News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 171 - Saturday, 21 September 2002
Dear
Friends, Brothers and Sisters,
The situation is extremely dangerous in Ramallah, especially around
President Arafat’s residence which is almost turned into rubble since the last
three days… At this moment, the Israeli army is giving everybody inside it,
including Arafat, the last chance to go out before exploding everything on
their heads. We cannot know what will happen in the next hours and days.
The problem is that all this is happening in front of the eyes of the
world, and nobody dares to tell Israel “STOP”.. I am afraid really that the
world became deaf and blind?!
I am not only concerned about the life of Arafat, but also about the
lives of more than one million people in the big Palestinian town who are under
curfew since more than three months, and especially since the last days they
are under a strict curfew confining them all inside their houses, while the
Israelis celebrated Rosh Ha-Shana (The new year) and Yom Kippour (feast of
repentance and fasting) and will celebrate in the next days the feast of Shivo’ot
(the seven days).. I don’t know what kind of celebration they have while they
are oppressing and aggressing another people??!!
I really very angry and depressed in these days, because I don’t see
any sign of hope or any slight light at the end of this long dark tunnel. We
really feel helpless but never hopeless. Nevertheless, I still believe that
more prophetic voices should rise again and again and say a word of truth in
the face of the world. Therefore, I am still working for peace, with whoever
form any side can help to make a difference in this ugly situation. I have
already told you about the initiative of the Jewish Rabbis, Christians priests
and pastors, Molsem and Druze Sheikhs who are working together in the frame of
a newly born movement called “Clergymen for peace”. It is my pleasure, in this
issue to send you the first common interfaith declaration which will be signed
by a lot of clergymen from the different religions in the Holy Land. I hope
that you will find it interesting and if anybody of you, especially clergy
would like to sign it and add his name, I will be more than happy if you send
me that by e-mail so that we publish it within the next month with all the
signatures.
You will find in today’s Olive Branch the following documents:
1)
To begin, a very short but beautiful “prayer
for peace” written by the World Conference on Religions and Peace.
2)
The “INTERFAITH DECLARATION” written by the “Clergymen
for Peace”.
3)
Statement Arab Educational Institute in Bethlehem,
concerning the Iraqi question and the current situation in Ramallah and in all
the other Palestinian towns.
4)
Dr. Bernard Sabella is sharing with us “Just
Some Thoughts” but worthy to be read.
5)
Dr. Harry Hagopian shares with us his one-page
article 'Future Forecasts?'. It too seeks peace and advocates against
violence.
I hope that these heavy days will run away soon, because, the situation
in the Holy Land is becoming unbearable for both sides. We need and immediate International
intervention!
With my best
wishes from Taybeh Fr.
Raed Abusahlia
Prayer for Peace
Heal my wounded heart.
Grant me the courage to change my heart.
Let Peace live in my heart.
Fill me with compassion for those suffering in war.
Help me care for those in war.
Help me bring Peace to those in war.
Help me stop wars.
Help soldiers stop wars.
Help leaders stop wars.
Fill me with Peace and Justice.
Help me to work for Peace with Justice.
Let there be Peace with Justice among all peoples.
This Prayer for Peace
is attributable to the World Conference on Religions and Peace, and celebrates
the UN International Day of Peace. The event,
taking place on 21 September 2002, is a day of global ceasefire and
non-violence. There are activities scheduled in 62 countries world-wide that
are meant to promote a culture of peace and non-violence.
INTERFAITH DECLARATION
Clergymen for Peace
We, Jewish,
Christian, Druze and Muslim religious leaders cry out in the name of our One
God, to recognize one another, children of Abraham, as created in God’s image.
The forces of
demonization and hate have taken hold not only in the Middle East but
throughout the globe, and we must look into our religious traditions and speak
out in the name of compassion and justice.
Our task as religious leaders is to engage our own people in self reflection
and point the way to a better future for our children and ourselves.
We, therefore, out of our respective religious traditions:
* 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.
* Call upon
Israelis and Palestinians to recognize 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.
* Call for energizing 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.
* 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 which God has implanted within
each and every human being.
* 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 impossible. We will collectively and individually employ
all of our influence in every conceivable way to realize a vision which 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.
In the name of God Who is compassionate and just, in the Name of God Who
hears the cries of all those who suffer, in the name of God Who demands that we
pursue justice through just means and seek peace by actively pursuing it, we
call on the peoples and leaders of the Middle East and the world to act at
once.
Statement Arab Educational
Institute
Bethlehem, 17 September
2002
Dear friends,
We would like to
address you for some matters of urgency. The Palestinians denounce, and pray
for the prevention of, an American-led attack on Iraq not just because it could
put the Iraqi region in flame but also for its potentially devastating
consequences for the situation on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. When
one follows Israel’s internal debates, it is alarming to hear all the pundits’
talk about the various local military options that could take place in the wake
of such an attack. Many of the publicly debated scenarios take into account a
possible ‘transfer’ of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank. It
looks as if Palestinians are considered non-beings to be dispensed with at
will. For some time now, polls in Israel indicate that some 50% of its (Jewish)
population look favourable at what boils down to a policy of ethnic cleansing.
There are even posters circulating on a wide scale in Israel promoting the
idea. The Israeli political leadership and civil society should be made very
clear that in the 21th century, in a century supposedly devoted to “a culture
of peace,” mass expulsion is not an option suitable for public sloganizing or
pondering.
That Palestinians
are treated as non-beings also applies to two other issues which we would like
to raise. First, the educational situation. The major problem Palestinian
families now face are the continuous difficulties of access to schools due to
the Israeli occupation, including roadblocks, curfews and closures. For many,
the poverty as a result of the closures takes its toll. In several regions is a
shortage of food and medical care and many families cannot provide for their
children’s school needs, such as school materials and uniforms. It is a
Herculian task for schools and the Palestinian Ministry of Education to provide
elementary road protection to students, and to reinstall a healthy and
appropriate school environment. This requires among other things taking
measures to repair the recent damage inflicted on school buildings and
properties and to build new school classes so as to allow all children to
attend school and reduce the double shifts.
Policy making in
the educational field is not just a challenge, it is often simply impossible.
There is at present no physical contact possible between educational
authorities because Ramallah, the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, is
still closed and inaccessible. Many Palestinian cities are these days under
strict curfew. In the Bethlehem area, the Ministry informs us that due to the
difficulties of traveling between Bethlehem town and the villages still 30
teaching posts have yet to be filled. As AEI we again would like to urge you to
raise attention and publicity to this issue in your home country. Extensive
psychological and educational damage is inflicted upon a future Palestinian
generation.
On top of that,
the Israeli government (its inner security cabinet) has announced plans to
annex the airport area between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and the Rachel’s Tomb
area in Bethlehem. It seems that they want to make serious work of building
“metropolitan Jerusalem,” the heart-felt wish of the present right-wing major
of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert. Jerusalem’s borders would be extended to cover a
large area deep inside Bethlehem’s urban center. Not just Rachel’s Tomb would
be annexed (a site, incidentally, holy to Jews as well as Christians and
Moslems), but also the surrounding area of the Bilal bin Rabah mosque and cemetery
to the west of the site, and a large area to the east, up to Caritas Hospital.
This all would be confiscated for so-called security reasons and in order to
construct a new road to the Tomb only accessible for Israelis. A population of
possibly not less than 3000 Palestinians, who live in the urban heart of
Bethlehem, are thus brought under Jerusalem jurisdiction by a stroke of the
pen. (We have to wait to see what will be those people’s real fate; that is,
whether they can stay to live there, since we know that the Jerusalem
municipality is not eager to bring Palestinians under its civil authority).
If Jerusalem
will be open at all, Palestinians from the southern West Bank will only be able
to travel to that city by making a large detour inside Bethlehem. The
Bethlehem-Jerusalem checkpoint would be located several hundred meters south to
the present one, again inside the urban center of Bethlehem. It is obvious that
the new bypass-road and checkpoint grid will serve to make it more difficult
for tourists to visit Bethlehem. The plan thus seems part of a policy to
further marginalize Bethlehem as a tourist and economic center; to prevent the
city’s natural growth, and ro make life conditions for young and old so
difficult that they will leave the country. It is no exaggeration to say that
this Jerusalem metropolitan policy, if pursued and realized, will be the death
blow for any future viable Bethlehem community.
Again, we urge
you to take this matter seriously. As an editorial of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz
commented, this is nothing else than land grabbing and a slap in the face
of any peace initiative that might now take place in the wake of the recent
lull in suicide bombings and the determination of the Palestinian Legislative
Council to institute reforms within the PNA structures. We in particular
appreciate any initiative from abroad to protest this plan within circles of
Jewish religious leaders. They are to no small extent responsible for the
persistent pressure over the years on Israel’s political leadership to keep the
Rachel’s Tomb area in Israeli hands.
In sum, we do an
appeal to all our peace-loving friends in the world to raise their voice
against these serious developments, so as to help preserving regional peace,
preventing a further deterioration on the ground, and ending the Israeli
occupation.
Arab Educational Institute
AEI is a
community education institute operative in the Bethlehem-Hebron area of
Palestine. It is affiliated to Pax Christi International and to the Euro-Arab Dialogue
from Below (IKV, The Netherlands)
P.O.Box 681 Bethlehem
- West Bank - Palestine
Tel. (+
972-)2-274.4030 Fax: (+
972-)2-277.7554
Email office: aei@p-ol.com
Just Some Thoughts
Dr. Bernard
Sabella
My
wife and daughter were watching Ghostbusters on MBC Television on the
Thursday afternoon of the tragic bus bombing in Tel Aviv. As I was engaged
in working on my computer, my wife told me that "they had entered the
President's residence." Instinctively I answered the Ghostbusters went to
the White House!? She had to explain to me that she was referring to a breaking
news caption that speaks of Israeli tanks and other military vehicles
entering once again the compound of President Arafat's Headquarters.
This
latest Israeli incursion onto Arafat's quarters left me without emotion, I was
not angry nor did I rush to hear the news; on the contrary, I continued on with
what I was doing on the computer.
Perhaps
the absence of emotion, on my part, was due to the fact that I am falling
behind on my analytical skills of Israeli government statements and behavior.
Not that I was ever a good analyst but at least I used to labor to discover the
logic behind the actions of the Israeli government. Now I am convinced that
there is no logic whatsoever and this is indeed a mortal blow to my analytical
skills.
I do
not regret it, however, because this means that another potential stressing
factor in my life has forever disappeared and I could hopefully use my energies
elsewhere.
But what made me emotional was a statement that Ha'aretz English attributed to Michael Kleiner Israeli Member of the Knesset from the extreme right wing Herut (Freedom) Party on how to proceed on the aftermath of the bus bombing of Thursday, September 19th. Allow me to quote the statement as it appeared in Ha'aretz English on Friday, September 20th:
"MK
Michael Kleiner, who constitutes the one-man opposition Herut faction, said
that if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not begin aerial bombing raids on
Palestinian towns, he must call new elections. He said the government should
warn the Palestinians of impending bombings and leave the borders open for them
to flee to Jordan."
Simply
put how could anyone, including Mr. Kleiner himself, make such a statement? In
the midst of conflict and violence, that saw also the killing of 75
Palestinians during the "quiet" forty-day period prior to the
Thursday bus bombing, the search should be to find ways to stop once and
for all the hostilities and acts of violence, irrespective of perpetrator/s.
The message that violence, of any manner, could provide a way out is only used
by people who do not want to labor to find a solution acceptable to both
peoples.
Violence
not only hurts, kills and traumatizes the people who experience it, on
whatever side they are; it hurts all of us as it leaves scars deep inside
each and everyone of us, irrespective of being an Arab or a Jew. So once again
the question of leadership on all sides is posed. We need
leaderships that would help us find a way out of violence and out
of our hurt. We need leaderships that have an agenda for healing and
not for bombing. Israeli politicians need to turn inward and examine whether
there is any slight chance that such a leadership would emerge
in Israel? "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do
not consider the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3)
Or
perhaps I am an idealist to ask for such a leadership in Israel and
elsewhere in our Middle Eastern context!?
Dr.
Bernard Sabella
Executive
Secretary
Department
of Service to Palestinian Refugees
Middle
East Council of Churches Jerusalem
Future
Forecasts?
Dr Harry Hagopian,
KSL-KOG
Having come in late, my colleague Anthony and I had to take our seats at one corner away from the conference table. In fact, I had never seen the room quite so full in all the years I have attended on and off the meetings of the Middle East Forum for ‘Churches Together for Britain and Ireland’. This was certainly a capacity crowd, and the reason for this keen interest by representatives from so many different churches in the UK was largely due to the main guest speaker. Reverend Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Christian who is also the director of the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre, had been invited by the forum to provide an update on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I had known this affable man for a number of years, and had always been struck by his honesty and integrity as much as by his faithful concern for the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land. I had also been quite influenced by his inclusive and scriptural interpretation of the ‘neighbour’ - whether that neighbour was the next-door Palestinian Muslim or the Israeli Jew in the cities and towns within Israel. If anyone could contextualise the situation, this was the man.
Reverend Naim Ateek started off with a warning that his views might startle some people! Indeed, both the tenor and tempo of his assessment were not too far from being apocalyptic - something he admitted that many Palestinians shared today. He indicated that the levels of despair within the Palestinian community were so high that many people thought the only solution to this conflict lay in divine intervention. To date, I had not heard any warning in such chilling terms.
Ateek then went on to outline the three methods by which Israel was controlling the Palestinians. Segmentation and fragmentation came first whereby Palestinian lands were being segmented by settlements and fragmented with by-pass roads. Although the settlements take up 2% of Palestinian aggregate land, the by-pass roads now control 17% of this same territory. The second method was the co-optation of certain informers from within the Palestinian community so that Israel kept the upper hand in terms of intelligence feedback and compliancy with its wishes. The third method fostered economic dependence so that the Palestinian economy - and thereby survival - depended upon Israel alone.
According to ‘Assis Naim’ (as he is known in Jerusalem), this erstwhile system of subtle controls by Israel has now yielded to a system of unrestrained suppression. In his view, this is being done in an intentional and structured manner through the provocation and harassment of Palestinians by the Israeli army as much as the wholesale humiliation of a nation. Such measures are inexorably leading to the gradual and deliberate dehumanisation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. According to the Israeli B’Tselem human rights organisation, 70 Palestinians have died at checkpoints, 39 women have given birth at checkpoints, and 15 ambulance drivers have been killed.
Assis Naim also cited different writers and analysts to unfurl what he considered to be the Israeli strategy in the Palestinian occupied territories. Referring to the policy of closures, targeted assassinations of the Palestinian political leadership and expansion of settlements, he suggested that the primary Israeli focus today was the massive expulsion and staged transfer of Palestinians from their homes. He believed that a war with Iraq and an unstable Middle Eastern region could provide Israel with an ideal cover for presenting itself as a country under siege, and encourage it to use self-defence to tighten up its strategy of a creeping transfer of Palestinians out of their homes and birthplaces.
Naim Ateek concluded by reminding his audience of the perils now facing all Palestinians - Christians and Muslims alike - and the need to stave off an impending ‘genocide’ or ‘apocalypse’. He gave the example of posters that have crept up in different neighbourhoods of Jerusalem stating in Hebrew that the transfer of Palestinians [to next-door Jordan] is the only means of heralding peace and security for Israelis. He indicated that this option is now being openly debated within a large cross-section of the Israeli Jewish populace, and he linked these posters with the Torah [the first five books of the Bible] where it says that the way to deal with indigenous people is either to expel or destroy them.
Having served as political consultant and ecumenical facilitator to the Churches of the Holy Land during the Oslo years, I was deeply perturbed by this critical degree of political corrosion. And for someone who has been proactively - and at times stubbornly - working toward reconciliation between Jews, Muslims and Christians, I was also troubled by the painful ferocity and staggering bluntness of those new developments. After all, could they not threaten to destabilise a whole region and thereby eliminate the Palestinian reality by eliminating a large swathe of its people too?
Once the forum meeting was over, though, I realised that the speakers had ‘analysed’ the ever-worsening situation but had not adopted any practical ‘church-based’ plan of action. True, the factual mastication of symptomatic realities had been impressive, but nobody had managed to come up with a viable plan that engaged the future. Given the cruel on-the-ground realities for both sides, that is the real and just challenge today. But the silence was sadly deafening!
© harry-bvH @ 20 September 2002
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