The Peacemakers of Palestine and Israel

Most media reports coming from Israel and Palestine focus on the conflict there. The impression you get is that Jews and Palestinians are interested only in making each other suffer. As a Quaker who tries to follow Christ’s call to be a peacemaker, I wanted to see for myself what was happening there in terms of peace-making efforts by ordinary people that often go unnoticed and unreported.

So I joined a delegation to Palestine and Israel sponsored by Every Church a Peace Church, a national organization dedicated to making working for peace a central focus of every American church. Our purpose was to explore and encourage non-violent peace efforts by both Palestinians and Jews. For twelve days, our 16 member delegation (that included Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mennonites, representatives of Black Voices for Peace, a Catholic priest and this Quaker) traveled throughout Israel and the West Bank meeting with people outside of government who are working for peace between the two sides.

One of our early meetings was in Jerusalem with Rabbis for Human Rights where we learned how these Jewish religious leaders were working with Palestinian farmers to harvest their olives on land that the farmers could no longer reach because of the Separation Wall being built by the Israeli government. This 28-foot high concrete wall is rapidly encircling the West Bank and is, in many places, being built upon Palestinian land that separates farmers from their olive groves. The Jewish rabbis harvesting olives for Palestinian farmers is a powerful example of peace-making in action.

Our next trip was to Tel Aviv to meet with Adam Keller, a leader of Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc. He explained that his organization represents a sizeable segment of the Jewish population that is opposed to the continuing 44-year-old Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Gush Shalom regularly joins with Palestinians to protest the building of the Separation Wall. His group believes that the Wall means a prison for Palestinians and a self-imposed ghetto for Jews in Israel. Gush Shalom is also actively working for the withdrawal of Jewish settlements from Palestine. Adam shared his conviction that peace for Israel is inextricably tied to justice for the Palestinian people.

The next day we traveled south toward Hebron where we met with Atta Jabar, a Palestinian olive farmer, who is a local leader of the non-violent resistance to the seizure of land by illegal Jewish settlers. Eighty percent of Atta’s land has been taken for a new settlement. Atta explained that international law prohibits an occupying power from moving its people into occupied territory but that Israel’s government has ignored this law and has moved over 250,000 Jewish settlers onto Palestinian land. Atta’s efforts to organize peaceful protests against these land seizures have been met with retaliation by the Israeli military who have demolished Atta’s home three times in the past ten years. Atta said that Jews have come from Israel to help him in his struggle for justice.

The following day, when we met with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, we learned that over 25,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished since 1967 to make room for the Wall and new Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. The Jewish leaders of this group explained that Palestinians must get permits from the Israeli military to build homes and since permits have rarely been granted during the years of occupation, most Palestinian homes are considered illegal by the military and are subject to demolition at any time. They told us that their group organizes both Jews and Palestinians to stand in front of bulldozers to stop house demolitions. We were reminded of the case of Rachel Corrie, the young American peace worker who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to stop a house demolition in Gaza.

Near the end of our trip, we traveled to Bethlehem to meet with members of the Holy Land Trust, a Palestinian peace organization that is providing training in non-violent conflict resolution to Palestinian schools and community organizations. We observed the “Peacebuilders” class being taught in a Palestinian kindergarten class. Sami Awad, the director of the Holy Land Trust, told us that the Peacebuilders curriculum is designed to teach non-violent conflict resolution skills to K-12 students and that their plan is to get this curriculum into every Palestinian school. We could use this curriculum in our own schools here! Sami went on to explain that his organization works closely with a number of Jewish peace organizations. He told us that peace is based upon trust and that trust comes from working with people that you might ordinarily be afraid to trust.

Our last stop before returning to the U.S. was back in Jerusalem where we visited the Western Wall, the remains of Solomon’s Temple and a revered Jewish holy site. The tradition is to write a prayer on a slip of paper and place it in a crevice in the wall. My prayer was to give strength and courage to the Jews and Palestinians who are working together for peace in this troubled land. If governments could work together the way these dedicated peacemakers are working together, the dream of peace would soon become a reality.