Day 1 - July 21, 2010

I already told you how lovely the City is - all cream colored stone, everything so old it makes England look like a whipper-snapper. The market here in the Old City is a maze of streets - you have to be  very careful to note landmarks as you go, or you will never be seen again! But you won't starve while you're lost as there are shwarema and kabob shops all over. The spice stores, especially, are a wonder. The smell, the arrangement, the variety. Saffron is about $3.00 for a large bag - I believe it goes for something like $280/lb in the states!  I took a picture of a spice pyramid that defies belief - that it ever got bui8lt in the first place (only about 18 inches high, striated in a complicated design, with the dome of the rock at the top). It sits on the counter where at home someone would have bump[ed into it and knocked it all down soon after it went up. Beautiful formal dresses in the shops, such as you would wear to the opera, or the prom. With so many women covered here, I don't understand yet who buys and wears them.

Stealthily took a picture of 3 soldiers (who looked like 9th grade students, but fully armed with rifles and ugly batons) standing under the sign for the Via Dolorosa.  Too much irony! Got our itinerary tonight. Partial list: over the next two weeks, we'll join the Israeli Women in Black and then a demonstration in East Jerusalem in support of the Palestinians whose homes are being demolished daily to make room for more Jewish settlements(both of those tomorrow), to Sabeel in Bethlehem, and to Jeff Halper's ICAHD - Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - ; BADIL, a Palestinian human rights organization, school accompaniement in Hebron, a women's cooperative in Hebron that produces fabric and embroidery (there goes my suitcase!), to a weekly demonstration in Hebron in support of Palestinians who had their homes welded shut in order to allow Jewish Israelis free access to Shuheda St (Hebron is a Palestinian town, mostly under the control of the Palestinian Authority, but that's just an inconvenience - check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIDMopaycvY )

There's much more to the itinerary, but unfortunately I left it in my room. Will tell you more tomorrow nite. The folks in this CPT group are all quite simpatico, about 1/3 of them ministers, most of that Mennonite. All but me are Christians and drawn to this work for religous reasons. They seem a very good group of folks to be doing this with. Will put some photos up tomorrow on Flickr and will let you know how to see them.  Can't write any more - don't know if it's the netbook or the WiFi, but it's gotten too slow to work with.   Hugs to all   M

Day 2 - Sabeel
After a leisurely and very good breakfast (boiled egg, hummus, cucumber, tomato, cheese, labaneh (greek yogurt), jam and pita bread, we spoke of non-violenceand of sexual harassment, both of which are important issues to CPT's work. We're told not to be surprised if we meet with harassment in Hebron, and possibly even a stone, as, while CPT is well known in the area, there are times the young men seem to equate "white people" (non-arab) with the "white" settlers. Or don't differentiate between Americans and what the American government pays for.... There was a worship service. I am a part of them, in that I am in the service, though I don't pray. I want to be "with" the group even though I cannot participate, but also want to avoid making them uncomfortable with me. They know I am atheist, there seems to be no judgement. These are such good people, all religious and fun boot!

We were asked to speak of what we wanted to get from this trip. Some of the responses: to learn what life is like under occupation
==to learn compassion for the other side (Israel)==one young woman - probably the most deeply religious of the group - said that she, in fact, did not have much compassion for the other side any more, which is also where I am.==to be sure not to hate==to remain neutral--to be open, not to confirming what we know, but to learning new things

Temperature was very pleasant in the very early morning, but by the time we left, about 9, it was HOT! Before we left, we heard chanting coming down the street of the market (our hostel is inside the souk). There were no shoppers at that early hour. We heard many, many young men passing by, went out to see what it was about. It was a VERY large group of men and women making haj to Jerusalem (it's the second most sacred city after Mecca, and a haj here is almost as important as one to Mecca). Young men walking three abreast, dressed all in white, most pulling rolling luggage. After they passed, chanting, came the young women, all dressed in black, also pulling luggage. All were chanting, but no one knew what the chant was.

Walked out to Damascus Gate and took three taxis into the edge of West Jerusalem to the Sabeel office, where we heard from ****** *****, a former CPT Board member who now works for Sabeel here. Her story was compelling, though much of it was about God and Jesus, with which I could not relate yet understood. Her explanation of dispossession and oppression did not differ from my own second-hand perception of it. Also met (again) Father Naim Ateek, whom we had met at the February Sabeel conference in Seattle. An Episcopal service, then lunch, then a bus back to the hostel with some free time this afternoon (so here I am...).

Tomorrow it's Women in Black, and an action in one of the targetted Palestinian neighborhoods here. At Sabeel, the young man John Brennerman from Ohio was talking about his Palestinian family (mother's side). I asked him what their last name was - Kuttab! Are you related to Jonathan and Daoud? I asked - yes, he said, they're my uncles. !!! Small world!!! One of the young women with us, Marie, Canadian, is well traveled in the Muslim world, most recently in Mostar. For all but the leader of our group, Steve, this is the first trip to Palestine. They seem to have a good understanding of the situation, though not necessarily a lot of history of it.

Saw a bit more of the city - it is indeed all cream color, and so bright overall that I am looking for sunglasses, which I normally never wear. I asked about why (seems like someone, somewhere, would have painted some of the buildings - you CAN paint stone). John B. said that the stone sheds sparkly bits on you when you rub against it, and we wondered if perhaps the stone simply doesn't take paint. ??? Everywhere you turn there is an historic or religious wonder. God, I wish I could visit this whole area as a tourist! But I'm afraid not in my lifetime. I find I tense up when I see soldiers or police - always in groups of minimum of three, always armed to the teeth. This even when they're groups of baby-faced 18 year olds, for they shoot unarmed people with the same casual attitude as a 30-year old, and I don't much care whether they're scared or not, for their bullets kill and maim as certainly as those from one without fear. It would be good if I learned that there are mitigating factors, but I simply have no room for the usual excuse of "shooting and crying", which I find to be a morally bankrupt concept.

At this point, I have no interest in learning to love them or understanding their perspective (been there, done that), and suspect that by the time I hear the stories, I will be even less inclined. Still not sure what I will come home with, aside from the roaring outrage I brought here with me. It will be interesting to hear what other folks come through this with, and even what I find for or about myself.

enough for today - dinner soon. We all take turns providing dinner, and one of us is Vegan, which makes it challenging. Last night was Steve's night, and I had offered to help him so I was the chopper and he was the cooker - this was before I found out we would team off in pairs to cook dinner. Boy, was I glad I had offered to help the first night! That took care of my turn, yay! I don't have a clue what to fix for a Vegan and the only kind of group meal I ever cook is Spaghetti or lasagna or Macaroni and cheese - all of them a no-no. Forget if we have something planned for evening. The itinerary is jam packed for the most part, with today being what I suspect might be the least interesting of our days (that's not to say today was not interesting - just that I prefer action to meeting). Sign off    M.

Day 2 - July 22, 2010

This one is a little longer, and more "thinking" than doing. Last night we spent 2.5 hours with a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man from the Parents Circle (parentscircle.org), who are bereaved families. It was very powerful, very compelling, very sad, and yet gave what may be the best hope in this struggle. They both are working for "reconciliation", as the people of South Africa, Rwanda, Guatemala did, and as we have probably all hoped might happen here. But their hopes are not pie in the sky, nor are they a call for the old "dialogue" that has stopped our work cold so often in the past. I'm not sure I can articulate it well here in this hurried morning post, with a computer that has a mind of its own. What I think I want to do is share just some thoughts about it right now as folks are already getting up and we will soon leave - today is first Halper's Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, then to stand and to talk with Women in Black, then to the Sheik Jarra neighborhood here in Jerusalem to demonstrate with Palestinians who are about to have their homes demolished.

Shema Abu Awad and Aaron (no notes - last name unsure - but will have in next note) spoke their stories - very hard to hear, and sometimes surprising. The Palestinian woman raised her siblings from age 14 because her very political mother was in prison for 4 years. No - just ralized I don't have time to talk about how she came to believe reconciliation was the main path, but will do it up later. I think it's a vital part of the picture. Same for the Israeli man, Aaron. The challenge for me after listening to them had to do with "dialogue". Before the First Intifada, it was almost not possible to raise the issue of Palestine. Silence was required, and anything that was not silence was anti-Semitism. Particularly coming from my own place of also not having allowed discussion in my presence if I could prevent it, I know the thinking behind this - sort of like if you know you're guilty of beating your children, the last thing you want to engage in is the ethics of beating your children. So shut up. So, when finally the Intifada broke out in 1988, the number of people who wanted to work on Palestinian issues and support their struggle grew quickly, and all of a sudden, the very people who would not allow discussion or criticism of Israel (by that time I was thankfully no longer in those ranks) entered the fray, not to support justice, but to say "stop! We must dialogue first! You must understand why our position is just".

Many people stopped working for justice at that point to engage in dialogue about it. Stopped working and started talking. I believe in talking, I believe in communication, but we watched that "dialogue" be used as a way of diverting attention from a current injustice to past injustices, from action to talk, from who IS a victim to who WAS a victim, rarely discussing how to move forward.

It was frustrating also, because those of us who did not want to "dialogue" were accused of anti-Semitism, and were considered fringe. But finally (after quite a few years!) people in the movement began to see that "dialogue" was getting nowhere. For the most part, no minds were changed, no work got done but enemies did get made. It was a terribly destructive element. But we got past it, and work happened. So here we are now, 20 years down the road, dialogue didn't work, action didn't work. The only bright spot was that Palestinian people were still there, still "samed" - steadfast, still struggling. Under unbelievably inhumane conditions.

And now, I think we know we have to figure out some more and better ways of working. Palestinians are working on their end, intensifying their own non-violent resistance, which has been alive and well for 40 years (though Americans don't know it for it is either ignored or twisted) - and that non-violence carries its own risks. Each time non-violence has strengthened here, and/or one of the factions held a truce for "too long", Israel has attacked in order to break it. But they remain Samed, they remain in the struggle. Our challenge is to figure out how to work differently in the United States, and I believe the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement is the work for us. Here in Palestine and in Israel, from what I heard last night, from how it feels this morning, I am thinking perhaps the time has come at last for talking - but not "dialogue". Rather, as one of this lovely CPT group put it last night, "encounter".

This one is still loaded for me though, and I haven't yet parsed my way through all my many thoughts about it. Aaron said his work to ensure a Palestinian state ensures that his Jewish state remains and both will be safe, so that at the end of the day, he does his work to support apartheid. Looking for where the compromises are made, who has to give up what, and what role the American movement plays in it all. We have to take our lead from Palestinians of course, but What Palestinians? It's just all damn difficult.
What was not addressed last night, in this coming together of two people who had lost loved ones to the violence, which sort of leveled the playing field, was an acknowledgement of the assymetry of the struggle. And that's a whole 'nother issue, isn't it?
Well, didn't mean to go on so long. Will write up their stories to share with you all, as well, but have to go for now. M

Day 3
hI ALL - Well, truth is I'm so exhausted, I have to fall into bed soon. Am out here without my notes so don't have the good detail so will hold it till tomorrow for the long bit. Went to ICAHD first where we had a 30 minute presentation then off on the bus, where we saw the differences between East and West Jerusalem, Jewish quality of life and Palestinian. It was a tremendously valuable and informative morning. Details later - excellent details, horrendous details. Then to West (Jewish) Jerusalem to stand with Women in Black, courageous Israeli women who have stood vigil to end the occupation for 20 years. On the way two of us, Kathy and I, who both had all black on, were hissed at: "Scum!" as we went there. A young man on a motorcycle spat a large one at us, and we heard more loud (nasty, I found out) and finger flips than we have ever seen in Spokane. People screech ugly stuff from their cars as well. One young man came to talk and spewed the most vile racism and media/government fear, and told us that if we went into the Arab Quarter we'd be cut into pieces. Well, we've been in the Arab Quarter for 3 days, and it's just like any other city in the old old world. He was, of course, spouting government line, not reality.

Then to the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood where the people are being evicted one family at a time for Jewish families. At 8 a.m. a truck comes, the knock on the door, the soldiers enter the house and take everything in it, put it in the truck that is never seen again, and the family forced to the street, By 5:00 p.m. the Jewish family is moved in and barbecuing and dancing in front of the house (this has been witnessed). The regular Friday demonstration calling for an end to the evictions has 700-800 people! This one is organized by Israelis. I'm learning that there are indeed more than 12 people in the Israeli peace movement. It is still miniscule, and the way they are treated makes our own marginalizing look like mainstreaming, but it lives. I'm thinking I will save the details of the ICAHD tour for writing up when I get home. What's happening for me right now is that I'm on major overload of the thousands of small inhumanities that are daily dealt to Palestinian people. As two of us were saying tonight, it's hard to imagine that all these little awful things that happen (a house built with full government knowledge, without the Permit the gov. never gives Palestinians, and they wait until the family moves in before the deliver the demolition order to them; a school built in a neighborhood that hasn't had a school to send their kids to for 10 years, but the gov. deals with it so slowly that it's now been building for 6 years and still not open while the nearby settlement gets built in a year; land and crops taken away because it hasn't been farmed for a year, when in fact the olive trees were bulldozed a year ago or the Wall is built to keep a farmer from his land, and so he loses it) are anything more than the general plan for Ethnic Cleansing. There are millions of those little and not so little things every single day. If I told you all we learned today, I'd be up till morning writing it.

The dehumanizing inhumanities that someone actually sat in a room with other people to plan - it's far to systematic to be the result of just a whole lot of ugly people. I'm going to bed not just exhausted, but with a heavy, heavy heart tonight. It's one thing to have known every one of these things for years, but altogether another to hear someone telling it who has experienced it, and Nancy and Rusty know. It's also altogether unbelievable, that ANYONE could do these things to an entire population, except that I can see it with my own eyes. And I remember the racism of the horrid Professor Lefcourt from Gonzaga the night of our "debate". I see it and hear it in its manifestation here, all over. Luckily, we de-brief every night, and the team helps one another to hear these things and to keep them.

Tomorrow we go to the Negev to visit with Bedouin families, who are "unregistered" with Israel though they are inside the Green Line. This means their villages have no sewage, no water, no schools (even worse than Palestinian areas elsewhere). They also cannot vote, in this "only democracy in the Middle East". It's such a good thing we saw so many Israelis fighting at least the occupation today - though for the most part you can go no further with that, for most see the occupation as bad for the Jews, which of course it is, but for many it's seen as the only problem. For me it isn't even the tip of the iceberg. I'm really heartsick.
Off to call Michael, and then to bed - another lucky thing, to have such fine and loving people with me.
Hugs to you all  Marianne

Day 4—Negev, Bedouins and Demolition Marianne Torres

First, an observation from the highway on the way through the Negev Desert: the world standard for water is 110 litres per person per day. Israelis receive 360 litres, Palestinians 35. Israelis have swimming pools, Palestinians don't have enough to drink. And along the highways in the desert, Israel irrigates the trees lining the highway...Today brought much new information to all of us. Some of this might be old stuff to some of you, but this time, it was personal. I had scanty knowledge of the lives of Bedouins inside Israel. I knew their lives were hard, but had no idea how bad it has become. Our Bedouin guide noted "the Nakba was not a single historical event. It is a process, and it continues." It is Ethnic Cleansing. Accompanied by Israeli Amos Gvirtz, a passionate anti-Zionist Jewish Israeli, and Atalia (no last name given), a Bedouin man, we went to the Negev to visit with Bedouins, to see their demolished homes and a soon to be demolished village - the whole god damned village. One of the Bedouin villages nearby has been destroyed 40 - yes 40 - times.

First, some context: Bedouins have lived in this area for hundreds if not thousands of years, and many had become agricultural people in the last century. Their system of land ownership was very different from that of the West, and is is not always possible to prove ownership except within the Bedouin tradition, which of course is not recognized by Israel. This area is INSIDE the Green Line - it's "Israel Proper", yet house demolitions and removals happen as they do in the West Bank. What today's experience showed me is that it is NOT sufficient to call only for an end to the Occupation, which is a common uniting concept. The cruelty and injustice of what is happening to Arab Israelis, particularly Bedouin, means that we must be sure to include Apartheid in Israel in our calls, for how can we turn away from the theft of Arab land inside Israel? Amos Gvirtz told us that Israel's ultimate intent is to get ALL of Israel into Israeli hands (right now they own only 96%),which most of us already understood, and they do that through expulsion and land confiscation. Givertz emphasized, over and over again, "this conflict is about land. It is about LAND. And nothing else." I hope I will have time to write up all he told us. The depth of his knowledge and insights was quite impressive.

Israel first forced Bedouin people into a large couple of areas in the Negev, putting them into "villages" that were not the homes of most of those forced into them. They then deemed the villages "unrecognized" or "unregistered", which meant the state would provide them with no water, no electricity, no roads, no schools, none of the ordinary infrastructure of a population center. Israel's current policy now calls for those in the villages to move into "towns", which do get a poor version of an infrastructure. Why? Because the villages were strung out over a fairly large area, but towns (artificially developed) concentrate those people and free up all that other land for state ownership. People who wish to stay on land where they have planted olive trees and made homes and community for themselves are now being forced out. Israel plants olive groves on confiscated land (did I tell you that there is very rarely any compensation for the land stolen from them, and if it comes, it is worth "two cigar boxes" as one Bedouin man explained) in order to keep Bedouins from coming back to their land. It becomes currently used agricultural land and will remain in state hands, probably given to a Jewish family to settle eventually.

They receive eviction orders that require them to either leave or be removed by the military. They receive no compensation, no alternative. They may or may not be able to keep their animals, as every expulsion is different and very arbitrary. They are given no other place to go - just "out of here". The village representative said to us "I can go sleep under a tree, but what about these children?" Did I say this is how Israel is forcing the populations into "towns"? AND YET, these people who are imploring us to intervene with Obama (....) to help them stop this agony, always invite us to sit with them, bring us cold water, then sweet (and I do mean sweet!) tea, and usually fruit to eat - peaches, plums, cactus pears. They know we are mostly Americans and know whose funding makes their suffering possible, yet they greet us as allies, as friends. We've looked into their eyes, we spoke with them, they fed us, and we know they will have no homes in two weeks. There is SO much more I could write tonite if only I could stay awake - we also went to a village to talk with a young man who was slated to wed in 2 weeks, but whose house was demolished last week. Amos said the Israelis tend to wait for an event like that and demolish houses just before those events. AND Palestinians not only have to figure out how and where to live after they lose their homes, but they also have to pay for the demolition of their homes (you see what I mean about all the little cruel inhumanities?). They are billed by the government and will be fined and/or imprisoned if they don't payit. At the same time, they are still indebted to the family members from whom they borrowed the money to build in the first place.

There was all that Amos told us in the bus, much of it new information. I don't know how I'll capture all of this for work and for my own memory, but will find a way. Oh, Bart asked whether non-violence was holding. It is holding, though I cannot for the life of me understand why or how. If I were in their shoes... And this is the general sense of my group - all pacifists, and all unable to understand why there isn't massive violence from Palestinians. But they are so very tired of fighting, mostly alone, almost always futily, at such great cost. Thank you to those of you who've sent well received words of encouragement. I hold onto those, and with these rather amazing CPT people I'm with, it all makes it easier to see and hear these things. One of these days maybe I'll have time to tell you about who they are (two Canadians and the rest American). 11:30 - gotta quit and go to bed. Bethlehem tomorrow.  Marianne

More from Day 4—and a little easier  But only a little easier:

Random notes: First, some of the more fun stuff: Our group -there's so much more to each of these folks, but, in a nutshell:

*Steve, a Mennonite pastor from Ft. Collins, our team leader. A kind and loving man who makes sure everyone has what they need and is doing all right - and a million other things. *Kathy, a Mennonite pastor from Kansas, late from Ann Arbor - lively, fun, outraged, eager to do and see one more thing. *Dick - a former career policeman whose path to faith is very moving. Also a Mennonite pastor, a gentle man, easy to be with and laughs easily. *Ryan - a young student with an engineering background. Bright, easy to talk with, and engaged to Hope (next). Also a gentle man. *Hope - bright, lively, both she and Ryan deeply religious and at the same time very worldly. Their politics are closest to my own. They're serious world travelers, and have been in Bethlehem doing work with their groups. *Eric - a Nazarene pastor - young man, lively, sort of iconoclastic in faith terms. I think he challenges some of the folks in terms of their faith. *Marie - young Canadian woman from Winnepeg. Also a world traveler, also fun and easy to be with. She's the other one besides myself who does not come out of faith. She and I stayed "home" and wrote while the rest went to their churches this morning. *Tomas - the other young Canadian - quite personable, fastest talker on the entire planet. Very religious - evangelical, but I'm not sure which denomination. Good jokes, very easy to be with. *John from Chicago - a Lutheran pastor whose understanding of power and empire also is much like my own. Also a gentle man and easy to talk with. *Peggy from Chicago, married to John. A teacher who has been very pained by what she has seen - not that we all haven't, but she is having the more visible difficulty in processing it. Very sharp.

- the difficulty of using "end the occupation" as a uniting thread is that the continuing tragedy of the Bedouins has nothing to do with the Occupation, and everything to do with the fact that this is a state for Jews only. It is Apartheid.

- my dilemma as I write is when to stop talking about the awfulness I'm seeing and when to lighten it up - when to tell you about these really lovely people I'm with, when to emphasize the hospitality with which we have been greeted by Arab families and organizations everywhere we have gone.

- some in the group are going to Yad Vashem today, some are not (some were concerned about how much it costs and opted out). I am not going. I've been to the museum in D.C., to Dachau, and was steeped in Holocaust literature through my young years. At this point, I prefer to look to who IS a victim of corrupt power, not who WAS a victim.

- when I expressed my shock at hearing about the entire village about to be demolished, Amos said to me, "yes. welcome to Israel".

- he kept repeating "the aim of the Zionist movement from the beginning was to take this land for Jews only. One people took another people's land - this is the essence of the conflict.

- 80% of the water in the West Bank goes to Jews.

- About 150-180,000 Bedouin people live in Israel, who were settled into villages for generations before being forced by the state into only certain villages, and now, into a few towns, as related in an earlier post.

- some of the towns have managed to get elementary schools, because Israel has a law that requires that children be educated in schools. Some have taken the state to court, and the Supreme court continues to rule that the state must provide an elementary school. So it does, though it can sometimes take up to 10 years to get one small school built because the state delays year after year while at the same time being able to say "we're doing it, we're doing it."

- Can you imagine exits from Spokane being reduced to two, and having to have a permit to leave no matter where you're going or how long you will be out? That is the Bedouin experience. I don't know yet if this is current policy, or if it applied only before people were removed to the towns set up for them.

- can you imagine being forced to move to another town for no reason that made any sense to you?

- can you imagine being forced out of the home your family has lived in for generations, and not being given one penny for it?

- can you imagine having nowhere to go after you're turned out of your home, perhaps with infants and small children?

- one of the young people just asked me if I had a safety pin. When I gave her one, she said "I knew a Mama would have one." Sweet.

- Jews do not need a building permit (note- double check this statement), and have no problem building their homes. Arabs have a "legal right", but rarely, if ever, are able to obtain a permit, both inside and outside Israel proper. It's very expensive and can take years, and at the end of the process, after they have spent $2,000 to $15,000 in this poverty stricken population, learn they have been denied. And their money is not returned to them.

- because you simply cannot live 30 people to a house and there are no empty houses they can move into, they must build, with or without a permit.

- if you substite "Jew" for every mention of "Arab" or "Palestinian", in this narrative, would it be easier to see how profoundly racist it is here? How a state for only one kind of people is no longer acceptable on this planet?

- if you think about these horrors being conducted by Jews, for Jews, in the name of all Jews, does it make it easier to understand an anger against Jews? And I am constantly amazed, as I listen to Palestinian people talk about their lives, how little anger is directed directly at the people who have destroyed their lives. If we are going to object to racism against Jews, the very best we could do would be to call for one independent state, so all live in some measure of equality, so no one group commits horrors for the benefit of their own group.

BEDOUIN VILLAGE DEMOLISHED - TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010

We are deeply saddened to inform you that we have learned that the demolition order on the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, where we visited just this past Saturday, was carried out early this morning. We have been informed that at 5:30 AM the authorities arrived in Al-Araqib with around 1500 Israeli police armed with tear gas, a water cannon, dozens of vehicles, two helicopters and five bulldozers. Within three hours all the homes and outbuildings, as well as the village’s water supply and hundreds of olive trees were demolished.

Before the demolition, the Negev Coexistence Forum (http://www.dukium.org/) was able to get word out to Jewish activists in Tel Aviv and the surrounding area for support of the Bedouins, who are Israeli citizens, in protest to the demolition. One hundred and fifty activists along with some large news organizations including BBC, Al-Jezeera and Ynet were witnesses to this atrocity.

The demolition has left 300 Bedouins, mainly children, homeless; but as soon as the police had left they started to rebuild their homes. This is not the first nor the last of these atrocities, as Shlomo Tziser, an official with the Land Administrator’s southern district, promised, “should the Bedouins return we’ll do it again.”

Christian Peacemaker Teams Delegation to Palestine
____________
[Members of CPT's July 20-August 2 Palestine/Israel delegation are Richard Barrett (W. Liberty, Ohio), Marie Bodnar (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Jonathan Brenneman (St. Marys, Ohio), Tomasz Glowacki (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Hope Hamilton (Hermitage, Tennessee), John Holm (Lake Villa, Illinois), Margaret Holm (Lake Villa, Illinois), Kathy Neufeld Dunn (McPherson, Kansas), Eric Paul (Nashville, Tennessee), Steve Ramer (Ft. Collins, Colorado), Ryan Schumacher (Hoover, Alabama) and Marianne Torres (Spokane, Washington).]

________________
For further references:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10777040
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/2010727133151458970.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3925793,00.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07/27/israel.bedouins.demolitions/
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2762-israel-demolishes-40-bedouin-homes-in-negev-
 
______________
 
Claire Evans
Delegation Coordinator
Christian Peacemaker Teams
PO Box 6508
Chicago, IL  60680-6508 USA
Phone: +1-773-376-0550, Fax: +1-773-376-0549
Skype: claire.l.evans
Website:  www.cpt.org
 
Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations.

In a Nutshell
A Short, Concise Overview of a Complex Situation
Ostrander
11/13/01

Monkey Trap
Poulin
10/01

Point of View: Havana
A Call for Reflection, Restraint and Responsibility
Mutti
9/13/01

URL of this page:http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com/palestine/index.html