“The mayors of Bethlehem and Wadi Foquin are traveling to Washington, D.C. to tell Congress how illegal Israeli settlement expansion impacts the daily life of Palestinians in their communities. You can help make sure their voices are heard! Contact your members of Congress and ask them to attend the Tuesday, November 14 Hill Briefing “Israeli Settlements, Bethlehem & the Village of Wadi Foquin.”
The above paragraph came to me from Churches for Middle East Peace on Nov. 8. I signed the letter they suggested and directed it to the appropriate members of Congress, representing my area, partly because I don’t want to go to bed with a bad conscience.
Since I am outspoken on just a few subjects, mainly here on my website, you may have the impression that I am a political activist. Actually, I am not. At least I don’t think of myself as one. I will not bother you with all of my reasons, but I do wish to explain that I am neither boasting nor confessing guilt when I admit my silence on some issues and in some situations, though there are issues that sometimes cause me twinges of guilt that I don’t do more. The participation of ordinary people from all walks of life is necessary for the functioning of democracy.
Forced by my own limitations to choose my battles, I cannot take a stand on every cause I care about. Another problem is that I rarely find any movement that I believe in without reservations. I have a tendency to see opposing views and also to become aware of my ignorance. It seems increasingly difficult these days to get all the facts and understand a myriad of issues, which is why I specialize in the things that concern me the most.
However, one thing I have tried to do since I first went to the Middle East is to spread the Palestinian side of the Middle East conflict. In the 1950s I had met Palestinian young people who were students in UC Berkeley. Knowing them and hearing their stories caused me to do research and verify that there was another story, totally different from the beautiful picture that I had gotten in the American press and from certain preachers. Neither Jews nor Christians nor the American press had felt the need to tell us that the Zionists had not come to an empty land or the truth about how they took got control of that land and what had happened to its Arab inhabitants.
Once I knew the other side I felt no need to present a balanced view, because the prevailing view was so one sided. I felt that my telling the Palestinian story helped just a bit to create some balance. And I recognized the difference between respecting the truth, no matter where it fell, and discriminating against Jews. (I also recognize now that biased people are not necessarily bad or hard-hearted; they may just know only one part of the story.)
In recent years I have felt a great deal of sympathy with Jews who have immigrated to Israel, because I can see that they sometimes are in a very bad spot, surrounded by enemies whom Israel has created by her own bad choices. I read a story about a Jewish woman who was living in a house from which a Palestinian family had been forcibly evicted. Given the unexpected opportunity to meet them and seeing their emotional connection to the house, she offered to sell it back to them. The sale then was blocked by an Israeli law forbidding Palestinians to own a house in that community. This caring and ethical Jewish woman felt keenly the injustice of this, but could not change or circumvent the law.
What they have done to the inhabitants of the Holy Land is so similar to what European white people, my own ancestors, did to the Native Americans, that I can easily understand their predicament: loyalty to their country and their people group vs. the need to stand for what is truthful and right.
There are Jewish organizations that have really encouraged and helped me, such as the Jewish Voice of Peace. They proudly proclaim their Jewishness and consider their sympathy with the Palestinians to be the highest kind of loyalty to their own spiritual heritage of justice and mercy. They have strengthened my conviction that one cannot help a friend by encouraging him in wrongdoing. I do not lose hope for peace in the Middle East because of such people and their courageous and ethical positions.
Churches for Middle East Peace is a Christian group, knowledgeable about the details of life in Israel and the occupied territories. They do not excuse violence from any direction, while making plain their comprehension of how the oppression of the Palestinians creates frustration as well as other dangerous, negative emotions.
In today’s message they are simply informing us that the mayors of Bethlehem and Wadi Foquin are coming to Washington to try to explain to American congressional members what is happening there, on the ground in the occupied territories. They ask that people like us send messages to our representatives in the Congress, urging them to hear these people and try to understand their message. I was quick to respond to this request. The least that I can do is ask for these elected people to do the least that they can do by listening to the Palestinian story.
I wish frankly that I could sit with these two mayors and hear them and ask my questions. There are many parts of the world where oppression is creating violence and at the same time long and painful non-violent protests. It behooves everyone in the world to encourage those who try to reason with the world instead of shooting someone. Their issues require our consideration, because oppression creates war and on this small planet their war so easily becomes our war.
By encouraging your own congressional representatives to attend the November 14 briefing, you also can promote honesty and fairness in international affairs. Take Action Here.
And if you think the U.S. needs a government department dedicated to the pursuit of peace, please talk about it with your friends. Just plant the seed. Give it a chance.