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Note: I spent the first six weeks after the end the past academic year with my uncle and aunt in Amman, Jordan. One weekend, we traveled to occupied Palestine, visiting Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem. In a series of three posts, I will draw from my experiences in these cities to reflect upon such subjects as the nature of the occupation, nonviolent resistance, holiness, and pilgrimage. The first post focused on Bethlehem; this second focuses on Hebron. Click here to view a photo set of pictures from the weekend.
The third location that I visited during my weekend stay in occupied Palestine was Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank after Jerusalem itself. In the very heart of Hebron is an illegal settlement of more than 500 Israelis, guarded by over 1200 IDF soldiers. Walking around the city with my uncle (a Methodist minister) and our guide (an advisor to Christian Peacemaker Teams in the region), I saw many things that were deeply affecting — checkpoints that impeded free movement by the locals, roads reserved for the use of settlers alone, paths to Palestinian schools maliciously blocked by barbed wire, the Star of David painted provocatively onto Palestinian homes and shops, and much more. But the most moving experience of all was not a place or scene, but a person.
In the heart of the city, our guide introduced us to a 75-year-old Muslim man who had grown up in Hebron. He could still remember the days when the Muslims and Christians of the city had lived side by side in peace and harmony with the pre-settler Jewish community. Growing up, his neighbors had been Jews, and his mother had breastfed one of the Jewish girls when her own mother died. According to Islamic law and custom, this act made the girl his sister, and he said that she was still alive, working as a lawyer in Tel Aviv. His story underscores that the current conflict is not fundamentally about faith or differences of religion, though religious extremism has certainly developed to some degree on all sides—Israeli, Palestinian, and American.
Our guide told us that this man is the last Palestinian to live in his section of the town, as the surrounding neighborhood has otherwise completely been taken over by colonizing settlers. He has to pass through three military checkpoints to get to his house; one of them exists solely for his home, all by itself. The soldiers do not allow him to receive visitors, and when his children and grandchildren pass to and from his house, the settlers harass them, shouting and throwing rocks. His next-door neighbor is a Zionist with a reputation as the most extreme, most radical proponent of the settler ideology in the entire Palestinian territories.
This 75-year-old man has every reason in the world to be bitter or to become an “extremist” in response to the violent extremism directed at him, his children, and his community every single day. But as he spoke to us under the shadow of IDF guard towers and settler homes, he said things that brought tears to my eyes. He told us that when the settlers first came to his part of the city, he went and offered them fruit, for his religion of Islam instructs him to love everyone, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jew. He offered them fruit, and they threw stones at him. But still he knows that God wants him to love everyone — it is written in the “Book of Muhammad,” in the Qur’an. “We are all human,” he said. This man is hated and oppressed by these settlers; they throw stones at him, they file false charges against him in court, they take the land and homes of his neighbors, they put soldiers in front of his house. But his response is to love, for “we are all human,” for his faith tells him to love all without regard for creed or color.
During her time in Gaza before her death at the hands of the IDF, the American peace activist Rachel Corrie wrote, “The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance.” I saw the truth of that statement in this man, for whom merely to live, to go about his business, is an incredible act of nonviolent witness and protest. To breathe in and out in the morning, to walk out of his own home and back in through the checkpoint that is there just for him, to insist that he will live there in dignity, is an act of resistance in the face of evil and oppression that most in America cannot even fathom. He was a picture of dignity, wearing a wool jacket, a full-length matching wool cloak, and a clean white kaffiyeh. He lives, and his life, his simple act of going through the day, every day, signals light in the midst of the darkness of the Occupation. He is not alone in his resistance; indeed, he is joined by the vast majority of Palestinians in Hebron, who go about their lives despite the soldiers and settlers, one day buying groceries under the shadow of guns, the next day gathering for a nonviolent demonstration in front of one of the numerous guard towers. As Rachel said, “These people are being shot at every day and they continue to go about their business as best they can in the sights of machine guns and rocket launchers. Isn’t that basically the epitome of nonviolent resistance?”
Thus, in political terms, this man is a hero. In Christian religious terms, he is a saint. I believe that in a very real way he embodies all that is (or should be) holy about this “Holy Land.” All too often the sacred sites of Israel and Palestine are used as ammunition in a battle of exclusion, as fuel in the fires of separation and division. As a Christian, I worship a God who “desires mercy rather than sacrifice” and follow a Messiah who preached reconciliation with enemies and liberation for the oppressed. In my understanding of the Christian message, then, the sanctity of the Holy Land should be a hope for peace with justice rather than a threat of exclusion and division. All too often the opposite is the case, but this humble Muslim man shows that there is yet hope for something better in these lands. I do not understand his courage; I do not understand his love. But I know that his life is filled with and exhibits the holiness and justice of God (“the most merciful, the most compassionate”), and serves as a call for people of all faiths to practice that holiness and justice in their own traditions. This is the Palestine that America must see, and this is the Islam that Christianity must recognize.
“We are all human.”
I’ve spent a lot of time fuming over the past few days about Israel’s killing of civilian activists on the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla. As evidence continues to emerge that belies the IDF’s laughable claims of “self-defense” against these dangerous peace activists, my hope grows that this event will mark a sea change in the tide of world opinion and world action regarding the occupation of Palestine. 
In this post I don’t hope to convince anyone that the IDF’s story is riddled with falsehoods — other analysts have already done a much better job of that, and if the huge weaknesses of Israel’s account and the continuing flood of evidence that contradicts it haven’t already convinced my readers of what happened, then I certainly can’t hope to do better. Rather, I want to talk about the idea that the attempt to break through the blockade constituted a “provocation” and that this somehow mitigates the actions of the IDF in dealing with the flotilla.
The course of events that has emerged from the evidence demonstrates that the flotilla was essentially an act of nonviolent strategy, and that any violence on the part of the activists aboard the ship was self-defense against an illegal boarding party of heavily armed and highly trained commandos. The very concept of publicly challenging an unjust occupation through unarmed and high-profile blockade-running fits right into the sorts of tactics that have been at the heart of nonviolent opposition to oppression since the days of Gandhi and King. Nonviolence has in most cases depended on publicity and on the willingness to face in turn the violence of the oppressor and bring it upon oneself as an act of witness against the oppression inherent in the power structure.
No one disputes that the humanitarian mission was trying to make a political statement. Of course the flotilla was trying to draw attention to the occupation itself through delivering humanitarian aid — that’s the point. The idea that the flotilla should be dismissed as “provocation” because the it was making a broader statement about Israeli policy by trying to deliver much-needed goods in the way that it did is laughable, for it ignores the very way in which nonviolent opposition to oppression functions. Every act of nonviolence can be interpreted as provocation. Rosa Parks refusing to move from her seat on a bus is an “act of provocation”. Mohandas Gandhi carrying out the Salt March is an “act of provocation”. Jesus of Nazareth angrily overturning exploitative money-tables in the Temple is an “act of provocation”. These “provocations” are effective responses to oppression precisely because they force the ruling powers to demonstrate their own slavery to violence: they demonstrate that when faced with nonviolent challenges, oppressive forces only know how to respond with water cannons, bullets, and crucifixions.
The Freedom Flotilla joins an already long list of prominent acts of nonviolent witness against oppression, injustice, and exploitation throughout history. By daring to challenge the blockade and occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the flotilla has revealed Israel’s crippling dependence on violence and demonstrated the unsustainability of the continued oppression of the Palestinian people. May this act of public witness inspire the world to bring a long-overdue end to the apartheid being perpetuated by America’s ally, and may those killed by the IDF be remembered as self-sacrificial heroes in the tradition of Gandhi, MLK, Rachel Corrie, and so many others who dared to challenge injustice in the world.
- A blog I’ve been enjoying lately: Contagious Love Experiment, by Josh Stieber (joined also by Conor Curran), tells the ongoing story of an solider-turned-pacifist who is travelling across the country speaking about his experiences and his realization of the nonviolence of Christ. Stieber is speaking mostly in churches, but has also appeared in other venues, including a mosque. Check it out.
- Over at Resident Theology, Brad East continues his excellent series on Christian pacifism by returning to the question of martyrdom and by discussing the idea of “becoming God’s peaceable people“.
- Jonathon Zasloff over at Legal Planet offers an interesting perspective on the ways that religious traditions can contribute to environmentalism. His key idea: “religion is not economics”, and therefore can offer other systems of judgment through which environmental problems and solutions can be considered.
- Leslie Savan writes for Alternet about Lou Dobbs’ ongoing tour of foreign health-care systems. Dobbs has been remarkably inconsistent on the issue, but at the moment seems to be presenting single-payer and other government-backed systems less negatively (gasp!).
Today, I read My Name is Rachel Corrie. This short play, edited by Katharine Viner and Alan Rickman, is drawn from the diaries and emails of Rachel Corrie, an American killed in Palestine while nonviolently defending a civilian house from destruction by the Israeli military in 2003. The play was performed on London’s West End and has seen some limited productions in America, though it has engendered controversy because of its frank attitude towards the reality of the ongoing violence being perpetrated against civilians in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
The work is deeply moving: a sad yet inspiring look at the life and death of a passionate child who became an equally passionate adult. The text of the play comes directly from Rachel’s own journals and letters (with the exception of a few letters sent to her, and minimal stage directions). Her writing comprises sometimes prose, sometimes lists, sometimes poetry — but whatever the form, it remains throughout poignant and compelling, drawing the reader into Rachel’s world and into the development of her ideas and emotions. At the end, I felt not as though I had met a character on a stage, but had actually grown to know, in whatever small way, the person behind the words.
As Rachel lives among the Palestinian people, she is both surprised by, and admiring of, the way they deal with the horrific realities of their existence. In a letter to her mother, she writes:
I am amazed at their strength in defending such a large degree of their humanity against the incredible horror occurring in their lives and against the constant presence of death. I think the word is dignity.
A little later, she reflects on the possibility that more people will recognize and protest the true brokenness of the world, a fracturing of which the oppression of Palestine is symptomatic, but that extends far beyond the Middle East:
I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in: a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that the future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall.
Rachel Corrie’s tragic death served to stir up public opinion about the situation in Palestine. (Sadly, this discussion was quickly overshadowed in the media by the American invasion of Iraq.) In the ongoing debates about the true nature of the occupation and of the Palestinian resistance, Rachel’s writings offer a valuable insight that is underappreciated in the mainstream discussion. The final pages of the play contain her reflections on the response of Palestinians to Israel’s military activities, and here she presents the argument that, despite the fringe cases of terrorist activity by some groups, the vast majority of the population is continually countering the occupation through nonviolent methods in the truest sense. In a letter to her parents, she writes:
You asked about non-violent resistance, and I mentioned the first intifada. The vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance. … These people are being shot at every day and they continue to go about their business as best they can in the sights of machine guns and rocket launchers. Isn’t that basically the epitome of non-violent resistance?
My Name is Rachel Corrie thus offers the reader (of, if you are lucky enough, the audience-member) three things: a poignant look at the life of an inspiring figure; an uplifting reflection on the capacity of the human spirit to deal with injustice — the hope for a better future despite present pain; and an intriguing, if cursory, discussion of the role of nonviolence in the conflict. I give the work my highest recommendation to anyone interested in these issues — but be prepared to be deeply moved and greatly inspired.
Last December I wrote about my response, as a Christian committed to nonviolence, to the legal requirement of draft registration in the US. I essentially treated the situation as having two faithful responses: non-registration, or writing in my conscientious objection on the registration card. These seemed to me at the time to be the only possible options that maintained the integrity of my ethical commitment.
I was wrong. Tobin D. Jacobrown, a Quaker living in Washington, D.C., has found another option: sue the government. As the Washington Post reports:
A Washington state Quaker filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that the U.S. government is discriminating against him because it will not recognize his status as a conscientious objector on military draft forms.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of Tobin D. Jacobrown, 21, in the District’s federal court. The suit asks U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina to order the government to recognize conscientious objectors when men register for the draft. …
“A big part of my religion is not submitting to any system that you feel is unjust,” Jacobrown said. “And I think this is unjust.”
Props to Jacobrown for his brave stance and braver actions. Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of this situation is that Jacobrown isn’t just framing his suit in terms of an abstract opposition to violence or a general pacifism; rather, he is explicitly claiming that the draft system creates injustice, and that it is this injustice that his religious beliefs compel him to oppose. Injustice, of course, is the ultimate issue: we must first reject violence because it creates injustice, and we must then embrace nonviolence as a way of living in the world because it fosters justice.
I hope and pray that Jacobrown’s case will be successful and that the Selective Service will indeed be required to accomodate conscientious objectors. But even if Jacobrown loses the case, he will have won the real battle: more public attention will be drawn to the injustice at hand, and more young men who are struggling with their legal obligations will become aware of their alternatives. Public attention gives rise to moral inquiry and theological reflection, and thus cannot but help us in the struggle for justice in America and in the world.
For further information on Jacobrown’s case, check out his webiste “Register for Peace”, or read the post about him on his cousin’s blog,
