Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Palestine live and work alongside the people of Hebron and the South Hebron hills, trying to prevent abuse of Palestinian civilians by their non-violent presence and documenting abuses that do occur.  Occasionally, CPT will report on abuse that happens to people they have come to know well.  Their reports in recent days have highlighted some contrasts between days of normalcy and trauma for a shepherd named Kahlil in the South Hebron hills:

Reprinted by Permission from Friends of Sabeel

The Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, delivered a powerful sermon Sunday, October 5, at St. Columba Church, the largest Episcopal church in DC, on the topic of his recent trip to Palestine/Israel.

Karen and I recently returned from a 10 day journey to Palestine, Jordan and Israel. This trip was not your usual pilgrimage to the Holy Land but rather an opportunity to spend time with the new Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem, Bishop Suheil Duwani whose diocese has jurisdiction in Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Syria and Palestine. Some of you may have spent time visiting sites in the Holy Land but I can assure you that what I saw, heard and experienced has brought me to a place where I can no longer sit back and assume that in time all will be well in that troubled part of the world.

Several years ago, when I was very far along in my pregnancy, I was presented with a choice: I could carry the pregnancy through to term or I could abort the fetus.  I had just found out that the fetus had trisomy-21 or Down Syndrome and that, if I wanted to terminate the pregnancy, it had to be done within a week.  It was one of the most difficult and painful weeks of my life as my husband and I struggled to understand better how Down Syndrome might not only impact our child's life, but that of our family -- my husband, myself and our two-year-old child.

Palestinian Children encounter many obstacles to their education: harrassment and violence from settlers, impediments, such as roadblocks and checkpoints and in some cases, damage or closure of their schools.  Accompanying children to school has been one of Christian Peacemaker Teams' violence reduction programs for many years in the West Bank.

A few incidents four years ago convinced the Israeli Knesset that children near At-Tuwani needed an escort from Israeli soldiers to protect them from settler violence:

In 2004, two CPT members, Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown in At-Tuwani were severely injured when settlers attacked them as they were walking children to school.[17] A few days later, the team, along with Operation Dove and Amnesty International members were again attacked. In response to these attacks, the Israeli Knesset Committee for Children's Rights initiated an order to have soldiers escort the Palestinian children to school in At-Tuwani

The children continue to risk injury from settlers when their military escort is late or fails to appear.

The West Bank is facing a severe drought this summer, made even worse by the long-standing control and abuse of water-resources by the Israeli Government.  According to B'tselem:

The 2008 drought, the most serious drought in the area in the past decade, aggravates the built-in, constant shortage of water in the West Bank. Rainfall this year in the northern West Bank was 64 percent of average, while in the southern sections of the West Bank, it was 55 percent. As a result, the water stored from rainfall has already been used.  The Palestinian Water Authority estimates this year's water shortage in the West Bank at 42 to 69 million cubic meters. The total water consumption in the West Bank is 79 mcm. The PWA has already requested Mekorot - the Israel Water Company - for an emergency supply of eight mcm.
...
Israel holds complete control of the water sources shared by Israel and the Palestinians, primarily the Mountain Aquifer, and prohibits by army order any Palestinian drilling of wells without a permit. At the same time, Israel draws from the West Bank, primarily from the Jordan Valley, some 44 mcm, five million more than it supplies to the Palestinian Authority. Israel allocates to Palestinians only 20 percent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, and prevents the PWA to develop additional water sources to enable greater water supply for Palestinians in the West Bank.
...

A couple of recent petitions highlight the means by which the Government of Israel is impeding the outside world from seeing the realities inside the Palestinian Occupied Territories.  In recent months, GOI has denied access to some international filmmakers from filming or showing films in the West Bank.  In addition, the treatment by Shin Bet and the IDF of an award-winning journalist upon his return to the Occupied Territories has highlighted many other abuses suffered by journalists in recent years.

The extremist settlers whose occupation of Hebron's Old City has been growing and strengthening for decades have recently convinced the Israeli military to exclude not only most Palestinians, but also members of Israeli Peace groups and International Christian Peace groups from what they term "the Sterile Zone."  In the process, the settlers have put out literature labeling groups from Peace Churches (CPT) and the World Council of Churches (EAPPI) as "antisemitic Christians [who] encourage terrorism and endanger the lives of soldiers and civilians alike" and who "engage in constant provocations and incitement."

The Israeli Military has recently taken further measures to reduce the safety and access of Palestinians to the Old City in Hebron by forbidding members of Christian Peacemaker Teams and Israeli peace groups from accessing what the military terms, "The Sterile Zone."  The military presence in much of Hebron (H1) is similar to that of other Palestinian cities, but the Old City (H2) is quite different because of the presence of Israeli settlers, some of the most right-wing of all settlers.  Because of the settlements, the IDF troops severely restrict the access of Palestinians to the Old City.  According to B'Tselem and the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, "violence, arbitrary house searches, seizure of houses, harassment, detaining passers-by, and humiliating treatment have become part of daily reality for Palestinians and have led many of them to move to safer places".

I received an alert that the Pastors for Peace Caravan was stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border this morning.  31 computers destined for Cuba were seized.

As always, the Pastors for Peace buses are carrying medicines and other materials to show their
solidarity with the people of Cuba. Rev. Thomas Smith, President of  the Board of Directors for the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace stated, "We've had 31 computers seized by the Customs and Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border. These computers were destined for classrooms, clinic and hospitals in Cuba. These are 31 classrooms, clinics and hospitals that now will not have the opportunity to have computers."

Five months after the incidents in Beit Ummar subsequent to the death of the Sabarna cousins, once again a teenager has been killed by the IDF and the IDF's presence at the funeral leads to the injury of more Palestinians.  Bekah Wolf of the Palestine Solidarity Project, located in Beit Ummar, gives background for the incident:

In the past several years, several mainline Protestant denominations have given consideration to their investments in the light of the conflict in Israel/Palestine and the denominations' stated commitment to a just peace.  Regional bodies of the United Methodist Church, like the New England Annual Conference, have taken actions advocating divestment from companies profiting from the occupation.  However, since most of the Church's investments are held by the national body (the General Conference), the statements by regional bodies (Annual Conferences) are mostly symbolic.

The United Methodist General Conference begins meeting today.  Among the many items of business it will be considering is the "Methodist Federation for Social Action Petition: Promoting Peace through Ethical Investment," a resolution calling for

a process of phased, selective divestment from companies that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and other violations of human rights in Palestine/Israel.

 

These reflections on taking Jesus down from the cross and laying him in the tomb complete the series of Stations by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron about their faith in the light of Palestinians' suffering under occupation:

Join in the "Way of the Cross in Occupied Palestine," a Lenten campaign to raise awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people living under Israeli military occupation. These short reflections connect contemporary parallels to the themes found in the Stations of the Cross, a tool used for reflection on the suffering and death of Christ.

As this reality of violence runs parallel to the suffering of Christ, the campaign encourages participating churches to engage in direct actions that highlight the violence and injustice of life under military occupation in Palestine.

The Challenge of Peacemaking
"Nonviolent resistance to tyrants, oppressors and brutal invaders is not for fools or cowards. It demands courage and daring of the highest order. It requires discipline, training and a willingness to face death. Are there tough, brave volunteers for that kind of costly, demanding battle? Would the nonviolent troops be available to be trained by the thousands and then tens of thousands to form disciplined Christian Peacemaker Teams ready to walk into the face of danger and death in loving confrontation of injustice and oppression?"

(Ron Sider, Nonviolence: The Invincible Weapon, p. 95)

One of the tenets of Liberation Theology is that Christ suffers along with the oppressed.  The verse from the Spiritual "Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody knows like Jesus" resonates not only in the African American Church, but in other communities hungering for justice, believing that God has not abandoned them.  

These reflections on Jesus stumbling and Jerusalem women weeping continue the series of Stations by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron about their faith in the light of Palestinians' suffering under occupation:

Join in the "Way of the Cross in Occupied Palestine," a Lenten campaign to raise awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people living under Israeli military occupation. These short reflections connect contemporary parallels to the themes found in the Stations of the Cross, a tool used for reflection on the suffering and death of Christ.
As this reality of violence runs parallel to the suffering of Christ, the campaign encourages participating churches to engage in direct actions that highlight the violence and injustice of life under military occupation in Palestine.