The Pope's Visit to the Holy Land

Pope Francis said in his Vatican address on the Wednesday before his visit that his upcoming trip to the Middle East would be entirely devotional.

‘It will be a purely religious trip’ he told the 50.000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square.  He said the main reasons for the visit, billed a ‘pilgrimage of prayer’ by the Vatican, were to meet with Orthodox Patriarch of Contantinople, Bartholomew and to pray for peace in that land, which has suffered so much.

The visit began on Saturday May 24, when Francis flew to Amman in Jordan and met Syrian refugees. He then travelled on to Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, concluding his tour on Monday 26 May with mass in the place where Christians believe Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples.  He met with refugees from both Aida and Dheisheh camps in Bethlehem , as well as  praying at the Western Wall, laying a wreath on the grave of Theodor Herzl - the founder of  Zionism - and made a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum here in Jerusalem.  He met with Christian families as well as political and religious leaders from all three monotheistic faiths.

In keeping with his unassuming and humble persona, he rejected the armoured car, or Pope mobile, we have been used to seeing on papal visits.  He was also, unusually, travelling with a rabbi and an imam who worked with him on inter-faith dialogue in Argentina.

Francis’s visit was met with high expectations by the faithful and politicians alike but there had been some opposition.  The previous week, vandals daubed hate graffiti on Vatican owned property in East Jerusalem.

Christianity was born in this region but the ancient community has dwindled to around 2% of the population, as economic hardship and the bitter realities of the Israel-Palestinian conflict have sent Christians searching for better opportunities overseas.  Catholic leaders fear that if the trend continues, the Holy Land will become a sort spiritual Disneyland, full of tourist pilgrims but devoid of local believers. The Pope said in a November speech that ’We will not be resigned to think about the Middle East without Christians”. 

The Catholic Herald said that this would be Pope Francis’s greatest test yet.  To quote their recent article ‘His prophetic style of leadership is likely to cause all sides some discomfort.  Let’s just hope that it also leaves them just one step closer together’

After Francis’s meetings with local Christians in Manger Square and the refugee camps in Bethlehem, followed by the highly publicized and controversial stop by the Israeli Separation Barrier in Bethlehem, the local Christians here in Jerusalem were very excited about this visit.  There was a palpable feeling of anticipation in the Old City.

According to David Kuttab of Maan News: ‘the highlight of the entire trip was not planned, rehearsed, or even expected'.

The Pope had decided not to cross any checkpoints to enter the UN-declared non-member state of Palestine and so the idea of an image of the Pope interacting with the occupation or seeing the wall was thought to have been bypassed.  However, as he was driving around Bethlehem in his open car, the Pontiff passed by the entrance of the Aida refugee camp and noticed the separation wall. It is hard for anyone not to take notice of the 8-meter-high wall and it was even harder for the Jesuit Pope who has empathy for the weak and oppressed not to stop.

The wall at this point, built deep into Palestinian land, divides the Aida camp in half, surrounds Rachel's Tomb and cuts off Palestinian communities from each other.

He alighted from his car and spent some time praying here at the separation wall.  The powerful symbolism of this was not lost on a Bethlehem taxi driver I met a few days later.  He said, ‘I was pleased the Pope prayed at the wall and didn’t just ignore it.  He is a good man.’

In Jerusalem, as expected, the Pope did meet with church leaders and politicians and leaders from other faiths, including the Islamic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.  The public, however, including local Christians, were almost entirely prevented from catching even a glimpse of him for most of the day.  The Old City and roads around the papal route were blocked by the Israeli army and police.  Screens had even been erected at viewpoints to ensure that no one could see his visit to pray at the Western Wall.

Many Jerusalem Christians were beaten by the Israeli army as they tried to get to see the Pope.  Some of them wrote him a letter after his visit, which was published on Palestine News Network on May 27^th:

Our women, children and disabled were beaten this evening in Jerusalem while they were trying to get a glance of you passing in the streets of their city … the Israeli Police ordered us to go to another place, to the streets, and then accused us of blocking the streets!! Women and children were injured and young men were arrested for some time. No one came to our rescue.

The very persistent were rewarded in the evening with a wave from his car as he departed for his return journey on Monday night to Tel Aviv.

Photo by Sandra Sych

David Kuttab of Maan News believes the visit to have had a positive effect and that it will do much ‘to strengthen and empower the local Christian community’.

It remains to be seen whether this optimistic view will be borne out. For Jerusalemites, the visit was more than disappointing.

We long to live normal lives in our city with full human rights and total freedom. Not with barriers and bars. We long for a living church, not empty stones. We aspire to self-determination, liberated from an oppressive occupation that imposes discriminatory regulations and laws where Jerusalem becomes exclusive for one people and one religion.

it will take more than symbolic gesturing at walls to bring about the peace and justice required to entice Christians back to their holy land. 

Photo by Michaela Whitton

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for Middle East teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.

There is a crack in everything

The Crack in the Wall is a Facebook community created by the Parents Circle Families Forum (PCFF).  “This organization highlights the sanctity of human life across the divide, attempting to crack the wall of hatred by preserving dignity, mutual respect and opposing racism, hatred, injustice and any attempt to accept the status quo.” See http://www.theparentscircle.com

I heard some members of the group speak at large meeting in Tel Aviv on the eve of Israeli Independence Day.

Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin are spokespersons for the PCFF. The grassroots organization comprises bereaved Palestinians and Israelis and promotes reconciliation as an alternative to hatred and revenge. More than 600 Palestinian and Israeli families belong to PCFF. The spokespeople maintain that the bond between members is borderless.

"When you lose a child you share the same trust," said Robi.

"There's no difference," echoed Bassam, just "joint pain."

In a country where there seems to be no end of bad news, these people are representative of some remarkable people I have met in the last month who are working tirelessly for peace here.

I meet Ina from Machsom Watch each week at Qalandiya checkpoint.  Machsom Watch is a movement of Israeli women, former serving army officers from all sectors of Israeli society, who oppose the Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinians' rights to move freely in their land. Some of them identify as peace activists. Since 2001, they have conducted daily observations of Israeli army checkpoints in the West Bank, along the separation barrier. The reports of these observations are published on the Machsom Watch site, and sent to public officials and elected representatives in Israel. Through the documentation which discloses the nature of everyday reality, they are attempting to influence public opinion in the country and in the world, and thus to bring to an end the destructive occupation, which causes damage to Israeli society as well as to Palestinian society. - See more at: http://www.machsomwatch.org

Ina arrives at around 5am and observes the queue at the checkpoint.  At 6.15 she calls the Humanitarian Hotline if the humanitarian gate is not open for vulnerable people.  She reasons with officials in Hebrew if people are refused entry or the queue is being held up and she reports what she sees. 

Ronni is one of the Women in Black, a women's anti-war movement with an estimated 10,000 activists around the world. The first group was formed by Israeli women in Jerusalem in 1988, following the outbreak of the First intifada.  See: http://www.womeninblack.org

Ronni is a founder member.  She stands each Friday with a small group in the middle of West Jerusalem holding placards saying Stop the Occupation in Hebrew, English and Arabic.  She stands silently, taking verbal abuse, crude gesticulations from passing motorists and loud honking from car horns.  She is frequently spat at.  She says, ‘The occupation is wrong.  It is a very bad thing for both Palestinians and Israelis.”

Daniel is one of a small group of 17 year olds the British and Irish EAs spoke to at the Leo Baeck Education Centre in Haifa. He spoke about his forthcoming graduation from high school and his excitement about serving in the Israeli military.  He grew up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish home and says his views when young were very right-wing.  Two years ago, however, he participated in a project run by Friends Forever – a summer camp for Jewish and Arab young people.  He was called ‘Arab lover’ by some classmates afterwards but now has several Israeli Arab friends and has changed his views.

“I learned that the Jewish narrative is not the only one,’ he said.

“I still really want to serve my country.  I am a Zionist and believe in the State of Israel.  But now I have met and worked with Arab Israelis my own age, I know they are just like me.  I don’t want to be the bad soldier with the gun in Hebron.  I don’t want to point my weapon at people.  I won’t threaten them; I want to show humanity.”

Returning to Robi and Bassam from the Parents’ Circle:

"Each person sees history through his own eyes," says Robi. "When you don't know who's on the other side, you lose their humanity."

"We are more important than any land," answers Bassam. "One state, two states, five states, otherwise we will share it as two graves."

In the last weeks the conflict here has been intense.  Two boys were shot dead in Ramallah by the Israeli military on Nakba Day – the Palestinians’ name for the day Israel declared independence and Palestinians were forced to leave their homes in huge numbers.  In the Jerusalem area alone, homes, animal shelters and shops in six villages, have been demolished by Israeli forces since Sunday.  1,500 fruit trees were uprooted by Israeli bulldozers yesterday morning at the Nassers’ farm, Tent of Nations, near Bethlehem, to make way for a settlement road. When the situation seems hopeless, it’s ordinary individuals like those I have described who provide a chink in the darkness of the occupation.

That’s how the light gets in.

The title of this piece comes from a Leonard Cohen song which you might like to listen to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ma5tF6TJpA

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for Middle East teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.

At home, for now, with Abu Ghassan

Abu Ghassan

Abu Ghassan has been blind since 1993 when he was only 27 years old.  He sits on a battered  plastic chair on an earth mound above the ruins of his home in Jabal al Baba.  This small hilltop Bedouin village is reached by a steady four kilometres climb east of Jerusalem’s Old City.  At 9am on March 12th this year, fifty Israeli soldiers arrived with a couple of bulldozers and razed his home to the ground.  He and his family had no warning and no chance to remove any of their belongings. You can still see the remains of furniture and plumbing attachments in the rubble.

The rubble of Abu Ghassan's demolished home

The Red Cross Tent

The European Union provided Abu Ghassan with a prefabricated replacement.  But on 9th April the army arrived again and dismantled his new home, which despite being liberally emblazoned with the EU logo, was loaded on to a lorry by the soldiers and removed.  He is currently living in a Red Cross tent with his wife, her sister and his eight children.

EU funded temporary buildings in the village

According to Nicola, an UNWRA* researcher who works regularly in thevillage, the inhabitants of Jabal al Baba like it when the Ecumenical Accompaniers arrive.  Are the ‘Jakatat' (jackets) coming?’ they ask her.  It’s difficult to see what we can achieve by going but Abu Ghassan asks us to take photographs and assures us: ‘Tell our international friends about what is happening so they can see the real face of the Israeli Government and its actions. That will make a difference.’

Jabal al Baba is a small herding community, home to 40 families and about 250 sheep.  The Bedouin inhabitants knew long before demolition orders were placed on 18 of its 26 buildings that their hilltop village was a strategic target for the Israeli Government.  The Israeli separation barrier is still under construction in this area.  When it is finished, it will be surrounded on three sides by the barrier, and cut off from the neighbouring town of Al Eizariya where the village children go to school. Since the building of the barrier commenced, they have suffered many home demolitions and the number of sheep - their livelihood - has declined from 600 to 250.

The reason for these problems is that the village of Jabal al Baba is part of the district known as E1.  Israel plans to clear this area of its inhabitants in order to join its large illegal settlement Ma’ale Adumim  to the rest of Jerusalem.  There are plans to develop this strikingly beautiful area into settlement suburbs and facilities and even a nature reserve.  However, it will result in  East Jerusalem becoming a surrounded Palestinian bubble within Greater Jerusalem and have the further effect of completely dividing the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part.  This will mean that travelling from the north to the south of Jerusalem, approximately a twenty minute journey by car, will take more like two to two and half hours.

Taken from UN OCHA map December 2012.  The brown areas are illegal Israeli settlements; the red line is the separation barrier (dotted red line was under construction in 2012, now finished) and the black line the intended route for the barrier

The E1 area is quite simply the red line for the Peace Process - the most contentious and strategic place in the race for Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.  The UN are getting used to hosting high-level delegations in this area.  John Kerry, the US Secretary of State and his team have visited recently; Labour Leader, Ed Miliband also paid a visit during his tour last month.  Miliband, significantly, spoke out strongly against settlement expansion on his return to UK.

Meanwhile, Abu Ghassan waits by his demolished house: son of a refugee from 1948, when many Bedouin were displaced from their home in the Negev desert, he is now three times a refugee.  And he wonders where it will be next.  Many of the Bedouin have been relocated in a place up against the separation wall near Abu Dis, a place where there is a large rubbish tip and many health problems resulting for humans and animals from the toxic effluent from the waste.  The Bedouin here are placed in concrete houses with no grazing for their animals.

He asks again as we leave: ‘  Please tell our international friends …  that will make a difference.’

* United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for Middle East teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.

Holy and unholy fire

Palm Sunday procession down the Mount of Olives

According to Amos Harel and Nir Hazen in Monday morning’s edition of Haaretz the left-wing Israeli newspaper, Temple Mount in Jerusalem is ‘a flash point ready to ignite’.  Rising tensions in Jerusalem over recent weeks escalated even further on Easter Sunday morning as Pesach - the week long Jewish Passover - was coming to a close. Jewish extremists had been entering the Al Aqsa Mosque compound and eight Jewish activists were arrested en route to the Temple Mount with a goat, thought to be intended for a sacrifice. Two police officers were injured during clashes in which 24 Palestinians were arrested.

Riot policeman 

This year was reportedly set to be extra tense in this Holy City as unusually both the Orthodox and Western Easters coincided with Pesach. For hundreds of years the Christian Quarter, and in particular the plaza of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, has thronged with worshippers but for five years the Israeli police have been restricting access for local Christians and international pilgrims to the Old City, reportedly for security reasons, leaving it empty.  Yusef Daher, head of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre, showed us an old picture of the thronging crowds in front of the Holy Sepulchre. ’It used to be full of pilgrims,’ he said, ‘but now there are only army and police officers.’

A police barrier to 'control the crowds'

Easter actually passed relatively peacefully this year.  There was a Palm Sunday procession down from the Mount of Olives to the Old City, various Good Friday processions along the Via Dolorosa, following the Stations of the Cross and the dramatic Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday.  This is the most important part of Easter for the Palestinian Christians, who believe that Holy Fire emanated from the tomb as the stone was rolled away at 2pm on the day after the crucifixion.  Each year, the eagerly awaited fire is passed on to the faithful on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre and from there it travels out to the villages and on to other Orthodox communities as far away as Romania  and Russia.

A patient Georgian priest waiting at Jaffa Gate with some of his flock

As Ecumenical Accopaniers, we were monitoring access to all parts of the Easter celebrations for local Christians.  Standing at Jaffa Gate in 30 plus degrees and no shade on Easter Saturday, we were standing with a multitude of Orthodox pilgrims waiting patiently to enter the Old City. The successful ones had been queuing from three o’clock in the morning before the police had put up a barrier at 6 am.  Even then, they were waiting on chairs inside the barrier but outside the gate before being allowed in to the Old City itself.  The unsuccessful were still waiting at 3pm with the promise that they would be allowed to go in at some point. 

More serious was the distinct lack of local Christians.  So few had managed even to get to Jerusalem.  Bishop Munib Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church reported that many Christians from the West Bank had been unable to obtain their permits due to a ‘computer error’.  Many families received permits for only some members and chose to stay at home rather than spend Easter apart.  We learned that out of 3000 permit applications, the Catholics in Bethlehem received only 700. 12 out of 14 West Bank Scout Troops were refused entry. One EA colleague witnessed a small Boy Scout in tears at the Bethlehem checkpoint. He had been turned back and was prevented from marching in the procession with his band.

Restriction of access to worship is, quite simply, illegal under International Humanitarian Law.  Under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights …

‘Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom … to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.’

At approximately 2.15pm on Holy Saturday, the fire emerged from the Holy Sepulchre.  Candles, torches and lanterns were lit from it, first on the roof and then right around the now filling plaza.  By 4 o’clock it had been carried from the Old City to Qalandia and through the checkpoint into the West Bank City of Ramallah where the torches of waiting Christians were lit from it.

Some lucky pilgrims

Let us just hope and pray that it is the Holy Fire, the hope of the resurrection, that prevails rather than the smouldering discontent and sparks of conflict that hit the newspapers day after day in this deeply troubled place.

This post finishes with an exhortation from Bishop Munib Younan:

Our call as Arab and Middle East Christians is to be instruments of peace, ministers of reconciliation, defenders of human rights, and apostles of love. I invite you to join with your brothers and sisters in the Middle East as we proclaim the truth of Christ's peace in our hearts to the world. I ask you this Easter Sunday to pray for peace based on justice with reconciliation based on forgiveness in Palestine and Israel. I implore you for the sake of the Gospel to pray that politicians will find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria. I beg you to pray for Arab and Middle East Christians in this region that they may be filled with the power of hope in the Resurrection. I ask you to not forget us nor cease accompanying us in our journey, for our mission is yours and yours is ours. Our mission continues to be one of a prophetic Church, implanting the power of Resurrection Peace in the hearts of all peoples. This is the reason that even in the midst of our doubts and suspicions we hear His gentle voice saying, "Peace be with you." And all of us with one voice will astonishingly reply, "My Lord and my God!" With this hope of the Resurrection, I send to you the Easter greetings of Jerusalem. Al-Masih Qam – Hakkan Qam! Christ has risen! He is risen indeed!

 Amen

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for Middle East teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.

Monday morning at Qalandiya

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Monday morning at Qalandiya

There used to be an airport at Qalandiya.  Now the Israeli security barrier bisects the main runway and you have to fly to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv first if you want to get to Jerusalem.  For thousands of Palestinians from Ramallah, and even further afield in the West Bank, going through the checkpoint here is the only way to access their work, their schools, medical care or their relatives who live in Jerusalem. Part of our role here is to monitor the checkpoint at peak time and report any violations of human rights that we witness.

We fall out of bed at 3.45am and grunt at each other in a desultory fashion over bowls of cornflakes and a few sips of tea, depending on bladder strength.  There are no mod cons at this checkpoint.  The taxi beeps outside and we climb in.  The road is not busy as we skirt the old city.  Suddenly we turn and the wall is looming above us in the early morning half light— 8 metres of concrete topped with a twisted forest of razor wire.

We alight and divide up the tasks - some to go through to the Ramallah side to watch the forming queue and wait for the humanitarian gate to open.  This is a special route for women and children, the elderly, people who need medical attention, or people who just want to visit relatives in Jerusalem.

Half of us go through the checkpoint to the Ramallah side to observe the queue and the others and stay on the Jerusalem side to count people as they come through.  The queue is very long even though it’s still early and we position ourselves close to the soldiers’ booth.  The windows are tinted and it’s hard to see how many are there on duty.  Sparrows twitter frantically, trapped in the barbed wire around the booth.  In contrast, the queue moves slowly and steadily and the men show nothing but steadfastness and good humour. Many greet us and even thank us for their presence. Two or three are turned back because their permits have expired.

At six o’clock the humanitarian lane opens.  A man comments that this is because we are there in numbers today.  Women and children begin to arrive.  A tall, anxious-looking young man is carrying a tiny baby in a carrycot and an elderly couple explain that they are going to hospital for the wife’s treatment.  Several professional looking men and women with briefcases are next.  Two young men stop and chat to one of our outgoing team.  She explains that they are student nurses on their way to work in a Jerusalem hospital.  Ten minutes later one of them returns with a smartly dressed young woman,also a nurse, who has been refused entry because elf the metal belt on her coat.  The EA reasons with the soldier and eventually, after twenty minutes or so, he allows her to pass.

I pass through the checkpoint myself, but fail to produce my passport and visa in an appropriate manner and a kind Palestinian behind me shows me what to do. ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘this is my first time.’  ‘No problem,’ he says and grins.  On the other side a group of about thirty men have gathered to pray, an imam wearing a striking head dress chanting and the others following.  I admire their commitment, kneeling on the hard, filthy concrete, with no prayer mats, and I watch their sinewy, worn hands as they bend forward, heads and hands touching the ground.

Then, in a flash, they are up and piling onto buses to make the last leg of their journey to work.  The spot-check timing sheets we have given out show that the average length of time today was 50 minutes to pass through the checkpoint.  A good day, apparently. Our log shows that 2,222 people passed through this morning. Bearing in mind that many have a longish journey to reach the checkpoint and a bus journey the other end, it makes for a very long working day.

We go home for a rest. Late run the day, I wonder what all the people we saw at the checkpoint are doing now: sweeping the streets, working on an Israeli building site in West Jerusalem, waiting at tables?  I call to mind the large official notice at the entrance to the checkpoint: ‘We wish you a safe and pleasant passage.’  There used to be an airport at Qalandiya.  But the Occupation has changed everything.

I work for Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this email are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of QPSW or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting it on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact the QPSW Programme Manager for Middle East teresap@quaker.org.uk for permission. Thank you.