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Cody O’Rourke lived in Michigan until 2005 when destiny led him to Hebron and into a life of “Just trying to be a good dad in the complicated Holy Land.”
O’Rourke also “could have been a Trump supporter.”
By Eileen Fleming
During a brief phone call with Cody O’Rourke this reporter learned everything he does comes from love for his son and all the people of Israel Palestine.
Cody’s son is a grandson of Professor Jeff Halper, the American Israeli who cofounded The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions/ICAHD
ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action group dedicated to ending the Israeli Occupation and achieving a just and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Cody O’Rourke grew up in a Church of the Brethren whose members are Christians who understand that war is sinful and against God’s will for humanity. The denomination affirms, “war or any participation in war is wrong and incompatible with the spirit, example and teachings of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus promised, “The peacemakers are the children of God” and warned his followers that what ever they do—or do not do unto the least; they do it or not unto God.
After a member of Cody’s church shared his experiences of Hebron as a delegate with Christian Peacemaker Teams/CPT, O’Rourke was inspired to make his first trip in 2005 as a CPT short-term delegate.
CPTers are committed to nonviolence and come from faith traditions other than Christianity.
From his blog post “I could have been a Trump supporter: Or, Thank God I hit bottom when I did”, O’Rourke writes:
I’ve spent the last 15 years working with alcoholics and drug users, people who would be written off as castaways and untouchables. I’ve worked the last 12 years with Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land working for peace and justice. I’ve held hands with my Muslim brothers as we’ve been tear gassed, shot at with rubber bullets and live ammunition by the Israeli military in Hebron and have stood with my Jewish sisters in Jerusalem to protest the military occupation. My life has changed since those early years…
From his post “My work on the Land” O’Rourke writes:
I began working in the Holy Land in 2005 when I made my first trip to Hebron with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. I have worked for the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Defense for Children International and Holy Land Trust. I have worked all across the West Bank and Jerusalem, but the majority of my work in the field has been in the Old City of Hebron and the surrounding villages facing Israeli settler violence.
I grew up in the Beaverton Church of the Brethren but have most recently been attending the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, where I had spent a year on the church council.
While I was transformed by my experience in Hebron some 13 years ago, it was the birth of my son in 2012 that centered and anchored my life pursuing peace and justice in Israel-Palestine.
I spent the first seven years being here viewing this conflict through my own eyes and witnessing the lives of my Palestinian friends being lived under the heavy weight of Israel’s military occupation: home demolitions, administration detentions, military operations, child arrests, and people killed on the streets. It was a methodical, systematic violence I never experienced living in rural Michigan.
Ahmed and Alex working to fill in the footings of a house in Um al-Khair.
But when Alex was born, I started to see the conflict from a completely different perspective: the eyes of my son.
With being an Israeli Jew, he enters into this conflict from a completely different experience than his Palestinian counterparts. He has basic rights and social privilege that Palestinians inhabiting this same land simply do not. He sees and experiences that contrast through spending so much time with Palestinians in the West Bank, going through Israel’s military checkpoints, visiting families whose homes have been destroyed, and seeing parts of Israel’s military occupation that many Israelis never see.
On the flip-side of that coin, with my son being a Jew, I’m much more sensitive of the validity of charges of anti-Semitism in this movement for the realization of justice and equality and our moral obligation to confront that violence at the same time we struggle for basic human rights for Palestinians.
While I had been actively engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for many years before the birth of my son, living in community with Palestinians who were struggling with life under Israel’s military occupation and through witnessing countless home demolitions, arrests, night raids, and other random acts of violence, it was during this time that I came to understand the many layers of oppression wrapped up in Israel’s colonial project.
Having a son didn’t change my views on this. But what it did do is make me more aware of the rampant anti-Semitism that runs through this movement…
READ more about the ‘rampant anti-Semitism that runs through this movement’ and the cause for the USS LIBERTY: HERE
Cody O’Rourke’s May/June 2018 USA Tour with contact info at end:
Date: Thursday, May 24th
Time: 1 P.M.
Where: Hernando County Public Library
Address: 238 Howell Ave, Brooksville, FL 34601
Date: Sunday, May 27th
Time: 9:30 A.M.
Where: Unitarian-Universalists of Clearwater
Address: 2470 Nursery Rd Clearwater, FL 33764
Date: Monday, May 28th
Time: 6 P.M.
Where: Coral Gables Congregational Church
Address: 3010 De Soto Blvd. Coral Gables, FL 33134
Date: Tuesday, May 29th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: St Stephen’s Episcopal Church
Address: 2750 McFarland Road, Coconut Grove, Fl 33133
Date: Wednesday, May 30th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Penney Farms, McCormick Hall
Address: 3495 Hoffman Street ,Penney Farms, FL 32079
Date: Thursday, May 31st
Time: 7:30 P.M.
Where: Emmanuel Mennonite Church
Address: 1236 NW 18 Ave, Gainesville, FL 32609
Date: Sunday, June 3rd
Time: 9 A.M.
Where: Marilla Church of the Brethren
Address: 1999 Marilla Rd, Copemish, MI 49625
Date: Sunday, June 3rd
Time: 11 A.M.
Where: Onekama Church of the Brethren
Address: 8266 Mill St, Onekama, MI 49675
Date: Monday, June 4th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Central United Methodist Church
Address: 222 N Cass St, Traverse City, MI
Date: Wednesday, June 6th
Time: 1:30 P.M.
Where: After 26 Depot Café & Unique Gifts (after26project.org)
Address: 127 W Cass St Cadillac, Michigan
Date: Sunday, June 10th
Time: 10 A.M.
Where: Lansing Church of the Brethren
Address: 3020 S. Washington Lansing, MI
Date: Sunday, June 10th
Time: 4 P.M.
Where: Common Spirit Church of the Brethren
Address: 8484 Curley Trail SE Caledonia MI
Date: Tuesday, June 12th
Time: 5:30 P.M.
Where: Midland Church of the Brethren
Address: 1717 E Sugnet Rd, Midland, MI 48642
Date: Thursday, June 14th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Mark Hoffman’s House
Address: 10624 E Pico Dr, Traverse City, MI 49684
Date: Sunday, June 17th
Time: 12 P.M. ???
Where: Bob & Candy Schnepp’s House
Address: 139 W Brown St, Beaverton, MI
Date: Sunday, June 17th
Time: 5 P.M. ???
Where: Creative 360
Address: 1517 Bayliss St, Midland, Michigan 48640
Date: Monday, June 18th
Time: 4 P.M.
Where: Grand Traverse Pie Company
Address: 2600 Saginaw Rd. Midland, MI
Date: Monday, June 18th
Time: 6:30 P.M.
Where: Grand Traverse Pie Company
Address: 2600 Saginaw Rd. Midland, MI
Date: Tuesday, June 19th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Red Ceder Friends Meeting
Address: 1400 Turner Street Lansing, MI
Date: Wednesday, June 20th
Time: 3:30 P.M.
Where: Raybrook Manor Estates
Address: 2111 Raybrook SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Date: Wednesday, June 20th
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Eastminster Presbyterian Church
Address: 1700 Woodward, SE
Date: Thursday, June 21st
Time: 7 P.M.
Where: Oakdale Park Church
Address: 961 Temple Street SE Grand Rapids, Michigan 49507
Date: Saturday, June 23rd
Time: TBA
Where: Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War (KNOW)
Address: TBA
Date: Sunday, June 24th
Time: 10:45 A.M.
Where: Living Peace Church (Church of the Brethren)
Address: 684 Deer St, Plymouth, MI 48170
Date: Monday, June 25th
Time:
Where: St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church
Address: 375 Lothrop Rd, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
Date: Thursday, June 28th
Time: 1 P.M.
Where: St. Petersburg First Church of the Brethren
Address: 3651 71st Street N Saint Petersburg, FL 33710
Date: Sunday, July 1st
Time: 10:45 A.M.
Where: Miami First Church of the Brethren
Address: 15000 N Miami Ave, Miami, FL 33168
Phone or Text Cody O’Rourke: 352.284.8919
Email: <[email protected]>
Follow Cody at his website:
https://codyorourke.com
Eileen Fleming, senior non-Arab correspondent writes for TADN
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Contact Eileen Fleming
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