Over the past decade we have traveled frequently to the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel – helping to research projects for the Nonviolent Peaceforce, developing the Masar Ibrahim al Khalil with Palestinian partners, and supporting educational programs in nonviolence. Most recently we walked a portion of the Masar near Nablus, and participated in the on-going nonviolent demonstration at the village of Bil’in, whose olive orchards have been separated from the village by the Israeli wall.
Letter from the Road #20: Israel/Palestine: JESUS WEPT – Elias
“Bus number 14 was blown up right there,” my guide told me, pointing across the Jerusalem street. “Seventeen people were killed. And over there a suicide bomber dressed as an orthodox Jew entered that hospital on the corner and exploded himself, killing three people in the lobby.”
We walked along the busy street, past falafel shops and clothing stores, counting the deaths from each bombing until we lost count somewhere past 200. Deaths on the Palestinian side, many of them innocent civilians, are typically four times greater. But this is a strange calculus. It is not possible for the mathematics of body counts to convey the shock of violence that with each suicide, each explosion, each bullet, strikes into the psyche of Israelis and Palestinians alike, devastating their capacity for coexistence.”
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Letter from the Road #21: GAZA – Elias
“Once we get into the well-worn taxi on the Gaza side and continue on our journey, the view changes radically. The roads are rutted, and on each side there are bombed-out buildings and orchards in which the trees are bare sticks or chopped off at knee height. Within a few kilometers of the border the density of buildings and population increases sharply, and soon we are in a maze of streets festooned with hanging electrical wires, the buildings in sad repair. It reminds me of the back streets of Baghdad after 12 years of sanctions.”
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Letter from the Road #25: Israel/Palestine: A DREAM FROM THE HOLY LAND – Elias & Elizabeth
“Consider the Holy Land, trampled and fought over for thousands of years, blood splashing on its stones, tears soaking into it, temples razed, Christ crucified, crusaders vicious and defeated, Turks, Egyptians, British, French, Arabs, Israelis – consider the lineage of enemies who have claimed this place and how their agony and antagonism lives in the dust and rocks here, their blindness as dark and present as ever.
Yet a solution to their conflicting claims has always been present, just as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian fight over sovereignty here is present and even obvious. It is staring both parties in the face. This one clear, nonviolent move from either side could precipitate a change in the polarized worldview that holds this conflict in place. Yet that move will not be made by either side…”
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Letter from the Road #33: Israel/Palestine: THE NEIGHBOR AND THE PILGRIM – Elias
“…a few weeks ago I was in Bethlehem in the West Bank, and was invited for a mid-day meal to the home of a Palestinian family. Their flat was perched on top of a small building accessed by outside steps. For some time the place had been in the direct line of fire between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters holed up in a nearby building, and it had been hit often by Israeli shells.
My host pointed to where the refrigerator was standing. He said the previous fridge had been hit by machine gun bullets (the family wasn’t home at the time), causing it to defrost and the meat in the freezer to thaw, leaking a red stain across the floor. When the family returned, their three year-old son pointed at the fridge and said, “Look Daddy, they killed the fridge!”
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Letter from the Road #39: Israel/Palestine: THE FATE OF THE JEWISH STATE – Elias
“At the demonstration we attended that afternoon a crowd of about two hundred Palestinians and Europeans gathered on the Palestinian side of the razor-wire barrier. After ten minutes of chanting slogans led by Eyad and others, four Israeli soldiers ran down the hill from their post in full riot gear, helmets and body shields, and began firing tear gas shells at the crowd over the wire barrier. More shells were fired from the post at the top of the hill.
We dodged the shells as they came raining down, metal canisters the size of softballs spewing smoke.”
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