wfn.org | Bethlehem Bible Scholar Describes Holy Land Media War

[wfn@wfn.org]

Contact: Alex and Brenda Awad
Jerusalem Baptist Community and Bethlehem Bible College
Tel: (972-2) 274-7684
Email: BethBC@planet.edu

JERUSALEM, November 1, 2000. The media war that has resulted from the
battles waging between Israelis and Palestinians since the Al-Aqsa Mosque
provocation in late September, has been intensifying almost as fast as the
war on the ground.

Both Israelis and Palestinian are working hard to interpret their
perspectives to the rest of the world.
Just as the arm of the Israeli military might has the upper hand on the
battleground, the same is true in the media.

While most of us cannot do anything to stop the Israeli bullets and
rockets, we can do our best to let the world know what is going on in this
conflict. We can do this by looking at the larger picture of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than getting ourselves bogged down with the
details of who fired the first shot, who is inciting the violence, or what
was the last statement of Mr. Arafat or Mr. Barak.
It is evident now after four weeks of Palestinian uprising that Sharon's
visit was just the spark that lit the blaze.

So what are these major issues and how can we get to the truth or the
bottom line? If you ask both Palestinians and Israelis about peace, both
will affirm to you that they long for peace. To say one party is against
peace is total absurdity.

Palestinians do not want to continue getting killed, and Israelis do not want
to continue killing Palestinians or face the threat of suicide attacks.
Every time a Palestinian or Israeli is killed, there is deep grief and
outrage.

To any objective observer, the weaker party in the equation is the
Palestinian so they are the ones suffering the most. Then why are they
continuing against all odds to defy the strength of the Israeli army?
If you ask a Palestinian mother, father, old man or teenager why there is
outrage and confrontations, you will receive the same response: The
Occupation.

Palestinians are fed up with the Israeli military occupation of their
homeland. For Palestinians, this is the crux of the matter. Palestinians want
an independent state that will include the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with
its capital in East Jerusalem, territories that Israel occupied in the 1967
Arab-Israeli War.

Palestinians want to enjoy the same freedom of self-determination that the
Israelis enjoy a freedom that has for the last hundred years eluded them.

The two sides are locked in a dead grip. The Israelis want a peace with
security based on expansion, coercion and dictation; the Palestinians want
a peace based on justice, international agreements and UN resolutions.
Palestinians are resisting the plans of a greater Israel that includes
territories in the West Bank and Gaza as these will make a future Palestinian
state divided like islands in a sea of Israeli settlements and bypass roads.
The Israelis want to keep as much of this territory as possible regardless of
international law that says that an
occupier cannot annex or build on occupied territory. Israel has been doing
this systematically since 1967 and did not stop, even after the signing of
the Oslo Peace Accords.

According to Israeli sources, since Oslo more than 78,000 additional settlers
have gone to the territories, more than 11,000 houses have been built for
them, and 895 Palestinian houses have been destroyed by the army. Huge
amounts of land have been confiscated for the settlements and by-pass roads
to secure them.

As Christians, prayer and advocacy are the only means we have at our
disposal to expose and resist the evil that is going on in this land. In
recent weeks, the Israeli army has been killing Palestinians mercilessly
and targeting whole civilian populations throughout the West Bank in
their retaliatory measures.

The Christian villages of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour (Shepherds Fields), Aida
Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, and the El-Khader village (suburb of Beit Jala)
have sustained unbelievable bombardment from the Israeli war machines. The
attacks on Nov. 1, 2000 have caused unknown fatalities and injuries.

Many friends of the Bible College, including Bible College teachers, staff,
students and pastors, are unable to stay in their homes at this time due to
the heavy barrage of artillery being downloaded on them. Their safety and
well-being are in
jeopardy. Some in the community have suffered nervous breakdowns. Some have
gaping holes in the stone walls of their homes with fragments of shells and
missiles for interior decorating (compliments of the US government). Still
others have the water tanks on their roofs blown off or shot full of holes;
these tanks are used to store the periodic water rations allotted them by
the Israelis.

For Israel to assert that they are being victimized and threatened by the
Palestinians and the Arab world is illogical. One has only to look at the
results of the Arab summit to see that the Arab nations have no desire to
engage Israel in a military conflict.

Also, the Palestinians do not have an army with which to resist the Israeli
military offensive that is escalating daily. Their combined protests amount
to that of a stubborn child striking back at an abusive parent. The more
Israel escalates their

artillery bombardments, the more the Palestinians strike back.
The great imbalance of power here, militarily and economically, makes it
impossible
to negotiate a just peace. If the Oslo Peace Accords had gone beyond a
continued military occupation, we would be seeing progress on the ground
today and would be nearing a final-status agreement between the two sides.
For the last few years, Palestinians have exercised tremendous restraint in
the face of increasing doubt that the peace process would regain for them
their land, dignity and human rights.

Seeing the reality of the final-status talks proposed by Israel at Camp David
and the subsequent provocation at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Palestinians lost
faith in the peace process. When Albright and Clinton stress that
negotiations are the only
way to peace, Palestinians understand and shudder. Peace by
negotiation (the way it has been going) means continued occupation and
siege of their towns and villages, continued denial of the right of return
to Palestinian refugees, continued imprisonment of Palestinians, continued
land confiscation, continued travel restrictions, and continued economic
decline.

As Christians, we are not advocators of violence, whether it is Palestinian
violence directed against Israelis or Israeli aggression on Palestinian
human rights and human dignity. Both are forms of violence that need to
be eliminated. However, before peace can ensue, justice for the oppressed
must be implemented.

The Israelis are instigators of a two-fold violence. On the one hand they
have abused the legitimate rights of the Palestinians for decades by breaking
international laws and inflicting other subversive measures upon them, and
then they have
suppressed by their military might any uprising against their illegal
actions.

It us up to peace loving people everywhere to speak out against
the great injustice being perpetuated. It is up to peace loving people
everywhere to call on their governments to stop the massive and
disproportionate artillery attacks that are taking place against civilian
populations.
--Alex and Brenda Awad
-----------------