Imad

Lucy

Angie Saba

Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour

Rami Elhanan

Dalia Eshkenazi Landau

Sam Bahour

Rev. Hosam Naoum

Usama and Abuna Firas

Majdi and Usama

Violette Khoury

Jonathan Cook

Abuna Elias Chacour

By Brenda Mehos, Margot LaPanse, Mary Laird, and Bill Aldrich

As our trip drew to a close many of us pulled Quotable Quotes out of our notes and memory banks to try to capture what we’d learned and want to share. We took seriously the invitation to “Come and See, then Go and Tell.” Here are some of the pieces of wisdom we collected along the way:

From Brenda’s notes:

• Wi’am  – Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center in Bethlehem (Imad Nasser and Lucy Talgieh)
  • “The older generation saw the wall built, the younger generation only knows the wall” (I think Imad said this)
  • “We are also victims of the holocaust” Lucy Talgieh
• Diyar Consortium, Lutheran ministries in Bethlehem
  • “We want to Survive and Thrive” Angie Saba at Diyar Consortium
• Parents’ Circle/Bereaved Families Forum – Rami Elhanan
  • ” We are together in our pain”
  • “This is not our destiny to kill each other….  It will not stop unless we talk”
  • “The other way leads to nowhere” and
  • “Power of pain is enormous.  Use it for light and hope.”
  • “You cannot oppress and control another”
  • “both sides don’t see other as human”
  • Regarding what can we do? “Be Pro peace against injustice”
• Open House Early Childhood Center for Arab Preschoolers – Dalia Landau
  • “Need empathy for the other”
• St. George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem – Rev. Hosam Naoum, Dean of the Cathedral
  • “Violence breeds violence”
  • “If we are silent we agree with what is going on”
  • “Educate all faiths – we want to stop extremists like a cancer”
  • “We have a goal of reconciliation and love”
• Skype with Father Firas Khoury Diab, St. George’s Melkite Church in Zababdeh
  • “Build bridges for peace…Cover the ugly wall with hundreds of bridges”
  • “To defeat the dark we need our youth”
  • “We must destroy the darkness with our light
• Majdi Shella, International Cultural Coordinator and Civic Education Trainer Nablus, Palestine
  • “The Holy Land is for all” and “conflict is unacceptable”
• Abuna Elias Chacour, Mar Elias Educational Institutions in Ibillin
  • “Greet each other with a smile of hope”
  • “We are paying the bill for what has been done to others”
  • regarding Kibbutz’s surrounded with barb wire…. “Cannot dream of peace while you fear”
• Violette Khoury of Nasijona Nazareth Center
  • Everything dies except Love”
• Journalist Jonathan Cook, accompanying us to the destroyed village of Saffuriya
  • “Don’t be tribal about this  – it’s a trap.  Zionism creates this”

From Margot’s Notes:

• Hosam  Naoum (Dean of St George’s Cathedral):
  • “We are entrusted to protect the dignity of every person.”
  • “We feel that the Christian presence in the Holy Land is threatened.”
• Rami Elhanan from the Parents’ Circle:
  • “This is not our destiny.”
  • “We can break the endless cycle of violence.”
  • “We bang our heads against the very high wall of hatred, but we have an enormous power as our ally.  We have the power of our pain.  Our blood is exactly the same color.  Our tears are equally bitter.”
  • “You cannot oppress, torture, and humiliate a whole nation.”
• Dalia Landau:  “How can you have empathy if you haven’t met ‘the other’?”
• Sam Bahour:  “They put you in a maze where they define the walls.”
• Abuna Elias Chacour:
  • “You may ask our students anything except for one question:  do not ask them what religion they practice.  All of them are children of God.
  • “You can take our land from us, you can torture and kill us, but there is one thing you cannot make us do:  you cannot make us hate you.”
  • “The Zionists did not merge into the Middle East culture.  They planted themselves into our land.”
• Violette Khoury of the Palestinian Embroidery Coop in Nazareth:
  • “We need to stop talking and just start doing.”
• Jonathan Cook:
  • “There are two types of apartheid:  the visible apartheid (walls, etc.) and the resource apartheid, which is designed to insure that only one group gets access to critical resources.”

From Mary’s notes:

• Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour (those are only 2 of his 10 official names), of the Aida Camp Al Rowwad Center
  • “We want to see our children LIVING for the cause we are fighting, not DYING for the cause we are fighting.”
• Angie at Diyar: “When you are all hiding together from bullets, the bullet cannot tell if you are Muslim, Christian, or whatever.” [“or whatever” might not be quite right.]
• Bill, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, parenthetically to a questioning member of our group: “This is not a place for skepticism.”
• Rami of Parents Circle:
  • “Wanting to get even is normal, natural, what most people do. We are not animals; we can THINK. Another option is to try to understand.”
  • “We are not doomed to keep on killing each other. The only thing we can do is talk to each other.”
  • “Demand to be pro-peace.”
  • “My message as a Jew: ‘ruling, oppressing, and humiliating a people is NOT with our religion, and being against it is NOT anti-Semitism.'”
• Sam Bahour, after detailing the background of the crippling limitation of movement under occupation with his current passport and ID card:
  • “The bulk of the occupation is administrative.”
  • “We took [Israel] to the nonviolent world and they did not know what to do… No one comes for NON-violence, only for violence. But only Israel will win the violence game.”
• Majdi: Nablus
  • “the Holy Land, is not the Holy Land without Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It is the Holy Land for all.”
• Abuna Chacour pointing out Jewish Israeli neighborhoods surrounded by barbed wire: “How can the people inside dream of peace when they are told their neighbors are so dangerous?”

From Bill’s Notes:

• A quote from Abuna Chacour that stands out in my mind, and I am remembering it this way: “Life is beautiful, and it is beautiful when I can see my dignity in the face of another and call that person my brother.”

Final quotable moment of the trip:

• Young female guard with rifle steps onto our bus at last checkpoint before the airport: “Are you one organic group?” Joan: [stunned pause], “Yes, we are all one group.”  Organic.  Yes. Yes, we are.