The following report was submitted by Deborah Donnell, an SACC-trained Ecumenical Accompanier who is based in Bethlehem.

I Would Rather Be a Hungry Dog That Runs Free Than a Fat Chained Dog!

It was Labour Day, and we gathered in a village called Artas. I have not felt so happy in a long time. Men were costumed and dancing, young boys of 13 right up to old men in their 80’s. They flutes were playing and the drums drumming. We danced our way through Artas, clapping and laughing and singing. Everyone felt strong, everyone felt young, and everyone felt free…..until we came to that barbed wire.

Right in the road, the Israeli soldiers met us again with guns and barbed wire. The dancing stopped, the flute became silent. Men and women walked together with flags right up to the barbed wire. They began to ask the soldiers, “Why? Why do you do this” This is not Israel, it is Palestine.

Why do you stop us from walking through our own village? Why do you stop us going to our own fields?” But you cannot argue with a gun, you cannot reason with military force.

An old woman, who I later learnt has nothing more to lose, bravely lifted her dress and silently walked through the barbed wire. I felt so proud, I began to cry. She is in her 70’s, short and tiny. And yet of all the men in that crowd ….she simply walked through the wire. I was not the only one who was moved. International journalists around me began to cheer.

But before we knew it the soldiers grabbed her and began to beat her. Her shoes were knocked off, her headscarf torn of her head. They threw her onto the ground in the barbed wire. Men in the crowd began to shout for the soldiers to stop, but within a second the Israeli soldiers began to shoot into the crowd, not just teargas but live ammunition.

Everyone ran. Children were falling because of the teargas, with older friends trying to carry them away. Old women collapsed their lungs unable to cope with the fumes. An international doctor was shot in the shoulder. I later heard there had been ten casualties who were taken to hospital by ambulance.

I did not follow the crowd but stayed up at the front, because one of my best friends here, a UK medical student called Tom, had just been arrested. The soldiers had indiscriminately grabbed five people out of the crowd, Tom being one of them. The soldiers were hitting their heads into the stone walls and took them away in a military vehicle, refusing to tell us where they were being taken too.

Tom was released after 5 hours of interrogation. He was international.

The Palestinians are still being held, beaten, and no one is allowed to see them.

This is occupation. You are not free to move, to dance, to reap in your own country. But people will not surrender their soul and their desire for freedom. That is God given, and not even Israel can take that away.

Deborah Donnell works for South African Council of Churches as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI, the South African Council of Churches or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here, or place it on a website, please first contact luke@sacc.org.za or the EAPPI Communications & Advocacy Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission.

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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