'It's Our Life': Theological Reflection in a Low Time

Our group of Ecumenical Accompaniers has been here now for one half of our three-month period of service. At this time, every group takes a week that is known variously as "Israeli Exposure Week," (because we do intentionally take a listen, as well as a look, at what Israelis and Israeli organizations are thinking and saying and doing about the occupation) and as "Mid-term Evaluation" (because we do -- evaluate, check in, update, etc.)

Part of that week's activity includes a brief presentation by each team (there are six teams, you may recall, each in a different site in the West Bank and Jerusalem) about its placement and the team's experience. It fell to me to conclude our Jayyous team's presentation with a brief theological reflection. I found that to be a harder assignment then I expected. It's not surprising for EAs, I think, to go through some real ups and downs of feeling during their time here, and I have been going through a "down" lately. The pain and the seeming intractability of the occupation have worn me down. I found it hard to bring our presentation to anything like a hopeful conclusion.

So I ended up preparing a "theological reflection for a low time." God knows (and yes, I mean that literally, God knows) that we humans have our low times. I believe God sits patiently with our complaints, not expecting that our faith is supposed to make us constantly cheerful and upbeat in the midst of misery. I believe in a God of low times. So, below, slightly edited for print, my reflection for my low time.

Walking one morning to the Jayyous South Agricultural Gate, whose traffic we monitor a couple times a week, my Norwegian teammate Cecilie and I discovered we’d both been simultaneously thinking about people’s sadness here in Jayyous and in the West Bank. People here live with horrible loss – of identity, of property, of livelihood, of loved ones to prison and to emigration -- compounded by endless uncertainty and constant constriction of movement, opportunity, possibility. I don’t want to stereotype Palestinians as gloomy, still less as self-pitying. We meet daily people who are incredibly resilient, good-natured, humorous, charming, undefeated even when the most mundane activities of daily live are fraught with abuse and humiliation. But there is a palpable sense of loss in the air, and people say almost routinely that “life here is very bad.” Occupation is a spiritual state as well as a military and political one.

I’m impressed by how frequently people tell us a story about themselves and their lives under occupation, and conclude by saying, “It’s our life,” sometimes with a little shrug.

Abed, our favorite taxi driver, father of four, owner of farmland he cannot access because he has no permit… has a history of resistance to occupation as a participant in demonstrations, student and community organizations and other protest activities, as did his father before him, and as Abed expects his adolescent son will soon follow in the family tradition of resistance. Abed has been in prison, has watched his parents and daughter beaten by Israeli soldiers, coaches a prizewinning boys’ volleyball team … “It’s our life….”

Mohammed, the proprietor of the tiny grocery market on our corner where we purchase most of our staples, has more than once told me about sitting alone in his bedroom and weeping because he is unable to give to his children the ordinary things a feels a father must provide: everything from clothing to education, neither of which Mohammed can afford. He used to have a permit to access and work his land, but he no longer can get one, so he supports his family by keeping himself in constant debt for the stock, the rent, the utility bills to keep the store open. “My son asks me for a shirt, and I can’t give it to him. If I can’t pay for a shirt, how can I pay for his university fees? How can a father not give his children the things they need? I don’t know… it’s our life…”

Abdullah, a friend in the next town, has a nine-year-old daughter named Mei, who is brain-damaged; she moves awkwardly, and cannot speak, although she seems to hear normally and understand much of what she is told. “She is damaged because of the occupation. She was exposed to tear gas in utero; my wife was pregnant with her when the Israeli army raided our home… It’s our life…”

"It's our life..."

“I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

These are the words of Jesus, usually interpreted as a promise to Jesus’ followers. The life of Palestinians living in Jayyous under occupation is the opposite of abundant. Here in northern Palestine, in some of the country’s richest farmland, acres of fruit trees and crops have been destroyed to open the route of the Wall; productive lands are confiscated for the use of Israeli settlers, or simply to provide a buffer of “security” between the settlers and the Palestinians on the other side of the Wall. People’s future possibilities contract along with the income they are unable to earn because they cannot cultivate their lands and have no other job opportunities. The promise seems very far away.

“Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Cecilie and I seem to have what turn out to be theological conversations while we’re monitoring the South Gate. A few weeks after the one that began this reflection, we were talking with each other about the intractability of the Palestinian situation, and how there are those awful moments when it just “gets” to us. Of course, we always feel it – but there are those moments when the frustration, the pain, the seeming stupidity and pettiness, the utter obviousness of the abuse occupation brings, along with our own helplessness in the face of it, just, well… get to us.

“What can we do?” we asked each other. “What’s the point of our being here?”

When it comes to helping someone, I want to do something. I want to know what will make it better and do it, preferably immediately. And I want to see immediate effect. So I remind myself, sometimes with considerable effort, that pastoral care is, essentially, being there. Like every pastor, I have sat beside people on their deathbeds, or with family members waiting for the awful moment when they will be told that the loved one has passed away. What do I do? What’s the point? I am there, trying to be a loving, accepting, comforting presence. Just that.

Yes, occasionally our presence as international observers in the occupied West Bank actually helps someone get a modest amount of better treatment from, say, the army: sometimes a person who was about to be refused entry through the agricultural gate may get through, simply because we are watching, or we make a call to the Humanitarian Hotline or Machsom (Checkpoint) Watch. There are tiny moments of tangible improvement, even if that’s all it is: a tiny moment.

But mostly, we are here, because our presence says to these people, “You are not alone. You are not invisible. You are cared about. We will tell your story.”

I mulled over the following words before saying them to Cecilie, because I don’t want it to sound like I think of pastoral care only as a last resort, or as giving up. But, OK, let me say it: at the moment when it all gets to you, pastoral care may be just what you can do when you can’t do anything else.
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I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.

Settlements

Upper: The settlement of Efrat. Lower: 'Welcome' sign at south entrance

I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.
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How to write about settlements? Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are among the most emotion-laden, difficult-to-discuss, intractable topics in Palestine and Israel.

As I write this, headlines here in Palestine and throughout the world record the back-and-forth of the Obama Administration’s effort to re-start talks that it is hoped may lead to peace in a long, sad history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, war, destruction, human tragedy. Surely the topic with the greatest potential to bog this effort down to a stop is precisely that of the settlements.

* The settlements are people’s homes.
* The settlements are Israeli people’s homes built on Palestinian land, in violation of international law.
* The settlements transplant Israeli population to land that has been the source of livelihood, culture, history – indeed, the source of life – for Palestinians for thousands of years.
* For Israelis, the settlements are a redemption of the history of Diaspora: reclaiming biblical territory that is theirs by right – “divine right,” for religious Jewish Israelis – as well as a bold pioneering enterprise, creating modern, attractive, sustainable communities in the desert.
* For Palestinians, the settlements are theft, pure and simple. The Wall, publicly interpreted as a security measure that will protect Israel and the Israeli settlements from “terrorism,” actually surrounds and confiscates their land. In Jayyous, where I live, the neighboring settlements now claim the majority of the land, enclosed by the Wall, from which Jayyousi families historically have made their living.
* By extending Israel and Israelis into occupied Palestine, boundaries, water rights, construction rights, mobility and travel, all fall under the control of the Israeli government.
* Israeli settlers are governed by Israeli civil law. Palestinians under occupation are governed by the codes of the Israeli military.

Yesterday, our EAPPI group visited the settlement of Efrat, part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, a pleasant ten-minute-or-so drive (for Israelis; Palestinians are barred from part of the route) from Jerusalem. I enjoy the drive. As I have noted on many occasions, the landscape in the Holy Land resembles greatly resembles the desert in which I was brought up in Arizona. The soil, the rocks and hills, the flora, the colors, are all familiar to me. I feel at home.

Efrat is a modern, sun-washed suburban village of some 8,000 inhabitants. Services – shopping of all kinds, medical and dental, educational, cultural – are conveniently located and modern. Religious and community life are vibrant. We met with a spokesperson in one of the local synagogues, beautifully designed and welcoming. He was pleasant, full of information, a long-time community leader, clearly a settlement “booster.”

So… what’s the problem?

The problem, from his point of view, are those who question that this land belongs to the people of Israel. There is no question, no doubt. The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is Israel, and the problem is those who would take it away. Others may use it. Others who happen to be there should have their rights protected. But it is for the Israeli people, they control it, will fight to keep controlling it, and anyone who disagrees, or would compromises that claim, must be kept at bay.

If Palestinian leaders deny this claim, they cannot be negotiated with. If Palestinian leaders wishing some sort of compromise with Israel cannot, or will not, make sure that the Israeli claim is respected, are not partners for peace discussions.

The problem, as I have come to understand it from the Palestinians among whom I have been living, is that their land has been taken and they are now treated as outsiders in their own country. The will and priorities of another people have been imposed upon them, without their consent and to their disadvantage. In short, the land has been stolen from them, and no one seems to recognize their claim.

The problem, as per the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a pary, is that an occupying power cannot transfer its own population to an occupied territory. And the problem, as per the Hague Convention, to which Israel is a party, is that occupation is by definition a temporary state, and the occupying power cannot change the nature of the occupied territory.

The Israeli government’s response is that people move to the occupied territory of their own free will, not by government policy; yet there are settlements constructed on confiscated land which the Israeli government has declared to be “state land,” and housing subsidies and other economic incentives are offered to Israelis, or immigrants to Israel, who move to the settlements. The Israeli government states that it the land is being “improved” by occupation. The Palestinian populace, and international observers, note that the improvements benefit the Israeli settlers, not the local population.

A few quick facts and figures, gleaned from a variety of sources:[i] In the West bank at this time, the Palestinian population is approximately 2-3 million; there are about 300,000 Israeli settlers. Added to that settler number are an additional approximately 200,000 in the East Jerusalem area annexed by Israel following the 1967 war. The Wall extends deeply into the West bank in several areas; three “fingers” in particular, which reach some 20 kilometers each into the West Bank, are projected to surround about 10 percent of Palestinian land, effectively incorporating it into Israel, and, Palestinians fear, defining a future political border. A system of checkpoints, tunnels, Israeli-only roads and the location of the settlements themselves divides the West Bank into small enclaves, or “cantons,” thus decreasing the viability of a possible future Palestinian state.


My husband, Max,Surjadinata, posted a link on Facebook the other day, to the text of an interview on Bill Moyers’ Journal, as posted on September 21, 2009 on www.alternet.org. Moyers' guest was Sam Tanenhaus, described as “high powered New York Times editor, and author of a new book entitled “The Death of Conservatism.” Tanenhaus sees the conservative movement in America as increasingly in the hands of what he considers “conservative radicals.” Following is a brief excerpt from the interview:


SAM TANENHAUS: …. Conservatism has been divided for a long time -- this is what my book describes narratively -- between two strains. What I call realism and revanchism. We're seeing the revanchist side.
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean revanchism?
SAM TANENHAUS: I mean a politics that's based on the idea that America has been taken away from its true owners, and they have to restore and reclaim it. They have to conquer the territory that's been taken from them. Revanchism really comes from the French word for 'revenge.' It's a politics of vengeance.


That phrase, “politics of vengeance,” rang a bell with me when I read it this morning, the day after our visit to Efrat settlement. There are settlers – I can’t say all of them, I don’t know that – who feel they are recovering something that was taken from them: the Land of Israel. They will do anything, even become violent and abusive, to get back, and hang onto, what they believe to be rightfully theirs.


I have EA colleagues who live and work in the northern West Bank village of Yanoun, where nearby settlers destroy the orchards and kill the sheep of the Yanoun farmers, thus undermining their livelihood. Settlers periodically come into the village, carrying firearms, walking around, speaking to no one, and then walk away. Sometimes they swim in the village well. Sometimes they don't just walk away, but attack the villagers.


In Jayyous, where I live, 4,000 olive trees were uprooted and disposed up to make way for the Separation Barrier, ostensibly built for the “security” of the Zufin Settlement dwellers; the village of Jayyous was thus further impoverished as a part of its historic economic base was estroyed.
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[i] B’Tselem, Yesh Din, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), all have websites in English.

Curfews and Closures: The Town of Azzun

The slope where she slid -- underpass at the entrance to Azzun - Photo by Patricia Carswell

I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.
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Azzun, population about 10,000, is the neareast town to Jayyous, and it is in Azzun where we frequently connect with busses or a “service” (ser-VEES, a group taxi with a fixed route) to major West Bank cities. Like Jayyous, it is a farming town, but critically situated at a crossroads that connects three governorates in this agricultural area. Economic traffic -- truckloads of produce and goods – must pass through Azzun to get to and from markets. Interference with passage through Azzun means that produce and goods do not move. Sales are not made. Money is not spent. Businesses close. The economy contracts.

Azzun is known as a town with a history of opposing the Wall and of conflicts with the Israeli settlements in the area. Azzun regularly suffers from curfews (when the entire population is obliged to remain off the street for an indefinite period of time, schools and businesses close, people are confined to their homes), road closures (when neither vehicles nor pedestrian traffic can come into or out of town), raids by the Israeli army and other forms of “collective punishment” (when a community is punished for an alleged offense by one or more perpetrators, identified or unidentified).

The major highway entrance/exit for Azzun has been covered by a gradually-increasing mound of earth and rocks that our group first noticed about a week after we began working here. About ten days ago, when I returned from a weekend in Jerusalem, the service left me off at the earth mound, outside of town (since the car couldn’t get over the mound to get into town from the highway.) I climbed up the mound, balancing my handbag and backpack, and jumped down the other side to reach the taxi stand where I could catch a ride to Jayyous. Just one week later, one of my teammates phoned from Azzun to say that a coil of barbed wire had been placed on top of the mound and manned army vehicles were obstructing the crossing. She turned around, crossed the road, slid down the slope to the underpass beneath the highway, and walked through the underpass, into town and to the taxi stand.

Abdullah is a long-time friend of, and local contact for, EAs in this area. In addition to being a friend and source of vital background on the local scene, he keeps us regularly updated on what happens in and around Azzun. Abdullah sends me a text message on my cell phone two, three, four times a week:

27 Aug.09, 11:09 p.m.:
Hi. Now its curfew at Azzun and still now the entrance of Azzun is closed.

6 Sept.09, 8:17 p.m.:
Hi. Israeli army imposed curfew at Azzun at 5:00 p.m. and they shooting live bullets. Now they put many checkpoints and they didn’t allow the cars to go anywhere.

9 Sept.09, 2:28 p.m.:
Now Israeli army imposed curfew at Azzun.

9 Sept.09, 4:43 p.m.:
Hi. Situation is very bad. The people can’t enter Azzun because the army close all roads.
Our taxi driver reported next morning that he’d been stuck in Azzun the previous afternoon and was unable to get home to break the Ramadan fast with his family.
Per phone call to Abdullah the following day: curfew was lifted at about 7:00 p.m.

11 Sept.09, 2:04 a.m.:
NOW THE ARMY ARRESTING BOYS AND SHOOTING LIVE BULLETS. HAVE ARRESTED 4 BOYS. AMBULANCE ENTERING NOW.

A phone call to Abdullah later that morning yielded the information that the curfew was in effect. At least one of the boys arrested had tried to escape, he told us, and was shot at and badly beaten.

“What can we do?”

“Maybe you can come and see the army in the town, and take pictures.”

The two of us who were home at the time (my Norwegian teammate and I) quickly consulted with taxidriver/contact/friend Abed, who knows Abdullah and the Azzun situation well, and who agreed to drive us. We cancelled our scheduled Arabic lessons for that afternoon, and set out.
To our surprise, the road into Azzun was open and the town was completely silent and empty as we drove in; there were no soldiers in evidence -- nor anyone else! However, a little further into town, we began to see kids in the street. Abed spoke with some people as we drove along, and it seems there was a break in the curfew to allow people to go to the mosque for midday prayers (it was the middle of Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims, and one of the most observant and prayerful seasons of the religious year) or do whatever brief errands they could. Abed dropped us at Abdullah's for an update and went off to the mosque, as our sudden trip had prevented him for attending prayers in Jayyous.

Abdullah reported that one of his sons had gone to the football and volleyball practices at the local playing field the previous afternoon, and, around 7:00 p.m., soldiers had come, ordered the players and spectators home, and arrested one of the son's classmates (around 13 years old) and another boy.

By about 2:00 in the morning, at least another four boys had been arrested. Abdullah heard two shots and automatic fire some time after midnight; a neighbor, he said, witnessed a boy trying to run away from soldiers, but could not tell if he was wounded by the gunfire; they did hear him shouting and crying as the soldiers beat him. He was about 18-19 years old, Abdullah said. The soldiers left, going in the direction of the Israeli settlement, between 3:00-4:00 a.m., and he'd slept from about 4:00-7:00 a.m.; when he awoke, his children told him that curfew was in force.

One of Abdullah's brothers dropped by while we were there and he said a total of eight actually had been arrested. He reported that the army had broken into one home, and all the sons were beaten with rifle butts.

As of that time, no one had been released, nor could we get any names. Abed came back quickly from midday prayers, which he said had been intentionally foreshortened to allow people to get home again before curfew was re-imposed. He drove us past the house that was broken into, but it was closed up; a few shops were open. Abed was anxious to get out of town, lest we be unable to leave once the curfew was again in effect.

A postscript as of this writing: Abdul Kareem, from B’Tselem, whom we accompanied a few weeks earlier on interviews with families who had property demolition orders, had been able to enter Azzun that weekend, where he visited the bruised and injured boy following his release from detention; apparently no charges were filed.

11 Sept. 7, 7:48 p.m.:
No curfew but the army in town and on the field.

12 Sept.09, 10:32 a.m.:
Hi. Now Israeli army imposed curfew at Azzun.

15 Sept.09, 1:47 p.m.:
Hi. Now it’s curfew at Azzun and the army now imposing it.

15 Sept.09, 2:00 p.m.:
Israeli army now close entrance to Qalqilya

(our nearest city, which has a checkpoint where Palestinians with permits to work in Israel cross the Green Line to access their jobs).

In Jayyous: rural life under occupation

I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.
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Photo: Jayyous North Agricultural Gate, open 6:45-7:30 a.m. Left shadow: my teammate Patricia taking the photo. Right shadow: me, seated on a rock, watching the soldier watching me.
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I’m from New York City, an urbean person if ever there was one. So I had no real idea about what living in a rural setting, in Palestine or anywhere else, could possibly be like. It never occurred to me to think about the relationship between agriculture and the occupation of Palestine.

As a solidarity activist in the U.S., I was aware of dramatic things like house demolitions in Jerusalem and other urban neighborhoods; the appearance of Israeli settler communities on Palestinian lands (in defiance of international law), and even settler violence toward Palestinian property and people. I never thought about agriculture in terms of its place in the whole economy, and the relationship between the Wall and agriculture, and how that leads to strangling and limiting the Palestinian economy.

Until I came to Jayyous….

I live in a village where the unemployment rate is about 80 percent. Virtually the entire village of a little less than 3,000 inhabitants are farmers. And, because of the Wall/Separation Barrier presumably constructed to protect the inhabitants of the settler community of Zufin – constructed on appropriated, confiscated, uncompensated Jayyousi land – the farmers are not able to farm that land, the basic source of livelihood for the entire village.

The Barrier cut off 8600 dunums (one acre equals approximately four dunums) of Jayyousi land when it originally was constructed here. Early in 2009, approximately 750 dunums were “returned” when the Wall was rerouted slightly; and we heard just at the beginning of last week that the Israeli High Court of Justice handed down a decision, under consideration since 2006, that will “return” another 2,489 dunums to the people of Jayyous. This will live about 5,400 dunums still isolated behind the Wall – still the vast majority of these peoples’ land – along with their six wells. This is good news and bad news. Of course, some families in the community will have more access to some more of their land. On the other hand, to passively accept the decision also carries the implication that Israeli authorities have the right to make it: that is to accept the assumption that the owners of the land are not the owners, and that outsiders determine who has the right to it, including the right to give it away to another party. But that’s a longer story….

In order to be allowed to travel to their lands and farm them, the village residents must apply for permits to cross through the Barrier – in this area, actually a series of gates, electrified fences with sensors, trenches and razor wire coils. A permit may be granted for a few months at a time. One cannot apply for the permit to be renewed before the time is up, but only after the current permit has expired. If your permit expires at a critical time for planting or harvesting, if you’re lucky, you’ll get your new one before that season is over.

A permit is given to an individual, not a family. If one family member has a permit, he cannot ask others to help him when they have the time – they must each have their own permits. A farmer may apply for permits for family members or hired help during a critical planting or harvesting season, and may or may not get them, or may or may not get them for the requested period of time. Their vehicles must have permits. Their animals must have permits. Three trucks in Jayyous have permits to cross the Barrier at this time, as I heard in August in a presentation in Jerusalem by Ray Dolfin of the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

One is routinely denied a permit for:
(1) any “security history” in the family – if anyone in the family is, or has been, in prison, been arrested, been investigated, been questioned, been observed at a demonstration, etc. In practice, this means that permits are granted largely to the elderly.
(2) if one cannot prove ownership, even though the land has been in the family for many generations or many hundreds of years. In rural territory in which land is handed down automatically from father to son, and which has had at least three different occupiers in the past 100 years -- Ottoman, British, Israeli -- each with its own system of land registration, producing an updated clear title to a designated piece of land can be a challenge.
3) if one cannot prove ownership of at least a minimum required amount of land. In this culture, extended families work the land together as a unit. The specific parcel to which an individual may be able to claim title can be quite small, perhaps not sufficient to merit a permit allowing him access to it.

As a consequence of the permit system, about 120 persons, or about 10 percent of the approximately 1200 recognized landowners in the village, have access to their land (this according to the Mayor of Jayyous, Abu Taher.) Children under 16 years of age, the age at which a person must acquire and carry an official identity card, may join their parents to work the family’s fields as long as they have birth certificates to show at the gate, proving that they are under 16. Young teenagers are frequently denied passage through the gates on the grounds that they might be pretending to be younger than they are. And these people can enter and exit through three specified agricultural gates, which are open only at certain hours.

People enter and exit only through three specified agricultural ages, which are open only at certain hours of the day. The gates are “staffed” by Israeli soldiers, firearms slung over their shoulders, who open and close the gates, examine id’s and permits, check the contents of trucks, donkey carts, containers, and determine whether or not to allow Palestinians to pass.

And this is where we come in. We monitor the traffic through the gates. We note the hours the gates opened and closed, and whether or not they correspond to the published hours; we observe who comes through, we observe the behavior of the soldiers, we see who is, and is not, allowed through the gates and sometimes try to help, if it’s possible. We call the District Humanitarian Hotline if the gate is not opened for waiting farmers who have arrived on time. We call Machsom Watch[i] if we observe abuse, or if someone seems unfairly to have been denied entry. We’re told that our presence, the soldiers’ knowledge that internationals are watching them, sometimes helps. We document. We talk to the people. We tell the stories of what we see and hear.

Each time it’s my turn to monitor one of “our” gates, I’m struck again: these people are going through this process, lined up here, being checked through a gate by armed soldiers, sometimes harassed, physically assaulted or simply forced back – in order to have access to their own land, to do their daily work for their daily bread.

Jayyous’ experience is one example of the strangulation of the agricultural sector of the Palestinian economy, and is a vivid illustration of the effect of the Wall on the fertile region of the northern part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. If people cannot work their land, they cannot make a living. Jayyous, like other villages in this area, is becoming impoverished and the population is declining. Young people who cannot grow up to work their parents’ land (the young are frequently automatically classified as potential “security risks,” thus denied permits) may go to study if they can afford it – and then return to Jayyous, where there are no jobs for them. The pressure is very great to leave, to emigrate. This is an enormous and touchy issue for people here in this extremely traditional, family-centered rural culture. Young families are caught between the desire and the social pressure to remain, and the need to feed themselves and their children.

The agricultural sector is further affected by total Israeli control of the water supply, and by the requirement that vehicles with produce also require permission to enter Israel – the only place to which Palestinians can export their crops. If they cannot harvest at the right time, if they cannot get across the border to market at the right time, they don’t sell their products. Without profit from sales, they cannot buy seeds for new planting, feed for animals… the cycle goes on. The agricultural sector contracts further.

I’ve written previously about our twice-weekly task of early-morning monitoring at the Qalqilya North Terminal, a Green Line crossing point where Palestinians with permits to work in Israel must be checked through each day in order to get to their jobs.

A different side of our work is what I would call the pastoral task. This is being with the people: accompaniment, what we’re really here for. We visit people in the village, and listen to their stories. Particularly if there is an arrest or army activity in the village, we try to be there both to document and to try, in a very small way, to say to people that they are not alone, that someone sees what they are going through and cares about them.

And then we write, and speak, and do whatever we can to tell the stories we hear and share the experiences we witness.

The ubiquity of families with people in prison has hit me hard. Palestinians boys and young men are frequently arrested for any form of “resistance” – from the obvious, like throwing stones at the Israeli Defense Forces, to participating in demonstrations, or often just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nearly every family has, or has had, someone in prison.

Where I come from, there is at least some stigma or shame associated with prison – even though I know, and many are fully aware, that being in prison may have a great deal to do with social status, race, poverty, etc. But here, it’s a part of life. People who are arrested are grieved; people who return from prison are celebrated – by the whole village.

Just being present, and then telling the story, is probably the most important part of our job.
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[i] “Machsom” is a Hebrew word meaning “Checkpoint.” Machsom Watch is an Israeli human rights organization, comprised largely of women, whose volunteers observe and document the experiences of Palestinians at checkpoints, whether internally in the Occupied Palestinian Territories or between Palestine and Israel.

In Jayyous, West Bank, Palestine: Soldiers in the Village

I was sent by the Common Board of Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church World Service, to participate in the World Council of Churches’ (WCC’s) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Common Board of Global Ministries, the UCC or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Coordination at eappi-co@jrol.com for permission. Thank you.
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My Swedish teammate Patricia phoned us from the taxi stand at the center of our village, where she was waiting for a ride to Jerusalem. “There are soldiers in the village.”

This is not unusual in any Palestinian village. The Israeli army is a frequent visitor, sometimes with an obvious purpose in mind, sometimes seemingly walking through – helmeted, firearms on display -- for the sole purpose of reminding the villagers that they are here. (Perhaps to intimidate? Perhaps to provoke?) This is, after all, occupied territory.

But it was unusual for me to be wide awake and present when they’re around. We’ve had several nighttime visits from the army, along with several arrests of villagers. I’ve either been away at the time or actually slept through them and had my more readily-awakened teammates tell me what they saw as they observed from our roof during the night. I’ve been better at going to visit the affected families in daylight.

But this time it is around 1:00 in the afternoon. Part of our job as EAs is to observe, to document… to accompany the people among whom we’re working in the activities of their daily lives under occupation. My South African teammate, Mandla, and I grab our hats, notebooks and cell phones and hurry out. Yes, dealing with the presence of armed soldiers is a common activity of daily life here.

There is palpable tension in the streets. Groups of boys gather on corners, occasionally shouting to each other, or sending runners back and forth. (Of course there are always boys in the street. But it’s different… they are in identifiable groups, they are looking and pointing in the same direction… you sense that something’s up.)

Mandla and I stride through the village, eyes peeled. Mandla, who is not only extremely gregarious but also conducts English conversation sessions with village boys two afternoons a week, greets a lot of the people in the street, asking them if they’ve seen soldiers. We keep getting pointed to the western end of the village. We walk all the way through from east to west, to where we can climb up on high ground just outside the main population center and look down on the road alongside the Separation Barrier. Nothing. Quiet. (Eerie quiet? Do I just feel that way because I’ve been told soldiers are present?)

Mandla takes pictures – it’s a great view from here, both of the village, the nearby settlement and the Separation Barrier. Suddenly we hear what seems to me like a popping sound, and Mandla jerks around and says, “They’re in the village. That’s live fire.” (I’m momentarily struck by what a naïf I am. I can’t even recognize the sound of gunfire.) We hurry back the way we came.

Once back in the village streets, people respond to our inquiries by pointing toward the center of town. They’re surprisingly calm, going about their business. While the soldiers being in town is an affront, it’s also a predictable, unsurprising occurrence. I’m wondering if the soldiers have simply come and gone.

Until suddenly they appear out of a side street: three, with firearms at the ready. We scoot across the street to keep out of their way, and then try to follow at a distance, Mandla snapping photos as unostentatiously as possible. The soldiers turn around occasionally to warn us off. (Elice, whispering loudly, “Put your camera away, Mandla. Put it away! They’ll arrest you if they see it!”) Indeed, the soldiers already have pointed at the camera. A soldier suddenly turns around and shoots behind me. (I probably jump a foot in the air and rush behind a wall at the next corner. A few of the watching boys snicker.) We hear more shots as we allow distance to increase between the soldiers and ourselves. Mandla picks up some spent shells off the ground.

At the center of town we slip in and out of the assembled groups of onlookers. The soldiers and a few men and boys are arguing. The soldiers suddenly grab a boy in a blue shirt – he can’t be more than 12 or 13 – and start to march away with him. The boy tries to reach back toward an older man who’s been arguing with the soldiers. They all head off down the street, the soldiers holding onto the boy, two other village men at their heels, arguing. Mandla, more confident than I, goes boldly up to a soldier and says, “Why are you taking such a young boy?” The soldiers brush him off and tell him to stay out of the way.

By this time I’ve got our Jerusalem office on the phone so I can report what is happening. I follow the scene down the street, trying to describe as I go, struggling with how little I can say with certainty because I do not know Arabic or Hebrew. I realize I must hang up when a soldier looks at me threateningly, and I again scoot across the street. We see the group turn off on the road that leads toward the North Agricultural Gate where our villagers – those few who have permits -- cross the Barrier to get to their land. A ways down the hill, the young man is bundled into a military jeep. The other village men continue to argue with the soldiers.

My Jerusalem office coordinator calls back, asks me to let her listen to what’s being shouted in the street. When I reconnect with her, she asks me, “Do you understand what they’re saying?” “No,” I admit. “They’re saying ‘don’t throw stones.’” I can see older village men looking fiercely at the groups of boys, scolding. One boy throws a stone toward the soldiers and is practically knocked over by an elderly man who sounds as if he could be shouting curses at the miscreant. I’m so absorbed by the scene that it takes me a while to hear Mandla, and several older boys around him, shouting to me to get out of the way. If stones are thrown, the soldiers are likely to shoot back. One doesn’t want to be in between them.

An English-speaking Jayyousi tells me that the soldiers may come into the village just to see if they can provoke reaction. A common reaction is for the boys to throw stones at the soldiers and their jeeps. The soldiers, in turn, react by trying to chase down boys, seemingly any boys who might have been seen in the direction from which the stones came. (I speculate that the people here have a mixed reaction to the stone-throwers. On the one hand, everyone thoroughly resents and fears the soldiers, who can enter the village and disrupt their lives at any time, for any reason or for no reason. But no one wants additional trouble, no one wants to get hurt, no one wants more arrests, more deaths, more friends or family members in prison.)

Mandla and I move toward a house where we can see a young woman looking toward the scene from the half-constructed second floor. She tells us we can come up to observe from a safer distance. She motions to us to keep as quiet as possible, then points to one of the villagers arguing with the soldiers: “My uncle.” Several others join us over the next few minutes, adults and children, all warning each other to speak softly, all occasionally crouching down or slipping into corners to be out of sight from the street. We see a woman join the group around the soldiers.

In order to get a little closer, Mandla suggests we try the house of our favorite taxi driver, who picks us up twice a week at 3:30 a.m. so that we can monitor a major checkpoint at a crossing into Israel, and who has become a good friend and advisor. He lives near the center of town, and has a balcony overlooking the road to the North Gate.

By the time we reach his home, most of the action has subsided, but our friend has seen it all, and knows the family involved. Apparently, the blue-shirted boy was eventually released after much arguing and negotiation with the family.

When boys throw stones, he says, the soldiers will look for perpetrators. Sometimes they catch the actual stone-thrower, but more often they grab anyone they see. Even young boys can be treated harshly by the Israeli army, and can even end up in prison. He explains that the two brothers of this boy are already in prison. The woman we saw is his mother, who was arguing desperately to keep her youngest boy from being arrested.

This all leaves me with a wild confusion of feelings. I sense that most people I know in the U.S. would look at the stone-throwing boys as little hellions – and possible terrorists-in-the-making. I was brought up as a pacifist, taught “not to confront evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.” I would be horrified if, for example, my grandson were caught throwing stones at soldiers or at anyone else.

After a month and a half in Jayyous, in the occupied West Bank, my commitment to non-violent solutions has not changed. But I do live among people who have lost their livelihood because of the presence of Israelis on lands these villagers have worked for generations; because a Separation Barrier, manned by Israeli soldiers, and supposedly intended to “protect” the Israeli settlers, actually keeps the villagers from the land that is their living. I do look at, say, a 12-year-old boy, who may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, under the control of three heavily-armed soldiers, and wonder how much of a “security” threat he, or his possible stone-throwing buddies, may truly represent. Security for whom, for what reason? I wonder what image of authority is taught to these boys? What is the lesson of this day for them? Who is terrorizing whom?