Palestine, a Place of Creativity and Suffering

“Come with your cup empty and let the people you meet fill it,” is what Sarah, our delegation leader, suggested. My cup has been running over for the weeks since I arrived back, sometimes literally, through tears, and sometimes through thoughts or memories, pictures and writings.
It has now been three weeks since my return from Palestine and it has taken this long for me to start comprehending all that I experienced in those quick ten days. My time with the Christian Peacemaker Teams’ delegation in Israel/Palestine was an intense, thought provoking, humbling whirl wind encounter with people, the land and God. I consider it an incredible blessing to have had the chance to spend time with such an astoundingly accepting, hospitable, resilient people. I will try to, in some sort of coherent manner, describe some of my experiences and learnings.
My desire to spend time with CPT has been a long time coming. Being raised in a Mennonite pacifist home, spending time going to marches and vigils, studying at CMU, and finally working at Corrymeela Peace and Reconciliation Centre, has all led me to a strong belief that Christians are called to stand with the oppressed all over the world in the way that Christ demonstrated, non-violently. I have often listened longingly to CPTers, returning from places of conflict, with a deep feeling that they were fulfilling an important call. This May the time was ripe, and things quickly fell into place, including finances, due to a very supportive faith community and family.
My heart was lost from the moment I stepped into the markets of Jerusalem, our team meeting place. The smells of spice, calls of shopkeepers, and the depth of history quickly captured my imagination. We wandered from the Muslim quarter, to the Christian quarter, to the Jewish quarter of the Old City. Upon first glance, often the only glance for tourists, Jerusalem is a city of great diversity living together in peace, or at least, agreed indifference. This perception was shattered in the next nine days, though Jerusalem remains a beautiful city.
The CPT delegation consisted of a beautiful diversity of people: Karen, an ex-American navy officer, archeologist, now Catholic proselyte was my buddy for the trip and kept us informed and passionate; Kelly, a public relations coordinator kept us in touch with the broader world; Deb, our meditator and lawyer, kept us in a deep space; Christopher, an English/German Quaker pharmaceutical manager, kept us laughing; Rosamarie, a 74 year old Maryknoll Sister, kept us spunky and in touch with reality; Warren, our media coordinator, kept us all humble by his continued willing to help out; Delycia, a retired teacher, kept us asking the hard questions; Sarah, our fearless leader, worked tirelessly to make the trip meaningful for all of us; And finally, me, the youngest, only one married, and only Canadian. Our reflection time together each day continually brought new insights into my time.
Half our time was spent speaking with different Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations, and half the time was spent working with the CPT teams in Hebron and Al-Tuwani. The Israeli organizations that we met with were B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, Rabbis for Human Rights, Sabeel and Parents Circle (the last two consist of Israeli’s and Palestinians). Palestinian organizations that we met with were the Hebron Land Defense Committee, the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, Badil, and Wi’am. I’m not going to go into each in-depth though they all had a profound impact on me. I would encourage you to look up their websites. They stand up with little support looking into huge opposition, but continue to do so resiliently.
It was the times that I spoke to soldiers guarding checkpoints, the times I got pulled into someone’s home for tea, the times I stayed up late listening to someone’s story, and the times that I exchanged names with children I couldn’t understand that taught me the truth of CPT’s call. During our time in Hebron it became impossible to deny the power of simple presence. Wearing our identifying CPT red hats, we made our way through the Hebron markets towards the CPT apartment, we were surrounded by continuous cries of “welcome.” After patrolling the streets and checkpoints, four of us were pulled into a home for tea, after which we again began our walk home, just to be offered tea several more times. Upon arrival we were greeted by a traditional Palestinian meal cooked for us by Zleekha, the CPTer’s translator, upon her insistence. Again and again we experienced the hospitality of a people that have been trampled to the ground.
The Palestinian people face a continuous oppressive occupation, little of which we hear in the Western countries. The West Bank is a prison home now completely broken up by Israeli roads, which Palestinians cannot travel on; road blocks, which few Palestinians can pass through; home demolitions; an apartheid wall, which denies access to land, family, schools and medical care; settlements on stolen land; ongoing harassment by soldiers, settlers and the international community, all under the label of “security.” As Zoughti Zoughvi, Director of Wi’am, says “We have chosen hope, but hope has not chosen us, yet.”
I can remember when the reality of the occupation first hit me. We were driving through Jerusalem and all of a sudden our van stopped. The road had dead-ended at a huge wall. The wall did not even divide Palestinian and Israelis; it went straight through a Palestinian neighborhood. Then as we were standing there taking pictures, a military vehicle stopped down the road, blocking traffic and checking vehicles. It was what became know to us, as a flying check point. Putting these two realities together, the statistical picture that I had been hearing about began to come to life. The 80% of the wall that was being built within the green line, through Palestinian land, became a hard ugly visible wall. It made no sense.
In Hebron we spent time doing school patrols, during which we monitored the three checkpoints within two blocks that most teachers and students have to pass through to get to and from school. We monitored a Palestinian home that had just previous to our arrival been invaded by illegal Jewish Settlers and was heavily guarded by soldiers. We arranged and participated in a demonstration against the road closure and Settler harassment against the small community of Wadi Ghroos, which is surrounded by a police post and illegal settlements. And at one point CPTer Abigail and I were monitoring a group of six soldiers who broke successively into three different Palestinian homes.
One of the questions I’ve gotten most often since I’ve arrived back in Northern Ireland is ‘weren’t you scared?’ Absolutely, I was terrified at times. Opposing a soldier with a gun does not come naturally. My hands were clammy more then once, but more often then not, all it took was to look into the soldier’s face rather then at the gun. The Israeli soldiers are most often no more the 18 or 19 years old, and either don’t particularly want to be there, don’t know what’s going on, or are just treating it like a game. The CPTers were incredible at letting us know when to step in and when to step back, when to take pictures and when to just observe. I learnt something from each one of the CPTers. Each CPTer has unique creative styles of intervening in a non-violent manner. 72 year old CPT John humored us by stating the fact that every time he might be going into a tense situation, he stops to get an ice cream. ‘No one can hurt an old man with an ice cream cone’ he claims. The CPTer may bring humor into life, as is necessary to survive, but there is a great depth in understanding and purpose with each move they take.
The occupation was difficult to comprehend until I’d seen it, and even then I still think at times ‘it can not possibly be so.’ When I laughed at the irony of the wall at the Bethlehem checkpoint, which reads “Peace be with you,” when I watched soldiers arrest a 12 year old boy, when I heard the story of a family home being demolished three times, it becomes impossible to ignore the depth of suffering and the strength of perseverance. At times I felt shameful for my desire to go in for 10 days to “share” their suffering, just to go back to my comfortable western home. But there was never any disgust aimed at us, only the request over and over again: “when you go home, tell my story, tell the story of the Palestinian people. Don’t forget us.” I continue to ask myself, how do I do justice to their stories of suffering? How do I describe both their suffering and their pride, creativity, hospitality, and all the beautiful things they are? How do I tell of the occupation, without making the Palestinians into victims? Maybe I left Palestine with more questions then I arrived with, but maybe that’s ok.
In the end, I was most encouraged by the Palestinian voices of non-violence: by the fathers who continue to ask the question ‘how do I raise my children in the occupation so that they don’t hate Jews’; by Omar from Sabeel who said “I do not want the oppressed to become the oppressor, I do not want the sword to change hands. I want to get rid of the sword”; by Nayaf, a photojournalist, who has been shot four times for taking pictures but continues to do so because it’s his only way of non-violent resistance; by the coffee shop which remains open in a street of deserted shops in a stance of non-violent resistance; by Hafez who was beaten and arrested after organizing a non-violent protest for his village, just to return and do the same thing; by Rami, a Jew, and Ishmael, a Palestinian, both of whom have lost a child to the conflict, but now work together for peace; by the children and teachers, who keep going to school every day; by the shepherds who continue to graze their flocks in fields where they get harassed continuously; by the family that rebuilt their home three times. These are the true lives on non-violent resistance, and I was honored and blessed to spend a short time with them.
My cup continues to overflow. Thanks once again to everyone who has supported me in this journey. I am very welcome to questions and sharing more about my experiences.