Nuala O’Loan
“Most Palestinians live peacefully, as best they can in what is left to them of their homeland, but it gets harder and harder to make a living”, writes Nuala O’Loan
As I write this I am sitting close to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, having spent several wonderful, challenging days in the Holy Land.
I never expected to walk in the footsteps of the Lord at Easter time, experiencing the dryness, the heat, the desert, and the lush sub-tropical glory of places like Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” In the silence and magnificence of the great white barren desert during Mass, we contemplated the need not to be afraid to meet silence, to be prepared to go into the depth of ourselves, to be alone with God and to grow in understanding and love.
All the while, a little Bedouin boy slept happily until the sign of peace, when he solemnly walked around and shook hands very formally with all of us.
I had been in Jerusalem once before, during Holy Week, when I came to work with the Palestinian police on community-based policing, sharing lessons from Northern Ireland, East Timor and other conflicted areas. It was interesting, but each morning I was driven out of Jerusalem into Palestine, and each evening I returned after dark, so that I went home from the place of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ without any encounter with the mystery of Holy Week, other than a passing prayer.
Pilgrimage
This trip has been different for a thousand reasons. It is a pilgrimage, and we have made our way to many of the great Christian sites of the Holy Land, listening to the Word of God, praying everywhere and pondering on the great mystery that is the life, death and resurrection of Christ. In Bethlehem, at the Church of the Nativity, we prayed at the site of what tradition records as the birthplace of Christ.
We wandered around Israel, visiting places like Capernaum, the Dead Sea and Nazareth, renewing our baptismal promises at the River Jordan and our wedding vows at Cana. We sailed out on the Sea of Galilee.
We visited Jerusalem, starting in the Garden of Gethsemane where we had an outdoor Mass, sitting among the olive trees; that part of the garden locked so that we would not be disturbed at all. It was most extraordinary, and enormously special to be in that sacred place, and to participate in the great sacrifice of the Mass, remembering those for whom we had been asked to pray, and encountering stillness, gentle beauty, and the reality of the man whose soul was “sorrowful unto death” and who was in such agony that he sweated tears of blood.
We walked the Via Dolorosa, the way of the Cross, through the crowded, bustling, narrow streets of old Jerusalem, celebrated Mass in the place of Calvary and visited the tomb where they say Jesus was laid after he was taken down from his cross to be placed in the arms of his sorrowing mother.
We have been much blessed, in the company of wonderful fellow pilgrims, aged from 15 to 88, and great priests, in profound, carefully chosen liturgy, wonderful music and the ability to visit so many holy places and to walk, so often, on sacred ground.
Yet we have also been acutely aware of the political situation which surrounds us.
Homeland
The state of Israel occupies the best of the territory which once was the homeland of the Palestinian people. Visiting Bethlehem, on the West Bank, we saw the checkpoints and the terrible wall which Israel is building around itself, a wall some 430 miles long, keeping Palestinians, Christians and Muslims out and securing all the best land.
The International Court of Justice declared the building of this wall to be in breach of international law in 2004. Yet still Israel builds its wall.
We visited the Patriarch of Jerusalem who told us of the enormous difficulties of Christians in the Holy Land, of the lack of equality between Jewish schools and Christian schools to which the government contributes only 29%, plus a further contribution for a year only, which has yet to be paid.
He spoke of the failure of government to contribute to the restoration of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, which was badly damaged in a terrorist track, as they had promised to do.
Israel has on at least 230 occasions unlawfully taken Palestinian land, eating away at what is left to the Palestinian peoples of their ancient homeland. Since Christmas, the Israeli government has declared its intention to confiscate a further 1,000 acres of the most fertile land near Jericho in the Jordan Valley. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General has condemned Israel saying that its “settlement activities are a violation of international law”.
The UN Assembly has also repeatedly condemned Israel’s activities, passing 20 resolutions last November alone. Yet still Palestinian businesses are closed, land is seized, homes are demolished, access to water is cut off, livelihoods are destroyed, and people are killed.
All the while Israel grows stronger, better resourced, with better infrastructure and industry.
Most Palestinians live peacefully, as best they can in what is left to them of their homeland, but it gets harder and harder to make a living. Of course, there have been violent terrorist acts perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups against the Israelis. They are wrong, just as Israel’s unlawful activities are wrong. Yet there seems to be no prospect of peace at the present time, no growing of that trust which enables societies to function.
Condemnation
Israel ignores international condemnation of its activities, continues its land grabs, refusing to recognise its international human rights obligations to the Palestinian people, to respect the dignity of each Palestinian.
Does it not seem strange that this state, which was created because of the terrible suffering endured by the Jewish people, is doing to others what was done to the Jews over centuries, making life so very difficult for the people for whom this contested territory has been home for thousands of years?
As we leave this wonderful place of pilgrimage, in which we have been so nourished and enriched, I wonder what more could be done to help secure real peace and justice in the Holy Land for all its people, Jewish, Muslim and Christian?