I has cost a bit of anguish to get to this page - and I dont know how I got here. The hotel owner did it for me. I will write this story before learning that technology, because it may take a while to do so. Forgive typos, which will be many as I am not yet used to this keyboard.
Yesterday, October 1st, Doris and I took the bus that goes from Damascus Gate of the Old City to the Mount of Olives, which today is a small Palestinian village atop the hill to the East of the Old City. When we got off the bus, not really knowing our way, we just asked people "Where is Ibrahim?" and they would point the way. He runs the Peace House, but there is no sign pointing the way.
Ibrahim, 68, is one of 7 surviving children, and the oldest male. His father was a Sufi Muslim, who apparently taught Ibrahim a rare set of values. Or rather, a set of values which are rarely practiced. As a child, he saw his parents welcome, feed and house strangers such as those who would come at Eastertime to view the pagentry of Palm Sunday. From this he learned that all people are children of one God - a God of peace and love, and we are to take care of each other. From this Ibrahim has added his own message: to love one another, you must know one another.
When we got into the Peace House, Ibrahim greeted Doris with a big smile and hug because they had met last year when Doris needed a cell phone and he lent her one of his. That's another story that says alot about Ibrahim. He simply overheard Doris saying that she needed to buy a cell phone, and, never having seen her before, he offered her his. So now they are like old friends. I got a hug too, seeing I was with Doris. I should interject here that the Peace House serves as a hostel for anyone who finds it or whom Ibrahim finds as he bustles about the city.
We sat down in the modest foyer to chat, making a circle of plastic chairs that included an old sofa upon which was sitting a guest named John. John was quite the pushy talker, so we quickly heard that he was from Oklahoma and had come to Jerusalem for Suchot, the Jewish celebration of harvest. But I don't want to talk about John. I brahim has traveled so much, and met so many people, that it takes a while to get under his public persona. He started by telling us that his extended family consists of 14,000 people , about half of the population of the Mt. of Olives, and that he is not a citizen of any country, has no passport, and that he does not want to live in the States, where he has family, b ecause the people there are so poor.
By "poor" Ibrahim means poor in spirit - people who don't know their neighbors. If you don't know your neighbor, you won't help your neighbor, and you might even hate your neighbor. Another thing he dislikes about America is that family memberrs live far apart and rarely see each other. By contrast, he lives with his wife, several of his married children and many of hiis 30 grandchildren. Not in this house that he grew up in, but nearby. He has added onto that house to accommodate his married children, and has therefore been issued a demolition order for building without a permit. (Palestinians cannot get building permits, build anyway and pray that they will be among the thousands that don't get targeted by Israeli authorities.) Ibrahim is trying to argue his case in court (Israeli court), which can take months, years, and much money, and meanwhile his freedom to leave the country has been recinded.
If you want to google an article that appeared in the Sept. 24 issue of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, you can read about Ibrahim and the Peace House - "The hostel that doesn't ask."
The Separation Wall is being built in order for Israelis and Palestinians not to touch each other. Ibrahim makes a lose analogy: If one hand claps, no one can hear it; if you talk to yourself, who will hear you? We must see and know the Other in order to make peace. He calls himself "the key in the middle." He goes where there has been violence, such as settlers burning a mosque, and, along with the rabbis that go with him, asks for forgiveness.
I will close with this confusing yet illuminating snapshot of Ibrahim in action. He goes frequently to Bedouin camps near Jericho in the Jordan Valley, taking toys for the children and used clothing that he gets from Christian Friends of Israel. He visits the Bedouin because they are treated so miserably by Israel, who is constantly trying to remove their camps by bulldozing them and refusing them access to water. The Christian Friends of Israel know this, and Ibahim knows that CFI supports Israel's expansion. When I question this bizarre alliance, Ibrahim tells me, "What people don't know is that there are alot of good people doing good things."
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