neighborhood had been surrounded by Israeli soldiers. They had broken into one apartment, and were shelling an adjacent building. Momentarily, other phones began ringing frantically and the meeting was suspended as reports spilled in regarding families of three other network members, all who live in the same area. Usama of Wi’am tried his best to calm his hysterical three-year-old son who was frightened by the shooting, and begging his daddy to come home and protect him and his mommy. Others were instructed to stay away and not go home until the shooting stopped. At the same time, members from Jerusalem and Ramallah wondered if we shouldn’t immediately close the meeting and flee Bethlehem, reasoning the situation could become worse, or the checkpoint close before we could get through. But it was finally decided that this meeting was necessary enough to justify quickly push on through the agenda. Updates continued to filter in, and by the time the meeting adjourned, the four members who conferred with their families, went in various directions to wait out the incursion in places of safety. Rana's account Below is Rana’s account of her wait, her feelings, fears and frustration.
Rana and our other network members were not able to return home until late that night. Usama told us later, that other incursions have kept him from his family for up to twenty-four hours. When we think about the year’s upcoming projects and activities, it is hard to factor in the fragility not only of the region, but people’s daily lives. While some might be inclined to give up and do nothing in fear of the next impending crisis, it is for this very reason that JHJP is motivated to work together to prevail despite these chronic circumstances. |
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Our Journey to Israel and Palestine by Katie Givens Kime, Associate Pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church Atlanta Like many of my fellow Atlanta Christians on our recent trip, I’ve been on several international mission trips, and as a pastor, have led a few too. In fact, I even spent a couple weeks in Israel, back in 2000. But nothing prepared me for our group’s journey to Israel and Palestine this past February.
This sixth trip to Israel and Palestine was sponsored by the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta’s Joining Hands for Justice Committee- the international component of the presbytery’s hunger program, Presbyterian Answer to Hunger (PATH)-, and succeeded in educating all of us about the true nature of the conflict in the Holy Land. It also helped us understand what we can do to work towards a just and peaceful solution, supporting our Christian brothers and sisters still inhabiting this land.
A day-to-day life experience
The most powerful experience of our trip was our stays with Palestinian Christian families in Bethlehem. We ate food, asked a thousand questions, heard stories, shared our own. Truly, is there any better way to be the body of Christ? Beginning our journey in this way anchored us in how life is lived day-to-day in this hilly landscape so fraught with tension.
Learning experiences In addition to transformative experiences staying with our host families, we spent a lot of time learning about our Palestinian PATH/Joining Hands partners and other groups working on various issues.
While in Bethlehem, we visited Bethlehem Bible College, Wi’am Conflict Resolution Center, the International Center of Bethlehem, the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, refugee camps, the YWCA of Jericho, and the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Tuani and Hebron.
We looked at maps, we heard statistics, and we saw many, many guns in the hands of Israeli soldiers, and some settlers too. We passed many checkpoints, we saw the destruction of villages, and the construction of the immense Wall of Separation. We saw settlements, looming large and growing on the hilltops throughout the West Bank.
And then we transferred from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, just six miles away, for the second half of our trip.
We protested the occupation alongside the Women in Black, met with U.N. officials (Office of Coordination of Human Affairs), talked with Mordechai Vanunu (the Israeli former nuclear technician who served 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986), met with the Parents Circle Bereaved Families Forum, toured East Jerusalem with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, visited Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum), visited Ramallah and learned about the atrocities of new industrial zones at the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine, toured the YWCA of Jerusalem, met with Sabeel (of the Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center), and with a group of Israeli settlers. Desecrated holy sites
Amidst absorbing an immense amount of disturbing stories and difficult facts, we visited some of the holiest sites of our faith: the places of Jesus’ birth, his ministry, his crucifixion and resurrection; the patches of Earth held most dear by the sons and daughters of Abraham. This had an exhausting effect on our group, of course, but it also tilled the ground for a certain kind of experience.
It was impossible to view the way in which the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is being governed, abused, guarded and bloodied without the compass of our Christian faith. Not only the question “what would Jesus do?” but rather, what did Jesus do in his time on this land, the period which happens to be the same one most glorified and beloved by Israeli Jews as the golden era of Jerusalem? What DID Jesus do?
Jesus cared for the least, the dispossessed, the hated, the feared, the shunned. He dined with them, stayed in their homes, loved them, prayed with them, heard their stories. So who is the dispossessed, the least, in this complicated, wrenching, violent situation? Claiming the role of victim is a hotly sought prize in this land embroiled with conflict. Whether your child is killed at the hands of a suicide bomber or an IDF missile, you are a victim, no matter your color or creed. Pain, suffering, and evil take root on both sides. But what we saw, heard, and experienced was a conflict without symmetry, a high-stakes game in which the players are not evenly matched. In terms of military might, economic strength and world opinion, Israel holds most of the playing cards; cards stamped with American flags.
And who is the major loser in this game, played as it is now, with checkpoints, walls, near-apartheid state disguised as “security”? All of us. If the Middle East represents the intersection of the West and the East, of Europe, Africa and Asia, of holy ground for the major religions of the world, then we all lose when human rights are denied, when fear reigns, when mistrust owns the hearts of God’s children living and dying in this space, and when forgiveness is forgotten. A different voice Our group of eleven consisted of delegates from six congregations of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta – but as we learned, we represented more than that to our Christian partners in Palestine. We represented hope; hope that not every American supports the way our government acts, in our name, to sustain the conflict, occupation, and violation of human rights happening in this land our faith tradition holds as “Holy”; hope that a truer story of the balance of power in the occupied Palestinian territories might be told to the Western world.
Of the many messages we carried back in our hearts to our fellow U.S. Christians, perhaps my most fervent is this: I suspect that the Holy Land Pilgrimage that Jesus would most hope for us to do would be to reach out to those suffering most in the land on which our Savior once tread. While visiting the holy sites of our faith is important, perhaps getting a holy sight of how justice might be done in this land is our true Christian call.
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