As early as 1820 Jews began settling in Palestine as part of the Zionist movement. This was an effort to establish a Jewish homeland. The British approved this Zionist movement in 1917 through the Balfour Declaration, and in the 1930’s, Jews poured into Palestine after they were persecuted by the Hitler regime. The British had been in charge of the land of Palestine since 1923, but their mandate to govern this land ended following the war in 1948, where the UN stepped in and voted on breaking up Palestine and separating it into an Arab state, Jewish state, and a smaller international zone. The Palestinians did not agree with this because they lived throughout all of Palestine and had homes and businesses all of the current state of Palestine. However the plan went on and on May 14th 1948 The Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel.
Arab nations were infuriated with this, this was their home, this is where they raised their kids, this is where they grew up, they didn’t want to give up their land. They attempted to fight for their land, but Israel defeated them and with that gained 50% more land. This new land included Galilee, right in central Palestine leading directly to Jerusalem. They build a border here called the green line. And 750,000 Palestinians were forced to to flee or settle in refugee camps near Israel's border.
In 1956 Israel seized the Gaza Strip after coordination with the French, but soon withdrew after pressure from the UN and US. In the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, in only 6 days Israel was able to defeat Egypt, Syria, and Jordan forces and take East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and all of the Sinai Peninsula, expanding the Israeli territory by 200%. All in a matter of six days. After taking this land Israel occupied and unforced laws meant to make living for Arabs more difficult in hopes to get them to relocate.
This lead to the UN Security council adopted resolution 242, the “land for peace” formula, a plan to make and keep peace in the middle east and between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli troops were to withdraw from the occupied territories taken in 1967 in return for the Arabs to respect the new boarders, and for all to recognize the “right to live” in these places. However in April of 1969 Egypt's president, Nasser showed he didn’t agree with the plan and Egypt and Israel went back to war, The war of Attrition. Neither side won and another ceasefire was signed in 1970. Surely enough a fourth war broke out in 1973 when Israel stated they would not discuss the return of occupied territories. This was an unexpected attack by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur. Arabs had the advantage but by the time of the ceasefire Israel was back in control, however, Israel still suffered great losses.
From here the situation got worse and worse. Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed out of anger and resulted in riots, demonstrations, and terrorist attacks against Israel. A Peace Treaty with Egypt was signed, bringing a bit of peace in 1977, but ended shortly after in 1982 by a devastating assault from Israel on Southern Lebanon.
However the biggest issue in the past 20 years and even today is the people of Palestine and the people of Israel’s issues. I found online a well written explanation of the first major issue between the Israelis and Palestinians, “There are two primary issues at the core of this continuing conflict. First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when it is largely of foreign origin. The original population of what is now Israel was 96 percent Muslim and Christian, yet, these refugees are prohibited from returning to their homes in the self-described Jewish state (and those within Israel are subjected to systematic discrimination).” http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/
The second issue, however, is Israel continuing to take and occupy privately owned property in Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza, and the extreme living conditions these people being occupied in their own homes are forced to live under.
I wanted to get the basic background history down in the beginning of this blog post, because we all understand war, we all have read about it in history books, we all know it isn’t pretty. I wanted to get out the past, because the past is in the past, but now I would like to focus on the now, and the future. What we all have an opportunity to fight for. Personally, as a Christian I was raised in the church as pro-Israel, I was raised being told to pray for Israel because the Muslims were terrorising them. I was never told that the “Muslims”, were actually Muslims, and Christians, and I was never taught that these people were actually just humans too. Humans fighting to raise their kids in the home that they were raised in. Humans who wanted to take their wives on their 30th anniversary date at the same place they had their first kiss. Humans who were fighting literally for their lives. I was raised in the church to believe that these people were Evil, stealing God’s peoples land, killing for no reason. However, my mother raised me to question everything, and to live with an open mind, and to love with an open heart. So they day my best friend called me crying so hard I could not understand a word she was saying, I started doing my own research. It was in August 2014 that she called me, she was devastated because of Israeli bombings in Palestine. She cried and begged God to watch over her family In Palestine, and I cried and prayed with her. I had never seen her cry, and I felt so silly now for all the times I cried to her over a dumb boy. Between July 8th and August 27th, more than 2,100 Palestinians men, women, and children fighting for thier homes, for their lives were killed in the Gaza strip, along with 66 Israeli soldiers and 7 Israeli civilians, and every single one of those lives lost was precious. As of August 27th 2014 475,000 Palestinians were living in emergency shelters after their homes were seized or destroyed by Israeli warfare, 17,200 Palestinian homes were destroyed by Israeli troops, and 244 school had been severely damaged by Israeli troops.
Seven weeks, seven whole weeks of terror and death and family members lost. Who kills a little kid walking to school? Who bombs a hospital, where the already sick and hurt are trying to heal? Who, spray paints on a church “Fuck your Jesus”? Who pulls a woman out of her home by her hair and pees on their floors? I stumbled across a website where Israeli soldiers bragged about what they got away with seemingly with pride, and my stomach turned as I read. I sat in a coffee shop choking back tears reading about the soldiers using the Palestinians clothes, from the homes they seized, as a “pooper scooper”, for their own waste. The next quote really stuck with me as I read, it literally made me cry, because this was someone's home, they could have worked their whole lives for it, in this sergents defence, he continues on about how he eventually started caring more, seeing them more as humans than targets, and attempting to be more respectful of their homes.
“The house is ‘sterilized,’ we yell, “Sterilized, sterilized” to each other. We went into a house that was a candy shop once. There was candy everywhere. We just shoved everything aside. You didn’t eat any? No, first of all because it wasn’t especially tasty candy and also because during the first few days we were still in the ‘no touching’ phase, being moral and all that. Later we would laugh about it more: “We’re blowing up this house, but we can’t eat this bag of Bamba (peanut butter snacks)?” … What did the house look like after 30 soldiers were in it for three days? It looked pretty bad, first because lots of things were blown up inside and also because no one cared. You smoke inside the house and then toss the butts inside the house. You throw your trash inside the house, no one cares.” - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/shit-israeli-soldiers/#sthash.VgdtqsHD.dpuf
I recently received an email with a link to a website where a more privileged Palestinian man wrote that he has a decent social life, he personally still has his home in the West Bank, that things look okay for him right now. But he continued to say the biggest issue in his life is that he never knows what the future will be like. In ten minutes he could be arrested, he could be hurt, his home could be seized, he and his family could be killed. “One of the biggest problems that ALL Palestinians complain about is the lack of a clear future. Over the past 20 years, we have lived through periods of hope, violence, anticipation, concern.... We do not know what the future holds for us. Every single event that happens on the political side can flip all your plans. “ Youc can read more about what he has to say at https://www.quora.com/What-is-Palestinian-life-in-the-West-Bank-actually-like
The more I think about it the more upset I get at the fact that I had to actually dig to find any of this information. Why do I only hear about the Palestinians being terrorist, when really they can’t even travel from one part of Palestine to another without special permission from their occupiers. Many from the West Bank may have family in Gaza but they probably have not seen each other in years, and they probably don’t plan on ever getting a chance to see them again. Why was I given the image of every Arab walking down the road threatening God's people, when really I should have been shown the images of hospitals burned to the ground, vandalized churches, homes covered in feces, crying mothers, crying children, crying grown men, death, and loss? Why?
I speak about human rights every chance I get. I believe in the fair treatment of every human in the world, and I can’t wrap my around why anyone wouldn’t. I’ve taught, and pleaded, and cried, and even sometimes yelled, for people to understand the importance of equal rights of all and treating every life as your own. So when I thought of what I would blog about, my heart was breaking for Palestine, and it only felt right to get it all out. Towards the end of writing this, I asked my best friend, who lived in Palestine for a part of her life, to tell me a story. Just one short story that she had never told me, and I knew this may be hard, but I knew she would trust me and tell me and I would support her. When she last came home from Palestine she was in shock. She almost seemed like a zombie. Her spirit was murdered, she was not the same girl who left. She cried in her sleep, she cried in the shower, and she thought I didn’t notice. She told me to stories late at night of staying in her grandmother's home and holding her cousins as the bombs dropped. She told me how her heart shattered as she looked in the face of a four year old boy as he replied to her question of what he would want to be when he grew up with, “When I grow up, I will have to be a soldier.” She sobbed in my arms, “A four year old should be playing in the yard, a four year old should want to be a firefighter, an astronaut, anything, he shouldn’t feel like he has to fight.” She told me the little things to her, but they were so huge to me. So when I asked her I expected something along those lines, a little thing to her, and I knew if I needed more, I could ask for more.
She gave me this short fact, and it was enough for me, it shocked me enough, it shook me up enough, it hurt me. Her words exactly were “When I was a kid… When I was a kid I couldn’t go into bathrooms alone, or close the door because whenever the Israelis would walk or attack Gaza the safest place in our home was the bathroom, so we would all hide in the bathroom as the windows of our home would crash in.” She paused “... And it took me an embarrassing amount of time to start using the bathroom alone, or close the door. And I’m even still afraid to do so now as an adult.” I honestly just broke down into tears, I remember she used to call me every time she went to the bathroom and I thought it was just a part of our friendship. She used to ask me to sing to her while she showered, she used to ask me to sit by the door all the time. And I would, because she is my best friend.
She offered up more stories of her father being thrown into prison as a seven year old, but he already told me the story. She asked if I wanted to know more about the time they invaded her home, but her mother told me that one already. She asked if I wanted to know more about the time a soldier held her five year old cousin at gunpoint, but my heart already broke too many times in the process of writing this.
Every life is so important, every life is so so precious. How can we be okay with ruining so many? How can we be okay with taking so many? Every Palestinian life lost was a life that could have blossomed into so much more, cut short by a war over land. Every Israeli life lost was a life that could have lived and gained a million beautiful memories, and decades longer. The hardest part about this is that it isn’t over. Today Palestinians are living under oppression, today they are living with fear, today they are being denied travel, free education, decent health care, and so much more. Today hundreds of Palestinians could die and it would be normal but not any less painful to them, or today Israeli soldier could be attacked out of revenge. This doesn’t end because I make this blog post. If every life is precious, why don’t we start acting like it? Educate yourself, speak up for life, help others, try your best to end wars. There is only so much one person can do, but if we all valued the lives of others more, the world would start growing into a much more beautiful place.
