CPTnet
3 May 2007
HEBRON REFLECTION: Hope amid burning cars

    "This was the fourth car of mine that Israelis have set on fire in
seven years," said Hani Abu Haikel, a good friend. We had gone to his
teashop to check out a report we'd heard. Hani said that it would
cost him 2000 shekels (about $500 U.S.) to repair the car and he could
not understand how it could happen within fifty yards of a Palestinian
owned building where forty-five Israeli soldiers were living. He
suspected that soldiers might have been involved.

     Hani, whose family has suffered much from the violence of the
settlers next door in Tel Rumeida settlement -- olive trees and
grapevines cut down, property destroyed, children's toys stolen
--launched into a defense of non-violent response. "In 2000, at the
start of the Intifada, I went to a meeting of thirteen to fifteen
Fatah leaders who were planning to use guns against the settlers and
soldiers. Everybody was talking. No one listened to me about
non-violent action and CPT."

     Hani went on, "Last month, I met with many of these same leaders
again--one is now a member of the Legislative Council and some are
dead or in prison. This time no one talked. They asked me many
questions about how to use non-violent action to resist the
occupation. I told them, the Prophet said 'Fight only those who
fight you.' Not their family or their property. I cried when I saw
TV pictures of bus bombings, killing innocents who know nothing of
Palestine. Our enemy is U.S. policy, not the American people,
Israeli government policy, not the Israeli people."

Hani then described how he--after he invited CPT to his house in 1995 --
was shunned by his neighbors for six months and the local grocer refused
to sell to him. They thought he was working with collaborators. "Now
people are hearing us. They have learned that violence doesn't work and
they have seen the power of non-violence."

     Asked how he came to this way of thinking, Hani described three
occasions: a card game between CPTer Pierre Shantz and an old Arab
man, "They were of different age, language, culture and religion, but
they make human contact." Then he watched the movie Crash about race
relations in Los Angeles. Hani said, "I love this movie! People
are complicated and can change. Nothing is impossible for God. Then
I saw on TV a single man standing on the street in Jerusalem with a
sign reading 'End the Occupation'. This picture was shown around the
world and this one man made a difference."

     He continued, "You know I have a brother in the US and cousins in
Brazil. They live in justice and freedom. If my neighbor is Moishe
or George, what does it matter -- only, is he a good man? My dream is
that some day soon my children will play in the street with settler
children."

    As we took our leave, I had tears in my eyes.

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