If Americans Knew…
Washington Report, December 2004
Heroism in the Holy Land: Americans Beaten for Walking Children to School
By Alison Weir
Chris Brown and Kim Lamberty are volunteers with an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which provides nonviolent intercession in areas of violence. They serve in the West Bank city of Hebron, where Palestinian civilians are frequently attacked and harassed by Israeli settlers. The presence of such international witnesses often reduces this violence.
On Wednesday morning [Sept. 29], Chris & Kim were walking children to school. These children were scared that adults would physically try to attack them.Part of the way Kim and two of the children had gotten a little ahead and were just turning a bend in the road, when Chris saw them suddenly stop and begin running back, screaming.
“I saw men with black masks on, dressed all in black, wielding chains, one carrying a bat, most of them wearing black.” Chris said. As the five men rushed at them, Chris called out, “Please don’t hurt the children, please don’t hurt the children.” The men smashed a rock to his head, knocking him to the ground, and began beating and kicking him with steel-toed boots.
“Why are you doing this? All we’re doing is walking children to school,we’re nonviolent,” Chris told them. “We’re Americans.” Kim, meanwhile, lay face down, not moving as the men kicked and beat her. She says: “It’s almost like for a moment you leave reality.I just remember thinking, ‘If I just lie here like I’m unconscious, maybe they’ll leave me alone.'”
While the BBC, Agence France-Presse, Israeli newspapers and a wide variety of other international media reported this attack on American citizens immediately, the Associated Press, inexplicably, sent out no report on it for a day and a half,and this only after numerous people had called complaining.
Israeli forces and settlers are not gentle in their treatment of peace activists. In June 2001, Israeli peace activist Neta Golan joined Palestinian villagers in a nonviolent march. An Israeli soldier twisted her arm until it snapped. In March 2003, Rachel Corrie, 23, participated in a tiny sit-in to prevent a Palestinian home from being demolished. An Israeli military bulldozer two stories high crushed her to death. Two weeks later, Tom Hurndall, 21, tried to help Palestinian children get away from Israeli gunfire. An Israeli sniper shot him in the head.
Chris feels that Americans have an intimate connection to this carnage, because it is American tax money to Israel that is fueling the violence. While most Americans are unaware of this connection, studies show that news media rarely report it.The fact is that U.S. taxpayers give Israel over $10 million per day, far more than to any other nation on earth.
Yet the need for the world to do something has continued to grow. While Americans are well informed about the tragic deaths of Israeli children, very few realize that approximately six times more Palestinian children have been killed, and that their deaths occurred first. Most Americans have little awareness of these facts, because so little of all this is reported in the American media.
Here’s an eye-opener: If Americans Knew!