one of the members of our church family is currently working in the west bank with christian peacemaker teams. he recently sent us the above photo and a bit of his story is below. why is this being posted on a blog about pasadena? well, aside from the fact that pasadena is john's home community, the conflict he and his teammates are in the midst of is something that ALL of us - regardless of where we live - need to be aware of. certainly the tension between israel and palestine has been going on for a long time. and certainly there is much blame that could be passed around to the people of this region.
yet when injustice like this happens it breaks my heart.
here are john's words...
My first full day with CPT was blurred with the very presence of evil. Our group awoke to a telephone call summoning us to Beqa’a Valley, an agricultural area right at the edge of the city of Hebron. “The soldiers have come and they are cutting down our plants.”
When CPT arrived, Palestinian farmers were watching as Israeli soldiers were commanding the dismantlement of a Palestinian farm. Israeli soldiers kept Palestinian farming families at gunpoint as hired workers cut up the ropes that supported vegetable plants. The workers would continue by removing the water piping from the ground and eventually dumping the piping into a garbage truck.
One Palestinian farmer exclaimed, “"These tomatoes are for the kids, for the babies, to feed the kids and to sell them to buy other food for the kids."
For the Palestinian farmers, their troubles lie with their Jewish neighbors. While this area is miles within the boundaries of what is commonly known as Palestine, Israeli “settlers” have come to live. Among the goals of the Israeli settlers is to drive the local Palestinians away to make room for more settlers. This is at the heart of what happened that day.
