I did a great deal of walking yesterday. After climbing the Mount of Olives I decided to walk back into the Old City by a different route and found myself in a small Israeli National Park called Zurim Valley and then following a trail through it and beyond. It was beautiful with lots of old olive trees, wild flowers, greenery and even sheep grazing. It had splendid views over Jerusalem and well as a wonderful walk in the valley below it and I found myself totally on my own except for 2 or 3 people tending it who were obviously Arab.
I had wanted to sit in my favourite church on the Mount of Olives called Dominus Flavit, but, as usual, there was a tourist group having a service inside and it was impossible to even get close to it. I had also wanted to discover for myself the location of the Israeli Defence Force military college that is due to be built on top of the Mount. Just behind the famous landmarks lie many Palestinian communities. Must they be dispossessed to make way for the college? Being all alone in this wonderful landscape sent me into a meditiation.
I remembered my visit to Yad Vashem with EAPPI when I was a serving EA in 2009/10. The museum opens onto a beautiful park below with the words saying that nothing like the horrors the Jews had endured should happen to the Jewish people again. The irony being that the beautiful parkland lies on the ruins of a destroyed Palestinian village. So here I was again in a beautiful area created on the ruins of other people's homes.
Last night I went to see the film 'The Gatekeepers' in West Jerusalem. That was an amazing experience; to be sitting among an audience of Israelis watching an Isreli made film that acknowledges that their behaviour towards the Palestinians has created terrorism for them rather than security.
I find myself in an interesting position with my own Jewish roots, in that I can understand from the Jewish perspective why they want to create such spaces in their land, except this particular space in not actually their land. It is in land annexed by Israel. Every country demolishes buildings to make way for civic improvement, the difference here is that most democratic Western countries (and Israel claims to be such a country), compensate those who loose property and ensure that they are properly housed and have their rights respected. This is more about one privileged group of people wanting to get rid of those they do not want cluttering up 'their' land and just disposessing them. Before someone points out that there are actually many countires that do such things around the world, it is true, but does not make it right anywhere.
Today I caught a bus and went to vist a vineyard called Cremisan. It is close to Bethlehem and has a Catholic monastery and a convent where quality wine is produced in the most beautiful surroundings. The vineyard lies on Palestinian land, but Israel has already stopped them from producing their best Marsala wine, because it says that a chemical used in the process could be used for explosives. Israel has also tried to market the wine as Israeli. Now, for 'security' reasons, Israel wants to put the Wall right through the middle ofit, ensuring that the vineyard and monastery are then in Israel and the convent and school run by the nuns remains in Palestine. The Wall is already being built despite court proceedings.
On the hillside opposite the vineyard, stands the huge Israeli settlement of Gilo. The so-called security barrier could have run through the valley below and seperated the settlement from the monastery land. When the route was first considered a great deal of pressure was put on the RC church and all the benifits of being in Israel were sold to them. The convent gives school places to local Palestinian children and certainly was not prepared to find themselves cut off from their pupils, so now Israel is building a barrier dividing the monastery and convent leaving one in Palestine and taking the other, the profitable one, into Israel.
Is there any way to describe such a situation other than wanton, criminal theft on the part of Israel?! Here we have a case of profitable beauty on Palestinian land that Israel wants. Israel tends to just take what it wants because no-one stops them. they have the power and the might and the support of other so-called civilised Western democracies.
Someone once said that Beauty is Truth, but here that is a lie.
I had wanted to sit in my favourite church on the Mount of Olives called Dominus Flavit, but, as usual, there was a tourist group having a service inside and it was impossible to even get close to it. I had also wanted to discover for myself the location of the Israeli Defence Force military college that is due to be built on top of the Mount. Just behind the famous landmarks lie many Palestinian communities. Must they be dispossessed to make way for the college? Being all alone in this wonderful landscape sent me into a meditiation.
I remembered my visit to Yad Vashem with EAPPI when I was a serving EA in 2009/10. The museum opens onto a beautiful park below with the words saying that nothing like the horrors the Jews had endured should happen to the Jewish people again. The irony being that the beautiful parkland lies on the ruins of a destroyed Palestinian village. So here I was again in a beautiful area created on the ruins of other people's homes.
Last night I went to see the film 'The Gatekeepers' in West Jerusalem. That was an amazing experience; to be sitting among an audience of Israelis watching an Isreli made film that acknowledges that their behaviour towards the Palestinians has created terrorism for them rather than security.
I find myself in an interesting position with my own Jewish roots, in that I can understand from the Jewish perspective why they want to create such spaces in their land, except this particular space in not actually their land. It is in land annexed by Israel. Every country demolishes buildings to make way for civic improvement, the difference here is that most democratic Western countries (and Israel claims to be such a country), compensate those who loose property and ensure that they are properly housed and have their rights respected. This is more about one privileged group of people wanting to get rid of those they do not want cluttering up 'their' land and just disposessing them. Before someone points out that there are actually many countires that do such things around the world, it is true, but does not make it right anywhere.
Today I caught a bus and went to vist a vineyard called Cremisan. It is close to Bethlehem and has a Catholic monastery and a convent where quality wine is produced in the most beautiful surroundings. The vineyard lies on Palestinian land, but Israel has already stopped them from producing their best Marsala wine, because it says that a chemical used in the process could be used for explosives. Israel has also tried to market the wine as Israeli. Now, for 'security' reasons, Israel wants to put the Wall right through the middle ofit, ensuring that the vineyard and monastery are then in Israel and the convent and school run by the nuns remains in Palestine. The Wall is already being built despite court proceedings.
On the hillside opposite the vineyard, stands the huge Israeli settlement of Gilo. The so-called security barrier could have run through the valley below and seperated the settlement from the monastery land. When the route was first considered a great deal of pressure was put on the RC church and all the benifits of being in Israel were sold to them. The convent gives school places to local Palestinian children and certainly was not prepared to find themselves cut off from their pupils, so now Israel is building a barrier dividing the monastery and convent leaving one in Palestine and taking the other, the profitable one, into Israel.
Is there any way to describe such a situation other than wanton, criminal theft on the part of Israel?! Here we have a case of profitable beauty on Palestinian land that Israel wants. Israel tends to just take what it wants because no-one stops them. they have the power and the might and the support of other so-called civilised Western democracies.
Someone once said that Beauty is Truth, but here that is a lie.
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