If I thought yesterday was intense, I had no idea what we'd experience today.

Shorashim or Roots

We began our day visiting Shorashim in Gush Etzion, a bloc of settlements in the West Bank. There are 22 settlements in Gush Etzion, many of which identify as religious Zionists or ultra-Orthodox. We first me with Shaul Yudelman, a religious settler and co-founder of Shorashim. In addressing October 7 he said, "There are no words and nothing so say, no ground under our feet; we live with fear and the future is unknown. Since that day, there have been so few visitors, and meeting with our Palestinian partners has been hard because there is so much pain, too much pain."

About Shorashim. It is a group of Jewish settlers and Palestinians who work together to send out a different message: It is not Israel and it is not Palestine. It is the Holy Land and it does not belong to one side or the other; rather, the people belong to the land.

Shaul continued, noting that slowly, after October 7, small groups started meeting together. The emphasis is in telling their stories -- who are we and what are our roots.

Shaul made aliyah to Israel in 2000 and he was working on a farm. Soon there after began the second Intifada, which became very personal for him. He sees the heart of the conflict being emotion, particularly the emotions of anger and fear, which for him lead to hate and a lack of trust. He wrestled -- the Talmud teaches that hate equals idolatry. 

So he needed to do something to squelch the hate; his family and six other settlement families reached out to seven Palestinian families to meet for small acts. They broke a fast together when Ramadan coincide with the 17th of Tammuz (observed as a fast by traditionally observant Jews). They held a joint camp, a women's group; slowly, Shorashim spread to other settlements and Palestinians.

Haled Abu Awad was a Palestinian co-founder of Shorashim. In 1987, he was a leader of the first Intifada. He and most of his relatives served prison sentences, including his mother for six and a half years. In 1993, he and his family supported the efforts toward peace to close the book on fighting, recognizing that there had to be a better way. He truly believed that the leadership on both sides could bring peace. But in 2000, his brother was killed by an Israeli soldier. In the three days following, thousands of Palestinians visited his family to offer condolences -- and to blame them for supporting peace.

About two months later, Jewish settlers reached out to express condolences and asked if they could visit. Haled said no, you killed my brother. The Jews reached out again, saying they were coming to support him and his family with a message of peace. Haled could not reject an overture of peace. Seven Jewish families from the settlement came to hear the story of Haled's brother. The Jews cried. "We sit here as humans, not Israelis or Palestinians" they all said. Haled asked himself how these Jews in his house could be so kind and respectful. 

Then the Jews share stories of the killings of their relatives. One family told of the death of their son by a Palestinian. Another family's 13 year old daughter was shopping at the mall with two friends when all three girls died at the hands of a suicide bomber. Haled was so deeply touched and asked, "Did this Palestinian kill an innocent girl in my name? Does our need for a homeland allows us to behave like this?" He answered: "No and we cannot forget our humanity -- this was not human behavior. The moment we listen to one another as a human being and we hear different aspects of the conflict, we are no longer innocent; we are all responsible; we are all guilty. We must work for a future because it can't be worse than the past."

Shaul and Haled are both deeply religious and have come to this place from their religious traditions. Haled especially calls upon the Koran's wisdom and teachings to guide him.

More than anything, Shaul and Haled have integrated the other's story and narrative into their hearts and souls. They accept each other's truth even if it is not their truth. They care about each other and want the best for each as they want the best for the country.

Haled acknowledges that one mistake the Palestinians made was in 1948. Why did they reject the Jewish refugees? The land could easily have become a homeland for both peoples. There was enough space for both peoples. Both peoples belong to the land.

As they slowly rebuild post October 7, they don't speak of specific solutions because they are open to various possibilities -- two states, one states. More importantly for them, they focus on changes in education and how to teach the other's narrative so the children can truly see one another.

Lifegate

Lifegate is an NGO in the West Bank (in Beit Jala near Bethlehem). NGOs in the West Bank are very often not considered helpful, and many Palestinians say they are the third enemy after Israel and the Palestinian Authority (their own government). Why? Because:

1) NGOs keep Palestinians helpless and dependent.
2) NGOs pay higher wages than other jobs in the West Bank and therefore take the best workers.

Never the less, there are many NGOs in the West Bank.

We met Bogart, a German Christian who has lived in Israel (West Jerusalem) for 40 years and founded Lifegate as a German NGO in 1987. Lifegate provides support services, education, therapies (occupational, physical, speech, and hydro), parental support, camp, food, vocational training from age 16 up, transportation to an Israeli hospital for treatment, and much more for children with disabilities in the West Bank, particularly those from Bethlehem and the surrounding communities. Beit Jala is a mostly Christian community in the West Bank, which is one reason it is supported by a German Christian NGO. Forty children are served each day. Lifegate helps Palestinian families who would otherwise not be able to support their children. It also helps reduce the stigma of disability in the Palestinian communities. 

In addition to transporting Palestinian children to an Israeli hospital for treatment, Lifegate runs a camp with Israeli children and makes sure that teams are not Israeli vs. Palestinian, but rather Israeli-Palestinian vs. Israeli-Palestinian. The camp often happens over Sukkot where all of the children build and decorate the sukkah.

Bogart truly lives a life of Tzelem Elohim, seeing each person as being created in the image of God.

Suleiman Abu Dayyeh

Suleiman welcomed us to his parents home and where he grew up in Beit Jala. He and his family reside in East Jerusalem. The beautiful garden of his parents' house led to a flight of stairs up to a stunning home. We sat in his living room while he and his son served us pastries, coffee, and tea.

Suleiman is a secular Palestinian Christian and a political collaborator, but not in the negative sense of the word. For decades, he has collaborated with Israeli Jews to try to find a solution that would end the conflict.

He spoke to us about the many problems of the Palestinian political system -- one major problem is the divide between religious and secular Muslims. Before 1987, the political leaders were mostly secular and left; since 1987, they have been working to re-Islamicize Palestine. This is when Hamas was born as a political party in Gaza. Israel had an interest in strengthening Hamas against the PLO (later the Palestinian Authority or PA) because Israel felt Hamas was so extreme no one would support them. The PA was willing to negotiate with Israel. 

At this time, Suleiman helped to put together a group of Israelis and moderate Palestinians who met to try and come up with a recommendation. There were at the time more than 50 peace organizations of Palestinians; so finding people to be involved was not hard for Suleiman. Because the Palestinians could not cross into Israel and the Israelis could not legally enter Bethlehem (in other words, we were in violation of the law when we visited Lifegate and Suleiman), most meetings were held in European cities, with the Palestinians flying out of Amman, Jordan. 

The proposal they developed included the following:

1) Borders would return to 1967, with a few exceptions
2) Jews and Palestinians would share the land
3) Israel must accept the Geneva initiative
4) Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would be covered under the plan
5) The Right of Return could be handled in many possible ways that would not end the Jewish majority in Israel -- two ways include a symbolic return of 250,000 Palestinians to Israel, while the balance would live in the West Bank or places where Israel would withdraw; OR give the Palestinians citizenship in the countries where they currently live (such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, etc.), with the right to visit Israel.

Abbas and his cabinet accepted the terms; Ariel Sharon said it was not worth the paper it was written on. The Israelis and Palestinians were not discouraged and kept meeting and hoping. Until October 7. Now the situation is dire. At first, many Palestinians supported what Hamas did because they believed that it reminded the world of the occupation. Now, they feel that it (October 7) should not have happened because of the intensity of Israel's response. 

So what do the peace collaborators do now? How can they see each other? Can they still agree with the idea of living together? Suleiman asks if there are Israelis who still want a two state solution. He would accept one combined state as long as the Palestinians lived freely. He says the main principle is fairness. He suggests if the two sides cannot talk, maybe Jordan could help. But where would Israel withdraw? Where would the settlers go? Should they change the borders not to 1967, but to give the Palestinians good land, not the Negev Desert, for example?

Suleiman mentioned twice that he personally and the majority of Palestinian people do not believe that Jews have an historical right or connection to the land. This tore at me. He said the only reason to negotiate is a pragmatic one -- the Jews are here so we have to deal with it.

I valued Suleiman for his honesty, candor, and forward thinking and acting. But his refusal to try to understand the Jewish narrative -- and his refusal to demand that the Israelis do the same regarding the Palestinians -- was such a contrast to Shaul and Haled. Suleiman ended by saying that the Israelis and Palestinians he has worked with cannot sit together anytime soon.

At the end of the day, I found that I admired in the deepest way possible, the extremely religious ones -- Shaul and Haled, while I struggled with the secular one -- Suleiman. I need to explore this.