"We Belong to the Land: The Story of a Palestinian Israeli Who Lives for Peace and Reconciliation" by Elias Chacour (with Mary E. Jensen), San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990 (Chapter 24, pp. 198-205)

Dry Bones Will Come Back to Life

by Elias Chacour
____________________

[Excerpt]

Prophet Elias High School is jammed with 850 students from twenty-one villages. The students - Christians, Muslims, and Druze - taught by a faculty of fifty, including two Jewish teachers, occupy every corner in the original building ad the finished classrooms in the extension. Still more parents, more villages in Galilee, call to ask if their children can come to our school. The Ministry of Education has given us a new quota rating of 95.5 percent, one of the highest in all Israel, based on our students' high test scores and the variety of technological classes we offer. We have also received approval to develop a community college on our campus, the first in any Arab Palestinian village and the first in all of Galilee. These accolades and approvals, however, do not get us the vital building permit, which is issued only through the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The permit will come, of that I am sure. The future will be what we want it to be, if we do not give up, if we are steadfast in the fact of the pressures against us in the Jewish Israeli community and even among some poor collaborators in our Palestinian community. We know that what we are trying to do is right.

We want to improve the social, educational, and economic status of the Palestinians in Galilee, but more important, we are working to create a mentality of self-reliance among our people, a mentality of nonviolent struggle for human rights. We need to create a new reality in Galilee, changing the situation from injustice and inequality between Palestinians and Jews to a true partnership of equals. Never can the roles be reversed, the Palestinians becoming the lords and conquerors or the Jews. It is a matter of building bridges among members of the same family. Always there is the temptation of violence and might, but the ones who build bridges acknowledge, "My friend is also right, and I am also wrong."

This is to become Godlike. God cares for the oppressed and feels their torment and suffering. In these struggles God always takes the side of liberation, not the side of particular people or nations as favourites. God also calls to the oppressor to be liberated from fear, anger, and lust for power.

This land, this Palestine, this Israel, does not belong to either Jews or Palestinians. Rather, we are compatriots who belong to the land and to each other. If we cannot live together, we surely will be buried here together. We must choose life.
____________________