CHICAGO/TORONTO: CPT announces release of As Resident Aliens: Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank, 1995-2005
As Resident Aliens: Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank, 1995-2005 is now available for order. Beginning with CPT’s initial project in Hebron, the book covers the work of CPT’s Palestine teams over the next ten years as team members adapted to changing political realities and forged relationships with Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals who were nonviolently resisting the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.
In its publicity materials for the history, Cascade Books includes the following:
"As the crucifixes drenched with Jewish blood drop from our hands, we stand impotent and wordless before this tragedy
of Israel and Palestine … In the name of the crucified Messiah, we must struggle against the conditions which make history a trail of crucifixions. Only then, in solidarity with Jews and Palestinians, can we dream of Messianic times, of shalom without victims."
With these words, theologian Rosemary Radford Reuther laid out the pitfalls for Christians entering the arena of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Nevertheless, in 1995, a small cohort of pacifist Christians decided to paddle against the currents of history, against the crusades, pogroms, and colonial enterprises of their co-religionists, toward that goal of "a shalom without victims"… As "resident aliens" (See Exodus 23:9) they have sojourned in the Holy Land to support Palestinians and Israelis who reject violence as means of solving the conflict, who think that one nation has no right to subjugate and exploit another, and who believe all the residents of the region are entitled to the same, exactly the same, human rights.
Marc Ellis, who directs the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University, writes, "In these pages, Kathleen Kern pens a fascinating and important account of the founding and history of the Christian Peacemaker Teams in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . Enlisting dissenting Jews and Palestinians in a struggle for human and political rights, Kern stands as a dramatic Christian witness of the possibility of justice and reconciliation between and among peoples of different faiths. This book narrates the difficulties and sacrifices involved in such a task, a revolutionary task if you will, that continues today."
Ramzi Kysia, Arab-American pacifist, essayist, and one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement, writes, "As Resident Aliens is a gripping narrative of Christian Peacemaker Teams' attempts to transform prayer into practice as they stand with both Palestinians and Israelis in their struggles for peace …This book is a significant addition to our understanding of both the crisis in the Middle-East as well as the need for international accompaniment"
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom , co-chair of Palestinians and Israelis for Nonviolence writes,
"A meticulous, painful, and trustworthy account, written with faith, love, and concern, of ten years of peacemaking efforts under unbelievably difficult conditions-when every person who opens this book makes an effort to get it into the hands of those perpetrating this mess and the …politicians who not only close their eyes to it but actually fund and defend it, we'll be a lot closer too peace."
The book is available for a suggested donation of $35 from CPT. See http://www.cpt.org/resources/books#11