A Word From David

I took this picture one year ago while walking the old market in Hebron. As much as anything I saw in Palestine, this image captured the situation on the ground there for Palestinians living in the West Bank. 

Palestinians erected the fencing over the market to protect themselves from garbage thrown down on them by Israeli settlers. A few minutes after I took this picture, everyone walking on the narrow street was warned that settlers were approaching above us. We were swept to one side beneath a solid awning. Left with no visible targets, the settlers – young men, from the glimpse I got – threw nothing but epithets in our direction. 

Israeli occupation force soldiers watched silently. They are in Hebron to protect the settlers, not the Palestinians who have lived there for generations. Many of the young Palestinian men who resist wind up in Israeli detention facilities often without ever facing formal charges.

This morning I read yet another story of an immigrant swept up by ICE and disappeared into the for-profit prison system the U.S. oligarchy maintains. 

As an aside: almost 20 years ago the Israeli supreme court banned private prisons. One year ago, I did not imagine that I was coming home to a situation that would become, in less than a year, almost as bleak as the one we were leaving behind in Palestine.

I apologize for this sorrow-filled post, but lamentation feels appropriate so many days just now. The same moon shines down on all of us. It will outlast our empires. God’s dream for us all is to live in the freedom of the birds. 

I still believe in God’s dream, and will live in hope that together we will realize pieces of it in our time. Hope is not a prediction, but rather an orientation of the spirit that calls us to hold one another fast as we pray and work for a better tomorrow for all of God’s children. In solidarity.