Will anyone pay attention?

Israelis exume Palestinian graves in Yaffa, demolishing 500 buildings 17.05.08 - 16:32 Fadi Yacoub / exclusive / PNN – The Palestinian town of Jaffa on the coast inside Israeli boundaries is in serious trouble. The Municipality of Tel Aviv announced it would evict residents and destroy 500 Palestinian buildings. Bulldozing activities have also begun on what are now the ruins of graves. Corpses are being exhumed from Arab cemeteries, not just in Jaffa, but also in Jerusalem. The Israeli administration is working its policy of ethnic cleansing; there is no other way to put it. The cultural heritage of Palestine is being destroyed, along with the lives of the native inhabitants. Instead of revitalizing the buildings, they are destroying them to make way for high rises and Jewish Israeli homes, as Dr. Nazmi of the Riwaq Center has told a PNN editor. Refat Turk, a Palestinian member of the Tel Aviv Board, said, “There is a cemetery for Muslims and one is 80 acres wide, filled with agents have confiscated 40 dunums of the country and the Supreme Court ruled that those acres will go to a Jewish company to invest in building There is an illegal deal ongoing.” Palestinian Muslims and Christians are facing the same fate. He pointed out that left no difference between Muslim and Christians in the case of expropriation of land or houses. Turk said, “I will try to do everything I can in this country that calls itself a democracy. There are streets in need of rehabilitation, but the requests go unheeded. We tried at least to rename some of them, those that are in Palestinian neighborhoods, to Arabic names such as ‘Taha Hussein, Nizar Qabbani, Umm Kulthum,’ and other Arab names instead of the Jewish names for the streets and have submited requests that have been rejected by the authorities." There are demonstrations taking place to at least save the graves that are being confiscated. On Saturday from dawn until 4:00 there are “tractor shovels with big bulldozers digging up the graves and corpses and skeletons,” and protests along with it. Turk said, “No one is paying attention, we have no media covering it.” He concluded by saying, “Our lives are very difficult here.”

hope persists

I found these words of Desmond Tutu to be extremely encouraging and strikingly reflective of my own heart right now. I could not have said it better myself...

"Whenever I am asked if I am optimistic about an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I say that I am not. Optimism requires clear signs that things are changing -meaningful words and unambiguous actions that point to real progress. I do not yet hear enough meaningful words, nor do I yet see enough unambiguous deeds to justify optimism.
However, that does not mean I am with out hope. I am a Christian. I am constrained by my faith to hope against hope, placing my trust in things yet unseen. Hope persists in the face of evidence to the contrary, undeterred by setbacks and disappointment. Hoping against hope, then, I do believe that a resolution will be found. It will not be perfect, but it can be just; and if it is just, it will usher in a future peace...

From my experience in South Africa I know that truth-telling is hard. It has grave consequences for one's life and reputation. It stretches one's faith, tests one's capacity to love, and pushes hope to the limit. At times, the difficulty of this work can make you wonder if people are right about you, that you are a fool.

No one takes up this work on a do-gooder's whim. It is not a choice. One feels compelled into it. Neither is it work for a little while, but rather for a lifetime - and for more than a lifetime. It is a project bigger than any one life. This long view is a source of encouragement and perseverance. The knowledge that the work preceded us and will go on after us is a fountain of deep gladness that no circumstance can alter.

Nothing, however, diminishes the fear and trembling that accompany speaking the truth to power in love. An acute awareness of fallibility is a constant companion in this task, but because nothing is more important in the current situation than to speak as truthfully as one can, there can be no shrinking from testifying to what one sees and hears.

What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? Some people cannot move freely from one place to another. A wall separates them from their families and from their incomes. They cannot tend to their gardens at home or to their lessons at school. They are arbitrarily demeaned at checkpoints and unnecessarily beleaguered by capricious applications of bureaucratic red tape. I grieve for the damage being done daily to people's souls and bodies. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa.

I see and hear that ancient olive trees are uprooted. Flocks are cut off from their pastures and shepherds. The homes of some people are bulldozed even as new homes for others are illegally constructed on other people's land. I grieve for the land that suffers such violence, the marring of its beauty, the loss of its comforts, the despoiling of its yield. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the bitter days of uprooting and despoiling in my own country.

I see and hear that young people believe that it is heroic and pious to kill others by killing themselves. They strap bombs to their torsos to achieve liberation. They do not know that liberation achieved by brutality will defraud in the end. I grieve the waste of their lives and of the lives they take, the loss of personal and communal security they cause, and the lust for revenge that follows their crimes, crowding out all reason and restraint. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the explosive anger that inflamed South Africa, too."

-Desmond Tutu, former archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, to see his full article published in the Boston Globe click here

watch, wait and pray

In Hebron today a group of 200 orphaned girls are anxiously waiting. They are waiting for the footsteps of the soldiers. They waiting for a verdict:
Will they be evicted from their only remaining home?

Israel has ordered that the orphanage, run by the Islamic Charitable Society, be closed on April 1st (an eviction notice was given just 30 days ago). Israeli soldiers have already conducted several raids of the supply warehouse that contained food for the orphans and the offices of the Charitable Society, taking with them an estimated $200,000 worth of supplies. Several shop keepers who rent space from the Islamic Charitable society are also threatened with losing their livelihood. The Islamic Charitable society offers social services to over 7,000 children- services that are all subject to threatened raids and closures.
The orders for closure are based on the claim of suspected links between the Islamic Charitable Society and Hamas, although this claim has been refuted by the board members of the Charity.
There is an appeal currently going through Israeli Supreme Court that will run out in 2 days.
Here I truly recognize my inability to understand. I do not understand why orphans should be collectively punished for the actions of extremists. I do not understand the type of fear that enslaves Israel to make it possible for those in power to justify actions such as these in the name of "security."
Some of my fellow international friends from the Jerusalem area and members of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron spent last night with the girls and their teachers, in solidarity with them and in protest of the threatened eviction. When they arrived they met over 100 yelling women and girls followed by the men, protesting in the streets. If the situation continues through the week I hope to join them.
Are we not to plead the case of the orphan?

Right now the courts remain silent.
Please join me in prayer for this situation, for these little ones, that justice and mercy will prevail.
For more on this story...
Palestinian-orphans-protest-after-their-facilities-are-raided-by-Israeli-troops April 1, 2008

When Charity Ends at Home (Haaretz.com)

An opportunity for my dear friends in the Philadelphia area to listen to a narrative that has been silenced for too long...
Students For Justice in Palestine present Palestine Awareness Week:
http://www.pennsjp.com/iWeb/Palestine%20Week/Palestine%20Week.html

Blessed are the peacemakers...

It is scary to try to see the world through the eyes of the "other." What is even more frightening is realizing, not on a surface level, but in your inner core, that you truly do not understand his point of view. It is when you realize that the bias or lens through which you see the world prevents you from knowing exactly what it is that the other person is saying, that dialogue can begin.
It is far better to know that you do not understand, than only to educate yourself about the other, believing that by education you have the perfect ability to see the situation as they do. It is at this point that you realize your ears have been closed to what the other is truly saying, in spite of now being able to list the facts of his grievances by memory. You have only reacted to his narrative- you have not digested it and felt it with him . It takes great vulnerability to reach this point of knowing your inability to understand. But this does not mean you have to abandon your roots or beliefs to get there. In actuality you must know yourself very well to realize how great you are lacking in knowledge and understanding.
In other words, it takes great humility to work for peace with an enemy and even greater humility to love him.

a day of mourning.

I woke up early today and headed to Old City to attend a service at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. It was quiet in the Old City this morning, Arab shops were all closed in mourning and in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The death toll has risen to 100 in Gaza and others were hurt and killed in protests today throughout the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
We heard report sent from one of the parishioners who is working as a surgeon in Gaza and the news is devastating. She reported the difficulties of tending to the dead and wounded in Gaza with limited resources available after Israel has blocked entry of goods to Gaza since July. She told of one Palestinian man who was tending to his goats when he was hit causing him to lose his legs. He is young, newly married with young children. It will be very difficult, if not impossible for him to receive any kind of prosthesis, to regain any sort of livelihood.
The current raid on Gaza cannot be called anything but horrific, it MUST stop. I am thankful that finally the international community is beginning to open their mouths, but to what avail I do not know. Is it enough just to speak of justice?
A rabbi who was attending the service as a tour guide for a Christian group from the UK stood up at the end of service and stated that he found the church was remiss for not including the residents of Sderot in the prayers today. (The residents of Sderot and the surrounding region have endured Hamas rocket attacks for the past seven years leaving them in a constant state of fear and anxiety, killing and wounding some.) I am glad he stood up. We must remember while we mourn and pray for our bothers and sisters in Gaza today, that the Israeli people too are mothers and fathers and sons, daughters, friends, sisters and brothers.
My mind is swimming and I can't even begin to focus on schoolwork. My classmates and have been talking about changing our bus commute (we spend about two hours a day commuting across the city on Egged lines) so that it is not during rush hour.
I do not want to proceed, however, in a spirit of fear.

reality.

I spent this Sabbath day lounging in the sun, reading for my nursing classes, determined to truly rest and purposely did not turn on my computer. It was a beautiful day. However, I got back from a nice jog this afternoon only to read the news of massive Israeli attacks on Gaza today that left over 45 Palestinians dead including civilians and children. I read the report on NPR (from the AP), the Jerusalem Post and Aljazeera-all have a slightly different twist but all three reported the possibility of a massive ground IDF attack on Gaza in the near future. The words "genocide" and even "holocaust" are being thrown around on the ground and it makes me wonder when the outside world is going to listen.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, recommended suspending peace talks at a meeting Saturday in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"I think it will be suspended," Qureia said. "What is happening in Gaza is a massacre of civilians, women and children, a collective killing, genocide," Qureia added. "We can't bear what the Israelis are doing, and what the Israelis are doing doesn't led the peace process any credibility." (for full NPR story go to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18323622)

Israel is waiting for Hamas to stop rocket fire into southern Israel before they will stop their attacks on Gaza, while Hamas says the same in reverse. When will they both realize (or at least care) that they are destroying the lives Palestinian and Israeli civilians caught in the crossfire? It is not a zero-sum game, but everyone acts like it. If this ground attack takes place there is going to be a huge backlash and I can only pray that it is a peaceful uprising.
God have mercy.