MER - Washington - 12/11/97:
           People all over the world have been affected by the "Intifada", the Palestinian "rebellion", the "throwing off" of Israeli occupation, that began 10 years ago this week.  The Arabic word itself has
become part of the common political vocabulary around the world.
           For the past few years a group of Christian pacifists known as the Christian Peacekeeping Team (CPT) have been "bearing witness" in the occupied, and recently divided through U.S. and Israeli designs, city of Hebron.  This short letter from CPT in Hebron about the Intifada anniversary is both timely and insightful.
 

10 December, 1997

    The Intifada, literally a shaking off (of the Israeli occupation), started in Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza Strip On December 9, 1987 when Palestinians reacted angrily to an Israel truck hitting and killing 4 Palestinian workers returning from work in Israel.  The stone throwing and strikes of Jabalia Camp spread like a wind-whipped prairie fire across the Strip and leaped even the fire break of Israel into the West Bank.

    The fury of the Intifada fueled the massive nonviolent resistance to the long-standing Israeli occupation.  But images of stone throwers dominated the media rather than the brutal Israeli response to this Davidic action.  Recognizing that the force of violence would only play into Israel's strong suit, Palestinians chose primarily to use the weapons of nonviolence.  The world community, though,  abandoned its responsibility in the nonviolent equation because of the dearth of news that was allowed out of the cordoned-off territories and because of apathy about a seemingly distant issue.

    Nevertheless, the dramatic tax resistance of the small village of Beit Sahour brought the mighty Israeli state to the door of fear as the military occupation clamped a 40 day curfew on the town and went door to door destroying the economic infrastructure and trying to destroy the spirit of resistance in the people.  The Israeli military feared that this unanimous tax resistance action undertaken by the people of Beit Sahour would spread like a virus across the occupied territories.
The occupiers knew that there was no military defense against such a bold nonviolent action, a people who refused to pay for their own occupation.

    The Intifada ended, but amazingly the spirit of nonviolent resistance springs eternal from the human soul. This is evidenced by the tidal wave of nonviolent movements sweeping the globe in such varied settings as the people power revolution in the Philippines, the fall of apartheid in South Africa, student protests against Serb dominance in Albania, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the brave democracy movement in China, and the recent nonviolent protests in Belgrade.

    In Palestinian areas we see the nonviolent spirit of the Intifada still alive.  In Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, this summer, CPTers watched as a Palestinian soccer game provided the framework for the popular rejection of the takeover of more land by Israeli settlers.  The Hebron Land Defence Committee informed CPT as, between Dura and Tarqumia, in the West Bank, 60 Palestinians marched to block the path of an Israeli contractor preparing to open a road into a proposed stone quarry for Israelis on confiscated Palestinian land.  This fall in the hills south of Yatta, 13 farm families returned to the land from which they had been evicted and where their cave homes had been bulldozed to clear the region for an Israeli military zone.  The Palestinian families cleared the rubble and moved back in.  CPTeam and a delegation will be joining them in rebuilding and solidarity next week.  This relentless Palestinian persistence is also visible in the renovation of 30 abandoned homes in the old city of Hebron as well as in the day-to-day living.  This goes on in the schools, markets, farms, and offices and in the ongoing marriages, births, and deaths that frame the existence of a people in an area where Israeli settlers and Israeli governmemt policy plan for the removal of this "invisible" people from land that the Israeli people, nearly alone in all the world, see as their heritage, given by Jehovah God.

    As evidenced by history, the nonviolent resistance of the people living in their own area is stronger than the mightiest armies (see the Maya in Central America, India throwing off the British, South Africa under apartheid).  The story of the Palestinian people is not ended but only about to continue as the nonviolent Intifada spirit becomes an implanted gene in the chromosomal chain of the Palestinian people. The anniversary of the resistance is but a celebration of the ongoing Intifada.  At this time it is incumbent on the concerned people of the world to assume their role in this resistance to injustice.  The outcry of those of us seemingly unaffected by the struggle is an essential piece of the nonviolent campaign to make this world whole and nurture the best in each human soul.

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is an initiative among Mennonite and Brethren congregations, and Friends meetings who support violence reduction Teams around the world.  CPT Hebron has maintained a violence reduction presence in Hebron since June of 1995 at the invitation of the Hebron Municipality.
CPT; P.O. Box 6508 Chicago, IL 60680 USA; Tel: 312-455-1199; Fax: 312-666-2677; e-mail: CPT@igc.org