Alternative Travel
For one of my days off at the end of May, I went on a tour
of Hebron. I chose to use the
Alternative Tourism Group www.atg.ps.
Their web site challenges believers to join them in a
pilgrimage of transformation, a journey for justice. We are asked to respond to the Palestinian
Christian’s call to “Come and See.” The
web site is worth the read. These tours
are journeys of truth and transformation that will reveal the love of God to you
through the eyes of the Palestinian people who, despite having suffered decades
of occupation and dispossession, maintain their dignity, faith and capacity for
hope.
Settlement
The tour started in Jerusalem, then to Beit Sahour. As we left Beit Sahour, the driver showed us
the concrete boundary marker that had been moved in order to allow settlement
building. Beit Sahour has lost land to
settlement and now a new one is starting.
Those who are insisting on building have already put up road signs
leading to the pending site.
A group of Israeli women has devised a way to take even more
land from Palestinian villages. They
call themselves Women in Green. They
make their actions look like they are environmentally conscious, but what they
really do is come in and destroy Palestinian farms and plant trees and claim
the land for Israel.
How sad I was to
find out they are raising their funds through a United States nonprofit.
Hebron
Reading the blog from the Christian Peacemaker Team is one
of the things that sparked my interest in this area. I will still be reading their blog, but now I
have seen with my own eyes. At Hebron, settlers
have moved into part of the city instead of being on a hilltop nearby. The settlers have become an abusive force
toward Palestinian. The army is on duty
on behalf of the settlers and they “look the other way” when crimes are
committed against Palestinians. This
includes crimes against Palestinian children.
When the settlers moved to Hebron, the main shopping area
was closed down. What once was a
thriving market is now nearly empty.
Some
Palestinians had they doors nailed shut thereby maintaining Israeli only
portions of the city. Palestinians have suffered
economic hardship in this city.
The shopkeepers that are left have had to put netting
protection over their goods to keep settler’s garbage, being thrown out of upper
windows, from damaging their merchandise.
Shopkeepers extend Palestinian hospitality as they tell their stories.
The children are repeatedly harassed as they go to and from
school having to cross through a checkpoint trailer set across the middle of
the street.
We had a delicious lunch with a Muslim family, and visited a factory that produces Kuffiyehs and one where pottery and glass blown items are produced.
Sad to
say, you will not see pictures of some of these because I ran out of camera battery. I did purchase a couple pieces of glassware, so you are
invited to my house to see their beauty.
