Interfaith Peace Visit.... * Hebron and the Tent of Nations* By Carolyn and Martin Karcher Today we saw two more examples of Palestinians amazing strength, resilience, and resourcefulness. First Issa Amro of Youth Against Settlements took us on a tour of Hebron. Issa was a pupil in the school near Hebrons Ibrahimi Mosque when the Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire on worshippers, killing 29 people. Several of his friends were among the slain. Instead of taking measures to control the settlers, the Israelis closed the mosque for three months and shut down Hebrons market, destroying the merchants businesses. That experience turned Issa into an activist. Issa showed us the rows of closed shops, the childrens playing field turned into a parking lot for settlers, the street divided by a fence, so that Palestinians and settlers would be forced to use separate lanes, the check points, and more. Near one of the checkpoints we met some Israeli women belonging to the group Machsom Watch, whom Issa greeted warmly and thanked profusely for their dedication to intervening to protect Palestinians at checkpoints. The most shocking sight we saw in Hebron was the metal grill and netting covering the market, on which the settlers threw bricks, bottles, garbage, and excrement. We heard that they were now trying to defeat the purpose of the netting by throwing down acid. Issa told us he had been injured again and again by settlers, but he was especially concerned about the traumatization of children who are arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned by soldiers. Everyone in Hebron seemed to know and admire Issa. From Hebron we went to the Tent of Nations, an environmental farm run by a Christian family who have lived on the land since 1916. Denied the right to build on their own land, they have built caves. Denied the right to water, they have built cisterns to store rain water. Denied electricity, they have recently installed solar panels. Although they have four documents proving their ownership of the land - documents dating from the Ottomans, British, Jordanians, etc.- the Israelis have declared the property to be state land, and the family has had to spend huge amounts of money fighting the case for more than ten years with the courts putting up new obstacles at every turn. We were received by Amal Nassar,whose name means hope and who truly conveyed hope. She has been reaching out to the settlers in the five settlements that surround the farm. She invited a settler woman to visit her. With much trepidation, the woman came and later brought her husband. The couple now consider Amal a friend. Before we can have peace, we must work on people to accept each other and refuse to be enemies, says Amal. We must educate the settlers. The purpose of the tent of Nations, she explains, is to break the cycle of violence by building bridges and promoting reconciliation and dialogue. In different ways, both Amal and Issa embody the Palestinian struggle for freedom, dignity, and coexistence in equality.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 22:53:02 +0000
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