News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 173 - Saturday, 5 October 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers
and Sisters,
Speech
of the Patriarch during the Student’s Meeting in Bethlehem
Dear
students
In the beginning of this scholastic year, we meet in front of the Basilica of the Nativity. We, heads of the Churches in the Holy Land, we came to tell you, Christians and Moslems alike: do not be afraid, do not let the fatigue overcome you, do not lose hope. Begin this scholastic year with decision and enthusiasm. Be dedicated to your studies in order to prepare your future, keep faith in God and in your land.
We have been through a very difficult and critical period of our history, and we still are. Instead of having days full of love and activities you are witnessing all kinds of atrocities. Instead of love, happiness and life, death and hatred were inflicted upon you. Curfews, lockdowns, closures, interrupted schools all over our Palestinian cities and towns. Despite all of this we call upon you to keep faith and hope, and to prepare yourself, with strength and love, to build a future of freedom and dignity.
“Your perseverance will win you your live” (LK 21:19) these are the words of the Lord. We have to remain constant in our faith, no matter how long this suffering will be; it could still be long. Our destiny is in the hands of God not man. True, the men of this world make plans and God allows them to go ahead with their plans, they kill, they besiege, they demolish houses and close schools, but God nonetheless is stronger and from his strength and love we take our strength to resist. No one condone occupation. No one can accept to be deprived from his freedom. Siege on towns, limitation of jobs and closure of schools are flagrant violations of basic human rights.
We call upon the Israeli authorities and the international community, and we urge them to put an end to this siege, to open the schools and to walk in the true path of peace, which respects the Palestinian human being, and responds to his claims for freedom and dignity. Military power produces demolitions and confusion, but cannot bring about the long desired peace. It kills individuals but cannot kill the soul of a people who is claiming his inalienable internationally recognized rights to self-determination, freedom and dignity. Spare both peoples all this death and hatred and follow decidedly the path of life.
Dear
students,
Watch out for your studies, and take care
of your schools. May your hope sustain your parents and teachers. Be firm and
patient, do not be afraid and remain strong. Your childhood was assaulted, too
many sufferings were inflicted upon you, Nonetheless, be ready to endure
everything and to resist every aggression, with your perseverance, in order to
build in every moment your homeland which will definitely one day enjoy its
freedom and dignity.
You are the children of Bethlehem, where
Jesus himself was born, who came as messenger of peace and love. With the same
love he brought, your task and your duty are to stop all aggression upon you,
upon your parents and your land. Love is strength, neither weakness nor
surrender or concession. God is love and He teaches us to love each other. With
this love we have the strength to face all enemies and aggressors; with this
love we can neutralize and put an end to all power and deadly weapons.
We pray the Lord to grant you his strength and patience so you could resist all aggressions against your childhood and youth and against your land. We pray God to fill you with his love in order to resist the evil of death that surrounds you in these days. We pray God to fill you with his strength and love, so that you fill this land with joy and life.
Bethlehem, 2 October 2002
Letter from Bethlehem
(35)
Toine van Teeffelen
October 4, 2002
We were happy to
receive the first very small drips of rain which, the peasants say, should
arrive after the Feast of the Cross on September 27. However, the present
atmosphere is more pregnant of rumours than of rain. During each taxi ride in
Bethlehem another piece of latest news is offered. This week everybody was
talking about Arafat coming to Bethlehem; apparently so that he would be here
well ahead in time for Christmas, or so as to avoid the traveling problems a
war on Iraq would create, or even to find protection in the Nativity Church.
Reactions were mixed. In fact, they were mostly negative because people
expected curfews to come once again. Who needs another siege of the Church,
someone commented. Mary pities Arafat but says that the corruption coming from
his surroundings cannot be justified. At the end of the week the rumour was out
of the air.
Other rumours
are about a coming census in the Rachel Tomb area. After the Israeli cabinet's
decision to annex the area, a few thousands inhabitants living in the heart of
Bethlehem now suddenly face the possibility to become inhabitants of Jerusalem
– or to leave their residence, an option which many think will be likelier. The
census may be the first step of implementing the annexation. At the teacher room
at St Joseph they asked why the Israelis do not simply lift Rachel's Tomb out
of Bethlehem and put it in Jerusalem. Phantasies of the weak.
It is mainly the
phantasies of the strong which circulate now a war in Iraq almost looks like a
certainty. Some of the hidden agendas, Haaretz says, point to a
Palestine that would be Israel (West Bank and Gaza annexed to Israel); a Jordan
that would be Palestine (most Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza
"transferred" to Jordan), and an Iraq that would be Jordan (the
Hashemites ruling Iraq). My taxidriver asks my name and then says in
exasperation: "Toine, are the Arabs just [money] change?"
One day, there
was the rumour that the war could come any moment since Jordan had closed the
Allenby Bridge. What could that mean otherwise than that Jordan did not want
the people from the West Bank going, fleeing, to Jordan in the wake of a war?
In fact, at present West Bank Palestinians are only allowed to go to Jordan for
medical or educational reasons or for transit to another country. Family visits
are barely allowed..
*
* *
Rumours are a
sign of powerlessness. You feel that overwhelming sense of powerlessness most
palpably at the checkpoint. Last time I joined a queue in front of the
soldiers. People were waiting at a distance of some twenty meters marked by a
carton with the hand-written sign: "Wait here." People were checked
one by one. The impatient among the waiters pressed the queue a few meters
forwords. After the soldier finished with someone, some waiters urged a girl
standing in front of the row: "Go, go!" But the girl hesitated as the
soldier did not give a sign, then felt compelled to go, and walked the 20 meter
only to return after the soldier told her that he had not yet given the sign.
Impatiently the waiters clicked their tongues. Someone coming from the other
direction, with his back towards the soldiers, gave the waiters an uncensored,
meaningful look. A new group of soldiers very slowly replaced the old one, a
procedure which extended the waiting time for another 10 minutes. Suddenly I
realized that this whole ritual may not be temporarily at all but just another
step on the road to separating Palestinians from Jerusalem. During the Oslo
years, the checkpoints were never withdrawn even during prolonged quiet
periods. The suicide bombings may now offer the justification for getting
people accustomed to an increasingly more difficult access.
Sheer power is
especially shown by arbitrary decisions. Mary lately heard about a man who
approached the checkpoint with a baby in his arms. To his own surprise, he was
waved through without being asked about his ID. The soldier told him that he
looked like a modern Arab man and therefore could pass. In another absurdity,
one of our neighbours was told that she needed to marry and have kids in order
to be able to pass.
Lately I passed
a checkpoint inside Jerusalem itself. Cars with Palestinians were separated
from those with Jews. But how to do so since both drive yellow-plated cars?
(Blue-plated cars from the West Bank are not allowed in Jerusalem). According
to the driver, the police just chose older and cheaper cars for a thorough
check in the side lane.
*
* *
As one way to
face the powerlessness, a rally in support of the right to education was
organized at the Church of Nativity plaza by a group of NGOs from the Bethlehem
area, the Ministry of Education, other authorities and Moslem and Christian
leaders authorities, including the Latin Patriarch Mgr Michel Sabbah. Some 500
hundred school children from all types of schools entered the square from
different directions, wearing caps with "End Occupation" in Arabic
and English, and banners with "Free Palestine." A banner about the
school children's right to freedom was attached to helium-filled balloons. It
was supposed to be ceremoniously lifted into the air; however, some school
children practised expert knowledge of bursting balloons. Otherwise the
meeting, under bearable weather conditions, was successful and got its message
across. Later that same day, a demonstration of prisoner families wearing
candles and chanting slogans walked on a Madbasseh Street plunged into darkness
after a electricity cut. Has the time come to press for some civilian mass
movement against the occupation?
Each day we also
hear rows of honking cars; no demonstrations this time, but wedding
processions. Despite the economic crisis and the very high costs of wedding
receptions, the youth continue to marry.
*
* *
As she was a
bridesmaid at Mary's cousin's wedding a month ago, Jara now thinks she is
married too, and also the bride's sister.You marry when you dress beautifully,
is her logic. She concludes that there is now no need to marry another time
later on. After she learns that the bride has moved out of her parents' house,
she is genuinely surprised: "Why can Mona [the bride's sister] and I also
not leave the house now we are married?"
An Open Letter To Reverend Jerry Falwell
Reverend
Falwell,
I
am a Christian from Jerusalem. My roots in the Holy Land go to one thousand
years ago, so says my family tradition. Some would argue that our roots as
indigenous Christians might go back further and link up to the early Church in
Jerusalem. In this sense we are a Christian fundamentalist family deep-rooted
in the foundations of the Christian faith.
As
a Christian from Jerusalem, I owe great debt to two monotheistic traditions:
Judaism, on the one hand, because of the Old Testament which is the basis of my
faith in the New Testament and to Islam, with whose adherents my family, for
centuries, has shared the experience of living side by side in Jerusalem. Thus
my fundamentalist Christianity is enlightened by the history of the Hebrews on
the one hand and by the experiential sharing with Moslem neighbors, on the
other.
As
a Christian believer, I strongly adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ and
his message of compassion and forgiveness. This Christian message has taught me
to accept others; not to judge lest I be judged and to consider every human
being, irrespective of background, in the image of the Creator. This is the
basis of living in Peace with oneself; one’s religion; one’s world and with all
the nations, religions, cultures, nationalities that make up the mosaic of life
on our planet.
It
is this comfort that my faith gives me that also causes me great spiritual and
moral tribulation when I hear someone of your stature making statements of
judgment on Islam and its Prophet. Not only do I find this offensive to Moslems
and their religion but also as well to our Christian faith and practice. A
commitment to stop violence, all violence, should also include a commitment not
to utter verbal violence. What our world needs now is more understanding,
compassion and healing across continents and within societies. It is on persons
like yourself that such a burden falls. Uttering statements that project
hostility and enmity and in generalizing tones make you part of the problem
confronting our world today and not part of the solution.
Could
I plead with you to return to the fundamentals of our Christian faith and to
become a constructive force in our world and especially in our Middle Eastern
region? Could you please bring hearts together instead of distancing them from
one another? Could your faith and belief afford to accept others, irrespective
of their backgrounds? Could you please be a force of healing in our troubled
world?
Is
it much to expect these things from a person of your stature?
Jerusalem,
October 5, 2002
Dr.
Bernard Sabella, Ph.D.
Executive
Director Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees
Middle East Council of Churches
Jerusalem Tel: +972-2-6271715 - Email address: dspr@netvision.net.il
Disaster versus Disaster?
Dr Harry Hagopian, KSL - KOG
The
clash of arms has drowned the voices of those who struggle to have the crisis
addressed through diplomatic confrontation. Both fronts blame the adversary. It
is a sterile dialectical exercise to try to hide the inability to hear those
different from one’s own, running the risk of discovering that reason is not
just on one side.
L’Osservatore Romano
This statement was part of a recent article in L’Osservatore Romano,
the Italian-language daily newspaper that echoes the views of the Vatican.
During the same week that the article came out, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah,
Latin-rite Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem, declared that the two-year
Intifada pitting Israelis against Palestinians had been a disaster for both
peoples. He lamented the increased rate of emigration from the Holy Land, and
surmised that the small numbers of indigenous Christians remaining behind were
those who were firmly committed to a calling to live in the Holy Land. The
kernel of both statements demonstrated the volatility of the situation on the
ground as much as how far it had deteriorated in the past two years, or one
year, or three months, or even three weeks!
A couple of weeks earlier, an Interfaith Declaration was issued by
‘Clergymen for Peace’, a newly-constituted movement comprising Jewish, Christian,
Druze and Muslim religious leaders in Jerusalem who ‘cry out in the name of our
one God, to recognise one another, children of Abraham, as created in God’s
image’. Explaining that the ‘task of religious leaders is to engage our own
people in self-reflection and point the way to a better future for our children
and ourselves’, the declaration made a series of recommendations that applied
mutatis mutandis both to Israelis and Palestinians.
v We condemn all acts of violence and human
rights violations, seeing as they contradict God’s will for humanity. The
suffering of Israelis and Palestinians must stop. An attack against any human
being is an attack against God.
v We call upon Israelis and Palestinians to
recognise each other’s humanity, deep roots in this land and suffering. We must
find the courage to break the cycle of violence and human rights violations.
Each act of violence being committed by either side elicits further violence.
v We call for energising the vision of peace
through negotiations, based on international legitimacy and respect for
international law and the shared ethics of our religious traditions, thus
fulfilling the national aspirations of two peoples and ensuring the human right
to live free from occupation and fear.
v We draw from the wisdom of our faiths to
accept the particularity of each of our traditions while respecting one’s right
to be different. Our Houses of worship must remain open and unharmed. Any
desecration of our sanctuaries is a desecration of God’s presence in this world.
Even more important than those sanctuaries built of stone are the sanctuaries
that God has implanted within each and every human being.
v We agree to act as a living bridge between
despair and hope and re-ignite the peace process, acting as mediators where
possible and as agents of faith and instruments of love where it seems
possible. We will collectively and individually employ all of our influence in
every conceivable way to realise a vision that goes beyond the cessation of
hostilities and looks forward to the day when our peoples will be a mutual
blessing to each other. We will meet among ourselves and engage our peoples and
leaders.
Earlier in the week, the British agency Oxfam had issued its Briefing
Paper 28 for September 2002.
Entitled ‘Forgotten Villages: Struggling to survive closure in the West
Bank’, the aid agency painted a grim picture of the realities facing
Palestinians day-in-day out in the villages dotted across the West Bank and
Gaza. It spoke of its deep concern ‘about the appalling toll being paid by the
civilian population on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict’.
‘Oxfam’, it mentioned, ‘is committed to the impartial applicability of
international humanitarian and human rights law, especially the right of all
civilians to protection from violence. We believe that a just solution to the
current conflict must be based on existing UN Security Council resolutions,
which call for an end to the Israeli occupation of lands held since 1967, and
the right of both Israel and a future Palestinian state to live within secure
borders. The recent escalation of the conflict has created a serious
humanitarian crisis for the Palestinian population living in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip. All parties to the conflict must take immediate steps to prevent
this humanitarian crisis from turning into a full-blown humanitarian disaster,
by supporting the long-term livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable in
the area’.
Oxfam expressed its profound consternation and concern about ‘the
Israeli government’s policy of closure which finds thousands of rural
households in the West Bank on the brink of destitution. Away from the media
spotlight, the families of farmers, unemployed labourers and small businessmen
in these often neglected Palestinian villages have run out of savings and sold
off land and livestock’. It added that the closures, curfews, restrictions on
the freedom of movement as well as new travel permit systems and the
350-kilometre security fence being built by Israel constitute collective
punishment and are illegal under international law. It went on to say that
Oxfam had witnessed the rapid erosion of support networks in local communities
that provide a range of services and social protection such as credit, loans
and food. Furthermore, the loss of cohesion in the household and wider
community had exposed more women and children to violence and discrimination.
Restrictions on movement have distorted supply and demand in the economy to
such an extent that harvests were rotting in the fields whilst some market
places remained empty. Health and water were now, for many households, either
too expensive or simply not available. There was an increase in malnutrition,
chronic health problems, welfare dependency and psychological stress.
Clearly addressing both sides in this collective disaster, Oxfam
suggested remedial steps to salvage the situation:
§ Water tankers to be allowed to reach the
rural population, particularly in areas without networked water systems.
§
The Israel
Defence Forces to remove, or at the very least regulate, checkpoints to allow
trading, farming and other enterprises that sustain peoples’ livelihoods. In
particular, there is an urgent need to allow farmers to reach both their land
and markets during the imminent olive harvest.
§
Ambulances and
health workers to be allowed to move freely between villages and cities, and
villagers allowed travelling to towns for specialist health treatment.
§
The PA to
ensure the protection of Israeli citizens. It should condemn and seek to prevent
the activities of suicide bombers and prosecute all parties engaging in illegal
activities against civilians, including attacks against settlers.
§
The PA to
guarantee that donor funds will be used transparently and effectively for the
alleviation of poverty.
§
The
International Community to intensify diplomatic efforts to bring an end to this
conflict and maintain pressure on all parties to halt the spiralling violence
against civilians and uphold international humanitarian law with regard to
their protection.
§
The
International Community to intensify diplomatic pressure on the Government of
Israel to ease closure, and on both the Government of Israel and the PA to
comply with the other recommendations listed above.
§
International
donors and local and international aid agencies to provide appropriate
humanitarian assistance that supports and strengthens existing coping
strategies. They should work with local communities to prioritise the
protection and rebuilding of productive assets and credit networks.
This description by Oxfam of the unfolding realities on the ground in
many Palestinian towns and villages, and the concomitant set of recommendations
applicable to both parties, reminded me also of the formidable - and
oft-dangerous - work undertaken by a number of Jerusalem-based faith-centred
organisations such as the International Christian Committee (NECC-ICC). The ICC
is an arm of the Department on Service to Palestinian Refugees, and its
Executive Secretary Ramzi Zananiri has been working hand-in-glove with
international aid agencies and church-related organisations to provide
humanitarian assistance to Palestinian villages and towns across the West Bank.
On 2 October 2002, his latest circular informed his networks that a convoy of
relief supplies was heading for Nablus (in the northern West Bank). He wrote that ‘this is another convoy
to another forgotten area from the agenda of politicians, who do not experience
the daily agonising misery represented in ‘Occupation’ that attempts to
dehumanise the Palestinian image’.
So where do we go from here? Do we just describe the situation as one
disaster versus another, where hapless victims on both sides are paying a
bloody price for a conflict that the politicians could solve tomorrow - if they
so decided?
An article that appeared last summer in the English-language Jerusalem
Post daily newspaper reported that a US scientist posited that transcendental
meditation could well be the answer to the Middle East crisis. Dr John Hagelin,
a quantum physicist, had explained at a conference that if a tiny fraction of
Israelis and Palestinians ‘regularly practised transcendental meditation
techniques in a group, the wave effect of calm will eventually halt terrorism’.
The scientist had added that the technique, known as invincible defence
technology, ‘applied cutting-edge discoveries in quantum mechanics,
neuroscience, and human consciousness that diffuse stress, effectively
disarming aggressors’. Hagelin claimed that a similar technique was already
producing results in the dispute over Kashmir.
I am not readily convinced that quantum physics and transcendental
meditation are the answers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict! However, I
remain very much convinced that the present dire situation cannot be allowed to
continue unchecked. Deaths, injuries, misery, suffering, penury, suspicion,
bitterness and hopelessness have occupied the ‘reality frames’ of Israelis and
Palestinians in different ways. But what is equally worrisome is the scale of
the humanitarian crisis that is being visited upon large cross-sections of the
Palestinian population across the West Bank and Gaza.
What Israelis and Palestinians need now is a cessation of all forms of
abusive violence - whether physical, structural, institutional - so that
peaceful negotiations could resume forthwith between both parties. Violence
cannot lead to the realisation of all Palestinian aspirations for statehood,
just as counter-violence cannot lead to the realisation of all Israeli
aspirations for security. There already exists a whole plethora of
recommendations from different governments, organisations and individuals that
purport to show the way toward a peaceful resolution of this conflict. So I
believe that the Oxfam recommendations could prove to be another such starting
point. They would include the implementation by Israel of all previous UN
Security Council resolutions leading to its withdrawal from occupied
territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state that would be
democratic, representative of all strands of opinion in a pluralistic society,
free from corruption as much as nepotism, intolerance and bigotry, and live
side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. Israel, on the other side,
needs to provide the conditions for such a reality to emerge - through its
withdrawal from occupied territories - so that Palestinians can regain their
dignity and become masters of their own futures. If both parties cannot succeed
in achieving those goals, it becomes imperative to have a third-party mediation
that is followed by an international presence on the ground with the mandate
and authority to monitor the situation and report any violations of agreed
agreements between two erstwhile bellicose neighbours.
This is one equation for the realisation of a just solution to this
conflict, and it is also the only future I can envisage in order to extricate
the whole region from further disasters - one disaster versus the other!
© harry-bvH
@ 3 October 2002
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