From Palestine to Virginia
By Mary Wendeln of Christian Peacemaker Teams

...On Friday 20 April 2007, at the weekly nonviolent action held in Um Salmouna village near the West Bank City of Bethlehem, Palestinian residents and international peace activists planted thirty-two olive trees to commemorate the lives of the thirty-two Virginia Tech students and teachers. In an area where the Israeli army bulldozed the land and uprooted the trees to construct the wall, the sign near the newly planted olive trees read, "From Palestine to Virginia We Support You." In the newspaper article I read about the event, Khalid Al Azza, of the Land Defense Committee in Bethlehem was quoted as saying, "We have come to reaffirm our condemnation of all massacres and crimes carried out against civilians and innocent people regardless of sex, race and color."

Tripp adds:

At the foot of a thirty-foot wall that separates them from jobs and one another, they thought of us. In the face of oppression and brokenness, they thought of us. As their brothers and sisters are becoming terrorists, are falling victim to Israel, they thought of us. The saw past the wall into the Holy City of God…where all the faithful reside. They reached out to us and planted peace.

Empire only thinks of itself.