|
Every couple of hours, jeeps, tanks or armored personnel carriers
(APC's) pass by under my window, shouting in Arabic over loudspeakers
that it is forbidden to move outside of one's home. Every aspect
of normal living has ground to an abrupt halt. No one ventures
out for work-there simply is no work! There are no schools in
session under such circumstances. No shops or businesses are open.
There are no weddings, no christenings, and no celebrations. God
forbid that someone should die a natural death while living under
these conditions! Permission must be obtained from the Israeli
military forces occupying the city in order to permit a proper
burial.
When curfew is lifted for a few hours every fourth or fifth day
(hopefully!) in order to allow residents of the city out of their
homes, Bethlehem becomes a mad crush of cars and people racing
about. Every facet of their lives is squeezed into the space of
a few hours. Shopping must be done, bread and vegetables must
be bought, banking must be attended to, and bills need to be paid.
Of course, all of this depends on whether or not one has the cash
available to afford such "luxuries." Few families do!
Staggering figures from the United Nations and other international
NGO's working in the territories indicate that a majority of Palestinians
are now living on less than $2.00 a day! In fact, in most instances,
phone bills, electric bills and water bills have gone unpaid for
over a year! Donor countries have now given money directly to
the city municipalities in the West Bank in order to keep them
functioning. Were it not for this outside aid, the entire system
in the Palestinian territories would collapse completely. Yet
how long will this continue to be the norm? And by imposing such
crippling closures and cruel curfews on over three million Palestinians,
do Israelis and others actually believe that these inhumane measures
will bring them any closer to obtaining security?
In a few short hours, curfew will be re-imposed, and the city
will become eerily silent, as residents are once again locked
inside their homes, behind closed doors, peering cautiously out
of windows, watching and waiting. Young Israeli soldiers, behaving
more like street thugs than soldiers, will kick, beat, and throw
fruit, tear gas, or sound bombs at vendors who fail to be off
the streets by the time curfew is re-imposed. In the streets of
today's Bethlehem, darkened due to damaged or destroyed street
lamps crushed by Israeli tanks, there is little hope, and fear
prevails.
Mr. Constantine Dabbagh, a Palestinian Christian and the Executive
Secretary for the Middle East Council of Churches' Department
of Service to Palestinian Refugees (Gaza Area) summed up the situation
in the Palestinian areas best. "Before, we were looking for
a light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "Now, we
are simply looking for the tunnel!"
These are the stark and inhumane conditions that have bred the
Palestinian suicide bombers. Young, men (and sometimes women),
de-humanized, dejected and disenchanted, with no hope for a better
future, have taken their lives and the lives of many Israelis
in violent suicidal explosions inside of Israeli cities. While
one cannot and must not condone these acts of such a horrific
nature and with such vicious intent, yet still one must not and
cannot ignore the conditions that continue to exist in the Palestinian
lands that would compel an individual to such acts of desperation
and brutality.
Despite so much misery and sadness, I have been heartened by
the visitors I have had this year-those who made the courageous
decision to "come and see" for themselves the poverty,
the destruction, and despair. Though they have been fewer in number
these past two years, still they have come to see, to listen-both
to Palestinians and Israelis-and hopefully to learn.
In July, I was approached by the Middle East Council of Churches
to help coordinate the planning and the logistics for an inter-faith
delegation led by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. His five-day "Middle
East Peace Mission" ended on a tragic note, when a bomb exploded
in a cafeteria at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, killing seven
Israelis. The bomb was, as Hamas claimed, a response to the Israeli
killing of fifteen Palestinians (including nine children) in the
Gaza Strip by a one-ton bomb dropped on July 22 from an Israeli-flown,
American-made F-16 fighter jet on a residential neighborhood of
Gaza City.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, called the assassination
of the head of Hamas' military wing in that attack a "great
success," while the Bush Administration "condemned"
the act by simply calling it "heavy-handed." And visitors
from the West continued to come and to see.
In August, I co-hosted an ecumenical and interfaith delegation
that came and saw. We took them to Gaza, and they saw with their
own eyes the devastation and the destruction. Scrawled on the
walls of a nearby building that suffered extensive damage in the
F-16 air strike were the words "This is the American weapon"
and "This is the Israeli peace." Our visitors met and
spoke (through an interpreter) with a child who lost five of his
family members in that air raid.
In October, I hosted the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.)'s 214th General Assembly, the Reverend Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel
and his delegation. Fellow Presbyterians, despite all of the difficult
and uncertain circumstances, came to see! They came to Bethlehem,
they traveled to Gaza and they visited with Palestinians and Israelis.
They even went to Ramallah, and visited with Yasser Arafat in
his besieged compound, known as the "Muqata." For me,
visiting once again with this frail, aging man, now sitting in
a building that was literally crumbling around him, under virtual
house arrest imposed upon him by Israeli forces, I was reminded
(and I reminded my fellow Presbyterians) of the passage from Matthew:
I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came
to me…Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the
least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
Matthew 25: 36, 40
I dare say, for most of us, that visit was a wake-up call! How,
I wondered, could George Bush, Ariel Sharon, or any other world
leader think that, armed with nothing more than a cell phone,
this frail figure-head of a man could stop anything, much less
a young, disillusioned Palestinian male intent on blowing himself
up? Was it not Ariel Sharon's own air force that had systematically
destroyed the entire Palestinian security apparatus in every major
Palestinian city months ago? Was it not Ariel Sharon who, only
last December, labeled Yasser Arafat as "irrelevant"?
Exactly which way does he want it? Is Yasser Arafat "responsible"
or is he "irrelevant"? Surely, not even Ariel Sharon
can have it both ways! Last April, Ariel Sharon was labeled a
"man of peace" by President Bush, despite Israel's refusal
to halt its military incursions into the West Bank. Said one Palestinian
Christian man to me, "If Ariel Sharon is a 'man of peace,'
then what does that say about our image of Jesus Christ as a man
of peace?"
And now it is December 2002. I said "good-bye" to my
last visitor from the West for this year-a Presbyterian pastor
from California-only two days ago. He, too, came to see! And yes,
he even came to Bethlehem!
I don't think he found the Christ-child, lying in a manger, wrapped
in "swaddling clothes." In fact, I'm certain that he
did not come here with that expectation in mind! Yet I wonder
what images he, like so many other visitors who have come this
year, will take back home with him?
This year, as hearts turn once again to the Biblical town of
Bethlehem, I hope you will keep in your thoughts and prayers the
contemporary Bethlehem, overcome by hopelessness and plagued with
fear. It is true—we live in a turbulent, restless and violent
world. And Bethlehem—and Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, Tulkarem,
Qalqilya, and Hebron-—could definitely use a miracle!
The 35-five year Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip has exacted a heavy toll on both Palestinians and Israelis
alike. The racism inherent in the occupation and dispossession
of the Palestinian people must end. The respect and adherence
to basic human rights must be acknowledged and upheld by both
peoples. The culture of death and fear that has become a part
of daily life must cease. And we who are able must press our governments
and our leaders to actively engage in a genuine process that will
ultimately lead to justice, fairness and dignity for both sides
of this conflict.
As we watch and wait the coming of the Messiah into our hearts
and lives once again, may we, and people of faith everywhere-be
comforted by the angels' message-—"Do not be afraid…
Today, a Savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord."
Come, and see.
Wishing you the joy of the season from Bethlehem,
Doug
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 156
|
