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When I think of Palestine I like to remember it in springtime

When I think of Palestine I like to remember it in springtime, when the weather is warm but not hot and the sun glints off the white stone walls and softens the air. Truth to tell, I love Palestine in any season, for the warmth of its hospitality, its beauty, its perseverance, its faith.

By Elizabeth Raymer**

*Bougainvillea is not native to Palestine, but it grows well there because of the warm and sunny climate.*

Each time I’ve returned, though, the situation seems to have worsened. “Do you remember when Qalandiya checkpoint was a booth on a dusty road?” I’ve asked friends, recalling the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah from my first visit, in the summer of 2003.

This past November I looked forward to visiting Palestine for the first time in more than eight years, though I knew that this time I’d see far worse than what I’d witnessed on earlier visits and over several years of volunteering there.

During a five-day pilgrimage with Sabeel we saw Israeli schoolchildren — on a new observation deck in Sderot, an Israeli town near the northern border with the Gaza Strip — pump their fists and middle fingers into the air at the sight of smoke risking from Gaza. This seemed a perverse form of entertainment: witnessing genocide and celebrating it.

*Young Israelis gather on the Sderot hill which provides a view into Gaza.*

We visited the settlement of Um Al Kheir in the South Hebron Hills and met with a community leader there, who described escalating violence by Israeli settlers since October 7th: blocking roads, issuing demolition orders, taking villagers’ land for their own, night raids, and physical attacks, including against five women recently that had resulted in broken bones.

Since October 7, 2023, he said, “we live in a hell like never before.”

Following the pilgrimage a friend took me on an evening visit to the Jordan Valley and described how Bedouin farmers had been driven out by settlers; about five families had already left, he said, and the settlers’ attacks were confirmed by a group of international filmmakers we met with there. The roads we drove on through the West Bank were new Israeli roads, and the signage did not acknowledge a single Palestinian town or village we passed by, but only Israeli settlements and to points in Israel.

This is Israel’s increasing domination of Palestine. That dusty booth in the road? Today Qalandiya checkpoint is a fortress-like structure with ramps, turnstiles, metal detectors, airport-style conveyor belts along which all belongings must now pass, and unsmiling soldiers behind plexiglass barking instructions and locking turnstiles at whim.

“It’s just for humiliation,” my friend told me. On the last day I had passed through that checkpoint during my first visit, more than two decades earlier, youth had been shot at there. But more than that violence it’s the daily degradations — the omnipresent checkpoints, the severe restrictions on movement (many if not most Palestinians can’t even visit Jerusalem), the short trips that should take an hour or less but may take three times that long — that must wear down the psyche.

On our second day of pilgrimage the Rev. Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem described to us the Palestinian concept of sumud — steadfastness: refusing to forget the past, or give up — that was developed during the second intifada.

When I think of Palestine I like to remember it in springtime: of driving through the Jaffa Gate, lit softly in the late-morning sun, at the beginning of a journey; of the heartfelt goodbyes at the end. Today I also think of new beginnings, of what it will take to rebuild Gaza, and historic Palestine; how it will take an international effort to right the hideous wrongs of not only yesterday but today — and of how sumud, and continuing to tell our stories, can help plant the seeds for that.

** Elizabeth Raymer is a journalist and communicator who lives in Toronto. She has been an advocate for Palestine since the early 2000s and volunteered extensively there over a period of 10 years. Along with a dozen other Canadians, as well as Americans and Britons, she participated in a solidarity pilgrimage organized by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, from November 17 to 22, 2024.

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Developing Minds in Palestine

by David Knoppert **

Our pilgrimage group was waiting to leave an eerie, empty part of Hebron in the West Bank through a checkpoint. The young Israeli soldier had to get permission to open the gate for us to pass through. As we waited, someone glanced upwards towards a nearby building. A young Palestinian girl, perhaps 10 or 11 years old, waved excitedly to us below. She disappeared and then reappeared with another young child, possibly her sister. Several of us waved to the young girls before we needed to leave the area through the checkpoint. These girls seemed to be confined to that room 40 or 50 feet above the street. Why weren’t they outside playing? We were not sure if these girls were Palestinian or Israeli settler.

*Young girl in Hebron waves to pilgrimage group.*

Why was this area so eerie? None of the businesses were open; boards covered the fronts of many. The Israeli Defense Forces had forced Palestinian shop owners out several years ago. There was a visible presence of Israeli soldiers.

Earlier that day we were in the old market area of Hebron (designated H2) where protective coverings hovered over the Palestinian shops below. About 35,000 Palestinians and 700 settlers live in this part of Hebron. There are up to 1,000 Israeli troops in this area, protecting those settlers. One of the most famous streets in the West Bank, with some of the ritziest stores, had been reduced essentially to a garbage dump, from refuse thrown down by Israeli settlers who live directly above the market. The proximity of these settlers to Palestinian residents was unbelievable. A Palestinian man who lives very close by told us how the Israeli soldiers are a constant threat. They have come into homes in the middle of the night for no reason at all. Understandably the children are terrified. Children or their parents can be abducted or arrested for not following a strict curfew. The Palestinians are under military rule here. Perhaps this explains why those girls seemed to be confined to their home.

*Wire mesh protects Palestinian vendors and their wares from the garbage thrown down on them by the Israeli settlers who live above.*

When I returned to Canada after our trip, a common question was, “Did you feel safe?” I responded, yes, I felt safe most of the time. I was, after all, in the midst of 48 other ”internationals,” from Canada, Scotland, England and the US. However, at the end of our pilgrimage as we prepared to leave the West Bank and enter Jordan on the way home, I experienced something that was familiar. We were told to delete any potentially troublesome photos, itineraries and emails before we reached the Israeli border security. (Israel controls the border between the West Bank and Jordan.) At the exact time that I left Israeli-controlled territory and entered the Jordanian bus I felt an incredible sense of relief. A weight had been taken off my shoulders. I really did not have anything to worry about, but the potential of getting into any trouble with the Israelis had been in my subconscious mind.

So now, as I reflect back on those children in Hebron, I can only imagine what is going on in their minds. Every day they live with the realization that they could be taken away from their home at gunpoint or worse. The following day we met students at Al Najah University in Nablus. Those students who do not live in Nablus need to pass through checkpoints each day to get to class. Besides the logistical nightmare of checkpoints being closed, checkpoints are potentially dangerous. We learned that the previous day (while we were in Hebron) a university student had been killed at a Nablus checkpoint.

*An Israeli military post overlooks the city of Hebron, West Bank.*

My subconscious fear and anxiety pales compared to the real consequences of an unaccountable military force that can abduct and detain children, induce fear by their very presence, strategically maim children so that an arm or a leg must be amputated, or even kill children.[i] With no one to answer to. And what we witnessed is only the West Bank. It is hard to imagine what the children in Gaza are experiencing every single day

The effects of the mental anguish that Palestinians (especially children) are experiencing will carry on for generations. We, in Canada, are well aware of the multi-generational effects of residential schools on the Indigenous population of this country. We can only hope that the Palestinian children will receive the care, therapy and support that they will need when this disaster ends.

[i] Between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2024, Israeli troops and settlers killed 171 Palestinian children and injured over 1,000. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-children-killed-unprecedented-rate

David Knoppert is a retired Neonatal Pharmacist who lives in London, ON with his wife of 42 years, Diane, and their 8 year old Golden Retriever, Smudge. David was scheduled to travel on a pilgrimage to Palestine on October 12, 2023. Since then he has become very involved with initiatives to support the Palestinian cause. He enjoys wearing his Palestinian toque.

Admin CFOS 12/27/24 Admin CFOS 12/27/24

A government out of control

by the Rev. Dr. Dorcas Gordon**

As I stood near the Gaza border, with the Erez crossing on my right and looking into northern Gaza, I experienced deep anger, bordering on rage, that a genocide was taking place before my eyes, and I could do nothing to stop it. Some members of our group were in tears, others were singing and praying as smoke or dust rose in front of us just beyond the border.

Was this smoke or dust evidence of the road that Israel was building, following through on the Generals’ Plan to cut off the northern section of Gaza from the rest of Gaza with the intention to depopulate it? Was I seeing the Israeli military in tanks and armored vehicles making sure that it completed the ethnic cleansing of the 50,000 to 75,000 Palestinian people, mostly women and children, in the northern towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia under siege since early October and cut off from obtaining food, medicine, and water (Mondeweiss, December 2, 2024)?

*Northern Gaza, from a lookout one kilometre away at Sderot, Israel.*

Afterwards as I tried to reflect on what I had seen I was struck in a visceral way to what extent the Israeli government had given up all pretense of being “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Instead, it now stands exposed as a state of relentless savagery and disinformation, having lost all moral ground.

Visiting the West Bank served to intensify my rage. Young people attending university in Nablus, full of life, telling us of future plans that to me seemed so unrealizable in the midst of ongoing raids by the Israeli military with their killing machines. While we were there an announcement was made that one student had been murdered the day before by the IDF as he waited for his ride to school—so much potential cut off in an ordinary moment of life.

We heard from the mother of a young woman in prison held under administrative detention, already renewed once with the possibility of further renewals. No evidence was presented of any crime. This young woman had been charged and incarcerated based on secret information about which even her lawyer was not informed. (Shortly after returning home, we celebrated news of her release, knowing from experience that subsequent arrests are common, and the process repeats itself.)

We visited the Armenian enclave in the Old City of Jerusalem. Here, young and not so young Armenians fight to maintain their community, daily under threat by Israeli settlers with their insatiable appetite for more land and fewer Palestinians. The settlers’ ultimate goal is to rid the Old City of its Christian presence, a presence which dates to the early days of the Jesus movement.

*Israeli symbols portray the incursion of Jewish Israelis into the Old City of Jerusalem.*

Since October 7, 2023, the Israel government has been moving forward with the calculated goal of forging an Israel that not only includes Gaza and the West Bank (”from the river to the sea”) but also realizes its Zionist dream of forging an empire of “a greater Israel.” The radical ministers in the Netanyahu government have falsely claimed that this empire includes the biblical lands to the east of Palestine between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers (namely, parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Türkiye, The Week, October 18, 2024). Israel has already invaded the sovereign nations of Lebanon and Syria and recently occupied the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights.

What to conclude: We in the West, through racist, colonial eyes, often define the Arabs as the problem for Middle East stability. Before it’s too late I hope we begin to focus on the real problem – an Israeli government that is out of control and that is supported by our government to kill Palestinians, to steal their land, and to ethnically cleanse them. More than ever, we need to insist that international humanitarian and human rights law must prevail. And we as Christians must hold fast to the prophetic principles that undergird the existence of the three Abrahamic faiths– “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

** Rev. Dr. Dorcas Gordon

Dorcas Gordon lives in Newcastle, ON and is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Canada (PCC). An ordained minister and theological educator, she currently serves as a member on a variety of international and national boards. She and her husband, Noel, have travelled often to Israel/Palestine and have led several study tours sponsored by the PCC. As well as a supporter of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and Independent Jewish Voices, she is a member of an ad hoc group of Canadians working to encourage the Canadian government to appoint a Special Envoy who will investigate the violent treatment of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli military and settlers.

Admin CFOS 12/23/24 Admin CFOS 12/23/24

The suffering has increased

Especially in Gaza, but throughout the West Bank, every Palestinian is facing uncertainty. This was difficult and very scary for me to hear.

by Kathy Bergen**

My last visit to Palestine was in late 2019 when I attended the Sabeel International Meeting in November 2019 and afterwards co-led a group on the theme, “Come and See: Go, Tell and Do.”

The changes in the five years since have been huge. A new road system that Israel has developed around East Jerusalem and into the West Bank is geared specifically to facilitate the travel of settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem into West Jerusalem and other points in Israel. The light rail system in Jerusalem is also being expanded for the same purpose. The settlements have grown and many new ones have been established.

The suffering of Palestinians has increased. More homes are being destroyed and Israeli prisons are fuller than ever with Palestinians, including administrative detainees. Torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which has always been part of the Israeli prison system, in this last year has reached its limits of vulgarity. The decimated economy of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is affecting every Palestinian.

One of several Palestinian homes recently demolished in Silwan, East Jerusalem.

Especially in Gaza, but throughout the West Bank, every Palestinian is facing uncertainty. This was difficult and very scary for me to hear. If Israel annexes parts of the West Bank, Palestinians will be left in the large cities in Arab Bantustans without land and without ways to earn a living. Some fear that that they may require permission from the Israeli military to travel from city to another.

We did not visit Palestinians living in Israel, but from conversations I have had with friends, they are also suffering terribly economically. They face daily harassment and imprisonment as second-class “citizens” of Israel.

The overall picture for Palestinians is unpredictable and frightening, yet sumud (steadfast determination) persists. For me, I left with anger for what is happening and resolve to do what I can back in Canada to promote a different path forward.

** Kathy Bergen has been working for Palestinian human rights and a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis since 1982. After living abroad for 35 years – Jerusalem and Ramallah for 17 years, then Geneva, and then Philadelphia – she moved back to Canada to continue this vocation. Currently living in Kitchener, ON, she is a part of three solidarity organizations and local organizing. Kathy enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, watching movies, traveling, and keeping up with the news.

Bill Butt * 12/11/24 Bill Butt * 12/11/24

Conclusion: One story at a time

Day by day, Palestinians resist. We have seen them do this in brave and creative and nonviolent ways. They still are there where they belong. They have deep roots and defiant hope, and hope breeds resilience.

Eleven days in Israel-Palestine, November 11-21, on a Solidarity Pilgrimage. Eleven grim but sometimes heartening days of encounter and reflection, during a time of genocide and ethnic cleansing, imposed by Israeli forces and illegal settlers on Palestinians.

The most common comment, from nearly every Palestinian we encountered, was like this: “Thank you for coming to visit. It means so much to us to have company at such a hard time.” The pilgrimage theme was, “Come and See. Go and Tell.” That’s what our Palestinian acquaintances hope we will do. To return and, wherever we can, retell the stories we have heard. Their stories, they said, told and retold, give them hope. One voice, one story at a time.

In Jericho, one of the longest-inhabited city sites in human history, we viewed the ruins of the winter holiday house of Herod the Great and realized that civilizations for the last 12,000 years have risen and fallen in what we now call the West Bank. Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Babylonian, Macedonian, Seleucid, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and the infamous British Mandate—Palestine has been the graveyard of empires. We observed the manifold appalling methods the current Israeli government uses to try to erase the Palestinians. Day by day, Palestinians resist. We have seen them do this in brave and creative and nonviolent ways. They still are there where they belong. They have deep roots and defiant hope, and hope breeds resilience.

Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives, as was his custom (Luke 22), and an angel appeared and strengthened him. On the Mount we saw an olive tree that arborists say may be over two thousand years old. On the Mount of Olives that same day, Jesus was betrayed and arrested. From the Mount of Olives, he ascended into heaven (Acts 1:12). Two angels told his disciples to not just stand there staring up. So they went and took up the mission Jesus had commissioned them to carry out.

A Palestinian farmer whose olive harvest the settlers have yet again prevented said, “If I knew that tomorrow the world would end, today I will plant an olive tree.” After our Solidarity Pilgrimage, may we all go and do likewise, replanting stories--if not trees.

*About the author

Bill Butt is retired after writing for CBC Television, teaching at Western University in London, Ontario, and thirteen years as Overseas Personnel for the United Church of Canada, based primarily in Angola and Mozambique. He is a member of the CFOS Communications Committee. Along with a dozen other Canadians, he participated in a Solidarity Pilgrimage, November 11-21, 2024, hosted by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. Each day of the pilgrimage, he wrote about his personal experience.

Bill Butt * 12/10/24 Bill Butt * 12/10/24

Day 11: “We are all Gaza”

In 2021, Israel’s Minister of Defence designated six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist groups.” In a raid two years ago, Israeli soldiers badly damaged St Andrew’s Church in Ramallah, which rents space to Al-Haq.

We are constantly heartened and astounded at the tenacity of Palestinians, struggling to live their lives in their way in the place they call their home, against Israeli genocidal efforts on so many fronts. Today we travelled to Ramallah. It’s the West Bank capital city and therefore a particular target of Israeli malice. For decades it’s also been a centre of deep-rooted Palestinian resistance, by leaders of government and non-governmental organizations in civil society.

In 2021, Israel’s Minister of Defence designated six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist groups.” In Ramallah, we met representatives of five of the six organizations. At great danger to themselves, their representatives appeared and openly spoke to us in a conference room of St Andrew’s Anglican Church. In a raid two years ago, Israeli soldiers badly damaged St Andrew’s, which rents space to Al-Haq. The Diocese restored it.

Al-Haq protects and promotes human rights and the rule of law in the occupied Palestinian territories. They rent office space in St Andrew’s.

The Bisan Center for Research and Development supports marginalized Palestinians in their struggle to advance their socio-economic rights.
Addameer supports Palestinian political prisoners held in intentionally painful and degrading Israeli prisons.
Defence for Children International Palestine exposes human rights violations against children and provides legal services to children in urgent need.
The Union of Agricultural Work Committees works on agricultural land development and water supply, farmer capacity-building, and improvement of rural women’s livelihoods.

In the twisted world of Israeli politics, these groups are all apparently terrorists. Israeli soldiers have raided the offices of all of them, sealed their doors, seized files and equipment, and closed them down. Yet all of them promptly re-opened and have publicly continued their work. You can follow them all on their websites, which are still quite active.

That day we also heard a passionate personal address from Lulu Nasir, mother of Layan Nasir, a Palestinian student from Birzeit near Ramallah, arrested three times and now held indefinitely without charge in administrative detention, for taking part in a banned student group. Her family is forbidden to visit her. Layan’s case is now known world-wide.

We also heard a presentation by Sam Bahour, a telecommunications entrepreneur and outspoken advocate for Palestine on economic rights and Israeli harassment of Palestinian businesses. He speaks about all this openly, in person and on Internet publications.

To this list of brave defenders of Palestine, we add of course Sabeel, almost the only organization currently bringing groups like ours into Palestine. Omar Haramy, Sabeel’s Director, told us they have thirty more delegations in preparation for 2025. You could start now to plan to join one.

Mounted on the front of Ramallah City Hall are posters depicting art produced by people in Gaza. The exhibit is called ”We Are All Gaza.” This means that erasure of basic human rights in Gaza is not about Gaza only. The war-crimes in Gaza affect our whole world. If an ultra-nationalist government like Israel’s can act with impunity in Gaza, then like-minded governments in other countries are emboldened to do the same against anyone who resists their agenda on any issue. Climate change, free speech, workers’ rights, racial or gender discrimination—any issue that matters to you. Suppression creeps and creeps and is normalized. The exhibit’s motto: ”Unmute Gaza.”

The people we met today are fighting for us all.

Bill Butt * 12/9/24 Bill Butt * 12/9/24

Day 10: In this gruesome time

Eustinus is over 80 years old, and for 44 years has tirelessly guarded the well and its setting. An illegal Israeli settler with an axe hacked his predecessor to death and tossed a grenade into the sanctuary.

A grim day, from Jerusalem to Nablus in the West Bank, meeting people in great pain.

We began in East Jerusalem at the walled and razor-wired compound of UNRWA, the United Nations agency trying to meet the needs of refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, and in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan where another two million Palestinians live as refugees. You enter UNRWA through massive metal gates, and cross a spike barrier, where guards check for guns (though not if you’re on a bus from Sabeel). Several times armed arsonist settlers have attacked the compound, incited by Israeli government policy, which has banned UNRWA from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as of January 2025. UNRWA’s bank account is frozen. Staff visas have not been renewed.

The intended result of Israel’s latest assault on UNRWA: the massively increased suffering of displaced Palestinians. In the West Bank, UNRWA has been providing healthcare, schooling for young people, basic food-baskets for the poorest of the poor. Very soon, it will no longer be able to provide these essential services. The UNRWA officer also briefed us on the situation in Gaza, which is even more desperate. Soldiers expressly target UNRWA health personnel, teachers and emergency aid workers. Armoured bulldozers destroy schools while traumatized children watch. Planes and artillery have bombed almost all of the hospitals and clinics. Israel blocks food deliveries, while mobs loot the few food trucks that get in. People are starving.

The exhausted UNRWA program officer who briefed us was grateful. “It means a lot,” she said, “that you came all this way to meet us and hear us.”

Candace, “Samaritan woman of the day,” turning the handle to raise the bucket of Jacob’s water for us all to share.

We drove north through the West Bank to Nablus to meet Father Jameel, the priest of the Good Shepherd Anglican Church. Twice in the last few weeks settler vandals have broken down their doors. Less than 500 Christians still live in Nablus. More are leaving soon. Settlements ring the entire city, and checkpoints blockade all seven roads leading in. People outside Nablus can’t get in to buy what they need. They can’t get to hospitals.

We talked with students at Al Najaf, the largest university in Palestine. Students living outside of Nablus must pass checkpoint blockades. Often, they’re late for class, or can’t get there at all. Last Wednesday a student was shot and killed at a checkpoint. Two young women we met, Leen and Lara, told us most social media are forbidden. Soldiers search their phones. Before they reach the checkpoint, young Palestinians delete those apps—and then of course re-download them. Leen is learning health-care research, Lara is studying law. They don’t know what their future may be in such a place.

Grim, yes. But then there was Eustinus, Archimandrite of the Orthodox Church of Jacob’s Well, built on what believers say is the site where Jesus met the Samaritan woman in John 4. (About three hundred Samaritans still live above Nablus on their sacred mountain.) Eustinus is over 80 years old, and for 44 years has tirelessly guarded the well and its setting. An illegal Israeli settler with an axe hacked his predecessor to death and tossed a grenade into the sanctuary. Right across the road is the refugee camp of Balata, established in 1950 and now crowded with over 30,000 Palestinians.

Almost single-handedly for the past ten years, Eustinus has restored the massive church, parts of which date to the time of the Byzantines. He has functioned as engineer, contractor, fundraiser and iconographer. Candles, chandeliers, mosaics and fabulous icons adorn the sanctuary. His work continues; scaffolding still rises above the church front door. At the well on the church’s lowest level he summoned Candace, a woman from our group, to be Samaritan woman of the day and turn the handle to raise the bucket of Jacob’s water for us all to share. He sprinkled us with more holy water.

We left, momentarily refreshed, comforted and inspired, to know that in this gruesome time in Palestine so many persons of faith and courage like Eustinus can live out such steadfast kindness and creativity.

Bill Butt * 12/8/24 Bill Butt * 12/8/24

Day 9: Laughter as resistance

Settlers will prevent a Palestinian farmer from harvesting, then soldiers will confiscate the land for being abandoned—and then will give it to the settlers. Absurd.

Today, many of our delegation went to Hebron, the city with the most notoriously brutal history of settler violence against Palestinians. The settlers act with impunity. Absurdly, there seem to be as many soldiers defending them as there are settlers themselves. Every 50 meters or so you see a young soldier burdened with a heavy weapon.

So many checkpoints. At one of them the teen-aged Israeli soldier—most soldiers guarding the checkpoints are teenagers—confiscated a long wooden spoon that one of our delegation members had bought in the local market. To the soldier, it was a club. A weapon. Absurd, but the group waited 20 minutes while Omar, the leader of Sabeel, argued that a spoon was just a spoon. In the end, the proud owners recovered their infamous item. Omar joked afterward that we might have to take turns guarding the spoon all night in our hotel.

Another checkpoint and another delay when the soldier boy on duty was not authorized to turn the red light to green, and had to find his superior. Ridiculous.

Settlers will prevent a Palestinian farmer from harvesting, then soldiers will confiscate the land for being abandoned—and then will give it to the settlers. Absurd.

A detained Palestinian—a journalist—told us there are currently 12,000 Palestinians in detention, including many children. Often these prisoners will not be told of the charges against them or even whether charges exist at all. Since there can be no defense against an unknown or non-existent charge, the conviction rate in Israeli military court is 99.76%. Ridiculous.

The long wooden spoon that was considered a weapon.

Alice Kisiya is one of several resisters who have spoken to us about their experience with these illegal settlers. Thirty of them, mostly un-fearsome under-age boys, came to her family’s house with knives. It’s absurd, she says, that brainwashed settlers think that this is ”their” land. To anyone but a Zionist, this is daft thinking. Alice is frequently smiling. Every one of the Palestinian resisters we have met laugh strikingly often.

The rest of our delegation travelled today to the village of Umm al Khair, in the South Hebron Hills. The Bedouin Palestinians who live there built a playground for their children, with slides and swings and a carousel. The military tore it down. A security risk, they said. The Bedouins re-built it. How does a playground make settlers feel insecure? Apparently because children play there, and smile, and laugh.

Umm al Khair was an eloquent and renowned woman in 7th-century Islamic history. Once before a battle she famously rallied her people by telling them that their enemies would flee like donkeys from a lion. It wasn’t as hard to defeat an enemy they could picture as ridiculous.

Among his many survival skills, Omar from Sabeel is a stand-up comedian. He can see the absurdity in the Occupation. Humour, he says, releases tension, and it gives one perspective. To laugh at means to be apart from. It distances you from what hurts.

Israelis have banned the red, white, green and black Palestinian flag. Today, a national Palestinian symbol is—the watermelon. Its colours are red, white, and green, on a black background. Watermelons appear frequently on wall graffiti, on shopping bags, on magnets for fridges. Maybe the Zionists will ban watermelons.

Satirists know that laughter and a shrug are subversive, and scary to bullies, who despise not being taken seriously. Our delegation group manages to laugh, off and on, all day long.

Bill Butt * 12/7/24 Bill Butt * 12/7/24

Day 8: Yearning for a peaceful life

Sderot is a rich agricultural area of orchards, vineyards, and irrigated fields of vegetables. In Gaza there is a genocidal engineered starvation.

Among many challenging experiences today, we spent time in Sderot, a town in Israel of about 30,000 Israelis, about two kilometres from the Gaza border. The people of Sderot have suffered. Some were killed on October 7, 2023. Some are still hostages.

Yellow flags and ribbons fly on balconies and electrical posts, as in the US song,
“Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” A circle of yellow-painted shoes is installed on one of the roundabouts. Posters with portraits of hostages are glued on walls, with slogans in Hebrew: “Bring Them Home.” Yellow-painted chairs line the sidewalks.

The police station was destroyed; already there’s a monument on the site, formed of a dozen tall pillars. There are bomb shelters beside most of the bus stops. We were instructed how to take shelter if we heard the warning sirens.

From a hill above Sderot we could see into northern Gaza, a kilometer or so away across an empty no-man’s-land. Columns of smoke were rising where Israeli shells landed, and the smoke was a haze blowing across the entire cityscape. Sderot is a rich agricultural area of orchards, vineyards, and irrigated fields of vegetables. In Gaza there is a genocidal engineered starvation.

In the middle of a roundabout in Sderot is a statue of children dancing and holding up a globe.

We met in a Sderot Children’s Centre, in a room decorated with cartoon characters, children’s art, a mural of Winnie the Pooh and Roo embracing, to hear from Jewish Israeli Roni Keidar. She lives in the village closest of all to the Gaza border and knows many Palestinians. Like almost all Israelis and Palestinians she knows, she wants a kind and peaceful life, what she calls simply a neighbourhood. On October 7, Hamas militants invaded the house where she lives with her son and grandchildren. Her granddaughter, who was home alone, hid in a closet beneath the stairs with their dog. The militants left and blew up the house next door.

Roni and her Gaza friends formed an organization called Other Voices. They meet for dance, song, improv drama. Every Friday, before October 7, her group would gather on the border with one of several small groups from Gaza. Even now they still chat on social media. They want to know how each other is doing. They still are friends.

“Most Palestinians are not terrorists,” she said.

“We all deserve a better life,” she said.

“About all this I cannot keep quiet.”

Roni Keidar has five children, seventeen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

In the middle of a roundabout in Sderot is a statue of children dancing and holding up a globe.

Bill Butt * 12/6/24 Bill Butt * 12/6/24

Day 7: Worship in wartime

They said that during this war what gives them most hope is visitors like ourselves. We thought of how Jesus, travelling constantly, spent his ministry visiting people in their homes and neighbourhoods.

Sunday morning, we worshipped in Bethlehem at St Mary’s Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church. The Melkite liturgy is traditional Eastern Orthodox, sung or chanted in Arabic. For Melkite believers, chant and song—the pulse and momentum of rhythm, repetition, melody—elevate and enrich plain spoken words, and bring the speaker closer to God. So too the elaborate ritual, rich display of icons, procession of the Testament, the theatre of incense, bells and candles—the worship form practised by ancestors through centuries.

The procession of the Gospel was entirely by children and youth. A woman congregant read the Epistle. Father Yakov invited all of us Protestants to receive the elements and take full part in the Mass. A mainstream Protestant would call this inclusive.

They congregation celebrated the 44th anniversary of Father Yakov’s ordination.

Afterward, everyone walked across the plaza to the parish hall. Today they celebrated the 44th anniversary of Father Yakov’s ordination. We sang a birthday greeting in Arabic (or tried to), shared cake and coffee, and conversed with new Melkite friends. They said that during this war what gives them most hope is visitors like ourselves. We thought of how Jesus, travelling constantly, spent his ministry visiting people in their homes and neighbourhoods.

Outside in the plaza, some of the children who had led the procession of the Gospel during worship were now playing Red Light Green Light. The need to play, to worship with family, to share a meal, becomes more important than ever during wartime.

Bill Butt * 12/5/24 Bill Butt * 12/5/24

Day 6: Art as resistance

He told us that, at his daughter’s birthday party in the playground, soldiers in the watch-tower sprayed the children with a noxious chemical known locally as ”skunk water” and they all ran screaming.

Wi’am is the Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center; Wi’am in English means “cordial relationships.” Wi’am works in conflict resolution at the local level, especially with women, youth, and children.

One-third of Wi’am’s land was confiscated to build an early section of the Wall through Bethlehem: concrete many metres high, strands of barbed wire above that, surveillance devices, an even taller watch-tower at the corner. On their side, Wi’am has trees, and the Wi’am children’s playground abuts the wall, with colourful swings and slides and climbers. Artists, some from the nearby Aida refugee camp, have graffitied the lower parts of the Wall with cartoon drawings and slogans:

“Challenging Empire”

“God Faithfulness and Resistance”

“Love Peace Together”

We met Usama Nicola, Wi’am’s program director. He told us that, at his daughter’s birthday party in the playground, soldiers in the watch-tower sprayed the children with a noxious chemical known locally as ”skunk water” and they all ran screaming. Five laundry washings did not remove the skunk water from their clothing. On the top of the Wall you can see the gun that shoots skunk water remotely. Chemical warfare. Analysts have said that this corner of Bethlehem has experienced the most frequent concentrations of tear-gas in the world. In May 2014, Pope Francis prayed at this location.

Wi’am has programs for children coping with trauma. In Bethlehem there is no post-traumatic stress disorder, because the stress never ends. The program uses music, dance, theatre, painting, and training in how to resist hateful social media. When you see the writing and drawing by resisters on the Palestinian side of the Wall, you start to understand why the arts in Palestine are so prevalent and important.

Later we went to Bethlehem’s nearby Dar al-Kalima University. It teaches programs in all branches of the arts and arts management. It offers an MA in art therapy: “to address the specific requirements of Palestinian society” in the wording of its website, for “clinics, schools, psychiatric institutions, as well as rehabilitation and recovery centers.” The vision of Dar al-Kalima is: “That we might have life and have it abundantly.”

In Mark 14, just before they arrived at Gethsemane, Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn. In John 8, to confront scribes and Pharisees Jesus did not speak, but he stooped and wrote in the dirt with his finger. Through art you can express freely what is deep within. Usama Nicola said, “80 percent of success will come from inside you.”

Bill Butt * 12/4/24 Bill Butt * 12/4/24

Day 5: Hospitality at Taybeh

Each year, armed Zionist settlers will likely block Palestinians from reaching their groves. If a crop is not harvested, the authorities will say that the land is not being used, and will confiscate it, and give it to the settlers.

We set out by bus from Bethlehem, northeast toward Taybeh, a Palestinian Christian town about twenty kilometers away. There we planned to join two busloads of workers from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, members of Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli social-justice organization. We would help farmers near Taybeh harvest their olive crops. Each year, armed Zionist settlers will likely block Palestinians from reaching their groves. If a crop is not harvested, the authorities will say that the land is not being used, and will confiscate it, and give it to the settlers. One farmer there, a deacon at St George’s Roman Catholic Church in Taybeh, said he hadn’t been allowed to harvest for three years.

House of Parables at St. George’s Roman Catholic Church, Taybeh

Part way there, our leader from Sabeel got a call on his cell from the Rabbis. Israeli soldiers had stopped their buses ahead of us, decreeing that the farms we were going to were now a closed military zone. The Rabbis chose another farm. Our bus too turned that way. We were all stopped again. We drove on into Taybeh itself, and twice more had to U-turn and try another route. It seemed that the so-called military zone was now defined as anywhere the harvesters might try to go. The West Bank is under total martial law. There would be no Taybeh olives harvested that day. Not for Palestinians.

This is daily life in the West Bank.

The most lovable feature of Palestinian culture is hospitality. When we finally reached Taybeh and St. George’s Church, congregants invited the discouraged would-be harvesters to rest. They served us coffee in their lounge. We visited their sanctuary. There together we sang “Amazing Grace.”

Next door is their House of Parables. This is a 350-year-old stone house, a family residence till the 1970s, built partly underground and carved out of the stone, as houses there have been since before the time of Jesus. There the congregants have put traditional furnishings, as were used in Jesus’ time—pottery urns for water and wine, a leather churn for milk, woven baskets, a wooden bowl, a grinding stone. And there’s a manger, because the people lived together with their animals, for safety and for warmth. The manger is carved from the rock. They have lit it with a simple bulb.

The stable where Jesus was born, they say, would have been some hospitable family’s home, a home just like this.

In the West Bank, you may have a plan, and then it falls apart. But the Spirit will show itself some other way.

Bill Butt * 12/3/24 Bill Butt * 12/3/24

Day 4: “We refuse to be enemies”

The farm is now surrounded by Israeli settlements regarded as illegal under international law. The Israeli government in 1991 declared this state land. The Nassars have been fighting ever since to maintain possession.

This morning, we visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. This was an enormous privilege normally forbidden to non-Muslims, and possible for us only because of Sabeel’s warm relations with people of all faiths. Among the marvels that would take many pages to describe, we saw architectural designs and decorations installed by the Crusaders some 900 years ago when they made the mosque a Christian church. Asked why the Muslims have not removed the Christian design elements, our guide responded: “Because they are beautiful, and you can see that they were made by people of true faith, and we respect all true faiths as equally beautiful.” If more people showed this kind of tolerance and reverence for diversity, the Holy Land would be a kinder, more peaceable place.

But in the afternoon we visited the Tent of Nations. This is a hilltop farm a half-hour from Jerusalem, legally owned by the Nassar family since the Ottoman Empire controlled Palestine and registered formally by them during each successive occupation, including that of Israel. The farm is now surrounded by Israeli settlements regarded as illegal under international law. The Israeli government in 1991 declared this state land. The Nassars have been fighting ever since to maintain possession. They have fought eviction and demolition orders in Israeli courts over and over.

Amal Nassar, one of Nassar family members at Tent of Nations

When their water was cut off, they built cisterns.
When electricity was cut off, they built solar collectors.
When building permits were refused, they moved to caves and tents.
When bulldozers knocked down 1500 of their olive and almond trees, they replanted, because land left vacant can be confiscated by the state.
When the latest war began and the world was distracted by the horrors in Gaza, the settlers built a road across part of the Nassar farm, set up a house trailer as a sign of ownership, and blocked the Nassars from harvesting some of their own crops.

For years the Nassars have been inviting foreign volunteers to help them. Hundreds have come. At the time of our visit the volunteers were German and American. Next week, three Dutch volunteers will arrive. The international attention keeps the settlers and soldiers at bay.

The Nassars are Christians. They run a summer camp for children, with programs on drama, dance, music, non-violence, care of the land, and reconciliation.

“We have a responsibility to this land,” Amal Nassar, one of the family members, told us. She said, “We refuse to be enemies.” She said, “A cycle of violence will never end.”

That is the spirit of the Muslims of Al-Aqsa who for centuries have not deleted Christian culture from one of their most revered holy places.

“Amal” in Arabic means “Hope.”

Bill Butt * 12/2/24 Bill Butt * 12/2/24

Day 3: Not a cheery parade

The war is devastating merchants and their families–Israeli and Palestinian–who are just trying to make a living.

Because of the war, there are almost no other guests at our hotel in Bethlehem. In the dining room, which can seat hundreds, usually there is no one at the tables but us, the group from Sabeel. The staff at the artists’ co-op outlet where we shopped today told us we were the first group to visit them this year, and forty artist families depend on this co-op for their livelihood. In Jerusalem, where we also went today, in the corridors and narrow streets near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, usually crowded with visitors, most of the little stores were dark and shuttered, and almost none of those that were open had shoppers.

Jerusalem, corridors and narrow streets near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the little stores were dark and shuttered.

The war is devastating merchants and their families–Israeli and Palestinian–who are just trying to make a living.

We walked down the Mount of Olives, along what tradition says was the route of the Palm Sunday procession. Usually, we imagine ecstatic followers waving palm branches and celebrating Jesus. But Luke says that Jesus stopped part way down, looked across the valley to the wall and the Temple Mount, and wept at the violence and disaster he foresaw. Suddenly it was no longer such a cheery parade.

We stopped at Dominus Flevit, the chapel built on the site traditionally viewed as the place of Jesus’s tears. Then we continued, as Jesus did, to the Temple Mount (though he didn’t take a bus). Luke says that same day he took a whip and drove away the traders and money-makers exploiting the helpless pilgrims. Mark reports this as the day after. Jesus must have meant to demonstrate to all those wanna-be disciples that there is more to his way than prancing and waving greenery. We must resist those with power who build their empires, manipulating things for their own benefit while the others suffer.

Many Palestinians find ways to kick at the tables of the economic system that systematically oppresses them. We see these strategies daily. In Jesus’s time, no doubt the Temple money-makers were back at their tables the very next day. But what we remember now is his angry gesture. Millions of people of faith since, Palestinians included, have gone and done as Jesus did, and will do as long as empires last.

Bill Butt * 12/1/24 Bill Butt * 12/1/24

Day 2: An angel points the way

Today, a massive concrete wall blocks 58 Christian farmer families from their fields, and they have lost their livelihoods. And a new multi-lane highway, which Palestinians cannot use, now runs across that valley to join illegal Israeli settlements.

This morning we visited the Shepherds’ Fields, which commemorates the place where anxious shepherds heard about the birth of Jesus. An angel above the doorway of one of the chapels announces the Holy Birth by pointing upward to the round star window of the Church of the Nativity, visible opposite on a distant hill where that same window depicts the birth of Jesus—the infant, the crèche, Mary and Joseph in a green field. Christians believe that Christ is born in Spirit when two or three gather in His name.

The round star window of the Church of the Nativity

In the afternoon we met with Dalia Qumsieh, a Palestinian land-rights advocate who spent nine fruitless years fighting in Israeli courts against the building of a section of the annexation wall through the last green valley spaces in Bethlehem. Today, a massive concrete wall blocks 58 Christian farmer families from their fields, and they have lost their livelihoods. And a new multi-lane highway, which Palestinians cannot use, now runs across that valley to join illegal Israeli settlements.

We talked to two of those Palestinian farm families. One keeps in his mind his vision of the fields he remembers from his childhood. “It was heaven,” he said. “I tell my kids, ‘One day this wall will come down.’” “Document what you see here,” he challenged us. “Then go speak. This helps us.”

Like that angel always pointing to the Birth, Palestinian farmers and lawyers do not lose hope that God will make a new just world for them some day.

Bill Butt * 11/30/24 Bill Butt * 11/30/24

Day 1: A most powerful message

He lives four miles away from where we are staying, but travelled 35 miles to meet us, due to closed checkpoints. He thanked us all for being here. “You can’t understand what it means to us when you come to us in this hard time.”

It is our first day in the West Bank on our Sabeel Solidarity Pilgrimage in this time of genocide. We hear an absolutely inspiring address by Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). He lives four miles away from where we are staying, but travelled 35 miles to meet us, due to closed checkpoints. He thanked us all for being here. “You can’t understand what it means to us when you come to us in this hard time.”

Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

The Western churches, Bishop Younan says, are “quiet”— that is, they don’t want to offend some of their own parishioners, who may have absorbed the Western mass media machine’s Zionist propaganda. Of all nations, only South Africa, with its own hard-earned understanding of apartheid, has spoken most boldly in favour of Palestinians. It’s not so much the leaders of churches and nations but mostly the grassroots who speak up and show up, here on the ground, in support.

The whole world is in turmoil, the bishop continues, not just Palestine. Western nations, who long ago helped bring forth the Charter of Rights at the United Nations, now do little to uphold it worldwide. “Though we do not know the future, we have hope, knowing by faith that a God of justice lives. It is the role of every Christian to speak prophetically. To say that all are created in God’s image and are loved, and that God is full of wrath when any of God’s children are abused.

A most powerful message to focus and challenge us as we start our Pilgrimage.