That They May Be One (Bethlehem)

The Separation/Apartheid Wall (Bethlehem)

We're greeted, at Wi'am, by the enthusiastic staff of a community 'conflict transformation' center.  I've known some of these Palestinian leaders for 9 years now, and their dedication to one another and the people of the West Bank shines bright.  It's particularly hard to be hopeful now, and here, but Usama and Tareq and Lucy and their colleagues seem to know that the alternative is untenable.  Hope is life itself here in Palestine.  Tenuous and precious.

An Arabic word, 'wi'am' means something like 'agape'--the New Testament word for the kind of love that transforms us and makes us human and whole.  In Arabic use,'wi’am' also means 'cordial relationships,' and developing relationships is the essence of the center's mission. Wi'am helps resolve disputes within the Palestinian community at the grassroots level by implementing the traditional Arab form of mediation, known as Sulha, along with Western models of conflict transformation. The center has programs that empower children, youth, women and men, addressing the psychological and physiological consequences of long-term conflict and occupation.

A Playground in the Shadow of the Wall

We eat lunch with the staff, looking out over the center's playground, noting the huge separation wall that rises above it.  Usama points to a huge rifle, fixed to the top of the wall, and tells us about the day this summer when Israeli soldiers turned 'skunk water' against the Palestinian kids in the playground.  Later, he shows us several raised beds built to teach basic gardening.  These were destroyed when soldiers opened sewage pipes in such a way as to inundate the fledgling seedlings.  These kids have no chance.

Just behind our lunch table, Usama points to a line of used tear gas canisters (most made in Pennsylvania, by the way).  These are shot, regularly, from atop the Israeli wall, along with rubber bullets the size of golf balls.  The point of all this seems clear: make life as miserable and intolerable as possible for children and families.  Make them give up and leave.

Tear Gas Canisters, from Playground

Raised Beds, Destroyed by Sewage

As Usama leads Fiona and me through the AIDA Refugee Camp, just a few blocks from Wi'am itself, I think about the work of these last two years: the BDS conference we planned in Santa Cruz; the controversy, criticism and heartbreak around it; the congregation's bold decision to become an "HP-Free" church; our efforts to link conversations about race and mass incarceration in the States with conversations around occupation, detention and apartheid here in Israel-Palestine.

This work has been some of the best, and most painful work, of my life.  Walking through AIDA, and then along the grotesque wall; picking up hard rubber bullets in this playground and tear gas canisters too--I'm more and more determined to continue.  I am invested in this mayhem, in this violence and in this conflict.  I'm not innocent.  In September 2016, my country committed $38 billion (billion, with a 'b') to Israel's military over the next 10 years.  That's my wall up there.  These are my canisters, my bullets.  And that 'skunk water' would be impossible without the support of my American empire.

My colleagues here--from Palestinian clergy to brave organizers like Usama--insist on solidarity and meaningful action.  To see apartheid (and take pictures of apartheid) but do nothing substantive, even small, is to participate, even to normalize this madness.  At least it seems that way to me.  Here, at AIDA.  And across this land.

MLK's Word on the Wall

The graffiti on this Wall is stunning, colorful, diverse.  Up ahead, I see an MLK quote, offered in East Berlin I think, many years ago.  "Here are God's children on both sides of the wall, and no man-made barrier can destroy this fact," King shouted.  "With this faith, we will be able to tear out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope."

This is the testimony of my Palestinian friends in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  They are brave, brave souls.  And they believe--as King did 50 years ago--that no wall can destroy the unity God intends.  For Jew and Muslim.  For Christian and Jew.  For Palestinian and Israeli.  For all who ache for a safe, beautiful and radiant home.   What they tell me--and I believe them--is this: BDS is a key strategy for achieving such unity.  BDS offers hope, encouragement, partnership...as they do the hard work, "tearing out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope."  Critics in the States have loudly accused us of anti-Semitism, have vigorously critiqued BDS-advocates for "stirring" anti-Semitism and giving it power.

I wholeheartedly, respectfully and just as vigorously disagree.

"That They May Be One"

There is a very important and often obscured difference between anti-Semitism (or anti-Judaism) and criticism of Israel.  I'd go so far as to say that the most Jewish thing in the world these days is the action that critiques and subverts the occupation of Palestine and the shackling of Arab human rights on both sides of the Green Line.  What's more Jewish than human rights work?  What's more Biblical than the struggle for liberation from domination systems and bureaucracies of harassment and intimidation?  I have, thank God, met many Jews over the years--in the States and here in Israel--who do this work with gusto and with passion, and with a prayerful and humble heart.  In many ways, they are my heroes.

I will continue to join them in their efforts to call for human rights and full democratic participation: for Arabs in Israel, yes; and for Palestinians in every occupied place, yes.  If illegally settled Israelis can vote for their government, Palestinians a stone's throw away should also vote for that government.  If illegally settled Israelis can send their kids to schools that have running water and good teachers, Palestinian families should expect (and get) the same.  One civil society.  Human rights for all. 

Graffiti: Witness to the Palestinian Prisoners' Hunger Strike of 2017

Black (and Brown) Lives Matter

13 year-old boy in AIDA, who was shot and killed, from an Israeli sniper post atop the wall.

It's particularly sad, outrageous is a better word, that Israeli authorities are using Palestinian children in their ongoing effort to transfer (or demoralize) the Palestinian people.  We heard last weekend about the impact of detention and imprisonment on children and teens in Silwan.  Just this week, three Palestinian schools (funded by the Europeans, no less) were destroyed (as in razed to the ground) here in the West Bank.  Just two or three days before the new school year was to begin.  In what way is this justified?  In what way is there any spiritual or moral or even international sanctioning of this kind of behavior?  "Thou shalt not steal," right?  They're stealing childhood from these kids, and land from their families, and hope from their hearts.  

So don't tell me--or Palestinian parents--that the $38 billion aid package is morally justified.  And don't tell us to shut up and do nothing at all about it.  That same $38 billion would work very well, thank you, in Houston, Texas this week.  Or in so many American school districts where the teachers are underpaid and the textbooks outdated and the bathrooms rancid.

There's a wearied look in the eyes of all these folks: my Israeli friend who guides tour groups and loves her country and worries about the young daughters who'll soon be serving in the military; the Palestinian pastor who gives his heart and soul to each project, to each sermon, to each encounter; the Silwan activist who sees more and more kids arrested and detained and traumatized every month, and knows the whole point is to force these families to move somewhere else.  Even the cab drivers this summer seem defeated.

I can never know their pain.  I can never experience it.  What I can do is listen closely, and pay attention to their calls for support, action, solidarity.  I can take those same calls to heart, pray on my own capacity and responsibility.  And I do these things.  This is work, and this is witness, I am called to.  In the name of love.   That they may all be one.