Editor,
I'm a member of the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance that co-sponsored the Jerusalem Women Speak tour. It featured Muslim, Christian and Jewish women from Israel and Palestine talking about peace and experiences living in the Holy Land. I attended five of the events - a luncheon at a local church, an evening event, two classroom talks at UNM and an editorial meeting at the Albuquerque Journal. The women also spoke in Santa Fe at a Jewish-Christian event and college.
The tour was well received, and there was positive dialog from attendees. I was especially moved by the comments of the two Palestinian women - Wejdan Jaber and Abir Kopty - whose families have experienced occupation for more than
60 years.
Wejdan is from Gaza and spoke eloquently about well-documented events: the fact that Israel has cut off Gaza - an area of 1.8 million people - from the outside world. A large number of them, including children, are beginning to starve. The unemployment rate is 75 percent, and Israel is now cutting off electricity needed for food, water purification and medicines such as insulin. With tears, Wejdan asked, "How many more sugar comas can my sister who has diabetes bear?"
Two-thirds of Gazans have lived in refugee camps since they were displaced from their homes in Palestine by Jewish soldiers from 1947-48 when Israel was created and in 1967 when Israel occupied the rest of Palestine. The Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law, as is it's refusing to let the refugees return to
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their homes.
When asked by an attendee about her position on the homemade Qassam rockets that have been fired into one town in Israel, Abir said: "The way to end all the violence is for Israel to end the occupation. This will give both sides the security they need. It makes no sense to look at violence on both sides without looking at the root cause of the problem - a brutal Israeli occupation over decades and no free and viable Palestinian state next to Israel."
A student asked if Palestinian children are brainwashed through curriculum to hate Israelis. Wejdan said clearly: "I have never seen evidence of this in all my years in school." In fact, Palestinian children who daily see Israeli soldiers shoot their friends, torture their family members, bulldoze their homes and abuse them at checkpoints don't need curriculum to make them angry at Israelis.
Finally, very few people in the U.S. know about the impact of the Israeli occupation - financed by $5 billion a year of our taxes - on fellow Christian Palestinians: their inability to access holy Christian places in Jerusalem to worship, their imprisonment, land confiscation and economic strangulation along with fellow Muslims. That is why these first-hand accounts are so critical for Americans to hear.
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh
Outreach coordinator,
Middle East Peace and
Justice Alliance
