Student daydreams

I’m teaching several English classes here for university students and young professionals. Among my students are two lawyers, several engineers, a few studying education, others nursing. One is an aspiring novelist. Another is a talented artist. In the evenings I’ve started tutoring a professional who commutes daily to Ramallah to work for the Palestinian National Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas. Since most of these students have a basic understanding of English, we use a lot of class time to read and discuss news stories drawn from a BBC educational website.

I've never lived more simply and felt more rich. Not only can I delight as my students grow in their language skills and connect through me to a larger world. Beyond this, class discussion opens for me a wide window on Palestinian and Arab culture. Their dreams for the future, personal loyalties, ethical perspectives, analysis of the news, expressions of anguish and anger—all this and more tumbles out in our discussion. They are teaching me far more about life here in Palestine than I am teaching them about subordinate clauses, popular idioms and proper (i.e., Canadian) English pronunciation.

Here are a few insights and observations, in no particular order, that I’ve gleaned from 1½ weeks of teaching:

• The most desired superpower here is the ability to become invisible. (Try to guess why. Hint: think about passing through military checkpoints.)
• My students do not think McCain, Clinton and Obama differ substantially with respect to their views on Israel and Palestine.
• Students—ordinary, non-militant, non-violent university students—casually refer to the Israelis as the “enemy."
• There is very little for young people to do here. They long for a change in the sameness of their daily routine. They express very little hope for positive change in the political situation.
• Notwithstanding Yasser Arafat’s death in 2004, and the political victory in 2006 of rival party Hamas, Arafat—whose picture is displayed prominently in the town square—remains an iconic figure among Palestinian youth. For them he is a father figure who epitomizes their struggle against Occupation.
• Although most women on the streets of Nablus wear the hijab (covering their hair and often neck), my students make it clear that this is a choice, not a requirement as it is, say, in Saudi Arabia. They see the current popularity of head coverings, in Palestine and much of the Muslim world, as symbolic of a general conservative reaction to the influence of Western / American culture and values. (A generation ago Palestinian women did not cover their heads.)
• Students here are extremely respectful and grateful to international volunteers and generally very serious about their education.
• If students were granted one wish, most would wish to travel. None of my students has the proper ID to let them travel to Jerusalem, let alone beyond.

NOTE: Palestinian IDs come in a green plastic case; Jerusalem IDs in blue. With a Palestinian ID (or huwīya), the only way to get to Jerusalem is with a special temporary permit. This system was introduced in 1993 and tightened at the outbreak of the 2^nd Intifada. If a Palestinian does receive a permit, it is valid at only 4 of the 13 checkpoints between the West Bank and the city. A UN-OCHA report illustrates the challenge Palestinians face simply getting into Jerusalem:

“Since the election of the Hamas government in early 2006, the Israeli authorities have ceased all communication with their Palestinian counterparts and now individuals are forced to apply for permits in person to the Israeli DCL [Palestinian District Liaison Officers] offices. Applying for a permit often involves traveling long distances and waiting in line, only to have to return the next day or following weeks toreceive a permit if it is granted. Applicants who are rejected can re-apply and maybe accepted the second timebut the outcome is always unpredictable. Permits are only issued for a specific reasons i.e. to work, to study, for family reunification or a certain social event and the permit applications are often refused on the basis of security.” [The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and other Infrastructure in the West Bank. UN-OCHA. July 2007, p.101.]

Listening to my Palestinian friends describe their lives, watching them dream about freedom and travel, I was deeply disturbed by the news this week that Israel has denied exit visas to seven Gaza students seeking to study abroad. The tragedy of their plight is compounded by the fact that each of the Gaza Seven has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright scholarship. These students don’t need money; all they need is for some Israeli bureaucrat to sign and stamp a form. But since education doesn’t qualify as a pressing humanitarian need (?), permission to leave their compound has been denied.

When the story broke, we learned that the US State Department simply canceled their Fulbrights. Serves you right for living in a war zone. More recently, perhaps to save face, they've changed the status of these scholarships to “deferred.” Assuming Israel lifts the siege of Gaza, next year the students may be able to pursue their advanced degrees. And their dreams. Perhaps. One never knows.

Water wells and water wars

A few hot, dry days ago, on the edge of Nablus and across the street from the entrance to Balata Refugee camp, I lifted a tin cup to my lips to drink cool water from a well said to be 3,700 years old. The forty meter-deep well is in the crypt of a church that rests upon earlier churches going back to the 4^th century. It’s called Jacob’s Well (cf. Gen 33:18-20; Jn 4:12). Gentle Jamal will let you draw water for yourself with a rope and bucket. The usual tourist kitsch—icons, crucifixes and postcards—clutters a nearby table, but there is something undeniably magical about connecting to a place featured in both Genesis and John’s Gospel.

All sides of the Israel / Palestine conflict agree that water access and availability is a major flashpoint. Elena Hansteensen, a Humanitarian Officer in the Nablus OCHA office (United Nations – Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), contends that the locations of major Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been clearly chosen to guarantee access to the aquifers in the Palestinian hill country. An OCHA report details the inequity of water distribution in the region.

“Israeli per capita water consumption is more than five times higher than that of West Bank Palestinians (350 litres per person per day in Israel compared to 60 litres per person per day in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem). West Bank Palestinian water consumption is 40 litres less than the minimum global standards set by the World Health Organization.” (The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements and other Infrastructure in the West Bank, UNOCHA, July 2007, 114.)

A similar picture emerges in a report by BT’selem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories:

The discrimination in utilization of the resources shared by Israel and the Palestinian Authority is clearly seen in the figures on water consumption by the two populations. Per capita water consumption in the West Bank for domestic, urban, and industrial use is only 22 cubic meters a year, which translates into 60 liters per person per day.

There is a huge gap between Israeli and Palestinian consumption. The average Israeli consumes for domestic and urban use approximately 104 cubic meters a year, or 280 liters per person per day. In other words, per capita use in Israel is four and a half times higher than in the Occupied Territories. To make a more precise comparison, by also taking into account industrial water consumption in Israel, per capita use per year reaches 120 cubic meters—330 liters per person a day—or five and a half times Palestinian per capita consumption.

The World Health Organization and the United States Agency for International Development recommend 100 liters of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption. This amount includes, in addition to domestic use, consumption in hospitals, schools, businesses, and other public institutions. Palestinian daily consumption is 40 percent less than the recommended quantity.

One front in the Water Wars might come as a surprise:

“For residents of the Occupied Territories, the primary result of the change in the law and transfer of powers over the water sector to Israeli bodies [at the beginning of the Occupation] was the drastic restriction on drilling new wells to meet their water needs. According to military orders, drilling a well required obtaining a permit, which entailed a lengthy and complicated bureaucratic process. The vast majority of applications submitted during the occupation were denied.”

I learned more about this curious state of affairs when I spent Friday with Nasser Abufarha, the Chair of the Palestine Fair Trade Association and the Director of Canaan Fair Trade based in Jenin. An anthropologist-entrepreneur-scholar-humanitarian (Google him some time), Nasser described to me the Israeli policy that forbids Palestinians from digging new wells when old ones run dry. Palestinians are forced, he said, to hide their new wells (e.g., under houses) and to dig them at night. Meanwhile the Israelis conduct aerial surveillance, fill newly-discovered, “illegal” wells with concrete, and restrict the amount Palestinians can draw from “legal” wells by placing regulators on them. To my surprise, Nasser does not believe that these draconian measures are driven by a fundamental water shortage in the region. Rather, he claims, water restrictions are one element of Israel’s systematic campaign to make life difficult for the Palestinians—difficult enough that they’ll want to leave.

I’m hardly qualified to opine on the politics of regional hydrology. But I can say that the water infrastructure in Palestine is woefully inadequate. I passed through a village in the north yesterday where the town well was surrounded by donkey droppings because the locals still transport their water on the backs of animals.

This brings me back to Jacob’s Well. According to ancient tradition, this is the very well where Jesus met the Samaritan woman and, at high noon, scandalously asked her for a drink (Jn 4:6). It’s a compelling story about ethnic tension, patriarchy and gender, sexual infidelity, competing religious claims, prophecy and fulfillment and more. Rereading the story lately I was struck by something else: Jesus’ promise to quench the woman’s thirst:

"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water'."

"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life'." (Jn 4:10, 13-14)

Not even a Biblical well can keep physical thirst from returning. But Jesus’ dramatic claim here, interpreted literally by the dusty Samaritan, is that his loyal followers will find a deeper thirst quenched once and for all. For those of us who enjoy a cold beer on a hot day, the thought of never getting thirsty may have little appeal. But for folks over here who must daily draw water by hand and schlep it home on the back of a donkey, this is good news indeed.

Is there something in the water of Jesus’ Gospel for these sons of Abraham—here in Nablus and in nearby Ariel—whose parched souls thirst for peace? Is it foolish to think that the message of Jesus could end a 60 year-old drought in this land? Is it naïve to think that Christians could play a reconciling role between Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land? I don’t know. Perhaps the water we have to offer is simply too muddied—by Crusades, anti-Semitism and Christian Zionism—to be drinkable, let alone thirst-quenching. What do you think?

ADDITIONAL NOTE: A helpful piece on the subject of water by Ron Taylor just appeared today in CounterCurrents. It's called "Water Wars in the West Bank."

WWJBB? (Where would Jesus be born?)

Today I visited New Askar Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Nablus. There are three such camps in the Nablus area. New Askar is “new” because it was built in1964 as an expansion of the original (or “Old”) Askar, built in 1950. But since New Askar is not an official camp, there are no UNRWA facilities there and its challenges and hardships are accordingly greater.

Here is the UN definition of a Palestinian refugee:

Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. . . . UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948. The number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.4 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.

I went to Askar camp observe an English class for young children. The teacher, another volunteer with Project Hope, was nothing short of brilliant. For each new topic (days of the week, adjectives, greetings, etc.) she had a song, an activity, a puppet, a funny sound effect or a picture. Sometimes all of the above. The kids were delightful, as well as squirmy, shy, exuberant, and mostly eager to learn. I’m guessing the teacher would stand out in any high-end suburban school in the U.S., but there she was teaching at her own expense in an unofficial refugee camp in Palestine, offering hope and opportunity to kids trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair.

The camps surrounding Nablus are three of twenty in the West Bank. Thirty-nine more dot the map across Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. I visited Jerash camp in Jordan back in 2004 and have stayed several times in Deheisheh on the edge of Bethlehem. Each camp has its stories to tell. Older residents are glad to reminisce over the cherished farms and villages from which they had to flee some 60 years ago. Many yearn to return.

There are certainly darker places on earth to raise a family There is clearly more deprivation in parts of Africa, Latin America, the Indian sub-continent, the Philippines and elsewhere. I wonder, however, whether you’d find anything similar in countries as developed and sophisticated as Israel, with its world ranking as 22^nd-highest in gross domestic product per capita (at US$33,299). I have my doubts.

What if Christians on holy pilgrimage to the site of Jesus’ birth were to include a side trip to nearby Deheisheh or Aida camps? What if they paused to listen to a few of these displaced Palestinians tell their stories? It is there, I suspect, rather than in the gilded shrine of the Nativity Church in Manger Square, that they would see most clearly what it must have been like for Jesus to embrace humility and to identify, from the very beginning, with “the least of these” (Mt 25:40). And perhaps it is there as well that we would find there is much to be done in the causes of both mercy and justice.

What about the bond?

Sporting our spiffy volunteer’s vests yesterday, my daughter and I ducked into the Old City to buy fresh vegetables. On our way we paused to chat with a young man whose English was better than average. Immediately his uncle offered coffee. Arabic coffee. The good stuff. Moments later we were balancing on sketchy plastic chairs, surrounded by a dozen young men who wanted to practice their rudimentary English. We learned several new Arabic words, laughed a lot and gave them our vitals: where we were from, why we were here and, of course, how old we were.

One young man had a deep scar in the crook of his arm. Two wore necklaces displaying small pictures of dead family members. A brother. A cousin. An older man pulled at his shirt to reveal what looked like a pair of bullet holes in his neck. Neither our Arabic nor their English was good enough to solve the Middle East crisis but it was obvious to us that these young men—or many of them—were active resisters to the Occupation. “Fighters,” as they say. With us, they were polite, hospitable, gracious, even jovial. Yet when Israeli soldiers come to call—soldiers equally youthful, equally volatile, equally in over their heads—they are deadly serious.

What strikes me in retrospect is the strength of their fraternal bond. Some young men seek brotherhood on a sports team or fraternity or in the ranks of the military. This band of brothers is united by blood—blood of both the inherited and spilled varieties. They fight and sometimes die beside cousins, nephews and brothers. It’s a bond nothing will break. The more Palestinian arrests, injuries and deaths that occur in places like Nablus, the stronger will be the communal resolve to resist.

If Israel’s strategists think they will break the resistance by stepping up incursions, closing more checkpoints, imposing more closures and knocking down more buildings, someone needs to explain to them about the bond.

The difference between night and day

This is the first of (hopefully) several posts from Palestine during May and June, 2008.

Daytime in Nablus hides its nightly war games fairly well. Markets bustle, children play, horns honk, trucks belch. The signs of conflict are easy enough to spot—buildings destroyed or damaged (by Israeli shelling, bulldozers and tanks), ubiquitous martyr posters, stone shrines to the fallen—but people here, like other peoples in crisis, have an uncanny capacity to project a sense of normalcy. Maybe they do it for the kids. Maybe for their own sanity.

This evening, our walk in the Old City spanned that perfect time of day when the waning sun paints the world in amber hues. Everything, even rubble and garbage, takes on an exquisite glow. In that light we threaded through Ottoman alleyways, toured an aging soap factory, greeted friends in the street and stopped for kanafeh at a small shop. Children giggled “how are you?” or wanted their picture taken. For a brief, sun-drenched moment all was right with the world.

But, of course, it isn’t. Earlier today I sat on the small balcony of our 2^nd floor apartment. Just minutes from the Old City, it’s a flat for Project Hope volunteers like us. From our lookout I watched the city’s white stone buildings cascade down the valley and climb the other side—the southern slope of Mount Ebal, one of the highest peaks in Palestine/Israel (3,084 feet). Clearly visible at Ebal’s summit is the silhouette of an Israeli military outpost—reportedly the largest in the West Bank. Military incursions into the city are a nightly routine; last night’s action apparently included an assault on a restaurant with percussion grenades and bullets. Don’t know what the troops were after. Tracking a “fighter,” perhaps, or delivering payback. A restaurant burned to the ground. Here in our apartment we heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt no threat. My only source is a somewhat confusing report from the Maan News Agency. Whatever happened, you can bet it won’t get picked up by the NYT or BBC. But that too is part of normal over here. “The trouble with normal” is, as Bruce Cockburn says, that “it always gets worse.”

New Paul and Scripture Seminar page

I'm developing a blog site for the Society of Biblical Literature Paul and Scripture seminar. You'll find it here:

Paul and Scripture

It is under construction but should be more useful and interactive than the old site. So far it just has seminar paper abstracts (2006, 2007) and papers (2006).

Two Perspectives on Paul

I'm presenting this table to my students in New Testament Theology and Ethics this fall. Old news to Paul scholars, of course, but radical stuff for the uninitiated. I'm painfully aware of my over-simplification on almost every level. Corrections and suggestions for improvement welcome.

Lutheran / Traditional Perspective
versus
The “New Perspective”

Central Concern

Justification: how can sinners be made right before God?

Gentile inclusion: on what terms may Gentiles join God’s people?

State of 1^st c. Judaism

Burdened by the Law; dead in sin; marked by hypocrisy and legalism; bound up with sin, death & law (in contrast to grace, life & faith).

Vibrant, dynamic, diverse; a religion of grace; pattern of religion: “covenantal nomism*” (Sanders); in (spiritual) exile (Wright)

*"Covenantal Nomism” (according to Sanders): the notion that the Israelite’s place in God’s plan is determined by the covenant which God established with Israel, and that obedience to the law is Israel’s proper response to God’s initial act of grace.

The Law in Judaism

Onerous burden for those who broke it; cause of boasting for those who kept it.

A gracious, delightful gift from God, “holy and righteous and good” (Rom 7:12; Ps 119:97)

Paul’s problem with Judaism

Legalism: it promotes legalistic works righteousness; merit theology; pride in accomplishments; faulty view of grace and works

Nationalism / racism / exclusivism / particularism: the role of the Law in establishing boundary markers, Jewish privilege (Dunn); “It is not Christianity” (Sanders)

Paul’s condition prior to conversion

A frustrated, guilt-ridden sinner who valued works over faith, and who struggled unsuccessfully to measure up to the Law’s demands (Rom 7:14-24).

A Law-keeping (blameless) Pharisee who denied Jesus was God’s Messiah (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:4-8). Images of a distressed Paul are projections of the West’s “introspective conscience.”

Paul’s conversion

Paul leaves his now-dead ancestral religion and its Law to trust and follow Christ. Paul rejects Law-keeping as impossible and/or pride-producing.

Paul is not “converted” from Judaism but “called” within it to be the apostle to the Gentiles (Stendahl). Paul didn’t so much convert from Judaism but to Christianity (Sanders). See 2 Cor 3:4-18; Phil 3:3-11.

Justification by faith

The center / organizing principle of Paul’s Gospel: God’s gracious declaration that a sinner is right before God through his faith in Christ’s work. God’s response to human failure / pride.

A “subsidiary crater” in Paul’s thought (Schweitzer); a polemical / apologetic doctrine developed to defend the full status of Gentile converts and to refute Jewish-Christian efforts to impose circumcision, etc. on them.

Paul’s Gospel

Repent of dead works and trust in Christ’s atoning work to be justified / saved (Rom. 3:21-24). Key antithesis: Law versus Gospel.

Jesus is the anointed, risen and exalted Lord over all nations (Wright; Rom 1:1-5). Salvation comes by transfer to the realm of his lordship, by union with / participation in Christ (Sanders; 2 Cor 5:17; Rom 6:3-7).

Paul’s reasoning

Forward: from plight to solution: Law-sin-guilt à faith in Christ à justification apart from Law

Backward: from solution to plight (Sanders): Christ à various (unsystematic, inconsistent, incompatible) assessments of sin & Law (Gal 2:21; 3:19, 24-25; Rom 3:20; 4:15; 10:4)

Or: From plight to solution to plight (Wright): exile à Christ à sin / law

Theme of Romans

A “compendium of Christian doctrine” (Melancthon).
A theological treatise on justification by grace through faith.
Romans 9-11 are a parenthesis.

An occasional document defending the faithfulness of God (to the nations, to Israel) and the co-equal status of Jews and Gentiles.
Romans 9-11 are the climax of the letter.

Works of the Law (erga nomou, e.g. Rom.3:28)

Striving to do good; good works performed for salvation

Observing Torah; what pious Jews do; only bad when imposed on Gentiles; passé because it excludes Gentiles.

Pistis Christou (e.g., Ga.2:16)

Faith in Christ (objective genitive; anthropological reading) (Dunn)

Faith(fulness) of Christ = subjective genitive; Christological reading (Hays)