CPT "What about America?"

“What About America?”
Lorin Peters
2002 April 18

I arrived in Palestine a few days later (see Church of the Nativity story). We decided to try the Church of the Nativity again. We loaded bags of flour and rice into our knapsacks, and carried large clear bags of canned foods, oil and bread in our hands. We walked half a mile uphill, past the Lutheran Christmas Church, accompanied by 15 to 20 media people. Bethlehem was still under curfew, so the town was completely deserted, except for us.

About 300 meters from the Church, a squad of soldiers in a narrow street, hemmed in by apartment buildings, stopped us. Anne and the other communicators engaged the soldiers in conversation. After some time, the group decided to try a very slow walk forward. Sometimes, soldiers allow groups to very gently pass through them. But this squad pushed back and prevented any forward movement.

We asked the soldiers to let just three women go to the Church. When this was also refused, we sat down in the street. Deanna, with her soaring voice, sang a slow song of regret and longing of an oppressed people. Aaron, in his powerful voice, read Psalms of judgment, and justice. I wondered what these soldiers thought.

While we had been arguing with the soldiers, curfew had been lifted for other parts of Bethlehem. Perhaps they would lift it for our area once we left. One of the soldiers had produced a tear-gas canister; provoking a tear-gas attack would have been quite unfair to the Palestinian neighbors, who were not free to leave the area. After an hour, we decided to distribute our food to the people, directly adjacent to us, who had been under curfew for three weeks. So Allyn, Steve and I climbed the stairs on our right, to the people trapped there.

Suddenly two snipers emerged from a doorway above us, “Go back down to the street.” “We just want to feed these people – they’ve been under curfew.” The soldiers hesitated,… “OK, just that food.” Steve and I passed our bags of food over. I unslung my knapsack and started to unload bags of flour. The soldier directly above me said, “No more.” I continued unloading. He shouted, “Stop.” I was nervous, but I decided I should ignore him and continue. He screamed, “Stop!” It finally occurred to me that he had not realized my knapsack held 30 pounds of flour and rice. I slowly straightened up, looked at him, and, as calmly as I could, said, “I thought you said we could hand out the food we had.” Then I bent over and resumed unloading. I was frightened, but he was silent.

When we descended back to the street, the main group of soldiers were relaxing and smiling. One joked, “Nice try.” As we began walking slowly back down the street, several of us engaged in conversation. One said to me, “What about America? What we are doing is no different from what you did.” I assumed he was referring to our treatment of American Indians. I answered, “ I agree, but that doesn’t make it right.” I wish I had added, “Yes, and many of us regret that we did that. There is much in American history to be ashamed of. We have been cruel and inhuman to people who were different from us. What about Israel?”