"We must all learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made."
These oft-quoted lines from Martin Luther King, Jr., awaited me in my inbox this morning, as I awoke after a good sleep in my own bed. They capture, for me, the heart of the human social condition, and they prescribe the cure for what ails the Holy Land today. Day after day, we witnessed first-hand the troubles caused by a deliberate strategy of separation, a strategy promoted for "security reasons" and undercutting any "network of mutuality" at every turn.
Perhaps this grew clearest to me on our last night, as we walked through the market in Jaffa (Joppo), a suburb of Tel Aviv. Jaffa is a Palestinian town on the Mediterranean coast where Israeli Jews now live as well. And while I have no doubt that there's underlying social friction--the Palestinian Israelis are, after all, designated as "02" citizens--what we witnessed in the market place gave me hope: Muslim families enjoying the sea-side walk; Jewish couples walking hand in hand; Palestinian women who wore no veil (thus either Christians or secular/liberal Muslims) shopping together. People, just people, living "together as brothers [and sisters]... the way God's universe is made."
In a sense, our time in Jaffa gave the lie to the "inevitability" of violent conflict between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. As we've heard over and over from the friends we met, Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together in the Holy Land for centuries, only clashing as a society when a powerful outside force (Crusaders, various Muslim conquerors) imposed distinction. Jaffa offered, in living color, a reminder that it doesn't have to be that way.
But our brief time in Jaffa also humbled me. I found myself convinced that, if I were an Israeli Jew in Jaffa, I would likely remain blissfully unaware of the occupation and its injustice. I would fall into the human trap of distinguishing between the Palestinians in my own neighborhood and those in the refugee camps. These, I'd think, are the peaceful ones who have no problem with the "state of Israel." Those, I might think, just want to destroy us; I might think that they need to be contained, restrained, and even removed at any cost, "for security reasons."
And yet, it was in Jaffa that I saw my first overt social critique of the occupation. Even within our one-hour stay, we wandered into a photography exhibit of "War Through the Eyes of Its Victims," including poignant images of children in Gaza. Our stroll took us past several placards challenging the justice of the separation wall and its implications for human beings. I don't know which "side" was responsible for either "protest," but that, in itself, may be the most hopeful sign. There was no distinction, only the hope that presses toward what King calls "God's universe."
On the "day after," I'm clinging to that hope, if even by a thread. In the comfort of my own home, after a decent sleep in my own bed, I'm wondering how not to lose the deep sense that my own well-being is somehow tied up with the well-being of my Palestinian friends, of the settlers and soldiers who haunt and harass them, of the Israeli Jews who find such deep, almost inexpressible, peace in Jerusalem the Golden, of my neighbors back in Charlotte--the ones I hold close and the ones from whom I've accepted the "separation" our own society promotes. May I become more what "I ought to be" in a way that helps them do so as well. May we together inhabit "God's universe" not as fools but as brothers and sisters who lay claim to our "network of mutuality." May we thus share the life abundant promised by Jesus so long ago. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Suzanne Henderson
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