Realities of the Occupation

The following Youtube clip reports the pervasive reality of Palestinian eviction. It takes place in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. I had the opportunity to personally meet and hear the devastating story of a woman named Um Kamel who was briefly interviewed.

Um Kamel suffered a great deal from having lost her home and her husband. She spoke in great length about her suffering, although it was not the details of her story that struck me most, but rather, her display of profound dignity and strength amid her tribulation. Gentleness radiated from her eyes as she spoke truthfully about the constant injustices she experiences and the agonizing pain in her heart.

The message she conveys is one of extraordinary hope and relentless determination never to give in to hatred and despair. She is fully convinced that God will one day restore peace and justice.

Transfiguration

In Israel there is a place called Mount Tabor, often called the Mount of Transfiguration, located at the north-eastern end of the plain of Jezreel. Only a few kilometers from Nazareth, Mount Tabor soars above the plain, appearing very majestic. Early Christian tradition teaches it was at this mountain that Jesus took Peter, James, and John to be witnesses of his Transfiguration.

The view from this mountain is truly magnificent. On the east are the Golan Heights, which look over the quiet Sea of Galilee and the Jordan depression along the Great Rift Valley. To the south is the little village of Nain, where Jesus raised the widow's son from the dead, and beyond that the hills of Samaria.



The story from scripture states:

"After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus."-- Matthew 17:1-3

Now can you imagine how shocked Peter, James, and John must have been when they awakened and saw Jesus' glory.

The true beauty of this transfiguration was that the disciples themselves were transfigured. Their eyes were opened to see the reality of their Master, Jesus Christ. In essence, the glory of Jesus was with them all the time, but they could not see His glory until God opened their eyes, their hearts, and their minds here on Mount Tabor.

In a similar way we also need God to transfigure not only our eyes but also our hearts, our minds, and our hands so that we can use them to be a blessing to others rather than to cause harm.

I thought it would be fitting to write about the story of the Transfiguration because yesterday was the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord. Below is a personal poem I would like to share.

PROFOUND

I want to move the moonlight just a little bit
So that it would shine upon the peacefulness that is your face
And I will allow this peace to comfort me
For comfort is a luxury
And luxury is foreign
To the humble means with which I was assigned to live my life

And all the days of this humble existence
Shall be as serene as the lake
That lifted me as a lay
Breathing in the water
And soaking in the sultry air
The sight of You delivers me
To that quiet coveted space

And this moment devours me deeper
As you blend in with the colour of the Universe
The colour that is greatness
The greatness that is You

Introduction

On July 8th 2009 I had the opportunity to take part in a Peace and Justice project in Israel and Palestine. Our objective was to gain greater understanding of the conflict that exist, receive new insights, and even be challenged as to how we are to respond to the scale of injustice and violence being perpetrated in Israel and Palestine.

Each day we met with various Peacemaker groups that educated us about the current realities and their nonviolent efforts to promote unity and peace. Among them was ICAHD (Israeli Coalition Against home Demolitions) which is a non-violent, direct action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.

To discover the root causes of the tension that exist between Israelis and Palestinians it is important to understand the background. For the last forty one years, the Palestinians have been engaged in resisting the occupation of their country. The entire Gaza Strip and the West Bank including East Jerusalem came under Israeli occupation in the war of 1967. It has been an oppressive military domination.

Today over three million Palestinians are longing for independence and freedom. Instead, most of them are under siege and are subjected to curfews and humiliation. The state of Israel has been consistently confiscating their land and building exclusively Jewish settlements on it, restricting their movements, demolishing their homes, devouring their water resources, and controlling every aspect of their life.

The Palestinians have tried through different methods to shake off the occupation but to no avail. For many years they have worked through the international community to bring an end to the Israeli occupation but they have been unsuccessful. Indeed, the United Nations has been powerless to implement its many resolutions on Palestine.

After the Gulf War, the Palestinians went to the Madrid Conference on October 1991 with the hope that it would lead to the implementation of UN resolutions 242 and 338. Instead, the negotiations took a circuitous route and opened the way to the Oslo Peace Process in 1993. With enthusiasm on the part of many, and scepticism on the part of others, most Palestinians entered the Peace Process with the hope that it would lead them into a negotiated settlement with their Israeli neighbours.

People expected that the presence of the Palestinian Authority with its democratically elected leadership would certainly enhance that process. Instead, Oslo led to entrenching the Israeli domination system, the deterioration of Palestinian economic life, increased in the confiscation of their land, and the deepening of their oppression.

With the apparent failure of the Peace Process, the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) started on September 2000 using armed resistance against the occupation as well as nonviolent resistance. Israel heightened its intransigence and intensified its oppressive policies.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that the second intifada was also indirectly pointed at the Palestinian authority that failed to deliver a just peace. Most of its active perpetrators were extremist militant Palestinian groups who were critical of Arafat’s policies. In other words, it is possible to stipulate that the anger of the people was directed not only against Israel but also against the Palestinian authority that seemed unable to curb the injustice.

With the increase of Palestinian resistance, there has been an immeasurable increase in Israeli oppression. Every aspect of Palestinian life worsened as the Israeli army escalated its malevolent policies against them. It has become a slow but steady process of strangulation of hope, and greater despair.

“… We as Palestinians have not been responsible for the suffering of the Jews in Europe, yet we are the ones chased out of our land and made to suffer so the world could soothe its conscience and pretend to repair the evil done against the Jews.” – Elias Chacour

Israel in Context

Wars, revolts, tyranny, and divine revelations – this country has experienced it all. With the earliest artifacts dating back to the Lower Paleolithic Period, Israeli civilization is ancient.

Accounts of local history start when Abraham moved to the Canaanite hills around 2000 B.C. After exile and an assortment of bloody wars, a kingdom unifying the Israelites was first established under King Saul around 1025 BC, heralding a period of prosperity.

Saul was succeeded by David and then Solomon, who, in 950 BC built the First Temple in Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians and the Israelites were exiled, but within a century they reclaimed Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple.

The second temple survived nearly 600 years of battles against various enemies until the Romans conquered Israel in 63 BC and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD. The Romans quashed the last Jewish rebellion, led by BarKochba, in 132 AD, marking the end of the Israelite kingdom.

After a period of relative stagnancy, Byzantine Emperor Constantine claimed Jerusalem for Christianity in 326 AD launching a building program, including the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The Byzantines were overthrown by Caliph Omar in 638, who declared Jerusalem a holy city of Islam and built the Dome of the Rock.

The Crusades, swearing to restore Jerusalem to the Church conquered the region in 1099, but their reign did not last long.

The Mamluks recaptured the land in the 12^th century and a long period of peace followed, briefly disrupted by the Ottoman conquest in 1516. The Ottomans began to lose their hold when the British set their diplomatic sights on Palestine, opening a consulate in 1838. In response to waves of Jewish immigration, beginning in 1882, Palestinian Arabs resistance led to violent friction between the two populations.

The British Mandate of Palestine began in 1917, with the Balfour Declaration, vowing the establishment of a Jewish “national home” and partitioning the territory between Jews and Arabs.

After policing incessant clashed between the two sides the themselves becoming the target of violent attacks, the British decided to end the Mandate in 1947, whereby the UN voted the split the country between Jews and Palestinians.

Israel was officially declared an independent state on May 14, 1948. By the next day, the newborn nation was invaded by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. The invades were defeated and a ceasefire was declared.

The pattern of ward and terrorism, interspersed with boarder shifts and ceasefires, has spilled over into the next decades, most notably in the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel seized the West Bank (including Jerusalem’s old city) Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, which further intensified the Arab Israeli conflict.

The conclusion of the war further affirmed the goal of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), formed by Yasser Arafat in 1964, aiming to reclaim the land.

In 1979, Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt and returned the conquered Sanai Peninsula.

The first Intifada, a Palestinian uprising, began in 1987, employing guerrilla warfare and terror attacks. In an attempt to set the cornerstone of a lasting solution for both peoples, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed between and PLO and Israeli in 1993, but later stalled.