During the Easter season, Maria usually pens a letter to people living outside the Holy Land, describing the joyous Holy Saturday festivities in Jerusalem, where Christian Palestinians and pilgrims from around the world have gathered for centuries to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection. Her words overflow with awe and absolute love of God and His most Precious Gift to mankind.
As the years pass, however, Maria’s Easter letters are becoming more and more deeply shadowed by expressions of frustration and anger over the illegal and brutal Israeli occupation that humiliates Palestinians and prevents them from moving around freely in their own country.
“For nine years,” Maria’s 2009 letter cried, “there has been no change in the Holy Land and conditions continue to get worse than the day before... There has only been violence and darkness while the world watches and does nothing to help end the occupation... “
The injustice of the Israeli occupation is magnified a hundred-fold for Christian Palestinians during their most important religious celebrations. If they live anywhere in Palestine outside Jerusalem and want to celebrate a holy day like Christmas or Easter, they must get a permit from the Israeli government to enter the (chiefly Arab) Old City. Permit applications are complicated, take months to process and are routinely denied with no explanation. If they get a permit, they still may not get into Jerusalem, due to scores of checkpoints along the way, where Israeli soldiers have the power to randomly disallow entry.
“People are trying to live normal lives and celebrate centuries’ old traditions while locked up within a wall and open prison,” Maria said in her 2009 letter. “Israeli Occupation Forces brutally killed a 30-year-old man who was participating in a non-violent demonstration...and Israeli settlers viciously killed a young boy from Jalazon Refugee camp the same day.
“It is a struggle to stay peaceful while you are being stripped of your dignity and humanity on a daily basis,” she said.
Maria did not write her usual Easter letter this year. Instead, she forwarded a press release from Michael Nseir, Programme Executive of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF). The PIEF is a platform that rallies churches together to coordinate efforts and initiatives for a just peace in Palestine-Israel through non-violence and rigorous dialogue. Nseir echoed everything Maria has said.
“Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Fire Saturday, and Easter Sunday are the holiest days celebrated in Jerusalem for Christians...and they are being denied the fundamental right to freely exercise their religion because of road blocks in the old city, police presence with machine guns, and rude, hostile attitudes from police and Army officers. (Israeli-imposed) curfews and forced closures make movement almost impossible.
“In sharp contrast, Israel allows Jews to freely access their temples,” he said.
Palestinians have now initiated a public debate about freedom of worship in Jerusalem and Israel’s unjust treatment of Christians as well as Muslims, whose Al Aqsa Mosque has suffered constant settler aggressions against it. Israel’s discriminatory and restrictive policies are being challenged, and religious organizations in occupied East Jerusalem have embarked upon a legal process to preserve the Palestinian right of free access to their churches and shrines.
Palestinian Christians are also calling upon the international community, and particularly the greater Christian World, to put pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation of East Jerusalem and stop limiting Holy Land Christians and others from exercising their basic religious rights.
We are part of that international community and ‘Christian World’ to whom these oppressed Palestinians - people like Maria - are appealing. Just as our country has committed itself to the rights of Jews in the Holy Land, so should we commit ourselves to the rights of Christians and all who live there and want peace. Jesus would not have had it any other way.
Whatever your opinion of Hamas might be, it is important to keep in mind that they helped the Palestinian people greatly in health and education projects before their rise politically. One reason they won the free, fair, and internationally-observed Palestinian elections several years ago was that the PLO was not providing these services to their people and was getting nowhere in reaching a political settlement with Israel so its brutal occupation of Palestine would end. Furthermore, people began to believe that the PLO was corrupt...apparently true to a degree.
Palestinians, especially Gazans, have paid heavily for their choice of a Hamas government, because after the elections, the US and Israel pretty much cut Gaza off from the rest of the world and caused more misery among the people than we can imagine.
You are so right. It is a complicated situation, but it could be solved overnight, literally, if Israel would abandon its expansionist and ethnic-cleansing policies and retreat to Pre-1967 borders. Our government can help facilitate this, if only it would.
Giving $5Billion in aid a year to Israel, plus all the weapons & aircraft it needs to maintain its illegal occupation of what is left of Palestine is not the way to do it.
Glad you are interested in learning more about the conflict. All the websites below are definitely great ways to gain perspective on the issues at hand.
As far as addressing your question as to why "Israel conducts such hostile aggressions towards the people of Palestine", as I mentioned before, its a very complex situation and though founded upon fact, any answer I provide for this can be argued as speculation. Also, it is important to not generalize the situation. "Israel" is comprised of numerous people, and many of them are pro-Palestinian and support the end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories. For example, there are groups such as 'Rabbis for Human Rights' and 'Encounter' that seek to offer a less-biased place of departure for those visiting the country with no understanding of the Palestinian plight. (www.rhr-na.org/ and www.encounterprograms.org). It is difficult to answer your question for fear of generalizing and making assumptions toward those not involved or with different opinions. But, that being said, as simply as I can think to put it, the reason this conflict has propagated is due to a strong and well-connected group of people, predominantly Zionist and/or Jewish, who claim that the Jewish people have a natural born right to inhabit the area (predominantly stemming from religious belief). Since officially becoming a country in 1948, but primarily post-1980, the Israeli government has continued to develop settlements within the West Bank that constantly force Palestinians off their property through legal loopholes DESPITE the fact that the UN-mandated Oslo Accord established that Israel must withdraw from the west bank and gaza and cease construction of settlements. Thus, my perspective is that, since the Israeli government continues to approve of the settlement construction, they are, in essence, going about a lengthy process of ethnic cleansing, gradually forcing Palestinians out of their territory and making daily life more difficult due to the network of Israeli-controlled roads throughout the Palestinian territories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords).
Additionally, you may be interested to know that Hamas, the so-called 'terrorist group' within Palestine was ACTUALLY the democratically elected government in the 2006 Palestinian elections. However, since Hamas is very strong in supporting Palestinian rights, Israel recognized Fatah and the PLO (Palestinian Leadership Organization) and deemed Hamas a terrorist group. So imagine - even though George Bush was democratically elected within the US presidential election, what if the rest of the world had recognized Al Gore as the American president, and deemed all military acts Bush conducted as acts of terrorism? Seems like the US government would be forced to be held accountable for terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interesting concept to ponder, I think.
Seriously, though, check out the websites I wrote down as well as the ones in the message below. Those will give you a bit more factual viewpoint on the ongoing situation.
Please keep in mind one historical fact: Palestinians had been living in Palestine for over 16 centuries before modern day Israel was created after World War II by a group of people whose ancestors and they had not inhabited the land for close to 20 centuries.
I hope you were sincere when you said you wanted to know more about this issue. If more Americans were like you in this respect, we probably would have had peace in the Holy Land a long time ago.
Good luck!
Of course, this is a very complex situation. But, having traveled extensively within Israel the West Bank, the issue of ongoing oppression and forced segregation of the Palestinian people is extremely prevalent. If you feel that human rights are "hippy crap" than I feel extremely sorry for you and have to question your democratic values. If your day to day life was monitored so closely that you could not travel freely within your 'county', let alone COUNTRY, without the possibility of detainment, thorough searching, and even imprisonment just due to a demographic profile you unluckily fit, I am sure you would have a far different perspective on this concept.