Lent 4 - Numbers: Protesting in the Wilderness

Lent 4 – Numbers
Numbers 21.4-9

I’ve traveled in the desert where these refugees camped, where they whined about the food, where they conquered towns and amassed wealth in livestock while they waited to enter the Promised Land. Today it’s part of Jordan. The land is dry, barren, blowing dirt and rocks and sand, white plastic bags wind-plastered to the fences by the side of the road, a desolate landscape. I certainly couldn’t see what the camels and goats were munching on. If you don’t have water out there, it’s not an inconvenience; it is death. A slave girl from Egypt’s sophisticated cities, I would have been protesting too.

This odd little story about the snake Moses made is commemorated in a big way in Jordan, at the top of Mt. Nebo, where Moses is believed to have been buried (Deuteronomy 34). At the top of the winding road, there is a church, with ruins of an older Byzantine era church. The statue at the top, where we looked out over the Jordan Valley, is an abstract sculpture of the serpent.

Standing there, at 4000 feet above the Dead Sea, I looked out over the Jordan valley, Jericho, and all of Israel/Palestine, as far north as Mt Hermon. From Mt. Nebo, I could not see any walls—no barbed wire, no army tanks, no checkpoint soldiers with trigger fingers on their AK-47s. I could not see the border between Israel and the West Bank, where the barbed wire cuts the Palestinian villages off from Jericho—all I could see was dry land, desert, and some farms in the valley, the tranquil scene blurred by the haze rising from the Dead Sea.

I couldn’t see the prisons where Palestinians are being held without charge.

Last week, on International Women’s Day, women and men in Palestine marched in protest of the detention of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, demanding their release. Seven Palestinian women are currently in Israeli prisons. Addameer reports:

• Lina Jarbuni, 36, arrested 18 April 2002, sentenced to 17 years, currently held in Hasharon Prison, from Arrabet al-Batoof, in the Galilee region.
• Wurud Qassem, 20 years old when she was arrested on 4 October 2006; sentenced to 6 years in prison, currently held in Damon Prison. Wurud is from Al-Tira, in the Triangle region, now 25 years old.
• Salwa Hassan was arrested on 19 October 2011, currently in Hasharon prison awaiting trial. She is 53 years old and lives in Hebron. Salwa is married with six children.
• Alaa Jubeh, 17 years old when she was arrested from her home in Hebron on 7 December 2011. She is currently detained in Hasharon prison and has not yet been sentenced. Under Israeli military orders, a Palestinian child’s sentence is decided on the basis of the child’s age at the time of sentencing, and not at the time when the alleged offense was committed. Because Alaa turned 18 on 29 January 2012, she will now be sentenced as an adult.
• Hana Shalabi, 30, was re-arrested in Burqin village, near Jenin, on 16 February 2012, less than four months after being released as part of the prisoner exchange deal on 18 October 2011. Hana had previously spent over two years in administrative detention. She received a six-month administrative detention order on 23 February 2012, which was reduced to four months on 4 March. Hana began an open hunger strike immediately after her arrest, almost a month ago. Currently detained in Hasharon Prison. [Photo: Badia al-Shalabi, mother of hunger striking prisoner Hana al-Shalabi. (Ayman Nobani / APA images)]
• Yusra Qaadan, 30, was arrested on 4 March 2012, while visiting a family member in prison. She is currently detained for interrogation in Beersheva. Yusra is from Qalqilya, married with four children.
• Manal Suwan was arrested on 6 March 2012 and is currently under interrogation in Hasharon Prison. Manal, married and a mother of two, is 31 years old. She is from a village near Qalqilya.

God of wanderers, refugees and prisoners, help us remember those who are locked away, invisible. Embolden us to use our voices to stand up for the powerless—here at home and around the world. Amen.

*****Send an email asking Israel to end its policy of administrative detention and/or calling for the release of women prisoners, to Brigadier General Danny Efroni, Military Advocate General, 6 David Elazar Street Harkiya, Tel Aviv Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526 Email: arbel@mail.idf.il; avimn@idf.gov. This is the simple message I sent: Dear Brig. General Efroni, Please work to end Israel’s policy of holding Palestinians in administrative detention. These political prisoners deserve to see the charges and evidence against them. Please charge them or release them now. I do not want my tax dollars to support these inhumane practices.