Last Saturday afternoon, with a bit of free time on my hands, I decided to take a walk toward Bethlehem. I knew that I would not be able to get to the center of the Old City, Manger Square, where the Church of the Nativity is located.

I knew that the way there, along Hebron Road, would be blocked. That fact was known to me, because I had heard the gunfire in my room at Tantur. “Rachel’s Tomb, again!”, I muttered.

This site is one of the most sacred of Judaism and it is also revered by Muslims and Christians. Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of Benjamin (Genesis 35:19-20), in her death and burial, thousands of years ago, has, today, become a flashpoint in the current troubles between the Israelis and Palestinians.

If I went for my walk, I knew that I would witness Palestinian boys and young men playing “cat and mouse” with Israeli soldiers. Watching, you quickly learn the pattern - “run from around the corner... throw the rocks at the Tomb (a large fortified cement wall)... run back around the corner again... hopefully avoiding the tear gas, dodging rubber bullets and live ammunition successfully...after the gunfire stops, peer around the corner again...begin once more.... over and over.

Most Palestinians throwing rocks at the Tomb (really they are throwing rocks at Israel) do so with success and are not harmed, but not all. Several have been killed there, a score have been injured.

This would be my prayer and reflection time today. Instead of spending time in the Church of the Nativity, built on the traditional site of the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, I would go to Rachel’s Tomb and, from a safe vantage point, watch God’s children desecrate one another. Off I went.

I found myself perched on a cement wall. If some bullets would, perchance, come my way, all I needed to do was jump down and the wall would no longer be my vantage point, but rather, my protection.

As I sat there, a number of young men were coming out of a building. They were finishing a day’s work from a small factory. They too, as they came near to me, watched the action for awhile. I struck up a conversation with one of them who spoke English.

“It’s so sad”, I said, “that religion should cause people to fight among themselves”. “It is not religion that is causing these problems”, he replied. “Oh, yes,” I said, “you want all your land back that was taken by the Israelis in 1948 when Palestine was partitioned”. “No”, he said patiently, “It is not about land.”

And then quickly before I could respond, he said, “It is not about religion. It is not about land. It is about freedom. We want our freedom. We demand basic human rights”.

Freedom... Basic human rights... now I began to see things more clearly.

Over the years, because of a variety of historical circumstances and decisions and despite the last seven years of the ongoing Oslo Peace Process, the Palestinians, today, find themselves under occupation by the Israelis. The Israelis control their lives. They can, in an instant, seal off their territories.

This new “Intifada” is a national enlightenment to a reality that was slowly developing bit by bit over the years. The Peace Process added to Palestinian frustration as they saw the Israelis and the United States pushing for more accords, while the Israelis have not yet honored previous agreements.

“...old problems have deepened and continue to dominate Israeli-Palestinian relations. For the Palestinians, especially, the post-Oslo accords era has meant severe economic deprivation and restrictions on movement. Furthermore, bantustanisation looks increasingly to become permanent as more and more land and natural resources have been taken for settlement expansion or apartheid-style ‘bypass roads’.”#

The best way for me to describe the reality that I see is that the Israelis are creating “reservations” for Palestinians, much like we did in the United States with the Native Americans, much like what “White” South Africa did to “Black” South Africa under apartheid.

Here at Tantur, we live on a hill between Gilo, which is an Israeli settlement of about 5,000 people. Across the street, a new Israeli settlement, HarHomma, which will populate 4,000 to 6,000 Israelis, is being built. Both these settlements are on disputed land, which the Palestinians claim is part of the West Bank, part of their nation. This issue has not been settled. Yet, the Israelis continue to build.

With their settlements and their bypass roads, with their continuing control of the infrastructure of the land, they are, in effect, creating “reservations” in which to place the Palestinians. This is ultimate control.

The Israelis do not see the Palestinians as equals with whom they must share the land. The Palestinians are seen as inferiors and as enemies that must be contained so that Israel may continue to prosper.

I am, of course, using broad strokes of the brush as I paint this picture. But as an outside observer living on the border between these two nations, the picture quickly becomes obvious.

When you live at Tantur and see hundreds of Palestinian men crossing the property every day, in order to avoid the Israeli checkpoint so that they can get to work, you ask “why?”. The reason given is that someone in the Israeli government has made a decision that today, because of certain situations, it would be dangerous for Palestinians to come into Israel. Decision made. Border closed. Palestinians have no work.

When you listen to the radio and you hear that Islamic prayer at the Al Aqsa Mosque, on the Temple Mount, will be limited to men over 30 years of age, or over 35, or over 45, you ask “why”. The reason given is that someone in the Israeli government has decided that it would be dangerous for younger men to come into the Mosque to pray because of the political situation. So Muslim men of certain age groups are denied the right to worship in their own houses of prayer by Israelis.

When you hear that many Palestinian towns in the West Bank have to ration their drinking water because of a shortage, while the Jewish settlements enjoy green lawns, you ask “why”. The reason is that Israel has, in effect, imposed a quota on the water that the Palestinians are allowed to consume - that is, on the right to use water resources that are supposed to be jointly accessible for both Israelis and Palestinians in the single land they share.

Issue by issue, decision by decision, the Palestinians have been pushed against the wall. It was a powder keg waiting to explode and it did on September 28th, 2000 when Ariel Sharon, head of the ultra-conservative Likud Party, escorted by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, went to pray on the Temple Mount. His decision was a provocation of the first degree. The Palestinian anger that was a response to his visit wasn’t really about his praying on the Mount, it was, rather, about experiencing one more arrogant Israeli show of power and control over a supposedly “conquered people”.

With Israel and the United States pushing for final agreements in the Oslo Peace Process while previous agreements have yet to be implemented; with Jewish settlements continuing to be built on disputed lands; with bypass roads that only connect Israeli towns; with Israel taking complete control of the infrastructure of the land, the Palestinians simply and spontaneously erupted.

Israel, only 52 years old, is obviously still greatly hurting from 2,000 years of persecution in the Diaspora. It still lives with the fresh memory of the holocaust. But in its attempt to protect itself, it seems willing to do to Palestinians what was done to them.

56% of the Palestinian population is under the age of 18! These young people realize that they have no future if present conditions prevail. They will use whatever means available to gain the world’s attention to their plight. In their eyes, they are fighting for a noble cause. They are fighting for their freedom and their homeland.

Their homeland is littered with rocks. They will sling those rocks to gain the attention of their persecutors. They are “acting out” a Jewish story. They have become “David” slaying “Goliath”!

There are many people on both sides who believe that these difficulties can be resolved only with violence and military might. There are also others, on both sides, who are working together vigorously to understand one another and to create peaceful solutions.

Next week, some stories about people motivated to bring Israeli and Arabs together, working to create an Israel and a Palestine with open borders and mutual cooperation.

E-mail Fr Mike at: michaelr@stmoside.org