Waiting for God
Save me, O God, for the waters
have come up to my neck . . . I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. – Psalm 69:1-3
Ayman is a
university professor in Palestine and a graduate of the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. I am talking to him while we are sitting under an
awning with his extended family, overlooking the bypass road in the West Bank
village of Al Walajah. Land for the road was taken from his family and other
Palestinian families and only Israelis can use the road, not Palestinians.
Just up
the hill from the family home is the 26-foot-high cement separation wall. From
the winding path the wall follows, it is clear the wall is meant for more than
security. The wall separates Palestinians from their land and it protects
natural resources like water for use by the Israelis.
Sandwiched
between the wall and the bypass road for Israeli settlers, Ayman’s family is
barely able to survive on their land. But still, they welcome us into their
home and offer us tea. “Here,” Ayman says about the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian land, “it’s your very existence that is threatened.”
Ayman tells
us me he has to survive humiliation from Israeli soldiers each day as he waits
to pass through the checkpoint from the West Bank into Israel on his way to
teach in Jerusalem. He tells me he could have stayed in the United States after
his studies, but this, he says, is his land and his family. He views his daily
humiliation as part of his resistance. “You have to be crazy enough to resist,”
he tells us.
From Dr. Jad
Isaac, director of Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ), we had heard
earlier that day that there are now hundreds of Israeli settlements in the
occupied Palestinian West Bank. The 700,000 Israelis who live here is double
the number of settlers just 10 years ago. The bypass roads we see, says Dr. Jad,
have been funded by the United States government. The primary purpose of these
roads is to connect Israeli settlements and to isolate Palestinian communities.
Dr. Jad
tells us that Israelis have claimed 40% of the West Bank land with the separation
wall, the bypass roads, the settlements, nature reserves, the resources of the
Jordan Valley, and more. I ask him what can possibly give him hope for the
future and he tells me, “I believe in humanity and I believe that someday somebody
will say enough is enough.“
In the
village of Walajah, we visit two ARIJ projects partially funded by Mennonite
Central Committee. The first is a waste water treatment system installed in 180
homes that treats waste water so it can be used for irrigation. The system provides
these families a far cheaper alternative to sewage treatment than was earlier
available, if it was available at all.
In Ayman’s
home, we see a new aquaponics project demonstrated that provides clean water
and fish for eating. The project is still an experiment and it does not yet
provide enough water or food to be profitable, but it is still a source of hope
for what might be possible someday.
Here in
the West Bank, throats are parched and eyes are growing dim waiting for God,
but there is still hope. Save us, God, before we are overcome, I cry as I wait with
them.
Ron Byler is executive director of
Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
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