The following article was written by the Revd Janet Trisk, who was part of an SACC delegation that attended the opening of the Jerusalem Ecumenical Centre at the invitation of the World Council of Churches in November 2005. The other member of Council's delegation was Ms. Thabisile Msezane, the Senior Vice President of the SACC.

Harvest time in Yanoun

The road from Aqraba ends at Yanoun, a tiny village of some 20 houses and 85 residents. The houses are set into the hillside and overlook the terraced valley where the olive trees grow and a fertile plain, now fallow as winter draws in, but where corn is grown in the summer. Idyllic and remote one might be forgiven for thinking this place at least is not touched by the civil war. However, that's only if one does not look to the crest of the ridges that surround the valley. For on those ridges stand a series of watchtowers and settler's houses. Every movement in the valley, every coming and going, is watched. Indeed, not ten minutes after we arrived, a military vehicle roared up the hillside and stopped outside the house where we were being given tea. The soldiers wanted to know who we were and whence we had come.

It is olive picking time in Israel and Palestine. This is hard work and usually undertaken by the whole family to ensure the harvest is complete before the winter rains come. In Yanoun farmers are more fortunate than in other parts of Palestine, because here at least the farmers and their olive groves are not separated from each other by the Wall. However, their hilltop neighbours make the hard work exceedingly dangerous. Only the day before our arrival, a settler had rushed down the hillside to where the olive picking was in process and rammed the butt of his rifle into the eye of one of the Palestinian villagers. We were told the villager was now in hospital in Nablus.

There are at all times at least two Ecumenical Accompaniers (see below) in the village. They dare not leave it unattended, for the minute they do so, the settlers come down the hillside and attack. In an almost mythical way, the settlers have drawn an imaginary line about one quarter of the way down the slope and if any Palestinian (or even a sheep from their herds) crosses this line, the person or animal will be shot.

An old farmer, intrigued by our presence in his village, invited us to drink a glass of tea with him. His daughter brought out plastic chairs and a battered kettle of tea and as the sun set we sat with him whilst he indicated to us the ruins of his house, destroyed by the Israeli tanks in the war of 1967. After that, most people left the village. Those who remain are poor and work very hard just to survive. The presence of their bellicose neighbours is not an encouragement.

A brief history

I have just returned from my third visit to Israel/Palestine and I write in order to try and make some sense of all I have seen. Perhaps for those who are not familiar with the vocabulary I should give a quick glossary of terms and a micro-sketch of the history of modern Israel/Palestine.

After the First World War, Britain was given control of Palestine (until then under the control of the Ottoman Empire). Britain, together with its allies decided after the Second World War to re-settle survivors of the Holocaust in Palestine and to create a modern state of Israel. Palestine was partitioned into Israeli and Palestinian areas. East and West Jerusalem, as well as Bethlehem, were left out of the partition and were to be administered internationally. In 1948 the British withdrew, leaving an Israeli government in control. Overnight, war was declared and Palestinians from over 700 towns were uprooted, some choosing to flee into exile and others being dumped in refugee camps. In total about 800 000 Palestinians lost their homes. Some towns were re-settled by Jews, and given Hebrew names in an attempt to eradicate non-Jewish history.

In 1967 Israel invaded the Palestinian West Bank territories, Gaza and the Golan Heights and seized them for Israel. A further 200 000 Palestinians lost their homes in this war. Neither these refugees not the 1948 refugees have been allowed to return home. (Conversely any Jew, anywhere in the world, is entitled to “return” to Israel and is given citizenship should this be what they choose.) Today, more than 1.3 million Palestinians live in refugee camps inside occupied Palestine. These camps consist of multiple storey dwellings. The occupiers may not leave the refugee camps to live elsewhere, nor may they move into Israel or Jerusalem. Unemployment in these camps is over 60%.

Since 1967, Israel has been moving Jewish settlers into the occupied territories. These settlers are given funding to buy property and are given incentives such as tax breaks, the right to carry arms and four times as much water per capita as Palestinians. The settlements are often built on the brow of the hills, so that they command the valley areas below, as in the case of Yanoun described above. The settlements are linked by a system of new roads which may only be used by cars bearing Israeli number plates. Palestinian number-plated cars must use the old tracks with their potholes and crumbling surfaces.

Most Palestinians inside Israel and Palestine have no citizenship. A few (mostly from the Galilee region) are second-class Israeli's. Only those Palestinians with a special identity card are allowed into Jerusalem.

Since 2003, Israel (in defiance of the Oslo Agreement) has been constructing the infamous Wall (the so-called "security fence"). The Wall is so far over 200 kilometres in length and it will be 680 kilometres when completed. 80% of it is constructed well inside the agreed Palestinian boundaries. The Wall consists of 8 metre high concrete slabs which snake across the countryside. Gates are patrolled by armed Israeli soldiers.

Contrary to Israeli protestations, the Wall is not a security fence. It is part of a strategy to gain Palestinian territory without the "inconvenience" of having to provide municipal and state services for Palestinian people. Once the Wall is completed, Palestinian people will be confined to ghettos which in total cover 12% of historic Palestine. Palestinians living on the "wrong" side of the wall are being encouraged to move through the declaration of "closed military zones" in the areas where they are living. No one may live in or pass through these Closed Zones.

The Ecumenical Accompaniers programme

Two years ago the church leaders in Israel and Palestine asked the World Council of Churches (WCC) to set up a programme to seek ways of peace and justice in the region. The programme involves 13 countries at this stage (South Africa being the only participating country in the global south). Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) are trained and then spend 3 months in Israel/Palestine living in groups of three. Their work involves reporting on human rights abuses (such as the bulldozing of houses), keeping watch at the checkpoints, accompanying children on their daily walk to school, assisting with the olive harvest and simply being a presence in a local community.

My visit formed part of this programme. I have been involved in helping to train EAs from South Africa. Additionally, the programme organizers are keen to have other Africans involved and so five of us were invited to come and see how the programme is running and make suggestions on further African involvement.

The school run in Hebron

Hebron is an ancient city in the West Bank territories, about 40 kilometres south of Jerusalem. It is the only West Bank town in which settlers live right in the heart of the city. The settlers (right wing extremist Jews) moved there in the 1980's. About 500 settlers live in Hebron. They are backed up by 700 Israeli soldiers.

In the area controlled by the settlers stands the Cordoba school for girls aged 5-12. When the settlers first came, there were about 300 girls in the school. Now there are 87. Without the presence of the EAs there would be even fewer. Settler teenagers give the "school run" a whole different meaning. Each day they wait for the girls who attend the Cordoba school to walk past. As they do so, they are pelted with eggs, tomatoes and garbage. Some days the attack is more ferocious. Stones are hurled and the girls are injured.

In the old city, where a few traders attempt to keep going, they have had to string mesh above the narrow streets to protect them from a hail of garbage hurled down by the settlers. The "park", a dismal open space with some tufts of grass and a lot of litter, is deserted.

As we walked through the deserted streets which resemble something from a war movie, I was filled with a deep sadness. Unlike just about everywhere else in Palestine, there is not a pedestrian in sight. It is too dangerous to walk in the streets, which are patrolled by armed soldiers who race up and own in their vehicles. The buildings are covered with military webbing. Windows have been shattered. Shops are closed. "Gas the Arabs" is daubed on a metal door.

The Wall of hate

I had seen pictures of the Wall before this visit, but still was not prepared for its enormous size and even greater ugliness. It can be seen from almost everywhere one travels in West Bank towns. It cuts off one street from another, blocks out the sun, and stands as a graphic symbol of separation. It the dominant reality for most people in Israel and Palestine. One afternoon we went to stand with the EAs who watch at a section of the Wall in East Jerusalem. The Wall in this section consists of 5 slabs of concrete which completely seal off a street which Palestinian women used to use as they brought their vegetables into the Old City markets and children used to use to walk to school. Now, in order to get into Jerusalem, one must climb over a fence about a metre in height, step down on a concrete block and come face to face with three armed soldiers. I watched a woman trying to climb over with her small child. They were allowed to pass. But I wondered what that child will grow up understanding about the world. Then three young men climbed over. They told us they were attempting to attend a funeral. Their identity documents were taken away, and they were made to wait at least half an hour whilst their ID numbers were written down. Finally they were allowed to move on. An old man was not so fortunate. He was turned back.

Not all people are allowing themselves to be governed by hatred. Some Israeli's who oppose what is happening organize protests against the Wall. Some help Palestinians with the olive harvests. One night we met with an Israeli woman who emigrated from South Africa in 1967. Her only son was killed by a sniper when he was doing a tour of duty in one of the occupied towns. With her was a young Palestinian man whose older brother died as a result of injuries sustained whilst he was in an Israeli jail. Together, these two have established a support group for families who have lost family members in the conflict. The work has also taken them into schools where they speak to Israeli and Palestinian children in the hope that these children will not grow up hating, and that they will become peacemakers. They have an enormous job to do; but at least they are not allowing themselves to be immobilised by the enormity of the task. I thought of them two nights later when we heard that the business partner of the man who had been driving us around was shot dead by the soldiers when he tried to come to the help of some West Bankers who had been detained by the soldiers at a checkpoint.

A people without a country: a people without hope

Wherever one goes in Palestine people talk about the occupation, the loss of business and the disruption of ordinary life; and, when one talks to Christians, they add to this list, the fast diminishing number of Christians in Israel and Palestine. A young woman who works with the youth at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in East Jerusalem told us that she used to try and dissuade other young people from emigrating. Now she tries to help them leave. It is preferable she says, to seeing them become depressed, substance abusers, or even suicidal.

Palestinians kept asking us to spread the message and to advocate for sanctions against Israel. Sanctions helped bring down the apartheid government here. But there was so much more too – strong visionary leadership, a willingness to seek solutions, recognition that all South Africans should have the right to live here. I came away from this visit even more pessimistic than before. The tiny signs of hope are just that – tiny. There are good people doing good things; but my sense is that it is not enough. As we drove to the airport at 3am, we were stopped at an informal check point and asked, at gunpoint, for our passports. No-one can live too long like that without being deeply affected.

The Revd Janet Trisk is a lecturer at the Anglican Theological College of the Transfiguration. She assists in training individuals who take part in the Ecumenical Accompaniers Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) through the South African Council of Churches. She writes in her personal capacity.

The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was launched in August 2002. Ecumenical accompaniers monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, support acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offer protection through non-violent presence, engage in public policy advocacy, and stand in solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the occupation. The programme is coordinated by the World Council of Churches.

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works co-operatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by General Secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist Church in Kenya.

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