Dear Israel, please tear this wall down: ++Rowan

Archbishop Rowan Williams and several UK and Jerusalem religious leaders recently visited Bethlehem, and came face to face with the separation wall. Israel says it's trying to defend itself. Palestinians say it's a land grab.

Either way, ++Rowan says that the wall symbolizes "deeply wrong in the human heart." He says that justice and security are not things that are claimed by one party at the expense of another, but something that two parties must strive for together.

Three great religions revere the Holy Land. For Christians, it contains, among other things, what we revere as the exact spot where Jesus was born, the Church of the Nativity. There is a metal star on the floor of the grotto to mark the spot, where Williams prostrated himself in reverence. As we come to church in reverence at the birth of Jesus, let us remember that his birthplace is under siege.

Bombs and missiles are launched at targets in heavily populated civilian areas where there are bound to be collateral deaths. People blow themselves up among civilian targets. The violence kills the body and poisons the soul. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Israel must withdraw to the Green Line and cease all military action. Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist and must stop attacks on civilians. Those of us in the Middle East are growing up poisoned by hatred. The rest of us cannot go idly by, because indifference is no less a poison.

I have two related stories that occurred earlier in the year. One, on July 12, Bishop M Thomas Shaw, Episcopal Diocese of Massachussets, joined a protest outside the Israeli consulate, as is his custom. This is around the time CPL Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, and the violence was escalating. +Thomas raised concern over the Al Ahli Anglican hospital in Gaza, which was suffering from power outages and medicine shortages while people were on life support. One of his clergy had attempted to send money, but couldn't reach anyone to confirm that they had received it. There was a counter protest across the street, with one person from +Thomas' Diocese holding a sign that said, “Bishop Shaw does not speak for this Episcopalian.” The man, Bob Cahill, said he wanted a more balanced view from his church.

The second story, which is the bottom link, will give us a more balanced view. The mainstream media in the US already tells the story of the Israeli side, while neglecting the Palestinian side. We don't know what it's like on the ground for the Palestinian people. When Jesus says to love our neighbor, we need to know them first, and we cannot do so if we willfully ignore their stories. It's the same with the US military refusing to count Iraqi casualties.

And so, this is a story, dated Nov 9, of Jameela al-Shanti, a Hamas legislator and a mother in Beit Hanoun. Probably in response to Hamas militants using Beit Hanoun as a rocket launching base, Israeli Defence Forces shelled the town of 28,000, turning it into a "closed military zone" and prohibiting ambulances from entering. Water and electricity were cut off, and the death toll rose to at least 90. It was Israel's tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it had anounced its withdrawal from Gaza. Jameela alleges that the IDF took all males over 15 away, presumably for interrogation.

"But as though this occupation and collective punishment were not enough, we Palestinians find ourselves the targets of a systematic siege imposed by the so-called free world. We are being starved and suffocated as a punishment for daring to exercise our democratic right to choose who rules and represents us. Nothing undermines the west's claims to defend freedom and democracy more than what is happening in Palestine. Shortly after announcing his project to democratise the Middle East, President Bush did all he could to strangle our nascent democracy, arresting our ministers and MPs. I have yet to hear western condemnation that I, an elected MP, have had my home demolished and relatives killed by Israel's bombs. When the bodies of my friends and colleagues were torn apart there was not one word from those who claim to be defenders of women's rights on Capitol Hill and in 10 Downing Street."

And so she, and 1,500 other women, went out, unarmed, to free some male fighters trapped in a mosque. They marched over the IDF's barricades ... and the IDF opened fire, and Jameela lost two close friends, Ibtissam Yussuf abu Nada and Rajaa Ouda.

"Why should we Palestinians have to accept the theft of our land, the
ethnic cleansing of our people, incarcerated in forsaken refugee camps,
and the denial of our most basic human rights, without protesting and
resisting?

The lesson the world should learn from Beit Hanoun last week is that
Palestinians will never relinquish our land, towns and villages. We will
not surrender our legitimate rights for a piece of bread or handful of
rice. The women of Palestine will resist this monstrous occupation
imposed on us at gunpoint, siege and starvation. Our rights and those of
future generations are not open for negotiation."

These women were willing to face tanks and guns with only the conviction that they had to stop the bloodshed, that they had to get their people back. It takes very little courage to fire at people, only some of whom may actually be firing at you, from inside a tank of from the controls of an aircraft. It does not even take much courage to strap explosives on and go blow civilians up.

It takes tremendous courage to put your weapons down, to confront the other side unarmed. I don't know if the Palestinian women intended to engage in nonviolent resistance. Perhaps it just happened, they just felt they had to get their boys out of the mosque and away from the IDF, and that the soldiers fired on them. I don't know if the act of firing on unarmed women shamed the IDF soldiers such that they rethink their part in this war. But I do pray for the Spirit, who brings peace, to abide in both Israelis and Palestinians, to produce more acts, on both sides, of nonviolent resistance.


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23379229-details/Bethlehem+wall+is+'deeply+wrong'+says+Archbishop/article.do

http://www.diomass.org/diomass/index.cfm?objectid=4A5DACF4-3048-2B1B-C6EEAA22F19543E2

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1942942,00.html