News and Views from Tonga, April, 2005

I have a couple of items to share with you this month:

(1) Checklist for Effective Christian Teachers.
(2) US Govt. Rates "Poor" Tongan Human Rights.

Thanks,
Bob

------------------------------------

(1)  We had a teaching workshop at Queen Salote College where we were
given a checklist to evaluate ourselves.  I'd like to offer it to
you.

1. I believe God has called me to be a teacher.
2. I study the Bible regularly.
3. I take time for personal devotions on a daily basis
4. I pray daily.
5. I pray regularly for my students and my colleagues
6. I am committing scripture to memory.
7. I am interested in the spiritual development of my students.
8. I present the scriptural principles of salvation to my
students.
9. I apply scriptural principles to help my students develop
Godly values and attitudes.
10. I exemplify scriptural qualities of character – forgiveness,
kindness, longsuffering, etc.
11. I apply scriptural principles as I discipline students e.g.
firmness with love.
12. I take an active part in my local church.
13. I encourage students to take an active part in their local
church.
14. I share my faith with others.
15. I encourage students to share their faith with others.
16. I respect the authority of the administration of the school.
17. I am enthusiastic about my work and my Christian life.
18. I accept responsibilities with a wholesome, biblical attitude.
19. I demonstrate in my own life the attitudes, actions, and
reactions I expect from my students.
20. I enjoy teaching.

The above checklist is based upon the Self Check Inventory in
Enderlin "Guidelines for the Christian Professional Teacher."


------------------------------------

(2)  US govt. rates "poor" Tongan human rights
16 Mar 2005, 21:38
Nuku'alofa, Tonga:

The status of the Tonga government's Human Rights Practices during
2003, according to the US Department of State was Poor.

The report released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labour on February 25, 2005, outlined the areas where Tonga failed
and therefore earned the "Poor" rating.

1. Because Tongan citizens do not have the right to change their
government. Tonga is a constitutional monarchy and its political life
is dominated by the King, the nobility, and a few prominent commoners.

2. Because government at times infringed on Freedom of Speech and
Freedom of the Press.

3. Because women suffered domestic violence, discrimination and
limited employment and economic opportunities.

4. Because the right to form a Labour Union was restricted by the
lack of implementing regulations.

The report also pointed out an infringement of Freedom of Religion by
the Tonga Broadcasting Commission with its strict guidelines that
religious programs for radio and television must be "within the
limits of the mainstream Christian tradition." The report stated that
the TBC did not allow members of the Baha'I Faith to discuss the
tenets of their religion, or to refer to the founder, Baha'ullah by
name. TBC also did not allow the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints to discuss its founder, Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon by
name.

Copyright © Vava'u Press Ltd. 2004. Permissions apply
vapress@...

------------------------------------

Prayer Concerns this Month:
The Girls at Queen Salote College

Scripture:
"…I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but
accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right."
Acts 10:34, 35


Feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.

Bob May
Queen Salote College
PO Box 116
Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu
Tonga Islands
South Pacific

Phone:  58-678

Life in the South Pacific isn't exactly what I thought it would be.  I
expected deserted beaches, crystal-clear ocean swimming, overflowing
seafood markets, and gentle cooling breezes.  Evidently these things
exist, just not in the community of Tonga where I serve.

Regardless, Tonga is a wonderful place – mainly because of all the
wonderful people.  After serving in war-torn areas like Palestine and
Afghanistan, it's comforting to walk down the road and see contented
people in peaceful surroundings.

For such a tiny island with only 22,000 people living in the capital
Nuku'alofa, there sure is a variety of hardworking people here.  There
are the businessmen from India who own and operate the "Indian"
retails stores downtown.  You can buy anything from string trimmers to
microwave ovens to bath towels at the Indian stores.  The Chinese own
the "falekaloas," the local convenience stores that stock everything
not found in the Indian stores.  There is a group of Filipinos who
serve as accountants, engineers and tailors.  Europeans serve up tasty
meals in all of their restaurants.  And Australians and Americans in
the Peace Corps and the various church missionary programs serve as
teachers.  All of us odd internationals are held together by the
hospitality glue of the Tongans.

There are more internationals here than I expected to find.  Most are
with some business or agency, but there are a host of others that have
come on their own to volunteer.  If you're interested in serving in
some way, let me know and I'll try to find a contact for you.  If
you're interested in bringing a United Methodist volunteer in missions
team, I'll do what I can to help.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed when I arrived in Tonga.
This tiny island didn't meet my expectations of what a South Pacific
paradise should be.  But God rightly adjusted my priorities and
reminded me of my commitment to service – and not my commitment to
relaxing on a beach.  I was shown there were other jewels to be
discovered – other treasures that I might have missed in my haste to
be critical.  What about the laughing boys eagerly posing for my
camera as they jumped off the pier, swimming at high tide?  What about
all of the girls at Queen Salote College singing like a choir of
angels every morning at assembly?  What about the bush workers who
grin widely as they ride on the backs of open pickup trucks on their
way to harvest root crops in the sweltering heat?  How could I forget
the friendly clerk who offers me a mango to go with my movie rental?
I was shown there were many reasons why this place could be more than
I had originally thought; I just needed to get to know the people.
What the community lacked in natural features, it more than made up
for it in good-will and kindness.

A few words and a couple of photos from Tonga on the
GBGM website:

http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=3022

I'll get my website updated as soon as I can find an internet
connection for my computer.

Prayer Concerns this Month:
The Girls at Queen Salote College

Scripture:
"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing
after another."
John 1:16


Feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.

Bob May
Queen Salote College
PO Box 116
Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu
Tonga Islands
South Pacific

Phone:  58-678

News and Views from Tonga, February, 2005

Here's my first monthly update from my new mission assignment in Tonga.

The Kingdom of Tonga is made of 176 islands.  I live in Nuku'alofa on
the island of Tongatapu.  Tongatapu is the home of the Royal Family,
the seat of Government, the center of commerce and the heart of
Polynesia.  Tonga is the last remaining Polynesian Kingdom and the
only nation in the Pacific never to be colonized.  Right now, our
85-year old King Tupou is in the USA for medical treatment.  (If you
see him, give him my regards.)  I saw him a few weeks ago in church.
He was just sitting there alone in a special chair – he wasn't wearing
a crown or regal purple robes or anything.  I think he liked the
sermon, because he stayed for the whole thing.  That must have made
the pastor feel pretty good.  The King's granddaughter, Salote, is a
student at the school where I teach.

Tonga is in the middle of the South Pacific.  There are a bunch of
island groups nearby like Samoa, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu
and Tahiti in French Polynesia.  Australia's fairly close, but I'd
guess it's still about 2,500 miles away.  I've read that the island
that I'm on, Tongatapu, is about the same size as New York City.  I've
barely seen any of it yet though.  I'm still trying to figure out
where to buy a fish and how to open a coconut.

The United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries and the
Volunteers in Missions program has several projects in the area.  As
far as I know, all are related to education.  I'm teaching at Queen
Salote College (QSC), an all-girls secondary school.  There are about
800 students here, and I'd say about half of them stay in dorms on the
grounds.  QSC is affiliated with the Wesleyan/Methodist Church, so
devotions, sermons and scripture class is a part of everyday life.
The girls follow a fairly strict daily regime of school, Bible study
--- and chores.  It's amazing what 800 girls can accomplish with only
a few brooms and simple gardening tools.

My biggest surprise about this island is the friendliness of the
people.  Most Tongans will wave and smile or say hello to me as I walk
or ride my bike through the community.  I was really amazed at how
welcoming they are.  My biggest disappointment about my town is that
there isn't a beach here.  How can an island in the South Pacific not
have a beach EVERYWHERE?  I'm still sort of baffled by that.  I've
been told that there are some beaches within an hour's bike ride of
Nuku'alofa.  I bought a single-speed beach cruiser bike just for trips
like that.

The college has a couple small houses for teachers to share, so I live
on the grounds of the school.  I usually get up at 6:00 for personal
morning devotions, breakfast, Australian radio news, and house
sweeping.  I wander over to the QSC Assembly Hall next door for Tongan
morning sermon at 8:30.  This usually runs about a half hour and then
classes start at 9:00.  I teach four computer classes, and I have a
break during the day for lunch.  My classes have anywhere from 20 to
35 girls.  They're all under 16 years old.  I'm teaching basic
computer classes like Windows, Word, Excel, etc.  So far, most of my
students have been pretty good, and I haven't had to give anyone
discipline duty – when the disruptive girls might have to wash my
clothes (great!), weed the garden, or clean the school grounds.  I'm
finished teaching by 4:00.  I go for a bike ride beside the sea or
maybe a swim in a hotel pool.  Come home, do chores, fix dinner or go
out to eat with a teacher, maybe talk with some of the girls or watch
a DVD movie, practice playing guitar, read a little, and go to bed at
10:00.  My house is under both a mango and a breadfruit tree, so every
fifteen minutes another piece of fruit drops from the tree and hits my
metal roof with a loud bang.  I'm pretty sure I'll soon stop jumping
every time that happens.

Feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.

Bob May
Queen Salote College
PO Box 116
Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu
Tonga Islands
South Pacific

Phone:  58-678

I've created a Christmas card for you from some photos that I took
around Bethlehem. To see your card:

http://www.bobmay.info/bethlehem_cards.htm

Click on one of the four cards to view.

Peace -- and Merry Christmas!
Bob
(now in Virginia)

Resilient in Bethlehem
by The Rev. Alex Elias Awad

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to
take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is
from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to
give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the
prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a
son, and they will call him 'Immanuel' --which means, 'God with
us.' "

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded
him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her
until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
MT 1:20-25 (NIV)

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the
exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and
said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you
find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star
they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over
the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were
overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his
mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened
their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense
and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to
Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
MT 2:7-8 (NIV)


The Christian community in Bethlehem is celebrating the birth of
Christ this year with a determined sense of hope and enthusiasm. The
streets around the Church of the Nativity that witnessed great
damage and pain in the last few years are repaired, renovated and
decorated with ornaments shining against the darkness of the harsh
political realities.

Strolling or driving down the narrow alleys of the city, locals and
visitors gaze on electrical and digital signs, dazzling with
artistically rounded letters that proclaim "Merry Christmas"
and "Peace on Earth" in more than one language. As contemporary
Bethlehemites celebrate, you will see on their streets live Santas -
not as fat as the ones you see elsewhere in the world - ringing
bells and giving out holiday sweets.

This will be a time of festivity in Bethlehem regardless of the
newly built eight meter high wall that encircles the city and its
surrounding suburbs, cutting it off from her sister Jerusalem (6
miles away) and the rest of the world. The choirs of Bethlehem and
visiting choirs will sing as usual the carols of angels, shepherds,
wise men and of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus despite the choking
economic conditions that drained the financial strength of the city
in the last four years. They will proclaim `Peace on Earth and
goodwill towards humankind" in the face of current conflict and
unrest. Bells over the Church of Nativity will ring the Christmas
anthems calling the faithful to come and adore Emanuel. The high
wall will not hinder these Christmas chimes but with the speed of
light, via satellite, their echo will reach the homes of the
faithful throughout the world.

The resiliency of the Christian community in and around Bethlehem
reflects the devotion of men and women whom God called to
participate in the first advent. Take, for example, the true life
story of a professor at Bethlehem Bible College. He leaves his home
near Ramallah at 6 AM daily to make his way to Bethlehem. His
journey of 1-2 hours takes him through numerous checkpoints,
roadblocks and dangerous conditions. He travels on foot and by
public transportation when available; he is frequently stopped and
he and the passengers on the bus interrogated.

On one occasion a rubber bullet from a soldier's gun pierced the
window of the taxi in which he was traveling and entered his knee.
Nevertheless he is determined to make it to Bethlehem to carry out
the ministry God called him to do. He shows up faithfully with a big
smile and encourages his students, most of whom are prevented from
leaving the city of Bethlehem. Nothing deters this professor from
fulfilling his mission.

Such were the faithful saints of first advent as they waited on the
promise of God. They did not allow the Herods and the Caesars of
their political world to dampen their spirits or to hinder their
search for the newborn King. Resilient Joseph traveled the harsh
terrain from Nazareth to Bethlehem refusing to turn his back on Mary
while enduring the possibility of being accused of a scandal. The
three wise men, after failing to find the promised child, could have
turned home frustrated and disheartened but they resolved to keep
searching until they found the star that led them to the manger
where the Savior of humanity was born.

The Christmas season with all its hustle and bustle may add to the
pressures that Christians everywhere confront day after day. We can
take heart when we reflect on the attitudes of the saints of the
first advent and contemporary citizens of Bethlehem. We can
resolutely join them in worshiping Christ and seeking peace on earth
and goodwill to all of God's people.

The Rev. Alex Elias Awad is a missionary of the General Board of
Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church serving in Israel
with his wife, Brenda. He pastors a small international church in
East Jerusalem and teaches courses at Bethlehem Bible College, where
he serves as faculty member, dean of students and board member.

1) Bethlehem Mayor criticizes the "silence" of Christian world

2) Christmas Olive Tree Planting Campaign at Nassar Farm

3) Sabeel's Christmas Message

4) An Ecumenical Advent & Christmas message from the Holy Land


==============================================================

1- Mayor of Bethlehem criticizes the "silence" of the Christian
world
IMEMC-News Desk & Agencies, December 14, 2004, 08:02

Mr. Hanna Nasser, Mayor of Bethlehem criticized the "silence of the
Christian world" amidst all sort of military aggressions and
violations in Bethlehem and described their position as "shameful".

Nasser in a press conference held in relation to the upcoming
Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem , said that Bethlehem had been
subjected to continuous military invasion for more than four year,
while the Christian world stood helpless.

"For more than four years, army continuously invaded the city,
destroyed confiscated lands, while the Christian world stood
helpless
in spite that Bethlehem has a unique importance for the Christians,
and non Christians, all over the world".

Nasser added that when the church of Nativity was surrounded on
April
2002, the world stood short of saving the city and when the crisis
was
solved, the besieged residents were deported to the Gaza Strip and
Europe.

Moreover, Nasser said that the army is continuously confiscating
lands
in the north of the city for the separation wall, while settlers and
soldiers controlled Palestinian homes near Rachel Tomb, in order to
transfer the tomb and Bilal Bin Rabah mosque area into settlements.

"What is happening in the holy city of Bethlehem is an shameful act
to
the Israeli government which conducts these violations while the
Christian world is watching these violations without attempting to
save the city", Nasser said.

Nasser added that the size of Bethlehem is reducing as the Israeli
authorities continued their planes to expand the settlements
surrounding the city and destroying its fields, in addition to
destroying the northern entrance which is the main "gate" for
tourists
and pilgrims to the holy city.

Commenting on Israeli allegation concerning allowing Christian
pilgrims to enter the city during Christmases calibrations, Nasser
said that the ministry of tourism in the P.A received promises from
his Israeli counterpart, but "we got used to such promises which
were
never fulfilled", Nasser said.

Nasser added that in light of the death pf the Palestinian
President,
Yasser Arafat, Bethlehem municipality decided to reduce the quantity
of Christmases decorations, and only limit them to the manger square
area and the surrounded places, "yet a Christmas tree will be
decorated and shining, as usual, in the manger square", Nasser said.


==============================================================


2)  TREE PLANTING CAMPAIGN

4000 Trees for Daher's Vineyard
A tree for Daher's Vineyard (Nassar Land) to keep hope alive

At Christmas time all the people in the world look to Bethlehem, the
birthplace of Jesus Christ. In celebrating this joyful event, people
like to give a Christmas present to their family members, beloved
ones and friends.

We suggest to you a very special present being related to Bethlehem.
Why not give your relatives and friends a tree to be planted on
Daher's Vineyard in Bethlehem? This tree will grow in solidarity
with the people who are praying for Peace and Justice in the Land of
the Bible.

Beginning of January until March 2004, we are inviting people from
different countries including Israelis and Palestinians to come to
Daher's Vineyard and plant trees together. Through this project
people will get in touch with each other and build bridges of
understanding and tolerance. We want to make Daher;s Vineyard a
place for meeting and finding a common dialogue. We are hoping, with
your support, to plant 4000 trees.

Why do we plant trees?

-Planting trees is a sign of hope for peace in Palestine.
-Planting trees is a symbol of solidarity with the people
-Planting trees is a symbol of life to the Tent of Nations project,
which seeks to bring youth of various cultures together to build
bridges of understanding, reconciliation and peace.
-Planting trees is a way to keep Daher's vineyard "the Nassar Land"
green and prevent it from the danger of confiscation.

When do we plant trees?
Beginning of January until the end of March.

What kind of trees are we planting?
Olive, grapes, almonds, figs and other trees.

  We invite you to participate in this tree planting campaign by
sponsoring a tree at a cost of $10 US each.  You will receive a
certificate of solidarity for your donation.
We look forward to your support in keeping hope in Palestine alive.
Please forward this letter to your friends.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SOLIDARITY

Please make checks out to:
Tent of Nations
8925 Monsanto Dr
Cincinnati, OH 45231

Please send donations to:
Fifth Third (5/3) Bank
Finneytown Bank Mart
8685 Winton Rd. Mail Drop 108811,
Cincinnati, OHIO, 45231
Routing number: 042000314, Account Name: Tent of Nations

The Tent of Nations seeks to bring youth of various cultures
together to build bridges of understanding, reconciliation, and
peace.

Tent of Nations – People Building Bridges – P.O.Box 28 Bethlehem,
Palestine – Telefax: +972-2-2743071 - E-mail:  tnations@...


==============================================================

3)  SABEEL'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2004

The Defiant Spirit of Christmas

On behalf of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center– Board and
Staff – I would like to send to all of our friends, local and
international, our sincere Christmas greetings.  I would also like
to express our heartfelt gratitude for all the support that our
friends give us.

May the Joy, Peace, and Love of Christmas
Remain with You
Throughout the New Year

Some of our people ask how can we celebrate Christmas
with all the closures and checkpoints,
with all the injustice and oppression,
with all the violations of human rights,
with the presence of a wall that separates families and friends,
and a multitude of hardships that the occupation imposes to make
people's lives miserable,
how can we speak of love, peace and joy when most of our people and
millions of others around the world do not experience liberty and
peace?

The questions are legitimate.  Yet Christmas and New Year must be a
time of renewal, of hope and anticipation, of determination and zeal
to work for a better world where people can experience these
essential qualities of life.  Therefore, wherever empire exists and
the powers that be are in control through domination, there is a
greater responsibility for all of us to take a stand against all
that dehumanizes people and to work for their liberation.

The Christmas story is a story of a liberating God who comes to join
an oppressed people in the work of liberation.  God's message
through the angels is a message of defiance.  In spite of the
presence of empire, human arrogance, and oppression, God is
announcing peace and goodwill.  This is God's agenda.  Glory belongs
to God and not to the emperor nor to the powers.  Once that is
genuinely acknowledged, peace is not far away.

It is in the midst of the Roman occupation that the Incarnation took
place;
it is in spite of the occupation that Mary and Joseph found joy and
love in the birth of Jesus;
it is in spite of the occupation and in the midst of economic
hardships that the shepherds came to visit a family of modest means
and discovered great joy and peace;
it is in spite of the occupation that the Magi came to offer their
gifts to the child.

We celebrate in the midst of the occupation and in spite of it.
Through our celebration we defy the occupation;
we defy the injustice;
we defy the oppressors;
we defy the powers.

They do not possess the last word,
they can build high walls, but they cannot take away our hope,
they can put us in jail, but they cannot take away our joy,
they can prevent us from visiting family, but they cannot take away
our love,
they can stop us at checkpoints and impose all kinds of
restrictions, but they cannot take away our pursuit of freedom and
liberation,
they can prevent us from going to Bethlehem, but they cannot prevent
the spirit of Bethlehem from reaching us,
they can treat us as nonhumans, but they cannot crush our spirit nor
can they take away our God-given human worth and dignity,
they can act with hate and disgust but, by the grace of God, we can
always refuse to stoop to the level of hate and maintain our love of
God and neighbor that includes them.

Therefore Christmas makes us defiant.
We defy the evildoers because we believe in the goodness which they
are capable of doing,
we defy hate because we believe in the power of love and forgiveness,
we defy despair because we believe in life and hope,
we defy violence and terror - both state and individual - because we
believe in the power of peace and nonviolence,
we defy war and the occupation of other people's lands because we
believe in the power of  peaceful methods based on international law
and legitimacy,
we defy and challenge those who humiliate and degrade others because
we believe in the dignity of every human being.

The Incarnation took place when God took on our humanity, when the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  This happened in Palestine
under Roman occupation.  Then as now and in spite of all the
hardships, we celebrate Christ's birth, Emmanuel, God with us,
giving us hope, joy, peace, and love.

We are defiant.  We are full of hope.  We will continue to work for
peace through justice.

Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace


Naim Ateek
Sabeel, Jerusalem
December 14, 2004
www.sabeel.org


==============================================================

4)  An Ecumenical Advent & Christmas message from the Holy Land

"A voice was heard in Ramah,
Wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
She refused to be consoled,
Because they are no more."
Jeremiah 31:15

Grace and peace to you from the Holy Land!  We are well into the
season of Advent … the season of waiting and watching, listening for
the wilderness voices crying to prepare the way and make straight
the roads of the Lord.

To make straight the roads..... a poignant cry in a land whose roads
are blocked in hundreds of places by checkpoints, barriers, fences
and the Wall!  The only roads that are straight, the hundreds of
miles of bypass roads, are primarily forbidden to Palestinians.  For
them, there is no straight road.  (www.btselem.org , "Forbidden
Roads," August 2004 report)

In this season when our eyes turn towards Bethlehem, we can see what
is tragically taking place across the whole of the West Bank. If
Mary and Joseph were to arrive in Bethlehem today, not only would
they need permits to pass the checkpoints, but they would have to
take a detour to get into the town.  The main historic street into
Bethlehem is being completely cut off by a wall, ostensibly because
of Rachel and her tomb, located on that road.  This place has had
religious meaning not only to Jewish women, but historically was a
gathering point for Christian and Muslim women as well, as they
prayed for the gift of a child. The tomb area was also the main
burial ground for Muslims in the city, but is no longer available to
them.  Now, Rachel's tomb has become a fortress, an Israeli military
outpost at the entrance to the city.  Only Israeli Jewish and
foreign women and men are allowed access today. As part of the Wall
project, the area is being cut off from Bethlehem, making way for a
new Jewish settlement, displacing more Palestinian families and
separating others from their olive groves or businesses.
(http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Bethlehem%2026-01-04/index.htm)


If one manages to get close enough to the Tomb, though, past the
razor wire and around the 20 inch thick concrete walls, one can
almost hear Rachel, still weeping for her children.  She weeps for
Iman al-Hamas, a 13-year Palestinian girl riddled with machine-gun
bullets by an Israeli army officer on her way to school in Rafah, as
she weeps for the 652 Palestinian children which have been killed in
the past 4 years alone.   She weeps for Yuval Abadeh, age 4, and
Dorit Aniso, age 2, recent Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia, killed
in Sderot by rockets fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza
strip, as she weeps for the 117 Israeli children which have been
killed. (www.rememberthesechildren.org)


She weeps for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Sudanese
children, and the over 2 million children who have lost their lives
in armed conflicts in the last decade alone.  She weeps for children
left without parents, without food and water, without housing and
education, who are victims of the world's obsession with violence, a
world so bent on destruction and war that it spends billions on
bullets, bombs and brutality, responding to symptoms of conflict
rather than proactively investing in solutions to the causes.

In the United States alone, we have poured over $150 billion into
the war on Iraq.  With that same amount we could have done any one
of the following:  immunized every child in the world for almost 50
years; provided health insurance for almost 90,000,000 children in
the USA; put over 19,000,000 kids in Head Start or over 2,000,000
more public school teachers in place for a year; built 1,300,000 new
homes for those struggling to make ends meet; given over 7,000,000
students 4-year scholarships to public universities; or fully funded
global anti-hunger programs for 6 years or global AIDS programs for
14 years.  If we add the amounts spent by nations worldwide on arms
and conflict, what we could have done for children around the world
is almost unimaginable.  (www.costofwar.com)

Living and working in this land called `holy,' we cry with Rachel
for all of the children -- Palestinian, Israeli, Christian, Muslim,
and Jew.  We weep for children everywhere who pay the price for the
arrogance and greed of adults the world over.  We long for the
crooked places to be made straight, so that the most vulnerable
among us might know life before death!

Yet Advent reminds us that, in the midst of weeping, there is
another cry.  It is the sound of hope and truth that – somehow - the
darkness and weeping cannot and will not overcome.  It is the sound
of a newborn child crying, bearing new life, hope and light into a
broken world.  This stable-born savior was born to change the world
by transforming our love of power into the power of love; a love
that blesses the poor, embraces the unworthy, forgives the guilty
and liberates the oppressed.  This child will lead people to a holy
mountain where the wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will
lie down with the kid.  During this sacred season, we wait with
faith and longing, even in the midst of tears and fears, for the
fullness of God's reign on earth.  We reflect on our lives and our
choices, and we watch every day for signs of the Child.   We center
our lives on the gift of Love that came to us in a child and we seek
renewed conviction to give ourselves to the work of justice and
peace.

This Advent, we go to Bethlehem, where Love is born, to see if there
is any room in our busy, important lives for the Child.  We go as
the scared and surprised shepherds, to watch for angels and listen
for Glorias!  We go as Mary, pondering and treasuring in our hearts
what this Child means for us all.  And, yes, we go as Rachel, to
wonder at how each of us can reach out to change our priorities for
the well-being of children everywhere.

Please pray for us in this little town of Bethlehem and all over
this Holy Land, for the good news of steps toward a just peace,
towards healing and reconciliation.  Pray that we may all live so
that Rachel's weeping is transformed into joy as children the world
over discover the opportunity for life.

May the peace of the Christ Child be born in you again this
Christmas, and carry you with joy and blessing into the New Year.

Sincerely,


Rev. Alex and Mrs. Brenda Awad
General Board of Global Ministries
Mission Personnel - United Methodist Church

Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA) Regional Liaison
Israel, Palestine and Jordan

Nancy Dinsmore
Development Officer
Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem

Rev. Paul Lillie, deacon
St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem

Sri Mayasandra
Mennonite Central Committee


Catherine Nichols
Global Ministries Personnel Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) &
United Church of Christ

Rev.  Sandra Olewine
United Methodist Church Liaison – Jerusalem
General Board of Global Ministries

Rev. Julie Rowe
Communications for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and
Jerusalem

Tim and Chris Seidel
Mennonite Central Committee

Rev. Russell O. Siler, pastor
English-speaking congregation
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in the heart of Palestine marks
one of Christianity's most sacred sites - the birthplace of Jesus
Christ.  If you're interested in visiting this Christmas season, but
you don't need the hassle of Israeli military checkpoints, take my
virtual tour instead.

http://bobmay.info/dec102003nativitychurch.htm

Peace,
Bob

If you're interested in buying Christmas gifts from Bethlehem, now is
the time to do it.  I can recommend several friends and students who
create really nice items.

Visit these Bethlehem Olivewood Sellers:

Grotto Olive Wood
http://www.grottoolivewood.com

Shepherd's Field Art
http://www.olivewoodart.com

Bethlehem Bible College
http://www.bethlehembiblecollege.edu/gift-shop.htm

International Center
http://www.annadwa.org/cave/olivew.htm
(they also have embroidery, ceramics, calligraphy, mosaics, glass,
CDs and books)

For custom work or special orders, please email
Nidal
nidal_dakkarat@...

Elias
e_ghareeb@...

George
abunimir@...

Wisam
wisamts@...

Ramzi
rmzsalsa@...


I can also recommend some books:

Go to http://www.amazon.com for

Bethlehem Besieged:  Stories of Desperation and Hope from the Holy
Land by Mitri Raheb

Imm Mathilda:  A Bethlehem Mother's Diary by Alison Jones Nassar

10-25-2004

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/493329.html

Two Jewish families move into house near Rachel's Tomb

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

Two Jewish families moved into a house near Rachel's Tomb in the West
Bank city of Bethlehem this week, ahead of the anniversary of the
matriarch Rachel's death.

Israel Defense Forces officers on Monday told the families and the
yeshiva students who were also staying there that the army was
waiting for directives from the political echelon regarding whether
they could continue to remain at the site.

Right-wing activists and people involved with the yeshiva were
preparing to ultimately bring 10 families to live there and transform
it into a settlement near the holy site, on the northern outskirts of
Bethlehem, to provide a basis for a Jewish hold in that region.

The move took place Sunday, about two years after the house was
purchased by Jewish buyers with the permission of then-defense
minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and the Civil Administration.

A yeshiva has been operating at the site for about a year, with the
permission of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

Tuesday, the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, marks the
anniversary of the matriarch Rachel's death, according to Jewish
tradition.

Activists from the Shavei Rachel group, who are involved in the move,
said that the site had undergone renovations throughout the past year
and that the building was connected to the grave compound with the
approval, aid and knowledge of the army and the political echelon.

National Union MKs Uri Ariel, Benny Elon and Aryeh Eldad visited the
building Monday afternoon, and said the move was represented a
response to the disengagement plan, on which the Knesset plenum will
vote Tuesday.

Here are three pieces that may be of interest.

1) Death in a cemetery -- the killing of Prof. Khaled Salah
2) Presbyterians divest themselves from Israel
3) United Methodist Church Resolutions regarding Israel

If you wish to continue receiving news like this from Palestine,
please refer to the instructions on my website
(http://www.bobmay.info) for joining Douglas Dicks' mailing list.
Thanks,
Bob

=========================================================

Death in a cemetery
By Gideon Levy
Friday Magazine
Ha'aretz -- Friday - July 23, 2004

How many of us can imagine the night of horror that the Salah family
endured? To lie on the floor of the living room for what seemed an
eternity, embracing as one being, trembling with fear as the house
was blasted with bullets and missiles; to watch the sniper's laser
ray doing its dance of death across the apartment, searching out its
victims; to see the missiles slamming into the walls of the house,
missile after missile, as though an earthquake had struck; to get to
their feet in the dark following the order to evacuate the building
before it was demolished; to try to open the front door and discover
that it had been twisted out of shape by the gunfire and couldn't be
opened; to open a window and try to shout to the snipers, in the dark
of the night, that the door was jammed; to see the father of the
family collapse from a bullet fired into his neck by a sniper; to see
the son collapse a few minutes later from a bullet in his cheek fired
by a sniper; to watch, helpless, as your son lies on the floor, the
life ebbing out of him, next to his dead father, and to cry for help,
but to find that the soldiers will not allow anyone to enter; then to
undergo an interrogation and humiliation; and to discover that the
entire contents of the house had been destroyed.

That was the night of horror of the Salah family: the father, Prof.
Khaled Salah, 51 at his death, founder of the Department of
Electrical Engineering at An-Najah University in Nablus; his wife,
Salam, and their three children, Diana, 23, Mohammed, 16, and Ali,
11, all of whom were at home that night. Fortunately for the
firstborn, Amer, he was in Boston, where he is an engineering
student. It was a night of horror on which the father, possessor of a
Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and a member of the
Israeli-Palestinian Peace Committee at An-Najah, was killed, along
with his son, Mohammed, a boy who loved soccer and dreamed of
becoming a pharmacist, who lay dying on the floor for lack of medical
treatment, which the soldiers denied him.

Maybe you saw them. Two years ago, during the Mondial (the World Cup
of soccer), Channel 2 News correspondent Itai Engel broadcast a
report of his impressions from a house in Nablus where he had watched
the game between Brazil and Turkey as a guest of the Salah family.
Engel was flabbergasted this week when told what had happened to the
family that hosted him. The boy too? The boy, too. He said he had
been charmed by them, by the father and his son, both of them avid
soccer fans. When asked about the possibility of a game between
Israel and Palestine, Khaled consulted with Mohammed and then
replied, "We're better, but it'll be best if you win, because we'll
be in for it if we beat you." They talked about peace and about
soccer.

Salam, the widow and bereaved mother, a survivor of that night, found
it difficult this week to remember the television piece and her loved
ones' remarks about peace. It's important for her that the Israelis
know that Khaled was a man of peace. Between fits of crying, still in
shock, it's important for her to tell the Israelis in detail what
happened in the pre-dawn hours of July 6 in her home on Saka Street,
in Nablus.



Salam Salah got home from a wedding in the city a little before
midnight. Only she and Diana had attended the family wedding.
Mohammed stayed home with his father, watching television and waiting
for the candies his mother would bring from the party. Mohammed was
very fond of the white and pink wedding sweets stuffed with walnuts.
No one could have imagined that those would be the last candies he
would ever eat. Diana, who, like her brother Amer, was born in
California - both are American citizens - holds a degree in business
administration from An-Najah. She, too, was getting ready for her own
wedding, a large-scale affair that was set for next month.

They soon went to sleep. Mohammed was an anxiety-ridden boy. Born
into the first intifada in the tough city of Nablus, reaching
adolescence as the second intifada erupted, he was a habitual nail-
biter. He sometimes got nosebleeds, when the tension in Nablus rose.
Salam says it might have been because they overprotected the boy.

At a quarter to two they woke up in a fright to the sound of a
powerful blast. Salam and Khaled leaped out of bed and looked out the
window of their bedroom. They saw nothing. From the window of Diana's
room they spotted dark forms of soldiers surrounding the building. It
was only from the kitchen window that the full picture became
clear. "It's like hell," Khaled whispered to his wife. The whole area
was swarming with snipers, tanks, helicopters and other army forces
that had come to apprehend or liquidate wanted individuals who were
probably hiding in the ground-floor apartment.

Their building is situated high on Saka Street, wedged on the
hillside, with Nablus spread out below. The residences in the
building are spacious. Two neighbors are physicians, and Sami Aaker,
the owner of a sewing factory that produces garments for Israeli
fashion houses is another neighbor. Aaker's home now lies in ruins,
like that of the Salah family.

Khaled herded the children into the living room and they lay on the
floor, folded into one another, five members of a family like one
body. From time to time, another missile or shell hit the apartment
and exploded, casting a lurid light, like fireworks. Occasionally
searchlights or the snipers' red laser rays lit up the darkened
living room. The electricity came and went. The door of the
refrigerator, damaged along with everything else in the house, opened
wide and the yellow light supplied a bit of illumination. Salam and
Khaled called everyone they could think of on Mohammed's mobile
phone, trying to find out what was happening. The shooting didn't
stop for a second, and their home was being gradually destroyed. They
called relatives, asking them to do something, fast.

One relative called the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, but even the
long arm of all-powerful America, whose nationals were in the
besieged apartment, was of no avail. One missile had already slashed
into the bedroom, another into the kitchen. Khaled's mobile phone
rang in the bedroom, but no one could get to it. They cried, prayed,
shouted, fell silent. And embraced one another. They had a Koran and
they read verses from it in loud voices, so people would hear.

"It was a nightmare. I will never recover from it. No horror movie I
have seen can compare to it," says Salam, who wears black mourning
clothes. Five missiles had already struck the house. Khaled tried to
calm them: "It's only property damage, no one has been hurt." Salam
says he was strong and knew no fear. They just didn't want him to
move and risk being hurt.

They heard the windows shattering, the water streaming from pipes
that had burst and the perfumes flowing out of bottles that broke one
after the other, their scents wafting through the apartment. From
above they heard the sound of a helicopter. The battle for the house
was at its height. "We phoned and phoned but everyone was helpless.
It was war, and my feeling was that none of us would survive it." It
went on that way for an hour and a quarter, until 3 A.M.

When quiet fell, Salam shouted, "Please, please, we are a family of
peace. My name is Salam, shalom." The quiet continued for a bit, and
then the shooting resumed. Immediately afterward, the Israeli force
ordered everyone to leave the building, because it was going to be
blown up. The order was given through a loudspeaker, in
Arabic. "Anyone who doesn't come out will have the building blown up
with him inside," the soldiers threatened.

Khaled got up first. "We're all right, everyone is all right," he
whispered. He walked toward the corridor and turned on a light. Salam
told the children to wait until he could see what was happening. But
the shooting started again and Khaled hurried back to the living
room. When the shooting died down he again made his way toward the
front door and tried to open it. However, the door had been bent out
of shape by the gunfire and the key didn't work.

Unable to open the door, and taking seriously the soldiers' threat to
blow up the house with them inside, Khaled went to the bedroom,
opened the window, raised his hands and shouted to the soldiers, in
English, "Sir, sir, we need help. Please come and open the door. I am
a professor, we are people of peace. We have American passports."
There was no response. Khaled tried again, this time in
Arabic: "Help, help, we need help."

A split second later, Salam heard three shots. Khaled fell silent.
She would never hear his voice again. Inside the room, the terrifying
red laser ray pranced across the walls.

Salam crawled over to her husband and found him lying on the floor,
between the bed and the window. At first she saw no blood, but he was
no longer breathing. Then she saw the hole in his neck. "Diana,
Diana," she screamed, "they have killed your father."

Then she noticed Mohammed lying on the carpet next to Diana. "What
happened, Diana?" she cried. Diana said nothing. Salam quickly moved
her son, revealing his mouth. Blood was flowing from his mouth and
his cheek was split open. She tried to stanch the blood coming out of
his cheek using paper towels. At first, she says, she thought it was
a superficial wound. The boy groaned. His eyes were wide open and he
emitted strange noises. His eyes pleaded for help, but his mother had
only the paper towels. She opened the screen window in the room and
shouted hysterically to the soldiers, "You killed my husband and my
son." She says she heard a soldier laugh.

"Shut up, woman," the soldier commanded her, in Arabic. And again a
red laser beam skitted around the room.

"I will never understand how Mohammed was killed. Maybe one day I
will know. Khaled raised his hands, so he was a convenient target for
them. Him they killed in cold blood. They let him finish speaking and
then they killed him. But how Mohammed was killed I don't understand.
I shouted like a madwoman: `Help, my son is alive, we have to save
him.' They laughed and told me to shut up. The soldier who was
laughing was standing below, on the street. I sat on the floor and
kept on shouting like a crazy person. I pounded on the door until my
hands were injured. I don't know how those curses came out of me. I
called for help, Diana and Ali were crying hysterically, and the
soldiers threatened to blow up the building with us inside."

Mohammed was still alive. Diana also shouted to the soldiers that
they had two neighbors who are physicians, let them at least send
over one of them or let an ambulance get through. Salam says that
every time their shouting rose in pitch the soldiers threatened to
shoot them unless they shut up. Finally the soldiers said they would
send someone. They sent a human shield, using the outlawed "neighbor
procedure," in this case the neighbors' 15-year-old son. The lean boy
pushed the door from outside, Salam pulled from inside, and at last
the door opened.

"We went out in our pajamas with our hands raised," said Salam. "The
soldiers spoke to us humiliatingly. I shouted that my son and my
husband are killed and they laughed at us, imitating my shouts. They
took us to the neighbors' apartment. Diana asked where she should sit
and a soldier said, sit on your bottom. When I asked to see the
commanding officer, they laughed at me. When I said I wanted to be
with Mohammed they imitated me. This is the most criminal and most
cruel army in the world. It was murder in the first degree."

At 6:15 A.M., four and a half hours after the attack began, the
soldiers allowed a Palestinian ambulance to drive up to the building.
The father and the son were dead. Salam was taken for interrogation
by "Captain Razel" from the Shin Bet security service, who questioned
her about the wanted men who had hidden in the apartment below. She
had no idea, she says, what was going on outside.

And that wasn't the end of it. "After all that they went into the
house and shot at everything they found. Everything. There isn't a
dress, there isn't a towel they didn't shoot at. At the computer, the
refrigerator, all our belongings, they destroyed everything. They
didn't leave us so much as a pair of socks. They destroyed
everything. A home of 20 years, all our memories, all our dreams, our
whole history. Imagine to yourself what's in a home of 20 years. They
destroyed it all. My husband's books. I don't understand why. They
just wanted to show us how strong they are and how cruel."

What do the soldiers who were involved think now? The sniper who shot
a father and his son to death, and those who denied the dying boy
medical assistance? The army issued a statement the next day: "Dr.
Salah and his son Mohammed were apparently killed by IDF gunfire, but
there was no intention to do them harm. Because of the shooting of
the wanted man from the building, the soldiers were compelled to
shoot in different stages at every floor and at the roof of the
building, and it's possible that in one of the instances the soldiers
didn't identify the sources of fire correctly or were forced to open
fire at suspicious movements. Because of the continuation of the
event and the lack of information about whether there were additional
wanted individuals in the building, it was not possible to send
medical teams into the building."

Sirens wail in the main streets of Nablus. Another funeral
procession - Yasser Tantawi, 21. His brother, Khaled, 19, was killed
two months ago. Both are from the city's Balata refugee camp. A
Swedish volunteer, Henryk Larsen, a medical student from Uppsala
University, who joined an ambulance of the Medical Relief
Organization, was an eyewitness to Yasser's killing last Saturday
night.

Youngsters threw stones at Jeeps, the soldiers opened fire, Yasser
was wounded in the leg and fell to the ground. The event took place
in the camp's cemetery. Larsen tried to treat the wounded man, but
came under fire and had to retreat. He saw Yasser's body jolted back
and forth as the soldiers kept shooting at him. They shot him, he
says, after he had already been wounded in the leg.

Dr. Rasan Hamadan, from the Medical Relief Organization, says that
about 10 bullets were found lodged in Yasser's body and that the
medical team reported that he was unarmed. Larsen, too, says he saw
no weapon.

The response of the IDF Spokesperson's Office: "During operational
activity by an IDF force in Balata refugee camp the force came under
fire and a number of explosive devices were thrown at it. The
soldiers opened fire at a terrorist armed with a Kalashnikov rifle
who was advancing toward them, and killed him. In the complex reality
in which the IDF operates, maximum efforts are made to avoid injury
to the innocent. At the same time, in the case of armed individuals
who are endangering IDF soldiers and those around them, it is the
soldiers' obligation to prevent them from acting."

Two days later, on Monday of this week, soldiers killed another stone-
thrower in the Balata camp cemetery. His name was Husam Abu Zeitouna.
He was 14.
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/455097.html>

=========================================================

Presbyterians divest themselves from Israel
The church will boycott Israeli products and U.S. firms investing
here
By Nathan Guttman
Ha'aretz -- Thursday - July 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - The Presbyterian Church's 216th General Assembly caught
American Jewish organizations off guard and by surprise. The
Presbyterians have never concealed their criticism of Israeli
policies in the territories, but years of dialogue between Jews and
Presbyterians had created an impression of an understanding between
the communities.

Hence U.S. Jewish leaders were astonished to find that the
Presbyterian Church has adopted the most censorious decisions ever
embraced by any Christian denomination in the United States against
Israel.

The Presbyterian Church has three million American members and is one
of the strongest denominations in the country. This time it did more
than issue declarations condemning Israel's occupation of the
territories. In a precedent setting decision, it took practical steps
to halt investments in Israel, and to discourage contacts with
companies that do business in Israel.

Divestment decisions regarding Israel have in the past three years
been reached by academic and research bodies in the U.S., but these
have mostly been small institutions with limited economic clout.
Their calls for divestment have had a marginal economic impact. Now,
for the first time, a significant religious entity that controls
large sums of money and commands the beliefs of millions of followers
has called for the imposition of economic sanctions on Israel.

"By reaching this decision we want to make sure that we are not
investing in activities of the kind we are trying to prevent. We see
so much violence, and we want to assure ourselves that we have
nothing to do with it," said Jay Rock, coordinator for Interfaith
Relations at the Presbyterian church. Rock said the new divestment
policy is motivated by more than a desire to insulate and detach
Presbyterians from the violent Israeli-Palestinian dispute - his
church also has an affirmative desire to "make our voice heard about
the direction of Israeli policy."

The Presbyterian General Assembly convenes once every two years. The
recent meeting was held in Richmond, Virginia. As is customary, a
human rights survey was presented at the assembly and the report
accused Israel of human rights violations in the territories.

The divestment proposal was forwarded by a Presbyterian delegate from
Florida. The assembly's Peacemaking Committee confirmed the proposal,
and brought it to the floor of the assembly plenum for a vote. The
decision to divest from Israel was passed by a resounding majority of
431 to 62.

Tracking Caterpillar

Israeli delegates were not invited to speak at the Presbyterian
General Assembly. Rev. Mitri Raheb, from Bethlehem, appeared before
the delegates. This Bethlehem cleric urged the Presbyterians to sever
economic ties with Israel. He singled out the tractor manufacturer
Caterpillar, saying its products are used to raze Palestinian houses
on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sources in the Presbyterian
Church said this week that they do not know whether their church has
investments in Caterpillar.

The Presbyterian decision is economically significant. Well-informed
sources say the Presbyterian Church commands more than seven billion
dollars worth of financial instruments and pension funds. Most of
this money is invested in companies and now, in keeping with the
divestment decision, Presbyterian delegates will review each
company's records to ascertain whether it has ties with Israel.

According to the General Assembly decision, any company which earns
more than $1 million annually as a result of investments in Israel,
or which invests more than $1 million a year in Israel, will be
entered on a blacklist prepared for the church's leaders - the
Presbyterians are likely to divest from any company that appears on
this list.

While the Presbyterian decision's likely economic impact is not
negligible, the American Jewish community is more concerned about the
principle inherent in the policy. "This is a new phase of aggressive
behavior in the _expression of their feelings toward the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict," said Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, Interfaith
Director for the Anti-Defamation League.

He said that while the ADL and other American Jewish organizations
maintain contacts with the Presbyterian church, the denomination's
leaders did not inform the American Jewish leadership about
preparations for the divestment policy - nor did the Presbyterians
give the organized American Jewish community a chance to respond to
the developments at their General Assembly.

Along with ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, Rabbi Bretton-
Granatoor sent a strongly worded letter to the leader of the
Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, saying that
they feel hurt by the General Assembly's divestment decision. They
criticized the Presbyterians for drawing a comparison between the
situation in Israel and former apartheid South Africa. The letter
also attacked a call by the Presbyterians for an end to construction
of the separation fence.

Despite the Presbyterian divestment decision in Richmond, many
American Jewish leaders point out that there has been productive
cooperation with this church, particularly in the realm of human
rights. "Up to 1967 they were Israel's best friends, because they
always support the underdog," says Bretton-Granatoor. "After that
they started seeing Israel as a superpower."

Directed divestment

In the aftermath of the storm over the divestment decision, the
Presbyterian church plans to issue a clarifying statement soon,
saying that it will not boycott every company that has investments in
Israel, or earns profits from business with Israel.

The intention is to provide boycott exemptions to companies or
entities which deal in education, social welfare and construction in
Israel. The Presbyterians want to direct the divestment policy
toward "companies that might cause damage and hurt the peace
process," as Jay Rock phrases it.

In parallel, an effort will be made to mend breaches with the Jewish
community. Up to now, American Jewish professionals complain,
Presbyterian replies to objections about the new divestment policy
have been evasive and unsatisfactory.

"We need to engage and think together how these two communities,
which both want to bring peace to the region, can think together
about ways to do it," says Rock. He said: "It's clear that tension
exists right now, but I hope that an opportunity for dialogue will
emerge from this."

Yet, the thrust of statements made by Rock's counterpart, ADL
Interfaith director Bretton-Granatoor, casts doubt on this hope of
future dialogue. "It is accepted that reasonable people will ask
questions and be critical - but they have proposed drastic measures
and a blanket approach, without trying to balance or consult with the
other side," Bretton-Granatoor says.

Unlike other denominations in the U.S., the Presbyterian church does
not have a mass membership. Yet it is considered a highly influential
church, largely because its members include people with clout in
spheres such as politics and economics.

In recent years, the pro-Israel community in America has come to rely
increasingly on the support of the Evangelical church, which has a
mass following of some 50 million believers and whose leaders are
outspoken proponents of Israel's right to occupy the territories, at
least until the Second Coming. This "Christian Zionism" approach was
criticized at the Presbyterian General Assembly which concluded that
it has no clear theological foundation.

Will the Presbyterian decision encourage other denominations to adopt
divestment policies? American Jewish leaders do not seem concerned
about such a falling of dominoes. The Catholic Church, the largest
Christian group in the U.S. and the world, is currently drawing
closer to Israel. Various Protestant denominations in the U.S.
periodically criticize Israeli policies in the territories but do not
seem to have divestment decisions on their agenda.

Another decision reached by the Presbyterian General Assembly has
little to do with Israel, but has incensed the American Jewish
community. By a 260 to 233 vote, the assembly authorized continued
funding and support for the Avodat Yisrael church in Philadelphia,
which tries to convert Jews to Christianity.

Jewish activists have in the past demanded that this missionary
group, which describes its purposes as "messianic," desist from its
activities - they have objected that Avodat Yisrael uses duplicitous
tactics - among other things, allegedly posing as a Jewish
institution.
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/454513.html>

=========================================================

"Peace in the Middle East"
United Methodist Church Resolution
~May 2004~

We join with Palestinian Christians as well as our Jewish and Muslim
brothers and sisters in feeling a deep sense of rootedness to the
land which has special meaning for our three religious traditions. We
celebrate the diversity of religious customs and traditions
throughout the Middle East.

Jerusalem is sacred to all the children of Abraham: Jews, Muslims,
and Christians. We have a vision of a shared Jerusalem as a city of
peace and reconciliation, where indigenous Palestinians and Israelis
can live as neighbors and, along with visitors and tourists, have
access to holy sites and exercise freedom of religious _expression.
The peaceful resolution of Jerusalem's status is crucial to the
success of the whole process of making a just and lasting peace
between Palestinians and Israelis.

We seek for all people in the region an end to military occupation,
freedom from violence, and full respect for the human rights of all
under international law.

WHEREAS, the prophet Isaiah cautioned against coveting the lands and
homes of one's neighbors: Ah, you who join house to house, who add
field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are
left to live alone in the midst of the land! (Isaiah 5:8); and

WHEREAS, the continuing confiscation of Palestinian land for
construction of settlements and the building of a separation wall
violates basic understanding of human rights, subverts the peace
process, destroys the hope of both Israelis and Palestinians who are
working for and longing for peace, both Israelis and Palestinians,
and fosters a sense of desperation that can only lead to further
violence; and

WHEREAS, continued and often intensified closures, curfews,
dehumanizing check points, home demolitions, uprooted trees,
bulldozed fields, and confiscation of Palestinian land and water by
the government of Israel have devastated economic infrastructure and
development in the West Bank and Gaza, have caused a massive
deterioration of the living standards of all Palestinians... and an
increasing sense of hopelessness and frustration; and

WHEREAS, targeted assassinations, suicide bombings and attacks
against civilians by both Israelis and Palestinians heighten the fear
and suffering of all; and

WHEREAS, people in the United States, through their taxes, provide
several billion dollars in economic and military assistance to the
State of Israel each year, which allows for the building of bypass
roads and settlements which are illegal according to the Fourth
Geneva Convention;

WHEREAS, the church continues to work with ecumenical and interfaith
bodies to advocate for Palestinian self-determination and an end to
Israeli occupation; to affirm Israel's right to exist within secure
borders; to affirm the right of return for Palestinian refugees under
international law; to call for region-wide disarmament; to urge
Israelis and Palestinians to stop human rights violations and attacks
on civilians, such as targeted assassinations and suicide bombings;
and to urge the U.S. government to initiate an arms embargo on the
entire Middle East region;

Therefore, be it resolved,

That The United Methodist Church opposes continued military
occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the
confiscation of Palestinian land and water resources, the destruction
of Palestinian homes, the continued building of illegal Jewish
settlements, and any vision of a "Greater Israel" that includes the
occupied territories and the whole of Jerusalem and its surroundings.

Be it further resolved, that we urge the U.S. government to end all
military aid to the region, and second to redistribute the large
amount of aid now given to Israel and Egypt; to support economic
development efforts of nongovernmental organizations throughout the
region, including religious institutions, human rights groups, labor
unions, and professional groups within Palestinian communities.

The United Methodist Church requests that the government of the
United States, working in cooperation with the United Nations and
other nations, urge the state of Israel to:

cease the confiscation of Palestinian lands and water for any reason;
cease the building of new, or expansion of existing, settlements
and/or bypass roads in the occupied territories including East
Jerusalem;

lift the closures and curfews on all Palestinian towns by completely
withdrawing Israeli military forces to the Green Line (the 1948
ceasefire line between Israel and the West Bank);

dismantle that segment of the Wall of Separation constructed since
May 2002 that is not being built on the Green Line but on Palestinian
land which is separating Palestinian farmers from their fields.

We also urge the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian Religious
Leaders to continue to publicly condemn violence against Israeli
civilians and to use non-violent acts of disobedience to resist the
Occupation and the illegal settlements.

We urge all United Methodists in the U.S. to:
advocate with the U.S. administration and Congress to implement the
above steps;

encourage members of each congregation to study the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict from all perspectives by inviting speakers to
church events, reading books, using audio visual resources in
educational forums, and getting information from websites.
provide financial support to the Palestinian people through
contributions to the General Board of Global Ministries;

support, and participate in, the work of international peace and
human rights organizations to provide protection for Palestinians and
Israelis seeking nonviolently to end the occupation; and

reach out to local synagogues, mosques and Christian faith groups by
engaging in interfaith and ecumenical dialogue on how to promote
justice and peace in the Holy Land; and

That the General Board of Global Ministries, working together with
the General Board of Church & Society and interfaith organizations,
develop advocacy packets for use in local congregations to promote a
just and lasting peace and human rights for all in the region.

Passed at the 2004 General Conference meeting in Pittsburgh April 27-
May 7, 2004

Since I will not be reassigned to Palestine, here's information on
eyewitness accounts from internationals in Palestine:

The ISM posts a lot of inside material from internationals in the
area. You can read their reports and join their mailing list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palsolidarity/

My friend Douglas Dicks digs through local media reports in Jerusalem
to provide a sample of daily news from the area. Please see my website for
information on joining his or Palestinian mailing lists:

http://www.bobmay.info

Doug sent this article from Ha'aretz a couple of days ago.

If it were the reverse
By Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz -- Sunday - July 18, 2004

What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to detonate a bomb
at the entrance to an apartment building in Israel and cause the
death of an elderly man in a wheelchair, who would later be found
buried under the rubble of the building? The country would be
profoundly shocked. Everyone would talk about the sickening cruelty
of the act and its perpetrators. The shock would be even greater if
it then turned out that the dead man's wife had tried to dissuade the
terrorist from blowing up the house, telling him that there were
people inside, but to no avail. The tabloids would come out with the
usual screaming headline: "Buried alive in his wheelchair." The
terrorists would be branded "animals."

Last Monday, Israel Defense Forces bulldozers in Khan Yunis, in the
Gaza Strip, demolished the home of Ibrahim Halfalla, a 75-year-old
disabled man and father of seven, and buried him alive. Umm-Basel,
his wife, says she tried to stop the driver of the heavy machine by
shouting, but he paid her no heed. The IDF termed the act "a mistake
that shouldn't have happened," and the incident was noted in passing
in Israel. The country's largest-circulation paper, Yedioth Ahronoth,
didn't bother to run the story at all. The blood libel in France - a
woman's tale of being subjected to an anti-Semitic attack, which
later turned out to be fiction - proved a great deal more upsetting
to people. There we thought the assault was aimed against our people.
But when the IDF bulldozes a disabled Palestinian to death? Not a
story. Just like the killing, under the rubble of her home, of Noha
Maqadama, a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, before the eyes of
her husband and children, in El Boureij refugee camp a few months
earlier.

And what would happen if a Palestinian were to shoot an Israeli
university lecturer and his son in front of his wife and their young
son? That's what happened 10 days ago in the case of Dr. Salem
Khaled, from Nablus, who called to the soldiers from the window of
his house because he was a man of peace and the front door had
jammed, so he couldn't get out. The soldiers shot him to death and
then killed his 16-year-old son before the eyes of his mother and his
11-year-old brother. It's not hard to imagine how we would react to
the story if the victims were ours.

But when we're implicated and the victims are Palestinians, we prefer
to avert our eyes, not to know, not to take an interest and certainly
not to be shocked. Palestinian victims - and their numbers, as
everyone knows, are far greater than ours - don't even merit
newspaper reports, not even when the chain of events is particularly
brutal, as in the examples above. This is not an intellectual
exercise but an attempt to demonstrate the concealment of
information, the double morality and the hypocrisy. The indifference
to these two very recent incidents proved again that in our eyes
there is only one victim and all the others will never be considered
victims.

If a European cabinet minister were to declare, "I don't want these
long-nosed Jews to serve me in restaurants," all of Europe would be
up in arms and this would be the minister's last comment as a
minister. Three years ago, our former labor and social affairs
minister, Shlomo Benizri, from Shas, stated: "I can't understand why
slanty-eyed types should be the ones to serve me in restaurants."
Nothing happened. We are allowed to be racists. And if a European
government were to announce that Jews are not permitted to attend
Christian schools? The Jewish world would rise up in protest. But
when our Education Ministry announces that it will not permit Arabs
to attend Jewish schools in Haifa, it's not considered racism. Only
in Israel could this not be labeled racist. The heritage of Golda
Meir - it was she who said that after what the Nazis did to us, we
can do whatever we want - is now having a late and unfortunate
revival.

What would happen if a certain country were to enact legislation
forbidding members of a particular nation to become citizens there,
no matter what the circumstances, including mixed couples who married
and raised families? No country anywhere enacts laws like these
nowadays. Apart from Israel. If the cabinet extends the validity of
the new Citizenship Law today, Palestinians will not be able to
undergo naturalization here, even if they are married to Israelis. We
have the right, you see. And if the illegal Israeli immigrants in the
United States were hunted down like animals in the dark of night, the
way the Immigration Police do here, would we have a better
understanding of the injustice we are doing to a community that wants
nothing other than to work here?

What would we say if the parents of Israeli emigrants were separated
from their children and deported, without having available any avenue
of naturalization, no matter what the circumstances? And how would we
classify a country that interrogates visitors about their political
opinions as soon as they disembark from the plane at the airport and
bars them from entering it the security authorities look askance at
the opinions they express? What would happen if anti-Semites in
France were to poison the drinking water of a Jewish neighborhood?
Last week settlers poisoned a well at Atawana, in the southern Mount
Hebron region, and the police are investigating.

And we still haven't said anything about a country that would
imprison another nation, or about a regime that would prevent access
to medical treatment for some of its subjects, according to its
national identity, about roads that would be open only to the members
of one nation or about an airport that would be closed to the other
nation. All this is happening in Israel and is pulling from under us
the moral ground that makes it possible for us to complain about
racism and anti-Semitism abroad, even when they actually erupt.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/452564.html

Wall annexes Rachel's Tomb, imprisons Palestinian families

Bethlehem resident Fuad Ahmad Jado, surrounded by a wall, hasn't even
a way out to buy food.

By Lily Galili
Ha'aretz -- Sunday - July 11, 2004

Last Wednesday morning, 10 ultra-Orthodox men sat near Rachel's Tomb
compound heatedly discussing halakhic (Jewish legal) issues. They
were sitting in a long corridor linking the tomb to a new house,
which until recently was owned by a Palestinian resident of
Bethlehem, who used to rent it to small business owners.

A few months ago the Palestinian sold the building, on Bethlehem's
main road, to private Israeli buyers. In a short time it was
significantly altered. Its facade, which looked onto the Palestinian
street, was completely sealed and its rear was hastily joined to the
tomb compound. The result is a weird architectural product. The rim
of the pavement adjacent to the original structure is now part of the
interior of the joined building.

The soldiers in charge of security in Rachel's Tomb live on the
basement floor, which was turned into a barracks. The entrance hall
is an improvised yeshiva. The rooms on the other floors are locked
up, pending renovation. The buyers' "big plan" is to build a sort of
little settlement in the expanding compound of Rachel's Tomb.

Former MK Hanan Porat knows a lot about it. "With the help of God we
are progressing toward maintaining a permanent Jewish presence and a
fixed yeshiva in Rachel's Tomb, as Rabbi Kook urged, and bringing
Israelis back to where they belong."

The house annexed to the tomb is not the last. In the adjacent
building, on the Palestinian side, a small humus diner is located -
but diners are few, due to the situation. "Blessed is God, we're
taking care of the humus joint too," says Porat. "The buyers have
received a good price for it, voluntarily. It's a private purchase,
without the government's intervention. All the official bodies in
Israel know about it, but they also know it's all legal. There are
other lands owned by Jews in the area, on the other side of the road."

Asked if the goal is creating a Jewish settlement in this part of
Bethlehem resembling the Jewish settlement in Hebron, Porat says with
a sigh: "Alas, at a later stage and smaller, but yes. It's time to
renew the meaning of the verse `your children will return to their
own land'"(Jeremiah 31:17).

This verse has been engraved on a wall slate in a little ceremony
inaugurating the new building in the tomb compound. However, the main
road's official name, once Derech Efrata - the road to Efrat - which
until the intifada was also the main Jerusalem-Hebron road, is now
Yasser Arafat Street. This name is still on the road sign near
Rachel's Tomb - so the future residents can say their address is
Rachel's Tomb, corner of Arafat.

Jerusalem's tomb

Many are waiting in line to move into the house. It will be inhabited
only after the separation wall south of Jerusalem is completed. The
creeping wall has been diverted from its course and will close in on
the expanded tomb compound, turning it into a walled enclave. The
wall bites into about half a kilometer of Bethlehem land, annexing it
to Jerusalem.

"It has never been decided that Rachel's Tomb will be in C area
(Israeli security and political control)," says Shaul Arieli, a
Geneva Initiative activist. "The interim agreement of September `95
has a clause promising Israel free access to Rachel's Tomb, but
without giving it the authorities deriving from a C area status. When
they set the borders of Jerusalem, they refrained from annexing
Rachel's Tomb, because it is located in heart of Bethlehem. Now the
wall is in fact annexing the tomb. The wall in this area was built
during the trauma of the big events in Bethlehem and Beit Jallah. In
the insanity that ensued, the tractors arrived and created faits
accomplis."

Huge concrete fortifications around Rachel's Tomb are severing the
main road and writing a new history. The direct road from Jerusalem
to Hebron is no more. Near Rachel's Tomb the road was blocked with a
high concrete wall built across it. The Palestinians wishing to enter
Bethlehem are directed to a small bypass. The Israelis are led into
the closed tomb enclave in dozens of buses daily (mostly organized
Egged trips accompanied by soldiers). Barrier 300 between Jerusalem
and Bethlehem was diverted toward Bethlehem and in the future it will
become a terminal like the Erez barricade.

The Palestinian businesses on this part of the road, once a bustling
shopping center, closed down because their clients couldn't get to
them. A handsome sign with the word "Memories" testifies to the
existence of a once popular pub in the city that was once the
Palestinians' big urban hope. Only a distant memory of that hope
remains. The history of the main road and Bethlehem's geopolitics are
changing with the help of "contractor Effie Magal," who is hanging up
his company's advertisement posters on the wall with professional
pride.

The Palestinian partner to the Geneva Initiative, Yasser Abed Rabu,
cites Rachel's Tomb to demonstrate that the Israelis are cheating.

Last Tuesday Fuad Ahmad Jado sat at the entrance to his house, near
the Al-Aida refugee camp. His address is hard to define. In the days
before the wall, his power supply came from Jerusalem and his water
from Bethlehem. He didn't really belong to either, and the high
concrete wall creeping toward his entrance is complicating things.

Middle of nowhere

Jado's story is a test of the High Court of Justice's ruling on the
separation fence. His tale demonstrates that the "proportionality"
the court spoke of is like an "enlightened occupation." Three
families live in the compound with Jado. The wall will make their
life impossible. Are three families, in the middle of nowhere, enough
to weigh against the security needs? Is the fact that Jado recently
had a heart attack, after a clash with the border police, and is now
facing open heart surgery, a matter to be considered? Jado, 47, who
speaks fluent Hebrew, believes it is.

In the relentless 36-degree heat, Jado pulls all the documents of his
history from orderly files. Order is second nature to the man who
worked for years in Israel's licensing office in Jerusalem. One of
the permits, given his grandfather Ayub Hassan Jado in July 1978,
states explicitly: "this man was registered in the population
registry in 1967 and registered in form 049556. The place is within
Jerusalem's jurisdiction."

As proof Jado pulls out arnona (city rate) payment forms he received
from Jerusalem's municipality and never paid. Does this prove he is a
true Jerusalemite?

Not really. On April 27, 2003, another permit was issued for Jado, on
which he was informed in red print that he belongs to Bethlehem. "An
officer who wasn't born yet when my grandfather was a citizen of
Jerusalem came and informed me that I wasn't a Jerusalemite," Jado
says cynically.

The story does not end here. In recent months senior border police
officers came to Jado's house, examined it and left. Then came an
officer from the military authorities and informed him, "you belong
to Jerusalem again." They did not come again. As a Jerusalem citizen,
Jado is prohibited from entering Bethlehem, but also from entering
Jerusalem, because nobody issued him a permit to do so. Jado is
sitting on the land his family has lived on for 60 years and does not
belong anywhere. He has to sneak illegally to his medical tests in
East Jerusalem's Al-Makassed Hospital.

The wall being built on his doorstep will imprison him within it,
with no way out in any direction. In the original plan, the wall was
supposed to pass west of his house, leaving it in Bethlehem. But as
his luck would have it, the house is near an Armenian monastery and
the monks did not want the wall to separate them from their real
estate property in the area. Unlike Jado, they have power and
connections and the fence route was diverted accordingly.

Now Jado is imprisoned within the wall. Once it is completed, it is
not even clear how he will be able to buy his family food. "Maybe
they'll put up a supermarket here just for me," he quips. "But what
if I need an ambulance, or fire fighters? How will they get here?"

Two months ago fire broke out in the Armenian monastery, which was
empty at the time. Jado called a monk who called the fire fighters.
It took the fire trucks two hours to reach the monastery from
Bethlehem, from a distance of two minutes away, because it had to go
through the road block instead of directly. Since then Jado is
worried about needing emergency treatment.

The big plan is clear to him. Israel intends to make his life
intolerable, in order to drive him from his land. About six months
ago a senior border police officer ordered him to move out. Jado
replied that in a state of law a resident cannot just be ordered out.

"Bring a document," he told the officer, who did not return. Someone
suggested he petition the High Court of Justice. "Stop talking
nonsense," he says. "I live in this country. The Shin Bet and police
run it. I would only lose money."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/449746.html

Michele, a United Methodist church worker, recently visited us in
Bethlehem.  Here's her story...
Peace,
Bob

===============================================

Hello,

I have returned to Cairo, Egypt and the home of my aunt.  I arrived
last night and I am feeling the last days.  Thank you for reading
these emails and for your concern for my safety.  This email is
another long one!  So many details to share and so little of this
comes out through the media.

Tuesday, after I sent my last email, I left the office to begin my
journey home.  It was about 5pm and I needed to be home before
sunset -- not so safe to be out much after dark, when more Israeli
soldiers come out of the shadows and onto the streets.  As I stepped
out onto the street, I looked up and saw smoke billowing up.  My
route home would take me near the smoke, so I asked some guys on the
street if it was safe to walk that way.  They said yes, but I
was not entirely convinced.  The air was thick with the smoke and
smells of tear gas.  I waited, watched to see if others were walking
that way, and indeed they were.  I saw women walking that way, so
thought I could as well.  (As an outsider and a woman, I watch the
women in particular to see where I should and should not be.)  I
began to walk, in the direction of Rachel's  Tomb, and into the area
where on Monday our non-violent protest had turned violent.  I saw
young boys throwing rocks towards the guard towers.  They were
not real threat to the guards, their rocks against the high tower and
against men loaded with weapons.  I walked passed, and rounded the
corner to see a tire on fire, the cause of the smoke, and also a
Reuters photographer.  He was armed with two cameras, a bulletproof
vest, and a hard hat.  I asked if it was ok to take photos, he said
yes, and I took a photo of the burning tire, with the guard tower in
the background.  I asked him what he had seen -- he had only recently
arrived to the scene, having recently been in Gaza.  He is
Palestinian and from Hebron.  As we talked, we kept our eyes on the
kids and the situation.  He walked over closer and invited me to go
with him.  I did.

We were there for about 15 seconds before we heard shooting and saw
about ten soldiers run out, shooting up and out, I think just above
the kids, but into neighboring homes.  (not sure if it was live
ammunition or blanks)  The soldiers grabbed every child they could,
twisting these 7-12 year-old boys in their strong arms.  Many
children got away, at least one did not.  All through this the
Reuters man and I were taking photos.  The Reuters man ran closer
into the action, taking pictures as he ran.  And he ran around the
corner with the soldiers and the caught 7 (or so) year-old boy.  The
soldiers where beating up the little boy.  After several seconds, the
Reuters photographer returned and reported to me what was happening
behind the barricade:  soldiers beating up the boy and taking him
into a building.  I asked what we could do to stop this.  He did not
know.  I said can we go and make the soldiers uncomfortable with our
presence.  He did not know.  So we inched forward, coming ever closer
to where they had caught the boy.  I was torn apart -- go ahead and
challenge he well-armed soldiers in efforts to protect the boy, or
hold back.  I did not know what to do.  But seeing the Reuters man in
his vest and helmet helped me understand that this is a very
dangerous situation and that I should be very careful with my
actions.  I asked if maybe we could get someone to intervene.  He
thought that maybe.  So I took off running, away from Rachel's Tomb
area and towards the Bethlehem Bible College, where I had been
earlier.  It was several blocks of running; I passed some of the
kids who had been throwing the stones, passed people who had stopped
to watch what was happening, passed Palestinian police, and passed
shop owners.  Along the way I asked the adults if they spoke English,
all said "No."  I finally arrived at the College, desperate to reach
someone who might know what we could do.  I met a couple from the USA
who work in the area and have lived in Bethlehem for several years.
I explained the situation and asked what we could do.  The woman said
that there was really nothing that we could do.  I had
feared this response and said "Brilliant!"  She took that to be a
personal attack rather than my response to the frustration at hearing
what I feared.  We spent about 15 minutes talking this through.  She
explained to me how painful it is for her to see such violence
frequently and not be able to stop it or to intervene.  She also said
that foreigners, who come into the situation, not understanding its
complexity, often intervene in damaging ways.  I understand this and
have tried to be very careful -- taking care when taking pictures to
do so responsibly while capturing the situation to share with others
outside of that place.  Her comments were helpful and instructive.
She said that basically when you see this violence, you can help by
praying and also sharing this information with others.  Often there
is nothing you can do in that moment, because by intervening the
child will probably be hurt worse.  It is not likely that the
soldiers would hurt me or the one intervening terribly
badly, but instead would take out their anger on the child.

As we were talking, students and professors told us that it was
likely that within an hour there would be an incursion in Bethlehem.
This means that Israel comes in with tanks and more soldiers and
shuts down the city.  People are put under curfew and homes are
entered as the soldiers look for whatever it is they are looking
for.  In the process, destroy homes and hurt anyone they deem in
their way.  It is brutal and often without much apparent logic.
We heard this as the sun was setting and I knew that I had a long way
left to walk, through the checkpoint and to the place I was staying
in Jerusalem.  I was torn by wanting to stay and be with friends in
Bethlehem, yet wanting to take care of myself and knowing that the
next morning I was to board a bus back to Cairo.  I was also unsure
if it was safe for me to be alone on the streets.  I wondered if it
was not better for me not to just go straight to the home of someone
close by in Bethlehem.  I decided to try to leave; I got a
taxi and made my way to the checkpoint.

At the checkpoint, the soldiers were letting people and vehicles in
and out at a very slow rate.  I waited for about 15 minutes, as the
soldiers attended to other business -- smoking, chatting, laughing,
eating, and perhaps official business that I could not see from where
I was.  (It normal for the soldiers to take their time, particularly
when things are more tense.)  As I waited, I saw about 20 Palestinian
men being detained against a wall.  They are made to stand with their
arms up and out and their legs spread apart, forming an "X" with
their body, and not move while facing the wall.  They may be forced
to stay like this for hours.  One man came out of line to pray, it
was the Muslim time for prayers.  I tried to stop from crying at his
defiant act.  The soldiers could have easily chosen to punish him or
the others with him for this act.  While there, I saw no such
response by the soldiers.  I do believe that there are Israeli
soldiers who are not in agreement with their orders.  I have seen
times when the soldiers could have been cruel and they were not.  I
would like to see more times of tolerance!  Also, while standing and
waiting, I saw flares shot up in the air.  I first thought:  maybe
this is a shooting star!  I have never seen a shooting star, and
maybe this is one.  A small sign of hope!  It was not a shooting
star, but a way to shoot light into the air, and where it falls, to
see the surrounding area to see if there were Palestinians there
sneaking through holes in the fence.  Finally I was called up to the
desk.  I was asked several questions by the soldiers, but let
through fairly easily.  I thought that they would not want to keep me
in Bethlehem because they would not want me to witness their acts
that night.

Right by the desk I saw a young boy, about 7 years-old, facing the
metal wall, blind-folded, with his hands tied behind his back.  It
was awful.  He was not the same boy I had seen taken by the soldiers
by Rachel's Tomb.  I do not know why he was detained.  I wanted to do
something, but did not think it wise for me to do anything.  I slowly
walked by, soldiers must have seen me see the boy.  I said a thousand
prayers.  As I walked out of Bethlehem, I was somber and sad.  I met
Palestinians walking towards the checkpoint and greeted them by
saying "Salaam" (Peace).

There was a heaviness in the air; I wanted to shoot out, to scream,
to cry, to say STOP to all the violence.  I also wanted to tell these
people who were likely returning from work to go home in Bethlehem,
don't go!  Things are getting worse.  But it is their home,  and they
were going to meet their family and to try to survive another day.  I
walked silently home.

When I reached home, I was shaking.  I talked with the family who was
hosting me and they said that what I had seen is not unusual.  They
asked if I regretted coming to learn more about the situation.  I
paused to think about the question.  My response ultimately was that
I do not regret going.  I wanted to learn about the situation and I
am learning about it.  What I now know is that it is far more complex
than I could have imagined.

Basically, Palestinians have no rights.  My reactions to situations
were assuming that they have rights.  I come from the USA where
children have rights, awful things still happen, but there is a
system to address them (not perfect, but a system).

I think that the soldiers were fed up with the rocks being thrown by
the kids, so they stormed out in some kind of game.  Their show of
force against these kids was absolutely ridiculous.  I can imagine
that from their tower, they were tired of the knocking of the rocks.
Sure, it is annoying.  But not worthy of coming out shooting and
beating up the children.  The kids are fed up -- they have seen their
parents beaten by soldiers, had relatives killed, had school canceled
due to curfew, have no where to run and play, many don't have enough
to eat, and they are growing up knowing war and terror.
They are responding as they know how.  Which is not to excuse their
throwing rocks, but to give it a context to their daily
lives....Adult men with guns against children with rocks.

I am in Cairo now and feeling....not sure how to say how I am
feeling.  This morning there are reports of two Palestinians killed
in Gaza -- and this is just what CNN is choosing to report, there is
much they are not reporting.  I fear how things might escalate.

I ask that you continue to follow events in this area.  The USA is
supporting the Israeli occupation with funds and weapons.  Israelis
and Palestinians are suffering.  Palestinians are living in a prison,
under Israeli control.  With the continued construction of the wall
around Bethlehem and other areas, the prison of Palestinians is
becoming smaller.  The agricultural land of Palestinians is being
swallowed up by Israel and settlements are being built on it.  The
geography of the Bethlehem region is rolling hills.  Hills once
covered in trees and used for crops are covered with settlements.  We
have a responsibility to pay attention to where the US government
spends our money.  Purely economically, what is happening to
Palestinians is wrong.  Of course the layers of injustice are much
deeper than economics, but that is at least one way that we are
involved and can call for change.  If you would like other ideas of
things to do, please let me know.  I have some ideas and can put you
in touch with others.

Thank you for reading this long email.  I hope that I have given you
a picture of what I saw and what life is like for Palestinians and
Israelis.  My reflections are more focused on Palestinians.  I also
met Israelis who are in opposition to this occupation and who are
actively working for peace for both sides.  This is a bit of hope --
when Palestinians and Israelis come together and speak together about
this destruction.

Salaam, Shalom, Peace,
Michele

As I returned to Bethlehem from Jerusalem this afternoon, I found the
place overrun with Israeli soldiers.  Dozens of soldiers were at the
three checkpoints I visited trying to get back into Bethlehem.  The
main Bethlehem checkpoint, the big dirt mound in the middle of Beit
Jala, and the blocked road in El Hader.  Some Palestinians were able
to pass while others were not.  My taxi driver told me that there
were a lot of soldiers in Aida Camp now, so we avoided that area.  I
took a few photos at Beit Jala, and I'll try to post them on my
website this evening.
Bob

-----------------------------------------------------

Hamas man killed, four IDF soldiers hurt in Bethlehem siege

By Arnon Regular,
Haaretz Correspondent, Haaretz Service and Agencies

A Hamas activist was killed and four Israel Defense Forces soldiers
were wounded Monday in a siege of the militant's house at the Aida
refugee camp, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The military has launched a series of raids in Bethlehem following a
suicide bombing Thursday in which a Palestinian policeman from the
city blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus, killing 11 people.

The four soldiers all sustained light-to-moderate wounds. The Hamas
militant was identified as Mohammed Abu Ouda.

The IDF is continuing with its operation in the city.

-----------------------------------------------------

IDF kills Hamas fugitive near Bethlehem

By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Jerusalem Post

IDF forces, operating in the al-Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem on
the West Bank, have killed Hamas fugitive Mahmoud Aboroude after
surrounding a building he was hiding in.

Four soldiers fromt he army's elite Duvdevan unit suffered light-to-
moderate wounds during the attempt to arrest the Hamas fugitive.

The soldiers were transferred to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem
Hospital.

A defense source said the operation was a 'pinpointed one' and was
not an incursion.

Last night was quiet for me, but I heard that Israeli soldiers
invaded Bethlehem again.  The Palestinian  police told me that some
areas of town have been under curfew, usually around the refugee
camps.
Bob

Israeli troops enter Bethlehem for second straight day

ABC News Online

An Israeli column briefly moved into Bethlehem early on Saturday, a
day after carrying out a similar operation which followed a suicide
bombing in Jerusalem, an army spokesman said.

No shooting was heard as the column of around 20 vehicles, including
trucks, drove into the Biblical town.

A spokesman later said "our forces withdrew from Bethlehem after a
brief, pinpointed operation."

On Friday, the army entered the West Bank town for the first time
since last summer.

Israeli sources said some arrests had been made after troops entered
the town in a column of armoured vehicles, without giving figures.
In the adjoining Ayda refugee camp they blew up the family home of
policeman Ali Munir Yussef Jihar, who killed 10 people when he blew
up a crowded bus on Thursday near the official residence of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Bethlehem was one of the few places in the occupied West Bank from
which the army had withdrawn, handing it over last July to the
Palestinian Authority.

Israel Military Vehicles Enter Bethlehem

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer (Edited by Bob)

JERUSALEM - A suicide bomber struck a bus near Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's Jerusalem residence Thursday, killing 10 Israelis and
wounding 50 in the deadliest attack in four months and disrupting
modest U.S. efforts to restart peace talks.

In an apparent response, about 20 Israeli military vehicles entered
Bethlehem, early Friday in an operation that appeared limited to
arresting suspects and possibly destroying the house where the bomber
lived, in the Aida refugee camp next to Bethlehem.

Before dawn Friday, Israeli forces instructed Palestinian security
officers to abandon checkpoints outside Bethlehem, and troops moved
into the town, residents said. Israeli military officials, speaking
on condition of anonymity, would say only an operation was in
progress.

The market area was packed in Bethlehem today.  I wasn't sure if it
was because people were preparing for the Islamic holiday Sunday or
people were worried about a possible military invasion.  It's almost
11 pm now, and this part of Bethlehem is totally quiet.
Bob

Policeman Turns Suicide Bomber and Kills Ten

Press Association (edited by Bob)

A Palestinian police swapped his uniform for a suicide bomber's
outfit today and blew himself up on a crowded bus outside Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence killing 10 passengers and
wounding 50 bystanders.

The bomber, identified as Ali Jaara, 24, a Palestinian policeman from
the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, left a note
saying that he wanted to avenge eight Palestinians killed in fighting
with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip the day before.

Bethlehem is one of only a few Palestinian towns not under Israeli
military control.

Jaara, who lived in a two-storey home in the West Bank with his
parents and nine siblings, was described by relatives as quiet and a
devout Muslim who showed little interest in politics.

His father, Munir, said Jaara was the only breadwinner in the house,
and had been hoping to start a family.

"I was expecting to marry him, not to bury him," the father said.

Distraught relatives filled the house, as Jaara's mother sat on a
mattress on the floor, crying uncontrollably. She carried a picture
of her son in a police uniform carrying his police-issued Kalashnikov
rifle. Many family members said they opposed militant attacks against
Israelis.

"These operations are not only not good for us, but really bad for
us. They only hurt us," said his 26-year-old sister, Ola.

Two Stories from Bethlehem:

1)  Hardships Leave Bethlehem With No Holiday
2)  Christmas Cheer Elusive in Bethlehem

Bob

===============================================

Hardships Leave Bethlehem With No Holiday
Tue Dec 23, 2:25 PM ET

By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - There is no Christmas tree in Aida Ghaneim's
Bethlehem home this year. No festive lights hang from the ceiling,
and the 48-year-old mother of four has no plans to cook her usual
feast.

It is not that Ghaneim is abandoning Christmas. On the contrary, she
said, "It abandoned us."

A shriveling economy, continuing Israeli restrictions and other
hardships caused by three years of Mideast violence have left
Christians living in the traditional birthplace of Jesus with little
desire to celebrate.

Few of Bethlehem's usual decorations are in place: A Santa outside
one shop, a few lights outside another. Many of the red, green and
blue lights strung over the streets around Manger Square are burned
out.


The Palestinian Authority, saying it lacks the money, refused the
town its usual $100,000 decoration budget, forcing local officials to
scrounge up $10,000 on their own.


"The whole atmosphere of Christmas is gone," said Jane Bandak, 18,
whose family's traditional 30-person Christmas meal will shrink to
half a dozen guests this year.


Some Christians have decided to ignore the holiday that was once the
high point of their year. Others have fled abroad, splitting up their
families. About 2,000 of the town's 28,000 Christians have left
during the recent violence, local officials say. They now make up
only 35 percent of a town they once dominated.


Checkpoints, curfews and closures, enforced by Israel to stop
Palestinian suicide bombings that have killed more than 400 Israelis
over the past three years, make it hard for families spread across
the West Bank to get together.


Israel says it plans to ease travel restrictions for Palestinian
Christians over the holiday, but many Palestinians are skeptical.
They say they do not want to spend their holiday waiting at
roadblocks.


Before the violence flared, Christmas Eve was an all-night reunion
for the Ghaneim family.


Between 30 and 40 relatives came from all over, from Ramallah,
Jerusalem, Jenin and even Jordan to roast chestnuts, play cards,
exchange gifts, and drink anise and beer in Ghaneim's home.


"No one slept. The few who did were on the couch and on the floor,"
she said.


On Christmas Day, she would spend the morning visiting relatives and
then serve a feast of stuffed chicken and chunks of lamb with rice
and yogurt for as many as 20 people.


Now, Ghaneim's family is in debt. One son is in school, a second is
unemployed and her third son is abroad looking for work. Her husband
also left, heading for the Ivory Coast to seek a job. Though her
family has not been directly hit by the violence, "Every mother gets
affected when she sees others' kids dying," she said.


Tired, cash-poor and depressed, she canceled her usual 10-day pre-
Christmas shopping spree and has not gone to church once in recent
days, though she used to attend every day in the week before
Christmas.


The Christmas Eve party has disappeared amid the violence and
restrictions. The Christmas feast is gone as well.


She plans to eat Christmas lunch with just her mother-in-law and
father-in-law, and she has no plans to cook anything festive.

"I'm so demoralized, I can't invite anybody this year," she said. "My
heart is closed."

Much of Maha Saca's family has gone abroad as well, and in a personal
protest of the conditions here, the 50-year-old crafts shop owner has
decided to forego her usual Christmas tree, straining under the
weight of tiny Santas and green and red ornaments.

"I feel ashamed to celebrate anything," she said.

The Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of Bethlehem's Evangelical Lutheran
Christmas Church, complained that while Christians around the world
prepare to sing Christmas carols harking to this town, few appear
concerned with the plight of the place where Jesus was born.

"The majority of Christians really don't know what is going on in the
little town of Bethlehem," he said.

===============================================

Christmas Cheer Elusive in Bethlehem
Tue Dec 23, 9:56 AM ET

By Megan Goldin

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Christmas joy was as scarce in
Bethlehem on Tuesday as the few tourists intrepid enough to visit the
war-torn West Bank town revered as the birthplace as Jesus.

Owners of stores selling carved nativity sets and other Christian
souvenirs sat glumly in shops around Manger Square two days before
Christmas, with little hope of an upturn in trade.


"So far today there have been no tourists," said Joseph Giacaman as
he sorted yellowing postcards that have sat on his shelves since
before the Palestinian uprising erupted more than three years ago.


"When there are a few tourists they don't come here. They go to the
church and then they leave," he said despondently.


Giacaman's family began making and selling olive wood souvenirs about
150 years ago.


"Many times in the past there used to be trouble but still tourists
would come," he said. "But now..." he gestured at the near-empty
square in front of the Church of the Nativity, in better days the
center of Christmas festivities.


An officer for the Palestinian Tourist Police counts the handful of
tourists each day, entering the statistics on his clipboard.


"So far we've had around 20 today," said Rami the policeman. During
the heyday of Middle East peacemaking in the 1990s, Bethlehem was
visited by as many as 6,000 tourists a day, he said. A modern bus
station built then now stands empty.


JESUS'S BIRTHPLACE GLOOMY


Since 2000 there have been gun battles near Manger Square, Israeli
army raids and a standoff between Palestinian gunmen holed up in the
Church of the Nativity and besieging Israeli forces.


On Tuesday the Byzantine-era Church of the Nativity, built over the
spot where Jesus is believed to have been born, was deserted but for
two guards and a monk hanging incense burners.


Once, pilgrims would queue for hours for a brief glimpse of the
manger. These days there is no wait.


Bethlehem Mayor Hannah Nasser blamed Israeli military roadblocks for
the dearth of tourists and the town's dire economic troubles,
although the army said it would ease restrictions over Christmas.


"Factories are closing. Souvenir shops are going bankrupt," he told
Reuters. "Tourists are not coming and Bethlehem depends on tourism."


Nasser said the per capita income of Bethlehem people had dropped
from $2,400 a year before the uprising to only $400, while
unemployment had risen to 60 percent. Local Palestinians stared
dejectedly as the few tourists who had braved the Israeli military
checkpoints briefly visited the Church of Nativity and then left
quickly.


"The people of Bethlehem are not laughing. They are not smiling,"
said Rami the tourist policeman.

Can you tolerate another Christmas note from Bethlehem?  If not,
quickly delete.

1) Live Radio from Bethlehem -- Christmas and Arabic music
2) The Israeli Wall

If you're interested in Live Radio from Bethlehem, I added a link to
a new station in town broadcasting on the Internet.

And even though it's Christmas, at least half of my mail is still
about the Israeli Security / Apartheid Wall.  I received a good FAQ
on it this week, so I posted that to my site as well.

You can find either of the above at:
http://www.bobmay.info

Peace.
Bob

1) Jerusalem Post:  Palestinian Authority cancels Christmas

2) AP:  Bethlehem faces gloomy Christmas

3) Take the virtual tour of Nativity Church, pick up your Bethlehem
Christmas Cards, learn about Christmas history, and soon I'll tell
you how to listen to LIVE traditional Christmas music from
Bethlehem!  Check back with me...

http://www.bobmay.info


===============================================

Jerusalem Post:  PA cancels Christmas

Khaled Abu Toameh Dec. 17, 2003

Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem will be restricted to low-profile
religious ceremonies for the third year in a row, Mayor Hanna Nasser
announced Tuesday.

Nasser said that a Christmas tree would be posted on Manger Square
and many streets would be decorated, but there would be no public
celebrations due to the difficult conditions inside Bethlehem.

A senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah told The
Jerusalem Post that Chairman Yasser Arafat does not have plans to
travel to Bethlehem. The official was responding to reports that
Israel would not allow Arafat to go to Bethlehem for Christmas.

"The president does not have any plans to go to Bethlehem this year,"
the official said. "There will be no celebrations in the city when it
is under siege and our people are under attack."

The mayor told reporters that, "The clouds of instability and
suffering continue to hover over Bethlehem. Cases of despair and fear
are the daily bread of the residents of Bethlehem."

The city has suffered a major blow as a result of six Israeli
incursions since the beginning of the current wave of violence, said
Nasser, estimating damages to property at nearly 5
million. "Bethlehem is continuing to pay a heavy price as a result of
the siege of the Church of the Nativity and the Israeli closure,
which prevents the movement of people and merchandise," he added.

Nasser said tourism, a main source of income for the city, has come
to a standstill with virtually no tourists or pilgrims coming to
visit the Church of the Nativity on the eve of Christmas. He said
unemployment in Bethlehem is at 65%, and more than 60% of the
residents were now living under the poverty line.

Nasser lashed out at the security fence that is being built around
Bethlehem, saying the project has prevented more than 170 families
from reaching their olive groves and fields.

===============================================

Bethlehem faces gloomy Christmas
By Lara Sukhtian
The Associated Press

The Jordan Times - Thursday - December 18, 2003


BETHLEHEM — The Church of the Nativity was empty, a few ornaments
hung forlornly on trees in a deserted Manger Square and no tourists
or pilgrims were to be found in the town where Jesus was born, just
days before Christmas.
Another gloomy Christmas faced Bethlehem, a West Bank town battered
by relentless Palestinian-Israeli violence that has decimated its
tourism-based economy, throwing thousands out of work, closing shops
and leaving the town's residents with little to celebrate.

Even Yasser Arafat, a symbol of pride for most Palestinians, would be
forced to skip Christmas Eve celebrations again this year, Israel
announced Tuesday.

Arafat told a Christian delegation at his sandbagged headquarters in
the West Bank city of Ramallah Tuesday that he hoped to take part in
the Christmas festivities this year in Bethlehem.

"I haven't missed it, except since being besieged in this building,"
Arafat said.

An Israeli official said the Palestinian Authority requested that
Arafat be allowed to make the 20-kilometre trip from Ramallah to
Bethlehem, but Israel would not agree.

Arafat, a Muslim, had attended the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in
Bethlehem each year after Israel turned Bethlehem over to Palestinian
Authority a few days before Christmas in 1994.

Christmas Eve then became as much a Palestinian political celebration
as a religious one, with posters of Arafat and streamers made of
hundreds of little Palestinian flags flying alongside strings of
coloured lights, and crowds of young Palestinians celebrating
independence alongside Christian tourists and pilgrims.

But it was sombre on Tuesday.

George Juha sat in his empty Manger Square restaurant, flipping
through a picture album, reminiscing about the good old days when
hundreds of tourists, diplomats, and famous personalities lunched
there .

"We've been closed most of the year. There are no tourists, so
business is very slow," said Juha, 44, looking at pictures from just
five years ago, when his restaurant was packed with US congressmen
enjoying a traditional Middle Eastern meal.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists used to throng the city in the
weeks before Christmas, and Manger Square, larger than a football
field, would fill up with people on Christmas Eve.

This year, Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser expects only a few hundred
visitors.

The Israelis are never far from Bethlehem, in fact or in spirit, and
Nasser said that their measures are harming the town. For example, he
said, a security barrier Israel is building to keep West Bank
attackers out has cut 4,000 Palestinians off from their town while
confiscating part of its land.

"The biggest danger we are facing on the ground today is the wall,"
said Nasser in his traditional pre-Christmas news conference Tuesday.

Last Christmas, the Vatican complained to Israel about access to
Manger Square in Bethlehem because it was again under Israeli
military occupation. The Israelis had moved back into the town in
response to violence, but pulled their tanks back just before
Christmas.

This time they are a bit further away, after leaving the town again
in July. But Nasser said they caused $5 million in damage in their
seven months in the town.

Israeli soldiers are manning checkpoints at the entrances to
Bethlehem, restricting movement there, as they do in the rest of the
West Bank.

"Our city is still a closed city. We don't feel we are free, we feel
like we are in a very big prison," Nasser said.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said in Jerusalem
last week that "every effort will be made to facilitate and ease the
arrival of pilgrims to Bethlehem." The conflict has reached into the
Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
Last year the church bell ringer, Samir Ibrahim Salman, was killed on
his way to the holy site, apparently by a stray bullet, as Israeli
forces traded gunfire with Palestinians holed up inside the church.

Salman's brother Hanna has taken over. "I love my job," he said. But
church officials say Salman, who suffers from Down syndrome, is
afraid to leave his room at night because of the violence.

Today I have three things for you from Bethlehem:

(1) Nativity Church (Birthplace of Jesus) Virtual Tour
(2) Alex Awad -- Lifting the Closure of Bethlehem
(3) Christmas celebrations cancelled in Bethlehem

Christmas Peace,
Bob

--------------------------
--------------------------

A Virtual Tour of Nativity Church:
See it from the comfort of your computer room.

http://www.bobmay.info/dec102003nativitychurch.htm

--------------------------
--------------------------

Alex Awad -- Lifting the Closure of Bethlehem

An Open Letter To Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

December 1, 2003

To: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
From: Rev. Alex Awad, Pastor East Jerusalem Baptist Church
RE: Lifting the closure of Bethlehem

Mr. Prime Minister,

I appeal to you to use your influence to lift the closure of
Bethlehem. It is apparent that the noose that the IDF has created
around the city is getting tighter every week. This siege-like
closure of the city is suffocating the Christian community of the
city rather than choking the militants and is generating untold
hardships to every Christian church and organization that serves in
the Bethlehem area. Over 60% of the Christians in the West Bank live
in the Bethlehem area. Consequently, the majority of Palestinian
Christians is harmed in one way or another as a result of the
barriers, walls, razor-wire fences, army camps and checkpoints that
completely circle the city.

I am the Dean of Students of a Christian college in Bethlehem and I
am the pastor of a Church in Jerusalem. My clerical duties in both
cities dictate that I travel daily between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. I
can never be sure on any given day whether the Israeli soldiers at
the checkpoint are going to let me go through the checkpoint or not.
On Wednesday, November 18, 2003, as I drove to the check point to
wait my turn, I noticed that the clergyman in the car ahead of me was
refused entry to Bethlehem in spite of his large shiny cross and
white beard. When my turn came the soldiers told me that the
checkpoint was closed and that if I entered Bethlehem I would not be
allowed to leave the city for five days. When I explained to the
soldier that I am a pastor and that I have important ministries in
Bethlehem, he responded with: "I am sure that the nuns that we
turned
back a few minutes ago had important ministries too".  I do not
understand Mr. Prime Minister, how nuns and priests crossing from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem would pose a threat to the security of the
state of Israel.  With the current policies of your government, over
95% of the Christian citizens of Bethlehem are not allowed to cross
the checkpoint from Bethlehem to Jerusalem which, as you well know,
is only six miles away. As for those who have permits or are
privileged to pass through, it may take them ten minutes to two hours
to cross. This overpowering closure is causing great social,
economic, educational, medical and religious nightmares to the
Christian citizens of Bethlehem, and it continues to cause no less
harm to the majority Muslim population of the city.

During the month of July 2003, a Christian organization in Holland
granted scholarships to a group of Palestinian Christian clergymen
from Jerusalem and from Bethlehem to travel to Turkey for a few days
of relaxation and spiritual enrichment. On the final day to fly from
Tel-Aviv to Turkey, we discovered that the Palestinian pastors from
the Bethlehem area were denied permits to travel from Bethlehem to
the Ben Gurion Airport. All of our efforts and petitions to persuade
the Israeli authorities in Kfar Etzion and Bet El to issue the needed
permits proved futile. Finally, we sent a message to the head of the
sponsoring organization in Holland to inform him of the lack of
progress. He in turn made contacts with a high official in the
Israeli government, who after a few phone calls persuaded the
authorities in Bet El to issue the pastors the needed permits. I
wonder Mr. Prime Minister, what is the point of having so much red
tape and enormous obstructions standing in the way of a group of
Christian clergymen needing to travel via the Ben Gurion Airport?

Another challenge that faces the Christians in the Bethlehem area,
Mr. Prime Minister, is traveling to holy sites in Israel. Last month
(November 2003), a colleague who is the pastor of a congregation in
Bethlehem, submitted an application to the Israeli authorities in
Kfar Etzion to get permits for him and his congregation to travel
from Bethlehem to Tiberius to conduct a service at a Christian site
near the Sea of Galilee. Without giving the pastor any explanation,
the authorities denied him the needed permits. The disheartened
pastor told me that this was the third time his applications were
rejected.

The Christian community in Bethlehem, Mr. Prime Minister, does not
seek preferential treatment from the Israeli Authorities. But we urge
you to remove the razor-wire fences, demolish the walls and loosen
the noose at the checkpoints so that Christians and non-Christians
can be free to go on with normal lives. IDF observation towers which
are erected at strategic positions around Greater Bethlehem are
giving the 130 thousand inhabitants the feeling that they are inmates
condemned to living in a tightly controlled jail.

As Christmas approaches, Mr. Prime Minister, and the eyes and hearts
of hundreds of millions of Christians from around the globe turn to
the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem for inspiration, let them see
that those who have the power to rule the people today, are kinder,
gentler and fairer than those who ruled when Christ, the Prince of
Peace was born.

Sincerely,

Reverend Alex Awad
Dean of Students, Bethlehem Bible College

--------------------------
--------------------------
Christmas celebrations cancelled in Bethlehem

By Bassem Shehadi
The Jerusalem Times - Friday - December 5, 2003

Christmas in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, got off to a subdued
start this year with the municipality's decision to restrict
celebrations to religious rituals. Only a Christmas tree and few
ornaments will be erected at Manger Square, Mayor Hanna Nasser told
The Jerusalem Times.

The Israeli separation wall, newly built in the area, has fenced off
the northern entrance to Bethlehem for the first time in history
since the birth of Christ, preventing tourists and pilgrims from
flocking to Jesus'  purported birthplace, Nasser added.

The 350-kilometer wall, which Israel is building around the West Bank
and cuts deep in the Palestinian areas, will annex 15 percent of the
West Bank and lead to severe humanitarian consequences for more than
680,000 Palestinians living in areas adjacent to it.

The Israeli closure leaves the city's economy on the verge of
collapse. The unemployment rate in the city climbed to 60%. The
number of workers, who used to attend their work places in Israel,
decreased from 2,000 before the Intifada to 900 after the
closure. "The situation is very difficult and nothing has changed on
the ground. The city is facing inhumane Israeli measures," Nasser
asserted.

Tourism and the olive wood industry, the main sources of the city's
economic life, have been broken down. Scores of tourist stores,
restaurants and hotels are closed, Nasser confirmed. "We're not
hoping that this year will be better than the past year; there are
still no tourists and the Israeli closure has turned the city into an
isolated ghetto." "All these are procedures and actions that destroy
all possibilities for peace and bringing about calmness."

Nasser ruled out the possibility for Israel to allow President
Arafat, who has been confined to his battered residence in Ramallah
for two years, to attend the Midnight Mass at the Nativity Church.

I've created a Christmas card for you from some photos that I took
around Bethlehem.  To see your card:

http://www.bobmay.info/bethlehem_cards.htm

Peace -- and Merry Christmas!
Bob

Christmas is getting closer, and as usual, I will keep you posted on
how Bethlehem celebrates.

For updates on Bethlehem celebrations, a little Bethlehem Christmas
history, and even some gift ideas, please visit my website:

http://www.bobmay.info/

Peace,
Bob

------------------------------------------------
Bethlehem starts downcast countdown to Christmas
------------------------------------------------

By Matthew Tostevin

BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Nov 30 (Reuters) - There was little more sign
of conflict in Bethlehem on Sunday than a toddler toting a plastic
rifle in the Nativity Church.

But the countdown to Christmas got off to a subdued start more than
three years into a Palestinian uprising that has brought misery and
decline to the West Bank city revered as the birthplace of Jesus.

"Here in Bethlehem the intifada is over," said 23-year-old trinket
seller George Hussain. "Everyone is tired. We're just hoping that
this year will be better than last, but there are still no tourists."

"Do you want to buy a keffiyeh?" he asked hopefully, holding out a
plastic bag stuffed full of Arab head-dresses.

No more than a handful of tourists walk along the pretty stone
streets where throngs of pilgrims once gave Bethlehem its economic
lifeblood.

Fading posters of ammunition-draped "martyrs" from the earlier days
of the uprising decorate alleys of shuttered stores that no longer
open to sell their olive-wood crib scenes and crowns of thorns.

This time last year was much worse. Bethlehem was under military
curfew and occupied by Israeli troops after a suicide bomber from the
city killed 11 Israelis on a bus in nearby Jerusalem.

"We hope that the political situation will improve, that there will
be dialogue again. People cannot continue to live like this," said
Father Ibrahim Faltus after mass on the first Sunday in Advent.

SCARCE OPTIMISM

There are faint hints of promise for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking
after a spell of relative calm. There is talk of reviving a stalled
U.S.-backed road map and Palestinian militants discuss a new truce in
Cairo this week.

New Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie has dampened hopes of an
early meeting with Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon, though, saying
Israel must first stop building a separation barrier that cuts deep
into the occupied West Bank.

The Israelis say they want the barrier of concrete and wire, just
visible from Bethlehem's bell-towers and minarets, to stop suicide
bombers. Palestinians call it an attempt to draw a border through
land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

"We pray to God to help. Maybe he can change the minds of the people
and get them to talk," said tour guide Jiries Canavati, lounging by a
bullet-chipped wall and hoping for work.

Whether talks happen or not, it will be too late to stop the flood of
Palestinian Christians leaving Bethlehem in search of better
prospects.

Christians tend to find it easier than the West Bank's Muslim
majority to win foreign residency, and the fact that Christian
families are well established abroad gives those who want to leave
somewhere to go.

Incense drifted on Sunday through a church that was far from packed
and where many of the worshippers were too old to contemplate
starting again in another country.

"Many of the children have left, gone to America, gone to Sweden,"
said Sami Giacaman, a 72-year-old lab technician. "What we have here,
you cannot call it a life."


© 1998-2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or
redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar
means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the
content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Israel imposes restrictions on Bethlehem area

     JERUSALEM, Nov. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
announced Tuesday that it was reintroducing some restrictions on the
Bethlehem area after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead at a
roadblock.

     Two Palestinian gunmen early Tuesday opened fire at an Israel
army unit stationed at the checkpoint in the southern West Bank city
of Bethlehem, killing two soldiers.

     Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz condemned the attack, saying
it was a "very serious" issue amid fresh efforts to renew peace talks
with the Palestinians.

     The IDF transferred security control over the Bethlehem region to
the Palestinian National Authority on July 3. Tuesday's attack was
the third in the area since the security handover.

     The attack was also the first deadly attack on Israelis since
Oct. 24 when Palestinian militants killed three soldiers guarding the
Gaza settlement of Netzarim.

     During the same period, 25 Palestinians were killed by Israeli
troops, including eight children.

-----------------------------------------------
RELATED STORY
-----------------------------------------------

PA security arrests killer of two IDF soldiers
by the IBA

Palestinian security sources confirmed that they arrested a
Palestinian policeman for allegedly killing two IDF soldiers at a
checkpoint near the Tunnel Road Tuesday. They said Jaber Al Atrash, a
Gaza Strip resident who was caught in Bethlehem late Tuesday,
confessed to carrying out the attack.

He hid his rifle in a prayer rug, shot the soldiers, and then made
his getaway by threatening a passing Palestinian taxi driver at
gunpont, and getting out at the entrance to the village of El Kadar,
near Bethlehem.

Israel Restricts Muslim Visits to Shrine

By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Israel limited access of Muslim worshippers to a disputed
shrine for special Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadan,
setting off an angry scuffle, while the United States offered a $5
million reward in the investigation of a deadly bombing of a U.S.
convoy.

About 175,000 Palestinians flocked to the sacred hilltop plaza in
Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers, while others were turned away at army
checkpoints. Control over the site, revered by Muslims and Jews, is
one of the most hotly contested issues in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, soldiers prevented a few hundred
worshippers from entering Jerusalem and some tried to push and shove
their way through. Troops fired a stun grenade, setting off a loud
blast. One Palestinian was reported slightly injured.

Israel has been enforcing a strict travel ban in the past three years
of fighting, preventing most Palestinians from reaching Israel.

Fearing youths would provoke clashes with Israeli forces during
Ramadan prayers, police were allowing only older, married
Palestinians to pray at the site Friday. Men had to be older than 45,
and women at least 35, said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuelik Ben-
Ruby. Police set the quota at 4,000 from the West Bank and 1,000 from
the Gaza Strip (news - web sites).

Asked about the scuffles at the Bethlehem checkpoint, the military
said that Palestinian officials in the city had not provided lists of
names of worshippers, preventing soldiers from allowing people past
checkpoints. The army said soldiers needed to screen lists for
possible security risks.

Separately, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv said the State Department
was offering a $5 million reward for information that helps find
those behind the roadside bomb attack that destroyed a U.S.
diplomatic vehicle and killed three American security guards. The
Oct. 15 attack in Gaza led the United States to suspend official
travel to the coastal territory and has also set back U.S.
involvement in peace efforts.

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m
--------------

Forbidden City

It's difficult to write about ordinary life in a place where life is
within an outstretched arm of electrified fences and roadblocks, and
where the local population languishes away in 40 percent unemployment
and an atmosphere of bitterness and boredom.

A portrait of Bethlehem.

By Yossi Klein

The spacious lobby of the Bethlehem Hotel was quiet last Thursday.
The reception clerk, who is also the owner of the hotel, turned off
the television set, which was constantly screening images of Uday and
Qusay. For a few more minutes he wandered about, bored, a small ring
of keys around his finger, and then switched off the light. Large
wooden camels that were grazing in the lobby disappeared in the dark,
along with huge copper vats and rows of armchairs. Silence descended
on the 210-room hotel. It was 9 P.M. and all the guests - three in
number: me, an Austrian tourist and an Italian journalist - were in
our rooms. The prospects of another guest turning up were slim.

It's very quiet in Bethlehem at night. Every shuffling of feet
kilometers away sounds like a gathering of Hamas outside my door;
every slamming of a door in Beit Sahur sounds like the end of the
hudna. There was no reason to worry, of course, because everything
was as it should be: The back of the chair was wedged beneath the
door handle, bolstered by a heavy armchair, and the blinds were
pulled down tightly. Things stayed quiet until the moment the hotel
shook, and with it all of Bethlehem, for all I know: I flushed the
toilet. The sound roared through the long corridors and reverberated
there like the noise of thousands of icebergs breaking up.

At a distance of a 10-minute ride from the hotel in a yellow cab
(fare: NIS 1.50), the Oudeh family, who live in the Deheisheh refugee
camp, began its Friday activities. Raja Oudeh, the father of five
daughters of whom the eldest is 13, is a thin man in his mid-30s. He
wears fashionable khaki trousers that end close to his ankles and
rimless eyeglasses that are mounted on a large nose. He has a black
mustache and his hair style is almost up to date. Raja Oudeh works
for an organization funded by American and European groups, whose aim
is to disseminate democratic ideas in Palestinian society. It's easy
enough to speak in praise of democracy, but you need an audience, and
Oudeh doesn't have a permit that would enable him to move around the
West Bank freely. Democracy, it seems, will have to wait for another
disseminator.

Raja Oudeh hates Fridays. It's a day that goes by very slowly, and
the seven members of the family are simmering slowly next to one
another: They are condemned to spend their weekly day of rest in the
cramped quarters of their three not-especially-large rooms, "because
that's what people do here on Friday." Oudeh and his wife, who works
in the Palestinian Authority's Education Ministry, get up at 9 A.M on
a day like this. By then, the girls, who are quiet and polite, are
surfing on the Internet (in the Oudeh household, they are allowed no
more than two or three hours a week) or watching television. For
lunch there is a festive meal. Last Friday they had musakhan -
chicken in rice seasoned with pine nuts - and a pastry that recalled
mallawah. After lunch, Raja's brother and his family dropped in for
coffee, as did some other relatives, and they had coffee with them,
too. Saturated with coffee and worn out, they don't get to bed before
1 A.M.

The Oudeh home is a pleasant haven from dirty, depressing,
nondescript Deheisheh. Well-tended potted plants accompany the
visitor to the house, an embroidered work of a charming castle and a
blue lake hangs in the living room, while in the adjacent room there
is a spic-and-span computer, waiting to take the users to more
congenial climes. The refugee camp looks exactly like the image of a
refugee camp: houses that are actually cubes placed on one another's
roofs at odd angles; children cavorting in narrow alleys, because
school is out. A boy of two or three sits on the steps of a house,
fishing with a fork for an interesting looking cork that floats down
a tributary of sewage. The fisherman attracts the attention of other
kids his age. They squat on their haunches and watch him with deep
concentration. A somewhat older boy, perhaps five, is indifferently
kicking a tennis ball against the wall.

These children, says Dr. Ghassan Andoni, are the leaders of the next
intifada.

Overdose of routine

Dr. Ghassan Andoni is the director of the Palestinian Center for
Rapprochement between People (PCR). Gray-haired, articulate and
cordial, he teaches physics at Bir Zeit University. On this late
afternoon he is sitting behind a desk in his office in the village of
Beit Sahur, the window blinds casting increasingly thick shadows on
him until, toward the end of the conversation, they swallow him up
completely. Before the meeting he was described to me as a salient
peace activist, but it turns out that his activity has changed
direction.

He is simply fed up. It might have been thought that the hudna would
at least be a positive sign from his point of view, if not a full
quid pro quo for 14 years of activity. But Andoni has had it up to
here. He has had it with the Israeli partners in the peace movement
and he has had it with the force-wielding Palestinian leadership. The
one group is frustrated; the other, violent. Today's leaders are 20
and tomorrow's leaders are now 10 - our leaders, he says, never grow
up. He would like to break the cycle in which inexperienced leaders
replace those who have just acquired some experience, and create a
responsible, mature leadership.

He views the intifada - the one now going on and the others that will
follow - as an instrument to shape and improve the Palestinian
society. He considers this process more important than the outcome.
He finds it difficult to believe in any sort of imminent "peace." The
Israelis are vengeful, he says, and we - we may be forgiving, but we
are also bitter. It's hard to see how a combination of vengefulness
and bitterness will produce positive results. He, of course, "very
much wants peace," but in the meantime his task is to prepare the
society that is not yet ripe for it. How? Andoni believes it is
imperative for a popular resistance movement to arise, as in 1987,
when the first intifada erupted. At that time, mature intellectuals,
such as Hanan Ashrawi, led the struggle. He is also ready to bestow
roles upon ordinary pursuers of peace from both sides: The
Palestinians have to fight the occupation and the Israelis have to
demonstrate against it. He recommends that we stop looking for the
Palestinian equivalent of Peace Now.

Because the purpose of my visit to Bethlehem and its surroundings was
to describe the day-to-day life of the local residents, I ask Andoni,
who is by now all but obscured by the evening shadows, to tell me
about his daily routine. For example: How is life managed without
credit cards? Without ATMs? How do you get along without checks? I
try to lure him into a conversation about the immense amount of time
that is wasted - in banks, at checkpoints, in lines to get permits.
He is silent for a moment and then leans toward me from out of the
dark: You want routine? he asks. Fine, here's some routine.

He then leans back and describes in great detail, at length, almost
with pleasure, the four-hour journey he makes every morning from his
home in Beit Sahur to Bir Zeit University, which takes from 6 A.M.
until 10 A.M., and which in better days is a 35-minute drive. He
talks about the checkpoints, the humiliations, about climbing the
hills on bypass routes and about the four taxis he takes along the
way.

Missing hour

The routine here is dictated by the existing checkpoints and by the
threatening security fence. It's possible that everything is planned
and expected, but even so you have to be amazed at how quickly the
checkpoints became a sophisticated tool that effectively generates
insult and hatred even in a Palestinian who is indifferent to the
national struggle. The checkpoints fuel the hatred of the kids who
are tomorrow's leaders and cultivate the hatred of their parents.
That hatred seems likely to remain long after their political dreams
are realized. The protest that some residents of Bethlehem amuse
themselves with against the wasted time in their lives is the
distinction that they make between their clock and the one used in
Israel. They don't recognize Israeli summer time: In Bethlehem it is
one hour earlier.

That missing hour doesn't really separate them from the world around
them. It's hard to separate between life in the town and the shell
around it: the checkpoints and the thickening cement walls of the
separation fence. The residents of Bethlehem feel a strong sense of
suffocation that is becoming ever more acute. Raja Oudeh keeps trying
to cram ever more girls into his 20-year-old Fiat 127 and go for an
outing to get some air. But where can they go? Five minutes this way,
five minutes that way, until they encounter a fence or a checkpoint.
Shopping in the produce market has become an aspiration for fresh
air. The car is not ideal for family outings but is definitely
comfortable for shopping in the market. Once a week, Raja drives up
the hill to the big market in the center of town.

The big market in Bethlehem is surely the world center of cartons
from Israel. Village women in embroidered dresses sell their goods in
cartons from Ein Yahav Farms, Tnuva and Israeli Fruits. Inside are
shiny grape leaves, dusty grapes and purplish squash. A delicate
scent of za'atar hangs in the air. The current hit: kids' shirts with
thin blue vertical stripes for NIS 10. There are no signs; the prices
are shouted out in booming voices. There are more men than women in
the market. Why is this? Because of the checkpoints: try spending two
hours to get through three checkpoints while you carry five or six
kilos of fruits and vegetables.

On the way to the market you can buy kidra for the family: In a hole
in the wall, not far from the market, near a fiery oven of pitas,
stand large copper pots. You give the perspiring, mustachioed kidra
man a bit of chicken, rice, hummus and seasonings and then, three
hours later, in return for NIS 30, you get the dish he has made for
you in the meantime. In the supermarket on Pope Paul VI Street, you
can get all kinds of crackers made by Osem, or cakes manufactured by
Elite, and hummus made by Ahla. The refrigerator, too, is crammed
with Israeli goods, though you can also find labaneh from Ramallah.

Down the street, on the way to Manger Square, are jewelry stores with
empty display windows. Manger Square itself looks like a construction
site of a bankrupt contractor who left his creditors a few tools and
mounds of earth fenced in with boards. The cafes that once ringed the
square are gone.

Raja Oudeh from Deheisheh told me that he wanted to eat out at a
restaurant one evening with his wife but couldn't find one. What
about Taboun in Deheisheh, a restaurant where a couple can have a
reasonable meal for NIS 40 between them? You don't go to a restaurant
just to eat, he says. In the whole of Bethlehem there is not one
restaurant in which you can both eat and socialize.

World of concrete and cement

The streets leading to Manger Square are decorated with peeling
posters of shaheeds (martyrs). The streets are dusty, but free of
garbage. Here and there you can see someone cleaning the street with
a broom. He won't get paid for July, nor was he paid for June. In the
anteroom of the mayor's office, inside a thick cloud of cigarette
smoke, a few men are lazing about. They are municipal employees who
are very busy in conversations about nothing. The municipality is the
town's largest employer, with 6,000 personnel. The walls of the
office of the mayor, Hanna Nasser, are wood-paneled and decorated
with large colorful photos of the mayor with Yasser Arafat and Pope
John Paul II. Nasser, who has been in office for the past six years,
resembles a leaner version of Israel's first president, Chaim
Weizmann, including the goatee and the bald pate. He has a house that
looks like a large fortress just a few minutes away by car. He is not
harassed at the checkpoints, but he bears the burden for the collapse
of tourism and the municipality's severe financial plight.

The distress is so great that even the three busloads of tourists
that arrived the day before we met brought him great happiness. The
town, which derives most of its revenues from tourism, is immersed in
dire poverty. Seventeen hotels have shut down and there is no money
for salaries because the municipality is unsuccessful at collecting
taxes from a population in which 40 percent of the providers are
unemployed. The budget of the municipality, which provides services
for 28,000 people, is NIS 15 million a year, and even that small
amount is almost impossible to raise. (By comparison, the annual
budget for the Israeli town of Or Akiva, which also has 28,000
residents, is NIS 140 million.)

Nasser knows that things are tough in Israel, too. He has friends on
Herzl Street in South Tel Aviv - merchants, who admitted to him that
they don't have money for food. He draws a connection between the
economic situation and the concrete walls that are gnawing away at
his land and choking the town. Visit Rachel's Tomb, he urges me.

Rachel's Tomb, or, according to its more appropriate name, "Rachel's
Tomb Compound," is a 10-minute drive from Manger Square. The price of
a ride in a rattling yellow cab, in which the only source of air
conditioning is the hot wind outside, is NIS 10. On the way there are
a few checkpoints of the Palestinian police. A checkpoint can
sometimes be a barrel placed in the middle of the road, watched
carefully by three or four cops. They sit, smoking, in the shade of
an adjacent house in old armchairs that lean on the wall of the house
at a comfortable angle. They don't bother anyone, someone tells me.
They earn NIS 1,000 a month, which is enough to buy a small
television set and a little food. They live with their parents and
live to eat.

Rachel's Tomb Compound is a point of encounter between the Israeli
and Palestinian presence. Years ago there was a busy commercial area
here. Today there are closed iron shutters painted turquoise, peeling
signs of a garage, a few kebab joints and faded red signs that once
read "Coca-Cola." There are piles of garbage and plenty of concrete.
The contribution of concrete to the Israeli way of life deserves a
separate article, because it's more powerful than any landscape,
certainly than any memory. The famous picture of Rachel's Tomb, the
stone square with the stone dome in the shadow of the large tree -
the image that once appeared on postage stamps and the Israeli
version of Monopoly - today seems like some sort of foggy delusion.
Ask an 18-year-old soldier what he knows about Rachel's Tomb and he
will talk about concrete walls, guard towers and a tattered blue and
white flag.

Aesthetics, if we can judge by the tenements around Jerusalem, has
always lagged behind the passion to build. The cast concrete in the
separation fence next to the Emmanuel Monastery creates a more up-to-
date aesthetic. The time has passed of the round hills with the olive
trees and the herds of sheep that were painted by Reuven Rubin. The
hills have given way to gray walls, solid and strong, that may have a
charm of their own. The olive trees have become gray from the dust of
the bulldozers and the roundness of the hills has been cleaved by
roads. Neither barren nostalgia nor sentimentality will stop anyone
on the way to conquer the hill. The Har Homa project, for example -
the new neighborhood in the south of Jerusalem - looks from here like
a huge fist that was punched into the hill, turning it into a soft
omelet, and now rises above it proudly, cast in stone and concrete.

Preparation for life

Nasser Laham is a contrary type, one of those people who likes to
turn every argument on its head. Whether a person of his character
should be made the head of the editorial board of the local
television station in Bethlehem is another matter. There are places
in which this kind of job requires obedience and attentive readiness
to do the will of politicians, but Laham, up to a certain point, is
not like that. An important lesson that he is now in the process of
learning is that television editing is not necessarily connected to
journalism. The thing is, though, that Laham sees himself as a
journalist.

Just now, for example, he is arguing with officials of the
Palestinian Authority about the right to interview masked individuals
who are against the hudna. The PA officials are afraid the Israelis
will label such programs "incitement" of the kind that the
Palestinians have undertaken to prevent. Laham counters by invoking
freedom of _expression, but the officials shrug off his democratic
pretensions and intimate that he had better watch his step. He
protests the desire of the leaders to keep information to themselves
and not share it with everyone. He is in favor of the release of the
prisoners - all of them! Well, naturally. But what about all the
Palestinian prisoners in Damascus, he wants to know - why isn't
anyone talking about them?

Nasser Laham is head of the news desk at the Bethlehem television
station. The station has 28 employees, broadcasts 24 hours a day and
takes pride in its "Hebrew press report," which Laham himself edits
and presents. For the program, he translates items from the print and
electronic media in Israel six times a week. He claims to have a
million viewers.

"I show everything," he says, meaning that not all the items he
chooses are flattering to the Palestinians. He is 37 and describes
himself as an "expert on the Israeli society." He adds: "We know a
lot more about you [the Israelis] than you know about us." The
station's revenues come from commercials. There are two competing
stations. How do they all survive? "There's a war," he points
out. "We make a living. There are shaheeds, there are commercials."

Laham's home is behind a small concrete wall in Deheisheh. The living
room is crammed with heavy furniture of a mustard-yellow color. On
the wall is a map of the Land of Israel, or, if you will, a map of
Palestine, without borders, unpartitioned. Laham is a passionate
speaker, but not one black, coiffed hair on his head moves as he
draws huge circles in the air with his hand, which holds a cigarette
between finger and thumb. The map? he asks. The map, eh? He gets up
and gives it a disparaging slap with the backs of his fingers. "It
looks really big, but put on the globe and you will see what a small,
crappy point it is and how much unnecessary blood has been shed over
it."

He can say such things: The six years he spent in an Israeli prison
as a student leader at Bir Zeit University are for him a certificate
that protects him at all times from a charge of disloyalty to the
Palestinian cause. His fellow inmates in prison are the present
Palestinian leadership. He likes to rattle off the names of the VIPs
he was inside with, of whom Marwan Barghouti and Jibril Rajoub are
only two.

His time in prison enabled Nasser Laham to undergo a process that Dr.
Adnoni hopes will be experienced by the entire Palestinian society:
training and preparation for life in an independent society. He also
learned Hebrew in prison and turned his knowledge into an economic
lever. His knowledge of Hebrew now provides his main source of
income. In the name of journalistic freedom, but mainly because of
his character, he constantly tests the limits of what's permitted and
what's forbidden. For example, two and a half years ago he published
a paperback book. On the cover is a photograph of Yasser Arafat. He
translates the title for me: "The Whole Truth About Yasser Arafat."

I ask to look through the book. The pages are blank. Every last page
is completely white. He gets up to describe the moment when he
presented the book for Arafat's perusal. Here is Arafat taking the
book, expressionless, here he is leafing through it slowly, those
present watching with bated breath. An oppressive silence. Arafat
puts down the book. He doesn't like it. Someone whispers to Laham
that in other times he wouldn't have got off so easily.

You are a journalist, I say to him, so why shouldn't you write the
whole truth about Yasser Arafat? Life and family are more important
than the journalistic truth, he says. Laham checks the limits but is
careful not to cross them. He has good things to say about Arafat,
whom he describes as something of a kindly grandfather who always has
candies in his pocket. There is corruption, and plenty of it, but
what does that have to do with Arafat? If Arafat wanted, Laham says,
pointing a cautionary finger, he could put a stop to all the
terrorism in two minutes! Two minutes! But what do the Israelis do?
Humiliate him.

The humiliation of the Palestinians is the seed of future bad times.
Laham's 13-year-old daughter, Beirut, who is present during the
conversation, eyes me suspiciously. She has a clear opinion of the
Israelis, which took shape during the intifada. Laham relates that
when Israelis came to his house for a meeting, his daughter advised
him not to eat the sweets they brought for fear they might be
poisoned. Her Hebrew is concise and in line with the spirit of the
time. Her lexicon includes "ugly jerk," "stupid jerk" and "idiot
jerk." A child like her, who saw her father beaten by soldiers, will
apparently find it difficult to refer to them by other names.

Not everything is black

Despite the map on the wall, Beirut knows that the center of the
world is far from here. A year ago, an Irish charitable organization
flew her and some of her friends from Deheisheh to Ireland. The green
fields there were a real eye-opener: Yes, she would like to live in a
place like that. The idea of escaping to other places, or at least
dreams of escaping, are shared by Jews and Arabs, whether they are
the builders of the wall or are the ones imprisoned by it. Beirut
misses Ireland, but Adnoni, the peace activist who rediscovered his
national ardor, prefers the alleys of Beit Sahur to the palaces of
Geneva.

Raja Oudeh would be ready to pay a lot for soccer with Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge in Munich, and Nasser Laham likes New York and even Riyadh
and Sanaa - but Tel Aviv? What is there for him there? And besides,
the humiliation he went through at the airport cools his traveling
passion. Humiliation is now the most clear-cut attitude of Israelis
toward Palestinians. Humiliation by means of concrete walls and by
soldiers at checkpoints. Israelis are afraid of death, Palestinians
of humiliation. The fears are different, but the hatred that replaces
them is common to both attitudes.

A description of the everyday life of the Palestinians in Bethlehem
presents them as people whose needs, like ours, are larger than "a
few pitas and olives," as some have tried to attribute to them. Such
a description will also help assuage the conscience of the writer.
Not everything is black here, he says, trying to reassure himself,
there is also other life here. It's hard to write about ordinary life
in a place where life is within an outstretched arm of electrified
fences. It is impossible to make a distinction between day-to-day
life in the town and the roadblocks and walls around it. It is
possible to take in every iota of the local ways and present it as
the center of life. It is possible to write about the kidra, and one
has to write about the new cultural center, a building of marble and
stone, a kind of cinematheque that will screen good movies; it's
important to mention the pleasant breeze that blows here in the
evening, and there is also a swimming pool.

The total contrast to the checkpoints and walls in Bethlehem is the
swimming pool. This is the hallucinatory shining ship that suddenly
sets sail for the center of a remote village in a Fellini film. It's
not just a pool, it's an actual country club, called the Olive Tree
Club. By the pool is a large lawn, tables stand under colorful
parasols and service is by bored waiters wearing white jackets. There
aren't many people here - the price is almost the same as for the
pools in Tel Aviv: NIS 30 for an adult, NIS 20 for a child. Three
hunks volunteer to model a few manly poses for the camera. They are
from the village of Fajr, near the urban settlement of Efrat, and
they measure the trip in terms of time (an hour and a half) and
checkpoints (only three).

The pool itself is blue and shaded. A green Carlsberg Beer flag flies
over it, the lap of the water is gentle and relaxing, and boys and
girls, the leaders of tomorrow's intifada, zoom contentedly down the
slide. Splash.

If anyone is interested in hosting a Palestinian Christian olivewood
salesperson for a few days, please let me know.

The following article on Christian handicrafts in the Holy Land is by
Ghassan Andoni of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement.
Bob

==========================================================

Christians of the Holy Land Industry (I)
By: Ghassan Andoni

Disturbing things that happened lately made me think about writing
and publishing a series of articles titled "Christians of the Holy
Land Industry". In each I will point to one issue I consider to be a
problem. I hope that readers will consider what I write as an
attempt to create awareness that can help us correct the mistakes
that we all make for various reasons.

Few days ago I was visited by a group of owners of handicrafts
workshops, Palestinian Christians. What they presented opened my eyes
to an existing problem that most of us prefer to hide under the
carpet. Yet, the Christians of the Holy land are becoming an
industry that fills the pockets of few with huge amounts of money. I
hope that I will not be misunderstood, I have nothing against people
with money, yet I have a serious problem with who exploits, for
selfish benefits, both the Christians of the Holy Land and other
good hearted Christians who genuinely wants to help.

Here is their story: as the crisis in the Holy land brought the
Palestinian economy, and in particular Tourism to a total freeze,
producers of handicrafts who are mostly Christians from Bethlehem
area worked hard to create marketing channels to their products.

A group of pioneers among them started to market in foreign
countries requesting the help of church members at different
American and European cities. It is for the efforts of those
pioneers that this sector managed to survive the hardship of the
political and security situation. In this particular marketing
process, sellers were highly dependant on the sympathy, cooperation,
and support of faithful Christians at different locations. They were
hosted in their homes and helped to establish contacts that allowed
them to sell at the end of Sunday masses.

This was not a totally business based venture but a combination of
solidarity and business. At one of my visits to the United States, I
urged people who are facilitating the marketing of Palestinian
Handicrafts in their churches to request a fair distribution of
income generated between the seller and the producer.

What I saw important about this process was that so many were
involved in marketing that the free competition was set as the
standard. Evidently some were more successful than others, some had
more advantages than others, but over all that was a Palestinian
Christians community based initiative that helped many families to
survive.

Most of the ones who were doing the sales started hunting for
official letters from local churches to help them link with
Christian churches abroad. Added to this effort was the effort of
few others who rented stands in major Malls and sold their
handicrafts on totally business bases.

So what was it that the ones who visited me complained about?

According to what they said to me, a church related organization
succeeded to set a monopoly over this work. No one is allowed selling
in churches but through the organization.

Many told me that the church related organization, which is
registered in the U.S. requested huge amounts of money to allow them
access to churches. One told me that they demanded of him $70,000 for
allowing him to sell products in churches in Virginia.
The organization claims, and I have no way to check, that the money
collected is used to help Palestinian Christians living in the
occupied territories. What bothers me is: if they are capable to do
it themselves why it is necessary to obstruct what is already
working and came as an initiative from within the community.

Palestinian Christians learned how to fish and managed to survive,
yet a Church related organization wants to force them to abandon
their nets and accept the fish as a charity. That is very
disempowering.

As well, why there is a need for monopolies? Why should all
purchases and sales go through a central organization? How would
that reflect on pricing and quality?

I see in this as dealing with the Christians of the Holy Land as an
industry that can make few richer and more powerful.

My final question would be, why each time a community find a way to
be empowered, the same ones who claim are their to help, move for
disempowering?

From Rev. Sandra Olewine in Bethlehem:

Dear Friends,

Numerous headlines around the world have been announcing
today "Israel withdraws from Bethlehem."  In response, many of us
living in Bethlehem have received emails from friends and partners
across the globe conveying messages of hope and celebration.  While I
don't want to be accused of raining on people's parade or eliminate
the sense that at least something seems to be changing in the right
direction, a dose of reality is necessary.

A few days ago, scenes of jubilation from Gaza filled TV screens as
Israeli tanks drove out of Beit Hanoun and as some roadblocks in the
central Gaza strip were removed.  But, here we joked, "You can tell
this is only the first time the Israelis have withdrawn from Gaza
since the beginning of the Intifada.  This will be the 6th time for
us in Bethlehem.  We just wonder how long it will be before they come
back."

In fact, there is no withdrawal this time.  While jeeps full of
Israeli soldiers, APCs and tanks have been part of the life in
Bethlehem for the last 7 months, there will be no scenes of tanks
driving out of Bethlehem today as in Gaza over the weekend.  During
this particular incursion, which began on 23 November 2002 following
a suicide bomb in Jerusalem, the heavy military equipment and
soldiers have been mainly at Shedma camp on the outskirts of Beit
Sahour, near the outskirts of Beit Jala or at near Rachel's tomb.
Entering at whim, night or day.

About the only thing to change today will be that Israeli soldiers
will not be driving down the streets daily carrying out arrests, home
demolitions, searches, or detentions, and Palestinian police will be
back in uniform and on the streets, hopefully bringing with them a
bit of order after the disorder of the last seven months. I don't
mean to imply that this change isn't a good thing.  Already last
night you could sense a change as the streets in town were as full of
traffic as they have been at night since October.

But, again, the reality is that the soldiers haven't gone anywhere –
to the north, the west, the south and the east of the Bethlehem they
are still present. The `security fence' continues to keep the
residents locked in a small area.  The Israelis have so far refused
to remove the road block at the southern end of Bethlehem which
connects the city to Hebron and the main road to the north of the
West Bank, the Wadi al-Nar, remains closed except to those few
Palestinians who have permits to leave Bethlehem. Remember, these
permits are not even to enter Jerusalem but just to get out of
Bethlehem to enter another city in the West Bank whether it be
Jericho or Ramallah or Hebron.  Rather than describe this as a
withdrawal it seems a more accurate description to say the `prison
guards won't be coming into the prison.'

This lack of the freedom of movement continues across the West Bank.
It is one of the major sources of frustration and despair as
Palestinians cannot move, regardless of their need. If steps are not
taken soon to change this reality – especially as the walls and
fences continue to be built around Palestinian residential areas and
no significant settlement removal or freeze takes place – the
frustration and anger of every Palestinian will not dissipate. In
fact, it is likely to increase. As talks on the political level try
to `make nice' and pretend that things are moving, the daily lives of
3 million Palestinians have to see some relief – and now – if there
is to be a real chance for a significant change.

While Bush's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was here
over the weekend, she was quoted as asking PM Sharon to consider
moving the line of the "Security Wall."  I'm sorry, Ms. Rice, that is
not good enough.  If a commitment is being made to a 2-state
solution, then the wall must go or at least be built on the Green
Line.  This is not time for gentle nudges on issues of the continuing
land confiscation by the Israelis, not if people really want to see
an end to the violence that has brought untold heartache to both
peoples.

A dose of reality – the daily lived reality of everyday Palestinians –
  needs to infiltrate the senses of the political leadership at every
level.  Maybe then there would be a reason to dance in the streets.

Sincerely,

Sandra

Rev. Sandra Olewine
United Methodist Liaison - Jerusalem

Alison Nassar is a good friend of mine from the Bethlehem Bible
College.  Her new book is available now, so if you're interested in
hearing her interesting stories, check it out!

http://www.bobmay.info/immmathilda.htm

Imm Mathilda gives the reader a front-row seat to observe the
tragedies occurring in Palestine today. It offers both an opportunity
to hear the personal accounts that humanize the situation and the
factual reports of this little-understood conflict. And it is a page-
turner as well! a "must read." Jerri Bird, President, Partners for
Peace.

Alison Jones Nassar has written a fascinating account of life under
Israeli attack and occupation. It is a book that should be read by
every member of Congress. Jim Abourezk, Former U.S. Senator from
South Dakota

Alison Jones Nassar is a voice in the wilderness that must be heard,
the voice of a wife and mother, an American expatriate living with
her Palestinian husband and their young children in occupied
Bethlehem during the brutal incursions of the Israeli army following
the uprising known as the Al Aqsa Intifada. Jones Nassar is a
Christian writing with a passionate zeal for justice and truth. Hers
is a voice with an overwhelming responsibility-to defend a people
unjustly portrayed as "terrorists." Sister Elaine Kelley,
Administrative Officer, Friends of Sabeel--North America

For those who have the courage to hear "the other side of the story,"
Allison Jones Nassar describes the daily existence of innocent
Palestinian civilians. It is a life of curfews, checkpoints and
closures which produces relentless humiliation and fear. There will
be a just peace in the Middle East only when voices such as Nassar's
are heard, and the oppression of daily violence can cease. Bishop
Margaret Payne, New England Synod of the ELCA

Alison writes as an ordinary person, a wife and mother, who is just
trying to manage from day to day under seemingly hopeless
circumstances, trying to find meaning in the distress of every day.
Her writing is powerful. It is filled with passion and poetry.
Charles P. Lutz, retired social ministry executive.

Letters to the Editor

Feeling their pain

We live so close to each other and yet we do not feel one another's
pain. When a suicide bomber succeeds in killing Israelis in
Jerusalem, I can usually hear the sirens of ambulances and emergency
vehicles from my apartment in Beit Safafa. I then rush to the TV to
watch the horrible details. I do not like what I see or hear but I
have a big problem. It is a spiritual one.

My problem is that I do not feel the pain of my Jewish neighbors who
lose their lives or are burned, injured or traumatized due to the
bombings. It is a real issue for me because as a practicing Christian
I am called to love my enemies. I think one way to express that love
is to truly share the pain of others when they suffer. When innocent
Palestinians get assassinated by Israeli attacks in Gaza, Jenin,
Hebron, Bethlehem and elsewhere in the West Bank, my heart goes out
in sorrow to them. I wish I had the same compassion for innocent
Israelis who are killed or hurt.

My spiritual dilemma is further complicated by the fact that I am a
pastor of a Christian congregation in East Jerusalem and thus often
preach peace and reconciliation and call on members of my
congregation to love their enemies regardless of racial or political
realities. I confess it is much easier to speak about forgiveness
than to actually forgive and it is much harder to practice love than
to preach it. Then I think if I, a Christian pastor, cannot truly
love my enemies, what must it be like for the average Palestinian?

I have tried to examine my heart in an attempt to understand why I
feel the way I do. Why do I care less when innocent Jews are killed?
The answer to this question is not so much found in my heart as it is
found in my mind. Although I am religious and care much for my
spiritual well-being, I am also rational. Rationality, mingled with a
sense of patriotism, overcomes my spiritual motivation and desire to
love my enemies. Rationality tells me that for every innocent Israeli
killed in these cycles of violence, at least three innocent
Palestinians are also annihilated. Rationality tells me that even if
the death on both sides of the conflict is numerically equal, the
suffering on the Palestinian side far outweighs the suffering of
Israelis.

Palestinians cannot order curfews and imprison Israelis in their
homes and cities. Palestinians have no power to set up checkpoints on
the borders of Israeli cities, Palestinians cannot employ bulldozers
to demolish the homes, businesses and farms belonging to those who
kill them and steal their land. Rationality tells me that a nation
who occupies another deserves the pain resulting from an occupied
population.

I cross the Bethlehem checkpoint on a daily basis. My eyes, which are
windows to my intellect, see injustice every day. I see the
demolished homes, the collapsing economy, the masses under perpetual
and suffocating closures and the daily suffering of an entire
population. When I look eastward, near the check point, the
settlement of Har Homa built on land Israel confiscated from
Palestinians after 1967 on what Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghnaim,
stares me in the face. Turning to the west I see the Aida refugee
camp, one of three refugee camps in Bethlehem, which is home to
Palestinians who were forced to flee their villages in 1948 in what
is now called Israel. Then I look straight ahead and I see Rachael's
Tomb, a holy place turned into a prison-like fortress. Looking behind
me it is impossible to avoid the settlement of Gilo that was also
built on Palestinian land Israel annexed after 1967.

The realities I view, along with the stories I hear are imprinted on
the walls of my soul and influence my entire person, including my
spiritual outlook. Injustice makes me very upset and definitely
affects my attitude. Consequently, when pictures of innocent Jews
slaughtered by a Palestinian suicide bomber are shown on my TV screen,
I rationalize instead of empathize. I continue to blame Sharon or the
occupation or the latest Israeli bombing attack that snuffed out the
lives of a number of Palestinians.

I long for the day when deep in my heart I can feel the pain of my
Jewish neighbors in their time of calamity as much as I feel the
utter despair of my people. I long for the day when we on both sides
of the political divide can step into each others shoes and
understand the anguish and hopelessness that the other side is
feeling. Perhaps then we can become better aware of our common
humanity, cry together and express forgiveness to the other. Only
then perhaps, will we triumph over those on both sides, who thrive on
violence, destruction and bloodshed.

Reverend Alex Awad
Bethlehem

The writer is dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College