Who will ring the bells for humanity? (2002).

Martinez, Elizabeth "Betita" Sutherland

Last month, during the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the press reported that an Israeli sniper had shot dead the church's bell-ringer as he walked to work. Samir Ibrahim Salman, a Palestinian aged 45, had done this job almost every day of his adult life. He died just a few steps from the door of the church, which is said to have been built over the traditional site of Jesus's birth.

And some of us thought: Who decided Samir was a threat? Who decided he had to die that morning? Why did those whose unspeakable suffering had once been ignored by the world's powers now turn a blind eye to others, and see only themselves? How could the oppressed become oppressors? How could they become deaf to the bells? Well, they killed the bell-ringer.

It is not only the Israeli government that seems blind and deaf. It is also the U.S. government as it continues its 25-year long stipend of $14 million a day to Israel and many millions more for militarism around the world. It is also state governments, as in California, where the governor would cut medical help for children with catastrophic illnesses while funding increased "security" measures.

It is, above all, we the people who remain deaf and blind to the past, present, and future of the Middle East. Bush calls Sharon a "man of peace" and we do not cry "Stop! Sharon is a war criminal who was forced to resign as defense minister after a special Israeli commission found him complicit in the massacre of hundreds of civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982."

Bush calls Sharon a "man of peace" and we do not cry "Stop! Israel's military crushes Palestinian homes in Jenin, cripples the provision of basic human needs, blocks ambulances and medical personnel from reaching the wounded, and shoots small children dead on the street."

We the people let ourselves be told that both sides are equally responsible for preventing a peaceful settlement. When we see Palestinians with stones and guns fighting Israeli tanks, missiles, rockets, and fighter planes, who among us denounces the grotesque imbalance? We hear many say Palestine must "stop the violence," with no reference to Israel stopping its violence. Yet every day brings more reason, including open threats by Israeli leaders, to believe Israel's real goal is to drive out if not kill all Palestinians.

The suicide bombings attract mass revulsion, as any targeting of civilians should. But how many of us ask why they happen? What does it mean when some of a country's youngest and brightest feel that saving their homeland requires deliberately killing themselves?

None of us wonder how we would respond after 50 years of occupation, death, unrelenting homelessness, loss of family and friends, poverty, all imposed by a power that has even murdered olive trees to drive a people off their own land. We avoid realizing that such inhumanity would not continue without massive support from the U.S.

It is we, the people of this super-power nation, who must open our eyes and ears. We have to see that the "Arab-Israeli conflict" is really a fight between the occupied and the occupiers. It is a global issue that tests what kind of planet this shall become. It is a struggle for human rights in the most universal and profound sense. It is about the liberation of humanity. We stand at a crossroads in history where two roads lie ahead, more clearly than ever. One leads to unbridled imperialism, indeed to barbarism. The other leads to peace with justice.

At such a moment, we must listen for the bells. They killed the bell-ringer but some of us will always hear him.

Dong, Dongg, Donnggg!

Hurry, Samir, it is dawn, time to ring the bells!

Palestine is waiting, Israel is waiting. The world is waiting.

Let the bells ring!

* Reprinted with permission from War Times/Tiempo de Guerras No. 3 (June 2002).