AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Privilege in Palestine and Pennsylvania

Facebook
Twitter
Email
WhatsApp
Print

CPTnet
24 September 2015
AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Privilege in
Palestine and Pennsylvania

by Lowell Brown

A month ago I visited
Israel and Palestine for the first time to learn about the Israel-Palestine
conflict. Instead, I learned about the United States. That place, seven hours
ahead of my home time, made me feel like I was living in an America past.

When I rode past the
barrier separating Israel from the land outside, I wondered about the origins
of Wall Street in New York City. When I saw Palestinians get off the bus at a checkpoint
to have their documents reviewed while the border guard hopped on the bus to
glance at my U.S. passport, I couldn’t help thinking of Rosa Parks. When I
heard stories of how Palestinians lost their homes to demolitions, evictions,
arson and unemployment, I thought about the Lenape who used to live where I
live in central Pennsylvania—but over the course of decades were pushed to
reservations in Oklahoma.

The guns are different,
the land is different, but the ideologies are the same. People with power—people
like me—use any means to take what we want. We talk a good line about laws and
rights, but deep down we’re selfish, and fearful. We’re afraid of strangers,
afraid of scarcity, afraid of death, and we do everything in our power to keep
those fears at bay.

Israel also reminds me of
America present. It is a vibrant, democratic society, with amazing cultural and
educational institutions. But when I saw Bedouins, who were Israeli citizens,
deprived of the public water that ran right past their door, I thought about
sub-par schools and missing medical services in many poor U.S. neighborhoods.

In the U.S., as in
Israel, human need is politicized. Contested. Justified. Ignored. People like
me can pick and choose whom we care about. We don’t have time to engage issues
that don’t affect us. The world is full of problems. Someone else will figure
it out; it will turn out okay in the end.

As my interfaith
delegation talked to Palestinians and Israelis, I heard several themes emerge.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is too big for any one person to solve, and yet I
have come back with a few modest proposals to change myself. 

  1. On the rare occasion that I have a conversation with someone who
    doesn’t agree with my values, I resolve to say what I think. As Protestant pastor
    Martin Niemöller said following World War II, “First they came for the
    Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist….” Or, as the
    New York gay rights group Act Up succinctly proclaimed in the 1980s, “Silence =
    Death.”
  2. Many people who my Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation met
    encouraged us to write to our U.S. senators and representatives. I admit that I
    often think the U.S. political process is unwieldy and ineffective. But if
    people in Palestine and Israel see the U.S. Congress as a way for their voices
    to be heard, then I will write. I used a link at the bottom of https://mcc.org/get-involved/advocacy/alert/stand-solidarity-susiya.
    The automatically generated letters (which reference a beleaguered Palestinian
    village we visited) can be edited.
  3. Finally, I’ve been thinking about the young settlers pictured
    here, walking to Friday evening Shabbat services in Hebron. They
    carry guns as they pass Palestinian women, who have been given a court order
    that allows them to use the same road because they live nearby. These young men
    don’t think of themselves as oppressors, or their home as stolen land. They’re
    just kids who grew up in Hebron. This is the only reality they know.

    In the same way, my
    people have been in Lancaster County for more than a dozen generations. I don’t
    have any memory of pushing Indians out of Pennsylvania, or trying to make them
    Christian at the Carlisle Indian School. I just grew up enjoying the wealth
    that comes from land my people acquired in a variety of questionable, devious
    and disgusting ways. So I’m thinking about what my responsibility is to Native
    Americans.

    If I don’t want to be
    like these kids, what do I owe to the Lenape?

 

Read More Stories

An aerial view of Oak Flat lands, red stones and mountains under a blue sky with a layer of white clouds

Kill the sacred or stop the mine

At Oak Flat, the capitalist powers of destruction seem to want to play God – but how does one destroy all that sustains life in favour of scars of death?

A compilation of the logos of the undersigned organizations

Sekiz Yıllık Şiddet, Ayrımcılık, Tecrit ve Dışlanma

Mart 2016’da AB-Türkiye Mutabakaı’nın yayınlandığında, devletlerin mültecilerin haklarını koruma konusundaki uluslararası yükümlülüklerini tamamen göz ardı etmesi nedeniyle insan hakları grupları tarafından şiddetle kınanmıştı

A compilation of the logos of the undersigned organizations

Eight years of Violence, Discrimination, Segregation, and Exclusion 

On the eighth anniversary of the EU-Turkey Statement, we denounce Turkey and EU states’ consistent failure to uphold their international obligations with regard to migrants and refugees, and strengthen our joint commitment to challenge all official and unofficial policies that lead to the discrimination, segregation, and ultimately exclusion of migrants.

Skip to content