The Muslim Student Association @ UConn

I have just recently returned from a 10-day trip to Israel, Palestine and Jordan. This “Tree of Life Journey” was an intentionally interfaith experience — with participants representing the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and American Indian faith traditions. There were representatives from nine different faith communities — churches, mosques and synagogues.

 

What we witnessed there is a reality to which the media in this country pay short shrift. And the tragedy of this “under-reporting” is that a human-rights violation of humongous proportion is taking place there, of which we here in the United States remain shockingly unaware.

 

The basic human rights of the Palestinian people are being violated day in and day out. They pay for water which once flowed freely on their own lands. (And they are forbidden from drilling individual wells on what little land remains their own.) They are cut off from their homes and farmland by a 30-foot-tall concrete wall which Israel can decree to be built wherever it so chooses. The borders of the state of Israel are constantly changing — constantly advancing onto land heretofore assigned to Palestinians by international agreements.

 

The Palestinian people are allowed to move from place to place only by pass-permits administered by the Israeli government. They are herded through so-called “checkpoints” that resemble our own Midwestern slaughter houses for cattle — through turnstiles and twisting corridors that are both frightening and inhumane. I know — I was caught in one for several minutes while I tried to call ahead to the guard tower, “Please, sir, let me pass. I am an American citizen."

 

During repeated visits to South Africa during the days of apartheid, I witnessed the workings of a police state. And I am grieved to say that that is precisely what the state of Israel has become — a police state, run by the rules of a state of emergency.

Israel is in grave danger of losing her soul.

 

By way of example, let me share the following story. One afternoon we ventured into the city of Hebron — the largest city in the West Bank, located southeast of Bethlehem — relatively far from what would be internationally recognized as Israel. There, in the midst of the Old City, there are four small settler enclaves. Each unit contains only about 100 Israeli settlers. To guard the 400 settlers, Israel has deployed more than 1,200 soldiers. That's three soldiers per settler. The soldiers admit that they spend most of their time trying to protect the Arab citizens of Hebron from the tirades and torments of the settlers. We walked through narrow streets over which netting had been strung to try to catch the garbage hurled down at Hebron citizens from above, where the barbed-wire strongholds of the settlers are positioned.

 

Members of the Christian Peacemakers met us there to escort us through the city streets in an attempt to assure our safety. The tension between settlers and local residents in Hebron is palpable, and tragic.

 

But there is some really good news for this human tragedy. A peaceful resolution is imminently possible. The United States gives about $15 million a day for the support of Israel's military machine — a machine that propagates severe human-rights atrocities. That money could be used to broker peace. If the United States were to make its support of Israel contingent upon Israel's adherence to proposals set forth both in the Oslo accords and subsequently the “road map,” peace with the people of Palestine would be possible. Israel would have approximately 78 percent of the land that was formerly Palestine. The boundaries of the state of Israel would be fixed, rather than ever-advancing.

Israel would agree to return to the borders she had before the 1967 war, recognize Jerusalem to be an international city, and recognize the right of the state of Palestine “to exist.” State-propagated human-rights violations would need to cease.

 

Concurrently, Palestine would receive aid contingent upon her ability to cease any violence against the state of Israel. United States aid would strengthen the infrastructure of the now-severely disabled Palestine, allowing her to rebuild her status as trading partner to Israel and the rest of the world. When we asked one leading Israeli citizen if he would be willing to negotiate peace with Hamas, he said, “I will speak to anyone about peace. Anyone."

Three-fold peace plan

Peace is indeed possible in the Mideast. The lasting good news of the peace will be three-fold:

For Israel's sake, the United States must act and act now. For our own sake, and for the sake of the Palestinian people, the United States must act and act now. There is no time to lose.

 

* Colleen Gerber is senior associate minister of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme. In 1995 she received her Master of Divinity degree from the University of South Africa in Pretoria