Ramallah & Palestinian Leadership

I started off the day with a meeting with Naomi Schacter, Associate Director of Shatil, New Israel Fund's (NIF) grant-making, and capacity building organization here.  Shatil works with over 1000 organizations and is Israel's premier human rights organization.  They work mostly with the Israeli population on civil rights, social justice, etc.  NIF's executive director, Daniel Sokatch, has been on NVP's advisory board.  NIF does not believe in "de-legitimizing" Israel, which is a hot topic these days.  NIF does not question Israel's right to exist, and is pro-Israel.  NIF is working on social issues within Israel, and not on peace issues.  She highlighted a few programs for us to consider at NVP:

• Kids for Peace - brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim kids to a summer camp in the states to help them learn from each other.
• Seeds for Peace - another camp for interfaith youth, but is more political, and less religious.
• Interfaith youth coming together to serve after hurricane Katrina and other disasters.

These are all goods leads for me to pursue for NVP.

In class today, we talked a little about religious extremism.  Charles Kimball's new book was recommended, "When Religion Becomes Lethal."  We also discussed not hating the people who are caught in a narrative that is different than yours - cf. Martin Luther King said to blacks in regard to white racism, don't hate the white person, hate the thing that has them in their grip.  Sage words of advice.

Then we headed to Ramallah, which is right next to Jerusalem, but is ostensibly the capital of the Palestinian Authority.  It is a large city with tall buildings everywhere.  We visited Yassar Arafat's grave and met with the Palestinian Authority's chief foreign diplomat (kind of like their Secretary of State), Dr. Nabeel Shaath.  We were very lucky to meet with him, as he is the one meeting with presidents and foreign secretaries on behalf of the Palestinians.  Anyway, he argued for a peace settlement.  Some of his points:

• Why should the Palestinians pay for European persecution of the Jews?
• The U.S. has helped Israel become what it is today, yet refuses to get involved in the peace process to help Palestine.
• Yitzahk Rabin's assasination in 1995 killed the chances for peace in the last 20 years.  They were very close to working out a deal until Rabin was killed by a Jewish settler.
• Settlers live on 1.2% of the land in the Palestinian Territories.  The Israeli government uses 40% of   Palestinian Territory land to protect that 1.2%.
• Palestinians are ready to accept a deal where they get 22% of original Palestinian land, but Israel doesn't want to make peace.
• He wants a 2 state solution with borders from 1967, where Jerusalem will be the capitol for both countries.
• Palestinian refugees can either:  Come back to Palestine; Come back to original lands and become Israeli citizens; stay living where they are; or get compensation.
• Palestinians have abandoned armed struggle, and have decided on nonviolence as the way forward.

Then we met with Ayed Morar, the hero of the movie Budrus, and Rula Salameh, the Executive Producer of the Film.  It is a wonderful movie!  Check in out on Netflix.  The story from this movie is that this little village got the separation wall moved so that it didn't bifurcate their village through nonviolent action.  Daily they protested against the army.  Women were involved in protesting, as were Israeli's.  Hundreds were injured and one was killed.  At one point, the Israeli army used 100 soldiers to guard 3 or 4 bulldozers.  Ayed led the village in this, and they recovered large sections of land for their village.  In a very interesting point, Ayed noted that Palestine does not have a national hero or a figure they can follow, unlike Ghandi, and so they had to make up this nonviolent narrative themselves.

Speaking of the wall, you should see this thing.  It is a monstrosity - 25 feet high, with barbed wire on top.  It looms over everything near it like some big vulture.  The Israelis will point to the fact that it has all but eliminated suicide bombers, and that security has never been greater.  The Palestinians will protest that it cuts neighborhoods in half, makes life much more difficult, and is another example of oppression.

Then we met with Naimm Ateek of Sabeel.  Naim is a Palestinian Christian working for peace.  He is also an Episcopal priest and has spoken at All Saints Church, where he generated a little bit of controversy.

After all this I was feeling a bit wrung out from these issues, so I looked at my itinerary and tried to figure out where I wasn't going on this trip that I would be sad to miss.  My answer was Tel Aviv!  So I took a bus to Tel Aviv for dinner on the beach!  It is one hour away by car.  How beautiful!  Tel Aviv is a modern, sleek city, with skyscrapers everywhere.  It is kind of like Honolulu in its development by the beach.  As I sipped my Corona with my feet in the sand and watched the surfers, I was keenly aware that some people in the region have never seen this view.  It is also for me a continuation of the Israeli narrative, which says, "look at the cities, the economy, the country that we have created.  Israel is efficient and powerful - we don't want to endanger or destroy all that we have worked for in the past 60 years or so.  We have built a first-world society."

Back home on the bus.  Blogging to you...:)