Advent 4 - Week of Dec 21, Luke

Luke 1.26-38

The angel said to her….“For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord…”

Mary’s simple declaration of trust in God so vividly captures the spirit I have seen in those who have chosen to remain in Palestine and nonviolently resist the Israeli military occupation of their land. Trusting that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” is how they get through each day with dignity and hope. They say, with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.”The angel says to them, “Do not be afraid…for you have found favor with God.” And they believe the promise. When I hear these words, I think of the day we met the mayor of Ein Hod, Muhammed Abu al-Haija, who told us about his family’s story of terror and rebirth. He and his family and all of the other residents fled this village in 1948, during the Arab-Israeli war.

When the war ended, the Israel authorities did not permit them to return to the village, so, rather than go to the Jenin refugee camp, Muhammed al-Haija’s grandfather and 35 other families trekked up the hill to their farmland and lived in their olive groves and the fields where they grazed their sheep. They built houses to live in, but, because the new village at the top of the hill was “unrecognized” by the Israeli authorities, they could not get access to electricity or water. The Israelis bulldozed some of their homes because they were built without permits.

Even though the Arab villagers were Israeli citizens and paid taxes, the Israeli government would not build a road to their village because it was not on the map. When they petitioned the government for recognition, they were told that it was too small, their land was classified “agricultural” and that they could not build there; they were called “squatters.” Finally, after many years spent in Israeli government offices, contacting officials, organizing with other unrecognized villages and holding protests in Jerusalem, upper Ein Hod was finally recognized in 1992, and their village address could be listed on their Israeli identity cards.

It took fifteen more years, but in 2007, they were finally connected to the electric grid. They built a kindergarten and an elementary school. And they built a road with money they withheld from their taxes, so that their children could ride the bus to the high school in Haifa. And finally they were permitted to install a water system. They still cannot use their cemetery, but they have built a new one at the top of the hill.

The ultimate insult was when Iaraelis “discovered” the “abandoned” village of Ein Hod at the bottom of the hill. Artists moved into the empty buildings, “squatting” on their land, even turning their mosque into a restaurant for tourists. Today the artists paint and tourists drink coffee under the beautiful olive trees which were planted by the Arab villagers hundreds of years ago.

With the electricity, Mayor al-Haija has built his own restaurant in the village at the top of the hill. It has a patio with beautiful gardens and ancient olive trees and people like our tour group come there for delicious hummus and roast lamb. Mayor al-Haija told us that he worked hard for many years to get recognition for his village and then fighting for electricity, water and roads. Now he is tired and he says it is up to the next generation. Only two houses currently have electricity—the others await permits. Their houses can be bulldozed at any time because they still do not have permits to build. The photo shows the new restaurant in New Ein Hod.



--One hundred other Arab villages till wait for recognition.

O Lord our God, you have chosen us and made us your own. Help us to say, with Mary, “I am the servant of my God. I live to do your will.” Then lead us, together in this community, to wisely discern where God is calling us to minister, so that we may be healers of the wounds of the world. In the name of your Son, the babe of Bethlehem, Amen.

Advent 3 - Week of Dec 14, John

John 1.6-8, 19-28

He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

Here we are with that Wild Man John again, as he travels through the dry, barren wilderness, dressed in animal skins, shouting to anyone who would listen, pointing to the Messiah, testifying to the light. The elders of the synagogue asked him, “Who are you?” And he replied, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” ……John, the announcer, pointing to the Messiah of God, proclaiming God’s good news to the people.

The land where John lived and preached, east of Jerusalem, between the city and the Jordan River, doesn’t look like much—no water to be seen, only rock and dirt and a few tiny, scruffy, dried-out plants. Except for the oasis of Jericho, it’s pretty much only Bedouin who live here, eking out a hard living with their goats and perhaps selling their weaving in the markets. Hard to imagine anyone would fight for this bleak, unfruitful land.

This desolate land, however, is much prized. On the color-coded map drawn up for the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Arab villages and farmlands are tan; the Jewish settlements are blue. Since 1948 when the State of Israel was established, this land has become more blue each year. As the blue areas become larger and larger, the brown areas shrink. In spite of United Nations resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention’s laws governing military occupation of lands, and pressure on Israel to cease building settlements in Palestinian areas, new settlements are being built today. Even as Palestinian homes are being demolished. Look at a larger view of the map, a 2MB .pdf file.

When we met Angela at our hotel, she looked like she could be channeling John the Baptist. Dressed in a long black tunic and pants, short hair with a long “rat tale” braid (as my junior high son prized it in the 80s), broad-brimmed straw hat and gestures much larger than her 5’3” frame, she attracted attention and mesmerized us as she told us about the struggle for the land and showed us demolished Arab houses and new construction expanding Israeli settlements.

Angela is a tour guide with ICAHD, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. She stood in the front of our bus as she took us on a tour of East Jerusalem—she showed us what the tan and blue areas of the Oslo map look like from the ground. In the past year, since the November, 2007, Annapolis peace conference, 10,000 new housing units have been built on Palestinian lands. Over the past 40 years, 10,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished. The demolished house in the picture is in Abu Dis, near East Jerusalem.

She took us to Silwan, the East Jerusalem Arab neighborhood, so close to the Old City that it is now prized real estate for Jews who want to live nearby. A new development, Nof Zion, is being promoted, mainly to American Jews, who may not have seen the site and are less likely to realize that it is right in the middle of an Arab neighborhood, perched on the hillside above the town. The “Swiss cheese” pattern of the settlements, makes for a Bantustan-type of political map, the West Bank divided into so many small areas—Israeli and Palestinian—that there is little left to create a state of Palestine. The two-state solution is seems more and more impossible.

Angela is a testimony of hope—evidence that there are Israelis who are appalled by their government’s treatment of the Palestinians. These volunteers take visitors on tours; they rebuild bulldozed homes; and they document and publicize Israeli takeover of Palestinian lands. Israeli peace groups like ICAHD testify to the light—giving hope to Palestinians helplessly watching their country being carved up.

O Lord our God, your people are being made homeless, while the world watches or averts their eyes. Protect those who stand up in protest and who work to rebuild destroyed communities. Help us to find ways to join in this healing work. In the name of your Son, the babe of Bethlehem, Amen.

Advent 4 - Week of Dec 21, 2 Samuel

2 Samuel 7.1-11, 16

And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more…

Jewish Zionists cite passages like this one to support their claim to the land of Israel. The most extreme want to see all Palestinians removed, so that the Jews, God’s chosen people, have exclusive possession of the land.

Everyone needs a homeland—a place where they feel safe, where they can protect their homes and raise their children in safety. This has been the stated aim of Israel as they set about building the security wall; they have said they want to protect their settlements from terrorists and to keep the suicide bombers out. In a post-holocaust world, this has seemed understandable to Europeans and Americans, supported by us because of our guilt over they way we stood by while 6 million Jews were herded into ghettos, loaded onto trains, transported to camps and slaughtered. So what is wrong with wanting to protect your family?

Hannah, a white-haired Jewish grandmother and a volunteer with Machsom Watch, told us that the occupation of Palestinian lands, the security wall and the inhumane treatment of Palestinians at the checkpoints is eating away at the core values of the Jewish people. It is creating a generation of young people numbed to human suffering by their service in the Israeli Army, and it is destroying the fabric of Jewish society. The occupation corrupts and if she does not speak up, her grandchildren will pay the price. Hannah and the other Israeli 500 women who volunteer for Machsom Watch believe that the wall and the checkpoints are not making Israelis safer. Instead it is transforming them into a people who regard the Palestinians as less than human. They are being trained to hate the Palestinians and they are becoming hardened, accepting injustice as the price to be paid for their safety.

The photo shows resistance to the occupation: Graffiti on the Israeli security wall at Abu Dis.

So Hannah spends her days monitoring the checkpoints and writing reports of what she has seen; the women monitor fifty checkpoints in Jerusalem and the West Bank. There is nothing in writing—no rules—about how the checkpoints are run. It is up to the individual soldier under the orders of the commander. The soldier may ask for any sort of documentation. Because of international pressure, soldiers no longer beat people at the checkpoints, but they make travel so difficult that many Palestinians simply give up, quit their jobs and leave the country.

Hannah worked with a young Palestinian family whose son needed treatment for cancer in his eye. His parents and his grandmother had not been able to get permits to travel with him for the medical treatment. When they got permission, it was for only for one day, not enough time for the treatment. When they finally got a four-day permit the letter was in Hebrew, which they do not speak. The faxed permit was not good enough for the soldier, who required an original, so Hannah called the commanders of each of the checkpoints they needed to pass and the commanders called ahead to facilitate their passage. She told us this happens every day.

Another time she helped a milkman who had permits for himself and his truck, but he was stopped because, “The milk does not have a permit.” Another man was traveling back from the hospital where he had had his leg amputated. He wanted to bring the leg with him so that it could be buried with him according to Muslim tradition. He spent ten hours at the checkpoint before he was permitted to leave with the leg.

When I asked how she happened to become involved in her work, Hannah told us that she could not do this work until she became a widow. Her husband would not have approved and her children do not support her in this work. But for her, living in peace requires justice for Palestinians.

O Lord our God, you desire peace and safety for all of us—your people. Like Israel, may we, too, be a blessing to all the nations of the world. In the name of your Son, the babe of Bethlehem, Amen.