ELKHART - After visiting Palestine/Israel May 11 to 24, a Mennonite Church USA delegation is encouraging the church and its institutions to get involved in the region in ways that provide hope and promote peace.

Noting deteriorating human rights for Palestinians, the delegation's open letter to congregations says the power imbalance of Israelis over Palestinians distorts the lives of everyone living in the region and fails to provide longed for security. The delegation believes the system of forced segregation and systemic oppression imposed by the Israeli government and the resulting spiral of violence calls for all Mennonites to work collaboratively in the region.

The delegation asks congregations and pastors to learn more about the issues in Palestine and Israel and calls on institutions and individuals to make investment decisions in Israel/Palestine that promote peace and do not support the illegal occupation and the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people. The letter encourages agencies to work together to become bridge builders among alienated factions in the region.

The delegation letter asks congregations to study resources that counter the distortions of land and promise in Christian Zionism and encourages tour groups who are visiting Palestine/Israel to consider spending part of their time in Palestinian communities like Bethlehem and Nazareth.

A 30-foot-high separation wall 400 miles long separates many Palestinians from their land. Because the Israeli government is constructing the wall not on the internationally recognized border (the Green Line) but further into occupied West Bank, about 60 Palestinian communities will be trapped between the wall and the border.

Since occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, Israel - in clear violation of international law - has built more than 200 settlements on Palestinian land, providing housing for nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers. An intricate system of bypass roads, tunnels and checkpoints further isolate Palestinian villages from each other.

"We are seeing a process of squeezing the Palestinians that remain into as small an area as possible," Israeli peace activist Amos Gvirtz told the delegation. He said that the Israeli government, in a very deliberate fashion, continues to claim more Palestinian land and demolish Palestinian homes, even during the peace process.

Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights told the delegation that the steps Israel takes to hold on to its land are making the country morally unfit to own the land. In March 2005, Ascherman was convicted of blocking bulldozers with his body to prevent demolition of the Dari family home in Issawiya, East Jerusalem. The Dari home has been demolished twice by Israeli authorities.

Standing on the site of the demolition of the Dari home, May 14, Rabbi Ascherman asked, "How can I watch the image of God being demolished with this house?" Ascherman said Jews should be God's partners in making a better world. He noted that a recent survey showed that a majority of Jews and Palestinians want peace but each group believes that the other does not.

"Without blind support from the United States for over 40 years, this occupation could not have worked," said Samia Khoury of Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian theological study center in Jerusalem. The United States provides $3 billion in military aid to Israel each year. "But we still believe that peace is possible and that Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together," added Cedar Duaybis, also of Sabeel.

Ronen Shimoni of B'Tselem, an Israeli center for human rights in the occupied territories, told the delegation that it's important to put economic pressure on Israel. "We must stop the settlements, stop the confiscation of land and allow for free access from one area to another," he said.

Shimoni served in the Israeli military as all young Israelis are required to do. He remembers patrolling the Israeli-Palestinian border wall and denying passage through the wall to people who were seeking medical help.

"It dawned on me," he said, "Who gave me the right to play God and to deny them access? These people are not even allowed to come into Israel so we don't even know what a Palestinian looks like."

Delegation members included representatives from Mennonite Mission Network, Mennonite Church USA Executive Board and Executive Leadership, MMA, Christian Peacemaker Teams, MEDA and MCC U.S. The delegation was formed in response to concerns within the Peace and Justice Partnership Council of Mennonite Church USA that agencies have a common experience around issues relating to investment policies.

Delegation members talked to Christians, Jews and Muslims, heard diverse perspectives on how to respond to Israel/Palestine issues and sought counsel from partner voices relating to Mennonites in the region.

May 14, the delegation met with two representatives, Elik Elhanan and Omar Alalool, of the Bereaved Families Circle, a group that encourages Palestinians and Jews whose loved ones have been killed in the conflict to begin the hard work of peacemaking by talking to each other. Elik Elhanan, a Jewish student whose sister was killed in a suicide bombing, said that his sister died because of the occupation and he no longer wants to be part of the cycle of violence.

"Blood leads to blood, violence leads to violence and the only way to resolve this issue is to talk," Elhanan said.

Elhanan's counterpart, Omar Alalool, a Palestinian Muslim, lost both his father and brother in the war 30 years ago. "In the end," he says, "if you really want peace, you can't believe in revenge." Alalool, a doctor who runs a medical center, said Bereaved Families Circle wants to help people talk to each other.

"People should know there's another side to this conflict. We want to live in peace," he said.

The delegation's letter to congregations urges Christians to rediscover God, as revealed in the Old Testament and in Jesus, as the One whose compassion and care extend to all people, Israelis and Palestinians alike. True security cannot be found in military power, the letter says, also noting that anti-Semitism is inconsistent with the church's vision for anti-racism and cannot be tolerated.

Elias Chacour, Greek Catholic Archbishop of Galilee, urged the delegation, on May 22, to help Christians in North America find ways to express their solidarity with Christians in Israel/Palestine.

"We don't expect you to solve our problems," he said, "But we do expect you to read the Bible without being selective, to humble yourselves and to work with Christians who are already present here."

Zoughbi Zoughbi, founder of the Wi'am Palestinian Center for Conflict Resolution, told the group that when North Americans visit the West Bank, it gives them hope. The wall, he said, separates families, creates economic hardship and fosters suspicion. Zoughbi said that 80 percent of the Palestinian children his agency serves have been exposed to trauma.

Despite these challenges, Zoughbi chooses hope.

"Hope hasn't yet chosen us, but sooner or later, God will not deprive us from a miracle," he said.

The delegation is planning to present its letter to delegates at the San Jose 2007 Delegate Assembly of Mennonite Church USA, July 2-6, in San Jose, California.

[Photo - mosque, displaced village]

When the state of Israel was established in 1948 by military force, more than 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed and almost one million Palestinians were forced to become refugees or internally displaced from their homes. In the village of El Ghabsiya, the only structure left standing was the mosque (in background). Daoud Bader (on left), a resident of the village and coordinator of the Association for the Defense of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Israel, told Mennonite Church USA delegation members that, sixty years later, villagers have still not been able to return to their abandoned village. Ten years ago, when villagers tried to renovate the mosque, the Israeli Land Authority sealed the windows and doors and built a barbed wire fence around the property. "We don't need any help to rebuild our houses, but we just want the right to return to our land," Bader said.

[Photo - graffiti wall]

In Bethlehem, three years ago, Atallah Salem's brother, Jad, and two of his friends were killed by a missile fired from an Israeli military helicopter. Atallah tells the story to delegation members in front of a graffiti wall in the Deheisheh refugee camp that says, "We will remember you forever," a tribute to his brother. The refugee camp, first created in 1948, now houses 11,000 Palestinians. More than 650,000 Palestinians still live in 27 refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. According to the United Nations, there are now more than four million Palestinian refugees worldwide. From the roof of Atallah's apartment, Mennonite Church USA delegation members could view the progress of the building of the separation wall between Israel and Palestine and could see three Jewish settlements being built illegally on the hills surrounding Bethlehem. "I haven't been outside Bethlehem for 20 years and I have less imagination than a child," Salem told the delegation. He said the separation wall was not about fighting terrorism. "They just want to destroy our economy," Salem said.

[Two men]

Elik Elhanan (left), an Israeli Jew, and Omar Alalool, a Palestinian Muslim, share with a Mennonite Church USA delegation to Palestine/Israel recently. Elhanan's sister was killed by a suicide bomber. Alalool's father and brother were killed in the war. Both men are active members of the Bereaved Families Circle, a group that pairs Israelis and Palestinians to talk to groups about the possibilities for peace. They told the delegation that they no longer want to be part of a cycle of violence where every act of retaliation is the reason for the next one. "We sacrificed our families and when we talk, people listen," said Alalool. "When we stand up for peace, we need to know that we are not alone," aid Elhanan.

[School children]

Mar Elias is a Palestinian Christian school in Ibillin, Israel serving 4,000 Christian, Muslim and Jewish students in the Galilee region. Begun by Elias Chacour, now Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Galilee, the school is a symbol of hope for peace between the peoples of the region. "You can make a difference," Chacour told Mennonite Church USA delegation members. "And you don't have a choice of waiting to make that difference," he said.

[Man on wall]