The Sabeel International Conference Moves to Taybeh

The conference participants moved from Bethlehem to Taybeh, a Christian Palestinian village close to Ramallah in the West Bank. Taybeh is well known for opening the first micro brewery in the Occupied Territories. Watch the brewery's story below.



However, the participants weren't relaxing having a beer during their stay in Taybeh. They volunteered to do various kinds of work for the local population. For eight hours they worked on painting, cleaning, and fixing houses in the village.

After a long day of hard work, the participants went back to the Taybeh Guesthouse and enjoyed an evening of Palestinian music and watched a reenactment of a traditional Palestinian wedding.

Take a look at a couple pictures we've uploaded below of the conference:



Below is a picture of a participant, Elizabeth walking through a checkpoint.

Update: The Second Day of the Sabeel International Young Adult Conference and a Message from a Participant!

The second full day of the Sabeel International Young Adult Conference began with a briefing regarding access and movement in the West Bank and Gaza by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). There are over 602 checkpoints and barriers restricting the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank.

After the briefing, the participants visited Ein Kerem, the home village of John the Baptist, at which a Bible study was led by Father Rafiq Khoury illustrating the relevance of John the Baptist’s life to Palestinian Christians’ lives today.

Next the participants took part in a Sabeel tradition, walking the Contemporary Way of the Cross, with Sabeel staff member Nora Carmi. The Contemporary Way of the Cross draws a parallel between the suffering of Christ and the suffering of the Palestinians living under restrictive Israeli measures. The first station was the site of a Palestinian village depopulated during the Nakba (1948). 480 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated in 1948 and resulted in the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The following stations consisted of examples of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank: a checkpoint, settlements, and the Separation Wall. The last station was the tent of a woman, Um Kamel, who was pushed out of her home by Jewish settlers with the aid of Israeli soldiers in East Jerusalem. She was a refugee of 1948 and was made homeless again in November 2008. UNRWA had bought the land for her house to be built in 1956 from Jordan before the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. Yet, the Israeli authorities somehow still found reason to throw her out of her home claiming legal authority.

Watch Um Kamel tell her story:

A Message from Hannah Carter:

Hi everyone,

Thanks for following us on the blog! It is just the end of the second full day here and it feels like we’ve been here for weeks. We have seen so much already, and heard so many stories…to summarize it all when I get back will be difficult. We began the week with a worship service in the Garden of Gethsemane and then walked the Stations of the Cross here in Jerusalem. Today we met with the UN, took our first trip into the West Bank, met with a refugee family and also visited the town where John the Baptist was born.

Needless to say it’s been an incredible experience so far and I can’t wait for the rest of it.

- Hannah

Check out the links to learn about what your friends and family members are seeing and keep messaging us!

The 4th International Sabeel Young Adult Conference Begins Today!

This evening 38 young adult conference members arrived at the Knight's Palace in the Old City of Jerusalem for Orientation. Our participants include 8 local Palestinian Christians and 30 internationals from the United States, Canada, South Korea, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands.

For the next 10 days, these participants will be traveling around Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Galilee in order to learn about the Palestinian Christian population of these areas and the challenges they face under Israeli Occupation in the West Bank or as a marginalized people in Israel.

This blog will be updated daily with summaries of the conference day and reflections on the day from participants.

To keep in touch with Sabeel staff and participants during their journey, feel free to leave a comment on the blog!

Learn More About Sabeel!

Meet the Rev. Naim Ateek, the founder and director of Sabeel: Watch this short video from a Sabeel conference prepared by Friends of Sabeel North America. Bishop Desmond Tutu, a good friend of Sabeel and the Rev. Naim Ateek speak out against the apartheid like injustices that Palestinian Muslims and Christians encounter on a daily basis.

Understand Sabeel's politics: Sabeel's Jerusalem Document outlines the movement's vision for a just peace. This document was written in 2000 but is still representative of Sabeel's position today.

Sabeel promotes nonviolence and condemns all forms of violence, Israeli and Palestinian: One form of nonviolent action that Sabeel promotes is morally responsible investment. Learn how as an individual or as an organization, you can make a difference by reading this Sabeel document.

During this Lenten season, Sabeel is organizing community Lenten programs in Jerusalem and the West Bank to encourage spiritual growth during this time of reflection. Today the program was held in East Jerusalem.

Before the participants went to the Melkite Church, everyone went to Silwan (the area called, al Bustan, mentioned in my last post, is inside of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan) to demonstrate solidarity with the residents threatened with eviction (see the March 5th post on this blog). Rabbi Arik Ascherman, from Rabbis for Human Rights, was also there and spoke out against the injustices that the eviction notices constitute.

Obstacles to Peace: More on the recent Israeli elections

Netanyahu has recently been charged with the task of forming the new Israeli government and Avigdor Lieberman, head of Yisrael Beiteinu, which favours tightening the Israeli blockade on Gaza, opposes the dismantlement of settlements in the West Bank, and supports policies widely regarded as anti-Arab, has given his support to Netanyahu. While President Shimon Peres' appointment of Netanyahu is troubling in itself because he does not support the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in which Palestinians would control their borders, airspace, and have the ability to form an army (which every sovereign nation has the right to establish), a partnership with Lieberman is even more so.

To further illustrate the danger that this alliance poses to the peace process, I would like to underscore Lieberman's membership in Kahane's Kach Party. Kahane was declared a racist party by the Israeli government and was banned from the Knesset. Kahane encouraged the settlement movement and declared that a Jewish state should include all of Biblical Jewish land, including land that is currently part of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq!:

"Let me tell you what the minimal borders are, and which the rabbis agree upon, according to the description given in the Bible. The southern border goes up to El Arish, which takes in all of northern Sinai, including Yamit. To the east, the frontier runs along the western part of the East Bank of the Jordan River, hence part of what is now Jordan. Eretz Israel [the land of Israel] also includes part of Lebanon and certain parts of Syria, and part of Iraq, all the way to the Tigris River."

These racist sentiments which also constitute obstruction to the peace process are widely supported in Israeli society. Gideon Levy argues that while Kach was banned in the 1980s, Yisrael Beiteinu is embraced by Israeli politics and society even though they bear striking similarities. Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist who's career is inspired by his desire to raise awareness within Israeli society concerning immoral policies directed at the Palestinian population and during the elections, Levy was particularly concerned about Yisrael Beiteinu (which ended up becoming the third largest party in the Knesset beating Labour). I am posting the article he wrote below. Even though it was written before the results of the election became known, it is still a powerful article that puts the burden of rampant racism within Israeli politics on the members of Israeli society:

Kahane Won by Gideon Levy:

Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse. If there is something that typifies Israel's current murky, hollow election campaign, which ends the day after tomorrow, it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values.

If Kahane were alive and running for the 18th Knesset, not only would his list not be banned, it would win many votes, as Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to do. The prohibited has become permitted, the ostracized is now accepted, the destestable has become the talented - that's the slippery slope down which Israeli society has skidded over the past two decades.

There's no need to refer to Haaretz's startling revelation that Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was a member of Kahane's Kach party in his youth: This campaign's dark horse was and is a Kahanist. The differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are minuscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter of morality. The differences are in tactical nuances: Lieberman calls for a fascist "test of loyalty" as a condition for granting citizenship to Israel's Arabs, while Kahane called for the unconditional annulment of their citizenship. One racist (Lieberman) calls for their transfer to the Palestinian state, the other (Kahane) called for their deportation.

Now the instigator of the new Israeli racism will apparently become the leader of a large party once again in the government. Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged that Lieberman will be an "important minister" in his government. If someone like Lieberman were to join a government in Europe, Israel would sever ties with it. If anyone had predicted in Kahane's day that a pledge to turn his successor into an important minister would one day be considered an electoral asset here, they would have been told they were having a nightmare.

But the nightmare is here and now. Kahane is alive and kicking - is he ever - in the person of his thuggish successor. This is not just a matter of disqualifying Yisrael Beiteinu; it is not even a matter of this party's growing strength to terrifying proportions, becoming the fulcrum that will decide who becomes prime minister. This is a matter of legitimization. All society bears responsibility for it.

Kahane was ostracized; Lieberman is a welcome guest in every living room and television studio. Imagine: Ehud Barak does not rule out a coalition with him; Uzi Landau, considered a "democrat," is now Lieberman's number two; a former senior ambassador and a retired police major general also adorn the list. Did we know that Israel was being represented in Washington by an avowed racist in the person of Daniel Ayalon? Did we know that former Border Police chief and deputy police commissioner Yitzhak Aharonovich was one, too? They have come out of the closet, these racists, breaking out of the heart of the establishment to the despicable right, and the attitude toward them has not changed a bit.

Lieberman and his soldiers are borne on the tides of hatred for Arabs, hatred of democracy and the rule of law, and the stink of nationalism, racism and bloodthirstiness. These have turned, horrifically, into the hottest electoral assets on the market. Like all others of his political ilk, he cynically fans these base urges, particularly among the weaker classes, the rejected, the poor and the immigrants. But not just there. Many young people, among them brainwashed soldiers, will give him their vote, and no one ostracizes them. He chose an easy, relatively weak target, Israel's Arabs, and sets his supporters on them. But his doctrine has seeped in much deeper than that.

Lieberman is the voice of the mob, and the mob craves hatred, vengeance and bloodshed. A useless war in which hundreds of children were killed was received here sympathetically, if not happily. The parties from the right and center have tried to disqualify the Arab parties; these lists are also excluded ahead of time in every political calculation. And Arab students cannot rent an apartment.

When the intifada of Israel's Arabs breaks out here one day, we will know whom to blame - those who criminally incited against them and, no less, those who turned this incitement into something acceptable and legitimate. This cancerous growth has spread to all parts of society; it remains only to issue a desperate last call: Keep away from this abomination. Anything but Yisrael Beiteinu, lest it really become Israel, our home.

Looking for material for a short film on Hebron

Yet another young adult conference participant working on raising awareness!

LOOKING FOR MATERIAL FOR A SHORT FILM!
VIDEO FROM PALESTINE, LICENSE-FREE ARABIC MUSIC, OR WHATEVER YOU'VE GOT!

Hello my friends!

I'm going to make a short film, about what happened in Hebron when we were there [YAC 2008].

If you have:

- Video recorded anywhere in Palestine, filmed with video camera, cellphone or whatever!
- Arabic music which is license-free, or where you know, or have contact-possibilities, with the singer
- A great quotation?
- Some pictures?
- Or something else, related to Hebron, or just Palestine?
... please send it to me!

Video can easily be sent to my mail, through www.sprend.com

e-mail: peterlindqvist5@gmail.com

Send it quickly because my friend will start to edit very soon; what we are looking for is video and an emotional Arabic song.

Take care!

Peter Lindqvist, Sweden

Click on the image below to view our flyer for the upcoming Sabeel International Young Adult Conference!

The Aftermath of the War on Gaza: Israeli political shift to the right and the international call for an investigation into Israeli war crimes

Although Israeli attacks on Gaza have diminished, though not completely stopped, this situation still requires our attention and prayers. There are two issues in particular that I would like to highlight: A) The Israeli political shift to the right and the racist policies of Knesset member, Avigdor Leiberman gaining unprecedented support B) Attention is still required regarding the situation in Gaza and the need for an international investigation into Israeli war crimes committed during the attack on Gaza.

As the international community, particularly the UN and the International Criminal Court build a case highlighting Israeli war crimes committed during the recent war on Gaza, also known as Operation Cast Lead, Israeli politics have shifted to the right and Israel has become more than ever unreceptive to peace plans.

The Israeli peace movement has become marginalized and attacked being called self-hating Jews. Btselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has called for an independent investigation into Israeli war crimes calling on the government to fulfill their democratic obligations to uphold human rights. However, Btselem has been attacked for this call.


In their position paper, in the conclusion, Btselem states that "The extent of the harm to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead is unprecedented. Only now is the full magnitude of the destruction coming to light and additional testimonies about what happened continue to surface. Whole families have been wiped out. Children were killed before their parents' eyes. Some people watched as their loved ones bled to death. Clearly, even after the dead are buried and the rubble has been cleared away, the residents of the Gaza Strip will carry scars from this operation for a long time to come."

The last sentence of this passage underscores the necessity to continue paying attention to the situation in Gaza. Gazans face a long road to reconstruction and require support from the international community. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed. It is important to remember that reconstruction doesn't just involve concrete and steel, it also requires attention to the emotional needs of individuals who have lost family members. There is not a resident of Gaza who has not been affected by this recent conflict whether by losing family, friends, property, or all of these.

Unfortunately, the Israeli government ignores its obligation to be held accountable for the destruction and particularly, the targeting of civilians and civilian structures and the use of weapons illegally (use of white phosphorous in civilian areas and the use of DIME). Btselem's report goes on to state, "In Israel, however, official authorities prefer to hide behind sweeping declarations that the military acted properly during the operation."

It is important to keep pressure on Israel and on our own government's policies regarding Israel as Israeli mainstream politics have adopted the politics of the extreme right wing, particularly Yisrael Beiteinu and its leader, Avigdor Leiberman. Yisrael Beiteinu's slogan is "no citizenship without loyalty" which on the surface does not seem particularly racist until one further investigates what this means. It means that Jewish and Arab citizens that do not serve in the army siting consciencious objection are regarded as enemies of that state of Israel and not entitled to the rights of citizenship. Before the Israeli elections, Avigdor Leiberman suceeded in gaining support in the Knesset to ban the Arab parties in Israel from participating in the recent elections. Fortunately, this decision was overturned but Leiberman's policies are gaing more and more support, especially among the youth. I would strongly suggest reading this article from Haaretz about this unprecedented support of Yisrael Beiteinu. The article's title is "Lieberman's anti-Arab ideology wins over Israel's teens".

SABEEL’S REFLECTION ON GAZA

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, as the children of Gaza were about to leave their schools to return home, the Israeli air force carried a massive air attack against the people of Gaza. In less than 4 hours, over 150 people were killed and 200 injured – men, women, and children. By the end of the fourth day, over 390 Palestinians were killed and almost 2,000 injured. On the Israeli side, 4 were killed and no statistics are available on the number of injured.

FACTS ABOUT THE GAZA STRIP:

Population: 1.5 million. 75% of them are refugees. 45% of them are under 14 years.

Area: 360 sq km, 139 sq miles.

Population density: 4,167 people/sq km (The highest in the world.)

80% of Gazan households live below the poverty line, subsisting on less than $3 per person a day. 80% of all Gazan families would literally starve without food aid from international agencies.

The Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, similar to that of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, started with the 1967 June war. In September 2005, the Israeli army pulled out of Gaza and removed its illegal settlements. However, the illegal Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip did not come to an end. Israel maintained its tight control over Gaza’s borders (air, land, and sea). To make things even worse, Israel imposed a siege on Gaza in June 2007, thus tightening its border restrictions and causing the humanitarian conditions to deteriorate further. Under the brutal siege, every aspect of the lives of the people of Gaza was controlled. They were totally dependent on Israel for fuel, electricity, cooking gas, medical supplies, food supplies (even flour), building material, etc. Israel made sure that the Palestinians would remain alive at barely the survival and basic subsistence level.

On November 14, 2008, UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon issued a statement that said, “The Secretary-General is concerned that food and other life saving assistance is being denied to hundreds of thousands of people, and emphasizes that measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and should cease immediately.”

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER:

FIRST: A word about tahdi’a (the period of calm or truce). It is important to note that among the terms of tahdi’a was the understanding that Israel would lift the siege of the Gaza Strip, and gradually extend the truce to the West Bank. This Israel did not do. It only partially lifted the siege and allowed a trickle of vital commodities into Gaza which kept the people at the level of mere survival. Israel’s raids into the West Bank continued on a daily basis and scores of Palestinians were arrested or assassinated.

The International Herald Tribune reported on December 19, 2008 that it was Hamas’ understanding that after the tahdi’a Israel would open the crossings and allow the transfer of goods that have been banned since the siege was imposed. There was never a return to the 500 – 600 truckloads of goods shipments that used to go into the Gaza Strip before the siege. “The number of trucks increased to around 90 from around 70.” The facts and figures tell the real story. Sadly, however, many western leaders have shut their ears, eyes, and mouths against the cry of the oppressed and they fell into the deceptive snares of Israel. Most of the world judges Israel by what it says and not by what it does; while they close their ears to the comprehensive and workable 2002 Peace Initiative adopted by all the Arab leaders including the Palestinians. Even Hamas has agreed to a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders as expressed to President Carter on his latest visit to Syria.

SECOND: So long as Israel holds the Palestinians in general and the Gazans in particular under occupation, they (the Palestinians) have the right, according to international law, to resist the “seemingly never ending” belligerent occupation and struggle for their liberation. Israel, therefore, cannot demand from the international community sympathy and political support and from the Palestinians calm and security, while it maintains its inhuman and illegal occupation. It is only when Israel ends its occupation that it can have a legitimate right to defend its borders. Israel stands in violation of international law and is the aggressor due to its belligerent occupation.

THIRD: The Arab leaders and governments can do more for peace. Many people accuse them of a conspiracy of silence. Most of the Arab people are ashamed of the positions of their governments because they have not used their resources collectively to end the occupation. Sabeel is not talking about the use of force although many of our Arab people do. We believe that the Arab governments could have contributed much more towards a resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict through nonviolent means. Tragically, this did not happen.

FOURTH: Although Sabeel wishes that Hamas and other Palestinian factions had chosen a nonviolent way to resist the Israeli siege, we feel that the disproportionate use of military force against the Gaza Strip and the number of casualties that it produced must be strongly condemned. It is a shame that once again many western leaders have failed to see the deeper issues that are involved. They chose to stand with the occupier rather than with the occupied, with the oppressor rather than the oppressed, and with the powerful rather than with the weak. It is important to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation. But we call on our Palestinian people to abandon the armed struggle and to choose a more potent and effective way – the way of nonviolence. We can do it and we can win. The Palestinians are capable of setting an example for the rest of the world. This is what we must do; and this is what can restore to us our human pride and dignity.

In fact, we must look to a world where wars, and weapons of violence and destruction would be banned and where oppressed nations would choose the higher moral ground and resist the evil of belligerent occupations by nonviolent means. We hope for a world where a reformed United Nations would never be held hostage by powerful nations, but would enjoy the freedom to establish justice for the oppressed of the world.

FIFTH: We believe that the real message of the Palestinians to the world is a genuine cry for freedom and liberation. The Palestinians did not initiate the violence. The prolonged illegal Israeli occupation is the real cause for the violence in our area. Israel has shut the door on justice. The only way that can guarantee a lasting resolution of the conflict is for the United States’ new administration to dare and open the door of justice. We believe that it is the narrow gate of which Jesus Christ spoke. It is the gate that leads to a life of peace and security. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” This is the narrow gate of justice. This is the basis of international law. The way of military domination, occupation, violence, and wars is the wide gate that leads to destruction; while the gate that seems narrow and hard is the one that leads to justice, peace and security for both sides. We have tried the wide gate and it has only brought us destruction. It is high time to try the narrow gate of justice so that we might find life.

Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center

December 31, 2008