Israel and Palestine are places of contrasts. Three of the world’s religions claim holy ancestry here. Christians, Jews and Muslims worship alongside one another as signposts which point to church, mosque and synagogue in Acco or Acre indicate. The view of the skyline in Nazareth shows the dome of the Greek Roman Catholic Church alongside the minaret of the White Mosque. Both claim to be built on the site of the original synagogue in Nazareth. In Hebron, at the Tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, a mosque and synagogue are located within the same building.
All of this worship is centred on Jerusalem and on the Old City in particular. Jews worship at the Western Wall, the remains of the Temple built by Herod, Christians walk in the footsteps of Jesus on the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Muslims pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
All this was occurring during our recent visit to the
Holy Land made as part of a
tour organised by the
East London Three Faiths Forum. However, as we travelled we were also inevitably aware of various signs of tensions between the faiths and tensions within the faiths such as, for example, the
ladder on a ledge outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre left where it is as it cannot be moved without the agreement of all the denominations represented in this church.
Bullet holes in street signs indicated past conflicts, as did war memorials and live mines in the Golan Heights. There were armoured vehicles outside our hotel in Jerusalem and at the Tombs of the Patriarchs in Hebron. A missile launcher was located above the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem and soldiers were on the streets in the Old City and in Hebron.
To reach Bethlehem we passed through the security wall or separation barrier which Israel began building in 2002 to cut itself off from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This was justified as a response to violence and has stopped most of the suicide bombings which were then occurring regularly. The barrier has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian people, has annexed land and divided communities but, most of all, has come to symbolise the divide between the two peoples at the heart of the Middle East crisis.
Movement within – and in and out of – the West Bank is controlled by 540 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds and gates, plus an average 100 ‘flying checkpoints’ on Palestinian roads every week. Checkpoints, roadblocks, the separation barrier, earth mounds and a Kafkaesque permit system are the daily reality for Palestinians. The Gaza Strip is largely cut off, while obstacles in the West Bank have created isolated enclaves that sever economic ties, separate communities and deny Palestinians access to some fifty per cent of the land.
In the West Bank, illegal Israeli settlements take up Palestinian land and water resources and create restrictions on movement that impede Palestinian access to education, healthcare and employment, as well as restricting the economy – all contributing to poverty.
In Acco we saw these ‘Not for Sale’ signs in an Arab area of the City. Our guide explained that the Orthodox buy homes in Arab or secular Israeli areas and then begin to impose the Mosaic Law in ways that eventually force the original occupiers of the area to move out. Arab and secular Israeli’s have, therefore, begun making agreements in their communities not to sell to Orthodox families.
At least 65 per cent of Palestinians were living below the poverty line in 2007, compared to 54 per cent in 2005 and 20 per cent in 1998. As we walked through the Old City in Hebron relative levels of poverty were clear when compared with similar markets elsewhere.
The confiscation of land, the expansion of Israeli settlements and the building of the separation barrier all create facts of the ground which exacerbate poverty and undermine the whole notion of a viable Palestinian state.
Our tour of the Holy Land ended at
Yad Vashem. Established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the
Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations.
The Holocaust was the murder by Nazi Germany of six million Jews. While the Nazi persecution of the Jews began in 1933, the mass murder was committed during World War II. It took the Germans and their accomplices four and a half years to murder six million Jews. Most of the Jews of Europe were dead by 1945. A civilization that had flourished for almost 2,000 years was no more.
The survivors, dazed, emaciated, bereaved beyond measure, gathered the remnants of their vitality and the remaining sparks of their humanity, and rebuilt. They never meted out justice to their tormentors – for what justice could ever be achieved after such a crime? Rather, they turned to rebuilding: new families forever under the shadow of those absent; new life stories, forever warped by the wounds; new communities, forever haunted by the loss. As a quote displayed at Yad Veshem states, ‘From among the horror grew another morality, another love, another compassion. These grew wild – no one gave them a name.’
So, just as we must denounce the sufferings of the Holocaust, we must also denounce the sufferings for Palestinians which have followed the political response to the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel.
As a group of Christians, Jews and Muslims travelling harmoniously to
tour our holy sites together, the
East London Three Faiths Forum is a sign that peace and understanding across the faiths can be achieved. We pray therefore not for Arab or Jew, for Palestinian or Israeli, but pray rather for ourselves, that we might not divide them in our prayers but keep them both together in our hearts.
Christian Aid has been working with the poorest people in the region since the early 1950s, when they first provided help to Palestinian refugees. Today they are working with more than 20 Israeli and Palestinian organisations to protect human rights, access to services and resources, and to build peace based on justice for all.
This includes a
project which has provided Palestinian families with video cameras, as well as surveillance cameras for those under threat from the settlers breaking into their homes and physically and verbally abusing them. To protect one family, a Christian Aid partner built a metal ‘cage’ around their home to protect them from physical abuse. The mother says; ‘The camera makes life better for us, it stops the settlers. For example, if I film them, they are more careful, or they run away.’
In Lebanon and the West Bank, there are approximately 500,000 people living with disabilities. Practical difficulties, discrimination and outdated attitudes towards people with disabilities prevent them from fully participating in society and the workplace. The
Christian Aid partnership project which we have been supporting here at St John's Seven Kings, delivered in partnership with the
Lebanese Physically Handicapped Union (LPHU) and the
East Jerusalem YMCA, is directly benefiting 30,000 people living in Lebanon and the West Bank over its three-year lifetime. Its wider impact will improve prospects for many thousands more and continue to make a difference into the future. The money we are donating to this project helps to: provide training and careers guidance for people living with disabilities; improve job prospects for people living with disabilities; improve working conditions, including workplace adaptation; increase awareness of issues people living with disabilities face – particularly among employers; and improve the laws that protect the rights of people living with disabilities. The EU is match funding this project three times over – meaning that the £5,000 we are raising will transform into £20,000 for people living with disabilities in Lebanon and the West Bank. Today was our final opportunity at St John's Seven Kings to give towards this project.
The Palestinian-Israeli situation today shows the futility of violence, where endless repression and resistance feed off each other. As
Banksy's powerful images in
Bethlehem suggest, in the Middle East the dove of peace has to wear a bullet-proof vest. From this cycle of repression and violence, conflict and provocation, come the bitter fruits of poverty. Action – including the support of projects like the Christian Aid partnership project - is urgently needed to break this cycle of diminishing hope.
As
Naim Ateek, director of the
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem, has said: ‘Both nations must “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God”. Once those biblical demands of justice have been satisfied, a good measure of peace will be achieved. The result will then be a new and deeper security enjoyed by all throughout the land.’ So may we pray, as
Psalm 122 encourages us, for the peace of Jerusalem, recognizing its impact throughout Israel and Palestine and on all who view it as a holy city.
A prayer for justice and peace in the land of the Holy One: Living Lord, ignite in us a passion for justice and a yearning to right all wrong. Strengthen us to work for peace in the land we call Holy: for peace among Jew, Christian and Muslim, for reconciliation between communities, for harmony between faiths. Inspire us to act with the urgency of your quickening fire, for blessed are the peacemakers they shall be called the children of God. (
Ramani Leathard, Trustee,
Amos Trust)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
