Holy Land March for Peace with Justice

Andrew Ashdown and Susan Sayers

“I want the truth to be told, and my prayer is that peace might come from the blood of my son.”

It was the mother of Johnny Thaljia speaking, a 17 year old Christian Palestinian boy shot dead in Manger Square, Bethlehem, while holding not a stone or a gun, but his cousin’s baby in his arms. The family’s shock and grief are tangible two months on, and shared by the whole community, Muslim and Christian alike. We visited the Thaljia family on New Year’s Day and asked what they would want us to tell people when we returned to England. Mrs Thaljia’s reply needs to be heard and honoured.

There are signs of hope. On New Year’s Eve we took part in a non-violent march for Peace with Justice, organised and led by all the Church leaders of the Holy Land. The previous night the authorities had tried to dissuade Bishop Riah (the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem) from taking part and encouraging the walk. Two days before that a smaller march had been broken up with tear gas and a few days prior to that a peaceful march in Gaza had been fired upon.

In spite of this, on the last day of 2001 nearly two thousand local Palestinians and some Israelis were joined by six or seven hundred representatives from different countries. Together we walked – Christians, Muslims and Jews, singing, praying, holding hands and olive branches. We hoped to walk from Manger Square through the Israeli checkpoint into Jerusalem, and to circle the Old City praying for peace, justice and reconciliation. Messages of goodwill  and prayers from all over the world were attached to balloons to be released at the completion of the walk.

A profound sense of friendship crossing barriers of faith, language and culture pervaded the crowd as we began walking through Bethlehem. There was shared pain and shared hope, even as we passed hotels and homes shattered by shells and bullets.

Over a mile before we reached the checkpoint three armoured vehicles blocked the road, with machine guns trained menacingly on the crowd. Led by the bishops everyone moved calmly and courteously towards the soldiers, stopped, and offered them olive branches of peace. It took nearly an hour of negotiation and assurance that there would be no trouble, before the soldiers finally agreed to let us proceed, but only as far as the checkpoint. “Are you refusing us permission to pray in the Holy City for Peace?” the bishops had asked.

Of course the answer is yes. For tens of thousands of local Muslims and Christians are permanently banned from visiting their capital city for any reason at all, let alone to worship at their most holy places.

We walked on to the checkpoint where Christian and Muslim leaders led prayers and singing. Passages of scripture from Isaiah and from the Gospel resonated poignantly under the clear sky and the vigilant military cameras. Simply and clearly the leaders voiced our common call to end the occupation and to open Jerusalem to all.

The balloon messages were released, and as the crowds dispersed quietly, olive branches were once again offered to soldiers. Only the international visitors were granted permission to proceed into Jerusalem, where we were met near the pools of Bethsaida by several hundred Israelis who were planning to join their Palestinian brothers and sisters in a common witness for Peace with Justice. It is a cruel irony that such a powerful symbol of hope and reconciliation was denied by the authorities by the refusal to allow the peaceful marchers from Bethlehem and Jerusalem to join together. Once again the suffering of the present mingled with the hope for the future, as hundreds of Jews, Christians and Muslims prayed, sang and danced together, joined in spirit with all those who had been barred access.

Despite the size of the day’s event, and the presence of numerous TV cameras and reporters, it all went largely unreported. Could this be because there was no violence to report?

Sadly it is true that the protection afforded the local people by the presence of international participants is not ordinarily available to the Palestinians of the West Bank. The following day we visited people whose homes and neighbourhoods have been shattered and destroyed by the bombardment of innocent civilians during the last fifteen months. The constant harassment, desperate economic hardship and effective imprisonment of ordinary people in their villages tells a story still little heard and rarely acknowledged by the rest of the world. Some black South Africans recently visiting Bethlehem found the situation disturbingly familiar but even worse than in the darkest days of the apartheid years.

Despite all this we found a profound desire for peace in which both Israelis and Palestinians could share, and this even among those like Johnny Thaljia’s parents, whose children have been brutally killed. But they rightly believe that peace without justice, and an end to occupation and apartheid, is no peace at all.

We only hope that international and church leaders might have the courage to support such a cry for justice which is the only way to a true and lasting peace.