Are you thirsty? What would you suggest for equitable water distribution for all of the world, natural and human…

Here is a June 2011 excerpt from The Council of Canadians’ website:  “All governments are now bound by these historic UN resolutions. Whether or not they voted for the two resolutions, every member nation of the UN is now obligated to accept and recognize the human right to water and sanitation and come up with a plan of action based on the obligation to respect, the obligation to protect and the obligation to fulfil these new rights,” says Barlow.

“Even though the Harper government shockingly did not vote for the right to water and sanitation, it is bound now by this obligation. We are calling on the government to recognize these new rights and let Canadians know when it will be tabling its plan of action with the UN.”

Across Canada, all peoples have the right to water and sanitation…

In Palestine and Israel, all peoples have the right to water and sanitation…

Yet, the right to water and sanitation of all peoples in these places is not honoured or protected. I invite you to learn about World Water Day 2012 both in terms of the Canadian, at-home context (click here) and Canadian responsibility in our global community (e.g., in Palestine and Israel – please see below).

Thank you.

See the Sacred Water Circle site: http://sacredwatercircle.ca/

See the video supported by EWASH at this site: http://www.thirstingforjustice.org/new/

See the video, “Foul Smell: Treating Gaza’s Wastewater Under Israeli Blockade”.

Here’s the site for World Water Day 2012: http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/

Awakening, awareness

Slow at first until:

Apartheid!!

Like an electric shock

A startled response

“Surely, this cannot be,” we say…

Surely, yes, this is what you ARE seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, touching:

Pain.

InPalestineandIsrael.

Our pain, as people of this place,

weighed down by structural violence…systemic injustice…

Like you inCanada, only your collective pain is so deep and long that

You’ve forgotten.

Cannot see the pain that systematically is tearing you apart…

Do you remember? Try…

You taught us about reserved areas, permits, and passes…about a century or more ago.

Well, maybe not directly. But through visitors fromSouth Africa. You hosted them.

Then, we, from this land bridge between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean visited those inSouth Africa…

And then set up the reserved areas, permits, and pass system here.

Apartheid – it’s Afrikaans for “apart-ness”.

The friendship between us, now?Canada and ‘Israel’ – BFF: Best Friends Forever!!

Oh, the connection is long…the pain runs deep…

As you listen to the truth

-ARE you trying? To heal, and reconcile as a society…?

“The mandate for The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is found in Schedule N of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.” (See here.) 

Help! Help…we don’t want to bury our pain and forget like you.

BFF – Let’s walk together, listen, and listen some more.

Awakening, awareness

Slow at first, and then

An electric shock!!

-Sherry Ann (15 March 2012)

“As the Israeli  army, continues its military attacks, against the Gaza strip, those attacks that started since Friday 10th of march 530 pm, and continue  targeting  Palestinian resistance armed men, those offensive acts are  illegal  according to international law,  every human is entitled a trial , and assassination act is illegal while resisting occupation is legal according to international law.

Usually the entire civilian population includes women and children, pays large price and takes the brunt of this situation. Our concern is the lack of medications and supplies, and if the operation continues, the number of causalities will increase; the toll is 16 dead and 30 injured till this minute

Gaza Population already lives under a devastating humanitarian situation, while the occupation continues, and the internal conflict is not solved, and the governments of the world are silent. And indifferent.

We at the RCSG, appeal to the international community, and to our friends and supporters, spread the word, make the pressure on your governments, to stop these attacks soon.

The humanitarian situation in GAZA is on the verge of collapse. The military attacks continue, while we lack electricity and our medical facilities and hospitals have all but exhausted what little fuel we have to  operate the alternative generators.

We have insufficient medications, 186 basic medications are lacking in our pharmacies and drug stores. Apart from the insufficient medical supplies, children in the special care baby units are in great danger as are renal dialysis patients and cancer patients are dying unnecessarily, unable to have their treatment.  Diabetic and asthmatic patients as well as many chronic illness patients, those who  need their medications regularly cannot get them.  The list is too long to convey in this appeal.

Please act immediately to stop this attack against Gaza’s population.

You have been always great supporters and showed your solidarity, at the most difficult times.

Yours sincerely

Mona ElFarra
Vice president
Red Crescent society for Gaza strip
MECA Director –Gaza Strip
Mona4gaza@yahoo.com
0097-0598868222

Mona ElFarra
From Gaza With Love”

For commentary from a left-leaning Israeli newspaper, click here.

For an article from a Palestinian newspaper, click here.

water cannons, flash grenades, and tear gas from Israeli government forces… On 8 March 2012, these items greeted women who walked for peace… Click here to watch the video.

These are the women who stand for peace and who live with the ugliness of Qalandiya Checkpoint that prevents free movement between Ramallah, the village of Qalandiya, and East Jerusalem. I remember this ugliness from my time there on early mornings between Dec. 2010 and March 2011.

As we enter this new year (from one International Women’s Day to the next), we can draw on the traditional movement song, “We shall not be moved”. Just like this poppy of resistance that appears in spring in the hills around Jerusalem.

"We shall be moved by flowers growing." - Nabi Samuel - 1 March 2011 - Photo: Sherry Ann (Quoting "We Shall Be Moved", Carolyn McDade, 2002)

And, I’d like to invite us…to be moved. We, we shall be moved…in love….

"Love is stronger than this wall." - Ar Ram, West-Bank side of Separation Wall, near Qalandiya Checkpoint - 6 Jan. 2011 - Photo: Sherry Ann

Choose a way…local, nearby, or afar…

For example, learn and participate:

1) The REDress Project –  “The REDress Project, focuses around the issue of missing or murdered Aboriginal women across Canada. It is an installation art project based on an aesthetic response to this critical national issue.” Click here and here (for Edmonton’s connection).

2) Subject: [womeninblack] Call For Action – Hana Shalabi and other female prisoners

“Dear all, The following is a letter to be sent to the israeli authority in order to make some pressure to releas Hana Shalabi and the other palestinian women detainees of freedom. You can either copy the letter or create your own letter and send it to the provided addresses, you also can send a letter to Hana and the other women detainees by contacting Addameer.  if you are not able to see the text bellow please follow this link: http://addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=450    ”

Anata is a Palestinian community located next door to Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. Anata is in the occupied West Bank, more specifically in Area C (click here), an area that is under Israeli control. According to the Oslo Agreement of the 1990s, the Israeli government has planning, building, and military control. I visited Anata briefly last February on my way from Qalandiya Checkpoint to Shu’afat refugee camp.

Click here for a 2007 article about Anata. Click here for a statement from 27 Jan. 2012 by Maxwell Gaylard, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). He had just visited Anata and called for an end to home demolitions in the West Bank.

In 2007, Anata no longer appeared on official Israeli road signs. Apparently, the Israeli government would prefer to wipe the name, Anata, from travellers’ minds.

And so the disappearing trick goes…This news just in from the EAPPI office in Jerusalem. “Anata: The Israeli military demolished Beit Arabiya – ICAHD Peace Centre on Monday night, January 23^rd for the fifth time, along with the Abu Omar home rebuilt by ICAHD [Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – click here]  in the summer of 2011, and structures in the East Anata Arab Al-Jahalin Bedouin compound. A total of seven homes were demolished, with 52 people including 29 children displaced. Click here for more information and to donate to the rebuilding of these homes.”

Which way to Anata? 17 Dec. 2010 - Photo: Sherry Ann

It’s time…to stand up…to begin to step as ‘we’.

One way that we can step, as a world community, toward ending the Israeli government’s illegal occupation of Palestine is to consider certain economic measures. Click here for a video with voices of Israeli citizens who support divestment from “companies that profit from Israel’s military occupation”.

Click below for information from:

-Palestinian Christians (Kairos Palestine)

-The United Church of Canada (What we can do)

-The Methodist Church, United Kingdom (Justice for Palestine and Israel)

-The World Council of Churches (For peace)

Looking to the sunrise.Zaytoun Checkpoint at our backs: Entry to East Jerusalem_18Feb2011 Photo: Sherry Ann

Almost a year has passed since I posted a report about demolition devastation for the community of Dkaika in the occupied West Bank. The report was prepared by my Ecumenical Accompanier (EA) team mates in Hebron, 12 Jan. 2011. Click here.

This week, Jan McIntyre, a Canadian EA who spent the autumn in the South Hebron EAPPI placement, posted this report (click here) about the same community. Virtually the entire village is under demolition order. Through EAPPI efforts, a media visit to the community occurred on Mon., 19 Dec. 2011.  To see a television report and one of the publications arising from this visit, click here. Please forward this information to those in your circles…to raise awareness…

As we gather in our homes during this season of dark and light, consider the dance of candle flame…like persistence toward a just peace in Palestine and Israel…

Persisting with dark and light - Christmas Eve - Bethlehem - 24 Dec. 2010 - Photo: Sherry Ann

In just the past week in East Jerusalem and in parts of the West Bank:

20 structures – demolished

Bedouin community east of East Jerusalem - parts slated for forced self-demolition (13 Dec. 2011) - Space for an Israeli-settler highway - Photo: Sherry Ann - 17 Dec. 2010

at least 61 people – newly homeless.

In 2011:

199 homes – demolished

1,051 people – displaced

For example:

7 December 2011 – In a Bedouin community, Khan al-Ahmar Mihtawish, in Jerusalem Area C, the Israeli Civil Administration demolished two residential barracks, which had been rebuilt following the prior demolition in the community on 31 October 2011.

Two tents of the International Committee of the Red Cross (see ICRC’s mission here) and two water tanks provided in response to the previous demolition were confiscated.

Twelve people (including nine children) were displaced and some 21 others affected.

Bare feet in December - Bedouin children - Impacted by the Israeli government's occupation of Palestine - Photo: Sherry Ann - 17 Dec. 2010

Over the last year and a half, even as I was preparing to go to East Jerusalem, I have been asked, “Which side are you on?” A natural starting point for many of us, in trying to find our way into understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seems to be to ‘pick a side’. Why?

Contemplation - Old City - East Jerusalem - 20 Dec. 2010 - Sherry Ann

          As this internationally acknowledged military occupation of Palestine continues, I choose to stand with all those who are working toward a just peace. We are a diverse group, internationally, and include both Israelis and Palestinians who can see and feel the pain caused by the Israeli government’s occupation. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to live in East Jerusalem, for “Reflection, with deep time spent in the consideration of others, opens the door to becoming a compassionate participant in the world” (Terry Tempest Williams, The Open Space of Democracy, 2004, p. 88).

Door Art - Tel Aviv - 29 Dec. 2010 - Sherry Ann

I continue to watch the news in East Jerusalem because I feel connected now. For example, see this recent story about two home demolitions. (Click here.)

Let’s move away from ‘either/or’ side-making. We are in ‘this’ together; people are hurting right now. Shall we focus on opening this door together?

Almost one year ago, I boarded a plane on my way to Tel Aviv and then to occupied East Jerusalem. As a way to mark this passage of time, I’m posting a link to an article that I have written for The United Church Observer magazine. Click here.

What a year it has been…of reflection, conversation, and writing…I have been shaped by these experiences and am choosing to continue…to engage with peace (watch for a reflection on this topic at Southminster-Steinhauer United Church’s website. A podcast from 4 Dec. 2011 will appear in the coming weeks).

salaam, shalom, peace,

Sherry Ann

A bubbling of peace-Tel Aviv.Mediterranean Sea-30Dec2010_Sherry Ann