So, on the 18th and the 19th I went to Bethlehem or Bet Lehem or Bet Layhm (depending on language) with Encounter. I was an intense experience and I am so glad that I went. But there was a lot, so what I figure I will do is take this post to write down my notes from the trip and use the next post to comment.
So, we started the day at The Hope Flowers School with Ibrahim Issa, the director and founder's son. This school teaches peace, non-violence, empowerment for women and other worthy causes to their students since 1984 in the hope to instill some of these values in a new generation of Palestinian children and leaders. The board of directors includes Muslims, Jews, and Christians. When they started they faced burned busses and the Issa family was personally attacked many times in the belief of "collaboration" with Israelis and only in 2004 did they finally receive a "cooperation agreement" from the Palestinian Ministry of Education. Ibrahim Issa told us that peace starts within ourselves. At the Hope Flowers school they work not just with the students but also with teachers and parents in training sessions so that they become non-violent, peace wanting role models as well. Children are not taught to love Israel or Israelis, but they are taught not to hate her/them and instead respect. The students study Hebrew and take interfaith classes because "religion is misused in conflict." Ibrahim also made the distinction between Peace Education before 2000 and after 2000 (2nd Intifada and reaction to it) because AFTER 2000, Peace Education had to deal with occupation. Tanks in the streets, destruction of infrastructure, curfews- people only let out of their homes once a week, people being killed everyday and many of them civilians (60% of families lost a member), home searches, poverty sitting at about 55% of the population, the Hope Flowers school having demolition notice, the road to school being destroyed, and the school itself being shelled by the army. In many ways after 2000 peace education mainly deals with war trauma and trying to make it not lead to hate, but to peaceful proactivity.
Next we met with Sammi (something- will look it up) from the Holy Land Trusts, a non-violence organization. Sammi himself is a Palestinian refugee and lived in the states for a while and went to KU and American for University. He showed us the geography of Bethlehem and the surrounding villages. He explained the Holy Land Trusts mission to train Palestinians, leaders, children, etc. non-violence and the goals of peace having run training sessions even for Hamas and Fatah. Sammi also explained that the organization also makes sure that they do not become violent through use of "non-violence." He showed us the wall surrounding Bethlehem and cutting the city off from Rachel's Tomb completely. When he left us, he ended with a personal story, a few month before he had been in Auschwitz for the second time and this time he slept over the night in the children's bunk where so many Jewish children had spent their last nights before being sent to their death. And he said, that it is horrible how the world did not help the Jews heal from the Holocaust. That the world turned a blind eye to the Jews and let us continue being victims.
Next we met George Saadeh, the deputy mayor of Bethlehem and principal of Greek Shepherds School. Born in Bethlehem and trained as a Mechanical Engineer at USCalifornia, George spoke first of the "siege of Bethlehem" with 9m high wall surrounding the city, of the difficulties of travel needing permits to go anywhere outside of the city, of it taking 2 hours to get to Jerusalem when it only takes me as an American 10 minutes, of the 65% unemployment and 55-60% rate of poverty, of the water to Bethlehem being turned off by the Israeli army. He spoke of the occupation as an open prison and asked how you explain to a child why they are walled in a city and not allowed to travel to visit family and not allowed even to leave their homes on certain days. But then he spoke on his personal narrative. I stopped taking note here because I was not able, so this is all from memory. On a March 25, he was driving with his wife and two daughters (12 and 15) to the mall when they came upon some Israeli soldiers. As it is occupation and at the time soldiers and tanks were regularly on the streets, he just made to go around them when they opened fire. 300 bullets were shot at the Saadeh car seriously wounding George and his 15 year old daughter each with multiple (about 5) bullet wounds. His wife was not as seriously injured, but his 12 year old daughter was killed. She was shot so many times that George and the rest of his family were covered in her blood and pieces of her flesh and her bone for over 2 hours before the soldiers would allow an ambulance to enter the area. George and his oldest daughter underwent many operations and remained in the hospital for months. His family is now a member of Bereaved Families, families that have lost members from the occupation whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. They are only looking for an end to the occupation and create justice and peace here. George is not angry or resentful, instead he ended with that "there is enough land for us all here."
Next we heard Sam Bahour, born in the states to a Palestinian family who after the Sabra and Shatilla massacres became more involved with the area besides just visiting every summer. He with a friend started the first telecom committee in Palestine to much difficulty for two reasons: 1) the PA is incompetent, ignorant and corrupt and 2) that Israel controls the air frequencies for cellphones and would not give one to the Palestinians for a long time. After he succeeded in telecom, Sam opened the shopping plaza in Ramalah, insisting on continuing even throughout the years of the Intifada. Sam spoke of Palestinians as a group of people with less and less representation to a group of people who are different in many ways making it impossible to bring all of them together for one solution simply. That the world needs to judge what is right and what is wrong based on a "baseline." That baseline being International Law, that "might can not be right" and that the world needs to recognize that the West Bank is not "disputed" but in fact in occupation. That how long must we wait for a "two state solution," knowing that the status quo is not acceptable. Instead he talked of making little improvements for general life and gradually, softly making the occupation less of an occupation and better for everyone. He spoke of the Palestinian leadership being horrible at PR and not able to perform on an international platform, but also being asked to do to much. He stated that it should not be a pre-requisite to have a good economy to be allowed to negotiate fairly. He also spoke a little on Hamas saying that their election, "was the best thing that ever happened, now the best thing would be for them to step down," because they had to become a real party. Now, it is known who is in their leadership, who is responsible. They have to have a platform and play politics. He also said that it made sense that they were elected. The Palestinian people knew only force and the military from Israel, so the responded with what they knew and force and a military. He said that "Israelis are in total denial" of what is happening in the West Bank and that the conflict is easy to solve except for 1) the refugees and 2) the settlers, Israelis need to accept/acknowledge that the West Bank is an occupation.
Hamed Qawasheh from the UN OCHA spoke of facts as the UN collects them in the West Bank. He spoke of the poverty, unemployment numbers. He noted the Israeli army's destruction or making difficult to travel on the roads in the West Bank with trenches through a road, cement blocks, earth-mounds, checkpoints, etc. in total as of Sept 2008 there were 630 of these. He showed us that the Green Line is 320 km long, but the wall is 725 km long. He spoke of Areas A (full Palestinian control), B (Palestinian administration control and Israeli security), &C (full Israeli control). He said that the PA has no problem with the wall/barrier except that it needs to be on the Green Line and not in Palestinian territory. Since 1967, 18,000 homes have been demolished and 94% of building permits are denied to Palestinians. He also spoke of the Settlers being disconnected from the rest of Israeli society, from the "mainstream" and that they see any giving up of any land as a slippery slope to the end of Israel and the Jewish State. He also said that 90% of settler violence cases go without indictment.
We ended with a visit to the village of Al-Wahaje where we saw a community center that helps children by supporting education as their is no school in the village and they are not permitted to build one (Israeli Army will destroy). They also teach non-violence, how to live with occupation, and peace through workshops, small projects and teaching them usable workforce skills. There is no heath care center in the village and they must go through a checkpoint to get to a doctor. A woman from the village went into labor and ended up delivering her baby at the checkpoint because she could not get through and without any medical help, the baby died. We also heard from a man who's family home was demolished, so they rebuilt it, but it was demolished again and they have now rebuilt again. Each time they pay the cost of demolition. Because the village is right next to Jerusalem, they face a lot of problems and the greater idea is to either divide the village, totally surround it with the wall, or transfer the people living there.
That is about it as far as facts and what I experienced. But that took a while to type, and I'm tired so I'll write my comments and thoughts later.