The Holy Land and the Power of Witness

Michaela, our Parish Secretary, has returned safely from her Peace Cycle Ride in the Holy Land (cycling-for-peace). The ride was an awareness-raising event to draw attention to the effect that the Israeli occupation is having on the lives of the inhabitants of the Palestinian Territories.

Well, she’s back and she’s lost weight - but she has discovered a worthy cause.

I suspect that, like many people, my view of Israel, the Holy Land, is a bit myopic. It is the Holy Land after all, the very ground that God has trod, populated by His chosen people. End of story. It is inhabited by a special people who have suffered through the last two thousand and more years, most especially in the Holocaust, an underdog people to whom we therefore owe a tolerance, maybe even a license. There is also the suspicion that a supernatural hand has aided these survivors, helped them create a new- or renewed - homeland in the face of immense opposition, allowed the defeat of superior forces, permitted them to flourish exceptionally in the arts and sciences, even allowed their deserts to bloom.    

But when myths collide with the power of witness, it is the integrity of personal experience that forges a truth that reshapes understanding.

Michaela’s story is of the Palestinians, both Moslems and Christians, who live in greater Israel, in the shadow of Israeli occupation, prisoners in their own land, in some cases living in refugee camps for the last 65 years. It is a story of suppression, of daily intimidation and harassment. The Jews in first century Israel may have felt similarly about their Roman overlords, the exiles in Egypt about the Pharaoh’s overseers.

Daily hurts disappear overnight but it is the lasting changes that matter. It is the physical intrusion of the illegal settlements on Palestinian land, the high concrete Separation Walls that encircle coveted Palestinian territory. Their physicality speaks of an end to hope, the entombment of the Palestinians.

Like the story of Arlette and Claire Anastas, sisters and Palestinian Christians living in Bethlehem (see picture below). For many years they ran a thriving gift shop. Then, one morning, a thirty-foot wall was constructed, surrounding their shop and apartment on three sides, closing their road to traffic and tourists. Their business died, and with it their income.

...Sure, there are many truths, and there are arguments both for and against. Sometimes we are misled or misunderstand or chose not to hear. But sometimes a passionate witness tells a tale that has a life of its own. Listen again to the story of Israel, can’t you hear the faint cries of the Palestinians in the background?