'Our mission to the Holy Land is support of Christians'

Intermountain Catholic

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Anna Baltzer, an author and activist for Christian Communities in the Holy Land, addresses the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem Conference in Tucson, Ariz., Oct. 10. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

TUCSON, Ariz. — The Holy Land of Israel is considered sacred by the three largest monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but as tensions continually rise there, the smallest community of the three, the Christian Community, many of them Palestinians, suffers from the violence and oppression as much as the two larger communities.

"Housing, employment, worship, freedom of movement, access to medical care, and access to educational institutions are deeply affected by the politics of the region, said Anna Baltzer, a Jewish-American activist whose visits to the West Bank awakened her conscience to the oppression of the Palestinian population under the current occupation of their lands by Israeli settlers and military forces.

Baltzer is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and a Fulbright scholar from Columbia University. Baltzer said her training and her travels have made it impossible for her to remain unbiased about how Palestinians are being treated in their own lands, which are rapidly shrinking due to the Israeli occupation.

On a country-wide tour speaking about conditions she found in Israel and the occupied territories, Baltzer told members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at their annual conference in Tucson, Ariz., Oct 10, "This isn’t about Judaism or Islam; it’s about humanity and standing up for what’s right." She said the majority of Israelis are against settlements and the occupation.

Author of "Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories," Baltzer has documented human rights abuses against non-violent resisters in Palestine, some of whom took her into their homes.

"They gave me a different version of what I had learned about the Israel/Palestine struggles," she said. "I decided I had to do my own research, and that is what I am asking each of you to do. Don’t take my word for it."

Using a Power-Point presentation, Baltzer showed the well-groomed roads built through Palestinian territory that Palestinian Christians and Muslims are not allowed to use. Instead, they are limited to using rocky, rugged, unpaved roads over which many of their vehicles are not able to travel.

Add to the bad roads Israeli checkpoint through which Palestinian Christians and Muslims must pass, sometimes causing them to be held up for hours. "In the West Bank," Baltzer said, "there are check points between Palestinian town and villages that cut off family members from each other, cut of farmers from their fields, people from hospitals and doctors’ offices, and students from their schools.

"In the West Bank, a 30-minute trip becomes a four- or eight-hour journey, or it can last all day," she said. "The checkpoints and the ‘security fence,’ a 26-foot high concrete wall in many areas, is disabling to Palestinian daily life, paralyzing really. Even ambulances and other emergency vehicles are not allowed to pass freely, and when I, a Jewish American, was allowed to pass through while Palestinians who had waited for hours were not, I asked the Israeli soldiers why they could not pass. He said, ‘I’m just following orders.’"

Baltzer said the wall, the checkpoints, and the many Israeli settlements built on Palestinian Land exclusively for Israelis "are illegal according to international law."

The speaker said Israel gets generous aid packages from the United States, which are funding the wall, the checkpoints, and the settlements.

"We (Americans) are already involved in the conflict there," Baltzer said. "We’re paying for it. And I ask, does any segregation every bring peace?"

More than 80 percent of the wall, which Israeli officials claim is being built to protect them from Palestinian suicide bombers, has been built on the Palestinian side of the border, cutting Palestinians off from key water sources.

Baltzer said the Israeli people themselves do not present a problem. In fact, many Israeli citizens have taken part in demonstrations against the checkpoints, but Israeli officials appear to turn a blind eye to the concerns of their own people. "The average Israeli doesn’t even know about the wall. They want peace, but their government is making the decisions.

"Since 1947, Palestinians have seen their land dwindle; and now it amounts to little more than small, isolated islands, and in many areas, Palestinian homes are being systematically demolished to make room for more Israeli settlements.

"I believe it is clear the Israeli officials want an ethnically pure state," Baltzer said. "That idea is not unique to Israel. The same thing happened to the American Indians in the United States and to Bantustans in Africa during the era of apartheid. These people have lost all control over the process and their lives."

Baltzer said in the meantime, all Palestinian influence is being erased in the area, and Arabic is disappearing as a language there.

"Do your own research," she encouraged member of the Equestrian order. "Go see it for yourself, and support others who go. Join and support your own order’s justice and peace committee."

At the same meeting, Dr. Bernard Sevilla of Northern Jerusalem, a member of the Palestinian Council, and Mary Sevilla of the Israeli Ministry of Health, said Bethlehem University, heavily supported by the Equestrian order, is welcoming more students with special needs. Run by the Christian Brothers, Bethlehem University is a haven for Christian and Muslim students who can study there. But the students are suffering under travel restrictions forced on them by Israeli officials. "Those restrictions affect many students," said Dr. Sevilla. "Gaza students are forbidden to attend the university, even though they already have been accepted."

Mary Sevilla said Bethlehem and Hebron students’ needs cannot be met by their parents because the parents want their children to work instead of go to school, "but there is no work for them. We have traumatized students, and that has a debilitating impact on their well being. They have seen their relatives and friends killed by Israeli soldiers and the invasion of their homes at night."

Dr. Sevilla said the very positive students are determined to get their educations, despite the obstacles, and Christians and Muslims, going to school together, "get to know and respect each other."