wfn.org | Mideast peace depends on end of occupation, delegation told

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

July 23, 2002       News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-21-71B{317}

NOTE: The name Zoughbi Zoughbi is correct.

By United Methodist News Service

Ending Israeli occupation is the only path to peace in the Middle East,
according to Palestinian and Israeli partners, religious leaders and human
rights advocates who are currently meeting with a United Methodist
delegation.

The Rev. Janet Horman, an executive with the United Methodist Board of
Church and Society, said the group has witnessed both the psychological toll
and physical destruction caused by the long-term occupation of the Israeli
military in the Palestinian territories.

"The occupation itself is so oppressive that it's really the root cause
right now of Palestinian resistance," she told United Methodist News Service
in a July 23 telephone interview.

The 13-member delegation, representing 12 different United Methodist annual
(regional) conferences, arrived July 19 in the Middle East as part of a
continuing effort to broaden the denomination's advocacy for a just and
lasting peace in Israel and the Palestinian lands. The United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries is co-sponsor of the trip.

Like other Palestinian towns, Bethlehem has been surrounded by Israeli
military checkpoints, which restrict entry and exit, for almost two years.
Delegation members learned that barbed-wire fences, trenches and earth
mounds created to block Palestinian vehicles have heightened the state of
siege there during the past two months. Daily curfews keep residents
imprisoned in their homes, except for a few hours every few days when the
curfew is lifted.

On July 20, the curfew was lifted for the first time in four days, so the
United Methodist delegation adjusted its schedule to visit mission partners.
One church conducted three graduations, two engagements, two baptisms and a
wedding during the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. break in curfew.

U.S. delegation members found it hard to imagine being under "house arrest"
day in and day out, according to Horman. "On Sundays, people aren't even
allowed to go to worship when a curfew is in place," she added.

Zoughbi Zoughbi, director of the Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution
Center, a United Methodist mission partner, told the group that the
combination of prolonged curfew and closure has had devastating effects on
the population. "It's a kind of psychological warfare on our sanity," he
said.

When the delegation visited Bethlehem on July 23 during another break in
curfew, the Rev. Mitri Rahed, pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church, told the
United Methodists that Palestinian children "were robbed of their spring"
because they were not allowed to go to school or play outside.

During lifts in curfew, movement is still restricted by the closures. "Even
when they're not imprisoned in their homes, they're imprisoned in their
cities," Horman noted.

Besides meeting with United Methodist missionaries in the area, the
delegation has spoken with His Beatitude Michel Sabbeah, the Latin patriarch
of Jerusalem; Bishop Riah Abu Al-Assal, the Episcopal bishop of Jerusalem;
and Ghassen Andoni, a physics professor and director of the Rapprochement
Center in Bethlehem.

Israeli contacts have included Terry Greenblat of Bat Shalom, an Israeli
women's peace group; Rabbi Arik Asherman, director of Rabbis for Human
Rights; Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against Home
Demolition; and a staff member of B'tselem, an Israeli human rights watch
group for the occupied territories.

On July 22, the delegation toured the outskirts of Jerusalem "to look at the
continuous growth of illegal settlements," Horman reported. Before returning
to the United States on July 30, the group also planned to spend the night
in a West Bank village and help rebuild a Palestinian home that had been
bulldozed.

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United Methodist News Service
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