Assembly line moving rubble up the hill in buckets.

In between the two-to-three-second lulls and jam-ups of the assembly line of buckets winding their way up the rocky hill from the demolition site, I have just enough time to wipe my forehead and press my sunglasses back up my nose, which are perpetually taking gravity’s lead, aided by the sweat pouring down my face. Just as quickly as I can accomplish this, it’s back to flinging chunks of broken stone and concrete rubble from the buckets onto the growing mound just above us. And so the cycle goes. As a group, we’ve talked a lot about “moving mountains” over the last few days. Here, at Beit Arabiya, as the joke has been made several times, we’re actually moving a mountain “from down there to up here.”

Olive tree grove which is set to be overtaken by Israeli settlements.

It’s hot, but not the kind of oppressive, Tennessee heat that I know so well, and for this I am grateful. But the sun is ever-present. I am aware of the gradual reddening of the back of my neck, which, as many of my fellow laborers have pointed out, is developing into a very nice red-white-red stripe effect on my skin, because of my nametag lanyard. But there’s not much I can do about it. There’s only one shade tree as far as I can see in any direction, and I can see a long way from up here.

Palestinian man sharing the story of the house. (from left to right, each individual from a different country)

On this barren hillside northeast of Jerusalem, working feverishly in the July afternoon, is a group of around 80 or so internationals between the ages of 19 and 35, charged with the task of helping to rebuild a home in three days’ time. This rebuild is the seventh rebuild of this particular Palestinian home, which has become a symbol of the steadfast resistance of the Palestinian people to the military occupation of their homeland. The Israeli military has destroyed this home six times, on the grounds that the home is built without a permit. Of course, a permit will never be granted to this family to build here in Area C, regardless of how long they have lived here. It’s just one of a long list of land-grab techniques, each all too familiar to the Palestinians who live here, and throughout the West Bank. And in the shadow of an Israeli military post, all of us (mostly Christians, as well as a few Muslims) from so many different places around the globe have converged here to help this community continue its defiance of the conditions imposed upon them.

Six meter hole, described above.

Experiences like this are incredibly transformative, especially for those of us who daily are so far from (and yet so directly linked with) the struggle of the people here. It’s one thing to have read through a few articles posted by faceless names on Electronic Intifada, or to have watched Noam Chomsky or whoever give a talk about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict/issue/situation/whatever you want to call it on YouTube. It’s an entirely other thing to find yourself at the bottom of an six-meter-deep hole in the ground, hacking away at the next layer of rock with a Palestinian guy who only speaks enough English to tell you his name, and ask yours, as you work to dig a cistern for water in the shadow of an Israeli-only water tower just across the bordering valley.

Israel’s Separation Wall near Aida Refugee Camp. Aida has existed since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Between the learning opportunities we have been given in the lecture hall (including presentations from OCHA (U.N.), a human rights lawyer, and a Palestinian businessman), to those insights we have gained in the field (here, or in the Aida refugee camp, or in a family’s treasured olive tree grove that is about to be claimed for a settlement), there is nothing unclear about this to me anymore. But my growing clarity about the suffering I have seen doesn’t allow the conflicting thoughts that have been violently swirling and colliding within me to cease. They continue, even now as my shift takes its break, and I down a 1.5 liter bottle of water, imported from Jordan as part of the conference’s boycott of Israeli products. I am told that this is more water than some families in Gaza have access to for days at a time.

Beit Arabiya Peace Centre build site - Israeli military post in background

Can I believe that this kind of systemic subjugation could ever be beaten? Can I fully shake the Western cynicism in which I have regrettably been somewhat formed? Not in my own head, I can’t. But I can put on my gloves, and keep passing along slabs of flooring, and chipping away at excess concrete on the edges of the cinderblock wall. And I can keep listening to the joyfulness of the South Africans who are here, who say that this is just like the apartheid that they have known, and have beaten. And I can be inspired by those Palestinians who have not abandoned faith, hope, and love, and still pray for the strength to love their enemy, even if they can’t possibly imagine how. And I can step back and be amazed that all of us, from the far-flung corners of the earth, have answered a call to be here, knowing that somehow God working in us truly can do more than we can ask or imagine.