 Missionaries React To Intensified Middle East Violence |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
As fighting intensifies in the middle east, missionaries assigned to the area by the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) are experiencing first hand the death, devastation, and deprivation that they report has become a fact of life in Palestinian cities. Since violence intensified in the region more than 160 Palestinians and nearly 60 Israelis have been killed. Earlier this week the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution endorsing a Palestinian state. In the following excerpts, GBGM missionaries share their views on the violence in Middle East urge United Methodists to appeal to "your congressional representatives and add your voice to the voices of Israelis and Palestinians who are tired of the bloodshed." Describing the occupation of the Left Bank and the Gaza Strip as "the oppressive rod that is causing the breakdown and despair of the Palestinian people," the Rev. Alex Awad, a GBGM missionary serving as a pastor in Bethlehem, writes: "In a typical invasion, the privacy and sanctity of the home is desecrated as Israeli forces take hostages, occupy homes and destroy the humble belongings of an oppressed and impoverished people (many of whom are refugees). Automobiles parked in the streets are mowed down with blatant disregard." Awad also shares reports of attacks on and deaths of several people during invasions, writing, "people are left to pick up the pieces of their already broken lives." All Israel has to do to stop the bloodbath, Awad continues, "is to end the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." Sandra Olewine, a United Methodist missionary serving in Palestine writes that on a school day children in Bethlehem and "most of the Palestinian areas are not in their classrooms: because days ago three Israeli tanks occupied the premises" of the Dar al-Kalima Model School, which enrolls 240 children. Israeli authorities eventually yielded to pressure to withdraw the tanks and allow inspectors onto the school premises, which were badly damaged. Olewine wrote, "These acts of vandalism by the fourth strongest army in the world make us wonder what is so offensive about the Dar al-Kalima School, which our students have proudly decorated with writings and artworks that talk about nonviolence, peace and dialogue between peoples? What is so offensive to an Israeli soldier about a child's painting of a clock that teaches him to organize his day, leading him to throw it to the floor and step on it?"
In another dispatch, Olewine recounts the reaction of people to the approach of bomber plane: "I think everyone knew what was going to happen. Suddenly the jet squealed through the sky like someone all of a sudden hit the gas, and then the explosion. With each successive strike one jet would speed over and, in what felt like a minute or two later, a second jet would come and drop a bomb." She describes as "amazing" news reports of Israeli bombing in "heavily populated" Palestinian cities that describe damage to buildings but give "no accounts of the terror of the children and adults alike, screaming, huddling together, completely helpless to protect yourself or anyone else." The effect on the children of the occupied areas is described in a letter Olewine received from Marina Barham, a friend, who manages a local theater group in Beit Jala that uses drama to help heal children traumatized by the violence: "It is not normal for children to wake up on sounds of missiles, bombs and tanks. It is not normal for babies to die with their mothers, because they have not been allowed to get to hospital. It is not normal for children to die on their way to school, and for fathers, and brothers to get killed on their way to work," Barham writes. See How to Help for a list of suggested actions.
Date posted: Mar 13, 2002 |
|||||||||
