March 16, 2018

The roosters of Palestine make themselves heard at 3 a.m.

Somewhat later each day, still early morning, I hear the Islamic Call to Prayer.

The cathedrals and mosques, the tombs and caves and wells, and all the old and ancient structures – beautiful and impressive in their magnitude, filled with history and meaning.

The places of Jesus: the (possible) site of His birth, the old road between Jerusalem and Jericho, the way of the cross, the Jordan River – have moved me forward in my faith:  there really was a man named Jesus who lived and died here, and now I am walking on his paths – literally!

Jesus showed us how to live – in our present.  This, to me, means I must learn about this land – this land of conflict, fear and occupation.  For this I have come to Israel/Palestine.  And now, having seen The Wall, the checkpoints, the strings of barbed-wire; and learned about the huge percentage of the West Bank – the land which was supposed to be for the Palestinians, but now taken by Israel for military training and for the development of more and more settlements (each inhabited by tens of thousands of ultra-right-wing and Orthodox Jews), the forced removal of Palestinians, the focus on and meaning of personal identity (based on ethnicity, religion, nationality, place of residence) which determines where a person can go, which highways and streets s/he can use, different colors of vehicle license plates indicating the owner’s identity and thus his/her privileges or restrictions – seeing and experiencing all of this, and the people living in the midst of this violence engender outrage in me.

Then comes the pain.  We meet Maya, a young, culturally Jewish, American woman who is married to a Palestinian man; they have a 4-month old son named in honor of his father’s cousin who was shot and killed by Israeli military as he walked down the steps of the 5-star hotel where he was employed.  Maya and family live in a refugee camp and experience endless obstacles to their movements as they try to plan and live a normal life.

Rami Elhanan, Joan Deming, Usama Nicola, George Sa’adeh

We heard the stories of two fathers, members of the Bereaved Families Forum, who each lost a daughter in her early teen years to the violence.  Rami Elhanan, an Israeli Jew, and George Sa’adeh, a Palestinian Christian, have found some comfort and indeed brotherhood in their commitments to rise above revenge and to share their stories and pain.  They, and others in their organization of over 600 bereaved family members, reach out to each family who lose a loved family member, inviting those newly experiencing this suffering to join them.  Rami and George, and their fellow members, demonstrate to all who will listen how to talk with “the other,” how to build bridges through listening, respecting, and trying to understand.

The night following our discussion meeting with these men, I have a nightmare full of anger and pain.

Now, the matter of hope.  Is it possible to have hope for peace in this Holy Land?  Sometimes I say Yes – like when we met and heard the vibrant, intense, thoughtful woman, Dalia Landau.  She is one of the two protagonists in the book written by Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree (I recommend it).  Dalia, an Israeli Jew since her infancy, told us of her current thinking about how peace might come.  She has changed her opinion and analysis over the decades because she has continued to listen to “the other”.  That is reason for hope. As were the bereaved parents.

Then we go to the office of the UN-OCHA for a lengthy and detailed briefing on the humanitarian effects of the occupation.  We hear about how intractable the political situation  seems to be; and that this humanitarian crisis is totally man-made and so could be solved by people.  But the international community has failed the Palestinian people.

Then we hear from Ivan Karakashian, who is the primary advocacy person at Defense for Children International – Palestine, about the terribly oppressive and torturous methods used to convict and imprison the teenagers who throw stones or do just about anything expressing their frustrations.  Over 60% of Palestinian male teens have been convicted of a crime.  I lose hope.

But we have now arrived in Ibillin, a Palestinian town in northern Israel, the site of the Mar Elias Educational Institutions.  MEEI is a large and thriving school serving Israeli Moslem, Christian and Druse children (Jewish children welcome but none now attending).  Thousands are being educated in one of the best schools in all of Israel – and hope returns.

Sunset over Haifa from the Mar Elias Schools in Ibillin

~ Kathy Murphy

March 14, 2018

On Wednesday we enjoyed our first breakfast at the Mar Elias guest house. The staff and volunteers that we have met have been very helpful and interesting to talk with. Samar is a delightful woman that has ensured we have more than enough to eat and expresses a genuine concern that we have all that we need. Ted and Jane are volunteers from New Jersey who have a wealth of knowledge about the area and are good at making sure things are smoothly run.

We had the chance to meet with staff at the Mar Elias school and interact with the students and it was really wonderful. When we arrived, the school was in a flurry of activity as the students began their day and staff congregated to review their daily schedules. The school serves both primary and secondary grades, with students that are a mix of Christian and Muslim. A key benefit and mission of the school is to bring together students of different faiths to generate relationships and understanding between communities that are often very segregated in other parts of the country. The staff is a mix of primarily Muslim and Christian and teach primarily in Arabic. There are two staff members that are Jewish and while their presence is exceptional in this environment, they are valued for their unique contributions.

Design teacher, Shosh, in new 3-D lab she has developed with and for MEEI.

I met with Shosh, an Israeli instructor that runs the graphic design program at Mar Elias. Shosh is Israeli and speaks Hebrew, and shared with us how she learned to speak and teach in Arabic while starting out in the job. Shosh has done an amazing job sourcing funding to develop a technology lab for design students. Students in Israeli follow a model of education that can start to direct them towards a specific trade or area of study while in high school. Once assigned to this course, this usually determines what they will study in university or do for a living, which is quite a contrast to the American model.

Conversation with 10th graders at Mar Elias.

Later on, we met with students in their English class and had the chance to talk with small groups and practice conversational English. Even in the hallways, it is clear these kids enjoy having visitors and the having the chance to use some of their English. It’s difficult to pass students by without many of them greeting you in English and asking “how are you?”. In most of our small groups there were one or two students that had a better mastery of English and would help interpret for their classmates. I met with a group of several boys that were mostly in their tenth year. We talked about our families and goals and hobbies. They had lots of questions about our jobs and had a distinct interest in how and when one gets married and buys a home in the U.S. Talking with these kids was really fun and it was refreshing to observe their enthusiasm and hear them express their hopes for their futures. The school clearly provides an amazing opportunity for these young people, in a way that is startling when compared to the lives of many young people we had observed in the West Bank.

Jonathan Cook

St. Anne’s Church in Saffuriya

Later in the afternoon we had the chance to meet with British writer Jonathan Cook. Jonathan, a former writer for The Guardian, has written extensively about Israel and Palestinian. He does an excellent job exploring and describing the historical and political aspects of the conflict in this region. We met with Jonathan for a walking tour, starting near a natural spring situated just outside the former Palestinian village of Suffuriya. As with most former Palestinian communities, Suffuriya was destroyed during the initial years of the occupation. We viewed remains of homes spread over an area that has been obscured by growth of more recently planted pine trees.

Jonathan described the long history of Palestinians, Romans and Byzantines in the area and challenged some of the myths related to the history of settlement in this area. This area is also unique in that some of the Palestinian history has been preserved due to its relationship with Christianity. Because it is believed that Mary came from this specific area, a church has been built here. The Vatican wanted rights to this land and have constructed an Italian run orphanage here. As a secondary result of the land deal made with the Israeli government, many of the remnants of Palestinian civilization here has not been erased. The Vatican was granted access to this land, however they have been discouraged from including this site in official pilgrimage tours and Israeli tour guides are not trained to bring visitors here. The ultimate goal of this is to prevent visitors intruding on the more recent Jewish settlements and to avoid additional recognition of the removal of Palestinians from the area. Jonathan demonstrates a real commitment to sharing the history of this area and advocating for the rights of Palestinians still living in the region. He was very effective in describing the complicated history of this region and explaining how current factors continue to perpetuate the conflict and disparity under which many in this region must live.

~ Ryan Larkey

March 13, 2018

Today has been a great day and very different from yesterday. It has been full of sight seeing. The hardest part was saying goodbye to our guide and going through the checkpoint into Israel. Since we have now crossed back into the state of Israel, our guide is unable to travel with us without a special permit but either way couldn’t legally be our tour guide.

We dropped our guide off before the checkpoint, but as we approached the checkpoint barrier between the West Bank and Israeli we were stopped by security since they saw us drop off a man. I wish I could have taken a picture while we were actually at the checkpoint. Since they saw our guide jump off the bus before the checkpoint, they ordered the driver to open the carriers under the bus and crept up to the hold with machine gun drawn. It was menacing. I watched it all from my seat above, looking out the window at the guard.

The checkpoint is surrounded by grey watch towers with spotlights and small windows, only big enough for binoculars and guns. All Palestinians have to get out of their vehicles (as they aren’t allowed to take vehicles across the border) and walk through the checkpoint. They are funneled into aisles designed like cages that lead into a cement building no one can see into and often brought into separate rooms that are not open to ensure the behavior of the guards.

Meanwhile outside, some vehicles are pulled aside to a separate lot for additional searching. And we were one of those vehicles. We sat and waited for guards to come and search the bus as they instead took care of vans who came in after us. One of the things that the Israeli guards do is try to make the checkpoint miserable for internationals so they won’t want to come back to Palestine. After a 20 minute wait three armed guards walked through our bus searching under seats and checking passports. When all was said and done, the search took about one minute. The experience was frightening for me because I felt like I could do something wrong but wouldn’t know what. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a Palestinian in this experience.

Backing up: This morning we woke up in Zababdeh after our homestays and toured the city. It is the only predominantly Christian town in the Northern part of the West Bank. We were able to visit a stable similar to the one Jesus was born in – as most cities at the time had these facilities for travelers.

This is the basilica, the part closest to the camera was the seat of the King.

After leaving Zababdeh we travelled onto Sebastia, a Roman town. Much of it was built by Herod the Great, including the famous basilica. It is most well known for the place where Herod the Lesser (son of Herod the Great) was presented with the head of John the Baptist. The city was the capital of ancient Israel and thus important to Jews and Jewish settlers. Because of this there were settlers there when we arrived. Whenever settlers travel in the West Bank, they are accompanied by several trucks of armed military personnel for protection. One feature of Sebastia that is rather well known is their proudly raised Palestinian flag. All day, every day, some young people raise the flag on the highest hill. However, military persons take down the flag. The youth then run to put it back up and the chase begins again. When we arrived this “game” was going on so we decided to do our shopping first and get away from the inevitable conflict. Later, as we hiked through the Roman ruins, we got a very strong smell of tear gas. Our guide told me that it was most likely from the chase between the youths and the military personnel. (Reminder to readers, tear gas is not to be used as a weapon, but a means of crowd control). I can tell you, even walking through the brief remains of the gas was awful.

Ten Lepers Church, Burqin

Finally, our day ended at St. George’s church (the third St. George’s church we’ve been to in 48 hours) in Burqin, which means the lepers. Yes, the site of the ten lepers and the miracle Jesus performed. Historically, it is the fourth oldest church in the world. Architecturally, the church is unique because it is the only Greek Orthodox church where the iconostasis is made entirely out of stone (traditionally they are made from wood).

After saying goodbye to our wonderful guide and going through the check point, it was about a two hour drive through northern Israel into the Galilee region where we landed in Ibillin, a small town of 14,000 Palestinian people. It is in the formal state of Israel so gone are the checkpoints, land classification, and military personnel. However, just because we are no longer in Palestine, doesn’t mean Palestinians are home free.

The rest, I’ll leave until tomorrow!

~ Monica Shaffer