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Palestine 2008 Reflection #2: “ Easter Sunday I awake in a cave in Miguer al Abeed, a tiny Palestinian community located in the southernmost slice of the No Easter sunrise worship service for me this morning. But when we do finally rise and step outside the cave, the sun is just high enough to shine over the ridge and warm our faces. We breakfast on tomato wedges, boiled eggs laid a few hours ago, fragrant sage tea, and freshly baked bread still warm from the taboon oven. Tearing off pieces of bread from the large flat loaf, I think of Easter Eucharist and remind myself, “Christ has risen indeed. Alleluia!” The occupying Israeli military controls this whole area, [1] and a string of Israeli settlements and outposts, illegal under international law, threatens the peace and security of the Palestinians shepherds and farmers who live here. Since the mid-80s, when Ma’on settlement was founded on the hillside next to Tuwani, settlers have intimidated and harassed their Palestinians neighbors: damaging olive trees, destroying newly planted fields, stealing crops, dropping dead chickens into wells or cisterns, spreading poison on the hillsides where the sheep graze. Settler violence also includes physical attacks, sometimes on elderly women, or families, or on the children walking to school from Tuba and Miguer al Abeed. For all these reasons CPT and our partner Italian peace organization, Operation Dove, have maintained a presence in At-Tuwani since 2004. The attacks on school children (and occasionally on their international accompaniers) have received enough widespread indignant attention that the Israeli government ordered a military escort to accompany the children along the riskiest part of the road they walk—the stretch that runs between Ma’on and the settlement outpost of Havot Ma’on. For our little team of internationals, “school patrol,” or monitoring that daily escort, is the most regular part of our generally unpredictable schedule. Each morning and afternoon of a school day, we stand on hilltops where we can see just the beginning and end of the dangerous stretch of road. If the army jeep fails to show up on time, we call the dispatcher until the soldiers arrive. And sometimes, alas, we gather stories from the children or their parents about further settler harassment and we try, with the help of concerned Israeli activists, to agitate for small improvements in the situation. Easter Sunday is a school day for our Muslim hosts so after breakfast, Eileen and I walk with the children as far as Tuba, where others join the group on their way to school. From Tuba we have an excellent view of the spot where the children await their army escort, and we’re happy to see the jeep arrive on time. It’s an ironic thing to rejoice in—what we’re really working toward is an end to the settlements and the occupation, when such a protective escort will not be needed—but we are glad for each day the children travel to school and home again safely, resiliently pursuing their education. This is what it looks like to resist the occupation here: Palestinians carry on with daily living, despite all the forces trying to push them off the land their families have farmed and grazed for generations. Before heading back to Tuwani, Eileen and I visit a Tuba family whose children have just left for school. While the mother serves us our second Easter breakfast, the father pauses in his work to sit and talk with us. Eileen’s Arabic is basic but still far better than mine, which so far includes only the most necessary words and greetings, so she is the one to carry the conversation. I understand just enough to hear Eileen explain to our host the Christian “Eids,” or holy days, we’re in the midst of. Friday, she tells him, was the Eid when Jesus is dying, and now today is the big Eid, the good one, when Jesus is not dead any more. Our host looks puzzled or perhaps bemused, but he smiles warmly at us and says, “Every Eid is good.” Afterwards, as we hike up and down steep rugged hills on the two-hour trek home, Eileen and I laugh at this conversation and wonder aloud together what our Muslim neighbors think of the Christian celebration of resurrection. “If I had the Arabic for this,” I say, “I’d love to talk with them about Easter. After all, it’s really a celebration of survival and hope—the ultimate example of resilience and resistance. Life returning, against all odds, just when it seemed like death and evil had won. I think the Palestinians here would resonate with that, probably more deeply than we do.” Eileen agrees and reminds me of a conversation from last night. The mother of the family we stayed with had told us that the day before, on her way home to Miguer al Abeed with her baby and the youngest children, she’d been surprised by a settler attack. They all had to run as the settler chased them. Fortunately, the family made it home without injuries. No visible physical ones, anyway. “Palestinians here live the Easter story every day,” Eileen reflects. “So many attacks on their lives and their land, and they’re still alive. They’re still here, refusing to move away or give up or stop resisting.” “Surely they understand resurrection,” I comment. “They live it.” We reach Tuwani mid-morning and hail our teammates with Easter greetings. “We saw the resurrected Jesus this morning,” Eileen calls out. “He was riding a donkey.” “We saw the resurrected Jesus wearing so many faces today,” I add. “We woke up with lots of them this morning.” Christ has risen indeed. Alleluia.
[1]
Territory of the West Bank is divided into three categorizations which identify how cities and regions are governed: “Area A,” governed by the Palestinian Authority, insofar as the Israeli government and military allow that to happen; “Area B,” jointly under Palestinian and Israeli governance; or “Area C,” under Israeli military control. While all of the West Bank continues to experience occupation—
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