Difficult Days

A letter from Kate Taber serving in Israel-Palestine

September 2015

Dear friends and family,

It’s been a full summer, and a hot one! I hope it looks like autumn where you are, because we are still experiencing 90-degree days! Nathan and I had a good break by traveling home to see family in August, and afterward I had a wonderful week with mission co-worker colleagues at a regional conference in Hungary. It was helpful to feel refreshed and inspired, especially as I returned to Israel-Palestine to some difficult times for our mission partners.

In 2006 the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced its intention to build the separation wall in the Cremisan Valley. The valley stretches along the seam between the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, within which lies part of the city of Beit Jala, part of the settlement of Gilo, a monastery, a convent, and many private Palestinian homes. Parts of Cremisan are located in Area C, classified as being under exclusive Israeli control, where it is virtually impossible for the Palestinian government, the Beit Jala municipality, or the local land-owning families to develop the area. Basic services such as clean water and waste collection and management are subject to Israeli control.

The mayor of Beit Jala brings a message of thanks, hope, and a call for solidarity to the World Council of Churches’ World Week for Peace gathering.

Since 2006 the landowners have engaged in a legal battle against the Ministry of Defense, and in 2010 the convent and monastery joined the case. Since 2010 our mission partner the Society of St. Yves, a Catholic legal aid organization, has been representing the convent and monastery, advocating that they not lose access to their land nor be separated from each other or the community they serve.

Finally, in April of 2015, the Israeli high court ruled that the wall could be built in Cremisan if it avoided the convent and monastery. However, the local Palestinians do not consider this a win. Fifty-eight Christian families own land in the Cremisan Valley and depend on the agricultural land there for their livelihood. Palestinians also view the wall as Israel’s way of annexing more West Bank land, as the wall will not follow the line between the West Bank and Israel, but rather will divide West Bank land from other West Bank land.

St. Yves then submitted an appeal that the military delay construction until they release their plan for the entire route of the wall and allow landowners the opportunity to submit their objections.

Even though legal proceedings were still ongoing at the high court, on August 17 the Israeli military arrived in Cremisan and began bulldozing in preparation for building the wall. They destroyed olive trees that dated back 2,000 years.

Bethehem Catholic Bishop proclaims the gospel during the World Council of Churches’ World Week for Peace prayer service

It was in this context that the World Council of Churches’ World Week for Peace in Israel-Palestine began on September 20. Appropriately, this year’s theme was the separation wall. Local Palestinian Christians, including clergy and other leaders, gathered in the Cremisan Valley, at the site where the olive trees were destroyed, to kick off the week with a prayer service. Songs were sung in Arabic and English, scripture was proclaimed, messages were brought from the World Council of Churches and the mayor of Beit Jala, and local Palestinians and international guests lifted their voices in prayer.

One prayer crafted for this event mourns: “We lament the many forms of violence afflicting people in this land. We grieve that the barrier of separation has split Palestinian communities from one another and sharpened the divide between Palestinian and Israeli societies. This barrier has contributed nothing to justice, and less to peace.”

Despite the grief expressed, and in the face of the destruction of the olive trees and the bleak future of the Valley, this gathering was a reminder that the spirit of God is still at work. Christian Palestinians came together across ecumenical and theological divides, and international guests joined in solidarity, both at this service and through prayers spoken in churches around the world. May we proclaim along with them, “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2.14).

Friends, I give thanks every day for your support, and I ask that your prayers for Israel-Palestine and all its people not stop with the end of the World Week for Peace. As tensions combust at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, as poverty increases in Gaza, and as the wall begins to be built in Cremisan, we need your prayers. During these difficult times, your messages of support and your sharing news of your own work for just peace in your own communities have been sustaining. This ministry would also not be possible without the financial gifts you’ve made, and for that I am truly grateful. Please continue to give, to share, to pray. I hope our paths cross soon, here or in the U.S.

May God’s sustaining hope be with you.
Kate

The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 344