We Refuse to Be Enemies
Rev. Joan Deming
February 23, 2025
Text: Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to teach them that they should always pray and never become discouraged. 2 “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. 3 And there was a widow in that same town who kept coming to him and pleading for her rights, saying, ‘Help me against my opponent!’ 4 For a long time the judge refused to act, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or respect people, 5 yet because of all the trouble this widow is giving me, I will see to it that she gets her rights. If I don’t, she will keep on coming and finally wear me out!’”
6 And Jesus continued, “Listen to what that corrupt judge said. 7 Now, will God not judge in favor of his own people who cry to him day and night for help? Will he be slow to help them? 8 I tell you, God will judge in their favor and do it quickly. But will the Son of Man find faith on earth when he comes?”
In October of 2023, twenty-five of us from Plymouth Church were preparing to fly to Israel to begin a two-week pilgrimage. We planned to tour holy sites and meet local peacemakers, including Jewish and Muslim friends but mostly meeting Palestinian Christians. We had spent months preparing: learning about the current situation, even meeting by Zoom with people we anticipated meeting in person. Then October 7th happened – the horrific attack from Gaza by Hamas fighters, turning nearby Israeli communities and a music festival into scenes of carnage. As Israel and the rest of Palestine reeled, it was soon clear that our Plymouth trip was off.
I have never been to Gaza, but I have been going to Israel and the West Bank since 2008, often 2 or 3 times a year. I’ve led close to 20 pilgrimages for groups like ours from Plymouth. After October 7, I knew that group travel was not going to be possible in the same way. Still, I longed to see my friends there and felt that somehow my visiting could make a difference.
So last year for 3 weeks in the spring, and again for 3 weeks in the fall, I flew to Israel/Palestine specifically to visit the West Bank. Jesiah Ahlemeier from our church went with me on the May trip along with a couple others, and all of us volunteered on a farm near Bethlehem. For those of us who had the privilege of visiting, our Palestinian friends had one clear message: “Come and See,” they urged us, “so you can Go and Tell.” They are acutely aware that their story is not well-known. They often feel overlooked and forgotten. So, today I’m here to tell their story and invite your care.
I flew into Tel Aviv on both of my trips. I never got close to Gaza. However, Gaza overshadowed every moment of both trips. From the moment I got off the plane, large posters of Israeli hostages lined the airport halls showing those captured and held by Hamas since October 7th – who are now finally being released under a shaky ceasefire. I need to be clear that I believe the Hamas attacks were horrifying, and the hostage situation needs immediate resolution. Nothing that happened October 7th can be condoned. But Israel’s relentless retaliation on more than 2 million Gazan civilians and also on parts of the West Bank since then is also horrifying. It seems meant to obliterate Gaza and to drive Palestinians to leave their homeland. More than 48,000 civilians are now counted by official hospital records as having been killed in Gaza by Israel, using weapons paid for by my tax dollars. Nearly 15,000 Gazans are still missing beneath tons of rubble. 70% of all victims are women and children. Everyone I met in Palestine called what’s been happening to Gaza and also in parts of the West Bank a “genocide.”
We had private drivers pick us up at the airport and drive us directly to the West Bank. Each driver talked about how much harder life has become for Palestinians. In Bethlehem, the effects of October 7 were apparent everywhere. Hotels and restaurants and gift shops and holy sites were closed or nearly empty, because there are almost no visitors. 70% of Bethlehem’s economy depends on tourism, and 90% of that stream of income has disappeared. Bethlehem’s unemployment rate has soared to 65% since October 7th. Thousands of Bethlehemites who used to be employed in jobs inside Israel suddenly lost their work permits and permission to travel from the West Bank into Israel after Oct 7.
Still, life goes on. Children are taken to school, Universities hold classes, jobs in the non-tourist economy continue, markets are open, Churches and Mosques meet for worship, families and friends get together. There is a quiet insistence on life and dignity and steadfastness in the face of challenge.
A few facts about life in Bethlehem might fill out the picture of what this penned-in Palestinian city has to deal with, not just since October 7, but in fact since 1967 when Israel won the 6-day War and conquered the West Bank and Gaza. Israel controls all Palestinian movement, even within the West Bank. Checkpoints are the most obvious method of control. 19- and 20-year-old Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons man hundreds of checkpoints inside the West Bank. They force green-plated Palestinian cars to stop and be inspected, one at a time and often very slowly, even on roads that are for Palestinians only. Fine highways have been constructed for yellow-plated Israeli cars, to connect Israeli settlements in the West Bank directly to Israel, but Palestinian cars are not allowed on those roads. The settler-only roads often force long detours when Palestinians want to move from one village to another. Things went from bad to much worse about a month ago. Since January 19, Israel instituted a new policy of long closures at an increasing number of checkpoints. For the last month, drivers have been kept waiting for hours at checkpoints in lines that can be thousands of vehicles long. Some who can’t avoid having to travel have even had to sleep in their vehicles. There is no letup in sight.
Water provides another means for Israeli leverage over Bethlehem and throughout the West Bank. The Israeli water company controls how much water is allocated to Palestinian cities and villages, even though the main aquifers lie under the West Bank. Israel limits the amount of water available to West Bank Palestinians to about 66 liters per person per day, although the UN’s guideline for health is 100 liters per person per day. Last summer, as Israel’s rightwing government tightened controls over the West Bank, the water company cut the water allocation by another 1/3. Israel also controls when water is available to Palestinians, and only allows running water to flow to most buildings for a day or two at a time, two or three times a month, sometimes less. In between the water mains are shut off. As a result, every Palestinian home has water tanks on the roof to store water for use during the times when public running water is not available.
A last factor making life unpredictable and very scary for West Bank citizens are attacks by Israeli military and increasingly violent settlers. So much more could be said about attacks and raids. They are violent and inhumane. While not a new phenomenon, military and settler raids have increased exponentially under the current rightwing government, with protection given to settlers but withheld from Palestinians.
My friends in the West Bank say that the tensions of constant harassment and fear have led to epidemic levels of health problems and even domestic abuse. They say it feels like PTSD but it isn’t, because they are never past the trauma. I see the emotional toll on every face. It is the undertone in every conversation.
The purpose of both of my trips last year was to volunteer at the Tent of Nations Farm, and Jes Ahlemeier was on the farm with me for the spring trip. I’ve shared stories about this farm at Plymouth before, in a 10:00 Sunday forum and in last year’s Good Friday service. The farm is a 100 acre hilltop located just outside Bethlehem in a part of the West Bank known as Area C under the 1993 Oslo Accords – where Israel has full civil and military control. Palestinians in Area C are especially vulnerable. The farm is owned by a Palestinian Christian family, the Nassars, who have continually lived on and farmed their land since the grandfather of the current generation bought it in 1916.
The farm sits on the only remaining hilltop south of Jerusalem that does not have an Israeli settlement on it. Five rapidly growing settlements completely surround the farm and are home to tens of thousands of settlers. Israel wants to fill the farm’s hilltop with yet another settlement, and in 1991 Israel actually declared the Nassar’s land to be State Land. The family immediately began a legal process to contest that claim and prove their ownership. They have all the original documentation: deeds from the purchase, receipts for taxes paid, boundary assessments, and registrations filed with earlier occupiers – first the British, then Jordan.
For many years now, the Nassar’s have been attempting to re-register their land under Israeli law, while Israel for their part tries to claim it for the State. It’s somewhat of a miracle that thirty-four years later, the family is still on the land, though the farm has been attacked repeatedly. Acres of apricot and olive trees have been bulldozed or burned, and this year settlers have cut new illegal roads onto private Palestinian land adjacent to, and even on, the farm. The threats keep growing. Just in the last two weeks, new mobile containers have been placed immediately next to the farm’s fence, seemingly preparing for new settlement construction. Last week street lights were installed and turned on along that illegal road, even though the Nassars are prevented from having their farm tied into the electrical grid.
One way the Nassars have managed to stay on their farm is by renaming it The Tent of Nations and turning it into a center for teaching both sustainable agriculture and the practice of positive, nonviolent resistance. They recognize that many families in situations similar to theirs have lashed out violently, retreated into depression, or simply fled. But the Nassar’s have chosen a different response. Their family motto, grounded in their deep Christian faith, is “We Refuse to be Enemies.” Up to 11,000 international visitors a year have come to the farm to meet with family members and hear their story of not only choosing to stay on the land and honor their family legacy, but also of modeling a better way of life. They seek to touch the common humanity in those who wish them harm. We might say they are committed to building the Beloved Community.
I decided to go to Palestine last year after an armed Jewish settler confronted Daoud Nassar and a European volunteer on the farm in early spring. The settler breached the fence and accosted them as they worked in a field. He took their IDs and held them at gunpoint for several hours, claiming that God had given him the land in a deal with Abraham, and Daoud and his family were trespassing. The settler eventually gave their IDs back and left without doing more than scaring them. When Daoud was asked later what would have happened if the volunteer had not been with him, he replied “I might have been shot or detained.”
I am part of a Friends of Tent of Nations American support group that immediately committed to help recruit a constant presence of international volunteers to be with the family on the farm. Both of my trips last year were to help fill that need. I definitely worked every day I was there – cutting tall weeds and helping build a stone wall in the spring; feeding ducks and chickens, and watering, fertilizing, and trimming olive trees last fall. But the most important part of being there was just being visible – checking the perimeter of the farm twice a day, making sure the aggressive settlers in nearby settlements knew that the Nassar family were not on the farm alone. While the farm is incredibly beautiful and peaceful, being there is also an exercise in watchfulness and wariness.
The legal process to seek Israeli recognition of the Nassar’s ownership of the land continues. Hearings in Israel’s military court have dragged on for years, continually extended or postponed because the facts of the case so clearly favor the Nassars. Although the legal next steps of the process are unclear at this moment, I invite your prayers that it might finally lead to the only fair resolution possible.
What keeps the Nassars and other Palestinian friends going, in the face of so much discouraging treatment? There is always hope, they say. Even when nothing looks optimistic, despair is not an option. They rely on their faith, on each other, and on the care of international friends. They steadfastly continue their pleas for justice.
In their persistence, they remind me of the widow in the parable who relentlessly returned to the unjust judge seeking relief from her oppressor. The judge neither feared God nor respected people, but the widow never gave up. Finally, to end her persistence, he gave in. The parable asks, “And will God not judge in favor of God’s own people who cry for help day and night? Will God be slow to help them?” Belief in a God who is just and compassionate keeps my Palestinian friends getting up every morning with hope. I find their witness deeply inspiring – and frankly, I’ve needed to remind myself to follow their model lately – in this troubling time in our own land.
A story from Daoud captures what it looks like to hold onto the highest values, to refuse to be enemies, even in the face of despair. “A few years ago,” Daoud tells, “after working on the farm late on a Saturday evening, my children, mother and I were returning to Bethlehem in order to go to church the next morning. It was a cold, windy night and we were in our 1975 Volkswagen bus. As we slowly bumped along the road, Israeli commandos suddenly sprung out of nowhere in combat gear with full metal jackets, hidden faces, and automatic weapons. The officer of the patrol shouted to me to get out of the car and hand over my Palestinian ID card. I could see laser beams reflected on my chest and felt the terror of the moment. After several pointed questions, the young officer told us to empty the vehicle so they could search the car.
“As I said, it was a very cold night, and I explained that my children were asleep and would be traumatized waking with guns pointed at them. They would have this memory for a long time, as many Palestinian children do after experiencing similar encounters. I suggested that the windows all the way around the bus would enable them to investigate without disturbing my children. The officer did not see it that way, and shouted more loudly for my family to get out of the car immediately.
“As I bent over through the car door window, I spoke to my children in English so that the soldiers could hear what I was saying. I don’t know why these words came to me but the conversation was a game changer for what happened next. I said, ‘you will wake up and see soldiers with guns. You shouldn’t be frightened because they seem to be friendly people.’ A few minutes later the officer called me over to return my identity card and said, ‘Sir, I feel we need to apologize to you and your family. What we did was not right.’”
My Palestinian friends continually teach me that even in the darkest times, there is hope – hope in the resilience of the human spirit, hope in the possibility of peace, hope in the power of faith to inspire change. This is something they live with every day. We would do well to do likewise. May it be so for us. Amen.
