Lansing - Mary Thomas didn’t spend the holidays visiting family - instead she hopped on a plane to work for peace in Israel.
From Dec. 19 to Jan. 2, Thomas, a Lansing resident and member of the Michigan Peace Team, traveled to the disputed territories with eight Michigan Peace Team members and 300 other international peacemakers.
The International Solidarity Movement, a group committed to nonviolence and solidarity with Palestinians, invited the team to promote peace in the area.
Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting over the land that became Israel after World War II.
Thomas said she was shocked by the way Israeli soldiers treated Palestinians.
One incident that remains imbedded in her mind is when she came upon two young Israeli soldiers slapping around a young Palestinian.
“They were just kids,” she said. “They should have been in the theater making out with their girlfriends, not killing people.”
When the soldiers saw Thomas they told her to move on. When she refused they pointed their guns at her and told her to leave.
“I wouldn’t leave and told them I was going to stay and watch what they were doing,” she said. “(The Palestinian) kept looking at me - I think he was surprised to see someone supporting him.”
Mike McCurdy, another team member and Lansing resident, also spent two and a half weeks in Israel.
After spending time at Israeli military checkpoints recording human rights violations, McCurdy said he came back to Michigan with a different view of the conflict.
Palestinian men could be held at the checkpoints for hours for no reason, he said.
“I was a lot more sympathetic to the Israeli cause before going over there,” McCurdy said. “It’s easier now to understand why the Palestinians strike back, why they’ve got suicide bombers.
“Men are held in detention and tortured, then they try to go through their daily lives without being humiliated.”
Team members also feared for their lives at times throughout the trip, having guns and tanks pointed at them as well as encountering brutality from soldiers.
“In one action we were posting banners on a tank and it swiveled around with the gun pointing at us - it was a little unnerving,” McCurdy said. “Generally they don’t shoot internationals, but if Palestinians did what we did they’d be killed.”
Elizabeth Walters, a peace team member and Detroit resident, said the effect of Israeli occupation and the suffering of the Palestinian people really struck her.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was,” she said. “I knew about suicide bombings, but I didn’t know how occupation affected every aspect of their lives.”
Thomas said while every action they took was reversed by the Israeli government, the peace team members gave the Palestinians hope.
“We didn’t change anything, but hundreds of people can tell their story and lobby their governments,” she said. “(The Palestinians) feel no one is listening and the way people listen is when they do terrorist bombings - and that is the wrong way.”
The team is planning another trip to Israel in March. For more information on the trip call (517)484-3178.
