Not a bed of roseries

Check out this story from Dave Mowat about the Occupied Palestinian Territories - how it feels to have your road stolen and to have to pass through a checkpoint to get to your veg

NOT A BED OF ROSERIES David Mowat May 5 2010

What do an Anglican clergyman, a Warwickshire county councillor, a retired primary school head (and Quaker), a mediator trainer, a civil engineering professor and a vice-president of the Methodist church, strange bed-fellows, have in common?

They’re all just back from the hot bed of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel where they served for three months as human rights workers for the World Council of Churches. On Friday last they were crammed in a steamy room with former ‘EAs’ (Ecumenical Accompanier is the full if mystifying term for this kind of human rights work) in the Quaker HQ in London, sharing their power points, talking truth to power.

As a former EA myself, with my own stories gone to seed, I was eager to have new insights planted in me. Through small stories I was given blanket coverage of the whole complex picture.

The Warwickshire councillor told of a farmer, middle aged Jamal Omar from a village near to Tulkarem, whose road had been stolen. Stolen? There it was with its tarmac and street lamps and scattered lumps of concrete like a giant baby’s duplo. In the name of ‘Security’ –a word which lumps a lot together- the Israeli army had dropped it here to protect an Israeli settlement deep in land considered by the international community as Palestinian.

Since my own days on the EA programme I’ve taken to my allotment and lately every day I’ve had to go to water my cucumber seedlings. So I’m sensitive to seeing Jamal having to do the same, not just down the road as before but with a massive round trip to get to his field, with the extra hassle of getting through an Israeli check point. And what with the added fuel expense it makes his crop no longer profitable in Tulkarem’s once busy farmers market. If the West’s regional markets have been destroyed by globalisation, in the West Bank occupation and the prevention of movement seem the culprit.

The Primary head’s story touched me as like him, in Bethlehem, I’d had to observe how easy or difficult it was for Palestinian workers to cross the transit points in the security barrier. The chaos was even worse, with the humiliating holding sheds and turnstiles I wish to forget. On his last day before heading to this briefing, a man was brought out of the crowd with crush injuries to his chest and was still unconscious when taken away in an ambulance. And he witnessed a soldier, who a few days before had chatted amiably in Arabic with Palestinians (his parents probably immigrated to Israel from an Arab State) turning nasty in this pressured situation, keeping a woman in the turnstile cage itself for half an hour. I well remember thinking how occupation dehumanizes Israelis as much as it humiliates Palestinians.

We saw the ashen face of an eight year old Palestinian boy in Hebron, recently released after several hours detention by the Israeli army. Accused of stone throwing he’d been blind folded, made to sit on a stool while attack dogs panted on a chain next to him and settler children jeered at him. He’d wet himself. Now he was receiving trauma counselling. Is this what western sympathy amounts to I wondered, funding charity after the event, when it doesn’t challenge the cause, the Occupation?

The clergyman told this story of an old shepherd of Jayyous village. Found on his own by a group of militant settlers from Ittimar, he’d been beaten up. Interviewed by the accompanier, the blood and bruises still on him, he said “I don’t hate these people I just wish they could understand what peace meant”. The international presence in Jayyous is one of the success stories of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme of Palestine and Israel (to give it its full title) as through continual international presence of the last seven years, the Palestinian villagers have felt able to continue living there.

Based in Jerusalem the retired engineer worked with Machsom (which means ‘barrier’) Watch, a group of feisty Israeli women who keep an eagle eye on the young men in the army who sometimes abuse their position. As one Palestinian woman with a very sick child was kept waiting in the ‘humanitarian lane’ of one of the checkpoints, one such observer questioned the soldier keeping the gate closed. “We can’t open it until more soldiers come” was his answer. His other Israeli colleagues he showed us at a Jerusalem roundabout, wearing black against the continuing shame of the occupation, and suffering the insults of passers by. Palestinians and Israeli Peace activists often share the same bed.

The Ecumenical Programme seems to be bearing fruit. Christian Zionists have been vigurously lobbying the programme’s Director– testimony to the impact that the programme is having nationally. Former EAs carry on being active. One has had success with Waitrose supermarket which now will not stock produce from settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, passed off by suppliers as Israeli. As settlements are deemed illegal under the 4th Geneva convention which prohibits the Occupying Power from transferring its population to the land it occupies, any produce from such settlements is deemed illegal by the European Court Of Justice.

If you want to plant and nurture seeds of justice and peace for both Israelis and Palestinians, join the EAPPI, which is recruiting now, or ask your church to support it financially.

Full details can be found on http://www.quaker.org.uk/eappi

The writer is a Quaker and a former Ecumenical Accompanier who served in the Bethlehem area in 2006 Feb to May. His views do not necessarily reflect that of the programme. Since returning to Bristol he has been an advocate against the Occupation and for reconciliation. He holds a Bishop’s Licence to Preach for the Bristol Church of England diocese. He runs lunch time concerts at St Stephens Church and is especially interested in the potential for music to break down barriers; he plays both Jewish klezmer and Arabic music in different bands. Contact him on (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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