Living Under the Cross - Shawan Jabarin

In the Occupied Territories, it is not only Christians who find themselves living under the cross. Shawan Jabarin, executive director of the Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq, has not been allowed to leave the West Bank since 2006, when he was appointed to this position. Between 1999 and 2006, he was permitted to leave eight times, but his petitions for permits have been denied since 2006, on the grounds that he is active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He was given no opportunity to confront these allegations, however, and he was never questioned about his activities.

Last month, along with the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, he was awarded the “Geuzen Resistance 1940-1945” prize. The prize will be awarded in ceremonies on March 13, but has been unable to gain permission to leave the West Bank to receive the prize.

Jabarin is not alone, however. He has many people helping him carry his cross—Israelis and Palestinians, including Rabbis for Human Rights, which has members in the US. They and nine other human rights organizations have written to the Defense Minister and to the Commnander of Military Forces in the West Bank, protesting the denial of freedom to Jabarin.

This happens every day in the Occupied Territories—both the denial of movement for Palestinians and the support from others on both sides of the separation wall. B’Tselem is an Israeli organization which monitors human rights abuses in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Read more about Jabarin’s story on B’Tselem’s web site, as well as news about planned settlement expansion and the story of Adham Ghaneimat, 14, in his own words, the story of his beating by settlers last month as he walked with two friends on his family’s land near his village of Surif near Hebron in the West Bank, a few miles south of Bethlehem.

Find out what happens with Al-Haq's appeal for Jabarin's travel permit: http://www.alhaq.org/ The outcome of the hearing March 5 is posted here (the hearing was continued): http://www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=434

Shawan Jabarin and Al-Haq are engaged in important work to combat human rights violations in the Occupied Territories. Because of his work he himself is in danger of imprisonment as well as living under the travel ban. Many human rights organizations have been working to support him and his work:

• World Organization Against Torture
• Human Rights Watch
• Protecion Oline
• Defense for Children International
• Amnesty International

Asil's Story

The story of Asil comes from Sam Bahour, a telecommunications executive in Ramallah. Asil's story shows the Palestinian dilemma. Note especially the comment at the end: the Palestinian Authority operates under diminished capacity because Israel is still withholding taxes collected from Palestinians but not released back to the Palestinian Authority, their punishment for the Hamas electoral victory.

The Death of Asil
written by Dr. Dudy Tzfati

With a heavy heart I write about Asil, a six year old girl from the Palestinian village of Wadi Fuqeen, near Bethlehem. Asil was sick with tuberculosis, which got complicated and reached the brain. She was referred to the Israeli Hadassah Hospital and her parents managed to get the needed financial coverage for day treatments from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Two weeks ago she arrived to the hospital and underwent several tests. A CT scan was needed, but since it was not included in the coverage, Asil was released home without it.

Asil’s parents tried to get additional financial coverage for the CT scan and for full hospitalization, which was needed, but their efforts were in vain. The Palestinian Ministry of Health refused. Helplessly, they tried to get an urgent appointment for a CT scan in a Palestinian hospital, but the waiting line was too long.

A few days later, on a Friday, Asil’s condition deteriorated. She needed urgent hospitalization and treatment of her escalating brain infection. But since she did not have the coverage for hospitalization at Hadassah, she was taken to a hospital in Bethlehem, where they didn’t have the necessary medicine and expertise to treat her. Her parents continued to beg for approval of the financial coverage to send her back to Hadassah, with no success. By Sunday morning her situation worsened.

She still had the coverage for day treatments in Hadassah so the doctors wanted to send her there in an ambulance. However, when they called Hadassah, the Hospital management told them not to come, knowing that emergency room and full hospitalization would be required. Asil’s parents and the Israeli doctor caring for her in Hadassah begged the manager, with no success. Without upfront financial coverage, Asil was left in Bethlehem and started to take the medication advised by the Hadassah doctor. But this was too late and too little. On Sunday night Asil passed away.

How can we accept such an unbearable situation and denial of life-saving treatment, which was available by a 15 minute drive from Asil’s home? And Asil is not the only one. In Hadassah Pediatric Hemato-oncology department alone, the financial coverage for 57 kids was cut in the midst of their treatment – a death sentence for many of them. A physician friend is spending his time and own money to buy expensive medicine for the children he saved by performing bone marrow transplants, because their parents cannot cover the post- transplant expenses. Otherwise they would be lost.

Who knows how many more patients are dying because they have no access to life-saving treatments available in Israeli, but not in Palestinian, hospitals. Apparently, the Palestinian Authority recently decided to cut the financial coverage for transferring Palestinians for medical care in Israel, while the Palestinian Authority’s tax money continues to be illegally held by Israel.

The Israeli hospitals refuse to treat patients without financial coverage, and the Israeli government denies its responsibility for the Palestinians living under its control. Meanwhile, innocent children pay with their lives.

What can be done? Is there not enough suffering around? Can we demand from the Palestinian Authority to leave the children and sick out of the struggle? Can we demand from the Israeli government to assume responsibility for the Palestinians under its control? Or maybe we can all raise donations for this purpose?

Dr. Dudy Tzfati teaches Genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
February 22, 2009

A Hope Built on Nothing Less than Jesus' Blood...

Lent 2, Sunday, March 8, 2009
Mark 8.31-38

In this season of Lent, we Christians do something quite extraordinary. Although we spend the rest of the year trying to avoid pain and suffering—inventing fixes for disease and pain, alleviating suffering with charitable deeds, and even entertaining ourselves to distract us from the suffering of the world—in Lent we choose to spend 40 days entering into the suffering and death of our God. It is not natural; some would even call us masochistic.

As Mark tells it, Jesus has just laid out the plan: great suffering…rejected…killed. Awful stuff! No wonder Peter is horrified. This is not what the world expects from a messiah, a savior, a king. The world expects triumph and glory, not nails pounded through bone, thorns pressed into flesh, the agonizingly painful wait for death while hanging on a cross. Our God, who promised Abraham a bright future, our God who gives life to the dead, will suffer excruciating pain and die a shameful death. It IS a gruesome scenario.

This week’s gospel points unflinchingly to the distinction between what Martin Luther calls theology of the cross and the theology of glory. While we would like to see God in the triumphant and beautiful things of the world, Luther reminds us that God’s own self-revelation is accomplished through suffering and the cross (Heidelberg Disputation, thesis 20).

Just in case this is not ghastly enough, Jesus says we, too, must take up this cross and prepare for death. No wonder Peter protests!

It’s easy for those of us who live in relative safety and security in North America to become very attached to a God of glory and triumph and winning. But this is a God of our own making, not the God who revealed God’s own nature in Jesus Christ.

This is why I like to go to Bethlehem. There, in the midst of the suffering of God’s own peoples, in the very places where God entered into our human condition, I encounter the God who knows suffering. Visiting Bethlehem and other areas of Palestine and Israel I cannot escape into the world of the God of glory and success and better-and-better. Bethlehem grounds me.

That is not to say that Bethlehem is a gloomy, depressing place. On the contrary, it is a place full of hope—hope based not on our efforts to become better people and change the world, because that has not been their experience. Living under the control of an occupying army, the Christians in Bethlehem rely on a hope given by God in a most impossible promise to Abraham.

Standing in line at the checkpoint in Bethlehem at 5:00 am in the press of 2000 bodies, as they wait for the guards to recognize them and motion them forward to one of the two stations open this morning, the people of Bethlehem cannot rely on the world’s promises, for the world’s promises have failed them for sixty years as they have waited for a just resolution to the conflict. Theirs is not the hope of Camp David or Oslo, but a hope built on God’s promised future even where no future seems possible.


Photo: Dar al-Kalima (school) in Bethlehem

So the Lutherans of the Christmas Church in Bethlehem build for this unlikely but promised future. A school, a wellness center, a cultural center with an auditorium for concerts and locally-produced films. An academy that teaches filmmaking and news reporting. A craft center for women to learn pottery and stained glass-making so they can provide food and shelter for their families. A senior center where the elders visit with one another and eat a nutritious meal. In a time of uncertainty and despair, these Christians live as if God’s promises are true, as if there is a future for them.

O God of the nails and thorns, you know our suffering and pain. May those of us who live in security bear some of the load of suffering that burdens our sisters and brothers living in uncertainty and fear in so many parts of the world, especially those in your Holy Land. Amen.

Calling into Existence Things that do not Exist

Lent 2, Sunday, March 8, 2009
Romans 4.13-25

“for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’”

What God did for Abraham, Paul does for us. Turns our whole world upside down. What Abraham thought he knew about the world—his life and work, his family (or lack of it), his gods—God changed everything when God claimed Abraham and gave him a new name and a new identity.

And Paul turns our world on its head. Forging our way in the world with our talents and charm, we think we are the children of our parents, using our heritage as a stepping stone to greater things. I usually think of myself as the daughter of Maury and Marian, making my way through life, bearing what they have taught me and adding my own experience to the heritage they have given me. But Paul tells me I am more; I am Abraham’s child, not who I thought I was at all. This is God’s good news for us all.

In the Holy Land all of this gets played out dramatically by Abraham’s children—a drama of heritage and land—enacted every day in the schools and factories, on the bus, in the market, in the offices for permits, at the checkpoints. If we are ALL Abraham’s children, as Paul tells us, then our God is one.

Who is this God? Paul tells us God is “the one who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

Abraham refused to believe that God would not give him an heir, even when his advanced years made the possibility laughable. As heirs to Abraham, Paul tells us, we also are people who refuse to settle for what seems possible.

Right now, peace seems impossible in the Middle East. But we are God’s people, people who, like Abraham, refuse to believe what seems so obvious. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presence in the region this week is testimony to this faithfulness—that even though peace seems dead, the promise of peace is alive. We have heard that promise proclaimed in our holy book. Our God is one who gives life to the dead…life to dead peace processes, life to weary bodies waiting at checkpoints, life to besieged nations struggling for peace under threats of death.

Our God is the one who gives life to the dead…in Lent we journey toward that day of resurrection. God’s promise is sure.

O God of our hopes and dreams for peace, keep us steadfast in your promises; mold us to be life-givers. Make us your peacemakers, calling into existence those things that do not exist, things we cannot even imagine. Strengthen our leaders for your work of peace in the world. Amen.

Jerusalem: Sign of the Covenant

Lent 2, Sunday, March 8, 2009

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16

“Your name shall be Abraham…..you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”

Walking the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, the pilgrim walks the covenant God made with Abraham—God's promise that he will be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. The Temple Mount is holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, all descended from Abraham. Muslims hold that it was from this spot that Mohammad ascended to heaven. Jews venerate it as the place of the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple. Christian pilgrims have come here for almost 2000 years.

As I walked through Jerusalem's suq, the old open-air market, a pilgrim myself, I took in its diverse aromas—the cumin, nutmeg, and cardamom of the spice merchants, the zaatar blended for dipping the bread with olive oil. I tasted its sweetness in the honey, walnuts and figs in the pastries in the next shop. My eyes were dazzled by the brightly painted ceramics, the stone jewelry, the diamonds and gold. The red and black Bedouin embroidery, and the red, orange, blue and purple of the Druze weavings.

Photo: Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and Lutheran Church of the Redeemer at left

Jerusalem is the crown of the covenant God made with Abraham, not because it is the property of the Jews or the Muslims or the Christians, but because it is the place where the “multitude of nations”—the descendants God promised Abraham—live and work together in the old market. Walking across the Old City, I had tea with the jeweler in the Armenian Quarter, bargained for the best price on a stone bracelet in the Arab Quarter, and stood, mouth gaping, at the gold and diamonds in the windows of the jewelers in the Jewish Quarter, all in one afternoon, in the space of less than a mile. In Jerusalem, the covenant—the multitude of nations—is a visible reality; it can be tasted and smelled.

God has been faithful. God has kept the covenant. It is we who have broken it with our scheming for territory; with our weapons delivering death to our enemies, fired by computer from the safety of a control center miles away; with our armies breaking down the doors of homes and dragging sons off to prison.

We have enjoyed God’s promised abundance, but we have forgotten our part of the bargain—we have forgotten that our names, too, have been changed, that in our baptism we are now new people. But even though we have forgotten, God has not. God’s message to Abraham is God’s message to us today. In spite of everything we do to break the covenant…in spite of military occupation, imprisonment, suicide bombings and security barriers, God is faithful to the promise made to Abraham. God keeps the holy city for the multitude of nations.

And the people of Jerusalem today live in the midst of the multitude. Peace groups like B’Tselem Israeli Center for Human Rights, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the Mothers in Black, Sabeel Christian Palestinian liberation theology movement, and the women of Machsom Watch stand as icons of the multitude of Abraham’s descendants. People from all over the world come to Jerusalem to work for peace—from Israel, Palestine, Europe, the United States, and some have returned from the places they have fled to for safety. God’s promises are everlasting.
O God, we confess that we have forgotten your covenant with us. We repent our unfaithfulness. In this Lenten season, you call us back to your covenant. Strengthen us for the journey. Amen.