.

A PILGRIMAGE OF PEACE TO THE HOLY LAND

 

by

Sr. Betty Carpentier

 

This was a LIVING STONES PEACE PILGRIMAGE.  “That’s Mary walking toward us” spoken to me as we walked the streets of Nazareth, made concrete the invitation to see the LIVING STONES we would meet each day.  From among the many I have selected a few that, for me, highlight important aspects of the pilgrimage.

 

A.  Two Peacemakers

Elias Jabbour   Palestinian Christian Elias Jabbour, founder of House of Hope.  A few thoughts:

  • Are you [Jews] coming to live with me or without me?

  • Sharing the land is much better than tearing the land.

  • Problems, of course, ever since Cain killed Abel.  The only solution is   peace.

  • Peace is life.  War is death.  For the sake of not losing our children we have to make peace.

He had copies of two books for us:  SULHA, Palestinian Traditional Peacemaking Process, and A Personal Call to Peace, an interview with Elias Jabbour.  web site:   www.hohpeacecenter.org

 

Dalia Landau a Jewish activist, who in 1967 met the Arab family who had owned the house her family moved into in 1948.  She urged us:  Integrate opposites instead of taking sides on the scale of who is the greater victim.  “Enough of this game!”  Take the position of a TORN HEART:  BREAK THE VICIOUS CIRCLE.  ERASE ONE LITTLE PIECE.     Read more on her website:  www.openhouse.org.il

 

B.  Palestinians as human beings

 

Iyad’s family and other parishioners at St. James Church.  An experience of a living parish as well as LIVING STONES whose daily lives are as fully human as is possible to them.

 

CRS building projects in Bethlehem area that provide jobs and meet community needs:  1.School for handicapped in El Ebidiyyah, a Muslim village; 2. St. Joseph School for girls; 3 Bethleham sport club; 4. Beit Sahour clinic.

 

C. Injustices of the Israeli Occupation

 

Iyad, our guide, spoke to us often as we traveled through the countryside about the West Bank/Gaza occupation.  One evening he used a map showing where we had been and just what the Occupied Territory is, as well as where we would be crossing into the West Bank , as we went from Galilee to Jericho .  Iyad spoke of the ways in which the Israeli Arabs are second class citizens and of the injustices of the occupation as Israel establishes more and more settlements, controls water supply, limits travel, destroys villages.

 

The owner and workers in the pottery shop where we took time to purchase items from the beautiful glassware as well as pottery; such shops have very little business at present.

 

Students and faculty at Bethlehem University .  Travel restrictions make them prisoners in Bethlehem and yet they carry on the work of education.

 

D.  Separation Wall

 

Section of the Wall in Abu Dis.  Among the graffiti:  “L’amicizia non puo si dividere.”; and in English: “Friendship cannot be divided.”  This wall divides families, shops from customers, homes from fields or place of work.

 

Latin Patriarch Micael Sabbah  “The Wall divides families and farmers from their fields – I am more concerned about that than about Church property.”