News, articles and documents from
the Holy Land
Issue No. 132 - Tuesday, 19 February 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers and
Sisters,
We began last week the annual lent time which is the forty days of
fasting before Easter. It is a special time of grace in which we remember to
combat ourselves and try to think about others. It seems that this year everybody
is practicing fasting in an obligatory way because the deteriorating economical
situation is destroying the economy of more that half of the population. Entire
families don’t have any more income and don’t know what to do to survive. Of
course the church is trying to help through several relief agencies, but I don’t
think that we can meet all the increasing needs of the people, and to tell you
the truth we don’t know what to do, especially that it seems that we don’t have
a nearby possible solution and if this situation will continue more months we
will face a real crisis in all the other fields especially educational since
all the schools are suffering huge deficit.
I am not telling you all these things in order to ask for your material
solidarity only but also to ask you to join us in this period of fasting and
prayer and dedicate it for peace… We used all the ways of resistance until now and
we still are where we were.. I
think know it is time to use the powerful weapon of God which is Payer &
Fasting in this particular time, because I believe that it is more efficient
that any other weapon we use in this battle.. I wish if the religious leaders
would call for a national days of prayer and fasting in which not only
Christians take part but also Moslems and Jews, that would be a great power
which will change the hearts of the leaders and attract also the support of
many brothers and sisters all over the world to join this movement.
During this lent time, our eyes and heart look to the Basilica of the
Holy Sepulcher that we call like in Greek the Church of the resurrection
(Anasthasis). Every Saturday afternoon there is a solemn entry of the Patriarch
for the procession of the alters in which very old beautiful Latin songs and
prayers are said during a procession which visits all the alters all around the
Basilica including the Calvary and the tomb of Jesus. Every Sunday also the
Patriarch goes to the Basilica at 8.30 a.m. for the mass which is celebrated at
the alter of St Mary Magdalena nearby the Holy tomb of Jesus. This year these
ceremonies are very calm because we are almost alone since the Greek and the Armenian
orthodox Easter will be very late, almost 35 days after us on the 5th
of May while we will have our Easter on the 31st of March. We hope
that the day will come when we will celebrate the Christian Feasts together.
After this short talk about the lent tine, let me introduce you to the
documents of this Olive Branch:
1)
In her Jerusalem Journal # 47, Sister Mary
shares with us the very touching story of the 6 months old girl who’s name is Salam
(meaning peace). It is a wonderful story, but don’t weep at the end like I did!
2)
In the letter from Bethlehem # 14, Susan
Atallah describes the desperate situation in Bethlhehem area and asks the
question: What’s next? She tries to answer it without a lot of success!
3)
THE LAITY COMMITTEE IN THE HOLY LAND launches A CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN CALL TO THE WORLD.
4)
Dr. Maria Khoury describes her feeling of being
a Christian Living in the Land of Promise.
5)
Ghassan Andoni, director of rapprochement
center between people, tells us a very strange story which happened at Qalandia
Military Check point through which he tries to answer the question: Do you
think there will be peace in this area.
Could this happen soon? I hope
and pray that it will.
With my best wishes from Jerusalem the City of death &
Resurrection Fr. Raed Abusahlia
Jerusalem Journal # 47
Sister Mary
16/2/2002
I was introduced to the sixty orphan children at the Creche in Bethlehem on Dec. 24th. and it was there that I met Salam, who at six weeks of age had been found last May in a trash bin in the town of Ramallah. When she was discovered Salam weighed only six pounds, her breathing was shallow and she was not expected to live. There were no clues to her identity and she was given over to an organization of social services until Sr. Rennee traveled to Ramallah and brought Salam to Bethlehem.
Once at the Creche, Salam was given a thorough physical examination and it was
discovered that she had a congenital malformation of her heart. If she could
survive until she weighed at least thirteen pounds, open heart surgery would be
performed.
At the January meeting of the Expatriate Network I told the women present about
the Creche, some of its needs, and encouraged the women to go to Bethlehem and
visit the children. An Australian woman, Vicki, begin calling around to her
friends for clothing and toys and then several of the Expatriate women went out
to deliver the articles and to visit with the children and sisters.
There they heard the story of Salam, who had just had the delicate heart
surgery at the Israeli Hadassah Ein Karem hospital. They were told that
normally for this kind of surgery, members of the patient's family would donate
blood in order to help re-supply the blood bank. Three women left the Creche
and went directly to Hadassah hospital to roll up their sleeves
and to give blood in Salam's name. Like family, they have continued
to visit Salam as she fights for her life there in the Pediatric intensive care
unit. Sr. Rennee has remained at Salam's bedside for weeks. Dr. Eli
Milgalter, the cardiologist who is responsible for Salam's care has shown real
concern for the child and the surgeon waived his fee. Though Salam's life
was almost extinguished, many people from very different cultures and
nations have given of themselves to help her fight for life. One of the Rabbis
with whom I worked a couple of weeks ago said, "What has happened to Salam
shows human rights are a natural instinct at the most basic level. I'm
glad people are still capable of working together for a common goal, regardless
of ideologies and religious beliefs."
In spite of these days of violence and death in Israel and the West Bank, a
child has been a bond among us as she continued to chose life these past
twenty-six days in the intensive care unit. If we could all chose life, not
just for ourselves but for others, this part of the world would be a very
different place. Her name, Salam, is Arabic for "peace". May
Salam have a future in this land. May peace truly be out common goal.
Letter from Bethlehem (14)
Susan Atallah
Today I heard a heartbreaking story of a Christian family in Bethlehem who doesn’t have enough money to buy bread that costs only 2.5 NIS, which equals half a US dollar. This story is one of many other stories about people who are suffering from a deteriorating economic situation. The teachers at school were wondering about other families all over Palestine who don’t have enough money to buy the basic necessities for their children. Some parents are too proud to ask for help or even tell others that they are needy, so they just suffer in the security of their homes and God only knows how they manage. The other side of the story is that more and more people are dying of heart attacks, especially men. The pressure that people are under is taking its due on people and the military closure is just adding to the suffering of the Palestinians. And the question is: What next?
It’s so easy for Europeans and Americans to condemn the “terrorism” of the Palestinians from their comfortable homes. The ironic issue is that many delegations come and visit the Palestinian cities and they see the destruction that is afflicted upon the Palestinians, and they find it so difficult to do something about it. Why do people become “terrorists”? Has Mr. Bush asked himself this question? Instead of condemning the acts why don’t these super powers of the world nip the problem in the bud and solve this problem? The Palestinians and the Israeli people are suffering from fear, frustration, insecurity, depression etc… and still we’re waiting for someone to do something tangible about it. Of course we keep hoping, but until when? Is it difficult to secure the rights of human beings? It’s easy to make war, but it’s so darn impossible these days to establish peace. Is it too difficult in this day and age to live and let live? In the end, a person gets a small space to be buried and takes nothing of the material world with him/her. We think a lot about death these days and it has become a daily event. So far it still affects us every time we hear of it, and this is a blessing since we still feel the sadness that “normal” people feel, and we still have our sanity as human beings. Have we become abnormal? No, not yet. We live in an abnormal situation, but we still cling to life, and our human rights and our dignity mean a lot to us and that’s why we are still fighting occupation. Is it too much to ask? I’m asking every Israeli, every American and every European this question. Notice I haven’t counted others; you wonder why, right? Well, we have occupation inflicted upon us by the Israelis, our destiny is decided by the power exercised by the American government on the Israeli government, and we think that some European governments understand what we go through more than others and try to back up a Palestinian state.
Yesterday I saw a few thousand Israeli people demonstrating in Tel Aviv asking their government to get out of the Palestinian territories. I was happy to see that some Israeli people that belong to the peace camp realize what their policy is doing and are protesting against it, but is it enough to move their leaders? It’s a good step toward putting their government under pressure to talk peace with the Palestinians. That and together with more Israeli soldiers refusing to serve in the Palestinians territories because what their military orders have made them do and the reported scandals that they announced, there’s hope for more pressure by the Israeli people to establish peace in the region. Could this happen soon? I hope and pray that it will.
A CHRISTIAN
PALESTINIAN CALL TO THE WORLD
At a time when the Israeli government is desperately searching for somebody as an alternative to President Yasser Arafat, the LAITY committee in the Holy Land, would like to remind the world that we have full faith in our leader, Mr. Arafat, who was democratically elected by the Palestinian people to be the President of the Palestinian State.
We urge the International Community to
support President Arafat and the Palestinian people and not to blind themselves
to Sharon's aggressive and provocative measures against innocent Palestinian
civilians who have been under occupation for the past 53 years. This is the longest ongoing occupation
in the history of the 20th Century, and the only occupation, which has spread
into the 21st Century.
The world has blamed the Palestinian
Authority for not accepting the Camp David 2 negotiations. There were valid
reasons that the Palestinians did not welcome this agreement. The terms which
were offered would have only placed the Palestinians in cantons separated by
by-pass roads built to illegal settlements, and facilitating the Israeli control
over the Palestinians, making it more difficult for Palestinians to govern a
normal and unified state. Those who wish to learn more about Camp David, please
refer to www.palestine-pmc.com/camp.html
In order for President Arafat to implement what the International community is expecting from him, we urge them to equally pressure Sharon to ease restrictions, stop the demolition of houses, stop the assassination policy and remove the siege placed on President Arafat.
The Palestinian authority's policy is
determined to accomplish peace based on UN resolutions 242, 338 and 194, which
is the only way to ensure a just and lasting peace in the area.
THE
LAITY COMMITTEE IN THE HOLY LAND
Living in the Land of Promise
By Dr. Maria C. Khoury
On a bright clear Sunday morning I stared at the beautiful hills and countryside of Biblical Judea and Samaria right outside my huge bay kitchen window. Many Sundays especially during these last 18 months of the Palestinian Uprising, we had to get ready for church listening to the horrid news that another bomb has gone off in Israel. There was a period of time where Sunday after Sunday an attack would take place that continues to brand the Palestinians as “terrorists.” And there’s nothing you can do with such news except go to church with a heavy heart and a very sick feeling in your stomach and pray to God for peace to come in the Land of Christ’s birth. I screamed at my children to hurry up since church attendance in our little Christian village of Taybeh is a number one priority and was quite relieved that Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) took a day off. But still the thought crossed my mind that in a land full of violence and bloodshed what kind of future do my children really have as part of the Christian minority?
Little did I know a psychological bomb was about to explode in the Khoury family. Every parent’s nightmare was about to happen following a Saturday night party in Miami. Our twenty-one year old cousin Ibrahim George Khoury tragically lost his life to a bullet that ripped through his heart. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time for a nice altar boy born in the village of Taybeh. As Palestine empties out of its Christian population, many families search for the “American Dream” of better education, better living conditions and better job opportunities. But, prosperity and success sometimes have a very high price. This family tragedy and shocking death made us re-evaluate our values, traditions and reasons for returning to the land of promise after twenty-four years of middle class America.
The current unemployment of over 60% in the village and the awful closure and terrible checkpoints still make every young man want to leave this Biblical town of Efraim. The new modern name “Taybeh” was given to the village during Salahdin’s visit in the late 12th century but our location is mentioned in the New Testament: “Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim...” (John 11:54). Therefore, the Christian presence in this village dates back to the time of Christ. The archeological ruins of the first St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Taybeh date back to the fourth century built by St. Helen when the Nativity Church was constructed in Bethlehem.
A mere ten to fifteen minutes drive from the village to the city of Ramallah takes over two to three hours depending on the checkpoints. I can almost handle one checkpoint with patience but when you stop three times on your way to school to show your identification traveling from a Palestinian village to a Palestinian city, it is frustrating because you are not going anywhere near Israel or threatening the security of Israel. The most aggravating feeling is when the soldiers deny you the right to pass. I JUST WANT TO BLOW UP!!! The worst I have experienced with the checkpoint phenomenon on more than one occasion is sitting at the Qalandia checkpoint for four hours following a tiring school day in a van with nine children, only three of which are my own. During the whole time, I kept yelling at all the young boys that came to hide behind my van and throw rocks at the soldiers. I kept screaming “Why do you want to die today, can you please go home.” In the mean time my sons were starring out the van window as soldiers were shooting more Palestinian boys hiding behind trashcans. We watch the violence as we watch a movie and ask for the Grace of God to keep us safe. By the time we get home some days, it is completely dark out and we get up the next morning at 6 am to go through the same miserable way because it is the only way to get to school in Palestine. All the main roads have been blocked for such a long time. Money can buy you solutions, so we took an apartment in the city of Ramallah to avoid these checkpoints but when the Israeli tanks invaded and the noise of shooting was constant, my children wished to sleep in the village where they had less fear and anxiety.
Following the Oslo Peace Agreement, the picturesque Taybeh village was not a bad place to raise children. We would avoid the Saturday night parties because everyone just visits their grandmother. We would not have teenage peer pressure for drugs because they were simply not available in a little village on the West Bank. We would avoid the malls and being spoiled with too much materialism because we would see so many people that don’t even have food to eat. We would easily go to church on Sundays because there would be no hockey conflicts or soccer games at the same time. Raising children in a small Christian village in the Holy Land appeared like an innocent and wholesome upbringing. There was only one small problem. As an American of Greek descent, I did not have any connection to this land. However, with time and with personal and psychological suffering, the land of Christ’s birth gave me a deep spiritual awakening as an Orthodox Christian.
I felt it was the legacy of my children to experience their Palestinian Christian roots since their father, a Palestinian Orthodox Christian had grown up in this tiny village where everyone is related. I thought my children would know themselves deeply if they developed a strong sense of cultural identity and experienced the richness of the Palestinian culture. I even firmly believed the love of a close-knit extended family would help my children be good human beings. When I met my husband at Hellenic College in Boston in the late 70’s, I must admit I did not know anything about Palestinians and truthfully speaking I did not even know there were any Christians in the Holy Land. However, being an obedient wife, I followed him to the land of promise. His personal promises that it was the best place in the world to raise responsible children. It has been a long, painful and rewarding six-year learning adventure.
My husband had a dream to return to his homeland, to be an obedient son who travels to the West for education and money and brings back the skills and the knowledge to help Palestine. It’s the ultimate dream of every Palestinian father. It’s sort of a noble thing to do and being an entrepreneur, he talked the family into building a microbrewery in the village of Taybeh that would boost the Palestinian economy. The Oslo Peace Agreement gave many people a false promise of peace and prosperity that led into over five years of frozen negotiations where people continued to invest in Palestine. “Taybeh Beer” was launched in the market in the summer of l995 as the first Palestinian beer and the only microbrewery in the Middle East. We also spent five years out of suitcases building a huge stone mansion that now we pray the apache helicopters will not see if they decide to bomb Taybeh. The new beer was so successful that it made history in Palestine by being the first and only Palestinian product to be franchised and brewed in Germany under the Taybeh Beer license. Hundreds of newspapers articles were written because reporters were so curious who are these people who invest millions of dollars to produce beer in a 98% Muslim population. These brave and loyal men are my husband David C. Khoury and my ingenious brother-in-law Nadim. They invested their heart, soul and money to help build Palestine. Receiving Arafat’s blessing for the brewery was also a test when there would be a democratic Palestinian state, there would be a place for the Christian minority.
Then came Sharon and September 28, 2000 and all the dreams of Palestinians that had returned to their homeland following the Oslo Agreement were shattered. Slowly but surely, destruction took place each day with bombings, shootings, assassinations and outright massacres of unarmed civilians. The Israelis have destroyed lives, houses, businesses, roads, olive trees, the economy and education. Everything that was built following Oslo and any progress made was completely ruined. The list of destruction is far too long. There is nothing left to destroy except the peoples’ will power to be free and to seek their human rights and independence. We watched as many families picked up their belongings and returned to their previous lives. They all gave up the hotels they built, the battery factories they created, the health clinics they established. These Palestinians tried to invest and live in Palestine but could not handle the harsh conditions imposed by the Israelis. They gave up the dream to help their homeland and to live in the land of promise. Sometimes I just can’t understand my husband’s decision to stay especially when the imported bottles that he needs so desperately to fill with “Taybeh Beer” are stuck at the Israeli port due to red tape. The fees and storage costs are far beyond what the bottles are worth themselves. I feel it is such a high price to pay, financially and psychologically, to be a Palestinian businessman. Not to mention a 40% production tax that basically cripples you as a new business. The war against the Palestinian economy is an entire story by itself.
When the Palestinian Intifada first broke out, we would usually wake up every morning not knowing if we were going to school or not. You must get up, get dressed and try to go to school before you discover the road situation. There is nothing more frustrating than going through all the preparations and not being able to have a school day. Sometimes the road was open, sometimes the road was closed. Sometimes you make it all the way to school passing many checkpoints just to find the school was cancelled because of a funeral or protest. Sometimes while in school, a bomb would go off in Israel and we couldn’t get back home. This anxiety was unbearable and drove me crazy. Not knowing day to day what will happen. In the fall of 2000, it was so common to hear “they’re bombing Ramallah.” I would drop everything, try to get my children out of school as fast as possible and get back to the village where it was perceived safer. So, you have hundreds of parents doing the same thing. There was panic in the streets and in the schools. The constant fear was very nerve recking.
To top off this instability, constant attacks were happening on the roads because we have hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements choking us up in the West Bank. Israeli settlers killing Palestinians and Palestinian gunman killing Israeli settlers back and forth until the violence escalates so much that it’s totally out of control and takes on a life by itself. Then we would observe an abnormal kind of quiet, which is the type of quiet before a heavy storm. There is so much anxiety and confusion, you can’t decide what scares you the most, the violence itself or the silence before the bloodshed occurs. Driving down these roads where innocent people were killed every day was not the easiest thing in the world. The only comfort I could possibly give my children was explaining to them that if it was God’s Will for us to die, we would die no matter where we live. For the first three months, I would physically shake driving to school every day. Now,! I have somewhat adjusted myself. I just do my cross and say my prayers. I have gained a type of inner peace that allows me to live here and see devastation all around me. I must admit, I owe this inner peace to each and every person that prays for me. May God be with you.
What really amazes me the most is day in and day out, I see and experience the suffering of the Palestinian people and the world continues to support Israel and allow them to get away with human right violations. I am amazed at how people survive on such low incomes and under such awful conditions. Any human being living under these harsh conditions of Israeli Military Occupation would turn into a terrorist because you reach a mental point of either “freedom or death.” My children keep reminding me of the license plate they saw in New Hampshire on their summer vacation stating “live free or die.” I can’t remember this plate myself because they say I have lived four decades. But my children insist that if Americans can make such statements why can’t Palestinians have the same rights. The struggle for freedom has taken more than fifty years. In this new millennium we must give Palestinians their full human rights and treat them! as part of humanity not creatures of a lesser God. For the love of humanity, peace should come to this region where the Prince of Peace lived.
It is important to keep a Christian presence in the Holy Land because it is the land of Christ’s Birth. The Holy Land being the “mother church” of Western Christianity stands proud to have so many brothers and sisters in Christ. Together we can work for a great awareness of the Palestinian struggle so that congress can have real names and real faces of how the American support to Israel affects over three million Palestinians in a negative way and cheats them from their basic rights. We need many prayers to live together as Christians, Muslims and Jews in this precious land. We need people to make their government officials aware of the atrocities that occur in the Holy Land. We need people who can see the human suffering that the Zionist movement created since l948. We need the occupation to end. We need the world to see the suffering and humiliation the Palestinians face every day. We need the world to understand the cause of terrorism is the Israeli occupation itself and America’s policy in the Middle East.
Living in the land of promise may be full of bloodshed, violence and deep anxiety but also it has been the place where I have grown very close to God. I literally must live each day as if it is the last day of my life. Praying more, going to confession and fasting help me realize our final destiny is the kingdom of God. I truly believe God gives us every blessing and every suffering so that we may come to know Him who gives us eternal life. All the riches and the materialism in this world will not provide a place for us in God’s kingdom. It is only our good works on earth that will count and the firm belief that Christ is our Savior. When Christ is in your heart you do love your neighbor as yourself and forgiveness becomes essential. As Christians our ultimate goal is to give glory to God. We are called to see God in each and every human being. Let us pray these Christian values and principles can be practiced in the land of promise, in the land of Canaan as is my first born son’s name who as a young Palestinian Christian proudly carries his grandfather’s name “Canaan.”
Editor’s Note: Maria C. Khoury is the author of four Orthodox Christian Children’s books published in Jerusalem. She has written over forty articles helping bring awareness to the Christian presence in the Holy Land.
At
Qalandia Military Check point
written by: Ghassan Andoni
The seen: thousands of Palestinians walking
through. Some being stopped, searched, and questioned by the Israeli soldiers
who are fully dressed and equipped for a war situation. Hundreds of cars
jammed. Every body is tensed except of the soldiers who seem to enjoy it. The
place is turned into huge and messy parking lots at both sides and into a
market place.
The incident: one Israeli soldier checking a
Palestinian car order a young Palestinian out of the car:
Soldier: Before I allow you to pass you have to
bring me a cup of tea.
The young
Palestinian protested but finally went to the market place and brought him a
cub of tea. He then went back into the car.
Soldier: shouting at him again, get out of the
car and come here.
The young
Palestinian stepped out of the car again and stood near the soldier.
Soldier: before I allow you to go you have to
sing for me.
The young
Palestinian protested but finally did what he was ordered to do and went back
to the car.
Soldier: shouted again, step out of the car and
come here.
The young
Palestinian did as ordered to do.
Soldier: take of your shoes.
The young
Palestinian did. The soldier then pissed inside his shoes and ordered him to
wear his shoes and goes. The young Palestinian did as ordered.
Soldier: shouting, step out of the car and come
back here.
The young
Palestinian came back near to the soldier.
Soldier: tell me. Do you think there will be
peace in this area.
Young
Palestinian: as long as you piss inside my shoe and I piss inside your tea
there will never be peace.
By the end of
this story you might have laughed at this joke. It is a joke. What is wearied
here is: that when I tell it to Palestinians, and I told it to so many, no one
considers it as a joke until I spell the last sentence. So probably it is not a
joke. It is a style of life.
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The Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People
64 Star Street, P.O.Box 24
Beit Sahour - Palestine
www.rapprochement.org
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Thank you for your understanding & with best wishes from
Jerusalem Fr. Raed Abusahlia |