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Hebron: Is it Normal?
Donna Hicks, Christian Peacemakers Team, Palestine

I finished my annual three month rotation with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron in January 2008. While I was on the team I read an essay setting out the Episcopal Church's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and actions to implement that policy - but not necessarily including nonviolent direct action and public witness.

The facts on the ground, however, have led me to ask:  Am I - are we - called to more?

I am called to "strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being."  It is normal to do that in Hebron as I struggle every day to reach the humanity of those I perceive as Other or Enemy.  On the other hand, have I become complicit in the occupation itself as I document human rights abuses and work to convince Israeli soldiers and settlers there is another way.  Am I making the Occupation more bearable, while not making a difference in ending it?  Is the Occupation normal now?

Is it normal for Palestinian children to have to pass through a checkpoint and metal detector and to have their school bags searched by Israeli border police or soldiers.  Is it normal to see a five-year-old cringe from a soldier at a checkpoint because he doesn't know if the soldier will yell at him, or take his bag and search it, or smile and wave him on?

Is it normal for the Palestinian community to have to walk under heavy wire mesh to keep debris thrown by Israeli settlers from hitting them?

Is it normal for Palestinian men moving through metal detectors at the mosque gate to the Old City to have to empty their pockets, remove their belts, and sometimes take off their jackets and lift their shirts?  Is it normal for the police to beat up a fifteen-year-old after arresting him for allegedly carrying a knife?  Is it normal to arrest Palestinians whom settlers assaulted but let the settlers go without consequences?

Khalas! Enough!

Many Palestinians, when asked by citizens of the U.S. what they can do to help, say, "Change the policies of the government!"  Easier said than done.  I believe the time has come for people to stand in nonviolent public witness in the seats of power, naming to the powers-that-be what impedes the peace and what builds it.

When we worked Palestinian agricultural land in between two Israeli settlements, it was an act of resistance to the Israeli settlers whose goal was to take the land for themselves.  We turned swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

In the forty-first year of the Occupation and the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba, let us say "Khalas! Enough of war and the Occupation!"