I am sad to say that I have experience hatred in my life time. I would like to think that I have purged myself of those emotions and the inevitable evils they can provoke.
Today I experienced a new kind of hatred. Around 2am this morning, one of the villagers returned home to the sounds of the villages dogs barking. Almost everyone in NSWAS owns a dog. I didn't really think of the dogs barking last night, but they were trying to worn us. Sometime in the night, Israeli settlers from a settlement somewhere in the West Bank came into Neve Shalom~Wahat-al-Salam to spread a message of hate. They slashed the tires of 20 vehicles, broke windows, dented cars and spray painted Zionists slogans like, "Death to Arabs" and "Kahane was right!" on the doors of the primary school, on cars and on buildings. (Meir Kahane was an American-Israeli Rabi and Ultranationalist Zionist, whose work either directly or indirectly became the foundation of several Israeli right wing terror groups, and the political party "Kache" which was disbanded, and the Jewish Defence League in the US)
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| Message Reads: "Greetings from (Name of Settlement) Death to Arabs, Revenge" |
It wasn't a very good start to the day to say the least. The children that go the primary school don't understand concepts like "revenge" or racism yet and people are obviously pretty upset. I am too. The people that did this have probably never met any of these kids or there parents or anyone from the village. No one here has anything to do with the settlements. And yet they choose to violate the tranquility of this place. Neve Shalom~Wahat-al-Salam is a peaceful community, dedicated to coexistence and is one of the few communities in Israel and Palestine that is not surrounded by fences, which is a testament to the idea of inclusion and tolerance. Over the next few days emotions are going to be very high as people try to explain these events to kids and the community member begin dealing with the removal of the paint and insurance claims on there cars. The police came into the village to take statements and begin an investigation. From what I have been told, its unlikely that any arrests will be made.
We are all relieved that no one was hurt. Thankfully the damage was only done to property. Had the perpetrators been caught in the act and confronted, it's very likely that things could have been much, much worse. Settlers are typically very well armed. Israeli settlers are given assault rifles and ammunition by the army, and settlers often carry pistols on there hips.
For now, things are relatively calm. We'll keep the light burning and continue doing the only thing we can do, face injustice with restraint, reach out with forgiveness and enlightenment, and carry on.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stats.
-Dr. Martin Luther King
News Article and Press Release, Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post.
- http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/racist-graffiti-sprayed-at-mixed-jewish-arab-village-in-central-israel-1.435216#article_comments
- http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=273165
This is very sad to hear. I hope that it hasn't hurt the community too much.
ReplyDeleteI just returned from an evening with my relatives who spent much of their life in Belfast, and I read a story that Stella wrote down about Bloody Friday in 1972; a friend of theirs had their 14-year old son killed from a bomb whilst downtown that day. After that the parents created a network that brought together youth from both the north and south to find some cohesion and to try to bring about peace. It reminded me of Neve Shalom and while reading the story made me sad it also made me very happy to hear about individuals who have worked to counteract the hatred unbeknownst to some and all too real to others. All you can really do is encourage a shift in the balance of love and hatred until the former undermines the latter.