end the occupation.

Last night Tom came over and we drove to the Dauphin County Prison. I wanted to see for myself if snow really blew into jail cells and if the conditions were indeed the worst of all prisons in PA. Of course, we had to go through metal detectors and nobody gave us any information about anything. We were waved out pretty quickly since we did not have a meeting personally set up with an inmate.

This morning I woke up and went downstairs to borrow a bike, because I told Tom I'd meet him at Harrisburg Brethren in Christ in the morning for service. As I was grabbing a bike, I found Bianca also going for a ride, so we went to the church together. It was a decent service, nothing highly notable in my opinion. We then visited my old friend Bekah who lives at the Sycamore House in Allison Hill, a communal living house attached to and affiliated with the Episcopalian church. Bianca and I then went to City Island, which apparently has prettier biking paths than I thought. The weather has been improving, but I'm skeptical. It's Pennsylvania.

So after returning to SALT, I decided to watch Occupation 101, a documentary made in recent years about the Israeli Occupation. Here is what I learned and what I'd like to share with you:

The US media makes it seem as if the Jews are surrounded by angry and threatening Arabs, when in fact the Arabs and Palestinians are being heavily oppressed.

If the US would cease its aid to Israel, the occupation would not last.

Israel gets more foreign aid than all foreign nations combined ($108 from US up to 2006).

Fundamentalist Christians believe Zionists Jews are involved in a holy pursuit of the land. They perpetuate conservative Christian support, in complete disregard to the inhumane crimes being committed by Israelis to Palestinians.

Under Obama's new proposals, my hometown York County will contribute $42,862,485.50 to the occupation between 2009 and 2018. The money Harrisburg will contribute could provide 4,600 people per year with primary health care. Billions of dollars will be given to injustice, an economic force which in theory could obliterate world hunger.

By International Standards, the occupation is completely and utterly illegal, but the US has used their veto power in the UN over 40 times to pardon human rights crimes.



But the US has deemed our interests holy and helpful. So we must obey. We are US citizens so we are to blindly obey authorities. We are a Christian nation which means we can allow mass slaughter and allow others to endure lifetimes of oppression, not knowing what life without fear and poverty is like.

We don't understand what Just War is, but why bother learning when we have a nation that can declare war for us. We're being protected right? So we'd rather not know what is really going on in this world. We holy people can get our hands involved with that mess.

There is hope. We must stop paying taxes. We must instead give that money to nonviolent peacemaking in the Middle East. This is my incompetent plea.