What is EAPPI, and What am I Doing Here?

Backing up a bit… for those who may be unfamiliar with it, the group I’m in Palestine with, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, is an initiative of the World Council of Churches, which sends Accompaniers (EAs) to the region for three month terms, during which time they live with local communities in the West Bank and Jerusalem. I quote freely from the EAPPI’s own brochure [italics mine]:
The mission of the EAPPI is to accompany Palestinians and Israelis in their non-violent actions and concerted advocacy efforts to end the occupation [of the West Bank and Gaza by the State of Israel]…. Objectives are to:
• Reduce and prevent incidents of violence, humiliation and violations
of human rights against civilians
• Ensure the respect of human rights and international humanitarian law
• Express solidarity with Palestinians and Israeli peace activists and empower local churches and Palestinian communities
• Construct a stronger global advocacy network
• Influence public opinion and policy makers
• Be an active witness for peace and alternative non-violent struggles against injustice

I’ve been here now for two and a half weeks. Here’s a stab at trying briefly to describe what I’ve been doing, from arrival in Jerusalem on August 3, until the team of which I’m a member began to work in earnest in our placement last Sunday:

This a very demanding program. We spent the first day in Jerusalem having a "once over lightly" of the whole program and a walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem --since it's several thousand years old, with an amazing variety of cultural, ethnic and religious traditions, it's a very colorful eyeful, and very easy to get lost in! Lots of stuff you've seen on TV, and lots more you never imagined.

Then we spent three days in the various towns where each team is placed, getting oriented by a member of the outgoing team. We're 24 EAs, four each in six towns and villages. My team, which includes Patricia, a Canadian-born women who lives in Sweden, Cecilie from Norway, Mandla, a South African man, and myself, is placed in the village of Jayyous in the northern West Bank. The people here are virtually all farmers who are now, as a result of the occupation and the Separation Barrier (often referred to as “the Wall,” although in this location it’s a series of fences, electrified wire, razor wire, trenches, and gates) which the Israeli government is constructing , are now surrounded by obstacles that make it increasingly difficult just to get to their land so they can work it each day.

A regular part of our job involves monitoring three agricultural gates through the Barrier between the village itself, where the people reside, and the surrounding lands, where they work: observing how many people can go and come, who and what is denied entry, what problems people may have with the soldiers staffing the gates (Barrier crossings, whether into agricultural lands, on the highway, or in and out of cities, are all controlled by the Israeli military), whether the gates are open throughout the posted times, etc.

We do the same at a large terminal in our neighboring city, Qalqilya, which is at the Green Line, the internationally-recognized (but not by Israel) boundary between the West Bank and Israel.

Palestinians entering Israel here are going to work, for which they require a permit to enter and leave Israel each day (they may not stay overnight), which is usually granted for a few months at a time and then must be reapplied for. Each person’s permit must be checked before one is admitted. On our first Sunday here (Sunday being the beginning of the work week in this part of the world) we arrived at a little before 4:00 a.m. to find several hundred people, some of whom said they’d been there since 2:00 a.m., already lined up waiting for the gate to open at 4:00. After passing one at a time, through a turnstile, they must go through a rigorous screening process and get out on the other side in order to get to work at 7:00 -- every day. We counted (on a clicker) over 3,000 people getting through the gate between 4:00 and about 7:30. That's just getting through the first gate -- there at least two more turnstiles, two more potential screenings (either being x-rayed or patted down for explosives residue), plus presenting a permit to an officer who may or may not honor the permit. To get to work. Every day. Sometimes, depending on the crowd and whether or not one is subjected to extra screening or questioning, the process can take as little as 15 minutes; or two hours or more. Since they cannot spend the night in Israel so they can keep regular hours, these workers are likely to do casual or contract labor,and many need to meet a boss or middle-man on the other side of the Green Line. If they are late... the job may go to another. Without a job, they cannot apply for another permit....

A few others entering here, mostly women, are going for medical appointments or may be visiting a family member in prison. For this, they also must have a specific one-day permit, which must be applied for in advance. Emergencies...???

After this intense introduction to what the next three months hold for us, all teams then spent five more days back in Jerusalem, continuing training, hearing from lots of different local peace and justice organizations and NGOs, touring the area of Israeli settlements around Jerusalem, getting oriented to the practicalities of our work and daily life as EAs. The statistics we gather are shared with UN agencies, International Red Cross and other human rights organizations and NGOs, who use them, along with research from other sources, in their own reporting. So we have to keep good records!

The Jayyous team returned to the village on Saturday, August 15, to begin the real work. Along with our agricultural gate and checkpoint monitoring, we will visit the residents of Jayyous and the villages and towns around the area, try to develop relationships with the two women's organizations in town, be at the ready in case there are any incidents to report (Israeli army coming in the middle of the night, or at other times, to arrest someone and/or order a curfew, for example) and do our best to do pastoral follow-up with the affected families, and to accompany or monitor any non-violent political action the people of the village choose to take.
******I am a minister of the United Church of Christ (UCC), sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the UCC and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and by Church World Service, as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of the UCC, the Common Board of Global Ministries, Church World Service, or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact info@eappi-us.org or the EAPPI Communications Officer, eappi-co@jrol.com for permission. Thank you.