We too, here on the
ground in Palestine, believe in miracles and hope the world will believe we are
human like all people of the world.
As I woke up to heavy rain and severe wind storms in one of
the highest mountain regions in Palestine, I gave glory to God to be alive for another day and continue to
keep my hope that all people of this region will learn to love humanity. The only good thing about the dense fog in
front of me is that I could not see the illegal Israeli settlement outside my
kitchen window. Settlements on the West
Bank have been a huge big obstacle to any frozen peace agreement for twenty
years between Israelis and Palestinians.
As the harsh weather and tough political conditions continue to be at an
all-time high, I was grateful for friends around the world who prayed for a
peaceful day (November 25th) during the opening of the new Taybeh
Winery introducing for the first time, Palestinian boutique wines. We were lucky the storm arrived at night
after having a successful and history-making day with many local and
international visitors. All of our
friends in America are celebrating a Happy Thanksgiving and we are truly thankful
for having a peaceful day. Glory be to
God for all things!
As a collaborative celebration, the Belgian Consul General
in Jerusalem selected our tiny village to celebrate for the first time in
Palestine the King’s Day, a type of national day for Belgium traditionally held
in Jerusalem by the consulate every year
during the fall with the actual birthday of King Philip being November 15th. However, as more countries around the world
are officially recognizing Palestine, we felt this decision to host the King’s
Day celebration was a personal support and solidarity of our existence. The Taybeh Golden Hotel, under construction
for many years, finally opened its door to welcome many dignitaries including
the Palestinian Prime Minister and the American Consul General in Jerusalem
along with the ambassador of Turkey and Japan and many other leaders including the
Greek Consul General.
The Taybeh Winery, on the street level of the eighty room Taybeh
Golden Hotel is a dream comes true for Nadim Khoury, the co-founder of Taybeh
Brewing Company along with my husband David. Following his dad's footsteps in challenging times, my nephew Canaan, Harvard class 2013, returned home to Palestine to
become the new winemaker and manage the winery with Roberto, an Italian wine maker using all state of the
art equipment from Italy.
The grapes from Taybeh and the surrounding towns of Aboud
and Birzeit were crushed August 2013 and bottled recently in the “Nadim” label
for Merlo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. “Nadim” in Arabic means “drinking companion"--what the family thought was the perfect name for the new wine to enter the international
market with a distinctive Palestinian identity.
This last harvest, white grapes from Hebron, were also crushed and will
be bottled in the spring for what we expect to be a delicious Sauvignon
Blanc. The 2013 Grand reserve Cabernet
Sauvignon reserve is aging in French oak barrels and hopefully will be bottled
just in time for Christmas. Although the
website and many things are still under construction, everyone felt it was a
historic day in Taybeh with the Belgian celebration and the introduction of the
new fine boutique Palestinian wines.
We are trying to do some good things under terrible
conditions and show that Palestine has a civilization of culture, art, music
and not only a great micro-brewed beer for twenty years but now a boutique wine
too and a theme hotel to go with it. We
were honored that some of the well-known Palestinian artists, Nabil Anani and
Tayser Barakat, lent their exquisite art to be displayed during the opening. Suheil
Zayad from Birzeit played the oud all evening while Joseph Doughman from
Bethlehem played the saxophone during the day.
As Jesus blessed the water to wine in Cana more than two
thousand years ago, I surely hope all the heavy rain will be a blessing for our
water shortage. As Fr. Louis from
Birzeit Latin parish said, “Taybeh is the new Cana,” because it serves as a
light in the region that has so much darkness today across the board,
politically, emotionally, culturally, intellectually and even with tough
weather conditions. But it was a
glorious day to have our parish priest, Fr. Daoud Khoury, offer a prayer in an ecumenical blessing with representatives
from the Russian, Coptic Patriarchate and His Eminence Archbishop Aris Shirvanian
from the Armenian Patriarchate with Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey from the
Greek-Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Jerusalem. Father Jack and Fr. Aziz, our local priests,
also gave their blessing. Pray with us
for better times in Palestine so we can see the end of military occupation in
our lifetime. However, in the meantime, Taybeh welcomes you not only for the
Taybeh Beer tour which might include an interview with Madees Khoury, the only female who
brews beer in Palestine, but an eye opening experience at the
Taybeh Winery also. “Eye opening”
because Palestinians are normal people like you and me.
The beautiful Bible verse in John (2:1-11) says that “ what
Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he
revealed his glory; and his disciples
believed in Him.” We too, here on the
ground in Palestine believe in miracles and hope the world will believe we are
human as all people of the world. And,
the best is now coming from Taybeh. Happy
Thanksgiving! Give thanks in all things.
(1 Tim. 5:18)
First, watch this and
then you will understand why so much violenceis encompassing Jerusalem.
It did not
start with the kidnapping of the three young settlers which Israel claims
to be the reason for retaliation on all
fronts.It did not start with the
occupation of the Palestinian
Territories in 1967.It has been an ongoing dispossession ever
since 1948 even after the Palestine National Council recognized Israel on 78% of historic Palestine in 1988.The onslaught onEast Jerusalem has been going on with a clear
agenda thatJerusalem
is the united eternal capital of Israel,
with a plan to build the Temple
to replace El-Haram El-Sharif.
Ironically Har
Nof where the events of today took place is originallya Palestinian suburbadjacent to Deir Yaseen where the infamous
massacre of the Palestinians took place in April 1948. That was the spark that terrorized the Palestinian residents of West Jerusalem that led to their exodus.
Yes indeed it
is brutal and completely unacceptable to
attack worshippers in their place of worship, as was the attack of settler doctor, BaruchGoldstein,
on Muslim worshippers during the month of Ramadan
at the Hebron Mosque in February 1994?Twenty nine Palestinian were killed and 125 wounded at the time.The epitaph on Goldstein’stombstone calls him a martyr with clean hands
and a pure heart.
As much as I
believe in un-armed resistance,it is
very sad to realize that the futility of the negotiations and the failure of the peace process to end the
occupation,on top of Israeli
provocations, are all leadingthe
Palestinian population of Jerusalem
to desperation as they feel completely
abandoned.While the International
community continues to claim the annexation of Jerusalem
as illegal and so arethe settlements, and
the demolishing of homes, no action has been taken to reverse the realities that Israel continues
to create on the ground.The young people of Jerusalemcannot sit still any more,simply
watching and resisting peacefully while their holiest site El-Haram El-Sharif
is being coveted and taken over while
the world is watching.The more
desperate those young people become, the more violence will prevail.We continue to hope for some wisdom to
prevail and a definite resolve on behalf
of the international community to put an end to Israel’s impunity and spare both
people further suffering.
I
wish all of you a blessed Holy Nativity Fast. Tomorrow, we are
actually celebrating the transfer of the relics of St. George from Asia
Minor where he was martyred to Lod (next to the Tel Aviv airport now)
where his mother lived in ancient Palestine. It has been an annual
tradition that Christian communities from all corners of the Holy Land
gather in Lod to commemorate this special feast day in addition to the
one in April.
However, some
of you might know the ongoing violence in Jerusalem and the unrelenting
settlement expansion and police harassment, riots and marches inside
Israel have increased following the cold blood killing of an Arab youth
by police in Kafr Kanna. The Israelis and Palestinians have been
killing each other back and forth in revenge attacks for many months
now. Thus, many people in our community were simply too scared to get a
permit and travel to the original St. George Church to continue this
century old Christian tradition in memory of St. George the Great
Martyr. We pray for better times ahead and keep our hope in Christ.
Personally,
I wish I was in America instead of checkpoints where Israeli soldiers
are shooting kids throwing rocks. I am not sure if we are on the verge
of another uprising but may our Lord have mercy with the violence all
around. Maria Khoury, Ed.D. Taybeh
I have been reflecting on the many anniversaries during the
month of November, asidefrom the fact
that I turned 80 last November on the day my book “Reflections from Palestine – A Journey of
Hope” was launched, and that the birthday of my granddaughter’s best friend
Juman, falls on the 2nd of November.I am sure neither Juman nor her mother had much choice in determining
that day to coincide withthe
anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which the Palestinians consider
to be the root cause oftheirdispossession.
But then November 9 was the twenty fifth anniversary of the
collapse of the Berlin Wall.Whoever
thought that wall will ever collapse?That is why this is a very meaningful day for us, the Palestinians, as it gives us hope that the infamous Separation
Wall which separatesthe Palestinian territories from each other
in the name of security, will eventually collapse some day.However the 19thanniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin on November 4 continues to remind
us that the whole peace process was a farce, and led usnowhere,while at the same timeit
shielded Israeli impunity as it continued to create new realities on the
ground.
November 11is
Armistice Day, or Veteran’s day as it is
called in the USA,
which marked the end of World War I in 1918. Again it makes us wonder at the
brutality of wars.As if the loss of
many lives in both World War I and World War II was not enough, the colonial
powers continued towage so many wars in
other peoples’ countries and under a variety ofpretexts.Will November 11 ever make those powers realize that wars are
not about solving problems but about greed, sale of armament, hegemonyand devastation.Devastation not only ofthe land and its natural resources, but
devastation of humanity and the mushrooming of new radical movements. It is very hard under the circumstances,
where we watch regions torn apart, to envisage any hope for an armistice day for our region or peace around
the whole world.
Ironically November 11 is also the tenth anniversary of the
death of Yasser Arafat.I remember I was
in Hawaii at
the time and we stayed up late with my cousin Diana and her husband Jerry to
watch the end of an era for the Palestinians.Of course Israel
has claimed him to be “no peace partner” despite all the concessions he made
for the sake of peace.In fact November 15 is the 26h anniversary of the Declaration of the Independence
of the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, and it is an official
holiday in Occupied Palestine.I still
do not know what we are celebrating, after making such a compromise and still not being independent on that 22% of our
historic Palestine.But I know the teachers and students are
happy to have a long week end off.I
still remember when November 14 was an official holiday during the Jordan times,
as it was the birthday of King Hussein.Salwa,theschool principal at Rawdat El-Zuhur had the
same birthday, so her birthday was always an official holiday.
HEBRON, Palestine—I recall the sermons
in my religious services growing up. During the High Holidays of Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there were always calls for peace and prayers
for Israel. A country symbolizing the triumphant conclusion to centuries
of persecution, Israel was the home to my people—the Jews. And they had
waited so long to return. It wasn’t until this summer in which I had
the honor of doing so. Although I began my trip under the normal
auspices of going on Birthright, my trip took me far from the comforts
of Israel, into a land where few Jews go—Palestine.
Preparing to
leave from Tel Aviv, I was nervous for the two months ahead. I had just
finished participating in the Birthright program. After listening to
the Israeli narrative of this land for two weeks, I was ready to see the
other side that had been kept from me and other Jews for so long.
Mentions of the West Bank were sparse during Birthright, and when it was
discussed, the narrative seemed incomplete. I had loved my connection
with the Land of Israel—the land of my origins. However, I was disturbed
by the way people connected the Land of Israel with the State of
Israel—the actions and policies of the current government—without true
inner contemplation. Political doctrine was presented as fact.
Now I was going to the black part of the map.
Steven Davidson / The ChronicleI
craved to see Palestine with my own eyes, but knew so little about the
land. Before I went to teach English to Palestinians and work for an
Nongovernmental organization in Hebron, I tried to research the
Palestinian culture. But Google searches only yielded news clippings of
terrorist attacks and violent clashes. All I had heard from Israelis
about Palestinians was their supposed poor taste in clothing. As I
crossed the Green Line to enter the West Bank, life in Palestine was a
complete and anxious unknown.
So
how did a Jew from New York survive in a place in which the
Anti-Defamation League found 93 percent of the population to be
anti-Semitic? Aside from a group of trusted people, everyone in the West
Bank thought I was Christian.
The situation I
discovered while living in Hebron in the West Bank for more than two
months was shocking. Living there during times of peace (relatively
speaking), a kidnapping and ensuing operation and ultimately war, I
witnessed all the stages of the occupation. I witnessed inhumane horrors
at the hands of what I had been told for so long was a benevolent
government. They were horrors I had not anticipated to be so blatant in
their nature and so extensive in their practice. Yet, the comforting
light at the end of my journey was to have the opportunity to meet the
people there who—in spite of their traumatic lives—only showed me love
and hospitality.
There I was, on the other side of one of the
biggest conflicts in world history, and all these people showed me was
kindness. There was the husband and wife who, after feeding me to no end
(an all-too-common occurrence), sent me on my way with a bag of
peaches. The father, peering around the room, handed me an energy drink,
desperate to give me anything. In one afternoon alone, four separate
people on the street invited me to dinner that night. There was the taxi
driver who took it upon himself to leave his shift to show me around
the Old City and reveal all the secrets his town had to offer, and the
restaurateur who took me in as I sought to break fast during Ramadan. As
I finished the three-course Iftar, I asked him how much it would cost.
He looked at me and replied, “No, Islam,” as he pointed to the sky.
These
were people who often worked upward of 11 or 12 hours in a day to make
not much money at all, and yet, here they were paying for my drinks,
treating me to dinner and doing everything they can to make me feel
welcome.
So how did a Jew
from New York survive in a place in which the Anti-Defamation League
found 93 percent of the population to be anti-Semitic? Aside from a
group of trusted people, everyone in the West Bank thought I was
Christian. I was racked with guilt of lying to people who had been so
kind to me, yet I knew that if the wrong person had found out my
background, there could be grave repercussions.
Wars
do not happen without a systematic dehumanization of your enemy. In
Palestine, this dehumanization is the same in peacetime as it is in the
throws of battle.
Ultimately, my identity would
not have made a difference with most people. In conversations I had,
people repeatedly stated to me that they were not anti-Semitic—they were
only anti-Zionist. They emphasized all the two Abrahamic religions
shared, and they always mentioned the American Jews who voiced
opposition to Israeli occupation. The picture I was viewing was vastly
different than the one that had been painted for me when I was younger. I
realized that statistics like the ADL’s was the result of equating
anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Even when I encountered anti-Semitism,
which I will never condone, I knew it was the product of experiences
that span far beyond my 21 years on this earth. Their fleeting
interactions with Jews have often ended staring down the barrel of a
gun.
Wars do not happen without a systematic dehumanization of
your enemy. In Palestine, this dehumanization is the same in peacetime
as it is in the throws of battle. The Palestinians live under military
rule. Israel Defense Forces soldiers can effectively do as they please.
Even places Palestinians are technically allowed to go would sometimes
be off-limits. I listened as my friend told me how his ability to go to
the Dead Sea, inside the West Bank, was dictated by whether a soldier
along the way decided to turn him back or not. And if my friend asserted
his right to go? “I might be shot.”
Whoever by name controlled
areas of the West Bank, it was ultimately Israel that had the overriding
power. Checkpoints were everywhere—soldiers were as common as olive
trees. Before I arrived, there had been a video of an identified soldier
shooting and killing an unarmed girl, yet nothing happened. There is
virtually no international media found in the West Bank. Israel largely
keeps the foreign press out and demands self-censorship.
Most
international reports on the West Bank are in fact reported from Tel
Aviv or Jerusalem. To read the news unfolding in front of me distorted
by the media at home only affirmed that I needed to share what I
experienced. Censorship is one of Israel’s greatest weapons—the reality
does not match the story given to the public.
Steven Davidson / The ChronicleA
towering slab of concrete divides Israel and Palestine. The wall’s
construction destroyed dozens of villages, has caused an endless
economic depression and imprinted permanent psychological damage to the
Palestinian people. Every time I mentioned going to Tel Aviv, guilt
would seep through as people lamented their desire to just one day be
able to see the ocean. It pained me as I’d pass Jerusalem from the other
side of the wall and those around me would look on at the Dome of the
Rock in the distance, wishing to one day pray there. It was always an
awkward topic to mention my travels in Israel, having visited all these
places as a foreigner. These places were a part of their childhood, yet
now they could never experience what I did with such ease. The wall
penetrated people’s minds and livelihood in so many ways, even in
life-or-death situations. There was a boy who fell ill and needed
immediate medical attention. His family drove to the wall to go to the
hospital in Jerusalem. In spite of his critical condition, soldiers
denied permission for him to go. He died at the wall. These stories are
far from uncommon.
Visiting the wall was intensely emotional. In
Bethlehem, people write down their experiences and tape them to the
wall. The stories stretch for miles. Street art on the wall calls for
freedom and justice, a world where they “build bridges, not walls.”
Tears flowed down my face in a gentle stream. I came upon an
inscription: “Judaism ≠ Zionism,” as a Crescent Moon and Star of David
were drawn side-by-side. I collapsed to my knees. The messages in front
of me were cries of desperation, of humanity. And yet, only on this side
of the wall could these cries be heard.
I asked myself, ‘Why? What is the reason?’ The answer always was: there was no reason.
Even
in the West Bank, Palestinians struggle to move around. Checkpoints
arbitrarily turn people back or detain them for hours on end, despite
international law limiting detention without reason to 20 minutes.
People are beaten and humiliated at these checkpoints. These are not
defensive measures. They occur unprovoked and upon innocent bystanders.
With checkpoints and limited roads available to the Palestinians, a
60-mile trip from Hebron to Jenin can take six hours.
Foreign aid
workers are hardly welcome in the West Bank. The friends I had were
forced to lie under the pretenses of their stays in Israel or face being
turned away. Each time they leave, they fear they won’t be allowed back
in. Suspicion of going to the West Bank leads to detention in the
airport or on the border for hours, with the very possible result of
being turned away. I knew an American lawyer who was stopped at Ben
Gurion Airport. They demanded to look through her computer. Knowing her
rights, she said no. They told her they would take her computer and send
it back to her. When it was sent back, there was a bullet hole through
it.
Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams—a human rights
organization with funding from the United Nations—have had their
credentials turned down at the border. Even when they get into the West
Bank, there are risks. They have been arrested by the IDF for simply
escorting Palestinian children to school to prevent violence from
settlers and soldiers alike.
I cannot count the amount of times I
witnessed and learned things in which I’d fall silent. I asked myself,
‘Why? What is the reason?’ The answer always was: there was no reason.
I’ve witnessed what the government and thus media declare to be security
measures. They’re not security measures. They're oppression.
The
prisoners Palestinians refer to as “the kidnapped” are those who are
under Israeli administrative detention. Administrative detention was a
law carried over and expanded from the times of the British Mandate. It
allows Israel to throw anyone in prison—in use, Palestinians—for up to
six months without charges or due process. They simply renew the
sentence every six months, making imprisonment indefinite. These cases
are nonviolent in nature and are largely used as a measure to suppress
political activism in the West Bank.
The first night I was in
Hebron, I met a man who was in administrative detention for five years.
He was silenced after being politically active on his college campus
against the occupation. There were others I had met who had been
imprisoned under similar terms. None of them committed any wrongful
crimes.
I had tea in the home of another man who had been
imprisoned under administrative detention for four years. Hamas had been
helping to pay for his college tuition, so he was thrown in jail. What
people don’t realize about support for Hamas in the West Bank is that it
does not come out of a desire to kill all Jews. In times of relative
calm, most support actually comes from Hamas’s social welfare programs,
such as helping kids pay for school, running soup kitchens and
organizing community activities such as soccer leagues. This dynamic
changed as the war in Gaza began.
After thirty years of marriage, and thirty years of struggling with lawyers and the Israeli ministry of interior’s oppressive measures for family reunification, my daughter Dina was able to get a one year permit for her husband to live with her in Jerusalem. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to bring about peace to the region, Jerusalem was placed out of bounds for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. So my daughter’s husband, Yousef Nasser, who is from Birzeit and has a Palestinian Identity Card could not live with her and his three children in Jerusalem, nor could they join him in Birzeit, because that would deprive them of their right of residency in Jerusalem, the city of their birth, and that of their forefathers. How unfair. So her only choice was to be a week-end wife and make the best out of it under the circumstances. How many family occasions he missed that it became normal for him not to be part of those functions. Yet it was very hard for the whole family when he was terribly missed on certain occasions like the time his daughter was hospitalized for a month and a half after a serious fall, as well as on many other happy occasions.
When Dina told me on Monday morning that they had an appointment at the ministry of interior I kept praying and hoping that their ordeal would be over soon. So when she called to say they got the paper, I thought it was the paper approving the family reunification, but it turned out to be indeed an approval for family reunification which begins with another ordeal of a yearly permit. At the end of the year and to renew this permit they need to provide all the necessary documents that they are actually living in Jerusalem. a document that would grant him a one year permit to be in Jerusalem. What an anti-climax was my daughter’s first reaction. After such long years of deprivation of a normal family life, and when all three children are pursuing their studies abroad, and no more around us, we can now be together ” But when as Palestinians we were never granted the justice that we deserved, and never had the best of choices, a permit becomes an achievement and a sign of hope for further permit renewal. This is the story of our life as well as that of thousands of others.
