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Tim Shenk, Mennonite Central Committee

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is preparing to ship blankets and other relief supplies to the Gaza Strip despite Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid to the war-torn region.

Israel is preventing most humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in the aftermath of a 23-day war against Palestinian militants, according to Daryl Byler, an MCC regional representative for Jordan, Iran, Iraq and Palestine.

MCC is joining other relief organizations in calling for Israel to lift restrictions on aid to Gaza, where basic supplies are scarce and about 4,000 homes were destroyed by Israeli bombardments. More than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the conflict, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Byler is optimistic that MCC’s shipment of 3,910 blankets and 1,260 relief kits will be allowed into Gaza when it arrives in a month.

“I think we’re not far away from the doors being opened a little more,” Byler said. “But I know that there’s a fairly high level of frustration today because we are indeed almost a week into the cease-fire and it’s still quite difficult to get things in.”

The war exacerbated the economic hardships facing the 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip. Israel has blockaded the densely populated territory, allowing few supplies in or out, since the Palestinian group Hamas took control in June 2007.

During the war, MCC provided $45,000 U.S. to help three Palestinian organizations distribute basic supplies to people in need in the Gaza Strip. MCC workers in Jerusalem maintained regular phone contact with staff members of MCC partner organizations in the Gaza Strip, Byler said.

“As much as the money that MCC sent, those phone calls were really valued,” Byler said. “Often the reports were, ‘The building next to our office was just shelled,’ or ‘My neighbor’s house was just destroyed,’ or ‘One of my relatives was killed in the shelling last night.'”

Including shipments, the monetary value of MCC’s aid to the Gaza Strip in 2008 and 2009 is about $345,000 U.S.

Byler, who lives in Amman, Jordan, fasted for 17 days during the war as a spiritual discipline and a protest against the violence. While he fasted, Byler wrote letters appealing for peace to Prime Minister Olmert of Israel, President Bush and then-President-elect Obama and posted some of them on his blog. Dozens of people in North America and elsewhere contacted Byler to say that they too were fasting for peace, including the leader of an Israeli organization, Rabbis for Human Rights.

Byler also wrote an open letter to the Christian church in which he called for Christians to take responsibility for contributing to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He described both how anti-Semitism has historically led Christians to victimize Jews and how a theology of Christian Zionism has led Christians to be uncritically supportive of the Israeli government.

“It was very difficult in these last three weeks for either Israeli officials or Hamas officials to in any way acknowledge their own responsibility for the ways that they have contributed to the conflict,” Byler said. “To find our way through this, somebody’s going to have to stand up and start taking responsibility for the contributions we’ve made to it.”

Becky Felton, Perkasie Mennonite Church

Recently Peace Mennonite Church of East Greenville (Pa.) invited Freddy Caicedo, a Colombian human rights organizer and educator, to share on his country’s current struggles and how United States policies impact his people. Members of Peace and others from Franconia Conference joined Caicedo on a Wednesday evening in October to hear his story and learn what they could do to help Colombia.

Caicedo has worked alongside union members under death threat, organized with Christian based communities and has exposed human rights violations of  indigenous and Afro-Colombians. He gave us an insider’s look at the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which currently is on hold in the United States Congress. According to Caicedo, the trade agreement could more accurately be described as a corporate bail out and would primarily benefit factory owners, large land owners, bankers, narcotics traffickers, the military and the elite of Colombia, as well as multinational corporations. The agreement would also facilitate the exploitation of Colombia’s natural resources and lead to further displacement of whole communities to make way for corporations in areas such as oil, coal, palm oil and logging. Caicedo told listeners of the slave-like jobs that would be created under the agreement including sugar cane cutters who begin work at 3 am and often spend 14 to 16 hours a day in the fields, with no days off, no health care and no retirement benefits. Farmers would be prevented from reusing their own seeds because of a requirement to only use genetically modified seeds and healthcare cost would rise because generic drugs are banned under the agreement.

Free trade agreements with other countries have hurt workers and jobs in those countries as well as in the United States. For instance, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico in 1994 has resulted in 2 million Mexican farmers losing their jobs, with migration from Mexico to the US doubling since then. It’s not that trade between countries is wrong, Caicedo explained, it’s just that it needs to be “fair” trade, trade that will benefit the workers and protect the environment.

Caicedo called us, as followers of Christ who seek fairness and justice for all, to action. Caicedo encouraged all to visit Colombia, where firsthand experience often impacts our heart. Witness for Peace, who sponsored Caicedo’s speaking tour, hosts numerous delegations to Colombia and other countries who are struggling with injustice each year. He also encouraged us to contact our Representatives and Senators (202-224-3121), especially in the upcoming session of November and December, to vote “NO” on the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Or click here to send an email through Witness For Peace’s “Stop the Colombia Free Trade Agreement!” campaign.

Laura Lehman Amstutz

With the presidential race on many peoples’ minds these days, Rachaelle Lyndaker Schlabach is always thinking about the intersection of politics and Christian faith. Lyndaker Schlabach, a 2006 graduate of Eastern Mennonite Seminary, is director of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S.’s Washington Office. She attends Franconia Conference Partner in Mission congregation, Peace Fellowship in Washington, D.C.

“The work of MCC’s Washington Office largely grows out of MCC’s work in the U.S. and other countries,” said Lyndaker Schlabach.

“A large part of MCC’s Washington office work is talking to MCC workers around the world to figure out what position we should be advocating for on policy issues,” said Lyndaker Schlabach. “We are trying to get to the root causes of poverty and injustice to which MCC’s relief and development work is responding. It is taking Christ’s call to love our neighbor as we love ourselves into the realm of public policy.”

Lyndaker Schlabach’s work includes monitoring U.S. policy on the Middle East and militarism, keeping in touch with other like-minded organizations in Washington and encouraging and training people to advocate for policy changes with their congresspersons. She also does administrative work for the Washington Office.

“I enjoy much about this work, particularly helping people to make the connection between what is happening in their lives, or the lives of other people, and public policies,” she said.

Lyndaker Schlabach helps people make that connection by holding training sessions for people who would like to talk to Congress about policy issues. She also sends out action alerts via email to let people know when important votes are coming up.

“Before I came to D.C. I saw the U.S. government as a more monolithic structure, but really it’s just a bunch of unique individual interactions,” said Lyndaker Schlabach. “I enjoy getting to know congressional staffers. They are interesting and engaging people, and often they are sympathetic to our views.”

However, it is not easy to advocate for peace in Washington.

“It can be a challenge to ever feel that I am doing enough on the policy issues that I’m working on – Iran, Israel-Palestine and Iraq,” she continued. “They are tough issues to work on in Washington, and yet I know that people’s lives in those countries are directly affected by decisions made in the halls of Congress.”