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This is an email that my friend Allyn Dhynes of World Vision Jerusalem-Gaza-West Bank, containing his description of the house demolition. Each of us have slightly different details about how we ended up there, but this is probably a better account than I could write, so I thought I would share it.

Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 2:46 AM
Subject: Eye Witness Account of Home Demolition in Jerusalem

The following is an eye witness account of a home demolition that took place behind Augusta Victoria the location of our World Vision office earlier today.  

May 21, 2008  At Tur neighborhood, East Jerusalem

10:30 AM.  That was the exact moment the large jackhammer arm of the three bulldozers penetrated the roof of the Abbassi home.  I had been standing in the morning sun watching this unfold for two hours, unable to do anything but watch and document.  The family of seven had hoped that their appeal process would work.  Their lawyer was in the courts as soon as he had heard about the arrival of approximately 40 Israeli soldiers and police and 20 yellow-vested laborers to take the belongings of the family out of the house earlier that morning.  This is how it is.  Their final hope is a last minute appeal for a stay in the demolition order.  It wasn't to be.  By noon, their house was a pile of reebar and rubble.  

8:30 AM.  I arrived at the home after a phone call from World Vision's Director.  He told me he had seen demolition equipment and soldiers and police going past our office in At Tur.  It is a familiar scene in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank where the Israeli Committee Against House demolitions reports 18,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished over the years.  I brought two Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAPPI) and a friend who works for the Lutheran Church with me to search for the location where a contingent of soldiers, police and workers were gathering.  As we went down the hill from the office, we saw the house being surrounded by people and knew it was the one.  It was abutting up against the eastern wall of the Augusta Victoria Hospital compound on the Mount of Olives, just a few hundred meters from our office and my home.  Right then and for the rest of the morning, I thought about my own daughter and how she might be impacted if it was our home which was about to be demolished in front of our eyes.  

Two years ago the Abbassi family built this home without the necessary permits required by the Israeli authorities who control Eastern Palestinian part of Jerusalem.  At the time, they had been displaced by Israeli settlers from their house in nearby neighborhood, Silwan.  It is costly and extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain permits from the Israeli administration to build houses in East Jerusalem.  They are often denied permits to build.

From 8:30 onwards the international presence did all they could to highlight the issue through diplomatic and humanitarian channels.  The response was one of documenting and compiling another 'statistic'.  The world's apathy to this situation is palpable.

9:55 AM.  A scuffle erupted after shouting was exchanged between a family member and a worker.  Someone had scratched the furniture as they carried it single file from the house to the edge of the property.  Three minutes later the family is escorted to another part of the of the house where they were detained, children included.  Thankfully the children were moved to the neighbors house, but they were not spared anything as they watch through the slats of the neighbors balcony railing.

There are three children in the family, the youngest, a girl, is 7.  She witnessed the whole thing and it broke my heart.  
 

10:35 AM.  There were three gaping holes in the roof of the house made by each of the bulldozers, one Caterpillar and two Hyundai.  I thought out loud that "those are companies I plan to boycott."  

Once again, I thought of my own daughter, and so approached a soldier and asked him if he would allow this to happen to his little sister.  I was indignant and bewildered.  I still can't fathom why a child should ever have to endure this.  This is violence at its root, a misuse of law and bureaucracies and an overt violation of international law.
 

11:25 AM.  It was done.  The girl in braids stood on the rubble of her home and posed for the journalists next to her dusty, yet still-standing, rocking horse.  She didn't say anything.  

That was it.  We filed away from the scene, sunburnt and depressed.
 

Hello friends.

I of course have to apologize, once again, for waiting so long between posts. But 10 and 11 hour work days don't leave a lot of time for blogging, which, by the way, is probably the dumbest verb ever created.

Here are some things that have happened in the past few weeks:

1) Ecumenical service organized by Sabeel and other church related organizations in Jerusalem, at the Church of All Nations in the Garden of Gethsemene. I brought some folks from the Baptist Church, which was fun--one of them asked me whether the kufiyah (Palestinian scarf, that thing that Arafat always had on his head. Other than the death threats) was a church thing, which was fun to answer. Little signs of hope in the midst of darkness.

2) Nakba balloon event. In commemoration of the displacement of some 800,000 Palestinians and the destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages in 1948, activists all over Jerusalem and the West Bank released black balloons, the total adding up to the number of days since May 15, 1948, when what the Palestinians call the Nakba (Arabic for Catastrophe) began. For pictures, see this handy link, which I believe works eve if you don't have Stupidbook

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020517&l=ecc2f&id=47800764

3) House demolition directly behind the Augusta Victoria campus where I live. First that I have seen. Basically, it is nearly impossible for most Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to get permits to build new houses or add on to existing structures. So most construction is illegal and subject to arbitrary demolition. The 'Abassi family had already been chased out of their home in Silwan by radical Israeli settlers, and then had a demolition order issued on their house in At-Tur, basically next door to where I live. With the help of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, they had managed to get two stays of the demolition order in court, but not this time. For not so fun pictures, see:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020524&l=241b3&id=47800764

and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020527&l=88562&id=47800764


It was, without a doubt, the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. The mother and daughters are now living at a relatives house in Silwan; the father and one of the sons have been sleeping on mattress pads next to their demolished house in order to protect the possessions they were able to remove from the house.

4) Also said goodbye to my Swedish commie friends, the two Hanna(h)s as well as Julia and her brother. Sad times, but glad that everyone got home safe and sound without craziness at the airport.

Peace, y'all.

Hopefully I will have a more substantial post available soon. But right now, I am sitting in my office, watching the sunset over Jerusalem. In the foreground, an old Palestinian shepherd watches over his flocks, sometimes standing, sometimes reclining against the hill. He walks leaning on his cane, which is also his shepherd's crook. In the background, three people tend a bonfire. The smoke drifts lazily over the scene.

This can be a mournful place, and a fiercely joyful place, all at the same time. Regardless, and regardless of all of its flaws, it is a place that deserves to be noticed.

It is a place that deserves to be free.

CPTnet
10 May 2008
HEBRON: International NGOs rally to rescue Hebron orphanages

Representatives from CPT, UNICEF, UNOCHA, Save the Children UK, Defense for Children International, the YMCA, Relief International and other human rights organizations met in Hebron on 8 May 2008 to help Hebron’s orphans and students now living with the fear that the Israeli military will close their homes and schools. The representatives selected a core group of Palestinian and International NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organizations) to halt the Israeli attack against Islamic Charitable Society (ICS) orphanages and schools. The core group will also develop programs to ease the anxiety that has been part of the children’s lives since the Israeli military stated its intent to shut down the facilities.

Since issuing closure and confiscation orders against the ICS on 26 February 2008, the Israeli army raided its central warehouse, taking away school buses, clothing, food, stationery, equipment, and other supplies intended to fill the needs of the children and their families. Soldiers have welded shut the gates of the nearly completed $2,000,000 Al-Huda girls’ school, raided and looted bakeries that provided bread to the orphanages and on 1 April, raided the sewing workshop in the girls’ orphanage, carting away sewing and processing machines, fabric, finished garments and office equipment—all of which they brought to the city dump.

Responding to an appeal filed by Jawad Boulos, attorney for the ICS, an Israeli general said that regarding the schools, orphanages and kindergartens, he “gives himself the complete right to take all necessary measures...if they continue to work in these facilities."

"It is, of course, always possible to oppose this empire in favor of that one, to oppose yours in favor of ours. But if you oppose empire-as-such, you are taking on what has been the normalcy of civilization's brutality for at least the last six thousand years." --John Dominic Crossan, God & Empire

I have been blessed to be surrounded by so many saints.

And for most of my life, I have been too blind to realize it.

I wonder who I am missing now? Who will I be remembering tomorrow, trying to pull up all of the details of our conversations from that deep well of memory that is so clogged with my self-interested garbage?

I wonder whose face I will be trying to hold on to next. Whose words I will try to review, over and over.

It was Steve once. And Charlie. And Grams. So many words that I fail to remember. So many facial expressions and feelings that I've missed out on.



I imagine that, if I ever hear that heavenly voice that we hear so much about, saying those words we've heard so often

"Well done, faithful servant. Enter into your God's rest."

That it will sound like Al sounded when he told me, "I'm proud of you, David. And I sure do love you."



No need to tell you to rest in peace, Al. I'm sure you are.

I don't know where to start.

It's been too long since I updated, so what do I tell you?

Do I tell you about the sewing shop in the girls' orphanage in Hebron being raided by the Israeli army, which still hasn't presented evidence justifying this sort of thing?

Do I tell you about meeting with some friends and family of Mousa's in Hebron?

Do I tell you about General Conference, the big failures and the little victories we had there?

Do I tell you about my church at home losing our wonderful lay leader, Al Nichols, who passed away two days ago?


I don't know where to start.




Here's an email I sent out about what happened with divestment at Conference. This doesn't touch on the human sexuality discussion, which was also a loss....maybe next post.