BACKGROUND: Christian Peacemaker Teams [CPT] member Dianne Roe first met
Shefa, a Palestinian woman from the Jerusalem area, eight years ago during
the Intifada (Palestinian uprising). Since that time Dianne, members of her
support community, and members of the team in Hebron have shared in the joys
and sorrows of her family in Bethany. Shefa, whose name means "the healing"
was featured on the 1997 CPT calendar with a note about the demolition order
her son Khalil had received on his home in late 1996.
Last week as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority
chairman Arafat were in Washington for separate talks with US president
Clinton about the "peace process", the Israel Defense Force (IDF) used
explosive devices to blow up Khalil's home in Bethany. Dianne visited with
the family Sunday, a few days after the demolition.
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I went to church as usual last Sunday, but my prayers were directed toward
Shefa and how I could offer her comfort in the face of the latest news about
the demolition of her son Khalil's home. Shefa was not yet in her teens
fifty years ago in 1948 when her family was forced out of their home in
Haifa.
They were refugees first in West Jerusalem and later in the village of
Azzaria, the biblical Bethany, where she met and married her husband Ibrahim
whose family owned much land on the outskirts of Bethany.
Shefa had given birth to five of her eight children by June 1967 when Israeli
soldiers attacked Bethany and the family was forced to flee toward Jericho
and the Jordan River. She watched as hundreds of families (refugees from the
1948 war with Israel and living in a camp near Jericho) were made refugees a
second time as they were forced across the borderline between Jordan and the
newly occupied West
Bank. Shefa and her family returned to Bethany where they picked up the
pieces and started anew.
In 1969 the family received offers from Israelis to buy the land on the
outskirts of Bethany. They and the other families of Bethany refused to
sell. The land was confiscated anyway and the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale
Adumim was built. Now as
the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim is expanding to be part of the ring of
settlements around "Greater Jerusalem," more families are being displaced and
more land is being confiscated. In the past two years the Jahalin Bedouin
were expelled from land nearby as part of this expansion plan.
For over twenty years Khalil has worked as a gardener at the Sisters of
Nigrezia convent. He saved his money so he could build a home for his wife
and their three children. With the family land taken for an Israeli
settlement, in 1992 he purchased land on a hillside at the eastern border of
Bethany and began applying for a permit to build. He was denied the permit.
In 1993, encouraged by the prospects of peace and the Oslo accords. he
started to build his house, pouring into it the savings of twenty years of
work. The house was not finished when it was demolished last week; the
family has been
living in a rented apartment.
So when I arrived at Shefa's Sunday afternoon these previous
conversations were fresh in my mind. Khalil and his older brother Issa drove
me to the site of the demolition. In the
distance the expanding settlement of Ma'ale Adumim and the newly built
bypass road were clearly visible.
"Why did they demolish this house?" I asked Issa and Khalil.
"Clearly it is a long way from the settlement and the bypass road."
"They don't need any reason," answered Issa.
Issa, Khalil and I returned to Shefa's home. In times of trouble
Shefa looks at the picture of her husband, Abu Issa who died of cancer two
years ago. "Abu Issa very happy for Khalil when Khalil built his house,"
said Shefa. The demolition order came after Khalil's father died. He died
content with the knowledge that Khalil would have a home. "Now Khalil has
nothing," she added crying.
I could not help thinking how ironic it was that the talks in
Washington were related to the condition of this one family in
Bethany and hundreds of other such families. And the outcome was determined
by a blast of dynamite rather than by any "peace talks."
And those families who once believed that the Oslo accords would lead to
peace, have now been deprived of even those small signs of hope for their
future and that of their children.