It started with a sign and it ended with a sign! On Israeli Independence Day last May, in a massive rally in Gush Katif attended by tens of thousands from all over Israel, the sign behind the dais proclaimed: WE WILL BE HERE FOREVER!

A prominent rabbi rented out Jerusalem's largest hall for Sunday, August 21, for the celebration to thank God for the miracle he was sure would come. Indeed, as the nation counted down to the scheduled date of the disengagement, most Gush Katif residents refused to pack their belongings or make any plans for the day after. The ubiquitous sign on front doors in every community read: “Together we will prevail.” Even once the evacuation had begun in villages in southern Gaza, further north in Netzarim, men stayed up all night dancing in anticipation of the miracle they were sure would save them. The miracle did not come.

Families were taken out of their homes of decades amidst tears and pleas. One palm-tree lined community after another was emptied. Synagogues were stripped of their holy trappings and Torah scrolls. A traumatized nation watched scenes of soldiers crying together with the families they were uprooting.

Judaism is a religion conceived out of a miraculous redemption, the Exodus from Egypt. It is a mitzvah of the Torah to remember the Exodus every day, to remind ourselves every day that God has redeemed us and can redeem us and will redeem us. The hope for redemption is imprinted into the Jewish soul. That is why Jews on their way to the gas chambers sang, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah.” Ultimate redemption is our promise and our destiny.

“This is the way, for millennia, that Jews have accepted upon themselves calamity, in the faith that even the harshest fate is dictated by a merciful, loving God.”

Amidst the thousands who gathered to receive the evacuees was a woman who had lost her daughter in a suicide bombing. Even she, who knew that miracles do not always happen, was incredulous that, instead of a miracle, this calamity had befallen the Jews of Gush Katif.

So what do Jews do the night after? What do Jews do when the longed-for, prayed-for miracle does not occur? The final word of the night, the final word of the Disengagement, was emblazoned on a large sign brought by the evacuees and hung on a fence near the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem. It was a sheet painted with green letters: “FROM THOSE BANISHED FROM NETZER HAZANI,” and then in meter-high red letters: “HASHEM HE IS GOD.”

The Divine name indicated by ‘Hashem’ refers to God’s quality of mercy. The second Divine name in the sign refers to God’s quality of stern judgment. The sign’s bold statement, the identical credo of faith embodied in the Shema, is: The merciful God is the same God who judges us sternly. This is the way, for millennia, that Jews have accepted upon themselves calamity, in the faith that even the harshest fate is dictated by a merciful, loving God. That sign—and the faith behind it—is the true miracle of the Disengagement.

That’s the miracle that did happen.
—The Other Israel

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== December 27th to 30th 2005 ==

The Holy Land Trust
Nonviolence Conference in Bethlehem

During the month of December, Nonviolence International in conjunction with Holy Land Trust will be organizing an International Nonviolence Conference to be held at Bethlehem University, Palestine, from December 27th-30th. The conference is to bring together members of the global nonviolent community to discuss the past, present and future of nonviolence. This will also be a unique opportunity for the global community to learn first hand about nonviolent activism in Palestine. Attendees will also have the ability to add tour options both before and after the conference to allow them to travel and see Palestine.

For information and registration visit the conference website, http://www.celebratingnv.org/

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“We hope that the settlers will empathize…to end the occupation and bring about a just peace for the Palestinians, who are still waiting.”
There is Joy in Gaza…But Not Quite

Long overdue, it has finally happened. Israel is out of Gaza, but not quite. There is sorrow in Israel but mixed with joy. The burden called Gaza has been lifted. There is joy in Palestine but mixed with sorrow. The burden called occupation has been lifted, but not quite. Sabeel would like to share some facts and concerns with our friends:

1. Fact: About 8000 settlers lived on 42% of the 365 square kilometers of the Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel since 1967, and 1,400,000 Palestinians lived on the remaining 58%. Gaza itself is only 5% of all of the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel — 95% still remains so. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon throughout the disengagement process has declared his intentions to continue the expansion of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Our Concern: We are concerned that the bulk of settlers will move again to live in illegal settlements on the Occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem.

2. Fact: The Gaza pullout is not an end to the occupation of the Gaza Strip according to International Law until the Palestinians are granted full sovereignty over air, land, and sea. The pullout from Gaza is not a negotiated agreement. It is a well-calculated, unilateral Israeli project, which leaves Israel free of any obligations or commitment towards a peaceful solution.

Our Concern: Gaza will be turned into a giant prison with Israel controlling its borders, air space, and seaport and suffocating its 1.4 million people. Although Israel is still responsible, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, for the well-being of this occupied population, we are concerned they will not meet their legal obligations.

3. Fact: The settlers and their sympathizers have called the Gaza pullout “a transfer of Jews by Jews.”

Our Concern: Transfer is a word dreaded by Palestinians and is often advocated by extreme right-wing Israelis to “deal with” the Palestinian problem. It is now feared that since Sharon has set a precedent with Jewish Israelis, he is more likely to get away with the “transfer” of Palestinians.

4. Fact: Prime Minister Sharon has declared that Israel will keep and annex six settlement blocks on the West Bank as well as all of Jerusalem. Silvan Shalom, his foreign minister, together with US Secretary of State, Condeleeza Rice, are calling for a regional conference where Israel will normalize relations with the Arab States.

Our Concern: The pullout has changed the mutually accepted formula of “land for peace.” Sharon wants a long-term temporary agreement that will freeze any final peace agreement and indefinitely delay defining borders. The new formula he seems to have developed is “land for time.” It is clear that Sharon is expecting a reward from the Americans for the pullout.

5. Fact: Settlers in Gaza bemoaned the fact that they were being forced out of their homes. Few made the connection between their removal and the eviction of Palestinians and the destruction of Palestinian homes which has continued since 1948. In Gaza alone, since September 2000, 2,704 homes have been demolished.

Our Concern: As the world focuses its sympathy on the relocation of displaced settlers, the international community will continue to turn a blind eye to the house demolitions and dispossession of the Palestinian community.

We hope that the settlers—as they receive compensation, apologies from the soldiers, acknowledgement of the government’s responsibility, and sympathy from the global community—will begin to empathize and take action to end the occupation and bring about a just peace for the Palestinians, who are still waiting.
—Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem

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By Shmuel Rosners
Lutherans Deny New Campaign Touts Divestment
The Lutheran Church joins several other mainstream US Protestant churches that have called for boycotts of corporations with operations in Israel.

Another American church has condemned Israeli operations in the territories recently, but denied it had initiated a divestment campaign against Israel. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America launched a special campaign, “Peace Not Walls,” calling on Israel to dismantle the separation fence in the West Bank and not to build on Palestinian land.

The move follows an impassioned call by leaders of the Lutheran church in Bethlehem who appeared before the annual assembly via videolink in a bid to convince members to vote in favor of the campaign. The Lutheran Church joins several other mainstream US Protestant churches that have passed similar resolutions in recent months. Some, including the Presbyterian Church last month, have called for boycotts of corporations with operations in Israel, on the grounds that this supports Israel’s occupation of the territories.

The Lutherans avoided calling overtly for divestiture, but a large majority of assembly delegates approved a resolution calling for use of financial means to “advocate for peace with justice.” Jewish organization officials said they view the move as “a camouflaged call to divest.” However, the spokesman for the five-million-member church said, “Our strategy doesn’t include any kind of boycott…It involves activity such as ‘positive investment’ to encourage the peace process—not pulling funds out.”

“Jewish groups accuse the churches of singling out Israel for blame and failing to address the Palestinians’ role in perpetuating the violence.”

The Presbyterian Church USA has also announced that it would press four American corporations to stop providing military equipment and technology to Israel for use in the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and that if the companies did not comply, the church would take a vote to divest its stock in them.

The companies—Caterpillar, Motorola, ITT Industries, and United Technologies—were selected from a list of several dozen possibilities by a church investment committee that met Friday in Seattle. The Presbyterians accused these companies of selling helicopters, cell phones, night vision equipment and other items Israel uses to enforce its occupation.

In an effort to appear even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the church committee also included Citigroup on its list of targets, alleging it had a connection to a bank accused of having a role in funneling money from Islamic charities to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

The Episcopal Church USA, the United Church of Christ, two regions of the United Methodist Church, as well as international groups like the World Council of Churches and the Anglican Consultative Council, have all urged consideration of divestment or economic pressure in recent months, though the tone and emphasis of each resolution varies. The Disciples of Christ passed a resolution last month calling on Israel to tear down the barrier it has built to wall off the occupied territories, and other churches are considering similar resolutions.

Some Jewish groups accuse the churches of singling out Israel for blame and failing to address the Palestinians’ role in perpetuating the violence. Several have even said they see anti-Semitism behind the churches’ moves.
—New York Times and other sources

By Charlotte Higgins
“Few had dared hope that the orchestra, which aims to foster dialogue and reconciliation through music, would succeed in performing in the West Bank.”
Orchestra Plays for Peace in Ramallah

“Wake up! If you are tired, please stay at home! There’s no point playing the concert like this. Now, TEE-ya ta-ta TEE-ya ta-ta!” In a concert hall atop a dust-swept, sun-beaten hill last month, Daniel Barenboim was putting an orchestra through its paces, urging and encouraging them as he brandished his way through the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

One could forgive the players for being a little distracted: the concert hall in which they were rehearsing was the Cultural Palace in Ramallah, and the ensemble the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra—the youth orchestra founded in 1998 by Barenboim and his close friend, the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, consisting of musicians from Israel and Arab countries.

This was a historic day. Few had dared hope that the orchestra, which aims to foster dialogue and reconciliation through music, would succeed in performing in the West Bank. A similar attempt by the orchestra to play in Ramallah last year was abandoned because of security fears. It is not every day that one sees a rehearsal being guarded by troops armed with semi-automatic weapons, but the atmosphere among the musicians was relaxed and excited.

To enter Ramallah, each musician was issued with a diplomatic passport by the Spanish government (the orchestra’s summer training camps are based in Seville). “Believe me, the logistics of this concert are worth writing a book about,” said Barenboim.

“It takes great courage for the Israelis to come to Ramallah, and finally get to see the reality of how the Palestinians live. It’s a very symbolic and strong gesture,” said Nabeel Ashkar, a 20-year-old Israeli-Arab born in Nazareth, as the hall began to fill up. “It’s incredibly exciting to be here, and I hope we will play in Israel too.”

After the final thunderous notes of a passionately committed performance of Beethoven’s Fifth, a standing ovation lasted over five minutes. An emotional Barenboim stepped onto the platform. “It is our belief that the destinies of these two peoples, Israel and Palestine, are inextricably linked...either we all kill each other or we share what there is to share. It is this message that we have come here to bring.”
—Jewish Peace News, excerpting from The Guardian

The head of the bullet is made from compressed sand
and can be fired from a regular rifle.
Israel to Use New Sand Bullet for Riot Control

The Israeli military has announced it is changing part of its riot control methods, replacing its sometimes lethal rubber-coated steel pellets with compressed sand bullets. Rubber bullets have killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two decades. The new sand bullets were originally developed for close-quarter hostage rescue situations. An Israeli human rights group praised the decision, but said it was surprising that the army had taken so long to find non-lethal means of dispersing Palestinian demonstrators.

The new round, in which the head of the bullet is made from compressed sand and can be fired from a regular rifle, has already been used in the West Bank against Palestinians protesting against the separation barrier Israel is building, the army said. The sand bullet, said to be extremely painful but less dangerous because it does not penetrate the skin, was developed by Israel’s prisons authority, the army said. The rubber bullets will be phased out.

For years, the army maintained that the rubber bullets were not lethal. However, the bullets were deadly when fired from too close a range or when they hit soft body areas, such as eyes. At least 60 Palestinians were killed by rubber bullets between 1987 and 1993, in the first Palestinian uprising. Since the eruption of the latest round of fighting in 2000, fifteen Palestinians have been killed. The army frequently used live fire against stone-throwing youths. “We have been asking the army for many years to develop less lethal weapons for demonstrations and to make it accessible to all soldiers,” said an army spokesman.

The army also routinely uses tear gas and stun grenades against protesters and recently unveiled a machine called ‘The Scream,’ a device that emits penetrating bursts of sound that leaves targets reeling with dizziness and nausea. The new ordinance was developed by a prison service team looking for a non-lethal weapon to be used in prison hostage situations, said a prison authority spokesman. “We wanted something that would allow us to get the prisoner out alive,” he said.
—The Jordan Times

By Thomas H. Maugh II
Biblical Pool Uncovered in Jerusalem
The reservoir served as a gathering place for Jews making pilgrimages and in the Gospel of John is the site where Jesus cured a blind man.

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the Old City of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, according to the Gospel of John. The pool was fed by the now famous Hezekiah’s Tunnel and is “a much grander affair” than archeologists previously believed, with three tiers of stone stairs allowing easy access to the water, said Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, which reported the find recently.

“Scholars had thought there wasn’t a Pool of Siloam, and that John was using a religious conceit” to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary. “Now we have found the Pool of Siloam…exactly where John said it was.” A gospel thought to be “pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history.”

Religious law required Jews to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once a year, said archeologist Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, who excavated the pool. “Jesus was just another pilgrim coming to Jerusalem,” he said. “It would be natural to find him there.”

The newly discovered pool is less than 200 yards from another Pool of Siloam, this one a reconstruction built between CE 400 and 460 by the Empress Eudocia of Byzantium, who oversaw the rebuilding of several biblical sites. The site of yet another Pool of Siloam, which predated the version reputedly visited by Jesus, is still unknown.

That first pool was constructed in the 9th century BCE by Judean King Hezekiah, who foresaw the likelihood that the Assyrians would lay siege to Jerusalem and knew a safe water supply would be required to survive the attack. He ordered workers to build a 1,750-foot-long tunnel under the ridge where the City of David was located. The tunnel connected Gihon Spring in the adjacent Kidron Valley to the side of Jerusalem less vulnerable to an attack. The first Pool of Siloam was the reservoir holding the water brought into the city. It was presumably destroyed in 586 BCE when Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar razed the city.

The pool of Jesus’ time was built early in the first century BCE and was destroyed by the future Roman Emperor Titus about CE 70. It was discovered by a repair team excavating a damaged sewer line last fall under the supervision of Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority. As soon as Shukron saw two steps uncovered, he stopped the work and called Reich. When they saw the steps, Shukron said, “We were 100% sure it was the Siloam Pool.”

They do not yet know how wide and how deep the pool was because they have not finished the excavation. The fourth side lies under a lush garden—filled with cabbages, figs, pomegranates, and other fruits—behind a Greek Orthodox Church, and the team has not yet received permission to cut a trench through the garden. “This may be the most significant and largest miqveh [ritual bath] ever found,” Charlesworth said.

The excavators have been able to date the pool fairly precisely because of two fortunate occurrences that implanted unique artifacts in the pool area. When ancient workmen were plastering the steps before facing them with stones, they either accidentally or deliberately buried four coins in the plaster. All four are coins of Alexander Jannaeus, a Jewish king who ruled Jerusalem from 103 to 76 BCE. That provides the earliest date at which the pool could have been constructed.

Similarly, in the soil in one corner of the pool, they found about a dozen coins dating from the period of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, which lasted from CE 66 to 70. That indicates the pool had begun to be filled in by that time.
—Los Angeles Times

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New MCC Resource for Youth on War, Peace,
and Christian Conscience

Thermostat, a new resource from Mennonite Central Committee, features a DVD and study guide with 33 sessions divided into seven units: Peacemaking, Imagination, Allegiance, Security, Terrorism, Camouflage, and Nonviolence. You can mix and match to choose what interests your group most. Sessions include Bible studies, role plays, personal stories, video clips, dramas, handouts, background reading and more.

The DVD introduces you to Cruz Cordero, a Christian rapper who puts the stories of the Martyr’s Mirror in rap form, and reflects on his commitment to peace in the US urban context. You will meet Conrad Moore, a former US Marine now committed to peace and non-violence. Beth Graybill discusses her struggle with resistance and forgiveness after being assaulted by an intruder in her home.

You will hear the stories of Mennonites in Colombia who are making peace midst warring factions and increased military aid from the US. The experiences of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron, and Rami Elhanan in Jerusalem speak of the power of non-violence in these settings.

The DVD is accompanied by a 97-page study guide that provides a framework for using the more than 60 video clips focusing on the issues of war, peace, and conscientious objection. The packet uses a combination of video clips (most of them 3-10 minutes long), along with Bible studies, role plays, and discussion questions to probe the questions of war and violence from the perspective of Christian faith.

Though Thermostat is designed for youth groups, the concerns addressed are the concerns of the whole church. Many sessions encourage intergenerational conversation.

To take a peek at some video clips, see www.mcc.org/thermostat. For more information contact Titus Peachey at tmp@mcc.org or call (717) 859-1151.

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A Call for Morally Responsible Investment:
a Non-Violent Response to the Israeli Occupation

Who Should Attend This Conference?
If you are part of an organization that has been working for a just peace in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, you may be interested in joining us as we explore and dialogue about morally responsible investment as a non-violent response to the Israeli occupation. This conference is primarily designed for organizational representatives— international, national, regional, and local.

Structure of the Conference:
In addition to the program of over 15 internationally recognized speakers, the conference will include equal time for discussion and question periods, small group workshops, non-denominational theological reflection, and networking.

Vision:
We recognize the beginnings of a global movement on Morally Responsible Investment and related economic strategies to bring a just peace in Israel-Palestine. This will be the focus of much related peace work in the coming years. Thus Canadian Friends of Sabeel seeks to draw together those working for a just peace in Israel-Palestine to explore the emerging non-violent economic strategies to achieve this end.

Conference Program & Featured Speakers:

-Dr. Hanan Ashrawi: Internationally recognized spokesperson for peace and Palestinian rights, professor at Birzeit University, first Commissioner General for the Independent Palestinian Commission for Citizens’ Rights, and former member of the PA Cabinet.
-The Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek: SABEEL Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.
-Dr. Jeff Halper: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Jerusalem.
-Shamai Leibowitz: Israeli human rights attorney from Tel Aviv; member of Courage to Rufuse and Gush Shalo.

For program and complete list of speakers, see www.sabeel.ca

We welcome your letters about the articles we include,
or your suggestions on other topics you would like to read about.

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