Back in the Holy Land
The sun beats down strongly as I exit the Ben Gurion airport, and thank God for another opportunity to be here again.
I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I managed to enter... but not before a thirty minute long "interview" by an Israeli official, a man who would have easily stopped my coming here had he found out the real purpose of my trip.
The interrogation involved him looking through my emails, Googling my name on the web, asking for receipts of hotels I booked, asking very specific questions about my plans for this summer and things I did last summer- questions which I could not honestly answer without being denied entry.
I probably would not be writing this email from my current location if it was not for the assistance of another Israeli- an activist friend of mine- who was willing to vouch for me, helping me in a way I will probably never be able to repay.
After a long interrogation and a much longer flight, I finally exit my plane and pass through Customs. Fortunately, it goes more smoothly and only takes a few minutes.
I am back in the Holy Land.
It is a place where prophets and messengers and other great men of God lived their lives. A place which is the home of three monotheistic faiths- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. A place in which God's name is proclaimed in mosques and synagogues and churches. A place where most people are not ashamed of their faith in Him, even if they see Him and worship Him in different ways. A place which is holy to such a large segment of the world.
It however also is a place that is the scene of daily injustice. A place where oppression and occupation and institutional violence against is the norm, and which breeds sometimes retaliatory violence.
This summer I will be again in the part of Palestine that is the West Bank, volunteering with International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a human rights/activist group that is involved in documenting and when possible trying to prevent human rights abuses against Palestinians, and standing in solidarity with them. ISM works also with Israeli and international activists who are working to end the occupation of Palestine.
Palestinians living in parts of the West Bank that are under control of the Israeli Army face routine human rights violations- the checkpoints where they are randomly stopped and searched and sometimes badly abused by soldiers, the confiscation of property like wells and roads and land, the limits placed on their water usage that are not placed on Israeli settlers, demolitions of homes, the fact that they may be attacked by Israeli settlers at any time, and that the Israeli Army will in most likelihood do nothing to stop them, the random arrests and collective punishments of entire communities for actions of some Palestinians who have responded to the institutional violence with some violence of their own.
Any Palestinian response against the soldiers- peaceful or violent, is usually met in a brutal fashion. Peaceful demonstrators in the best case are ignored, and in the worst cases are beaten or teargassed or pepper sprayed or arrested, or in some cases even shot. People who throw rocks- whether they are adults or children- are shot- sometimes with rubber coated steel bullets, sometimes with live rounds. Sometimes a whole village will be doused in teargas as a response to a group of people throwing rocks from an isolated location.
I have seen many of the things I am describing above with my own eyes during previous visits.
In many cases, especially this year, Israeli soldiers have shot dead Palestinians who they claimed tried to attack them or other Israelis with knives. In some cases, this is indeed what did take place. In other cases, the soldiers have gunned down Palestinians, who, according to testimonies of both Palestinian and international observers present at the scene, were not armed or not trying to attack the soldiers when they were killed.
There have been some cases where some Palestinians, who, seeing their people being brutalized and humiliated, have responded to brutality with brutality, in some cases by launching attacks and killing not only Israeli soldiers but also Israeli civilians.
I of course strongly condemn such actions, especially when unarmed people are killed. Every human life is precious in the eyes of God who created us all, and the taking of any innocent life is wrong, whether it is Palestinian or Israeli. Every parent, regardless of religion or ethnicity, feels the same horrific pain when their child is murdered. A bullet fired at an elderly person kills the same way, ether the automatic weapon is yielded by an Israeli soldier or a Palestinian fighter from Hamas. Although I volunteer with a group that tries to document and stop abuses of Palestinian civilians, it is true that Israelis suffer also. Violence hits everyone.
While it is true that violence hits both Israelis and Palestinians alike, to suggest this is a conflict between two equally armed sides would be a lie.
Firstly, an overwhelming majority of the people getting killed are Palestinian.
Secondly, while the suffering and pain felt by relatives who have lost loved ones is common to both Palestinians and Israelis, the occupation is not.
The checkpoints, the humiliations, the abuses, the regular home demolitions and land confiscations and humiliations are an exclusively Palestinian experience. An entire people are treated like criminals and second class citizens, who are fit to be mistreated and abused and thrown out of their homes and robbed and in some cases even killed, in the name of "security".
As already mentioned above, this is not my first time in the West Bank. Six years ago, as well as during the summers of 2014 and 2015, as both an ISM member and a CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegate, I had the pleasure and privilege of being there, and being able to document the struggle of my Palestinian friends to maintain their lives and dignity in the face of the occupation, and their work for justice and freedom. I have also had the pleasure and privilege of being able to work with international as well as Israeli activists who have decided to stand alongside the Palestinian people.
My blogs from these years are as follows:
summer 2010: www.livingstones-tomasz.blogspot.com
summer 2014: www.mighty-stream123.blogspot.com
summer 2015: www.hungryandthirstyforjustice.blogspot.com
The necessity of justice is nothing alien to either Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran one will find verse after verse which describe God's love- and demand- for justice... as well as His hatred of injustice. While Judaism and Christianity and Islam have many disagreements, the importance of treating other human beings with dignity is not one of them,
I am looking forward to the next six weeks, and am grateful to again be able to witness, and play my small part in supporting, the work for justice on the ground in Palestine.
Important Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine only. They do not represent ISM, CPT, or any other organization.
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