Regarding Gaza
By Rev. Alex Awad,
Dean of Students,
Bethlehem Bible College
December 31, 2008
One hundred tons of bombs are Israel’s way of saying to the captive citizens of Gaza, Merry Christmas, Happy Eid (feast) and Happy New Year. These “gifts” that were showered from US-made F-16 fighter jets demolished government buildings, mosques, a university, hundreds of homes and snuffed out many lives – among them scores of children. Like many in this part of the world and around the globe my heart aches when I read and see pictures of the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and likewise when I see Israelis killed or injured by Qassam rockets. However, I have a special love for Gaza and its people. Before the strict closure of Gaza, Bethlehem Bible College used to have an extension there. I went to Gaza once every Thursday to teach our students and often I stayed the night there. Interacting with Gazans in class, in church and in the community, I learned much about the kindness and the hospitality of the people of Gaza, both Muslims and Christians. The majority of the people of Gaza are not Hamas militants. They are people like you and I who long to live in peace day in and day out. Regretfully, everyone in the Gaza Strip--men, women, children, civilians and fighters alike—is now feeling the horrible impact and devastation caused by the newest and deadliest Israeli incursion over the Strip in many years.
The majority of the people of Gaza are not Hamas militants. They are people like you and I who long to live in peace day in and day out. Regretfully, everyone in the Gaza Strip--men, women, children, civilians and fighters alike—is now feeling the horrible impact and devastation caused by the newest and deadliest Israeli incursion over the Strip in many years.
There is no doubt that the Qassam rockets launched against the western Negev and Ashkelon by Islamic militants linked to Hamas cause great pain and anxiety for many Israelis. Most people agree that Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself from outside attacks. However in this unequal conflict between Israel and Hamas, Israel, as usual, has overdone it. When it comes to dealing with its enemies, Israel has a pattern of being extreme. “An eye for an eye” does not satisfy. It has to be more like one hundred eyes for one eye and one hundred teeth for one tooth. When the Israelis attacked Lebanon in June 2006, they sprayed the country with millions of cluster bombs (which are internationally banned) and these bombs continue to kill innocent people even today. What troubles me most in this current war is that most of the victims of this Israeli incursion on Gaza are average people-men, women and children--who are struggling to just to survive under the extreme and harsh conditions that the Israeli siege has created. For 40 years the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli occupation and during the last few years, although the Israelis redeployed their troops from Gaza, they never withdrew the symbols of their dominance and occupation. They continue to control the borders, which mean controlling food, medicine, fuel and goods going in and out of the Strip. In essence, they have turned Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world.
If the Israeli leaders assume that they can assure the security of their citizens by the might and the power of their superior army and air force, they are mistaken. The outrage caused among the peoples in the Arab and Islamic world by these horrible attacks will most likely blow dark clouds over the skies of Israel or elsewhere in the world.
Israel should learn to negotiate with its neighbors in good faith. Negotiating in good faith means implementing UN resolutions, ending the occupation of the West Bank, opening the borders of the Gaza Strip to the rest of the world and stopping military incursions into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The rise of Hamas and militancy in Gaza is directly related to a vacuum that Israel and the United States have created by dragging their feet in never-ending and fruitless peace negotiations with moderate Palestinians. As long as Israel continues to place obstacles on the path of the peace process and as long as the US continues to allow it to do so, we can expect new outbursts of violence in the Middle East that will cause more horrors and waste more lives on both sides of the political divide.
The Israelis have the right to live in peace and security and so do the people of Gaza. I call on you, friends, to pray for the civilians on both sides who are caught in this nightmare.
The Israelis have the right to live in peace and security and so do the people of Gaza. I call on you, friends, to pray for the civilians on both sides who are caught in this nightmare. In addition to praying, let us protest these lethal bombs with a barrage of our own letters to our elected leaders calling for an end to this human tragedy.
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Alex Awad is pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, as well as Professor at Bethlehem Bible College in Palestine.
You can read more articles by Alex Awad at AlexAwad.Org
Lost in Gaza: Perspectives on the Violence
(Above: Photo from Gaza, 2005)
Lost in the Rubble by Chris Hedges
Excerpt: "The young in Gaza have nothing to do. There are no jobs. They have nowhere to escape to. They cannot marry because they cannot afford housing. They cannot leave Gaza, even for Israel. They sleep, sometimes 10 to a room, and live on less than $2 a day, surviving on United Nations or Hamas charities and food donations. Martyrdom is the only route offered to those who want to achieve a measure, however brief, of recognition and glory."
More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza Salon.com columnist Glen Greenwald explores the disconnect between public opinion among democrats, who largely oppose Israel's latest offensive and Gaza, and the Democratic leadership, which unwaveringly supports it.
Is Israel too imprisoned in the familiar ceremony of war? by David Grossman
Israeli author David Grossman argues that Israel should create a unilateral 48 hour ceasefire, holding fire during that time even if Hamas continues its rocket attacks.
Aid Worker Diary BBC News
Current reflections of Hatem Shurrab, an aid worker in Gaza with the British-based charity Islamic Relief Worldwide.
Christmas Letter to Bethlehem
by Father Michael McGarry
JERUSALEM
18 December 2008
Dear Bethlehem,
As you know, we at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute are your neighbours to the north, inside the Green Line on the Palestinian side, but claimed by Israel as part of the Jerusalem municipality. We have, therefore, an ambiguous, neutral – but not indifferent – relation to you, our neighbours to the south. You also know that we gratefully employ many of you, from Bethlehem and your neighbouring village Beit Jala, both Christian and Muslim. We seek to be a place welcoming to all, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. We join our voice in response to the World Council of Churches’ invitation to people from around the world to deliver messages and prayers of peace to you, the residents of Jesus’ birthplace.
In my country, the United States, many Christians have a custom of making a list of gifts which they eagerly hope Santa Claus will deliver at Christmas to celebrate Jesus’ birth. As I recall that custom and as I think of you, our neighbours to the south, many of whom are fellow Christians, I offer the following list of things I want very much for you and for us.
I pray:
1. For you who live in the West Bank and work in Israel, I pray that you will be blessed with smooth passage through the checkpoint, ease of obtaining your magnetic cards and work permits, and a lengthening of these permits from three months to one year;
2. For a multiplication of graced movements at the checkpoint when both Israeli soldiers and you Palestinian workers will recognise, and honour, the humanity of the other—captured in those unforced and serendipitous moments when a flash of human recognition from one to the other provokes an unexpected smile on the face of the other;
3. That the hostility and fear that provoked the building of the wall on your north side, may melt into the beginnings of cooperation for peace and prosperity on both sides;
4. That this year’s tourism boom for your city, threatened by worldwide economic freefall, might continue to the benefit of all;
5. That the relatively good relations among many parts of the Christian family, and between the Christians and the Muslims of Bethlehem, might deepen and find new, stunning expressions;
6. That the many reconciliation initiatives that find their home in Bethlehem – some initiated by Muslims, others by Christians – might become better known and more effective—in the West Bank, in Israel, and indeed in the world so that the reputation of Bethlehem as a city of peace might be not only a memory, but, also in the present, a star leading others to peace;
The Rick Warren Enigma
by Peter Ryan
"He has a great PR machine and he has people thinking he's a moderate but he's really just Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt."
– Rob Boston, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Countdown with Keith Olberman, December 18th, 2008).
"If I cannot pray with Rick Warren, I realize, then I am not worthy of being called a Christian. And if I cannot engage him, then I am not worthy of being called a writer. And if we cannot work with Obama to bridge these divides, none of us will be worthy of the great moral cause that this civil rights movement truly is."
-Andrew Sullivan
Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Pastor Rick Warren have served as the controversial spiritual book ends of Obama's upward path to the White House. The average American viewer now knows two things about Jeremiah Wright: that he's "racist" and that he "hates America." They now know two things about Rick Warren: that he's pro-life and that he's against gay marriage.
Those are the pre-approved, ten second soundbytes–and, sorry, that's all you get. Not because they lack the time to show you more, these 24 hour news stations have nothing but time to provide in depth analysis. The reason they won't show you a more 3-dimensional perspective on either of these men is because that would be incredibly dull. It's a whole lot more fun to sum a guy up in ten seconds flat and then spend the next half an hour lining up pundit after pundit to take a crack at him. Being the news junkie that I am, I get some sort of weird, depraved sense of satisfaction watching public figures get eaten alive by inane controversy–it's an impulse the represents the worst, not the best, in us, in the way that feeding Christians to the lions once passed as "entertainment."
Tuesday Video File: "The Bethlehem Coin Purse Project"
Excerpt: "We've been living in Bethlehem for a while now and, in living here, we've been able to focus on serving a couple different groups of people, and one of those is the people living in Dheisheh, which is the largest of the three refugee camps in Bethlehem. There are 12,000 people living in less than a third square mile... As we got to know families in Dheisheh we became aware of one project in particular. Eight years ago women in Dheisheh organized themselves into a cooperative, a union, where they make hand embroidered coin purses and pillow cases, and some of the women who didn't know how to prior learned the trade and then were able to make these as a way of providing for themselves and their families."
The delay-sayers’ mistake
by JERUSALEM – The new conventional wisdom among Middle East hands with lots of State Department postings on their CVs is that trying to reach a two-state agreement is hopeless. Can’t be done, don’t try. Wait for a better time. Aaron David Miller laid out the case recently in the Jerusalem Post:
"It’s not that there are metaphysical or magical reasons why these core issues can’t be resolved; it’s that the political will is lacking among leaders to reach an agreement and that the current situation on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for them to do to. That everyone knows what the ultimate solution will look like (an intriguing notion that is supposed to make people feel better) is irrelevant if the circumstances for an agreement don’t exist."
The Palestinians are too divided, and “there is serious dysfunction at the political level in Israel as well.” Therefore, Miller recommends to Barack Obama to “manage” the conflict:
"…support an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, train PA security forces, pour economic aid into the West Bank and Gaza, even nurture Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the big issues, but don’t think you can solve it; you can’t."
I have great respect for Miller’s experience and expertise, and his argument is laid out as cogently as ever. But I have to dissent respectfully for three reasons:
First, political will is to a great extent a function of how politicians understand the public mood. Yes, politicians are supposed to lead. But often – to quote a Talmudic saying – “the face of the generation is like the face of a dog." The dog seems to be running ahead of his master, but is always looking back to see which way to go. The mediocre politician reads the polls and adjusts what he, or she, thinks.
Public mood, however, is not static; it’s dynamic. The public is more supportive of peace moves, and more willing to make concessions, when more people believe that peace is possible. The job of anyone planning a diplomatic initiative includes public diplomacy—efforts to alter the mood.
Second, the United States is not simply an observer of Palestinian politics. I don’t say this to relieve the Palestinians of responsibility for the corruption and infighting that culminated in the split between Fatah and Hamas, between the West Bank and Gaza. They’ve managed to achieve a failed state before independence. But as I outlined earlier this year, US policy has served to deepen the divisions. The US can continue to support the boycott of Hamas and the siege of Gaza, in which case the internal Palestinian divide will become ever-harder to bridge. Or it can switch directions and support Palestinian unity talks, and show willingness to recognise a unity government under the correct conditions.
Simply “managing the conflict” will allow things to get worse on the Palestinian side. Likewise on the Israeli side. Miller lets Israel off too easy by not mentioning ongoing settlement construction. Let me say it again: waiting means more settlements, which means less chance of a deal later.
Miller is right about the obstacles to an agreement now. But waiting means giving up. Things will not be easier tomorrow. If the new administration wants a window of opportunity, it should pry the window open immediately.
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Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The Prospect. He is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He blogs at www.southjerusalem.com. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from the author.
Tuesday Video File: "Carried by the Wind"
Description: "Music knows no boundaries. In Bethlehem, Merlijn Twaalfhoven and partners create "Carried by the Wind", a spectacular music performance from atop rooftops and balconies, across the Separation Wall that now divides this holy town.
"Uniting 75 professional and amateur musicians from Ramallah and Bethlehem with children from Palestinian West Bank refugee camps, the project culminates in a performance across Israel's Security Fence (also known as the "Segregation Wall" or "West Bank Separation Barrier"), a 700km concrete wall that divides Bethlehem around the area of Rachel's Tomb, at dusk on 17 April 2008. In so doing it reunites former neighbours with music from both sides of the divide."
LINKS
Symphony Arabica site http://www.arabica.nu
Composer's site http://www.twaalfhoven.net
Filmmaker's site http://www.adamsebire.info
