Dear Family and Friends,

Last week I got out old Christmas cards I had saved from previous years. I like to put them up on the cabinets in the kitchen to lend a festive note there. I couldn’t help noticing the nativity scenes and scenes of the shepherds in Bethlehem. The images of tranquility, of peace, the pristine countryside, a stillness in the air…very beautiful.

The Christmas card images are in stark contrast to the more recent images of Bethlehem and Palestine that have been circulated by e-mail at CEOSS—photos of Palestinian children crouching in terror before tanks, children throwing rocks by hand or by slingshot at soldiers with machine guns, children 10 or 12 years of age being rushed by ambulance to medical care for gunshot wounds to the head or the back. Tragic pictures. Horrible pictures. Provocative pictures. But pictures showing the reality of the war in Palestine.

In July of this year I had the opportunity to travel to Jerusalem for a three-day weekend. I was not prepared for the hour-long grilling "for my own protection" by Israeli security at the Cairo airport. "Why was I working in Egypt? Why did I want to go to Jerusalem? What would I do when I got there?" And on and on. And in Jerusalem and surrounding Palestine, it was an eye-opening experience, traveling with a Palestinian driver, to see the reality of the disrespect, the suspicion, the degradation, the inconveniences that Palestinians live with on a daily basis. Somehow, after seeing these glimpses, I am not so surprised that Palestinians—even children—fight for their dignity by throwing rocks at tanks and soldiers carrying machineguns. I am horrified that somehow the press in the West is able to portray the Palestinians as the aggressors.

In his letter to President Bill Clinton, Clifton Kirkpatrick, clerk of the General Assembly, forcefully stated the position of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as follows:

While we deplore hostage-taking and the brutalization and murder of Israeli soldiers, such acts simply do not justify the unconscionable, massive retaliation of the Israeli military, including indiscriminate shooting of children and adults on the streets, the denial of access to emergency medical care and relief supplies from the international community, and the rocket attacks on apartment buildings containing innocent civilians. Surely you can understand the frustrations of Palestinian Christians and Muslims forced to live under a clear form of apartheid, in which their land has been expropriated and turned into hostile illegal settlements, their workers denied access to their jobs, their homes destroyed and their basic human and civil rights denied.

My personal experience in Palestine was capped at the airport in Tel Aviv when I was approached by an Israeli woman and asked to complete a tourist questionnaire concerning my level of satisfaction with hotel service and with the friendliness and helpfulness of the people. Quite an experience of incongruity, irony, denial of reality.

During this Christmas season, let us all pray that the tranquillity portrayed in those Christmas cards might somehow be restored in Palestine. Let us pray for God’s promise that "I will turn their mourning into joy."

May the blessings of this special season be on each of you.

With love,

Nancy Collins

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 139