Musalaha

The wind is howling against the house, and I can hear it creaking in response. Rain is pouring down and it patters against the water tank on the roof. All I see is gray through the windows, a perfect day for a cup of tea next to the fireplace. This may be the last big rain of the season. The land needs it.

Friday was my last day with Musalaha after almost six months of work. I still think it strange that I have been here that long, and even stranger that those six months disappeared so quickly. My last day was spent stuffing newsletters into envelopes and enjoying a meal with the Israeli and Palestinian staff. Over lunch, Ryan, another volunteer who finished that day, and I participated in a quiz in which we were presented with awkward quotes said by Musalaha’s director, guessing to whom he said it and what he meant by it. This workplace is the perfect basis for a new version of The Office.

The past six months have been challenging, frustrating, and nourishing. Nourishing because I have developed several meaningful friendships; frustrating because I have seen an NGO handcuffed because of a desire to appease exceedingly conflicting groups; and challenging because in many instances I have extremely divergent ways of embracing God and the world, because I have been challenged by the complex relationships of the Israelis and Palestinians with whom I interacted, and because I have felt those same handcuffs on my wrists. Perhaps my most difficult challenge has been working with editors in an organization who have different standards than my own. And this experience has also been nourishing because it has forced me to rethink and reword some of my writing. All writers squirm when people stab a red pen onto their pages. I agreed with some changes to strongly-phrased statements or to factual inaccuracies, but the greatest challenge came when I felt like the quality, mood, and message of the stories were altered. Controversial statements made by the interviewees were deleted and gentler words took their place. In the midst of my frustration I recognize that Musalaha attempts to walk a string-thin line. They are in an extremely volatile situation as a non-profit organization funded mostly by Evangelical Christians, many of whom still ardently sympathize with Israel. The director says he has “an itch for justice” and is ready for Musalaha to speak more. But if they cry justice too loudly, most Israelis won’t come. But if Musalaha continues a more neutral stance on political issues, Palestinians will consider their stance as normalizing the Occupation and they may not come much longer either.

When I first arrived, I was asked to write stories about people struggling in the tension of this conflict. Through the editing process, however, some of the stories have become more sentimental accounts of Musalaha’s success. Some of those interviewed were concerned with their depiction. Some were angered by what I recorded them saying; but, interestingly, most asked for changes because I described them washing dishes, talking about family, twirling a candle on the table. One lady asked us to remove her story because of my literary descriptions. At the end of the day, I was told, these people determine what form of their story is published and if it will be published. If this book was journalistic, written outside of Musalaha, expectations would be different. But Musalaha feels forced to primarily consider support and involvement. I am glad I don’t have to make those decisions.

I hope to write a longer post about my experience with Musalaha. I have copied below the introduction to the almost-completed book, which will probably be published later this year. I have used some of my own words from previous stories on this blog:


“You have heard it said . . . but I tell you . . .”

These are some of the most life-threatening, and life-giving, words I’ve ever heard. They strip me of my securities, they rob me of my comforts, they take away my preconceptions. They tear down my strongly-held religious and political convictions. They tell me to look, not higher, but deeper, toward the heart, toward my heart, toward others’ hearts, toward the heart of reality. They tell me that deconstruction is an act of love. Jesus disturbs our settled words because he tells us of a radical kind of God; radical in the more common meaning of “revolutionary,” but also in the Latin origin which means “to the root.” Radicalizing is more important than liberalizing.

These words tell me to look again. Without that respect, which means “to look again” in Latin, we will not see.

I came to volunteer with Musalaha for six months, beginning in September 2009 through the end of February 2010. Between September and December, I conducted approximately thirty interviews with people, Israeli and Palestinian, who are involved with the organization. I traveled from Jerusalem to Haifa, from Bethlehem to Nazareth, meeting in coffee shops and offices and homes, asking a few questions to serve as a framework and allowing the conversation to evolve from there. For the next several months, I incarnated my skeletal notes as stories about encounters with ‘the other’ and events of reconciliation. The project was not a comprehensive biographical endeavor; I had only one interview with each person. Because of that, I am not completely satisfied with all the stories, which is inevitable when writing. Interviews in coffee shops and homes, divorced from action and interaction, provide a limited palette of descriptive hues. And this project was not an attempt to relate the history of the conflict. Much better and more educated people have dealt very extensively with that subject. These stories were meant to be small windows into the ongoing transformation of specific people.

Some stories are short, some are longer, and some are told together because the accounts were marked by a specific encounter with each other. In each story, I gave the last word to the main character. I certainly do not agree with or condone every perspective shared, but this book was not intended to explicitly counter each disconcerting point of view. These stories are an attempt at conversation, allowing different thoughts and opinions to unsettle and unhinge our own thoughts and opinions. To at least make us look again. Tensions are preserved and several of the endings seem abrupt because those tensions have not all been resolved. Transformation is a never-ending journey.

Not every reference to history or to current events is factual. Those interviewed were speaking from memory, without reference to verifiable sources. They, like all of us, speak out of their framing stories which provide legitimacy for why we think, feel, and act the way we do. We need framing stories. We cannot help having them, but we can help which ones we live out. We need a new one that speaks of justice, reconciliation, and peace. And the first step is to open ourselves to listening to the stories of others.

National defense strategies and political resolutions have never created true peace. They cannot. Oppressive systems and extremist violence must be confronted, but if people are still tied to the destructive mindsets that engendered these violent systems, then little will be changed, and the brutal cycle will continue. Maybe the way to overcome the oppressive political and societal systems is to dismantle the racial prejudices and uninformed worldviews held fearfully by so many people. To transform hearts. Many would say this is foolishly naïve. And it is. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Like Hercules fighting the Hydra monster, we can chop down the countless destructive systems forever, because they will always grow back like biting heads unless the people in the systems rethink everything. We can only ignore the source for so long.

I hold no illusions of being or wanting to be a politician, at least not in the typical sense. I have no grand theories or clever schemes that if implemented will end this turmoil. I want to be a storyteller; I have stories I want to tell because I foolishly believe in their transforming power. There will be no peace without conversion through reconciliation and justice. I do not mean justice characterized as “getting what you deserve,” justice as the antecedent to “the American way,” or justice as an “eye for an eye.” The Holocaust cannot justify the Nakba and the Occupation; the Nakba does not justify suicide bombings and rockets. In the Jewish worldview, peace, shalom, is not the absence of difference or disagreement, but it is the presence of the wholeness of God. Justice is about rehumanization, because justice, as Dr. Cornel West says, “is what love looks like in public.” The Arabic word translated as “goodbye” is ma’a salaama, but a friend once told me that it literally means “with health,” and comes from the same root as the word for “peace,” salaam. Peace is healing, and healing brings wholeness. Justice is the arrival of that healing presence which washes away oppression and dehumanization and conquest; and mercy and compassion always flow within the mighty stream of true justice.

Frederick Buechner wrote that “In Hebrew the term dabar means both ‘word’ and ‘deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something . . . Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.”

Words and actions create stories and stories create meaning. Stories say something and do something. May these stories create an open space for the sacred event of what seems like the impossible to happen, because stories not only describe reality, they transform it. They tell us to keep looking again.

Greece

I am in the land of gods and goddesses, temples and monasteries, bazoukis and kalamari. My family and I lived in Greece for the first half of 2001 while my dad took a sabbatical from work as a doctor in the Appalachian mountains. I was also here in 2008, backpacking on my way to U.S. after a summer working in Ramallah. Patrick and Paul both studied here during a semester abroad program with our university.

The Harding group travels out from Greece during their semester, and they came through Israel and Palestine last week. We met them in Bethlehem and showed them around Beit Sahour, taking them to the Al-Basma Center and our house for a slideshow presentation briefly summarizing history, current events, and the humanitarian crisis in Israel and occupied Palestine. Our second visa was approaching expiration, so we decided to accept an invitation to join them in Greece. We arrived here on Tuesday, on the same flight as the Harding group, and came with them to the old hotel-turned-campus in Porto Rafti, on the east coast of Greece. We've spent the past few days hiking through the green hills and long the clear coastline. And it's been incredibly refreshing and in-spiring. I will probably write a more detailed story about Greece at some point, but I have abundant notes for so many stories that I haven't been able to flesh out yet. I was hoping this trip would provide me with that opportunity, but green and slopes and the beach are calling much more enticingly.

Our return flight is this coming Tuesday, and then exactly two months left in the land between the river and the sea . . .

Brian McLaren and Israel/Palestine

Brian McLaren and a group of artists and writers recently visited Israel and Palestine. I was able to meet McLaren in Bethlehem. We have been occasionally corresponding since last summer, discussing a documentary some friends of mine and I will begin filming in a month and a possible meeting with him when he came here. Unfortunately we only had about five minutes to visit when we actually met face-to-face.

McLaren has written fairly extensively about the Middle East, and has handled it exceptionally well. However, some of the comments on his recent posts have been less than cordial, and less than equitable. Which isn't unexpected at all. McLaren has responded to these tirades with extreme humility, clarity, and assertiveness. I have a great amount of respect for the careful way in which he dealt with such volatile conversations.

You can check it out here: http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/responses-to-my-palestine-posts.html

Phone Call

I heard a muffled ring, and my pant’s pocket trembled. My phone is hard to hear even without the cloth barrier, so I also have it on vibrating mode. I purchased the phone before coming here through Israel Phones, a company that caters to tourists, students, and backpackers in the so-called Holy Land. I’ve used the company before, and the call rates are fairly inexpensive. The silver-colored face is chipping and the phone number, super-glued to the light blue backing, is peeling off. Partly why it’s inexpensive.

I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyway.
“Hello,” said a cheerful female voice on the other end. “Is this Jonathan McRay? I’m calling from Israel Phones.”
“Oh,” I said, without the cheer.
They’ve called many times since I’ve been here, so I knew why they were calling again.
“We just wanted to confirm that you were still in possession of your phone, that it has not been lost or stolen.”
“Why is that?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Several 059 numbers have been dialed, which is a settlement-area number. Did you mean to call these numbers?”

059 numbers are Palestinian numbers, and apparently the only reason I would call a Palestinian is . . . well, there isn’t a reason, because my phone must have been either lost or stolen. Presumably by a Palestinian, because otherwise a 059 number would not have been dialed. And Palestinians apparently now live in the settlement-area. This is quickly coming true. Illegal settlements are spreading through the choking West Bank like an infection, exterior signs of a colonialist epidemic. The land wears sackcloth and ashes from its burning olive trees as the existing sores continue to spread and new ones break out.

“Yes I did,” I replied somewhat tersely. Perhaps too tersely. I recognized that this representative probably didn’t implement the prejudiced policies. But I was angry.
“I see,” said the cheerful female voice a little less cheerfully and a little more cautiously. “And will you be dialing these numbers again in the future.”
“Yes I will,” I responded.
A brief pause followed.
“Oh-oh,” she stuttered. The cheer was gone. “I see. Well then, have a nice day.”

No Words

I couldn't think of a title for this. Nothing really works. These links are to videos and stories concerning Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. At some point, I'm going to write a story about my limited experience there. Last year, several Palestinian families were evicted from their generational homes so that Jewish settlers could move into the houses, part of an ongoing colonialism. The old Arab homes are now covered in Israeli flags and police and military are constantly present. Members of the Palestinian families now live on the street in tents to protest, but homelessness is conveniently illegal in Jerusalem. These people have been kicked out of their homes so that Jerusalem can be more Jewish. I have no words. Only nausea and tears. And little hope, because I don't know what hope is in these situations.

The Palestinian man with the big black beard is Nasser Gawi. He was kicked out the home in which he was born. And he lives on the street now. I've met him and talked with him. Here is the description of the video: "After verbal taunting, a settler in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah left the Gawi house which he and other settlers have occupied since August 2009. He descended the stairs with an M-16 and pushed a teenage boy. When neighborhood adults stepped in to protect the teenager, he pushed Nasser Gawi and then punched him. Seconds later the settler cocked his M-16 and pointed it wildly at the crowd that had gathered. In this video you can clearly see the first punch thrown by the settler and clearly hear the cock of his gun."

And here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noYAfW7dm4

The second link is to a story about Sheikh Jarrah on the Palestine Monitor. Scroll down to the video that appears under 'Apathy and Dissent.' The video is of the nonviolent protests, led mostly by Israeli activists, that oppose the occupation of the Palestinian homes. I've attended one of these protests. The two men shouting throughout the video are also Israelis. Not everyone supports justice and peace and recognition of humanity.

Here is the link to the story: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1247

And the Muslim

When I finish for the day at the Musalaha office, I catch Bus 124 to the checkpoint. After quickly presenting my passport, I walk across a small empty parking lot and through the Wall. A hive of taxis constantly swarms like massive yellow bees around the point where the Wall severs Hebron Road. I’ve become friends with several of the taxi drivers, and they begin shouting greetings when they see me walking through the grated tunnel. They call me Hanna, Arabic for John, and they make sure every other driver gives me a fair price. He is a friend, they tell them, so do not cheat him.

Of all the taxi drivers, I’ve become closest to Walid. He first gave me a ride several months ago, before our first visa renewal trip to Jordan. Walid drove me all over Bethlehem looking for a bank that would give me Jordanian dinar. Now, he drives me near my house almost every time I come back to Bethlehem from the office. Most of the other drivers yell and beg, urging me toward their open doors. But Walid stands in the back with his hands in his pockets, a confident smile on his bearded face because he knows I’ll ride with him.

Not long ago, I came back early from the office. I’ve begun doing that much more frequently in the past few weeks. I write much better from the house. As I walked down to the buzzing taxis, I heard people calling my name and I saw Walid standing tall next to a fruit stand, a thick strand of dark hair curling naturally across his forehead. Before I had time to acknowledge him, he climbed into his car and waited for me to join.

“Marhaba, Hanna,” he said after I closed the door. “Keyf halak? How are you?
“Ah tamam, okay,” I said, setting my backpack between my feet. “Inta? You?
“Kowaies, kowaies,” he replied, speedily maneuvering the taxi within an inch of pedestrians and other cars. “Good, good.”

We drove out of the pocket formed by the Wall’s horseshoe-curve and soon turned down to Beit Sahour at a large roundabout built for the pope’s visit. A long line of clothing stores rushed by on the left, and behind them, across the valley, the Israeli settlement of Har Homa reached like a white hand over a once-forested hill. Trash swirled from the sidewalks and got sucked under our tires. Walid rotated the steering wheel with one broad brown hand, the other propped through the open window. He told me he was getting more and more excited with each passing day: his pregnant wife was expecting their first baby in less than a month. They had only been married for ten months, and apparently wasted absolutely no time in starting their family. Mabruk, I said to him. Congratulations. And he said Hamdullah, hamdulillah, praise be to God.

“Walid,” I said, watching the road bend in front of us so that I could see my house on a distant hill, “are you Muslim or Christian?” I didn’t hesitate in asking, because the strange Western taboo on discussing religion and politics doesn’t really exist here.
“Ana?” he asked, slightly turning his head toward me, but keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Me? I am Muslim.”
“Are you very religious?”
“Shu? What?”
“Do you fast or go to the mosque to pray?”
Walid clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth.
“Believe me, very very little,” he said. “Maybe I go after.”
He laughed and added, “After one month, one year, who knows?”
“Lesh?” I asked. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Ma ba’raf. I don’t know.”

All around the hills and valleys, minarets pointed up like dozens of antennas searching for a heavenly signal. Several times a day, numerous calls to prayer from numerous mosques reverberate from every direction, overlapping like echoes in a still cave. I told Walid that there are almost as many mosques here as there are churches in East Tennessee, where I’m from. Steeples of some persuasion rise out of almost every street corner in Jellico, the little town in the Appalachian Mountains where I grew up. He asked if there were any mosques in East Tennessee. Not in Jellico, I said.

I told him I had heard of animosity between Muslims and Christians in the Bethlehem area. Walid looked at me with inquisitive eyes.
“Weyn? Where?”
“In Beit Jala mostly. This is what I’ve heard. Have you felt this?”
Walid looked surprised and shook his head, sticking out his lower lip.
“No,” and he rubbed his forefingers together and said, “We are brothers.”


The guys and I sometimes buy groceries from a small store partially underground, in a side alley in the old city of Beit Sahour. During one shopping venture, Patrick and Paul struck up a conversation with the shopkeeper, who said he was Christian. Patrick said we are here to help make justice and peace, adaala and salaam, in whatever small way we can. The Christian shopkeeper then said, If it weren’t for the Muslims we would not have all these violent problems. Patrick and Paul were stunned. Well, Patrick slowly began, maybe Christians and Muslims should all be working together to end what they both share in common, the Israeli Occupation. No no, the shopkeeper interrupted, the Muslims are the cause of all these problems. They always have been. In every sermon, the Muslims preach destruction of Christianity. And the Crusades didn’t even happen. The Crusades are Islamic propaganda to turn Christians into the bad guys and to give Muslims an excuse to persecute Christians. No, he insisted, Muslims are the real problem and the real enemy.


“Shu inta?” Walid asked. “Ortodox? Latin?”
I shrugged. “Ma ba’raf.”
He laughed, and nodded.
“I was raised as Christian,” I continued. “But I have many problems with Christianity. There can be many bad things.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, his face turning serious.
“But, I do feel called by the way of Issa the prophet, who said to love your enemies.”
Walid put his hand over his heart and looked at me and said, “Issa, Muhammad, Musa, all this I believe.”
“Yes,” I said, and I put my hand over my heart, and in that moment we seemed like we were pledging allegiance.
“Issa and the prophets teach and live love and justice, and this is what I believe. They teach to serve the poor and the sick, the Jew and the Christian and . . .”
He broke in: “And the Muslim!”
“Yes, and the Muslim, sahibi.”
Walid shook my hand with a firm slap.
“Hamdullah.”

Let Freedom Ring

"We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, JR Day. Dr. King was a prophet who spoke to the particularity of his experience and the oppressed experience of his people in the United States. But his words do not just belong to the Civil Rights Movement of the United States. Exactly through his particularity, exactly because he spoke to his small corner of the world, his message has achieved a universality that speaks to everyone, everywhere. And Dr. King paid for his words and his actions with his life. He paid for his cry for justice and nonviolence and recogniition of humanity. He paid, because the adherents to the religion of empire know their enemies. They know those who house events capable of shattering violence, hatred, and exclusive ideologies. Those who can change their situation, and thus the world. Those who sow the seeds of liberation, justice, and peace must be prepared to find a cross, or a bullet, down the road. And even if those seeds may never grow, even if they fall on rocky ground or are choked by weeds, they are still worth sowing and that message is still worth announcing even though it might never be realized. Because "a time comes when silence is betrayal.” Perhaps announcing, and living that announcement, is the fullest realization we can expect. Dr. King walked in the blazing footsteps of the prophets and prophetesses who sang and danced before him. Now, let's go after them.


"I have a dream that one day on the pallid hills of Israel and Palestine the sons of soldiers and the sons of suicide bombers will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood . . .

I have a dream that one day even the State of Israel, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice . . .

I have a dream that one day, down in Hebron, with its vicious settlers, and in Gaza with its rocket-launchers, who all have their lips dripping with the words of terror and expulsion; one day right there in Jerusalem, little Palestinian boys and Palestinian girls will be able to join hands with little Israeli boys and Israeli girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the breath that fills us all shall be revealed, and all flesh shall breathe it together . . .

And if the world is to be healed and made whole, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the ashen hilltops of the occupied West Bank. Let freedom ring from the desert places of the Negev. Let freedom ring from the fertile valleys of the Galilee!

Let freedom ring from the cosmopolitan streets of Tel Aviv!

Let freedom ring from the open-air prison of Gaza!

But not only that; let freedom ring from the fear-ravaged homes in Sderot!

Let freedom ring from the Temple Mount, from Haram ash-Sharif, in Jerusalem!

Let freedom ring from every ghetto and every city in the Middle East. From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every synagogue and every mosque, from every country and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims and Christians and everyone, yes, everyone else, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"