A group of 25 people on a 12-day tour, led by Clarence and Joan Musgrave, arrived here on 15 February. The tour included visits to many ‘holy sites’ as well as a fact-finding trip to provide first hand information about three projects for members of the Guild. The projects – one Christian, one Muslim and one Jewish – are part of the Guild’s Project, Interfaith Action in Israel and Palestine. The Guild group based itself first in Bethlehem, then at the Scots Hotel in Tiberias and finally here at St Andrew’s Guesthouse in Jerusalem. Margaret and I joined them for some of their visits:
DAHEISHA REFUGEE CAMP, BETHLEHEM
I accompanied the group to Bethlehem on their visit to the Al Feneiq Centre of the Daheisha Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. If you have had any connection with a local Community Centre in the UK run by a local management committee (who also found the resources to build it) you will understand the type of activities that take place there, and how important the centre is to the community. The centre is multi-purpose and obviously well used. Our guide at the camp took us up to the roof of the centre. From there we could see the extent of the camp and how it related to the rest of Bethlehem. We were told that 15,000 people were living in what looked like very cramped conditions. The camp started sixty years ago with tents, then with UN assistance came temporary buildings, and now the buildings have been extended upwards as families grow. The camp is not temporary!
From the vantage point of the roof we saw all the Jewish settlements that surround Bethlehem. As these settlements grow you can see how Bethlehem is becoming more and more cut off from the outside. Our guide preferred to use the word ‘colony’ rather than ‘settlement’. I quite understand that. Settlement seems to ring of something temporary – which these places certainly are not – and also of something haphazard, as if a group of settlers alight on a likely spot to build their community. These colonies are built and then people are offered incentives to come and live in them. One cannot escape the thought that the development of these colonies is part of a long-term plan which is carrying on anyway, despite what Israel and Palestine and the World may eventually sit down and talk about.
One of our hosts from the refugee camp spoke a little about one of his aspirations – to find the finances to build a swimming pool at the Al Feneiq Centre. And he was very quick to explain the deeper reason for this. Because of where Bethlehem is situated, and the fact that it is so difficult to get a pass to enter the state of Israel, none of the children in the camp have ever seen the sea. For them water is for washing and drinking (and it is in short supply and very expensive) – and the children have no experience of water for playing and enjoying themselves.
JAYYOUS
The fact-finding group at the entrance to the Jayyous creche
When Margaret and I joined the group on their visit to Jayyous, to meet community leaders and see the crèche which the Guild is supporting, I was reminded of the first time I visited that community, and the longing of some of the adults for the sea, which had in the past been possible for them but which now they could no longer visit. From many vantage points in the village you can see across to Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean. It is only a half hour drive away, yet this community is also excluded from it for the same reasons as in Bethlehem – people cannot get passes to travel into Israel. It is always a privilege to meet people like the community leaders in Jayyous who are working for the benefit of their community, and who often do so for no financial reward. It is a privilege to get to know them as friends and colleagues, and support them in their work. But it is always so difficult to listen to the pain they express about what is happening to their community. This sense of being hemmed in, and the pain of loss pervades every community I have visited in the West Bank.
“Sea is more than water. Whichever way you look at it, it is our greatest source of stories and fears and miracles…the sea holds awe for us in its hidden depths and its mighty power. It calls to us like some ancient mother that birthed creation, and maybe we are attracted to it, with reverence and fear, because it holds our story; of birth and escape, of life and of death, of power and adventure. It is not a beginning, nor is it an end. It is simply always being; great, mighty and mysterious…. yet in its being, it shapes for us our life, our seasons, the miracle of our home in this universe…” [Source: Pray Now 2007]
