Palestinian Children encounter many obstacles to their education: harrassment and violence from settlers, impediments, such as roadblocks and checkpoints and in some cases, damage or closure of their schools.  Accompanying children to school has been one of Christian Peacemaker Teams' violence reduction programs for many years in the West Bank.

A few incidentsfour years ago convinced the Israeli Knesset that children near At-Tuwani needed an escort from Israeli soldiers to protect them from settler violence:

In 2004, two CPT members, Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown in At-Tuwani were severely injured when settlers attacked them as they were walking children to school.[17] A few days later, the team, along with Operation Dove and Amnesty International members were again attacked. In response to these attacks, the Israeli Knesset Committee for Children's Rights initiated an order to have soldiers escort the Palestinian children to school in At-Tuwani

The children continue to risk injury from settlers when their military escort is late or fails to appear.

The West Bank is facing a severe drought this summer, made even worse by the long-standing control and abuse of water-resources by the Israeli Government.  According to B'tselem:

The 2008 drought, the most serious drought in the area in the past decade, aggravates the built-in, constant shortage of water in the West Bank. Rainfall this year in the northern West Bank was 64 percent of average, while in the southern sections of the West Bank, it was 55 percent. As a result, the water stored from rainfall has already been used.  ...

A couple of recent petitions highlight the means by which the Government of Israel is impeding the outside world from seeing the realities inside the Palestinian Occupied Territories. In recent months, GOI has denied access to some international filmmakers from filming or showing films in the West Bank. In addition, the treatment by Shin Bet and the IDF of an award-winning journalist upon his return to the Occupied Territories has highlighted many other abuses suffered by journalists in recent years.

The Israeli Military has recently taken further measures to reduce the safety and access of Palestinians to the Old City in Hebron by forbidding members of Christian Peacemaker Teams and Israeli peace groups from accessing what the military terms, "The Sterile Zone."  The military presence in much of Hebron (H1) is similar to that of other Palestinian cities, but the Old City (H2) is quite different because of the presence of Israeli settlers, some of the most right-wing of all settlers.  Because of the settlements, the IDF troops severely restrict the access of Palestinians to the Old City.  According to B'Tselem and the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, "violence, arbitrary house searches, seizure of houses, harassment, detaining passers-by, and humiliating treatment have become part of daily reality for Palestinians and have led many of them to move to safer places".

Five months after the incidents in Beit Ummar subsequent to the death of the Sabarna cousins (diaried here and here), once again a teenager has been killed by the IDF and the IDF's presence at the funeral has led to the injury of more Palestinians.  Bekah Wolf of the Palestine Solidarity Project, located in Beit Ummar, gives background for the incident:

The Challenge of Peacemaking

"Nonviolent resistance to tyrants, oppressors and brutal invaders is not for fools or cowards. It demands courage and daring of the highest order. It requires discipline, training and a willingness to face death. Are there tough, brave volunteers for that kind of costly, demanding battle? Would the nonviolent troops be available to be trained by the thousands and then tens of thousands to form disciplined Christian Peacemaker Teams ready to walk into the face of danger and death in loving confrontation of injustice and oppression?"

(Ron Sider, Nonviolence: The Invincible Weapon, p. 95)

One of the tenets of Liberation Theology is that Christ suffers along with the oppressed.  The verse from the Spiritual "Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody knows like Jesus" resonates not only in the African American Church, but in other communities hungering for justice, believing that God has not abandoned them.  

These reflections on Jesus stumbling and Jerusalem women weeping continue the series of Stations by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron about their faith in the light of Palestinians' suffering under occupation:

Join in the "Way of the Cross in Occupied Palestine," a Lenten campaign to raise awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people living under Israeli military occupation. These short reflections connect contemporary parallels to the themes found in the Stations of the Cross, a tool used for reflection on the suffering and death of Christ.

As this reality of violence runs parallel to the suffering of Christ, the campaign encourages participating churches to engage in direct actions that highlight the violence and injustice of life under military occupation in Palestine.

One of the tenets of Liberation Theology is that Christ suffers along with the oppressed.  The verse from the Spiritual "Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody knows like Jesus" resonates not only in the African American Church, but in other communities hungering for justice, believing that God has not abandoned them.  

These reflections on Jesus' mother, Veronica and Simon of Cyrene continue the series of Stations by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron about their faith in the light of Palestinians' suffering under occupation:

Join in the "Way of the Cross in Occupied Palestine," a Lenten campaign to raise awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people living under Israeli military occupation. These short reflections connect contemporary parallels to the themes found in the Stations of the Cross, a tool used for reflection on the suffering and death of Christ.
As this reality of violence runs parallel to the suffering of Christ, the campaign encourages participating churches to engage in direct actions that highlight the violence and injustice of life under military occupation in Palestine.

One of the tenets of Liberation Theology is that Christ suffers along with the oppressed.  The verse from the Spiritual "Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody knows like Jesus" resonates not only in the African American Church, but in other communities hungering for justice, believing that God has not abandoned them.  

Over the next few days, I'll be sharing a series of reflections by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron about their faith in the light of Palestinians' suffering under occupation:

Join in the "Way of the Cross in Occupied Palestine," a Lenten campaign to raise awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people living under Israeli military occupation. These short reflections connect contemporary parallels to the themes found in the Stations of the Cross, a tool used for reflection on the suffering and death of Christ.

As this reality of violence runs parallel to the suffering of Christ, the campaign encourages participating churches to engage in direct actions that highlight the violence and injustice of life under military occupation in Palestine.

As I reported in a previous diary, on Wednesday, February 13, the town of Beit Ummar was put under curfew and was declared a closed military zone.  Some tragic events had occured in Beit Ummar a few weeks prior.

On Friday, January 25 two young Palestinian men, Mahmoud and Muhammed Sabarnah from Beit Ummar were killed after entering the settlement of Gush Etzion.  Over the next few days, Christian Peacemaking Teams sent out several reports giving more context to the incident and its aftermath.

Christian Peacemaker Teams sent out these releases yesterday about events in Beit Ummar, a town located between Bethlehem and Hebron with Christian and Muslim inhabitants.  CPT has a long history with Beit Ummar and has housed some of its volunteers there in the past.  Beit Ummar has been among the leaders of Palestinian Muslim non-violent resistance, pioneering the practice of conducting Friday prayers in the village's fields which Israeli settlers have tried to confiscate.

At this time of year, my mother-in-law usually asks for a wish list from my family.  I can come up with items for my children easily enough.  But often I'm hard pressed to come up with items I really want (or maybe just items I'm willing to write down on a list for someone else).  However, it occurs to me that there are several books I've been wanting to read lately, so I've started compiling them for my list.  

I am interested in hearing about the bookish interests of other Kogs this Holiday season.

I was running a little late on the second day of the Berkeley Sabeel conference several weeks ago.  It had taken me a little longer to find a parking spot than I had anticipated, so I was practically running down the sidewalk when I encountered a handful of people in black on the corner in front of St. John's Presbyterian Church.  The group -- a couple of men, a couple of women and a giant puppet -- were holding signs and handing out flyers.  Seeing the words, "Oakland Women in Black," I took one as I hurried past.  But I realized that something wasn't quite right as I skimmed the flyer (aside from the fact that I had never seen any men with Women in Black at peace vigils before).  In addition to the harsh criticism of Sabeel, including charges of anti-Semitism, most of the websites it recommended that I recognized wouldn't be given much credence by any leftists or progressive Christians that I know:

Al?  we are here.

(I'll try again)

ahem.  We Are Here!

(Okay, once again, with feeling):

WE ARE HERE!!!

(Darn, I have to track down that kid who yells,"Bop!")

"The Arc of Crisis: U.S. Policy in the Middle East and South Asia", a Middle East panel at Yearly Kos, has gotten some mention in the blogosphere in the past couple of weeks.  In the weeks leading up to Yearly Kos, we heard about the upcoming Middle East panel from MarkinSanFran, a Kog who had helped Juan Cole organize it.  Juan Cole had pulled together a group of panelists that he predicted would be spectacular:

John Mearsheimer, U of Chicago (of 'Israel Lobby' fame)
Fariba Zarinebaf (Northwestern U., Iranian history)
Manan Ahmed (blogger, Chapati Mystery; grad at U of Chicago)
Dennis Perrin (blogger, Red State Son)
me.

Some Kogs who weren't able to attend Yearly Kos have been waiting for further news about Cole's spectacular panel.

In the past several weeks, both houses of Congress have been considering resolutions marking the 40th anniversary of Israel’s 6-Day war.  Last month, the House passed its version:

"The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution congratulating
Israel on the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and
urging the Bush administration to move its embassy there.

The non-binding resolution, passed in a voice vote Tuesday afternoon,
"commends Israel for its administration of the undivided city for the
past 40 years, during which Israel has respected the rights of all
religious groups."

Once again, the Israeli government is asserting that Palestinian politicians are  legitimate targets for arrest and assassination:

Naser el-Deen al Shaer was arrested by soldiers who knocked at the door of his home in the city of Nablus, his wife said.
He was among several senior Hamas members who were detained by Israeli troops.
A former Cabinet minister, Abdel Rahman Zeidan, two lawmakers and the mayors of the towns of Nablus, Qalqiliya and Beita were also arrested.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that an "arrest operation" had taken place.
...
The emergency discussions between Mr Abbas and representatives from the five parties involved in inter-factional fighting came hours after Israel carried out more air strikes, hitting what it said were buildings used by Hamas militants to store weapons.
Israeli officials have repeated threats to widen their list of targets to include Hamas political leaders.

You were expecting  MetaJesus perhaps?  While, according to Hunter, MetaJesus is the "personal MetaSavior of MetaDiaries on MetaKos", MetaMoses is the MetaProphet and MetaRule giver for the Israel Palestine threads.  Which is why he has so many occasions to moan.

MetaMoses already has delivered the word from on high for behavior in the Orange Land.  Those revered words apply just as much in the I/P threads as elsewhere on the site.  The people's disregard for those basic community norms when MetaMoses was busy elsewhere made him so upset when he found out that he dropped a tablet (he was even more upset when the tablet hit his foot.  MetaMoses no longer supposes his toeses are roses.  He just has more reasons for moaning, not to mention saying some words that cannot appear in diary titles).  So MetaMoses will summarize the most important of those norms here to make it easier (don't expect the Christian Right to get these posted in your local courthouse; you'll only find them here):