by Dianne Poole
We have all been riveted on Gaza/Palestine, especially since October 7, 2023. When I learned about a Sabeel trip to Palestine scheduled for this past October, I expressed interest online and was contacted by a remarkable woman from Chicago, an American organizing the trip in conjunction with Sabeel in Jerusalem. Palestinian by birth, Rosana, her physician husband and their two adult children (one in Alaska, one in North Carolina) were forming the delegation. Ultimately, 13 of us — including two ministers, five young people in their 20’s (one a Native American, one an Irish student and one a Nicaraguan originally from Guatemala), plus two activists from Canada and Cambridge, respectively — formed a somewhat motley crew which almost instantly became family.
We were unsure until the last day if we would be able to make the trip because of the situation on the ground. We were given no itinerary until we arrived in Jerusalem since nothing could be known for sure, especially so close to the anniversary of the Hammas/Israeli crisis. We entered and exited the country via Amman, Jordan, and were advised to send travel notes and photos to “the cloud” for security’s sake. Our days — spent primarily in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — were long, challenging and safe, thanks to local coordination by Sabeel. Every evening a two-hour group “processing” meeting followed dinner.
Our itinerary included visiting a family-run Palestinian bookshop being continually harassed by the IDF but providing tea and comfortable reading space for visitors; the AlAqsa Mosque, built in the 7th century and forcibly closed by Settlers and IDF forces the week after we departed and its site, the Temple Mount; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and Augusta Victoria Hospital at the Mount of Olives (where we actually harvested olives); the mostly-abandoned Lifta Village (where the IDF were clearly not happy to see us); the Shufat Refugee Camp (where children excitedly followed us and asked our “Povi” — a Pueblo Indian from New Mexico — if she lived in a camp, too; the partially-destroyed home of Fakhri Abu Diab in Silwan, East Jerusalem; as well as the Armenian Quarter in the Old City, where we met with a youth organization trying to preserve the Cow’s Garden, an open land area under threat of immediate occupation.
Note: the day after we returned to the U.S., we received frantic calls, texts and videos from Fakhri’s wife Amina, who had generously hosted a luncheon for us on her patio the week prior. “The bulldozers are back,” she cried. They completed the demolition of her home and the homes of 13 other families in the neighborhood that day: 56 people were suddenly without shelter because Netanyahu plans to build a “Garden of David” and a Settlement there. “We only wanted to live in peace with our family,” she said.
We also met with members of the Community Peace Teams (CPT), which is working in non-violent advocacy with Palestinians living in the H2 area of Hebron City. As we walked the narrow roadway, with empty shops on both sides, two children caught up with us. We asked them why there were tarps overhead, covering the roadway: “People (Settlers) on the hilltop throw garbage and rocks down at us.” When we stopped to chat longer with them, a rifle was pointed at us through an overhead grate. The children immediately dashed off. “You can’t stay here,” the attached voice announced.
“Why not?” our guide asked. “Rules! Now move! I’m from New York, and I know you’re Americans.” When we later caught up with the kids, we asked, “Were you afraid?” “No,” one responded matter-of-factly. “We just didn’t want to be shot.” Part of that day we were joined by a Black clergy delegation from the US with the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine (EAPPI).
In Bethlehem, we met with the founder of Dar Al-Kalima University, the first and only institution of higher education in Palestine focused on the performing arts, visual arts and cultural heritage — and later with the Parents’ Circle-Families Forum. It is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members in the conflict. Devastating experiences have united parents in their shared grief.
Northwest of Bethlehem, we met Alice Kissieh and her mother in the Al Makhrour Valley (Beit Jala). It is an integral part of a UNESCO World Heritage site where local communities reflect ancient farming practices and cultivate apricots, figs, grapes and olives. The Israeli government is threatening to annex the fertile valley. Alice and her mother are publicly fighting the threat and invited us to visit their home — from adjacent property. It is now occupied by an IDF soldier.
The “Tent of Nations” is a large, but diminishing by encroachment, tract of olive groves owned by the Nassar family since 1916. We spent almost a full day there, harvesting olives and sharing a meal with other workers. For several years, the family has invited international volunteers to live on the property to cultivate and harvest the fruit, providing a buffer of sorts from the Occupation. Nonetheless, Daoud Nassar continues to be required to appear in court, with all of his proper paperwork, to fight to prevent the farm’s confiscation.
We also visited the farm of Kaled Karkar, Rosanna’s cousin, in the Jordan Valley. He and his mother told us about leaving Jerusalem during the Nakba and settling in the valley near Ramallah. Originally, they grew and exported a variety of citrus crops but Settlers are now residing on all sides of his farm. They have diverted the water so his land is now arid. He is instead growing dates but is finding it difficult to get them to market because of increasing Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade.
Our last morning was spent in powerful conversations with two Palestinian women: Hind Shraydeh, a human rights defender and writer who works for the national branch of Transparency International. Her work covers human rights and the conditions of political prisoners. Budour Hassan is a journalist and legal researcher based in Jerusalem. She studied international law and currently works for Amnesty International. Although blind, her work brings to light untold stories of Palestine. She is a passionate advocate.
During our final afternoon, we met the family of Layan Nasser, a 23-year-old student who graduated from Birzeit University last year. She is now a nutritionist but has been in detention since April after a night time arrest at gunpoint at her parents’ home in Jerusalem. Layan had previously been arrested for six weeks in 2023 (“for making peanut butter sandwiches for fellow student activists,” explained her mother) but released. There are, of course, two sets of laws in Israel/Palestine. Palestinians can be held in detention centers for four months at a time without charges — and without visitors. After her second arrest, Layan was denied a trial and/or release in August and then rescheduled for trial in November. Three days after our US elections, she was again denied a trial or release, and again was not told of the charges against her. Her case was rescheduled for December. Her family cannot visit her in Haifa, and her two attorneys are afraid to visit her for fear of being arrested themselves.
Our experiences were powerful, painful and important to witness and share. We never heard anti-semitic remarks, just simple facts from determined and resilient people. When we asked individual Palestinians what we might possibly do to help, they responded similarly to the Salvadoran contras I met in 1997 and the Kenyans I met in 2007: “Tell our stories. Just tell our stories. Someone will hear. Someone MUST hear.” (Kenyan friends added: “We are the people God forgot.”)
Sabeel, the trip sponsor, is an ecumenical Christian organization that has been peacemaking since its inception in Palestine in the 1980s. In Arabic, “sabeel” means “the water” or “the way.” I originally learned of the organization in the 90’s when a delegation of young Christian, Jewish and Muslim students spent a weekend on our parish house floor on Martha’s Vineyard, as they experienced interfaith travel across the country in an effort to create mutual connections and friendships.
I later spent a week in Jerusalem in 2009 at a St. George’s (Anglican) Cathedral history course, en route to the US — the long way around! — after serving for three years at a mission hospital in rural Kenya. At that time, Jerusalem was bustling with tourists and lines to visit the “holy sites” were long. Fifteen years later, it is vastly different, with minimal foot or vehicle traffic and shuttered shops and hotels. Only the barbed wire, concrete walls and shining white settlements atop the hills have increased. Oh. And the guns.
Sorry. TMI. But there are too many more stories that we are all hearing every day…
Dianne Poole visited the West Bank on Oct. 13-23, 2024. She lives in Barrington, RI.