June Kenagy talks about her travels with her husband Ben in the West Bank. (Mark Ylen/Democrat-Herald)
Albany residents Ben and June Kenagy think there’s hope for peace in Palestine, but they believe it requires Israel to stop its West Bank settlements and remove the concrete wall that snakes through the countryside.
In March, the Kenagys spent more than two weeks in the West Bank, attending a conference at the Christian Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem and touring parts of the country.
What they saw reinforced their view that Palestinians are suffering from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the area between the Jordan River and Israel proper.
On Friday, May 11, they plan to give a public presentation about their experiences with the theme, “The Human Cost of the Wall: Hope in the Midst of Conflict.”
Their talk, sponsored by Albany Peace Seekers, will start at 7 p.m. at the Albany Public Library, 2450 14th Ave. S.E.
The Kenagys have brought back a West Bank map showing roads where Palestinians are not allowed to drive.
It also shows numerous places scattered about the countryside where Israel has built settlements for Jewish settlers and is planning to build more.
The Kenagys tell of incidents where the Israeli military has moved Palestinians out of their houses, only for Israelis to move in as soon as they are gone.
Through physical barriers and numerous restrictions, Palestinians have been blocked from access to their former farm lands, the couple say, adding to their poverty.
They saw license plates that are color-coded so that the authorities can easily tell if a Palestinian strays onto an Israeli-only road.
They have a photo of a spot where access to an Israeli-only road from a Palestinian Road is blocked by a concrete pillar and rubble.
Another of their photos shows a chute-like arrangement of steel fencing at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. They say Palestinians line up there — sometimes as early as 4 a.m. in bad weather — to be processed before being allowed to go to work in Jerusalem.
Another photo they took shows a Palestinian house, surrounded on three sides by the wall Israel built, ostensibly to keep terrorists out.
Ben Kenagy is a retired physician who, along with his first wife, Kathleen, lived in Nazareth from 1978 to 1984 while he worked at the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society Hospital there. They returned to the region for four months total in 1996 and ’99.
After the death of his wife, Ben married June Forsyth, a frequent writer of letters to the editor.
The Kenagys say Palestinian Christians are among those working for reconciliation in the troubled region.
But what it takes, Ben says, is for everyone in the region to “learn to be good neighbors.”
The couple contend American news media do not tell the full story of what’s happening in Palestine. And they say Americans should care because of heavy U.S. military aid to Israel.
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