A friend of mine, named Jonathan Brenneman, is a Mennonite working for a peaceful solution (very Mennonite of him, no?) to Jewish-Arab conflict in Israel/Palestine. He’s got a personal stake in this because his mother’s side of the family is Palestinian. So with no further ado, here’s a report on his work in the Middle East, which I include with his kind permission. The original report, as he posted on facebook, contained no links, but I’ve added some for background, without changing any of his words.
For the past 3 days we have been staying in Jerusalem, which is in Israel proper, so most of our interactions have been with Israeli organizations, and Israeli people. Actually only one of the five organization we have met has been palestinian (Sabeel). The other four (Families Forum, Israeli Commission Against Home Demolition, Women in Black, Negev Coexistence Forum for civil equality) have been Israeli founded. So this is the most exposure that I’ve had to Israelis, and I’ve had some mixed experiences.
Our time with Women in Black yesterday was spent standing on a corner with a group of elderly Israeli women holding up signs that said “Stop the Occupation” in Hebrew, English and Arabic. We were not a large group. There were only about 20 of us and 12 were the CPT delegation. We had many people drive by and yell things at us like “shame on you” in hebrew, giving us the middle finger and on at least one occasion attempting to spit on us. There was one individual walking by who told us to get our facts straight and he asked us why we sided with those palestinian terrorists instead of Israelis. He mentioned that if we visited palestinians they would cut our throats. He ended his rant by mentioning, “We kicked their butts in 48 now the[y] just need to go back.” when asked where they need to go back to he mentioned Lebanon or Syria (Neither or which Palestinians are from). This encounter was probably the most disturbing of the day because it showed how the two sides of the conflict are dealing with two totally different sets of facts. I wouldn’t even know where to start a conversation with a person with that point of view.
That evening we took part in another Israeli led action (although I never found out what the group leading it was. This action was huge. There were 400 people, mostly Israeli young people demonstrating at Sheik-Jarah in Old City Jerusalem. There was a group of former refugees who had legally bought homes in Sheik-Jarah, but the Israeli government was kicking them out of their homes. The group marched to a home that had been taken and given to a Jewish family, while other parts of the group went to homes that were being targeted. It was good to see a large group of Israelis standing with Palestinians.
Today we met a different group of Israelis. After Israel became a state in 1948 they kicked out a large number of the native Palestinians, but those who stayed were given Israeli citizenship. One of these groups were the Bedouin people who lived in the Negev desert. This is the group we met with. These Bedouins were not nomadic, but lived in small villages. Although they are Israeli citizens the Israeli government refuses to build them a school, or to offer their children transportation to one. When the town tried to build one the government tore it down, even though it is law that every Israeli child have the opportunity to go to school. Besides this injustice the Bedouins do not have access to water or electricity, even though there is an Israeli power plant in the middle of one of the Bedouin villages. Besides this Israel does not recognized them as the owners of there land, even though Israel moved the Bedouins into that region, and created the villages! Because Israel does not recognize the Bedouin’s ownership they claim the right to demolish homes or entire villages. We talked with a Bedouin who’s home was destroyed two days before his wedding! We also talked with a leader of a village who showed us a demolition notice that said his entire village would be demolished sometime in the next two weeks. These orders are given with no alternatives for the bedouins. They have no where else to go, so when their homes are torn down they just build new ones (usually more remote each time). These are people who live in the desert. There is no plan to put anyone else on their land, but they are still being kicked out, and they are Israeli citizens. If this is the way that Israel treats it’s citizens I’m a bit scared to see how they treat those they view as their enemies. Today was very hard for me, but good to see. The Bedouins still have hope even in the face of all this. The activists keep coming out. There is still hope.
Peace,
Jonathan
2 Trackbacks
[...] read the first hand account here: a report from palestine. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "A Report from Palestine – There is Still Hope", url: [...]
[...] A Report From Palestine [...]