“The clock is running out very, very quickly. I am more pessimistic on the question of time running out than I’ve ever been.”
— U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt,), while on a visit to Jerusalem with Rep. Peter Welch (D.-Vt.)
I agree with the assessment of our Congressional leaders and applaud them for going to Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank. Reflecting on my three-week visit to the West Bank in May, I too discerned a sense of despairing hopelessness and apathy. Regretfully the delegation could not meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in person. But we saw the visible devastation caused by the Wall as it snakes its way mostly on Palestinian lands, cutting Palestinians off from Palestinians, creating apartheid-like Bantustans. As Shulamit Aloni, former member of Israel’s Knesset, said recently, “Forty years of occupation has turned every Palestinian village into a detention camp. We are exercising apartheid.”
Forty years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories was recently marked. In 36 of those years I have witnessed what occupation is, having conducted annual alternative pilgrimage tours, done fellowship study, and been involved in humanitarian projects in hospitals, clinics, and schools. I have seen the strangulation of Palestinian cultural, political, economic, religious and social life, and educational opportunity. Each year it gets worse. Remember, Palestinians are the occupied, not the occupiers; yet they are being punished. Their land is being confiscated for Israeli settlements and an intricate system of roads for settlers only (all contrary to Geneva Conventions).
At the same time, Palestinian homes built on their own land are demolished for lack of a permit or in the path of the Wall. The system of permits and checkpoints controls every aspect of life. Taxes, which Israel collects and should be turned over to the Palestinian Authority, are withheld resulting in no paychecks for teachers and other government workers. This is seen as punishment of the Palestinian people who democratically elected a majority of Hamas, not because they subscribe to Hamas’ ideology, but as a protest against Fatah’s corruption and no change on the ground. Despite Oslo I and II Agreements, Israel continues to create “facts on the ground,” i.e. settlements.
Palestinians I met with call the in-fighting between Palestinian factions “disgusting” and “disgraceful.” They condemn the violence: the firing of homemade rockets at Sderot in Israel, and Israel’s assassinations of Palestinians. (According to BTselem, in 2006, Israelis killed 700 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 23 Israelis.) At the same time, my friends acknowledge that the violence, bloodshed, and suffering are outcomes of occupation. The situation in Gaza is grim, chaotic, a humanitarian disaster. It must not be allowed to get out of hand.
Although disenchanted with the current U.S. administration, Palestinians know that the U.S. has to be party to negotiations. Palestinians and Israelis who still keep a glimmer of hope argue that there is a window of opportunity in the Arab Peace Initiative. It calls for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with minor adjustments, and acceptance of Israel within the Middle East community of nations. This plan was endorsed by 300 Israeli, Palestinian, and international women at the International Women’s Commission conference I attended in Jerusalem on May 13.
Senator Leahy and Representative Welch are right. Time is running out. Welch was “struck by the disconnect between the worsening Israeli-Palestinian problem and the ‘all-Iraq, all the time'” discourse in the United States. For years this has been a known fact, but it has always been overshadowed. The clock is ticking. The time is now. Our government must act.”
Sister Miriam Ward is a founding member of Pax Christi Burlington and Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel.
