The Third activity

Prayer for Peace

"We are going to teach them a lesson there, and no consuls will demonstrate and no Faisal Husseini will hold press conferences. There will not be any attempt to not pay taxes. Even if it has to take a month, in the end they will collapse. We will not let this kind of civil disobedience succeed, and we have to pass through this test. We should tell them: "Forget it, even if the curfew on Beit Sahour lasts two months" ." That is how Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Defense Minister, started the 45-day taxation raid and siege on the town of Beit Sahour on September 20, 1989.

During this taxation raid 398 business were raided by the tax collectors supported by the army. Goods worth $5 million were confiscated. More than 150 residents, including many of Rapprochement activists, were arrested. The town was totally isolated from the outside world, food and medicine were not allowed into the town and curfew was imposed.

In a statement addressed to Israeli peace activists, Beit Sahour residents said: "we will not finance the bullets that kill our children, the growing number of prisons, the expenses of the occupying army, the luxuries and weapons provided to collaborators. No new food supplies reach us. We are under economic siege. Beatings, humiliation, looting and damage accompany the confiscation that has reached 120 shops, factories and houses to the goods. The repression against our town is reaching every person, destroying property and sources of income. It is ruining all aspects of economic activities in Beit Sahour. The military authorities do not represent us and we did not invite them to come to our land. The principle is no taxation without representation" (quoted from Jerusalem Post, October 20, 1989.).

The raid ended on October 31, 1989. The economical infrastructure of Beit Sahour was completely ruined. Mr. Rabin admitted that he could not achieve his goals.

Even under this barbaric siege and despite the brutality and physical suffering, people of Beit Sahour kept sending messages of goodwill to the entire world. Seeing their town being Ruined, their beloved people being arrested and their neighbors beaten and humiliated, they decided to call for a prayer for peace for everybody, including their oppressors.

The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between People issued, in the name of the people of Beit Sahour, the Following invitation:

The People of Beit Sahour Are invite you to attend a Prayer for Peace In the Roman Catholic Church in Beit Sahour On Sunday, 5 November 1989, at 10:00 am Now is the time to achieve peace.

Preparations for the prayer for peace took place while the town was still under curfew and military closure. Telephones were cut off and we were hardly able to communicate among ourselves or with the outside world. Two of the people who worked hardest on the project, Ghassan Andoni (physicist) and Salaam Hilal (architect), were arrested before the Prayer and were sent to prison for three months and six months respectively, without charges. Despite the risks, the other Rapprochement activists persisted and carried out a magnificent and unprecedented show of Palestinian support for peace.

From the early morning of Sunday, 5 November 1989, the army closed all the entrances of Beit Sahour and declared the town as a closed military area. Fortunately, many of the people invited to attend the service had spent the night in Beit Sahour, including 15 Israelis. Some Christian Clergymen who arrived at the army checkpoint with the Jewish activists were later permitted into Beit Sahour to join the prayers. Other including priests and nuns in clerical garb were stopped at a roadblock on the outskirts of the town. The Moslem mufti of Jerusalem, Sheik Sa’ad Adin Al-Alami, was also turned back, but finally permitted to enter when a reporter identified him to the area military commander. Jews, journalists and TV crews were prohibited from participating.

A group of Moslems and Christians, who had been given permission to enter Beit Sahour, remained behind in solidarity with the Jews who were barred. "How can we pray for peace without you", said one of them to the Jewish group. The group of about 50 Jews, Christians and Moslems held an impromptu to service in a field by the roadside, reading prayers by Natan, a follower of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, and by St. Francis of Assisi and a passage from the Koran.

Praying for Peace at the Road Block Inside the church, the 2000 Beit Sahourians welcomed top Christian clergymen, the Moslem Mufti, (Sa’ad ed-Din el-‘Alami) --who was received with thunderous applause,-- a Rabbi and 15 Israelis --who slept overnight in the town, -- an emissary from former US president Jimmy Carter and several European consuls and representatives of 120 members of American Friends of Beit Sahour, including Palestinian Americans who arrived from the US. The service was preceded by a musical duet between the church organist and an Israeli flautist. The parish priest dedicated his sermon, which included a large section in Hebrew, to furthering peace. The Moslem Mufti, a representative of former US President Jimmy Carter, the mayor of Beit Sahour, and Israeli peace activist Hillel Barden, spoke to the people gathered in the church.

During the services, a group of visiting Americans staged a sit down protest in the street to protest the closure of the town. They were tear-gassed by the soldiers and dispersed by force. Soldiers grabbed signs reading, "No Taxation Without Representation". After the service, worshippers visited the Greek Orthodox and Lutheran churches and the local mosque.

The remaining unresolved question is: "Why Jews and Media were not allowed to join the prayer for peace by the occupation authorities?" Can anybody tell?