Local News - Passage West Monkstown

Fri 12 Feb

Passage West/Monkstown News, 12th February 2010

January 10th:

I arrived in Israel-Palestine on Saturday 2nd with others from North America and Europe. We have had a week of orientation before starting our duties next Tuesday. I have been to a check point where tension was running high until an EA who was showing me how to do the job phoned a humanitarian help line and passage through the check point was speeded up, restoring order. I have also been introduced to a number of families whose houses are due to be demolished. These are two of many types of accompanier duties that I and my colleagues will be carrying out over the next three months.

January 24th:

I have been in Jerusalem for three weeks now. Group 34 Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) have completed their first full week of duties after taking over from their predecessors ten days ago. We have been monitoring check points (CPs), attending non-violent demonstrations, supporting families under threat of eviction or house demolition and telling visiting tour groups about our experiences.

Here is some information on the eviction and demolition cases:

Sheikh Jarrah is a suburb of Jerusalem that is about 20 minutes walk north from the Damascus Gate up the Nablus Road. It has been in the international spotlight for some time because Palestinians are being evicted from their homes there and houses are then handed over to Jewish settlers. Palestinians hold frequent protest marches to highlight their grievances. There are 28 houses in Sheikh Jarrah whose occupants are under the threat of loosing their homes. The Israeli Committee against Housing Demolitions (ICADH) organises weekly Friday afternoon protest marches in Sheikh Jarragh and arrests are frequently made. We attend these marches and visit the area frequently; our presence seems to reduce intimidating action by settlers against the home owners.

Tension is running high at present because of an on-going court case over a house that is the home of the Sabbagh family. The case came up in October last year and was deferred until 18th January 2010, last Monday. The Jerusalem team of Ecumenical Accompaniers were outside the courthouse (inside the courthouse was very crowded) in Jerusalem showing support for the family. The hearing was short and the result was another deferral until late April. Settlers claim that they have documents obtained in Istanbul that support their case to be given possession of the house. The Sabbagh family had a house in Israel that they were forced to abandon many years ago and are asking for it back if their house in Sheikh Jarragh is taken from them. The case could set an important legal precedent.

On the other side of the Old City of Jerusalem in the suburb of Silwan there are 88 houses under threat and legal proceedings against the occupiers were recommenced about a week ago. In Silwan the houses are to be demolished and the land incorporated into a park associated with the tourist attraction of the City of David, the city that King David captured and whose archaeological remains attract large numbers of tourists. The local Palestinian people rather than benefiting from tourism in their area are, in fact, being made homeless by it.

The municipality is changing demographics of the annexed area of East Jerusalem which would establish “facts on the ground” to insure that in any future peace settlement all of Jerusalem would remain in Israel. The seizing of houses in Sheikh Jarragh and Silwan fits in with policy.

2nd February:

Most of you know that I will be in Palestine-Israel for three months with the World Council of Churches’ (Geneva/CH) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. Please bear with me while I bring newcomers to my circulation list up to speed with my activities as an Ecumenical Accompanier (EA).

EAs accompany Palestinians and Israelis in non-violent actions and carry out advocacy to end the occupation of Palestinian Territory by Israeli military forces. EAs monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. They offer protection through a non-violent presence and stand in solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the occupation

The programme was launched in 2002, and the first EAs arrived to carry out accompaniment duties in 2003. Since then more than 600 EAs have participated in the programme, coming from 16 countries.
Each accompanier serves a three-month term in an international team, placed in West Bank cities and villages or in East Jerusalem. EAs are trained for their duties by church organisations, for example: in the USA, Church World Service & ELCA; in Britain and Ireland, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, and in Norway, Norwegian Church Aid.

At present there are six EA placement locations. Four are in cities; East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Tulkarem, and two are in villages, Jayyous and Yanoun. I’m placed in East Jerusalem, which has been annexed by Israel. This annexation is not recognised internationally and no country has moved its national embassy to Jerusalem yet. The five other placements are in the occupied Palestinian Territory known as the West Bank. EAs cannot operate, where they are perhaps most needed, in the Gaza Strip.

So, what have I been doing as an EA placed in East Jerusalem?

Monitoring check points, particularly the busy Qalandiya Check Point on the road north from Jerusalem to Ramallah. This check point is used by many people coming from the nearby Qalandiya Refugee Camp and the town of Ramallah. Rush hour starts about 5:00 and continues until 8:00. Many workers should be at their workplaces by 7:00.

There is a holding area, a large dirty shed, where people wait before passing through 3 turnstiles which are in parallel and have fenced approach chutes that confine about twenty people for each turnstile. At times the turnstiles are operated erratically and this provokes anger among two hundred or more waiting people anxious to get to work. There is a humanitarian hot line that EAs may call to ask for the turnstiles to be opened in a predictable manner and this usually has a positive result, perhaps after two or three calls. In addition to the three turnstile lanes there is a humanitarian lane with an ordinary gate that is usually opened at 6:30 to allow women and children, the elderly (over 60) and the disabled to pass without the obstacle of a turnstile.

Muslims pray five times a day. (We frequently hear the Muezzin calling their people to prayer.). One prayer time occurs during the rush hour period and large numbers of people in the waiting shed pray, with, at best, dirty cardboard for prayer mats on the very dusty, litter-strewn floor. It seldom rains but when it does water, mostly condensation dripping from the roof, produces a muddy mess on the floor. Devout people are entitled to better conditions for practising their religious beliefs.

An Israeli women’s peace activist group, Machsom Watch, also attend check points and we meet with them occasionaly at Qalandiya. They have the advantage over EAs in that they speak Hebrew and Arabic and can converse readily with workers passing through the check point and with security personnel. The Machsom Watch women talk robustly to the security people when those wishing to pass the check point are unreasonably delayed.

We continue to support Palestinians in the suburbs of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan where families are being put out of their homes and Israeli settlers are moved in. The legal situation is complicated and legal arguments arise over documents going back to the time of the Ottoman Empire and beyond. When cases are being heard, we try to be in the vicinity of the court to show our concern for and solidarity with the people who are fighting to save their homes.

There are other humanitarian issues that we are investigating, such as the difficulty that sick people in Gaza have in getting to hospitals in Israel for treatment and the problems Bedouin have with Israeli settlers who are encroaching on Bedouin land.

4th February:

During my training before I came out here I was told that being an EA was a 24/7 occupation. I took that to be an exaggeration, now I know it’s close to the truth; there is so much to learn about the complex relationship between Israelis and Palestinians and the even more complex relationships between the many political and religious factions within each society.

The EAPPI management in Jerusalem wisely insist that EAs take one day a week off from all their EA duties. These days may be accumulated and taken 2 or 3 days at a time. During our time off we must stay away from our placement, have a complete break and relax, forgetting all the troubles and suffering of the Palestinian people in which our daily EA duties immerse us.

Well, that’s the theory! I took by first break in Bethlehem to meet people there that I got to know on previous visits in 2007 and 2008 when I went on West Bank trips organised by Elaine Daly, (westbanktrip@eircome.net <mailto:westbanktrip@eircome.net> ). These are tough study tours! Yes, they do give an opportunity to visit some of the Holy Places but the main objective is to learn about the facts on the ground regarding the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank. I was very disturbed by what I saw on these trips and by what I learned from the many presentations we had by Palestinian and Israeli peace activists. I realised that it would take much longer than a one-week visit to satisfy my desire to understand the conflict and to make a contribution, however small, to bringing it to an end.

It was Elaine who introduced me to the EAPPI by forwarding to me an email advertising the opportunity to join its activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. I immediately applied, was called to London for an interview, was accepted for training and then for placement in Israel-Palestine. Over one month of my three-month term has now passed; the challenge is great, the experience is far exceeding my expectations.

The EAPPI Programme Coordinator in Jerusalem, arranges accommodation for EAs taking days off. I had made a last minute decision to go to Bethlehem and when I phoned the hotel I was told that it would be the following day before they would know whether I could have a room. An EA colleague who knew Bethlehem well heard of my problem and me told that she knew a family that had accommodation for paying guests. A phone call and all was arranged.

In Bethlehem I got off the bus at its terminus, walked a few hundred meters to a shop owned by Teddy, the son of the family, met his mother, Sylvana, who was looking after the shop and after a little while when her son returned, she drove me to her house on the outskirts of Bethlehem in what had been a rural area but is now built up with mostly large houses on large sites. Sylvana and her husband, Fuad, lived on the round floor of their house and their son and his family on the upper floor. There was a separate small tower house on the site; three stories high, one room on each floor and a narrow, steep spiral stairs all in stone masonry. This building could be rented by one or two people. I was put in a large bedroom on the ground floor of main house.

Next morning I was offered a lift to the shop and from there I walked around Bethlehem which I knew reasonably well from previous visits. My first call was to Majdi tourist shop. Madji speaks English and is a great source of information. I asked him to bring me to see a little girl, Lyla, who had her leg broken three years previously when she collided with a car in which I was a passenger. It was at the beginning of my first visit to the West Bank. Lyla is now a very charming five year old and completely recovered from her accident.

My next objective was to see over Bethlehem University. I met Aoibhín from Ireland who had recently commenced research studies at the university and she offered to show me around it. While there we met two Palestinian graduate students and one of them, Samar, took Aoibhín and myself on a drive to the Cremisan vineyard. We had great views of the surrounding countryside; views contaminated by the ever intruding separation wall in the West Bank. There is a plan for the wall to pass right through the beautiful vineyard.

I did some shopping in the town; many shopkeepers were well informed about Ireland and were all to ready to chat; business was very slack in Bethlehem at the end of January.

My hosts belonged to a family who had lived in Bethlehem for many generations and were determined to stay there despite the military occupation. Fuad is the General Director and Co-Founder of the Arab Educational Institute (AEI) which is a member of Pax Chisti International. He had been the first lay principal of the De La Salle College in Bethlehem.

The AEI (www.aeicenter.org <http://www.aeicenter.org/> ) has three premises in Bethlehem: Youth House which I visited in Milk Grotto Street, School of Communication and Cultural Tourism, Paul VI Street and Sumud Story House near the Gilo Gate in the Separation Wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. As its literature says “AEI has a heart for Palestinian youth and educators” and “a heart for Palestinian culture and living together”. “Sumud”, an Arabic word meaning “steadfastness”, is the watchword of the AEI. The AEI’s programmes include a youth activation and leadership program, a media and exchange programme, and a capacity building programme. The aim is to build leadership skills, to develop skills in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication and to build up strong internal and external networks.

I picked up my bags from Teddy’s shop and walked to the bus stop. Bus 21 would take me via Beit Jala to Jerusalem. I felt that I had a profitable two days off in Bethlehem, renewing old and making new acquaintances; not to be forgotten. I left in despair because I could sense the despair of people trapped in an occupation bubble, unreal to a person like me who has lived free all my life and yet in hope because of the indomitable, steadfast spirit the Palestinian people I had met.