Spiritual Encounters of a Noel Kind

I’ve mostly written (rather naively on reflection!) about the political side of the trip so far, but it wasn’t all work and no play. The whole experience was initiated by the wonderful Noel Moules who runs the ‘Workshop’ theology programme (www.workshop.org.uk) so it was always going to be an exciting combination of history, politics and spiritual reflection. These are just few of the moments that I’ll remember...

Swimming in the Sea of Galilee

Swimming was fairly infrequent on our trip, much to my disappointment! In addition to this swim in what was lovely and warm freshwater, we had a first-night swim under the stars in Jericho (pretty cool) and also a Dead Sea float / mud bath. Our time by the Sea of Galilee actually started out on the Mount of Beatitudes and so sitting under a tree, we read through the Beatitudes together and digested the words anew. Over the last year, I’ve been reading through the Beatitudes with friends at my church Restore and so to be in the place where they were first spoken really helped me to visualise Jesus teaching the crowds and subverting all the assumptions they had, and we still have, about blessing. That same afternoon we were treated to another special moment – a boat trip out onto Galilee where we had a few minutes in silence with the engines off, trying to imagine what it would be like if the winds picked up and developed into a storm – thankfully we made it back to land safe and no walking on water was required. The following morning, we had an early start and drove over to Galilee to break bread and have breakfast at sunrise. I did take some initial convincing but it was a wonderful morning and I won’t forget all the encouraging words that were spoken.

Camels in the Judean Wilderness

Noel was VERY excited about spending some time in the Judean wilderness, a place where people regularly ‘meet God’. Well I don’t know whether I did or not, but the landscape was absolutely incredible, and as we turned the mountain corner to see our ‘tent hotel’ accommodation for a couple of nights, I knew that I was on a very special trip. A couple of my favourite wilderness moments – on the first evening after a short walk away from our tent, we met a young Bedouin guy on a donkey and got to have a quick ride. He was very gracious given my (lack of) donkey-riding skills and as he leapt back on cow-boy style to continue his journey, it was a reminder of a traditional, simple way of life that is now very much under threat. The next morning, we were instructed to go and sit by ourselves for 2 hours in the desert for a bit of solo contemplation. I was really looking forward to this but it was already pretty hot at 8am and I spent the first 15 mins wondering what I would do if confronted by a snake! Thankfully no snakes or scorpions materialised and I had a fantastic picture-postcard moment when I looked up and just for a few seconds saw three camels at the top of a mountain on the horizon – wow!

Peace-meal in the Garden

On our last morning in Jerusalem, we stopped to visit the Garden of Gethsemane and were privileged to have one part of the garden opened especially for us. So, sitting amongst the olive trees with my fellow travellers of the last 2 weeks, we shared bread, wine, olives and grapes (a veritable feast) and reflected on all that we had seen and learnt during our ‘work-trek’. All things considered I was pretty peaky at this stage (and very sick later in the day) but I am so glad I made it out that morning to see where Jesus spent his final hours and to share in ‘shalom’ with these wonderful people.

Inevitably in these moments of reflection, my mind mostly wandered to some of the stories we’d heard in the West Bank. I did find a bit of time to pray for my god-children but was mostly occupied with the politics – and I guess that’s how it should be. The spiritual and the political are inseparable which is why I find it incredible that people / pilgrims will travel in their droves to see the holy sites but won’t ask the questions that matter today. As we were reminded on the Mt of Beatitudes, Jesus taught “Blessed are the peacemakers”, and if he was here today I think he’d be standing in front of bull-dozers. That might be controversial and others might disagree but I certainly don’t think he’d be in a church and definitely not the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which does not feature in my top 3 spiritual moments)! But Jesus did also need those times on his own to cement the relationship with his Father and to focus on his mission. Sometimes as activists, it’s all too easy to rush in and ‘just do it’ but I will treasure these moments of contemplation which gave me time to process all I had seen in the Holy Land – now that I’m back, the challenge is to create more space in my pretty hectic life which allows me to step back and maybe see things differently....

One-State Solution?

As we travelled through the Occupied Palestinian Territories we inevitably started to reflect on the peace process and on the possibility of a two-state solution. Two states is after-all what is on the table – President Obama asserted earlier this year that there should be a return to 1967 borders and UK politicians across the board have called for a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. But right from the outset of the trip, I started to feel uneasy about the pursuit of a two-state solution, and began to reflect on whether there were any other alternatives. Meeting people like the Director of the Centre for Middle-Eastern Classical Music in West Jerusalem, an Iranian Jew who is passionate about Middle-Eastern culture and who has lived through the changes and conflict over Jerusalem, was a reminder that people are not easily categorised. Just as there are Arabian Christians, so there are Middle-Eastern Jews, people who find themselves torn between two different sides in a battle based primarily now on political identity.

Meeting Father Ibrahim in Nablus (pic above) was a wonderful morning and a reminder that as Christians we are called to be prophetic and think the impossible. Father Ibrahim spoke passionately about ‘building bridges’ and creating communities where people of different faiths and backgrounds can live side by side. In this scenario he suggested, enemies can become neighbours and the practical problems of current negotiations can be overcome. The practical problems are many and are widely known: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, water resources and settlements. At the moment, the 1967 borders are being undermined by an ugly separation wall (see pic below) which follows an illegal route, the Israeli leadership refuses to negotiate any right of return for refugees and any sharing of power within Jerusalem. The settlements are widespread, and in my mind, any notion of land swaps is severely problematic – the way in which settlements are being built in the Jordan Valley for example, seems to represent a strategic attempt to undermine a Palestinian border with Jordan. When we met with Arti, an Israeli living near Bethlehem in Efrat, a settlement of around 10,000 people, there was absolutely no acknowledgement that what he was doing was illegal under international law and he expressed a firm conviction that this land was given to the Jewish people by God. With such strongly held views and with all these complications, would a one-state solution not be the best hope for peace in that region, fostering peace and reconciliation, and a pluralism able to accommodate Jews, Christians and Muslims living side-by-side? It would have to start off on a neutral footing, with a new constitution and a new name, but wouldn’t that be the ideal?

Of course the Israelis are unlikely to agree to a one-state solution – Zionism is predicated on the need for a safe secure land where the Jewish people can prosper and be free from the persecution and discrimination they have experienced throughout history. One of the other dynamics that also needs considering is population growth – whilst the Jewish Israeli population is fairly static (rate of 1.7), the Palestinian population is growing (rate of over 2%), and when you add the 20% of Israeli Arabs (around 1.55m) to the Palestinian population, of 4.4m, you can see that they’re already pretty much even. This makes a one-state solution even less appealing from the Israeli perspective but I’ve still been interested to read about proposals for a one-state solution throughout history – there was a Zionist group Brit Shalom that argued for a bi-national democratic state of Palestine supported by Martin Buber, who I remember from my theology days!!! Their founder Arthur Rubbin warned, “I have no doubt that Zionism will be heading toward a catastrophe if we will not find common ground with the Arabs” and in 1947 the political party Mapam was instrumental in calling for a bi-national solution at the UN. A minority report was published calling for a single state and constitution which respected “human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religions” but the idea was dismissed by Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Representative to the UN, as unrealistic.[1]

Decisions do need to be made and that much is certain. One of our tour guides, Hassan, likened the occupation to a marriage in which the relationship has broken down but in which the man refuses to grant his wife a divorce. This is the worst possible situation Hassan argued – the wife has no freedom, no autonomy and continues to be mistreated by her husband. So things must change. The one-state solution sounds naive and implausible. But why not dream dreams?

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[1] Most of my references come from The Lemon Tree!!! I will endeavour to read more!

Does Palestine need Development?

One of the first things that struck me as we wound our way down to Jericho and then up to Ramallah and Nablus, was the number of USAID signs there are in the West Bank. Assigned to road-building, infrastructure or other projects such as this school play-ground in Nablus, they boldly proclaim to be implemented for the Palestinian people “with generous support from the American people”.

This is all well and good – and objectively speaking there is a strong rationale for supporting poor communities in the Occupied Territories. As a recent report by Christian Aid[1] has pointed out, 45% of the West Bank population are classified as refugees by the United Nations and UNDP statistics for the entire OPT (including Gaza) predict that it is unlikely to meet a number of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015[2] – these include goals to reduce child mortality, increase environmental sustainability and eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Having said this, the irony of the USAID signs is not lost on the Palestinian people – are these American people the same people who also support settlement-building and whose Congress gave Benjamin Netanyahu a standing ovation earlier this year when he refused to accept any return to 1967 borders, rejected right of return for refugees and any negotiation over Jerusalem[3]? One of the people I spoke to in OPT said that he had pulled out of a USAID project because he was being asked to report on people he was working with; another person, speaking about Western interventions more generally said that they mainly serve “to make the occupation more bearable”.

The UK position is a bit more tolerable and it’s been interesting to read the new DFID (Department for International Development) four-year plan for OPT which was published this week.[4] There is a focus on stimulating economic development as well as supporting refugee communities with basic services through £86m worth of investment. Again this is laudable but the structural barriers to development are enormous. This was most obvious to me when we were driving through the Jordan Valley, a land which is fertile and ripe for agricultural development. Israeli settlers here who have all the water they need and who can easily guarantee their goods for Western markets, have no problem in setting up viable and successful businesses exporting cherries and figs all over the world. A Palestinian farmer who is denied access to water and find himself regularly stuck at checkpoints has no such opportunity – this was well articulated by those we met from the Jordan Valley Solidarity Project[5] - I was startled to hear that the settlers control 98% of water resources in the Jordan Valley, despite being an illegal population of 9,400 compared to 56,000 Palestinians. For its part in the negotiations, the UK has recently voted in the UN Security Council against the USA in relation to settlement-building[6], but they haven’t yet confirmed their position on Palestinian Statehood and could do much more within the EU to ensure that goods produced in illegal settlements are excluded from preferential trade agreements. If the UK is serious about development in OPT, it must also get serious about the politics. For me, the great thing about Christian Aid’s support in OPT, is not only the focus on poverty relief but also their investment in human rights organisations such as EAPPI[7], B’Tselem[8] and the Joint Advocacy Initiative[9] based at the YMCA (more later)! An approach which focuses just on immediate humanitarian need is destined to fail and does a disservice to the Palestinian people.

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[1] http://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/policy/middle_east.aspx

[2] http://www.undp.ps/en/mdgs/mdgopt.html

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrd2vqr8ONY&feature=related

[4] http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Where-we-work/Middle-East--North-Africa/OPT/

[5] http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org

[6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12512732

[7] www.eappi.org

[8] http://www.btselem.org/

[9] http://www.jai-pal.org/

Work-Trekking...

I haven't blogged for over 2 years and so it was a joy to find over 40 comments on my last post. On further inspection, turns out to be mostly spam written in chinese.... oh well, I still have Jonathan Pain as a follower (thanks Jonathan!!!)

I've decided to start blogging again so that people can follow me on my adventures to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the next 2 weeks. I decided to go on this trip after watching 'The Promise' on the telly - a bit of a flimsy basis for a hopefully life-changing trip, but it was pretty good! I have always wanted to go to Israel and Palestine but really DIDN'T want to just do one of those 'Holy Land' pilgrimages that completely ignore the current political struggles. So as well as going to the Mount of Beatitudes and the Sea of Galilee, and as well as spending two days in a tent hotel in the desert (our 'wilderness' experience), I'm hoping to learn from people working for peace in the region about their experiences - life lived in fear and life lived under occupation. I can't really imagine it but I'm sure it will be pretty intense. A friend of mine is currently out there with EAPPI, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, and this film shows what they're doing and why:

Eyewitness from anne skaardal on Vimeo.

Protecting our Humanity

The Church has always seemed to me to have a fairly ambivalent relationship with the idea of human rights. For Christians who believe in the inherent God-given dignity of human-kind, there is clearly a firm basis for what we call 'natural rights' but in spite of this, there has been a tendency to view the 'human rights agenda' with some suspicion. But perhaps the tide is turning... in recent months I attended a seminar hosted by CARE which was a fascinating insight into the historical origins of the Universal Declaration and yesterday, the 60th anniversary since the UDHR, Nick Sagovsky of Westminster Abbey used the opportunity to highlight the plight of people seeking sanctuary in the UK, calling for a more humanitarian approach to asylum policy. Instead of casting doubt over the validity of human rights, which seems rather in vogue amongst some politicians, this is an opportunity for people of faith and of no faith to work together, speaking up for and protecting our common humanity. But we cannot pick and choose - these are human rights for all, not just for those who believe as we do. Everyone for example, has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. Similarly, the freedom, enshrined in the UDHR to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, remains as relevant today as it did in 1948.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad

So I'm a student again :-) which means plenty of time for blogging and for film-watching. On a bit of a whim, I went along to the ICA to see Heavy Metal in Baghdad, a documentary charting the lives of 5 young Iraqis who make up Acrassicauda, a Metallica-inspired heavy metal band who formed in 2001. This is an incredible film, and it took a huge amount of courage to get it made - both on behalf of the film-makers and the band members. Watching the band in their early days dedicating a song out of obligation to Saddam is almost comical but we soon see their hopes of a better future dashed in the aftermath of invasion. Having lost friends, family and unable to meet with one another safely in Baghdad, nearly all the band end up living as 'heavy-metal refugees' in Damascus, without status, the right to work and ultimately, without their music - forced to sell their guitars to pay the rent. I hear that the band are now in Turkey so things move on and the band are continuing to post on a blog.... here's the latest published in May:

"Every day brings new challenge that you are not up to with out your power sources. Your music, your home, your friends and so much more living of the broken hopes and dreams of the day that you will be able to gain all of them back. The only thing you got in your pocket to rely on is your belief. This is the only thing that keeps us all going forward and not look back."

At this time of intense political debate, both in this country and in the US, this film is a timely reminder of the power of politics and the devastating impact of war on young people who are just trying to get on with their lives - young people who have the same hopes and dreams as you and me.

Faith in politics?

This is old news now but still relevant - especially in light of the recent speech by Tony Blair. CSM held the Tawney dialogue a week or so ago, exploring the links between faith, politics and the quest for social justice. Apart from the dull AGM bit where I had to present the strategic plan (!) I think it was a really stimulating evening with Canon Nick Sagovsky and Welfare Reform Minister Stephen Timms MP, reflecting on Tawney (and particularly his approach to capitalism and the accumulation of wealth), how politicans and clergy can mutually support one another, and considering how in each of their different capacities, they can contribute to working for a just society. Nick Sagovsky put forward four principles which he proposed should underpin our quest for social justice:

1. The maximisation of liberty (or opportunity)
2. Promotion of a system of law that commands popular assent, including at an international level
3. Meeting of needs and the promotion of well-being
4. Exercise of responsible judgement

He ended with a 'defence of politics' a la Bernard Crick, reminding us all that the alternative to democratic politics is discord, violence and ultimately, war - a timely reminder, just several weeks before elections in this country, that whilst voting may seem irrelevant to many, it is ultimately part of a process that allows us all the get on with our lives and we all have a duty to participate.

As well as a pic of the event (courtesy of my co-Vice-Chair Kerron Cross), I've also posted an event of a visit that CSM Officers (including myself, Andrew Bradstock and CSM Chair Alun Michael MP) made to City Gateway, a faith-based project in East London that is working with young people to give them the confidence and skills they need to get on in life - a wonderfully inspiring afternoon and great to see (contrary to the myth that the Tories keep peddling) that organisations motivated by their Christian faith have been able to access public funding.