This past October, eight members of
Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East—seven from First
Parish UU Church in Cambridge, MA and one from First UU Church in San Diego,
CA—traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories on a 10-day
fact-finding mission. The trip, initiated by Don McInnes, co-chair of
UUs for Justice in the Middle East, and inspired by the 2002 UUA General
Assembly Action of Immediate Witness entitled Toward
Peace and Justice in the Middle East, was intended partly as a
journey of self-education and partly as a show of solidarity with the people
involved in the daily struggle for peace and justice. We prepared for our
trip in an atmosphere of great uncertainty and more than a little
anxiety—uncertainty over gaining admittance to first Israel and later the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, and anxiety about the escalating violence in the
region, including the looming US invasion of Iraq.
In the end, the trip went off with nary a hitch, and we were thrilled to be able to meet with a number of highly impressive groups and individuals—Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals alike—who were amazingly generous with their time and energy. We were awed by the perseverance and humanity they displayed in the face of overwhelming hardship, cruelty, rage, and grief. The Palestinians particularly impressed us with their articulate, unequivocal commitment to democracy and human rights, and their equally firm dedication to nonviolent change—a stark contrast to the mindless terrorists often portrayed in the US media.
From the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions, we learned of the gradual, insidious Israeli policy of “quiet
transfer” in the greater Jerusalem area, where Palestinians are denied
permits to build homes; deprived of more and more land through confiscation;
and confined and isolated through the relentless construction of
settlements, “bypass roads”, and “security zones”, which restrict
their movements and their very existence to ever smaller and more remote
parcels of land.
From LAW in East Jerusalem and the
Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza City, we learned of the
seemingly futile but unbowed efforts to provide legal defenses to
Palestinians living under a military occupation that affords few, if any,
legal rights or protections against such abuses as arbitrary arrests,
torture, and the ubiquitous home demolitions.
We heard how these organizations also defended clients against the
excesses of the Palestinian Authority, before its near-total destruction by
the Israeli military.
From Hanan Ashrawi’s MIFTAH
organization in Ramallah, and The Holy Land Trust’s Peace and
Reconciliation program in Bethlehem, we heard about grassroots efforts to
instill and encourage passion for democracy, effective leadership, respect
for human rights, and nonviolent methods for action and change.
From the Christian Peacemakers Team in
Hebron, we gained an appreciation for the peaceful efforts of this
ecumenical group of Americans—including one UU from Syracuse, NY—to
intervene in the daily harassment and often violent attacks against the
local population by militant Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers alike.
From the Arab Association of Human
Rights in Nazareth, and the “unrecognized” village of Ein Hod near
Haifa, we learned that even Israeli residence and citizenship do not protect
Palestinians from land confiscations, home demolitions, and other abuses.
In the Gaza Strip, we were turned back
from the Khan Younis refugee camp by an exchange of machine gunfire between
Palestinian fighters and a nearby Jewish settlement; and later, in the
densely populated Rafah refugee camp, we listened as a grieving Palestinian
family described the devastating death of their 4-year-old son, only eight
days before our visit, in a middle-of-the-night Israeli raid to blow up
three adjoining homes.
We experienced firsthand the enormous
disruption, hardship, frustration, and humiliation caused by the
proliferation of roadblocks and checkpoints imposed by Israeli occupation
forces on the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
usually without warning or explanation, and creating havoc and preventing
thousands from earning a living or attaining the basic necessities of life.
And we felt shock and revulsion at the gruesome deaths of 14 Israelis in a suicide bus bombing only a day and a half before our departure.
We experienced all of this and much more.
The group returned home to the US exhausted, but with firm commitments to educate our fellow UUs and Americans about what we had learned, and a renewed sense of passion to do whatever we can to further the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East.
Day-by-day Photographic Record
(photos by Don McInnes and Cathy Pfister)
We owe a special debt of gratitude to Holy Land Trust, for organizing our tours of Israel and the West Bank, and to Gaza Community Mental Health Program, for organizing our travels in the Gaza Strip.