Monday, October 10, 2005

Call to Action
If you have ever wanted to support Palestinian nonviolence without leaving your home country, this week would be a great oppertunity to do so. You can check out their campaign at www.stopthewall.org (Yes, I know the website is a little high on rhetotic, but I think I would be like that too if my home was being demolished to make way for the Wall.) If you want to organize something but don't know what, comment and I'll help you.

Saturday, October 01, 2005


"We the undersigned declare ..." By Diane Roe of Christian Peacemaker Teams


Festival in a ghost town; Hebron resident looks at past and futureBy Dianne Roe28 September 2005Last Monday for a few hours, Hebron's old city was alive with festivities.The Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC) organized a festival in support ofthe old city. In the afternoon, I went outside to join in. When I openedthe door to our CPT apartment, I saw a man gazing at the buildings oppositeus. He turned toward me.

"My name is Fakhri Ali Shaheen. That is my home," he said, as he pointed tothe building across from us. "But I can't go inside. These are our shopsbut we can't open them."

CPT was present on Christmas Day, 2002, when the Israeli Army erected a gatethat spans the street and blocks entry to the corner building. From then onFakhri Shaheen and hundreds of others like him have been locked out of theirhomes and shops in Hebron's old city and along Shuhada Street.

Fakhri Ali Shaheen looked wistfully at the building again. A stairwell on this side of the gate was open and could provide access to the roof of thebuilding adjacent to his; but there was razor wire at the top of the stairs,and soldiers occupied the rooftop. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a faded document folded up in hiswallet. It was in Hebrew, but I already knew what it said. Our landlord, also from the Shaheen family, gave me a copy last year.

It tells how the Shaheen family saved members of the Mizrachi family in1929. Ali Shaheen, Fakhri's father, stood with his brothers in front of thedoors, risking their lives to save their Jewish neighbors from the rioting crowd.

The Declaration, which the Jewish Mizrachi family gave to the Shaheen familyin 1967 begins: "We the undersigned declare here that the Hebron Shaheen family, brothers Musa, Hamda, Ali, Itzhak, and their late mother, the very respected Haja, saved our lives in the riot that took place in 1929." The document gives further details of that rescu