Gish, Art (1939-2010)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2010 Aug 9 p. 7

Birth date: 1939

text of obituary:

Peacemaker put love of enemies in action

Gish, CPT Palestine worker, dies at 70

By Celeste Kennel-Shank

Mennonite Weekly Review

Art Gish, 70, a longtime peace activist and Anabaptist author, died July 28 in a tractor accident on his farm near Athens, Ohio.

Gish's career spanned being a conscientious objector, civil rights activist and a Christian Peacemaker Teams worker in Palestine for more than a decade.

"In some ways Art was larger than life," said Rich Meyer, Gish's CPT Palestine colleague. "His energy and capacity for active work surpassed people half his age."

Gish first went to Palestine with CPT in 1995 and served most winters, when he was not farming, in Hebron and Al-Tuwani until the past year.

In an iconic image taken by an Associated Press photographer in 2003, Gish stands in front of an Israeli tank in Hebron.

Gish, who sold his own produce at a farmers market in Ohio, had been horrified to see tanks and bulldozers demolishing a produce market, he wrote on CPTnet.

"Vegetables and fruits lay scattered and smashed everywhere, here in this city where many are hungry," Gish wrote.

He confronted the soldiers, who commanded him to leave.

"Three soldiers aimed their guns at and moved toward a group of Palestinian bystanders," he wrote. " quickly jumped in front of the soldiers with my hands raised, and the soldiers immediately left."

Encountering real people

Meyer remembers first meeting Gish in 1997 in Washington and accompanying him in an advocacy visit about Palestine.

"He pulled out a chunk of floor tile an inch thick, and he plopped it on the desk of this undersecretary in the State Department," Meyer said.

Gish had taken the rubble from the home of a Palestinian family after it was leveled by the Israeli military, Gish told the official.

"It was a way of focusing the conversation so we were not talking about abstract policies," Meyer said. "He introduced real people through real rubble."

Gish enjoyed opportunities to meet new people, Meyer said.

'I don't think he ever flew across the ocean without having extended conversations with whoever was assigned the seat next to him," Meyer said. "He assumed that whoever was seated next to him was placed there by God for his edification and theirs."

Gish claimed as the basis for his nonviolence that Jesus' command to love enemies transformed history, Meyer said.

Gish put it simply in a 2007 talk at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., available online.

"How does Jesus ask us to respond to our enemies?" Gish said. "Love them, feed them, pray for them, and offer aid and comfort."