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The average American news watcher’s knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes primarily from “breaking news” –the latest suicide attack or an Ariel Sharon sound byte as covered on major US networks like CNN and Fox News. To help educate people about what life is actually like in the occupied territories, Dr. Raheb wrote Bethlehem Besieged to give “voice to the voiceless and faces to the faceless.” To understand the true nature and implications of the conflict, the world at large must confront the chronic, seemingly unending indignities and pain that Palestinian civilians endure amidst the cycle of violence. International popular support for real political change and progress in the region will occur only when the conflict is understood in terms that the world at large can relate to and internalize.

At the same time, Palestinians must work towards bettering their own lives. “Despair is not a solution” Dr. Raheb insists. Without hope, Palestinians stand little chance of improving the cycle of misery that exists today and, as such, reasons for optimism must be embraced and cultivated.

To illustrate these points Dr. Raheb read three passages from Bethlehem Besieged.

The first passage described the plight of a father and his daughters confined to their house during the massive 2002 Israeli incursion in Bethlehem. Though the invasion was ostensibly in response to a suicide bombing, the father was certain that the Israeli forces had only been waiting for an excuse to invade. The barrage of force left the neighborhood almost completely flattened, and the family, though physically unharmed, was emotionally shattered. The enormous long-term community investment into the area was destroyed in a mere 13 hours; the dreams of the community were broken. For inspiration in the face of profound tragedy, the father turned to the Gospels. Here he found two pertinent lessons: First, greet everyday with thanks to be alive but the knowledge that tomorrow death may come; and second, the way to rebuild a fractured life is by focusing on the potential in the future, not on what has been lost in the past. Such an attitude fosters the fundamental prerequisite for progress: hope.

Dr. Raheb discussed the economic hardships endured but ultimately overcome by a young Palestinian woman, Sanna, whose textile factory was shut down during the early days of the second Intifada. She learned that she would not only lose her job but also receive only half of the back wages she was owed. Faced with this situation, Sanna used her ingenuity and the meager resources available to start her own business as a stained glass artisan. She would gather the broken glass left behind after Israeli advances and create stained glass angels that she would then sell. After some initial difficulties, the angels gained popularity as symbols of perseverance. The angels became so popular that she eventually had to train her husband –bucking prevailing Palestinian gender roles –in the art of stained glass. Sanna had successfully transformed symbols of destruction –broken glass left in the wake of Israeli tanks – into symbols of hope – stained glass angels – and in the process restored dignity to her broken life through self-sufficiency. Her success had positive implications even beyond her own family, as the infusion of indigenous culture into her community gave a traumatized neighborhood a therapeutic dose of normalcy, however fleeting.

In Dr. Raheb’s final passage, he reinforced his overarching theme: the power of hope. How can Palestinians retain any hope for the future with so much death and misery around them? Dr. Raheb’s answer is that they must persevere. Hope, and only hope, will generate a vision for the future and the energy for its implementation.