One Woman's Choice

(I normally do not post material from sources other than my own eyewitness accounts.  Here's an exception.  This is from friend Raymond Weiss, former RCA missionary in Basra, Iraq.  He sent it over from Christian Peacemaker Teams, an organization that sends out peacemakers willing to put themselves between waring factions for the purpose of preventing violence.  They are extraordinarily brave people.)

In the first two months of 2008, Israeli security forces killed 146 Palestinians in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Gaza Strip (http://www.btselem.org/english/press_releases/20080228.asp). At least forty-two were bystanders, who had not participated in the fighting.

Between 28 February and 3 March, at least half of the 108 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in Gaza, were civilians (http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20080303.asp).

On 27 February, the Israeli military targeted the civilian Interior Ministry in Gaza, damaging nearby buildings and killing a six-month-old baby. The same day, Palestinian military groups in Gaza targeted the Israeli town of Sderot, killing a forty-seven year old civilian.

Like Jesus, we are called to take up the cross by speaking out against war, by saying that the death of any one person is too much, that violence leads to violence; it will never lead to peace.    

In the fifteenth century, Jewish and Muslim families fled Christian persecution in Spain, and came to build new lives in Hebron. For hundreds of years, until 1929, these families co-existed harmoniously.

In 1929, Muslim rioters attacked and killed sixty-seven Jews in Hebron (and wounded many others). Although some chose to participate in the riots or stand by and watch, some Muslim families sheltered and saved hundreds of their Jewish neighbors.

Just across the alley from the CPT apartment, in a building now evacuated and requisitioned by the Israeli military, the Muslim Shaheen family saved their Jewish neighbors, the Mizrahi family.

Rioters were at the door, sure that Jews were in the house. The Hajia (eldest woman of the family) went to the roof of her home, tore off her veil, and tore her clothes (a shameful act in Islam), swearing to those below that all who were in the house were her family. The rioters, horrified to be the cause of dishonor to an old, respected woman, left the area. The Mizrahis survived.

In the face of such violence the Haji refused to stand silently by.

Do we?