Mideast Just Peace

Dear Friends of MidEast:JustPeace,
 
We’ve discovered a wonderful new effort to bring joy to the children of Palestine. 
 
It’s called Playgrounds for Palestine, and its goal is to assure that Palestinian children have access to colorful, safe, developmentally appropriate playscapes near where they live. 
 
Or perhaps more accurately, where they try to live as normally as possible despite the strength and weight of Israeli (and American) helicopters, tanks, bulldozers and guns arrayed against them.  Despite curfews, collective punishment, and checkpoints.  Despite being regularly shut out of their schools, watching the adults in their lives humiliated, and manifesting the symptoms of trauma associated with war and terror.
 
Playgrounds for Palestine (www.PlaygroundsforPalestine.org) believes that their project is “an expression of solidarity with the plight of Palestinian children.  It is an affirmation of their right to childhood.  It is a minimal recognition of their humanity.  It is an act of Love.” 
 
An act of love, indeed. 
 
*  Consider Rana.  She’s six, and has a shy smile that comes in flashes as she hides behind an older cousin or sibling.  Every day for a week while the playground near her home in Khan Younis was being installed, Rana and the children of the town would run to the site first thing in the morning on their way to school, in their uniforms and backpacks, to see the progress and to inquire for the hundredth time when it would be finished.
 
Rana thought that the slide would be her favorite part of the playground.  Then as six year-olds do, she changed her mind a few times as she began to contemplate other aspects of the playground.  The bright space became Rana’s home away from home–trite words that take on a vastly different meaning when you know that her actual home had been demolished a month prior.  She and her parents and seven siblings were living outdoors in a small village of tents.
 
*  Consider Ahmed, in all his ten years.  He was not very nice to the Playgrounds people initially.  The people of Gaza didn’t want “American charity,” he told them.  They asked if they could take his picture, something that Palestinian children love.  Ahmed was no exception.  He wanted his picture taken in every conceivable pose and expression.  The ice was broken and Ahmed became the official Playgrounds helper, making sure that the other children didn’t sneak a ride down the slide before it was ready (even though he did so himself).  As he went down, his shirt rode up, and it was plain to see that his slight chest and back were scarred by shrapnel.  And yet, his adult anger at “American charity“ was transformed. 
 
By something as simple as a slide.
 
In the first few months of 2008, more than 50 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli army, 33 of them in the space of five days during Israel’s operations in Gaza February 27 - March 3. 
 
When they are not being killed, Palestinian children are injured by rubber bullets and tear gas, forced to leave their homes or their country, separated from their families, arrested and detained for months or years, used in military and intelligence activities, beaten, humiliated and harassed, prevented from going to school or from receiving medical care; prevented from playing, laughing and living normal lives.
 
We can change at least some of that. 
 
Will you help build the next playground in Palestine?  Our contributions will benefit the one planned for Bethlehem this summer with help from Nathan Dannison, a young minister from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who will also be studying Arabic there. 
 
Please make checks payable to Playgrounds for Palestine and send to MidEast:JustPeace at P.O. Box 815, Suttons Bay, MI 49682. We will foward the contributions to Playgrounds for Palestine.
 
Thank you for your support.
The Mideast:JustPeace Collective