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The Season to be Jolly
From: Bullet Points (used w/permission)
No Room at the Inn
Three days before Christmas, a bull dozer started hammering repeatedly at the roof of a house until it collapsed.
It was the house of Jawdi Jaber - brother of Atta - pictured in Bullet Points 04. The house built on top of his Father's house was nearly complete. I saw the work in progress three weeks ago on route from Hebron to Jerusalem. Jawdi received no demolition order and was very surprised when the bulldozer came on December 2nd. He was given only 5 minutes warning and so many things including the fridge and TV were demolished along with the walls of his house. He had been building for 1 year, and had been saving for years before that. His father's house is crowded: his parents live in one room, his sister and family in the other two. The new house was a dream. Kawkab, and his other daughters were inconsolable as they returned from school and saw what had happened.
I just called him tonight whilst writing this, to ask what he would do now, having lost all his assets and without recourse to insurance. He told me how he and his 5 children are now living in a 150 year old cave, built into the rock on which his father's house is built. "I pray to God to give me more power to make another house. Maybe I need ten or twelve years." he said. "The Israelis already took my mountain" he said, referring to the orchard he had spent 10 years cultivating on top of the hill his family had farmed for centuries, which the Jewish settlement of Harsina recently confiscated.Jawdi wondered what he had done wrong. He had fasted through Ramadan and he prays five times every day. The cost of the house he was building, he said, was $40 000.
Nobody can say exactly why his home was targeted. But it could be related to the fact that on December 18th, the Israeli High Court extended the restraining order preventing the Israeli army from demolishing 15 Palestininan homes in the heart of Hebron. The Jewish settlers in Hebron want these houses to be demolished so that they don't have to go through any Palestinian area between their settlement (Kiryat Arba) and the Tomb of the Patriarchs (or Mosque of Abraham) in the centre of Hebron. But whilst this case is on hold, a wave of other house demolitions are taking place, of which Jawdi's house unfortunately is one.
The Shepherd's Tidings
Manger Square in Bethlehem had neither tree nor lights. It did however provide the backdrop to many signs protesting at the impossible conditions the Bethlehemites are living through. "Silent Night...Holy Night??" read one poster. The Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah proceeded to pass through in the drizzle and cold on his way to Nativity Church to begin Christmas in earnest. At the midnight mass at St Catherine's he spoke strongly criticising Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the main cause of the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Tidings of joy were palpably thin amongst the Christian family I ate Christmas lunch with. Having lost nearly all customers to his furniture store during December because of the curfew, the son could only regard the opening hours for the festival with suspicion as he contemplated his business going down the drain. Sure enough, at 3pm on 26th December 'Mamnu'a Attajawal!! (you are forbidden to be outside!) was once again broadcast from Israeli jeeps around Manger Square and tear gas heralded the next period of home confinement.
A Happy New Year?
This morning - December 31st - I spent several hours distributing leaflets in the streets of Bethlehem advertising the Justice & Peace March at 3pm, a tradition begun last year by the local peace organisations. Bethlehem has been open 24 hours a day for the last few days. 'Can we throw rocks?' joked one man. 'I can't wait to smell the gas' said another. Many were glad something was happening and promised to come. One person asked why it was that a foreigner was handing out the posters. The answer is, many young people from the town who would have distributed posters feel less comfortable doing so this year as the situation in Bethlehem - after 6 months of total closure and 5 military incursions during the last year - is ten times worse than it was on 31 December 2001. Many are afraid that a peaceful demonstration will turn sour or alternatively, think that there is no point.
However, several hundred people turned out. The Latin Patriarch, and Anglican, orthodox and other religious dignataries arrived in a fleet from Jerusalem, and the march towards the checkpoint began. "Open Jerusalem" and 'End the Occupation' were held above the heads of the peaceful crowd as we advanced down the streets. Long before we reached the checkpoint however, a line of Israeli jeeps and soldiers formed barring the way. The small boys amongst us - mostly from the refugee camps nearby - immediately got excited and began to overtake the dignatories. The internationals and organisers tried to stop them to avoid any provocation on either side. After some negotiation we were allowed to proceed a bit further but got stopped again by more jeeps and soldier reinforcements. So the speeches and inter-religious prayers were held there and then by the different community organisations and dignatories, against a line of soldiers in the middle of the road. The boys crept forward fascinated by the soldiers uniforms and guns, and got pushed back. Songs and hymns were sung led by the leaders through a microphone and speeches about seeking peace and an end to occupation made. Thankfully the march ended peacefully, the crowd began to retreat, and with a lot of persuasion so did the smaller boys.
QPSW (Quaker Peace and Social Witness)
Israel & Palestinian Territories
If anyone would like to reproduce any part of this report verbatim, please contact Floresca Karanasou, on +44 (0) 20 7663 1073 or florescak@quaker.org.uk
