Like those without eyes

I recently submitted an article to the United Methodist Reporter. Unfortunately there was not quite enough room to print all of it (I included websites and footnotes), so I thought that I would post to my blog the original copy. I am so grateful for Robin Russel and Bonnie Jones encouraging me to write the piece, and I hope that those of you who are viewing my blog for the first time will find the time to read the article in its entirety. I hope you also have time to peruse some of my links and other posts.

Blessings of grace and peace to each of you,

Ashley

Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like those without eyes.
><> Isaiah 59:10


I was living in the United States in 2002 when I first heard about the wall being built around the West Bank. I remember feeling a sense of heartbreak, loss and division. This was coupled with disbelief and an inability to conceive of just how much pain and suffering such a barrier might produce. I had studied in Jerusalem the year before, and I had a hard time imagining what such a wall would look like, how it would feel and what kind of effect it would have on people.

In December of 2004 however, I jumped at the chance to apply for the Mission Intern Program offered through the General Board of Global Ministries. I had read about the changing situation, but I wanted to try to understand what it was like to live and work with Palestinians who had lived here for generations. Through a GBGM partnership with the Wi’am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center I was given this amazing opportunity.

Upon arriving in Bethlehem at the wall and checkpoint last September, I can honestly say that I felt two very strong emotions: shock and despair. I quickly learned that even though the media and Israeli government had taught me to perceive the wall as a ‘temporary security structure,’ this explanation of its existance was in reality a gross misrepresentation of the facts on the ground.[1] I quickly learned that the term ‘wall’ could not convey the mental, emotional and physical reactions such an imposing structure evokes whenever you encounter it. Nor could it convey the devastating effects it would have on Palestinians – from a human rights perspective, as well as from an economic and social perspective. And I quickly learned that there is no neutral way to speak of this wall. It has been called a barrier, a Separation Wall, a Security Wall, an Apartheid Wall. But no name and no label can fully convey the destructive, oppressive, and violent results that have come about since the beginning of its construction.

Snaking its way through the West Bank, the length of this barrier route is 703 kilometers (436 miles). Throughout the West Bank it is comprised of either a 26-foot-tall (about 8 meters) concrete wall or a 50 meter (about 164 feet) wide area of fences, patrol roads, barbed wire, tracking sands, and electronic observation systems.[2] The wall that currently surrounds Bethlehem is 26 feet tall and will be about 30 miles long[3] once it is completed. That is a little over half as tall as a football goalpost and 1/3 the length of the Berlin Wall. I give you these illustrations so that you can try to imagine just how large and imposing it is. There are watch towers every 200 meters and there are basically four passages through which people can travel in and out of Bethlehem.

But even travel through these four corridors is limited (at best) and impossible (at worst). Bethlehemites must have permits to travel anywhere outside the West Bank. These permits are not easily obtained, and even when a person has the proper permit, they are often turned away at the checkpoint. There are currently over 70 checkpoints, roadblocks and barrier gates in the Bethlehem district. Knowing on a daily basis a bit more about what it is like to live here, I find it both accurate and devastating to hear people describe Bethlehem as a big prison.

Thousands of years ago, the prophet Isaiah brought the word of the Lord to the people, calling them to account for their failure to seek justice and for their inability to recognize or even walk the path of peace. It is no wonder that the words of Isaiah stike a chord deep within me. For I feel that to write this wall off as a temporary security measure or now as a structure that has ‘political implications’[4] is to ‘grope about blindly’ and to ignore the suffering and violence it leaves in its path.

Not only does the wall prevent people from travelling to visit family and holy sites in Jerusalem and Israel, but it also interferes with travel within the West Bank. Some Palestinians are trapped (as in the case of the village of Qalqiliya) within the wall and some find themselves either in the path of the wall itself or separated from their farmlands and sources of income. A friend’s home in Beit Jala (the eastern area in the Bethlehem district) is scheduled for demolition because a portion of it lies within the path of the wall. Another friend can no longer reach the olive trees that have been in his family for hundreds of years because they lie on the other side of the wall.

I don’t think I ever took the time to consider walls before… whether they be walls in my home, my church or my office building. Perhaps I noticed the fence separating me from my neighbor and perhaps I was aware of the invisible walls that exist everywhere – walls between young and old, rich and poor, female and male, majority and minority, us and them.

But I never had to look at what a wall represented before, and I certainly never imagined what it would be like for someone else to build a wall around me. Here in Bethlehem, we international workers and local Palestinians see walls every day. And we feel walls even when we walk in the open air. These are not walls we have built for ourselves or walls we wish to hide behind. These walls do not keep out the bad and keep in the good. We do not feel safe and we do not feel secure.

To ignore this reality is to embrace blindness and to remain oblvious to the path of peace of which Isaiah speaks in the 59th chapter. As a Christian, as someone who believes that Christ breaks down every dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14), I believe that there is a better way to work towards true peace. Peace never means a ceasefire or a cessation of violence. Real peace is justice. Real peace is the hard hard work of reconciliation… of confession, repentance and forgiveness.

G-d did not give us eyes so that we might close them. G-d did not give us hearts so that we might remain without feeling. G-d did not give us souls in order to leave us without compassion. And G-d did not imprint us with G-d’s image in order that we would not recognize G-d and ourselves in the eyes of everyone we meet.

Oh, how I must constantly check my pride at the door when I spend time with the people of this land. For I take for granted the privileges of working, of walking where I want, of entering the places of which I dream to go, of finding space to relax and breathe in and out the air of freedom.

Have you ever had the chance to consider something a wall before? Next time you do, think of us here in Bethlehem. Pray for us and for people in prisons everywhere. Remember that you are members of the body of Christ and be grateful that He came to set the captives free. Thank the Lord daily for the unconditional gift of grace given you. Open the eyes Christ gave you and we will all seek to return His grace to each and every one of His children throughout the world.


Peace from Palestine,
Ashley


For more information on the current route of the wall, go to UNOCHA website:
http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/

For more information on ways you can help through the General Board, go to:
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/news/themes/mideastconflict2006/

[1] For more information, see the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory April 2006 Preliminary Analysis of the Barrier Projections, http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/OCHABarrierProj_6jul06.pdf It is essential to note as well that the wall is a violation of international law according to the International Court of Justice (July 9, 2004) and UMC Resolution 312.
[2] http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/OCHABarrierProj_6jul06.pdf
[3] B’tselem, www.btselem.org
[4] http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/OCHABarrierProj_6jul06.pdf