Pastor finds demolition of Palestinian homes continues

When the Rev. Doug Wingeier first visited the home of Abdel Jawad Jabber, in the Beqa'a Valley east of Hebron, the Palestinian farmer was watching bulldozers uproot his grapevines to make way for a new concrete bypass road on land taken from him by the Israeli government.

At the time - November 1997 - the house of Jabber's son, Atta, also was under a demolition order, allegedly for being built without a permit. Their situation, said Wingeier, a retired United Methodist pastor and member of the denomination's Wisconsin Annual (regional) Conference, was similar to many families in the West Bank.

Upon his return to the site in February, the pastor learned that Atta's house had been demolished, rebuilt, and then demolished again.

"As I look across the valley, I see first a big gas station built at the corner of the bypass road and a new road leading up to the (Jewish) settlement, both built on land confiscated from Abdel Jawad since I was last here," Wingeier recently recounted to the congregation at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville, N.C., where he and his wife, Carol, are active participants.

"And across the hillside opposite me directly behind his (Abdel's) house, has been constructed a huge wall, 35 feet high and 75 yards long, made of gigantic stone blocks - ostensibly to protect' the settlement above from the 'terrorist' family below."

Wingeier is a former missionary who taught for 22 years at what is now Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Ill. He was working as a volunteer teacher at Bethlehem Bible College in 1997 when he made the visit to Hebron. It was there that he became interested in the work of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a project of the Mennonites, Friends and Church of the Brethren. CPT, which seeks to rectify injustice in nonviolent ways, has maintained a presence in Hebron since 1995, at the invitation of the Hebron Municipality.

In January 1999, Wingeier took a three-and-a-half-week training program with CPT in the Chicago area. His return to Hebron from Feb. 4 to March 4 of this year was his first assignment with the group.

Back in the Beqa'a Valley, he joined 13 other CPT team members, 25 Israeli activists and about 15 Palestinians in a "Buckets of Soil" action. Participants carried the soil as far up the hill toward the Jewish settlement as police and soldiers allowed them to go, then dumped the soil in a symbolic action against the confiscation of Palestinian land.

But Wingeier said he found no progress regarding the issue of confiscated land since his previous visit. "On the Israeli side, I would say the names have changed but the game remains the same," he added.

He said he considers the current prime minister, Ehud Barak, to be smoother than his predecessor but untrustworthy. "More land has been confiscated under his administration than has been turned back so far through the peace process," Wingeier explained.

On the Palestinian side, the pastor said he had received a strong sense "that they've lost faith in their leadership. Corruption and human rights abuses and selling out the peace process combine to destroy the faith of the Palestinian people in Yasir Arafat and those gathered around him."

The suspicions and mistrust among Palestinians also is contributing to the disintegration of the social fabric of their society, he added. Wingeier found the only signs of hope were "among people who, with just amazing pluck and determination, keep on keeping on."

During his stay in Hebron, a United Methodist Board of Global Ministries delegation - including staff members and jurisdictional coordinators for volunteers-in-mission - visited the area. Robert Walton, a board executive said they were considering involvement in several projects there.

The Board of Global Ministries also has initiated a new program called "Faithful and Responsible: United Methodist Encounters in the Holy Land." It assists United Methodist groups in planning tours in Israel/Palestine that incorporate contact with Palestinian Christians, visits to ministries, projects and organizations supported by the church or volunteer work opportunities. "Our team could coordinate their whole trip if they'd like," Walton said.

More information is available by calling Walton at (212) 870-3825 or sending an e-mail to umcvisits@juno.com.

See also: Human Rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories