City of...

The long awaited post....

...if you haven't read the two previous posts about the orphanages in Hebron, please read them first. They are way more important than these scattered thoughts.


Last Friday, my walk to work was interrupted by the thundering passage of four Blackhawk helicopters flying in tight formation over the Hebrew University/Hadassah Hospital campus. They were painted in camouflage colors, which I always think is strange--shouldn't they be painted sky blue, or gray like clouds?

They roared overhead. When they are close, you can hear the thump thump thump of the individual blades. If Dan were here, he'd be able to explain why that's the case, why they roar up to you and then thump when they're just on top of you.

Some of my friends probably think it's strange when I think in scripture. I'm an anachronism, I suppose--I'm hopelessly behind the times. But still, I thought: "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be afraid."

And I thought of the service at Sabeel the day before, talking about the women in Mark's gospel coming to the tomb in the early light of the first day of the week. And being told, "Do not be afraid."

My translation reads, "Do not be alarmed," in both cases. Do not be alarmed.


Karen Thomas Smith, who was my pastor while I was in Morocco and continues to be the pastor of a wonderful and loving church there, recently posted her Easter sermon on Facebook. I don't know how links to that site work, but I'll try it anyway:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=15409115855
Anyway, her sermon was called "Choosing sides: Powerlessness versus steel." She spoke of the women, considered 'powerless' by their society, going to the tomb, unarmed, afraid, to find armed soldiers there. Yet in Mark's Gospel, it is the soldiers that fall, deathly afraid. Powerlessness versus steel.  

And that is a contrast that manifests itself in very direct ways here in Jerusalem and in the West Bank.

On Friday, I went and heard Rachel Corrie's parents speak at the Friends Meeting House in Ramallah. (If you don't know about Rachel, you can try http://www.rachelcorrie.org/). They told simple stories about Rachel, they read some of her emails, and they talked about going to visit the elementary school where she went to school. One child asked, "The people who ran her over, they've told you they were sorry, right?"

Powerlessness versus steel. Do not be afraid.

On Saturday, I visited my friend Mousa in Beit Omar. If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you know his name. He was my friend with the Palestine Solidarity Project who was hit in the head by shrapnel when the Israeli army invaded his village during a funeral (http://hoseyblog.blog.com/2584485/). By the time Mousa was my age he had already spent time in jail for his resistance to the Occupation; he has spent a total of five years in Israeli army prisons. He told me about his dream of having a nonviolence center in Beit Omar, to teach all of his people about the methods and philosophy of nonviolence. He talks of his hopes of attracting more internationals to Beit Omar, to meet his people and eat with them and farm with them and drink tea with them and laugh with them. He says one old man in the village looked at him recently and told him, "You have brought a change here. You have brought down walls." I can't imagine how someone comes out of prison and instead of being just angry and broken, says, "I will respond--but not with hate." 

Powerlessness versus steel. Do not be afraid.

Maybe this week I will go to Hebron. Tonight, others went. Perhaps they felt excited, or afraid, or alarmed. I know that I am certainly afraid, and alarmed--a message to me, to turn this over to prayer. Pray with my thoughts. Pray with my feet. And of course, the people there, the orphans, the teachers--for them, it is no choice. Not whether to go or not, but simply: "We will stay." Samoud. Steadfastness. We will stay. Come closure orders, come threats, come violence from settlers, come the army--we will stay.

Powerlessness versus steel. Do not be afraid.

If we were not afraid, completely not afraid, it would mean we were crazy, or that we weren't doing anything, weren't doing anything that would require fear. But we are called to. We need the angel there, we need Jesus there, telling us not to be afraid. Because the helicopters are scary. The tear gas is scary. The soldiers are scary. The guns are scary. The occupation is scary. It is all so frightening.

Powerlessness versus steel. Do not be afraid.



On the way back from Beit Omar, I spoke to a young university student on the bus. He asked me if I was afraid of Arabs. I laughed and told him of walking into Beit Omar, and wondering if people would mistake me for a settler. A Palestinian farmer, passing on a tractor, smiled and waved at me. 

He told me that the Palestinians don't have any choice to be afraid. He taught me a word, which I will mess up in transliteration: khaf. Bakhaif--I am afraid.  Bakhaifsh--I am not afraid. "We are not afraid," he told me. "Americans and Israelis, you have guns, you have bombs, you have gas and machines. We have land and rocks and bodies. But we are not afraid."

Bakhaifsh. I am not afraid.

We choose powerlessness versus steel. And we are not afraid.  



We would be foolish not to be afraid. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." 1 Corinthians 27

"There God broke the flashing arrows, the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war." Psalm 76:3

"A government is not saved by its strong army, a soldier is not delivered by his great strength. The attack helicopter and the tank are a vain hope for vicotry, and by their great might they cannot save." Psalm 33:16-17



We would be foolish not to be afraid. We are, I am sure, afraid. The phrase I use to describe myself, to be blunt, is "scared shitless."

But we believe in a power of powerlessness that tells us, quietly, with great assurance: Be foolish. Do not be afraid.

Just an update on what I posted last time:

There is currently an appeal in the Israeli 'civil' court in the Occupied Territories to revoke the closure order on the Islamic Charitable Society institutions. People in Hebron waited all day today, hoping that the appeal would go through, and fearing that it would be turned down. Neither happened--the court remained silent, and so the people affected by these closure orders remained in the dark about their future.

I did not travel to Hebron tonight, but my friends Hanna (who works with me at Sabeel) and Rachelle did, as did their friend Joel. They will join locals, CPTers, and other internationals to sleep at two of the school/orphanages threatened with closure. We are all hoping that they will spend a boring and slightly uncomfortable night there and that the appeal will go through tomorrow. However, if something does happen, they will be there to try to deter violence, keep the army out of the buildings, and witness any incidents that might occur.

If the court continues to remain silent or refuses the appeal, people will continue sleeping in the orphanages on subsequent nights. If that is the case, I plan on going for at least one night to contribute a small piece to the effort. It won't be much, and it certainly won't do much to solve the situation as a whole, but it's what we can do, a little way of staying human among all of this mess.

I hope and pray that this won't be necessary. I hope and pray that it is a boring night, that the orphanages will remain open, that the court will decide at bare minimum that this makes no sense. I'll take it, even if it's not a moral decision, even if they decide that it would be too much of a security issue to turn all these children out on the street. Of course, I'll pray for a softening of the hearts, but I'll take a judge warn out by so many patient widows...

Again, I've been working on and off on a post, but I think that this situation has sort of taken over my brain, and I think it's really important that people know about it. In the States, you are probably hearing about Rice securing promises from the Israelis and the Palestinians that steps will be taken towards real peace. Not to be cynical, but the people here have heard this before. Checkpoints and road blocks have increased since Annapolis, and I have no doubt that the next wave of "removed checkpoints" will be exactly what they were before--checkpoints moved, dirt mounds removed and then rebuilt in a different place, checkpoints that never existed that are recorded as dismantled, an increase in non-permanent, impromptu, "flying" checkpoints for a while until permanent structures can be rebuilt, an incited incident that will give justification for more restrictions, etc., etc.

Meanwhile, the children of the orphanage wait.

They wait for an extrapersonal force of violence and oppression to decide their fate.

I put my trust that there is a deeper force, a more basic force, a bigger force, that isn't always obvious, but is nevertheless there, tugging at our hearts, calling us to make the steps necessary to grow justice, and peace, and hope, and reconciliation, and healing.

It is a foolish trust, this faith.

It's all I've got.

I have been working on a new post, but have had various computer/writer's block problems. I should actually have posted this a day ago or so, but this is an update from CPT about the Israeli army issuing closure orders on orphanages in Hebron.

Tomorrow I will be calling the CPT office in Hebron to see if it would be at all helpful to have other internationals present this Tuesday when there is a possibility that the army will come in to force the orphanages to close. If they say yes, I'm going, because right now I'm not sure how else I can stay human.



CPTnet
29 March 2008
HEBRON: Sunday, 31 March 2008, Day of Prayer for Hebron's orphans

Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron is calling for Christians around the world to make Sunday, 30 March a day of prayer for the orphans of Hebron. On 25 February 2008, the Israeli army raided all of the buildings and institutions funded by Islamic Charities and gave orphanages and boarding schools until 1 April to evacuate students. On 6 March 2008, the Israeli army again stormed storage buildings of Islamic Charities, confiscating food, children's clothing, and kitchen appliances used to prepare meals for the orphans. These centers house, feed and educate 6000 children in Hebron.

Christian Peacemaker Teams will visit the orphanages and will resist the forced expulsion of children if the Israeli army carries out the order.

Pray for the children of Hebron and for all of those affected by the actions of the Israeli army. Pray that the Israeli civil administration will rescind the order.

To learn more about the Israeli army confiscations from Islamic Charities here are links to recent articles:

Gideon Levy, " Twilight Zone / When charity ends at home"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=964067&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14
 
Khalid Amayreh, "Palestinian Orphans protest after their facilities are raided by Israeli troops" http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/palestinian-orphans-protest-after-their-facilities-are-raided-

Oakland Ross, "Hunkering down in Hebron"
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/350060
 
----------------------------------------------
CPT's MISSION: "Getting in the Way." What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict.

I get the chance to spend Good Friday in Jerusalem, perhaps walking the way of the cross that, tradition holds, Jesus would have walked to his death, and what do I do?

I go to Bil'in.

I should probably tell you that the reason that I didn't walk the way of the cross has nothing to do with the tradition itself, or to a worry that I would be comparing the traditional way of the cross to the contemporary way of the cross--the Palestinian Via Dolorosa--that we lead at Sabeel. The reason that I didn't walk the way of the cross is because it started at 6am, and I slept through it. And that's that.

But later, I went to Bil'in. I travelled with Eric, who I met in Turkey; Dick Toll, the head of Friends of Sabeel North America; Bishop Tom Gumbleton, the founder of Pax Christi; Linda, who headed the SOA Watch office in Philly for a while and now travels with Bishop Gumbleton doing photography in places like Afghanistan and Iraq; Meta, my coworker at Sabeel; and her friend Jannike.

Bil'in is a village north of Ramallah, in the West Bank. (http://www.bilin-village.org/) Every Friday for three years, the villagers have been holding weekly demonstrations against the route of the apartheid Wall, which seperates them from much of their land. The Israeli High Court actually ruled in favor of the village, but--as often happens--the military has overruled that ruling and have not changed the course of the wall. (In Bil'in, as in many rural area, the wall is more of a fence, an electronic fence with a military road and locked gates which takes up more land than a wall would and alerts the military anytime someone tries to cross. It is the same technology that is being used along the southern border of the U.S.) And so the villagers, led by the Bil'in Popular Committee and accompanied by Israeli activists and internationals, demonstrate every Friday--patient widows, demanding justice be done.

This Friday, it was a small group--less than a hundred people. Some weeks there are hundreds, or even thousands. We walked in a group to where the Wall cuts through the land--right through groves of olive trees and almond trees that the people of this land have harvested for generations. It was difficult to confront the Israeli army, which stayed on the other side of the barrier. Villagers yelled across the gap; they pulled barbed wire off of the closed agricultural gate and forced it open. Eventually, the Israeli army started firing tear gas and rubber bullets at us, and we moved back into the trees. For Bil'in, it was quite tame.

I admit that I felt more like a bystander than a participant. I walked with them, took pictures, and helped pull open the agricultural gate. I stood panting in the hot sun next to the Palestinian with whom I had opened the gate. It seemed a futile action--beyond the gate is the electronic fence, and the Israelis have shot people with live ammunition for daring to venture past that gate once it is opened. But it seemed a human thing to do, and a way of declaring an open way when there is nothing in sight but barriers.

And of course, just like Simon forced to carry the cross of Jesus, when you're a bystander to crucifixion, you don't stay that way for long.

So I was on the edge of a few of the tear gas canisters that were fired. And I covered my mouth and nose with a scarf, and rubbed onions under my eyes, which the Palestinians say helps. And my eyes watered and I coughed up phlegm, and then went back to gather again. And I heard the wide open echo of the guns being fired, and the zing of the richochets. It's always so much louder, so much bigger, than I think it will be. And I ducked, and stood by trees, and waited.


It seems so futile, and at the same time so important. And I don't pretend to glorify or bless everything that happens at Bil'in. The three of four kids throwing stones with sling shots ("Those things are biblical!" Eric said) seem to be exorcising their own anger, and it's hard to be surprised when the soldiers return fire with rubber bullets, and of course it's a medic who gets hit. And I wonder what good that does. But of course, what good does any of it do, other than to say Yes, we are here, Yes, we have a claim to life and life abundantly, Yes, this wall is wrong, Yes, this Occupation is wicked.

And I wonder about the stories of those not-so-distant soldiers, and what they think of us, these tenacious David's up against a Goliath that thinks of itself as a David.

The sun beat down and the dust, and the sounds and the smells are impossible to put into words--like a dream, like a frozen moment in time, with that eternal sun and the olive trees with their thousands of years of roots, and those soldiers standing by the barrier--like part of some eternal drama, played out under this hot sun again and again and again. It was like I wasn't there, like I was somewhere else; it was like I was more there than I ever am, in a normal day at the office.


There are lots of questions that are still wandering through the desert of my mind. Like, what would effective protest mean in this lopsided situation? And what does someone who is committed to nonviolence from a faith perspective do when a demonstration doesn't fit in my own definition of nonviolence? Do I stop going? Do I judge or condemn? Do I continue to stand in solidarity with the people, and see a distinction between that and blessing tactics which I question?

I don't know if I have any answers, but Good Friday isn't about answers. Neither, for that matter, is today. Friday is about questions, and about imperfect decisions made in the forge of violence and oppression. And Saturday is for waiting to see, and hoping beyond hope that there is something beyond this, a victory that is so unlike what we imagine it to be--so far beyond anything we can imagine.

I don't have any answers. But I know that from now on, Good Friday will always carry with it the faint smell of Bil'in--of tear gas, and sweat, and dirt, and onions.

Here is an update I sent out to my church...complete with apology for lack of updates!


Dear Friends,
 
I apologize for the lack of updates over this past month. I would love to say that the reason behind this is that I have been extremely busy, which I have been--helping with a 90 person group of United Methodists and a 30 person Sabeel Witness Visit trip, speaking to groups, working on a Sabeel publication, and recently traveling to Turkey to renew my visa (more on this later). However, I have to be honest and admit that the real reason for me not writing over these past few months has been my deep level of frustration and a general inability to communicate about the situation here. It has been hard for me to write honestly without coming off as just angry, and that is not fair to you or to my community here. But before I tell you about that, a quick update on my current situation.
 
I spent an amazing week in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul. I visited some friends that I studied with at Washington College and also spent some time hanging out with two of my co-volunteers, two young women from Sweden who live in Beit Jalla and were also taking a visa trip. I also took a trip to Ephesus and Pamukkale, which was really a wonderful experience. I stood in the ruins of the massive auditorium in Ephesus and imagined what it must have been like for the early disciples to face a screaming crowd there (Acts 19). Then, as now, being a disciple of Christ often meant challenging exploitative and idolatrous economic arrangements, much to the anger and discomfort of those profiting from such arrangements! On a hill above the city stands the ruins of a Roman prison, which must have loomed in the back of the disciple's minds as they stood up to the Powers in this ancient city. It was amazing to stand in the place where there existed a community struggling to embody Paul's words to them, to live Christ as the one who is our peace, who breaks down all of the dividing walls between us and within us (Eph 2:14).
 
Pamukkale was beautiful, and another testament to the ability of natural beauty to outlast empires--the amazing limestone terraces and mountains of this place have long outlived the ruined city of Hieropolis. In Istanbul, too, I went to the Hagia Sophia, once a massive Byzantine church with one door that only the emperor was allowed to enter, then a mosque, now a museum. Empires fade and become irrelevant--it is God who is steadfast.
 
Unfortunately, upon returning to Jerusalem via Tel Aviv airport, I was not given a three month visa but rather a one month restricted visa. I'm still not sure what is going to come of this, whether I'll be able to get it extended or whether I will have to leave again in April and try to come back in. If I do leave and try to come back in, and again run into trouble with my visa, this might mean a premature trip back to the States, which--as great as it would be to see many of you--would be frustrating and discouraging for me. Please pray for me that I will have wisdom in this decision and that no matter what happens that I will be able to discern what God is calling me to do.
 
 
As far as the situation here goes, things are very difficult at this moment. It has been frustrating to experience the situation on the ground on the one hand, and to see it portrayed on the international news on the other hand. In this past month I have witnessed whole towns shut down in mourning for the over 100 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in Gaza in the span of a week. I have seen soldiers shooting pressure grenades and tear gas at school kids whose weapons are rocks and impotent anger. I have seen tensions between communities flare in "road rage" incidents and shouting matches. But in the news, I see the Palestinians portrayed as terrorists. I see the UN security council criticize the murderous actions of an individual who killed young Jewish students at a yeshiva in Jerusalem; I see the same security council refuse to criticize the killing of civilians, including children, in Gaza by the most powerful military force in this region. I see criticism of occupation, racism, house demolition, and militarization portrayed as anti-Semitic, while caricatures of Muslims and of Palestinians are allowed to dominate the daily news. I have seen all of this, and I have felt a deep sinking in my heart.
 
Here at Sabeel, we denounce all acts of violence, especially those committed against civilians. We denounce rocket attacks and school shootings, suicide bombings and drive-by assassinations. But there is no symmetry here, no symmetry in boys with guns against boys with rocks, Black Hawk helicopters against home made rockets. We call for an end to violence, yes; but just as importantly, we call for justice in a situation of deep injustice. It is Palestinian farmers whose land is taken by settlement expansion and the Wall who are suffering. It is Palestinians who stand in line for hours at checkpoints, who require permits sometimes just to leave their villages. It is Palestinians who are denied access to roads through the West Bank, roads built on their land that they do not have the correct ethnic heritage or ID color to use. Don't misunderstand me--every death here, every life lost, whether Israeli or Palestinian, Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Druze, is a tragedy. The boys who were killed in that seminary, the child who lost his leg in a rocket attack--these are tragedies, things that make our God of life weep. We must mourn these tragedies. But we must also be willing to stand on the side of those who are oppressed, those who are marginalized, those who are crushed by the gods of demographics, of land grabs, of the 'national security.'
 
I hope that you will forgive my anger, my impatience, and my frustration. These are not easy issues to speak about, and not easy feelings to communicate. But as followers of Jesus--a homeless rabbi, a rabblerouser, a 'loser' who we paradoxically proclaim to be Lord--we are not always called into comfort, but into situations of injustice, frustration, and alienation. Please pray for me that I may be a bearer of good news here, that I may discern what it means to witness to good news in refugee camps and cities under siege, and that I may be open to the amazing ways in which the realm of God's love and justice and peace manifest themselves here--in the simple acts of hospitality and community, in the choice of so many to seek nonviolently for justice, healing, and peace, and in the steadfastness of so many unsung heroes.
 
I am attaching Sabeel's statement on the situation in Gaza, for those who are interested. And I want to end this with the words of one of our Sabeel board members, human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab. He reminds me of the importance of the good news of Easter in the face of the seeming triumph of death:
 
"The Arabic word for Good Friday is jum'a al hazini which means 'Sad Friday.' Sad Friday denotes the situation of Christ on that Friday two thousand years ago: Christ had been humiliated, condemned, and crucified as a criminal. His disciples were all disheartened, scattered to the four winds, and broken in spirit. They had abandoned their Lord and Master, who seemed to have betrayed their hopes of a glorious kingdom which was heralded by his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It represented the depth of despair for the apparent victory of the forces of evil, oppression, and hypocrisy. The Romans, the foreign occupiers, had collaborated with the local political and religious leadership to crush the fresh voice of the prophet from Nazareth. All hope seemed to have been abandoned.
 
Palestinians are living today in the 'Sad Friday' period of their history. Never before did their situation seem as desperate as it is now....Even the most optimistic Palestinian is now feeling a deep sense of depression and despair, as what looked like the beginnings of statehood, freedom, and self-determination, has been turned into an abysmal combination of Bantustans and a silent international community.
 
Yet precisely in this dark hour of despair, the message of Easter needs to be proclaimed again: Christ will not remain in the tomb, nor will evil and oppression have the last word. Christ rose again on the third day with a glorious triumph over the forces of evil and darkness, and over death itself proclaiming to the whole world a new era and the victory of good over evil. The message of Easter, for Palestinians, as well as for the poor and oppressed everywhere, is that God is sovereign in the affairs of this world. No matter how dark things appear on 'Sad Friday,' Easter is coming and with it the promise, hope, and certainty of resurrection, a new beginning, and the victory of life over death."
 
 
May we all be reminded of this hope. It may look like Friday out there. But Sunday is coming.
 
 
With much love and gratitude for all of your support,
 
Your brother in Christ,
David
 
David is serving as a Mission Intern with Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. The Mission Intern program is a three-year young adult program with a focus on justice issues. Mission Interns serve two terms, one internationally and one in the U.S., and work with grassroots or church related organizations with a focus on justice, peace, and constructive social change. David lives in East Jerusalem and works with the Sabeel Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, a grassroots movement among Palestinian Christians that seeks to promote a theology and practice of justice, peace, and reconciliation in Palestine and Israel. For more the Mission Intern program, see http://new.gbgm-umc.org/about/us/mp/missionaries/youngadults/interns/. For more on Sabeel, see www.sabeel.org.



(For Sabeel's Gaza statement, see http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=69)

This is a piece of an email I sent out to my friends and co-crazies in my young adult mission program class. I don't usually share this sort of thing but I figured some people might have heard about some things going on here and want details. I don't have many, but I'll try to keep folks updated about what's going on. I think it's important to note that, although there will be lots of news coverage around this, and although there might (I stress the word might) be a downward spiral in part because of these evens and the situation in Gaza, this is really just a continuation of the day to day situation on the ground here in East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories.

You might have heard that there was a shooting in West Jerusalem tonight (my time). The shooting took place at a right wing yeshiva connected to the radical settler movement. At least one of the people who broke into the yeshiva (Jewish seminary) and started shooting was a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem. The Israeli government/military has already sealed off the entirety of the West Bank, and we are predicting that tomorrow there will be extremely heavy troop presence in East Jerusalem....on Friday. The Muslim day of prayer.
 
This, combined with the situation in Gaza and the way the West Bank has been boiling over the last week, could be really bad. It could lead to a few days of heightened 'security' and troop deployment, and then fade back into the day to day grind of occupation and oppression here, or it could erupt into something uglier. What is frustrating is that I know how this situation will be spun, and I'm already seeing the footage of a few people celebrating in Gaza over this, which of course will play over and over and over again, while the scenes of my Palestinian friends and neighbors and coworkers being harrassed, dispossessed, and occupied will not. Nor will any of the stories of hope, of nonviolent successes, of the simple stories of love and care that keep people's spirits alive in this place. Just footage of emergency vehicles, and a few people celebrating in Gaza. Just footage to confirm people's worst stereotypes about Palestinians, Muslims, anyone other than us....
 
I'm safe, and getting ready to leave the country for visa travel on Saturday (be praying for me, please! I come back into the country early morning Palm Sunday...), but I'm worried about my friends here and about the situation in general. Please keep this place in your prayers (you are probably getting tired of me saying that), and I'll try to keep you updated about what the situation is looking like on the ground.
 




Let us pray for the day when justice and peace will come. Let us pray for the day when we will look in the eyes of our fellow humans and recognize them for what we are. Let us pray for the day when the guns stop firing, the tanks stop shelling, the walls stop dividing. Let us pray to find that day in our lives, now.