Presentation 1



I.) Why I went to Israel/ Palestine

 

 

      I remembering when I became a Christian I had pledged that I would live a life of passion,that is what I read about through the gospels ( A god who took on flesh to become like us- to further undertand us- and to obviously die for us). Following the Messiah has been an ongoing journey for me with many ups, downs and spirals filled with much learning and re-learning.

 

      Israel is a big component of Scripture and therefore had a way of entering many conversations, as the debates ensue- is God still dealing with the ancient Israelites of the Old Covenant, who does the land of Canaan belong to, why are these terrorists attacking us and speaking about Israel, etc?

 

      I remember learning about the tragedy of Rachel Corrie which burdened me about the conflict and how serious some people are taking it. Being critical of international missions, I have always been more willing to look at our own backyard rather than across the seas (which has many positive aspects as well). Last year, I picked up the book by a man I have come to highly respect and admire- Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution, in which Shane details his experience as a Christian Peacemaker in Iraq. His writings and thought provoking comments encouraged me to look into CPT (especially as another way for me tp pursue risk, adventure, and to challenge my Spiritual walk- Matthew 10 all the way!).

 

      This is how I learned of CPT. Then I began to search myself for what I sought out of this experience and  chose a quote from Shane’s book:

 

     “And I think that’s what our world is desperately in need of- lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and WHO ACTUALLY KNOW THE FACES OF THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE ISSUES THEY ARE CONCERNED ABOUT”.       That;s what I set out to do with this peacemaking effort, to simply know the faces.

 

I am currently re-reading Mark Batterson’s book Primal in which he details this a bit as well. In speaking about how we need to have the same compassion for the world that God does, Batterson speaks about the nameless numbers (clearly what we have in our Bibles, on our t.v.’s, and in our newspapers), “It’s so easy for us to ignore suffering when it doesn’t have a name our a face, isn’t it?”. Also, a chapter after that statement, Mark Batterson details a study done at Carnegie Mellon University that was devised to discover how and why people respond to the needs of others. Basically through a rigorous study it was realized that rather than giving a bunch of facts and statistics about the starvation of children in Africa, is was much more affective in the message to get people to react by speaking about a single girl named Rokia.

 

      That is why I went on this trip. To bring you these stories rather than account my studies to you..

 

      With that said...I would like to make use of something I learned from a former Israeli soldier named Yehuda who started the movement- Breaking the Silence. If the media would do their job right, there would be no need for these discussions, but instead we must have them..therefore my goal is to simply tell you what I saw and experienced and hopefully through your own intellectual studies and moral reasonings, you will figure out where you stand with these issues.

 

 

II.) Israeli- Palestinian Conflict

 

 

      The whole conflict gets so confusing because there are many underlying reasons which stem from religious stances to political stances, and somewhere in the middle people who are just simply trying to live.

 

 

      A land that has had conquest after conquest is still facing the same issue- today it is called occupation.

ADDRESS THE HISTORY OF THE LAND

 

            (http://www.mideastweb.org/palmaps.htm)

 

 

              http://www.baptiststandard.com/2002/4_15/pages/mideast_conflict.htm

 

      The story begins way before 1948, but today that is where people are labeling the conflict

 and where we will start our discussion (in order to get a better idea and have vast knowledge search the internet for more information, simply type in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict).

 

November 29, 1947- The UN Participation Plan (Show maps from the time and how they have changed- expanding Zionism control). (URGE PEOPLE TO STUDY THE PARTION PLAN RULES AND REGULATIONS).

 

 

May 14, 1948- Official date that Israel declared independence as a state ((Arabic: يوم النكبة Yawm an-Nakbah), meaning "day of the catastrophe) Also, the start of the Arab-Israeli War

 

 

June 5 and June 10, 1967- Six day war (by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt [known then as the United Arab Republic (UAR)], Jordan, and Syria. The outcome was a swift and decisive Israeli victory. At the war's end, Israel took effective control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.)

 

December 1987- The 1st Intifada- a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian Territories. The rebellion began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinian actions ranged from civil disobedience to violence. (this led to the Oslo Accords, The Oslo II agreement was signed in 1995 and detailed the division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C.)

 

September 2000- 2nd Intifada _Al Aqsa Intifada- Palestinians view the Second Intifada as part of their ongoing struggle for national liberation, justice, and an end to Israeli occupation,[26] whereas many Israelis consider it to be a "wave of Palestinian terrorism" instigated and pre-planned by then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.[27][28]

 

Palestinian tactics ranged from mass protests and general strikes, similar to the First Intifada, to armed attacks on Israeli soldiers, security forces, police, settlers, and civilians, suicide bombing attacks, and launching Qassam rockets into Israel.

 

Israeli tactics included curbing Palestinians' movements through the setting up of checkpoints and the enforcement of strict curfews in certain areas. Infrastructural attacks against Palestinian Authority targets such as police and prisons was another Israeli method to force the Palestinian Authority to follow Israel's demand that it repress the anti-Israeli protests, and later, the attacks on Israeli targets, though in so doing Israel bombed the police it demanded do its bidding and the prisons to house those the Israelis wanted imprisoned.[citation needed] Aggressive riot control was designed to "restore deterrence" believed to be lost when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon – more than 300 were killed in the first months of the uprising through this method alone, during a time when most Israeli civilian fatalities were Israeli Arabs.[citation needed]

It is also called the Oslo War (מלחמת אוסלו) by Israelis who consider it to be the result of concessions made by Israel following the Oslo Accords,[29][30][31] and Arafat's War, after the late Palestinian leader whom some blamed for starting it. Both Israelis and Palestinians have blamed each other for the failure of the Oslo peace process.

 

      That sums up where we are today, with nations not being able to defeat Israel’s domination and Israel’s expansion of the Jewish state- otherwise known as Occupation.

 

 

Current Trend:

      http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-09-22/lamis-andoni-palestinians-and-the-jewish-state/

 

 

 CONSIDER WHAT THIS WOULD LOOK LIKE IN AMERICA (Native American Chart)

 

III.) The Bedoiuns of the Negev

 

  (History in the land prior to 1948- Wikipedia)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Bedouin

 

Population-estimated 160,000

 

            In the years after the establishment of Israel, the Bedouin almost completely ceased to move around with their herds as a result of State land confiscation. Between 1950 and 1966, the new State of Israel imposed a military administration over Arabs in the region  and designated 85% of the Negev "State Land". All Bedouin habitation on this newly-declared State Land was retroactively termed illegal and "unrecognized". The government then forcibly concentrated these Bedouin tribes into the Siyag (Arabic for "fence") triangle of Beer Sheva, Arad and Dimona, and the Bedouin came to reside on just over 1% of the Negev.

 

      Al Araqeeb:

 

      Aziz: Told us about the bulldozed homes and kid’s video games, showed us his home and we met his children, they have destroyed this village 6 times..we met the Sheik who placed alot of blame on America for their part and asked us to be “their ambassadors”.

 

 

            What will this look like for Aziz’s children in a few years? How will they understand the conflict?

 

 

      Consider the graveyard, whose land is it? As the Shiek shared “Whose relatives of Lieberman, Sharon, or Barak are buried there?”.

 

 

   *. The current draft of a metropolitan plan for Beer Sheva designates the land where al-Araqib is located as a "recreational area" and as an area for "forest and forestation."

 

 

Negev Coexistance Forum for Civil Equality- Dikium.org

 

 

YOUTUBE videos of destruction in Al Araqeeb

 

 Ambassador Forest-

 

http://bedouinjewishjustice.blogspot.com/2010/11/troubling-questions-for-rabbi-lopatin.html

 

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2005/Inauguration%20of%20Ambassadors%20Forest%20in%20the%20Negev%2028-Dec-2005

 

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/12/06/isaiah-weeps-jewish-national-fund-god-tv-erase-israeli-bedouin-village-to-bring-second-coming/

 

http://www.alternet.org/world/149087/a_wildfire_is_burning_all_illusions_in_israel_?page=4

 

 

II.) Hebron (Al Khalil) - friend

 

      Genesis 23

 

   History- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron

 

  Waleed, our guide and Public Relations Officer, from the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, led us through the Old City and we arrived at the Ibrihimi Mosque/ Tomb of the Patriarchs/ Cave of Macpelah. The religious significance of this city has made it a bit of a war zone from violence by settlers, Palestinians, and military. We journeyed through checkpoints, stood at the location of the 1994 massacre in the  mosque, looked down into the Cave of Macpelah, and journeyed to the Jewish side aka Tomb of the Patriarchs synagogue as well as observed and walked down the deserted once busy Shuhada Street. Show maps of Area A, B, and C. (Why is it like this?)

 

READ: Military story from Hebron (1 male and 1 female)

 

      Shuhada Street: Stars of Davids (Life is Beautiful- Italian drama), Palestinians must walk on small side of road, checkpoints, Abed’s shop.   openshuhadastreet.org

 

http://www.challenge-mag.com/en/article__4/the_late_shuhada_street_hebron

 

http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1283

 

Ibrihimi Mosque, the massacre, and the Shamgar commision:

Tell the story of the Mosque Massacre- show news articles (think about this in your personal life).

   http://www.hebronrc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=75&lang=en

http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/one-friday-morning-in-occupied-palestine-the-ibrahimi-mosque-massacre-25-02-1994/

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/briefing-papers/1680-hebron-the-endangered-city

http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2010/02/26/fabricating-history

 

III.)  At Tuwani and Susya

    Tell about my stay (housing, food, settlements, checkpoints, and the road o Jimba)

      Abed said, “Why does America support this”? – Brief look at American Foreign Policy toward Israel

      Cildren’s protest- Military escorts to school- articls from CPT magazine and webpage

Living conditions in At Tuwani- even recognized by P.M. Blair, Susya even worse!   http://josephdana.com/tag/at-tuwani/

http://josephdana.com/tag/susya/

Also, remember the occupied field separating the settlement and the Palestinian village? 2% of land..needs to be reconsidered (picture)

      http://www.occupationalhazard.org/article.php?IDD=769

 

IV.) Tent of Nations

      “I have papers for this land, they say that God gave them this land” – a little of Dahel’s history

       Father began digging holes for caves in 1916, in 1991 Israel wanted the land and offered to buy it

c.f. – Cedar from Sabeel had a similar peaceful attitude as the tent on Nations (She spoke of her life in Haifa and how zionist’s took over)

she said, “In May of 1948, one night I went to bed in Palestine and woke up in Israel.”

     A brief look at dispensational theology:

              Notes, etc…why this is bothersome…

               Assemblies of God-churches response article

               http://israelreturns.com/

               -The forgotten faithful Christians booklet

 

These are the stories..No to mention The wall apartheid, Gaza, and other aspects of the occupation.

 

There is a sense of optimism in this aspect though, when one looks at

 

Holy Land Trust

ICAHD

Negev Coexistance Forum

Christian Peacemaker Teams

 

     Also, you an go and learn the situation and stories first hand through these organizations and many more.

 

Nonviolent resistance to the occupation is what I personally see as a solution and this is done in many ways from conversations like this to boycott and divestment. You must personally decide your moral reasoning and where you stand on this issue, remember ignorance is the ignore the facts.