There was a carnival atmosphere in Bethlehem’s ‘Manger Square’ on Palm Sunday: after all, it was a holy Christian day for a predominantly Christian town close to the holy city of Jerusalem where it all happened!

A colourful crowd had gathered to mark the occasion; some American Christians started singing gospel songs, identifying themselves from the “Every church a peace church” movement. They mingled with a wide cross-section of the Bethlehem community: young and old Palestinians, men and women, Christian and Muslim and a good mix of other internationals from various countries.

But drawing the most attention were the robed and scarved shepherds on donkeys. Wearing no costumes, but just their every day clothes, the shepherds looked as if they had stepped straight from the pages of the New Testament. I reckoned they all looked a bit like Jesus, and they weren’t even trying.

The crowd had plans to do what any Christian would do if they were so close to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday – they would do as Jesus did: walk into the holy city with Palms to commemorate the occasion some 2000 years ago.

We set off keen to reach this goal, refusing to be discouraged by the looming obstacle we all knew was in our way. The gospel singing merged with middle-eastern music as the crowd weaved through the streets of Bethlehem. We marched holding banners and balloons, waving palm leaves to the beat of the music with flags flapping in the breeze.

The signs conveyed various messages: “American Christians for Palestinian Justice”, “God’s truth: Justice for Palestine”, “Keep Hope Alive – Free Palestine” and “Set all God’s children free”.

The donkeys got ‘pooped’ as they climbed a steep hill about half way from the main square to the checkpoint on the outskirts of town. They started to slow down and fell from the front of the demo to the back! We got ‘pooped’ too, as some of us accidentally trod in the donkeys’ um, waste, which they liberally shared with us in big piles on the road.

The pooping donkeys were actually really cute (that is, if you were not walking behind them!) and organisers were so worried about their health, the donkeys were pulled out before the checkpoint for fear of their response to tear gas in the case that it would be used.

Despite the threat of tear gas, the crowd continued the last leg with the chanting growing louder: “we demand freedom”, “no justice no peace”, “the wall must fall,” “we come in peace”.

We walked past a gap in Israel’s ugly concrete apartheid wall which now rips the town of Bethlehem in two (that’s another story). As we moved toward the checkpoint we formed rows and linked arms.

It seemed we took the soldiers at the checkpoint by surprise because we got quite close before they realised what was going on. They were even more surprised when we continued to walk on as if they were not there. “Don’t mind us. We are going to Jerusalem to pray,” one demonstrator called out as a soldier approached the group.

The soldiers quickly tried to organise themselves into a rough human barrier in front of us. We kept walking forward forcing them to step back. We were slowly making ground when the commander came over and demanded to speak to the person in charge. As he did we could see army jeeps scurrying to block the road ahead and more reinforcements were called from nearby guard posts.

The demo was polite. The group stopped and a leader in the Bethlehem community, Dr Ghassan, an elderly and stately, grey-haired man spoke to the commander quietly.

“We are just taking a walk to Jerusalem to pray for Palm Sunday, as is our right,” he told the commander. “We want to go to Jerusalem to pray. We have a right to go to pray in Jerusalem.”

The reinforcements quickly arrived. They copied our tactic and linked arms and pushed and shoved a little. Cries of “Please: no violence” came from the crowd.

The two groups stood looking at each other. A bunch of unarmed Palestinians and foreigners wanting to pray in Jerusalem facing a dozen or so teenage Israeli soldiers carrying shiny black guns, who were not allowing them to pass. It was a face off. The only difference was that we stood strong and confident. The young men and women of the Israeli Occupation Forces in front of us were hesitant and nervous despite the huge guns they were carrying.

Various people in the crowd spoke to the soldiers: “We want to go and pray, this is our holy day; please, we want to go.”

Ghassan Andoni, Direcotr of PCR, addressed the soldiers: “You give Israeli Jews the right to go and pray at Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem. I think we have the same right to go to pray in Jerusalem. These are peaceful people demanding a human right – the right to pray in their mosques and churches. Do you ask Jews who come to pray in Rachel’s tomb if they have a permit This is illegal and the world is watching.”

The soldiers scuffled uncomfortably and strengthened their locked arms. With their orders not to move an inch, the demonstrators had a captive audience to talk to…

“You don’t have to be here, you can go back to your family,” someone said
to them. “You should not be here and you know it. You don’t want to be here. This is the wrong place for you.”

“Stand for peace. Stand for the right of people to pray in their holy sites. You can join us.” “Does anyone deny you the right to pray? How does it feel if someone tells
you cannot pray?” “If you let us go to Jerusalem we will pray for you too!”

Members of the demo tried to hand a written message to the soldiers, but they refused to take it and didn’t respond to the questions. “You receive orders not to talk to us?” asked Dr Ghassan. “People don’t just follow orders; sometimes they follow their hearts and you have good hearts. If you live in a democracy you have a right to talk.”

At the other end of the line an elegant Palestinian woman with a silver cross around her neck patiently held a large bunch of palm leaves. She stood in front of young female soldiers, also trying to talk with them. Behind the row of soldiers, the reinforcements arrived and started talking in groups, discussing tactics, the guns hung off their shoulders like handbags.

After speaking some more to the commander, Ghassan reported back to the crowd: “They have asked us to go back to Bethlehem. They are threatening to use violent force against us. They are refusing to distinguish between us and Israeli Jews who come to our city to pray in Rachel’s tomb without a permit. They are proud of this discriminatory policy. When I said: ‘this is racist’, they said ‘this is how it is, let it be. This is the way it is, you have to abide by it.’ They want to block us and push us back to Bethlehem. They have asked us to disperse or they will use force. But we are not interested in a confrontation; we don’t want to have violence here. Those people are willing to use violence and we are not willing to do it.”

For the moment, the group decided to peacefully defy the soldiers by sitting on the road. Everyone then began to sing. Using the melody of ‘we shall overcome’ the theme of the demonstration was reinforced in robust song. “We shall walk in peace… one day, we will pray in Jerusalem….one day, justice peace and love….one day. Then came some upbeat Palestinian songs and clapping and chanting.

After about 15 minutes of singing, and more threats by the soldiers to remove the group by force, a Palestinian man stood up and read the statement for the soldiers. “I come to you with a message from our people,” he said to them, and began to read:

Asalaam’alaykum (Peace be with you) We in the Bethlehem community have come to you today with a message on behalf of our people. We represent the family members and friends who are imprisoned by these concrete walls and wire fences that now create the Bethlehem open-air prison. You, like the prison guards, control our freedom and ability to live as human beings with dignity in this holy land. Our strong delegation of civilians comes to you without weapons but with great strength and commitment to deliver the message of just peace. In the name of security, you do not permit us to travel to work, to school and to worship in our holy sites in the city of Jerusalem. Your government deprives us each day of basic human rights to self-determination. Each day you keep us from being with our families at weddings, funerals, graduations, birthdays and religious holidays. Although Al Quds (Jerusalem) is only 20 minutes from Bethlehem, we have not been allowed to pray or worship at our holy sites. Each day as you come to our city, you serve the system of violence that keeps our people imprisoned and without the ability to live the life of a normal human being. With your guns, tanks and insults, you teach our children to hate. However, we believe each of you has the power and choice to choose a different ending to this story. We appeal to your conscience and humanity as individuals and as soldiers who may feel there is no way out of this system. Put your guns away, and join us in the fight for peace and freedom. The People of Bethlehem

 

“This is a message from us to you,” the man concluded. The crowd applauded, moved and frustrated all at once. “We are moving back now, but we will return. This is not the end of this story.”

The elegant Palestinian lady started to hand out her palm leaves to the soldiers; they didn’t take them so she let them fall gently at their booted feet.

“This is for you, for Palm Sunday,” she said almost in tears. “It is holy, holy, this is to keep the land holy….” her voice trembled with emotion but she continued. “At least we have some palms here to keep this land holy, to keep Bethlehem and Jerusalem holy…”

As the crowd dispersed the soldiers looked a bit bewildered, some shaken. A crowd of un-armed, praying, singing people asking to pray left them baffled and fidgeting uneasily with their guns.

“You have chosen violence, but we have chosen peace,” said Dr Ghassan. “But we will return.”

As we headed back to town I shared the tears of the Palestinian lady searching for the holy, I felt the heartbreak of the little town of Bethlehem, and I asked the holy man who rode the donkey, the one who was born here, to help us all.

Photos By: Ghassan Bannoura & Husam Qassis - PCR