Sad Friday: Along the Via Dolorosa

“What did the people of Jerusalem offer Jesus on that last Friday of his life? The Gospel of Luke chapter 23 provided the answers. The chief priests and scribes, with some of their supporters, offered Jesus their accusation and condemnation (2,5,21). King Herod with the soldiers offered him ridicule and mockery (11,35,36). Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem, offered him a death sentence (24-25). Simon of Cyrene offered him, though forced, a helping hand by carrying his cross for part of the way (26). The women of Jerusalem offered their tears (27-28). The thief who was crucified on his left offered blasphemy and cursing (39). The thief on the right offered him his loyalty (42). The Roman Centurion offered his testimony. Joseph of Arimathea offered his own tomb.”

 From Brokenness to Wholeness by Naim Ateek, Afterword to Presbyterian Church and Society Journal on Jerusalem: Longing for Peace and Wholeness 

         The Arabic word for Good Friday is jum’a al hazini which means “Sad Friday”.  On this day all over the Christian world people remember the Passion of Christ.  In Jerusalem thousands of people walk the Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa and relive in their imaginations or spirit the suffering, torture, and execution of Jesus.

         Naim Ateek, Director of the Sabeel Liberation Center in Jerusalem, reminds us that for many of Jerusalem’s Palestinian inhabitants the Via Dolorosa is not a symbolic walk. For Palestinians, he contends, experience life under occupation like that of a person condemned and forced to carry one’s cross and walk the via dolorosa all the way until death.  Furthermore, he says it is possible to see the crosses that some are carrying--

                  The cross of the loss of their right to live in the city of their birth;

                  The cross of becoming homeless due to the demolition of their homes;

                  The painful cross which people carry when their land is  confiscated and their property taken;

                  The cross of humiliation and degradation which many have to carry daily

         I would like to go into more detail about one of these crosses---becoming homeless due to house demolitions.  I’d like to explore in more depth with you how this process works and how it is related to their first cross—loss of the right to live in the city. I see this cross connected to Station 7 when Jesus falls for the second time. Then I will focus on how this process is working in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Sheik Jarrah and Silwan where the fiercest struggles for land and property are happening and the rate of dispossession is the highest.

         The continuing policy of home demolition by the Israelis is cruel and inhumane as well as illegal under humanitarian laws.  This suffering contributes to the overall suffering of an already weakened Palestine says Father Rafiq Khoury from Jerusalem. He compares the falling of Jesus the second time from the wounds of his torture to the way weakened Palestine is falling from home demolitions. “The word made flesh and found his home among us. But his home was crushed, his bones broken like the stones of a demolished house.”

         According to the 2011 UN Summary report, displacement of Palestinians due to home demolitions was up to 80% from 2010 with thousands more at risk for demolition. Nowhere is this more evident than in East Jerusalem’s neighborhoods where only 13% of East Jerusalem is designated for construction and therefore Palestinians must build with both limited space and limited access to permits.  In addition to these restrictions, the Jerusalem municipality just released plans for 50,000 new homes to be built in the city’s east sector over the next two decades. Almost 13,000 are slated for East Jerusalem.

         To understand how the home demolition process works I point you to a recent B’tselem report on East Jerusalem where I found the Orwellian process of the relationship between residency and home demolitions spelled out clearly:

         “The Jerusalem Municipality expropriates land, prevents preparation for a town planning scheme           for Palestinian neighborhoods, and refuses to grant building permits, CAUSING severe housing, FORCING residents to build without a permit, AFTER WHICH the Ministry of Interior and the Municipality demolish the houses, SO the residents move into homes outside the city, AND THEN the Ministry of Interior revokes their residency and banishes them from the city forever.”

         Jeff Halper from the Israeli Coalition against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD) reminds us also that “The systematic policy of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian residents in Jerusalem contravenes the 4th Geneva Convention which forbids ‘any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons’ except where such destruction is rendered ‘absolutely necessary by military operations’. Extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly constitutes a grave breach to the Convention, which can theoretically be prosecuted under the universal jurisdiction of States party to the convention.”

         This process of dispossession is what Halper calls the Matrix of Control. You have a hand in glove affect where you have the hand of expropriation slipped into the glove of harassment and demolition leading to the revoking of residency rights, and then the “soft transfer” of Palestinians from their homes and the city. This helps both to change the demographic facts on the ground and makes the dream of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem next to impossible.

         This process of dispossession is in overdrive in some of East Jerusalem’s oldest Palestinian neighborhoods and therefore no surprise that these are also the places of tension and violence and of course weekly demonstrations.

Sheikh Jarrah

         This is a predominately Palestinian neighborhood on the road to Mount Scopus. It is an old Muslim community that grew between the 1870s-1890s. It used to contain the largest concentration of Muslims outside of the Old City. Then in 1948 refugees were transferred in from other parts of Palestine when Israel became a state. The United Nations and the Jordanian government sponsored them. However after 1967, the government and its settlers started to claim they had deeds to the land and started appropriating property through those various systems in the matrix.

Around 2007 Irving Moskowitz, an American Jewish millionaire initiated plans to build 122 apartments on the site of the old Shepherd Hotel. In 2009 both the British government and the United States condemned the plan. However, today Moskowitz’s project is moving forward in the creation of a new settlement called Ras-Al-Amud.

          Between 2008-2009 Israeli activists formed the Solidarity Movement to help Palestinians stay in their homes. One of their tactics was to camp out in Palestinian homes trying to keep settlers out. Later they shifted their tactics to include weekly demonstrations.

         In 2009 at least 390 Palestinians including over 90 children were forcibly displaced.  There are over 1,500 pending demolition orders.  From 2009- September 2011 Sheik Jarrah was chosen as the destination site for marches and demonstrations. Many Palestinians residents as well as Israeli and international activists have been injured, harassed, arrested, or detained in this neighborhood. Attending weekly demonstrations in the neighborhood was part of the Jerusalem team’s work.

         Echoing the theological reflection of Father Rifat Khoury, Fillipo Grandi from UNRWA’s Commissioner-General in commenting about the situation in Sheik Jarrah said:

“It is a matter of deep concern that Palestinians, who have already endured extreme suffering of various kinds, including multiple episodes of large-scale displacement, should remain subject to the humiliation of the kind inflicted by forced evictions and home demolitions.”

Silwan

The Silwan neighborhood like Sheik Jarrah has had a history of violence since settlers began moving in. Many of Silwan’s children have been arrested for throwing rocks at the settlers or IDF and thus then arrested or detained in record numbers.

         At the moment the main concern is about the construction of a new visitor center for the City of David’s soon to be new National Park. This archeological garden is meant to be a kind of biblical theme garden where one can see archeological digs going before your very eyes. And so before your very eyes, Palestinian homes and now a cultural center are being demolished to make yet more room for another illegal structure.

         In addition to demolitions the digging and construction are causing caves to collapse and fear of other structures including homes and the mosque. Yet in spite of these dangers and violations of international law, Israel proceeds with what some call the "Judacization" of Jerusalem.
        Thus, the City of Peace is hardly peaceful with the potential of a violent clash between settlers possible at any moment. So the question is what can we, who are working for a just peace do?

     

I return back to the Via Dolorosa for guidance. As the Palestinians carry their crosses, many people watch and offer them what they have. I was and am one of those. Like Simon of Cyrene, I and other international solidarity workers and Israeli peace activists try to ease the load of one or more of the crosses listed above. Carrying the cross for a few months is not enough. The whole system of power and domination has to change including our country's willing complicity to fund the occupation and turn our back on our own human and demncratic values.


I have hope that this can become a reality because even though Jerusalem is where the torture and execution happened, it is also the place of new life, the resurrection.

My Easter reflections have much to do with loss.

         The loss of a sense of belonging, the fragmentation,

         the shattering of my fellow travelers, our Palestinian people everywhere.

         There is no better metaphor than the crucifixion of Christ 

to capture what is happening.

         The greatest loss is the loss of compassion

 in the land where Christ taught about compassion, 

         where Christ died because of compassion.

          Christ resigned to compassion not to oppression.

Palestinian Canadian Samia Costanta

     

 Christ resigned to compassion. Let us do the same. This is also what we can offer each other, what we can contribute to la lucha, hasta la victoria.
         I invite you to join me in a song that was first sung in South Africa to other inmates as they were taken away one by one to be tortured or executed. It is a song now sung all over the world to express solidarity with those who are being “crucified” today. It is also often sung when people do civil disobedience as a reminder as they are being taken away in handcuffs that they are not alone. We are not alone in our suffering or in justice making; we are members of one broken body.

Courage, sisters, you do not walk alone.

We shall walk with you and sing your spirit home.

Courage brothers….

Courage children…

For information about the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement go to:

http://www.en.justjlm.org/

To learn more about home demolitions in East Jerusalem go to:

www.pal-arc.org or www.icahd.org

for information about the new documentary Homefront: Portraits from Sheik Jarrah go to

http://www.justvision.org/homefront/


http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_ej_settlements_factSheet_april_2012_english.pdf