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~MY VOICE…
By Glenn Edward Witmer
“Common sense and fairness seem
to have drained out of the debate about Palestine/Israel.”
Don’t Look, and Don’t Ask!

But in the built up areas of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, as examples, the “fence” becomes a 30-foot/nine-meter solid wall of concrete. It is amazing to discover that great numbers of Israelis have never been close to the wall, never to a checkpoint, and of course never to places where Palestinians live. But they are often dispute your description of circumstances—not believing that it could possibly be as you are describing things: Cruelty, inhuman treatment.

“If that’s true,” one taxi driver told me, “it’s because they deserve it. They’re all animals.” But he had never gone to see for himself. Nor is the problem only with locals. The international community often betrays its lack of personal knowledge, depending only on what they are fed by the propaganda machines from both sides when they speak.
“I’ve had my picture taken with Arafat, Abu Mazen, Kofi Annan, and even President Clinton himself,” said Palestinian mother, Um Ibrahim, trying to tell her story to the outside world. “But it’s made a dime’s worth of difference. The whole world enjoys human rights except the Palestinian people. In America they even fight for the rights of animals. But here we are less than animals.... And you reporters—when we hold a vigil, or go on hunger strike, you ignore us and only show up when the big shots come by to have their picture taken with us. Even when you do interviews with us you never broadcast what we say.”

European Union foreign ministers recently decided to shelve a negative report about the separation wall slicing through Jerusalem, over fears that it might hurt Israeli sensitivities… another example of how all common sense and fairness seems to have drained out of the debate about Palestine/Israel. Instead of getting people together, they are being walled off.

This issue focuses again on the efforts being made to have people meet, look at each other, converse, ask questions.... There are some very creative efforts to look and see. —GEW

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By Glenn Edward Witmer
Standing Together, For Peace
“We watched, not wanting to be the first to stand. No one moved.
Suddenly, the audience exploded into wild applause.”

According to tradition, England’s King George II sat in the Covent Garden audience of the first London performance of Handel’s Messiah in 1743. During the rousing “Hallelujah Chorus” at the close of part two, when he heard the words from Revelation, “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord,” the king reportedly rose to his feet and remained standing until the end of the number.

On a recent December morning, a group of international Christian teachers traveled from Jerusalem to the auditorium of the Fr. Elias Chacour’s new Church of the Sermon on the Mount in Ibillin, part of Israel’s Galilee region, to hear George Frideric Handel’s oratorio. On the bus from Jerusalem, we wondered aloud what would happen when the choir approached the end of part two. What about the tradition of standing for the musical proclamation from John’s Scriptural reference to the Messiah. Would an audience of Jews and Muslims also rise to their feet?

The 25 players in the HaKibbutzit HaKamerit, a small symphonic group of Jews from Kibbutzes around Israel, accompanied the 45-voice Galil Elyon Choir of Northern Galilee—also all Jews. The Jewish voices performed the glorious story of the promised Messiah for an audience of 750 people comprised of local Palestinian Arabs (mostly Muslim), other Israeli Jews from the region and a handful of Christians, all sitting together.

“As the conductor waved the choirs through the soaring musical passages so loved by audiences around the world,
we were getting closer to the end of part two, the Hallelujah Chorus.”

It was the third time that Chacour had organized such an event, a musical attraction in a part of this ancient land that would rarely see or hear such music performances. He crowded the space with Arabs and Jews, Christians and Druze (an Islamic sect)—as performers and as patrons. It seemed to represent the whole philosophy that Chacour, three-time Nobel Peace prize nominee and tireless champion of working for peace and reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians, lives and works for with his thousands of students.

“We don’t talk about peace,” he so often reminds our visiting groups. “We try to live peace, every day.” Chacour smiles when introducing himself as a Palestinian Israeli Arab Christian, who has just founded the first-ever Christian Arab Israeli university. He talks proudly about the cultural and religious mix of the 4,000-plus students and professors at Mar Elias Educational Institutions, his huge educational complex of young people in elementary and high school, and in the university-level program he started three years ago. Irrespective of their background and historical differences, his students live and study and work and play together day by day.

Their parents attend these concerts of Christian music together—Israeli Jews coming to this small Arab town where they previously may not have considered entering, then spending the concert sitting next to Palestinians like those of the West Bank towns, and normally separated from them behind massive walls and separation fences a few kilometers away.

As the conductor waved the choirs through the soaring musical passages so loved by audiences around the world, we were getting closer to the end of part two, the “Hallelujah Chorus”: “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” The audience gave rapt attention from the balconies and the side sections. Then came the passage, “The kingdom of this world…”

We watched, not wanting to be the first to stand. “Is become the kingdom of our Lord.” No one moved. The basses took up the line, “And He shall reign for ever and ever,” and, fugue-like, the other voices followed.

The passage came to an end, the conductor’s baton dropped to his side. Suddenly, the audience exploded into wild applause, shouts of “encore” rang out, and the performers grinned wide in appreciation.

A repeat of the “Hallelujah Chorus” was the encore selection performed at the end of the oratorio, satisfying the enthusiastic applause. The conductor turned and invited the audience to sing along—and they did, heartily.

In this newly dedicated Melkite Catholic church, in a small Arab town in Galilee, Israeli Jews sang “King of Kings.” Israeli Muslims sang “Lord of Lords.” All sang together: “Forever and ever. Hallelujah!”

The old custom initiated by King George II was almost certainly not known by most in attendance. But the impact of the Chacour experiment was evident—Don’t just talk peace. Live it. Together—Muslims and Jews and Christians and Druze.

It’s the message of the Prince of Peace.

Together! It’s what they all stand for.

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~OTHER VOICES…

By Dow Marmur
If all eligible Arabs voted,
Israel’s “eternal and undivided capital” could be ruled by them.
Thinking About (Not Just Praying for) Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a taboo subject in Israeli public discourse. Beyond the pious mantra of it being the eternal and undivided capital of Israel nothing substantive or creative is being said. None of the peace proposals have had anything to offer beyond the suggestion that Jerusalem should be the last item on the agenda. The hope is that, if the other issues have been resolved, somehow a solution will have to be found also for Jerusalem. But nobody seems to know what that solution might look like. Even those in power piously say they pray for Jerusalem yet seem to refuse to think about it realistically.

Right wing politicians who want to frighten the public will tell us that their opponents want to divide Jerusalem, a slur that would render the accused automatically unfit to govern. The fact that, according to a recent poll, almost half of the Jewish population of Israel is prepared to live with a divided Jerusalem for the sake of peace has not yet come to the surface in public discourse. Nor is it publicly acknowledged that the city, in many ways, is already divided. There are Arab parts of Jerusalem that no Jew would dream of entering and Jewish parts where no Arab could live. Yet, the rhetoric continues unabated.

Serious thinking about the future of Jerusalem is being done at present by a group of Israeli and West Bank academics. Recently I heard two of them speak at a seminar. Stimulated by grants from abroad, their research unit has been engaged in plotting possible scenarios, some good and some frightening.

“Confidential talks are being held between Arab and Jewish politicians…
It’s the most optimistic piece of news I’ve heard for a very long time.”

Thus, for example, if all—or most—of Jerusalem’s Arabs were to vote in municipal elections, their representatives may soon form a majority on the City Council. The 250,000 Jerusalem Arabs constitute some 34% of the total population. So far only very few vote and thus give the ultra-Orthodox more power than their numbers warrant. If all eligible Arabs voted, Israel’s “eternal and undivided capital” could be ruled by them.

Secular Jews, particularly the young, continue to leave the city. Similar trends exist in the Arab sector. Jerusalem is in danger of becoming half derelict, largely inhabited by the ultra-Orthodox, the poor and romantics from abroad (like my wife and myself). Between them they cannot pay the municipal taxes to keep the city going.

Part of the way of renewal would divide Jerusalem into boroughs (like London), perhaps three: one “mainstream” Jewish, one ultra-Orthodox and one Arab. The aim would be a politically divided but administratively united city. The infrastructure, transportation, etc. would have to be shared, but the internal politics of each borough would be very different. It’s legitimate to speculate that the Arab borough could possibly become the capital of the Palestinian State.

Because of the taboo, politicians aren’t as yet prepared to discuss in public this kind of scenario. But I heard one of the experts say that informal and confidential talks are being held between Arab and Jewish academics and politicians in the hope that, when (when, not if!) peace is at hand, a realistic plan will be available.

It’s the most optimistic piece of news I’ve heard on the subject for a very long time. It tells us that before we can begin to implement solutions, we must think them out pragmatically in ways that are acceptable to all, not just pray for them. There are people who are currently thinking hard. Let’s pray for their success.

—The writer is Rabbi Emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto,
and a member of the Board of Consultors of Bat Kol Institute, Jerusalem.
He and his wife spend part of each year in Toronto, London, and Jerusalem.

By Arik Carmon
A Blot on Israeli Democracy
The call [is] to eject Israeli Arabs from the realm of Israeli sovereignty.

The voices heard from circles of Israel’s extreme right on the matter of ejecting Arab communities from Israel to Palestine have been joined recently by Dr. Uzi Arad of The New Republic. These perverse voices are calling for “exchanges of populated territories,” so that a large proportion of the Israeli Arab public will leave the areas under Israeli sovereignty. These voices are rising from the margins in a sporadic way, and it is fitting that they be answered by those who strive to ensure the firm foundation of a Jewish and democratic state on the ideological infrastructure of Zionism.

Arad’s arguments are racist in nature, damaging to human rights [and to the foundations of democracy], stand in contradiction to international norms, and are unrealizable. His justification for the mechanisms of territorial exchange is that they will “increase ethnic homogeneity.” The meaning of this is moving the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state so that many present Arab areas will be thrust out of Israeli sovereignty.

Setting the goal of “increasing ethnic homogeneity” is repugnant and disgusting. It means the establishment of a clearly racist goal for seekers of democracy, who in the age of globalization are realizing the principles of multiculturalism. The call to eject Israeli Arabs from the realm of Israeli sovereignty, accompanied by innumerable rationalizations, mainly demographic, is often also defined as a “proposal for exchanges of populated territories.” However, it must be clear that denying the citizenship of anyone who does not want to be denied it, is an infringement of the citizen’s basic rights.

The more correct name, then, should be a “proposal to confiscate the citizenship of Arab Israelis.” The termination of an individual’s citizenship, according to international law, cannot occur unless he relinquishes it by agreement. This fact makes it possible to say that all talk of confiscating the citizenship of citizens of this country by drawing a border that will leave their locale on the non-Israeli side of that line, is futile and baseless.

—Excerpted from Ha’aretz.
Professor Carmon is president of the Israel Democracy Institute
“Israel must stop the settlement expansion,
in addition to removing illegal outposts.”
—US Embassy, Israel

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Construction Approved for Hundreds of Settlement Homes

Israel has approved the construction of hundreds of new homes in Judean and Samarian settlements, a Defense Ministry official reported, confirming what would be a violation of the US-backed road map peace plan. The announcement came as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scrambled to contain a political uproar following a report that he plans to cede large parts of Judea and Samaria [West Bank] under a final peace agreement with the Palestinians. Sharon’s aides denied the report, but his hard-line opponents said it revealed the prime minister’s true intentions.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved the new settlement homes last month. The road map aims for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. In the interim, Israel is required to freeze construction in all Jewish settlements, including the largest ones that it says it wants to hold onto under a future peace deal. However, Israel has not fulfilled this commitment, and construction has continued since the road map was approved in June 2003. The Palestinians also have failed to meet their obligation to dismantle armed terrorist groups.

US Embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle reiterated Washington’s position that Israel must “stop the settlement expansion in addition to removing illegal outposts.” Sharon has said he intends to retain large blocs of settlements. The Palestinians claim all of Judea and Samaria along with the Gaza Strip, which Israel evacuated in September, as part of a future state.

A Newsweek report quoting a Sharon aide as saying the prime minister would be willing to cede 90 percent of Judea and Samaria and part of Jerusalem sparked a new uproar recently. Although Sharon’s office distanced itself from the report, critics said it was evidence of his true agenda. “I prefer to believe the things that were said in English, rather than the denials given in Hebrew,” said one critic.

—The Associated Press contributed to this report from Israel Insider.

By Gideon Alon, Ha’aretz Correspondent
West Bank, Gaza Strip May Split into Two Entities

The head of Israel’s Military Intelligence, Major General Aharon Zeevi, warned Cabinet ministers that it was increasingly likely that in the coming year the Palestinian Authority would split into two independent entities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. According to Zeevi, the radical Islamic group Hamas would take political and military control over the Gaza Strip, which he dubbed “Hamastan,” while in the West Bank the ruling Fatah party would form a separate “Fatahstan.”

The head of the national security service, Yuval Diskin, also warned of a possible disintegration of the Palestinian Authority. “There is no central government in the [Palestinian] territories. Everyone does whatever he wants,” he said.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that the deepening crisis in the PA, goaded by the rise in power of the Hamas, could lead to a delay or canceling of the January 28 elections for the Palestinian parliament. “The PA is characterized nowadays by powerlessness, lack of action, and a leadership crisis when it comes to preventing terror,” Mofaz said. “The lack of action and motivation put Israel in an intolerable situation.”

The Military Intelligence chief also warned that international pressure on Syria, Lebanon and the Hezbollah could lead to an intentional escalation against Israel along its northern border in the coming months.

The project was researched and undertaken by skilled artisans over the past three years. It will join the already completed ephod and choshen (breastplate), featuring the 12 precious stones associated with the 12 tribes of Israel. They are located at the Temple Institute in Jerusalem’s Old City, and it is hoped they will be found fit to be used by the High Priest in the third temple. Master weaver Yehudit Avraham wove the robe using the Navajo ‘two-sided’ weaving technique.

“This is the first robe woven entirely out of techelet in nearly 2,000 years,” said Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute. “…The completion of this sacred garment marks a great step forward towards the renewal of the Divine service in the Holy Temple.”

God’s got mail! Postal workers regularly drop off hundreds of letters addressed to God at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. “This place is the holiest place for the Jews, and it is the first gate for prayers,” said Shmuel Rabinovitch, Chief Rabbi at the site. “That’s why a prayer in this place is important and these notes are important.”

The Israeli postal service sorts over two million pieces of mail daily, and inevitably some of those letters come addressed to God, the Holy Land, or Jesus. Rather than consign the letters to bins of undeliverable mail, letters addressed to God are collected and deposited at the Western Wall a few times a year.

The Western Wall is revered by Jews as a remnant of the biblical Temple, and many people come to the wall to pray and slip notes with requests between the ancient stones. Rabinovitch said people of all faiths are welcome to offer prayers at the wall or through letters because the Temple is intended to be a house of prayer for all nations.

Postal authorities consider the letters private conversations with God and do not open them. Letters come from all corners of the globe, including a few from predominantly Muslim nations like Indonesia.
—Associated Press

Churches Owe Jerusalem Millions in Property Taxes

The Vatican and an array of Christian churches in Jerusalem owe the Jerusalem Municipality hundreds of millions of shekels in overdue property taxes, city officials said last week. According to law, properties that are used as houses of prayer are exempt from paying property tax, but the churches, which own vast amounts of properties in Jerusalem, are required to pay property tax for buildings they own that are not used for worship, such as guest houses, restaurants, schools, etc.

The total amount of unpaid property tax amounts to roughly NIS 300 million [US$65 million], with the Latin Patriarchate the biggest offender, a city spokesman said. Reportedly, negotiations are underway with the Vatican for its significant portion of this outstanding debt.

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Following is an excerpt from the January issue of The Word on the Street, the new e-zine from First-century Nazareth Village
with background stories to the biblical texts…

A murderous ruler invades the story of the Prince of Peace.

“I’d Rather Be Herod’s Pig Than Herod’s Son”

Down the narrow stone steps by St. Catherine’s Church into the complex of limestone caves and tombs under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, visitors reach a room called the Chapel of the Innocents. It is less than 30 meters from the grotto marking the traditional site of Jesus’ birth, but it recalls one of the bloodiest stories of our history—the brutal slaughter, by the order of King Herod the Great some time after the shepherds’ visit to Joseph and Mary.

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,
he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children
in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under…”
—Matthew 2:16

Most traditional nativity scenes put the wise men alongside the shepherds admiring the new baby in the straw-filled manger, with the proud parents looking on. More likely though would be a house-cave setting sometime later—scholars cannot be certain how much later—allowing time for the wise men to actually arrive “from the East,” probably Persia or Mesopotamia—modern Iraq. A clue to such a delay comes not only from the length of travel time needed to travel on camel and foot in those days, but also from the fact that Herod seems to be covering the bases when he sets the two-year limit around the age of boys to be killed.

Just how many boys were slaughtered, anyway? The early churches came up with high estimates for the number killed. The Byzantine liturgy mentioned 14,000 Holy Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints states that there were 64,000. But present scholarship considers these numbers implausible. Given the small size of Bethlehem and its vicinity, with perhaps 300-600 inhabitants, it could not have involved a large number of boys aged two and under.

The birth rate and high infant mortality rate of the time would suggest that at most only a few dozen children were killed…

…this story continues—with photos and art illustration—
on the Nazareth Village website,
click on www.nazarethvillage.com,
and check the icon for The Word on the Street.
Or request your free monthly copy by emailing

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