Movement 103

The Hoty Land is astoundingty beautiful - and its recent history extremety ugty.
Tourists tend to be cocooned away from some of the harsher reatities - especiatty
those that affect the Patestinian peopte. Beki Bateson shares her experiences.
Surface tenston
o
and how to go beyond it...
r- HE WORD Pntfsrlntll{ mS
U ;,,""',?l,.ti3,. fi :'^T'd fJH :""ffi
five years ago. I had vague memories of
learning about the '67 Six-Day War at school
in history class but that was about it. I had
been involved from an early age with
organisations who worked alongside the
poor, the marginalised and oppressed but
mainly in places like Africa or South
America; the Middle East didn't seem to
have such an appeal. The very word
'Palestinian' sounded complicated, the
history even more so.
When I began at Amos, my boss, Garth
Hewitt had recently taken a group of
supporters to the Holy Land and had
already started preparingthe next visit. ln
between this he was also organising a UK
tour for his friend Naim Ateek who was
Canon at St George's Cathedral in
Jerusalem. lt was as I helped put these
events together that I began to be drawn
towards the Palestinians as a people, as a
Christian community and to the land that is
known as Holy.
My first trip to the area was with Amos
in 1996 with a group of about forty eager
pilgrims. The aim of many tours is to visit
the old sites and have an individualistic
spiritual experience but with Amos we aim
to meet with the 'Living Stones', the term
used by the local Palestinian Christians to
describe themselves, "...your sisters and
brothers in Christ." This phrase arose from a
desire to be recognised by the thousands of
pilgrims who visit their land every year but
only see the old stones of the Holy places.
"fln Nazarethl if they [pilgrims] are aware at
all that the people around them are Arabs, it
is probably because their lsraeli guide has
warned them to be careful and guard their
valuables....Most of them do not even stop
to buy a postcard from the souvenir shops
lining their way, let alone discover that the
owners are Roman Catholics, Episcopalians
and fellow Christians" [Bishop Riah Abu El-
Assal, Caught in Between SPCK 19991.
There is no doubt that 'the land of the
Holy One' as Bishop Riah calls it is a
beautiful place, from the olive trees to the
Old City of Jerusalem, from the glorious
vistas across the Jezreel valley to the calm
and tranquillity of the Sea of Galilee as
viewed from the peaceful poppy covered
hills by the Mount of Beatitudes. To many
travellers this is enough, this is all they
want, this is all they know But for the Amos
pilgrim there is the opportunity to meet the
local Christian community (those whose
ancestors were amongst the first followers
of Jesus) and to experience the reality of
their daily lives and present politics.
We try and stay in places where the
local community benefit from our business,
where the Palestinian economy can receive
a much needed boost. ln Jerusalem we
encourage our tourists to visit the Old City
and enjoy browsingthrough the hundreds of
little shops built in to its ancient walls". The
Old City is one of my favourite places, the
smell of Arabic coffee and sweet cakes, the
exotic sounds of Arabic music, the old
women sitting cross legged on the
pavement selling turmeric amidst a carpet
of vine leaves, the beautiful blue and white
Palestinian pottery and piles of wonderful
religious kitsch. The Mosques too, graceful,
ornate, prayerful, tranquil, the limestone
aching with years of painful history, the gold
u'
!*
\
\u\lr
-f,
\r'
.y
I
i'
, \\i
N.:
)
\ I \
1^
''[er,,
*-gl
1Open House sumrner camp, Ramle, Israel.
Palestinian and Jewish teenagers learning about local culture and each other.
i^Palestinian kids at a Children's Home,
Ramallah
movement 18