CPT in Hebron

By: David F. Neunuebel

Welcome To Israel

As we approached the Rachel's Tomb road to Bethlehem we were stopped and could not enter. So Salim turned and said, "We'll have to go the tunnel road." "Is that good?" I asked. "Not really. It's the road between the Jewish settlement of Gilo and the predominantly Christian village of Beit Jala where most of the shooting goes on around here." So we drove on through the tunnels and came upon the open spaces between these two villages that shoot at each other. We openly prayed that God would protect us and keep us safe so Salim could go to work, to teach his comparative religion class at Bethlehem Bible College for one hour.

We made it around this hill country road and turned onto a dirt road. Eventually we came to a roadblock of boulders put there by the IDF. "This is pure harassment because it has nothing to do with Israel's security," Salim said. In fact, later in my trip, when I met with World Vision, they gave me a report (with pictures) of how the IDF booby-traps these boulders with live hand grenades with the pin taken out. This prevents them from getting internationally approved humanitarian medical and food aid to Palestinians living in refugee camps since 1948. Is this for "security" reasons? Or how about the rocket attack on German physician Dr. Harry Fischer's car that killed him instantly: was that for security reasons? There are signs all over Bethlehem, which read, "Bethlehem Will Not Forget Dr. Harry Fischer."

When we arrived at the end of this dirt road we were told by the Palestinians there that we could not go any further. If we wanted to get into Bethlehem we'd have to get out of the car and walk over the "fence." The "fences" is simply the term used by the Palestinians for piles of boulders, rubble and dirt, which has to be traversed on foot. You see we were going somewhere we were not supposed to go, according to the IDF. We walked from the car over gravel and rubble, over large boulders and on wooden planks for about 20 meters to get on the other side of the "fence." Once on the other side we got into one of the many taxis waiting for Palestinians who make this familiar trek and got our ride to the college. Salim taught his class and I interviewed many people with my new camcorder. I spent time with Alex, the dean of students as well as the church secretary and the maintenance man. Alex told me I was not supposed to be there. "You had to sneak in against the will of the IDF. You had to climb over the 'fence.' They don't want you here." During my interview he told me, among other things that "America is under occupation, under occupation by the Jewish lobby. Unless this occupation of America is stopped the occupation of Palestinians will never end."

I asked the secretary and the maintenance man what they thought of the fact that Americans believe that Palestinian's put their children out in front of the shooting. Both of them were terribly hurt by that and told me that when parents hear the shooting, they immediately stop what they are doing, whatever it is, and run to find their children, to make sure they are safe, whether at their schools or at home and not in harm's way.

Suddenly Salim came up hurriedly telling me he'd been looking for me and said, "We must move fast now because soon the shooting will start and we'll never get out." So we left and reversed our trek back to the "fence" by taxi, crossed over the "fence" and got into Salim's car. We still had to drive back by way of the tunnel road between Gilo and Beit Jala. When we finally entered Jerusalem, Salim gave an audible sigh of relief and said, "This is how I go to work every day. This is how many of our students have to go back and forth to school every day. And many days we don't make it."

I had just been where I was not supposed to go, I had defied the occupying power and lived to tell about it. I wondered how many of my new friends and their families I'd just met had to stay behind under the siege we'd just missed. I began to weep!

What was it like?

Curfews

The curfew went on for a couple days. The whole place was a desert town, a ghost town except for the Jewish settlers who could move at will and with ease. Curfews are the basic form of collective punishment. It's like someone from Goleta committed a hit-and-run, and in response the Police shut down the whole town. Everybody would be under house arrest. No one could leave their home for school, shopping, work, the movies, to eat out, nothing. No one could leave his house because one Goletan did something. Worse than even that is when something happens in Gaza they shut down Hebron, which is more than two hours away. That's like shutting down all of Santa Barbara because of a crime committed in L.A. But here's the deal: only Mexicans and blacks would be curfewed. All whites could move around as usual. Not exactly in the tour guide, if you know what I mean. It shouldn't take a degree in rocket science to know that this is wrong. In fact, it's against international law, especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

During one of these curfews I was slapped and kicked by a Jewish settler. One young woman in our party was called a Nazi whore. We were ridiculed and had M-16s pointed at us by 17-year-old Jewish settlers. Such is the work of peacemakers.

Yet we were treated with generosity, grace and dignity by the Palestinians we met, especially those families with whom we stayed. We were given their beauty and hospitality even though Americans are complicit in their oppression and misery. "Contrary to every stereotype, the [Palestinian] people ... are not hotheaded, but patient and slow to anger...." (Amira Hass, Jewish author, Drinking The Sea At Gaza). I spoke with a Palestinian who said the only reason he'd take up a weapon was to get his work permit back.

One morning we got a call from a Palestinian farmer who lives in the Baqaa Valley. He told us that settlers were attacking his grapes and destroying his irrigation pipes. The next night Rich and I stayed with his family and some other CPTers stayed with another family across the road to show solidarity as well as report and photograph any problems. Sure enough, early in the evening a few settlers gathered in their cars: then a few more, then more. Before we knew it, there was a 150-person mob on the side of the highway chanting and burning tires. We called the police and the IDF who eventually showed up but they did nothing. The settlers increased the fires and began running into Palestinian grape arbors, destroying irrigation equipment and tearing down grapes. At one point they even started a fire in the grapes fields. The IDF and police did nothing. If the settlers had been Palestinians we would have had several dead bodies that evening.

Stereotypes

The problem with the Palestinian and Israeli issue today is that each side, with their respective media sympathizers, tries to paint a picture of the "other" as more evil than them. If my side can make your side look more evil then my side wins. This is classic demagoguery and solves nothing. In fact, it exacerbates everything negative. As George Hunsinger asks in his book, Disruptive Grace, "How do the crimes of others detract from our own? How does it make us exempt from moral scrutiny? Have we become so accustomed to a world (or this conflict) in which we hear a great deal about the atrocities committed by our enemies but never anything of our own? Are we entangled in webs of endless deceit?" My answer is, "Yes!"

The only images most Americans have of this conflict are of a Palestinian youth in a kafaya throwing a stone and an IDF soldier shooting at him. Each person takes his or her side and feed his or her stereotypes and prejudices.

To be sure, this conflict is violent and people die. But most Americans have only this view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Most people in Palestine/Israel have little or nothing to do with this. Most Palestinians and Jews just want to make a nice living, educate their kids at good schools and live in safe neighborhoods and get along. Sounds like the campaign promises of Bush and Gore.

Most Palestinians and Jews don't hate each other. Most Palestinians and Jews don't want to kill each other. Most Palestinians and Jews don't want to drive the other into the sea. Two months before my trip there was a story in Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, about two Palestinians who came upon a couple of Jewish kids who had fallen out of their boat on the Galilee. One of the Jewish kids made it to safety but the other was in trouble. One of the Arab men jumped into the Sea of Galilee and saved him but died doing it.

George, our Palestinian driver, told us of a time when he came upon a couple of young IDF soldiers. It was raining cats-and-dogs and it was Shabbat. He pulled over and gave them a ride to where they were going.

Most Palestinians and Jews want a just peace so they can do the things they really want to do. The most serious issue to me is not to concentrate on the violence and all its photographs but rather to focus on the people and work for the solution.

For over 30 years an entire people group has suffered frustration, poverty, disenfranchisement, demolished homes, anger and hate of the "other." The other side has suffered fear and insecurity and has tried to resolve that pathology with military might and yet has not felt any more secure than they did 30 years ago. So what is the point? "It's the occupation, stupid."

The Occupation

Or take the recent shock to the Jewish Israeli conscience when Ami Ayalon, retired head of Shin Bet security service when he stated, "Israel is guilty of apartheid policies that go against the spirit of Judaism. He suggested that the Palestinians were following the logic of choosing violence, and spoke of the profound humiliation that Israel inflicts on Palestinian workers and others who enter into Israel." (LA Times, December 5, 2000).

"If Israel had recognized the PLO after it declared Palestinian independence in 1988 and had worked for a two-state solution, there wouldn't be any Hamas." (Hamas activist).

Remember, Ehud Barak once stated, "If I were a 17 year-old Palestinian, I'd join a terrorist group because of the humiliation I've had to endure."

"Does anyone really believe that democracy in South Africa was stonger during apartheid than it is now?" (Alexander Vondra, Ambassador, Czech Republic).

As Amoz Givert, a Jew we met on a kibbutz stated, "The single biggest mistake successive Israeli governments have made is settlements and by-pass roads for Jews only. They have nothing to do with Israel's security and are simply illegal by international law. To be against the occupation is to be for Israel."

Or take the comments of Koby, a Jewish IDF soldier now in the reserves who refused to live in the "territories" and so lives with his family within Green Line Israel in Jerusalem, "The settlers are more of a threat to the security of me and my family than the Palestinians."

Oren, a member of the Jewish human rights group, Gush Shalom (meaning Peace Block) said the "settlers are the Israeli equivalent of organized crime." He told us "the settlements were put there as an obstacle to peace, as an excuse to build by-pass roads.

The name of the game is by-pass roads because they create separate cantons or Bantustans where the Palestinians can live. This way they will never get a contiguous state."

We wondered why the Israelis complain to the U.N. about a recent Hezbollah violation of the U.N. Resolution that controls the boarder with Lebanon; yet ignore every U.N. Resolution that calls for returning to the pre-1967 boarders of Israel. "Schizophrenia," said Oren.

When I asked Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, a member of Rabbis For Human Rights, "What's a nice Jewish boy like you doing in a place like this?" he said, "I was brought up to be a Jew with a conscience."

But what about the American conscience, the conscience that refused to tolerate the oppression of blacks in the South, and refused to put up with the apartheid of South Africa?

Have you ever wondered why the Israelis want only the U.S. to be involved in any investigation of the conflict? While in East Jerusalem I read in the Jerusalem Post, Nov. 30, 2000, "In an attempt to quell fears in the Jewish community that the U.S. has begun to value even-handedness, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright this week denied that there was any shift in US policy...." What, are you kidding? Is this the American way?

I also read in the Jerusalem Post editorial that "most Americans support Israel" in the recent conflict. Having been in Palestine/Israel three years in a row now, I wondered exactly what "most Americans" support.

Why would "most Americans" support an occupation of a people group and their ethnic cleansing from land they've lived on for generations?

Why would "most Americans" support destruction of people's homes simply to build other homes for Jews only?

Why would "most Americans" support the closure of entire communities which means people in those communities cannot go to work, send their kids to school, go to the market in order to feed themselves? Is it because someone from that neighborhood shot at the IDF? If this is fair, then when a Jewish settler shoots at a Palestinian, why is there not similar treatment of the Jewish neighborhood?

Why would "most Americans" support the blocking of roads that prevent Palestinians from being able to move freely, in direct violation of international human rights laws?

And why would "most Americans" support the IDF placing booby trap hand grenades in the boulders of these blockades as reported and photographed by World Vision?

Why would "most Americans" support the denial of access by Israeli military of World Vision's humanitarian food and medical aid to these Palestinian closed areas, which, again, is in direct violation of International Humanitarian Law?

I'm sure that "most Americans" support the use of force against the Palestinians, even, if not especially, the use of American made helicopter gun ships, tanks and rockets. But with the much publicized accuracy of these technologically advanced weapons, why do "most Americans" support the destruction of homes and the livelihoods of Palestinians who have nothing to do with any of the violence and are not even near the shooting areas? And how could "most Americans" support the use of anti-tank missiles by the Israelis when the Palestinians don't have any tanks

Why do "most Americans" support the building of bypass roads for Jews only when "most Americans" didn't support the "whites only" restrooms and drinking fountains in the south during the 50's and 60's?

Do "most Americans" support what Professor Dafna Golan of Hebrew University has defined as apartheid when "most Americans" didn't support the apartheid in South Africa?

Why do "most Americans" support the fact that 400 Jewish settlers control a community of over 40,000 Palestinians in Hebron with military force? And why do "most Americans" support these settlers when they are members of the Kach party, which was started by Rabbi Meir Kahane and has been designated as a terrorist organization by both the Israelis and the U.S. State Department?

Why do "most Americans" support Israel's refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?

Do "most Americans" support the killing and maiming of people during this unfortunate conflict? Is it because "most of them are Palestinians?"

Do you wonder why the Israelis put strict controls on the delegation lead by former Senator George Mitchell in their investigation of the causes and degree of violence and killings, controlling where they can go and with whom they can talk? Totalitarian governments control information, not democracies. Amira Hass, Jewish author said the occupation "represents the central contradiction of the state of Israel – democracy for some, dispossession for others; it is our exposed nerve," (Drinking The Sea At Gaza, Amira Hass).

It is said, "Evil lurks in the darkness. But light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it." (John 1:5).

The fight for freedom and dignity

"Give me liberty or give me death," should be allowed the Palestinians as well. Patrick Henry is alive and well in Palestine.

Violence justified

"Ignorance is the plea of an accomplice." (Disruptive Grace, George Hunsinger).

The "abdication of responsibility will be tempting to those who only know how to live in a world neatly divided into territories of pure light and of utter darkness. But no such world exists, except in the imagination of the self-righteous [and] the construction of such a world is itself an act of injustice," (Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf).

"There can be no ethic of arbitrary self interest where utility replaces morality. Like truth, justice is one and universal, valid of all times [and people] or it is no justice at all. Make that one justice reign and you will have peace. Peace rests on justice," (Ibid).

"If you want justice without injustice, you must want love. Anything short of love cannot be perfect justice. If we see human beings as children of the one God, created by God to belong all together in a community of love, then there will be good reason to let embrace (love) define what justice is," (Ibid).

Is my Palestinian friend correct when he said, "The power of justice is greater than the power of guns?"

"Palestinians are as valued by God as Jews. Palestinians are created as equal in God's image as Jews," (Rabbi Michael Leaner, TIKKUN, Nov/Dec 2000).

We must begin to see this. We must begin to believe this. While "our understanding of justice is imperfect and we often pervert justice even as we seek to do it, to know God is to do justice.... The problem of justice in modern society is that those with more power win. They control the ethical debate. This is called bully ethics. When we are looking at each other through the sights of our guns we see only the rightness of our cause. We must see what we have not seen before in the encounter with the other. We must make space within ourselves not only for their perspective but also with their help. To agree on justice in conflict situations you must want more than justice; you must want embrace. There can be no justice without the will to embrace and there can be no true, genuine and lasting embrace without justice. . (Exclusion and Embrace, Volf)

CPT The last night in Hebron there was a tremendous firefight right over our apartment. It went on all night so I got little sleep. That night the settlers started a fire at the entrance of our apartment building. During my stay they kept telling us, "You in the red [CPT] hats, you're next!"

We had placed ourselves in an exposed position. We aligned ourselves with the power of weakness because "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can to that." (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Now that I'm home in Santa Barbara I have hot-and-cold running, air-conditioned, power steering everything with a 6 CD changer and yet I wonder every day how the people are doing in Hebron. I count the days until I can go back.

David F. Neunuebel