The Other Side of Jerusalem

A Spring Break trip post.

On our group’s first morning in Israel/Palestine, we took a tour of East Jerusalem with ICAHD (Israeli Commission Against Home Demolitions). This impressive non-governmental organization has documented over 25,000 Israeli demolitions of Palestinian buildings in the West Bank since 1967, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began. If Palestinian buildings are in the way of a planned construction site, then they are destroyed. Offices, shops, homes. 25,000 of them.  

In urban areas, legal justification for these demolitions usually takes the form of absurd regulations that apply only to Palestinian buildings. For example, in East Jerusalem, Palestinians cannot construct additions or even make significant repairs without first receiving a permit from the Israeli government -- a permit that is almost never granted. Additions and repairs to Palestinian buildings are meticulously monitored, and any addition or repair made without a permit constitutes sufficient grounds to tear down the building. If it is destroyed, and if the Palestinians who reside there are unable to rebuild, then they must move. And if they move, then the land belongs to the Israeli government. Game over.

Especially in East Jerusalem, the stakes are high. As many of you know, Jerusalem is a highly contested area, and the issue of its ownership is one of the biggest roadblocks to a long-term peace resolution. The city is divided: West Jerusalem is part of the internationally recognized nation-state of Israel, and East Jerusalem is part of the West Bank, largely inhabited by Palestinians who are under Israeli occupation. For years, the Israeli government has unequivocally claimed that Jerusalem is and shall be its undivided capital. Most Palestinians, however, want East Jerusalem to be the future capital of a Palestinian state. Hence the roadblock.  

But Israel seems to have found a way around it. Approximately 40% of Israel’s West Bank settlers (200,000 of 500,000) reside in East Jerusalem. A significant presence. While these settlers live quite comfortably, they are surrounded by Palestinian slums. Why are they slums? Because no one can make repairs. Because Israeli civil services, such as garbage pick-up, do not serve them. Because the Israeli government is slowly but surely suffocating East Jerusalem, and if they succeed, perhaps the world will not grieve the carcass of a Palestinian shantytown. Then it can be resuscitated...as a fully Israeli community. And Jerusalem will be undivided. Game over. 

Sorry for the tangent, but this is all very important stuff. I was just describing the legal justification for Israeli demolitions of Palestinian buildings in urban areas, and now I’d like to describe their purported justification in rural areas. 

Basically, the Israeli government makes unreasonable requests for documentation that verifies Palestinian ownership of land. If a Palestinian family cannot present this documentation to the Israeli authorities, then that family has no right to the land they live on. 

Why is this request unreasonable? Because virtually no one has such documentation! We’re talking about rural, largely agrarian communities. Their lifestyle today isn’t all that different from their lifestyle hundreds of years ago -- and many of these families were right there hundreds of years ago. But if they can’t prove it in the precise way that the Israeli government wants them to prove it, then they can be kicked out, just like that. 

This history of demolition and seizure is a longstanding and seemingly impenetrable injustice that ruins lives. 

And yet, stories of hope exist. One such story is the Tent of Nations. 

Towards the middle of the trip, our group had the privilege of visiting a Palestinian Christian community called the Tent of Nations (www.tentofnations.org). Located just outside of Bethlehem, this community is all too familiar with the threat of demolitions. Four Israeli settlements surround it, and the Israeli government wants to link these settlements with roads. Under ordinary circumstances, the government would have kicked them out long ago and begun building. But the circumstances at the Tent of Nations are extraordinary: somehow, residents have managed to hold onto registration papers from 1916, during Ottoman rule! These rare papers prove that these families have a right to live there, and the Israeli government has been forced to honor that right.

Well, sort of. You see, for decades now, the Israeli government has made life as miserable as possible for this small Christian community. They are not allowed to build anything. So, they have renovated caves. They are denied access to running water and electricity. So, international volunteers have set up solar power generators. They have been treated unfairly and are thus tempted to harbor hatred in their hearts. So, they’ve set up a peace center and have adopted the motto “We refuse to be enemies.”

A glimpse of the Kingdom. Praise be to God.