CPTNET
19 December 2010
PALESTINE REFLECTION: Getting a good night’s sleep
by a CPTer

“It's been a hard day's night, and I should be sleeping like a log.”

A couple weeks ago, I started downloading some of those old Beatles songs that I didn't yet have in my collection and it occurred to me I did sleep like a log despite the following:

a) An armed Israeli soldier less than thirty metres away was keeping us and of course some neighbouring Jewish settlers “safe”.  His radio crackled constantly; and his guard dogs were barking.
b) The CPT Apartment in the old city Al-Khalil/Hebron is a chicken market with cockerels crowing all night and every night
c) It was my fifteenth different bed in thirty-five nights.

However, I had the choice to sleep under such circumstances, unlike many of those around me in Hebron/Al-Khalil or where I normally sleep in At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills.  When my visa expires or when I no longer feel called to do this work, I can choose to return to my safe bed in my chosen home of Hamburg, Germany.

Let us spend a moment thinking about those that might be sleeping in the same beds for the last 10, 20, 43 (1967 beginning of Israeli Occupation) or even 62 years (1948 violence during the creation of the state Israel).  They are neither at home, nor can they sleep safely in their beds.  A good night’s sleep is threatened by the possibility of early morning house demolitions and evening raids by the Israeli military, or extremist Jewish settlers entering their village lands and uprooting trees, crops etc.  Then of course, let us think of the millions expelled from their homes in 1948 and 1967, who are living in refugee camps, or forced to find a new home because of settler violence and Israeli military clearances.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian (UN OCHA), the southern region, where CPT has two teams, contains ten of the twenty-two Palestinian populations most threatened by Israeli settler violence (see annex).  The hamlets of Humra Khoruba, A-Sarura and A-Sfay near At-Tuwani have already been cleared by the Israeli military.  Settler violence prior to and after the eviction has prevented the villagers returning; some now live in At-Tuwani or Yatta, the closest urban population center.
Palestinians living in Khirbet Susiya, about nine km from At-Tuwani, have had their village destroyed and suffered eviction by the Israeli military in 1987, 1999 and 2001.  They refuse to give up their land; they would rather live in tents than lose more land to the nearby settlers in the Israeli colony of Suseya.  The people of Susiya might not be sleeping easily, but they are as close to their homes as possible.

As I pray and reflect, I feel the presence of Jesus, who is teaching me to undo oppression and help continue building God’s realm of love and peace based on justice.  He is calling me to walk alongside, live, and sleep amongst the people of South Hebron Hills and in the city of Al-Khalil/Hebron.  This realm will be one where we can all sleep like a log and without fear.