No doubt there are some who would read this series of posts and protest that I’m little more than a naïve U.S. citizen who was duped into becoming a mouth-piece for the Palestinian cause. People might claim that I only saw one side of the story, etc. But let me assure you that this was not the case.

This was no site-seeing tour. It was ten days of meetings with both Jewish and Palestinian citizens and government officials. One such group is simply known as ‘the Refuseniks’ – Israeli citizens who refused to serve in the military because of an unwillingness to contribute to the grievances and abuses occurring with regularity within the occupied territories. Their only agenda was peace and justice for all. Continue reading…

In this series on the conflict in the Middle East, specifically in the land known as Israel by some and Palestine by others, one point I have unequivocally stressed is this: The Jewish and Palestinian people are very good people. I don’t, however, feel that way about their respective governments as a whole or certain political officials within them. And honestly, who in the U.S. would not be critical of some of our government’s policies, its penchant for greed, looking out for #1, abuse of power, pork-spending, etc.?!

One of the challenges of writing about the conflict is how to defend the innocent (on both sides) without appearing to be defending everything Jewish or Palestinian. I think everybody gets that, but I notice how some responding to these posts still tend to say things like, “Yes, but there’s guilt on both sides,” etc. Of course there is. But statements like that only serve to cause static in attempts to honestly appraise the situation on behalf of so many good and well-intentioned folks trying to coexist.

And so with that in mind, I would like to share a bit about one of our host families while in the Land, a wonderful Christian Palestinian family who was kind enough to put us up for the night. I’ll simply refer to them as ‘the Smiths.’ Continue reading…

For the ten days I travelled throughout what many refer to as the ‘Holy Land’ (Israel/Palestine) – what I witnessed was anything but holy. It was clear that a full-scale strategy of claiming the occupied and contested territories previously home to the Palestinians was dependent upon the ongoing construction of settlements by the Israeli government.

Everywhere I went I saw large tracts of land that had been or were being developed for the future occupation of Israeli citizens, many of whom are not even presently living within the country to even occupy such properties. These settlements do not consist of a house here or there, a building or supermarket spread throughout, but rather a dense population of tall – think condominiums – buildings, mostly sitting empty, dominating the landscape on which they were built. Continue reading…

There are no few obstacles to peace in the area known to some as ‘Israel’ and to others as ‘Palestine.’ Not the least of which is an imposing concrete wall some twenty-six feet high snaking its way through a plethora of Palestinian economic centers, effectively choking off the possibility of commerce and even equally dividing Palestinian neighborhoods that once existed side-by-side.

While the Israeli government claims the wall is being built as a means of security – keeping Palestinian terrorists out of Israeli population centers – the facts tell a much different story. For instance, did you know that there are as many Palestinians (as well as Jews!) living ‘inside’ the wall as ‘outside’? That’s a strange fact for something built in the name of ‘security’ and a major counter to the claim of what the wall is supposedly about. One would expect, in the name of security, to see a clean break between Jewish and Palestinian communities – but that is simply not the case at all. Continue reading…

America is a country familiar with and accepting of transient lifestyles. It isn’t at all uncommon for our children to grow up and ‘move away.’ Many of us have moved so often in our careers that it’s almost expected that our kids will do the same. For a Palestinian family, however, this is rarely the case. Not only do the children remain at home, often after marriage they build their house on top of their parent’s home.

When Gwynne and I stayed with a Palestinian family last month, they proudly showed us the ‘factory’ on the first floor – the place where they produced the carvings that support their living – as well as their home on the second floor and then the home of one of their children on the third. When you’re ‘land-locked’ you build up, not beside or across town.

And this is why the home demolition program carried out by the Israelis is so devastating. It is not just the loss of property that Palestinians experience, but the loss of identity. Continue reading…