Two settlers from the Givat Ha Harsina settlement attacked seven-year-old Amar Za’atari on Wednesday, 16 December, while he, a brother and cousin were walking home from school.  The two young settler men threw stones at the three boys and, along with a dog, chased them.  In his panic to get away Amar tripped and fell on his face.  His twelve-year-old brother ran back, scooped him up and raced to the safety of the closest house in the Al-Bweireh neighborhood.

With international friends we recently watched a film, The Boy with the Blue Striped Pajamas, a touching, but tragic story of a German boy whose father is an SS officer and overseer of a WWII concentration camp. The boy wanders over to the camp, not understanding what it is, and befriends a Jewish boy behind the barbed wires. The film highlights the boy's ability to see beyond the politics and hatred taught by his society and family, to the humanity of his new friend.

Days later, we spoke to a representative of the U.S. State Department about the consequences of Turkish and Iranian bombing for the people in the border village areas, encouraging him to see past political jargon to the humanity of the people living in these regions. . .

Looking at this tall young man of twenty, one could not immediately tell he had undergone two surgeries for multiple wounds he sustained in an Iranian shelling attack four and a half months earlier. We were in the Kurdish village of Zhelea, in the far northeast corner of Iraq, near the Iranian border.  As we sat around a cylindrical wood stove in the middle of the simple stone dwelling, Sabir told his story.

It strikes me as strange that in the midst of soldiers, guns, checkpoints, detentions, humiliations, in the face of the Occupation and all its flagrant dehumanization of the Palestinians, I have come to see the Occupation's spotlight as something that illuminates the beauty of Jesus' Incarnation.

In the new CPT Chicago office Sophia Hostettler and Dave Corcoran open envelopes of year-end giving with expectant gratitude.  Margaret Sumadh does likewise in Toronto.

Generally supporters are moved to donated about one third of CPT's annual income during the holiday season. 

6 November

The team visited a family at Tel Rumeida.  One member told them he is always worried about his children going to work at night or early in the morning, because they are more vulnerable to settler attacks.  His son escaped one such attack, but he worries about the next time.  He said he is aggravated that security cameras see Palestinian kids doing things they shouldn't do, but never record the settlers throwing stones at Palestinian kids.

6 November

The team visited a family at Tel Rumeida.  One member told them he is always worried about his children going to work at night or early in the morning, because they are more vulnerable to settler attacks.  His son escaped one such attack, but he worries about the next time.  He said he is aggravated that security cameras see Palestinian kids doing things they shouldn't do, but never record the settlers throwing stones at Palestinian kids.

PRAYERS FOR PEACEMAKERS, Wed., Dec. 16, 2009

Pray for the village of at-Tuwani in occupied Palestine. They have sought electricity supply since 2001 but were ignored by Israeli authorities. When the village began its own supply initiatives, the Israeli army destroyed these installations in November 2009.

Doug Pritchard
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Toronto, Canada

CPT At-Tuwani has put together a video that documents the village’s struggle to be connected to the Palestinian electrical grid. Here it is:

CPT Colombia is asking people to bestow a gift of solidarity on the 123 families of Las Pavas in Southern Bolivar province this holiday season.  Those wishing to give generously should, beginning on 20 December 2009, protest outside local Body Shop outlets and demand justice for the this community.