The Holy Land – Reflections on a Visit

The Revd Mark Slaney, President Designate, visited the Methodist Liaison Office in Jerusalem and partners in Israel/Palestine from 5 to 17 February. Here is his report on the visit.

My heartfelt appreciation to Dave Hardman and Samar, MLO Jerusalem, for their hosting, holding and guiding. Thanks to colleagues John Plant (Christian Aid), Mike Ivatt (Methodist Media Team) and Susie Turner (Educational Psychologist and my spouse) who made up a team over the first six days of the trip. And a huge debt of gratitude to all those who received us so hospitably and shared their stories in all their weariness and hope, with compassion for communities and passion for justice.

The Methodist Liaison Office invites visitors and pilgrims to ‘come and see, go and tell.’

For the Methodist Church in Britain (MCB), the purpose of the visit was witness – to see, hear and feel what it is like on the ground for folk; and solidarity – to offer solidarity by presence and engagement.

A key task on returning is to tell what was witnessed and lay out the actions of solidarity which Palestinian Christians are asking MCB to undertake with them. To offer their voices rather than our own reflections, analysis and interpretations. To amplify what those who feel forgotten and unheard are saying to and asking of us.

It is impossible to tell all the stories heard over 12 days in this article.

A visit was made to Tent of Nations whose story is well known amongst Methodists in the UK having received the Methodist Peace Award in 2018 and remaining a touchstone of the injustices woven into people’s lives over many years. What was new is the development of a settler outpost including new tarmac road for settler access running along the boundary of the farm; a new gate, in addition to a rubble and rubbish pile road block, to further deny access to the main road; and a new watch-tower with camera directed at the Tent of Nations. Whilst the Tent of Nations, along with many Palestinians, continue to be denied infrastructure and facilities, even the most basic of settler outposts is supplied, by the Government, with access roads, power, running water and ‘permission’ to build.

Tent of Nations continues to live by the following four principles:

• We refuse to be enemies.
• We refuse to hate.
• We will act differently because of our faith.
• We are people who believe in justice.

At the YMCA, East Jerusalem, we heard of work with children who had been detained by the Israeli Defense Forces. It was distressing to hear that soldiers would often force their way into Palestinian homes at night and remove children from their beds in front of their parents. This was not only trauma inducing but also designed to tear away two sacred securities – a child’s bedroom and the protection of parents.

Before 7 October 2023, all children detained and in prison had to have an adult accompanying them. On 8 October all such adults were removed from prisons and children left unaccompanied. There are currently more than 9,300 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children.

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine are amongst those most in need of our active listening, solidarity and support in the ongoing context of occupation and its associated oppressions, named and experienced as apartheid and genocide by the United Nations and International Court of Justice as well as Palestinians themselves.

It helps to appreciate that, since 7 October 2023, the pace and weight of occupation and injustice have significantly increased and are gaining momentum. This escalation was a repeated theme across the visit. An insidious, dehumanising control of the Palestinian people and their lives is experienced daily through:

• the separation wall dividing families and communities
• illegal settlements and forged false land-ownership documentation
• housing demolishment
• checkpoints, gates and roadblocks forcing long and arduous alternative routes
• restrictions on movement, business, education and religious practice
• anti-Palestinian laws, rules and regulations
• arrest and detaining without charge
• unaccompanied children in prisons, adult prisoners raped, beaten, starved and killed
• a complete disregard of international law alongside any accountability from the international community
• living under surveillance
• intimidation, harassment, violence, being held at gunpoint, being killed (around 20-30 Palestinians are being killed daily).

The Christian Church and community is diminishing. Palestinian Christians fear that we could see Christians disappear from the Holy Land altogether in a relatively short space of time. Along with others, Christians are leaving Palestine in significant numbers and many of those remaining are being displaced, often forcibly so. The original and oldest indigenous Christian community in the world is in real danger of exile or extinction.

It is very difficult to hear that our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ feel disappointed in and abandoned by the Churches in Europe. They hold an equally strong sense of the failure of international law.

Palestinians are exhausted and worn down. They have not lost hope but hope hangs by a thread. There is real urgency in the request our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ make of us. They ask us to show our solidarity in the following actions:

• To support Kairos 2 in order to amplify and support the voice of Palestinians.
• To call upon the UK Government to meet its full obligations under international law in relation to the ongoing situation.
• To call upon the UK Government to challenge the Israeli Government’s intention to pass a law of death penalty meted out by military court for Palestinian prisoners.

These acts of solidarity go beyond the Christian community. They envisage a land where all can live as equals and without fear.

During the visit, hearing the harrowing and tear-inducing stories of our partners, I found myself seeking out and returning in prayer to the words of the Prophet Habbakuk:

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgement comes forth perverted. … O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known; in wrath may you remember mercy." Habakkuk 1:2–4; 3:2.

The Revd Mark Slaney

President Designate