After our sessions yesterday, it seems there is no crazier place on the planet than Hebron. It's going to take a bit to catch up and compose that post.
Today we'll be visiting with two families in Beit Ummar, in the West Bank. Both families are suffering daily from the occupation. Tear gas, beating, arrest, detention (our friend's nephews, ages 14 and 16, were just arrested a few days ago)...I'll post more about our visit there later.
Tomorrow we'll visit Bethlehem University. I'm looking forward to small group listening sessions and hearing about the lives and visions of more young people.
This morning, a facebook friend from Gaza posted this video. More and more, my inspiration is coming from the youth, who are tired of the world that they are being handed. Their message to us all: come on friends, we can do better!
I'll be adding on to this blog in the days to come, to tell more about our time in Hebron. For now, please meet Hashem Azzeh, a Palestinian man living with his family, sandwiched between Israeli settlers.
Avital in her home in Sheikh Jarrah (Photo credit: Ellen Greene)
Thursday, May 27, 2010, Visiting the Settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem.
Avital is a young, orthodox Israeli Jewish woman and mother of three young children. She grew up in the Israeli city of Netanya on the Mediterranean coast, and has lived in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, for the past 6 years. Avital and her family won the right to occupy their current house by a court decree that the home is owned by Jews. Avital tells us that this area – approximately 40 acres – was actually purchased in the late 1800s by a mixed group of Ashkenazi and Sepharic Jews, who then began to settle there. The area surrounds the tomb of Shimon HaZaddik, a pilgrimage site for Jews since ancient times.
In 1948, when the land fell under Jordanian occupation, Jordan resettled Palestinian refugees from Jerusalem in the empty houses, with help from the United Nations. Nasser Ghawi’s family was one of the recipients of the homes, and his family has lived there continuously since 1954…until the day last summer in early August, when settlers and the military moved him and his family out by force, along with all of their possessions.
Now eight Palestinian families have been forcibly evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, and there is fear that more evictions are coming. Some of the families are still living in makeshift tents across the street, holding vigil and lifting the injustice to the level of international observation.
Avital tell us, “The last year has been very hard. There is a demonstration every Friday here, to protest the decision of the courts. We feel that we are under the eyes of the world. Everyone has something to say about this neighborhood. I feel that the demonstrations that have been here every Friday are saying ‘we want this neighborhood to belong to Palestine’. The issue is, if Jews don’t have the right to live if Jerusalem, then where do we have the right to live?”
Avital continues, “It was a problem, what to tell the children during the demonstrations. I don’t want to hide it from them, as some of the other families do. My children know the chants and actually sing with the demonstrators now. We say that this is their right to demonstrate. We are here because the judge and the court say we have the right to be here. The demonstration is always before Shabbat – we can time Shabbat by them. I don’t believe that I stole this house. I’m here because the courts say I could be here. When I met the families that lived here, I respect them. I feel for them. We have to answer many questions that we had for ourselves. With the demonstrations, I think we’ve gotten stronger. I feel more right, more moral.”
“I cannot lie to you – these are difficult times. People call you thief. Chase you, threaten you. I want to have a perfect life for my children.”
“I don’t think they want to hear us. They are trying to picture us to the media that we are violent. We’re more concerned with what we’re having for dinner. I think it’s comfortable for them to picture me as an evil person.”
“It’s hard for both sides. We don’t want to conquer them, and they don’t want to conquer us. In this neighborhood, we lived as normal families, we all have children. If we all respect each other, we can live together.”
In 2001 in the 2nd Intifada, my nephew was killed when a Palestinian threw a stone that hit him in the head. He was 6 months old - he was the youngest victim. Respect is the key to life. “
“The bible gives me my courage. We think that this is our country. Until a real peace is here, I would never submit to living under Palestinian control.”
Friday, May 28, 2010
Today we visited with the evicted Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, and witnessed the Friday protest.
On August 2, 2009, following an Israeli court decision, two Palestinian families (al-Hanoun and al-Ghawi), consisting of 53 persons, were evicted from two homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. The Israeli Supreme Court previously ruled that Jewish families had owned the land. The municipality of Jerusalem intends to build a block of 20 apartments in the area. The United Nations coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert H. Serry, said the evictions were "totally unacceptable actions... contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory. These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace."[21] United States State Department spokeswoman Megan Mattson said they constitute violations of Israel's obligations under US-backed "road map" peace plan.[22] Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the move, saying "Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep."[21] Yakir Segev, a member of Jerusalem's municipal council, countered the condemnations stating "This is a matter of the court. It is a civil dispute between Palestinian families and those of Israeli settlers, regarding who is the rightful owner of this property... Israeli law is the only law we are obliged to obey."[23]
While Jews maintain they legally own the land based on documents from the Ottoman Empire, Palestinian lawyers claim that they have a document from Turkish archives that says the Jews who claim to own the land are not the rightful owners.[24] As such, the Palestinian families and their supporters maintain that the legal decision is based on forgeries and should be reversed.[25][26] The lawyer of Israeli families claim that the land deeds were checked by many courts and found to be authentic.[24]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Jarrah
In the harsh reality of our region, Jewish and Arab youth have few opportunities to meet their peers of "the other side". In such a formative period of their lives, gaining first-hand experience beyond rigid stereotypes, social norms and negative media coverage is crucial for creating a different future for our nations. - Sulhita Peace Project
The far majority of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers grow up here in Israel and Palestine in a climate of intense fear of the “other’. With only a few exceptions, villages, towns and schools are all segregated, with little opportunity to meet one another, let alone in any kind of humanizing way. Thus, it’s easy to perpetuate the fears and stereotypes that hold the psychological barriers in place. And since most Israeli Jews do not learn Arabic, and most Palestinians, whether living in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza, do not learn adequate Hebrew, the language barrier is yet another hurdle even for those who wish to connect.
(Photos: Ellen Greene and Leah Green)
In this general climate of disconnection and fear, the work of Elad Vezana, director of the Sulhita Peace Project, is like a pristine spring in the desert. Sulha, the parent organization, is well known for their summer festivals that have brought over 12,000 seekers together from across the region for music, ritual, listening circles and healing. Since 2001, Sulha has created many opportunities for personal encounter across ethnic and religious lines, for those wanting to break through the barriers and meet their neighbors. (“Sulha” is the actual name for the ancient, indigenous Palestinian conflict resolution process, that is still practiced today in Palestinians and Bedouin towns and villages throughout the region.)
A friend sent me this video today. It speaks to the very essence of our collective work in the Compassionate Listening Project, along with millions and millions of people and organizations all around the world who are working towards an empathic civilization. As Paul Hawken, Four Years. Go., and others have brought to our attention, the times that we're living in are simply unprecedented - never has there been such a groundswell of individual and grassroots efforts working towards restoring the environment and fostering social justice. As Hawken says, "humanity's collective genius" is bursting through.
I'm dedicating this post to Dan Nichols, a great model for the empathic civilization, who passed on yesterday here in our Indianola community. In his 51 years, Dan taught us much about empathy by how he lived his daily life...a gentle, powerful teacher for so many.
Today at our Advanced Training we held the Truth Mandala ritual (a gift to the world from Joanna Macy). All thirty-two of us gathered in a tight circle, which was divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant held a symbol - dead leaves for loss and grief, a stick for anger, a large stone to symbolize our cold, hard hearts when we are fearful, and an empty bowl for emptiness - for what's missing. The ground underneath the mandala is the ground of hope. Each person was invited to enter the mandala, pick up the object that we feel drawn to, and speak from that quadrant. Indeed, truth is like oxygen. It takes so much courage to face the times we live in - to continue to generate the strength and courage necessary to feel, to act, and to anchor in a place of compassion for all that we fear - not just for what and who we love.
We entered the circle, one by one, with our tears, sorrow, grief, rage, longing and prayers. Joanna, a Buddhist scholar and environmental activist who brought this work that she calls "from despair to empowerment" to people around the world, knows that when we take the time to feel and express our despair, we are able to move through numbness and hopelessness, and reconnect with joy, clarity, and the energy to act on behalf of our beloved planet. I began using the Truth Mandala in trainings ten years ago, and have witnessed again and again the beauty and power of this ritual. Today, Andrea led us in the ritual, and it was no different.
Today in the circle of the mandala, those participants who have experienced some of the darkest that humanity has to offer, showed us the capacity of the human heart to forgive, and to love. That in itself gives us so much hope. Three remarkable men - one from Sudan - a "Lost Boy" who was forced into being a child soldier; a man who lost his family to the insanity in Rwanda, and another man who miraculously escaped from the war in Chad. And now they are teachers for us, their hearts so full of love...
After the long ritual, we stand in a circle, in silence, arms linked tightly, gently swaying in an ocean of compassion, with no need for words.
My 20th anniversary delegation to Israel and Palestine is coming up, May 25th - June 5th (twenty years, and 25 delegations). My plan is to blog from the trip for the first time. I hope to be able to share some of our daily experiences in a meaningful way. (I'm staying on after the delegation to teach Compassionate Listening and will do my best to continue the blog.)
But back to the "Chickpea Warrior" part - you might be wondering about that. So here's a little story: Danaan Parry, co-founder of the Earthstewards Network, organized our first delegation to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in 1990. It was just before the first Gulf War, and Israeli citizens were lining up to receive their gas masks and making sealed rooms in the their homes to prepare for possible chemical/biological missiles from Iraq. Tourists were almost entirely gone by the time we arrived in November.
I have had a keen interest – one might even say a fascination – with the topic of transparency for many years now. It has emerged as one of our deep values within the Compassionate Listening facilitator community, and informs my life to a significant degree. There’s probably no other venue where we model transparency as profoundly as in our Advanced Training. Every year, the senior facilitators come together to team-teach at our two Advanced Training retreats, totaling nine days. We're often joined by 4-6 other facilitators from our community, who come to support us all, and immerse in the beautiful learning community that is created as we all come together with the participants as students and teachers, evolving our curriculum and practices together.
This story begins when I was nineteen years old, with a seemingly minor event. I was living in a farming community called a Kibbutz, on a stunningly beautiful piece of land near Jerusalem. This Kibbutz is famous for its archeological ruins going back to the Kings period, 3000 years ago – the biblical first Temple of Kings David and Solomon.
One evening I was at a favorite spot – on the ruins of a Crusader castle from the 1100’s, watching a beautiful sunset. At one point I looked down the trail and saw a very pleasant looking middle-aged man, walking slowly up to the castle. I knew that he was doing just what I was doing…coming up to watch the sunset.
I spent June 1-3, 2007 in the small town of Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, with 19 Israeli Jews and 19 Palestinian Muslims and Christians from all over the West Bank (Palestine). Maha El-Taji and I facilited the training session, and Cheri Catt and Len Wolf came from the U.S. to assist and support us all.
In the past month and a half since my return to the Puget Sound, I have not found many words to describe my experience. It was a great privilege to be of service to these peace and community leaders. Maha and my focus was on holding a strong container so that the participants could trust the Compassionate Listening process and dive deeply with one another. There were times when the wounds were so exposed and the pain so raw, that I wondered if the container would shatter. But we all pulled through. The desire to connect - to understand and be understood, is so huge. They risked so much, and found that it is possible to reach new ground.
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