When You Can't Unsee

Reflections from a March 2014 trip to Israel/Palestine.

In March 2014, I embarked on an immersive journey through Israel/Palestine, marking the initial leg of two significant trips.¹ Diverging from the typical sanitized tours of the Holy Land, orchestrated by advocates for the Israeli government, strategically curated to divert attention from the military occupation, this particular tour plunged us into the heart of the conflict, affording us the rare privilege of hearing perspectives from all sides. The experience was transformative, leaving an indelible mark on my perspective. Upon returning to the US, I was fueled with the passion of a newfound believer, eager to unveil the realities of military occupation.

Not everyone welcomed the revelations, to say the least. I posted about my experiences there, and what I believe is happening on the ground, and the blowback was profound. I went from posting opinions on sports and restaurants and my kids…to highlighting what was happening in a military occupation few were paying attention to anymore. I certainly wasn’t. So, I get how much I confused people.

A few months later, the Gaza War of 2014 erupted. Spanning 50 days of hostilities from July 8th to August 26th, the conflict resulted in the tragic loss of 2,251 Palestinian lives, with an estimated 1,462 civilians among them, including 551 children and 299 women. Additionally, 66 Israeli soldiers and five civilians, including one child, succumbed to the violence.²

I wrote this Facebook Note (remember those?) prompted by the Ceasefire of that Israel/Gaza war. I have only added footnotes. While 9 years have passed, things have only gotten worse, and I continue to pray for peace and another ceasefire.

August 2014

Thanks be to God for this ceasefire. For those who may wonder….

What on earth has happened to me about my posts about Palestinians?

Bottom line.  I spent a week or so in the West Bank in March of this year. It was a privilege that few in my FB friend base will ever have.  I am not smarter, wiser, etc. than any of you, most likely less than most of you by a long shot. But I saw what I saw. I saw what you haven’t seen. 

I think the moment I most remember was at the Dome of the Rock. A 70+-year-old Palestinian man was trying to sell us maps of the Holy Land. A 20-something IDF soldier kid, who probably doesn’t want to be there anyway, whose own soul has been compromised by the occupation, humiliates this older man. “Come over here”.  The old man runs over. He receives his humiliation and scurries off.  I remember our wise guide looking at me and saying “That is occupation.” 

Right after this humiliation, a new class of 18-year-old girls entering the IDF crossed agreed-upon lines with the help of armed IDF soldiers, just to sit near the mosque to give the finger to every Muslim in the vicinity. Especially Muslim women. Just to sneer at them, take Instagram pictures, and let them know that they are powerless, worthless, and subhuman. 

Parents who live each night in mortal terror that IDF soldiers will bang on their door, interrogate their 10-year-old children at 3 a.m., and leave them blindfolded in a village that nobody knows about, a village that is sacred and has existed for hundreds of years, on a street.  Alone, urinating in their pants, alone. Until somebody finds them. This is what the IDF does daily.  This is what they do before, during, and after this Gaza episode in the West Bank. Ask World Vision who employs staff to represent kids in the only country in the world that tries children at a military court.³ 

Children, kids with names that I got to meet, and talk about American football, who echo the above paragraph and tell me about their friends. And their fears, as I cry, take pictures, and then imagine any of my 4 kids in the same situation. I’m showing them pictures of me at a 49ers game with my son, and they are gleefully smiling. I am crying because that night will be another night of them hoping the front door doesn’t get pounded on by IDF soldiers. Suddenly, everything changes.  My perspective is compromised. I have no doubt about it. 

A refugee camp father expresses every parent's universal aspiration—to guide their son through the critical 12-18 age window. In this poignant context, nearly every Palestinian youth engaging in the act of throwing rocks falls within this age bracket. These are young, impulsive boys fueled by testosterone, witnessing pervasive injustice and experiencing oppression, murder, and degradation on a daily basis. It all unfolds before their eyes, affecting their fathers, uncles, friends, elders, and brothers and sisters. Take a moment to imagine the weight of such a reality. How would it shape you?

The children I shared my 49ers game pics with… while I cried. I wonder how many of them made it through the “12-18 window”?

College students tell me what they do for fun each day is to return home and avoid occupying IDF soldiers their age.  They get their degrees from Bethlehem University, Bethlehem Bible College, with nowhere to go. No prospect for the future at all.  Wondering why they haven’t migrated.  There is nothing like looking at a young, bright, energetic educated person telling you they have almost no hope for their future. You can’t until you see it.

These students from Bethlehem University told me they had never seen the Mediterranean Sea because they had never seen anything beyond the 26-foot concrete walls surrounding them.

I could go on. 

• Checkpoints⁴ where Palestinians are stopped and held so they lose their job. 

• Olive groves destroyed⁵ by (mostly American) Jewish illegal settlers who also steal the water just to rub it in their face, in hopes that they would leave the land their family has farmed for hundreds of years. 

• Hearing stories of IDF soldiers who stand in their high guard stations and snipe Palestinians in refugee camps.  

• Sitting with families in Palestinian villages talking about having their kids taken in the middle of the night for interrogation

We engaged in conversations with a diverse array of individuals, including former IDF soldiers, Israeli settlers asserting that Palestinians welcomed their presence as "masters," Palestinian Muslims, and Palestinian Christians. It seems we covered every conceivable category. This, once more, underscores a privilege that many may never experience.

And then this bombing killed thousands of civilians, many of them children.  Of course, I don’t condone Hamas lobbing bombs into Israel. What sane person would?  After what I saw, the boot of oppression on the necks of Palestinians every day, I wonder what I would do. With my white privilege and college education and access to every material wealth.  Why wasn’t I born in some remote Palestinian “Area C” horror story?  (do the research on what “Area C” means… search on Netflix for “Budrus”). Every breath I draw is a gift from God.  All my comfort and ease is a mysterious gift from God. Yours too. 

So, friends, I ask for grace.  And I’ll do the same for you, even when I haven’t always extended it before.  I’m sure I’ve been biased, although my FB status update is no news organization.   I’ll err on the side of the oppressed for the rest of my life. If you are a Christian this might be your mandate too, just a suggestion.  And if you haven’t had the privilege, and it really is a privilege to sit in the home, the land, of people who have truly been oppressed, I certainly don’t hold it against you in any way.  I also think, you, like me before March of 2014, are likely, not certainly, clueless about what’s going on in Israel-Palestine.  How could you not be? I know I was… so maybe I’m just projecting my own cluelessness. 

And all of this… I hope…. will become a matter of prayer for you. For Israel, for Palestine, for Peace. 

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All of that was written in 2014. And here we are in 2023, where armed Zionist settlers in the West Bank inflict vigilante violence in retaliation for what Hamas did on October 7th.⁶ I can’t imagine visiting half the places we visited last time anytime soon. I pray, I march, I give, and I call⁷ my political representatives. Christ Have Mercy.

#CeasefireNow

PS - the most effective documentary I’ve ever seen, produced by the folks who took me to Israel/Palestine is now available on YouTube.

1. I traveled with https://joshvis.com/ in March 2014 and November 2016

2. https://www.unrwa.org/2014-gaza-conflict

3. https://www.militarycourtwatch.org/page.php?id=a6r85VcpyUa4755A52Y2mp3c4v

4. These include 49 checkpoints constantly staffed by Israeli forces or private security companies, 139 occasionally  staffed checkpoints, 304 roadblocks, earth-mounds and road gates, and 73 earth walls, road barriers and trenches. https://rb.gy/zipehh

5. https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/tent-of-nations-farm-under-attack.html

6. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/11/israeli-settler-attacks-force-963-palestinians-out-west-bank-homes-gaza-war#ixzz8J9ZjLbth

7. https://5calls.org/