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November 1999
Dear Family and Friends,
May 1999 brought to a close my term of service with the Middle
East Council of Churches' Jerusalem Liaison office after almost
four years. Following a summer break stateside, which included
participating as a Missionary Advisory Delegate to the 211th General
Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, I have taken up my new post with
Catholic Relief Services here in Jerusalem. CRS has provided relief
and development assistance to Palestinians since the 1940s. CRS
opened its Jerusalem office and began operating in the West Bank
in 1961 with a food distribution program under an agreement with
Jordan. After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip in 1967, a request was made to CRS by Israeli authorities
to continue relief efforts in the same manner.
In my new role I will, among other things, help develop the Visitor
Outreach Program, which will allow pilgrims the opportunity to
meet the peoples of the Holy Land and to visit international relief
and development projects. This work is not unlike the travel services
program I coordinated for the Middle East Council of Churches.
This program is intended not only for Catholics, but Protestant
visitors as well, and will target those persons or groups already
planning a visit to the Holy Land. Both Presbyterians and Methodists
have seconded mission personnel working with CRS in order to jump-start
this worthwhile program on the eve of the new millennium.
The Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement was signed on September 4, 1999.
Referred to locally as Wye II, this new agreement provides for
the implementation of a modified version of the original Wye River
Memorandum signed last October in Maryland. This new agreement
sets a timetable for three further Israeli troop withdrawals from
more West Bank land, and also stipulates the release of Palestinian
prisoners. In addition, the agreement clears the way for the opening
of the Gaza seaport, as well as a "safe passage" route
for Palestinians to travel between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
By February 15 of next year, a framework agreement should be completed
that would deal with most of the difficult issues of the Palestinian-Israeli
dispute. Those issues include: Jerusalem; Palestinian refugees,
including compensation and/or the right of return; water issues;
Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; and the borders
and status of the Palestinian autonomous areas. Opposition Palestinian
groups have blasted the new agreement, claiming that it makes
more concessions to Israel. Right-wing Jewish settler groups have
also condemned the new agreement, calling it a sell-out of the
greater land of Israel.
The afternoon following the signing of this new agreement, two
car bombs exploded in the cities of Haifa, on the Mediterranean
Sea, and Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. Fortunately, only the
suicide bombers themselves were killed, and several persons close
to the blast scenes were lightly to moderately injured. However,
these two acts of violence sent shivers down the spines of many
Israelis when it was revealed that the two would-be bombers were
Israeli-Arabs from the Galilee region and not Palestinians from
the territories of the West Bank.
On September 6, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the use
of "violent interrogation methods" by the Shin Bet,
the Israeli internal security service, in order to extract from
Palestinian detainees either confessions or information. This
landmark ruling was hailed by major human rights groups. For years,
Israel was the only country in the world that openly sanctioned
and legalized the use of torture on political detainees. Interrogations
have included such methods as violent shaking, sleep deprivation,
hooding detainees with urine-soaked sacks, and detention in uncomfortable
positions for long periods.
Palestinian political prisoners continue to be a major issue
in negotiations with Israel. Under the newly signed Sharm Agreement,
200 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails on
September 9. Actually, only 199 of the 200 prisoners were freed.
The 200th prisoner had only one week remaining of his sentence,
and he chose to serve it out rather than to accept early release.
Today, there are still over 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners
or administrative detainees held in Israeli jails.
A garbage strike by over 100,000 municipal workers in early September
left Jerusalem looking like a war zone! Piles of garbage and rotting
debris filled the streets of Jerusalem and other major cities
inside Israel. Walking to work through the streets of the city,
I was confronted with heaps of rotting garbage. Clouds of thick,
gray smoke filled the air most mornings, as piles of rubbish were
set on fire in order to alleviate the stench and the fear of disease
and rats. The nine-day-old strike finally ended on the eve of
Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year.
As summer drew to a close, the hot, dry days of August and September
gradually succumbed to cooler evenings. Everyone in Israel and
Palestine appeared eager for the winter rains to begin. Another
year of unprecedented heat, preceded by sparse winter rainfall,
produced a small olive crop yet again. The Sea of Galilee, Israel's
largest freshwater reservoir, dropped to a level not seen since
the 1930s. The water level has already fallen below the "red
line," a hypothetical level which it is believed, once exceeded,
the lake will never fully recover. We pray that this winter in
the Holy Land might bring much-needed rain, and that water, already
a contentious issue here in the Middle East, may provide an abundant
harvest for both peoples of this land in due season.
Warm Regards,
Douglas Dicks
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