City of...

Well, I'm headed out for the next 10 days or so, helping with the young adult conference at Sabeel. So you probably won't get any updates for a little while. If you can believe it, I'm the "chaplain" for the conference, which I think might require some sort of emotional put-togetheredness not evidenced either in my recent mindset or my last post. Sorry about the rant. Meant most if not all of it, though.

Anyway, will be helping to guide about 25 internationals and 15 locals around Palestine and Israel, teaching them about the history of 1948 from the Palestinian perspective, showing them demolished/depopulated villages, little pieces of the occupation, and hopefully, some dancing and some laughter and some hope for a future with justice as well.

Until then, keep struggling the good struggling, all you crazy bloggin' fools.


Justice, peace, liberation, and all that jazz!

"The Chaplain"

Yesterday, we heard the news that, for the second time in a few weeks, an
East Jerusalem resident--Palestinian with a blue Israeli or Jerusalem resident
ID card--had driven his bulldozer into buses and cars in East Jerusalem. Twenty-four
people were wounded. The driver of the bulldozer was killed--first shot by a
man who lives in the settlement of Susya in the West Bank (illegal, as with all
the settlements, under international law, and the source of one of the most
recent cases of settler youth physically terrorizing the Palestinians in nearby
villages, in this case caught on camera due to Israeli human rights organization
Bt'selem's strategy of passing out cameras to residents of the West Bank),
then shot multiple times by a border patrol officer. After the bulldozer was stopped.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004690.html

I'm not much for watching this kind of thing, but I watched the Ha'aretz video, and
felt anger curling into a tight ball in my gut. Anger that the pain of families of those
who were hurt is manipulated in a macho show. Anger at the language that was
used: "neutralize the terrorist." Anger that the editors chose to use a shot of
a Palestinian child playing with a toy gun, when seconds before the video shows
the outcome of a gun happy Israeli society, three or four men pointing their guns
into the cab of the bulldozer, then shooting the driver until he's deader than dead,
as the bulldozer sits there, still. Look at those Palestinians, glorifying violence. Ignore
the Israeli media, glorifying violence.

But anger, most of all, at the seeming disbelief on behalf of those interviewed, that
those dastardly Arabs are so devious as to use construction equipment for a weapon.

And I am sorry for being angry.

But 18,000.

That is how many Palestinian homes have been destroyed by bulldozers since 1967
(this doesn't include all of the villages that were demolished in 1948).

18,000. Many of them holding 6 or 7 families.

18,000.

And so a government and a society that is perfectly willing to use bulldozers as a weapon,
to destroy orange and olive groves, homes, entrances and exits to villages, livelihoods,
neighborhoods, all in the name of 'security,' reacts with shock and outrage when a bulldozer
is used as a weapon against them.

18,000.

I wonder what the reaction would be if the Palestinians in the home I saw demolished in
the village of At-tur had responded to the bulldozers bearing down on their home in
the same way as this macho settler, so happy to be the one who had 'neutralized the
terrorist,' did. If they had simply shot the bulldozer drivers instead of standing, stunned,
helpless.

If they had 'neutralized the terrorists.'

And that is exactly what a home demolition is. It is terrorism. It is a means of violent,
public intimidation for a specific demographic and political goal. It is meant to rid
"contested areas"--East Jerusalem, parts of the West Bank near settlements or near
checkpoints or near borders, places where Palestinians should be able to live and
work and raise their children and play and dance and sing--of Palestinians. It is one part
of an ongoing, slow, patient strategy of ethnic cleansing.

Immediately after this and the previous bulldozer attack, Israeli government officials
fell over themselves to use the right language paradigms and to justify revenge.
"Neutralize the terrorist." "Raze his house." "Take away the ID cards and citizenship
of his family."

DEPORT HIS FAMILY? DESTROY THE HOUSE OF THE FAMILY OF A CRIMINAL???

THIS is the response of the "only democracy in the Middle East"? Of the "most moral
army in the world?"

Terrorism. Ethnic cleansing.


And nobody sees it. Nobody sees the connection between 18,000 homes destroyed by
bulldozers--most of them, like the one I witnessed, not as retribution for anything other
than being Arab and Palestinian and in the wrong place--and the bulldozer used as a
weapon. And in fact, the government is eager to perpetuate the cycle by sending
bulldozers to destroy the home of the drivers' families, in a practice that was previously
banned in the West Bank because of the retributive violence it inspired. Nobody sees
the connection.

So by all means, gun-toting defenders of liberty, freedom, and Western ethnocratic
values. Neutralize the terrorists. In fact, specifically neutralize the bulldozer driving
terrorists. But start with yourselves first. Neutralize the terrorists who crash, again
and again, year after year, into the houses of Palestinians whose crime is being
Palestinian. Neutralize the terrorists who rip up olive trees that have been here
for centuries, much longer than the current rulers of this place. Neutralize the
terrorists who shoot protesters, who strafe and shell neighborhoods, who
suggest deportation and destruction aimed at the families of criminals as long as
those criminals speak Arabic and have brown skin. Neutralize the terrorism of
racism and ethnocracy.

"It's just one more reminder why we have to work diligently, urgently and in a
unified way to defeat terrorism," Barak Obama said after landing at Ben Gurion airport
(named for one of the premier ethnic cleansers--read Ilan Pappe's book for more information
on Ben Gurion's role in the destruction of Palestinian homes, the creation of refugees,
the terrorism and ethnic cleansing of hundres and thousands of Arabs). "There are no excuses."

Yes, Obama. By all means. Let's fight terrorism.

But it is your choice. Do we fight the terrorism of an individual, backed by no political party
or organization, a disturbed individual on a stupid, ineffective, tragic rampage?

Or the terrorism of a policy of destruction and intimidation perpetrated by a government
that we support, the government who Obama said ought to be able to claim Jerusalem
as its eternal undivided capital, which involves exactly the sort of cleansing of the
indigenous Arab population that house demolitions are such an important part of?

I know which one you will choose, you coward.


You will lend your cheap condemnation to the chorus of condemning voices, while not
lifting ONE FINGER to stop the destruction of more Palestinian homes, the confiscation
of more Palestinian land, the intimidation and humiliation of more Palestinian children,
the growth of more illegal settlements, the siege of more Palestinian towns and cities.
In the face of that, you will offer your excuses.

And what will your condemnation win? Will it reassure the families of those who have
been wounded or killed? Will it lead to less violence? Will it encourage justice or
peace or reconciliation?

No. Of course not. It will win you votes.


But let other news this week serve as a warning to all the state terrorists out there,
smug in your euphemistic lingustic dance, in your neutralizing and your razing.

"Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 war and
genocide in Bosnia, was arrested in Serbia on two charges of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and for
orchestrating the 1995 massacre  of thousands at Srebrenica."

Hide all you want. Hide behind the lingustic framework that allows you to do whatever
you want in the name of security and fighting terrorism. Pretend you are a healer,
just as Karadzic did (he disguised himself as a practicioner of herbal medicine). Grow
a long beard to cover your face.

But whether in the next ten years or the next era, justice will be done. And the families
whose homes you demolished, whose fathers and sons and daughters you killed and
terrorized, whose livelihoods you destroyed--you will see their faces.

And I pray for you, that the voice you hear then will be a quiet voice, coming from a love
deeper than we can possibly imagine, saying to you: "Father, forgive them. They know
not what they do."

You know what you are doing. You know it very well. But you don't know it deeply,
in the same way the Roman centurions didn't know it deeply. They thought they
knew what they were doing. But they didn't know that with each death-dealing
decision by the state, we are trying to kill Love.



Love will not be killed.



Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, savior, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Work this week=BLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Ah. Feel better already.

And here's an article from the International Herald Tribune discussing U.S.
war crimes in the Korean War.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/21/asia/incheon.php


In a world where civilians are seen as targets and "security" justifies
anything from stopping people at checkpoints to dropping napalm on their
houses, how could there ever be anything called a "just war"?

On Friday I had the pleasure of travelling with a group of Palestinian Christians from Jerusalem to the 2nd Birzeit Heritage Festival. Birzeit is a town outside of Ramallah. As with many of the towns and villages in the Ramallah district (including Ramallah itself), Birzeit is historically a Christian town, and the population is now about half Muslim and half Christian. Birzeit is also home to one of the best universities in Palestine.

For the second year in a row, the residents of Birzeit have organized a festival to highlight the rich cultural heritage of the region and of the town. The festival takes place in the old city section of Birzeit, and lovely old homes which date back hundreds of years are transformed into art galleries, exhibition areas, handicraft shops, music venues, and food shops.

There was a plethora of performances, events, and booths to visit. I saw Palestinian art, bought an embroidered cover for my Bible, listened to five young men perform percussion pieces (sweet alliteration, batman!) on water tanks, olive oil drums, and other scavenged instruments, listened to the hip hop group Dam (from Akka, or Acre, in the north of Israel, which is still predominantly an Arab Palestinian city) in the yard of the Catholic church, and more.

The whole time I was accompanied by Lina, a volunteer at Sabeel, who was nice enough to show me around and teach me a few Arabic words as well. I also ran into a friend from Hebron, a shopowner who is a relative of my jailed friend Mousa.

All in all it was a great experience, and a wonderful reminder that the people of Palestine are more than just objects of oppression. The creative swirl of dance, music, art--that power of creation--continues to empower and inspire even in the midst of occupation and injustice. The people of this land are rooted deep, deep like the olive trees after which Birzeit is named. Creation, and even just the simple act of living, is a form of resistance here. The truest form of resistance, in fact--when in the face of that which attempts to darken and destory, people continue to have life, and to have it abundantly.

                                                                     ------------

On the way back home, our bus passed through Hizma, where a soldier and a heavily armed private security force agent got on the bus and checked everyone's IDs. The private security guy was either a Druze or an Arab Israeli--he spoke Arabic fluently, but man was he pissed. I wonder if he was trying to prove his loyalty or if he was feeling the stress of the tension between so many different identities, the feelings of betrayal and guilt of being part of the oppression of his own people. Who knows. He was especially mad at us internationals, asked us questions about our visas and ripped mine (mine being a pseudo-visa...), which elicted an angry response from me. So, out of a bus of 50 Palestinians, it was me who got pulled off and had to stand outside while my passport number was entered into the computer and a quick check was run on my name and visa number. When I got back on the bus, everyone else applauded.

In the midst of one of the most surreal situations in the world today, it amazes me that people keep their hope, their yearning to create, their sense of humor. Laughter, dance, song. Painting, sewing. Creating.


In the face of so much death, Palestine is still the land that smiles. Even when it weeps.

In the face of so much death, Palestinians remain determined to have life, and to have it abundantly.

In the face of so much nothingness, Palestine is.


"To exist is to resist" reads the graffiti on the wall. And indeed, to be, to live, is the most effective retort imaginable against that which tries to trick us into thinking that we have ceased to live.

I don't usually mess with these survey things, but this particular one was
so clever that I decided to give it a shot. For added challenge I picked
a band with totally obscure song titles...

I stole this one from my wonderful friend Liz, who is fighting the good fight
in Hong Kong: http://papilio588.wordpress.com/

Describe yourself using ONE BAND/SINGER and only SONG TITLES from that
band/singer.

Band :: mewithoutYou
Are you male or female :: Gentlemen
Describe yourself :: the Dryness and the Rain
How do some people feel about you :: The Soviet
How do you feel about yourself :: Messes of Men
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend :: My Exit, Unfair
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend :: Torches Together
Describe where you want to be :: in a Sweater Poorly Knit
Describe what you want to be :: The Cure For Pain
Describe how you live :: I Never Said That I Was Brave
Describe how you love :: a Glass Can Only Spill What it Contains
Share a few words of wisdom :: We Know Who Our Enemies Are


Coming up--a post about a great trip to the 2nd Birzeit Heritage Festival,
and my near arrest! Ok, not really, but something like that...


"Why burn so poor and lonely?"--mwY

I've been in the process of moving these past two weekends, out of the guesthouse on the Mount of Olives and down into the valley to Wadi al Joz. I'm moving in with a South African fellow named David and will be joined in a few weeks by a volunteer from the Mennonite Central Committee named Peter. Hope it works out!

Anyway, in the midst of packing and moving I've rediscovered some old journals. I took the time to read back through the one I kept during most of college. I was surprised to find some pretty amazing stuff in there--not amazing in the sense of it being good literature or good poetry or anything, but just still relevant to me and my day to day struggle with life and all that it entails.

One poem in particular jumped out at me, I wrote it just after the graduation of the class ahead of me in college in 2006. A lot of my close friends were leaving, out to do exciting, new things, new adventures, new venues. And I wrote about this recurring situation in my life where I just fall absolutely in love with people who are leaving. I don't necessarily mean in any sort of romantic sense, although I'm sure there was plenty of that too, but just in a general human sense. 

So, as this week we had yet another good-bye on the Mount of Olives, I thought I'd post this poem. It's a bit silly and pretentious, like most things I write, but there are some ideas in there that, if leave room for them, might actually manifest themselves as something beautiful and true.

And that's what we keep hoping for, I think.


I am always falling in love with people who are leaving me

one thing they agree on, all these writings, all these words
   is that there is no such thing as leaving
just changing--from one life to another
  from Son to Spirit--from wheat to grain--from here
    in body to hear in heart
so--this is my prayer, now
    that i fall in love with people who are leaving
  not only because i love adventure--and the look of it in
    their eyes (though that too)
  not only because there's something dramatic about 
    saying good-bye (though, with my pride, it's that too)
  not only because there's something so eternally poignant
    about good-byes
      and receding backs
but because when I can fall in love with what's left
   when a Friend leaves
then maybe i am beginning to fall in love
   with Love itself.
that is what i pray.

   That I always fall in love with people who are leaving

   because I am in love with that which arrives and arrives.

And arrives.

                

            Amen.

The promised update ended up being written as an update to send to supporters back home first, so you're getting that version. If I'm feeling particularly inspired maybe I'll write some more reflections about it here, but then again, knowing me, maybe not. It came out a bit heavier than I had originally intended, but there's a lot of heavy stuff going on here. I am trying to do better with the looking for the light bit, though. 

As Rumi says, I need more grace than I thought.  

 

Dear Friends,

 

Greetings and peace to you from Jerusalem .

 

I wanted to write to you specifically to share a story of a trip I took this weekend. I traveled with a group from our weekly Wednesday night volleyball group to the village of Jayyous in order to play against—I promise I’m not joking—the Palestinian championship team. Seriously. The Jayyous volleyball team had just won a Palestinian championship and had also been able to compete regionally in a tournament in Libya .

 

So our motley crew went to take on the best volleyball team in Palestine . They went easy on us, and we managed to hold our own enough to lose in a relatively unembarrassing fashion. Well, it was a little embarrassing.

 

The normality of the situation was what makes it stand out the most in my mind. Here we were, participating in what is—at least in my church upbringing—one of the most normal fellowship activities in existence, a game of volleyball. Sure, we were in the West Bank . Sure, I was talking to kids in my broken Arabic instead of chatting by the chip bowl in English. And sure, we were playing the national champions. But volleyball is volleyball, and there was something refreshingly fun and normal about this trip to the West Bank . Even the air felt familiar—a mere 20 kilometers, if that, from the beaches of Tel Aviv, the air in Jayyous is thick with humidity, just like home (and quite unlike dry Jerusalem !)

 

But underneath the fun and the friendship, there is sadness to this story. Jayyous is a deeply isolated village, and it was evident by how many people came out to see their championship team beat a bunch of poseurs from Jerusalem just how cut off Jayyous has become. It should be a quick 20 minute drive to the beach from Jayyous, a quick trip to the nearest city of Qalqilya, a brisk walk out to the olive groves and other agricultural land that have sustained the people of Jayyous for generations.

 

But cutting across the land of Jayyous, cutting it off from the sea and from the rest of the West Bank, is an apartheid wall, built and maintained by the Israeli military—a key aspect of the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian ‘territories.’

 

As in most rural areas, the Wall in Jayyous consists of two large fences, equipped with electronic sensors, military watchtowers, and roll after roll of barbed wire. Between the fences is a military patrol road. Red signs warn, in three languages, that entering between the fences is a quick way to get shot. The Wall cuts the people of Jayyous off from 13,900 square kilometers of their agricultural land. In order to farm their land, residents of Jayyous have to apply for a permit from the Israeli military, a permit which is rarely granted and even more rarely respected. The last time I was in Jayyous I spoke to a woman who had a permit. She had been sitting at the yellow agricultural gate through the Wall, waiting to be let in, for four hours. Military jeeps drove by, but none stopped to open the gate.

 

And so there was an element of tragedy in the overall comedic episode of Mount of Olives Ragtag Volleyball Team vs. Palestinian National Champions. The excitement that anyone was coming to visit Jayyous, the stories of how difficult it was for the members of the volleyball team to get permits to compete in other areas of the West Bank, much less outside of the country, the realization that most of the children talking to us had never seen either the sea or Jerusalem despite their proximity to both, tell a larger story of the physical and psychological siege of yet another village on the West Bank.

 

The route of the Wall through the West Bank has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice, in a case that was decided four years ago this past Wednesday: July 9, 2004. (The full text of the ruling is available at http://stopthewall.org/internationallaw/639.shtml). But the Israeli government has ignored the ruling, and even in cases where the Israeli court has ruled against a particular part of the route of the Wall, the military has refused to dismantle it or move it.

 

But what can the people of Jayyous do? They could take a cue from other villages that have protested the route of the Wall, such as the village of Bil’in , which holds a weekly demonstration against the Wall and the Israeli settlements being built on their land. I was in Bil’in on July 4, and when our group of international, Israeli, and Palestinian activists approached the Wall, we were chased away with sound grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets. (By the way, if you haven’t been tear gassed….don’t be. It’s no fun.)

 

Or they stay in Jayyous, surrounded by a Wall not of their own making, cut off from the rest of the world. A world that stays silent. That allows a Wall that divides human from human, child of God from child of God, farmer from field, and the people of Jayyous from peace and justice, to continue being built despite its illegality and its destructive effects.

 

And I wonder what role this dilemma plays in their championship volleyball team. Is it any wonder that an activity that gives you such a sense of control and power would be popular? And that this activity would involve athletic leaps, precious seconds in the air? Perhaps I am imagining things. But perhaps there is something vitally important to the people of Jayyous in being able to dream of leaping, of soaring, of flying. Over the Wall. Over their land. Over the siege. Over the settlements. Over the army. And being able to powerfully drive home some sort of point.

 

There is just something different about volleyball in Jayyous, where one has every reason to dream of flying.

 

 

 

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

 

Here are just 4 ideas!

 

1)      Continue praying for peace in this land. Pray for Palestinians and Israelis, that they may find justice, peace, and reconciliation. Pray for Palestinian Christians, who have been isolated and pushed to emigrate by the political and economic situation. Pray for those working for justice and peace in Palestine and Israel .

 

2)      Learn about the Apartheid Wall. Read the ICJ ruling against the wall and the resources produced by the United Nations (www.ochaopt.org, under the heading “West Bank Barrier”) and the Stop the Wall campaign (http://stopthewall.org). Consider holding an educational event about the Wall. Some groups have build replica walls to show the intimidating height and divisive character of this structure. Others have included walls in their nativity scenes to emphasize the fact that Bethlehem , the city of Jesus ’ birth, is now an open air prison, surrounded by the Wall.

 

3)      Support efforts to divest from the Occupation in your local church, your denomination, and other organizations and institutions you are a part of. For information on divestment in a United Methodist context, see www.unitedmethodistdivestment.com. Also, see www.investinpeace.org to see the widespread support for divestment campaigns.

 

4)      Support grassroots peacemaking efforts in Palestine and Israel . Consider giving to a local organization working for justice and peace, such as Sabeel (contact me for more information). Or write to Mousa Abu Maria, a Palestinian peace activist and nonviolence organizer who was taken from his home in the middle of the night and is now being held without charges in an Israeli jail. Here is his address, if you are interested in writing to him with words of encouragement and support:

 

Mousa Abdel Hamid Ahmed Abu Maria
Ktziot Prison
p.o

box 13

84102
Israel

 

       Short letters or notes in English are the best!

To take a page from a friend's blog (http://livingbetweenworlds.blogspot.com/),
I'm going to go ahead and let you know that I have a post coming soon.
Tomorrow, hopefully. I'm tired tonight, what with the epic journey to play
volleyball against the best team in Palestine.

No joke.

Anyway, if I have a chance tomorrow, I'll get the post off, but I didn't want to
leave you, my stalwart reader--whoever you might be--with such a solemn
ending when there is this much hilarity in the works.

So, don't hold your breath. But maybe draw it out a little.

Because a new post is on the way.