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Fallen From The Desk of Pastor Wayne

Their first meeting was held at night in Bethlehem.  It was actually against the law for them to meet.  Former enemies, people from different cultures and traditions, took a courageous step on the path to peace that night.  Israeli soldiers and former

Palestinian prisoners met together to get to know each other and to find a nonviolent path to peace for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.  At first, they sat across from each other suspiciously, eventually side by side, as they told their personal stories of the despair and futility of the history of violence in their own lives.  Men assigned to protect a

particular checkpoint sat down in peace with men who were previously committed to destroying that very checkpoint.   That night in Bethlehem,

Combatants for Peace was born.

 

 These former combatants in the cycle of violence chose to break that cycle by ending their own

personal participation in violence. Integral to their efforts is to work together for justice by calling for the liberation of the occupied territories.  I was

honored to meet two of these men during their visit to LA last month, men I now count as friends.

I learned quite a bit from Yonatan Shapira, and of particular note, the evolution in his understanding of what it means to be part of the peace movement.    He shared of his sincere belief that actually, as a soldier, as a helicopter pilot, he had believed that he was actively participating in the peace process.   He would pilot his Blackhawk helicopter on rescue and commando missions into the occupied territories and then go home, change out of his uniform and go in to the city later that day to join in peace

protests.  [I know the same is true for the American men and women that I have spoken to who are serving in the US military. They also see themselves more as peacekeepers than as warriors.  It is tragic that we have put these well-intended men and women into such a horrific position in yet another war birthed in a nest of lies.]  It was only after a

series of rescue missions involving both Israeli and Palestinian children, the truly innocent victims that Yonatan came to see that his flights into the

occupied territories were aggravating, not pacifying the situation.  He subsequently organized a letter of refusal by 28 Israeli pilots who refused to fly

missions of aggression into the occupied territories, (unknowingly joining an Israeli ‘refusenik’ tradition from 1982 and 1973).

 

For me, Sulaiman (Solomon) Khatib was a completely new voice for me.  I struggled with his rarely heard Palestinian accent.  He had learned his

English (along with two other languages) while he was serving 10 of a sentenced 15 years in Israeli prisons for trying to “kidnap” (steal) guns from

Israeli soldiers when he was 14 years old.  He was unbelievably well read for a man for whom prison had actually become a university.  He was

well-versed with current events and ancient history, and quoted Gandhi and Mandela with frequency and poignancy.  He works now with Palestinian youth trying to convince them to use civil

disobedience, not suicide bombS, to strive for the freedom of their people.  Please thank God this very minute for the courage and wisdom of folks like Sulaiman Khatib and Yonatan Shapira who are pointing us ALL to the nonviolent path to peace.

 

 Personally, these two young combatants for peace are the modern-day embodiment of the early

Christian movement as were the Roman soldiers and Jewish zealots who had found a new family in the nonviolent resistance movement that has evolved into the Christian faith and communities.  Sadly, the nonviolent history of the Christian church, both of modern day Christian pacifism,

(i.e. Quakers, Mennonites, etc) and the first 325 years of the pacifist early church, was unknown to both of these men.  The history of the medieval Crusades and of the silence during the Holocaust is the legacy that Christianity has left.   The ‘love your enemies’ teaching of Jesus and ‘the theology of the cross’ witness of Christian Scriptures has been drowned out by the drums of war and the theology of the ‘divine warrior’, yet again, in  support of the Empire.  Today, can we still hear the question from the lips of Jesus, “Who do you say that I am? “ 

Not the crowds, but you?

 

 Everyday, people are dying needlessly in Gaza and the West Bank while the world ignores their pleas for help.  Civilian populations are being targeted and killed with laser-guided weapons and illegal phosphorus chemical weapons.  A deplorable

situation of apartheid has devolved into an open-air prison with over 700 checkpoints that offend the dignity of the majority of Palestinian people who daily resist nonviolently.  Pray for the people of Bethlehem for God continues to ‘birth’ people of peace in this holy city.  Do you hear what I hear?