Clergy and Physicians Describe "Reign of State Terror" for Baker

By the Reverend L. Humphrey Walz

During Secretary of State James Baker's April Middle East visits, the St. Ives Legal Resource Center (under the Jerusalem Latin Catholic Patriarchate) and the Israeli-Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights (based in Tel Aviv) presented him via the US Consulate General in Jerusalem a joint open letter documenting horrifying instances in which Palestinians were denied urgently needed medical care, and Palestinian physicians were not only prevented from reaching patients, but were tortured for trying to do so.

These Muslim, Christian and Jewish lawyers and doctors had petitioned the Israeli High Court in February to lift the related military-enforced restrictions so lethally intensified by the Gulf crisis curfew, but had received no ruling yet.

They included signed testimony, sworn to before St. Ives Executive Legal Director Lynda Brayer by an Israeli soldier, who described "the seven stages to Hell" that a Palestinian under curfew must go through to get from home to a doctor. The Israeli "open fire policy" (deemed a violation of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) makes it dangerous for a Palestinian to go outdoors at all during a curfew. Even in emergencies the risk may not be worth taking.

To reach a post where one can apply for the required permit to seek medical aid, Palestinians must pass one or more checkpoints where soldiers delay them for hours and then simply say, "You're not sick, go home. " Once, alone at an Israeli outpost at 3 am, the soldier reported, he signed a pass for a man and his pregnant wife "whose water was already breaking, " but they were stopped at the next checkpoint pending investigation of whether his signature was valid. Such detentions, the soldier declared, can delay a Palestinian for hours even if he or she has all the necessary permits.

Even the medical profession is subject to harassment and intimidation. "I saw how, " the sworn testimony continues, "they put a doctor, who was moving around during the curfew, up against a wall with his hands in the air for an hour and a half until they decided what to do with him."

The doctors' and lawyers' joint message to Baker also detailed such Israeli violations of international law as confiscation of Muslim and Christian-owned land for the use of Jewish immigrant settlers, destruction of wells, house demolitions, arbitrary tax raids and the break-up of families by deportation. In conclusion, they said:

"The cumulative effect ... coupled with the economic devastation wrought by the unprecedented prolonged curfew, is the institutionalization of a reign of state terror in the occupied territories ... We fear that these practices will jeopardize your peace efforts in the region. We urge you to use your good offices to bring these abuses to an immediate end in order that both your political and humanitarian objectives may be realized."

Vatican-Israeli Tensions

The Vatican's 1991 statement on its continuing refusal of formal diplomatic relations with the state of Israel includes a supplementary reason. To its previous objections to Israeli defiance of international norms an agreements it has appended a new one: "The situation of the Catholic Church in Israel and in the territories occupied by Israel."

This addition seems to have been precipitated by the 1990 armed Israeli raid on Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem. Government inspectors, flanked by military police wielding assault rifles, entered that Vatican-run institution with demands for its financial books and $3.5 million in taxes.

Similar tax raids on Palestinian homes and businesses had resulted in immediate seizure of everything movable to be put on public sale at Ben-Gurion Airport. Hence, Msgr. Richard Mathes, the Vatican's cultural attache in Jerusalem, who was on hand, frantically phoned Israeli officials who ultimately called off the patrol before any damage took place. (Long-standing multinational agreements against any government entering or taxing specified Jerusalem religious properties—including Notre Dame Center—are also legally incumbent upon Israel.)

Recently reviewing the incident with US journalist John Travis, Mathes and Father John Sansour of Jerusalem's Latin-rite patriarchate reiterated their dissatisfaction with Israeli patterns of discrimination against non-Jews generally.

Neither clergyman can, for instance, go the 10 miles to the shrines or congregations of Bethlehem or Beit Sahour without special government permission. After 10 years of discussion with the political authorities they, like other Christian clergy, are still barred from functioning alongside Israeli tour guides, even on church-sponsored pilgrimages.

Under the ever-tightening rules of occupation, said Mathes, "More and more Christian properties are cut through by roads, expropriated or attached by the government, even when other solutions are possible." Sansour added that related property battles reflect an underlying fear that the historic Christian presence could become extinct in the Holy Land.

A feature article by Rev. Donald Wagner of Mercy Corps, entitled "Holy Land Christians Worry About Survival" in the April 24 Christian Century, reveals further grounds for such anxieties.

"Advocacy Days"

Christians and peace activists from all parts of the US were gathered by Churches for Middle East Peace (C-MEP) April 21-23 to speak with members of Congress in Washington, DC about peace in the Middle East. Using the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill as a base, these "Washington Advocacy Days" afforded opportunities for planning meetings by denominations and for first-hand exposure to leaders of Middle East peace movements within their religious organizations.

C-MEP is composed of Washington representatives of American Baptist, Brethren, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Friends, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Unitarian-Universalist, United Church of Christ and United Methodist Washington offices. Participants in "Advocacy Days" sought positive ways of supporting, speeding up or correcting US governmental responses to the problems and drastic changes confronting the US in the Middle East.

More from Ellis on Dialogue

Jewish theologian Marc H. Ellis' essay, "Beyond the Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Solidarity with the Palestinian People" dominates the May-June Link. If you have taken advantage of the AET Book Club offer of two of his books, you will welcome this practical approach to handling the psychological and ideological obstacles to interfaith discussions of contrasting views on Mideast peacemaking. You can secure a copy by sending $1.00 (which hardly covers costs of handling and mailing) to Americans for Middle East Understanding, 241 Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Dr., New York, NY 10015.

The Reverend L. Humphrey Walz, D. D., retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in denominational and ecumenical peacemaking movements.