When I first visited Israel/Palestine, my group’s itinerary was set up to allow us to see life not only from the perspectives of Israelis, but also Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza. I was deeply troubled by what I heard and saw. When I returned home, people were excited for me; the look on their faces bore no reflection of the holy turmoil I felt.
As far back as I remember (I was a kid in the 80’s), news from Israel and Palestine had landed in a disorganized pile of disembodied headlines. While working in the barn (dairy farm), I would hear the half hour evening broadcast, “Voice of Israel” playing for the cows on a politically conservative Christian radio station. In seventh grade I (uncritically) read Bodie Thoene’s Zion Chronicles, novels inspired by the mythology around the founding of Israel. Any Arabs portrayed in those books were flat characters, dangerous invaders with religious hatred in their heart. The series made no mention of the more than 700,000 Palestinian people who had been terrorized and displaced from their homes, or that the Zionist militia had massacred them as they depopulated villages throughout Palestine.
It’s easy to allow popular myth to determine the images we carry. It is from these images that we organize accounts from reality. But we often get it very wrong. This is compounded by the way news headlines land on us seemingly from out of blue, with two results. One, vague terms get repeated so often that they become very familiar, but no less vague. In other words we forget that we don’t know what a thing means. Two, without useful context, news of critical events floats right by us and is quickly forgotten– meaningless headlines. We tend to drift into passive acceptance of the official talking points.
Historian Patrick Wolfe writes that “Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life. Thus contests for land can be—indeed, often are—contests for life.” “Racialization of one group by another is used to win this contest.” Racialization is “a variety of practices that have been applied to colonized populations under particular circumstances and to different (albeit coordinated) ends. Groups are racialized in different ways according to the needs of a settler-colonial society.”
In the case of the Palestinians, this means that any member of their group is an unprotected target, open for harassment, arrest, imprisonment without charge or trial, and summary execution by any Israeli, soldier and settler alike. As faithfully documented by international as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, all of the above have been done to Palestinians for decades and with impunity– simply because they are Palestinian. This occupation system is no respecter of age, religion, gender or disability. The bulldozer is both a literal tool of the occupation and an apt symbol of its indiscriminate actions.
Collective punishment
The following are three types of collective punishment Israel uses to control the population it colonizes.
Administrative detention: Palestinians (as young as twelve) can be taken from their homes and spirited away to an undisclosed location, anywhere and anytime of day or night, with no knowledge of charges against them, no legal counsel, and no contact with their families. They can be held for months without trial. In this reality, an Israeli citizen (usually a settler) or soldier only has to allege that a person intends to commit offense against the State– without having done so yet, and that is enough to result in the arrest and imprisonment of a Palestinian. Often, the stated reason for their detention is that the charges are “based on classified evidence.” Therefore, Palestinians (including minors as young as 13) cannot mount a defense or refute the allegations made against them. Furthermore, unlike a regular prison sentence, administrative detention may be extended repeatedly and often include torture and long periods of solitary confinement, so the detainees cannot know when they will be released. Imagine the mental anguish for hundreds of families, for whom information about the well-being, fate or location of their loved one is often not made available. These families must live with the memory of soldiers kicking in their door, taking their teenage son out of his bed, and not being able to learn anything further about that boy’s fate.
Settler violence: Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, Israel has misappropriated more than half a million acres of land there for its own purposes, including building and expanding (illegal) settlements and paving roads for Zionist settlers. Some areas have been officially taken over by the state, others through daily acts of settler violence. These two seemingly unrelated tracks are both forms of state violence: the Israeli apartheid regime and its representatives actively aid and abet the settlers’ violence as part of a strategy to cement the takeover of Palestinian land.
Home Demolition: There are three common pretexts for having your house knocked down by IDF bulldozers:
- Pretext of unlawful construction: Since 2006, 7,608 Palestinian houses were bulldozed under the first pretext, leaving 13,069 people homeless, 5,669 of them minors. Why “unlawful construction”? Israel’s policy prevents almost all Palestinian construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israeli permits are required for this. When Palestinians build structures anyway, as they have no other real choice, Israel issues demolition orders and in some cases carries them out.
2. For alleged military purposes: This policy has been implemented primarily in the Gaza Strip, during the second intifada and in subsequent rounds of fighting. It is used to create a “security strip” – around settlements and military posts before Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and in areas by the perimeter fence since. For this purpose, 1,940 homes have been demolished.
3. As collective punishment: Israel demolishes the homes of Palestinians who allegedly attacked – or allegedly attempted to attack – Israeli civilians or forces. By doing so, it punishes family members who are not suspected or accused of any wrongdoing, a measure that constitutes unlawful collective punishment. Since 2006, 312 homes have been demolished under this pretext.
One of several groups within Israeli society that works against this right wing colonist mindset is a group of veteran Israeli soldiers called Breaking the Silence. Here is their mission statement:
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life. Our work aims to bring an end to the occupation.
How does a decent person become desensitized to the humanity of an entire group of people? According to Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Israeli professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, this education begins at a young age. She observes that Jewish children brought up in Israeli society never see a Palestinian, let alone talk with them. Citing the apartheid system of her country, she says this is by design.
As described in her book, Palestine in Israeli Schoolbooks, Professor Peled highlights several ways in which Israeli school textbooks help to achieve the absence of Palestinians from the Israeli consciousness. For example, textbooks do not use the name Palestinian, only “Arab.” (This erasure makes more palatable the argument for ethnic cleansing, which has been part of Israel’s right-wing extreme government for years now. That is to say, If the Palestinians do not exist as a people, then why can’t Gazans just leave and go to other Arab countries?)
Dr. Peled notes that when Jewish history is taught in Israeli schools, the link to possible future oppression is no longer identified with the countries where the Holocaust took place, but is instead associated with the Arabs. In this way, killing Arabs becomes an act associated with heroism and self defense. In these textbooks, Palestinians not only do not exist as actual people, but their presence is viewed as a “problem” to be solved, words like “refugee” and “terrorists” are used to describe them.
Professor Peled’s began her research with the gnawing question: How does a nice Jewish boy or girl grow up to be a combatant who does not hesitate to point a gun at a young Palestinian child? One of many available interviews Professor Peled has recorded on her research findings can be found here: Nurit Peled-Elhanan discusses Palestine in Israeli Schoolbooks. In 2009, at a conference in Brussels, she remarked:
As an Israeli it is very painful to me to realize the word Israel has become the synonym of oppression, tyranny, ruthless apartheid and racism, and that the Star of David is equated in rallies all over the world to the swastika. I wish this tribunal will encourage people to arise and go to Gaza – the city of slaughter – or to any other city of oppression in Palestine to see with their own eyes the horrifying ghettos in which the Palestinian people are incarcerated, get married, have families, educate their children and lead an impossible day to day life. I hope the free people of the world can have the courage to come to my country and defy all blockades and high walls and not give up until all barriers are broken and human dignity is restored.
Famous Jews who oppose(d) Israel’s settler colonial project (and eventual apartheid system) include Hanna Arendt, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Illan Pappe, Masha Gessen, Hajo Meyer and Miko Peled. There are more than a dozen Jewish organizations active today working for Palestinian freedom and equality.
As a Christian college kid preparing to visit the Middle East, including Israel/Palestine, I expected seeing places where Jesus lived would illicit profound emotion and spiritual connection. Instead I found myself unmoved while queuing at the official holy sites. I watched as pilgrims kissed the waxy floors of shrines, thinking of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, and how this was now mirrored by Israeli soldiers whose jeeps sped down the Via Dolorosa in occupied East Jerusalem, scattering Palestinian children as they carelessly came around blind corners, and the young Israeli soldiers with machine guns strapped on their shoulders, patrolling Damascus Gate.
My moment of spiritual/emotional connection was found looking down on Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, remembering Jesus’ grief as he prayed, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if only you knew the things that made for peace.” My heart was moved whenever I received hospitality from people living in the land, or heard from people from all three faith groups working for peace and justice through courageous acts of non-violent resistance and demonstrations of love in action.
They helped me to frame the conflict differently. Instead of a complex geopolitical puzzle only approachable by PhDs in political science, or a clash between the west and the Arab world (a framework this White House embraces), I began to see it as a conflict between those who support and profit from the military occupation of Palestinian land, and those who want that occupation to stop, because the Palestinians exist in their consciousness as equal human beings. Those sides are not drawn along racial or religious fault lines, but along conscience, along conviction about the worth and dignity of every single person created b’tselem Elohim, in the image of God.
From Kairos Palestine, the word of Christian Palestinians to the world about what is happening in Palestine:
“Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God. We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace.”
We proclaim our word based on our Christian faith and our sense of Palestinian belonging – a word of faith, hope and love.
We declare that the military occupation of Palestinian land constitutes a sin against God and humanity. Any theology that legitimizes the occupation and justifies crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people lies far from Christian teachings.
We urge the international community to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle against oppression, displacement, and apartheid.
We demand that all people, political leaders and decision-makers put pressure on Israel and take legal measures in order to oblige its government to end its oppression and disregard for international law.
We hold a clear position that non-violent resistance to this injustice is a right and duty for all Palestinians, including Christians.
We support Palestinian civil society organizations, international NGOs and religious institutions that call on individuals, companies and states to engage in boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation.
“Everything that happens in our land, everyone who lives there, all the pains and hopes, all the injustice and all the efforts to stop this injustice, are part and parcel of the prayer of the Palestinian Church and the service of all her institutions.”
From Christ at the Checkpoint, an open letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church leaders and Theologians. Here is the final portion of the letter:
“Finally, and we say it with a broken heart, we hold western church leaders and theologians who rally behind Israel’s wars accountable for their theological and political complicity in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, which have been committed over the last 75 years. We call upon them to reexamine their positions and to change their direction, remembering that God “will judge the world in justice” (Acts 17:31). We also remind ourselves and our Palestinian people that our sumud (“steadfastness”) is anchored in our just cause and our historical rootedness in this land.
As Palestinian Christians, we also continue to find our courage and consolation in the God who dwells with those of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa 57:15). We find courage in the solidarity we receive from the crucified Christ, and we find hope in the empty tomb. We are also encouraged and empowered by the costly solidarity and support of many churches and grassroots faith movements around the world, challenging the dominance of ideologies of power and supremacy. We refuse to give in, even when our siblings abandon us. We are steadfast in our hope, resilient in our witness, and continue to be committed to the Gospel of faith, hope, and love, in the face of tyranny and darkness. “In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and of death that still persist in our land. We will see here ‘a new land’ and ‘a new human being’, capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters” (Kairos Palestine, §10).
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