DownloadFeb. 8 issue
What Israelis might not know
By Kathleen Kern Christian Peacemaker TeamsPage:
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To the Israeli Ministry of the Interior: things you might not know about internationals working in Palestine.
Kathleen Kern, of Rochester, N.Y., serves with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
1/20/2010
Dear MOI Personnel:
At my church in Jerusalem last Sunday, the pastor read the names of church members to whom you had recently denied entry into Israel. Several worked for organizations that have been trying to meet human need in this area for decades.
Everyone in that congregation probably felt the same chill I did as I imagined the interrogation, the airport jail cell and the police van parked, blue lights flashing, on the tarmac to prevent us from leaving on the jet deporting us to our home countries.
I will operate on the assumption that you think Palestinians should have the same human rights as Israelis, and that you honestly think internationals working in Palestine represent a threat to Israel’s security. If that is so, then I need to enlighten you on a few points:
1) Most individuals who work for aid, development, peace and human rights organizations in Palestine and Israel are compassionate people who have chosen their careers because they want to alleviate human suffering.
If you showed up at their doorstep, hungry, cold and unarmed, they would take you in, give you a hot meal and listen sympathetically when you told them how you ended up in your unfortunate condition.
2) You should especially get to know human rights workers. For one thing, most of them are really funny. More important, many of them became interested in their field after they learned about the Holocaust and the centuries of anti-Semitic persecution leading up to it. They want to work toward a world where these evils never happen to anyone.
I am puzzled that you welcome support from leaders of the Christian Right, who view Jews as mere pawns in a demented end-times scenario, but want to prevent people who support universal human rights from entering Israel.
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