Occupation brutalises all

Marigold Bentley of Quaker Peace & Social Witness recently visited the Quaker-supported EAPPI programme in the West Bank. She reflects on how decades of occupation have affected all communities in the region, and the role which international observers can play in this difficult situation. 

West Bank 1981, an Israeli soldier removes Palestinian youth leaders from a bus and checks all their papers. Photo: Marigold Bentley

The hot sun beat down on the crowded minibus. It stopped at the checkpoint. All those standing in the aisle alighted and showed their passes to the young woman soldier. She then got on the bus, with her M16 rifle on her shoulder as she squeezed between the seats, and checked everyone’s passes. 

The soldier shouted at a very elderly lady, her face wrapped in white, wearing the traditional costume of the region. She did not have the correct pass. She was pushed off the bus by the soldier and left to stand at the side of the dusty road in the blistering heat. 

The bus was travelling from El Azariya (Bethany) to Jerusalem, a distance of only three miles, yet all those from that village now have to travel along designated roads with military checkpoints – as the wall built by Israel now cuts them off from direct routes to their family and friends. 

What I have just described is a single incident of many which happen every day to Palestinians under occupation. They commonly experience humiliation, discomfort, arbitrary arrests and brutality. The soldiers who are given these tasks are very young. All Israelis serve in the army when aged 18 to 21. 

The Palestinians who pass through the checkpoints in order to work, shop, go to school, attend medical appointments or sell their produce are at the mercy of the behaviour of these heavily armed young people. 

I hadn’t been to El Azariya for over 20 years. In 1981–1982, I served as a housemother in a children’s home there. The experience brought me to Friends because I felt that with all the bells, smells, outfits, hats, prayers and holy everything in Jerusalem, it was a desperately unholy place. Made unholy by the military repression and casual brutality of the occupation. 

Only the simple Quaker meeting of Friends in Ramallah (which still stands) offered space to reflect and to develop ideas for action towards peaceful social change. I was shocked at the situation then. Now it is worse than I ever could have imagined. 

The West Bank, militarily taken by Israel in the war of 1967, and the stretch of land on which the proposed two-state solution depends, is now criss-crossed not only by the separation barrier, but also by a myriad of settler roads, which Palestinians can only use at risk to themselves. 

There are Israeli settlements on hilltops across the region. The most fertile area of the Jordan Valley, also in the West Bank, is closed to Palestinians and designated a military area. The Palestinians are squeezed into small areas and subject to innumerable checks, restrictions and limitations in most areas of their lives. 

I was making the visit on behalf of Quaker Peace & Social Witness, to visit the current BYM work in the region, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Britain Yearly Meeting has agreed to fund the placing of 20 ecumenical accompaniers (EAs) in 2009, which is an increase from 14 this year (2008). 

QPSW is the implementing partner of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) for EAPPI, which is a programme of the World Council of Churches. Since 2002 around 65 British and Irish EAs have served in Israel–Palestine. 

Long lines at Israeli checkpoints are a daily feature of life for many in the West Bank. Photo: Rónán Quinn/EAPPI

EAs either live alongside Palestinian communities who are particularly vulnerable or support the Israeli peace movement. They are there for three months, and when they return to their home countries they tell people about what they have witnessed and experienced during their stay. They also share their eyewitness accounts with politicians and religious leaders. EAs come from Sweden, Norway, Hungary, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Finland, the USA, Canada, Poland and Germany. 

An important element of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme is providing protection by presence. For example, the children of Yanoun say they are not frightened when internationals are present in their village. Yanoun residents were so intimidated by Israeli settlers that inhabitants left and only returned when they knew that internationals (EAs) would be resident in the village. 

The village is surrounded by Israeli settlements on the hilltops, and armed settlers regularly confront the villagers tending their sheep in their olive groves. Settlers also shine bright lights into the village throughout the night. I visited Yanoun in the middle of the olive harvest, and whilst strolling in the sunshine, listening to the chatter of families picking olives, none of us escaped the forbidding presence of the surrounding settlements. 

In Hebron, a Palestinian city south of Jerusalem, conditions are also tense. Hashem Al-Asa, his wife and three children have a settlement right above their house that is inhabited by hardline settlers. The settlers have cut his vines, which surround his house. They throw their rubbish into his garden and they intimidate and abuse him and his children. The children are too frightened to play outside. These settlers believe that they have a God-given right to live there and behave in this way. They make Hashem’s life a living hell. Hashem invites internationals to his house on a regular basis to witness what is happening to him in the hope that it will make for positive change. 

During the Women in Black weekly peace vigil calling for an end to the occupation in central Jerusalem, the Israeli car drivers shouted to us “What occupation?” 

I met Dan for a Shabbat meal in West Jerusalem along with his wife and my colleague Floresca. Dan is a lifelong peace activist in Israel. I asked him about the original aspirations of the early Kibbutzim movement and the vision that so many Jewish people had for the new state of Israel. He could not hide his disappointment over how it has all turned out. These folks fear for how military service affects their children, and how their children get treated if they attempt to avoid it. Everyone seems trapped by the systems that have been created. 

It is quite difficult to know how to make a difference to this difficult situation. Through the EAPPI programme we can at least offer protection by presence and assure the peace movement and others that we support them. There are some powerful stories to be told: EAs can give a voice to all those working for peace in the region.