I wrote a blog entry on Thursday, June 26, but then a perfect storm of things that had to be attended to immediately broke out (I've actually never understood what that term meant.) I am in Rehovot right now, visiting Michael's friends from college, Victor and Sophie, and was planning to submit an amusing entry today about the chaos of several accompaniment requests. Tarek, our project support coordinator and the plumber all arriving at the same time, but I called the team in Hebron to alert them that an At-Tuwani team member was coming for a day off, and learned that a 13-year-old boy from Beit Ummar was shot yesterday. Marius and Tarek left this morning to document the incident and attend the funeral at noon, and Marius just called me to say that Tarek was pretty badly manhandled by Israeli soldiers when they arrived.

You know, I really wanted a baby when I was 25--which is how much older I am than Marius--and am realizing that he is what I would have wanted my child to become at 22. Given how messed up I was, though, between 25 and 29, though, I'm really glad God gave him to his parents. To give an idea of the age span of the team--I am closer to the Marius' age than I am to the ages of Jean or Kathie Uhler. We really need some extra people to fill in.

So anyway, here I am in Rehovot. Since Sophie is originally from Uruguay and Victor is from Argentina, the conversation last night was a mixture of Spanish, English and Hebrew. I was sort of congratulating myself that I could hold a decent conversation with Sophie's mother in Spanish, and then learned that her first language was Polish, so that's why.

Sophie had said I needed to meet some ordinary Israelis--not just leftists and settlers, and the people who came for the asado--a dinner that involves serving five different kinds of grilled meats, evidently--were a little skeptical about what I was doing. I talked about what I was doing, but found it easier to talk about what the team in Colombia was doing, because in their home countries in Latin America, they had been supportive of leftist movements. When it came to Israel/Palestine, however, they found it very hard to believe that Israel would spray an entire neighborhood with bullets instead of aiming for one gunman--even though I said I was in neighborhoods where this happened in the first months of the Intifada. And they thought Hamas must be doing something in the orphanages (my new Spanish word is "huerfanotorios"), even though the Israeli military orders say nothing about them being involved in illegal activity.

Speaking of which, below is my July Mennonite Weekly Review column--similar to the other article I wrote for CPTnet, but with a slightly different slant. Please keep Marius in your prayers, this is his first experience with the immediate violence we are here to deter and Tarek--whom Marius told me was "amazing," in his response to the soldier abuse. Please also remember Jean, Kathie and Dianne, the rest of the team, in your prayers also. Most of all remember the family of the 13 year old boy who was shot. I don't have any of the details yet. I can't even give you his name. But those of you who are parents can imagine how his family is feeling,

I offered to come back from Rehovot, but was told to enjoy myself. Yeah, like that's going to happen--but I will go to the beach with Sophie, Victor and the kids, anyway, this afternoon. I do enjoy them.

Mennonite Weekly Review column

Theologian Martin Marty has said that he no longer finds the terms "liberal" and "conservative," useful when describing Christians. He prefers categorizing Christians as either "mean" or "non-mean." The concept resonates with me as someone who grew up in a northwest Ohio town, Findlay, where fundamentalist churches had a lot of political and spiritual power. As I got older, I found the theological climate stifling and alienating, but most of the fundamentalist Christians I knew were decent, friendly and "non-mean."

I have written before in this column that Palestinian city of Hebron, where I have been working with Christian Peacemaker Teams June-July reminds me of Findlay. Most of the people here are fundamentalist Muslims who have shown great kindness toward me and other members of the team, although many of them are probably praying earnestly for our conversion to Islam. Most conservative Muslims here support the Palestinian political party of Hamas, just as most of the conservative Christians in Findlay support the Republican Party. Many of the 550 employees of Hebron's Islamic Charitable Society (ICS) probably vote Hamas.

The above paragraph basically summarizes the connection between the Islamic Charitable Society and Hamas. Yet Israel, possibly in collusion with the Fatah political party that controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, has decided to punish Hamas militants in Gaza by closing orphanages, schools, and other institutions run by the ICS in Hebron. Following closure orders issued in February 2008, the Israeli military raided in March and April the central warehouse, confiscating clothing, food, equipment and other supplies for thousands of children who live in ICS orphanages and attend ICS schools. They raided ICS bakeries that provided bread for the orphanages and schools, destroying equipment they could not carry with them, and a sewing workshop below an ICS girls' boarding school. Yet, according to a June 10, 2008 report by the U.N., the Israeli orders for the closures contain no mention of any of these institutions being involved in illegal activity.

Because the children in the orphanages and boarding schools are staying with their extended families over the summer, CPT was invited to spend the nights in these ICS buildings, in hopes of deterring the Israeli military from destroying the facilities while the children are away. So for the last week, most evenings I've been bringing a sheet and pillow over to the girls' orphanage and sleeping there. As I have lain on the hard mattress of a narrow bed, I have tried to think of ways to explain what is happening here, because a relative of mine, upon hearing that I was going to be visiting orphanages run by Islamic Charities, thought the name itself justified Israel destroying these institutions.

I thought of the Salvation Army inviting Oliver North to speak at fundraisers. No one suggested shutting down the Salvation Army's ministries because of their connection to a man who lied before congress about selling weapons to Iran to fund Nicaraguan paramilitaries. No one in the United States would suggest shutting down charitable institutions for the needy run by conservative Republican Christians simply because a conservative Republican administration initiated the violent debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Because, well, that would be mean.