A Visit to Modern-Day Bethlehem

I saw this graphic on Facebook recently.  It was posted by a “friend of a friend,” a Palestinian woman from England who, like many, cannot visit her homeland.  With her permission, I had the graphic printed on Christmas cards, which I am sending to people who will understand the message, as well as to people that I hope will at least try to understand the message. 

Most of us will sing – or listen to someone sing (even if it is the Muzak in the mall) “O Little Town of Bethlehem” at this time of year.  For most, the vision that it brings is the one at the top of the card – the slumbering village, the starry skies.  But for me – and for those, like me, who have spent time in the “real” Bethlehem – the image is very different.

The Wall

When I think of Bethlehem, the first visual image that pops into my mind is the encircling wall.  No, it’s not a “fence” or a “security barrier,” it’s a WALL!  Maybe because so many visitors enter Bethlehem in spite of the wall, the wall here is a colorful canvas for a variety of graffiti artists to ply their craft.  Don’t be fooled – it’s still a wall, and it still keeps people imprisoned behind it!

damaged statue at Church of the Nativity

Another image is the Church of the Nativity – not just as a place of holy pilgrimage, but as a place of siege where, during the Second Intifada, Palestinian civilians were barricaded behind its walls while Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition, hurting people and damaging walls and statues.

And then I think of the children.  The school children in Tuqu’, who needed protection from soldiers and settlers as they went to school – protection that was provided by my EA teammates.  The babies, who are born, not in a peaceful manger but at checkpoints, where their mothers were denied access to the medical care on the other side.

School children in Tuqu'

One final image, the most horrific of all, is the checkpoint.  One of the busiest checkpoints in the West Bank, every morning thousands of men (and not a few women!) must pass through this cage-like structure to get to jobs in Israel. 

In short, the reality of Bethlehem – circa 2013 – bears no resemblance to the Bethlehem of 2000 years ago, when a baby lay in a manger, and angels sang overhead.  This holiday season, when you think about that first Christmas, and that tiny baby in his Bethlehem manger, please spare a thought for the people of Bethlehem and their struggles to survive in the face of oppression and occupation!

p.s. I made a donation to MAP (Medical Aid to Palestinians) as a thank you to the artist who created the Bethlehem graphic.  If you’d like to do the same, their website is http://www.justgiving.com/MAPChristmas

Friends Don't Let Friends Buy SodaStream!

One of this year’s most hotly promoted items is the SodaStream soft drink machine.  It “turns water into sparkling water and soft drinks,” and is touted as being good for the environment (because of the bottles and cans that aren’t going into the landfills!) 

From the Soda Steam website:

Making carbonated water and soft drinks is simple! Turn tap water into sparkling water in under 30 seconds, with no clean-up. Enjoy the freshness and convenience of homemade soda and protect the environment at the same time. No heavy bottles to carry, store at home or throw away. Fizz to your taste and add the flavor of your choice to make your favorite drink. Simple to clean and reuse. With a variety of colors and silhouettes, you'll be sure to find a soda maker to match with any decor.

SodaStream plant in Ma'aleh Adumin settlement

What a wonderful invention! – who could resist?  People who care about human rights, that’s who!!  What the advertisements don’t tell you about Soda Stream is that their plant is built on land stolen from Palestinian families and occupied with military force.  That’s right – it’s built in an illegal (according to international – and even Israeli! – law!) Israeli settlement, specifically Ma’aleh Adumin, located just outside of Jerusalem. 

In the fine print, you may read that SodaStream and its “carbonation kits” are “made in Israel.”  False – they are manufactured in Palestine.  And yes, the company does hire Palestinian workers – albeit at lower wages than their Israeli counterparts and with few, if any, benefits.  And of course those Palestinian workers are subject to security checkpoints to get to work every day (see March 13, 2013 blog post “Checkpoints”)!

Palestinian Workers waiting to pass through checkpoint

What about those environmental claims?  Maybe we should overlook the human rights issues in favor of protecting the environment?  Well, think about it!  Why is SodaStream (and dozens of other Israeli manufacturing plants) located in Palestine and not Israel?  If you guessed that the environmental protection laws are far more stringent in the latter – Bingo! 

The Israeli manufacturers of SodaStream are free to pollute the water, the soil and the air.  They are free to let industrial waste run down the hills (because settlements are always built on TOP of hills!) and into the (Palestinian) farmland below.  They’re free to use the water that could otherwise be used to irrigate olive trees and other crops, and power that could otherwise be used to heat and light homes.

Because of all these factors, SodaStream has become a “poster child” for the Boycott part of the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS) trinity that many individuals and organizations are supporting.  The United Methodist Church (of which I am a member) and the Presbyterian Church of the US have both voted to boycott settlement-made products.  The United Methodist Kairos Response (www.kairosresponse.org), offers, among other resources, a list of settlement-made products (including SodaStream), as well as detailed information on the “whys” behind the boycott.

I came home from Palestine with an abiding belief that BDS is the best chance that we in the so-called “civilized” world have of ending the Occupation.  As I often explain, “It worked in South Africa.”  Those of you reading this in my home town of Portland (which is planning a SodaStream Boycott demonstration for “Black Friday”), or other US cities (many of whom have held or will hold events around this and other settlement-made products), may want to support these efforts, either by participating in the events or, at the very least, refusing to purchase this product – and telling the retailers why!  (If you like the concept, there are other products that do the same thing and are made in a much more humane environment!)

And, no matter where you are, you may want to surf the web (www.bdsmovement.net and www.sodastreamboycott.org are good places to start) or “Google” for information on supporting boycotts of SodaStream and other settlement-made/Israeli labeled products. 

Olive Harvest

Reading Facebook posts from Palestinian friends, EAs and former EAs, I am nostalgic for the time I spent there.  Speaking to a group of senior citizens here in Portland, I remember the good times – and the sorrows.  And then it comes to me, this is autumn – a time for remembering, and, in Palestine, olive harvest time.

I’ve never been there during the olive harvest.  The year that I was supposed to go (2011), I was in the hospital and had to turn the trip over to my friend, Betty, who led 20 people to Wadi Fukin for the olive harvest – and to other Israeli and Palestinian sites to meet and talk to the people.

In 2012 I was in Palestine in the autumn, but in November, when the olive harvest was but a memory, and I was focusing on the people and the issues of the Occupation.

In April olives are tiny buds

My EA experience was in the spring.  I saw olive trees putting out their silvery green leaves, and watched them being nurtured by farmers going through agricultural gates into the “seam zone.”  In April, the olives are tiny buds, with but a bare promise of what the harvest will bring.

But now – oh to be in Palestine now and to see the growers spread clothes under the trees and to gently shake the olives from the branches!   It’s a time of rejoicing, a time of work and a time of satisfaction when (if!) the olives are successful harvested.

Sadly, for many farmers, olive harvest is a time of bitter tears – a time of mourning for what is lost.  Many trees have been destroyed – some by settlers uprooting them, burning them, or dumping sewage on them - some by the inability for the farmer to care for them.

It's easy to destroy an olive tree

Under the draconian regulations that overlay land in the so-called “seam zone” (that no-man’s land between the Wall and the actual border between Israel and Palestine), farmers have limited access to their land or, indeed in many cases, have no access at all.  Even with limited access, it is impossible to properly care for the land. Olive trees cannot be pruned, or watered – and the neglected trees bear crops of far lesser quantity and quality than those that have been nurtured for the entire season.

Olive harvest is a time of great excitement in the West Bank.  Volunteers come from across the globe to help bring in the olives.  Olive trees are part of the land – part of the land that was lost in the Nakba, and part of the land that binds Palestinians to stay in a place where they have deep roots, yet are not wanted by the current (Israeli) occupiers of that land.

I read recently that 80,000 olive trees were destroyed in Palestine in the past year.  This is a huge loss for a people whose livelihood depends upon the land – and to whom the olive trees are almost a part of the family.  It is easy to destroy an olive tree.  A bulldozer, a spark in the dry desert heat, sewage draining from a nearby settlement, a fence that keeps the caretakers away.  

Olives ready for harvest

 

It is not as easy to destroy a people.  The Palestinians have roots that are older and deeper than those of the most ancient olive trees – their forefathers were there 2,000 years ago and they have no intention of leaving the land.

Because of the Wall and the restrictions of transporting commercial items through the checkpoints, with a few exceptions, farmers are limited in where they can sell their crops.  One of the happy exceptions is Canaan Fair Trade, an agricultural cooperative that produces olive oil and other food products, and markets them in the U.S. and Europe.  In the Portland area, as in many other places, they are sold at local churches and at Whole Foods. 

Next time you eat an olive, please give a thought to the Palestinian farmers!

Back to School

Cora starts school

Cora and Omar both started school this fall.  Both are five years old; both donned oversized backpacks and smiled sweetly in the “first day of school photos” taken by their proud parents - happy to be off on a brand new adventure!

Omar's first day

Sadly, the similarity ends there.  My granddaughter Cora attends school in a safe, protected environment in Washington state.  Omar, the son of our Palestinian driver/translator, attends school in Tulkarm.  For a West Bank resident, his school experience will probably be better than many, as Tulkarm is in “Area A” (theoretically under full Palestinian control and not to be entered by Israeli police or soldiers).  Still, going to school under Occupation will give Omar many challenges and constraints that students in North America and Europe will not experience.

I’m not talking about overcrowded school, underpaid teachers and insufficient books and learning materials – sadly, in this culture preoccupied with war and aggression, education is a low priority even in the “civilized” so-called “first world!”

Hebron (Photo EAPPI/R. Kolehmainen)

When I think of Omar and his brothers, I’m thinking, instead, of what kind of education can they get when the oppressor has such a huge influence over what the children can be taught – and in an environment that limits the “life lessons” they learn to an environment of fear and distrust.

I think, too, of children in other parts of the Occupied Territories – the unlucky ones in places like Hebron, where police and army presence at school is a way of life and where students can be plucked from class and “detained” or arrested in the middle of a school day and taken where their parents cannot find them.

I remember doing “school duty” while on a placement visit to Hebron, watching the children pass through a checkpoint to get to Cordoba school.  In the intervening months, soldiers have arrested students at the school, as well as throwing tear gas canisters at students passing in the street where we had provided a “protective” presence.

A carefree moment in Tuqu

In Tuqu, a village outside Bethlehem, I once stood in the school playground as school let out, watching until all the students had walked past the soldiers’ jeeps parked just down the road from the school. 

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This Bedouin "tire school" is under threat of demolition

During EA orientation, we visited a Bedouin village outside of Jerusalem and admired the “tire school” built by local residents and internationals so the children could go to school without fear of crossing a busy highway.  That school is under demolition orders – because the Israelis want to “relocate” the Bedouin population.

In Tulkarm, we monitored school gates – checkpoints where the school bus crossed from “seam zone” land into Palestine.  Here, the students were frequently harassed, asked to get off the busses for additional ID checks or to have their school bags scrutinized (“against the rules,” this scrutiny – but in this no-man’s land, the rules don’t apply!)

A "school gate" just outside Tulkarm

Needless to say, obtaining any sort of an education under these circumstances is extraordinarily difficult – and the fact that Palestinians are generally recognized as the “best educated” in the Middle East is, in the face of these obstructions, nothing short of amazing!