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How Do You Measure Pain? 

A Palestinian living in the West Bank is stuck behind walls, not unlike the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland in 1942. At the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem is a photo of people climbing a building in the Warsaw Ghetto in order to see outside of the ghetto. Palestinians cannot even go on their roof to see over the 30' wall that separates them from freedom of movement. I am not trying to compare the holocaust to the occupation. But there are some parallels that seem to have been lost. The death camps were unspeakable as they were fully able to euthanize hundreds of unsuspecting men, women, and children in a few minutes. Fellow Jews then lifted the bodies out, cut off their hair and removed gold teeth before placing the body into one of the many ovens for quick cremation. Another team of Jews would shovel out the ashes in preparation for the next set of bodies.

While on our mid-term "break" we visited an Israeli village located a couple of hundred yards from the wall separating it from Gaza. Every home, school, business, bus shelter either has or has been built as a "safe room" that children learn early on to run to when they hear the sirens which indicate the launch of a Palestinian rocket. They have 15 seconds to make it into the safe room before the rocket lands. They have about an additional 45 seconds before it is safe to exit the safe room. Over the previous weekend one hundred rockets were launched. They are incredibly unsophisticated and not very accurate, so there is not a huge chance of harm. However the villager cited two deaths from the village: one a young girl who had not made it to the safe room, and the other an agricultural worker who took cover, counted to 45, and then attempted to resume work when he was cut down by a rocket that was slower than normal. Every time a village is sent to safe rooms each wonders if this is the day they will die. What we did not hear was that many Palestinians living in Gaza were killed by the sophisticated system owned by the Israeli military. The numbers of deaths are significantly higher in Gaza than in Israel.

Yesterday we visited Naser Al-Din in his village of Al Ja'ba. Naser's home has been demolished three times by the Israeli military. His "sin" was not having building permits for his home which is in Area C. There are no building permits issued for Area C, so his only way to provide shelter for his growing family was to build a home anyway.  (READ MORE)

US EA Mary with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Swedish EA

Accompaniers will visit you

Many of the 40 returned US ecumenical accompaniers are available to teach and preach in churches or speak at events. Invite them to share their experiences and speak about peacemaking in Israel and Palestine. Please click here for a list of accompaniers and their direct contact information.

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