Body Language

If you were closely watching the photo ops during the Annapolis Conference then you undoubtedly noticed the body language between the three leaders – Abbas, Bush and Olmert.  It was painful to see the unintended message being sent to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President.  Honestly, my heart went out to him, as I watched President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert touch one another with the familiarity of old friends.  There was none of that between President Bush and President Abbas, or between Abbas and Olmert.  When it came time for the threesome to move, Olmert and Bush walked side by side as Abbas trailed on behind.  President Bush realized what was happening, paused, and with the wave of a hand, motioned for Abbas to come alongside.  President Abbas tried to catch up and walk alongside, but the other two didn’t wait for him, and he never did catch up.

I think the body language says all that needs to be said about the talks at Annapolis.  Clearly, the Palestinians have no champion, no true friend, and because they have no champion, no true friend, they have no cause to hope for any kind of settlement that will satisfy their desire for a homeland.

One of the saddest aspects of this struggle for peace is the pain I see and feel in the Palestinian people.  They have few if any real friends.  They are the odd one out in every possible relational triangle.  They simply cannot win.  And the pain in them is the pain that comes from not knowing why you are always the one left out.  What did you do to deserve to be treated so shabbily?  You are an educated, hardworking people, who were at one time the most progressive of all the people of the region.  Now you are looked upon as backward, violent and totally disposable.  The land upon which you once lived and worked, is now someone else’s, and so few seem to think there is something inherently wrong in this.

I know, I know, suicide bombings and rockets fired into Israeli cities, and these are morally wrong and the Palestinians ought to stop NOW!  Let both sides put down the sword, and let the light shine on the actions of each for each has sins for which to atone.

If you are a Palestinian, you are someone who has either lost all hope in any kind of equal treatment by the powers that be, or you are rapidly headed in that direction.  If you could leave, you would, but you can’t, so you stay – and what?  Wait for a champion?  Someone who will see you as equal to anyone else, and everyone else?  Yes, you will wait and work for peace and justice.  Or you will fight, and you will fight anyway you can, and let the rest of the world be damned!

I hope and pray it does not come to that, but I fear it will.  It’s hard to imagine anyone standing up for the Palestinian people, and it’s equally difficult to imagine the Palestinian people standing for this slight any longer.  You’d have to be a fool to stand up for the Palestinian people.  They are the least of the least, and they seem incapable of climbing out of the pit that has been dug for them, and to be honest, by them as well.  They need a champion.   And this champion will have to be someone who loves them for who they are and who will not see them as the circumstances have made them.  Who will that be?

Only God knows!  Or, as only God knows, only God – Champion of the widow, the orphan and the powerless, friendless, alien within our midst.