wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Talk of the town

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8514 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04444
October 6, 2004

Talk of the town

PC(USA) divestment decision sparks huge interest in Bethlehem

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Though most church pronouncements don't filter down to the pews,
one decision by the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly this summer
made it: the vote to "initiate the process of phased selective divestment "
from U.S. companies who profit from Israel's occupation of the Palestinian
territories.

	That decision even reached the pews in Bethlehem - THE Bethlehem -
the West Bank city that Scripture says was the birthplace of Jesus.

	Divestment news was on television and radio. It was in the newspaper,
both Israeli and Palestinian. It was the subject of talk between neighbors,
both Christian and Muslim.

	The consensus: this is the first move by a U.S. church beyond
pronouncement  to direct action in response to an increasingly desperate
political situation.

	"Yes, it was big news here. Everybody was talking about it," said
Father Jamal Khader, a Catholic priest who is a chaplain at Bethlehem
University on the edge of the city's limits. "This is the first time in a
long time that we've heard of anything concrete being done, not just opposing
(the occupation) in words."

	 Khader should know. Everyday he walks past the 25-foot high concrete
wall that is under construction now along the north side of Bethlehem,
cutting off its 150,000 inhabitants from Jerusalem and swallowing up the
empty fields that separate a heavily populated Christian section of the city
from the nearby Jewish settlement of Gilo.

	The highly militarized wall runs adjacent to the location of Rachel's
Tomb, customarily reputed to be the burial place of the mother of Joseph,
who, the Bible says, was buried along the road to Bethlehem. Sacred to both
Jews and Muslims, the tiny tomb is now being annexed to Jerusalem. Formerly a
mosque, the shrine is a Jewish holy site - surrounded by concrete bunkers,
watchtowers and dozens of armed soldiers in camouflage.

	"Caterpillar's bulldozers are out there working all day," said
Khader, referring to the U.S. heavy equipment company that's the symbol of
the occupation for Palestinians whose homes have been leveled and whose land
has been swallowed up by the wall. Caterpillar is the initial focus of the
PC(USA)'s divestment policy.

	"When I heard the mention of that name Caterpillar, I thought, 'The
Presbyterians are serious about this,'" Khader said.

	The Israeli government argues that the concrete wall - and miles of
razor-wire fence - is a protective barrier, sealing out suicide bombers.

	But Palestinians - and the international human rights community -
contend that the wall is more invasive than defensive, gobbling up
Palestinian land far inside the "Green Line" border established after
Israel's victory in the 1967 war. It some areas it separates Palestinians
from Palestinians and families from their fields, schools and relatives.
Israel's highest court has order parts of the wall rerouted to adhere more
closely to the "Green Line."

	"The future is bleak here," said one Bethlehem businessman who asked
not to be identified, citing the route of the barrier and the militarization
of Rachel's Tomb. "We complain, but who is going to listen? Its up and down
here, like a see-saw."

	He said that the Presbyterian action was in the news for a day or so,
but there hasn't been a follow up story since then. "It was good news, I
thought," he said.

	To Christians - a dwindling minority in the city known for Jesus'
birth - the divestment news evoked two reactions:

	It is reassuring to know that the western church hadn't forgotten
them;  and

	There is renewed respect from Muslim neighbors, who began questioning
why the Islamic nations hadn't undertaken a similar strategy - a conversation
that hadn't been so open before.

	"It's a sign of hope for us," said Father Majdi Siriyani, the pastor
of a Catholic church in Beit Sahour, a small city burrowed into the hillsides
next to Bethlehem and, according to local lore, the site of the shepherds'
fields where the angels announced Jesus' birth.

	Although Siriyani called his congregation's attention to the
newspaper article on the divestment action from the pulpit, he didn't really
need to. People were already acquainted with Presbyterians through the
church's longtime ties to PC(USA) churches, including Peachtree Presbyterian
Church in Atlanta.

	"These (PCUSA) people weren't pilgrims just passing by. They came.
They came back. They wrote. We talked ... and after they came and saw, they
went back and stood up for justice," he said, adding that his parishioners
understand that wasn't easy to do, given the Bush administration's almost
unqualified support of Israel's occupation.

	"The whole situation here is impossible for a human being to take,"
Siriyani said, describing the four years since this Intifada (Palestinian
uprising) began, leading to a protracted crackdown in the territories that
has put entire cities under house arrest, prohibited workers from entering
Israel and is economically strangling the civilian population.

	"People are being killed on a daily basis. Houses are being
demolished. This evening it took me two and one-half hours to cross 15 miles
from Ramallah to Bethlehem, with the checkpoints ... Any sign of hope is, for
us, hope," said Siriyani, who is also a lawyer with the Catholic archdiocese
in Jerusalem, and who has a permit to travel between there and Bethlehem.

	The Rev. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in
Bethlehem's Old City, was in Richmond during the 216th General Assembly and
urged the PC(USA) to do more than issue another statement decrying the
political situation in Israel/Palestine. When he returned home, he said, Al
Quds - the largest Arabic-language newspaper in the region - had put the
church's action on its front page.

	That was a first.

	"It's a disaster here," he said. "People see the wall progressing
around them every day. The north side is almost completed now, towards
Jerusalem. I think they'll start working then on other parts, to the west and
the east, as well."

	Raheb said his neighbors and his parishioners see the PC(USA)'s
action as a practical response to the suffering of Palestinians. But for him,
the hope lies not in this action alone, but in what it may signal - a less
passive approach by U.S. churches to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

	"This is just the start, not the end," he said. "No one can say this
wall is good."

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org