Bruce H. Bernstein: A “Listening Tour,” # 3

During the morning circle on Friday we were introduced to our partner/driver for the day, Khamis Ghosheh, peace builder and former manager of the Palestinian Delegation Leaders Program of Seeds of Peace. Tamer, our regular driver was taking a day of training in his learning to be a facilitator. We left for the southern section of the West Bank, our destinations being Bethlehem and Hebron. Our guide for the day was Samer Jaber, a political activist currently working for the Palestinian Monetary Fund, roughly the equivalent of our Federal Reserve. I had met Samer several years ago at SOP camp. He’s a remarkable young man, and his story is worth telling as it directly relates to his perspective. Samer was arrested at the age of 15 for throwing rocks at an Israeli Military vehicle and sentenced to nine years in Israeli prison. He served for six difficult years and was then released. While in jail he decided to use the time to educate himself. He eventually managed to finish college and has a Master’s degree in international studies from Brandeis, having taken courses at MIT and Harvard. He hopes to enter Columbia in the fall to study for a Ph.D. in political science. Samer is very much an idealist, believing that the only solution to the conflict is a One-State Solution in which all sides work out a way to share the land. He announced to us: “I am not going to preach to you. I am going to show you the facts, and let the facts speak for themselves.” He pretty much did just that, showing us parts of the Security Wall (or Separation Wall, depending on your political view) that separated Palestinian farmers from their land, and cut off commerce from formerly vibrant sections of Bethlehem. There is a law in Israel that if you do not work your land for three years, the government can claim it, so being prevented from working your land either by the wall or by the military can have disastrous consequences. He also pointed out how the nearby settlements were gradually encroaching on land that the Palestinians have considered theirs for generations. While not intending to do so, Samer also demonstrated to us how porous the security can be. Thirty thousand workers/day enter Israel from the West Bank illegally. We arrived at a checkpoint, which Samer was not allowed to go through. Our driver could not take the chance of being caught taking Samer through the checkpoint or he would lose his license and receive a heavy fine. Samer jumped out of our van just before the checkpoint and said he’d meet us around the corner. He was there waiting for us when we arrived. We later discussed the security function of the wall with him. Supporters of the wall point to the fact that terrorist acts have dramatically decreased since the wall was built. Samer thinks it has little to do with it. He believes that the Palestinian people want to be able to live in peace in a land that is not occupied. If people wanted to smuggle hand grenades into Israel, they could do so easily. Our day was not all politics. While in Bethlehem we visited the Church of the Nativity, with Samer as our guide. Not surprisingly, he knew the entrances to use to avoid the huge tourist crowds. We got a glimpse of the cave that is venerated as Christ’s birthplace, and went through the Door of Humility, a pointed arch that was reduced to its present size to prevent carts being driven in by looters. We then went on to Hebron, a city regarded as a sacred place by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions because it’s here that Abraham buried Sarah in the Cave of the Machpelah. Abraham bought the land from the Hittite Ephron (Genesis) and it is especially significant for some as the beginning of the ownership of land in Israel by Jews. Modern Hebron is a thriving, growing, commercially successful city. Again, there was a checkpoint that Samer could not pass through. One van drove through to the tomb of Abraham, and those of us in the van with Samer (me and the Macys) walked with him through the medieval Arab souk which contains some Crusader-era vaulted passageways. This walk also brought up some troubling political tensions. Hebron is divided into two sections: the greater area is governed by the Palestinian Authority, but the town center above the souk is occupied by Jewish settlers. In 1929 there was a pogrom in which Arabs massacred Hebron’s centuries old Jewish community. After the 1967 war the center of the city was resettled by Jewish colonists who occupied the property of those who had been killed or forced to leave in 1929. These settlers, who live above the souk, would try to interrupt the busy activity below by throwing bottles and other objects down into the souk. The Palestinians have now covered the souk with chicken wire. As we walked beneath it we could see the many objects captured by the chicken wire, and were grateful that we could not be hit. In 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish colonist, killed 29 Muslim worshipers in the city’s mosque. It’s worth relating the history of the Cave of Machpelah, since it is so typical of the development of religious sites in Israel and Palestine. About 20BC Herod the Great sealed the cave and built a great hall over it (it’s part of being “Great”). Under the Byzantines the structure was turned into a church. After the Arab conquest of 638 the church became a mosque. The Crusaders reclaimed the site for Christianity but it was completed by Saladin as a mosque and the site was opened to all. After the 1967 war the mosque remained Muslim, but access was granted to Jews as well. Today the complex is known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and divided into a Jewish synagogue and a Muslim mosque, each with its own entrance. That evening, Shabbat, we went to services in a synagogue, followed by dinner at the home of Noam and Marcella Zion. Noam is a well known writer on Jewish subjects, including books on how to observe Shabbat. We were each given signed copies of his book. His book on how to observe Passover is the most popular book in use today. At the end of the meal he asked us to throw out questions we’d like to discuss. This led to a powerful political discussion between the more conservative and liberal voices in the room. We retired to bed, exhausted but exhilarated by the day. Bruce H. Bernstein is a 75-year-old psychologist/psychoanalyst in private practice and on the faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program. He has had a long-time interest in the peaceful resolution of conflict, and in recent years made connections among his Dartmouth Class of 1957, Seeds of Peace, and the Dickey Center for International Understanding. The class now sponsors two interns who spend a summer at the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine, followed by a term in Israel/Palestine.