Jerusalem

July 29 – First Day in Jerusalem

Well, after our long and exhausting journey, we hit the ground running today. After sleeping in after following a 3:30 am arrival, we took a short tour of the local neighborhood. We are staying at St. George’s Cathedral guesthouse, right in E. Jerusalem, in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem. The city is clearly an old city, with very narrow streets, crowds of pedestrians coming and going in every direction, garbage, graffiti, car horns honking and some white knuckle close calls with trucks and cars on streets not made to accommodate them. As we walked around the neighborhood and over to the Damascus gate to the old city, we passed hundreds of Palestinian Muslims, the women attired in their long dresses and headscarves, some in simple hijabs, others in veiling that covers most of their face. I was reminded of Istanbul. As we are in the height of tourist season, tour buses are everywhere and crowds of visitors pour off them at every turn.

After we had lunch we met with Jeff Halper, founder and Executive Director of Israeli Citizens Against House Demolition (ICAHD). He has written a number of books on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and has been working for peace in this troubled place for going on thirty years. His talk was about what he calls the “matrix of control” meaning the structural ways in which the Israeli government carries out policies of discrimination against Palestinians. He compared current Israeli policies and their effects on the local population to apartheid in South Africa noting that what is happening here is very similar to the apartheid structure of South African society, but also distinguishing this situation. The Israeli “apartheid”, like South Africa, exists because there is both separation of one people from another and also domination of one people by another. Although technically there is not the distinction of “race” in the biological sense as there was in South Africa, the effect here is the same – those of Palestinian, non-Jewish heritage are treated very differently from Jewish Israelis. There is a physical barrier – the Separation Wall or “security barrier” which in Jerusalem cuts Palestinian neighborhoods in half generating problems for those Palestinians who happen to live on one side of the wall and work on the other. Unfortunately the Israelis do not see the Palestinians as people who have a right to self determination and so they do not see a problem walling them off from Israelis. Halper also noted that along with the wall goes control of important and vital resources – water, health care, access to jobs in Jerusalem, identity permits that allow for free travel between East and West Jerusalem and the like. Life for Palestinians on both sides of the wall is immensely and unnecessarily complex. As Halper discussed the second aspect of apartheid as it is applied here, he noted that the domination of one peoples by another is embedded in the very fabric of Israeli society. When the state was founded a fundamental principle was segregation of the Jews from the other people living in this region, both Christian and Muslim. Because segregation is a given, Palestinians who feel discriminated against by Israeli policies have no legal recourse, because the system that administers “justice” is operating from a worldview that sees the separation and the domination as normal and justified.

Halper spoke about what our speaker yesterday in Vienna also observed about the role of the United States in this conflict. Both these men state unequivocally that the continued oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis could not succeed as it is without the unwavering support of the U.S. Government, particularly the U.S. Congress. Halper said he doesn’t even think it is the President that matters much, rather it is our congress and the extent to which they are, across the board, in a unique bi-partisan way, completely supportive of Israel. This U.S. congressional support of the domination and oppression of Palestinians enables the situation to continue, indeed facilitates the actions of the Israeli government. All the more reason for those of us who find this situation untenable to lobby our congressional representatives to take a different position vis-à-vis Israel.

After meeting with Jeff Halper, a guide from ICAHD took us to see settlements and the Separation Wall. What a trip that was! We first stopped by to visit a Palestinian family in Sheik Jarrah in E. Jerusalem, a small compound where Israeli settlers have moved into a block of buildings belonging to Palestinians, relying on a centuries old claim to the land. Systematically, Palestinian families have been driven out of that compound and Jewish families have moved in. One Palestinian family is still there, having lived in that house since 1956. Just last week, they were issued an eviction order by the Israeli authorities. They are protesting that edict of eviction and their case has spawned a flurry of international media attention. During our visit, there were other tour groups there, and a group of Israeli peace activists were literally camping out on the family’s porch to protect them from violence at the hands of the Israeli army. A Palestinian woman was translating for the family, saying all they want is to stay in their home, to live peaceably with their Jewish neighbors. It was an eerie experience to walk through the compound past apartments that belong to Jewish settlers, adorned with Israeli flags and then to arrive at this Palestinian home, which, thanks to the media attention given to them in the past few weeks is deluged with visitors who want to hear their story and express support. The compound itself is urban and looks like a place that would qualify for some upgrading and renewal. The further irony is the extent of argument and fighting over homes that are far from luxurious. The compound itself looks like a place at war – Israeli flags and Hebrew phrases on the closed doors of the Israeli homes, signs and protest banners plastered all over the walls of the Palestinian home. The Palestinian anguish at the very founding of Israel was expressed in the cries of the Palestinian family to be allowed to keep their home. As the spokeswoman reminded the crowds of us who were there, “The Israelis say that they moved into places that were empty. That is a lie. We were here, we had homes, and we were forced out of them. Now they are still doing it, forcing this woman out of the home she’s been in since 1956, after she was forced out of the home her family originally had in Gaza. Please tell the people back in your country what the government here is doing to innocent people.”

After that emotional experience, we went to the Separation Wall in E. Jerusalem, where Palestinian neighborhoods are sliced in two by the wall. There truly are no words to accurately describe the impact of that enormous, concrete barrier, topped with barbed wire and now covered in graffiti. We all went silent as we gazed at this ugly symbol of the domination and oppression of one people by another. I was saddened at the sight – such a visible symbol of the extent to which human beings are capable of demonizing and dehumanizing one another. The wall is ugly and what it is doing is uglier still.

We then went to a Jewish Settlement, Ma’ale adummin, inside the West Bank, on a hilltop in the desert outside the city. Our guide explained that there are different kinds of settlements in Israel – those that are “economic” in motivation and those that are ideological. The settlement compound in the city that we had just left is an example of ideological settlement activity – motivated by Zionist beliefs and ideology about the destiny of the Jewish people and the role that Israel and Jerusalem play in that destiny. Ma’ale adummin is an economic settlement – Israeli Jews move there to have a better life, to give their children a nice, safe, secure environment in which to grow up. As our guide pointed out, the Jews who move into that settlement are not primarily well to do European or American Jews, but rather Middle Eastern Jews, Ethiopian immigrant Jews and Russian immigrants. These groups of Jews are lower on the economic scale than European Jews, they have less economic opportunity, less money, less education and generally are trying to adapt to a new country and to deal with their own displacement. As he pointed out, any solution to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis has to deal with those settlers and their fate and the fact that it is unlikely that the Israeli government or anyone else will want to have to deal with resettling 40,000 people in that settlement somewhere else. They have homes, shopping centers, medical centers, library, schools – all the elements of a community and ripping that away doesn’t seem likely.

On our way back to the city, we passed a checkpoint and to our surprise our bus was pulled over. We all got out our passports, prepared for the Israeli soldier to come aboard the bus and check us out. Fortunately, our guide was Israeli and he spoke briefly with the soldier and we were released.

Our guide, a young Israeli Jew who served in the Israeli army, but quit before his time was up, a “refusenick”, and who has dedicated his life since then to being a peace activist, talked quite frankly about the role of the United States in this conflict. He reminded us that our country as the most powerful and richest nation on earth leads by example and exports its culture to the rest of the world. Our unwavering support of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians is only a part of the problem – the fact that we as a country do the very things that many of us condemn the Israeli government for doing is even more critical. He noted that the world looks to us as a model of how to be a well to do, affluent, successful modern society. What they see is a country that rules by force, war, domination, economic inequalities, a country that also builds walls to keep out undesirables while exploiting their labor, a country that marginalizes many parts of its own population and sees no way to stop doing so, or simply lacks the will to do so. We support Israel and its policies not only politically but by being the very thing we see Israel having become. If we want Israel to do differently, if we want the world to be different, then we Americans need to change the way we operate in the world, modeling a society built on compassion and justice rather than oppression and violence. I couldn’t help but think of Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Global Marshall Plan as I listened to our young guide.

When we got back to the hotel, I met with Dr. Shehadeh Shehadeh, a Palestinian Episcopal priest who is the Canon to the Bishop for Peace and Reconciliation. He is working here to encourage dialogue and peace activism among those Israeli Jews who want peace and are willing to countenance the existence of the Palestinians in this country and the Palestinian Christians and Muslims who also want to find a peaceful solution so that everyone can live harmoniously together. His stories of his own experiences working for peace in this region underscore the importance of finding ways for people to encounter one another in a personal way, so that the “other” becomes a real person, with a real story and a face and family. He said that the Christian communities do not work all that well together here and that is a problem that Christians need to address here in the Holy Land. He also noted that the Christian communities here need the help and support of Christian communities outside this region if they are to be able to do the peace work that they must do here on the ground.

It was a full and rich day. The complexity and nuance of this situation is more and more apparent to all of us as we listen and observe and hear people’s stories. And the connections between what we are seeing here and what is happening in our own country in different contexts is sobering.