Reports from Israel-Palestine: John R. Deckenback

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

An Exploring Journey: Jerusalem and beyond…

John R. Deckenback
Central Atlantic Conference Minister
United Church of Christ

I was privileged to join UCC General Minister and President John Thomas, UCC Ecumenical Officer Lydia Veliko and UCC Global Ministries Middle East executive Peter Makari on a week long visit to Israel and Palestine in early November.

Our journey took us non-stop from Newark to Tel Aviv. Once on the ground in Israel you immediately knew that “things were different.” Two in our four person group were interviewed at passport control regarding the purposes of our visit and one was delayed for 30 minutes for a more extensive discussion. In the end we were all allowed in.

After collecting our baggage we headed off toward East Jerusalem in a van with Israeli license plates. Later I would learn that these plates allowed us the privilege of driving on an exclusive highway between the airport and Jerusalem. Cars with Palestinian plates had to take the long, time-consuming way around.

As we approached Jerusalem we passed through the first of what would become many military-style checkpoints. Time and again our faces and our passports were examined with skeptical scrutiny by heavily armed uniformed personnel. From my backseat perch I wondered what it must be like to pass through these checkpoints for someone whose appearance is different than mine and/or someone who does not carry a U.S. passport.

There were several intermingled purposes for our trip:

• to provide grounding for UCC efforts to implement the General Synod resolutions regarding “the wall” and “economic leverage.”
• to meet our partners in the region for whom Wider Church Ministries and its predecessors have provided personnel, funding and/or other support.
• to provide a better understanding of the current situation “on the ground”
• to assist me with background as I occasionally represent the UCC on Middle East matters in Washington, D.C.

Peter Makari’s scheduling generously gave us a few minutes rest before we set out for Bethlehem. The Bethlehem checkpoint was just a few miles from our East Jerusalem hotel. Once cleared we drove through the nearly completed wall and someone asked if we could stop to take pictures. We did.

In Berlin the wall (actually a collection of walls) was about 3 meters tall. The first thing you notice about the new wall at the Bethlehem gate is that it stands nearly 8 meters tall and is spotted with black-windowed towers. The wall runs through neighborhoods, down the middle of streets, around hills…it is an imposing scar on the landscape. Like its Berlin cousin, the wall is already well-decorated with graffiti – graffiti which draws the obvious comparisons to both Berlin and Warsaw.

Throughout our trip we would continually intersect with the “separation barrier”, as the wall is formally known.

In Bethlehem we saw physical scars left behind from the second Intefada–a bullet imbedded in the YMCA’s piano and a hole blasted by Israeli troops through the concrete floor of Christmas Lutheran Church’s classroom.

Our days and nights were full. In order to accomplish our purposes we met with:

• Human rights organizations
• Religious leaders
• A minister in the Israeli Cabinet at the Knesset
• U.S. consular staff
• Theologians and educators
• Local Palestinian community leaders
• World Council of Churches monitors

We visited:

• Holy Sites (Church of the Nativity, Church of the Holy Seplucur, Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock, The Mount of Olives…)
• The Old City (with its bustling market stalls)
• The Holocaust Museum
• The Israeli Museum (with the Dead Sea Scrolls)
• A UCC funded school of young Palestinian students in East Jerusalem
• A recovery program for the victims of the stress of living with the occupation
• Augusta Victoria Hospital, now isolated from its own staff and patients by the wanderings of the wall. The hospital is operated through the auspices of the Lutheran World Federation in a complex partnership with our German church partners.

Our hotel was just a couple of blocks from the Damascus Gate to the Old City. Inside the gate merchants peddled meat, vegetables, rugs, tourist trinkets…in a seemingly endless maze of narrow walkways. Occasionally the local crowd would be supplemented by a herd of tourists following the ubiquitous guide’s umbrella. While watching the crowd at the gate we noticed that soldiers were randomly stopping passers-by and examining their papers. My pictures include a shot of an unobservant young tourist having her picture taken with a group of soldiers as their colleagues are examining and questioning a student’s papers. We visited with the student afterwards and learned that the soldiers had determined that one of his four passes had “expired” and that he would not be permitted to proceed to school that day. We watched as the process was repeated over and over…

Olive Trees

I came to a new appreciation of the importance of olive trees. The trees dot the hillsides along ancient trails carved into the rocky hillsides. Ancient orchards fill gullies and valleys. On the Mount of Olives Lutheran World Service volunteers harvested olives which were transformed into olive oil ready for shipment around the world. In the small West Bank village of Jayyuse we watched farmers line up at a checkpoint to cross the barrier that now separates them from the village. Over their shoulders and on their donkeys were bags of freshly picked olives.

In Ramalla we visited a home that featured an olive tree in a glass-enclosed central courtyard. The produce from that tree is not good, the owner said, because we keep the tree looking nice by giving it too much water.

A few days later in Berlin’s Holocaust Museum we found olive trees atop the 49 columns that serve as reminder of the concentration camps.

In this hostile environment of Israeli-Palestinian relations I mused about the prospects for peace. Will someone “extend an olive branch”?

The Separation Barrier

The “Separation Barrier” is an ugly scar on the landscape of the Holy Land. In some places it runs down the middle of the street. In other places it zig, zags around hills and valleys. The sections we saw in and around Jerusalem were 8 meters tall and were topped with black glass turrets. Neighbors have been separated. Farmers have been separated from their fields. To move from one side to the other Palestinians need multiple passes (one for each gate) that are issued for only three months at a time. One commentator observed that the barrier was initially created to prevent terrorist activity but that it was quickly “highjacked” for other purposes.

In the village of Jayyuse a community spokesperson noted that nothing can be constructed within 30 meters of the barrier on each side. The barrier itself then begins with coiled razor wire, which is followed by a deep ditch, a 15 foot wide swath of bare dirt, a high chainlink fence and a paved patrol road…then the fence, dirt, ditch and razor wire formula are repeated on the other side. The arid dessert landscape is wounded.

For nearly an hour we stood at a checkpoint watching as farmers came out of their fields, showed their papers to Israeli guards, crossed the barrier and then headed up the hill to their homes. Observers from the World Council of Churches kept careful watch and documented the happenings at the checkpoint.

We wondered aloud about a better way to describe what we were seeing and feeling regarding the barrier:

• wall
• ghetto
• segregation
• partition

At the Knesset a Cabinet Minister suggested that the barrier follows established international boundaries. From our observation on the ground and review of the maps provided by human rights groups we saw a barrier that benefits one side of this conflict and is designed to isolate, humiliate, and dehumanize. One of our hosts described the Palestinian islands that are being created like “swiss cheese.” Visits to neighbors that previously took a few minutes now can take hours, crossing points are opened and closed at will, farmers have been cut off from their fields, the good soil and access to water have been provided to Isreali’s and limited to others and more.

Global Ministries (the UCC-Disciples Mission agency) has impressive partners in the region providing health care, educational opportunities for Palestinians, rehabilitation for shell shocked victims, theological reflection, job training, refugee services, etc.

The Israeli government denied our request to visit Gaza. A few days later an international panel recommended routes to connect Gaza to the West Bank and U. S. Secretary of State Condelizza Rice urged the Israeli government to open the border to/from Gaza while enabling transportation to the West Bank.

At the Knesset our visit with the Cabinet Minister Isaac Hertzog (Minister of Housing and Construction) was interrupted by urgent business. Later it was explained that the coalition government had been unable to obtain enough votes to confirm the appointment of the Finance Minister. A few days later Prime Minister Sharon made his dramatic announcement that he was creating a new party and calling for new parliamentary elections.

The situation is clearly very fluid and potentially very volatile. Our week provided us with but a quick snapshot.

The inequities and injustices of the current situation are untenable. Untangling the issues of race, religion, safety/security and power/powerlessness will take the good will of all parties.

What next?

The United States largest recipient of foreign assistance is Israel. American corporations have benefitted from the discriminatory status quo. American influence and public opinion can have a very positive impact on the future.

In July 2005 the United Church of Christ’s General Synod affirmed two resolutions–one calling for dismantling of the separation barrier and the other affirming the use of the church’s economic leverage to address the Israel-Palestinian situation.

I came away from our trip convinced more than ever that the two UCC General Synod resolutions were appropriate and their implementation should be vigorously pursued in order to affirm a two-state solution where:

• The border between the two states essentially follows the pre-1967 borders
• Jerusalem is shared and Holy sites are protected
• Both states are viable–economically, politically, and otherwise.
• There is mutual trust and human security is respected
• Borders are permeable and territory is contiguous

(Note: see The Rand Report, Building a successful Palestinian state, 2005 and Bland/Ross/Salem, Creating Positive Facts on the Ground: a viable Palestinian State, October 2005, Stanford Center on Conflict Negotiation, School of Law, Stanford University. Bland, et.al. call for GRIT–graduated reciprocation in Tension-reduction.)

Clearly there are many implications for our life in the Central Atlantic Conference:

• Keeping ourselves adequately informed
• Maintaining our Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations locally/regionally with integrity
• Participating in the public policy, economic leverage and other initiatives
• Praying for peace and healing of the horrific scars that now blemish the Holy Land.

The trip was a marvelous experience! These are just initial impressions which can be supplemented by my nearly 300 pictures and, yes, I would love the opportunity to show and tell…