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Contents2 Syria: Numbers and Locations of Syrian Refugees Humanitarian Information Unit3 CAIROMANIA Anna Hanchett4 Introduction to Syrian Panel Jonathan Eigege5 Summary on Syrian Panel Joel Westra7 Comments on Syrian Panel Becca McBride 8 Re$ection on Syrian Panel Martin Awabdeh9 Refugees of the Syrian Con$ict: Views from Umm el-Jimal Zaatari Camp in Jordan Bert de Vries14 Recipes Adam Wolpa15 Untitled Photograph Joel Bulthuis16 A Revolution in Spray Paint Josh Lee18 Hope Equals Miracles Mariano Avila 23 Algerian Chronicles Peter Speelman26 Peace Alone is Not the Answer David Crump

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1: IntroductionJonathan Eigege

Aim Global Regional NongovernmentalDefeat Rebels Russia

ChinaIran Hezbollah

Iraqi Shi’ite militasPFLP

Defeat Regime United StatesUnited KingdomFranceTurkey

Saudi ArabiaQatarUAEEgypt

al-Qaeda backed groups

Why should we bother? Not only be-cause this con$ict could have signi8cant inter-national rami8cations but also because we are called, as Christians, to love our neighbors as ourselves. 9e continuation of the crisis could mean the growth of volatility in the Middle East region. Syria is Iran’s only total state-ally in the region and thus Iran has already sent parts of its revolutionary guard to back the government. It will do anything to maintain the Shiite, Alawite majority in government so it is not left swim-ming alone in the Middle East. 9e Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq speci8cally, but in the Middle East in general, like Iran, also see this con$ict as an opportunity to consolidate their positions in Syria. Historically, con$icts and ethnic strife in Syria have spilled into Lebanon and this could occur again. Most importantly, we don’t want an Iraq #2. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, who came from a minority people group just like the Assad family, the majority people group who assumed power participated in an “ethnic cleansing of sorts.’” In Syria, if that does hap-

pen, the e:ects will be more far reaching. Most importantly, we must think of the millions of innocent people caught in the mid-dle of this con$ict for no fault of theirs; people who just want peace but who have had to watch their family members die gruesome deaths and their lives crumble. People have had to $ee their livelihoods and live in a land not their own. 9e refugee crisis from the Syria crisis is very real and tangible. 9ere are about 2.5 million refu-gees from this crisis dispersed around the entire Middle-East region. One striking example is the refugee camp at Zaatari, in Jordan, which is now the country’s 8fth largest city. Jordan has taken in about 550,000 refugees. Proportionally, that would be like the United States sudden-ly opening its borders and allowing 25 million people in. Absurd right? But maybe America and the West need to do more to accommo-date our displaced brothers and sisters. It’s the least we can do. Like Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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The current situation in Syria is one of civil war, in which the government of Bashar al-Assad has used military force in an e:ort to maintain political power in the face of a pro-tracted armed rebellion. 9ough estimates vary, it is generally agreed that more than 100,000 people have died as a result of violence stem-ming this rebellion and the al-Assad govern-ment’s attempts to quell it.

Recently, evidence has emerged that chemical weapons were used within Syria on one or more occasions. 9ese weapons were launched from government-controlled areas against rebel-controlled areas. However, the al-Assad government has denied responsibility for using chemical weapons, claiming that these weapons were used by rebels in an attempt to elicit foreign military intervention on behalf of the rebels against the al-Assad government.

In response to both widespread kill-ing and to the use of chemical weapons with-in Syria, there have been widespread calls for foreign military intervention. 9us far, however, the international response has been limited to non-military action, and multilateral diploma-cy largely has been stymied by disagreement among the 8ve permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

To understand the limited international response to the current situation in Syria, it is necessary to consider the broader institutional context that shapes and constrains international decision-making. Interaction among states oc-curs under conditions of international anarchy, in which power and authority are decentral-ized. To mitigate uncertainty and to facilitate cooperation under such conditions, states have

established systems of international order com-prising interrelated international institutions that re$ect states’ shared interests and address states’ shared concerns.

Given the purpose and design of inter-national institutions, there are two interrelated tensions inherent in them: a tension between interests and norms and a tension between sovereignty and e>cacy. International securi-ty institutions, which include intergovernmen-tal organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organi-zation (NATO) as well as international treaties such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Biological Weapons Conven-tion (BWC), are based primarily on an instru-mentalist logic. Most institutions also include normative aspirations, but their design pri-marily re$ects instrumental goals of enhancing clarity, stability, and predictability of state inter-action while also preserving the sovereignty of interacting states. 9us, normative aspirations tend to be included in preambulatory referenc-es, implemented via weak institutional struc-tures, and constrained by structures or practices intended to preserve state sovereignty.

9ese tensions between interests and norms and between sovereignty and e>cacy, which are re$ected in the design and function of international institutions, can be seen in the international response to the current situation in Syria. Consider, for example, how the situa-tion has been framed, which institutions are in the forefront, and what types of responses have resulted.

Although there is evidence that the civil war in Syria is taking on characteristics of an

II: Summary on Syria PanelJoel Westra

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ethnic con$ict, insofar as the al-Assad govern-ment is dominated by an Alawite political elite and the rebellion consists primarily of Sunni-led groups, there has been relatively little discussion of the con$ict as a possible genocide. Nor have states invoked the 1948 Genocide Convention, which would trigger an obligation that states “undertake to prevent and to punish” such ac-tions. In general, states are reluctant invoke the Genocide Convention, because as doing so would obligate them to undertake actions based on primarily norms rather than on interests –at least insofar as those interests are narrowly de8ned. Instead, the situation in Syria has been framed, more generally, as a humanitarian ca-tastrophe. Even so, there has been reluctance by the Security Council to invoke the Responsi-bility To Protect (R2P), an informal institution obligating states “to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Secu-rity Council … should peaceful means be inad-equate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against hu-manity.” In general, states have been less reluc-tant to invoke R2P than to invoke the Genocide Convention, insofar as their obligations under R2P involve the Security Council, in which the permanent members often disagree over their national interests and hence have di>culty reaching agreement regarding collective action. Beyond disagreement over competing interests, however, there also is a concern for sovereign-ty at play here. When R2P was invoked in the Libya case, the resulting military intervention led to the overthrow of the al-Gadda8 govern-ment. Since then, states have been increasingly concerned about the sovereignty implications of invoking R2P – and hence even more reluctant to invoke it than they were before.

It is in this context that we can begin to understand why the deaths of 100,000 people by conventional weapons evoked such a tepid in-ternational response, while the deaths of several hundred people by chemical weapons evoked a

somewhat stronger international response. Per-taining to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the institutions invoked by states are Declara-tion II of the 1899 Hague Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Protocol to the Hague Conven-tions, which prohibit the use of chemical weap-ons. In these institutions, the tension between interests and norms is not as strong as it in the institutions discussed above. Most people be-lieve 8nd chemical weapons morally objection-able because of the su:ering they cause to their victims, both to the combatants that are their intended target and to the noncombatants who are their unintended target. Moreover, states have an interest in protecting their civilian pop-ulations against chemical weapons, and so ne-gotiated institutions prohibiting their use.

9e tension between sovereignty and e>cacy in these institutions is much stron-ger, however. Chemical weapons have military purposes, such that states are reluctant to give them up entirely. Moreover, the process of de-stroying chemical weapons safely is di>cult and time-consuming. 9us, states are both reluctant to forego weapons that might help them to se-cure their sovereignty in situations of civil or in-ternational con$ict and reluctant to cede sover-eignty to independent actors that could monitor state compliance with these institutions.

As a party to both institutions, Syria had no obligation under them to destroy its weapons or to submit to outside monitoring and veri8ca-tion. Its only obligation was not to use chemi-cal weapons, and Syria claims to have complied with this obligation. What was necessary, then, to mitigate the threat of possible future chemical weapons attacks was for Syria to accede to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which includes obligations to destroy all chemi-cal weapons and to submit to inspections by the independent Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Syria recently did accede to the Chem-ical Weapons Convention, but why? Most like-ly because, in ceding some sovereignty to the

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OPCW under the CWC, it helped to secure its remaining sovereignty against the possibility of foreign military intervention by removing the most likely trigger for such intervention, viz. allegations that it was using chemical weap-ons. With states reluctant to intervene primar-ily for humanitarian reasons, and with Security Council members reluctant to invoke R2P, by acceding to the CWC Syria is able to maintain most of its sovereignty, Security Council mem-

bers are able claim that they have carried out their “responsibility for the maintenance of in-ternational peace and security” under Article 24 of the UN Charter, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee is able award the Nobel Peace Prize to the OPCW and while expressing “hope that this award ... will help broader e:orts to achieve peace in [Syria] and  (ease) the su:ering of its people,” even as the civil war in Syria wages on and the death toll continues to rise.

Today I want to attempt to answer the question: What exactly is Russia doing? Or more speci8cally, what is Putin doing? 9ere are three speci8c things Putin has done in the past month that seem puzzling. First, Putin has supported, and continues to support, the Syrian regime; despite the fact that the rest of the world thinks this is a very bad idea. Sec-ond, Putin wrote an op-ed for the NY Times in which he appealed directly to the American people. 9ird, he continues to block a UN Se-curity Council resolution that would hold Syr-ia accountable by threatening military action if Syria fails to follow through in disclosing and surrendering its chemical weapons. I want to answer this question by 8rst discussing two Russian interests that are likely driving Putin’s behavior. 9en I will discuss two contradictions, or tensions, in Putin’s recent be-havior. First, Russia has an interest in prevent-ing the United States from getting involved in the domestic a:airs of other countries. 9is is in Russia’s interest for economic reasons; Rus-sia sells military technology to regimes that the United States sees as problematic. If the United States gets involved in those regimes’ domestic a:airs, Russia could lose customers and take an

economic hit. Additionally, if the United States attacks Syria, they will be attacking Russian military technology. If they are able to defeat that technology, this will undermine the quality of Russian military technology. Russia also has an interest in keeping the United States out of other states’ domes-tic a:airs because Russia has its own domestic problems. For example, last year the United States passed a law, the Magnitskiy Act, that prevents Russians who are accused of human rights abuses from receiving visas to travel to the United States and from owning property in the United States. From a Russian stand-point, it is extremely problematic for the United States to adopt a law domestically that punish-es Russian citizens. Immediately following the passage of this law, the Russian Duma passed a law banning US citizens from adopting Russian children. Second, Russia has an interest in using its primary power tool, its veto power in the UN Security Council, to reclaim some of the power it lost at the end of the Cold War. Russia no longer has the domestic resources—econom-ic or military resources—to wield signi8cant power in the international system. But Russia

III: Comments on SyriaBecca McBride

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IV!�9LÅLJ[PVU�VU�:`YPH�;HSRMartin Awabdeh

I talked about two things. First, I talked about the complexity of what’s going on in Syria, and then I talked about the little good that is com-ing out of the civil war. It’s a very complex issue because there are many di:erent rebel groups that are 8ghting against the government. Some of them are radical Muslims who want to rule Syria under Sharia law, which is the Muslim law. Even under the radical rebels there are many small armies, and under the moderate rebels

it is the same. Its very di>cult to decide who the U.S should arm fear of handing weapons to al-Qaida linked rebels. 9e other thing I talked about was the little good that is coming out of the civil war. Many people from Christian back-grounds are starting to know Christ in a more personal level, and even better than that, many people from Muslim backgrounds are becom-ing believers. 9ey are 8nding peace and hope amongst all this terror in Jesus Christ.

does still have its position on the UN Security Council, and Putin intends to use that position to reassert Russia’s power in the international system. 9is is one of the reasons that Putin is so adamant that the United States must act through the UN Security Council to gain mul-tilateral support for any military action in Syria. Based on these interests, there are two key contradictions in Putin’s behavior. I hope by highlighting these tensions that we might pro-vide an avenue for discussion. 9e 8rst contra-diction, or tension, is the contradiction between what Syria represents to the United States and what it represents to Russia. For the United States, Syria is a here and now problem. It is something for which we need to 8nd a quick solution. And we hope that our quick solution might contribute to a longer-term solution. But for Russia, Syria represents a much larger prob-lem with the United States seeking to get in-volved in the a:airs of other states. As Dmitri Trenin reminds us, Putin plans to be in power long after President Obama is gone. His prob-lem is not with President Obama. His problem is with ongoing US foreign policy goals. 9is is why he published an op-ed in a US newspaper,

essentially going over the head of the US pres-ident and appealing directly to the people of the United States. A public that will be around long after President Obama is gone. He hopes to convince the US public that the only moral course of action is to work through the United Nations. 9is leads to the second contradiction in Putin’s behavior. 9is is the fact that Putin crit-icizes the United States for acting unilaterally in the past instead of relying on the multilat-eral institutions in place to deal with aggressive states. But Putin, as Russia’s representative, is unilaterally preventing the UN Security Coun-cil from holding Syria accountable. 9e United States has called for a UN Security Council res-olution that commits to use force against Syria if the regime fails to disclose and surrender its chemical weapons. Putin continues to block this resolution in the UN Security Council. 9is contradiction undermines Putin’s message to the American public. If the multilateral tool in place to deal with aggressive states is held hostage by one state, then that tool is unable to e:ectively accomplish the purpose for which it was created.

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Refugees of the Syrian Con$ict Views from Umm el-Jimal and

Zaatari Camp in JordanBert de Vries

Syrian refugees in JordanIn the middle of May 2012 Awda

al-Masa’eid, my master stone mason responsible for a tricky arched-window preservation job at Umm el-Jimal, Jordan, vanished without a trace, and work on the windows came to a standstill. When he resurfaced three days later we learned he had discovered that an extended family of Syrian refugees from a town in south Syria were his distant cousins from another branch of the Masa’eid tribe. 9ough penniless himself, he had borrowed money for renting a bus to bring them from the border and a house in a nearby village; in addition he acquired basic furnish-ings and groceries on credit from numerous lo-cal merchants. He returned to work $2,500 in debt but totally pleased he had done his hospi-table duty to his relatives, people he had never even seen before.

9is clan of nineteen, Mahmoud and Iman and their children and grandchildren, included three adult males, seven adult wom-en – wives and older daughters -  and nine children. In March 2012, they $ed from their village, al-Mismiyah south of Damascus after the Syrian army killed ‘many’ of their fellow villagers, destroyed their houses and threatened to kill them because a son and son-in-law were high-ranked soldiers in the opposition Freedom Army. 9us they ‘ran’ south to the border near-ly penniless and with only the clothes on their backs. 9ey have now been in Jordan for 20

months, mostly unemployed and with no hope of going back. To help them and Awda we, Jor-danian co-workers and our American relatives, colleagues and friends, pooled our funds to pay o: Awda’s debts and support the refugee fam-ily with a monthly stipend of about $200, for which we continue to raise money.

SinAce early 2012 between 500,000 and a million Syrian refugees like them have crossed the border into Jordan mostly from vil-lages nearby in south Syria. Amazingly, many of these have found hosts like Awda because of the shared culture, tribal connections and fam-ily relationships that have survived the arti8cial border imposed by British and French 8at in 1932. Many others, especially those who came with enough money for rent and food, resettled throughout Jordan and have competed with Jordanians in an already strained job market. 9ough Jordanian hospitality has been impres-sive, this sudden population increase – roughly 10% - has put a tremendous strain on Jordan’s economy and infrastructure. For example last week we spoke with one young Jordanian, a uni-versity graduate, who lost his Burger King min-imum-wage job to a refugee who was willing to work for one-third less pay. Understandably, our young friend is frustrated, and the longer the $ow of refugees continues the more prevalent such frustration will become.

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Zaatari Camp – an alternative “solution” As we 8nished our archaeology season at Umm el-Jimal in June, 2012, the $ow of ref-ugees into Jordan continued at the rate of one to two thousand per day. To absorb them more e>ciently, UNHCR, the UN Committee for Refugees, and Jordan’s Government decided to start a refugee camp in July, the now much publicized Zaatari Camp. By coincidence this camp is located on government land only four kilometers south of Umm el-Jimal, within sight Syria itself. As a result, some of my local Jor-danian sta: with organizational skills honed by archaeological 8eld work have been working as specialists in the camp’s drinking water supply and sewage disposal. 9rough them we’ve had unusual access to the refugee camp, and I’ve been able to document the growth of the camp from periodic visits from Oct. 1, 2012, to Oct. 7, 2013. 9e day of my 8rst visit coincided with a super-hot sandstorm which sent some of the UNHCR tents $ying and frayed nerves so much that in the night some of the 30,000 residents rioted and burned down some o>ces, including that of the German NGO employing my colleagues. By late November driving rain-storms turned the volcanic red clay soil into a muddy quagmire and $ooded some tents in a foot of water. To remedy these horrible condi-tions the entire site of the camp was gradually ‘paved’ with a layer of clean crushed lime-stone, storm run-o: drains were installed and a paved road system created – i.e., the infrastructure of a small city had to be designed and constructed. In addition, central bathrooms with showers, sep-tic tanks, schools and playgrounds (UNICEF), hospitals and clinics, a food distribution center, and police posts were built and sta:ed. In our subsequent visits we saw the camp grow to the current size (120-150,000 residents) function-ing much like a medium size city, but built from scratch on a piece of inhospitable desert land in little more than a year. On our last visit this October, Zaatari

Camp seemed like a well-run metropolis for 150,000 with space for growth to 175,000. (A second camp for 300,000 is in preparation far-ther east.) 9e refugees themselves have cre-ated a business district they call the “Champs Elysées” where you can buy everything from fresh-baked bread to bridal gowns. Residents themselves deny the reports of sex and drug tra>cking as rumor-mongering. 9ere are wed-dings and several births each day. (For a really 8ne sense of the rhythm and quality of life read Jack Seeley’s Syrian Wedding, a superbly written extended journal centered on the preparations for a camp wedding, available as a Kindle publi-cation for $2.) My archaeologist colleague Mua:aq, who is now the contractor responsible for over-seeing the in$ow of 5 million liters of drink-able water per day, and the equivalent out$ow of liquid waste, took us around last week. 9is time the weather was wonderful and everything functioned in an orderly manner. We visited the Italian-Jordanian hospital, basically a clinic for pediatric and pre/postnatal care, sta:ed by Jor-danian army doctors, who were frustrated by the constant shortage of basic medicines for treat-ing their patients, especially children. 9us my wife Sally and I came home with another task: to 8nd quantities of surplus medicines here in Michigan to help restock their dispensary. To have this camp functioning so well is a credit to hundreds of willing and skilled people like Mua:aq, who also have the good-will and grace to be both hosts and dispensers of mercy. On my 8rst visit I imagined the camp as a concentration camp, but now I see it as a city. In fact, residents are free to leave if they have a sponsor (or to return to Syria), but quite a few who do come back to the camp because life outside is tougher (even if you can get a job at Burger King!).

Refugees and the Syrian Con!ict Nevertheless, the presence of over 500,000 refugees in Jordan and 150,000 in

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Zaatari is a permanently scarring wound on the human landscape. 9e situation of Jordan re-peats itself in Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq in only slightly di:erent ways. Two million Syrians have $ed the country, and another four million are internal refugees. 9at means one fourth of Syria’s population is uprooted. Living across the border in a camp, even one as well run as Zaa-tari, or working in a fast food joint in Amman, is not the key to happiness, but is a mere salve on the deep wounds of uprootedness and shred-ded identity.

Euphoria over the current internation-al diplomacy over Syria’s chemical weapons has overshadowed awareness of the undimin-ished su:ering in a war that continues to rage unabated with little international e:ort to end it. While the removal of the chemical weapons may prevent massacres in the future, it does nothing to relieve the continued $ight of Syrian people from their towns and villages, not sim-

ply to escape ‘collateral damage,’ but to $ee from intentionally targeted bombing and shelling of their houses. Listening to NPR today, even as I write, you’d think that the Obama-Putin ne-gotiated chemical weapons cleansing is all that remains to bring peace back to Syria.

While we were in Jordan last week (Oct 7-14) the refugees could hear the bombing of villages just north of the border. Hordes of refugees are massing at the border, but few are getting through, because Jordanian authorities feel the country is saturated with refugees. Ru-mors are that those stuck north of the border are without food and shelter and su:er kill-ings from periodic government shelling. I feel strongly that any internationally brokered solu-tion that does not put their plight at the center is phony and heartless. And the world should mobilize to prevent the reoccurrence of such heartless victimization of civilian populations in the future.

Awda Masa’eid at work buttressing an arched window at Byzantine Umm el-Jimal. 24 May, 2012.

Photography by: Bert de Vries

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Awda (on the right) with some of his 19 Syrian refugee relatives. Mahmoud and Iman, the clan parents, are in the middle. 9e son-in-law in the white shirt, a mason, has only been able to 8nd occasional work. 9e younger women 8nd harvesting jobs now and then. 20 May 2012.

Children of Zaatari. Less than half the 10,000s of school age children attend the UNICEF schools. Some young boys prefer to 8ll their time scavenging and pilfering camp equipment to earn small change, and for the adventure. 18 January 2013.

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3/4 cup quinoa1 1/2 cups veg broth

bring to a boil, turn to low heat, cover and cook 13 minutes.

3 cups chopped parsley leaves (about 2 bunches)1 cup chopped mint leaves2 T cold pressed olive oil

juice of one lemon1/2 cup diced tomatoes

salt and pepper

mix all together with cooled cooked quinoa

RecipesAdam Wolpa

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)()(�./(56<1

2 whole eggplantcut into long sixths and salt heavily to extract liquid

allow salt to penetrate for 15 minutes, then rinse and squeeze all water out of slices

1 green pepper, seeded and quartered

toss in olive oil oil, salt and pepper and roast or grill at extremely high heat. grill is best! pepper and eggplant should be tender with a nice, dark char.

3 T tahinijuice of half lemon

salt and pepper

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Photography by: Joel Bulthuis

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If you walk through Cairo these days, chances are you’ll see gra>ti and spray paint covering just about any open wall space in the capital. 9e gra>ti ranges from the 8rst days of the January 25 revolution in 2011, to the most recent protests by anti-military and Muslim Brotherhood supporters. You can essentially trace the revolution’s history in spray paint. In many ways, and perhaps even more important-ly, the gra>ti is also deeply symbolic of where Egypt is today. Almost three years ago during my senior year at Calvin, I watched the streets of Egypt explode into protests. It was frightening yet thrilling to see millions of Egyptians marching in the streets and eventually overthrowing thir-ty years of dictatorship. I remember talking to my Egyptian friends back in Cairo who I had met during a semester abroad in spring of 2010. Even in the midst of a frigid Michigan win-ter 6,000 miles away from Cairo, I could feel their excitement. Euphoria might be a better way to describe my friends’ and the protesters’ optimism that painted the streets of Cairo in the colors of the Egyptian $ag. I saw Christian protesters link arms and protect fellow Muslim protesters during prayer and vice versa. 9ere was genuine hope that this was the change ev-eryone had been waiting for. Fast forward two and a half years lat-er, and you’d be hard pressed to 8nd the same energy and idealism that drove former Presi-dent Hosny Mubarak out of power. 9e colorful gra>ti that so loudly expressed the frustrations and the hopes of the 25 January revolution are fading fast on the walls surrounding Tahrir Square. It hasn’t yet been three years since the

8rst protests, but there are now even tours being o:ered to see the “gra>ti of the revolution.” It’s almost as if the revolution is done and dusted, something of the past. Revolutionary jargon such as “martyrs of the revolution” is common place now, and political leaders and parties are quick to justify their actions using phrases like “preserving the revolution.” 9e result has been that with the cheapening of the word “revolu-tion,” the revolution as an idea has been cheap-ened. Nothing kills a revolution quicker than memorializing it before it is complete. 9e gra>ti from the 8rst wave of pro-tests, however, is steadily disappearing and be-ing painted over. 9ere is still a fresh layer of spray paint coating Cairo almost every week, but it couldn’t look any more di:erent from the idealistic colors of the 25 January revolution. In the days and months leading up to the mass protests that overthrew former Presi-dent Muhammad Morsy, buildings throughout Cairo were covered in “Morsy out” gra>ti. Fol-lowing Morsy’s ousting, Egypt witnessed some of the worst violence the country has ever seen when counter protests and sit-ins were forcibly cleared in Rabaa and Nahda squares. Protests against the military have continued nearly every Friday since then, leaving “Sisi killer” scrawled in angry red letters side by side with the “Morsy out” gra>ti. Much like the gra>ti that covers its walls, Egypt is very much a jumble of opinions and divisions. It’s tempting to simply state that it’s the military and the liberals pitted against the Muslim Brotherhood and the religious conservatives. But as always, reality is far more

(�9L]VS\[PVU�PU�:WYH`�7HPU[Josh Lee

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complicated. 9ere are liberals both for the mil-itary and against the military, and there are reli-gious conservatives for and against the Muslim Brotherhood. You also have the Christian pop-ulation in Egypt which has been increasingly targeted and attacked during pro-Morsy pro-tests. It’s not di>cult to see why many Egyp-tian Christians are relieved to see the Muslim Brotherhood gone. So what now for Egypt? We wait and see. 9e current govern-ment backed by the military is cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Recently, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned by Egyptian courts and its assets were frozen. Much of the Broth-erhood leadership is behind bars and awaiting trials. It’s not a stretch to say that things are as bad or worse now for the Muslim Brotherhood than under the Mubarak regime. 9e Constitution is being amended (again). 9e economy is still $agging and the

tourism industry near non-existent. Many Egyptians seem disillusioned with the democratic process. 9e same friends of mine, who had taken to the streets in 2011 and actively participated in the following elec-tions and referendums now refuse to take part in any political process. Egypt is tired. 9ere are many who talk long-ingly of the stability under Mubarak. It all seems discouraging. What needs to be remembered is that Egypt is in transition. Democracy is a messy process and, having been silenced, bullied, and abused by its government for over 30 years, it is not surprising that Egypt is struggling. However, what we know is that Egypt has found its voice which, once given, cannot be taken away again. So. What is left for us now is to wait, see, pray, and hope that this revolution can be more than just the fading words of spray paint on the walls and streets of Cairo.

Photography by: Josh Lee

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/VWL�,X\HSZ�4PYHJSLZMariano Avila

9ree women in their 8fties helped me 8nd ways to hope for reconciliation among the people of the Holy Land: one woman lost her faith, the other lost her home, and the third lost half of her brain.

I. The first time I went to Israel and Pal-estine, was during Sukkot, the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacle, in which the observant set up tents and live in them for seven days, to remem-ber the precariousness of the forty years in the desert as well as God’s deliverance into the Holy Land. 9ere were thousands of people gathered to pray in the large, sunken square in front of the Western Wall. I arrived during a particular-ly important prayer in which a handful of men took turns reading from the Torah while stand-ing on a small altar or stage. Being that they were rabbis and likely Chassidic or Orthodox, I imagined that they were wearing black beneath the white shoals that covered their heads and shoulders. All of the rabbis not in the prayer area sported black wool suits despite the 100ºF temperature. Some men even wore fur hats. But inside the prayer area was a brilliant pool of white made up of thousands, all praying and reciting together, a call and response. Next to

them was the women’s section where everyone had their arms and hair covered, and some stood on chairs, clinging to the wooden fence dividing sexes in order to feel closer to the prayers and catch a better look. I stood taking video behind everyone, in the common area, where men and women can stand together. No doubt I looked out of place dressed in tan linen and no head covering. I take it you’re not Jewish, said a grinning woman in her 8fties who wore a white, billowy dress, a white and blue tichel, or head scarf. Her accent could have been from any country where the language uses a hard “r” and a hard “h.” I o:ered her a somewhat regretful smile, because truly, in the atmosphere of multitudes gathered from around the world to pray, the most basic part of our spiritual humanity wants badly to belong, to participate. It’s alright, she said, you see that man leading the prayers, the one in front, well that’s my husband. Her eyes shone with pride as she looked over at her husband, who had clearly achieved honor in his religious community. Still, I caught a hint of something else in that look. Not knowing how reverence is shown in the Middle East, I did a half-nod, half-bow that made her chuckle.

Mariano Avila manages Hope Equals, a project of Christian Reformed World Missions that connects North American college and graduate students to peace-makers in Israel and Palestine. He is a Calvin graduate (2003) and has an MFA in creative 8ction writing from Warren Wilson College. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife Kate (2005), and their six-month-old daughter Isabel Paz.

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For the next 8fteen minutes she ex-plained the prayers and translated what was be-ing said, prayers for deliverance, prayers for suc-cess. She explained the tents and why everyone seemed to be holding long palm-like branches wrapped up into pointy rods—part of the holi-day’s command to take “the four species” men-tioned in Leviticus to the synagogue or temple: fruit, palm, bough from a leafy tree, and willow branch. She pointed out men from the Diaspora, wearing kippahs, small, disk-like head coverings worn on the crown of one’s head, and the little boys kippah’s featuring FC Barcelona, the New York Yankees, and Sponge Bob. We are children of the world, she said. But this is home. So, how about your children, I asked, are your kids here? Her excitement dissolved and her eyes shot back toward her husband with sadness this time. I don’t know what made her trust me enough to say what she said before we parted ways. Our daughter isn’t observant, she said. Tears 8lled her eyes. She doesn’t come with us anymore. Morti8ed at the insensitivity in my question, I apologized. It’s not your fault, she said, it’s al-right. Can I ask what you believe? I told her I was Christian, and in another well-meaning gesture, I said I had no choice, my dad was a pastor and theology professor my whole life. Still looking toward the praying multitude and the wall and her husband wrapped in white, she said, my husband is also a rabbi and theology professor. I could hardly bare so much embar-rassment. You have a choice, she said lifting her chin and touching her hand to the place where a single strand of long hair was curling out of her tichel. Most Chassidic women keep their hair short after marriage, it’s not required, but it’s a practice that has its advantages. I couldn’t help but wonder what choices she was thinking about making or had already made. We all have choices, she said, we all do. When she 8nally turned to me, she placed my hand between both of hers. -God bless you son, welcome to Israel.

9e Wailing Wall is the last remnant of

the second temple, destroyed seventy years after the death of Jesus. 9e forty-8ve giant limestone courses that make up what’s visible of the wall symbolize what has been lost, what has been recovered, and what Israelis hope to gain yet. By all rights an insider, that woman welcomed a gentile man to Israel, in the holiest place to Jewish faith, at a moment when her own faith seems fragile to her. We parted ways. She went into the women’s section. I left the old city and headed for Bethlehem, in Palestine.

II. Al Walaja is a small, Palestinian, farm-ing community just outside of Bethlehem. It is built around a large hill and is surrounded by Israeli-only areas: Jerusalem to the north, Gilo settlement to the northeast, and Har Gilo to the south. Um Mohammed (not her real name) a thin peace activist in her 8fties, lives there with her 8ve sons. 9ey are all part of the nonvio-lence movement in the town, except her hus-band, whom she says has given up hope. She inherited her home from her father who built it in the 1930s, but in the early millennium it was con8scated for by the Israeli army and demol-ished. 9ree times.

On the dusty afternoon that I visited Al Walaja, Um Mohammed was wearing black slacks, $at sneakers and a long-sleeve T-shirt under a pink, short-sleeve with the NYU writ-ten on the front. She didn’t wear a hijab, like most Muslim women in town, instead she had her hair hidden under a feminine version of a turban that she fashioned herself. She lead us to the site where the bent rebar and broken cinder blocks that used to be her home now lay in a pile of rubble.

What did my sons ever do to them, she said, looking down the hill at the workers and yellow Caterpillar trucks clearing her neighbor’s olive grove to build the 30-foot-tall concrete wall that Israel is building throughout Palestine. When her house was demolished the 8rst time, her sons came to try to talk to the Israeli army

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but were immediately arrested and taken away. No charges. 9e oldest got a beating that put him in the hospital for days. Um Mohammed, though unhurt, lost nearly everything in the demolition. 9ey gave me ten minutes to take out documents and valuable things from my home before a bulldozer made my house into this, she said stomping on the rubble.

I followed the length of the wall, or what is visible, about a mile’s worth. 9e path of the wall never got closer than 200 yards from Um Mohammed’s home. She watched me trace the line of the wall up and down several times before she spoke again. 9ey sent a notice the 8rst time, she said. 9ey said the wall would go right through our house and they destroyed it. 9ere were no tears in her eyes, rather, I saw a certain numbness that made me feel powerless. But you built the house again, I said. She nod-ded. 9e wall took a di:erent rout, she said, we thought we’d be safe to come back and rebuild, but another notice came saying we are a threat to the wall because we are 100 yards from it. Down the hillside, the Caterpillar trucks looked di:erent than the ones I’d seen anywhere else , their cockpits were shielded in bulletproof glass and reinforced metal panels. 9ey looked like yellow tanks with front-loader buckets.

9e second time her house was torn down, her sons and husband hid in a nearby cave and managed to avoid the beatings and ar-rests. So what made you build after the second demolition, I asked. 9is is our land, she said, I don’t have anywhere else to go. She then ex-plained that the rout had moved yet again, even further away, and that the town pitched in to build again. 9e whole town showed up to pro-test when they tore it down, she said, but what can we do, we are Palestinians and we are non-violent. Some people were beaten, many of the men and boys got arrested. A week before I showed up in Al Wa-laja asking questions, Um Mohammed received money to rebuild her home. 9e gift came from the Israeli Committee Against Home Demo-

litions, an international, largely Jewish, organi-zation that rebuilds Palestinians houses demol-ished by the Israeli army. Um Mohammed stood there 5’2” and 100lbs, a silent strength, nothing aggressive, nothing violent, just resilient and dogged. How can you possibly keep building, I asked her.

-I refuse to leave as long as my body al-lows me to stay, even if I have to live in the cave beneath my garden.

I told her that internationals like me would keep standing with her and her sons in nonviolent resistance. I realized almost imme-diately that I’d said it more for my sake than for hers. I could feel the anger swell up inside me, righteous at 8rst but if left to fester, it’s a dan-gerous thing to hold. She had every reason to be angry, hateful even, but she seemed alarmingly calm in the face of it all.

-Refuse to hate, she said, as long as you have your mind don’t poison it with hate.

III. Toward the end of my 8rst visit to the Holy Land, I broke o: from my group and spent a few days making connections in Bethle-hem. When it was time to meet up with them again, I decided to go back to Jerusalem and try to stay at the Casanova Hotel, where the group had stayed for the 8rst few nights.

I took a bus from Bethlehem to the de-pot near Damascus gate, which is in the Muslim Quarter. As soon as I got o: the bus I sensed tension. 9ere were hundreds of people in the street and very few children. Almost everyone was heading toward the Damascus gate with eerie determination. As I made my way down the narrow street I saw vendors closing their shops. By the Damascus gate was a large crowd of Palestinians and international activists. A group of riot police scrambled a block away, try-ing to form a line.

I made my way as quickly as possible to the gate and asked a man selling dates and 8gs how best to get to the Casanova. As I got inside the walls of the Old City, rubber bullets began

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to $y from the police, people yelled and ran in every direction. 9e Old City is a maze of narrow cor-ridors with shops of knickknacks, souvenirs, and a few genuine antiquities here and there. If it’s one’s 8rst visit, every corridor looks like the next. Even with a map, it gets complicat-ed, especially if one is trying to stay within cer-tain areas. I ran around for what seemed like an hour, but was likely only 8fteen minutes. 9ere was a line at the front desk of the Casanova. A Korean man with his wife and three daughters, I assumed, was just leaving. Behind them was a young, Catholic priest, and then a couple in their 8fties. 9e husband was short to average height, had a thin build, and looked like a sea-soned traveler. 9e woman was wearing a peas-ant skirt and a white blouse, both cotton and embroidered with little multi-color $owers. She had a huge, $oppy hat, blue, I think, atop a scarf, which she wrapped tightly around her head. 9e Korean family left, the priest asked if he had any calls, he had none, and the couple simply want-ed the keys to their room. 9e attendant dis-patched everyone quickly and graciously, which made me feel comfortable for the moment. I’d like a room, I said. 9e man looked quickly at his screen and without quitting his profession-al smile he turned and told me they were fully booked. I explained that I’d been staying there with a group and had only just gotten back after a few days out. No dice. 9e lady with the hat stood next to me taking things out of her purse and placing them on the counter, looking for something. She and her husband were speak-ing Spanish in a Caribbean accent. I asked the attendant to please check again. Which he did, gladly, as he put it, then turned and suggested I go around the way and try the Gloria Hotel, only a two minute walk away.

Outside the shots had turned to rapid 8re, but nobody inside the Hotel seemed con-cerned. I picked up my bag and camera gear and made for the door. Just as I was about to leave, the woman in the $oppy hat turned to me,

and in Spanish, which I had not spoken at that hotel yet, she said, come back in a little while, you’ll 8nd a room here. Her suggestion made no sense, and with little time to waste, I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or if the giant hat and scarf had overheated her head. I don’t re-member if I said anything, but whatever look I gave them, her husband grabbed her stu: o: the counter and dumped it back in the purse. Good luck to you, he said, and took her down the hall toward the rooms. I would have felt more guilt if I’d had more time, but frankly, I was getting nervous. I shot out of the Casano-va in search of the Gloria. 9e riot noises had subsided some. 9e Gloria was not far, and just inside Ja:a Gate. 9e only room they had was well out of my price range so I asked for other hotels and guesthouses nearby. I ran around the city for an hour, but none of the guesthouses had rooms. Desperate, I went back to the Casa-nova and asked to use a phone to call my team leader. 9eir advice was to 8nd a hotel within walking distance or to get a cab and go to Tel Aviv, which was a $120 ride. I was leaving the Casanova when I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was the attendant who wanted to know if I was still looking for a room. I think I might have something now, he said. I followed him back to the desk where he o:ered me a double room at the student rate of a single room, basically a $150 discount. I agreed and spent the rest of the evening listening to the gunshots, which stopped as the daylight dimmed.

9e next morning I went to the dinning area to get breakfast, fresh cucumbers and to-matoes, powdered herb mix of oregano, lime, and thyme called zatar, freshly baked pita bread, cheese slices, and boiled milk for the boiled cof-fee. I was pouring my co:ee when the Span-ish-speaking lady in the big hat walked over to me, dressed up and ready for what looked like a fancy event. I told you you’d 8nd a room if you came back, she said in English this time. How did you know I spoke Spanish when you talked to me yesterday, I said, knowing my ac-

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cent is a mixture of Philly and West Michigan. With a shrug she invited me to sit with her and her husband for breakfast. When her husband came back and found me sitting at the table he seemed unsure of who I was but not surprised. 9is is the boy who couldn’t 8nd a room last night, she said, see now, I told him he’d 8nd one and here he is, you see? 9e husband smiled at her and shook my hand and introduced himself as John and his wife as Sheila. I told them about the great deal that I’d gotten and not knowing why, I thanked her. Well, I didn’t tell them to open a room up for you or anything, she said, they listen to me, but I don’t meddle. I just knew, that’s all. Her husband brought the sugar closer to me and lifted a teaspoon of it toward my cup. Little miracles and little wonders are pretty common around my wife, he said, and poured two loads of sugar into my co:ee after I held up a peace sign. Did you know she’s part of the proof for a canonizing process? 9ere is no way to represent the two hour conversation that we had but the short version is that Shei-la had lost close to half of her brain to benign tumors that were nonetheless lethal if left un-treated. She had had over 25 removed in 14 surgeries and miraculously bounced back from all of them without major side e:ects. Not only could Sheila walk and talk, but as it turned out, Shelia was also an extraordinary artist, of some renown, whose work hung in the Vatican and in almost every major Catholic church in the Holy Land. She was so successful as an artist, in fact, that she was named an ambassador at large of her country, Panama. 9ey showed me pictures of Sheila with Pope John Paul II, of her art hanging in the Smithsonian, and other ven-ues that would have been impressive for some-one who was completely healthy, but in her case seemed so unlikely that I barely knew what to say. What are you doing in Jerusalem, she asked me after telling me her story. I’m looking for ways to get North American students connect-ed with the peacemakers here in the Holy Land. 9at’s a good use of life, she said, for you and for

them. She dug inside her purse and pulled out a tiny, pewter cruci8x. I’ve taken this to every Christian holy site here, the Holy Sepulcher, the church of the Nativity, the Ascension, and ev-erywhere I’ve gone, I’ve prayed that it would go to someone whose life was to follow our Lord. She handed me the cross, closed my hand over it, and said: 8nd him! Now, to this day I don’t know if she meant “Find him,” the one who is following Jesus, or “Find Him,” as in Jesus him-self. She prayed over me before we parted ways and her last words to me were:-“Make the most of yourself, you only happen once.” A year later I gave the cross that Shei-la gave me to a Buddhist friend of mine who was on an extended trip trying to “8nd himself.” When he asked me how Christians found them-selves I told him that in my own faith tradition, whoever found himself would lose himself, and whoever lost his life for Jesus, would 8nd true life. What does that look like, he asked. I have to respect who I was then and simply say that whatever answer I o:ered was sincere and the best representation of my faith at that moment. I wasn’t trying to convert him, but I could only o:er my own faith, so that’s what I did. -I think your Jesus 8ts within my Buddhism, he said right before leaving.

9e next day he put the cross around his neck and went to the deserts of New Mexico to continue his search. If my friend were to ask me today what it looks like to lose yourself, I would tell him that it means being thankful for having a home in which to welcome friends. I’d say it also means using the stability it o:ers to advo-cate for those who don’t have homes or whose homes have been taken from them. I would tell him that it means being thankful for my health, but using my able body and mind to be an ally to those whose abilities are limited or interrupt-ed. If I had to boil it down to one sentence, I’d tell him my faith says that he’s a miracle that only happens once. Recognizing that miracle in everyone is what gives me hope.

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9e Algerian War of Independence was already well underway when Albert Camus published Algerian Chronicles, a collection of his own articles, letters, and essays ranging from 1939 to 1958. 9e collection was a 8nal e:ort by Camus to in$uence the 8erce con$ict raging between French nationalists, anti-colonialists, French-born Algerians, and non-French indig-enous Algerians (mostly Arabs and Berbers). It was a plea for moderation – a plea that fell largely on deaf ears. Published in French on June 16, 1958, Algerian Chronicles was predominantly met with either derision or silence. Camus was well aware of the unpopularity of his positions, and to some degree the futility of voicing them. He described the collection as, “among other things the history of a failure.” Prior to publishing the collection, out of concern for friends and fam-ily currently living in Algeria, he had refused to exacerbate the situation by voicing opinions he believed would only invite polemics and in-$ame the controversy. With Algerian Chron-icles, Camus dramatically broke a 29-month period of self-imposed silence on the Algerian question, a silence that was translated by many French contemporaries as either cowardice or irrelevance. He was similarly alienated from Arab Algerians by his solidarity with French Algerians and his staunch refusal to support an

Algeria completely independent from France. Following the disappointment of Algerian Chronicles, Camus largely returned to silence regarding the Algerian con$ict until his death in 1960. It is signi8cant that Algerian Chron-icles was not published in English until 2013 – the last work by Camus to have never been fully translated. Despite the collection’s poor reception in 1958, it has almost become more relevant over the years. Today it o:ers a candid depiction of the Algerian con$ict at that time, as well as a prescient view of things to come. Useful parallels can be drawn. For example, the French theory developed at that time to sup-press Algerian insurrectionists arguably formed the basis of what the United States now calls counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the pan-Arabist republics he was so wary of Algeria aligning with (Egypt and Syr-ia), are today crumbling. 9e question he asks of how to reconcile two people groups, both of whom have valid claims to a territory, has been relevant since even before the Algerian con$ict with regards to Israel and Palestine. Although Camus does not engage with the substantive theory of French counter-insur-gency in Algerian Chronicles, it is clear that he found the tactics, particularly torture and ter-rorism, to be altogether deplorable, humiliating,

(SNLYPHU�*OYVUPJSLZPeter Speelman

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and self-defeating. He writes, “even those who have heard enough talk of morality must un-derstand that even when it comes to winning wars, it is better to su:er certain injustices than to commit them,” reasoning that besides its ev-ident immorality, even assuming lives could be saved through its employment, torture is not an e:ective measure if it ultimately serves to pro-duce more radicals, who will then change tactics and cost the lives of still more innocents. He continues, “When, for example, these practices are used against those in Algeria who do not hesitate to massacre the innocent or torture or excuse torture, are they not also incalculable errors because they risk justifying the very crimes that we seek to 8ght?” It is di>cult not to 8nd parallels in current U.S. foreign policy. Camus also declined to comment exten-sively on the pitfalls of pan-Arabism or Nasser’s Egypt, aside from asserting that Algeria should have little to do with either. It is easy to consider Camus’s opinions on this subject antiquated or parochial, given his steadfast belief that Algeria would wither apart from France. Given the af-termath of Algerian independence, however, he was not entirely misguided. Furthermore, not-withstanding the allegations certain of his vir-ulently anticolonial French contemporaries laid against him, Camus had keen and compassion-ate insights into the motivations and interests of the Arabs and Berbers in Algeria – what the mainland metropole considered the “wretched, faceless mob”. He sought to replace a political problem by a human problem. He recognized the extreme poverty in parts of Algeria, and identi8ed the Algerian drive for social prog-

ress as the true catalyst in the movement to obtain political rights. He personally believed these rights and opportunities for self-deter-mination, along with social change, could come from France. He realized, however, that if social progress was not forthcoming, Algeria would ultimately e:ect the political change from with-in. 9e same basic social motivations for polit-ical change existed throughout North Africa in 1958, just as they remain driving forces in the Arab Spring revolutions today. Perhaps his most novel insights regard-ed the di>culties of two distinct people groups inhabiting the same territory. By Camus’s 8g-ures, at that time there were around eight mil-lion Arabs (including Berbers, though they are not separately mentioned) in Algeria, along with one million French. Some of these French Algerians had lived in the country for over a century. Within the context of post-war Eu-rope, still navigating the dissolution of colonial-ism, to classify French Algerians as indigenous, then to further propose equal political rights on that basis, was understandably contentious. Yet Camus was unique in that realized the futility of the alternatives: In one sense, as reason clearly shows, Franco-Arab solidarity is inevitable, in life as in death, in destruction as in hope. 9e hideous face of this solidarity can be seen in the infer-nal dialectic according to which what kills one side also kills the other. Each camp blames the other, justifying its own violence in terms of its adversary’s. 9e endless dispute over who com-mitted the 8rst wrong becomes meaningless. Because two populations so similar and yet so di:erent, and each worthy of respect, have not

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been able to live together, they are condemned to die together, with rage in their hearts. 9e relevance of this insight to the Is-raeli-Palestinian con$ict is manifest. 9ere is hope, Camus argues, if the two parties can ac-knowledge and act on what they innately know to be true: that each party has a right to security and dignity in the land of their birth. Despite the nagging sense of ine>cacy Camus undoubtedly felt in writing and com-piling Algerian Chronicles, he would not have published the collection if he did not feel it of-fered some hope and some possibility of shift-ing those not already entrenched toward mod-eration. In some sense the entrenched opinions are more appealing. Sartre famously opposed Camus on the Algerian question, unequivocal-ly advocating Algerian independence and sup-porting the FLN separatist group. By contrast, Camus’s positions can seem limp, sometimes bluntly moralistic. 9e exigencies of war and con$ict tend to suspend moralistic and temper-ate arguments in favor of realism; hard-nosed pundits and shrill polemicists dominate the discussion. In such climates, where any appeal

to decency or compassion is subject to derision, it is easy to despair. 9ere exists a de8nite ap-peal in fatalism – a temptation to stay out of the conversation and let the inevitable unravel. In Camus’s words: I know that many people are fascinated by the awfulness of history’s great tragedies. Because of this, they remain trans8xed, unable to decide what to do, simply waiting. 9ey wait, and then one day the Gorgon devours them. I want to share with you my conviction that this spell can be broken, that this impotence is an illusion, and that sometimes, a strong heart, intelligence, and courage are enough to overcome fate. All it takes is will: will that is not blind but 8rm and deliberate. Camus urges strongly against disen-gagement. Algerian Chronicles, which he de-scribes as a history of failure, is at the same time a testament to the practicability of compassion, written at great personal expense. Although history did not follow the course he would have hoped, Camus’s collection stands as a forceful counterfactual in a world confronted by many of the same issues he sought to address.

Two summers ago my wife and I lived for six weeks in the Aida refu-gee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Aida is home to some 5,000 Palestinians descended from those who were expelled from their homes during Israel’s 1948 war for independence. We skype regularly with our Aida family on Sunday afternoons, and they tell us about the latest acts of abuse and discrimination su:ered at the hands of the occupying Israeli army.

Here is a recent incident.Several truckloads of Israeli soldiers

drove up late one evening to the home of Mohammed’s (not his real name) moth-er. She is in her 80s, su:ering from Alz-heimer’s disease. Most of Mohammed’s brothers, sisters, in-laws, nieces and neph-ews were gathered together that night in their matriarch’s home celebrating a broth-er’s visit from America where he had em-igrated years ago. Without warning, Is-raeli soldiers kicked in the front door and surrounded the family, automatic weapons drawn. 9ey began to search the home, demanding to know the whereabouts of a certain nephew. (9is young man is a pho-tojournalist who was shot in the face with

a rubber bullet by an Israeli soldier. His crime was photographing a local protest from the veranda of his home. 9e inci-dent, covered by major news organizations, made international headlines.) 9e man was eventually found hiding in an upstairs bedroom. In the meantime, the invaders persistently slapped the women and pushed the men onto the $oor while kicking them, brandishing automatic weapons in every-one’s faces.

9e American brother pulled out his US passport hoping that the soldiers’ behavior might improve if they knew that there was an American citizen in the room. Instead, the soldiers beat him more severe-ly, breaking several of his ribs. 9e soldiers left as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the injured to care for themselves.

9is is daily life for the millions of Palestinians living in the Occupied Terri-tories, otherwise known as the West Bank and Gaza. 9e primary enabler of their oppression is the United States of Amer-ica, the dutifully blind benefactor who sin-gle-handedly bank-rolls Israel’s military might. 9e largest constituency applaud-ing America’s loyalty to Israeli colonialism

7LHJL�(SVUL�PZ�UV[�[OL�(UZ^LYDavid Crump

is the evangelical/fundamentalist wing of the church, a body held captive to the un-biblical teachings of Christian Zionism.

I 8nd that even moderate, non-Zi-onist Christians often refuse to criticize Israel’s policies while insisting on the need for a “balanced” perspective. All I can say is, God save us from the moral lassitude and intellectual befuddlement that 8nds a moral equivalency between oppressors and their victims. 9ere is no such thing as balance as long as one side is keeping its boot squarely on the other’s neck. 9ere is no faithfulness in a church that plugs its ears to the cries of the weak while helping to buy more bullets for the shooters.

Oh sure, there are always two sides to every story. 9e European colonists who settled (invaded) the Americas, dec-imating the native populations and extin-guishing their cultures had a grand story to tell of western expansion and Manifest Destiny. Slave owners in the antebel-lum south had “Biblical” justi8cation for treating fellow human beings like chattel. Israel’s Jewish citizenry also has an epic story to tell, a story that defends Israel’s existence as a Jewish state (i.e. a nation where the full spectrum of civil rights is available only to Jews). 9eirs is a tale of modern-day colonialism, justifying acts of ethnic cleansing which erase the

indigenous people from the landscape, de-nying their very existence.

We need to understand that justice is never impartial. Our Creator is always on the side of justice, which means that God always stands with the oppressed and always condemns every oppressor. 9us the people of God have no choice but to defend victims of injustice, to condemn their oppression and to work towards its undoing.

9is is why peace per se is never synonymous with justice. Peace talk can easily become a cheap 8g leaf covering over the festering wound of an overly fa-miliar injustice. 9ere is such a thing as an unjust peace. Without justice there can never be genuine, lasting peace. Neither does the passage of time automatically erase an injustice. Bystanders may choose to forget history’s lessons and the indeli-ble connection between past and present, but God never does. Neither will the families whose unarmed children are beaten with impunity by black-booted sol-diers.

God’s aim in salvation-history is peace with justice. 9is divine goal must also be the paradigm for Christian activ-ism in the world. Our challenge is not merely to coexist, but to coexist in equality, mercy and justice.

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*�6�,?0:;�*VU[YPI\[VYZPriscilla Lin

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