March 21, 2002
Elizabeth leads the children in “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”.
Children ready for their Mother’s Day presentation.
Happy Mother's Day. Today, despite the hubbub regarding it, the Mother's Day party went ahead as originally planned. The hall was full, Marthame manned the sound boards, and Elizabeth nervously prepared her "Itsy-bitsy choir," selected from the first through fourth grade. There were speeches, folk dancing, patriotic songs, songs about love, and, of course, a song about spiders. There was a nationalist sketch in the middle of it, a mother wailing over her dead son, the children dressed accordingly: girls in traditional embroidered dresses and white headscarves and boys dressed as teachers, doctors, and fighters, complete with plastic weapons. The "dead" boy was wrapped in the Palestinian flag. All in all, a fairly accurate representation of a "martyr"'s funeral. It was, quite frankly, hard for us to watch, as the boys waved their guns.
Art is one way that these children get to process their trauma.
It is difficult to sit on both sides of the fence when it comes to violent resistance to occupation. On one hand, we both acknowledge (as affirmed in international law) that people have a right to use violence to fight for their freedom. And we recall what we've been taught, told, and annually celebrate, that freedom fighters in the nascent USA took up arms to liberate our country from oppression. And oppression is indeed at its peak here - detentions, killings, closures, curfew, home demolitions, degradation. But there is a difference between fighting soldiers and killing civilians. And, even more importantly, there is a difference between a political right and a moral one. As Christians, our first allegiance is one of faith, not politics. And our faith is clear that killing is wrong, and that the answer to hatred and violence should be love. And so we sat, uncomfortably, viewing the skit, illustrating a political right but a moral wrong. But fortunately, it was only one skit, and most of the party was just that - a party, and for mothers.
One of Zababdeh’s children greeting a grieving Palestinian mother.
Zababdeh youth touring Jenin Refugee Camp.
In the afternoon, one of the village's youth leaders took a group of about forty kids up for a solidarity visit to Jenin Refugee Camp. Marthame went with them as one of the chaperones, his third trip in a couple of weeks. Most of the kids hadn't been to Jenin in over a year, and few of them - if any - had ever been to Jenin Camp. This youth leader is particularly interested in working with the Christian kids of the West Bank to deepen their faith to understand better what it means to be a Christian in a predominantly Muslim Palestinian society. Today was focused towards both goals. The children visited one the camp's cultural centers and then headed out in groups to visit the homes of the mothers of martyrs (because it's Mother's Day). They brought each mother a candle, a sign of hope and faith, with the Scripture passage "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)
Palestinian child posing in front of his bullet-riddled front door.
As we went around, the camp leaders made no distinction between those martyrs who were killed because they happened to go out on their balcony at the wrong time or those who were resisting the Israeli invasion of the camp or those who blew themselves up in a suicide bombing in Israel. Again, hard to stomach as an outsider. Every death is seen as connected to a transcendent ideal of martyrdom in the war for independence. The justification among Palestinians who support suicide bombings is - for the most part - not the rightness of it, but the claim that Israelis took innocent life first in this conflict and have taken more of it. An eye for an eye. That, and the belief that only more pain and fear and loss will make the enemy listen and change - a misguided perspective held by many on both sides of this conflict. And so we're left with nothing but pain and fear and loss for everyone.
As we walked around, a group of children from the camp began to follow us around - curious at the group of outsiders dressed nicely and carrying candles through the streets. They latched onto what made us most identifiably different from them, our Christian faith, and began to taunt. It was strange to really connect with what it means to be a minority because of one's faith. Our hosts from the Camp, both adults and youth, were clearly embarrassed and enraged by this taunting. In spite of their attempts to disperse the kids, they still followed.
While we waited for the bus to pick us up to take us back to Zababdeh, a couple of them threw stones - one hitting a girl on the leg, scaring her more than hurting. As we talked to the kids about this, it was clear they were concerned about "why?" Those who know this place much better than we do, the older youth and young adults who live in Zababdeh, were able to help them understand. First of all, they explained, the kids taunted us mostly because we were outsiders - outsiders who clearly have more money and a better life than them. If the visiting kids had been from Jenin, the same would've happened. Second, the kids in the camp live in terrible conditions, facing overcrowding, poverty, poor sanitation, and few opportunities for the future. That doesn't necessarily mean poor behavior or resentment - as our hosts demonstrated - but it doesn't help. Third, as refugees, they have come to distrust outsiders - both the Israelis who created the refugee crisis in the first place and perpetuate its harshness under a brutal Occupation, and the Palestinians who have done little for them under PA rule (including slowly moving the refugee demands off of the negotiating table). Fourth is the religious difference. To put it as the main reason would be wrong, but to ignore it would also be wrong.
It's clear that the need for such visits to increase understanding are even more needed. A tough day to explain and to swallow.