Peacemaking

The Color of Healing

Let us pray:

Pray not for Arab or Jew, for Palestinian or Israeli; but pray for ourselves that we may not divide them in our prayers, but keep them together in our hearts.

Amen.

William Dalrymple wrote in From the Holy Mountain, "One of the most depressing aspects of Israel and the West Bank is the degree of separation between the two peoples who share the Holy Land.... The few places where Palestinians and Israelis meet side by side on equal terms - such as in prayer at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron - are famous for their tensions rather than for playing any part in bringing together the two mutually antagonistic peoples. The divide appears to be too deep to be bridged."

He tells the story of a shrine in Beit Jala, a village outside Bethlehem. For Christians, the shrine is commemorated as the birthplace of St. George; for Jews, the burial place of the prophet Elias; for Muslims, the home of their saint Khidr, or Khadr, the green one. It is likely, Dalrymple tells, that George was a Palestinian Christian who served in the Roman army during the 3rd-4th century of the Common Era, and was martyred for refusing to worship pagan gods. It is likely that Crusaders brought the story of George back with them to Europe; Edward III of England made George the patron of the Knights of the Garter in 1348. (But that gets us into empire and that's not where I want to go.) In the early twentieth century, the three faith communities still visited the shrine and prayed together. Today, Palestinian Muslims and Christians come to seek the intercession of the saint whom they both call 'the Green One'.

Dalrymple continues, "On the one hand, then as now, St. George is seen as a fertility symbol, a sort of baptized Green Man; on the other he is the Soldier Saint, the combater of demons and the divine champion against the power of evil."

In the verses preceding the reading from 1 Kings, God sent Elijah to Zarephath in Sidon, which if I read the map correctly was north of and outside the territory of the tribes of Israel. He stayed with a widow and her son, whom he healed. In the passage from Matthew, we find Jesus in the region of Tyre and Sidon, healing the daughter of a Canaanite woman. Someone has stepped out of their 'territory' and asked for healing. Someone else has stepped out of theirs and healed.

I've heard it said that green is the color of healing. Yet when I go to Hebron before all the leaves are out, before the grass has turned green, before all the shrubs have leafed out and bloomed here, I have a hard time when I come back to Durham. There's too much green. It's oppressive. It's hard to breathe. It's blinding. It's too much.

Yet I've been told that green is the color of healing.

So having experienced that 'things' are always worse when I return to Hebron than when I left, I look for sources and examples of healing.

The front gate of the Abu Haikel house on Tel Rumeida in Hebron opens to the Israeli settlement enclave built on piers above the archaeological site of David's capital city before he moved on to Jerusalem. Their grape vines lie next to a Palestinian home which has been taken over by settlers. A bit down the hill past that house, another Palestinian home has been taken over by the Israeli military. Hani Abu Haikel refuses to turn to violence in the face of the Israeli settlers' violence towards him and his family. The violence has manifested in the settlers throwing garbage into the Abu Haikel garden, in stoning the children as they go to and from school, in throwing rocks, bottles, and other debris at the house, breaking out windows and frightening the children who try to play in their yard. It has manifested in settlers jeering and calling out "We hope you die", when Hani's father was taken away in an ambulance, and in having a street party to celebrate his death less than a month later.

Hani's and his family's steadfastness in not turning to violence towards the settlers and in staying in their home under difficult conditions is the color of healing.

The color of healing is in Hani's son Jamil, who when he sees CPTers in the market runs to meet us, calling our names, and greeting us with a handshake and a big smile.

The color of healing is in the Israeli soldier who let a large tour group, accompanied by my teammate Jerry Levin and me, pass through a checkpoint through which we had been denied passage for most days. As I called the CPT office from the far side of the checkpoint before I went up the hill, the soldier walked over and said, "I've called the [checkpoint ] at the top of the hill to let them know you're coming. Be careful." (CPTers have been egged and stoned by Israeli settlers when they've gone up that hill and around the corner near the Tel Rumeida settlement enclave.)

The color of healing is in the Israeli border police officer who, after having chased some Israeli settler boys who had been throwing rocks at us, said, "I don't have any trouble from the Palestinian boys. It's the settler boys who give me trouble."

The color of healing is in the thirty-two Israeli peace activists who came to Hebron on 21 May to visit Palestinian families who live on Tel Rumeida, to hear their stories, and to stand in solidarity with them against the violence of the Israeli occupation. The visitors were arrested by the Israeli police because they had dared to travel without a permit in territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

You will have noticed that my colors of healing are resoundingly quiet on healing from the settler side of things. The experience with settlers in Hebron tends to be less than pleasant. Hebron settlers are some of the most ideologically radical of all settlers, most of whom live in the settlements for economic reasons.

David Wilder, spokesperson for the Hebron settler community, wrote about the massive gathering of settlers and their supporters in late July at the Kissufim checkpoint going into Gaza. "The definition of Kissufim in a Hebrew-English dictionary will likely be 'yearning' or 'craving'. Kissufim really is a major junction...not only connecting Gush Katif to the rest of Israel, but also linking Am Israel...to Eretz Israel, to our homeland. For thousands of years...a spiritual clinging to Hebron...a soul-hunger so strong, so deep, so transcendental that it outlasted the most rampant, virulent anti-Semitic hate for Jews, these kissufim, these desires, they kept the Jewish people alive....The Kissufim, the yearning for our land, for our cities, for our very soul, was stronger than knives, axes, and guns."

Powerfully spoken, strongly felt. Based on my experience of Hebron settlers, I have to work hard on not saying "But the settlers are clear that it is their intention to rid Hebron of all its Arabs". Yet CPT has delivered letters of condolence to Israelis whose colleagues, family members, or friends have been killed by Palestinian militants. Bottom line: the violence is wrong no matter who perpetrates or maintains it.

But where is the color of healing? For me it is in seeking and finding, looking in the eye and acknowledging the humanity in The Other, be they Arab or Jew, Palestinian or Israeli, or ourselves. And that can be hard to do.

The British composer Richard Shephard takes a text from Isaiah and from the Revelation to John for an anthem:

For a long time I have held my peace, but now will I speak.
I will lead the blind in a way they know not, in paths they have not known I will guide them.
I will turn their darkness into light, and I will not forsake them.
And he showed me a pure river of the water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God;
and on either side of the river was there a tree of life, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations.

These are the colors of healing. May we seek them out and build on them, and in doing so not oppress or be oppressed. May we breathe deeply, and not be blinded. It must not be too much.

4 August 2005

Prayer Vigil for Peace in the Middle East
St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham NC

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