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Security wall obliterates Palestinian rights
By Sr. Miriam Ward, Vermont Catholic Tribune 8/27/2004
"For 900 years we have lived here under Turkish, British, Jordanian and Israeli governments, and no one has ever stopped people coming to pray. It is scandalous." The words of Father Claudio Ghilardi of the Santa Marta Monastery on the southern slope of the Mount of Olives, the juncture of Jerusalem, Abu Dis and Al-Izariyah (Bethany) where I visited in July. The church, named for St. Martha of Bethany, is now empty. Two Thousand Palestinian Catholics have lost their place of worship and spiritual center.
Why?
Israel is building a 30-foot concrete Wall through the monastery grounds; the church is now on the Jerusalem side. Many of the faithful live on the other side in Bethany and Abu Dis which means they can not get to the church because most do not have and can not get permits to enter Jerusalem. Father Claudio says, "This is not a barrier. It is a border. Why don't they speak the truth?" Countering Sharon's argument that the Wall is to keep Palestinian suicide bombers from Israel, Father Claudio adds, "The Wall is not separating Palestinians from Jews; rather, Palestinians from Palestinians." Nearby are three convents which will also be cut off from the people they serve.
I visited the rest home run by the Sisters of Notre Dame now on the Jerusalem side of the Wall at Abu Dis. The lovely courtyard banked with flowers and flaming bougainvillea bushes seems more like a jail than a rest area for residents in wheelchairs. The Wall rises around them, cutting their view of the sky!
North of Jerusalem in Beit Hanina, the Rosary Sisters have sent out pleas to the churches and the international community to support their opposition to the Wall being built through the Arab neighborhoods, isolating Palestinians, "paralyzing all aspects of life." They recently completed a $6,000,000 school which serves 900 students, a nursery day care, kindergarten, elementary and high school. The nearby convent with some elderly sisters will be cut off from access to medical care. Their convent chapel serving as a parish church for Sunday Mass will be inaccessible when the Wall is completed.
The Sisters point out that "not only are religious rights affected by the Wall, but also the whole educational process." In addition, the Wall blatantly discriminates against students who go to Rosary School. They hold Jerusalem I.D.s. Restrictions placed on Palestinians with Jerusalem I.D.s are not placed on Israeli Jews with the same Jerusalem I.D.s —.
As emotionally draining as were the effects of devastation of the Wall in the Jerusalem area, it was with astonishment and disbelief that I got my first glimpse of the Wall in Bethlehem, Beit Sahur and Beit Jala. In the distance I could see the Herodian, one of Herod's "escape" palaces and purported burial place rising up against the skyline, a few miles from the Israeli settlement of Har Homa built on Palestinian land. On the south side of Har Homa the long arms of four cranes were silhouetted against the blue sky, evidence that Israel is expanding this settlement and further encroaching on Bethlehem's land. Walking along that road at the Tantur checkpoint entrance to Bethlehem, I was overwhelmed with sadness.
I passed through the checkpoint on foot. A bus with Israeli settlers was flagged on past a long line of Palestinian cars, some of which would be prevented from crossing after hours of waiting.
As I went over the slight rise in the hill, my view of the sky was blocked by the thirty-foot concrete monstrosity complete with watchtower — the Wall.
On the other side of the road the Wall continues through Bethlehem and Beit Jala, destroying homes or businesses in its path, cutting villages and churches from their properties, especially olive groves, dividing families from one another. A gate where the Wall "crosses" the road, will allow Israeli settlers easy access to Rachel's Tomb. Paradoxically, for Palestinians the gate means the opposite: humiliating closures at the whim of young Israeli soldiers.
I stopped to use a telephone at the one grocery store along this road of once-thriving shops, fruit and vegetable stands and restaurants. The manager recognized me from last summer, and as usual gave me his cell phone, a stool to sit on, and an offer of a cold drink. I fought back the tears. I wondered how many of us Americans could act with such genuine hospitality under such trying circumstances.
I longed for the days when the Herodian and other archaeological sites commanded my interest. Coming back to reality, I realized that it is not the ancient dead stones that are important. Rather it is the living stones, the people who are striving to live as other human beings, to engage in a normal social, political, economic and religious life, to provide their children with a normal environment. I continued on to Bethlehem.
Brother Vincent Malham, President of Bethlehem University, the only Catholic university in the Occupied Territories, said, "As the Wall becomes more and more visible here in Bethlehem, we at the University become more concerned as to its implications on our educational mission. Having gone through several traumatic years of trying to keep the University open to serve young Palestinians, especially Christians, we now face the unknown consequences of this outrageous barrier. A considerable number of our administrators, teachers and students come from Jerusalem. Will they be allowed to enter Bethlehem, and if so, how difficult will their entry be? The psychological impact of the Wall for Bethlehemites is already considerable. Its potential consequences for Bethlehem University could be devastating."
As I continued to see the results of the Wall in the stories of Palestinians of all walks of life, I thought, "Things can't get any worse, and yet they do." I asked my friend Father Peter DuBrul, S.J., Burlington native, and professor at Bethlehem University, for his reaction to the Wall. Following are Father Peter's words:
"The wall is such an outrage that it is impossible for me to find a place in my heart and mind to place the fulcrum to lift a word, even one sentence that can express the meaning of this long and deliberate act. It is so fundamentally evil, that I think its very evil, its immorality, its unintelligibility, its outlawfulness, is what makes it inexpressible. To try to "think" of it, and to think out the consequences of it, and to think back into the darkness and deliberate intentions of those who conceived it and are building it, is to take one into the heart of darkness, and one is as if drawn into the same whirl-pool of such a mind-set and heart that can act with such impunity. That it is a Jewish government that is going about this tells me that there is some deep force here that is thus far devoid of the capacity to meet and to speak in the truth. The Wall is "Llaw" spelled backwards: a unilateral, self- justifying act of separation and control, that happens to be occurring at a moment where the Iraqi-Afghanistan situations, and the US presidential elections, and the rubbery, or plastic, or stainless steel consciences are as they are."
Father DuBrul continued, "What a condemnation of a generation as ours, for this wall to be going up, and for it to be so little cause for outrage. But what good is outrage!? Spools of resentment are turning and tightening, and when they release, I wouldn't want to be around. In the mean-time, we have to work and write and pray like hell that the hell that may be loosed doesn't wipe out a lot more than lower Manhattan and a few thousand lives. And this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Brother Vincent, the Rosary Sisters, and Fathers Claudio and Peter echo what I heard over and over from Palestinians in all walks of life regarding the disastrous effects of the Wall on young and old. Many pointed out that in denying Palestinians the same rights to self-determination, psychological walls were built long before the physical Wall which is turning Gaza into one big prison isolated from the West Bank, and the West Bank another big prison and each village within a prison.
While the examples in this commentary reflect my concern for the mission of the Catholic religious orders and the right to worship, it must be viewed in the context of the overall Occupation. First, Christians of all denominations and Muslims together suffer; second, the construction of the Wall is but another tactic used against Palestinians in a series of increasingly brutal measures in a 37-year-old military occupation. And third, Israeli society is becoming brutalized by being Occupiers. My Israeli and Jewish American friends are deeply concerned. All of which says that the Occupation must end.
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