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| St George's |
Sunday is different here – even more than in deregulated
Britain, it’s a normal working day, at least for the Muslim majority here in
East Jerusalem. Weekends are basically Friday and Saturday. How the Christian
community manages I don’t really know – but I suppose that is just a further aspect
of the cry we continually hear, lamenting over the dwindling Christian
population.
We attended the main service at St George’s Anglican
Cathedral – an Arabic service, as we chose to be with the local congregation
rather than the pilgrims and ex-pats who come to the later English language service.
In fact, there were a number of English-speaking groups there, so a good deal
of the service was translated, including the sermon which was preached twice.
And the service book helped us to know exactly what was being said for much of
the rest of the time. As ever, I found particularly moving the reference in the
Eucharistic prayer to Jesus being “crucified here in Jerusalem”.
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| Brian with Bishop Suheil |
Later we were back on the bus, with Amir driving us to
Ramallah. Progress through the checkpoint was not too bad, and we were on time
for our session with Addameer, where Gavin outlined for us his organisation’s
support for Palestinians political prisoners, stressing that the Israeli
government has used imprisonment as a policy since 1948, and particularly since
1967 has used it as a means to destroy Palestinian society. Much of what is
happening is in clear breach of international law (eg only one of the 17
prisons used is in the West Bank: thus the occupying power is taking prisoners
out of their country), but particularly concerning is the way in which there
seems to be a deliberate targeting of children.
We were given so much information to process that it is hard
to say much about it all so soon – and indeed I suspect we all will need quite
some time to reflect properly on all that we have learned over this past week
or so. But in the mean time, everything that Addameer does (other than its case
notes and histories) is on their website – http://www.addameer.org.
As Gavin stressed, they have nothing to
hide.
On the way home, progress through the checkpoint was slower.
The IDF soldiers had their visors, and a shot of some kind of fired as we
passed – probably a baton round. No doubt there had been some stone-throwing
going on – the most common charge laid against Israeli children.
When we were with Bishop Suheil this morning he commented
that not only is the wall ugly, but it does nothing to help bring people
together. As the young soldiers boarded our bus and checked our passports, we
could only begin to imagine what their continual presence must mean to the Palestinian
people who have to undertake journeys through these check points day after day – and bear
much more besides.
It’s now late afternoon, and this time tomorrow we will be
getting ready to fly back home. Later this evening we hope to have a brief
walking tour of the old city; and then in the morning, when we have some time
to spare, we hope to get up on to the Temple Mount. But that will depend on the
authorities – and in this case both Israelis and Palestinians have it in their
power to deny access. The area was closed off because of incidents on Friday
afternoon, and there seems to be a perception round that, especially because of
the hunger strikers, the whole situation is hotting up again.
In a land of walls and barriers, peacemakers should surely
be blessed, and Christians be ready to learn to build bridges.
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