Day 3

24 August 2009.
Day 3
We start our day with a visit to Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian Centre for Liberation Theology. It was set up by Naim Ateek. I was given one of his books by a friend and have been reading it before coming on this trip: A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation. Challenging, inspiring and hopeful. He takes the reader through the need for Christians to reassess the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. This is not the liberation theology of Latin America with the emphasis on the Exodus, for here the land is viewed differently. Here a new theology of the land is needed, and a theology of justice and truth. Truth-telling as central in peace and reconciliation and we are back to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. But we feel a long way off from that point in the reconciliation process, if there is such a thing. Here we have stories buried and pasts that go back a long way. We have the longest lasting refugee camp in the world, 60 years old – so if you are younger than 60 you were born in the camp. We will be staying there tonight, at Dheisheh Refugee Camp.

Naim Ateek is in America on a speaking tour so we are told about the work of Sabeel by Nora Carmi. It is good to hear this from a woman. Women dominate Sabeel. Men have been in prison, not there for whatever reason. We hear of the importance of supporting women and their way of supporting children and the next generation. We hear of life pre 1967. A life of peaceful co-existence and a just peace is sought on the 1967 boundaries.

The Christians are a small group, less than 2% of the population and not a united group, a diverse group with different dominations and views. The Christian population is never more than 15% in the Middle East as a whole. But this small group witness to Christ in a troubled area. Can a presence remain if a Jewish state is established? If that happens what will become of the Christian presence?

This does not feel like Mirolav Volf’s embrace of reconciliation. Who can open their arms to embrace here? That very vulnerable position which invites the other in? If anyone can, it will probably come from Sabeel. But it does feel hopeless. I ask about truth telling and forgiveness. Is forgiveness conditional on truth telling, does it require an apology first? How can there be hope when there is no apparent desire to face the truth of what is happening? And I am told that there is always hope. And I am told that we are not Jesus. He could forgive but we have to strive to be like Jesus. “Frankly speaking, logically, I don’t think peace is coming tomorrow. Not on an international level and definitely not on an Israeli level. Where it will come from is from Israeli society. They are fed up with the lies. Their family violence is higher than in the Palestinian families. There are soldiers who do not believe in what they are fighting for. There are families who don’t believe. And there are groups of people who work for peace on both sides. People of good will. But they are not strong enough on their own. They need to work together. But there is light at the end of the tunnel”. The absurdity of faith. We are told of the ultimate absurdity of faith, of the groups of Israeli and Palestinians who have seen what violence achieves and have rejected it. Of Combatants for Peace, people from both sides of the armed struggle who have decided that peace will only ever come from peaceful resistance. Also about Circles of Bereaved Families. The name says it all. Bereaved families can breed revenge but a circle can bring it back to the cause of hate, and brings the parties who hurt together, and together a healing. When a tgetherness happens, a joint commitment to a better way rings out and, for me, the Beatitudes ring out.

I remember the conversation on the roof of the hostel the previous morning. I was having a smoke and chatting with one of the hostel workers. He was telling me of some of the Scots who have stayed at the hostel and one in particular. “The Scots have a rough mood but a good heart”, he said. “Margaret comes to the hostel with a bottle of whiskey. She is a fighter, a fighter for peace. But I worry that her heart will go bad, her will, will go bad with the fighting. We need to keep a good will for only a good will, will destroy the Wall. Life is but a continuous letter between me and God, all the rest is nothing, dust. Systems, powers, they will come and go and in the end will be but dust, but a good will continues”. Everyone here appears to be a theologian and the people we meet believe that peace will only come from peaceful means.


Women in Black. We spent the afternoon with Women in Black. For one hour on a Friday once a week there is a silent vigil against the occupation. These are elderly women making a public witness at a busy square with cars on three sides always stopping where they are because of the traffic lights and pedestrians walking past them waiting to cross the road. It is a visible and vulnerable position. It is a powerful statement of silence. Young lads on mopeds, stopped at the lights, shout, flick the fingers, rage at the silence. A middle-aged man winds down his window and bellows in Hebrew like a football hooligan from the safety of the terraces. My neighbour translates for me; “You are trash, you are all trash”.

It is a big turn out today. As well as the 13 delegates, there are young people from the Sabeel international youth conference, about 30 of them. It feels safer in the numbers but how it must feel on ‘normal’ days, a few older people on this little island surrounded by a sea of hate. My neighbour works for Sabeel. He tells me of the problems for young Palestinians in Jerusalem, little hope, little options. They turn to alcohol and drugs. The educated leave. He is trying to build up their belief in themselves, their self-respect. Encouraging them to volunteer in their community. To give to others, to feel good from doing and giving and to build up new community leaders from the young. It was so similar to what I want to do at home. The church should be a training ground for the leaders of change in our society.

One hour over, some thumbs up, some abuse, some ignore the women and their signs. As we prepare to leave one of the women asks my neighbour, “Please come back again and bring your friends. There are so few of us now”. They are there each week, some for decades, with no change in the situation, or if anything a worsening and entrenchment of the problems, and they keep turning up. Do they believe that what they do will bring about a change or do they do it because it is what they can do and they know that it is right?

I have badges from the Women in Black in Jerusalem and I hope to give them to the Women in Black in Edinburgh. It doesn’t mean much, a token gesture, but it is something that I can do, and I know it is the right thing to do.
The evening of the 24th and we arrive in Bethlehem, Dheisheh Refugee Camp. A bus trip from Jerusalem. They take us through a checkpoint. We don’t need to go this way, we have international passports but they want us to see what is like. For the Palestinians it is the end of a working day, probably in Jerusalem. It is hot and they just want to get home and are lined up in the sun waiting, permit ID’s at the ready. We are in the way! Probably make it longer for them to get home because we are taking up one of the turnstiles. We wait with passports, show them to the official at the window and get waved through the turnstile and on to the tarmac square at the other side. Everything is topped with razor wire. It was so like the procedure to get into the prison at my placement over the summer. ID, turnstile, waiting, fences, razor wire. But this is a prison.

From Ibdaa hostel we were met by a prominent figure in the camp, Atallah. He takes us on a tour. Down the lanes, children out waving; “Hello, welcome, what’s your name”. You reply and they tell you their name with pride. The graffiti on the walls is a mix of the armed struggle and peaceful resistance. I feel an anger building in me and wonder which way I would have gone if this had been my life. This is not for security but for humiliation and for land, to encourage people to fight or to leave and to fight against such power leaves mourning, martyrs and another portrait on the walls of the worlds oldest refugee camp.

Atallah takes us to his home. His wife has made a meal for 13 visitors, chicken and rice and yoghurt and mint dips and drinks. Their three children run in and out, between the kitchen and the room, helping mum, checking up on the large party of guests who have taken over their home, and we are told of the history of the camp. One of the delegates asks the couple about their hopes for their children. It is the question that cuts through politics and religion and war and deals with hope in its complete nakedness. Hope is relative, realistic. It is about providing what people can, a good home, a nice, comfortable and loving home. It is about education and morals and principals. It is about realising that your children will never see the sea, will never feel the sand below their feet and the waves washing at your ankles. It is making the cell in your prison as comfortable as you can. (I later find out that the children call the swimming pool ‘the sea.’)

Atallah takes us up on to the roof. Vines hang over the courtyard and his brother cuts some grapes for the guests. This is hospitality, this is Abraham in the midday sun with three strangers arriving at his tent. This comes with one, and only one condition: go home and tell your community our story. It is not a big price to pay, it is what I can do and it is what is right. On the wall outside Atallah’s home is a mural of his brother. Remembered in paint and in hearts and I wonder which way I would have gone.