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» Report of Trip to Israel in Fall 2009 by Terri Montgomery, Program Director | Click here

» Terri Montgomery’s Remarks at Palestine-Israel Forum of Advocacy, Education and Prayer for Just Peace, Hope United Methodist Church, Church & Society Ministry, June 3, 2010 | Click here

Report of Trip to Israel in Fall 2009 by Terri Montgomery, Program Director

I recently participated in a witness trip organized by Sabeel, the Palestinian ecumenical liberation theology center based in Jerusalem. I submit this statement, reflecting the shared understanding of the more than 40 people who participated.

During our trip, we spoke with Palestinians, Israelis, political leaders, and ordinary people committed to non-violence, who told us of their desire to live in peace. In this trip we travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Jerusalem to the old city of Hebron, witnessing the struggles of Palestinians in their everyday lives. Specifically, we experienced:

• Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which painfully documented the continuing illegal settler expansion which, unless checked, will eliminate any hope for a two-state resolution;
• a recently evicted family living in a makeshift tent on the street opposite their own home, which is now filled with Israeli settlers;
• the Aida refugee camp where water is only available for two hours once a week. Although the population has doubled, expansion is prohibited;
• Hebron, where 400 Israeli settlers are protected by 1500 soldiers, destroying the commercial core of the Old City and inflicting road closures, blockades, and curfews on its 150,000 non-Jewish residents;
• a Palestinian Knesset member who described laws restricting the movement, housing, and living conditions of Palestinian citizens of Israel, whose identity cards indicate that they are Arabs; and
• the work for justice of Israeli organizations such as ICAHD and B’Tselem.

While details of what we saw could continue for pages, our witness has prompted these questions:

• Why are there different levels of service for Israelis, Palestinians in the occupied territories, and Palestinian citizens of Israel? This includes housing, water, basic infrastructure, education and freedom of movement.
• Why has Israel not been called to account on repeated violations of international law and the Geneva conventions? These violations include, but are not limited to home demolitions and land confiscations for illegal settlements and the separation barrier.
• How can peace be possible if settlements continue to expand at the expense of the Palestinians, who are not allowed to build?
• How can the international community encourage Hamas and Fatah to work together?
• How can we support the dwindling Palestinian Christian population that is determined to endure, the Living Stones?
• If we accept these serious violations of basic human rights by the Israeli government, how can we expect others to observe internationally recognized laws designed to protect civilians in a time of war?

It is important to recognize that when one counts Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Israeli Arabs, nearly half the inhabitants of this region are continually being denied basic human rights and dignity.

Respectfully submitted,

Terri L. Montgomery
Program Director

 

Terri Montgomery’s Remarks at Palestine-Israel Forum of Advocacy, Education and Prayer for Just Peace, Hope United Methodist Church, Church & Society Ministry, June 3, 2010

Introduction

We are here this evening because it is important that we have safe places set aside to seriously inquire about and reflect on what is happening in our world. For this subject in particular we need more places for critical inquiry and honest discussion. It is our desire that Hope Church be such a place this evening.

I visited the region last fall because of the generous support of Friends of Sabeel and the Peace with Justice ministry of the United Methodist Church. While there I talked with people of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faith traditions. I talked with members of the Knesset, Fatah and Hamas. I talked with Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals who have chosen to live and work there. I talked with children, teenagers and adults. I talked with settlers and with people living in refugee camps. I talked with people living in tents outside of houses they had called home for decades. And I watched settlers defiantly display the Israeli flag from their recently acquired homes.

I walked along the Sea of Galilee and gazed at the Mount of Olives from inside the old City of Jerusalem. I visited Aida Refugee Camp and Nazareth Illit. I stayed in Beit Sahour, the valley of the Shepherds, named for those who heard the angels tell them of the Christ Child’s birth. I spent time in quiet reflection at the Western (Wailing) Wall – all that remains of the Jerusalem temple destroyed in 70 CE. I talked with Israeli soldiers.

I experienced all these things and many more during my visit to the region. Though I returned nearly six months ago, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings from that time have not yet settled within me. What is happening in Israel-Palestine is something I study seriously and about which I feel deeply.

As we now move into the time set aside for questions and responses, I invite you to look periodically at the maps that are here; they tell an important part of this story.

Closing

As we prepare to move to the advocacy portion I want two leave you with a couple of things to consider. I’m reading a book called Who Would Jesus Kill? by Mark J. Allman. I recommend it highly to anyone who is seriously considering how a Christian can faithfully and realistically approach questions of war and peace. Allman draws from Sam Keen’s book Faces of the Enemy. Keen’s thesis is that “the first act of war is always mental. ‘In the beginning we create the enemy…we think others to death and then invent the battle-ax or the ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them. Propaganda precedes technology.’ “(122)

If we can create enemies by imposing false dichotomies of good and evil, victimhood and blame, honesty and dishonesty, heroes and villains then we can also create neighbors by accepting the truth of shared humanity, shared hope and shared struggle.

» Click here for a brief Haaretz article that exemplifies the kinds of thoughts that create neighbors.

Terri Montgomery