Tuesday, July 21, 2009
2009 Sabeel Young Adult Conference
One of my last things to do at Sabeel before switching to Bethlehem Bible College is Sabeel's 4th Annual Young Adult Conference. This is an event that I have been helping plan since February. Young Adult Conference participants arrive this evening, and the conference commences tomorrow morning with opening worship and ends the morning of August 2nd. if you want to follow along with the events and happenings of the conference check out the Young Friends of Sabeel blog, that will be updated each day.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Normalcy
I totally have not been doing well at the whole blogging thing lately. Hopefully I'll be able to be more consistent now. The past month or two have been busy. About 2 months ago the opportunity came for me to stay here longer, but instead to work at Bethlehem Bible College. I have now officially decided that I will be staying here longer. I will move to Bethlehem in August and begin work at Bethlehem Bible College at the end of August. To learn more about Bethlehem Bible College and their ministry check out their website: BBC's website.
In the meantime, I will be helping lead Sabeel's 4th Young Adult Conference. The conference begins this Tuesday evening, July 21. Twenty-six adults from around the world, including the US, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Palestine will come together for 12 days of learning about the conflict here and especially the concerns of Palestinian Christians. I am looking forward to the opportunity not only to travel around, but to interact with people from different countries and learn how people differ in the ways they learn about this conflict when coming here for the first time.
The past couple of months have found me preparing for the Young Adult Conference, finishing the last Cornerstone I was in charge of putting together, and making arrangements to stay in Palestine longer.
Oh, and I got to go spend time with my sister in Spain for a week. This was a little vacation to rest up before the conference, as well as a trip to renew my visa (something I have to do every three months).
In the past couple of months, I also think that my mindset has changed in regards to being in this place. I stopped thinking of Palestine-Israel as a place that I would be spending a short six month time, to a place that I would live in for at least a year. When I was here for the first few months, I tried to take advantage of every opportunity I could to learn and to engage different things. Now that I am staying here longer, I have stopped seeing as much as I can, to really absorbing "normal" life here. It is hard to explain, but now I feel like I want to really engage with the place I live, rather than seeing as much as I can. I want to learn about the place I live in depth and enjoy what life there has to offer.
There is an advantage to feeling getting to know a place well and having it feel like "home" (at least for a period). There is also a disadvantage to this normality. It means injustices of the occupation, such as checkpoints,
The crowd at Qalandiya checkpoint. Palestinians waited at least 6 hours that morning just to get through and go to work. One man I talked to had been there since 4 hours by the time I got there at 7 am.
the wall, home demolitions, discrimination against Palestinians within the state of Israel, to name a few, also start to feel normal. I fail to be appalled by these injustices any longer. I am again confronted with the idea that becoming accustomed to injustice, allows the occupation to continue and to worsen. Once you get used to certain restrictions, the larger power can tighten restrictions further, with less resistance.
I pray that I will be able to enjoy everyday life here, but still be moved by people's stories and the injustices that happen around me daily. I pray that I can continue to advocate for justice and peace and the equality of all human beings.
In the meantime, I will be helping lead Sabeel's 4th Young Adult Conference. The conference begins this Tuesday evening, July 21. Twenty-six adults from around the world, including the US, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Palestine will come together for 12 days of learning about the conflict here and especially the concerns of Palestinian Christians. I am looking forward to the opportunity not only to travel around, but to interact with people from different countries and learn how people differ in the ways they learn about this conflict when coming here for the first time.
The past couple of months have found me preparing for the Young Adult Conference, finishing the last Cornerstone I was in charge of putting together, and making arrangements to stay in Palestine longer.
Oh, and I got to go spend time with my sister in Spain for a week. This was a little vacation to rest up before the conference, as well as a trip to renew my visa (something I have to do every three months).
In the past couple of months, I also think that my mindset has changed in regards to being in this place. I stopped thinking of Palestine-Israel as a place that I would be spending a short six month time, to a place that I would live in for at least a year. When I was here for the first few months, I tried to take advantage of every opportunity I could to learn and to engage different things. Now that I am staying here longer, I have stopped seeing as much as I can, to really absorbing "normal" life here. It is hard to explain, but now I feel like I want to really engage with the place I live, rather than seeing as much as I can. I want to learn about the place I live in depth and enjoy what life there has to offer.
There is an advantage to feeling getting to know a place well and having it feel like "home" (at least for a period). There is also a disadvantage to this normality. It means injustices of the occupation, such as checkpoints,
The crowd at Qalandiya checkpoint. Palestinians waited at least 6 hours that morning just to get through and go to work. One man I talked to had been there since 4 hours by the time I got there at 7 am.
the wall, home demolitions, discrimination against Palestinians within the state of Israel, to name a few, also start to feel normal. I fail to be appalled by these injustices any longer. I am again confronted with the idea that becoming accustomed to injustice, allows the occupation to continue and to worsen. Once you get used to certain restrictions, the larger power can tighten restrictions further, with less resistance.
I pray that I will be able to enjoy everyday life here, but still be moved by people's stories and the injustices that happen around me daily. I pray that I can continue to advocate for justice and peace and the equality of all human beings.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Latest Cornerstone
I have been really bad at blogging lately. Sorry about my absence. I will write a new post soon. For now, I am posting a link to the latest edition of Cornerstone. If you don't remember, while at Sabeel, I have been in charge of gathering all the information for the Cornerstone, as well as editing and shipping it. This is the last full issue I have put together. In this issue, is an article by Gideon Levy, a well-renowned Israeli journalist. I hope you enjoy it.
Click HERE to see it.
Click HERE to see it.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Saed Family
Seven years ago, the father of the Saed family was suffering from kidney cancer. He needed a kidney transplant. Fortunately he was able to receive a kidney from his wife and two years later he had recovered. During the time of tests, dialysis, the transplant and recovery, his doctor recommended that he should spend most of his time in an upper level room so that he could get as much fresh air as possible. It was suggested that the family build a new floor onto their house in the Old City, so that the father could live here during his time of treatment and recovery. The new addition was not hard to build. Their house had a flat roof, already surrounded by two walls, from the houses surrounding. 
All the family needed to do was add a couple walls and a roof. Two years later, when the Saed family's father had recovered, his oldest son was married. The father moved out of the new addition and the son and his new wife moved upstairs. Five years later, the son and his wife now have two sons and another one on the way. 9 months pregnant and due in two weeks, the wife sits in the downstairs living room as her husband and other men from the family, brothers and cousins, demolish the room she has lived in since she was married. A few days earlier, the family had received an order from the Israeli government that if they did not demolish this addition to the house in 10 days, they would come and do it for them. To avoid the roughly $20,000 fee they would be charged for the Israelis to demolish their home, they took on the dangerous task of demolishing it themselves.
Home demolition is rampant in Jerusalem. The reason for home demolition is that Palestinians have built without a permit. To obtain a permit, however, is next to impossible for Palestinians. Only 13 percent of East Jerusalem is allotted for construction for Palestinian homes. Most of this area is already built up. This allocation is according to plans laid out for Jerusalem after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. According to international law, this annexation has never been recognized and thus municipality plans extending into East Jerusalem is illegal for Israel. Even in these limited areas, the process of applying for a building permit is extremely lengthy and costly. If you decided to go through this process, you are not even guaranteed to be able to build, only about 5-10% of Palestinians receive building permits each year.
The impetus to build, however, is great. The population of Palestinians in East Jerusalem has grown from 66,000 to 250,000 since 1967. To accommodate for a growing population it is necessary to build. There is also a strong desire to continue building in Jerusalem, and not in the West Bank. Palestinians must live in Jerusalem in order to maintain Jerusalem residency and their Jerusalem id's, which allow them free movement between the West Bank and Jerusalem. If one moves to the West Bank, you will lose your Jerusalem id and obtain a West Bank id. With a West Bank id, it is necessary to obtain permits in order to come into Jerusalem at anytime. It is thus understandable that families, who have long lived in Jerusalem, desire to build so that their growing families can continue to live in Jerusalem and maintain free access to Jerusalem.
So although homes are order to be demolished on the grounds that permits could not be obtained, the issue is far more complex than a bunch of belligerent Palestinians going against orders. It seems that there are deeper issues at stake and "...many Palestinians say Israel limits construction to push them out of East Jerusalem..." (Quotation from a New York Times article about Home Demolition. Read here).
With all these reasons in the back of my mind, Last Friday, I watched as the Saed family took sledge hammers to their own home in order to avoid the fee of Israel destroying it for them. I watched the women sitting on the couch, kleenex in hand as they watched part of their house be demolished and realized that they are now left with 13 people having to sleep in 2 rooms instead of 4. I watched a 9 month pregnant woman comfort her two boys with the thought that the room she has lived in for 5 years will not be home to her soon-to-be newborn child.
Another article on this topic from the Guardian: The Effect of Home Demolitions
All the family needed to do was add a couple walls and a roof. Two years later, when the Saed family's father had recovered, his oldest son was married. The father moved out of the new addition and the son and his new wife moved upstairs. Five years later, the son and his wife now have two sons and another one on the way. 9 months pregnant and due in two weeks, the wife sits in the downstairs living room as her husband and other men from the family, brothers and cousins, demolish the room she has lived in since she was married. A few days earlier, the family had received an order from the Israeli government that if they did not demolish this addition to the house in 10 days, they would come and do it for them. To avoid the roughly $20,000 fee they would be charged for the Israelis to demolish their home, they took on the dangerous task of demolishing it themselves.
Home demolition is rampant in Jerusalem. The reason for home demolition is that Palestinians have built without a permit. To obtain a permit, however, is next to impossible for Palestinians. Only 13 percent of East Jerusalem is allotted for construction for Palestinian homes. Most of this area is already built up. This allocation is according to plans laid out for Jerusalem after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. According to international law, this annexation has never been recognized and thus municipality plans extending into East Jerusalem is illegal for Israel. Even in these limited areas, the process of applying for a building permit is extremely lengthy and costly. If you decided to go through this process, you are not even guaranteed to be able to build, only about 5-10% of Palestinians receive building permits each year.
The impetus to build, however, is great. The population of Palestinians in East Jerusalem has grown from 66,000 to 250,000 since 1967. To accommodate for a growing population it is necessary to build. There is also a strong desire to continue building in Jerusalem, and not in the West Bank. Palestinians must live in Jerusalem in order to maintain Jerusalem residency and their Jerusalem id's, which allow them free movement between the West Bank and Jerusalem. If one moves to the West Bank, you will lose your Jerusalem id and obtain a West Bank id. With a West Bank id, it is necessary to obtain permits in order to come into Jerusalem at anytime. It is thus understandable that families, who have long lived in Jerusalem, desire to build so that their growing families can continue to live in Jerusalem and maintain free access to Jerusalem.
So although homes are order to be demolished on the grounds that permits could not be obtained, the issue is far more complex than a bunch of belligerent Palestinians going against orders. It seems that there are deeper issues at stake and "...many Palestinians say Israel limits construction to push them out of East Jerusalem..." (Quotation from a New York Times article about Home Demolition. Read here).
With all these reasons in the back of my mind, Last Friday, I watched as the Saed family took sledge hammers to their own home in order to avoid the fee of Israel destroying it for them. I watched the women sitting on the couch, kleenex in hand as they watched part of their house be demolished and realized that they are now left with 13 people having to sleep in 2 rooms instead of 4. I watched a 9 month pregnant woman comfort her two boys with the thought that the room she has lived in for 5 years will not be home to her soon-to-be newborn child.
Another article on this topic from the Guardian: The Effect of Home Demolitions
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