The Living Church

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The Living ChurchAugust 15, 1999Refugee Camps Grow Up by David L. Duprey219(7) p. 10-12

Ministry to the Dheisheh Camp and the Abu Laban family has been a personal endeavor of Mary Page Jones since she and her husband, the Rt. Rev. Bob G. Jones, left the Diocese of Wyoming in 1996 for St. George's College in Jerusalem. As a priest in the Diocese of Wyoming, the Rev. David Duprey has taken pilgrimages to the Holy Land since 1990, continuing the relationship between the Diocese of Wyoming and Jerusalem. Fr. Duprey, rector of St. Peter's Church, Sheridan, is a correspondent for TLC. Since this interview, he has begun a dialogue with the UNRWA representative overseeing medical care in Dheisheh Camp, in hopes of establishing a medical mission from St. Peter's to Dheisheh.


Our images of Kosovo are fresh. When we think of refugee camps, we picture tents - families journeying along dusty roads, carrying all they own. Now that the war in the Balkans is over, we know that our first priorities are to guide the Kosovo refugees safely home and to provide protection for their resettling.

Some refugees from Kosovo have been received into other countries, including the United States. Thanks to the work of Episcopal Migration Ministries, under the direction of Richard Parkins, the Episcopal Church is playing a pivotal role in receiving and settling Kosovo refugees.

But what if there was no possibility of going home? No return? What if tents turned into rough walls - weeks to decades?

In 1948, during the Arab-Israeli War following the birth of the State of Israel, many refugee camps were born in what is now (since 1967) considered the West Bank and Gaza. Some 51 years later there are still 22 refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, housing refugees from 1948 and from the Six Days War of 1967. These camps are administrated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

For these refugees, there was no going home. Their land was reclaimed. Someone else is living in their home. Someone else is drinking their water. And they have no legal right to return.

One of these camps is called Dheisheh ("Dah-Hay-Shah"), located just outside Bethlehem, the largest of five camps in the Bethlehem and Hebron area. In one square kilometer, Dheisheh today is home to 10,000 people.

Tents have long since turned to structures, then to "homes." In 1948, the Red Cross provided the tents, then in 1949 the U.N. formed an organization to help provide permanent buildings. By 1959 small dwellings were established, averaging four square meters, barely enough room for a family to sleep side by side.

As a permanent village, Dheisheh Camp currently has a 45 percent unemployment rate. The people receive minimal medical care, provided through the U.N. and outside private support. Electrical supply is inadequate and inconsistent. Fresh water supply, that most precious commodity in the Middle East, is often cut off without warning. Last year, water was denied to parts of the camp for 80 days. This year, too, there have been days without water, while nearby Israeli settlements are fully supplied, with swimming pools filled and lawns watered.

To the west of Dheisheh Camp, on the hill across the Hebron Road, stands the village of Al Doha, comprised almost entirely of former Dheisheh residents. These are the most fortunate; those who, through family support have been blessed to receive some kind of education and employment; those who by good fortune and odds-breaking persistence have been able to break the cycle of extreme poverty to gain the wonders of independent, self-supporting life. The view from Dheisheh to Al Doha provides a heart-wrenching contrast.

The Abu Laban family is in some ways typical, in other ways grossly contrary, to the average Dheisheh family. Salah Abu Laban's family arrived at the tent camp in 1948. He remembers the four-square-meter dwellings clearly from his first years of life. He was 14 years old in 1967, surrounded by the violence of war. Three years later, he was imprisoned in a jail in Ashkelon for 25 years.

In prison, Mr. Abu Laban found a library, taught himself English and Hebrew, and read everything he could find. His personal testimony, shared in a recent interview at his home, firmly declares that through personal education he turned from a fighter to a peacemaker.

"I saw that we should both people live together peacefully," Mr. Abu Laban said. "My original village will stay there (in Israel). No problem. I can live in this place of Palestine, what is now the West Bank. So I started to change my mind, how to see the conflict between the Israelis and the Arabic, and to solve it in a peaceful way. I was known by my colleagues in prison as peace believer. I had time to write poems and short stories, and because I had much time and much to read, I started to find my own paradise in the prison. I could make my own corner for me, full of activity, full of thinking. Though I am in prison, I feel that I am free - my mind, my imagination is outside, is not closed."

Following prison, Mr. Abu Laban returned to Dheisheh, married his wife, Fadwah, built his home and pursued his education. Both Salah and Fadwah earned baccalaureate degrees at Bethlehem University and continued applying their knowledge toward the improvement of life within the camp.

After the Intefadeh (the Palestinian uprising) began in 1987, Mr. Abu Laban again found himself, with his people, embroiled in the midst of the conflict. He was detained for another year (1988-89) in a desert prison. With nothing to do and no library, this detention was far worse than the first imprisonment. So he took to teaching what he knew. He held "classes," with the other prisoners, drowning seeds of hatred and aggression with the waters of hope - for peace, for freedom, and for a future for his people.

His crowning achievement came in 1991, when he was invited to be a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference.

"Now the Palestinian people have some hope," Mr. Abu Laban says of his present situation. "They catch the hope, and they want to widen it ... and now people everywhere understand the Palestinian question, and help us more and more. And I feel that people are starting to believe that the peaceful way is better than violence. Now I am working for the Palestinian Authority, and daily we do our best to stop the violence. We don't want more, because the war helped us to find a solution in a peaceful way. We are still under occupation. It (the West Bank) looks like a big prison. So we need more and more freedom, and I believe in the future we will have it."

He and Fadwah choose to stay in the camp, while seeking every opportunity for educating their three children, Tamara, 13, Mohammed, 11, and Ibrihim, 5.

Mrs. Abu Laban has developed her own ministry to women within Dheisheh and surrounding camps. She speaks to groups of women, teaching communication skills and promoting issues of women's rights. She is currently endeavoring to increase the minimum legal age of marriage, from the common 13 to 18 years. Her dream is to build a women's center in a central location, in order to serve women from several camps.

With every reasonable opportunity to move away from the camp, the Abu Labans choose to stay in their home on the edge of the camp, investing in peace and encouragement for their people.

Refugee camps do grow up. From tents to walls. From hopelessness to horizons of opportunity. From stones to accords of peace. Transformations take place.

"When I changed my mind, I started to think from another side: life, love, and such beautiful things; peace and talking and understanding. It's the human way of dealing with problems," Mr. Abu Laban said. "It's my life; my philosophy. I like to be free; to love, to sing. It's my life! I don't want anymore to be in prison or holding bombs. I don't like it at all, and I don't want to go back to this period - this back period. I want to live like you."

For persons who are free, our work as peacemakers continues. As we listen to testimonies like the Abu Labans', as we reflect upon the words of Jesus, we are strengthened to be called children of God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God (Matt. 5:9).

Henri Nouwen quoted an unknown writer who said, "I cannot take your pain away, I cannot offer you a solution to your problem, but I can promise you that I won't leave you alone." o


Refugee camps do grow up. From tents to walls. From hopelessness to horizons of opportunity. From stones to accords of peace. Transformations take place.