News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 89 - Tuesday, 7 August 2001
Dear Friends, Brothers
and Sisters,
Allow me tell you that the heads of churches in
Jerusalem are very concerned about the situation the Holy Land. Therefore, they
held an urgent meeting last week to discuss what to do and coordinate their
work of assistance to needy people in our community. They have decided a number
of actions which will be implemented within the next months. The first initiative
is a call to prayer for peace which will be arranged through a period of daily
PRAYER FOR PEACE at 6 pm. From Wednesday August 15th to Tuesday
August 28th in the churches across the city as you see in the hereby
statement and program. We really hope that this movement will be joined by our
brothers and sisters in every parish and community in our dioceses and all over
the world, because we believe that without God’s Assistance and Light we will
never have peace in this Holy Land. We do really need a miracle and we will
pray for that!
The
last news in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate: they have decided next August 13 for
the election of the new Patriarch even if they had problems with the Israeli government
which cancelled 5 of the candidates among them bishops Timothy and Ereneous,
but it seems that today the High Court decided to leave them on the list,
therefore, the election with be among the 15 candidates... We hope that the
best will be elected next Monday. This will be the last stage of a long process
to elect the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. This very important event will
take place in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate inside the Old City when all the
members of the Holy Synod (Composed from all the 17 Greek bishops and some Arab
married priests and lay people from all over the diocese) will meet and elect
three candidates among the fifteen, soon afterwards, the members on the
fraternity of the Holy Sepulcher (Composed only from all the 17 Greek bishops) will
go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to elect only one among the three
elected by the Synod. The elected bishop will be soon enthroned as the new
Patriarch.
You
will find in today’s Olive Branch the following documents:
Best
wishes from Jerusalem which will be the City of prayer for peace. Fr. Raed Abusahlia
A CALL TO PRAYER For PEACE
BY THE HEADS OF CHURCHES IN JERUSALEM
Jesus said:
“Please I leave with you; my peace I give you; Do not let your hearts be troubled, or afraid” (John 14:27)
We are greatly
concerned at the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Territories of the
Holy Land: Many families have been made homeless;
The number of un-employed has risen dramatically
resulting in tens of thousands hungry for their daily bread;
Whilst
our children are confronted daily with a picture of bloodshed, violence,
assassinations and murder.
Hatred
and desire for revenge is rampant on both sides – Israeli & Palestinian.
Therefore, we call upon all our people, throughout this
Land, to join us in intensifying our prayers for peace, with justice and
reconciliation.
To this end
we have arranged a period of daily PRAYER FOR PEACE at 6 pm. From Wednesday
August 15th to Tuesday August 28th in the churches across
the city.
We appeal also
to our brothers and Sisters around the world – many of whom have already
offered generous support – to link their prayers with ours at this special time
according the following proposed program for Jerusalem:
Wednesday, Aug. 15th Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Old City, Armenian Quarter
Thursday, Aug. 16th St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Church, Old City, near Jaffa Gate
Friday, Aug. 17th Chapel of Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Road of Bethlehem
Saturday Aug. 18th Catholic Syrian Vicariate, 6, Chaldean Street, Nablus Road
Sunday, Aug. 19th Anglican Cathedral of St. George, 20, Nablus Road.
Monday, Aug, 20th Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Old City near Holy Sepulcher
Tuesday, Aug, 21st St. James Church, Nablus Road.
Wednesday, Aug, 22nd Dormition Abbey, Mount Sion.
Thursday, Aug, 23rd St. Anthony’s Coptic Church, Old City, near Holy Sepulcher
Friday, Aug, 24th Ethiopian Orthodox Church, West Jerusalem, off Prophet Street
Saturday, Aug, 25th The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, The Holy Sepulcher
Sunday, Aug, 26th Greek Catholic Church of Annunciation, Old City near Jaffa Gate
Monday, Aug, 27th St. Andrew’s Church of Scotland, near Railway Station.
Tuesday, Aug, 28th Chapel of Notre Dame Center, opposite New Gate.
Please continue to pray for a just peace &
reconciliation to be implemented in this Holy Land.
+ The Patriarchs & Heads of Churches,
Communities & Institutions in Jerusalem
A letter from Sister Miriam
Ward to the USA Consul General in East Jerusalem
Moved by
conscience to register my concern over what I had witnessed in my visit to
Palestine/Israel, I composed this letter "off the cuff" and hand
delivered it in a personal appointment with the U.S. Deputy Consul
General (who received me very graciously).
To: U. S. Consul General, West Jerusalem, Israel
From: Sister Miriam Ward, Trinity College, Burlington, VT 05401
Date: July 23, 2001
Re: Current situation
Dear Sir:
As a U.S. citizen I am simply overwhelmed at the sight of Palestinian people's
suffering caused by the brutal Israeli military occupation, and am disturbed by
my own government not only condoning but contributing to this suffering. I
strenuously object to our tax dollars uses as subsidy to this injustice. For thirty
years I have witnessed first hand Israeli confiscation of Arab land, the
building of settlements and roads for "Jews only," restricting
Palestinian travel, the demolition of homes, and the daily grind of insidious
humiliations that you and I (and I dare say any Israeli Jew) would not accept.
Theses blatant violations of the most basic standards of human rights must end.
The United States would not condone, much less support this kind of behavior by
any other government in the world. It is time for us to tell Israel to abide by
the norms of behavior under international law. It is time for us to stop all
aid to Israel. It is time for us to insist that Israel stop building, expanding
settlements, and to dismantle existing settlements, and return stolen land to
the Palestinians. It is time for us to apply the Leahy Laws regarding Israel's
use of F-16s and Apache helicopters against civilians.
Occupation, occupation, occupation -this is the immediate problem and it must
end. We Americans have it in our hands to save Israel from herself. I register
my deep concern not only for Palestinians but for my Israeli friends who would
undoubtedly use stronger terms than I. Please support an international observer
team.
Please see that this letter is read and gets recorded in the consular reports
from Jerusalem. Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Sister Miriam Ward, RSM, Ph.D.
Member Pax Christi Burlington (VT)
Home Address:
55 Cross Parkway
Burlington, VT 05401
U.S.A. Tel. 802-864-3885
A drop in the
ocean
Four
years after Mother Teresa’s death, the Sisters of Charity continue doing her
work all over the world, which, since last year, includes Jerusalem
By Patricia Golan
Last September, with no publicity, photo-ops, or fanfare, a house of prayer
belonging to the order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa was opened in
Jerusalem. Tucked away in the narrow alleys of the Old City, the center is the
646th built worldwide since Mother Teresa began the Missionaries of Charity
order 50 years ago, but it is the first in Israel. Mother Teresa, who was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, devoted her life to caring for outcasts
in the slums of Calcutta. She died in 1997 at 87.
The charitable organization’s work involves aid to those living in abject
poverty, “to serve Him amongst the poorest of the poor,” in Mother Teresa’s
words. The house in Jerusalem is intended as a place for prayer and spiritual
renewal, in keeping with the order’s tradition of sisters taking time off every
few years to rest and pray.
Only four
sisters live at the house at any one time, but they frequently go back and
forth to help out in the order’s long established houses in the West Bank.
There, the sisters’ main work is with the elderly and handicapped children who
have no one else to care for them. There are altogether 16 sisters in
Jerusalem, Nablus, and Gaza. (The order also has a house in Amman, Jordan,
called “The House of Peace,” which cares for 110 abandoned people.)
Astonishingly, perhaps, the sisters who work in Nablus and Gaza say they have
not experienced any of the violence of the last months.
THE SISTERS are shy and shun publicity, but two residents of the Jerusalem
house agreed to be interviewed recently at the Latin Patriarchate, though not
to be photographed. They are dressed in the blue and white habit immediately
recognizable as that worn by Sister Teresa.
Sister Ignace and Sister Shobah are both from India. For many years, most of
the sisters in the order – today numbering 4,000 – were Indian, but this is
changing, explain the sisters, with many new members coming from African
countries. Sister Shobah began working in Nablus and Jordan two years ago,
before coming to Jerusalem. She explains that the sisters “take care of the
poorest families. These are families who can hardly look after their other
children, so we take care of the handicapped.” Since they have only limited
accommodations in the houses in Gaza and Nablus, the sisters visit families to
decide whom to take in. Sometimes they are advised by the local priest or
organizations that work with the people. “Mother Teresa always told us that we
cannot help everybody,” says Sister Shobah. “She said ‘You take care of one and
God will take care of the rest, and we will pray for them.’ Our work is a drop
in the ocean, but if that drop is not there, the ocean will miss it. We care
for the most hopeless cases, showing each that he is a person, a unique human,
who is wanted by God.”
A member of the order for 32 years, Sister Shobah served in several European
countries as well as in India and Bangladesh before being sent to the Middle
East. She explains that there are differences in the kinds of people cared for
by the sisters. “In India and Bangladesh the people are living in the streets,
and we pick them up. There are so many abandoned children, the families are the
poorest of the poor,” she says. “In Europe, normally we take care of homeless
people who are alcoholics or drug addicts, and now we take in a lot of AIDS
sufferers. In Europe we also depend on a lot of volunteers, especially with AIDS
patients.”
In the Middle East, she says, most of the people cared for are mentally and
physically handicapped. Latin Patriarchate chancellor Father Raed Abusahlia
explains that it’s not that there are more handicapped children here, but that
in Arab society there are almost no institutions to care for them. Marrying
within families results in many disabled children, but the families are ashamed
of them. “This is considered a great shame in society,” he says, “so such
children are often mistreated. For this reason the sisters’ care is so welcome.
In European societies the government is obliged to pay social insurance to care
for such children, but here no one takes care of them. I’m speaking of the Arab
world in general, and especially here, where we don’t have any government
[institutions],” says Father Raed.
AT THE Jerusalem house the sisters rise at 4:40 a.m. every morning to begin
their four hours of daily prayers. They believe that the contemplative aspect
of their community spiritually supports those who are working in the field.
While their lives in the Jerusalem house are dedicated to prayer, the sisters
are also involved in the community when called upon. They are presently taking
care of a hydrocephalic boy from Nablus who is staying with them while being
treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.
Sisters in the
order have no say in where they are assigned, and go where they are told. As in
all monastic orders, sisters take vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; to
these, the members of the Missionaries of Charity have also added the vow of
charity. The sisters living in the Jerusalem house note that to have been sent
to Jerusalem is for them a special honor and privilege.
Their modest
three-room house is just around the corner from the large, imposing structure
inside the Jaffa Gate, which encompasses the Latin Patriarchate. Father Raed
explains how he found the funds to allow the order to open the house in
Jerusalem. “The same day that we received the sisters’ letter about wanting to
open a new house in Jerusalem, I received a phone call from a parish priest in
Italy representing an elderly woman who wanted to make a donation in Jerusalem
for poor people. I gave him three ideas, one of which was the new house for the
Missionary Sisters of Charity. That same afternoon I received a gift of $5,000
for them, so this was really Providence working.”
The Jerusalem house was consecrated on the third anniversary of Mother Teresa¹s
death. Sister Nirmala, who was chosen to succeed her as leader of the Missionaries
of Charity, visited the Holy Land a few months ago. In an interview at the
Latin Patriarchate she explained that although she had never discussed opening
a house in Jerusalem with Mother Teresa, she had heard sisters in the order
saying that “it would be very beautiful to have the house in Jerusalem and then
I had forgotten about that.”
”And last year when we started to think of places for new houses, I was praying
and said ‘Lord, where do you want me to go this time?’ And immediately it came:
‘Jerusalem!’ Then everything happened very quickly. We wanted to have the
dedication on the anniversary of Mother’s death. She must be looking at us from
heaven, saying ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem.’
Sister Nirmala, the little-known, soft-spoken nun, was elected superior-general
of the Missionaries of Charity order six months before Mother Teresa’s death.
It can’t be easy following the saintly founder. “is a great responsibility on
someone like me who is unworthy,” she told an interviewer during her visit to
Jerusalem. “But somehow I have been chosen, not because Mother nominated me,
but because the chapter, the sisters, elected me. I never look at how big the
responsibility is, I never look at myself, but God has put me there and He
gives me the grace to do this, with the help of all my sisters.”
Sister Nirmala is constantly traveling around the world visiting the order’s
650 houses in 127 countries, with requests for new houses continuously pouring
in from all over. The sisters seem to attract volunteers just by their
presence. This includes volunteer doctors who come to the house. “They know
that our work is free,” explains Sister Shobah. “But also just people in the
community come to offer their help. People are good. This is true even in
Jerusalem. People who are just passing by our house come in to ask if they can
help in some way, and ask if there anything we need.”
This article appeared in
Jerusalem Post International Edition – Aug. 3, 2001
"WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, MY
PEOPLE?"
From:
"Rebecca Elswit"
Subject:
"Who Are These People? My People?"
Date:
Tue, 31 Jul 2001
Hi.
I think that I am emerging unscathed (physically, of course, emotionally,
perhaps not) from what was the hardest afternoon of my life.
I
am writing what I see. And if it seems imbalanced, well, that is because the
conflict is imbalanced. The
Palestinians are an occupied people, and they are fighting a resistance against
one of the strongest (and well funded) armies in the world. I will not become
an apologist for Israel to make my thoughts, feelings, but most importantly, my
observations, palatable for others (you all back in the States) where the
status quo is not neutral, but pro–Israeli. I can't write about both sides with
equal parts criticism and condemnation and sympathy and empathy because the
sides are not equal. Yes, I think that it is stupid for Palestinian snipers to
fire from residential areas, which they do, but I do not think that it
justifies the collective punishment that is imposed upon them. And obviously,
(I hate that I even have to write this,) I condemn suicide bombings. Israel is
a powerful occupier. There is a great imbalance of power, and I would say, of
pain. I am appealing to the humanity in all of you. And I do not think that
humanity, and that human rights, are political.
Feel
free, please, to believe politically in whatever you wish. But human rights
should be universal, that is not to be denied to any people, to any individual,
nor to be dismissed as a political position. Except that they are being denied here. I criticize Arafat,
too, and the Palestinian leadership.
But for me, it is much more interesting to share the stories of people I
have met, people I know, people who have touched me. You know about the governments
anyway from the mainstream press.
So
today is the day of fast, 9th of Ab. I was hungry. It was hot.
Everyone was anticipating a big Balagan at the Western Wall/ Haram al Sharif
area. I missed a lot of it, apparently. But I saw enough. I missed the Palestinians throwing
stones from above down at the Western Wall (Stefan, a journalist, told me that
it was total about 30 stones) and I missed the stun grenades, tear gas, and
rubber coated bullets that followed (one man was shot in the eye, one man was
shot in the head). But I arrived later (not to be a photographer or journalist,
mind you, but to pray at the Wall). But then I heard a few explosions (stun
grenades, I think) and some shots. I do not know what the police and army say
had provoked them. Then I saw Palestinians being "escorted" to police
vehicles. There were a few kids (between the ages of 10 and 15) and then,
later, some slightly older men. The police vehicles are conveniently located at
the plaza at the Wall, that is, the Palestinians had to pass through a crowd
(hostile) of Jews. I was taking pictures. I doubt if they will come out;
everyone was shoving to get close. Journalists with cameras, police pushing
them away, Jews (many of them apparently American) screaming "death to the
Arabs".
I
saw a boy collapse on the way down from Al–Aqsa. I saw the soldiers drag him to
his feet so they could put him in a police van. When they got to the Plaza, saw
the blood coming from his mouth, from the back of his neck. He did not need a
ride in a paddy wagon, he needed a freakin' ambulance!! But he was shoved into
the back of the van, violently.
I
saw fear in another boy's eyes like I have never seen fear before. Pure terror:
eyes wide, mouth open, screaming. He was skinny, and tan, and had brown hair
and black eyes, and he was young, and he was afraid, and when I saw him, I
started to sob.
They
kept coming; I am not sure of the number of people who were actually arrested–I
did not keep count, and this afternoon was one of the longest I have lived. And
some were limping, and many were already bleeding. And the police or soldiers
or whatever were brutal: pushing them into the vans, like they were dolls or
toys. To animals they would have been more gentle.
The
Jewish people were screaming: death to the Arabs, death to the Arabs. In these
peoples' faces as they were being dragged to police vehicles. In their faces.
The soldiers tried to serve as a barrier, but they were not entirely
successful. Some guy kicked one of the Palestinians in the gut as he was
escorted away.
Then
they brought another kid. And they were twisting his arm (I don't know who
'they' is, the police or the army, everything is blurry), and they were
twisting it and twisting it and he was screaming and they were twisting and
then it broke. And it was like behind his back, up by the opposite side of his
neck. And he stopped screaming. And I started. I screamed what the hell are you
doing, like, really really loudly. I did not mean to scream. It just came out.
And then they pushed me away and yelled at me to get out of the area. I calmed
down a bit, and then a religious guy said to me, baruch hashem, ken?, which is
like, thank God, yeah? And I just looked at him and said in Hebrew 'they are
also people' and then he yelled, she thinks they are also people. And a bunch
of people stood around me yelling about how I could think that, and death to
the Arabs, and some other stuff that I didn't understand.
When
I walked away, a religious woman came up to me, and asked if I was going to
write about this (she thought I was a reporter, because reporters and
extremists are the only people crazy enough to stay for something like this.
Yes, I said. Tell the truth, she said. I will write what I see, I said. What
did you see, she asked? I saw the police break a boy's arm, I said. Maybe he was the one who killed my son
five years ago, she said. Maybe he was the one throwing rocks this morning. I
am so sorry about your son, I said. I am so very sorry. But you will not write
about him, you will write about the police, who are here to protect us from
those animals, she said. I am sorry about your son, I said.
Part
of me thought that I would be able to take it, be able to watch violence in
action–hey, I grew up in the States, and we had a television. But it is
different when it is in front of your eyes. When you can see real fear, when
you are almost close enough to reach out to someone and say, it will be ok.
Even if it won't. When the cop cars were full they did not leave right away (I
don't know why). I blew them a
kiss before I turned my back on them and walked away. It is so easy for me to turn my back, to go back to my world
of academics and ice cream. But people here–Palestinians and Israelis–
cannot. I am lucky.
Some
people are not so lucky. Nichola is 5. He has one arm because the other one was
blown off on May 6th by a tank shell. He was outside his house when they
started shelling Beit Jala, ostensibly because people had fired from Beit Jala
onto Gilo, which is called a neighborhood of Jerusalem. It has been annexed. But it was taken in 1967 from the
residents of Beit Jala, who had their orchards there. See, the thing is, Nichola's house is nowhere near Gilo. And
shelling the whole town is not necessarily going to get the snipers. But what it will do is create anger
against Israel and more pain and more extremism and more resistance. Nichola
asks his great aunt (whom I stayed with for a few days as part of an action)
every day, auntie, when is my new arm coming? The doctors at Haddasah said they
would bring me a new arm. Where is my new arm? Maybe tomorrow they will bring
it? Someone brought Nichola some bubbles when he was in the hospital (for a
month), and he loved them. And he wanted to play with them again, but then he
could not open the cap, with only one arm. He tried to use his teeth, but he
couldn't use his teeth–the plastic was too hard. Finally he stopped in
frustration, and did not respond to the people who volunteered to open it for
him. He did not want it because he couldn't do it himself. When I hung out with
him and his family yesterday, he opened some things by himself, using his teeth
and his one good hand, his right hand. But he was a lefty, which makes things
even more difficult. I have seen so many people who seem defeated, who seem
beaten, who are oozing despair, that I wanted to share Nichola with you because
he has strength and hope, even though his future has been drastically altered.
"Who
are these people, my people?" It hurts me so much to see this sort of
brutality. And so then I went to
pray. I went to the hotel, the
wall, and I stood and I pressed my face against the hot stone and I felt
emptiness and pain. And I wonder how anyone can willingly, knowingly, break
another's bones and not react, and I wonder how Jewish people can do it. Have
we not learned anything? And I said the mourner's Kaddish, because it is a day
of mourning and a life of mourning, and I mourn for all death and destruction
and I mourn for the separation of Jewish people from Jewish values–like
compassion, and justice. I wonder if it would have been easier for me to see
someone, not a Jew, screaming such hatred at another. Maybe.
Fatin
lives in Beit Jala. I had dinner with her the other night and she asked me why
I was there, why I was participating in this action (a group of internationals
staying in the homes of people whose homes have been shelled). And I started to
explain to her, and one of the first things I said was, I am Jewish. And she was surprised, and said, so
really, why are you here. And I said, I don't care if you are Jewish Christian
Muslim Buddhist Hindu or Zoroastrian. I don't care if you are Palestinian
Israeli American Mongolian or French. I care that you are a human being. She
grabbed my face and kissed me spontaneously on the cheek. That, she said, is
because you are Jewish. Then she kissed my other cheek. That, she said, is
because you are human. And then I started to cry (it is very common these
days).
I
am ok. For those who worry that I am not having any fun, you should know that I
took Friday 'off' and went to Tel Aviv, slept on the beach, and went swimming
at 7 am before coming back to tour refugee camps.
Peace,
and justice, and so much love,
Rebecca,
who lives with the world in her heart.
An Israeli Woman's Personal Testimony: Living in the Occupied
Territories
Tziporah Ryter
[By way of Bill Thomson]
I am a Jewish woman with family who lived in Haifa for 10 generations.
I just returned from living in Ramallah, the West Bank, Occupied Palestine, for eight
months. I went to work as a volunteer at a non-profit, not knowing that the
second Intifada would
break out soon after I arrived.
But once there, I became a witness of the life of the Palestinian people during the Intifada, and joined
other people who were
international observers from Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and together we
witnessed the daily realities of Palestinian life and how they were misrepresented in the
American and
Israeli media.
In the nonviolent demonstrations which I witnessed -- such as those in which Palestinians dismantled
with their bare hands the
roadblocks that prevent thousands of people from accessing vocation, trade,
basic services and even emergency medical treatment-I cannot tell you how many
people I saw shot, wounded,
and killed. I lost count.
After the first murder I witnessed of the man standing in front of me, I grew numb. Then it was just a
stream of bodies --
the guy
with his head blown off, the little boys so small you don't even need a stretcher for them, and old
women-carried off into
ambulances which every single time were shot at by the Israelis directly on the
driver's side of the windshield. Ambulances turned back at Checkpoints.
Throughout this Intifada/Israeli Siege, what I witnessed was an overwhelmingly
nonviolent struggle within
Palestinian civil society
for justice. Every one of the endless demonstrations I attended began as marches with signs,
banners and chants. The
Israelis shot first every single time before any rocks were thrown. Rocks, thrown
at armored jeeps' seldom hit fenders -- stones that are a symbolic way of saying,
"We will resist our
oppression, even if you have a tank and I have a rock."
In fact, the Israeli
soldiers even shot at some of the demonstrations when people were doing
nothing more than singing
"we shall overcome"
and no stones were thrown even after the Israeli soldiers began and continued to
shoot.
Every night I went to sleep to the sound of shells falling on the nearby school for blind children. I walked
to do my shopping past10-year-old boys with patches over their eyes. How
come all of them in
the eye? Accident?
That's quite a sharp-shooting accident.
The death toll for the Israelis is about 100, the death toll for the Palestinians
about 600. Numbers cannot reflect the losses. The Palestinians also have about 20,000
wounded civilians, some
in critical condition and many permanently
disabled, while hospitals
are being attacked and medical clinics destroyed. I had to walk through streets of
crippled people, through the human traffic of funerals, which become demonstrations,
which become more
funerals, just to get a can of soda.
And that's just Area A.
Area A is like a vacation. Don't know what that is? Learn your ABCs. I'll be happy
to help you. Then maybe we can have a conversation.
In Areas B and C, where the majority of people live in villages completely surrounded
by clusters of Israeli settlements such as Ariel-which even within Barak's generous
offer were set to remain
permanently, in order to maintain permanent military bases -- life is much worse.
The children cannot breathe. The tear gas day and night
being thrown at their windows has damaged their respiratory systems,
maybe irrevocably at this point.
I have even tried to scream at the soldiers pleading, "the children are being
taken to the hospital." But then they shot at me so I ran back inside the house I was
visiting. Night and day
there are settlers attacking, backed by soldiers, shooting into the villages and
screaming "Death to the Arabs,"
burning down property,
even marching into schools in broad daylight and shooting the kids.
The soldiers shot my friend in the middle of the day while he was standing outside his house bringing the
kids inside as the troops
stomped through the village. They threw a stun
grenade into his
brother's face and then pointed an M-16 at his
head and threatened
to shoot anyone who would try to bring my friend to an emergency medical vehicle. It took 30
minutes before he was
permitted to be taken to a hospital. Now he is paralyzed.
This is only a partial list of what I have witnessed in the past eight months.
I saw it myself-and I have no motivation to exaggerate. I don't hate Israelis (my own
family) or Jews (my own
people). But I saw all this -- and I know that many people simply deny it, won't
believe it, and have been given no information in the media which would make what I
actually saw seem comprehensible
to them.
What is happening is called ethnic cleansing. The death toll in baseball terms may be
100 to 600, but this isn't baseball. The figures do not describe the conditions of
life the Palestinians are living under, which is a fabric torn from the
seams of hell
that you cannot imagine without knowing it firsthand. One side goes out dancing in
nightclubs when it gets dark (a nightclub right next to the Russian compound where Palestinian
detainees are being interrogated
and tortured while listening to people laughing and drinking and dancing).
The other side sits in fear inside their homes or is under forced curfew. I have lived on both
sides and I am not sure the realities are in the
same universe.
This is an army-one of the most powerful in the world-against a civilian population.
This Israeli army has an intact infrastructure and state and a government capable to
give orders to
kill-or not to kill. The Palestinians do not have an intact infrastructure, state
or government capable of telling anyone anything in particular.
I will let you in on a little secret. Not even Chairman Arafat can stop suicide
bombers. Only justice can.
People who have come to understand that violence is the only language the Israelis
reward are killing the Israelis. Thus far they are absolutely correct. Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon called the
ceasefire after the suicide bomber at the mall. The Israelis are rewarding violence. Otherwise, why do
they renew negotiations
only after their own death toll is on the rise and why do they shoot nonviolent
protestors?
Violence should not be rewarded. But unfortunately it is -- and it will
be that way indefinitely until the international community takes a stand and insists upon
international protection
for the Palestinian people. Then, with
the protection of the innocent, with freedom of expression, with the complete
and total withdrawal
from the Occupied Territories, can a discussion toward justice-toward what justice even
means-begin.
I will let you in on another secret: the Occupation is violence. There can be no negotiations under
violence.
I hope that those who become defensive of Israel and upset can take a deep breath
and consider, have they ever visited or lived in the West Bank or Gaza? My
journey to the truth was very painful. But my people have no right to kill
the Palestinians, steal
their land, destroy their communities and culture and leave them refugees from their homeland.
My people have no right to disregard international law and U.N. resolutions. I think
that my people can find more creative and ultimately sustainable ways to survive
than by becoming murderers
and war criminals or by choosing to be those
who defend or
support them.
This article by Tziporah Ryter appears in Tikkun magazine on-line <www.tikkun.org>
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Patriarch himself, express an official position, but all the other news,
articles and documents express the personal opinion of their authors; * I remain the only responsible of the
presentation and the editorials of this newsletter, which is wanted to be a
simple instrument of information without any pretension; * We don’t side with anybody, we only
side with the truth, and strive for human rights, justice, peace and
reconciliation for everybody as usual. Thank you for your understanding & Best wishes from Jerusalem Fr. Raed Abusahlia |