August 5, 2002
Arab believers pushed from all directions
___By Erich Bridges
___SBC International Mission Board
___RAMALLAH, West Bank (BP)--To feel what it's like to be caught in a crossfire--literally and otherwise--try being a Christian in Ramallah.
___While Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat sits in the rubble of his compound nearby, surrounded by Israeli tanks, the population of this West Bank flashpoint goes on with life under strict Israeli military curfews.
___In the wake of new terror attacks in Israel, the restrictions likely won't be lifted anytime soon. And the Palestinian Christian minority is subject to the same harsh limits as the Muslim majority.
___They can't leave Ramallah--or their own houses--unless the Israelis lift the curfew. That seldom lasts more than a few hours a day. When the shutdown is in effect, they can't work. Their children can't go to school. They can't go out to buy food--nor can the kids play outside--without the risk of being shot.
A PALESTIAN Christian in Gaza. (Roy Burroughs/BP Photo)
___Dina Lada, a Palestinian Christian teacher in Ramallah, hasn't been paid in three months. Israeli tanks have been parked in front of her school for the entire period. Her husband, a dentist, has a clinic in Jerusalem but can't get there. His office in Ramallah remains closed most days, but rent still must be paid.
___"Yesterday, my daughter asked me for trousers," Lada said. "She needs them. But I told her we must wait."
___Harder than going without new trousers is the fear of what her daughter Aseel, 8, has experienced under military occupation. Caught playing outside after curfew, she has been terrorized by tanks--and the barrel of a machine gun jabbed into her back.
___Aseel has a child's brutal honesty: "Jesus tells me to love (the Israeli soldiers). But I hate them."
___Lada is from Gaza and has family members there, but she hasn't been allowed to visit them for three years. She missed her sister's wedding and her father's funeral.
___"It hurts," she admitted. "You always feel you are alone. They kill the hope--both sides, the Palestinians and the Jews. You want to live, but you can't. It's crazy."
___A few weeks ago, 25 Christians living in an apartment building across the street from a Ramallah church were herded into a single flat, with a singlebathroom, while Israeli troops occupied the rest of the building--for four days. Children, old men and women, infants--no one was allowed out until one of the elderly was taken to the hospital.
___Although they endure the same restrictions, Palestinian Christians also have been scorned and threatened by some Muslims in the city. Muslim militants accuse the Christians of not being true Palestinians because they have provided no so-called "martyrs" for suicide attacks against Israel.
___"To the Jews, we are Arabs," explained one Palestinian Christian leader. "To the Muslims, we are with the West."
___Recently a youth from the church came to Lada and said an angry Muslim had demanded to know if he were a Christian. "I took off my cross and said I am a Muslim," he confessed with tears in his eyes. "I denied Jesus."
___"What do I say to him?" Lada asked.
___Despite all this, Christians are reaching out to minister to desperate people in the city--including Muslims. For weeks, when the military curfew lifts, they have been distributing food coupons to families around town with the help of visiting Southern Baptist volunteers from the United States.
___Lada loves to help with the food distribution. "For me it is a picnic," she said.
___It enables her to do something helpful and loving for her Christian and Muslim neighbors in the midst of a crossfire.
___
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