25th July 2009. Day 4.
The plan for writing up these thoughts, once I discovered that a daily blog would not be practical, was to type up everything from my notebooks with no editing, just what was written each night. But there is nothing written for the Tent of Nations. Looking back I know I never wrote anything down. It was too good, too special, an experience, to waste time writing notes. This is a retrospective impression.

We try and organise taxis to take us to the Tent of Nations. We head out along the settlers road to a turning and then up a track. The taxi driver negotiating potholes that cavers would find interesting. The track ends with concrete bollards blocking the road. A bulldozer had been up there to make sure that it was difficult for people to travel. All the tools and materials used for construction can be equally well used for destruction. We get out and walk in the heat. A group are pruning, laying out training the vines by the side of the track. Their donkey steals their water from the bucket. We find the gate to lead us to the top of this rounded hill where tents and a few permanent buildings are. And a big canvas sign says “Bringing nature to life. Learning to hope. Planting peace”. We are welcomed to the Nassar Farm by Daher Nassar. This has been his families land, and he can prove it, since the Ottoman Empire. Now you need to know about land ownership in this strange world. If you are a lawyer then prepare yourself for confusion.

Land law in Israel/Palestine is complex. The controlling states over the years sought to register land; the most significant times were the 1966 war, the British mandate in 1948 and the Ottoman Empire. If land was registered it was also taxed, so many people refused to registrar their land. The Nassar family registered their land with all the previous authorities and have documentation dating back to the Ottoman period. They are still in court about the ownership and have been for the last 13 years.

The Israeli state then said that if land was not used for 2 or 3 years it was considered abandoned and would become state land. Much of the land was left for grazing and appeared unused and taxes were levied on land that was used so some people left land fallow. It is from state land that much of the settlements are built on.

So the Nassar family had to consider how to use as much of their land as possible and they set up the Tent of Nations, inviting people from around the world to stay and work the land and to help in their summer camps working with the children and young people from all backgrounds, exploring peace and reconciliation.
The area that the Tent of Nations is in has been classified as a military zone so if they want to do anything they have to apply for a permit, which are rarely given. They are not allowed to build anything; hence the tents, and even these have now been classified as ‘illegal buildings’ and have been issued with a demolition order. So the volunteers have been digging out caves. People in the past lived in hollowed out caves and they are returning to it; wonderfully cool in the heat of the day and warm at night. They are described as having their own, natural air conditioning. It was in the caves that we were lead in singing by Daher. If I can find a way of showing the video clip of this I will. I was a wonderful, spiritual experience and for me a time of restating my commitment to doing what I could.

The Nassar’s are not allowed water, so they have been digging out cisterns to collect what rainwater there is. They are not allowed electricity and when we were their two German engineers were fitting solar panels. Daoud Nassar was at university in Germany and he has strong ties there. Conscientious objectors in Germany will spend a year with the Tent of Nations rather than serve in the army and they have just won a peace award from the German Mennonite Church.

Daoud has been offered a blank cheque to sell his land, he just has to fill in whatever amount he wants, but he refuses. The land takes on special meaning. Daoud describes it as being like your mother, it is the land that provides for you and to sell your land would be like selling your mother, and you don’t do that. And personally I think that the work they do is priceless; bringing young people from different backgrounds together to work at reconciliation. When Daher took us on a tour of the land he stopped in one of the caves, the crayons and paper still lying out from the children’s summer camp earlier on. When asked what it was that they wanted to teach the children he said, “to teach the children to love the land”. The Nasser family are Palestinian Christians and are trying to live out the gospel in difficult circumstances.

At the Tent of Nations Daoud Nassar told us of one important visit. Many groups visit there but this one was important for him. A Jewish woman for Jerusalem had signed up for a tour of the place. Nothing unusual, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, agnostic people visited regular. This woman had a friend who stayed in the settlement on the hill, which overlooked the Tent of Nations. She asked her if she would join her on the tour. Daoud admitted to his own feelings of unease and discomfort at this, but told her that anyone who agreed with their principals of non-violence was welcome. The woman was amazed at how little she knew about her neighbours. They had no electricity while she had all the mod cons you could think of; they had no water and she had a swimming pool. Next-door neighbours but worlds apart.

Everyone in this example had taken risks in trying to learn about each other. Daoud told us of a very special visit the woman made some time later. She and her husband walked down from the settlement to the Tent of Nations one evening. She had come down on the Jewish New Year and had just wanted to wish her Christian neighbours a happy new year.

The Tent of Nations slogan is “People Building Bridges” and this happens in many ways, large and small, but always special. But for me it got me wondering about how easy it would be for me to give, or to receive such a blessing from someone I might view as my enemy. Jesus’ challenge to us, to love our neighbours, is indeed a difficult one.

This is, as they say in Celtic Christianity, a thin place, a place where the boundaries of heaven and earth and thin. But it is more than that. If you believe that places are spiritual, that we need to go to a certain place to find God or whatever you believe in, then the land becomes holy and the people on holy land become to be seen as in the way. B’Tselem, the image, the image of God is not found in the land or the sea or the animals or the plants but in people. The other things we have dominion or stewardship over. It is here that I find the image of God, in the people, in the stewardship of the land, in the Beatitudes, in all that is good, in doing what we can because we know it is right, in the absurdity of faith. I have climbed the mountain and listened to the Beatitudes with my eyes and my heart.

We head from the Tent of Nations back to Bethlehem to visit the Alternative Information Centre. This is a joint Palestinian/Israeli political organisation, mostly ‘leftist’ activists. We are told about the centre by Nassar Ibrahim (check out www.thisweekinpalestine.com). Nassar Ibrahim tells us that he is a dangerous man. His travel is restricted because the state thinks he is dangerous. Ideas are what states fear more than violence and today we have time with someone who challenges the ideas that are promoted and the ‘reality’ which is presented as fact by the state.

The organisation was set up in 1984. The conclusion from commenting, writing, campaigning on the position on the ground since ’84 is that there is no peace process; there is a power process. He starts by saying that this is an unholy land. The role of religion in this process is complex. But AIC is not a religious organisation. It is all about the politics of the conflict and about building bridges not on religion but on politics and economics. We are told that the current relationships are based on colonialism and occupation and from that starting point there can be no real dialogue. AIC, as the name says, seeks to offer an alternative analysis of what is happening. An alternative analysis does not mean that alternative facts or data are used, it is the same core material but a different way of looking at them. And the ‘normalisation concept’ is rejected. There is a clearer expression of what the occupation does to both sides and how both sides are needed to ‘free’ the other. “I need you to help me to be free from your occupation and you need me to help you be free from the effects of your occupation.” This is the South African concept of Ubunto, explained by Desmond Tutu: that a person is only a person through another person; I am only human because of you. Values become important for all sides. We are told that the Palestinian’s are fighting for the West’s values as well as their own.

But if political and economics are the focus, religion cannot be ignored. This is about, or at least dressed up as, God and religion of the land. But a focus needs to be kept on what both sides share in common. There are religious parties on both sides. There is poverty on both sides. One basic principal that those from both backgrounds at AIC sign up to is to campaign against discrimination and racism. It will be there on both sides.

But religion can fuel this. Bush, it is claimed, unleashed religious and cultural devils. 9/11 was used to promote the neo-conservative agenda, an agenda far beyond the boundaries of America. This agenda was about America ruling the world, not just the capitalist world but all countries. Where was America’s surplus economic, political and cultural power to go? One place was into the untapped markets. America is to Coca-Colonise the world. And extreme action by America will get extreme re-action and here devils are re-awakened.

Arafat was characterised as a bad leader for his people. Corruption was highlighted at every turn. A blind eye to the corruption of the West. The one constant about the portrayal of Palestinian leaders is that they are not good leaders for their people, whether Arafat, Fatah, or Hamas. Free elections were promoted and when Hamas won there was a refusal to acknowledge or speak to them because the people picked the ‘wrong’ party. The West want to deal with the internal politics of the Palestinians. We are clearly told that we can tell people at home about what we have seen on our visit but it is better to leave the internal politics of the Palestinians to the Palestinians; it is not our job to try and tell others who would be a good leader for them. And it is here that we hear of all the other political parties. Not just Hamas and Fatah but more, much more. And we hear again of the attempts to create a new starting point for the peace process; the Oslo Agreement becomes the starting point and 10 years on everything is worse but that is promoted as the starting point for dialogue. We hear of the West promoting the economic development of the occupied territories as one of the tools to promote a peace process. But economic development must be within the existing structures. The Palestinians have no control over their land, over tax, over water, over trade. There can be no economic development under occupation.

And occupation is not about security, it is about land. Settlements can be divided up by function; we have ideological settlements (mainly Americans or East Europeans), political settlements, military settlements and hidden settlements. The hidden settlements are about water. The settlements continue to be built in tandem with the peace process, and that cannot be a commitment to peace.

History points to a possible co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis. Pre 1967 people lived together. And for the first time so far we are informed of an idea, one not talked about, a hidden idea from a dangerous man: not a two state solution but a one state solution. A secular state, not a Jewish one, a state where all are citizens not residents, where the displaced have the right to return (194) and the right of people to return, UN resolution 194, the number we see painted on the pictures of keys on the murals in the camps. The right to return cannot be guaranteed in a two state solution. The concept of Ubunto cannot be achieved by separation. The concept of normalisation has been exposed. But for the present the Palestinians resist by existing, by staying and not leaving and by holding on to values.