On Wednesday May 10, our delegation went to four Palestinian bedouin areas to find examples of apartheid.

As mentioned in other posts from this trip, find the day’s pictures on our Facebook page.

The most surreal moments where when we could hear F-16s flying overhead on their way to drop bombs on people in Gaza during an operation announced by Israel  we had heard that two days before that several children and mothers were killed along with militants. We thought we could also hear an explosion or two in the distance. We heard the jets while at our first stop and again at the second with sorties about every 4-6 minutes several times. Knowing our tax dollars support such operations is part of why we are here.

The group is led by staff of the American Friends Service Committee in the US and local staff. Three are Israeli Jews. The invitees include two Methodist pastors, a Baptist pastor, two Presbyterians - one a pastor and one to be ordained this year, a United Church of Christ pastor, a Quaker meeting leader, an Episcopalian lay leader, and the leader of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East. We are also enjoying the bright and energetic company of the three-year-old son of one staffer.   

The focus on bedouins this day was brilliant. At the time of the Nakba in 1948, there were 300,000 Palestinian bedouins in Palestine under the British mandate, and this was reduced to 10,000 from people fleeing the Jewish militias. Now, almost exactly 75 years later, they again number 300,000. The problems are that Israel has been displacing them to townships, upending their ways of life, to make their former lands available for settlements or military exercises. Our guide this day was a bright law student named Bashir who is a bedouin and whose family ended up in a densely populated apartment block in a township created to displace bedouins into.

We learned that the bedouins became semi-nomadic a few hundred years ago, meaning they would have an area with plantings and the women and children would stay there while the men would take the livestock to a second location for grazing and then return. There are bedouin communities in many areas of Palestine including the Naqab (Negev) arid region in the south of Israel as well as several clusters in the occupied West Bank south of Hebron  there are others scattered across the West Bank in very small or sometimes single family units. Another thing we learned was that there are recognized and unrecognized bedouin communities. The ones that are unrecognized are under constant threat of demolition. We were told that Israeli policy is maximum land with minimum Arabs. What we learned matched this saying. 

Our first stop was in Araqeeb (emphasis on second syllable), a small bedouin community living on land for which it has ownership dating back to more than 100 years. In the 1948 Nakba, Jewish militia came to their encampment and took away 28 men of all ages to a stone house in the area and executed them all. Their names are listed on a banner at the camp entrance. In the past ten or so years, they have experienced the Israeli army coming in and demolishing their housing structures 217 times. The government wants them to vacate their land and go to a township. We were welcomed into a tent made of wood and covered with plastic tarps with some plastic chairs in a semicircle and some cushions on the ground. The sheikh and his father both spoke to us. Both have spent time in Israeli prison for protesting demolitions. Both are currently under court order not to set foot in their own community and if caught they will go back to jail for 10 months. The father reported that Israeli aircraft have sprayed Roundup on their area several times and that this has caused some livestock to die. His daughter died of cancer and he believes the spray is to blame. They also reported that the army comes and confiscates livestock and cars periodically. They lost all their camels in this manner and also their olive trees were uprooted. The most recent demolition was two weeks ago and they are still sleeping under the trees until they can get materials to rebuild.  

Our hearts were heavy. As we listened, a teenage boy quietly went around serving us Arabic coffee and then dates, which is the tradition for a short visit, and generous given the situation. Several women took video of our visit and a few other men and a teenage girl joined the group. We heard F16s maybe twice during the presentation. The two men thanked us for our interest and urged us to tell people in the US what is happening to their community.

The next stop was a more permanent looking and much larger bedouin community called Abu Queidar which is a mixture of cement block houses that are finished and some with corrugated steel walls. There is a cement community center where we were welcomed to colorful couches and chairs and heard more from Bashir who then translated what the community leader Mohammed wanted to share. Here we heard more F16 sorties. My brother-in-law who lives in the West Bank called on WhatsApp to make sure we were safe. After the presentation, we were served a delicious lunch by his wife and a few other women. He then took us on a short walking tour to see a recently demolished house. There is clear poverty in the area they have no electricity or water from the state because they are unrecognized. They must bring their own water and make their own electricity from solar panels and generators. Many houses are under this threat of demolition and one never knows when it will happen. 

The last two stops were in an area called Masafer Yatta. All of the hills in this area south of Hebron are bedouin settled. Israel has been creating military outposts that turned into settler outposts for awhile. The settlements take up spots on hilltops, making the land around them unavailable under threat of violence from settlers. The first bedouin village was At-Tuwani. We stopped at a house that has a dwelling on an uplifted floor and an open covered patio sitting area, kitchen, sleeping room, craft shop and bathroom below the house. One of our tour guides lived here for awhile as part of an effort to stop demolitions and protect people from violent settlers. A woman community leader, Kefaa, spoke to us about how they built a school. She is head of the women’s craft committee. Ali, a journalist from the nearby village of Tuba, was interpreting. She started the idea of building their own school. The children have been walking over the hills. What would normally be about 20 minute walk to a school in another Bedouin village. But with the increasing numbers of Sattler outposts, it became unsafe for the children to walk, and they had to go a long way around to avoid the settlements, which could take them two hours to get to school in the morning in two hours to get back in the afternoon. So she and her husband and other people want to speak to Yasser Arafat and ask him for funding for a school which was arranged although there would be no help with the actual construction, and no guarantee that it would not be destroyed by settlers or the military. It was done at night by men and during day by women. They were afraid to have their efforts detected and disrupted by angry settlers. After thirty days they added the roof. It was a bitterly cold night but they were afraid to start warming fires not to attract settler attention. It was a success, and the children to second grade could stay locally for school and the PA sent teachers. Now it is enlarged and has 23 rooms and students through 12th grafe  

There were no settlements in their area, just military camps, before the 1970s. Israel decided to transform the military outposts to settler agricultural outposts from beginning of 1980s and working on declaring this land a firing zone officially 1985. Demolitions started. Bulldozers demolished small caves and cottages close to settlements. Still a vast area of land - how to ensure in future a way to take these lands? They enforced laws under Ottoman Empire and British mandate. Settlements grow with the state land law; if Palestinian land is not used for a few years it becomes public and then the state can lease it. They started leasing to settlers. During COVID to today, many hills that before 2020 were for grazing with big flocks, including for his grandfather, were not allowed any more. Pogroms happened against villages here. But a government should be responsible for individual violence. It makes no sense to disallow people who have been grazing for generations…the court will say the land (that they were barred from) has not been used. Villages are separated with a chain of settlements.

You can read Amira Hass in Haaretz who tells how Israel uses excuses. Who was there before? the residence or the firing zone. There are docs proving they want to use firing zones to kick out.

Ali’s grandfather was born in this area in 1942.

In Aug 1999 the first evacuation orders were issued - he was 1 year old - against 700 people. The people were not thinking to find new shelter as winter was coming with also their thousands of livestock. In November the Israeli authorities started forcing people and flocks out to make way for a firing zone.

Neighbors in Tuba started living in old houses of those forced out. Hoping to return. They lived next to the firing zone borders. They slept in their caves at night and took care of animals and children in the day.

His family moved from Tuba 1999 and built a few tents for the people and for 300 goats and 500 sheep. It was the time for sheep to give birth so every night 10-15 sheep were born and needed warmth. They did not have to face just eviction just eviction but also nature that was cold and rainy. After the camp was built, they got a good Israeli lawyer and won their firing zone case - ACRI helped also; but the army at the supreme court argued the other side. If brought to Isr Civil Admin it is part of the military. Ali proved this land is registered to his family; Supreme Ct says can be firing zone but you are saying you own. Started legal case in 2000. Not many people knew about this - just the two Israeli rights groups Taayush and Btselem.

Before the legal case started the military showed up at temporary camp and said it is in the firing zone and confiscated the tents and seven eggs his grandma had picked up. Neighboring villagers came with tents and blankets for the 20 or so people. And 23 lambs died that night in the cold rain. They left the firing zone borders and built another encampment. They then got a temporary permit until the hearing to decide. It took 20 yrs to get to the first ruling. Because Israeli outposts are built in or partly in firing zone, for them to evacuate the Palestinian villages but not settlers’ illegal outposts they divided the firing zone into two parts - wet and dry firing zones. Apartheid within apartheid. B’Tselem says the Supreme Ct is a court of occupation. Several villages were in dry area and others had to be evacuated. The lawyer submitted an appeal from 8 villages; from 2018-2022 it took. At At the court hearing the villagers were accompanied by Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers in solidarity with Palestinians. The judges again ruled in favor of the army. Shouldn’t court protect civilians? The court ruled that the army can train with tanks or guns in the firing zones.

When they wanted to kick out the people they started the training before the green light.

The Maon outpost/settlement is 600 meters from his village and also between it and West Bank. It is 2 km from here to his village the straightest way, but since 2002 they have to go another way. To get to the town of Yatta needs a route that adds 10 km. That is a lot of time to get to a hospital for childbirth or emergencies. They are not allowed to build a clinic. And the route is driving over the fields, not a road. It used to be a 20 minute walk to school on a road. His uncle and aunt when young were driving on a tractor in 2002 and were assaulted by settlers who destroyed the tractor and caused much injury.

Now some students ride donkeys to take a longer way to be safer.

He recalls in 2003 people had to start before 6 am to be at school at 8 am. If there is an attack they have to run and find a farther way or go home. Same in the afternoon and they might come home at dark.

CPT is an American group that came in 2004 and offered to live in village and escort children to school.

The first day was peaceful.

On the second day there was an organized attack from settlers. Before kids got newr the outpost there were masked settlers with chains and sticks. You can find video of a volunteer calling ambulance while bleeding.

A specialized chief of army was sent in to do what CPT was trying to do escorting young children.

He had to transfer elsewhere until second grade.

People follow the kids progress on Whats App to and from school. Because the army will not keep this as a top priority.

We then did some craft shopping in the small store in the building.

Then we had a visit from about a dozen schoolchildren. Two teenage girl activist storytellers - Banan and Janna - each told stories growing out of a storytelling class led by Jewish activists. One told the story of her family getting to Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem with a long awaited permit and the other told a story of witnessing the beating of a 17-year-old boy outside Al Aqsa and being sprayed with skink water at rhe bus station trying to leave for home. these young people were vibrant with great stage presence and we wished all of them the best. 

After tea and coffee, we got back on our bus and headed to the last stop for the day, the small bedouin community of Umm Al Khair, also with land confiscation and home demolitions. 

In this community we parked at the community center. It has small dimensions and a small play yard for children. Children ran up to investigate as we trailed onto the patio and sat on benches. Our group leader handed out lollipops to their great delight. We could see the painting of a deceased community elder on the side of the building. He died when the army came to demolish and confiscate a few years ago, being run iver and drafged by an army vehicle. Below is what our host, Awda, a writer and English teacher, said to us. 

His name means return, as in the right of displaced people to return to their homes and lands.   

Everything started here in 1948 - nakba.

His family lived the nakba.

The family was living in Araad. It was a war. People were killed, jailed, arrested, transferred. Families thought it it would be resolved quickly. When it was not, they gathered their money and bought this area of land and lived normal bedouin life.

In 1982 they lived at the top of hill in summer and in winter the valleys. They bought the top of two mountains. A Settlement started as a military checkpoint in that year. They stopped the bedouin people from building houses or fences. The Israeli authorities confiscated more than half (60%) of their private land although they have all the papers to prove ownership.

His grandma used to live by where there is a water tank now.

Now near them is one of the largest settlements in South Hebron hills. And then the settlement built a chicken farm. This is the closest bedouin village to a settlement. Electricity passes the village to the chicken farm and not to the village. Israel always talks about its democracy but they do not share the electricity. The Umm Al Khair electricity is all from solar which is a problem in winter. They have water only 7 hrs a week. This is hard for up for 180 ppl and the sheep. They tried to adapt. In 2007 Israel started a phased demolition process. He remembers all the details of the first demolition day and wishes he can forget. He was in 2nd grade going to school with two cousins wearing the uniforms. A cousin was 1 year older and another was 1 year younger. Older cousin said why so many cars around. Awda did not want to see. The younger cousin said what they can do — they took our land and water — what can they do more — we will not leave. His chair was next to the window. They passed the first class. They were preparing for second class and he saw yellow bulldozers and thought they were to kill people. He got back home from school. He remembers his mom’s face. The anger in the men’s faces. Children shouting. Five houses got destroyed including the one he had been in a few hours ago. From that town the story started. More than 15 demolition processes and 80 structures demolished. An elder, Haj Suleiman, was the most famous activist in the area. The army came to confiscate three cars. Haj stood in front of bulldozers saying God is Great and you will regret. He was run over by a truck with 3 confiscated cars on it and was dragged 7 meters. He died 17 Jan 2022. After the accident we took him to the hospital. Police and the driver left. I saw he was very damaged, brain damage. He was in an ICU in Hebron for 12 days. We got a call from authorities apologizing but also threatening violence if any protest happened at the funeral.

“Who we are? Simple people seeking simple rights but unfortunately … our dreams are water, electricity, decent house. We want to feel safe. Not having to be asked for ID. We are not terrorists. We got stuck in the middle. It is not a conflict. Not a struggle. It is oppression. I have been jailed, arrested. They broke my mom’s knee. My father was disabled and still was attacked. It did not end. Last thing was we lost people. We are continuing activism just because of Hajj Suleiman. We want peace.”

Awda then took us on a tour showing the electric lines passing along the supposed edge of their land to the chicken farm. There is no electricity or eater service for the Palestinians here. Meanwhile we could see a row of settler homes with nice design and tile roofs within a few hundred feet of the bedouin children’s play area. Awda said once the kids kicked a soccer ball across to the settler area and he asked one of the settlers to return it. The settler said nasty words to him and called him a terrorist. His answer was a question: How many times did I attack you, and how many times the Israeli army came to our community and attacked us? We want peace. 
We saw the rubble of demolished homes, the very bright lights lining the tall barbed wire topped settlement fence, and the impoverished condition of the village homes. Nevertheless, they have murals painted on some walls of the community kitchen, with a line from the revered Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. 

A warm and tasty dinner was served outside right after sunset. Following dinner, Pastor Michael led us in a reflection of one word that makes us grieve from what we experienced today and one word that gives us hope. He led us in singing We Shall Overcome and then we shared our words. Loss-Possibility. Children-Children. 

We thanked our community hosts and headed for the bus and a somber and reflective ride back to East Jerusalem. 

Today the group traveled to Lyd (Arabic)/Lod (Hebrew) and Jaffa (Yaffa) by the Mediterranean Sea coast. 

The purpose of today’s visit was to explore Apartheid conditions in Israel and experience some musical art as a form of preserving identity and resisting oppression.

We met first with Fida Shehade, a Palestinian feminist activist from Lydd/Lod she was a city council member there during the pogroms against Palestinians in May 2021 when she also was threatened and by the mayor. Fida accompanied us on the tour bus first to some older structures in the city including a very old mosque beside a church. Israel has a law that states anything older than the year 1700 should be protected and preserved — but this is not applied consistently. Fida showed us the poster on a wall highlighting the case of a young Palestinian man that was killed by a Jewish man during a night of attacks on Palestinians during the Israeli assault on Gaza. She said there was no arrests made even though there were witnesses. Six people were charged in the pogroms but the names are withheld from the public  

Fida showed us an old khan, or caravanserai.  It has been left standing. Within a stone’s throw is a new street at a higher elevation. when Fida was on the city council there was a plan to build this road over the remains of a Turkish bath. She had asked them to make the area into a historic site park but the council did not agree  but fortunately the agreeed to build the road at a higher level to preserve the ruins of the old bath house.

Back on the bus, Fida directed the driver to take us through a couple of neighborhoods, where the apartheid situation was detailed. This takes the form of vastly unequal money is being spent on the two community/Jews and Palestinian Arabs. In some areas there is no water or electricity service for the Palestinians.

For lunch we went for appetizers and shawarma at a local restaurant  

Our next stop stop was at a private school classroom where we met with Taner Nafar, a founder of the first Palestinian hip hop band. 

Following this brief encounter we had a few hours of free time. Some of us elected to head to the area of our dinner restaurant while others strolled to the beach and though the old city of Yaffa. We were reminded that at about this date in 1948, thousands of Palestinians were forced by Jewish militias to flee the city of Jaffa, destined for Beirut where they would become refugees with no right of return. We had a great dinner at Abu Nassar, and then went to the green space behind the Peres Peace and Innovation center. Two leaders of Zochrot spoke to us there about their work in promoting awareness of the Nakba. 

On Tuesday May 9th, we went to Hebron.

The group includes several staff of the American Friends Service Committee. The staff members have done an excellent job planning the itinerary with local activists and leading the delegation. Delegation members include lay leaders and ordained ministers and the faiths represented are Baptist, Episcopalian, Friends (Quakers), Mennonite, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, and United Church of Christ.

These daily highlights detail the local activists who serve as guides for the delegation.

Hebron, Al Khalil in Arabic, is the site of a mosque that also holds the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and other patriarchs of Judaism and their wives. It was a hub of commerce since those times at least and up to the 20th century inhabitants included Muslims and Jews. One of our guides is a descendent of its old Jewish Palestinian community. As the Zionist movement ramped up its immigration plans under the British occupation of the area, tensions grew. In 1929 there was violent uprising by the Palestinian Arab population and one location was Hebron in which 67 Jews were killed. In the aftermath, the Jewish population left the city. In 1967, the six day war saw Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and within that was Hebron. Plans were enacted to establish a Jewish presence again in the city. This has been done in ways that are unjust particularly in the Old City area which is one of the best preserved medieval cities. A Jewish gunman in 1986 carried out a massacre of Palestinians praying in Ibrahimi mosque. After this, the Israeli authorities ordered that the doors of Palestinian shops facing a specific street, Shahada Street, should be permanently closed stating fear of retaliation against settlers/colonists and that Palestinians will not be allowed to walk on this street. On our Facebook page you can see photos of these closed doors. 

The Jewish colonists who move in to the old city take over homes above shops when the owner is away. From the windows on the opposite side of the street they often throw trash down onto the walkway for Palestinian shops there. Palestinians have a mesh barrier in place to control the amount of debris. From being a hub of commerce in the area, the old city shop area has become very depressed as many Palestinians prefer not to go there due to checkpoints and the presence of very aggressive colonists. A Palestinian organization provides funds to belp shop owners keep their shops open. In the old city are about 800 colonists and thousands of Palestinians whose families have been there for generations, slowly losing their homes. There is one woman who lives on this street and the authorities dictated she must keep her from door open at all times, and we witnessed this gap. 

As we walked this street taking photos and hearing its history from our Jewish Israeli guide, we were approached a few times by the young soldiers at the checkpoint. On one occasion a Black member of our group was approached individually, which was a very disturbing experience for him as a Black man. 

We walked up stone steps to reach a building rented by a group called Youth Against Settlements. Muhannad told us about the organization and what it does to encourage activism among young people. To illustrate the apartheid reality, he explained that to get an ambulance to help a Palestinian in the old city area takes five phone calls ending with the local military commander who at times denies the permission due to security reasons. The time spent traversing this exercise is obviously wasting precious minutes, Golden Minutes in the case of heart attack, and has resulted in multiple deaths that could be prevented. 

Children must navigate a military checkpoint on their way to school. Numerous Palestinian children and adults have been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers over the years for often just suspicion, and have been left to bleed out with denial of aid and ambulance. Apartheid is a systematic and intentional program of separate and unequal treatment with elements of cruelty. The definition fits. there is now an AI powered gun at the checkpoint that can deliver sponge bullets (which can injure despite the soft part of the name) and tear gas canisters. 

Our speaker still has optimism and asks though that faith communities in the U.S. do more to support the goal of liberty and a peaceful and dignified life. 

We walked around a different route to reach the checkpoint toward the Old City open shops. We went through a tall turnstile to get to this area. A specific shop has embroidery and ceramics by a women’s co-op amd several of our group stopped to support this entity. 

We also found an outgoing shop owner who invited us in to see an Ottoman era sesame seed press that was used to make tahini, a cooking staple for hummus, salads, and sauces. This is a grinding stone structure that was rotated due to the work of a camel. 

It struck us as very sad to see the demeanor of the many shop owners, mostly older men, sitting at the entrances enticing us to buy with so few shoppers along the street. 

The architecture was amazing to witness, and our hearts were full of yearning for the people here to see freedom times.

We went to the office of the organization that funds the shops needing assistance and heard from a representative of Defense for Children International which defends Palestinian children who are detained by the military court system. This is another apartheid example. Jewish children accused of crimes are prosecuted through a different nonmilitary court system and would always have a family member present during interrogation. Palestinian children never have a family member present, and are often arrested in the middle of the night. There are about 700 arrested each year. They can also be held in something called administrative detention, a holdover practice from the  British occupation. This means there is no charge but they are still in prison. A recent law states that children found guilty of throwing stones can be sentenced to 20 years. 

Two years ago Israel declared DCIP a terrorist organization, confiscated its office contents, and welded the door shut. Read their statement protesting this false designation  

Visit our Facebook page for photos from this day in Hebron. 

Sunday, May 7, delegation members had some free choices for the morning. A couple of people went to Saint George Anglican church. Another group went to the Lutheran Church in the old city that has service in English as well as Arabic. And a third group took taxis to Ramallah city, just north of Jerusalem, where there is a friends meeting, otherwise known as Quaker meeting House. The Friends have been an active presents for a just peace in the occupied territories for many years. 

I was in the Ramallah contingent because I wanted to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live there. It was a delightful brunch and conversation for me, and the others enjoyed the respective worship service experiences. As far as I know, there are no Unitarian Universalist fellowships or other entities in Palestine or Israel. 

How people got to their various destinations is revealing of the apartheid and occupation that continues. The Lutheran, an Anglican churches were walking distance from the hotel and not a hassle to get to. Going to Ramallah the American Friends Service Committee have a taxi company on standby that has white (Israeli) license plates. This kind of taxi will get you through the military checkpoints more easily. Palestinian vehicles have yellow license plates. And everyone has an ID that states their nationality. The road to Ramallah is populated with several checkpoints. These tend to be located near Israeli settlements and are ostensibly for the protection of the settlers. One should bear in mind that the Israeli government carried out the occupation of the territories in 1967 making it one of the longest occupations in modern history, and according to international law, it is illegal for a country that is an occupying power to transfer its population to an occupied territory. And yet the construction of new settlements, for Jews only, has continued unabated for decades. There is a lot of racism against the Palestinians. A number of these settlers have been going on rampages for a while, burning olive groves, attacking Palestinian farmers, dragging Palestinians out of cars, harassing children on the way to school and so on.

We took the taxis from Ramallah to Bethlehem. The early afternoon was a scheduled time for visiting the Church of the Nativity, Manger Square, and some of the Palestinian owned shops nearby that sell crafts.
I asked the driver to do us the favor of passing by the Banksy Hotel, which is an anti-occupation establishment where visitors can stay and have a view of the 24 m high occupation wall.

When we got to the Manger Square, to our surprise, a patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church was paying a visit, and therefore there was to be a several hours pause in the line to get down to the lower levels of the church of the of the Nativity to see the star marking the spot that was the birthplace of Jesus. We were able to walk into the Orthodox section of the complex as well as the Roman Catholic sanctuary and took some very nice photos. Trying to get to a shop was a bit more challenging because the recommended one and several others were closed due to the musical processions that were starting to take place in honor of the patriarch visit. We did get to look at some beautiful embroidery and ceramics and other creative arts and crafts, and a special lucky experience was watching the youth, marching bands pass by there were notably at least two band groups with bagpipes and drums. It’s likely that the first bagpipes were created somewhere in the greater Mediterranean, perhaps what is known as Greece today and then possibly spread to the Roman empire who’s soldiers and followers brought the instrument to the British Isles were the Scotts developed it to its current form. Perhaps they were brought by people from Scotland or England in the 19th or 20th century and taught as part of secondary school programs for Palestinian Christians. These bands were scout groups from various churches that included more than one gender. Presumably these are all children from Christian families living in the area. The Christian population of Palestine at the turn of the 19th century was somewhere between 10 and 20% Christian Arabs but due to the occupation, and the restrictive wall that has built a ramp been built around parts of Bethlehem, which impacts economy and centers of life many Christians have left for other countries, reducing the population to perhaps one or 2% of the Palestinians. People are really grieving the shrinking of their community. Pictures are available on our Facebook and Twitter @uujme. The next step for our delegation was the YMCA on one side of Bethlehem, where we met with Rifat Kassis rep representing a Palestinian Christian ecumenical coalition called Kairos Palestine. This organization was founded using the model of the Kairos organization during the time of apartheid in South Africa, issuing a call for churches around the world to be in solidarity, with the oppressed people of South Africa, calling for freedom. The Kairos organization represents the grassroots leaders of various Palestinian Christian denominations. Refat emphasized the deep and growing concern about the continuing displacement of Palestinians from their homes and lands. May 15 is when many Israeli Jews will surprise, celebrate the declaration of the state of Israel. The same day is commemorated by Palestinians as a Nakba, or the catastrophe in which more than 700,000 were driven from or fled their homes, in fear of terrorists, Jewish militias that committed massacres. This displacement is what enabled the state of Israel to be created because suddenly there were so many homes available that have been emptied of their original inhabitants of these homes were given to Jews. The displacement has continued since 1948.  Two laws were passed in 1950 that  accelerated the displacement. The first law was the absentee law, which declared that if Palestinians were not in their homes, and on their properties, they could be taken over by the state which did happen the Palestinians that had left their homes were never permitted to return. The second law was the law of return, which allowed any Jews, anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel, as if they were returning to their lost homeland. Palestinians have never been granted that capability with many ending up in refugee camps around the region and immigrating to other countries. There are tens of millions of Palestinians in the diaspora.

we found out later that earlier in the morning of Sunday, the Israeli authorities carried out the demolition of an elementary school near Bethlehem. This type of behavior happens on the regular, as Palestinians are not given permits for constructing the social infrastructure that they need for their population, so they take matters into their own hands as most humans would do and build their own structures without a permit inevitably the Israeli government will issue a demolition order, and it will be carried out. See this tweet by Issa Amro from the organization use against the settlements: https://twitter.com/issaamro/status/1655162183473414151?s=46. 

How was the Kairos coalition able to come together in the first place about 13 years ago and to go on to publish fhe recent Dossier on Israeli Apartheid? Rifat states that the members avoided any topic that would divide. They kept their vision toward ending the colonizing apartheid system. They are the voice of grassroots Christians, maybe not of all church leaders. They maybe influenced church leaders to speak out. But as they stated to the World Council of Churches, which has failed to say anything about the apartheid situation, saying that they’re not hearing from church leaders about it is that church leaders in the occupied territories are under a great deal of pressure from the occupation itself. In order to operate as a church they need certain permits, and they fear that if they make outspoken statements about the apartheid situation, the Israeli government will make operating a church very difficult. Rifat’s request to us was to not allow World Council of Churches and churches in the US and UK to delay solidarity by hiding behind waiting for local faith leaders to speak up.

After this important meeting, the tour bus took us back to Jerusalem, where we are staying at the National Hotel, a Palestinian owned enterprise. We met at the top floor restaurant at the hotel for a delicious shared meal. Following this, we received information from the head of Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian liberation theology center. In Arabic, sabeel means the way or path or the spring as in the body of water. This group was established a few decades ago and works hard to legitimize the concept that resisting oppression can be part of one’s theology. Omar requested that we think hard about theories of change in what faith groups do to support what Palestinians call for. His feeling is that the old model of bringing people to see and go back and tell is going to make big changes. This has been happening for a long time that faith groups will come witness what is happening to the Palestinians go back and tell their congregations and organize some phone calls and visits to elected officials, and yet Palestinians are still struggling under the same impression with worse results every week.  He cautioned us also against being the saviors and viewing Palestinians as the victims, and said that when he sees the courage and confidence of Palestinians in the face of oppressive power, he sees people that are already liberated in their minds. Indeed, it is the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in there, continuing resistance to their oppression that gives solidarity its momentum. Omar also highly recommended a book that Sabeel published last year based on a deep study of antisemitism. Now we just need to do more to draw churches onto the path of responding to the call of Palestinian churches and other organizations to take action that will ultimately get the United States to stop enabling this entirely dismal situation.

The structures and power of settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid must be dismantled.  

Jerusalem and Environs

[Pictures will be added later - see our Twitter account in the meanwhile at https://www.twitter.com/uujme.]

May 6th was the first full day of the interfaith delegation of the Apartheid-Free Communities initiativs to Palestine and Israel, sponsored by the American from Service Committee. We did some bonding over dinner the night before after the entire group had finally arrived through the Tel Aviv airport.

In the morning we boarded a small-ish tour bus with a total of 19 people and our local tour guide staff person. Sahar talked us through an understanding of the demarcation lines around Jerusalem. She provided some very detailed maps. The driver took us to a high vantage point called big mountain, from which you can see the south side of the old city walls, the Dome of the Rock rising above that along with a few church towers and many buildings. The valley below us was pointed out, highlighting much empty space where you would imagine building should be going on with an expanding population of Palestinians; however, building is almost impossible for Palestinians to get approved through the Israel permit system. We could also see part of the separation wall in the distance and the Mount of Olives. Part of what we could see is an area called Silwan where 87 homes are under threat of eventual demolition to make room for a biblical theme park that the Israeli government wants to see happen to make the Christian tourists happy. Sahar returned our attention to the maps to show us that the Jerusalem municipality, which is controlled by the Israeli government is intent upon building more and more settlements so that the old city is pretty much surrounded by Jewish only settlements and to displace as many Palestinians as possible.

Next the driver took us around to the separation wall that we could see from a distance. We brainstormed different names for the wall with one of my favorites being architectural oppression. This wall was built to supposedly go along the green line, which was the division between Israel and the occupied territories in East Jerusalem in 1967. It actually does not stay true to that line, encroaching upon Palestinian territory. Many times the reason that the Israeli government gave for building the wall was to stop terrorist attacks by Palestinians in the occupied territories, coming into Israel, and doing suicide bombing. And while it’s true that after the wall was constructed the suicide attacks ceased, it’s also a fact that the political leadership of Hamas took a decision to discourage suicide bombing as a strategy. In any case, for an occupying power to build a wall that cuts communities in half in some cases is against international law, and just wrong. In the location that we visited, the wall does cut a neighborhood in half and what that means is for Palestinians living on the other side of the wall, they have to go through a checkpoint to get to the other side of the wall and repeat that to go back, so this has been very disruptive to livelihood and education.

We also learned that the Israelis control the Jerusalem municipality and will not build schools for the population of Palestinians, which is illegal under international law for an occupying power.  So what Palestinians have to do is have the kids attend in two shifts with half attending in the morning and a half attending in the afternoon.

There is also not reliable trash pickup for the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, and this makes areas very messy and causes people to resort to burning their garbage.

Our next stop was the neighborhood of Silwan itself where we looked at artivism. On our way to this neighborhood we took a detour to see the spring of Silwan, which flows from the Biblical pool of Silwan, where Jesus took the water and healed a blind man.

The project we visited was called iwitness Silwan, and our guide for the first part of the tour was a Jewish American activist named Lou. She showed us many bright, cheerful and beautiful murals that she helps to design and paint with children and adults in the community to give them some hope and control over their environment despite the fact that slowly Israeli settlers take over homes from time to time and that there’s constant video surveillance in the area from the Israeli buildings. There are a number of eyes that are painted on buildings, looking back at the surveillance cameras, and serving as symbolic witness to the ethnic cleansing, displacement, violence, and unequal treatment that the Palestinians experience.

Then we had the tour next phase, led by a man who is a leader in this community, who took us past some more murals, including on the side of his house that were just gorgeous. Then he took us up to the creative center in the community were they provided a amazing lunch for us, and we sat and discuss the importance of supporting arts as a form of giving hope ans constructive outlet for the children, and a message of resistance to what is happening.

We thanked him and Lou and the lunch providers deeply and walked our way back down to where the bus picked us up again. After this, we had some time in our rooms to put our feet up and then met at a restaurant in the Sahara hotel for some dinner and bonding time with the amazing people on this trip, following this, we walked down the street to the Jerusalem Legal Aid Center and saw a presentation about the ongoing displacement of Palestinians and demolition of their homes in Jerusalem. Since the beginning of the occupation. It is quite telling. 

Tomorrow’s post will be about our trip to Bethlehem at our meeting with referred Rifaat Kassis of Kairos Palestine and our discussion with Sabeel, an organization based on Palestinian Christian liberation theology.