Interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Photo: Sherri Maurin)

Pace e Bene staff-person Louie Vitale, OFM is taking part in a peace delegation to Palestine and Israel organized by The Resource Center for Nonviolence, Peaceworkers, and The Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies, December 17-27, 2009.  The peace delegation seeks to offer participants first-hand exposure to and deeper understanding of the situation in Israel and the West Bank.  This delegation will give participants an opportunity to meet face-to-face with human rights, social justice and peace activists in Israel and the West Bank.  After that, he will participate in the Gaza Freedom March on December 31, in which 1,400 people from 45 countries are expected to join many as 50,000 Palestinians in a nonviolent march to encourage an end to the siege of Gaza. See the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s press release about this march, detailing the diverse religious leadership that will be taking part in it.

Pace e Bene will be posting Louie’s reports as we receive them.  Here is his first report:

Report 1: Beginning the Journey

After a 16 hour flight we arrived in Tel Aviv and then spent the evening in  Jerusalem.  The next morning, I got up early and walked with a member of the group — long-time peace activist Sherri Maurin from San Francisco — through Jerusalem to the Church of Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was said to be buried after the crucifixion and before the resurrection.

Today will be a very interesting day as we approach Bi’ilin with Palestinians trying to cross, who are usually accompanied with tear gas and rubber bullets

It was a great experience visiting the basilica. I wore my habit and was very well received by the friars there. We were there during the Catholic hours. They switch off with the Orthodox, et al. We participated in Mass within the tomb. Very moving, really a life experience. It is still soaking in. 

Two of the friars from our province are there as part of what has been called since the Middle Ages “the Custody of the Holy Land.” Garrett Edmonds is attached there in Jerusalem and every one knows him.

I had a very brief visit with Brother Leo Gonzalez from our Province who has spent many years at the Dominus Flevit, where Jesus wept as he looked down on Jerusalem.

I am rooming with George Houser who is a Methodist minister with many years experience as a missionary in Africa, and activist, a major player with CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), an important part of the US Civil Rights movement, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.  He is 93 years old and very active.  A good companion on the journey.

Today will be a very interesting day as we approach Bi’ilin with Palestinians trying to cross, who are usually accompanied with tear gas and rubber bullets. They are a group that is protesting the wall.

This is a great experience. I hope I can keep my patience and be a Happy Companion on the journey. Keep us in your prayers.  Meanwhile have a joyful end to Advent.

Peace and good,

Louie 

Report #2: Bi’ilin

The following report from Louie’s trip was written by activist and teacher Sherri Maurin, who is participating in this peace mission. 

Friday, December 18, 2009

Greetings from Jerusalem, dear friends and families,

Today was a deeply moving experience for the entire delegation.  Our day began with Jean Zaru, at the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine.  Many of you may know about this courageous woman whose life has been devoted to dialogue and nonviolent social change.  Jan, Sherri and David had read her newest book, Occupied With Non Violence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks, while preparing for this trip, and were very moved by her deep understanding of nonviolence.  

Jean is the presiding Clerk of the Friends Meeting there, and co-founder of Sabeel, an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Sabeel seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, promote unity among them, and lead them to social action; it has become an international movement, and we have many friends in the U.S. chapters so we were particularly glad to meet with Jean.

Our time with her was good preparation of our afternoon in the small village of Bil’in.  It has a population of just about 1,800 who depend on agriculture as their main source of income.  However, close to 60% of Bil’in’s land, and most of its best farming fields, have been annexed for Israeli settlements and the construction of Israel’s “Apartheid Wall.” The villagers shareed that every day the military destroys a bit more, creating an open air prison for Bil’in’s inhabitants.      

Bil’in residents have continued to withstand these injustices despite the ongoing night raids the Israeli Soldiers inflict upon their town, and the increasing number of arrests of its inhabitants and of activists. 

Some of you know about Tristin Anderson, an American from Oakland, CA, who was critically wounded in a similar vigil, and has been hospitalized for about 8 months now after he was hit by the heavy tear-gas canisters that the Israeli forces use against the villagers; these canisters can be shot up to 500m and the tear gas is stronger than anything we’d experienced in the United States.  Shortly after we arrived at the gate all of us were tear-gassed; although we ran away, unable to see or breathe, with our skin stinging, many of the villagers kept staying and taking more and more of it.  Many young children were there and were tear-gassed as well.

It should be noted, though that the majority of those villagers act nonviolently, despite that fact that  the Israeli army has also toughened the oppression by using so called rubber coated steel bullets and larger ammunition aimed directly at the protestors; some have died, and still they resist. Supported by Israeli and international activists, Bil’in residents peacefully demonstrate every Friday.

We learned that the people of Bil’in have managed to achieve the recognition of the Israel High Court, which recently ruled that the route of the Apartheid Wall near in the village is illegal and must be changed. Although they have won the rights to have their farmlands returned, the military here ignores the court order saying there are insufficient funds to relocate what is really a large fence.  We will have many more stories to share when we return about their valiant struggle, and our special time with them.

Still feeling the effects of the tear gas, we continued on to meet with The Committee Against House Demolitions. ICAHD, a nonviolent, direct-action group works to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of  houses in the Occupied Territories, as well as land expropriation, settlement expansion, by-pass road construction, policies of “closure” and “separation,” and the wholesale uprooting of fruit and olive trees.

They are passionate, and knowledgeable about the occupation, and shared that the most salient cause of the occupation is a Zionist belief that to have a Jewish state you must have a Jewish majority. Using very clear maps, and a tour around the perimeter of the wall, the ICAHD representative gave us a powerful view of the settlements as they compare to the Palestinian sector.  It is visible, and it is painful. 

The Israeli settlement areas are beautifully maintained, have full services such as trash removal, easy access to sufficient water, paved roads, sidewalks, and other benefits.  The minute you cross the street, or go down the road to the Palestinian sector, the roads are full of potholes, the buildings are often a shambles, floods are frequent because the sewer lines are not maintained, and all of the houses have large water storage tanks on their roofs since they are given less than 60% of the water they need to survive. 

Although one-third of the population of Jerusalem is Palestinian, they get 5-8% of the budget, according to ICAHD.  There are inadequate schools, and the majority live under the poverty line because they only have limited access to work, and only to extremely low paying jobs.  Despite this impoverishment, we were told that they are forced to pay the highest land taxes in West Jerusalem; these taxes subsidize the many services that are available to the Israeli settlers.  While we are trying to stay impartial, the images of what we have seen and experienced make that difficult.

Following our orientation we joined a protest at the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarra.  There we watched as dozens of Hasidic Jews celebrated Shabat by dancing in the streets celebrating their seizure of several Palestinian homes on that block.  We spoke with Palestinians who had been forced out of their homes by raids in the middle of the night, and who are currently maintaining an ongoing presence in front of their homes in makeshift shelters. 

At several points the action got violent, but the Palestinians remained nonviolent and spoke to us at length about their commitment to nonviolence; an international reported that her head had been knocked against a wall by settlers, and several young children were taken away in an ambulance after reportedly being beaten by the Israelis.  Emotions were extremely high on both sides, and the crowd had to be controlled by local police.

The stories we heard were deeply painful and powerful; as we listened we were struck by the image of the huge Israeli flags flying over acquired houses.  We continue to find it hard to stay impartial as we feel and hear the pain of those who have lost everything.  We are particularly struck by the fact that this is all done with supposedly deep religious justification, and I am sure we will continue to wrestle in trying to understand this all. 

Tomorrow we will be in meetings most of the day learning about the plight of internally displaced refugees, the horrific conditions of the water and sewer systems here which cause a widespread health risk, and many more key areas.

For now, I send you greetings of peace from all of us here in the Middle East.

Sherri Maurin

Report #3 from Louie: Will Egypt Open the Border?

Hi Friends,

This trip continues to amaze us all. The depth of the experiences—real time—that are being shared with us and the power of the settings in this ancient countryside is magnificent.  Add to that the rich Biblical history we are sharing both in the geography and the religious calendars and it is awesome.

Yesterday we picked up our much sought after ticket to the midnight Catholic Mass at the site of the Nativity. Before that we will attend the religious service at the Shepherd’s field, just adjacent to where we are staying. A lot of history and human experience comes crashing in.
 
We heard today that the Egyptian border will not be open to us until the end of January. I am sure it is not on the agenda for us to wait that long. We have not heard of any change of plans.

TAKE ACTION: Currently, Egyptian authorities are denying marchers the ability to cross from Egypt into Gaza. Please send a message to the Egyptian embassy, urging them to allow us and all the other nonviolent peace activists to cross the border.  Please click here to do this!

If you have the opportunity please communicate with any of our congressional or government reps to intercede for our safe and timely passage.

We did have a meeting with representatives of the US Consulate today and shared our concern and asked for their help.  I know Sherri forwarded the contact name and numbers to you earlier to day as part of the Gaza Freedom March announcement.

Keep us in your prayers as we will remember you especially at Christmas Mass.
 
Peace and all good,

Louie